Gold Fever (9 page)

Nor did I mention that someone had been watching the scene with a far greater degree of interest than the majority of the bored crowd. Chloe, the dancer I'd fired the night before for drinking, reversed her direction and headed up the street after Joey, a look of malicious glee filling her sharp face.

When I arrived back at the Savoy, men were lining up at the bar five deep. From the back room came the wonderful noise of cards being dealt and the roulette wheel spinning. The sound of money falling into my pocket went some way towards taking my mind off the triple troubles of Irene, Joey and Chloe.

There were two bartenders serving the customers. Murray, the newly promoted head bartender, and another fellow whose name always managed to escape me. “Mrs. MacGillivray.” Murray waved me over. “Thank goodness you're here. Man's thrown up under the roulette wheel, and Mrs. Saunderson ain't around.”

I looked at him. “Have you shown the gentleman the door?”

“Shown him the mud of Front Street, more like.” “Has a beautiful fairy arrived to clean up the mess with her magic wand?” He looked at me, his shiny face blank. A lock of clean blond hair flopped across his forehead. “No, ma'am.”

“Then you'd best clean it up yourself, hadn't you? Certainly before I see it.”

“Ma'am?”

“You are in charge here in Mr. Walker's absence, are you not, Murray?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Then please act it. Either clean up the mess or have someone do it, whether Mrs. Saunderson is here or not.” I tossed my head towards the bartender who was Not-Murray. Comprehension slowly dawned behind the eyes of our new head bartender. I'd have to ask Ray to re-think that appointment. “I'm going up to my office for about five minutes. Then I intend to tour the gambling hall. If I am not assailed by the invigorating scent of clean sawdust, and nothing else, someone will be seeking new employment.”

I walked away, smiling to my left and right and greeting customers graciously. I've had some experience in mingling with minor royalty, and I even moved in the Prince of Wales's social circle for a brief time (but quite long enough, thank you very much), so I know how to put on airs. The men seem to like it. Makes them feel special, perhaps.

It was early afternoon, and although the place might appear to be full, it was only an illusion. Wait until the show ended at midnight, the dance hall doors opened and men spilled out of the back room. Then I'd scarcely be able to breathe as I made my way through the crowds. In some situations that might prove somewhat dangerous for a lady, but in Dawson the majority of the men were so homesick, so lonely—so sad, some of them—that most of them treated me like a hothouse flower. And for those that didn't, there was the very long arm of the NWMP. As well as the hefty billy club Ray kept behind the bar.

I walked up the stairs, wondering if I should tell the Mounties that Joey LeBlanc had threatened me. But what could I say: Joey had asked Helen Saunderson if she liked working for me, and I took that comment to mean I should run for the law? Or that an ex-employee had changed her mind and headed north when she'd originally been going south? I'd be laughed out of the station. But not by everyone.

There was always Constable Sterling. I pushed that idea aside. I didn't want to be beholden to Richard Sterling.

At that moment, as though summoned by my very thoughts, Sergeant Lancaster walked through the doors of the Savoy. As usual, he was all puffed up and walked like the emperor penguin in a photograph I'd seen of such an animal captured on an expedition to the Antarctic.

Also as usual, he made a beeline in my direction. Sergeant Lancaster had recently expressed his entirely honourable intentions towards me. It had been a most uncomfortable situation, and I considered myself fortunate to have escaped without causing any hard feelings. This afternoon he was wreathed in smiles across his battered old face all the way up to the cauliflower ears. He sucked in his stomach as he got close.

“Mrs. MacGillivray. May I say that you are looking particularly lovely this afternoon?”

Of course you may
. “A touch of our northern sun does wonders for a lady's complexion, I've always said.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes. “I said to your son…” I took his arm. “I was hoping to have a word with you, Sergeant.” I led him away from the crowd, but no further than the back of the saloon. I was afraid if I took him up to the privacy of my office, Sergeant Lancaster would drop to one knee and burst out a proposal of marriage once again. We stood under a painting of a voluptuous, pale-skinned, redheaded nude lounging languorously on a red velvet settee. Some patriotic soul had driven a pair of Stars and Stripes into either side of the heavy gilt frame. Rather than offend our American customers, I had let the flags remain. I myself had attached a considerably larger set of Union Jacks to the picture beside it.

