Gypsy

by Lesley Pearse

  Jack didn’t go on to remind them that the part of the Pass which was the most difficult and hazardous was beyond the Scales, and not visible from Sheep Camp. No pack animals could climb what had been named the Golden Stairs, 1,500 steps cut out of sheer ice by some entrepreneurs who demanded a toll for using them. Once on them there was no stopping anywhere until the top was reached.

  Sam, Theo and Beth looked at one another in horror. Had it not been for Jack’s stalwart stance, they might have voiced their fear of making the climb. But Jack had become their commander since they left Dyea; he alone had kept his nerve when the cart nearly fell off a bridge, or got stuck in a rut; his strength, determination and calm had got them through so far and they believed he’d make sure they got all the way to Dawson City unscathed.

  ‘If we pitch our tent here tonight, it will be hell putting it all away at first light tomorrow,’ Jack went on, seemingly unaware that they didn’t share his excitement. ‘So I reckon Theo and Beth should go and get us a place in one of the hotels here. Sam and I will find our packers and ask where they want us to put all this.’

  Beth glanced at the cart with its mountain of their equipment and the required provisions. It had seemed a formidable amount even back in Skagway, yet they’d still raged at the fee charged by the Indian packers for each sack. But now she had seen the mountain it had to be taken up, she felt faint at the thought of what it would mean if they had to carry it all themselves. She said a silent prayer of thanks that they’d managed to get the money for packers together. She doubted that she would’ve been able to carry even one sack on her back to the top, let alone repeat it again and again.

  The so-called hotels bore no resemblance to any hotel, however humble, that Beth had ever seen, yet she was soon to discover the price was similar to that of the hotels in New York. They were just shacks, with no beds, just a tiny space on a bare floor, with dozens more people packed round them. If they bought a meal it would cost close to two days’ wages.

  She found you could buy almost anything at Sheep Camp, provided you had enough money. Whisky, dark glasses to prevent snow blindness, sledges, fur hats, even candy. There were whores too, who for five dollars would make sure a man enjoyed his last night of relative comfort before striking out for the summit.

  Despite her exhaustion from the day’s arduous trek, Beth couldn’t help but smile at these whores, for they were the plainest, grubbiest women she’d seen since the shirt factory in Montreal. Some sported ragged satin dresses, a blanket tied round their shoulders like a cape, heavy men’s boots on their feet and hair like rats’ tails. Yet there were plenty of takers for their services.

  Once into the ‘hotel’, hemmed in on all sides by humanity, there was no possibility of getting out again during the night. Beth was sandwiched between Theo and Sam, and the stench of feet and other body odours was so strong that she pulled her fur-lined hood right over her mouth and nose, and hoped that exhaustion would ensure she could fall asleep.

  She was awake for what seemed all night, listening to an orchestra of different kinds of snores. There were loud roaring ones like steam trains, high-pitched squeaks, some regular, ordinary snores and some irregular ones, and every now and then someone would break wind, cough or groan. One man sounded as though he was praying, and another swore in his sleep. It was like a mass tuning of strange instruments.

  Theo’s breathing was heavy, Sam’s light. Jack was lying behind Sam but she couldn’t distinguish his sound from anyone else’s. Beth was aware that this was probably the most comfortable and warm she could expect to be for weeks and that scared her even more. Why was she going? She didn’t care about gold and she could make enough money in Skagway to ensure she could go back to England next year with a sizeable nest egg. What if there was an avalanche while they were on the mountain and she was buried alive? What if she fell and broke her leg or arm? What then?

  She must have fallen asleep eventually for the next thing she knew, Jack was shaking her and saying it was time to go.

  By midday Beth was already convinced she couldn’t take another step. The pack on her back was small, just twenty-five pounds in weight, containing nothing more than dry clothing, while the boys had ones twice as heavy, and Sam and Jack had a sledge each too, but it felt like a ton weight. The snow was packed hard underfoot, but uneven because of the stones beneath it, so she had to watch where she was stepping, using her stout pole for support as she dragged herself, puffing and panting, ever upwards.

