Where Heaven Begins (2 page)

F
eeling guilty over her anger, too guilty even to pray about it, Elizabeth stuffed clothing into two worn carpet bags that had belonged to her mother. Tears stung her eyes at the longing in her heart to be able to turn to the woman now. The day three years ago that the police informed the family that Liz’s father had been murdered was the day Edna Breckenridge’s health began slipping downhill. She never really recovered from the loss of her husband, but she insisted that no one in the family lose faith in God because of it.

Still, this last hurt did indeed bring a challenge to Elizabeth’s own faith. What more terrible things lay in wait for her? What had she done to deserve this? First, her father,
a faithful servant of the Lord, cruelly murdered while bravely ministering to miserable drunks and thieves and prostitutes who plied their dastardly trades on the Barbary Coast. Then her brother, another faithful servant of the Lord, as well as her best friend, felt a calling to follow the hordes of men headed for the Yukon to find gold. God meant for Peter to go there, too, and to build a church and bring His word to men who would too easily forget God even existed in their quest to get rich, or so her brother believed.

After Peter left, one of the more respected deacons, Thomas Selby, had offered to take over as preacher for the church. Deep inside, Liz had always suspected Selby of wanting the job even when her father was alive. Even her mother had doubted that Selby had anything like the abiding faith and love for mankind in his heart that Liz’s father had possessed.

“They’ll never replace Reverend William Breckenridge,” Elizabeth seethed. She closed one carpet bag and threw her only other pair of shoes into the second bag. Her whole family had given up so much so that the church could grow, to the point that they had few possessions. She and her mother had been allowed to continue living upstairs in the parsonage after Thomas Selby became the new minister, but her mother’s health failed rapidly and the woman eventually died from what the doctor claimed was cancer. It was a long, painful, cruel death, another blow to Elizabeth’s faith.

Now this. So unfair! Thinking she was some kind of helpless, needy waif, the pious Reverend Selby had “consoled” Elizabeth with a little too much hugging and
touching, as far as she was concerned. It was not until the night one week ago when the man had come into her bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed, waking her when he leaned close and tried talking her into letting him “help” her by coming to bed and “filling her with his strength” that Liz had realized the man’s true intentions.

She’d screamed for him to get out, pushed at him, her reaction waking the man’s wife. The false accusations that came out of the reverend’s mouth then had shocked her. Of course, his wife believed him when he’d told her that Elizabeth had asked him to come to her room to pray with her and then had tried to tempt him into her bed.

She shuddered at the mere thought of the much older, supposedly righteous man being such a hypocrite. He had two grown sons older than she was, and he’d even preached sermons about the sin of adultery! After the incident, Mrs. Selby and other women in the congregation, women who’d been friends of her mother’s and who’d often offered their help in her grief, became cold towards her.

Oh, how it hurt to lose not only her beloved father and mother, but to be lied about and thus to lose others who had been her only source of comfort. Before the disgusting meeting with the deacons today Elizabeth had already decided to leave San Francisco and go to live with Peter. She’d received letters from him, knew he had indeed founded a church in Dawson. He most surely would not want her to make the trip, but he had no choice in the matter. Once she made up her mind to do something, she did it! Her mother used to tease her about such stubbornness.

She drew in her breath and closed her eyes.
“God,
forgive me,”
she prayed.
“I have never been so full of anger and…hatred. Yes, that’s what it is, Lord. It’s hatred. I’m so sorry that I feel this way.”
She went to her knees.
“Please guide me in my journey, Lord. Help me make it safely to Alaska. Help me find my brother. Show me what it is You want of me. Take away this anger so that I can better serve You with a heart that is not full of malice.”

She moved to sit down on the bed, reaching to take her Bible from the nightstand. She pressed it to her heart and let the tears come. Oh, how she missed the days when her family was all together, working hard to build their own church. Since she was eight years old, when her family had arrived in San Francisco after an arduous journey by wagon from Illinois, a life of serving the Lord was all she’d known. She’d been so involved with helping first her father and then her brother that she’d never even taken time for her own life, for allowing young men to court her or attending any social functions except those involving the church. She’d taught Sunday school, helped her mother minister to sick members and then had spent months nursing her own mother until she died.

“Why, God? Haven’t I served You well? Why have You taken so much from me?”

She opened her Bible to the New Testament, always believing that wherever she opened the Gospels she would find answers to her problems. She believed it was God’s way of talking to her, leading her.

“Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,” she read, “after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

There, as always, was her answer. She could not allow the hypocrites who’d kicked her out of this parsonage to spoil her faith.

She closed her eyes.
“Lord, I believe You have a reason for the turns life hands us. Surely You mean for me to go to Dawson. I’m afraid, Lord, but I know You will be with me. And I believe there is a purpose for what has happened that You have not yet shown me. Whatever You have planned, Lord, I will accept whatever You entrust to me.”

