“It’s time to pack up. We’ll leave in two days,” he said. He turned to her and she nodded silently.
“Alice.” He stepped up to her. “I don’t know what you want.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “Even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. What I want can’t be.”
“We’ve got all this gold now. You can buy whatever you like, clothes, a home, freedom. What else could you possibly want?”
“You know, Joseph, I thought once that money could buy anything, even me. It’s not true. Maybe it buys a lot of things, but how many of them are important, really important?”
“Lots of things are important. I’m so happy to finally be going back. Now I can prove my worth. I worked hard for this.”
“I know.” She stepped up and took his calloused hands. “You did.”
He nodded. “You did too. I wish you were happier about it. Maybe when we get down to Washington you can get a pretty dress and have your hair done. That might make you feel better.”
“Maybe. We’ll see,” she said.
“I need to shave this,” he announced that evening. “I won’t need it when we get down the mountain, I won’t even want it. As soon as we hit the bank in Seattle I’ll have to deal with the bankers and I don’t want to look like this. You should pack one dress, something pretty for business. Not that kind of business, you know, bank business.”
“Joseph, stop!” She turned to face him, her face red with anger.
He staggered back in shock. He had never once seen her so angry or raise her voice in such a way.
“Let’s try this. We can call it practice.” Alice spoke slowly. “I am not a prostitute now. It’s over. I am just a woman who spent over a year digging for gold in Alaska and did not have sex with anyone, even you, for love or money. Not once. That’s all. Please stop talking to me like I am cheap and worthless! It’s done and over! We’ll be down the mountain soon and you’ll be rid of me. You won’t have to worry about me not knowing the difference between dressing for bank business or sex business. You’ll no longer have to concern yourself about who knows if you were with me and what happened between us. Yvonne will never know and you can marry and move on.”
He stood quietly and hung his head. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said.
“Joseph, you never do. Do you know that I left home a year ago in the fall? I have not laid with a man, any man, since then, and I won’t again, certainly not for money. At every turn you have seen me as nothing but a flesh peddler. Maybe it’s wrong to have sex for money, maybe not. But it’s the way it has always been for me. It’s all I have ever known. Did I throw myself at you even once? Tell me, did I? What have I done so indecent to you that you hate me so much?”
“Alice, I don’t hate you,” he insisted. “I like you actually.”
“Except that I’m a whore. Not a woman, not a friend, not a companion… a whore, a tramp, a harlot… trash. If one time before we part ways you could once look at me for just one second like a person with feelings and fears and bad memories! Just one moment. Maybe you’d see who I really am and how I feel. But you can’t.”
She plunked down on the bench angrily.
“I didn’t mean to be that way,” he said. “I really didn’t. When you first came I was, but you surprised me at every turn.”
“Because in spite of the fact that I had been with men I could cook and chop wood?”
“Well, yes.”
“I’ll tell you why I can do all of those things. When my mama sent me to those ranchers I was there for the men. Now imagine this. At night they’d come in after being in the stalls all day, or sometimes out driving horses and cattle. The better ranches, the ones with whores for their men, had bath houses. While they’d wait their turns to bathe they loved to have sex. That’s what I was there for. One ranch had thirty men. I was fourteen. I was had by every last one of them nearly every day. They smelled horrible and they were cranky from the dust and hot sun. And then they were done with me. All day I had nothing to do but wait for that. Some days the thought of it was terrifying. So I did other things. I dug in the garden, I chopped wood and I followed the cook around. I did all of that so that when those men came in I had done something besides waiting to be used for sex. When they lost interest in me and wanted a new girl they would just send me away.
“Joseph, you treat me like I threw myself down on every curb I passed because I’m some oversexed animal and had to have a new man inside of me. You’re wrong.
“With the gold now, I don’t have to service men for money. I thank you for that. But before this is over I have to tell you that there is something gold will not buy. I can’t buy away your opinion of me, Joseph, and that breaks my heart.”
He looked up at her with pain in his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “At first you were in your bare feet and you were showing your ankles and all, and I thought it was because you were a prostitute. And maybe partly it was. But I learned it’s who you are. You’re not proper and covering yourself up all the time. I have to admit I have seen more of you than of all the women I known in my whole life.”
“Joseph, we live together.”
“I know that, but if you were plenty of other women I would never have seen your breasts or your feet.”
“My breasts? What on earth are you talking about?”
“I wake up sometimes while you’re bathing. You’re right. We live together so I guess that makes it impossible for me not to see you as a very beautiful woman. But I have to remember you are a prostitute. Don’t you see? Because, if you can belong to any man who wants you then you can’t belong to me. I can’t let myself want you. I can’t ever let myself want you, not that way. Now I can go home knowing nothing happened between us. What would have happened if we had slept together, if I fell in love with you? No, it couldn’t be.”
