Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine

by Caroline Starr Rose

  “Mel!” I shout.

  Mel comes toward me, still breathing hard. “Jasper?” He says it barbed and pointy.

  I’m kind of glad I can’t see his face too clearly.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The truth’s all I got to offer. “Following you to the Klondike.”

  “Of all the stupid things.” Mel grabs his cap and throws it to the ground. He stomps around before he grabs it. The cap’s real dirty now.

  I remember what the first mate said, that Skagway’s full of cheats, how that first fellow was nicer to Mel than he needed to be. “Them two worked together. The friendly one distracted you so the other could swipe your money.”

  “I must have looked like easy pickings.” The muscle in Mel’s jaw twitches. “He got all my money.”

  There’s still some hope. “Not your gear, he don’t got that.”

  Mel shakes his head as if to clear it. “Why’d you come after me?”

  I push my crooked glasses back in place. “We were supposed to come here together, remember?”

  Mel’s eyes dart away from me. “What’d Pa say when you left?” he asks.

  That’s when things get stirred up inside. “Do you mean what did he say when he found your note? Because he didn’t. I did. So how about you ask how I felt?”

  Mel lowers his eyes.

  “You promised I could come with you,” I say.

  “That’s not what happened.” Mel speaks so soft I ain’t sure I’m meant to hear. “I never promised anything.”

  Now I get it. All them days and nights Mel stayed away last month, he was probably earning his last dollars for his steamer ticket. But he also was avoiding me. Anger presses hard against my chest. “So you let me think I was invited.”

  “Listen, Jasper.” Mel said them exact same words the night he brought home the newspaper, the night he let me think I was included in his Klondike plans. “I came here for the two of us.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it!”

  The wind kicks up even harder now, and with it, sheets of rain. In moments the muddy street has turned into a river.

  “Come on. We’ll talk later.” Mel pulls me with him into the tent store. The tiny space is even darker than them black-bellied clouds outside. Above, the canvas drips as the rain pours down. Mel signals to the clerk who sold me the apples. He wears a stiff canvas apron that reaches past his knees. “I could use some help,” Mel says. “My money’s been stolen.”

  “Well, now, I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, not sorry in the least.

  “Know of any packers who might carry my gear and let me pay them later? I’m going to the Klondike.”

  The clerk tucks a pencil behind his ear. “Ain’t you all.”

  “I’ve got this”—Mel pats the sled he cradles in his arms—“my pack, and, of course, my mining outfit. The steamer I came in on is still unloading gear. There’s no way I’ll be able to carry everything alone.”

  “If you were paying, I’d send you to Reliable Packers down the street.” The clerk opens the tent flap, points in the direction we came from. “They carry gear up the White Pass Trail and into Canada and never overcharge. But since you got no money, well, that’s not an option.”

  “What else can I do?” Mel says.

  “You can haul your outfit by yourself. A whole lot of fellows do. They break their gear into smaller loads, carry it to a certain point, then stash it on the trail. Folks swear no one touches another man’s cache. But it takes months of travel. If I was you, I’d head home, and fast.”

  I scrunch my eyes and wink at the world outside, try to figure out how to see regular now that my glasses are smashed. Down the street, a man who’s skin and bones talks with a fellow whose chin pokes straight out in front.

  I know them two. The thieves. One knocked Mel down on purpose, and when he couldn’t steal Mel’s money while he was flat on the ground, he got it another way.

  Oh, what a fine time they’re having. Them two celebrate like they’ve hit it big.

  Pointy Chin slaps Broomstick on the back.

  “Mel, look. Right over there!”

  I rush from the tent and don’t even check to see if Melvin follows. Mud holds tight to my shoes with each step, but at least the rain has let up some.

  “Hey!” I push in between them. “You took my brother’s cash. You better give it back.”

  Pointy Chin shrugs. If he’s surprised to see me, he covers it up good. “Don’t know what you’re on about.”

  Now Mel’s next to me. He stares Broomstick down. “You bought me breakfast so your friend could take my money.”

