These Golden Pleasures

by Valerie Sherwood

  He stalked off.

  Roxanne watched him stride away up the muddy creek bank, and part of her heart went with him. The wild reckless part that wasn’t owned by Denby or anybody else. The part of her that wanted to wear beautiful clothes and fine perfumes, to strike out alone and make her way in the world of men—in saloons or anywhere else. Lord, she’d heard girls with half her looks were getting a dollar a dance for a one-minute waltz in Dawson! But she knew what Denby would say about that.

  With a sigh, she went back to stirring the clothes in the tub and tried not to remember that reckless night in Seattle, the feel of Case’s strong hands on her body, driving her to heights of frenzy and desire. She pictured him as she had seen him then, lean and naked, his dark face very close, every cell of her being wanting him, aching for him. And the little laugh he had given as finally he took her, possessed her, made her his own.

  Her face was hot from more than the steam of the cauldron she was stirring. There was a cauldron in her heart too, and one day it might burst its bounds and fling her toward Dawson City and the man with tarnished silver eyes.

  In the meantime there was Denby, who had gone with Leighton to explore the Pelly River basin, to see if they could find gold. Desperately she hoped they’d find it. Then she would be free!

  Someone else came out from Dawson to see her that summer. It was Josie Mawkins, the madam from Chicago she’d met on the boat. Somehow Josie had gotten her “young ladies,” as she liked to call them, over the Chilkoot Pass without any broken legs, and now she was set up with “the hottest place in Dawson,” by her own boast.

  She found Roxanne working outside, her head draped in mosquito netting against the thick clouds of mosquitoes, stirring clothes in a boiling hot tub with a stick.

  “Well, it’s you!” laughed Josie, lifting the veil of mosquito netting that draped her own hat and peering at Roxanne. “I heard about this great-looking Dawson blond that had set all the men on Bonanza Creek plumb wild, and I came out prospectin’ myself to see if I couldn’t lure the girl into my establishment. What’s that you’re doing? Laundry?”

  Her voice was so incredulous that Roxanne, pushing back a damp lock of hair from her perspiring face, laughed.

  “But a girl with looks like yours don’t have to do laundry! You don’t have to waste that bosom and those hips and those fiery eyes and that bright smile on washing clothes!”

  “It’s a living,” said Roxanne grimly, giving the clothes a poke.

  “So’s shovelin’ dirt in a smoky hole on Bonanza Creek,” countered Josie, slapping at mosquitoes. “But men like Case at the Last Nugget rake in a lot more gold and don’t get their hands so dirty.”

  Roxanne looked up sharply at this mention of Case. Had Case sent Josie out to call on her?

  Josie sighed. “Sure I can’t persuade you to come into town and get all flossied up?”

  Roxanne smiled at her and said softly, “I have a jealous husband, remember, who believes he’s going to strike it rich.”

  “Well, his way is chancy,” argued Josie. “My way is sure. No matter who gets rich out of this here gold strike, I’m bound to. So would you, if you’d come and work in my house. Think it over, Roxanne, dearie. The offer’s open. Anytime.”

  Chapter 25

  Knowing for certain that Case was in Dawson changed things for Roxanne. Before, she had worked doggedly, staking Denby, wishing he’d strike gold so she could leave him without feeling guilty, but now she worked herself into insensibility each day to keep from thinking about Case, from remembering.

  The miners who patronized Big Marge’s laundry mainly for the pleasure of viewing the Dawson blond found a change in her, a preoccupation. But they still came and clustered around, paying the price of new clothes to have their old ones laundered, just to watch the beautiful girl at work.

  Marge’s laundry did a thriving business all year. Not only would miners pay the price of a new shirt just to get an old one washed, but the blazing fire at Marge’s hearth that next winter (wood mainly supplied by Leighton, who stayed there too) made her cabin the warmest on Bonanza Creek. It was heated, too, by the crowds of warmblooded miners eager to help Roxanne stir the dirty clothes or take them out and hang them on a rope slung between two poles—all the trees in the vicinity having been cut down for rough lumber or firewood. Outside, the clothes froze immediately and were delivered flat and stiff—but clean—to their owners, whose business it was to thaw them out. Sometimes they paid extra to have it done for them at Marge’s hearth.

  That fall, Marge, cannily realizing there was gold in Roxanne’s popularity, hired men who had run out of funds to construct a log addition to her cabin, in which she set up a kind of boardinghouse. Coffee and moose meat sandwiches and sometimes cranberries and ptarmigan stew were served by day, but by night rude cots were set up to accommodate half a dozen men—usually those who chose to sleep there rather than return through the sub-zero murk to their own cold digs. Behind a curtain at one end dwelt Roxanne and Denby. Behind a curtain at the other end dwelt huge, exuberant, energetic Marge, and her self-effacing husband.

  Roxanne often had occasion to thank God for Marge. For without her that winter would have been unbearable. Even at Aunt Ada’s she had not worked so hard. And here the air had a bitter bite that went through her much-mended clothes more fiercely than the worst of Kansas winters. Here her eyelashes froze, and the wind whipped her like a painful lash. On one terrible day at sixty degrees below zero she took some boiling water outside to pour into a miner’s cup and it froze as she poured it. As she stumbled back to the door half frozen, crying in fury, her tears froze on her lashes.

  Because Case was in Dawson, Roxanne kept away from the town. Seeing him might have weakened her newly-affirmed vow to be a good and decent wife to Denby. Wearily she mended and remended her worn clothes, helped Marge fix moose meat sandwiches and tended the tubs. On clear days when a pale sun shone briefly in the skies, she sometimes ventured out on the snow with Leighton as she had at Fort Yukon.

  Most of the time they all huddled miserably inside, trying to keep warm. And the half dozen men who sheltered each night in Marge’s commodious cabin would look at Roxanne with hunger in their eyes.

