The Great Alone (82 page)

“You could still become governor, couldn’t you?” She eyed him curiously.

“I don’t think so.”

“Now you’re being modest. I’m not the only one who comes to you for advice. The miners listen to you as well. I’ve seen them. No one in Alaska has ever truly emerged as a leader. I’ve heard that’s why Congress has always appointed an outsider to serve as governor.” Actually, she hadn’t heard any such thing, but no man expected a woman to know much about politics. “You could be that man.”

“I’m flattered by your confidence in me, but I’m afraid it will take more than that.”

“Yes, you do need money. It’s ironic, isn’t it, to talk of money when those mountains are littered with gold.” She gazed at the mountains a short distance from the beach, bathed in the golden light of the midnight sun. Splashes of summer wildflowers created a picturesque patchwork. “And practically all of it is in the hands of a bunch of foreigners. Surely something can be done about it. What about that young lieutenant the Army sent here from the military post at St. Michael?”

“I spoke with Lieutenant Spalding shortly after he arrived in Nome. He has only a small squad of soldiers under his command. His sole responsibility is to maintain order. He has no authority to settle mining disputes.”

“If the mining claims of these foreigners are illegal, as you say, why doesn’t someone call a meeting of all the miners and declare all previous claims to be voided? Then everyone would have a chance to stake new claims. It seems fair to me, but I’m sure you know more than I do.”

“If such a thing were done, there would be a stampede into those hills. Everyone would be fighting over the same claims.”

“I suppose it would be a matter of who got there first. It’s a shame that someone like you never gets the bonanza gold. You would put the money to good use instead of squandering it in gambling halls and sporting houses.” She laughed shortly. “Deacon is fond of saying that a person makes his own luck. I’m not sure that’s true. If it were, I’d be a governor’s wife.”

“Speaking of your partner, here he comes now.” With a nod of his head he directed her attention to the tall, spare man in the somber black coat moving toward them with a slow, measured stride. Gabe Blackwood turned back to her and said, “I shall bid you good night and leave you in his capable hands. As always, the time spent with you has been a joy to me, Glory.” He lifted her gloved hand to his lips.

“For me as well, Gabe.” She watched him walk away, saw him tip his hat to Deacon as he passed.

“You were with him again.” Deacon turned to look at the man’s back. “I’ll be damned if I know what you see in him. He isn’t rich, so it can’t be that. He’s a garrulous old windbag, so it can’t be his stimulating conversation. So what is it?”

“He interests me.”

“That’s obvious. But what isn’t obvious is why.”

“Maybe I simply feel sorry for him. After all, he is an old man with no family.” It was something she couldn’t even explain to herself, not logically anyway. She hated him for many reasons. Yet she was curious about him, too. She wanted to know what he was like, how he thought, what he dreamed—and where he was vulnerable. She had already discovered he was easy to lead, just like tonight when she’d fed him all that talk about making a good governor and hinting that the miners and their gold could give him the financial backing he would need. Sometimes she wanted to hurt him and sometimes … sometimes she just wished things had been different. A stiff breeze blew in off the sea and lifted the wool layers of her tiered cape as she glanced at Deacon. “What happened to your poker game? Did your fellow players get tired of losing?”

“Something like that.”

She noticed the Eskimo woman standing patiently behind him. She was a short, stout woman, who was made to look even stouter by the parkalike coat made from striped cloth and a thick pair of mukluks on her feet. Her head was uncovered, the coat’s hood lying in thick folds around her neck. The breeze whipped strings of black hair onto her forehead and round cheeks.

“Who’s your friend?” Glory smiled wryly at Deacon. “Maybe you’d like to explain what you see in
her?
”

“Oh, yes. I almost forgot.” He glanced over his shoulder and motioned with his hand for the woman to step forward. She did so, smiling shyly at Glory. “Actually, I was bringing her to you. This is your new maid. I won her in that poker game.”

“You what?”

