The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

  “Excuse me,” she murmured to Justin and rose from her chair. Her satin gown swished about her legs as she crossed to the bar. When she halted beside Deacon, his glance flicked briefly to her, then returned to the glass of whiskey in his hand. He tossed it back, then reached for the bottle to refill his glass. “I think you’d better explain the remark you just made, Deacon.”

  “I don’t see what there is to explain. It should be obvious to anyone, even you.” He recorked the bottle and lifted the whiskey glass to his mouth, continuing to face the bar.

  “I prefer to hear you say it.”

  “All right.” He turned his head to look at her, his hard blue eyes unwavering. “Since we opened the Palace, he’s been coming here two or three nights a week, drinking the best of our whiskey and eating all he wants. And all of it’s free—not to mention your company upstairs. He can drink and eat to his heart’s content and it doesn’t cost him one red cent. It’s all on the house. He’d be a fool to go anywhere else.”

  “If it’s the money that’s bothering you, Deacon, you can deduct the price of his meals and drinks from my share of the profits,” she said. “I wouldn’t Want to cheat you out of anything. After all, he is my friend, not yours.”

  “I’m not the one being cheated, Glory. You are. Can’t you see that?”

  “No.”

  “Then open your eyes, because you’re being used!”

  She wasn’t even aware of raising her hand until she felt the jarring contact with his cheek and jaw. For a moment, he was totally motionless. Carefully, almost too carefully, he set the whiskey glass down on the counter and straightened. Unconsciously, Glory held her breath, expecting some sort of violent retaliation. Instead he turned and headed for the stairs, his stride as controlled as his feelings.

  Instantly she regretted slapping him. The last thing she wanted was an open breach with Deacon. She cast a glance in Justin’s direction just as Matty set a plate of food in front of him.

  “Deacon.” She hurried after him. He paused at the foot of the stairs and waited for her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry. I meant everything I said.”

  “You’re wrong about Justin.”

  There was a small shake of his head in disagreement. “Remember when I warned you about the shell game, and the time I told you the wheel of fortune was rigged. You listened to me then.”

  “I know. But this time you’re wrong.”

  “You grubstaked the man. You pay for his food and his drinks. You sleep with him. Tell me one thing, Glory, one thing that he’s given you outside of his company, which you have essentially bought. He has a poke full of gold that he’s taken out of that sand, but he hasn’t spent a penny of it on you.”

  “What could he buy me?” she argued. “I have everything.”

  “And I suppose you wouldn’t like a present from him—even if it was something as simple as a pretty ribbon for your hair? Any little something to show he cared? He’s a taker, Glory. And if you can’t see that, you’re a fool.”

  She made no move to stop him as he started up the stairs. For several seconds she watched him, then turned and walked back to the table.

  “What was that all about?” Justin asked.

  “Nothing.” But she knew Deacon had raised questions that couldn’t be dismissed so easily.

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  Nome

  Late June 1900

  Glory stood at the foot of the four-poster bed and gazed silently at the motionless baby-faced woman lying before her. Gladys almost resembled a sleeping doll. A yellow ribbon, tied in a pretty bow, was around her loose nut-brown hair. Her extraordinarily long lashes lay softly together. A picture of innocence, except that the rosy color was missing from her round cheeks. She looked ghostly pale.

  Two hours ago, Matty had found Gladys lying in a pool of blood, a damning shoe hook in her hand. Glory hadn’t even known she was pregnant. She wasn’t any more. Once a prostitute in Skagway had bled to death in a botched abortion attempt. Glory had barely known her, yet she had been sobered by her death—the loss of two lives.

  Pregnancy could put a woman out of business. Despite all the precautions, it still could happen. It was one of the curses of the trade.

  After taking her pulse, the doctor tucked Gladys’ arm under the cover, then removed the stethoscope from around his neck and returned it to his black bag on the stand beside the bed. As he snapped the bag closed, Glory started to ask, “Will she—” But the doctor silenced her with a raised finger and motioned toward the door. Glory followed him out of the room into the windowless hall, lit by newly installed electric lights. “Will she be all right, Dr. Vargas?”