  “Son”—Broomstick puts an arm around Mel’s shoulder—“your mind’s addled. I can assure you we haven’t touched your things. If you’re missing money, though, you could take it up with Soapy Smith.”

  “Soapy Smith?” Mel shrugs off Broomstick’s arm. “You told me Soapy cons unsuspecting greenhorns.”

  Broomstick grins. “I said he runs this town. You’ve got a problem, take it up with him.”

  “Give it over, you no-good crooks!”

  “Jasper, watch your tongue.”

  Pointy Chin tips his hat, like he’s done us a favor. An oily smile slides across Broomstick’s face as the two of them walk on.

  I try to run after them, but Mel spins me around. “You can’t talk like that, especially to men who aren’t above stealing.”

  “They took your money!”

  “I know. But there’s nothing we can do.”

  We cross Skagway, which takes no more than a minute, and trudge to the shore. “So you were the stowaway,” Mel says. “What were you thinking?”

  So Mel didn’t see Mr. Horton drag me to the wheelhouse. At least there’s that. “You know exactly what I was thinking. That you’d abandoned me.”

  “Now wait,” Melvin says. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Tell me what it’s like.” Since the rain pushed through and we ran into the tent store, I’ve waited for Mel’s story on why he left me behind.

  “I need to get my gear first.” Mel drops his bag at my feet. “You wait here.”

  The pile of goods on the mudflats is as cluttered as before. Plenty of men dig around to separate their belongings.

  Mel’s little sled makes a real good seat. I watch seagulls waddle across the shore and poke their beaks into the lapping water. They burst into flight as a short man sturdy about the middle draws near.

  Pickle Barrel. The fellow on the Queen who talked about that old coot who wants to give away his mine. “You’re awfully young to be out here alone,” he says.

  “I ain’t alone. I’m here with my brother. He’s fetching our things.”

  “Well, I’m waiting for Reliable Packers to load my outfit for White Pass. That’s how to travel, with someone else to do the heavy lifting.”

  Me and Mel ain’t got much choice. “Folks like us gotta rely on our own sturdy backs.”

  Pickle Barrel tilts his head toward the pile of goods. “Is that your brother coming this way?”

  Mel walks toward us, but something ain’t right with him. His shoulders are hunched up near his ears, and he stares at the ground. Mel drags a weathered piece of canvas behind him.

  “It’s gone,” Mel says.

  “Gone?” My belly feels like it’s loaded down with stones.

  He shuts his eyes. “My tent. My gear, all my food.”

  “Sure you didn’t overlook it?” Pickle Barrel asks. “Took me almost an hour to find my outfit.”

  Mel shakes his head. “I tied my handkerchief to this canvas cover, so that when I searched for it, I’d know which one was mine.” He holds up the handkerchief that hangs from one corner. “This is all I found.”

  “What are we gonna do?” Mel has to have the answer, because right this
minute, I can’t think of how to make things better. Since we’ve come to Skagway, it’s gone from bad to worse.

  “You could start fresh in Dyea. I heard it’s one town over. But I don’t know what you’d do there without any gear.” Pickle Barrel taps a finger on his lips, considering. “Or you could go on home.”

  “Home. Guess we got no other choice,” Mel says.

  He wants to go back? “Mel, there ain’t no way I’ll do that.”

  “You weren’t ever supposed to be here, remember?” Mel swings his fist through the air, punches at something no one can see. “And now we’re stuck. In Alaska. The middle of nowhere.”

  It’s Skagway that’s the problem, where Melvin lost his money and his gear. What we need is a fresh start. “Where’s Dyea?” I ask Pickle Barrel.

  “I think it’s over that direction.” He points west, down a lonely mudflat that tapers down to nothing but a mountain at the edge of the ocean. At least that’s what it looks like. With my busted glasses, I can’t see too far in front of me.

  Pickle Barrel studies me real careful. “Say, do I know you?”

  I shake my head. Ain’t about to tell him he saw Mr. Horton hand me over to the Queen’s first mate.

