Jayce fought to stay awake, but Leah had given him a heavy dose of stinkweed. She’d boiled the leaves to make a strong concoction that would help with the pain and keep Jayce sedated.
Nevertheless, he seemed almost restless to speak—to say something to her. He kept trying to speak the entire time the men were carrying him to the water.
“Leah.”
“You need to rest, Jayce. Just be quiet now.”
“Leah, I need . . . to . . . need to tell you . . . something.”
“It can wait until you’re feeling better.” Leah put her bag on the rocky shore and moved to the umiak to direct the placement of her patient. “Put him there on the blanket. Yes, that’s good,” she said as they positioned him perfectly.
Once Jayce was secured in the boat, Leah packed blankets and a down-filled bag around him. She made sure that everything could easily break free in case of capsizing.
As the men walked away, Jayce reached out and took hold of Leah’s hand. “I’m sorry, Leah.”
“You couldn’t help it,” she reassured. “Accidents happen, and the dogs are bad about getting excited.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
“Sorry for the past.” He closed his eyes. “I didn’t know . . .”
She waited for a moment. “Didn’t know what?” She wanted very much to hear what he might say, while at the same time she knew he needed rest.
“Didn’t know that I hurt you that bad. Didn’t know you really loved me.”
She bristled but fought to keep her voice calm. “Had I ever given you reason to doubt my word? Why should you have thought my words less than true?”
Jayce opened his eyes. “I . . . I . . . thought you were too young. Didn’t think you knew your . . . mind. I thought . . .” His words trailed off.
The old anger stirred, but she forced it down. “I don’t imagine you thought much at all about any of it.” She tried to leave, but he held her fast.
“Forgive me, Leah. Please.”
She looked at him for a moment, his eyes pleading. She bit her lip and pulled her hand away from him. “I do forgive you, Jayce. I already forgave you long ago.” She got up and walked away before he could see the tears that came to her eyes.
“I just can’t seem to forget you,” she whispered against the Arctic wind.
Chapter Nine
They’d ridden the swells of the Bering Sea less than an hour when heavy clouds formed on the horizon. Leah knew the look of danger. Around these parts bad weather blew up quickly and often lasted for days. And if not storms, then heavy fog could also blind their way. It wasn’t a good time to be on the open water.
“We’ll have to make for shore,” Jacob told her. “I wish we could make it to one of the villages, but I doubt we’ll have time. I’ll send John ahead to make the best choice.”
Leah knew Jacob was right. “I’m sure it will pass quickly,” she said in encouragement. Glancing at Jayce, she saw that he slept, despite the situation.
“John!” Jacob called across the water. “Find us a place to make camp. We’ll wait out whatever is blowing in.”
“Sure. I can do that.” The native pushed his men into action.
Leah was amazed at how quickly the umiak pulled away from Jacob and Kimik’s boats. John and his men were quite strong, definitely used to battling the sea. In their boat, Jacob had the help of four other men. Leah was grateful for this, because she knew she would never be strong enough to fight the rough water. The men were good friends, but Leah knew they would head quickly back to their village as soon as things were arranged in Nome. As much as they admired and respected Jacob, their own families came first, and this was no time to be slack in hunting and laying up food.
Before long, John directed them to shore. There wasn’t a lot in the way of shelter, but Leah knew her brother and the other men would find ways to wait out the storm and keep dry.
“Stay with Jayce,” her brother told her as the men pulled the wounded man from their boat. “We’ll put together a safe place for you both.” He left the two dogs he’d brought to stand guard.
Leah reached out to pet the two animals she’d helped to raise. Leo and Addy were strong Huskies who took the northern furies in stride. “You’re good dogs,” she said, stroking the silky fur. The animals seemed to thrive on her attention.
Jayce moaned as he tried to get up. “Are we in Nome?”
Leah left the dogs and knelt down beside her patient. “No, there’s a storm blowing up. We’ll have to wait it out.”
“I’m sorry, Leah,” he whispered, still struggling to try to sit up.
“Stay still. I need to look at your leg,” she said, desperate for something to do other than converse with this man.
Jayce fell back against the blanket. “Don’t let ’im find me.”
The statement confused Leah. “Don’t let who find you?”
Jayce shook his head. “Can’t find me.”
The medicine was obviously making it hard for him to think clearly. Leah knew Oopick’s stinkweed solution would further the man’s confusion, but Jayce needed to rest as much as possible to keep from moving his leg. Leah opened the jar and poured a small portion for Jayce. She thought about the delay with the incoming storm and prayed it would be enough to keep Jayce from misery.
“Jayce, you need to drink this,” she said, putting her arm under his neck.
He opened his eyes for only a moment and then closed them again. Leah managed to get the medicine down him—at least most of it. She lowered him back to the ground. She wasn’t used to this vibrant, strong, and self-sufficient man being so weak.
She pushed back a bit of Jayce’s brown hair. It had a coarse, wild texture to it, but she liked it very much. How often she had wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through the thick mass. She realized she was stroking his head and pulled away.