  “She’s young and seems quite healthy. I think she’ll be fine. Believe me, Miss St. Clair, I have unfortunately seen worse cases,” he said, talking while he walked to the staircase. “She may run a slight fever for a time. That’s to be expected. However, if it should rise, you contact me at once.”

  “I will.” Glory accompanied him down the steps.

  “I’m sure it will be several weeks before she’s up and around again. In the meantime, she’s going to need rest and quiet.”

  “Rest is no problem. But the quiet? I’m afraid that’s an impossibility in Nome.” Glory paused at the bottom of the stairs and glanced pointedly in the direction of Front Street.

  Outside, the cacophony never stopped—people shouting, hammers pounding, saws rasping, dogs barking, trace chains rattling, hooves clopping, feet tromping, whistles blowing, wagons rumbling—all against the backdrop of the sea’s roar. The predicted invasion of Nome by gold seekers and opportunists had occurred. With the arrival of the first ship in the latter part of May, there had been an almost daily influx of people, an estimated fifteen thousand, and more ships were reportedly on the way. No one had ever seen anything like it. It was a sight that staggered the imagination of even the wildest dreamers.

  “Indeed.” The doctor smiled in agreement. “Well, do the best you can.”

  “Naturally.” Glory walked him to the bar and saw that he was paid for his services. He regretfully refused the drink she offered him, insisting he had many patients to see.

  After he’d gone, she no longer tried to conceal her troubled thoughts. At this time of year, the sun shone twenty-four hours a day. Usually there were as many people in the streets at one o’clock in the morning as there were at one in the afternoon. Yet only a few customers were in the Palace that morning.

  The Palace no longer looked like a fancy saloon. All the new furnishings, mirrors, paintings, and art objects had arrived on the first ships to reach Nome after the breakup. It now resembled an exclusive gentlemen’s club where a well-heeled man could drink and gamble at a discreetly positioned faro, blackjack, or poker table. The occasional nude painting and red-globed parlor lamps hinted at the other entertainments provided by Glory’s stylishly dressed “girls.” The price of admission was a mere twenty-five dollars.

  Another dealer relieved Deacon at the faro table and he came over to inquire about Gladys. “She’s going to be fine, but she won’t be able to work for several weeks,” Glory told him, then sighed. “And as busy as we are, too. That sounds callous, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that with Mad Alice leaving to marry that photographer, and now Gladys, it leaves only Frenchie and those three new girls.”

  “Maybe you can persuade Alice to postpone the wedding,” Deacon suggested.

  “I’ve tried that. And her future husband doesn’t want her to continue working after they’re married.”

  “How narrow-minded of him,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Glory agreed, then realized he was mocking her. “All right, so maybe he isn’t asking too much. But I just wish she wasn’t getting married now. It isn’t as if she’ll never receive another proposal. With the shortage of women in Alaska, any woman can find a husband if she wants one.”

  “And you don’t want a husband.”

>   “Not now,” Glory answered a little stiffly, knowing that his comment referred to Justin. “Maybe never.” She was tired of these subtle jibes he made. As Matty walked toward them, Glory looked forward to a change of subject.

  “Is that why Justin hasn’t been around for more than a week?” Deacon inquired within Matty’s hearing.

  “It hasn’t been that long,” Glory retorted, then attempted to ignore him.

  “Oliver picked up the mail,” Matty said, referring to the ex-prizefighter who worked as a bouncer and errand boy at the Palace.

  “Thanks.” She took the half dozen envelopes Matty handed her and began to flip through them. They were mainly bills—one from her dressmaker, another from a wholesale liquor company. The envelope at the bottom of the stack bore Gabe Blackwood’s name in the return corner.

