Gold Dust (13 page)

“I could’ve handled Williams.”

Jonah grinned with infuriating mockery. “Don’t take to being rescued by a city slicker, eh?”

“Rescued?” She laughed. “With this?” She reached into his coat and brought forth the little gun, which fit neatly into her
hand. The barrel wasn’t more than three inches long. “If you were lucky, this might have made a dent in Williams’s vest. Where
did you get this thing, anyway?”

“Trust me, it would’ve made more than a dent. Sometimes, Katy, the size of a weapon doesn’t matter as much as the determination
of the man who’s wielding it. You seem to think that a man who doesn’t punch cows for a living, doesn’t fight at the first
cross word, and isn’t a walking armory can’t take care of himself and what’s his. That’s a stupid mistake to make.”

For a moment Katy was fascinated by the snap of his eyes, but then she looked down at the tiny gun in her hand and had to
laugh. She tossed it back to him. “Don’t shoot yourself. We might not be able to find a bandage small enough for the hole.”

Jonah simply smiled.

By the light of a kerosene lantern they counted their winnings, laying out the bills and coins on a freshly cut tree stump.
Hunter had joined them after an evening spent terrorizing
the local wildlife. He sat beside the stump and regarded each coin with lupine intensity.

“Your wolf looks as though he’s expecting a share,” Jonah observed.

Katy smiled mischievously. “He’s just protecting my share.”

Beneath the smile, Katy sweated out the count, afraid that for all her spectacular poker playing, they still wouldn’t have
enough to get them both to Dawson. Supplies and equipment for the trail did not come cheap.

“One thousand, two hundred, sixty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents,” Jonah pronounced finally.

“Yeooww! We made it!”

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like you and those cards tonight. Who taught you to play poker like that?”

“My pa,” Katy said with a grin. “On long winter nights in the Montana mountains. I always beat him, though. At chess, too.
He always had something else on his mind. Never could concentrate on his game as he should.”

Jonah shook his head. “You could be a rich woman if you took up poker for a living.”

“Naw,” Katy said. “Gambling’s no way to live. I want to do something productive.”

“Well, you were damned productive tonight, Miss Katy O’Connell.”

She basked in his smile. “I was, wasn’t I?”

The hour was late, and Katy should have been exhausted, but every beat of her heart pumped more eagerness through her veins.
The goldfields were within their reach, and the great adventure awaited. Her mind whirled with things they had yet to do.

“Tomorrow we’ll book passage to Dyea,” Katy announced. “We’ll pick up supplies there and hire some packhorses—”

“Wait a minute!” Jonah interrupted. “Book passage to Dyea?”

“Dyea’s at the foot of the trail over Chilkoot Pass.”

“I know where it is. We’re going over White Pass. It’s easier.”

“Chilkoot is shorter, and it’s been used for years.”

“It’s steeper and rougher. Packhorses can’t make it all the way to the summit.”

“People can, though, and from what I hear, the trail up White Pass is in bad condition.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Only because you’ve been talking to the yahoos in Skaguay who are pushing White Pass as if it were some paved path to El
Dorado. They just want the Klondikers to spend their money in Skaguay. I heard a man who helps with one of the pack trains
talking about what it’s really like up there. Horses are going over the edge of the trail; there’s already carcasses stinking
up the canyon. Some places are so deep in mud that people almost can’t get through. I hear the trail might even be shut down
while bridges and log walkways are built over the quagmires.”

“I didn’t hear anything like that.”

“You listen to the wrong people. We’ll have better luck on the Chilkoot Trail. With any luck, we can be there by noon tomorrow.
It’s only a few miles up the Lynn Canal.”

“Wait a minute.” Jonah screwed his eyes shut and shook his head as though he were trying to throw off a dizzy spell. “Katy,
I’ve been making my own decisions since I was eighteen—a good long time ago, and I’ve gotten accustomed to doing things that
way.”

Katy arched a brow. “Which is why you ended up in Skaguay with no guide, no provisions, and not much money.”

