"I trust Tom not to tell anyone!"
"And maybe he wouldn't, but maybe he'd let it slip. I'd like to tell Bear the truth, too. I had an opportunity to admit I was married, and I didn't. That doesn't feel good to me either. But it would feel worse to admit I'd lied to him. And I don't want to risk everyone knowing our private business!"
"I'd like to tell Mr. Dare the truth, too," Juliette said slowly. "But I think I've inadvertently and completely innocently led him to mistakenly suspect that I might be a tiny bit interested in his company."
Clara sighed and sipped from a canteen of cold coffee.
"If he now discovered that I was married, what would he think of me? He'd think I was a promiscuous wife. He'd think I have the morals of a dog."
"Which wouldn't be true," Clara said after a minute, wondering if Bear would think that, too. "Jean Jacques had the morals of a dog, but we didn't and don't. And the truth is, we don't know our legal situation. We should have consulted an attorney, but we were in too much of a hurry to get up here and find that louse. My point is, it's possible that none of us are really married."
"We're really married. We went through the ceremony. And the wedding night." Juliette's cheeks flamed again.
"But was the marriage legal and binding? For all we know we might be free to marry again if we wished. We might be free to get on with our lives whether or not we run Jean Jacques to ground. For all we know, it's perfectly legal, permissible, and moral to spend time with Mr. Barrett. And Mr. Dare and Mr. Price," she added hastily.
"But maybe it's not," Zoe said. "Maybe Juliette's right, and enjoying another man's company makes us wicked women."
"I can't stand the thought," Juliette said, raising her gloves to her temples.
They fell silent for several minutes. Then Zoe jumped to her feet, swore, and kicked her cup into the night. "All right, I won't tell him. But I enjoy Tom's—friendshipand I'm going to spend time with him. I don't care what the two of you think." She glared at Juliette. "When we find Jean Jacques, you can tell him that I have the morals of a dog if you want to. I'd say he's in no position to cast stones on that score."
Juliette squared her shoulders. "When we find him, the only thing I'm going to say is 'I hate you.' Then I'm going to step aside and let you shoot him."
"After which one of us claims to be the widow. We go through his effects, and if he has any of our money left, we hire a lawyer to defend Zoe and we split whatever the lawyer doesn't take," Clara said in a tight voice. "As for this discussion, married women can have male friends. I've always thought so." Actually she'd always thought the opposite, but recent circumstances had changed her opinion.
Juliette closed her eyes and sighed. "I've lost the thread of this conversation. Have we decided anything?"
"We won't tell anyone how Jean Jacques married us all," Zoe said. "And we won't think less of each other for spending time with—our friends."
"We decided that?"
Clara nodded. "It's a sensible decision given our circumstances and our uncertain status."
Clara would have liked to jump to her feet, rush off to find Bear, and plant a kiss on that man when she found him that would sink him to his knees. Her skin felt hot just thinking about grabbing him.
But she was reacting to her resentment that Zoe had kissed Tom and she hadn't kissed Bear. It wasn't right or proper for any of them to be kissing anyone. But at least she didn't have to feel guilty or wonder what Juliette and Zoe were thinking if they came upon her enjoying Bear's platonic company.
Still, if a kiss happened… Well, it was only fair since Zoe had done it. She couldn't wait to see him again.
Now that they'd discussed it, Juliette felt less self-conscious and guilty about spending time with Ben, although she hadn't seen him yet. She still wrestled with doing the right thing. And the right thing was by no means clear-cut. But she needed to know what it was, because every time she had ignored propriety and followed an impulse, she had either ruined part of her life or immersed herself in great difficulties.
But it did seem that she should be free to enjoy Ben's company. He was merely a friend, after all. Aside from a couple of thrillingly awkward moments, there was nothing romantic between them. No words or sentiments had been exchanged that she would be ashamed to hear repeated in a churchyard. She had conducted herself as a lady. And Ben might be only a prospector, but he knew how to act like a gentleman.
