Gold Mountain: A Klondike Mystery (6 page)

Spring finally arrived in late May of 1898, the ice on the rivers broke, and thousands upon thousands of people floated down the Yukon River to the mudflats, where the Yukon met the mouth of Klondike and the town of Dawson had been carved out of the wilderness. By summer, despite the hordes of people constantly milling about on the streets, many of whom were out of luck and out of money and wanted nothing more than to go home again, it was not possible for me to continue to avoid Mr. Paul Sheridan.

He was waiting as I came out of the Bank of Commerce on Monday morning.

“Go away,” I said. I continued walking.

He fell into step beside me. “Now Fiona, you haven’t even heard my offer.”

“I have no need to hear it. Mr. Sheridan, I’m pleased you’ve given up your life of crime. Congratulations. I wish you the best.”

“Let me buy you lunch and I’ll tell you my plan. You’re going to be impressed.”

“Mr. Sheridan ...”

“Please, Fiona, call me Paul.”

“Mr. Sheridan. I’m off home for an afternoon’s rest before returning to the Savoy for the evening. I am not lunching. With you or anyone else.”

“I’ll walk with you, then.”

The last thing I wanted was this ridiculously persistent man knowing where I lived. “No.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said. His smile hadn’t faltered in the least. I peered into his eyes, wondering if he might be simple. His smile grew broader.

I caught a glimpse of scarlet on the other side of the street. “There’s my escort now.” I lifted my hand and waved. “Corporal Sterling, over here!”

Richard waited for a sled pulled by six big dogs to go by, nodded to a woman in a nurse’s uniform, her skirt and apron thick with mud, and crossed the street. He touched the broad brim of his uniform hat. “Mrs. MacGillivray. Good day.”

I slipped my arm through his. “I’m sorry I’m late. Off we go now. Goodbye, Mr. Sheridan.”

Richard gave the man a long look. I tugged at his arm, and he allowed me to lead him away.

“That man bothering you, Fiona?” he asked. “I had a word with him on Saturday. He says he’s not here to work for Soapy and I can’t run him out of town unless he does something.”

“He simply doesn’t know the meaning of the word
no
. It’s becoming quite tedious. He has some wonderful plan to make a fortune, which he’s sure I’ll be interested in. I do believe he thinks I’m teasing when I insist I don’t want to hear it.”

“Let us know if he does anything more than insisting.”

“He’s harmless.” We reached the corner and I snuck a peek behind me. Sheridan was still standing on the sidewalk, like a rock rising out of the sea, while the crowd ebbed and flowed all around him. He waved at me, and I almost jerked Richard off his feet as I changed direction and charged down Queen Street.

Once we were out of Sheridan’s line of sight, I did not, however, release Richard’s arm. It was a very warm day and the blue sky held no threat of rain. Hopefully, things could dry out a bit before the clouds next opened up.

We arrived in front of my lodgings in due course. Angus and I had taken rooms at Mr. and Mrs. Mann’s boarding house. It was a rough wooden building, thrown up almost overnight — as most of the houses in town were. Every scrap of furniture was mismatched at best and broken at worst; the floor creaked and wind blew through cracks in the walls and sought out gaps around doors and windows. The garden was a patch of weeds and dirt, overseen by the neighbours’ privy. Steam and heat bellowed from the shed in the back, where Mrs. Mann operated a laundry.

I felt more at home here than I had in my townhouse in Belgravia, where all the furniture was fashionable and expensive and the garden in riotous bloom, with a butler to open the front door and a maid to lay out my gowns and arrange my hair.

Wasn’t I becoming a sentimental old fool?

“Do you have time to come in for tea?” I asked Richard. Mrs. Mann was in the laundry shed and Mr. Mann would be at the store with Angus. It was hardly proper for me to entertain a gentleman without other company present, but propriety was never something I cared much about, no matter in what circumstances I was living. “Mrs. Mann always keeps the kettle hot and ready.”

“Another time, perhaps,” he said with a smile. “I have a meeting with the inspector later and have to get my reports finished.”

We bid each other a good day and I went inside.

