Indian Jack had gone home to his wife and daughter across the river, leaving her alone until the next time he came by. Jack came and went as he pleased, running on what Rouge called "Indian Time." He never made plans or said when he would be back; she would just look up, and he'd be gone again. To Jack, time meant nothing. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired. Theirs was a special relationship; they grew up together under his parents' care, and though he now had a family of his own, he still came by when it pleased him to help her with the dogs and the trading business.
Gabrielle sighed, taking a sip of the aromatic coffee. "Can you believe it, Papa?" she called aloud to the empty room. "You saw it, didn't you? I had to shoot. I had to put that beautiful animal out of its misery." She ran her finger around the rim of the hot cup. "Why do they do it, Papa? I know they must have paid good money for that husky; he couldn't have been more than three years old. How could they have been so foolish to let one of their dogs get with mine?" She paused for a moment. "Are you listening to me, Papa?"
She shook her head. Probably not. Chances were, he was somewhere up there playing cards or cornering some tart. A smile crossed her face as an image of Rouge LeBeau flashed through her mind. He had never been much of a father to her, but he'd done the best he could. He had hired Indian Jack's mother and father to care for her when she was still a babe; then, after they had drowned crossing the river, Rouge had sent his daughter to school in Seattle. It wasn't his fault that he didn't realize she would never fit in with the other young girls. It wasn't his fault that she had hated every day of the three years she'd spent in Sister Kathryn's School for Girls, either.
Gabrielle picked at a thread that hung from her bright red union suit. It was time she settled down to sleep. What good was it to sit here and dwell on the past? Nothing she could do could make those years in Seattle go away, and nothing she could do was going to bring her father back from the dead.
Slowly getting to her feet, Gabrielle threw another log into the fire. When winter settled in, she'd have to light the aged woodstove too, but for now, the stone fireplace kept her comfortably warm. Draining her china cup, she slid it onto the mantel her father had cut with an axe and retired to her bed on the side wall.
That night, to Gabrielle's delight, a thick blanket of snow fell, giving her the first chance of the season to take her young dogs on a trial sled run. If she hoped to sell all seven in the spring, she'd have plenty to keep her busy through the long winter months. In the morning she loaded her small sled and hitched two young males and her lead dog in their harnesses. Always leave like you're never coming back, Indian Jack had warned. No telling what could be ahead of or behind you on the trail.
"Mush!" Gabrielle commanded, her clear voice ringing in the trees. When Tristan moved forward, the other dogs followed, and Gabrielle found herself running easily beside the sled.
She breathed deeply as she ran, letting the cold, sharp air revitalize her weary soul. It was going to be a hard winter, this first one without her father, but she would be all right. She had to be. This was where her life was: the snow, the dogs, the breathtaking silence. How could anyone prefer the filthy streets of Seattle to this frigid paradise? No, she was sad that her father was gone, but as he said, "The Tanana River keeps freezing . . . life goes on."
Since she was a small child, she had known Rouge wouldn't always be there for her. Hell, even when he'd been alive, he'd never been dependable. Sometimes he'd go on a binge and stay soused for a week; other times he'd pack a bag and just walk away. She didn't know where he went, sometimes to one of the nearby Indian camps, or to one of the squatter's cabins. He'd play cards, drink, and then he'd wander home when the mood struck him. He hadn't been much of a father; but he was all she'd ever had, and he didn't deserve to die like that.
Gabrielle swallowed hard. She had promised she wouldn't do this to herself. Slowing the dogs to a walk, she forced all thoughts of her father from her mind. She had so much to be thankful for, why dwell on it? Patting one of the young dogs on the head, she shaded her eyes with a mittened hand. The trees glittered, reflecting the bright sun off sugar-dipped branches. The ground was covered in a blanket of crystal white, minifying the earth's imperfections.
Kicking at a drift, Gabrielle laughed aloud, listening with amusement to the sound of her voice echoing in the trees. It was so good to be home! Commanding her lead dog to quicken the pace, she broke into a run again, heading north.