Pushing her gloved hands into her coat pockets, she kicked a stone and watched it skitter across the ice covering Crater Lake. None of the men she'd met on this journey were anywhere near what Aunt Kibble would consider a gentleman. Men of breeding and background did not pin their futures on discovering gold. A true gentleman traveled with a retinue and wouldn't dream of relinquishing his comforts to sleep in a small tent on frozen ground, eat the same monotonous beans and bacon every day, and wear himself out walking hundreds of miles to reach the Yukon.
She didn't know Ben Dare's background, but she reluctantly conceded that he wouldn't be here if he were a gentleman. On the other hand, he was liberal-minded and regarded women in a way that Juliette had not encountered before. Moreover, he made her feel interesting, and he made her suspect that she had potential to be more than she was. That frightened her a little, but it flattered her more.
She missed him. And she had no one to blame but herself. She had driven him away by bludgeoning him with inane politeness. It was disappointing that he'd given up so easily, but she had been the cause of their estrangement, if she could call it that.
Ben was heavy on her mind as she wandered out on the ice capping the lake. An inch of new snow covered the surface, but she felt the hidden smoothness beneath the soles of her boots, saw the tracks of animals in the snow. The strangeness of walking on frozen water interrupted her thoughts. If someone had told her a year ago that she would be walking on ice, she would have laughed and insisted they were dreaming.
A sharp cracking sound erased the smile from her lips. She didn't know exactly what the noise meant, but it sounded ominous, almost menacing. And now she noticed that she'd wandered beyond the animal tracks.
Panic stopped her heart when the ice seemed to give way beneath her feet, seemed to sink beneath her weight.
For an instant she couldn't move, couldn't think. Then she grabbed her skirts, fixed wide eyes on the shore, and dashed forward.
It happened fast. One minute the ice felt almost solid, the next second she dropped into water so cold that for an instant her brain and heart were shocked into paralysis.
Black icy water swallowed her whole, freezing against her face, penetrating her layers of clothing.
She had never learned to swim.
Thrashing wildly, the wet weight of her coat dragging at her arms, she tried to claw upward. The top of her hat banged against an ice ceiling, then broke through, and she gulped for air. She wasn't facing the shore, couldn't see if anyone had noticed her plunge through the ice. Throwing out her arms, she tried to lean on the surface with the idea of pulling herself out of the freezing water. But the ice broke, and she sank again. This time her toes touched a sandy bottom and she pushed off, but not hard enough. Her head didn't break water this time.
As her heavy clothing pulled her down, it occurred to Juliette that she was going to drown. In water shallow enough that a tall man could get his head above water to breathe.
She fought to bob up again, but her limbs were numb with cold and her effort feeble. In a second she wouldn't be able to help it, she would open her mouth and suck water into her lungs.
She was going to die. And not one person would shed a tear at her demise. It was a sad thought to have as her last. But there wasn't time to compose a thoughtful or eloquent last thought. The blackness closed over her and her water-heavy boots and clothing pulled her to the bottom.
Zoe couldn't believe her eyes. When she looked back at the snow-covered lake, Juliette had simply vanished. Then it struck her. Juliette was on the ice? The ice wasn't thic
k enough to walk on, and wouldn't be for at least another week.
"Oh, my God!" Wildly, she looked around for assistance. "She was on the ice!" Screaming to catch the attention of the men nearby, she ran to the shore and immediately spotted Juliette's footprints among those of a dozen small animals. "Help! Help me!"
"Get blankets and towels," Ben shouted, almost knocking her down as he ran past her and out onto the ice.
He'd taken only a few steps before he fell through. Swearing, he broke the ice ahead of him with his fists, leaving a jagged black path.
Horror paralyzed Zoe. Eyes wide, hands pressed to her mouth, she watched him struggling through the ice and water. The water reached his thighs, his waist, then his chest. Her heart pounded, each beat shouting hurry, hurry, hurry.
It wasn't until Mrs. Eddington tugged her arm and anxiously asked what had happened that Zoe came to her senses. "Bring blankets and towels," she ordered. "Go!" She saw Clara in the distance, preparing to launder a few things since it was a fire day, and she screamed Clara's name.
