Gold Dust (26 page)

“Would you look at that?” Jonah smiled crookedly as he struggled to his feet. “Look at what’s going on over there.”

One of those parka-clad figures was a woman, Katy noted. The woman’s mittened hand was clasped firmly in a man’s grip, and
they stood before a fellow who, with stiff and serious mien, flipped through the pages of a book he held open before him.
Katy closed her eyes and collapsed back onto her pack, grimacing with the irony of it. Just what she needed right now—a wedding!

“Mr. Armstrong! Katy! I’m so glad to see you here!”

Camilla’s voice forced Katy to open her eyes. The young Irishwoman was bundled in parka and headscarf. Little Liam was tucked
beneath the parka, but one wool-clad little foot
had kicked its way free and thumped erratically against his mother’s ribs.

“I was so afraid that you’d been carried away in that dreadful flood. I wanted to go back to Sheep Camp to find you, but”—she
shrugged in apology—“Patrick is very anxious to get to the goldfields.”

Jonah touched the brim of the battered hat that he’d purchased after the flood. “Kind of you to worry about us, Mrs. Burke,
but we came through just fine. How’s that little boy of yours?”

Camilla laughed wearily. “Fussy. Always tired. But I might say the same about myself,” she admitted with a self-deprecating
smile. “Patrick is the strong one.”

Katy didn’t think so, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

Camilla eyed Katy’s attire with hesitation. “My poor Katy! Did the floor carry away your clothing?”

Katy looked down at her trousers, then met Camilla’s sympathetic gaze. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“Well, we will find you something to wear. Never fear. And look! You arrived just in time to see the big event,” Camilla told
them. “Mr. Roy Parker and Miss Elizabeth Wright. Isn’t it sweet? They met in Juneau. She was traveling with her father and
brother. Mr. Parker proposed at Pleasant Camp—you know, that little settlement on the trail just above the Canyon. After the
flood at Sheep Camp, Miss Wright’s father and brother decided to go back, but Mr. Parker convinced her to climb with him to
the summit and marry him here. It’s so romantic.”

Jonah was already scribbling notes, but he paused long enough to look Katy’s way and raise one brow. Katy grimaced and looked
away. What was it with marriage and weddings? Once mentioned, they appeared everywhere.

“I guess we might as well watch,” Katy said with ill grace.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Jonah grinned.

They joined the curious crowd who watched the ceremony. Roy Parker towered above his diminutive bride. His bulky sweater and
parka emphasized his bull-like build, and he
topped most of the men present by half a head. His face had a week’s worth of scraggly beard, and his hair stuck out from
beneath a stocking cap in irregular spikes. He smiled down at the woman with unmistakable adoration, though. Elizabeth Wright,
her shape and almost everything else about her hidden beneath layers of clothing, returned his adoration in the tenderness
of her smile.

As the preacher prepared to get underway, the groom bent down and gave the bride a sound and thorough kiss.

“None of that now!” came a jovial shout from somewhere in the crowd. “Not till the words have been said!”

The kiss continued while Roy brushed the teasing off with a wave of his hand. A few enthusiastic cheers rose from the crowd.
Katy could feel Jonah beside her, even though she didn’t dare look his way. Her body tingled. Her lips grew hot, until she
was tempted to lick them to cool the fire. She wondered how long she would remember the way Jonah kissed. One of his kisses
could make a girl forget every lick of good sense she possessed.

“Ahem!” The preacher cleared his throat loudly.

Roy released his bride, tenderly straightened her headscarf, and grinned. “You can start now,” he told the preacher.

The couple were so absorbed in each other, Katy doubted they heard the words said over them. Katy heard them though. Love,
honor, and cherish. Through thick and thin. During youth, middle age, and doddering decline. Katy didn’t look sidewise to
where Jonah stood beside her, but she could picture him in her mind, his teasing smile, blue eyes, the well-weathered laugh
lines that creased his skin. She could hear the bantering of his voice—bantering that could turn deadly serious if something
he really cared about was at stake. A woman could make such promises to a man like Jonah and look forward to keeping them.

Standing nearby, Camilla sniffled. “Oh my. Weddings always make me cry. And this one is so romantic, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Katy mumbled. “I suppose so.”

