The Great Alone (77 page)

She closed her eyes and visualized what that ore sample had looked like and the shiny, sparkling flecks of gold that ran through it. The streams in the Klondike had gold nuggets the size of pebbles in their gravel beds. In her mind, she pictured the sight and tried to imagine what it would be like to scoop up a handful of gravel and pick out the shiny gold nuggets.

For two days she could think of little else. She listened to every snippet of conversation at the restaurant that mentioned the gold camps of the Klondike. It seemed everyone was on his way there, except her. She worried that maybe they’d find it all before she and Justin got there.

As she left the restaurant, she paused outside the building and heard the sharp click of the door lock behind her. She bunched the fur-lined burnous around her neck but didn’t raise its hood to cover her head. Tired and footsore after a long day’s work, she started down the boardwalk toward the rooming house.

The long street was without the normal daytime traffic of rumbling horse-drawn vehicles and braying mules and donkeys. Most of the town’s bustling activity now took place inside the saloons and gaming halls that Marisha passed. She could hear a tinny piano playing some ragtime song and a man encouraging others to “Place your bets.” There was a steady hum of voices in the background, sometimes punctuated by laughter or an exultant shout. Through some of the grimy windows she could see saloon girls dancing with customers. Always she could hear the muted clink of coins. Money—the thing she and Justin didn’t have, the thing they wanted, needed.

Her footsteps made a hollow sound as she walked along the boardwalk, her way lighted intermittently by the rectangular patches of light that came from the saloon windows. Three men in obvious high spirits came charging out of a saloon door just ahead of her. One of them noticed her. As they all turned to look at her, Marisha recognized Curly and the two companions that had been with him the other day.

“Would you looky there? It’s our Glory Girl.” The bearded man immediately doffed his hat in greeting, but he didn’t appear quite as scruffy as the first time she’d seen him. His beard was neatly trimmed and his hair parted precisely down the middle. As she drew nearer, she noticed that Curly had on a clean shirt.

“Good evening.” She nodded to them and continued on by the saloon, but they swung around to walk with her.

“Whatcha doin’ walkin’ the street yourself? Where’s that man friend of yores?” Curly demanded. “He should be here to make sure you don’t come to no harm.”

“It seems there’s no need for him to be here. I have the three of you to escort me safely to my rooming house.” She smiled.

“If you was our gal, we’d never take a risk like that,” the third man insisted.

“Why not instead of goin’ to yore roomin’ house, why don’t we walk ya to our shack?” the bearded man suggested. “I guarantee it’ll be a lot more fun.”

Marisha started to ignore the remark as she had always done, then in a moment of daring she paused and swung around to face her three would-be escorts. “Do you really want me to go to your shack?”

“Shore,” the bearded man blurted in surprise.

“And if I went, how much would you pay me?” she demanded. Their mouths gaped wordlessly as they stared at her. In their silence, she heard rejection and pivoted sharply away, feeling a hot flush of humiliation burn her cheeks. “It was all just more talk, wasn’t it? You didn’t really mean what you were saying,” she said bitterly and began walking away.

Instantly they hurried after her. “We meant it. Honest we did. It’s just that we never thought you was …” Curly faltered in midsentence.

“Yeah. We never suspected you was the kind who … well …” The third man couldn’t get the words out either. “We jest didn’t know.”

“We want ya t’ come to our place, don’t we, boys?” the bearded one insisted. “We’d pay ya.”

Marisha halted again and waited for them to flock around her. “How much?”

“Well.” The bearded man shifted uncomfortably and glanced at his companions. “The goin’ rate is usually three dollars, an’ there’s three of us, so that’d be nine.”

“I want ten dollars.” Her throat felt dry.

“It’s a deal.” Curly wiped the palm of his hand on his pants leg, then thrust it out to shake hands with her.

“Deal.” When she gripped his hand, he gave it an arm-pumping shake.