“Are you saying that you keep trying to see me that way because of Yvonne?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Oh, Joseph. Then you are an amazing man. You didn’t shut me out because of my past. You shut me out because you love Yvonne. She is a lucky woman. I have to say I’ll always wonder what would have happened if I had I thrown myself at you or if I had used all my talents to get you into bed with me. ”
“It would not have been a good idea. I would have broken my promise to Yvonne. And what about you and me? How would we feel about each other now?” He looked down at his hands.
Alice considered what he was saying to her. If she had seduced him into sex it would not have been what she wanted either. It might have been no more than a physical fling. How much more heartbreaking would it be to watch him walk away then? She’d never known a man who waited like he had for one woman. It only frustrated her more.
“You’ll never know either, Joseph, because personally I think it would have been something you’d want to remember all of your life.” Alice blurted out in her exasperation. She stood up, paced the room and then went on.
“I promise you, I will never tell anyone about you and me, no one at all. Only Chicken-leg Jack will ever know the secret and I expect he’ll be up here all the rest of his days looking for gold. Once he actually digs, of course. Yvonne will never know how well behaved you were, despite seeing my breasts. I swear to you this day I will do everything in my power to be sure no one ever knows. But I make that promise because it’s what you want. Otherwise, if anyone ever asked me if I knew Amish Joe from Alaska I would say I was proud to know him well. And, if I had really been lucky, of all the men I had ever had, he was the only one I really wanted.” She pulled on her parka and closed the door hard behind her as she left the cabin. There were traps to check, she decided, and a root cellar to empty out.
Joseph got to his feet and stood dumbfounded in the middle of the cabin. He kept hearing her words over and over in his head. He’d tried to turn a blind eye to her constantly and he had done it more insensitively than he intended. He pulled his own coat from the peg and followed her
footprints in the snow.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he stepped up behind her. “I just wanted to shut you out, to go home and just take the damn gold. It’s what I’m risking everything to do, the store, my home, Yvonne, everything. If you and I had anything between us… well, we just couldn’t. I guess I thought you understood that all along.”
“I understood,” she turned to him. “I told myself every damn day it was what you wanted. I knew the deal. I’ll keep my promise and when we get back I’ll go my own way. I thank you for sharing the gold, for giving me a chance. I won’t tell anyone about us, but I won’t forget you. You cannot make me do that.”
He watched her stomp through the snow back towards the cabin. If not for Yvonne, he thought, it might be completely different.
Part Two
April 25, 1897
The White Pass
Chapter Nineteen
Snow fell throughout the night while Joseph and Alice took stock of every item in the cabin. Under his direction they laid out everything they owned collectively. Most of their belongings warranted no discussion, they either would need them for the trip or not. In one pile was the gold and a tent, in the other such things as books. Alice pulled out her own bags and began to set her personal items on the table.
She laid out several of her dresses and stepped back to look at them. She couldn’t imagine that they were anything she had ever worn. “It’s like looking into the window of another life,” she said aloud. Joseph had to agree, not only for her, but himself as well.
“I’m not the same person I was when I came up here. These things look so useless to me now.” She held up a fine silk stocking and then lifted her hand mirror. She had rarely looked at her reflection over the past months and she studied her face carefully. When she arrived her complexion was a creamy white. Constant reminders from her mother had kept her in large bonnets and she never ventured out as an adult without her parasol. Now her hair was no longer painstakingly arranged each day nor rolled carefully each night into springy curls. Instead, her hair hung long and straight, liberally streaked by the sun. The bridge of her nose was generously freckled, even far into the winter. Her face was thin, almost gaunt and her lips dry.
“It’s just as well,” she said. “Who would want me now?”
Joseph looked at her, thinking that she was more attractive now. She looked genuine and approachable, like the kind of woman who might tell an interesting story or someone who would make a remarkable friend. He took the mirror from her hands silently.
Joseph had not once looked into a mirror for nearly two years and he groaned out loud at seeing his own reflection. He did not see a jaunty young hardware shop owner peering back. He had lines around his eyes and his beard was wild and overgrown. His brows were tangled and neglected. He thought he bore more resemblance to a lunatic hermit than a rich man planning his wedding to an exceptionally beautiful woman. He handed the mirror back to her and stepped back.
“Are you alright?” Alice watched the color drain from his face.
“I look terrible. How can I possibly go back to Yvonne looking like this?”
“It’ll be fine. When we get down the mountain you can shave off the beard. That’s what you mean, right?”
“My face is lined and I look like an old wild man. She’ll never have me like this.”
“Once you shave I’m sure you’ll feel differently. I think those little lines around your eyes are the most attractive thing about you. There are salons that tend to men as well as women. Remember you told me I would feel better once I got my hair done? That’s all you need.”