She thought of her pa’s wedding to Olivia, and the memory inspired a twinge of homesickness. Her pa and Olivia weren’t like
most married folks. They gave a whole new meaning to love and cherish, and they weren’t ashamed to show it. Folks said her
pa was lucky to have Olivia, and Katy conceded that might be true. Olivia was the really lucky one, though, for Gabriel O’Connell
had rescued her from the fate of living out her life in New York.

If Katy were foolish enough to marry Jonah, folks would surely comment that a girl like Katy was lucky to get such a polished
gent, just as they commented on Gabe and Olivia. That was where the analogy ended, though. While her pa had come to realize
that Olivia had her own mission in life separate from him, Jonah thought women should be coddled and protected in a cocoon
of safe domesticity. While Gabriel O’Connell had offered Olivia a life in wonderful, wild Montana, Jonah made his home in
a land of crowded streets, smoky air, and the stifling confines of civilization. Katy looked out at the grand vista afforded
by the summit they had struggled so hard to reach. In every direction lay a jumble of wild mountains. In the crystal-clear
air, ridges looked as sharp as knives, glacier-carved peaks thrust upward in silent majesty, valleys flowed between the treeless
heights like rivers of verdant green. Above it all stretched a brilliant deep blue sky.

What would happen to someone who had spent her life in such country if she tried to squeeze herself into the confines of narrow
streets and dark buildings? What would happen to someone who longed for independence if she tried to bind herself with the
shackles of wifely obedience? What would happen to the hoyden who tried to play the lady for keeps instead of just a game?
What would happen? She would die. That’s what would happen.

“I remember my wedding,” Camilla said with a sigh.

“I’ll bet it wasn’t on top of a mountain,” Katy said tartly.

“It was in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Boston. No one but
our families were there, of course, so the church was nearly empty. It was grand, though. Poor Patrick. He’d celebrated so
much the night before that he could scarcely stand.”

Katy wondered why any woman as sensitive and gentle as Camilla would promise to love and obey an irresponsible, overgrown
boy like Patrick Burke.

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen,” Camilla said, smiling. “Patrick was twenty-three, and he was the handsomest, most charming man I’d ever met.
When he proposed I’d thought he must be talking to someone else.”

Camilla hadn’t thought past handsome and charming, and look where it had landed her.

“When you were growing up,” Katy asked, “did you even think about not marrying?”

“Live as a spinster? No children, no husband? Oh no. I could never do without Patrick.” She turned a gentle smile on Katy.
“I need someone to care for, someone to lean upon.”

Well, Katy sure as hell didn’t, especially not in some fusty house in Chicago sipping tea with her pinky in the air. Not Katy
O’Connell. She was going to find gold, be independent, and make her own rules. Love was forged from chains meant to hold a
woman down. Her heartstrings might hum when she looked at Jonah Armstrong, but she would get over this foolishness, just as
she’d gotten over the diphtheria when she was twelve.

Jonah listened as the preacher embellished the wedding service with a few comments on the serious nature of marriage. His
audience listened more raptly than any righteous, go-to-church-every-Sunday congregation would have, because it touched a
subject close to the heart of almost every man on that summit. Women. Family. Many of the Klondik-ers had left wives and children
at home to seek their fortune. Others had no family to remember, only a lonely existence that seemed even lonelier when watching
two people join
their lives together for mutual comfort and companionship. Every man in the crowd, Jonah observed with a touch of amusement,
was mush-faced with romanticism. Probably himself as well. Once he’d been immune, but no more.

Man and woman must cleave together, the preacher declared. Only together are they whole. Apart they are incomplete. Nothing.
Crippled.

Before he’d met Katy, Jonah would have laughed at the man. Some men were meant to be free, he would have told the preacher.
Some men didn’t have the time to spend on a luxury like marriage. Then Katy had swaggered into his life. Now he realized that
when the right woman came along, marriage was no longer a luxury; it was a necessity.

“Woman is man’s moral anchor!” the preaching man shouted, stabbing at the sky with a finger.

Fine moral anchor Katy would be, Jonah mused with a smile. She cussed, gambled, wore trousers, and probably, when no one was
looking, spit.