Now others came running, and another man plunged into the water, then another, struggling after Benjamin. Then Tom was suddenly on the shore, holding out his arms, stopping others from rushing into the icy lake.
"Too many people will confuse things. Give them room to work." He looked at Zoe. "Who?"
"Juliette. She can't swim."
Tom's expression turned grim. "Anderson! Bring enough wood for a bonfire. We'll worry about paying later. Move, man!"
One of the men who had gathered to watch scowied and spit on the sand and rocks. "What was the damned fool doing out on the ice? Everyone knows it isn't thick enough to walk on."
Clara paused in her rush toward the shoreline and pushed her face up close to his. "She's from California. She doesn't know about ice. So just shut your face." When she reached Zoe, she anxiously asked, "How long has she been under?"
"I don't know." Zoe twisted her hands together, wanting to plunge into the frigid water herself. But Tom was right. Too many people in the water would hamper the rescue effort.
Finally she noticed that Clara had snatched up blankets. And she realized Clara had guessed what had happened the minute Zoe screamed her name. Thank heaven their husband had married bright women.
Time slowed to a crawl. Out on the ice, heads broke the surface of the black water, gulped air, and vanished again. Zoe couldn't tell which of the heads belonged to Ben and which belonged to the other two men.
"I didn't treat Juliette very well," she said suddenly, staring at the lake. "I resented it that she was a real lady and that she'd had an easy life. I hated her for being Jean Jacques's first. And I hated her for paying Tom to pack us in."
"Her goody-goody ways made me want to smack her, and that prissy little holier-than-thou voice she spoke in sometimes." Clara also stared at the lake. "She doesn't know how to do anything useful."
"If she dies, I'll feel guilty all the rest of my life for the times I wished her dead or wished she would just disappear. Maybe God is punishing me by granting my wish. I can't stand it."
"I could have taught her more about cooking and laundry, but I didn't, even though she was willing to learn. It was more satisfying to criticize and sneer at her efforts."
"Oh, Lord! Ben's found her!"
He half swam, half pushed along the bottom, dragging Juliette by the collar behind him. When he could stand, he lifted her in his arms and stumbled toward the shore.
No one spoke. When Ben came out of the water, he turned Juliette in his arms, then went down on one knee and dropped her across the knee that was raised. A great gout of water shot from her mouth. But she wasn't breathing.
Zoe clung to Clara. "She's dead!"
When Zoe could bear to look again, Ben and Tom had placed Juliette on the ground, her head turned to one side, and Tom was pushing on her back. With each push, water gushed from her mouth. The other men who had participated in the rescue staggered out of the water and hurried to the fire Tom had ordered built on the shore. Mrs. Eddington was there, passing towels and blankets as the men stripped off their clothing. Ice had formed in their hair and mustaches.
Tom looked up and waved Zoe and Clara forward. "She's alive, but just barely. Get those wet clothes off her. Ben? You, too. Get out of those clothes before they freeze on you."
Clara pulled Juliette to a sitting position. Her face was as white as a corpse, her head lolled on her shoulders. With each weak cough, water and bile dribbled from the corner of her lips. She looked dazed and disoriented, but she was breathing.
A sob of relief caught in Zoe's throat, then she fumbled at Juliette's coat while Clara jerked off her boots and reached under her skirts to yank her stockings down and off.
Standing to one side, Tom helped Ben out of clothing that had begun to freeze and stiffen. Ben was shaking hard enough that bits of ice showered from his beard and hair. When he was near naked, Mrs. Eddington ran forward and pushed a towel and blanket into his hands, then hastily turned her back.
"Mein Gott," Clara muttered, after she'd torn open Juliette's bodice because the buttons were frozen tight to the fabric. It would take too long to free and open them. "She's wearing a corset! I thought we all decided not to."
Wearing a corset into the Yukon was so like Juliette that Zoe would have laughed if she'd learned about it on another occasion. But Juliette was half-dead. Zoe didn't need a doctor to tell her Juliette's condition was very grave.
