Gypsy

by Lesley Pearse

Beth took her glass of rum, glanced around at the crowded bar, and knocked her drink back in one. ‘Try stopping me,’ she said with a wide smile. Theo handed her the fiddle case, and she opened it and took out the instrument.

  ‘How much of the money have we got to give the landlord?’ she asked.

  ‘He didn’t say,’ Jack said. ‘I guess he didn’t really believe there would be any. I’ll go round with the hat, we’d better offer him some of it at the end, and then maybe he’ll give you a permanent spot.’

  Theo watched Beth as she slithered through the crowd to the back of the saloon, her fiddle held under one arm, the bow in her other hand. She looked like a slender flame in her red dress, and he could see by her straight back and the way she held her shoulders that she was determined to succeed tonight.

  She disappeared from view and Theo felt a sudden pang of anxiety, but all at once he saw her rise up behind the burly men blocking his view, and he realized she was now standing on a table.

  Tucking her fiddle under her chin, she drew the bow across the strings and was off into ‘Kitty O’Neill’.

  For a few long moments there was no reaction from the drinkers; almost every one of them had their backs turned to her. Theo held his breath, but slowly men began to turn towards her, and smiles of appreciation began to creep on to their faces.

  Theo saw how in tune Beth was with her audience. She smiled and tossed her hair, picking up the tempo as she got their complete attention, and once she’d got it she certainly knew how to hold it.

  They were mainly stevedores and sailors, some already very drunk, but they began to tap their feet, their eyes never leaving her, and she took them to the far shores of their imagination with her music.

  ‘She’s better than ever,’ Jack gasped. ‘Look at her face!’

  Theo could see nothing else. Not the men jigging on the spot in front of her, not the couple of whores eyeing him up from the corner, or even the glass of whisky in his hand. He’d seen that same blissful expression on Beth’s face just hours earlier when they made love. He felt he ought to feel jealous that her music meant as much, but he didn’t. He just felt bigger and more powerful than any other man in the saloon because she was his girl.

  By the time she’d played for twenty minutes, people passing were elbowing their way in through the door until the saloon was packed to capacity.

  ‘They’ll never be able to serve them all,’ Jack said, nudging Sam. ‘We’ll get up there and see if they need a hand.’

  Once again Theo saw Beth’s impeccable timing, for as the boys reached the bar and offered their services, she finished her number.

  ‘I’ve got to take a break now,’ she called out. ‘Get yourselves drinks and I’ll be back soon.’

  That first night there was over thirty dollars in the hat, and Oris Beeking, the landlord of the Globe, was only too delighted to agree that Beth should play four nights a week. Furthermore, he took Sam and Jack on as bartenders too.

  Vancouver suited them in every way. People were not as staid as they’d been everywhere else in Canada, for it was in many ways still a frontier town. It was good to be able to walk along the shore in warm sunshine, to chat to fishermen and sailors and feel they belonged here. Sam and Jack found a couple of sassy saloon girls they liked. Theo got into some poker games, and on Sunday evenings when they were all at home together, they would plan their saloon, a place with gambling, music and dancing girls.

  After the uncertainty and discomfort they’d experienced on their travels, all four of them were happy to be settled again. There was no more talk of moving on, only of finding somewhere a little bigger to live.

  On 16 July, Beth went to the post office to post a letter to Molly and the Langworthys. She’d been posting letters home in almost every town they’d stopped at, and she was anxious now for them to receive the address they could write back to.

  Outside the post office there was a large group of men, and Beth’s first thought was that they were about to start fighting, for they were pacing up and down, shouting and waving their arms. But as she got closer she saw it wasn’t anger infecting them but excitement. Two of the men were stevedores she knew from the Globe, and she guessed that the others had just come in on a ship.

  ‘What’s all the excitement?’ she asked, when one of the men she knew smiled and waved at her.

  ‘Gold,’ he replied, his eyes glittering. ‘They’ve found gold up in Alaska. Tons of it. We’re planning to go there on the next ship.’