She rose and packed the Bible into the second carpet bag, along with what was left of her clothing, such as it was. Her family had never owned many material things, and she dressed simply. She breathed deeply as she buckled the second bag, feeling more confident now. God had a purpose for her. She did not doubt it.

She walked to the dresser where she used to sit while her mother brushed her hair for her, always praising its thickness and luster—
a lovely red glint to your dark tresses when the sun hits your hair just right
, her mother would say. Liz sometimes felt guilty for admiring her own hair during those times, but she was proud of it, and it felt good to remember how she and her mother used to talk about so many things, and to remember how kind and loving Edna Breckenridge had been.

A lump rose in her throat at the memory. She tied on her bonnet, remembering her mother’s warning to always wear a hat with a brim to
protect the beautiful, flawless skin God gave you. When the Lord blesses you with good health, you should respect your body and take care of it.
That included, of course, giving her body to a man someday
only out of love and through God’s divine blessing. So far she’d not met one young man who came close to giving her even the slightest feelings of desire in that respect. And the night Reverend Selby had come into her room with his hideous suggestions only made the thought of being with any man repulsive. It would be a long time before she forgot that awful night!

She forced back another urge to cry as she smoothed her plain green dress with a tiny white ruffle at the high neck. It matched her small green pill bonnet. She wore black ankle-high button shoes and looked properly prim and respectable, certainly not the harlot the Reverend Selby had tried to convince others she was.

It was midafternoon. Neither the Reverend nor Mrs. Selby were home. Good. She’d not bother telling them or anyone else goodbye. She’d go to the church graveyard and visit her father’s and mother’s graves one more time. Oh, how it would make her heart ache to leave them and Christ Church behind, but she had no choice now. They would want her to be with Peter. Steamships left every day for Alaska; and she’d pay passage on one of them and leave.

She took a last look at the room she’d occupied since she was a little girl and shared with her mother for those last months of suffering. Then she straightened, hooking the strings of her handbag on her arm, a handbag that carried all the money she possessed in the world. She picked up her carpet bags and turned, walking out the door. This was it. There was no turning back.

A
ugust or not, it was foggy and chilly today. Elizabeth was not unaware of the stares of the hundreds of men who milled about. She could not forget the letter she’d received just this past spring from Peter, in which he’d casually stated that any women who came unescorted to Alaska were generally considered to be there for prostitution, although a very few managed to open legitimate businesses such as eateries, or to find work as seamstresses.

Elizabeth had practically memorized Peter’s letters, of which she had only two. It was not easy getting mail out of Dawson and all the way down to San Francisco. She’d received one letter over the winter after his arrival last fall, and the more recent one this spring. She’d written Peter right away about their mother’s death, and it was possible
he’d not even received that letter yet, let alone the letter she’d written two nights ago.

Now she stood on the wharf waiting for passengers to disembark the
Alaskan Damsel,
a steamer that had made numerous trips to Seattle and on to Skagway via the Inside Passage throughout the past two summers.

As she’d suspected would be the case, not many people left the boat, yet hundreds waited, ready to board. For most who made this journey, it was a one-way trip, and like most of them, she’d purchased a one-way ticket herself. Once she found Peter, she had no intention of ever returning to San Francisco.

She shivered from the damp fog, then jumped when the high smokestacks of the
Damsel
billowed black smoke, accompanied by three shrill whistles, beckoning all who intended to board her. She wondered if that included the three painted, gaudily dressed women who stood not far away batting their eyes at some of the men. It made her ill to think what such women did to make their money. Not far from them stood a group of Chinese, conversing in their strange sing-song tongue. The men’s hair was worn long and braided into tails at the backs of their necks. Other Chinese as well as black men worked at the docks loading and unloading supplies.

Different. All so different. Did God actually expect his followers to love people like that? She liked to think that she could, but if she actually had to associate with them…
Oh, Lord, I fall so short of Your will. I am surrounded by heathens and harlots and men whose hearts are filled with a lust for gold and painted women. How can I truly love
such people? I know that I am no better than they, and yet it is so hard to think of them as equals. Teach me how to love all people.

Perhaps if her father had not been murdered by people very much like these…. The memory still brought a stabbing pain to her heart. Her father used to come home and ask the family to pray for thieves and murderers, alcoholics and drug users, harlots and men who visited them. He’d truly been a man of God, for she believed he honestly loved these people in the way God intended. He’d died serving the Lord. The same people to whom he’d ministered had turned around and murdered him for a mere three dollars. They had even stolen his clothing, leaving him naked and disgraced.

