Gold Mountain. Vicki Delany
of me.
How I felt about him, I was not entirely certain.
Nevertheless, it is always a good idea to leave them wanting more.
Regardless of any feelings toward the handsome corporal that I might or might not entertain, I most definitely was not in Dawson to find a man. This gold rush wasn’t going to last forever: some who were in a position to know privately said there wasn’t really all that much gold. I intended to make my money and get Angus and me out in a year or two. I did not need complications.
Men are always complicated.
So far I was enjoying living in Dawson. Most of the time. Last winter had been highly unpleasant, as the town slowly began to starve and some unfortunate souls succumbed to frost bite and scurvy. But now that the authorities were insisting that anyone coming into the territory from the Outside have enough food to last them a year, the winter ahead should be easier.
Unfortunately, the police could do nothing about the mud that coated everything, the perfectly dreadful food, and the shortage of accommodations that had Angus and me crowded into three rooms in Mr. and Mrs. Mann’s boarding house. I didn’t even have a lady’s maid, such a creature being rare in the Yukon.
“Yoo hoo.” I looked up to see a woman on the other side of the street, waving at me.
I gave her a genuine smile and waved back. It had rained last night and the street was thick with muck. She ploughed across, dragging her skirts behind her.
“Martha,” I said, “lovely to see you. How nice you look.”
And she did. She was large and plain and formidable of feature, but her cheeks were pink with pleasure and her eyes glowed with new love.
It might almost be enough to make a romantic out of me.
Martha Witherspoon and Reginald O’Brien, whom everyone called Mouse, had fallen head over heels in love almost from the moment of meeting. Martha had come to the Yukon intending to write a factual account of the gold rush. She still clutched her ever-present notebook, but rather than interviewing miners and dance-hall girls, she now intended to produce a volume of tips and hints to assist family women heading north. Considering that her writing talent was practically non-existent, a shopping list of necessary items was more suited to her skills than breathless prose.
I slipped my arm through hers and we continued walking. She chattered happily on about all the things she planned to buy for her new home when she and Mouse set up housekeeping.
We parted outside the Savoy. At this time of morning, the place was somewhat less hair-raisingly frantic than in the evening. Our doors opened at 10 a.m., and a crush of drinkers, gamblers, and general layabouts could then be guaranteed to pass through the hallowed portals.
It was my custom to go home at 6 a.m., when we closed, get a few hours sleep, and come in to do the accounts in the quiet of the late morning, take our loot ... uh money ... to the bank and then head home for a bit more sleep.
Helen Saunderson, maid of all work, was on her knees in the corner by the water barrel, scrubbing at the floor. She looked up as I entered and I made a gesture of lifting a cup to my mouth. Murray was behind the bar, managing not to look too dreadfully bored at some old sourdough’s ravings of a valley, sacred to the Indians, warmed by hot springs, full of riches beyond imagining. Never to be found by the white man.
Better, I thought, than having to listen to the thousandth telling of the tale of the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek. I climbed the rickety stairs to the second floor and unlocked the door to my office, unpinned my hat and placed it on a table, settled myself behind my desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out my accounts ledger. I checked the bottom-most number.
Highly satisfactory.
Footsteps coming up the stairs, moving down the hall. My friend Graham Donohue popped his head in.
“What’s this I hear about Soapy Smith’s gang being in town?” He failed to offer me greetings.
“Not exactly the ‘gang,’” I said. “But one gang member. It’s true.”
Graham dropped into the visitor’s chair in front of my desk. “You know this person, Fiona?”
“Regretfully, yes. Odious man.”
“Do you think more gang members are following? The Mounties won’t put up with that.”
“To be honest, Graham, I don’t know. A year ago, I would have been positive Soapy wouldn’t be such a fool as to come directly up against the forces of her Majesty, but who knows what the intervening time has done to him. Rumour has it he’s losing control in Skagway. Perhaps he’s desperate enough to think he has no choice but to move into the Yukon.”
Graham peered at me. “Are you telling me, Fiona, you know Soapy Smith? Personally?”
“Regretfully, yes.”
Graham pulled out his notebook and pencil.
“Put that away,” I said. “I am not granting you an interview.”
“An informal interview. Authoritative yet unnamed sources and all that.”
Graham Donohue was a newspaperman. A reporter with a big American paper, here in the Klondike to report on the hottest story in North America, if not the world. He was no taller than I, lean and wiry, and he sported a ferocious moustache that clashed with his schoolboy complexion, sparkling brown eyes, thick black eyelashes and perfect bone structure. Any one of my dance-hall girls would be more than happy to give him the time of day, but Donohue never seemed interested in them. I patted my hair. Graham, well I knew, had eyes elsewhere. He was always attempting to lure me onto the badly sprung couch in my office.
“Angus and I were in Skagway in August of last year,” I said. “Sensing that the environment for an independent person of business was not, shall we say, welcoming, I decided it would be best to decamp for Dawson.”
Graham’s pencil stub hung over the paper. “And?”
I smiled at him. “And, it is time for me to get my accounts done. I am running behind this morning, having made a stop at the police detachment office to report the arrival of one of Soapy’s henchmen.”
Another round of footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall. Helen came in, bearing a tray with a single cup plopped in the centre. Most unrefined, to be serving tea already prepared, but I’d given up trying to insist that Helen bring the milk and sugar in separate bowls. “Oh,” she said, “didn’t know you was here Mr. Donohue. Shall I fetch another tea?”
“Yes, please,” Graham said.
“No,” I said. “Mr. Donohue is leaving momentarily.”
She put the tray down and hurried away.
“Come on, Fiona. What was he like? Smith wasn’t in Skagway when I went through.”
“Graham, go away.” I took a sip of tea. Barely satisfactory. Helen had added too much sugar. I prefer lemon, but needless to say, citrus is non-existent in the Yukon.
Grumbling, Graham stood up and returned his notebook to his pocket.
“You may take me to tea this afternoon,” I said. “Four o’clock at the Richmond. Provided you promise my name will not appear in any way in your epistle.”
He touched his hat and left.
I picked up my own pen and bent my head over the ledger. I found it difficult to concentrate. Like every other building in town, the Savoy had been constructed with great haste out of green wood and inadequate materials. The noise from below came right up through the floorboards. I pushed away from my desk and went to stand at the window. I could see across Front Street, over the mudflats to the river and the hills beyond. The shore was packed with watercraft of every conceivable type, from steamboats to barges to a mismatched collection of logs slashed together to form a raft. Boats were tied to boats tied to other boats far out into the river. Tents and shacks lined