They were down to Juliette's chemise and knickers before Zoe sucked a breath between her teeth and stopped Clara before Clara ripped off the chemise. "Being naked in front of several hundred men would be her worst nightmare!"
Clara held her gaze a moment, then shouted to Tom and Mrs. Eddington to raise a blanket in front of Juliette for privacy. "Good idea," she muttered, tearing off the rest of Juliette's clothing.
Her body was mottled with cold and shook uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered in a staccato cadence. Zoe combed ice out of Juliette's streaming hair while Clara toweled her off.
"Can you stand?"
Juliette stared as if she had no recognition of knowing them. She didn't seem to understand what Clara had asked.
Stepping behind her, Clara grasped her under the arms and lifted. And suddenly Ben was there. A towel wrapped his waist, a thick blanket covered his head and body.
He opened the blanket and pulled Juliette against his naked chest, then closed his blanket around them both.
The only thing Zoe said was, "Are you warm enough yourself to warm her?"
Clara dropped a second blanket over Juliette's wet head. "Rub her arms and back."
Now Zoe became aware of the voices of the spectators. Later, when she remembered what happened next, she would recall several kind and gentlemanly comments. But right now, the only voices she heard were those making salacious and suggestive comments.
"What are they doing under them blankets?" Followed by laughter.
"I sure wouldn't mind being under there with a wet woman."
"I'd make her a lot welter."
That was it for Zoe. Trembling with fury, she rushed toward the man who had made the last comment. His name was Jake Horvath, if she remembered correctly. "You're talking about a respectable woman, you swine!"
Her brothers had taught her not to make a fist around her thumb. If you didn't want to get your thumb broken, you tucked it tightly on the outside against the first and second knuckles.
She hauled back and drove her fist into the man's nose hard enough to feel something crack. Blood spurted from his nostrils, and he stared at her in shock.
"Good for you, little lady. He had it coming!"
"Oh yeah? He didn't say nothin' the rest of us weren't thinking."
A fistfight broke out on Zoe's right, then another to her left. In less than a minute, all hell broke loose. Three hundred people were shouting and fighting along the icy shore of Crater Lake.
* * *
Chapter 13
The hostile lan
d and primitive living conditions strained tempers and frayed the nerves of weary men. Over the years Bear had seen brothers snap like twigs and try to kill each other. He'd watched two long-term partners saw a canoe in half so each had an equal share when they dissolved their partnership. He'd watched people go crazy and do crazy things along the trail. But he'd never seen anything like the scene that greeted his eyes when he returned from rabbit hunting.
Close to the shoreline two people appeared to be flapping their elbows under a mound of blankets, but no one paid any attention. And no one bothered to enjoy an expensive bonfire. But there was a hell of a lot of punching, kicking, gouging, stomping, swinging, and fighting going on. There must have been over three hundred men down there, fighting like an army in hand-to-hand combat. It was the biggest brawl Bear had ever seen. And he could hardly wait to throw himself right into the middle of it.
After tossing his rabbits and rifle and gloves to one of the spectators staying out of the fight, he waded into the melee looking for Jake Horvath and knowing that Jake would be looking for him. This was as good a time as any to settle their differences. But when he found Horvath, Horvath was sitting on the sidelines sopping up blood from a broken nose. Bear had to settle for a few of the men who had pissed him off by referring to him as a daisy-boy for letting a woman beat him at arm wrestling.
He'd happily flattened two men when he saw Zoe Wilder indiscriminately swinging a long piece of charred firewood, laying low anyone she managed to hit. Then he spotted Clara right in the thick of it, too. She had her skirts hiked up indecently high to give her room to kick. Any man who approached her got kicked between the legs. Five men lay at her feet, clutching their privates, groaning and throwing up.
Duty overcame Bear's pleasure in a good brawl. Someone had to get those women out of this before they got hurt. He tried shouting Clara's name, but the din was so loud his voice got lost in the noise. Throwing people out of his way, he fought toward her. By the time he reached her, she was facing away from him and another man lay writhing at her feet.
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