  She was sweating from the exertion in so many clothes, but the one time she took off her fur-lined coat, the icy wind chilled her to the bone within seconds. She wanted a hot drink and a sit-down, her eyes watered in the icy wind, her lips were cracking and every bone in her body was shrieking at her to stop. She cursed her long skirt and petticoats which gathered up the loose snow with every step, and determined that when they finally got to the Scales, she would break with propriety and persuade Sam to let her wear one of his pairs of trousers.

  She got the only drink of the day at the Stone House when Jack heated up water in their volcano kettle, feeding the fire he’d lit inside it with dry sticks and wood shavings he’d stored up from his carpentry work back in Skagway. As he bent over it, blowing into the fire between the double walls, Beth watched him in admiration, wondering why it was only he who had realized back in Vancouver that this curious doubled-walled invention with space to light a small fire inside it would be the single most useful piece of equipment they could own. It could be lit in a high wind or even rain and still boil the water quickly.

  She recalled the skinny, pale-faced street urchin Jack had been when they first met. Even then he was resourceful and tough, but he had grown in every possible way since. His face above his thick dark beard was as brown and weatherbeaten as an Indian’s now, the thin scar on his cheek barely visible any longer. His broad shoulders, arms and thighs were solid muscle. He had embraced and learned something from every experience he’d had since he left the immigrant ship, whether it was butchering beef, bartending or building cabins. He was the steel in their small group, the one they all relied on, drawing on his strength when all theirs was gone.

  ‘How are your feet?’ he asked, noticing immediately that Sam was hobbling as he moved to get the coffee and sugar from his pack. ‘Have you got a blister?’

  ‘I expect so; my boots are rubbing on my ankles,’ Sam groaned.

  ‘Take them off and I’ll put a bandage round them,’ Jack said. ‘And you, Theo! How is that wound holding up?’

  ‘It’s not too bad, a few twinges, that’s all,’ Theo replied, tucking his hand inside his coat as if to check the scar hadn’t broken open.

  ‘I’ll check that too,’ Jack said. ‘But coffee first. Beth looks as if she’ll collapse if she doesn’t get some quickly.’

  A lump came up in Beth’s throat for she didn’t understand how Jack had turned out to be such a caring man. From the little he’d told her about his childhood she knew it had been a harsh one, the kind you would expect to create an unfeeling brute.

  ∗

  By the time they had reached the Scales, Beth was on the point of collapse. Every part of her ached, as if she’d been stretched on a medieval torture rack.

  The sky was like lead, and she’d heard someone say they thought it would snow again soon. When she looked down the way they had come, the stream of climbers was just as long as it had been that morning, and she wondered at the insanity of it all.

  She dimly heard Jack say they would pitch the tent for the night and then go to check if their packers had got everything up yet.

  Beth crawled into the tent even before the boys had finished hammering the pegs into the frozen ground. Every inch of ground around the Scales was covered with tents, and the sound of hundreds of voices, complaining, arguing and calling to one another, made her want to cover her ears to shut them all out.

  Somehow she managed to get the blankets out of their packs, but fell on to them before she could even st
raighten them out or attempt to light the lantern.

  It was dark when the boys had got back from checking on their kit, and although Beth had heard their voices as they came into the tent, she hadn’t felt able to move or even open her eyes.

  They camped at the Scales for three days because of a heavy snowfall. Others went on up the Golden Stairs regardless, but Jack thought it foolhardy, for someone had fallen and broken his leg, and had to be carried back down to Sheep Camp by Indian packers.

  It was tedious huddling in the tent, but at least it gave them time to rest and gather themselves for the next gruelling part of the journey. The men Jefferson had warned her about were here at the Scales in force. They looked like bona fide stampeders, complete with backpacks and shovels, but the fires they lit, the hot drinks they offered the unwary were only to lure a few suckers into one of their pea-under-the-shell games. She recognized a few faces as being some of Soapy’s foot soldiers and guessed he would get a good rake-off from them. Theo sulked for some time when she told him how she knew the games were rigged, but at least that deterred him from allowing himself to be sucked in.

