Gold Web

by Vicki Delany

  “A magician!”

  Roland grinned. “And so, as I’m hoping to have lengthy employment with your mother, I thought I’d take the opportunity to make your acquaintance. The ladies at the Savoy talk about you, you know. A fine lad, they say.”

  Angus blushed.

  “You wants to buys or to sell?” Mr. Mann had come up behind Angus. “Peaches. Good price.”

  Roland eyed the merchandise. “How much for one can?”

  “Fifty cents.”

  “Fifty cents! For a can of peaches?”

  “Try to buy elsewhere.” Mr. Mann shrugged.

  Mr. Mann’s shop was situated in a white canvas tent in one of the rows packed cheek to jowl along the riverbank. A rough plank was laid across the front of the tent to serve as counter. He also had a second tent, piled high with merchandise. He dealt mainly in hardware and mining equipment, but would take anything — from ladies’ undergarments to oil paintings of bucolic landscapes to plates featuring the Queen’s portrait – that might turn a profit. Last winter, with the town on the verge of starvation, the government decreed that henceforth everyone entering the territory must bring an entire year’s supply of goods with them. On reaching Dawson City, after months spent on the trail with the required ton of food and possessions, many took one look at the town and immediately set about attempting to secure passage home. They had to do something with all the things they’d brought, and Mr. Mann and shopkeepers like him were happy to take the goods off their hands. For a fraction, in most cases, of what the would-be-prospector had paid for them in Seattle or San Francisco or Vancouver. It was amazing what some people considered essentials – Angus had sold a bronze statue of a dog earlier in the day.

  Mr. Mann crossed his arms and stared at Roland the Magnificent. Do business or be on your way, the posture said. Mr. Mann did not engage in idle chat, and he had no patience with those who did.

  “Just what I been looking for.” A woman swept down on a pile of working men’s caps stacked on the counter. She began sorting through them and, with a meaningful look at Angus, Mr. Mann went to assist her.

  “It’s been nice to meet you, sir,” Angus said, “but I have to get back to work.”

  “How about you show me around town when you’re finished for the day? I’ve only just arrived and could use a guide. In exchange, I’ll buy you a meal, and I might be persuaded show you a trick or two.”

  “Sure. I finish at one o’clock.”

  “One o’clock it is.” Roland the Magnificent tipped his hat and sauntered away. He did not purchase any peaches.

  Angus thought it would be great fun to be a magician. Perhaps he could get Roland to teach him a couple of card tricks he could use to impress his friends.

  “I said, how much are the peaches?” Angus blinked and saw a red-faced man standing in front of him. “Are you deaf, boy, or plain stupid?”

  “One dollar,” Angus said. “Per can.”

  “Humph. Seems like a lot. Still, the wife wants peaches. I’ll take two.”

  * * *

  “He arrived on the Victoria three days ago,” Constable McAllen said to Richard Sterling. “One of the dockworkers recognized the photograph. But the boat’s left, so I can’t check. Too bad we don’t have a telegraph.”

  “You don’t know where he was staying?”

  McAllen shook his head. “There must be hundreds, thousands, of boarding houses, hotels, rooms to rent, in town. We don’t have the manpower to get around to them all. He might have simply erected a tent at the edge of town.”

  Sterling studied the picture in his hand. They’d had Mr. Hegg, owner of a photography studio, bring his camera to the mortuary and take a picture of the deceased. Something they could show around town in an attempt to discover the identity of the man. The picture wasn’t very good. Mr. Hegg had to explode a small amount of magnesium powder mixture to create a light bright enough to photograph by. The subject was, after all, dead. His eyes were closed, his face scrunched in pain or fear, and his jaw had been forced shut. The body had been well into rigor mortise by the time Sterling got the idea of sending for the photographer and Hegg, and all of his equipment, had arrived.

  Still, it was better than a poorly executed drawing and Sterling wondered what other benefits photography might bring to policing.

  “Well, keep trying,” he said to the constable. “Someone has to know him if he’s been in town for three days.”

  “The dockhand only said he thought it was the Victoria. Might not have been.”