“Eee-hah!” The bearded man gave a triumphant shout, then turned to the third member of their group and gave him a slapping shove on the back that propelled him toward the door of the nearest saloon. “Hank, go fetch us a bottle. We gonna have us a high time tonight. Ain’t that right, Glory Girl? Why, you know, we don’t even know yore name.”

“You just said it. My name’s Glory.”

“Glory. Why, I’ll be damned. Did you know that, Curly?”

“I surely didn’t, but it fits her to a tee.”

Her legs felt a little rubbery and there were nervous flutterings in her stomach. Yet she had no doubts about this decision—no second thoughts, no regrets. It was exactly the same as when she had left Sitka. If she and Justin were ever to get to the Klondike and find that gold, they had to have money. And time was running out. This was the quickest and surest way to get the ten dollars they needed; Justin had said so himself. Now that her mind was made up, Marisha was committed, with no looking back.

Papers were stuffed in the cracks to keep the wind from blowing in the crudely built shack. Its single room measured no more than ten by twelve and had only one window. Curly hurriedly lit the lamp and began stoking the fire in the potbellied stove. Judging by the nearly empty pot of beans and sow belly that sat on top of it, Marisha guessed it was used for both cooking and heating.

Two bunk beds stacked one on top of the other sat along one wall. In the corner next to them stood a narrow cot. A couple of kegs and a wooden crate served as chairs for the crudely made table by the window. All three men stood by the table as the man called Hank uncorked the whiskey bottle and poured a generous shot into each of the three tin mugs lined up on the table.

As she watched them, an inner voice cautioned her. “I’ll take my money first, boys.” She didn’t know where the warning came from. Maybe it was left over from her aunt’s oft-repeated edict that men couldn’t be trusted. Either way, she didn’t want to be cheated out of what was rightfully hers.

They hesitated momentarily, then started digging into their pockets. As they pooled their money to come up with the requisite ten dollars, there was a brief debate over which of them had to pay more, since ten couldn’t be equally divided by three, but the problem was quickly resolved.

“There you are, Glory.” Curly dropped the coins into her cupped palm. “Ten silver dollars.”

Clutching them in her hand, she turned away and walked to the corner cot. They had kept their side of the bargain, and regardless of how fast her heart was beating, she knew it was time to keep hers. She removed the warm burnous and slipped the coins into one of its deep side pockets, then laid it on the nearby lower bunk. Keeping her back to the men, she took off her blouse and long skirt and laid them on top of the burnous. As she continued to undress, she added a flannel petticoat and long-sleeved chemise to the stack of clothes. She wore no corset. Her aunt had always regarded that undergarment as figure-flattering, and therefore forbidden. Clad only in a plain camisole and a pair of flannel drawers, she turned around to face the open-eyed men. Determinedly, she ignored the drumming of her pulse.

“Who’s going to be first?” She began unbuttoning the front of her camisole.

“That’s me,” the bearded man declared. Quickly he gulped down the last of the whiskey in his cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He hitched up his trousers by the waistband and swaggered toward the cot. A wide grin split his bearded face as he hooted to his companions. “I’m goin’ t’ glory, boys! I’m a-goin’ t’ glory!”

The coins jingled in her pocket as she hurried down the hallway to her room. But no sliver of light gleamed under the door. “Justin,” she called softly, then tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn. Aware that it was late, she hoped he hadn’t gone out looking for her. She could hardly wait to tell him that they had the money to go to the Klondike. She rummaged through her pockets and found the key, then unlocked the door and entered the darkened room.

A faint light came from the window and revealed a long, lumpy object lying on the bed. Without pausing to light the lamp, she walked to the bed. “Justin, you scamp, you could have waited up for me.” But when she tried to shake him awake, she encountered only cloth—mounds of cloth and no body.

She turned from the bed, wondering where he could be at this hour. She tried telling herself that maybe he’d found work at one of the saloons as she fumbled in the dark for the matches and lit the lamp. Its light revealed that the items haphazardly strewn on the bed belonged to her. She knew full well that they’d all been stacked neatly in the corner when she’d left for work that morning. Someone must have been in their room. She hurried over to the bed to see if anything was missing.