Coming around a bend in the river shortly before noon, Gabrielle stopped short. "Slow, boy," she ordered, falling into a walk. Up ahead lay a motionless body, face down in the snow. Immediately, she slipped a hunting knife from the belt she wore around her waist. It could be a trap; she had heard tell of men pretending to be injured, then ambushing their would-be saviors, taking their belongings and leaving them to die along the river.
Leaving the dogs on the path, she moved cautiously toward the body, keeping an eye on it as she checked out the tracks in the snow. Two men . . . no, three, she surmised. There had been a tussle, sometime early that morning from the looks of the depth of the tracks. Two men had gone off to the west . . . together, and they'd taken the dead man's coat. They had wanted to be sure he'd not live to tell any tales. There must have been a camp nearby because there were no sled tracks, and the men couldn't have been carrying anything on their backs. "Tracks could tell it all in the snow," Indian Jack always said.
For a moment Gabrielle just stood there. It was so early in the season to already be finding dead men in the snow. They always found a few every winter, but they increased with every year as more men set out to find their fortunes. She shook her head. Good sense would have told her to just leave him. He couldn't be buried anyway; the ground was already frozen. But she couldn't leave him; no man deserved to die without even a prayer spoken in his name.
Pulling her red, brimmed hat down on her head, Gabrielle approached the dead man. With one booted foot, she pushed his leg. It moved easily; he hadn't been dead long. . . . Tucking her knife back into her belt, she turned around to tuck the man's socked feet in her arms. The bastards had even taken his boots! Giving a hard tug, she started to drag him slowly in the direction of her sled. Tristan gave a howl, moving nervously in his traces.
"Stay, Tristan. Good dog, good flop-eared mutt." Slowly she dragged the lifeless man down the path, leaving the imprint of his body in the snow. She'd take him home and bury him beneath rocks in a small quarry near her cabin. It wouldn't be the first nameless gold seeker buried in the territory, but it would be the first she buried on her own.
Finally reaching the sled, Gabrielle dropped the man's feet, gasping for air. Even as strong as she was, it was still difficult to drag dead weight through the snow. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she leaned to grab the feet again . . . and then he moved.
Startled, she dropped the foot. Had she imagined it? The metallic taste of fright filled her mouth. The man couldn't be alive, not as long as he'd been out here. He should have died of exposure hours ago. Still . . . she waited for a moment, and when he didn't move, she gave him a nudge with her boot.
The man groaned, and Gabrielle was on the ground in an instant, rolling the body over.
Chapter Two
"Oh, my God," Gabrielle whispered, dropping to her knees to brush the snow from the man's placid face. It was the stranger . . . the red-haired man that had helped her in Seattle . . . the man whose dog she'd shot and killed.
Pulling her mittens off, Gabrielle slapped his face sharply with her bare hands. "Wake up, wake up," she insisted. "You're still alive, wake up." But the stranger only moaned, mumbling a few words of gibberish.
Slipping his head into her lap, she pulled off his black wool cap to reveal a thick head of shining auburn hair. "Are you hurt?" She began to shake him by the shoulders. "Can you hear me?"
When he didn't answer, Gabrielle eased his head back into the snow and crawled to his feet, yanking off a sock. His toes were a deathly white, but w
hen she rubbed the skin briskly, streaks of red appeared, telling her that some of the flesh might still be alive. Running back to the sled, she grabbed her fur-lined parka to throw over the unconscious man.
Standing for a moment in the ankle-deep snow, Gabrielle planted her hands on her hips, trying to decide what she should do first. She had to get him to shelter. She could see that his forearm was broken, but the most important thing to do was to get his feet back to their normal temperature. Even if he survived the hypothermia, he might still loose his toes, and then he'd never walk again.
Shading her eyes from the sun, she tried to guess at the time. It was awfully dark; had she lost track of how long she'd been gone? She didn't think so. It was around noon. She'd only been traveling a few hours. Even though the sun shone less and less each day with the coming of winter, it should have been brighter than this. Turning to the southwest, she swore under her breath. How foolish could she be? She'd been so caught up in daydreaming that she hadn't kept a close watch on the weather. A big storm was brewing, and it was moving fast. They'd never make it back to the cabin in time.
