When the little broomlike bristles adorning Miss March's hat had vanished into the stairwell, Ben frowned, then lit a cigar and turned toward the sea to watch the coastline drawing nearer.
His instinct was correct. She hadn't the faintest notion of the hardships that lay ahead, which made him wonder why she was traveling to Dawson City in the first place.
She was an interesting woman. Her delicate patrician face and trim figure had been first to catch his eye. He admired her sense of style and her thoroughbred carriage. He knew she'd led a sheltered life of genteel privilege. Yet, here she was in a place few ladies would ever go.
She lacked male relatives to look after her, but someone should have told her what to expect or stopped her from taking this journey.
Most likely she would turn around and return to Seattle now that he'd explained the realities of what lay ahead. On the other hand, maybe not. When he'd observed her in Yesler Park, she had clearly not wanted to be there, had appeared to want to jump from the bench and rush away from the two ladies he now knew as Miss Klaus and Miss Wilder. But she hadn't.
The same odd behavior had recurred in front of Wilder's Outfitting Store. She'd paced before the piles of goods in the street, wringing her hands and making faces that suggested a desperate desire not to proceed. But she had.
On board she kept saying, "I can't go back down there," meaning the cubicle and Miss Wilder. But she did return to her cabin and to her nursing duties.
Miss March sold herself short. He suspected she resisted challenges because she didn't believe she could succeed or because the goal frightened or worried her. Then she stiffened her shoulders and went ahead and did the thing.
Therefore he couldn't predict whether she would return to Seattle or if she would attempt the trail to Chilkoot Pass with her companions.
They, too, were a mystery. He didn't understand the relationship between the women, and Miss March hadn't offered an explanation. He'd searched for a family resemblance during the one visit Miss Wilder had managed on deck, but no resemblance existed. Nor did similarity of nature or interest bind them. That Miss Klaus had entered and won the arm-wrestling tournament didn't surprise him. But it was beyond imagining that Juliette would do such a thing.
Granted, he knew the ladies only superficially, but even their motivations for this journey appeared vastly different. From what he'd gathered from Juliette and Miss Klaus, Miss Wilder was determined to reach Dawson City to achieve some personal goal of a dark nature. Miss Klaus had said with a laugh that she was going to the Klondike looking for her fortune like everyone else. He had no grasp of why Juliette was going.
Frowning, he flipped the cigar toward the waves, and wondered if she knew how puzzling, amusing, contrary, and mysterious she seemed. And he surprised the hell out of himself by wondering if her shining dark hair was as soft as it looked.
Damn it. He wasn't ready for another woman in his life.
* * *
Chapter 7
"I am wot going back to Seattle," Zoe said firmly, staring at herself in the cloudy mirror above her shelf. "I swear I will never set foot on a ship again. Unless there's an overland route home, I'm going to live and die in Alaska."
The face in the glass was gaunt and drawn, and for an instant she didn't recognize herself. Her skin, pulled tight over her cheekbones, emphasized deep half circles that made her eyes look bruised, and her lips were pale and dry. When she pinned on her hat, her fingers brushed brittle lifeless strands. To complete the dismal picture, she'd lost so much weight that her clothing hung on her like the castoffs of a much larger person. She looked a hundred years older than she had three weeks ago when she'd begun this hellish voyage.
Clara shoved their communal crimping iron into her bag, then stood and dusted her hands together. "I'm sick of hearing about how we can't get ourselves to Dawson City! Other people have gotten there. We can, too."
First to be dressed and ready to disembark, Juliette sat on the cot, wringing her hands. "Why can't I make you understand? I must not be explaining the perils well enough."
"You have explained at stupefying length," Zoe said, still studying her pathetic reflection in the mirror. "You've been explaining since yesterday afternoon. And all last evening. And every minute since we woke up." If she hadn't been weak and half-dead, she would have stuffed a scarf down Juliette's throat. She made a face of disgust at the mirror, then turned to Clara. "I detest asking another favor, but I tried and I'm too weak to carry my bag. Would you take it upstairs?"
