At the Rainbow's End (10 page)

“A lady?” He laughed to the sound of water running over the stones. “What makes you think that? Because she hasn't invited you to sleep with her yet?”

Joel should have been prepared for his partner's rage, but he had failed to reckon with the strength of Kevin's adoration of Samantha. He fell before the smaller man. His astonished shout ended in a gurgle as his head went beneath the icy waters. Exploding out of the water, he stepped away from the sluice. If they were going to fight, he did not want to risk that precious piece of equipment.

Kevin raced after him, his eyes narrowing as he measured the distance between them, his mouth a grim straight line. Leaping forward, he raised his fist. Joel caught it easily and flipped him. His body slapped the water with a dull sound. Frigid drops sprayed Joel.

“Are you finished?” he demanded.

Kevin rose slowly, shaking his head to remove the water from his eyes. “No, dammit!”

This time Joel did not step aside until the last minute. Kevin slipped on the stones beneath his feet and slid into his partner's grasp. He fought to escape, but he was no match for Joel's muscular arm.

“Enough?” growled Joel.

Hearing a gurgle which he took for assent, he cursed and shoved the man away from him. Kevin leaned forward with his hands on his thighs, struggling to regain his breath.

Watching him, Joel said, “Ask yourself why any woman would want to come here, unless she was running from something in her past.”

“She-she t-t-told us about—” Kevin worked to get the words through his aching throat.

“I know. The brother and the nasty in-laws. Sounds a little bit like Cinderella to me. She didn't need to come out here just to bag herself a man. There must have been
someone
in Ohio willing to take her.” He shrugged. “That leads me to believe your paragon might have been lying to us as much as we lied to her.” Picking up his shovel, he said, “Let's get back to work.”

Sure the fight was over, Joel dug his wet spade deep into the hillside. He should have guessed she would cause trouble. They should have sent her packing. He frowned. He did not want to think of the reasons which made him hesitate that first day.

Her dark eyes glittering with a love of life and her determination to design that life to her specifications tempted him too often. In the middle of the night, he often woke in agony from dreams of holding her slender body and wooing her anger from her with heated kisses. He imagined her coming to him, whispering of the same desire. Driven by her allure, he fantasized other, more exotic ways of loving her. Far too often.

Lost in his thoughts, he could not react fast enough when he heard Kevin splashing toward him. A hand on his arm spun him toward the florid face of his partner. A clenched fist burst into his nose, blinding him with pain and his own blood. The shovel fell from his hands. He dropped to his knees, choking.

Towering over him Kevin said, “Don't ever suggest again that Samantha Perry is a whore! If you do, I'll kill you.” Kevin stamped to a spot farther along the sluice and went back to work, thinking about the black-haired goddess he worshipped.

Blood spurting through his fingers, Joel raised his head. Spitting red, Joel rose and leaned against the bank. He wiped blood on his sleeve and groped for the shovel. Although his knees were not steady, he began to work again. The sooner they found gold, the sooner they would be rid of Samantha. It could not be too quickly.

Samantha busied herself to work off her fury. Every time she tried to be decent to that man, he treated her as if she had no intelligence. While the stove oozed heat into the already hot room, she kneaded bread. Her normal, gentle movements replaced by her fists striking the dough, she imagined it was Joel Gilchrist who suffered the blows.

Hearing a strange voice at the door, she wiped her flour-coated hands on her soiled apron. Walking to where a tall form cast a black shadow in the door, she ignored the skinny man's eager eyes.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Howdy, ma'am. Miss Perry, right?” He belatedly remembered the dirty hat on his head and pulled it off. A cloud of dust erupted from it. When she coughed, he mumbled an apology.

“That's all right.” She was not surprised he knew her name. It must be no secret she had arrived at Claim Fifteen Above. Forcing a smile, she looked at the man's hound dog sad, brown eyes. They matched the color of his dirt-encrusted hair and the mud creating a pattern of stains on his clothes. His face was lengthened by a scraggly beard. “And you are?”