  “You’d better think again, Glory,” Deacon said. “It’s been at least that long since Justin was here.”

  “I see Justin this morning when I go to fetch the doctor,” Matty said.

  “He was in town?” The letter from Gabe Blackwood was momentarily forgotten as Glory glanced up in surprise.

  “He was at the pie lady’s tent when I went by.”

  “I understand he spends a considerable amount of time there,” Deacon remarked.

  “How would you know?” Glory demanded.

  “I’ve made it my business to know,” he replied evenly.

  She chose to ignore his implication. “What was he doing there, Matty?”

  “He was sitting and talking.”

  “Sarah Porter is a widow from somewhere around Portland with two young children to feed. Like a lot of others, she arrived broke, thinking she could magically pluck gold from the sand. Now she’s baking and selling pies for a living. I’m told she’s become quite a pet of the miners since she arrived two weeks ago.” Deacon subtly stressed the length of time this woman had been in Nome.

  “You seem to know a great deal about her. I take it you’ve met her.”

  “I’d heard so many times that no one in Nome could make an apple pie to rival hers that I had to find out for myself. The pie was good.”

  “And Mrs. Porter?” Glory wanted to bite her tongue for asking that.

  “Very pleasing to the eye.” He looked so amused and complacent that she wanted to scream.

  She ripped open the envelope containing Gabe Blackwood’s letter, not wanting Deacon to have the satisfaction of knowing how keenly his innuendos were getting to her. “If this woman is as popular as you claim, I find it strange that I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Why, Glory,” he chided. “She’s a young mother, all alone, with two little children to raise in wicked Nome. Surely you don’t believe a man would tell you about someone like her.”

  “Meaning she’s decent and respectable and I’m not, I suppose.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” She turned to Matty. “Would you please inform Oliver that I’ll be needing the buggy.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To visit Mrs. Porter and her pies. The Palace has always prided itself on providing our customers with the best Nome has to offer. Perhaps we have overlooked something.” She glared at Deacon, daring him to suggest that she had any motive other than the one she had stated, but he remained silent. He’d achieved his objective and planted the seed of suspicion in her mind that Justin was seeing this young—respectable—widow. “Be sure and check on Gladys for me while I’m gone,” she told Matty, then walked swiftly to the stairs and lifted her skirts an inch to begin her ascent, accidentally crumpling the mail in her hand.

  Upstairs, she entered her room and tossed the letters on the bed. She didn’t bother to step behind the hand-painted dressing screen in the corner as she began unfastening the crimson gown she was wearing. Within minutes, she had donned a respectably high-necked day dress of blue and gold satin damask and slipped a bolero jacket over the puffy leg-of-mutton sleeves of her dress.

  Oliver was standing guard over the buggy when Glory emerged from the Palace a few moments later. Always exceedingly proper and correct in his manners, he bowed to her and offered one of his massive hands to help her into the buggy. The back of his hand was marked with a network of old scars from his years of bare-knuckle fighting.

  “Would you like me to ride with you, Miss St. Clair?”

  “No, thank you, Oliver.” She picked up the reins and slapped the chestnut horse on the rump with them.

  People, horses, dogs, conveyances of every description jammed the street. Everything moved at a snail’s pace, but riding in the buggy was infinitely preferable to being jostled, shoved, and occasionally trampled by the mob in the street. A dust cloud two feet thick hugged the sandy street, constantly being churned to powder the air.

  New buildings were springing up like mushrooms, most of them knockdowns shipped from Seattle or San Francisco and assembled on the spot. Theaters, banks, newspaper offices, restaurants, and more than a hundred saloons were going up, all on one long main thoroughfare. Nome, which some said had been built with one foot on the beach’s sand and the other on the tundra, was two blocks wide and five miles long.

  Sometimes Glory wondered if she would ever get used to the stench of so many people massed together in such a small area. The invasion had only compounded the sanitation problem that had previously existed. Public water closets had been built on pilings along the waterfront so the tide could flush them out roughly every twenty-four hours, but they weren’t adequate to serve the exploding population.