  On the fourth morning Jack announced it was time to pack up the tent and go, even though the sky was heavy with more snow and the temperature had dropped even lower.

  ‘If we leave it any longer our goods will be buried under feet of snow at the top,’ he said with an anxious glance at the sky. ‘Besides, there’s never going to be a good day for going up those steps.’

  Sam took the lead with his sledge strapped on top of his pack. Beth came next, with Jack behind her, sledge and pack arranged like Sam’s, and Theo bringing up the rear. It was imperative they kept in step with the person above them, and with a strong, icy wind threatening to blow them down the mountain and only a thin rope at the side of the ice steps to steady themselves, every step was tortuous.

  Sweat poured off them and their muscles shrieked for mercy; the icy wind on the exposed parts of their faces felt like a thousand pinpricks. Beth didn’t dare look anywhere but where she was placing her feet, for one slip could be fatal, and her back ached, bent into such an unnatural position. She counted the steps at first, but gave up after five hundred. Above the sound of the whistling wind there was a continuous, communal low groan, the sound of a couple of hundred souls all stretched to the limits of human endurance.

  One man high above Beth and the boys keeled over sideways and slid back down the mountain, screaming, but no one even looked round, let alone broke their step to try to help him. It could be said they would have been risking their own lives and those of all who came behind to do so, yet all the same it seemed barbaric to ignore him. But the climb was far too hard for anyone even to waste breath on a comment. Beth felt Jack touch her back lightly as if to communicate that he felt impotent too.

  On and on they went, not daring to look behind or even above them. The universal groan was growing louder, mingled with the sound of rasping breath.

  It began to snow again, and suddenly Beth could see nothing more than Sam’s boots just above her. Agony was mingled with terror now for she couldn’t imagine how they could pitch a tent when they got to the top, and if they had no shelter they would surely die of cold.

  ‘You can keep going, Beth,’ Jack said from behind her, his voice eerie in the strange white world. ‘We’ll be fine, we’re nearly there. Just think of that tea we’ll make. Keep going.’

  She heard a strangled cry from well below them and she guessed someone else had fallen. Then a yelp came from Theo.

  Beth involuntarily turned her head, but she could see nothing but a snow-covered shape which she knew to be Jack. ‘Hold on to the sledge,’ she heard him say to Theo. ‘I’ll help pull you up.’

  It was a grey-white world, in which she could see no further than two feet and sound became distorted. Surely the Scottish accent she’d heard a couple of hours earlier had come from above her? Now it seemed to be below. But Jack’s voice steadied her, reminding her they were nearly there, that Theo was holding on, and that Sam was just in front of her.

  A woman screamed out that she could go no further, and a male voice urged her on, but their voices seemed to be coming from Beth’s right and confused her still more.

  ‘Just concentrate on the next step,’ Jack called out as she faltered. ‘It’s not much further.’

  Finally they reached the top to find themselves in what looked at first like a white city. The buildings were towering, snow-covered piles of goods, the streets the narrow corridors left between them.

  Jack uttered an anguished oath on realizing that to find their goods would be a tall order. They had given their packers a long pole trimmed with a few bright ribbons to mark them, but they hadn’t reckoned on the snow obliterating everything. Men were up on the heaps digging frantically with their shovels, and they heard one man claim he’d been digging for three days already.

  There was nowhere to pitch the tent. The only shelter was within this ‘city’ and Jack led them through the winding streets until he found a place where they could rig up a tarpaulin for a roof over their heads.

  It was warmer without the icy wind they’d struggled through all morning, and they sank down gratefully on to their sledges and once again made tea in their volcano kettle. All four were silent, and Beth had no doubt that they were all thinking the same as her, that they should have waited for spring. Darkness was already closing in, and the prospect of a night huddled here, perhaps many more too if they couldn’t find their kit, was too terrible to contemplate.

