Mary Connealy (3 page)

He had a saddle bag over one shoulder with a flat seining pan clattering softly against a pick anytime the ship bobbed or the shifting mass of humanity bumped him.

Keeping a firm grip on the railing, she said, “Yes?” She didn’t like him knowing her name, although she imagined few secrets remained about her after all this time aboard ship. Her wariness didn’t ease just because he had a few manners.

“My name is Thompson, Miss Simons, Darnell Thompson. I couldn’t help overhearing you discuss your journey with Braden Rafferty.” The man smiled, but to Amy his expression seemed calculating.

He shrugged under his shearling coat. “I’m headed in much the same direction myself. I wondered if I might travel along with you once we leave the ship.”

Amy couldn’t bring herself to casually include him. “Whether we travel the same trail or not is surely not my decision.”

The man watched her. Looking around for a long moment, his eyes focused over her shoulder as if he saw someone he knew. He gave one firm nod. “Fair enough. More men on a trail makes for safe passage. I’ll discuss it with Rafferty.”

“You do that.” Amy stared into the man’s eyes. They were a strange hazel color, brown flecked with gold. The mission teacher had taught her to be wary of men, and though she’d made an exception for Braden, this man didn’t inspire such trust.

Mr. Thompson tugged on his much-maligned hat and left her by the railing. Although he’d looked past Amy’s shoulder at someone or something, he turned and went in the opposite direction. Seconds later, Stucky appeared at her back.

Amy clenched her jaw, preparing to use all the cool manners she’d learned from the missionaries. Before she had to bear the miner’s questions, Braden approached. Amy glanced around, expecting
Thompson
to come up again and invite himself on the trail. He’d melted into the crowd even though moving through this mob seemed nearly impossible.

She tried to spot Thompson so she could point him out to Braden.

He was gone.

Four

He was gone!

Braden pushed roughly past the men that separated him from Amy. Complaints and return shoves didn’t stop him. Where had that man gone? Their eyes had met for just a second, and Braden hadn’t liked what he’d seen.

As Braden reached Amy’s side, he breathed more easily. “One of the crew members said we should be able to hop off this crate in an hour. Standing by the railing won’t get you off a second faster.” Without mentioning the man who’d taken off, Braden caught her arm.

Now past the grumbling men, Braden noticed that worthless Barnabas Stucky standing at Amy’s elbow—another overly interested miner.

Amy’s eyes widened at his firm grip, but Braden felt an urgent need to get her out of this crush. He nodded at Stucky, then parted the throng of stampeders, dragging Amy away from the edge. Since the men were all trying to get closer to the railing, they let Braden pass with little trouble.

Braden worked his way around the ship. The side not facing port was nearly deserted, and he leaned against the wall. He’d seen that Amy had her meals here every morning, noon, and night since that first time he’d brought her food. The ship served no breakfast this morning because the crew had been occupied since before dawn with navigating the Skaguay port. But they’d dock early so they’d find a meal on shore.

Disgusted with Amy’s lack of survival skills, Braden wondered if she’d have even lived through the trip without his help. He leaned against the wooden walls of the wheel house and crossed his arms. “We’ll just wait here until the captain tells us to disembark.”

“Thank you for helping me through that mob.” Amy spoke quietly as she always did. Her voice carried a note of calm, a husky sweet sound that soothed his battered heart. She leaned beside him, one arm wrapped around her chest, staring straight forward at the mountains across the bay from Skaguay.

Through the entire voyage she favored her side, although in their long days together on the boat, she’d never mentioned being hurt. Of course, Braden hadn’t talked about himself much, either. They’d discussed the trek to Ian’s house and the rough voyage and the conditions Braden could expect in Alaska, but he’d never so much as said Maggie’s name.

Maggie would have shared every trouble. Amy’s lack of complaint told Braden she wasn’t hurt, just weak, probably stiff and sore from the rugged voyage. She never should have taken this trip.

“Welcome.” Braden nodded and stared at the majesty of Alaska looming high over the ship. When the beauty of the mountains had worked its way into his soul, he produced his letter from Ian one more time and discussed the route with Amy until long after the ship had docked and the deck had cleared.

Amy overflowed with ideas for the journey home, and Braden found it easy to trust her.

❧

“I don’t trust him.” Braden whispered to Amy.

The gaunt, bearded man to whom Amy had led him limped away.

“Why’d you pick this man to haul my supplies?” Braden watched the man, looking more animal than human, scratch his neck as he hobbled along. His long, snarled hair, black and streaked with gray, straggled below a fur hat with dangling ear covers.