  “Do what you can,” Sterling said. He took his hat down from the shelf. There weren’t many routes into Dawson. No one exactly wandered into town. They came by boat from St. Michael in Alaska on steamships such as the Victoria, or they walked from Skagway or Dyea, up the Chilkoot, over the border at the summit, where the Mounties recorded their arrival and checked they had the required year’s supplies, and then by makeshift boat or raft down the Yukon River. That route was as crowded with newcomers these days as the bar at the Savoy at eleven-thirty on a Saturday night.

  Leaving the office, Sterling headed for the riverfront, intending to meet up with Angus MacGillivray. The lad finished working for Mr. Mann at one. Sterling would offer to treat him to lunch and see if the boy remembered anything more about what happened in the alley yesterday. Sterling wanted to speak to Fiona again, but thought it better to find her in her office early in the evening. She could be like a bear with a sore head and an empty stomach if anyone interrupted her afternoon schedule.

  Near the corner of York and Second Streets, two men were perched on top of a ladder, paint cans at their feet, putting the finishing touches on an elaborate sign advertising E. Jennings, Photographer, in cursive of brilliant scarlet. A tiny blond woman stood at the bottom of the ladder, looking up, waving wildly, shouting directions in a piercing American accent.

  He stopped and watched. Mr. Hegg hadn’t been at all pleased at being called out to take photographs of a dead man. He was busy, he’d said, with paying customers. Sterling suspected Hegg could have done a better job if he’d taken the time to get settled properly rather than ducking under his black cloth, igniting the magnesium, snapping the picture, and then bolting.

  If they needed the services of a photographer again, perhaps this E. Jennings might be more obliging.

  “Higher on the right,” the lady called. “No, that’s too high. Now you need to lift the left side more. I said left, that’s not the left, you fool.”

  The ladder began to sway as one of the men leaned to his left to do as he’d been instructed. The other yelled at him to be still, pulled right, and the ladder shifted back.

  “Look out,” Sterling shouted. The men grabbed for the sign. One of them lifted his foot and brought it down on the side of the paint can. It tottered at the edge for a moment, and fell.

  Sterling reached the lady in a couple of long strides, grabbed her arm, and pulled her out of the way. Paint as bright red as his uniform tunic sprayed everywhere. If she hadn’t moved, the lady’s purple skirt would have been drenched.

  She whirled around and faced him. Pale blue eyes flashed fire in a white face. “Unhand me, sir.”

  He lifted both his hands. “Pardon me, madam, but you were in danger of being covered in paint.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself, thank you,” she said, biting the words. “Without being manhandled.”

  Scarcely manhandled, but he let it go and stepped back.

  She turned her wrath on the men descending gingerly from the ladder, smothering grins. “You did that on purpose. I’ve a mind to dock your pay.”

  “I don’t recommend it, lady,” one of the painters said. “Word gets ’round you don’t pay, ain’t no one gonna work for you.” He held out his hand. “And word gets ’round fast in Dawson. One dollar.”

  She dug in her pocket and pulled out an American bill. She wore close-fitting beige gloves. She slapped the money into the man’s palm. They collected their ladder and their
hammers and brushes and left, chuckling.

  The empty can lay on its side, scarlet paint soaking into the boardwalk. The woman lifted one tiny booted foot and kicked it. “Fools.” She forced her face into a smile. “Pardon me, Officer. You were, I’m sure, attempting to help.”

  He held out his hand. “Corporal Richard Sterling, North-West Mounted Police.”

  Her small gloved hand felt soft and cool in his. “Eleanor Jennings.” She waved to indicate the shop. “Proprietor.”

  “You’re the photographer?”

  “I am. I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t managed to unpack most of my equipment yet, but I’m excited to begin. May I take your photograph, Corporal?” Her teeth were white and perfect and her lips red. Bouncing blond curls escaped from her bonnet.

  “Another time, perhaps.”

  “No charge.”

  “Another time, perhaps,” he repeated.

  She tilted her head back, cocked it slightly to one side. Her blue eyes danced in the sunlight. “I can only hope so.”

