Gold Dust (7 page)

Before the evening was over, though, Katy began to wonder just who was charming whom. She was working very hard to radiate
feminine appeal, but Jonah Armstrong seemed to exude seductiveness with no effort at all. He held her close when they danced—too
close, Katy suspected, to be proper. He smelled good, which was amazing for a man who’d been on a hot dusty train all day.
The bright electric lights of the Mason hall gleamed in the crisp brown waves of his hair, finding
hidden gold that was surely as bright as anything coming out of the Klondike. At this close distance, his eyes were very blue,
like a warm summer sky at the end of dusk. Looking at them made her feel oddly dizzy. A horse grazing on locoweed was steadier
on its feet than Katy was when Jonah smiled down at her, his eyes smiling, too, his arm holding her close.

When they finally headed back to the hotel, the moon had climbed to its zenith and flooded the street with a romantic, milky
light. Jonah held on to Katy’s arm as they walked down the slight incline.

“I’m glad I learned something about you tonight, Katy,” he said. “You’re quite a remarkable woman.”

Katy’s heart leapt. He was going to tell her she could come! She just knew it! Her feminine allure had softened his objections
while reminders of her competence made him realize how much he needed her.

Outside the hotel, in the shadows and out of the streetlight, he swung her around and took her in his arms. “Yes, you are
quite a woman, Katy O’Connell.”

Her heart thumped in her chest, and a fearful feeling that things were hurtling out of control made her stiffen in his grip.
He didn’t release her.

“I know exactly what you’ve been doing all night, my dear. I may be new to the West, but I’m not new to the world.”

His mouth captured hers before she could duck away. His lips were as warm as the rest of him—warmer even. When she opened
her mouth to object, he took full advantage, plunging his tongue inside in a way that frightened her and at the same time
called to something deep within her. When he finally let her go, she didn’t know if she wanted to hit him or kiss him again.

“Katy, darlin’,” he drawled, smiling his dazzling smile. “You’re still fired.”

Jonah leaned on the deck railing and looked out over the gray water toward the forested land slipping slowly by. A day and
a half after leaving the port of Seattle, their steamer was still in the narrow passage between Vancouver Island and mainland
Canada. Vancouver Island looked no different than the mainland, with green, fir-covered slopes rising sharply out of the gunmetal-colored
sea. Jonah found it hard to believe it was indeed an island, that the smooth water that slipped under the steamer’s bow was
the northern Pacific Ocean and not some quiet lake.

Hands braced on the rail beside Jonah, Alan Smith observed the gray scene and growled: “Another foggy day. Lord Almighty!
I haven’t seen the sun since I crossed the Cascades. Makes a body wonder why the Lord created this here world in color instead
of just making everything a muddy gray.”

“The captain said last night at dinner that the weather can be sunny this time of year.”

“Well it hasn’t been sunny since I got here, and I hear from October on the sky closes in like this all the time. I’d wager
that once you get into the mountains, it gets cold as a whore’s heart. I’m glad to be starting out in August. Those who dilly-dally
around and decide to come a month from now will have hell to pay making it to the Yukon before ice blocks the river.”

“You’re probably right,” Jonah agreed.

“Damned right I am. Mr. Hayes told me sometimes the Yukon freezes as early as October—in a bad year. Said that’s why we’re
lucky to be making the trip now.”

“I guess Mr. Hayes knows what he’s talking about.” Jonah smiled wryly. “At least I hope he does. We’re paying him enough to
be a goddamned genius on the subject of the Klondike.”

Alan grinned. “Hell, Jonah. That $500 we all gave him won’t amount to a hill of beans once we’ve made our gold strikes. Besides,
the man isn’t too far off the mark. I did some asking around. In Seattle, an outfit for one man costs $400. More at the head
of the trail. Hayes needs to have a bit left over to pay for his time and services.”

“I’d say he’s getting plenty for his time and services. The man’s going to get richer than the prospectors without ever sinking
a shovel into the ground.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. What he’s getting is pennies compared to what a man can make in the goldfields. Lord, the stories
I’ve heard! The streams up there are paved with gold. All a man has to do is sink a shovel into the ground and he’s rich.”

Jonah had heard the stories also. He wondered what would make a man like Alan Smith, a middle-aged postal clerk from Indiana
with a wife and five children, believe such obviously exaggerated hyperbole. The suspension of common sense among the goldseekers
might make an interesting article for the
Record,
he decided. He’d certainly met a number of prospective gold kings who believed that the trail through the mountains between
the sea and the Klondike was nothing more fearsome than a Sunday stroll in the woods. Others drank in accounts that the stream
gravels were so loaded with gold that a single day’s work on a good claim would make a man’s fortune. Most of the eager argonauts
dismissed the few stories about arduous passes, dangerous rivers, unpredictable
weather, and the blossoming concern that Dawson would not be able to stock enough supplies to support the burgeoning population
of goldseekers through the long, isolated winter.

At least the little group of men he had joined seemed more down-to-earth than some. They had hired a guide, a Mr. David Hayes,
who seemed to know what he was about. Smith was right. The money they had paid him to buy their outfits and arrange for a
pack train to carry it over White Pass was not an unreasonable sum, given the current outrageous prices. Mr. Hayes seemed
reliable. He was burly and quiet spoken, and had made the trip over the pass several times before. White Pass was the best
route, he’d told them, because unlike Chilkoot Pass, pack animals could make it all the way to the summit. Understandably,
the demand for good horses and mules was greater than the supply since the gold strike had been announced, and he had gone
ahead to secure their party some sturdy animals. He would meet them at Skaguay.