I removed my jewellery, struggled with the row of tiny buttons on my dress, discarded my petticoat, over-corset, corset, stockings and undergarments, pulled on my night-gown, and crawled into my narrow bed with the lumpy mattress and broken springs for my midday nap.

I was to have the role of matron-of-honour at the marriage of Martha Witherspoon and Reginald O’Brien. Another first for me: I’ve never been in a wedding party. Mainly, I suspect, because I’ve never had female friends, not since I was a child.

The best dressmaker in the Yukon had gone out of business abruptly. Irene Davidson, who’d been friends with the woman, had swooped in and scooped up the best bolts of cloth before anyone else could get their hands on them. Where the rest had gone, I did not know. I kicked myself at being too slow off the mark: by the time I got to the abandoned shop, all that remained were some lengths of black homespun and a cotton in a colour that would make a horse look anaemic.

It was, therefore, to Irene that Martha and I had to go.

Where we would beg for material to make a wedding dress.

Irene and I did not like each other much. Which was of absolutely no consequence, as long as she was the most popular dancer in town and I was the boss. We performed our duties and kept a formal distance. She knew she could leave the Savoy at any time for a position at any other dance hall, but I paid her an excellent wage, and the working conditions were no worse than anywhere else. Things had begun to change recently: I knew Irene’s secret, and she knew I knew. I knew why she had taken up with Ray Walker, and I did not approve in the least.

That, Irene also knew.

It made for an awkward situation, and I do not care to be put in a position in which I am unsure as to what is going on.

Ray was visiting Irene when we arrived. Fortunately, all they appeared to have been doing was drinking tea.

The Lady Irénée occupied a single room in a boarding house. An unmade bed with an iron headboard and frame took up a goodly portion of the space. A small table with two chairs around it was in the centre of the room, a large wooden chest pushed against one wall. But there were lace curtains on the windows and a thick colourful rug on the floor, and on the wall, a painting of a pretty blond girl holding a big yellow hat in an alpine meadow.

Ray stood when we entered. “You ladies have a pleasant afternoon,” he said. He kissed Irene most possessively, full on the mouth, picked up his hat, and left.

Irene’s eyes slid away from mine. Not bothering with pleasantries, she crossed the room in two strides and threw open the lid on the chest.

I pretended indifference, but my heart positively leapt at the sight of crimson satin, pale blue muslin, startlingly white cotton, and navy blue velvet.

“Oh,” Martha breathed. “How lovely it all is.”

Irene pulled out a bolt of white cotton and then a length of good lace and handed them to Martha. I said the blue muslin would be much more practical (it was considerably less expensive), but Martha was determined to wear a white dress to her wedding, just as Queen Victoria had done.

Martha cradled the cloth as though it were a baby. Her short, stubby, nail-chewed fingers stroked it, not as one would stroke a baby, but a lover.

There would be no quibbling over the price here.

Irene measured and cut the cloth, and then wrapped it in brown paper and string. She then looked at me and, with a smile curling at the edges of her mouth, named her price. I hid a grimace and dug into my reticule. We were not offered tea.

Business completed, we headed back to the Savoy to meet Helen Saunderson, who was going to make Martha’s wedding dress. Martha clutched the bundle of cloth to her chest as we walked toward Front Street. I thought it too bad that Martha hadn’t been here over the winter; the radiance pouring from her face would have raised the temperature a considerable amount.

Martha and Mouse O’Brien had known each other no more than a few weeks. But things moved quickly in the Klondike. Spring and summer were so short, winter so long and harsh, it seemed as though people needed to pack a whole year into a couple of months. We operated on a different time scale here. I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised to travel back Outside and find that ten or twenty years had passed since we’d left Vancouver.

When Ray, Angus, and I arrived last autumn, the town of Dawson wasn’t much larger or better built than Skagway, except for government offices and the sturdy Fort Herchmer, operated by the North-West Mounted Police. The town consisted of a few wooden buildings, some planks laid down over the mud, and hundreds of tents. Now, less than a year later, it was a thriving community of close to 30,000 souls, and anything available in the Outside could be found in Dawson.

Although sometimes for an exorbitant price. Such as pure white cotton with which to make a wedding gown.

