Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine

by Caroline Starr Rose

  Mel don’t answer, but even so, I plunge right in. There’s so many things I want to tell him, I can’t hardly keep them straight. “Here’s what I got so far. Nine below’s the way to go. Gold on the bottom of the creek. Friday’s the last chance to be lucky. Hunker down but not too much—that’s the one from Stanley.”

  We walk again, much faster than before. The wind no longer wails, it sounds more like it holds a thousand secrets I might learn if only I listen close enough.

  Mel rubs that spot above his lip where he claims a mustache grows. “A creek, a number, a day of the week.”

  “I think nine below’s a temperature.”

  “Could be,” Mel says.

  “And gold’s found in creek bottoms.” Not on bushes or trees, I know that now. “Hunker down. What do you think that means?” I squat to see if anything looks different close to the ground, but all I get is a good view of Melvin’s rubber boots.

  Mel’s mouth quirks into a smile.

  I jump to my feet, and the two of us keep on. It ain’t long before the wind’s beat out by the distant roar of water. The Yukon picks up again, gets moving faster than a stepped-on cat.

  “We must be near White Horse Rapids,” Melvin says. “Maybe there we can set things right.”

  Ahead the forest thins and boats cluster at the shore. Men drag them from the river a second time. “Them folks took a four-mile boat ride just to portage again.”

  Mel winks at me. “If the Therouxs are smart enough to portage this time, we could beat the two of them to the other side of the rapids.”

  Oh, it would be good to be ahead of them, even for a little while. Me and Mel break into a run. We just can’t help ourselves.

  We ain’t able to hold that speedy pace for long before we gotta walk again. It’s well into evening by the time we’re past the rapids. Some folks load gear into their boats, some light out to travel a few more miles on the Yukon before darkness catches them. A few have set up camp for the night. The river flows around a pile of boards heaped on the riverbank. Closer up, I see exactly what they are: a smashed-up boat abandoned on the shore.

  With all they lost, at least them Therouxs still got a way to travel. Me and Mel ain’t seen them yet. I wonder if that means they were smart enough to portage. Maybe right this minute they’re behind us on the trail, carrying a sack of soggy flour between them.

  The thick clouds that hung low earlier have been blown away, leaving a brutal cold behind. In a clearing, tents huddle together, and from them comes the most delicious smell of bacon cooked up fine and fresh biscuits. My stomach growls.

  “Let’s find some supper,” Melvin says.

  We head to the first few tents, and Mel asks folks if they have any food to spare. No one does. Every tent we try, the answer is the same.

  The last tent sits alone, on the edge of trees and darkness. When they turn us away, Mel pushes deeper into the woods. He keeps on even when I call for him to stop. Only when the firelight from the last tent disappears does Mel slump to the ground, his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. A meal’s a small thing, and no one will share even that.”

  If they don’t offer supper, there ain’t no way anyone will give us a ride to Dawson.

  But there’s a couple things we still got. I settle next to Mel. A pinch of gold. Two pairs of boots, which probably won’t get us far. And Pa’s watch. “We could trade Pa’s timepiece.”

  I can’t see Mel’s face in the coal-black night, so I don’t know what he’s thinking. And he don’t answer for a good long time. “When Mama got sick and it was my turn to care for her, she told me about that watch. Do you know where it came from?”

  Them ain’t words I expected. “No,” I answer.

  “Mama gave it to Pa as his wedding present. It was hers to begin with, something that had belonged to Grandpa when she was a girl.” Mel’s voice dips low, and I can hear the sorrow he still holds inside. “Grandpa told her to use it if ever money got too tight, just like she said for us to do. She asked Pa to do the same.”

  All them times Pa spent the last of Mel’s pay to buy some liquor, he never touched that fine gold watch. He could have, but he didn’t.

  In his own muddled way, maybe Pa was honoring her memory.

  I gotta swallow to keep my throat from closing up. “It weren’t only for me you left that watch behind.”

  “I guess I couldn’t take it from Pa, either.”

  “We ain’t gonna sell it, then,” I say. “We’ll carry on the best we can, even if we gotta walk from here to Dawson.”

