Gold Dust (16 page)

The little impromptu dinner party went well. Camilla was not disgusted when Katy taught her how to clean, skin, and prepare
the rabbits as a rather green-tinged Jonah looked on. The Irishwoman marveled aloud at Katy’s competence and heartily praised
the results when she tasted her first bite of roast hare. Patrick opened a bottle of good Irish whiskey. Katy found it hard
to believe that even an Irishman would be
so dedicated to whiskey that he would carry it over Chilkoot Pass, but apparently this one was. He took out his fiddle after
they were through eating and played softly while the rest of them gabbed. They talked of the Klondike, what they hoped to
find there, the tales they’d heard about the journey ahead. Camilla talked a bit about growing up a poor Irish girl in the
slums of Boston, which made Katy more grateful than ever that she had so far in her life avoided living in a city. Patrick
urged Jonah to relate some of his experiences as a newspaper correspondent, a calling that Katy would have thought quite tame.
His stories showed her to be wrong, though—unless Jonah was simply spinning yarns. As a writer, he should be quite talented
at that, Katy mused.

Liam was as good as a little angel all through the evening. Jonah was quite taken with the infant, which Katy thought rather
strange, given his gender. Most men seemed to regard babies as carriers of some dread disease. They feared getting too close,
and they certainly took great pains not to be exposed to any fluid that might leak from noses or mouths or less savory places.
When Camilla handed Liam to Jonah, however, he seemed perfectly comfortable holding the baby in his arms—much more comfortable
than Katy had been. Unlike Katy, he didn’t have to be told to hold the baby close. He didn’t mind when the kid spit up on
him. In fact, he laughed. And when little Liam felt asleep in his arms, he continued to cradle him, as if the cradling were
second nature to him.

Katy was surprised and a little envious. She could understand fathers being good with their own babies, but women were the
ones who supposedly had the talent for dealing with infants in general. That was a womanly attribute—one among many—that Katy
lacked. She had the equipment to be a mother, but not the instinct. The few babies she had known, including her own half brother,
had seemed like little beings from another world—mysterious, fragile, unpredictable. They didn’t take to her, either. She
was moved and not a little fascinated
by the sight of little Liam in Jonah’s arms: the baby’s smooth, pudgy little hand lying against the hard muscle of the arm
that cradled him; unblemished, almost-translucent baby skin contrasting with the sun-browned hairiness of Jonah’s masculine
hide. For some reason the sharp disparities brought a flush to Katy’s face.

“Your brother has a very gentle touch,” Camilla said to Katy. “Such a shame he does not have a wife and children of his own.”

“Some woman will run him down someday,” Katy answered. She was a bit jealous of the woman who would do it. Jonah Armstrong
might be someone worth running after—for a woman who was interested in that sort of thing, which, Katy reminded herself, she
wasn’t.

The Burkes retired to their own camp shortly after Liam fell asleep. Tomorrow they would be on the trail before the sun rose,
and bodies weary from the day’s journey demanded sleep. Andy refused Katy’s offer to make him a bed in the tent and went into
the woods with a blanket and a canvas tarp to find his own private sleeping place. Hunter was stretched out, fast asleep with
feet twitching in pursuit of dream rabbits, against one of the log benches near the fire. Katy and Jonah were left with only
each other’s company.

“Are you tired?” Katy asked.

Jonah rolled his shoulders and grimaced. “Sore is more like it. I’m not used to carrying a pack. You?”

“I’m all right.” Not for the world would Katy admit that she was a bit sore as well. “You’ll get used to it.”

He chuckled. “I’d better. It’s a long haul to the top.”

Katy got up and stood behind him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and started to knead the knotted muscles. He grunted
in pleasure as she dug into his hard flesh. “That feels great.”

“It’s the least a devoted sister can do for her brother.”

“Tell my sister Daphne that if you ever meet her. She’s more likely to cause knots than massage them away.”

Katy chuckled. “I used to do this for my pa after he’d spent a long day in the mine.”

Surprisingly, Jonah’s shoulders were every bit as wide as her father’s. She wondered where in his citified life he’d gotten
such muscles.