“Burroughs. Liberty Burroughs, ma'am. Seeing as how I was born on our nation's hundredth birthday, my folks gave me the strange moniker.”

She smiled. “It could have been worse, Mr. Burroughs. They could have named you ‘Centennial' or some such.”

“Sure could have.” He grinned, revealing empty spots where scurvy had robbed him of his teeth.

“How can I help you, Mr. Burroughs? Kevin and Joel are down at the river.”

He nodded. A shy smile appeared amid the unkempt hairs of his dark mustache. “I expected as much. 'Twas you I was wanting to see.” His eyes swept over the immaculate cabin, and he could not hide his envy. When he noted the clean shirts hanging on the pegs over the bedstead, he tried to remember the last time he had washed the two he owned.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“Miss Perry, I know you are bespoken for, but me and the others at Sixteen and Seventeen were wondering if you would consider doing for us as you are for Gilchrist and Houseman.” When he saw her confusion, he hurried to add, “We would be glad to pay you for doing some sewing for us, or washing our things. To tell you the truth, Miss Perry, we have the money to pay you, but no time to do these things ourselves. Even if we did, our needlework skills are poor. Would you consider this, Miss Perry?”

Set to tell him no, Samantha hesitated. Kevin and Joel admitted very little gold had been found on this claim. It could take an eternity to pay back the cost of her fare and earn enough to return to a gentler land. If she took in laundry, she could have the necessary funds much sooner. Calculating how many shirts she would have to wash if she charged what Mrs. Kellogg did, she was pleasantly surprised at how rapidly the funds might accumulate. Perhaps as early as next spring she would be able to go to Dawson, ask for her free passage to St. Michael, and pay for her own way to Seattle.

“Very well, Mr. Burroughs. You may tell your friends I have opened a laundry service here. I'll charge you no more than is charged in Dawson for washing your shirts, but I must ask you to pay for repairs as well.” She smiled. “My rates will be fair.”

With a grin, Burroughs nodded. She could have asked for far more gold, and they would have paid. The luxury of clean, mended clothes was something he could hardly recall.

“I will spread the word, miss.”

“Not too far. There is only one of me, and I have my other chores to tend to here.”

“Yes, miss.” He decided to keep this for only the neighboring claims. Let the other sourdoughs find their own lady to take care of them. As he bid her farewell, he was thinking of what Marie would say when she saw him in Grand Forks, decked out in clean clothes. She might give him a few extra minutes of her time,
off
the dance floor.

He risked a glance over his shoulder as she turned back to her breadmaking. The aroma of the food teased him. He could not remember the last time he had smelled such a luscious scent. His own efforts at making bread invariably fell flat.

Gilchrist and Houseman had found themselves quite a gal in Samantha Perry. She was not afraid of hard work, and pretty as a spring morning after a long winter. Climbing the hill toward his claim, he wondered exactly how things were arranged in the small cabin. The two men had spoken of the mail order bride, but never mentioned which one of them actually intended to marry her.

Samantha spent the rest of the afternoon planning exactly how she would manage her load of chores to give this new work the highest priority. For the first time, she felt truly independent. No one would run her life. She would have her own income and be able to escape soon.

After she had served their dinner, she casually mentioned the deal she had made with Burroughs. The reaction was exactly what she expected.

“You what?” exploded Joel, his voice oddly distorted. She had mentioned earlier that his face looked puffy, and he ignored the comment. She had not offered more sympathy. “Are you insane? You'll be working day and night to deal with all the work they'll bring you.”

She toyed with the meat pie in front of her. “Don't worry. I won't neglect my work here.”

As he often did when hot words flew through the cabin, Kevin jumped to the defense of his partner. “He didn't mean that, Samantha. We don't want you to feel as if you have to slave for all the men in the valley. You're looking exhausted as it is.”

“Thank you!” she retorted heatedly. “I certainly look better than Joel. What did you do to yourself?”

“Nothing,” Joel mumbled, concentrating on his supper. His face ached, but he refused sympathy. He was sure Samantha would laugh wildly if she knew of the fight in the river.