  It ain’t sensible in the least, but it’s the choice we make. By the time the owl starts his call, me and Mel are wrapped up in that canvas to hold off the freezing night.

  • • •

  A layer of frost sparkles on the canvas next morning as sunlight slants through the trees. I push the cover off and am hit by air so cold, I break into a cough when I try to breathe. Mel packs the canvas in his bag, and I follow him to the shore.

  Mist hovers over the Yukon, and beneath it, a thin layer of ice reaches from the riverbank a few feet across the water. It bobs in the current and creaks and groans most awfully. Them who camped at White Horse must first break through the ice to set out on the water. Soon their boats will sail down the river a hundred times faster than me and Mel will ever be.

  Mel pulls his woolen stocking over his arm as far as it will go and grips his little sled. “You okay?”

  He’s a boy who’s gone skinny, who sorely needs a bath, whose cap pushes too-long hair over his eyes.

  Mel must see the same when he looks at me.

  “As good as you are,” I answer.

  We pass through forests and clearings, the Yukon forever at our side. Our swift pace holds off the cold as long as we keep moving. The first day we find a couple shriveled berries still clinging to a snowy bush. Though they ain’t filling, they’re enough for us to push on till twilight. It’s nighttime that’s the worst. Without matches we can’t make a fire. Rocks and trees and Mel’s canvas are our only shelter.

  The second morning, the Yukon’s ice has changed. Some is soft, like the lumps of frozen foam that line the riverbank, some’s shaped like blocks, as hard as wood or stone. The boats that pass must steer around them chunks of ice. In just a couple weeks the Yukon could freeze solid.

  It’s midmorning the third day when we see the boat that’s run ashore at the river’s edge. Ice encrusts its sides. Three fellows in long dark cloaks push and shove against the boat, but it don’t budge. One sees us and waves for help.

  “Come on,” Mel says, and we take off running.

  We get closer, and them men, they’re the strangest I’ve ever seen. At first I think the hunger’s got so bad I’m imagining the funny clothes they’re wearing, sheets of black that fall from under their chins to the tips of their sturdy boots. Chains hang around their necks with golden crosses in the middle. Only their faces peek out.

  “Hello, Sisters,” Melvin says. “How can we help?”

  Sisters? What’s Mel on about? He don’t got no one but me, and I sure ain’t a girl.

  Mel removes his cap, something he’d do only for a lady.

  “The ice froze so thick last night, we can’t get out,” one says in a voice that’s soft and gentle.

  Then I realize why Mel’s taken off his hat.

  Those are ladies under there!

  Mel taps my head, a reminder I’m to take my cap off, too. He acts like this is the most regular thing he’s ever seen, three ladies dressed up like bats, tugging at a boat frozen in the Yukon River.

  The five of us try to rock the boat, but it’s stuck so fast, it don’t even wiggle.

  “Let’s empty it,” one lady says, “then try again.”

  I grab two heavy canvas sacks, but stumble when I reach the icy bank and piles of snow. Mel helps me to my f
eet again. “Who are these ladies?” I whisper.

  “Nuns,” he answers, as if that tells me everything.

  The pile of goods grows on the shore, but it’s a struggle to unload in the snowy drifts. Then I remember Melvin’s sled. The runners slide smooth over the icy riverbank, and it don’t take too many trips till the boat is empty. Then the five of us, we push that boat with all our strength. There’s a loud crack, and it finally breaks free. It’s left with a jagged hole the size of a dinner plate in its side.

  The three ladies sink onto the boat’s edge, tired and defeated.

  There ain’t no way it will ever sail again.

  “Do you have a hammer and some nails?” Mel asks. “Because I’ve got an idea.”

  The tallest lady, the one with a pair of glasses, searches through their gear to find the tools Mel needs. He takes his sled apart and uses the wood to fix the hole. It ain’t perfect, but it will hold.

  “We can’t thank you enough.” The lady with the wrinkled cheeks smiles.

  At first all three of them nun ladies looked the same in them odd clothes they wear, but now I notice they’re all a little different.

  One lady has eyes gray as a winter morning. “What are you boys doing out here all alone?” she asks.