“Pa had a silver mine in the mountains above Elkhorn—that’s a little town in Montana. A boomtown, I guess you’d call it, though
it’s not booming much since the price of silver dropped. Anyway,” she continued as her hand worked at his shoulders, “he had
this mine for a while and worked it with just a pick and shovel. It was a one-man operation, but he got a lot of silver out
of it. I helped him in the tunnel sometimes. Once the thing caved in and I thought he was a goner for sure, but we got him
out, my stepma and me.”

“Sounds like a hard life for a young girl.”

“Oh no. It was a good life. The best.”

“You must miss your parents.”

“I do.” Not quite in the way he thought, for they weren’t gone forever. But she did miss them.

He flexed his shoulders, and muscles rolled beneath her hands. The air was cool, but his firm flesh was warm where she touched
him. Massaging Jonah’s shoulders certainly produced different sensations in her than massaging her father’s, Katy mused.

“I feel better,” Jonah declared. “And I’ll return the favor.”

“No thanks. I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh,” he said unbelievingly. “Sit down.”

His tone brooked no argument, so Katy sat. She jumped slightly when his warm hands landed upon her shoulders, but soon relaxed
under the spell of his ministrations. He was strong, but he knew how to temper the force he used. His thumbs separated the
muscles while powerful fingers worked them until they softened. The process hurt, but it felt good at the same time. Blood
started to flow freely into her arms again; she felt it as a warm flood from her shoulders to the tips of her fingers.

“That does feel good,” she admitted.

“Yes. It does.”

The magic hands moved to her neck. His fingers rested lightly at her throat while the thumbs worked up and down the sore muscles
that held her head upright. She flinched at first, then let her head roll forward as the muscles seemed to turn to water.

“Not sore, huh?”

“Well, maybe a little.”

“It’s no wonder if your neck aches. Look at all this weight you’re carrying around on your head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen
such thick hair.”

One of his hands continued to massage her neck while the other worked at the pins that held her braids coiled atop her head.
Once he had removed the pins, he freed the braids themselves by threading his fingers through the strands. It felt so good
that Katy couldn’t protest. She was so relaxed, so weary, that she probably couldn’t have protested if a volcano had erupted
beneath her.

“That better?” Jonah asked.

“Mmm.”

“I thought so.”

He pushed the thick veil of hair forward over her shoulders and continued to massage her back, shoulders, and neck. No knot
or sore spot escaped his attention. He had an uncanny ability to find every place that dared to ache. But his attentions started
an ache in the core of her belly that had nothing to do with sore or strained muscles.

Feeling ridiculously safe with the fire at her front and Jonah at her back, Katy let herself slip into a contented, sensuous
haze. The sensation of her defenses melting was unexpectedly enjoyable. Her blood simmered pleasantly. Her muscles turned
smooth and buttery. Her eyes surrendered their focus, seeing only the shimmering orange blur of the fire surrounded by velvet
black night. She could not have moved for anything short of an earthquake.

“A bit weary are we, Katy?” rumbled Jonah’s voice.

Katy felt herself lifted from the log. She didn’t protest. When he carried her into the tent, the canvas blocked the warmth
from the fire, but she scarcely had time to shiver before he covered her with the blankets of her bedroll. Even the hard ground
didn’t diminish her relaxation. Yet as mellow and tired as she felt, something inside her coiled tightly in unfamiliar need.
When Jonah’s hand brushed her cheek as he brought the blanket around her shoulders, it coiled even tighter.

“Sleep tight,” he said, as if he were tucking a child into bed. “And remember,”—his fingers brushed her cheek, this time not
by accident—“you asked for it.”

Katy heard him settle into his own bedroll. Hunter padded in, sniffed her face, and curled himself in the bend of her knees.
Warm, comfortable, and vaguely dissatisfied, she fell asleep wondering just what it was she had asked for.