“Is there a problem, Mrs. MacGillivray?” Lancaster was getting himself ready to mount up and ride into battle on my behalf.

“I'm sure it's nothing, Sergeant,” I said. “I've recently taken a young woman under my protection. A woman of most unfortunate circumstances—I'm sure I don't have to explain them to you?”

The big man turned a bright red. He tugged at the buttons on his tunic. “Of course not, Mrs. MacGillivray.”

“I am concerned that…certain people…might be anxious to return her to her…previous employment.”

“I assure you, Mrs. MacGillivray…”

I raised a hand and touched him lightly on the chest. “Or to take some…action…against me.”

“Mrs. MacGillivray!” Lancaster was truly shocked. His fellow officers held him in high regard; I thought him a bumbling idiot. But I was hoping that through him the Mounties would extend me protection without my having to humble myself by asking for it.

Foolish pride. Better I should have crawled on all fours and begged for their help.

After leaving Angus MacGillivray at his boxing lesson with Sergeant Lancaster, Sterling continued on his rounds. He walked through saloons and dance halls, checking for crooked tables, clumsily-poured drinks, gold scales out of alignment, underage drinkers, men spoiling for a fight, indecency, all of the detritus of a gold rush town where the innocent sometimes made it as hard to protect them as it was to prosecute the guilty. The drunken Indian played on his mind.

Eventually his heavy black boots led him down Church Street to St. Paul's.

He took off his hat as he opened the church doors. It was a rough wooden structure, looking exactly like what it was— a building thrown up out of the wilderness in a few short weeks. But it was also a rarely-visited sanctuary offering an island of serenity in an ocean of turbulent humanity. The minister's wife was polishing the arms of the pews, a thankless task. In Dawson, dust and sawdust continually fell in a fine rain on everything indoors and out.

She put down her rag and wiped her hands on her apron while walking towards him with a welcoming smile. “Constable. How nice to see you. Come to check on your Indian friend?”

“Yes, ma'am. Did you fetch him then?” “My husband has taken him down to Moosehide.”

Moosehide was a small island in the Yukon River, not far from town, where the Han Indians lived. Moosehide was also the name of the ancient rockslide that had long ago taken an enormous chunk out of the side of the hill looming over the town.

“Thank you.” Sterling tipped his hat. “I'll be off then.”

“Have you time for a cup of tea, Constable?”

A lot of dust got into a man's throat on a hot day walking rounds in Dawson, but he couldn't accept the friendly offer. Sterling's father had been a preacher, a stern, cold, hard man, who had slowly drained every bit of joy out of his timid wife, until she was almost as much of a shell as he. Richard Sterling had been raised in a cold, hard home. It was irrational, he knew, but he could never make himself comfortable in the presence of a man or woman of God.

“Another time perhaps, ma'am.” He walked back out into the sunshine and the dust.

He'd never expected it to get so hot this far north. They were almost at the Arctic Circle, yet the temperature had to be close to a hundred degrees, and the sun beat relentlessly on his wool tunic. Two drunken cheechakos were shouting bawdy songs at each other and slapping backs so close to the riverbed, it was likely one or both would be in the water pretty soon. He shook himself clear of the cobwebs of memory and went to suggest they take their frivolity somewhere safer.

I went home for a much-too-short afternoon nap, had dinner with my son and changed into evening dress. The nap had been disturbed by hammering on a new house being put up across the street to replace the tent that had been there yesterday. Dinner had been dreadful—stew from a ptarmigan that must have died of an extremely ripe old age. A bone on my best corset snapped, leaving me in danger of being impaled. I'd ripped off the offending garment and struggled into an older one. Tonight I was again wearing the green satin dress. It had a plain, unadorned front and a high neckline, so I wrapped yards and yards of fake pearls around my throat. Instead of wearing a hat, I tied my hair back with a generous length of ribbon salvaged from material discarded when the dress was cut down as the bustle went out of fashion. The high neckline was so proper as to be out of place in a dance hall, but the lack of a hat made up for the shock factor.