  Beth laughed. It sounded like a tall story to her. As far as she knew, Alaska was under thick snow all year round and the only people likely to go there were fur trappers.

  She posted her letter, bought some bread, meat and vegetables, then made her way home. But as she passed a news-stand, she saw the headline ‘Ton of Gold’ on the front of the newspaper and a picture of a ship berthing in San Francisco on which this ton of gold was said to be.

  Snatching up the paper, she read how in August of the previous year a man called George Carmack, with his two brothers-in-law, Tagish Charlie and Skookum Jim, had found gold in Rabbit Creek, one of the six tributaries of the river Klondike in the Yukon Valley. Carmack found the gold lying between flaky slabs of rock, ‘like cheese in a sandwich’.

  Since then, it transpired, prospectors in the area had swarmed there to stake claims, and fortunes were made overnight, but word hadn’t reached the outside world about it until now, for once winter closed in up in the Yukon, no one could get out.

  Beth was only mildly interested, but as she continued to read as she walked along the street, she was suddenly hearing the words ‘Klondike Gold’ on all sides of her.

  The boys had only just got up when she returned, but as she related what she’d heard and seen on the street and gave them the newspaper to read, their eyes lit up.

  ‘Where is the Klondike exactly?’ Jack asked. ‘Is it in Alaska?’

  ‘They called it the Yukon in the paper, and I think that’s part of Canada,’ Theo said, and began rummaging through his valise to find his map of North America. He pushed aside the cups and plates on the table and spread it out. ‘This is where it is,’ he said, pointing to an area further north from Vancouver, tucked behind Alaska. ‘We could go there.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Beth said flatly. ‘I told you when we got here that if we had to move it would be to the south where it’s warm. I am not going off on some wild goose chase to a place which is frozen solid all year.’

  ‘But we could become millionaires,’ Sam said, his voice cracking with excitement.

  ‘We could die of cold and starvation, more likely,’ she argued. ‘Don’t you remember learning about the Gold Rush of ’49 in school? Only a few people found some. Remember what Pearl told me too? She was there, but she made her money cooking for the prospectors.’

  ‘That’s exactly why we should go,’ Theo said, his eyes shining. ‘The perfect place to start a gambling saloon!’

  ‘Talk some sense into them,’ Beth urged Jack. ‘This is madness, we like it here, we’re doing fine. It’s stupid to throw it all away with all the other idiots who’ll run off there half cocked.’

  ‘I think we all ought to find out a great deal more about this first,’ Jack replied, backing neither her nor Theo and Sam. ‘Quietly, calmly and using our heads.’

  It was impossible to be quiet and calm that day, for news of the gold was like a virulent disease sweeping through the town and infecting everyone. By the afternoon people were queuing for tickets on the next steamship to Skagway in Alaska, the town they said was the nearest point to the goldfields.

  Shopkeepers were galvanized into action, putting signs outside their shops, ‘Get your outfit here’. Sledges which had been stored away for the summer were suddenly out on display. Tents, fur-lined coats and boots, mackinaws and galoshes were piled up invitingly. The dried goods store had a blackboard outside listing the items the owner had in stock which could be bought in bulk.

  Theo and Sam were incandescent with
excitement and even Beth found her heart beating a little faster, but Jack was strangely quiet. He took himself off to see Foggy, an old man who was in the saloon most nights and who he knew had been a fur trapper in Alaska in his younger days. When he returned a couple of hours later to have a wash and a shave before going to work, Theo and Sam asked what he’d found out, and he said he would tell them in the morning.

  Gold was the only subject under discussion in the saloon that night. Old-timers who had prospected in California in ’49 found themselves the centre of attention. Men who knew about sledge dogs got free drinks, and any man who had ever sailed up the Inner Passage to Alaska could hold court.

  ‘I’ve studied the map, and talked to old Foggy,’ Jack said the following morning. ‘I’ve made a rough list of what he thinks we would need.’

  Theo took the long list and roared with laughter. ‘We won’t need all that! A tent, blankets, warm clothes and a bit of food will be enough. Ice picks, saws, nails! Why would we need those?’