  He touched the rim of his hat and continued on his way, his heart thudding so loudly in his chest it was a wonder people weren’t staring at him.

  * * *

  The waterfront was a mass of confusion. Nothing out of the ordinary in that. Since the ice had broken up in May, thousands, tens of thousands, of people had poured up the Yukon River to collapse in exhausted relief onto the floodplain where the Yukon met the Klondike. The climb up the Chilkoot Trail or over the White Pass was only the beginning of the journey. At Lake Bennett they had to board boats for the perilous five-hundred-mile journey downriver and over rapids. As no shipyard waited for them at the bottom of the mountain, men built their boats themselves, in varying degrees of serviceability. More than a few — boats as well as men — hadn’t survived. All of June the armada came, everything from canoes to rowboats to flat-bottom scows made of whipsawed green wood with sheets or the sides of tents serving as sails. Boats were lined up as many as ten deep along the Dawson riverfront and men leapt from one craft to another to reach shore. Once the ice broke on the river and the easier path from the ocean opened, steamships joined the throng.

  Where there were people and goods, there could always be found buyers and sellers. Almost instantly the mudflats became a sea of tents trading everything one could possibly imagine. And much, Richard Sterling sometimes thought, one couldn’t.

  Mr. Mann owned one of the largest of the stores. Sterling made his way there, mud squelching under his boots. Angus was helping a man with the purchase of snowshoes. Sterling wondered if the fellow’d last long enough to get any use out of them. Still only July and the steamships were packed with would-be prospectors heading out of the territory, shaking their heads in wonder at the madness that had consumed them for so long only to be extinguished at the first glimpse of the town.

  Angus placed the money he’d received for the snowshoes in the tin box used for that purpose. He saw Sterling watching him and grinned.

  “Almost lunch time,” Sterling said. “Do you have to meet Sergeant Lancaster this afternoon?”

  “No, sir. Not today.” A boxing legend in his own mind, Sergeant Lancaster gave the boy lessons several times a week. Unbeknownst to his mother, who would no doubt forbid it if she found out — so between them, Mr. Mann, Sterling, Lancaster, and Angus ensured she did not find out.

  Dawson was a peaceful town, law-abiding under the strong hand and watchful eye of the North-West Mounted Police. A twelve-year-old lad’d have little need to use his fists here. But, Sterling knew full well, not every place was like Dawson and Angus was growing quickly.

  “Ready, boy?” said a booming voice behind Sterling. He turned. It was a man, middle-aged, short with a cheerful round belly that even the rigours of the trail hadn’t managed to diminish.

  “Yup,” Angus said. He untied the apron he wore to work, tossed it onto a wooden box stamped peas, and rounded the counter. “Bye, Mr. Mann,” he shouted.

  Mr. Mann was sorting through a pile of used clothes. He lifted a hand in acknowledgement but did not look up.

  “This is Roland, sir,” Angus said to Sterling. “Roland the Magnificent. He’s a magician.”

  “Is that so?”

  “A few simple card tricks,” Roland said, shrugging his shoulders modestly. “The sobriquet is part of the act.”

  Sterling chuckled and held out his hand.

  “Did you want me for something, sir?” Angus asked. “Mr. Mag … uh … Mr. Roland wants me to show him around town. He’s new.”

  “I have questions for you about yesterday. But they’ll keep. While you’re here, Mr. …?”

  Roland’s laugh was a deep rumble, infectious almost. “My surname is Montague-Smyth, I’m always sorry to say. I much prefer to be called Mr. Magnificent.” He laughed again, and Sterling felt himself smiling in response. “Call me Roland, everyone does. You too, boy.”

  “I have a photograph,” Sterling said, trying to get his mind back to the business at hand. “Of a man, a dead man, we’re trying to identify. Would you mind if I show it to you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “A photograph,” Angus said in delight. “That’s a capital idea!” He leaned forward. “He looks dead all right.”

  Sterling handed the small square of paper to Roland. The man glanced at it and gave his head a shake. “Sorry, can’t say I’ve ever seen him.”