“She was part of the winnings. You see, this old sourdough didn’t have enough money to call my bet, but he was convinced he had a winning hand. So he put up this Eskimo woman and swore she could cook, sew, and keep house.”

“Do you mean she was his wife?”

“No. He claimed he picked her up in Kotzebue so he could have a woman to do his cooking and sewing through the winter—and keep him warm at night, I suppose, although he didn’t say that. Either way, I won her. You’re going to need somebody. I thought you might as well train one of the natives here to be your housekeeper, maid, cook, or whatever you want. She does speak some English.”

“That’s a relief.” Glory knew that Deacon was right. Eventually she was going to need a maid of some sort. Still she eyed the Eskimo woman uncertainly. “Does she have a name?”

“Matty,” the woman answered, tapping her chest. “Me called Matty.”

“Well, my name is Glory St. Clair. Do you think you would like to work for me, Matty?”

“You betcha, Missy Glory. Work hard. Work good.”

CHAPTER XLV

The white canvas sides and roof of the tent screened out the brilliance of the midmorning sun while allowing the interior to be illuminated by its refracted rays. Glory sat on a pillow-cushioned keg, still dressed in her white linen nightgown, its vee-shaped neckline ruffled with stand-up lace. Her hands lay folded in her lap, nearly hidden by the wide lace trim on the sleeve’s snug-fitting cuffs. Her eyes were closed and her head bobbed with the rhythmic strokes of the hairbrush as Matty pulled it through her waist-length hair, brushing out the cornmeal used to clean it.

Her scalp tingled from the raking bristles, yet the brushing was soothing and restful. It seemed to ease the loneliness that had plagued her of late. She thought it strange to feel lonely when she was surrounded by hordes of men anxious to keep her company. And there was Deacon to hold her at night so she wouldn’t have to sleep alone—or at least on the nights when he wasn’t playing in some marathon poker game. Strong, quiet, undemanding Deacon, always there if she needed him, never judging. Yet there was a void he didn’t fill.

It was an ache that wouldn’t go away. She’d been conscious of it ever since she met Gabe Blackwood, her blackguard of a father. It was like being homesick, which was ridiculous. She never wanted to go back to Sitka or that life where she had known real loneliness. She sighed wearily.

The brush paused in midstroke. “I pull hair. Hurt Missy.”

“No. You’re doing just fine, Matty.” Actually, the Eskimo woman was more of a help than Glory had first thought possible.

Granted there was much that Matty still had to learn, but after less than a week, Glory wondered how she had managed without her. She was smart and quick to learn. Glory rarely had to show her how to do something more than once. She was easygoing, quick to smile or laugh—even at herself. Glory remembered the day Matty had tried on her Gainsborough hat with the ostrich plumes and spotted veil. She had been such a ludicrous sight that Glory hadn’t been able to contain her laughter. But it hadn’t mattered, because Matty laughed at her reflection in the mirror, too. By the time they had stopped laughing, Glory had busted the lace of her corset. She had never laughed like that with anyone, certainly never with another woman. Of course, Matty was of the opinion that she laced her corset much too tight, and she helped her with the greatest reluctance, always scolding her in the process.

With the exception of her mother, Glory had never been close to another woman. While she was able to see that her Aunt Eva had loved her in her own perverse way, the restrictions Eva had imposed had been too severe. There had been too much resentment for Glory to feel a strong attachment to her aunt. And Glory hadn’t been friendly with any of Miss Rosie’s girls. There had been too much rivalry between them.

Deacon was the only person she both trusted and respected. He was her business partner and her bed partner, but they shared little else. Yet she had shared many things with Justin Sinclair—all her dreams and desires, her frustrations and resentments. He had known all about her past—who and what she was, and where she came from. Looking back, she saw the way they had struggled together and huddled close for warmth in the drafty room. In so many ways, he had set her free, shown her a new way of life and taught her the pleasures of her body. There had been a strong bond between them. When he left without her, she’d been hurt, but she’d never forgotten him.