  ‘The Klondike is some seven or eight hundred miles from Skagway,’ Jack said quietly. ‘First we have to scale mountains, then we’ll have to build a boat to take us the rest of the way. We’ll be going through wilderness, there won’t be anywhere we can buy stuff.’

  ‘I can hunt,’ Theo said, but his voice had lost its confidence.

  ‘It’s going to be tough.’ Jack looked at Sam, then at Beth and back at Theo. ‘Really tough. Like nothing we’ve ever experienced before. We’re city folk, and if we aren’t prepared, we could die on the way of cold or even starvation.’

  ‘People on the way will help us, won’t they?’ Sam asked, a tremor in his voice.

  ‘We can’t count on anything or anyone,’ Jack said sternly. ‘You saw the madness last night. In a week’s time when word has spread further, it will be even crazier, people flocking up there from everywhere. We need to book a passage on a ship to Skagway quickly — that is, if you want to go.’

  ‘Do you want to go, Jack?’ Beth asked. She had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach and whether it was fear or excitement she couldn’t tell.

  ‘Yes, I do, more than anything,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘It’s the chance of a lifetime and I don’t want it to pass me by.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jack was right. Within a week Gas Town was caught in the grip of complete madness. The Klondike Gold Stampede was on.

  Newspapers all over the world had spread the news of the gold, and every train coming into Vancouver brought hundreds more people who were desperate to get to the Yukon. They swarmed into Gas Town, bringing chaos with them as they pushed and shoved to buy equipment, provisions and tickets on any craft that would take them to Skagway. Yet Vancouver was reported to be far less frantic than Seattle, and there were also steamers setting off from Victoria, Portland and San Francisco laden with passengers.

  Beth and the boys were staggered by the speed with which entrepreneurial shopkeepers in Vancouver got equipment and food supplies stacked up for all these gold stampeders. Huge banners across the shops in Cordova Street proclaimed them to be ‘The Klondike Outfitter’. Sledge dogs were being advertised at exorbitant sums, booklets which listed everything needed for the trip were being printed and sold before the ink was dry. Gold fever was highly infectious, it seemed: bankers were walking out of their secure jobs; street car operators deserted their trams; policemen, salesmen and reporters abandoned their jobs; some farmers even walked away from crops before they were harvested.

  There was no other subject for discussion. It was as if people had stopped being sick, having babies, getting married or even dying. Old or young, rich or poor, whatever nationality, everyone wanted to join the stampede.

  The rich could reach the Yukon in relative comfort by steamer to St Michael on the Bering Sea, then down the river Yukon to the goldfields, but it was many more miles than the overland route from Skagway. Edmonton was advertised as the All Canadian route for the patriotic, but Jack, who had pored over maps, denounced that as unfeasible as it meant crossing two mountain ranges.

  It was Jack who got their steamer tickets, and almost immediately they could have resold them for four or five times the original cost. Word got out that the Canadian Mounted Police would not allow anyone across the border from Alaska to Canada without a ton of provisions. This was because they feared a famine.

  Jack and Sam rushed around getting their supplies together: beef blocks, rice, sugar, coffee and evaporated eggs. A tent, mackinaw coats, wide-brimmed hats, high boots, gloves, glasses to stop snow blindness — the list was endless, and they spent all the money they had so carefully hoarded over the past months. But smooth-talking Theo found a way to keep the funds coming, moving among the new arrivals in town with his three-card monte games and relieving them of some of their savings.

  As the days passed in feverish buying and packing their supplies in waterproof oilcloth sacks, Beth played her fiddle nightly to rapturous applause, ending with a hat stuffed with money. Sam and Jack poured enough drinks to float several dozen steamers, and Theo played poker and won.

  Finally, on 15 August, they boarded the Albany, a decrepit steamer which by anyone’s standards was barely seaworthy. Jack had booked them a cabin, but when they boarded they were told most of the cabins had been ripped out to make room for more freight and passengers.

  They could do nothing but accept this as it was clear they would be thrown off if they complained, so they found a small space on the deck and hunkered down, surrounded by their supplies.