Don’t let yourself be vulnerable. Don’t care too much. The internal warning seemed to fall on deaf ears—or at least a deaf heart. The Bible spoke of the eyes of the heart—did the heart also have ears? If so, Leah knew hers weren’t listening.
Leah peeled back the bandages and studied the wound. It seemed about the same. An oozing of blood continued to wet the bandages, but Leah knew this was better than keeping a tight tourniquet on the leg. She had been told by a doctor once that such restriction of the blood flow could actually cause the limb to die.
Please, God, she prayed, help me do the right thing—don’t let him die or lose his leg because of my ignorance.
“How . . . is it?” Jayce murmured.
Leah was surprised to hear him sound so coherent. “Looks like you’ve been chewed on by a grizzly,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted. “I’m sure you’ll have quite a scar.”
“One more to . . . go . . . with the others,” he said, then seemed to drop off to sleep.
Leah rewrapped the leg and pulled a blanket over Jayce. She glanced up behind them and saw that farther inland the men were making good headway in a small cluster of bushy willows. They had taken the umiaks and positioned them in such a way that, when bound together with rope and tarps, they made a shelter. Jacob had tightly bundled the furs and wrapped them in a protective covering of oiled duck canvas. They would make a soft bed for Jayce, Leah thought.
The men came back to shore and motioned Leah away. They picked up the four corners of the blanket on which Jayce slept and carried him to the shelter. Leah followed, bringing her bag of herbs and medicine. Leo and Addy trotted behind her as if tethered. Kimik was the last to join them, bringing their food supply with him. It was a danger to have it inside their camp, but there were no tall trees in which to hang the bag and no time to build a cache. They would simply have to take their chances.
“Maybe a bear will come out in the storm and smell our food,” John said, laughing. “He will say, ‘Let me come for dinner.’ We will let him come—then shoot him. Then we will eat Mr. Bear.” They all laughed at this.
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One of the other men got a fire going, and only then did Leah see that they had laid in a generous supply of dry driftwood for their fuel. She felt warm and secure—safe with these men and her brother. The only real worry was whether or not Jayce could withstand the delay.
“I’ll make supper,” John announced. He unwrapped a pack and pulled out dried seal meat. “There. Supper is ready.” The men chuckled again. John always kept everyone in a good mood, and even Jacob couldn’t help but join in.
“I’ll do the dishes afterward,” he said with a quick wink at Leah.
“You are a good man,” John said, slapping Jacob on the back.
The storm increased in intensity with a fierce wind that threatened to tear down their little shelter. Kimik sang for them, telling Leah he could make much better noise than the wind. She felt a small amount of comfort in the good nature of her companions. Leo and Addy curled up beside her as if offering her their warmth. Leah gave them each a few affirming strokes before settling down beside them. Before long Leah’s eyelids grew heavy, and she no longer heard the wind but rather was mesmerized by her own rhythmic breathing.
In her dreams, Leah was a young woman again. She was taken back in time to Ketchikan and her home in the woods with Karen and Adrik. She had been happy there with Jacob and the rest of her family. Karen had given her husband three beautiful children: Ashlie, a lovely girl who looked a lot like her mother; Oliver, who definitely took after his father; and Christopher, who seemed a happy blend of both.
Leah loved these children as if they were her siblings. She missed them all so much. Ashlie was now fifteen, nearly a grown woman. She’d been almost five when Leah had left home to help Jacob, and though she’d seen the family several times over the long years, it wasn’t the same. Little Christopher hadn’t even been born when Leah had left Ketchikan, but Oliver had been a comfort to her. When Jayce had rejected her, Leah had spent a lot time helping care for Oliver. Karen seemed to understand.
“He loves you unconditionally. Babies are like that—men are not,” Karen had told Leah. She told her this again now, in her dream.
Leah sat at Karen’s table and sighed. “It isn’t fair that I should love someone so much only to have him reject me. What’s wrong with me? Why am I not good enough for him to love in return?”
“I doubt it has anything to do with you,” Karen had told her quite seriously. “Jayce obviously has other things on his mind.”
“But I want him to have me on his mind,” Leah had protested.
She heard the baby cry and started to get up from the table. It was strange, but her legs wouldn’t work. Karen only smiled and then faded from view, while the baby continued to cry.
When Leah awoke with a start, she realized it wasn’t a baby crying at all, but a combination of the wind and Jayce. She sat up and reached out to touch Jayce’s forehead. He was feverish. Leah’s chest tightened. The wound was infected—there could be no other explanation.
The heavy overcast skies stole the sun’s light, but the small fire allowed her just enough light to see the contents of her bag. Oopick had thoughtfully planned for such a problem. There was willow bark and several other herbal remedies that Leah could use in case of emergency. She pulled a tin cup from the bag and poured water into it before setting it in the coals at the side of the fire. She carefully portioned out some of the willow bark into the water to make a strong tea to fight the fever.
“What’s wrong?” Jacob asked, yawning as he sat up.
“He’s feverish. I think the wound is infected.”
“Can you help him?”
Leah felt her hands shake as she tried to stir the water. “I hope so.”
