Gold Dust (20 page)

“You should let me do it.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m a greenhorn fool. You’ve told me often enough.”

Katy didn’t want him to go. He was obviously cold and tired, his strength nearly exhausted. Then she thought of giggly, plump
Maude, and remembered how it felt to be sucked into the flood. Jonah was serious about not letting her go out on that debris
dam, and no one else would go after the whore. No one else was half as foolish as her quixotic greenhorn.

“Jonah. Be careful, please.”

He grinned. “Make sure that rope’s anchored well. I don’t want my obituary to be the concluding piece to this series I’m writing.”

Katy tied the rope around a sturdy spruce. By the time she turned around, Jonah had disappeared into the darkness beyond the
small circle of lantern light. Maude’s cries continued. Katy’s hands fisted at her sides. Her nails dug into her palms. She
relaxed only slightly when Jonah’s strong voice instructed Maude to keep talking so that he could find her.

“He should have taken the lantern with him,” Rhona said.

“No,” Katy replied. “He’ll need both hands for balance on that mess of branches and brush.”

“Poor Maudie! Poor baby.”

Maude’s cries were replaced by a loud shriek followed by a faint splash.

“Haul us in!” Jonah shouted. “Slowly!”

Katy and Andy both grabbed the rope. A few minutes later Jonah waded from the water with a piteously moaning woman wrapped
around him as tightly as a bloodsucking leech. Jonah climbed out of the rope that tied them together and gently tried to peel
the weeping girl off him.

“No!” she shrieked. “No!”

“You’re all right now, honey,” Rhona told her.

“Don’t let me go! Please!” Maude begged. Her arms circled Jonah’s neck; her legs climbed his hips in a manner that made Jonah
flush with a high color that was obvious even in the poor lantern light. Katy folded her arms scornfully as Maude latched
onto his lips as if she would suck the breath right out of him. In an excess of gratitude she squirmed against him like a
fish swimming up the current of his chest.

Katy resisted reaching out and pulling the woman back by her hair only by remembering that she had wanted to do something
very similar when she had emerged from the flood. She would have gladly lain there in the mud with Jonah until dawn—and Jonah
had only thrown her a rope; he hadn’t risked life and limb to climb out on a precarious pile of floating debris to fetch her.

The difference was, Katy reminded herself resentfully, that Jonah Armstrong was
her
greenhorn, not Maude’s, and she didn’t appreciate the little giggly idiot staking a claim in her territory.

“That’s enough!” Katy muttered. With Jonah’s help, she managed to peel Maude away from him.

As Rhona took the sobbing girl in hand and gently led her away, she tossed Jonah a look full of promise over her friend’s
shoulder. “Anytime, handsome. Just wander our way. For you, it’s free. As many times as you want.”

Jonah sent Katy a crooked smile and shrugged helplessly.

“My hero!” she sighed with soupy sarcasm, then walked sinuously away in a fair imitation of Rhona’s hip-weaving exit.

The morning was a muddy one. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still a sullen gray. Though the flood had diminished to
a mere trickle, what the day before had been a green alpine valley was now a sea of mud. Trees, uprooted stumps, packing boxes,
and boards stuck up from the mess like half-buried skeletons. The carcass of a horse lay in the mire not far from where Jonah
had climbed across the debris dam to rescue Maude.

Andy and Jonah had gotten the horses and some of the provisions onto high ground, but the tent, most of their clothing, and
many of the supplies purchased with Katy’s poker winnings were buried somewhere in the mud. They spent the day searching the
devastation around their campsite and several miles downstream. Katy found a packing box of flour, sugar, and saleratus wedged
into the fork of a branch half a mile downstream. The box had broken open, of course, and the contents were ruined. Jonah
recovered his extra pair of boots, which could be cleaned and dried, and Katy’s fur-lined parka. Andy came up with a sack
of canned goods that had been dented and muddied, but not otherwise damaged. When the three of them met in the midafternoon
to compare what they had found, it was clear that over half their supplies had been swept away or ruined. They were left with
scarcely enough to get them to Lake Bennett, much less to Dawson and the gold-fields.