"If I have to." Clara turned to Juliette. "Are you going to get off this ship or are you going to stay on board and go back to Seattle when the Annasett turns around?"
By now Zoe knew her companions well enough to predict what Juliette would do. Juliette would join them in the tender to Dyea, fully intending to return to the Annasett before it sailed. But in the end, after a lot of whimpering and hand-wringing, she would decide to go with them to Dawson City, pissing and moaning every step of the way.
She glared at the cot where Juliette sat. "If you decide to continue to Dawson City, then by God you better not give up at the halfway point! You better be prepared to go the full distance. Because I'm not going to bring you back to Dyea. I'll just leave you on the trail and go on."
Juliette stiffened, and her expression turned cold. "Well! Your gratitude and sentiment overwhelm me. Hearing that you'd abandon me makes me so happy that I spent three weeks nursing you, washing out vomit buckets, and bathing and feeding you."
"You two don't want gratitude, you want everlasting servitude and groveling! How many times do I have to thank you?"
"Once would be nice," Clara snapped, staring at her.
Ordinarily Zoe would have argued and defended and walked out feeling triumphant, but she was too weak to rise to the challenge. The damned ship rocked at anchor and she felt only marginally better than she had during the voyage. She yearned for terra firma with a need that was visceral, longed to stand on solid ground as she would have longed for a missing limb. She could hardly think of anything else.
"All right," she said between her teeth. "Thank you for caring for me while I was dying. I'm sure I said it before, and now I've said it again. I'm not going to keep saying it."
Truly, she appreciated everything they had done. In her heart she felt certain she'd be dead now if they hadn't fed her and nursed her. But she was not going to fawn over them or anyone else for that matter. Trusting Clara to follow with the bags, she glanced about to make certain she hadn't forgotten anything, then lifted her head and wobbled out of the cubicle.
A shock of cold air braced her the instant she stepped on deck. The deck itself she didn't look at, as she suspected the slant would lead to the humiliation of throwing up in front of the men staring at her. She supposed she didn't blame them for staring. Clara had reported they referred to her as the mystery passenger whom few had glimpsed since Seattle.
By the time Clara appeared, carrying her bag and Zoe's, cold perspiration had appeared on Zoe's forehead, and she swallowed repeatedly, beginning to feel desperate. She needed to get off this ship and right now, but a line of men stretched down the deck, impatiently awaiting their turn in the tender.
That's when Bear Barrett appeared, a golden giant coming to the rescue. He took the bags out of Clara's hands, studied Zoe, then walked to the head of the line and knocked aside the man about to descend the ladder leading down to the tender.
"These ladies go first, gents," he boomed at the men scowling back at him. He winked at Zoe. "In ten minutes you're going to feel like a new woman."
To her vast relief no one argued. Some under-the-breath grumbling occurred, but the line stepped back as Bear handed her down the ladder. At the bottom, another man caught her by the waist and helped her sit.
The small rocking, bobbing, tilting, tipping tender was too much. She managed to gasp, "Excuse me," before she leaned over the side and embarrassed herself. Lord, would it never end?
When she straight
ened, Juliette pushed a handkerchief into her hands so she could wipe her mouth. "You decided to come." Guessing correctly didn't especially make her happy.
"I might as well see Dyea before I go back."
"Look at those mountains!" Clara said as the tender floated away from the Annasett and headed toward a rocky beach.
Before Zoe groaned and closed her eyes against the waves, she spotted a tide of white tents pitched around a raw town that had obliterated the original Indian fishing village. The snowcapped mountains that interested Clara rose sharply from a flat valley floor, but Zoe could not have cared less.
Then finally, finally, finally, thank God, a man helped her out of the tender, and she walked through frigid calf-high seawater to the beach, so thankful to reach land that she hardly cared that no one had told them they would have to walk through water. When she stood on the rocky beach, she dropped her skirts and closed her eyes while the water ran out of her shoes.