“Wily? He has been carting supplies up the river all my life. He will do fine by us.” Amy barely glanced at Braden, then followed after the foul-smelling man.

Braden suspected the man had been avoiding baths all his life.

The man snagged his suspenders with his thumbs from where they drooped around his hips and snapped them over his shoulders. Then he stooped over, grabbed a pair of ropes off the ground that were attached to an oddly shaped boat, and began pulling the strange contraption down the bank toward the vast bay that opened on the south side of the settlement of Goose Chase.

Amy got on the uphill side of the thing. It looked like a flat boat wrapped in animal hide. She dropped to her knees in the sand with a groan Braden heard from ten feet away, and began shoving. Braden looked at his sizable stack of supplies, which he’d transported from the ship to Goose Chase by paying an outrageous sum to rent a rickety hand cart.

Amy shoved, and Braden decided that even if it meant letting someone steal everything he’d brought for Ian, even his mother’s precious mantel clock, he couldn’t let Amy do hard labor she was obviously unsuited for.

He moved to her side. “What is this thing?”

Amy looked up from her position on her knees. “It is an
umiak
.”

“What?”

“It is a boat called an umiak. It has a wooden frame, and Wily has his covered with walrus hide. It is suited for shallow water and heavy loads.”

Braden thought about it and figured if a walrus wasn’t waterproof then nothing was. His supplies—six good-sized boxes—would nearly fill it. Good thing Amy didn’t seem to have anything beyond the small satchel she slung over her neck and shoulder. Just more evidence of how ill-equipped she was for this journey.

“Let me do that.” He dropped on his knees beside her and gave his head a little sideways jerk to get her out of the way.

With a grateful smile, Amy got to her feet and let him take over. Between him and Wily, they had the boat launched in a couple of minutes. Wily pulled the floating umiak down the bay toward Braden’s supplies.

Braden and Wily worked in silence loading. Wily looked up at Amy and asked, “Ride, little Amaruq?”

Braden tried to figure out just what he’d heard.
Amaruq?
The man slurred his words like he almost never used his voice, which Braden could believe considering how little he’d spoken so far.

“Until you hit the current.” Amy nodded. “Then I’ll walk.” She climbed in.

Braden noticed the lack of room for him in the umiak. He didn’t get a chance to ask where he was supposed to sit before Wily began leading the boat up the bay, away from Goose Chase and civilization.

Amy and Wily were about twenty feet away from him before Braden realized he was walking, no doubt all the way to Ian’s camp, over twenty miles away through some of the roughest territory in the world. The steamship had docked early, and they’d walked the miles to Goose Chase as quickly as possible, towing the cart. The trip could be made in one day easily in the normal course of things. Then Braden looked ahead at the big, blue water of the bay. It narrowed in the distance and cut between two mountains that sprang straight up from the water’s edge. How were they supposed to walk through that?

A rustling of bushes behind them reminded Braden of the men who had shown interest in accompanying them. It made no sense. The stampeders headed up the Chilkoot Pass toward Dawson’s Creek. Why would a gold-hungry miner want to follow them? Braden had turned down an offer of company from Stucky and that sharp-eyed stranger named Thompson, who’d hovered too close to Amy on the boat. Neither had seemed as interested in the gold as they were in Amy.

Braden had done his best to lose them in the horde at the dock, even though they had to tug along the cart Amy had found. They’d headed out of Skaguay, walking down what looked like a game trail to Goose Chase. He’d thought they’d slipped away unnoticed. Now those rustling bushes made him wonder.

Should he investigate? He studied the undergrowth, then looked forward toward the mountain Wily seemed determined to walk over. Braden forgot the bushes and trudged forward, filled with dread.

❧

Filled with wonder, Amy leaned forward, so eager to get through the bay and into the narrow waters of the Skaguay River that she could barely stay seated. Hearing her Tlingit name for the first time in years renewed her spirit. She’d known Wily from her earliest memory.

The beauty was so profound Amy wondered if God had created Alaska as a drink for a thirsty soul. She longed to get out of Wily’s slow-moving umiak and march away from this easy water passage and into her wilderness. She stayed put, of course. She was in a hurry to get to Papa. Now wasn’t the time to reacquaint herself with her magnificent home. And she knew there’d be no riding when Wily’s umiak started scraping along the bottom of the river. They’d need every hand on the ropes. With her ribs still aching, she did the practical thing and saved her energy. Alaska, by dint of trying to kill everyone who came here, taught a person to be practical.

Amy looked at the contents of the umiak behind her and wondered what pile of impractical frippery Braden Rafferty hauled in those crates. It was just more evidence of how ill-equipped he was for this journey.