Angus had been particularly quiet during dinner, scowling into his lumpy mashed potatoes and ubiquitous serving of beans that accompanied the foul fowl. He'd cast glances at me throughout the meal and asked if I was planning to be at the Savoy that night. Where on earth else would I be? He ate only one bowl of canned strawberries for dessert and asked to be excused.

“Zee boy up to something,” Mr. Mann said, leaning back to let his wife clear his place and set a cup of tea in front of him while he measured tobacco into his pipe.

I hoped Angus wasn't interested in pursuing a life of crime or gambling: his poker face couldn't fool a blind nun.

As I was saying goodbye to the Manns, Mary appeared at the kitchen door to say she was finished for the day and to collect her wages. Her hands were red and chapped, her face flushed with heat, her hair damp and hanging lank down her back, and the front of her dress was soaking wet. I invited her to walk with me to the Savoy.

A dead horse lay in the intersection of Fourth Avenue and York Street. It didn't appear to have been there for long, as not many flies had yet gathered. I lifted my skirts with a sniff. I didn't often think fondly of London or even Toronto, for I had come to love the Yukon (most of the time), but one didn't have to contend with carrion in the better streets of London. Mary stumbled, and I grabbed her arm. She was obviously exhausted. She looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and mumbled her thanks.

“Have you found accommodation yet?” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

“You're asking me to leave the Savoy, Mrs. MacGillivray?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “but you can't stay there permanently.” “Why not?” “Why not? Because the Savoy isn't a hotel.”

“You let white men stay.”

“Well, yes. But only our customers. Men who spend money in the dance hall and play at the gambling tables.”

“Not Indians.”

“Indians are not my customers. What's the matter with you, Mary? I can't let out those rooms nor put up any drunken gamblers while you're living up there. now can I? That wouldn't be at all proper, nor would it be safe for you. I explained yesterday that you can stay in the Savoy until you find alternate accommodation.”

“There is no accommodation for an Indian, Mrs. Mac Gillivray.”

“Mrs. Mann pays you well, doesn't she?”

“Yes.”

“Then by the end of the week you should have enough money to find someplace to stay. This is Dawson; money is all that matters. I'll ask some of my acquaintances if they know of a respectable woman with rooms to rent.”

“Yes, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Mary sighed. I did wonder if I was being overly optimistic. If even kind-hearted Helen didn't want Mary around, would any other “respectable” Dawson matron be willing to take Mary under her roof? Perhaps Mary should just leave town, go back where she came from, as Helen suggested. That would relieve me of the burden of caring for her, which, truth be told, I was only doing to annoy Joey LeBlanc.

We arrived at Front Street. The evening crowd was beginning to gather, and men greeted me effusively. My neighbour stood outside the small bakery at which she and her elder sister sold coffee and waffles for twenty-five cents. Business was slow right now, but after a night of entertainment and dancing, men would be lining up for refreshment. Twenty-five cents would be all that many of them had left until their next pay-day, or until they dug up more gold. I'd bought one of their waffles once and found it dry and almost tasteless, but the sisters provided the scent of a warm oven and quality ingredients, and it was likely the men ate at the bakery as much for the smell of home as for the food.

“Lovely evening, isn't it?” she said in her heavy Dutch accent with a warm smile that revealed an overabundance of healthy teeth.

I paused for a moment. “It is.” All the summer evenings were lovely in the Yukon. The heat of the day moderated a fraction, leaving the air warm and fresh. (Well, as fresh as it could be, considering the dead animals in the road and the hygiene of some of the miners.) The frantic activity in the sawmills died down enough that noise and dust abated. We paid heavily for these lovely evenings come winter, when the sun barely rose above the horizon all day, and even when it did, it didn't contain a smidgen of heat.

I was about to wish her a good evening when, to my shock, she pulled a tobacco pouch and cigarette papers out of her pocket and began to roll a cigarette. In London, I'd seen barely-acceptable women (the sort who performed on stage and later joined the prince and his friends for supper) smoke cigars. But even in Alaska or the Yukon, I'd never seen a woman smoke a cigarette on the street. I had heard that some of the dancers and prostitutes did so in the privacy of their, or their customer's, rooms.