  “Let me see.” Mr. Mann had come up to the counter. Roland passed him the photograph. Mr. Mann studied it for a long time. “Poor,” he said at last. “But I may have seen him.”

  “Where? When?”

  “Here. Around here. Bowery Street. It gets busy. Hard to remember everyone who passes by. But this man did, I think. Yesterday? Day before?” He gave the photograph back and as he did so, glanced down the row of tents, toward the river. “He did not buy anything. Looked but did not buy. Went that way.”

  “Thank you, Jürgen,” Sterling said.

  “Always happy to help zee police.”

  “Know where I can buy a rifle?” A man pushed his way between them.

  “Mr. O’Neil had yesterday. Two rows over,” Mr. Mann said.

  “You can’t use it,” Sterling said. “Firearms are not allowed in town.”

  The man’s cheek was thick with a wad of chewing tobacco and his clothes were crusted with mud and dried sweat. He smelled like he regularly slept in a mule barn. He spat a lump of tobacco onto the ground, barely missing the toe of Sterling’s boot. “So I heard. Didn’t believe it myself. Hard to believe men’ll be so lily-livered as to let the po-lice tell them they can’t defend themselves.” His eyes were lumps of black coal in a face that had not seen soap or water for a long time.

  “You don’t need defending in Dawson,” Sterling said. “The North-West Mounted Police will ensure your safety.”

  The man spat again. This time the lump of brown muck landed on the boot. He looked Sterling in the eye. Sterling was conscious of Angus beside him, of Roland and Mr. Mann watching. Sensing a commotion, the crowd stopped drifting. Well over half the people flooding into the territory were Americans. Some of them didn’t seem to realize they were in another country, with different laws and a different way of doing things. Sterling shifted so his right leg was planted a fraction behind the left and found his balance. He let his arms fall to his side and flexed his fingers.

  “Un-man us, more likely.” The American turned away with a broken laugh. “Won’t be your territory for much longer, Fly Bull. You can’t fight for it, you can’t keep it.”

  They watched him push his way through the crowd of onlookers. Then, with a collective sigh of relief mixed with a good helping of disappointment, everyone returned to their own business.

  “You sure showed him, Corporal,” Angus said his voice high with admiration.

  “I doubt I showed him anything at all, son. Now I know to keep an eye on him, though. If he dislikes Canada so much, I wouldn’t be averse to handing him a blue ticket.”

/>   As resources were so strained and the territory so far from any assistance — not even a telegraph — the police pretty much made up the law as they went along. Only two penalties were handed out to law breakers: a sentence to be served chopping wood for the ravenous stoves, or a blue ticket expelling the miscreant, permanently, from the Yukon.

  Work finished, Angus scampered off, Roland the Magnificent trailing along behind. Sterling watched them, feeling a touch of melancholy. Angus was a boy, eager to become a man. The height of his mother already, he’d pass her soon, but he was still all uncontrollable legs and arms, knotty knees and elbows. Sterling could only hope the wild enthusiasm and unbridled zest for new experiences wouldn’t leave the boy for a long while yet.

  7

  “Murder in Dawson. My readers will be anxious to hear every detail.”

  “They are not going to hear it from me.”

  “Come on, Fiona. You can remain anonymous. Hum … let me think. Well-regarded, black-haired beauty was startled…. No, a delicate English rose was forced to confront the depths of mans’ inhumanity …”

  “Graham, you can write whatever drivel you desire as long as you keep my name, and any identifying characteristics, out of it. I will not be providing you with a quote. And if you dare to speak to Angus, I’ll …”

  He laughed. “Speechless for once, my dear. That I will get down on paper.”

  Graham Donohue tucked his arm into mine. Graham was a newspaperman, quite a successful one. He’d been sent to the Klondike by his paper, the San Francisco Standard, to report on events in the world’s most exciting city (this year, at any rate). I care for newspapermen as much as I care for photographers, but as long as my picture never accompanied any of Graham’s overwrought epistles to the Outside I had little to which to object. He usually could be persuaded to replace my name with some sort of euphemism. Raven-Haired Beauty was among my favourites.

  “Time to be off,” I said.