Gold Dust (3 page)

Fields held up his hand to cut off the stranger’s defense. “I know you aren’t the culprit here, son.” He nodded in Katy’s
direction. “Whenever this one comes into town, I can count on some sort of a scuffle to keep the day from becoming dull.”

“that’s not true,” Katy said indignantly.

“Most times it is.”

“They were cheating him at cards, then jumped him when he won a pot or two.”

“So you led them a merry chase down Main Street and coldcocked them both in an alley?”

“Well, someone had to do something!” Katy declared. “They were bound to beat this poor sucker outta ten years of his life.”

“Well, I don’t doubt that.” Fields pulled thoughtfully at his face. “You got a way out of town, mister?”

“I’m leaving on the train in the morning.”

“Well, I can dump these two into a cell and let them cool off overnight. But I’ll have to let them go in the morning. I wouldn’t
be anywhere around here, if I was you. These boys have long, nasty memories.”

“I’ll be gone. Don’t worry.”

“See that you are. Now you two can help me haul these carcasses off to jail.”

When Jud and Jacob were safely locked away, the greenhorn clapped Katy on the shoulder and offered to buy her a drink in thanks.

“You sure you’re old enough to drink?” he asked as they headed toward the saloon.

“Hell yes.”

“I’m not going to have your ma or pa collaring me for feeding their kid liquor.”

“I’m old enough! Besides, my ma and pa are long gone.” Since Katy’s parents were on their way to New York with her sister
and baby brother, their interference with a little sojourn in the Watering Hole was unlikely.

Myrna greeted them with a raised eyebrow. “You got Hacketts on your tail?”

“Don’t worry,” Katy said. “They’re in jail.”

“Yeah, well, who’s gonna pay for the damage to my place?”

“How much?” the city gent asked.

“Ten dollars oughta do it.”

Katy scoffed. “Five’s more like it.”

Myrna shrugged. “Worth a’try.”

Katy chuckled as the stranger laid five silver dollars on the bar. “You don’t know diddly, do ya?”

He grinned. “Enough to get by.”

She tugged him along to a table. “More of what I was drinking before,” she told Myrna. “And he’ll have whiskey. Carl’s good
stuff.”

He chuckled as they sat down. “You’re a real pistol, aren’t you, friend?”

“Have to be if you don’t want folks to stomp all over you. Isn’t it the same where you come from?”

He grinned engagingly. “Back in Chicago folks are more subtle when they try to skin you, that’s all.”

“Chicago! You’re from Chicago?”

“That’s where my family lives.”

“You got a wife and kids back there?”

“No. A mother and sister. I’m a writer for the
Chicago Record
—that’s a big newspaper. I get sent all over the country to do articles, and that doesn’t leave me time for a wife. Isn’t
fair to leave a woman on her own a lot, you know. A man takes on a wife, he ought to take care of her.”

Myrna set their drinks down on the table. “If’n you think that, stranger, you’re one of the few men who do. I’ve not met many
men who won’t take off and leave their wives behind when the notion strikes ‘em. Look at all those fools headed up north lookin’
for gold.”

“That’s why I don’t feel the urge to marry. I like to go wherever the good stories are. I’m headed north myself.”

Katy was instantly consumed with envy. “You’re really headed to the Klondike?”

“Yes indeed. Not looking for gold, but writing about those who are.” He flipped a coin at Myrna for the drinks, along
with a smile that brought a flutter to the woman’s lashes. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

Myrna simpered. “You just crook a finger if you want any-thin’ else.”

“I will,” he assured her.

Katy snorted. “I figure writing about gold must be about the same as smelling a good steak cooking without getting to eat
it.”

“Not to me, friend. I’m writing a series of articles on the dying Old West. Might even turn it into a book someday. This new
gold rush is right up the line of what I want to write about. Stopped by here to soak up some of the local color. You know,
most places out West have gotten pretty tame, settled down to be just as dull and safe as anyplace else. This little town
is an absolute treasure of colorful characters and stories, though.” He raised his glass in a toast. “The Klondike will be
even better.”