  Jack and Sam were revived by the hot tea, and taking the lantern went off to start a search for their goods.

  ‘How is your wound?’ Beth asked Theo as they huddled together on the sledge with a blanket around them.

  ‘I don’t think it’s broken open,’ he said. ‘But even if it had, I deserve it for bringing you here. This is no place for a lady.’

  ‘I’m far from the only one,’ she said. ‘And one day we’ll look back on this and laugh about it.’

  ‘I hope so.’ He sighed. ‘My wish is that I can make it all up to you by being the perfect husband and giving you the kind of home you deserve.’

  ‘Is that a proposal?’ she teased him.

  He took his hand out of his glove and stroked her cheeks tenderly. ‘It is if you want it to be, but I had intended to ask you somewhere a great deal more romantic than this.’

  Beth glanced to her side at the narrow passage between the piled goods. It was still snowing, and other people had come along to share the passage with them; they too were fixing up tarpaulins for a roof. She laughed. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find a romantic setting for some time yet.’

  They had thought the climb up the Golden Stairs would be the absolutely worst part of the trail, but the next two days, as they tried to find their goods, were a long, drawn-out torture. It was impossible to sleep; they were filthy, cold and desperate for a hot meal, and the noise from so many people packed all around them and the ceaseless high wind and flurries of snow took them to the very edge of insanity.

  They all dug snow off piles of goods, only to be disappointed, and despaired of ever finding their supplies. Digging warmed them a little, but their muscles ached unbearably, and when they stopped digging the cold seemed to freeze up every joint in their bodies.

  Beth dreaded needing to relieve herself. Men went anywhere, regardless of who was nearby, but she couldn’t do that, and the more she worried about it, the more often she seemed to need to go.

  On the third day up there, with even heavier snow coming down, Beth really thought she couldn’t survive another day. Tears froze on her cheeks and her lips were so cracked she could barely speak. Even Jack was showing signs of flagging. She watched him climbing up a snow-covered pile of goods and noticed how slow he had become. Theo looked deathly pale and staggered when he tried to walk, and although Sam was doing his best to keep up with Jack in the search, it was clear he was on the point of collapse.

  Yet it
was Sam who finally found their goods. He had taken himself off to try to get his circulation going again, and just happened to walk past another man who’d found his stuff. As he pulled out his last sack, Sam spotted their ribbon-trimmed pole sticking out beneath it. If he hadn’t been there, within an hour the snow would have covered it again.

  Packing it all on to the sledges warmed them and lifted their spirits a little, even though snow was coming down thick and fast. Finally they hauled the sledges to the snow-covered hut with a tattered Union Jack flying on it, where the North West Mounted Police, armed with their Maxim guns, stood guard over the border into Canada.

  Beth was reassured to see the familiar red jackets and navy blue trousers, and heartened to know the police officers would allow no hand guns into Canada. They were determined that the violence and lawlessness of Skagway should not move across their border.

  Duty had to be paid on the goods they had brought from the Alaskan side of the mountain. But Theo turned up trumps by producing a sheath of receipts for goods bought back in Vancouver, and argued that he shouldn’t have to pay tax on them, only on the items bought in Skagway.

  Beth wondered how the Mounties could be so pleasant and cheerful, stuck on top of a mountain for months on end in such appalling weather. They might have buffalo coats, but their shack was little warmer than a tent, and in one night the snowfall could be six feet. Yet they seemed amused at Theo’s argument and nodded agreement, charging them only two dollars’ tax in all, without even checking their kit.

  Miraculously the snow ceased and weak sunshine appeared as they left the summit, wearing their snow shoes, for the five-mile trek to Happy Camp. Despite having to haul the heavily laden sledges and adjust to the strangeness of snow shoes, for the first time since they’d left Dyea the going was fairly easy. The number of people who had gone before had made the snow firm, and the sledges glided over it smoothly. They were astounded when someone told them they had only travelled twenty-two miles from Dyea, and eight and a half from Sheep Camp, for it seemed like a hundred.