  Mel hangs his head. “Guess you could say we’ve run into some trouble.”

  “You hardly have any gear,” the tall woman says.

  “No boat, either,” I add in. “We lost our partners in Miles Canyon. So we’re gonna walk all the way to the Klondike.” The tale is true as true can be, and oh, I see it pulls at their heartstrings.

  “We’re going to Dawson City, too,” the wrinkled lady says. “Without your help, I don’t know how we could have gone on. The three of us would be honored for you to join us.”

  Dawson. Just like us. They ain’t the first ladies we’ve seen traveling to the Klondike, but they’re the first Sister-nuns, whatever that means. “You three are after gold, too?”

  It’s Mel who elbows me. “What Jasper means is we’d be awfully grateful,” he says.

  The lady with the gray eyes laughs. “No gold for us. We’ll work in Father Judge’s hospital. In Dawson City.”

  The wrinkled lady grasps Mel’s hand. “I’m Mary Margaret. This is Mary Agnes”—she nods to the Sister with the kind gray eyes—“and Mary Elizabeth.”

  Mary Elizabeth is the lady who wears glasses just like me. She could be the tallest lady I’ve ever seen.

  I ain’t sure who this father is the Sisters have, but that don’t matter. Who knows? Maybe all nuns got the same first name and are part of one big family.

  “We’re Melvin and Jasper Johnson.”

  Mary Margaret studies us with her sharp eyes. “You boys need some tending to. Mary Agnes and Mary Elizabeth, find Melvin and Jasper something to eat.”

  The other Marys shift around the piles of gear until Mary Agnes finds a tin canister. She lifts the lid, and inside there’s six biscuits, light and airy and prettier than anything I’ve ever seen. Me and Mel eat every one.

  Before I’ve swallowed my last bite, Mary Margaret turns to the shore. “Let’s load our gear and get on the water,” she says with real authority. She may be a little frail, but boy, is she in charge.

  We clamber into the well-packed boat. Mary Elizabeth and Mel use the paddles to push off from the bank. They steer around the chunks of ice until we’re in the middle of the river. From the back of the boat, Mary Margaret waves a wrinkled hand, directs me and Mary Agnes to unfurl the sail. We let it out, and the wind catches hold, pushes us through the water at a steady clip.

  Traveling with the Marys is a hundred times better than with them Therouxs. For one, they work hard as any man, which is more than I can say for Stanley and the mister. Each hour we switch out rowers, me with Mary Agnes and Mel with Mary Elizabeth, whose strength matches his own. It saves our backs considerable. For another, they’re right pleasant company. We pass the day without one ugly word.

  Mary Agnes tells me stories when it’s our turn at the oars, ones about her family at home. She has five brothers, two older and three younger, and oh, them boys were always in all sorts of trouble. One brother couldn’t find a bucket when he had to milk the cow, so he used his pa’s boots. Another ripped apart his mama’s fresh-baked cake, because he’d lost his pocketknife and was sure it’d somehow fallen in the batter. How Mary Agnes laughed when she remembered, them gray eyes of hers dancing. Them brothers must miss her awfully. I ain’t sure how old she is and it ain’t polite to ask, but I bet it weren’t long ago she was a girl herself.

  She’s a hundred times more likable than old Mr. Theroux.

  None of the Marys knows about One-Eyed Riley, so I’ll have to wait to get to Dawson to learn more about his mine. But just because they ain’t after gold and are gonna spend their days cooped up in a hospital don’t mean they have no interest in our surroundings. Mary Elizabeth knows every detail about where we’ve been and where we’re headed. She says when we spy the Midnight Dome, a rounded peak that juts straight up into the air with a white gash on its side, we’ll be near Dawson. The dome’s where the Klondike River meets the Yukon, with Dawson City settled in between.

  As we travel I’ve got time to dream about the things me and Mel might do with a mine worth millions. Things like sleep with feather pillows. Eat three square meals a day. Buy new shoes when we need them. It’s almost too good to be true.