“Yep,” Smith said, staring into the gray water that foamed along the side of the ship. “Just sink a shovel into the ground
and get rich. Sure would like to see the sun, though. When I’m rich as Midas, I think I’ll pack up Thelma and the kids and
buy some land in Arizona Territory. They say the sun always shines down there.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Jonah said.

Smith pushed back from the rail. “You comin’ to supper?”

“In a minute or two. I think I’ll stay here a while and think on what I’m going to write about this boat trip. Strangely enough,
after furnishing the money to send me up here, my editor expects me to send him material for the newspaper now and then.”

Smith puffed out his narrow chest. “That’s A-L-A-N H-O-R-A-T-I-0 S-M-I-T-H, from Muncie, Indiana. Just in case you want to
put me in your newspaper.”

“Might be I will, Mr. Smith. Might be I will.”

Jonah was grateful for the peace that descended when Smith left. He really did need to think of something riveting
to send back to old Hobbs at the
Record.
Hobbs liked colorful adventure and drama, either heartwarming or heartrending. Something to get the readers salivating for
more. The most interesting adventure Jonah had experienced so far was a common barroom brawl invited by his own stupidity,
and the most colorful character he had met on the way to the Klondike he had fired—fired twice, just to be sure he was rid
of her.

He stared out at the scenery. This country was truly an invitation to poetry. Clouds hung low over the land, undecided whether
to be clouds or fog, to be one with the sky or belong to the hills and trees. Cool shades of gray mixed with deep, peaceful
greens and browns. The hiss of water sweeping past the hull and the cry of seagulls only seemed to add to the silence. Though
the world was hemmed in by hills and clouds, Jonah felt the vastness of the land, the isolation, the wild serenity—so different
from anywhere else he had been, and he’d traveled to many places. The Northwest was infecting his soul, and he wondered why.
He was a city boy, and he had no wish to be anything else. Yet this unspoiled green-and-gray boundary where sea and land intertwined—this
was a special place. Special and different.

And thinking along the lines of special and different, he couldn’t help wondering what Miss Katy O’Connell was doing right
now. He could have written a whole series of articles on that one, but no doubt some of his more proper lady readers would
have been mortally shocked and offended. Conventional women certainly didn’t want to read about such undecorous females in
their husbands’ newspapers.

But then, most undecorous females weren’t as interesting as Katy O’Connell. Jonah had met his share of adventuresses. Most
were cursed with transparent greed that detracted from their allure. They were fortune hunters, con artists, or female libertines
who entertained themselves by shocking society. Katy was the first he’d met who pursued her own gold instead
of someone else’s. And she was the first who could brawl like a Irish stevedore and cuss like a Montana mule skinner.

Jonah had little doubt Katy O’Connell was an adventuress of the boldest cut, though. When bluster and indignation hadn’t worked,
she’d resorted to the oldest female tricks in the book to lure him into her scheme. He could still see those clear green eyes
sparkling up at him as they danced, feel the very feminine curves of her body press against him in practiced temptation. How
in hell had he ever believed her to be a boy? Her kiss had come close to melting every bone in his body. How many men had
the little con artist sucked in with that artless sensuality of hers?

The fog thickened into a drizzle that persuaded Jonah to take refuge in his cabin. He’d been fortunate to book a cabin with
Alan Smith and two other men of their little group. Many passengers steaming from Seattle to the gold trails were forced to
settle for space on deck, and even the decks were crowded.

At this hour his cabin mates were in the dining room. Jonah was willing to forgo his dinner for an hour of privacy and quiet.
He got out his notebook and pen, reclined on his hard bunk, and wrote a tentative title on the paper: “Klondike Bound.” Circles
and swirls of ink slowly filled the page as Jonah tried to organize his thoughts. There was enough human interest on the steamer
alone to fill several articles, but where to start? He thought of the streetcar driver from Boston he’d met the day before.
The man had brought a sectional boat with him, a clever contraption that was transported in small, manageable sections that
could be easily assembled into a sturdy craft that would take him into Dawson. Others crossing White or Chilkoot passes would
need to stop at Lake Bennett, which was the head of the Yukon River, to build boats to take them downriver to the confluence
with the Klondike at Dawson. Farsighted fellow, Jonah mused. Worth mentioning in an article. Others also were worthy of mention.
One lady, clearly a modest, proper woman, was accompanying
her husband on his gold adventure. Mrs. Burke was young, Jonah guessed, though careworn in appearance, which might be accounted
for by the young babe in arms she had with her. Her husband was a strapping Irishman with a ready grin and a fiddle he played
at the merest hint of a request. What would possess a man to take a young wife and infant on such a hazardous journey? Jonah
wondered. Though she never said a word of complaint, Mrs. Burke did not look happy with the prospect of the toils that lay
before them.

Jonah’s eyes focused on the doodles that covered the page. He chuckled wryly, tore the page from the book, and wadded it into
a ball. In spite of his minimal artistic ability, the doodles had coalesced into an unmistakable rendition of Katy O’Connell’s
perfect oval face.

“Might as well give in,” he muttered as he wrote a new title on a clean page: “Faces of the Old West.”

The Old West is dead,
he scrawled,
but the deceased has left a few survivors, pariahs who, whether nobly or foolishly
—
the reader must decide
—
cling to the anarchy and unchecked freedoms that characterize the frontier. They obey no rules but their own and chafe restlessly
in the peace that a new millennium promises to this once-rowdy land.

One of these colorful remnants of Chaos came to the aid of your most intrepid correspondent when he was in mortal danger of
having his teeth shoved down his throat by two bullies of the sort who inhabit drinking establishments wherever they are found.
This bantamweight little cockerel evened the odds by firing a pistol at the ceiling, bringing down splinters of the rafters
along with my assailants’ hopes of the rousing entertainment of beating me to a pulp.