Gabrielle swallowed hard, trying to push back the terror rising within her. "Fear is what kills people out here. Nothing else." She'd heard her father say those words a hundred times. Indian Jack had his own way of putting it, but it meant the same thing. "Keep calm," she said hoarsely to herself. Her voice seemed to echo through the ice-glazed trees. "Panic is another word for corpse."
Slipping her waterskin from beneath her sweater and leather jerkin, Gabrielle forced herself to slowly take a long pull and then knelt beside the still body of the man. She held the waterskin to his lips. Most of the liquid dribbled out of the side of his mouth, but she managed to get a little down him.
Pacing back and forth in the snow, Gabrielle began to think logically. It was simple; she had food, a gun and ammunition. She never left the cabin without it. All she had to do was figure out somewhere to hole up until the storm passed.
"You're right, Rouge." She laughed wryly. "All I have to do is get past the fear."
With a twinkle in her eye, she dropped down to grab the man's feet and started dragging him toward the whining dogs. Successfully rolling the stranger onto the sled, she collapsed into the snow to rest, thankful that he was still unconscious. If he hadn't been, the rough treatment his arm was getting would have been excruciating. Getting back on her feet and brushing the snow from her wool pants, Gabrielle stuffed the man's feet into one of her provision bags and threw her parka over him. She could do without the coat; as long as she kept running, she'd be warm enough.
"Mush!" she commanded, giving the sled a push. Caesar and Anthony were young dogs; they hadn't learned to pull a full load yet. She hated to put so much weight on them; it could ruin them at this point in their training. But she had no choice. She could never move the stranger any distance on her own. "Come on," she cried out. "You can do it."
Letting the dogs go at an easy pace, Gabrielle kept her eye on the dark sky, estimating the storm's distance as they followed the river. Reaching Crooked Neck Bend, she turned west through the straggly forest.
Not more than a mile and a half away on a small tributary of the Tanana River was a squatter's cabin. She hadn't been there for years, so she wasn't even sure it was still there; but she had to take that chance. From the look of the sky, the way the dark angry clouds moved, they were in for a snowstorm of blizzard proportions. Jack had warned they were due for one.
As Gabrielle continued to move, pushing the pace, the storm began to descend on them. One moment there were dark skies and howling wind, and the next moment the world became a flurry of blinding white. Running beside the sled, Gabrielle followed a small tributary branching to the left of the Tanana until it narrowed into a small stream.
"If my guess is right, this has got to be it," she yelled above the wind to the panting dogs. Checking to be sure the stranger was still situated on the bent-wood sled, she turned to the left and moved through the wall of white, calling out soothing words to her overworked dogs. Brushing her arms briskly, she ran beside the sled. She couldn't see more than a few feet in front of her. The cold snow stung her face and eyes, but she kept running, knowing the shack had to be near. Her memory was good; her father had always given her credit for that. Once she had been somewhere, she didn't forget it.
Falling into a walk, she passed what she thought was the old hangman's tree and signaled the dogs to move right. Knowing that if the forest got any denser, she would have to leave the sled behind, she strained her eyes, searching in the nothingness for some sign of the cabin.
"Just a little farther," she coaxed the dogs. "Mush."
Finally, just in the distance, she spotted the dark shadow of a structure. Jubilant, she raced past the dogs, calling to them as she reached the squatter's cabin. Groping with her cold-stiffened hands, she yanked the door open and went back to the sled to unload the still-unconscious stranger.
By the time Gabrielle had dragged the man into the cabin and settled the dogs just outside the door, she was nearly frozen. Lighting a few pages of an old Harper's Bazar magazine she carried in her pack, she started a fire in an old stove in the corner of the room. Fueling the flames with bits of wood and broken chairs she found in the cabin, she soon had a decent fire going.
Lighting one of the candles she carried in her bag, Gabrielle surveyed the cabin. Not more than ten by twelve feet, it was in relatively good condition, though the dust was an inch thick on the rickety table and snow was blowing in around the door. The floor was littered with broken chairs and assorted junk, timber that Gabrielle knew would make good firewood in the dilapidated stove in the corner. Taking a pan from her bag, she retrieved clean snow from outside the door and got down on her knees to observe the stranger.