Others had lost much more. A German man had seen his son swept away by the water and had been unable to help him. The body
was found at midmorning, two miles downstream. The arm of another man had been crushed between heavy packing boxes as he had
attempted to move them out of the way of the flood. Among the lucky ones whose campsites had survived, many had lost heart
if not their provisions. As the
day wore on, more people headed down valley, back to Dyea and civilization, than continued the trudge to the summit.

Katy couldn’t be stopped by a mere flood, however, and she was not surprised to learn that Jonah also was willing to continue
the trek. City boy he might be, but Katy had to admit Jonah had grit and heart. Her own heart was fairly giddy after the previous
night’s brush with death, and when Jonah was close to her it got giddier. She kept remembering the sound of his voice when
he’d said he thought her gone, the feel of his arms holding her close.

There was too much to be done for Katy to allow herself the luxury of such distraction, however. They still had funds from
her poker winnings, and they managed to replace most of their foodstuffs with supplies being sold by people turning back to
Dyea. Clothing, also, was on the market. A woman who had been traveling with her brother—her real brother, from the looks
of them—sold Katy a pair of rubber boots, gloves, two woolen skirts, and an assortment of underclothing. A boy not much older
than Andy provided her with an oilskin coat, three shirts, a heavy wool sweater, and a broad-brimmed hat. Jonah was able to
scrounge a similar wardrobe, motley but usable. Andy ended up benefiting from the flood, for he’d started the trip with only
the clothes on his back, and Katy purchased him a change of clothing, a parka, and extra set of boots, socks, and heavy woolen
gloves.

That night they camped far above the highest reaches of the flood, all three crowded under a single tarp. A used tent was
tucked among the other provisions they had acquired, but the task of putting it up seemed too much effort. Camped close by
were Rhona and Maude and the rest of the bedraggled, damp birds of paradise. No laughter or loud invitations issued from their
camp tonight, however. Katy had seen them searching the debris and scrounging supplies throughout the day. Those profit-minded
ladies weren’t about to give up their venture just because of a little hardship, she guessed. She had to admire their guts.
The memory of Maude wrapped around Jonah
like a clinging vine made Katy grimace, but even that thought could not keep her from sleep.

Next morning, as dawn lightened the sky above the mountains, they packed the horses and began the trudge toward Stone House.
The going was difficult, for in places the trail was obliterated by mud and debris. Trees and boulders had tumbled down the
valley along with mud and water and sometimes made the way all but impassable for horses, if not people. One treacherous tangle
of brush, mud, and an uprooted tree almost cost them one of the horses, who panicked when he slid off the slippery and precarious
path around the obstacle. The creature managed to wedge one leg dangerously between two unstable logs and almost broke the
bone before the three of them working together were able to free him.

It was that incident that allowed the flock of soiled doves to catch up with them. Maude, gowned in a dress that might have
been modest if it hadn’t been screaming yellow and a size too tight, strayed from the flock as it struggled over the path
that had been the packhorse’s downfall. The curvaceous little entrepreneur latched onto Jonah with a vengeance, gushing her
gratitude for his heroism in saving her life.

Andy whispered a comment to Katy. “She’s gonna be climbing him like a bear climbs a tree in less than a minute. Wanna bet?”

Katy eyed the spectacle with narrowed eyes. She could hardly begrudge the girl’s gratitude. Jonah had saved the slut’s life,
after all. But he’d saved Katy’s life too, in a manner of speaking, and you didn’t see
her
making an out-and-out fool of herself, climbing all over the poor man and gushing over him like some weepy, useless heroine
in a bad melodrama. The sight fairly made Katy’s stomach churn, and the suspicion that Jonah was enjoying Maude’s silly little
act made the churning even worse.

Katy interrupted the tender scene with a sharp reminder. “We’ve got to get moving, Jonah. The way things are going, we’ll
be lucky to make Stone House by tonight.”

“Sure thing.”

Katy noted irritably that he wasn’t very quick about disentangling himself from the worshipful Maude.

“Don’t let me hold you up,” Maude said with a giggle and an adoring smile. “I’ll just walk right along with you.”

The little whore carried out her threat. Katy supposed there was no hope of Maude trying to catch up with her own group, for
her pert body, with its top-heavy shape and soft, generous curves, was made for something other than trudging through mud
and climbing over treacherous rocks. Even at their slow pace, she had trouble keeping up. Katy observed to Andy that the girl
might have an easier time walking if she didn’t waste so much breath in ceaseless chatter, and Jonah might have an easier
time if the helpless floozy wasn’t constantly grabbing his arm—or any other convenient part of his anatomy—to help her over
the trail.

