Gold Digger. Vicki Delany
know what it is,” I snapped. The man’s face fell, causing him to look as if he’d missed a word in the final round of a spelling bee. Now I recognized him: he came in the occasional night and hung around the edges of the bar, dragging out a drink for as long as his few cents would stretch. Usually he spent most of his time watching me.
I threw him my best all-business smile. “Please forgive me, Mr. Hamilton. I shouldn’t have spoken to you in that manner, but I do find all of this so dreadfully distressing.”
Graham Donohue snorted. Ray poured a generous shot of whisky and handed it to Helen. “Here ye go, lass,” he said. “Drink this up. Do you a world o’ good.”
She lowered her nose to the edge of the glass, and her face crinkled at the smell.
“Swallow it down in one gulp,” Ray instructed. “Make you feel better, it will.”
It was probably the first free drink ever handed out in my bar, at least to someone who wasn’t expected to turn a handsome profit in exchange.
“I’m not feeling too well, Ma,” Angus said, his eyes fixed on the bottle in Ray’s hand.
I ignored him. “So this pack of insidious lies has been sent to some seditious rag in San Francisco.” I thrust the crumpled paper into Helen’s hand, the one not holding the now-empty glass. “Burn it and forget about it. If a copy of the paper gets to Dawson, which is highly unlikely, no one will recognize us. He doesn’t name the Savoy, he doesn’t get my name right, and everyone in town knows that I run a respectable business, so why do we care what this Ireland idiot says?”
Helen reached behind her and slammed the glass on the counter. “Mrs. MacGillivray, he’s insulted my good name. An’ the name of my Jim, God rest his soul, an’ my children. My Mary’ll be of marrying age soon enough. No decent man’ll want her after reading these lies.” Her eyes filled with tears. Ray patted her arm.
I thought that a moot point. Mary was twelve, the same age as Angus, and decent men were sparse on the ground in Dawson.
“Take the remainder of the day off, Helen,” I said. “Go home. Try to relax.”
The room erupted.
“But, Ma...” Angus shouted.
“Really, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Hamilton spluttered.
“Fiona, you can’t just brush this off. Poor Helen…” Graham said.
Helen burst into loud sobs.
“Shut up, all o’ ye!” Ray bellowed. “Fee’s right. Letter’s gone, right, Joe?”
Hamilton nodded furiously. “I saw the boat leave myself. Not more than an hour ago.”
“Nothin’ we can do about that then.”
Helen groaned and sagged against the bar. Donohue fetched a stool and eased her into it, and Ray poured another shot. Angus tossed me an imploring look.
My son believes that I can do anything. But flying off in pursuit of a steamship sailing up the Yukon River and catching it is beyond even me. I looked at him and shrugged.
“But,” Ray said, “we can watch out for the San Francisco Standard, now can’t we?” He looked at Graham. Graham opened his mouth, probably to protest that he could hardly confiscate every copy of the paper once it arrived.
Ray threw him a look. Wisely, Graham took the hint. “Of course we can. Look here, Helen, the moment that paper comes to town, I’ll buy up every copy and burn them myself.”
She looked up from her sodden handkerchief. Her eyes were red, her nose swollen with crying, and her cheeks had broken out in patches of a hideous colour. “Would you do that, Mr. Donohue? For me?”
I took her arm and helped her out of her chair. “Mr. Donohue has enormous influence in this town, Helen, as do I. We’ll ensure that Ireland’s lies aren’t spread about Dawson. And if you are besmirched in San Francisco, what does it matter? You must admit that Helen Saunderson could well be the name of a hundred, a thousand, other women, couldn’t it?”
She noisily blew her nose and smiled at me. Helen rarely smiled a full open-mouthed smile, so conscious was she of her missing teeth. And so little did she have to smile about. It subtracted ten years from her work- and worrylined face.
“You’re right, Mrs. Mac. If you can bear the insult to your good name, then I can too.”
Fortunately, no one bothered to remind Helen that my “good” name hadn’t even been mentioned.
“What’s this then?” A voice sounded from the door. “I thought you were closed at this time of day, Mrs. MacGillivray?” Constable Richard Sterling strode into the saloon.
I stifled a groan. Like all the dance hall owners in Dawson, I didn’t know whether to curse the efficiency of the NWMP for keeping us tightly under their law-enforcing thumb, or praise them for keeping the rest of the town, especially our customers, equally in line.
“You know it’s my business what hours I keep in my establishment, Constable. Apart from respecting the Lord’s Day, of course.”
“Of course.”
In my less, shall we say, self-controlled past, I would have found Richard Sterling to be an extremely attractive man. He was tall, well over six feet, with a fit to the scarlet tunic of his uniform that hinted at the bulk of the shoulders underneath. His brown eyes were thickly lashed and specked with yellow, along with intelligence and humour. Prominent cheekbones framed his face, and his mouth was so wide and his lips so full that they were almost, but not quite, feminine. I’d never seen him without his broad-brimmed NWMP hat, but once I’d caught the briefest glimpse of dark curls tumbling over themselves at the back of his neck. The next day he’d had a haircut, and all the lovely curls were gone. He spoke well, which indicated some education in his past. A quality that I am constantly trying to drum into my son.
“This is none of your concern, Constable,” Ray said.
Sterling lifted one eyebrow. “Mrs. Saunderson, are you in need of assistance?”
“Now see here.” Graham Donohue stepped forward. The hair on his head bristled, and I’m sure that if he had hair on his chest (a fact that I am not in the position to know—someday perhaps), it would have been standing up as well. “Mrs. Saunderson has received some bad news. The nature of which is none of your business.”
“Everything that happens in the public places, and some of the private ones, of Dawson is the business of Her Majesty’s North-West Mounted Police,” Sterling said.
His tone was so pompous that I choked back a laugh.
Angus applauded, almost falling off his chair in approval of his hero’s brief speech. “Well said, sir.”
Ray watched me, waiting for a clue. I nodded and looked towards Helen.
My partner lifted her arm. “Allow me to walk ye home, dear.”
“You take the rest of the day off, Helen,” I said.
“With full pay, o’ course,” Ray added. Graham and Sterling looked at me, waiting for a reaction. Hamilton clutched his hat to his chest and stared at me wide-eyed, looking as if he were ready to recommend me for sainthood. Angus watched Sterling.
“Thank you, Mrs. MacGillivray. That’s mighty thoughtful of you.” Helen opened her hand, and the scrap of paper fell to the floor. She permitted Ray to help her off her chair, and took his arm. “Haven’t I always said the Savoy is the best place to work in all of Dawson?”
I choked back an objection. Feeling generous, I’d been about to offer her half-pay for the day off. Instead, I forced out a smile and wiggled my fingers in farewell.
The door swung shut behind them. Sterling picked the letter off the floor. He made a big show of smoothing it out before reading it. “Nasty.”
“All