She would have to warm his feet slowly by immersing them first in cold water, then slowly adding warmer water until they reached room temperature. The odds weren't good that she could save his toes, but she knew she had to try.
It was late in the afternoon by the time Gabrielle had cared for her patient and cleaned up the cabin as best she could. She had brought his feet back to normal body temperature and now could do nothing but wait. The purpling bruise on his temple told her that it was probably a blow to his head that kept him unconscious. After a beating like this, it was hard to tell how things would turn out. He might wake up tomorrow as if nothing had happened, he might wake up with no more control of his body than a newborn babe . . . or he might not ever wake up.
Listening to the howl of the wind as the storm raged around them, Gabrielle huddled near the stove, cradling a cup of hot water with a few bits of tea leaf floating in it. She had stoked the fire and watered the dogs and now had nothing to do but try and stay warm and keep vigil over her stranger.
Time dragged on as the snow began to pile inside the door where it flew through the cracks. Gabrielle sang to herself as she flipped through the pages of her magazine, knowing the pictures by heart and mentally subtracting the pages she'd burned.
At last she grew so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open, and then she laid down to sleep. Making a pillow from an evergreen bough and the feed sack she carried her belongings in, she laid her head beside the stranger's, pressing her body against his. It felt odd to hear his breathing, light and even in her ear, and her body tensed when it touched his. She had never slept this close to a man before, except for Indian Jack and her father, and they didn't count. But even with the fire in the small stove, it was frigid in the cabin, and Gabrielle knew she couldn't afford to be squeamish over laying so near someone else. She had to conserve their body heat; besides, what harm could he possibly do her? He was an unconscious man with a broken arm and frostbitten feet. Relaxing on the floor, Gabrielle pulled her overcoat over them both and drifted into a dreamless sleep.
Slowly Alex climbed from the depths of unconsciousness, the waves of nausea pushing him under as he struggled to surface. A howling sound filled his ears, drowning
out his thoughts. His body felt as if it had been crushed into a million shards of frozen glass. His legs ached, and his body trembled with cold; but somewhere in the corner of his mind he could feel a warmth radiating from something . . . someone . . . someone soft and sweet smelling. Alex wondered if it was death he walked toward. But he wasn't ready to die. There was his daughter, Alexis, waiting for him in Richmond. There was the family home crumbling in ruin, destroyed by Northern soldiers. His family was depending on him. He had promised. . . .
The howling became louder but less overwhelming, and hot, searing pain ripped through his limbs as Alex forced his eyes open. He was alive, and there was someone warm snuggled beside him. Moving his head slowly, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. His body jerked involuntarily. The boy who had shot his dog had his arm flung over his chest!
The moment Alex moved, Gabrielle was awake, her heart pounding. She sat up to meet startled blue eyes.
Alex was confused. The proprietor of the trading post had appeared to be a youth, but this body beside him was no boy's. Even through the sweaters, he'd felt her breasts pressed against his side; he'd smelled the tantalizing scent of a woman's flesh.
"You're not a boy," he accused through cracked, parched lips.
"You're alive," she whispered. "I was afraid I was going to wake up to find you dead." Her large brown eyes met his, eyes so soft and liquid a man could drown in them.
"You haven't answered me." Alex's throat was dry, and his voice cracked with each word. Was he dreaming?
Gabrielle shook her head slowly. "No, I'm not a boy," she murmured. She could feel the heat of his arm against hers; it felt strange, but a good kind of strange. It had been so long since she'd felt another's touch. Since she had returned from Seattle, she had seen only a few travelers and Indian Jack—and he kept to himself. Far back in the recesses of her mind, Gabrielle recalled the feel of the stranger's arm around her shoulders on the Seattle dock. She licked her lips nervously, remembering when she had touched her mouth to his. Her breath came raggedly, the sound of her pounding heart filling her ears.
The Fur Trader's Daughter: Rendezvous (Destiny's Daughters Book 3) Page 2