“Last night was a turning point in my life, you know?” Maude said with a dramatic, breath-wasting sigh. “I thought I was a
goner for sure, and I reckoned I was goin’ straight to hell for, you know, being what the preachin’ men call a fallen woman.”
Despite her subject being hell and damnation, she giggled and slanted Jonah a coy look. “Not that I think pleasuring a man
is sin, you know. Pleasin’ a man is what I do best. The boys back in Anchorage called me the Northern Star. They said my tits
was purtier’n any they’d seen—bigger, too.”

Behind Jonah and his full-figured admirer, Katy gave an inelegant snort. Maude threw her an arch look over her shoulder.

“It’s true, you know,” Maude continued. “There wasn’t a night in Anchorage wheflul didn’t make at least ten bucks. You gotta
have talent to do that!”

Jonah cleared his throat and kept his eyes strictly forward. “I’m sure you’re very talented, Miss Maude.”

“You bet I am.” Feigning a stumble, Maude clutched at Jonah’s arm. As if by accident, she pressed his hand against
the fullness of one breast. Katy had never seen such a deliberate bit of foolery. The girl’s stupid giggle when she did it
was a dead giveaway. Katy fantasized pricking those oversize bosoms with a pin and seeing them deflate like balloons.

Jonah quickly reclaimed his hand, but Maude seemed not to notice. She chattered gaily about how the close brush with death
had made her realize it was time to change professions and get morals, no matter how good a whore she was. She was going to
change her ways for the better and stick to one man—or at least one man at a time, and since Jonah had so heroically saved
her life, he was the man she was going to stick to for now.

“I’m all yours, honey,” she said with an expansive smile. “Leastwise till we get to Dawson. I figure you deserve a reward
for savin’ my life, and I’m it.”

A flush crawled up the back of Jonah’s neck. “You don’t need to do that, Miss Maude. Really you don’t.”

“Sure I do,” she declared with a little giggle. “Don’t you be shy, now. L’il Maudie knows what a man needs. You deserve the
best”—she shot a look of triumph over her shoulder at Katy—“and you’re gonna get it.”

He’s going to get it, all right,
fumed Katy,
if he doesn’t get rid of that whore before nightfall!

When they stopped for a noon break, Stone House was still a good way up the trail. Maude might be donating her company to
Jonah free of charge, but she didn’t hesitate to eat heartily from their supplies of beans and jerked beef. The girl consumed
enough food to sustain those plush hips and pillowy breasts, Katy reflected sourly. The woman looked like an overstuffed couch.

Katy had little sympathy for Jonah, who spent his lunch break trying tactfully to extricate himself from Maude’s plans for
his immediate future. If he were being pestered by a mosquito, Katy reflected morosely, he would have swatted it. One good
swat ought to send Maude up the trail in search of the
comrades of her “former” profession. Jonah simply wasn’t trying hard enough.

After lunch Jonah took Katy’s place with the pack train and Katy led the way. Jonah had little time for Maude’s shenanigans
while dealing with the skittish horses, so the girl walked beside Katy and showed herself perfectly capable of negotiating
the trail without grabbing for parts of someone else’s body every minute or so. Her hips swung enticingly as she walked. No
doubt, Katy mused, Maude was taking this opportunity to present Jonah with the charms of her ample backside. The trollop also
made clear to Katy that she didn’t for one minute swallow the story about Katy being Jonah’s sister. While Jonah was treated
to the tempting view of her undulating hips, Katy got the full benefit of her sharp claws.

“Who taught you the trade, sister girl?” Maude asked scathingly. “Didn’t they ever tell you that men prefer ladies with a
little meat covering their bones?”

“I’m not
in
the trade, Maudie girl. And if you cross me, you’re not going to have much to offer a customer after I whittle you down a
bit.”

“Do tell?” Maude lifted a painted brow.

Katy wondered how the girl managed to carry so much paint on her face without her skin sagging.

“You talk tough, sister girl. You look tough as well—like a piece of meat that’s been left in the sun, sunken and dried up,
you know?”