  His face lights up, and I know he’s figured it out. “I do recognize you. The washer boy,” he says, right proud of himself. “You’re the one who stowed away on the Queen.”

  “That’s him, all right.” Mel shakes out that sorry canvas, wads it up like it’s to blame for his worries, and shoves it into his pack. “This isn’t the time for talk. What we need is a plan.”

  Mel said “we,” like he sees us as a team. I need him to think we’re exactly that. If I can get the Queen out of his sight, maybe he won’t try to turn around.

  “Let’s walk to Dyea,” I tell him. “We’ve worn out our welcome in Skagway.” I talk like Mel means to let me stay, like he won’t somehow try to send me back to Kirkland. The more I show him I’ve got some good ideas, the better chance I got to stick around.

  My brother shrugs, picks up his sled.

  Mel don’t have any ideas of his own. He don’t even answer, him who knows everything and usually don’t let me forget it. With his gear and money gone, Mel’s lost his fight. It worries me.

  “So long, boys,” Pickle Barrel says, like we don’t got a chance in the world.

  We set out on the empty mudflats as storm clouds billow overhead.

  “I wonder how Pa’s doing on his own,” Mel says.

  “How Pa’s doing?” Here I’ve been concerned about old Mel with what happened in Skagway, but that bit of kindness toward him burns up in a flash. “What about me? For two years you promised we’d get out on our own together. Then you up and left.”

  Lightning cuts the sky. The rain starts up again, like before was practice. “I can explain,” Mel says.

  “So do it.” I stop in front of Mel so fast, he almost trips. “Right here on this muddy beach.” Water courses down my neck and soaks my shirt beneath my jacket. It streaks the one good lens I still got in my glasses.

  Mel wipes a handkerchief across his forehead, but that don’t stop the rain from dripping. “I know Pa’s hard to live with.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” When he ain’t drunk or angry, sadness hangs over him, the kind that lasts for days. I stomp hard, just to slosh some mud on Mel. It splatters both his legs.

  “I promised I’d take care of you,” Mel says. “Why’d you think I came here, anyway? The gold I find, it’ll be worth more than I could ever earn at home. I was going to come back for you.”

  “That’s a sorry excuse. How’d you ever think it would be better to leave me with Pa?”

  “Jasper,” Mel tries again. “It wouldn’t have been forever.”

  But I don’t listen. I turn up my collar to block the rain, to shut out Melvin, too.

  “You’ve learned how to deal with him. You would have been okay.”

  Lay low and stay out of the way. Mel’s rules for living with Pa. Guess Mel thinks he’s taught me so good, he don’t have to concern himself no more.

  “I ain’t interested in okay. Don’t you get it? We were supposed to leave together. It was a promise you made me. And you broke it.”

  It’s just like when Mama left. I thought she’d be with us for always. Then she wasn’t anymore.

  “Jasper?”

  I blink real quick. My feet get moving on their own.

  “Where are you going?” Mel says from behind me.

  I walk so fast, I gotta break into a run.

  “Come back!”

  The mud slops beneath me as the distance between us stretches. And when this beach runs out and I have to climb up into them foothills, I ain’t gonna wait for my brother.

  I’ve had my fill of Melvin Johnson for one day.

  Chapter 5

  An hour later, I reach the mounds of mining gear scattered along Dyea’s waterfront. Last time I saw Mel, he’d made it over the foothills. It suits me fine he’s still back there by himself.

  Tents and a few wooden buildings bunch together a little farther from the shore. I wander the muddy main street, following the smell of baked apples. It’s been a week since I had a hot meal, and my stomach’s talking.

  The sweet aroma leads me to a meal tent. Outside, its tables glisten in the passing rain. Though it’s late afternoon, the tables are right full of folks, and it ain’t baked apples they eat, but thick pieces of pie. Oh, I’m glad I got a little money still left over from the Queen.

  I buy a heaping slice and pick the only open bench I find. A man with enormous sideburns already sits at the table. Them whiskers of his resemble pork chops cooked up nice. My stomach growls. I gotta get some food in me.

  The man nods in greeting. “You here all by yourself?”