  As the steamer left Vancouver along with a huge flotilla of other vessels, all the passengers were delirious with excitement. Even if there had been room enough for people to stretch out, it was doubtful anyone could have slept.

  It was only as the boat sailed into the Inside Passage of Alaska, with its breathtakingly beautiful scenery of virgin forests, snow-capped mountains and misty fiords on both sides of the narrow channel that they began to realize what lay in store for them.

  They might be looking at sheer beauty beyond the ship’s rail, but it was marred by the stench of coal, horse manure, vomit and sweat all around them. Pack dogs howled constantly, horses kicked and neighed, and the ship was so crowded they didn’t dare vacate their tiny space on deck for fear of losing it. Huddling together under a tarpaulin against the chill wind or heavy rain, they realized the discomfort they felt now could only become greater before they reached the goldfields.

  Most of their fellow passengers had not gone to the trouble Jack had, to find out exactly where the Klondike was, and they believed the goldfields were just a hike from Skagway. Few of them knew mountains had to be scaled, and a boat was needed to take them the last 500 miles.

  Some people had been coerced in to buying ridiculous items like bicycles on skis, or clockwork gold-panning gadgets that could never work. Others had brought enough timber to build their own cabin, a piano or a cast-iron cooking stove, but given no thought to how they would get these things up a mountain.

  Yet despite the terrible conditions on the boat — waiting seven hours for a meal so dreadful it was all but inedible, the lack of washing facilities, and lavatories that made Beth retch — she and the boys remained in good spirits for there was a party-like atmosphere on the ship, everyone as excited as children going to a fair.

  It was entertaining to observe the huge variety of people. Sharply dressed gentlemen were forced to share space with rough sailors and lumberjacks; there were garishly dressed women with painted faces, old-timers from previous stampedes, and clerics who appeared to be going in a missionary capacity. The vast majority were Americans and Canadians, but there were Germans, Swedes, Hungarians, Mexicans and even Japanese too. What unified them all was the dream of returning home rich. When they spoke of the gold their eyes would blaze, and they refused to allow their excitement to be diluted by mere discomfort.

  ‘We should reach Skagway tomorrow,’ Jack said as he wriggled back under the tarpaulin after a two-hour absence.
It was the ninth day of the voyage and they were in the stunningly beautiful Lynn Canal which ended with the beaches of Skagway and Dyea. Sheer mountain slopes topped with a dusting of snow rose up from the clear turquoise water, dwarfing the raggle-taggle convoy of ships sailing up through the narrow corridor. ‘I’ve been talking to one of the crew that’s been there before. He said there’s only a tiny wharf, so we’ll have to wade ashore with our stuff. Good job we’re already in our oldest clothes!’

  ‘They could do with a wash,’ Beth giggled, for they’d all had the same things on since they embarked. ‘But won’t the dried food get damaged in the sea water?’

  ‘I’m more worried that our things’ll be stolen.’ Jack frowned. ‘You can bet there’ll be plenty of thieves on the lookout. I’ll get you ashore first, Beth. Theo or Sam can stay here and guard our stuff, then we’ll ferry it bit by bit out to you on the beach.’

  ‘Surely we can pay a sailor to row us in with it all?’ Theo asked.

  Beth exchanged an amused grin with Jack. Theo thought he could pay someone to do anything he found disagreeable.

  ‘Most of them are jumping ship too,’ Jack said. ‘I think we can safely say it will be every man for himself from now on.’

  Once again Jack’s information was correct, for when they heard the sound of anchor chains creaking, and the splash as the anchor hit the water, dry land was still a mile away.

  ‘We surely aren’t expected to swim ashore!’ one alarmed, overweight matron exclaimed.

  There were a few scows from other ships ferrying people and equipment to land, but it would take weeks for everyone to disembark that way. The crew were already shouting out that this was a tidal flat, and if people didn’t look sharp and make their way to the beach, they’d lose their goods and maybe drown too.

  Unceremoniously the terrified horses and other animals were pushed into the sea to swim ashore, and at that people began to follow, jumping into the water.