To realize God meant her to love that kind of people brought a great struggle to her soul. The congregation mourned, but they also had repeatedly warned her father not to go to such dangerous places as the Barbary Coast, a section of this dock area not so far away from here. No one else in her father’s church, most certainly not Reverend Selby and the deacons, had anywhere near the courage of her father when it came to bringing God’s Word to the lost souls of the world. The remaining members of Christ Church had decided it was best simply to serve the current congregation and the surrounding, more civilized neighborhood. If anyone on the Barbary Coast wanted to find God, they were welcome to come to the church and be saved.

Only her brother understood what their father’s calling was all about. He was following William Breckenridge’s footsteps, heading into dangerous, wild country just to
minister to those who would have no other source of hearing God’s Word.

She took a deep breath, praying she could drum up the same courage it would take to make this journey. Baggage and supplies were being unloaded from the boat, as well as several large, well-guarded crates that took several men to load onto wagons.

Gold ore? She’d heard that thousands, maybe even millions of dollars worth of the treasured ore arrived almost daily in Seattle and San Francisco, to be shipped to stamp mills. Her brother’s last letter revealed that stamp mills were already being built in the Yukon so that the ore could be processed there. Rumors of the value of the gold coming out of the mines in the Yukon abounded. It was difficult to know what to believe.

The crowd around her grew more excited as they watched the armed bank guards that surrounded the ore wagons. Men began shouting about gold and getting rich, whooping and laughing.

“I ain’t never gonna have to work again!” one man yelled.

“I’ll build my Sarah the biggest house in San Francisco!” yelled another.

Elizabeth began to see what the term
gold fever
meant. Why was being rich so important? She thought about how Christ had never owned a thing to His name but the clothes He wore and the sandals on His feet. If her brother were to, by chance, find gold, he would use it to build his church and help the poor.

The wharf gradually became even more crowded. The wagons surrounded by men with rifles rumbled past, and
Elizabeth picked up both her carpet bags and made her way to a less-congested area, getting bumped and shoved as she struggled through the crowd, keeping the
Alaskan Damsel
in sight so she could get on board as soon as the boat took on its passengers. She’d paid the cheapest rate possible, deciding she would have to bear the discomfort of sleeping below deck using one of her bags as a pillow. She would need the greater share of her money once she arrived in Skagway for the clothing and supplies it would take to make the journey to the Klondike, or so she’d been told by the man who’d sold her the steamer ticket. He’d advised her not to make the trip at all, most certainly not alone, but she’d made up her mind and there was no going back. She might end up stranded in Skagway without enough money to go any farther, but at least there she’d be closer to Peter.

“God will guide me,” she’d told the man. Deep inside she struggled against fear and doubt, secretly praying almost constantly for the Lord to help her do this.

She removed one glove and ran her fingers over the buttons of the bodice of her dress, making sure none had come undone. Today she wore a simple gray frock with a black velvet shawl and black velvet hat, wanting to appear as plain as possible to make sure strange men realized she was a proper lady. Her hair was wound into a bun at the base of her neck, and she checked to be sure the pins were still holding it tight. It was so thick she always had difficulty holding it in place, whether with pins or combs.

Her handbag dangling from her arm, she reached behind her neck to tighten the hairpins when suddenly her arm was jerked painfully backward and her handbag ripped away.
She screamed with the pain, then took no time to stop and think. Her money! It was all in that handbag! Following her first basic instinct, she ran after the culprit who’d stolen all the money she had in the world, screaming for him to stop, screaming to others please to stop him for her.

Dear Lord, please stop him! Please don’t let this happen! Help me!

She began screaming the words aloud. “Help! Help! Please stop him!”

It was then that someone rushed past her and tackled the thief, throwing him to the wooden planks of the pier, then jerking him up and landing several vicious blows, bloodying the man’s nose and mouth. Her apparent aide was tall and obviously strong and knew what he was about, for his blows were well aimed and the thief had no chance against him. Then, to Elizabeth’s wide-eyed shock, the stranger picked up the thief and threw him over the edge of the dock into the water.

He whirled then, as two more ragged-looking men approached him with knives. The stranger whipped out the six-gun he wore at his hip so quickly that Elizabeth barely saw the movement.

“Back off!” he ordered.

The two men looked at each other and backed away. Still holding the gun on them, the stranger walked over to pick up Elizabeth’s handbag and a wide-brimmed hat that had been knocked from his own head in the fight. His two would-be attackers melted into the crowd that had gathered to watch, and finally the stranger holstered his sidearm. He put his hat on and stepped up to Elizabeth, still breathing
hard, a slight bruise forming on his square jaw. He held out the handbag. “I believe this belongs to you, ma’am.”

Speechless, Elizabeth took the bag, staring into deep-blue eyes that looked back at her from beneath the hat that now covered wild, wavy strands of dark hair. He was the best-looking man Elizabeth had ever seen, and she felt a sudden, inexplicable jolt to her heart.