A blessed stillness spread through her stomach. Her brain didn't rock from side to side. Her legs felt shaky and her knees unsteady, but that was a result of her long illness. Nothing inside her was sloshing, churning, slipping, or sliding.
Tears burned her eyes, and she felt like falling down and kissing the unmoving earth.
"Feeling better?" Clara asked. Setting down their bags, she planted her hands on her hips and looked toward town, a distant collection of unpainted storefronts.
"It's a miracle." And it happened swiftly, almost instantly. Cold bright air poured strength into each breath. She could feel color returning to her cheeks and throat.
The sour scald at the back of her tongue had already faded, and she knew with marveling confidence that she would not vomit in the next two minutes.
"I knew this would happen, I just knew it," Juliette said, hurrying up to them. "Can you see over there? Those tenders are bringing the outfits to the beach. The stevedores are dumping our goods on the shore and we have to move them somewhere else!"
"To where?" Clara asked, frowning.
"Well, look around you!"
Now Zoe noticed that the men scurrying around them were staking out spots to pitch their tents, then rushing off to begin transporting their goods. Caches of supplies piled up in front of tent stakes driven into the ground to mark each man's territory.
Juliette pressed gloved hands to her temples. "They said we have to move our goods immediately to make room for the outfits coming in on the next tenders. I forgot to tell anyone not to bring my outfit ashore. And now…" She turned a plea to Clara. "I don't know what to do. Do you think Mr. Barrett would help us move our outfits?"
"He'll be moving his own things." She slid a frown toward Zoe. "And I see some handwriting on the wall here. You aren't going to be any help. We'll have to move your outfit, too."
"I'd love to tell you that I can be gravely ill for weeks, come within minutes of dying, and then bound out of bed bursting with energy and vigor. Unfortunately, I can hardly stand up."
"This is terrible, just terrible," Juliette moaned. "They should at least let us do something about wet shoes and stockings. My hem got wet, too. It will be a miracle if we don't catch our death of cold. My feet already feel like lumps of ice."
Zoe sat down hard on top of someone's crated goods. If she'd seen any possibility whatsoever of doing it, she would have carried her outfit farther ashore. But she felt exhausted. Steady inside, but too bed-weak to stand comfortably, let alone make twenty trips back and forth carrying heavy supplies.
"I need your help again," she stated grimly, looking at Clara and Juliette. The request cost her dearly. The Wilders had never been people to ask for help or favors, refused to be beholden to anyone. But here she was dependent again on the two people whom she detested most in the whole world.
"Oh!" Juliette bent at the waist and turned in a circle, striking her hips with her fists. "You don't know what you're asking! Or how long… I can't possibly carry…"
It was the first time Juliette had lost control so totally, and even Clara watched the performance with an interested eye. Then she pulled back her shoulders and narrowed her eyes into hard brown beams focused directly on Zoe.
"Moving three outfits is going to take a long time. Especially with one of us able to carry only about two pounds a trip." She jerked her head toward Juliette, who was still turning around and around. "You find us a place to put our things. Surely you can do that much."
Tents and piles of goods stretched out as far as Zoe could see. "I'll find us a place," she snapped.
"How will we know where it is?"
"My body's weak, not my mind." Zoe thought a minute. "I'll tie a scrap of pink on our marker." The sea of pole markers all looked alike. A spot of pink would stand out.
"And you're responsible for supper." Clara stared at her. "You can take your time and do it slowly. But at the end of this, neither Juliette nor I are going to feel like cooking. We're going to want to eat and then collapse. You can set up the tent and organize it, too."
"Why don't I just chop down the trees left on that mountainside and build us a cabin?" Zoe returned her stare.
"All you have to do is find us a place and get us set up. Come on, Juliette. The sooner and faster we get moving, the sooner and faster our shoes and feet will dry out."
Without another word, they walked toward the piles of goods accumulating like hills at the water's edge. Juliette stumbled along beside Clara, looking like a woman about to fall over with shock. Clara plowed forward with a grim set to her shoulders.