“Yes, well, I realize you have rescued me from my own ignorance—twice now—but I prefer to make my own mistakes. Why don’t
we just split the money and both get to Dawson our own way? We’ll compare experiences at the end of the trail.”

Katy suffered a momentary panic. “We travel together!
That was part of our deal! Besides, without me along, you’re not likely to reach the end of the trail.”

“I’m constantly flattered by your confidence in my abilities.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Katy told him with a roll of her eyes.

“By all means.” He refused to meet her eyes, and instead toyed with a coin on the tree stump that served as their table. “Katy,
it’s not proper, us being together on the trail. Think of our reputations.”

“What reputations? What do I care what people think?”

“You may not care what people think, but I have to. Major newspapers don’t employ men who go about their assignments flaunting
fast women on their arm.”

Momentarily entranced with the idea of being thought a fast woman, Katy smiled. Then she realized that Jonah’s eyes lacked
the devilish twinkle that characterized his teasing. “I’m only fast with cards and guns. Besides, you agreed!”

He shrugged an admission of guilt. “I didn’t think you’d win.”

A sense of loss washed over Katy. She could get to Dawson without bothering with Jonah Armstrong, but he had somehow become
an integral part of the adventure. The journey, the excitement, even the gold, would lose its flavor without him. A childish
desire to cry almost conquered her, and she tightened her lips and blinked her eyes to keep tears at bay.

“You’re a damned welcher, Jonah Armstrong. That’s what you are. A damned lying welcher!”

“Now, Katy—”

“I rescue you from the Hacketts, I win all this money so you can get to Dawson, and what do you do? You call me a fast woman
and throw me out of the shelter I taught you how to build, dammit!”

“Katy, I’m not throwing you out, for God’s sake—”

“I try to give you advice to keep you out of trouble, and you
say you’d rather make stupid mistakes alone than travel with me!”

“Katy…”

A sudden silence seemed to draw out the faint sounds of the woods. The night wind sighed in the trees, a small animal rustled
in a nearby thicket. Somewhere far away a dog barked, a man laughed.

I kissed you,
Katy told him silently.
You said I was beautiful, and you made it feel almost right to act like a fancy lady. How could you do that and not want me
around?

As if he heard her silent plea, Jonah looked her full in the eyes. His straight brows puckered, relaxed, then puckered again
in an uncertain frown. Katy recalled her own pride and lifted her chin. Wrenching away from the grip of his eyes, she pressed
her lips even more tightly together and began to count out her half of the winnings.

“All right!” she said. “Katy O’Connell doesn’t stay where she isn’t wanted.”

“Katy…” Jonah sighed. “Don’t. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“I
don’t
have hurt feelings. If you want to make your decisions without my help, just go ahead! I’ll be out of here as soon as I’ve
counted out my half.”

“All right,” he conceded. “All right. I did agree. Those were the terms. We’ll go together.”

“No, we won’t. I wouldn’t want to ruin your precious reputation. I wouldn’t make you tarnish your halo by keeping company
with a fast woman.”

He grabbed her hand and halted her counting. “Stay, Katy.”

“Why?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

“Because that’s what we agreed to do.”

“You don’t have any trouble breaking agreements.”

He breathed a long-suffering sigh. “All right. Stay because I want you to, because I need a guide to keep me from falling
off the trail or getting drowned in the river on the way to Dawson.”

“You don’t mean it,” she denied stubbornly.

“Yes, I do. I really do.”

Katy let her face relax into just the hint of a smile. “Really?”

“I never lie, Katy. Sometimes I change my mind, but I never lie.”

Her smile grew. “All right. You’re in luck. It just so happens I’m free to take you to Dawson.”

“Shake on it,” he urged with a grin.

Katy took his hand. The warmth of his flesh pressing against hers felt too good. Some instinct warned her that she’d just
dived into water that was deeper and swifter than she knew, but she ignored it. She and Jonah Armstrong were going to Dawson
together.