As she started to sort through the articles, she heard the rustle of paper and uncovered a note. The crudely printed scrawl was barely legible. When she saw it was addressed “Dear M.,” she quickly glanced at the signature at the bottom. It was signed “Justin Sinclair.” For an instant she stared at the block letters, then remembered that Justin had once told her he’d never finished his schooling and had instead worked on his father’s fishing trawler. She went back to the beginning of the note and began to read it aloud.

“ ‘Dear M. Sorry there was no time to see you before I left.’ ” Left? She stared at the last word in shock, then hurriedly read on. “ ‘Got a job taking a pack train to Dawson. Took the place of man fired for being drunk. This my chance to get to gold camps. Knew you would understand.’ ”

Although there was more, she stopped reading and sat down on the edge of the bed, the silver coins clinking together in her pocket. Her fingers tightened on the paper. She understood all right. She understood that he’d left her behind.

She started reading again, her voice wavering with the anger she felt at his betrayal. “ ‘Needed a blanket. Took yours.’ ” She searched through her pile of belongings, wildly throwing things aside. The blanket was missing, as well as the sacks of flour, salt, and dried beans she’d taken from her aunt’s home. She was raging inside when she picked up the note again. “ ‘No time to buy supplies. Will pay you. Be back when I strike it rich.’ ” That was all there was except for his name at the bottom of the sheet. She crumpled the paper in her hand, crushing it into a ball.

He said he’d take me. He said he loved me. Then she remembered: “They always leave.” Aunt Eva used to say that. After he takes what he wants from a woman, he abandons her.

In a fit of pique, she hurled the note across the room and stood up. The sudden motion jingled the money in her pocket. Reaching inside, she took out the coins and stared at them, remembering what she’d done to earn them. At the time it hadn’t seemed so terrible. It hadn’t been as wonderful as when Justin had made love to her, but she hadn’t expected that it would be. Maybe what she’d done was wrong. Maybe Justin’s desertion of her was a punishment. She felt all twisted up inside, angry and hurt, confused about the right and wrong of things.

She let the coins slide through her fingers onto the bed, then removed the heavy burnous and flung it onto the foot of the bed. She stared at the ten shiny silver dollars lying in a scattered cluster on the blanket.

“If you had waited, Justin, you could have had the money, too.” She would have given it to him. She loved him, and they were supposed to be going to the Klondike together. That’s why she’d done it.

Maybe if she’d given him the money, he’d have left her anyway. Maybe he hadn’t loved her. She wasn’t sure about anything any more—except that ten dollars was more money than she’d ever had at one time in her entire life, more than she could have made working at the restaurant for a week. And she’d earned it in less than two hours, with considerably less physical labor. It wasn’t enough to get her to the Klondike, but she didn’t think she wanted to go there now.

As she lifted her skirt to sit down on the bed, she felt the coarseness of its fabric and realized she did have enough money to buy one entire outfit—corset, camisole, pantalettes, bustle, chemise, petticoats, skirt, shirtwaist—and still have a little left. She could throw these drab, shapeless garments away, these hated clothes that belonged to Marisha Blackwood—the woman she was never going to be again.

Justin was gone, and she vowed she wasn’t going to look back. This was a new life. And she was going to have new clothes and a new name. From now on, she was Glory … Glory … She paused to think of a suitably unique last name. In deference to Justin for his help in setting her on this new road and for unwittingly providing her with the funds, she decided it was only right that she adopt a variation of his name. From this moment forward she would be Glory St. Clair.

CHAPTER XLIII

Lazily Glory pushed herself into a reclining position on the pillows propped against the bed’s headboard, then pulled the blanket up to cover her bare breasts. It was not an attempt at false modesty because of the man busily engaged in pulling his embroidered silk suspender straps onto his shoulders, but rather an attempt to protect herself from the room’s drafty chill. Her long hair lay loose and tousled about her neck and shoulders. Idly she twirled a golden lock of it around her forefinger as she watched him shrug into his coat, then reach for his pearl gray fedora hat.