Glory attempted to break out of her self-pitying mood, and she opened her eyes to gaze at the standing mirror. Absently she studied the Eskimo woman’s image in the reflecting glass—the flatness of her profile, the pertness of her small nose, the roundness of her plump cheeks.

There were so few details that she knew about Matty. The woman was twenty-five. She’d had a husband and a son. Both had died from the white man’s diseases that had decimated the Eskimo population. During the last couple of years, Matty had lived with one white man or another, mostly prospectors looking for gold in the northern streams and tributaries of the Yukon River. Glory realized that Matty was probably lonely, too.

“Do you have any family, Matty? Brothers? Sisters?”

“No. Me have none. Mother’s people in village way far. Me never see.”

“What about your father and his people?”

“Him white man.”

“Then you’re half white.” Glory stared at Matty’s reflection, searching her predominantly Eskimo features for some indication of her mixed ancestry, but she found no evidence of it.

“Him a whaler. Him a captain,” she asserted importantly. “Take many women from village. Him pick mother. Him old man but him good to mother. Her like him much. Her sad when him leave. Her happy when me come.”

“Did you ever see him?” Glory wondered if Matty had grown up as she had—without a father.

“Him no come back. Me named for him.”

“What was his name?”

“Captain Stone.”

“Stone.” Glory turned on her seat to stare incredulously at the woman. “Not Caleb Stone?” No, it couldn’t be, she realized. He would have died long ago. But the name triggered memories of the countless stories her aunt had told her about their family history. Without thinking, she recited the facts she’d been told in connection with Caleb Stone. “Tasha’s granddaughter, Larissa, married a Yankee captain named Caleb Stone and went away with him on his ship. The family never saw her again.” Possibly she remembered it because it had sounded so romantic or because her ancestor had escaped from Sitka, as she had wanted to do. “Later they learned she had died. Wait a minute.” She clutched excitedly at Matty’s arm. “She had a son. It was the son who came back and told the family. He was a whaler. His name was Matthew … Matthew Edmund Stone.”

“Me Matthew. Same like him.”

“Matthew … Matty. My God, do you realize what this means?” Glory laughed in disbelief, then clasped a hand over her mouth to silence it. It was almost more than she could take in at one time. She reached for the hand that held the hair brush and curved both her hands around it. “You and I are related, Matty. We’re cousins … three or four times removed, probably, but— Isn’t it astounding? I can hardly believe it.”

“You are cousin to me?” Matty repeated uncertainly.

“Yes.” Glory nodded. “We’re family. Your father would have been my great-grandfather’s first cousin—or something like that. I just know that you’re Tasha’s great-great-granddaughter and I’m her great-great-great-granddaughter.” She laughed again, delighted by the discovery.

It didn’t bother her that Matty was half Eskimo. Glory supposed she owed that to her aunt, who had never let her be ashamed of her own mixed blood.

“Your father wasn’t white,” she told Matty. “He was part American, part Russian, and part Aleut. I’m all three of those plus Tlingit.” She moved her head from side to side in a gesture of continued amazement. “Matty, I’m so glad Deacon won you in that poker game. We might never have met otherwise.”

“Me glad, too,” Matty replied solemnly. “Have job now. Have family now.”

“Yes.” Although she had said the same before, Glory was moved by the words coming from Matty’s lips. Tears welled in her eyes. “We both have family now.”

The canvas flap was lifted aside and Deacon ducked through the opening. He paused inside, letting the curtain-like partition fall back in place. Glory blinked to clear her eyes. “Were the workmen on the job?” He had left earlier to check on the building site.

“Yes. They’ll be starting the finish work day after tomorrow.” He looked so fresh despite an all-night poker game. Briefly she marveled at the indefatigable energy that allowed him to go so long without sleep and show no ill effects. “You’ll need to meet with the paperhanger this afternoon. I ran into a friend of yours.”

“Who?” She was conscious that Matty had resumed brushing her hair.

“Your Mr. Blackwood. He asked to see you. He’s waiting outside.”