He nodded quietly and Alice tried to distract him by returning to their sorting. “Maybe we should just give all of my things to Jack? He can trade them to that woman, all except maybe the mirror and brush and I’d like to keep the lipstick.”
“Leave it all,” he said. “We’ll buy new ones.”
Alice looked at the pretty dresser set and nodded. The lipstick was a gift from her mother, she would keep it. It was small and she had only used it once, the day that she put it on to kiss Joseph in town. She slipped it into the hem of her tunic.
When they finished the sorting the supply pile was still enormous.
“That doesn’t even include the food. We need to go through it again.”
They sorted again, cutting down to only one cooking pot and abandoning the thought of bringing several jars of the dandelion coffee. “We’ll have to do without,” he said.
“Think about it his way.” She smiled at him. “Down there we can have real coffee.”
“Once we’re back in Seattle we can have anything we want!” He laughed and Alice again thought the happy lines around his eyes were delightful.
They sorted the pile three times, paring down the supplies to survival necessities.
“The cabin will go with the claim. I have all the paperwork here,” he said. “From the looks of what I’m seeing in town I can sell it either at the bottom of the trail or if I can’t get the price I want there, when we get into Washington. One good thing about word of a rush getting out is that the claim could be worth a fortune.
“We really are rich aren’t we?” Alice said softly.
“We have to make it down that pass to enjoy it though,” he said. “I went down it once. It’s going to be really hard, Alice. It’s still cold out. We’ll have to sleep in the tent when we stop. We’ll try to keep a fire in all weather and walk as much as we can endure. It’ll be much harder than living here in the cabin. We’ll have the bedroll and we’ll have to share.” He looked at her, his face serious.
Alice considered his remark. In her outburst, days earlier, she had said so many things she now regretted. She wanted their trip to go as easily as possible and she had decided that she wanted very much to part on good terms with him. She swallowed hard and looked into his eyes.
“I understand,” she said. “You and I will have to sleep together to survive.”
“Exactly,” he said, taking a deep breath.
“That’s going to be very hard for me.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“I’ve kept my hands off you all this time. You’d better not smile at me in that bedroll because those little wrinkles around your eyes will surely make it impossible for me to control myself.”
Joseph could not help but chuckle. “There will be things on this trip that will make you wish you could have such romantic notions. Trust me, it will be hard.”
“Now that is exactly what I want to hear,” Alice winked provocatively and began to laugh.
“Even after all this time,” he said, chuckling as well, “your humor is still completely suggestive.”
“I guess I should just be glad that after a year you’re finally getting it.”
With all the preparations completed, they lay in the bed the night before their departure. Alice stared up into the rafters breathing softly beside him, her bedroll packed for their trip.
“You need to get some sleep,” he said, stretched out on his back.
“I can’t,” she said. “Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I can’t sleep either. Why are you still awake?”
“I’m discovering that it’s impossible to be in bed with you. Is that why you’re awake?” she said.
“Not exactly,” he refused to admit his thoughts to her.
“We could make love, you know, just once for old time’s sake. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed,” she cooed.
“Alice, stop it.” He rolled over with his back to her.
She heard him chuckle and tried to get some sleep.
Chapter Twenty
On the final day before their departure they packed, repacked and tested their rucksacks several times. They had finally decided to distribute the gold more evenly between them, as opposed to Joseph carrying the entire amount himself.
“If I should fall, or anything should happen to either of us, this would be smarter,” he reasoned. “It increases the
odds of one of us making it out with something.”
“Joseph, you’re scaring me. I would never leave you behind to get some of the gold out.”
“You would have it to hire someone to come back for me. Never mind,” he said. “Just trust me.”
Alice furrowed her brow and he lifted the pack onto her shoulders. She paced around the yard several times. The weight was more than she was used to, but she knew he carried far more. She didn’t want to say she could handle it if she couldn’t or commit herself to more than she was comfortable carrying.
“It’s heavier than the rocks,” she said. “But not impossible.”
“Here, take it off.” He took the pack from his shoulders and started over again.”
“Oh, Joseph, I’m sorry. I’ll carry it. I’ll just have to get used to it.”
“No,” he said. “I need you to tell me. If it’s too much for you it will slow us down. There are some treacherous paths and you’ll need to maintain your balance. By the time we get to that part the packs will be lighter from the food, but it has to be something you can handle. I need you to be honest with me.”
“Alright,” she said and they went through every item again.
Alice took the few things they had eliminated into the house and put them away neatly. When they had finished the packing completely they sat on the big boulders in the yard. They had slaughtered all of the chickens and would eat them on the first part of their journey. All of the eggs they had been saving were packed carefully or pickled in jars. They had dried or canned every vegetable and sorted the berries they had collected and dried the summer earlier.
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