I gave Helen the afternoon off in order to take Martha home with her, measure her for the dress, and get started on it. The wedding was on Saturday afternoon, five days hence. The dress, and Helen’s time working on it, would be Angus’s and my wedding gift to the happy couple.

Helen and Martha had just left, Helen chattering away about her own wedding and how her dress had been the best one ever seen in Poughkeepsie, wherever on this earth that might be, when the door flew open and who should be standing there, a big smile on his face and a bouquet of purple fireweed in his hand, but Paul Sheridan.

“Fiona.” He crossed the floor in two giant strides. “I’m so glad to see you.” He shoved the flowers at me, and I took them without thinking. They were beautiful and the scent was heavenly. “I hope this is a good time to talk,” he said.

I sighed.

Both Murray and Not-Murray were working behind the bar. They stopped pouring drinks, and Not-Murray reached under the counter to where Ray kept a good, stout billy club. I signalled to them that it was all right. If Sheridan was so insistent on talking to me, telling me this plan of his, I might as well get it over with.

And then I would once again tell him to go away.

“Very well,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “If you insist.”

He beamed at me, and I led the way to a table.

I’ve been in bars and dance halls in London that would put the Savoy to shame, but very few of them made as much money in a week as we did in a night.

The place had been constructed of green wood, and it groaned in a strong wind. Every night I prayed the second floor balcony wouldn’t come crashing down to crush everyone beneath.

I had decorated with what little options were available. A large portrait of Her Imperial Majesty hung behind the bar. Her visage was so sour it was a wonder she didn’t poison the whisky stored below. So as to beg favour with the primary nationalities making up the population of the Yukon, we had stuck a Union Jack into the right of the frame and the Stars and Stripes into the left. On either side of the Queen’s portrait hung two nudes, one fair-haired, one dark.

Unlikely Her Imperial Majesty would approve. I had very briefly had the acquaintance of her fat, indulgent, womanizing son, Edward, the Prince of Wales, and knew he would most definitely approve.

The walls were covered in heavy red wallpaper with a pattern of gold crowns, making the place look like a bordello. But farmers and miners and labourers seem to think red-and-gold wallpaper equals class, so I’d bought the hideous stuff. Ray and Angus had hung it, covering themselves and everything around them in paste. They hadn’t done all that good a job, and strips of paper were beginning to come unstuck from the upper corners. The Savoy was always thick with smoke, not only from cigars but from the kerosene lamps used to provide light, and the wallpaper was already turning a sickly yellow.

The bar itself was sturdily constructed of good mahogany and ran the entire length of the room. We were required by law to provide safe drinking water, and a big barrel of it stood in the corner. A few tables and chairs were scattered throughout the room, although most of the men seemed to prefer to stand at the bar.

Better to hear the gossip, I suspect.

Men can be so naive — which makes it all the easier to fleece them. They crowded around Barney now, buying him drinks, begging him to tell them stories of Snookum Jim, Taglish Charlie, George Carmacks, and the day they discovered gold on Bonanza Creek. As if hearing Barney tell the story, again, would mean they’d have a similar story to tell someday.

Few, if any, of them would. The best claims had been staked before word of the strike reached the teeming, depression-plagued cities of the south. It was men like Barney, old timers who’d wandered the north for years, who made it rich. Whereupon most of them quite simply proceeded to spend it all in a series of sprees that would shame a drunken sailor. Barney had gathered together sixteen of his biggest gold nuggets and had a belt made for a dancer at the Horseshoe. She’d accepted the gift, thanked him with a kiss on the cheek, and gone home to her husband.

A year later, all Barney had left was his reputation. He spent his nights, and most of his days, propping up bars in dance halls up and down Front Street, trading stories for drink.

I gestured toward a round table in the centre of the room. Three cheechakos — newcomers — were seated there, celebrating their arrival in the Klondike. They were dressed in what they probably thought of as mining gear, but the clothes were spotlessly clean, their hands pink and uncallused with neatly trimmed nails. They’d probably not even come over the passes, but paid for passage on a boat from St. Michael.

They were planning on heading out to the Creeks tomorrow.

They would be in for a very rough surprise.

It was not my place to disabuse them of their dreams. No doubt on the way back they’d need to drown their sorrows in more whisky.