Amy had a single change of clothes, her knife, a cloth book of needles, and a small, cast-iron skillet. The indulgence of the skillet nearly shamed her, and Amy hoped Wily never found out about it. He’d shake his head as he had so many times when, as a child, she’d shown fascination with the things Wily hauled. He didn’t talk much, but he’d let her know she’d gone soft.

She could easily enough create a pan out of a soaked slab of bark from a cedar tree. Her mother had raised her right. The cedar even added a nice flavor. But a skillet worked better and took less tending. With her sore ribs and aching muscles, she’d been inclined to spoil herself. When she’d sold off her things to pay for the trip home, she found a few coins to spare for a frying pan in case she ended up camping along the trail. But there’d be no camping. Because of the early docking of the ship, she’d be home in a single day.

Of course, some of Braden’s things would be supplies. And Amy wasn’t innocent of indulging her papa. She’d sent a bit of sugar and a few pounds of flour to him every spring, even though he only asked for traps or tools.

Amy sighed, wondering where Papa had gotten to. Her stomach twisted. Why hadn’t he written? He was an old man by her Tlingit people’s standards, nearly forty. He might not be tough enough to tackle Alaskan winters and survive all this territory threw at him. She wished suddenly that she’d had the money to bring her papa a few treats. Perhaps she shouldn’t fault Braden for toting foolish things over a mountain.

“Can I help pull?” Braden’s voice turned her to face the shore. He held out a hand for one of the two ropes Wily had slung over his shoulder. Wordlessly, Wily handed one over. She watched Braden loop the rope until it was a bit shorter. Braden fell in, following a few steps behind Wily. The going was easy now, but the terrain ahead would be rough.

She couldn’t wait to get into the mountains. As she drank in their beauty, she realized that away from these mountains she’d only been half alive.

❧

This mountain wanted him dead.

Braden’s foot slipped off a rock, and he sank to his ankle in the icy river. The weather was mild, but the water still held the frigidity of winter within it. Wily had given him a pair of waterproof boots. Amy told him they were made of walrus intestines so his feet stayed dry—bitterly cold, but dry. The spring thaw allowed them to pass, but ice patches still lined the river, and in places, the umiak had to break through a thin sheet of stubborn spring ice. They’d been going at a forced march since they docked at Skaguay this morning, and Amy had assured him he’d sleep at Ian’s tonight.

Enjoying the motion that stretched his muscles, long inactive on the boat, wouldn’t have been so bad if his feet weren’t frozen lumps.

“Papa’s cabin is just ahead.” Amy eased the rope off her shoulder and straightened.

Braden watched her for signs of collapse. She’d worked hard once the water got shallow and they’d crossed to the other side of the river, throwing her shoulder into the rope. Braden had protested, sure Amy would collapse within a mile, but Wily and Amy overruled him. Wily handed over the rope to Amy, then waded behind the umiak, pushing it over the sand when it bottomed out. Braden had insisted on taking the lead rope, pulling for all he was worth to keep Amy’s work to a minimum.

They’d started as quickly as they could get off the ship and get to Goose Chase and had been dragging this blasted umiak—or whatever Amy called it—for hours.

Braden’s shoulder ached. The fabric of his shirt was tattered. He’d shed his coat long ago.

Amy sighed so loudly Braden stopped. He looked back to see if she was in danger and saw a huge grin on her normally somber face. Her white teeth flashed.

“We are here.” She faced the woods.

“Your father’s cabin is near here?” Braden looked at the steeply pitched, heavily wooded area. Amy was visibly exhausted. Even smiling, she had dark circles under her eyes, and despite the brisk spring air, her face had an unnatural pallor.

“No, it
is
here.” Amy pointed into the forest. Suddenly it popped out at him. A cabin sat about one hundred feet back into the woods. The place blended completely with the rough-and-tumble woods.

Braden noticed they were out of the wind and no snow lay on the ground around the cabin. A shaft of sunlight shone down through a gap and shared its generous warmth with the house. A man wise in the ways of the wilderness had chosen this spot. With a sigh of relief, Braden knew that despite the odd, tumbled-down look of the cabin, the man inside possessed wood smarts and would keep his daughter safe.

Braden looked at Amy. She glowed.

“Let’s go say hello. Then you can point me toward my brother’s place.”

Amy nodded, but then her eyes narrowed, and the bright smile faded from her face.

“Your brother’s on up the stream a piece.” Wily’s voice sounded farther away than it should be. “I’m gonna keep headin’ up.”

Braden heard the faint scrape of the bottom of the umiak on the rocky river bottom and turned to see Wily moving along.