Dawn arrived under a cloak of scudding gray clouds that shrouded the mountains and misted the valley with a cold drizzle.
Andy was already packing the horses by the time Katy and Jonah stumbled from the tent. Katy had trouble greeting the morning
with her usual bright energy. She had slept too deeply the night before, and dreamed deeply as well. Clear memory of the dreams
had fled moments after she woke, but the disturbance they created remained. She felt restless and distracted, and fought an
urge to dive back into her bedroll and return to those dreams, whatever they were. When Jonah patted her shoulder and inquired
how she had slept, uncharacteristic diffidence gripped her. The sight of him tousled and unshaven brought an unexpected flush
to her face. Katy couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her. Last night was not the first night she’d slept in the same tent
with Jonah. She’d seen him tousled, combed, yawning, angry, laughing, sleepy, sour-faced, and smiling. She’d even seen him
half
dressed and thought nothing of it. Or not much, at least. She wondered if she was getting sick.

They ate a breakfast of cold, greasy hare and the biscuits that Camilla had generously left for their morning meal, then hefted
their own packs and joined the traffic already tramping across the toll bridge.

Andy was as good as his word about being a hard worker. He handled the pack train well, but the horses’ skittishness on the
muddy, slippery trail made minding them more than a one-man job. Katy was about to step in and help when Jonah beat her to
it. She watched with interest as he helped Andy settle the animals to their work. The greenhorn had an instinct with horses
as well as babies. Anyone watching him wouldn’t guess that he’d been a citified dandy only a few weeks before. He even looked
the part of a Westerner now. His skin was bronzed from the sun and wind, and weathered laugh lines added character to his
face. He wasn’t wearing his hat—his pack kept knocking it off, he said—and his thick brown hair was plastered to his head
by the rain. The wet didn’t seem to bother him. Neither did the mud nor the cold wind nor the horses whose hooves danced so
dangerously close to his feet.

Katy led the way up the trail. Once across the toll bridge, the traffic spread out. The trail followed the Taiya River for
only a short distance beyond the bridge. In a steep-walled canyon, it left the river to climb slowly up the more gentle side
of the valley. Where yesterday Katy had lamented the lack of challenge, today she couldn’t complain about the ease of their
passage. The going was steep, the footing bad, alternating between sucking mud and slippery rocks that gave boots and hooves
very little purchase. A hundred yards ahead of them were three men having considerable difficulty. Bent under impossibly heavy
packs, they slipped, stumbled, and panted. One finally lost his balance where the path sloped precariously in the direction
of the river. He and his pack tumbled down the slope about ten feet before they came to rest
against a stubby, prickly spruce. His companions, winded and red-faced, simply sat down beside the trail, apparently too tired
to help him extricate himself. When Katy reached the trail above him, he was still cursing.

Jonah left the pack train in Andy’s capable hands and came to stand beside her. Together, they peered down at the unlikely
argonaut who struggled to right himself, pack and all, like a heavy-shelled turtle trying to flip onto its feet after being
turned over on its back.

“I don’t suppose it would occur to him to take the pack off,” Jonah commented.

“I don’t suppose it would,” Katy sighed. If they stopped to help everyone who faltered along the trail, they would never get
to Dawson, but it went against the grain to simply walk away and leave the poor man. His partners weren’t going to be much
help to him.

As if reading her mind, Jonah went back to the pack train and took a coiled rope from one of the packsaddles. He tossed one
end to the man below and fastened the other to the trunk of a sturdy spruce tree. Inspired by Jonah’s Good Samaritan efforts,
the man’s companions roused themselves to help by looking over the trail and shouting instructions.

When the man finally got himself and his pack back on the trail, with the help of Jonah’s rope, the only thanks he gave Katy
and Jonah were envious glances at the pack train. “Could I buy one of them horses?” he asked.

“Sorry,” Jonah said. “We can’t spare any.”

“We couldn’t find a single horse in town. Seems unfair, you folks havin’ five and us havin’ none.”

“Life’s like that,” Jonah philosophized.

By now the Burkes, who’d still been packing their cart when Katy and Jonah left camp, caught up with them.

“Trouble?” Patrick asked hopefully. The affable Irishman’s eyes sparkled in anticipation of a fight.

“No trouble,” Jonah replied.

The man they had helped, along with his companions, watched them resentfully as they got the pack train in motion once again
and made their way up the trail.

“Interesting attitude,” Jonah observed from behind Katy as she took up the trudge once again.

“That’s what gold does to people,” she said. “My pa told me once that gold was a disease that turned men’s blood to molten
greed.”