“Man is woman’s strength and protection!” the reverend declared.

Katy had strength of her own, and so far, she’d protected Jonah more than he had protected her. Who, though, would protect
her from that trusting innocence she didn’t even realize she possessed? Who if not Jonah Armstrong?

Jonah had spent the hike to the summit nursing the sting of Katy’s rejection, telling himself he was lucky to escape the trap
he’d almost fallen into, convincing himself that he didn’t really want to marry. He’d been shocked by Katy’s virginity and
felt guilty for his misunderstanding of her character. With every painful step toward the top he told himself that he had
proposed out of obligation. He was lucky the little termagant had said no.

But that was a load of shit. He hadn’t mistaken Katy’s character—not really. Somewhere inside him he’d known exactly what
he was doing. And his proposal had been more of a plea than a placation. He wanted Katy. Frightening as the thought
was, he loved the swaggering, bossy little imp. She was a breath of fresh air in a world growing stuffier by the day, a bright
flame of passion in a life where the embers of excitement were growing cold.

“If anyone here knows a good reason why these two shouldn’t be married, let him speak now,” the preacher invited the crowd.

Up until recently, Jonah Armstrong had a list as long as his arms why a man like him shouldn’t marry. Now he couldn’t think
of one. He slid a glance toward Katy where she stood with Camilla a few feet away. She leaned her head toward Camilla and
smiled at something the other woman said. Perhaps she also had been thinking on her way up the trail. Perhaps she had merely
been frightened and shocked this early morning when she’d refused him. She watched the bridal couple with a strange light
in her eyes. She might be thinking right now that marriage to Jonah Armstrong was a good idea after all.

“I now pronounce you, Roy Matthew Parker, and you, Elizabeth Mary Wright, man and wife,” the preacher droned. “What God has
joined together, let not man put asunder. Amen.”

An enthusiastic chorus of amens rose from the crowd. Roy took his cue and kissed Elizabeth once again—a long, thorough kiss.
Katy pressed her lips together and clamped them between her teeth. Jonah could almost see her squirm. It wasn’t Roy Parker
she was thinking about; it was Jonah Armstrong. She loved him. She wanted him. Jonah could feel it.

The crowd dispersed. Katy wandered off with Camilla. Andy was with the packers, and a long line stretched in front of them
before they could weigh in and pay the fees to cross the border into Canada. Jonah was left with no company but his own, so
he introduced himself to the bride and groom and asked their permission to write their story for the
Record.
Roy was eager to talk about their plans for the future. Elizabeth blushed charmingly and let her new husband do the talking.
Jonah couldn’t help compare her to Katy—two women following the same trail but different as a wild rose and a pampered pansy.
Clinging to her groom’s brawny arm, Elizabeth was all blushes and feminine adoration, content to put her life in her husband’s
hands. Katy, on the other hand, was untamed beauty studded with thorns. She would never be content to have her future rest
with anyone but herself.

Why couldn’t he have been smart like Roy Parker? Jonah asked himself. Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with a woman like
Elizabeth Wright? Life would have been so much easier. And so much duller, he reminded himself.

Jonah left Roy and Elizabeth to their newlywed billing and cooing and went in search of Katy. He found her with Andy setting
up the tent. Her glance slid off him uneasily as she explained that they wouldn’t get through the border until morning. Besides
which, the Burkes had been delayed by the desertion of three of their packers, and Andy had offered to help them hire others.

“Fine,” Jonah said. “I’m in no hurry.”

He helped set up the tent and start a fire, taking satisfied notice that he was getting good at such things. He was also becoming
accustomed to some of Katy’s outlandish ideas of what sort of game animals were suitable to go in the dinner pot. A case in
point was some small limp creature that Hunter held between his jaws as he trotted up to Katy.

“Do I dare ask what that is?”

“It’s a pica,” Katy said. “Hunter’s brought in enough of them for a stew, I think.”

Hunter dropped his victim at Katy’s feet. It was the size of a small chipmunk—or a medium size rat, Jonah thought with distaste.

“They live among the rocks above the tree line,” Katy continued. “Some of those indignant squeaks we’ve been hearing are these
guys telling us to get out of their territory.”