  The sun hangs low on the horizon, ready to quit the sky. When we arrived in Skagway, the sun stayed up past nine o’clock. But now each night it sets a little earlier and stretches the nighttime darkness far into morning. Mary Agnes stops rowing. “Do you hear that?” We ain’t sure at first what the thundering noise is on the shore and try our best to see in the slanting sunlight what’s racing past the trees.

  “Are they deer?” Mary Margaret asks.

  But them giant animals ain’t moose or deer.

  “Caribou,” Mel says.

  They move as one, like an invisible rope binds them together. They run filled up with life, their powerful brown bodies and fine white beards as big and untamed as this wilderness that stretches from the river to the shore and straight up to the sun.

  All of us, we watch in wonder until the caribou are gone.

  An hour later, Me and Mel are tucked under two blankets near a crackling fire. It’s the most comfortable I’ve been since we left home over a month ago.

  “Mel,” I whisper, once I’m sure the Marys are settled in their tent, “what’s a nun? And how’d you know to call them Sister?” I’ve been dying to know all day long.

  He rolls over to face me. “They’re women who work for a church.”

  Mama took us to church a couple times. That one didn’t have ladies who looked like the Marys, just an old codger who talked a lot, sometimes with his eyes shut.

  “When you and Mama were sick, a woman stopped at our house dressed in the same black robes. She and others like her came from Seattle to help those with the influenza. She said if we ever needed help, we could ask the Sisters.”

  That’s the memory I weren’t able to place, of gentle hands and a cool cloth on my forehead when the influenza got real bad. I remember that argument Mel had with Pa the night after he brought the newspaper home, when Mel accused him of not caring for Mama when she most needed it. “Pa didn’t want help, did he?”

  Mel shakes his head. “He thought he could care for his family best. But then things got worse so fast that once he asked the nuns to come back . . .”

  Mel don’t finish, but I know what happened next. The nun’s nursing healed me up, but for Mama it was too late. Sometimes I wonder if Pa wishes things had happened different, if maybe he wouldn’t have sunk so deep if it was me he lost. Maybe now that I ain’t around to remind him of them sad days, he’ll heal up, like I did. I hope my leaving gives him that.

 
“Are you still mad at him, Mel?”

  He’s so quiet, I reckon Mel’s fallen asleep. “Sometimes,” he finally says, “but the farther we get from home, the more my anger fades.”

  Mel turns over and settles in, but my mind’s still busy. There really are some on the Yukon who ain’t after gold, folks who care about more than just themselves. Mama would have liked the Marys, how brave they are, how generous they’ve been. “Don’t worry, Mama,” I whisper, so quiet even I can’t hardly hear myself. “There’s people looking out for us. Your boys are doing fine.”

  • • •

  Twelve days later, we wake to cold so deep, branches on the spruce trees break and snap, loud as a stick of dynamite. Mary Elizabeth says the sap’s freezing up inside. A thick fog wraps around the trees. “I don’t know if we should leave yet,” Mel tells us. “The ice is really bad.”

  We all walk to the riverbank. Hunks of ice big as wagons flow down the river. They crash and shove into each other, grind with a noise that makes my teeth ache. Even if we could get the boat out from the shore, there ain’t nowhere to go. The ice shifts like clouds that race across a stormy sky, breaks apart, and rejoins in an ever-changing line.

  First thing we need to do is free the boat from the ice along the riverbank. “I’ll get the ax from the Sisters’ gear,” I tell Mel. “You grab the rope.”

  I hack the frozen slabs that grasp the boat as Mel unties it at the bow. I swing that ax so long, I’m sweating in the awful cold. We ain’t got proper mittens, just Mel’s woolen socks pulled over one hand. They freeze up solid fast.

  I see the worry on Mel’s face.

  “My brothers pushed our wagon out of a muddy bog once,” Mary Agnes says. “A boat in the ice can’t be too much different. Here, let me try.” Mary Agnes takes up the ax. Mary Elizabeth pulls the rope along with Mel. Mary Margaret gives the command, and we push and rock and chop and tug. One big shove finally sets it free. It scrapes across the ice, and oh, do we all shout. Mel pulls the boat as far out on the frozen river as he thinks is safe. From there we load our gear and do our best to shove into the part of the Yukon that still looks like a river.