Katy chuckled. “New to the West, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been out here a couple of months.”

Katy’s heart beat faster at the very thought of what she was going to do. It would give her stepma a heart attack if she knew,
and probably gain her a licking from her pa, even though she was a woman grown. Her parents wouldn’t be back for at least
two months, though, and after their first surprise, they would understand why she had to jump at this chance. She wasn’t needed
at the ranch; Clem Jenkins, the ranch manager, had things well in hand. Adventure and freedom beckoned. In the Klondike one
could win independence and a fortune with nothing more than guts and hard work. What she could do with such a fortune danced
merrily across Katy’s mind. She could make her own rules, dependent on no one, not even her father.

She eyed the stranger speculatively. For a greenhorn, he seemed a good enough guy. Lucky man. Katy had decided to do him a
favor.

Jonah Armstrong had seen the look a thousand times since joining the great flow of humanity toward Seattle and Tacoma, the
launching places for the golden north. Gold fever—a combination of greed, hope, and lust—shone from the eyes of storekeepers,
cowboys, drummers, farmers, even doctors, bankers, lawyers, politicians, and preachers. They all wanted a piece of the new
gold rush—perhaps the last real gold rush.

Now the fever flamed in this sassy kid. Gold shone bright as the sun in those sparkling green eyes. Jonah could almost see
the visions of El Dorado dancing through the kid’s mind.

“Ya know,” the youngster started. “That’s a tough country on the Klondike, and a tough trip to get there. Before this there’s
not been anybody there but Indians and a few prospectors, and maybe an exploration party or two.”

“That’s all going to change now,” Jonah said.

“It’s still a tough country. How you planning to make the trip?”

“Just follow the flow, I guess. Most everybody is sailing from Seattle or Tacoma to a place called Skaguay, which is right
below White Pass. I heard someone say it’s the easiest,
fastest way if you don’t want to spend a fortune sailing all the way to St. Michael and from there up the lower Yukon.”

“You’d better have more to go on than hearsay,” the kid advised.

“There’s going to be a highway of humanity headed to Dawson. The trail will be trampled so well a blind man could find it.”

“You got money?”

“Enough.”

“You know what kind of supplies you need to see you over the trail?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

The kid made a rude sound. “If you don’t mind me saying so, mister, you’re sitting on most of your brains. Some of these people
are gonna get killed trying to get to the gold. A lot of the others are gonna have to turn back—because they don’t know a
rat’s ass about the outdoors and the wilderness.” The sassy little imp’s eyes lit with mischief. “It would be a pure cussed
shame if you couldn’t write your story because you left your bones drying on the trailside.”

Jonah took a gulp of his whiskey and banged the glass down in appreciation. “It would at that. But I haven’t left my bones
out to dry yet, and I’ve traveled to plenty of tough places. Those brains I’m sitting on haven’t failed me up to now.”

“Maybe ‘cause you haven’t asked them to take you to the Klondike before now. Ya know, mister—what you need is a guide.”

Jonah had known this was coming. “I don’t need a guide,” he said with a tolerant grin.

“Yes you do.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have a gun.”

“Don’t figure on needing one.”

“You fight like some swell from Back East.”

“I am a swell from Back East. Well, Chicago isn’t really. Back East.”

“It’s far enough east for you to learn to fight like a sissy. That I know for a fact!”

“I was trying to fight those boys clean. That’s not sissified.”

The kid shook his head. “That’s what I mean. Fighting fair just invites a knock on the head, or worse. I’d bet you can’t hit
the side of a barn with a rifle. You can’t skin a rabbit, tell a spavined horse from a sound one…”

Jonah listened with amusement as the kid listed the reasons a ‘citified greenhorn’ couldn’t possibly survive a Klondike adventure
without a bit of help from a wilderness-wise woodsman. No doubt the woodsman in question was the kid himself. Lord but the
boy was a corker! With smooth, blushing cheeks and girlish lashes, he looked no older than twelve, yet he packed more trouble
in him than most grown men. No doubt he’d need his spunk as he got older, for he didn’t have the build to grow into a bruiser.
The kid’s hands were delicate beneath the grubbiness of calluses and dirty nails. The bone structure in his face was as fine
as a girl’s.