  As she neared the area where Dr. Vargas had his office, Glory began to look for the pie shop. Finally she spied a hand-lettered sign hanging on a tent; home-made pies was all it said. Judging by the number of men crowding around the tent, she was certain she was at the right place. She parked the buggy along the side of the street and stepped down.

  All the sides of the tent except the rear wall were rolled up. Rough wooden planks supported by wooden crates lined the three open ends serving as counters. Every available foot of space at the counter was taken and men were standing to wait their turn, their heads blocking Glory’s view of the person behind the counter.

  She picked up the short train of her dress so it wouldn’t drag on the dusty ground and walked closer to the tent, where she could smell the aroma of freshly baked pies. A man turned and glanced her way, then froze. It was Justin. She wouldn’t have minded his surprise if she hadn’t noticed the flicker of guilt and the anxious glance he darted at the person behind the counter. But he was smiling widely as he walked toward her.

  “Glory, what are you doing here?” He didn’t speak too loudly, and he was careful not to get too close, she noticed.

  “Why, I imagine the same reason you are. I’ve heard the pies here are the best in town.”

  “That’s true.” He stuck his hands in his pockets as if he wasn’t sure what else to do with them.

  “What do you recommend?” She walked past him toward the tent. “I’ve heard the apple is very good.”

  “It is. I kinda like the raisin myself.” He followed her, but he was careful not to let it appear to a casual observer that they were together.

  The space at the counter in front of Glory was vacated by an old prospector. She quickly stepped up to fill it. A freckle-faced boy about nine years old paused on the other side of the counter, both hands gripping the wire handle of a large enameled coffeepot.

  “Want some coffee, ma’am?”

  “No, thank you.”

  At the rear of the tent, another boy, probably a year younger, was up to his elbows in dishwater. Then she saw the woman busily slicing a pie into wedges. Her brown hair was swept back in a chignon, revealing her ears, and a mass of curls in front drooped rather attractively onto her forehead. She wore a simple starched white shirtwaist with a dark tie, and a plain dark skirt with a white apron tied around it. She was petite, the image of the “little woman,” Glory thought scathingly. Homemaker and mother
all rolled into one.

  Glory had come prepared to dislike Sarah Porter on sight, and she did. Equally irritating was the patience of the miners and the absence of their usual cursing. While part of it might be attributed to the presence of the two young boys, Glory suspected that it was mostly out of deference to the young widow.

  When the woman noticed Glory standing at the counter, she immediately summoned the boy from the back. “Timothy, will you come serve this pie to Mr. Sorenson?” As the boy willingly left the dishtub, the woman walked over to Glory. “May I help you, ma’am?”

  On closer inspection, Glory was prepared to concede the woman was attractive—in a plain sort of way, although her eyes were too close together. “I’d like to buy some pie. I’ve heard that both your apple and raisin are excellent.”

  “You must have been talking to Mr. Sinclair.” She smiled in Justin’s direction as he stood discreetly to the side of Glory. “Raisin is his favorite.”

  “As a matter of fact, he did recommend it to me,” Glory admitted. “I think I’ll take one of each.”

  “Of course.” She partially turned from the planked counter. “Andrew, bring the lady some coffee. You would like some, wouldn’t you?”

  “No, thank you. Your son already inquired. He is your son?”

  “Yes, I married quite young.”

  “A child bride,” Glory murmured. Young, my foot, she thought to herself. She’s twenty-eight if she’s a day.

  “Yes. I lost my husband under tragic circumstances this past winter. We’re from Oregon originally. I’m sure you can appreciate how difficult it can be for a woman with two young boys to raise and no man to help. I sold everything we had to pay our passage here, hoping …” She paused and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. You didn’t come here to hear my sad story. It’s just so good to see a woman’s face. There are so few of us in this town. Respectable women, I mean.”