She gave him a questioning look, but said only, “A few extra shirts when I do the laundry will be no trouble.” She did not discuss the financial arrangements she had made, afraid that would make them only more resistant to the idea. It was none of their business, anyway. “After all, if I can clean all the mess you two put on your clothes, I surely can do the same for a few others. Look at your shirts! They were clean just days ago. Now they are covered with all the crud from the riverbank.”

After her visit to the river, Samantha avoided both men as much as possible. She sat at the table with them during meals, but spoke only if they asked her a direct question. Her terse replies did not invite further conversation. As soon as she was finished with the dishes, she went to her loft room, leaving them staring at each other in silent recriminations.

The other men living along the Bonanza received far different treatment. When they brought their filthy clothes to be laundered or picked them up fresh and repaired, she sparkled like the sun on the river. Joel suspected she was being paid very well for her laundry service, but she never spoke of it. He did not want to snoop through her loft to discover where she hid her accumulating riches. He tried to convince himself that he did not care what she had planned, but it did not work.

For two weeks they lived this stalemate. Each of them had thrown up a wall. Samantha grew more and more fatigued. Joel wondered if she went to bed early to avoid them, or simply because she could not stay awake. As he had warned, the additional work sapped her. Carrying buckets of water from the distant spring and heating it on the stove added to her job of trying to repair each article of clothing after months of neglect.

As the third week of the standoff started, Joel wanted to end the glum climate in the cabin, to find some method of keeping Samantha from killing herself with work. All her joy had disappeared, leaving an empty void. They missed her vibrant laugh.

Thinking of ways to ease the tension, he worked with Kevin to repair a major hole they had discovered that morning in the sluice.

“Damn!” he shouted, drawing his right hand from the side of the splinter-filled board and cradling it in his left. His eyes blurred with the sharp pain cutting through him. He tried to focus on Kevin. “Didn't you see my thumb there?”

Instantly apologetic, the shorter man said, “I thought you would pull away before I swung the shovel. I'm sorry, Joel. Do you want—?”

“No!” he snapped. “You've done enough. Keep working to fix that leak before the water really busts through and wrecks it totally. I'll get some binding at the cabin. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Joel wanted to growl that he would manage alone when Kevin put his arm under his elbow to help him onto the shore. This assistance sent another pain through him that further unbalanced his reeling head. Only his partner's help enabled him to get onto solid ground. He waved aside any more offers and shuffled toward the cabin.

Again and again his feet caught on the roots of trees where their shovels had stripped away top soil which might bear the prize they sought. Every motion added to his anguish. The quarter mile from the river to the cabin seemed like a league.

“Joel!”

Samantha's voice cut through the cobwebs of pain and he forced his eyes up to meet her concerned ones. Her distressed expression astounded him, for he had not guessed she would feel such concern about his misfortune.

“Don't worry,” he heard himself say with faked levity. “It's only a small bruise.”

“Bruise?” She grabbed his arm with soapy fingers and forced the hand up so she could see it. The thumb already had become an angry, violet hue. “My God! You call this a small bruise? Come in the cabin.”

Weak, her hand holding his wrist, he had no choice but to follow her like a well-trained cur. Again he was surprised, when she kept a pace he could maintain easily. She seemed to sense the agony which had ripped his balance from him. Her eyes closely gauged every step his wobbly feet took.

Despite his pain, he enjoyed having her near. Gazing at her hair shining from under the mosquito netting she wore while doing laundry, he wished his hand did not ache with a grinding pulse. He wanted to stroke those dark strands which sparkled with spray from the laundry tub.

Samantha seated him carefully on the bench, telling him not to move. She poured water from the pot warming on the stove and placed a shallow bowl on the table in front of him.

He flinched when she picked up his thumb and lightly ran her finger along its surface. Softly she said, “I'm sorry. I must check it.”

“That's all right.” He gritted his teeth. “Just hurry!”

“Soak it in here. It shouldn't be too hot. If the swelling goes down slightly, we might be able to tell if it's broken.”