Dyea was a town much like Skaguay, only smaller. Built up around the Healy and Wilson Trading Post—an establishment that long
preceded the gold rush—the settlement burgeoned with outfitters, saloons, and purveyers of mining equipment, clothing, food,
and every other possible item the Klondikers required or could be persuaded that they required. As in Skaguay, every imaginable
way to lose money was offered potential gold kings before they could travel across the mountains to stake their claims—from
poker games to prostitutes to shell games and elaborate grubstaking and investment schemes.

Jonah contented himself with absorbing the atmosphere for later régurgitation into a piece for the
Record
and let Katy take care of seeing to the preparations for their trek. He was amazed at the vitality of the place and the people.
A gold rush reduced human beings to their rawest elements. Greed abounded. Lust ran unchecked. Professional gamblers, prostitutes,
con artists, and crooked outfitters fed upon the gullibility of inexperienced and unwary goldseekers disgorged from every
steamer.

Jonah was amazed at how easily Katy fit into the rough-and-ready crowd. Women were not an uncommon sight in
town, but the majority of women here were of the sporting sort. They had come to mine the Klondikers, not the Klondike. Katy
was mistaken for such a one more than once. Where most women of Jonah’s acquaintance would have fainted, or at the very least
thrown a hissy fit at such an insult, Katy merely laughed and set the offender straight as to her purpose in town. In bargaining
for their provisions, she quickly cut through the outfitters’ condescending and obsequious efforts to charge her twice the
going price or sell her items that would be useless on the trail. Jonah stood by and watched with amazement as Katy hacked
both prices and storekeepers down to size. More than one storekeeper who looked like a cat about to swallow a canary when
Katy walked in resembled that same feline with a thoroughly pecked nose by the time she walked out.

By evening they had filled their hired wagon with provisions that included six hundred pounds of flour, fifty pounds of rolled
oats, three hundred pounds of bacon, two hundred pounds of beans, fifty pounds of evaporated potatoes, ten pounds of evaporated
onions, thirty pounds of jerked beef, and similar quantities of sugar, coffee, condensed milk, soap, baking soda, matches,
and dried fruit. In addition Katy had purchased nails, safety pins, boot lacings, thread, and candles.

“Which battalion of the army are we traveling with?” asked Jonah as he loaded the final round of provisions onto their wagon.

“Trust me,” Katy said seriously. “We’ll need all of this.”

“We’re going to eat this in just over a month on the trail?”

“The Canadian government is asking everyone going to the Klondike to take enough supplies for the entire winter. Haven’t you
read the handbills?”

“Yes, I’ve read the handbills,” he said patiently. “But I’m not going for the entire winter.”

Katy shrugged and gave him the smile that always transformed her face from simply pretty to radiant. “Suppose the river freezes
early this year? Suppose an early storm keeps
you in Dawson? You’ve got to plan ahead, Jonah. If you head back early, you can always sell what you don’t need to somebody
who doesn’t have a ‘sister’ as smart as I am.”

“If they’re lucky,” Jonah shot back with a wry smile, “they don’t have a sister at all.”

Katy sent him a mock glare, but didn’t take offense. Jonah had persuaded her to accept the pretense that she was his sister—to
keep tongues from wagging. She had protested the need; the woman really did seem to be oblivious to any concern of reputation.
Every opportunity she poked fun at him about it. How amused his real sister Daphne would be to know that she had just acquired
a new sibling who was so extraordinarily improper. Daphne would like Katy; Daphne liked anything and anyone who would outrage
their mother’s sensibilities, but she would like Katy especially for her straightforward boldness, her unquenchable spirit,
her sense of mischief.

Jonah liked Katy also. He liked her a bit too much. Her impulsive kiss before the poker game had nearly undone him. Katy didn’t
know how close she had come to not making it to that damned saloon. He wondered how in hell he was going to endure five or
six weeks in her constant company without doing something that would complicate both of their lives.