“… and from the looks of it you’ve not done a hard day’s labor in a long time,” the kid concluded, taking Jonah’s hand and
turning it over to reveal a relatively uncallused palm.

“I’m a writer, friend. I don’t chop wood for a living.”

“Writing’s not going to get you to Dawson,” the boy said with an all-knowing nod.

Jonah chuckled. “If I hired a guide to take me to the Klondike, what makes you think I’d hire you? You’re no bigger than a
half-grown girl and you look about as tough as a butterfly.”

The kid flushed. “I did all right with the Hacketts! And there’ve been some others who crossed me and wished they hadn’t.”

“That so? How old are you? Twelve. Thirteen?”

The flush staining the too-smooth cheeks deepened. “I’m twenty.”

Jonah guffawed. “How old are you really?”

“Ask Myrna!” the kid demanded indignantly. “She knows I’m no youngster!”

Jonah raised an eyebrow in Myrna’s direction, fully aware the woman had been eavesdropping. She nodded.

“Well, you’re mighty small.”

“I can shoot the eye out of a squirrel with a rifle, pistol, or rock sling. I can skin a rabbit and have it cooking before
your mouth even starts to water. There hasn’t been a horse born that I can’t ride, nor a mule I can’t get to work. I can find
dry wood in a rainstorm, and build a shelter outta nothing but what the woods have to offer. What’s more, I know how to handle
trash like the Hacketts, and you’ll be meeting lots of their kind on the way to the goldfields. Hell, mister! Without me,
you’re gonna be robbed blind, stomped on, chewed up, and spit out before you get halfway to Dawson. If the trash along the
trail doesn’t do it, then the wilderness will.”

“Well now,” Jonah said with a smile. “You must be one talented kid.”

“I’m not a kid, and I know what I’m doing.”

A talented little con man is what the kid was, but what a character—a real throwback to the days of the wild and woolly Old
West. The staid bankers and housewives and clerks who read the
Chicago Record
would devour the sketches he could write about the boy. It would add some color to their plodding lives. And if the kid was
half as good as he claimed, he could make the trip to Dawson a good deal easier. The big city was a jungle that Jonah could
deal with, but wild forests, wilderness mountains, and tough frontier towns were not his element. The kid’s proposition was
beginning to look attractive.

He gave the boy a sharp look. “You got family that’s going to miss you. A pa or ma who needs to give permission?”

“Nope. My family’s all gone.”

“That’s too bad. I’m sorry.”

The boy regarded him with a carefully neutral expression. Probably the tough little character didn’t want to show any
emotion over his family’s loss. Jonah decided not to question him any further on it.

“Okay, kid. You want to come? I’ll pay you twenty-five cents a day to be my guide up to the goldfields.”

The offer met with a rude snort. “A buck a day.”

“You’re trying to rob me, young’un. Fifty cents and I pay all expenses.”

“Done!”

The kid offered his hand for a shake. Jonah took it in a firm grasp and wondered again at the delicacy of the bones in his
grip. “Armstrong here. What’s your name?”

“O’Connell.”

“All right, O’Connell. Be at the train in the morning,” Jonah warned, “or I’ll go without you. I’ll leave you a ticket at
the window.”

“I’ll be there.” The kid downed the last of whatever it was he was drinking and slammed the glass onto the table with gusto.
“Gotta go. See you in the morning.”

Jonah suppressed a laugh as the boy strutted toward the door, full of piss and vinegar and grinning like a virgin who’d just
bedded his first wench. He had to admire the kid’s spirit and nerve. “O’Connell!” he called as the boy reached the door.

The youngster turned.

“Thanks for your help with the Hacketts.”

“Don’t mention it.”