  I ain’t sure how to answer that. “For now,” is what I tell him. I tuck into my pie, all warmth and sugar-spice. I ain’t had a better meal since Mama was with us.

  “Good thing we ain’t in Skagway,” he says.

  My fingers feel for my knapsack before I remember I don’t got it anymore. By now it’s probably been tossed out by a crewman on the Queen. Is this man a crook like them that stole from Mel, a fellow who talks nice just to nab things from a person all alone? Well, if he’s angling for something to grab, he better not try Mama’s washboard. Miss Prissy Lips can tell him about that.

  The man looks across the mudflats where I last saw Mel. “That new trail over in Skagway, the White Pass, I hear it’s slow going on account of all this rain. If parts wash out, White Pass could close till winter.”

  “That’s one of them trails we gotta hike into Canada?”

  The fellow nods so firm, his sideburns waggle.

  “The Chilkoot Trail out of Dyea, though, is shorter. Twenty-six miles to White Pass’s thirty-seven. Sure it’s steeper, but the Chilkoot’s always open. A fellow like me, who hauls his gear alone, it takes a good two weeks to get his outfit the eight miles from here to Canyon City, and that’s just the first camp on the trail. I’ve been at it twelve days now. I sleep here and move my gear farther along the trail for most of the day. Sometimes on a trip back for more I’ll stop in for a slice of pie. If the Chilkoot closed down, like could happen to the White Pass, I wouldn’t get all my gear to Canada till next spring.”

  If only Mel could hear this fellow. The Chilkoot Trail ain’t as long, and it don’t ever close. Here’s another reason it was smart to clear out of Skagway, why we should keep on to the Klondike.

  “You said White Pass is the new trail. Ain’t both of them new?” I ask. “Word about the Klondike gold only got out last month.”

  He scrapes his fork across his plate, licks off every last crumb. “Folks have always hoped there might be gold north of here. Fifteen years ago prospectors started traveling the Chilkoot Trail, my brother one of them. Back then the tr
ail was a Tlingit Indian trade route. Most folks ended up in Fortymile and Circle City, mining towns not far from the Klondike. ’Course, after last summer’s discovery, those towns emptied fast. Them prospectors left their claims to stake new ones along Bonanza and other nearby creeks. My brother Bill got himself a Bonanza claim. That’s where I’m headed now.”

  My mind’s cluttered up with names of places, a couple I heard before and others that are new to me. But what stands out is them sourdoughs who left the claims they had to find even better ones. I imagine them old-time miners surrounded by their riches and all that other good stuff gold must surely bring.

  That old coot, One-Eyed Riley, I wonder if his mine is on Bonanza or somewhere else close by.

  That’s when I see Mel tramp into town. At least that’s who I think it is, far as I can see. He hardly bends his knees. The mud on his trousers must have dried pretty stiff.

  “You okay?” the man asks me. “Did you get a mosquito in your eye?”

  Must be I’m squinting bad. “I ain’t able to see too good on account of my broken glasses, but I think my brother just made it to Dyea.” I point to the fellow I think is Mel.

  “The boy in the brown coat?”

  “That’s right. Has he got a blue patch on one elbow?”

  He leans in to get a better look. “Sure does.”

  “That’s Melvin, then.”

  Mel stands in the middle of the main street near a wagon a few tents down, watches the folks who pass him, lost and pitiful. I chew my last few bites of pie slow as I please. Maybe he’s fretting about where I’ve gone off to. It would do him a world of good to worry some, since he thought it no big deal to leave me with Pa.

  But I can’t stay mad at Mel forever. “Thanks for sharing your table, mister . . .”

  “The name’s Shaw.” He holds out a calloused hand.

  “Mr. Shaw. I best catch up with Mel.”

  Mr. Shaw’s eyes linger on my brother. I know exactly what he’s thinking. Mel’s a real sad sight.

  I hitch my washboard on my shoulder and head toward the road. Around him, people bustle, but my brother is right still. “Hey,” I say, like bumping into him on a muddy Alaskan street happens all the time.