Gold Dust
Authors: Emily Krokosz
If one rejection stung, then double the dose felt like a cat-o-nine-tails snapped across Jonah’s exposed shoulders. “I’m not
guilty of anything but getting softheaded over a female. You’re the one who prances around in trousers, gambles like some
kind of fancy cardsharp, and bellies up to the bar like a…like a tart.”
“I am not a tart! I like to wear trousers. And I like to ride, shoot, gamble, and cuss. How could you want to marry me if
you don’t like who I am? That’s who I am, and that’s who I’ll always be.”
“No, it isn’t! I’ll tell you who you are, Katy O’Connell.”
She turned her face away, but he was having none of that. Taking her stubborn chin in a firm grasp, he forced her to look
at him. “I’ll tell you who you are. You’re a butterfly just crawling out of her cocoon, with a spirit like the wind. You’re
strong, smart, and brave—about everything but your heart. You’re not afraid of passion. I’ll tell you what you’re afraid of,
Katy O’Connell—you’re afraid of me, because with me you feel like a woman.”
He bent forward and kissed her hard.
“A splendid read…. Well written with excellent dialogue that moves the story along… and the characters move you emotionally.”
—Rendezvous on Outcast
“An engaging and enjoyable story for true Western buffs.”
—Dorothy Garlock, author of
The Listening Sky
on
Lawless
“One heck of a good, intense, emotional read.”
—
Romantic Times
on
Lawless
Outcast
Lawless
Visions of the Heart
Touch of Fire
Published by
W
ARNER
B
OOKS
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1996 by Emily Carmichael
All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56714-5
Contents
Katy O’Connell didn’t usually frequent saloons. Not because she couldn’t hold her whiskey; Katy had a head for liquor that
would have been the envy of any hard-drinking man. And not because she feared for her reputation. The only reputation she
truly cared about was her three-year reign as champion of the Willow Bend Fourth of July rifle shoot.
No, the reason Katy avoided saloons was that a saloon was not a ladylike place to rest your bones and wet your whistle, and
her stepmother wanted Katy to be a lady, among other expectations. Katy loved her stepmother and most times tried to please
her. But not today. Today was a day that deserved whiskey—a drink not to be had in the hotel tearoom up the street. Therefore,
she dusted some of the dirt from her baggy shirt, hiked up her trousers over narrow hips, settled her slouch felt hat on her
head, and pushed through the batwing doors of the Watering Hole Liquor Emporium.
“Afternoon, Katy,” Myrna Jenkins eyed Katy from behind the mahogany bar. The owner’s wife looked amazingly like the plump,
pink lady who reclined in the mural that decorated one whole wall of the room, the only difference being that Myrna had her
clothes on. “Ain’t you walkin’ through the wrong door, honey?”
“Nope,” Katy answered. “Gimme a whiskey.”
Myrna snorted.
“Come on, Myrna! I’m parched as a weed in a dry gully.”
“You’re about as dusty as one, too.” She set a glass of pale brown liquid in front of Katy. “What’cha been doin’? Wrasslin’
snakes?”
Katy grimaced. “I was chasing that wild mustang and his herd of mares that’ve been grazing over by our place.”
“The mustang won?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Ain’t nobody been able to lay a rope on that devil’s head, and better’n you have tried, kiddo. Thought your pa warned you
off of that horse.”
“Pa’s not here.” Katy took off her hat, scratched at her scalp through the pile of dark braids that were coiled atop her head,
and stuck the misshapen hat back on her head. Then she took a deep, grateful gulp of her drink—and sputtered. “This isn’t
whiskey!”
“Cold tea,” Myrna admitted. She swiped at the bar with a rag.
“If I’d wanted tea, I’d be sitting in the hotel tearoom!”
“Not dressed like that, you wouldn’t.”
Katy’s eyes flashed a warning.
“Don’t start cussin’, kiddo. Don’t sound good on a female. You’re in a rare pissin’ mood today. I ain’t seen you like this
since you laid out Porky Brinkman for callin’ you and your sister squaws. Thought your stepma had finally turned you into
a lady.”
“I’m rankled, that’s all.”
“So you bust into town lookin’ like a draggletail cowhand?”
“What’s wrong with looking like a cowhand?” Katy sighed wistfully and took another gulp of tea. “Pa sure does admire that
mustang stallion. Would’ve been nice if I could’ve brought it in. He would’ve been mighty pleased when he and Olivia got back.”
“You ain’t got enough to do out at your pa’s ranch that you got time to run after wild horses?”
“Got nothing to do at the ranch.
O1’
Jenkins does the thinking, and the hands do the work. Damned useless is what I am.”
Myrna shook her head as she refilled Katy’s glass of tea. “You don’t know when you got it good, kiddo. You got a pa who’s
middlin’ rich, a family what loves ya, and ya live on the purtiest piece o’ land between here and Bozeman. You been given
the world, and all you can do is spit on it.”
“Yeah. Well, maybe I don’t want to be given the world. Maybe I want to win it like my pa did. Like my stepma Olivia did.”
Myrna answered with a scornful grunt as Katy took another deep swig of tea.
“This stuff isn’t bad,” Katy conceded.
“Better’n the whiskey Carl serves here.”
“That’s for sure.” Katy gazed morosely into the amber depths of the cold tea for a few moments, then glanced around the room.
One other customer, a gray-haired, sunken-cheeked oldster she recognized as a lineman for the railroad, shared the long bar
with her. One table was occupied by five men playing poker—the two Hackett brothers, Clive Messenger, Corky Stillburn, and
a man she didn’t recognize.
“Where is everybody?” she asked Myrna. “All the men in this town swear off booze and cards?”
Myrna huffed contemptuously. “All gone off with gold in their eyes.”
“Huh?”
“Y’ain’t heard? There’s gold been discovered up north, up the Yukon river a ways. They’re sayin’ them streams have more gold
in ‘em than a henhouse has chicken feed.”
She reached beneath the bar and slapped a newspaper down in front of Katy. It was from Bozeman, a week old, and stained with
whiskey and coffee. The banner headline blared out the news that gold had been discovered in the Canadian Klondike. Katy scanned
the article, which declared that on July 15, 1897, the steamer
Portland
had docked in Seattle carrying over two tons of gold taken from several tributaries of
the Klondike River. A white man, his Indian wife, and her brother had struck gold in their diggings on what was now being
called Bonanza Creek. Since then similar strikes had been made on the same creek and others that flowed into the Klondike
River and thence into the Yukon.
“A new gold rush,” Katy said softly, wonder in her voice.
“Yeah. Every man jack who’s got two good legs to carry him up to Dawson is runnin’ after that gold. They’ve been comin’ through
town on the train all week, and most of Willow Bend has joined ‘em. Most of ‘em that’ve stopped in the bar don’t know squat
about what they need to survive up there. But they all stampede back to the train when the conductor puts out the call.”