Helaina wondered for several days what she should do regarding her situation. No one in Nome knew anything about the Homestead except that it had been in harbor, then had left again.
Nothing made sense or offered her insight—no matter how she analyzed the situation. She tried talking to the chief of police, but he had no solution for her. She had posed the possibility of some natives taking her by boat to catch up with the Homestead. The man had only laughed at her and told her how ridiculous her proposal truly was, given the fact that the ship could be all the way past the Arctic Circle by now.
Helaina had finally come to the conclusion that perhaps her only hope was to return home and try another time. Maybe she and the Pinkertons could plan ahead and be ready for Homestead’s return to Seattle.
Sleep was hard to come by. Her mind was constantly battling to find a better answer to her problems, while the daylight followed them well into what should have been darkness, and totally ruined her routine cycle of day and night. It seemed this foreign and very strange land would offer her no ease.
She had made one friend. When fierce headaches would not leave her, Helaina made her way to a doctor. Dr. Cox seemed happy to meet a woman of social quality and knowledge. He had treated her headaches for free on the condition she share dinner with him that night. It was the first of many dinners, all of which Helaina had enjoyed. The isolation and boredom would have otherwise proved unbearable. At least Cox offered her lively stories and sometimes important bits of information. Tonight’s date proved to be no different.
“There was a tidal storm here two years ago. Most of the damage was to the east of us. It fairly destroyed villages along the coast, both east and west.”
“How awful. Were many lives lost?”
“Oh yes. It could have been much worse, however. The natives seemed to realize the dangers in some areas. They moved inland and then went to high ground. Of course, the promise of gold in this land has caused white men to come and settle. But they generally are incapable of dealing with the problems and complications of life in the North.”
“Did you come for the gold, Doctor?”
He laughed. “In a sense. I knew there would be a need for a doctor, so I came to offer my services. Which I’ve done. I haven’t regretted my choice, but I am thinking of returning south—to my home state of Colorado.”
“I’m sure you’ll be needed wherever you go,” Helaina offered.
“I’m still surprised that you should want to travel into the vast unknown,” Dr. Cox said, pouring himself a large glass of port. “Are you certain you won’t have any?”
Helaina shook her head. She knew she needed to keep her wits about her at all times. “Thank you, no. As for the travel, what can I say? I have a streak of adventure in me. My husband always told me I was much too wild to tame.” It was true, Helaina thought. Although not in the sense of travel, but rather in her craving of big-city life. There was to be no bucolic farms for this woman.
“It has been good to share your company. My own dear wife of twenty years died only last year. But of course I told you that already.”
Helaina nodded. The man was twice her age, but she knew he eyed her with matrimonial contemplation. “It is hard to lose those we love, but I find that putting my attention on the life around me has helped me to overcome such loss.”
“To be certain, but one cannot discount the possibility of remarriage.”
Helaina toyed with her food. “Well, for myself, I do just that. I have no desire to remarry.”
“But you are a young woman—only twenty-six. Even the Bible speaks that young widows should remarry.”
Helaina bristled at this comment. People always used Bible references as the definitive beginning and end to any solution. “I care not what the Bible says, Dr. Cox. I have not given myself over to worldly religion and spiritualism.”
“Nor should you. The Christian faith is neither one.”
“I don’t particularly care to move forward with this topic of conversation. I have made up my mind that I have little choice left but to return to Seattle and start anew with my endeavors to go north.”
“I wish you would stay. At least until I could accompany you south. Your company over supper has given me something to look forward to,” the doctor protested.
Helaina
shook her head. “I will go tomorrow and book passage on the next ship. I have wasted entirely too much time.”
“I’m sorry you consider it a waste,” the older man said, looking genuinely hurt.
Helaina had no desire to devastate the poor man. “Doctor, I do not consider our shared meals to be wasted effort or time. I do appreciate the companionship you’ve offered and am sorry that I cannot remain and share a friendship with you.”
“I would like you to consider sharing more than friendship—”
Helaina put her hand up to silence him. “I know what you would have me consider, but I cannot. Please understand; it isn’t that you wouldn’t make any woman a fine husband, but I will not remarry. I have no heart for it.”
“Love would come in time—don’t you think?”
Helaina remembered a shadowy vision of her husband lying dead in a pool of blood. She’d not actually seen the scene except in blurry photographs, but many times she had imagined it in detail. “No. Because I would not allow it to. I’m sorry.” She got up from the table, most of the food still on her plate. “If you’ll excuse me, I must retire.”
Helaina sat in her hotel room for hours after that. She thought of the strange land outside her windows. A harsh, unsympathetic land where the men were so very lonely. People here often had both a deep loneliness and an eternal desire for the land around them. It seemed a curse and a blessing.
“I could never love this land—this harsh land of extremes.” Conversation with the doctor told her of long winters with darkness. The silence and isolation drove many people insane. She would not be one of them.
Getting up, she made her way to the window and pulled the heavy drapes into place. There were two sets—both designed to block out the summer light. This world seemed so foreign. She honestly wondered how anyone could stand living here for more than a few weeks at a time. Perhaps it was good that she’d missed catching up with Jayce Kincaid.
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