Swearing beneath her breath, Zoe sat slumped on the crate, the only still person in a mass of rushing humanity, struggling to find the strength to get up and search out a campsite. All the close-in spots were already claimed and staked out.
She was going to have to walk at least a mile to find a scrap of space not already occupied. On the other hand, her shaky legs would have to make the trip only once, instead of dozens of times like Clara and Juliette. She was too exhausted to feel much gratitude for this boon.
"Zoe? Zoe Wilder?"
Hundreds of men swarmed the beach, so she didn't immediately spot the man calling her name. When she did, she recognized him at once.
Tom Price. From Newcastle. He was a friend of Jack's, her second-oldest brother. If she had felt better, she might have smiled at meeting a Newcastle boy this far from home. Instead, she wondered how he had recognized her, considering that she looked worse than she remembered ever looking in her life.
And he wasn't a boy anymore, she realized, watching him dodge hurrying men and step around supply piles, smiling as he made his way toward her. He must be about the same age as Jack, thirty-three. When had she last seen him? It must have been about ten years ago. She couldn't be certain, because she hadn't paid a lot of attention to her brother's rowdy friends. She'd had nothing to do with them, and even then had known she never would. Not a boy from Newcastle.
"This is a surprise," he said, sweeping off a wide-brimmed hat and swinging it against his thigh. "Did you come in on the Annasett?"
People said such silly things on greeting someone they hadn't seen for a long while. If she wasn't fresh off the Annasett why would she be sitting on a crate on a beach with seawater dripping out of her shoes and hem?
"Were you on the ship, too?"
Oddly she didn't remember Tom Price as an especially good-looking youth. But he'd grown into a strikingly handsome man with strong square features and a solid, confident air about him. The men charging back and forth took care not to bump or jostle him as if a quick glance warned that here was a man it would be unwise to offend. Her pa and her brothers had that air about them, too, as did most Newcastle men. Miners worked hard, drank hard, took offense easily, and fought hard. It showed.
Lifting his boot, he propped it against the crate beside her, then leaned forward and rested his forearm on his thigh, studying her face. "I've been up here for a couple of years. Maybe Jack told you that I started my own packing business."
"No, he didn't." First she noticed that his eyes were dark green, then she noticed his flicker of disappointment. "I'm sure it slipped Jack's mind. I'm living in Seattle now, working for my uncle. There's so much to talk about when I go home, that we don't always have time to cover everything. And sometimes I don't see Jack at all. He's married now, you know."
"Jack? Married?" A grin lit his face and made him look more like the boy she remembered. "That old son of a gun. Did he marry the Snodgrass girl? Do they have any children?"
"He married Abe McGraw's youngest daughter. They have a boy who's almost two, and they're expecting another around Christmas."
"My sister married one of the McGraw cousins. He died at the mine last year."
"I heard about that." Zoe nodded. "Ma mentioned a dance the ladies gave to raise money for Mrs. McGraw and her children. So that was your sister?"
"Carrie's living in Seattle now, working at one of the hotels. She's a Newcastle girl—she'll make her way." The comment seemed to remind him that Zoe was sitting on a crate in the midst of chaos when she ought to be doing something. "Am I keeping you from—?"
"I felt a bit under the weather aboard ship," Zoe said lightly. "So my companions were kind enough to offer to move our outfits to our site. As soon as I find us one."
A fleeting frown shadowed his brow, and he moved his boot to the ground. "I heard you got married," he said slowly.
Zoe had known Tom Price most of her life. As recollections flooded her mind, she could picture him sitting at the Wilder supper table shouting as loudly as her pa and brothers, and coming by the house to join her brothers on the trek to the mine. She remembered that he'd lent her a book once, and once he had given her a handful of summer wildflowers.
Her instinct was to pour out her heart and tell him about Jean Jacques, her rotten husband. Tom would understand how a Newcastle girl could be dazzled by a Frenchman who glittered like the end of the rainbow.
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