  When Denby grumbled about their fate, Marge told him grimly that they were the lucky ones. Look at those scurvy-plagued miners on Bonanza and nearby Eldorado, wrapped up in all the clothes they owned, gnawing frozen slabs of bread by candlelight. Look at them, working all night in this frozen hell, stoking bonfires on their claims so next day the granite-like soil would be thawed enough to dig into.

  But when those grubby miners reached bedrock in those smoky holes, countered Denby wistfully, the white gravel they found was laced with gold. Marge gave him a derisive sniff. Here, she argued, they had buckwheat cakes every morning, poured from a crock kept from freezing by setting it by the hearth at night and replenished all winter; Denby didn’t know when he was well off. Marge emphasized her words by slamming down a pot of coffee and stomping off to the tubs.

  Rumors reached Bonanza Creek that winter of a strike in Nome. Most people scoffed. Nome! Roxanne shivered. Nome was even deeper into the frozen north. Thank God she didn’t have to go there.

  By the time that terrible frostbitten winter was over even Denby had had enough. He only bobbed his head in unhappy assent when Roxanne told him she had saved enough money for their passage back to Seattle.

  Roxanne asked Leighton if he planned to return to Washington. No, he told her, he would never return to Washington; he planned to spend the summer exploring the vast Koyukuk River basin; perhaps he would even winter in the north before returning to the outside, as all the Klondikers called the rest of the world. She appreciated Leighton’s penchant for exploring far places and regretfully wished him luck. She would miss the friendly giant.

  Marge said it wasn’t right for them to spend their last days in the Klondike out on lonely Bonanza Creek. Declaring that Roxanne had washed her last long johns—except Denby’s�
��her laughter bellowed. She said she was taking them all into town on a spree—her man could mind the laundry for a spell. They’d stay at a hotel. After all, the ice was melting. Any day now it would break and the first river steamer would come hooting around Moosehide Bluff, and Roxanne and Denby would be going back aboard it. For herself, she was staying. This was a big wild country, just right for her and her man. They’d grow up with it. She’d bought up five gold claims; this summer she’d have men working them. In time she’d be a rich woman and when she went back outside, she’d have a carriage and maybe a “livered” driver. Roxanne smiled at Marge’s happy mispronunciation of “liveried” and hugged her warmly. More than anyone in the whole frozen world of the Klondike, she’d miss Marge.

  Into town they went, dressed in their best, to put up at one of Dawson’s best hotels, the Astoria, a jerry-built frame two-story building that Roxanne hardly preferred to her corner of Marge’s two-room cabin. They ate out at restaurants where supplies were running low, awaiting the breaking of the ice. All the town’s businesses were girding for the spring onslaught. Soon the river would be full of boats, Roxanne was told excitedly, and the town would be overflowing.

  Fools, she thought dispassionately. Imagine wanting to come here!

  “Town won’t hold ’em,” was Marge’s cheerful comment.

  Roxanne was astonished to learn that a railroad now ran from Dyea to the head of the canyon and an aerial tramway reached to the summit—all those weary miles they had plodded on foot. Even Marge stared when they were told that entire steamboats had been taken, section by section, over the summit and reassembled on Lake Bennett.

  “Maybe you and Denby oughta stay here, Roxie,” ruminated Marge. “Soon this’ll be the biggest city west of Winnepeg.”

  Roxanne smiled at Marge and shook her head. Her mind was made up, but she looked around her more thoughtfully at the burgeoning town. Dawson’s only sidewalks were wooden, its buildings were a jumble of clapboard and rough plank and log topped with stovepipe chimneys, and hastily painted signboards abounded. All was a great jostle and bustle as sled dogs and horse-drawn wagons ploughed through deep-mired streets past clomping bearded miners wearing wide-brimmed hats and boots. Behind this sprawling shack town rose the rugged hills. And beyond those hills ran cold deep rivers, hardly explored, up which men crept in tiny rafts and canoes, searching for the yellow metal that would buy them everything.

  Roxanne looked around her at this alien landscape, this raw boom town that had meant to her only backbreaking work and harsh primitive living, and was thankful she was leaving it. Home, she thought, with a little thrill. Home to the States. The thought warmed her more than the newly-hot northern sun, more than Marge’s happy shouted quips.

  The day the ice broke with a grumbling roar, there was a general cheer on Front Street, and when the shrill whistle of the first river steamer was heard coming around Moosehide Bluff, the whole population surged toward the waterfront, Roxanne and Marge and Denby and Leighton among them.

  The steamer brought news: America had won her war with Spain. But her other news could not wait for docking. From her decks even before she docked came hoarse voices calling, “Gold! Gold in Nome! Bigger strike than the Klondike!”

  From the waterfront crowd came a great exultant roar. Men who hadn’t struck it rich on the Yukon— and that was nearly everybody—howled and tossed their hats in the air at this news of a second chance. Gold in Nome! They jumped up and down; they waltzed the nearest woman or each other about, they shouted and howled and terrified the dogs, who ran away yelping.

  Roxanne, separated from her party as men poured off the overcrowded steamer, found herself pushed back along Front Street by the moving masses. She stepped into a doorway to let the crowd go by, standing on tiptoe to try to find Marge or Denby or Leighton among the throng.

  Standing, peering into the crowd, she saw Rhodes. She froze to immobility, not certain she had seen aright. Yes, there he was, as tall and formidable as ever, swinging along Front Street. He was casually dressed, his coat flung carelessly over one arm, his white shirt open at the neck. The sun glinted on the silver band of his dark wide-brimmed hat, shadowing the deeply bronzed face that moved alertly from right to left as he walked, his deep green eyes keenly studying his surroundings. Roxanne, feeling suddenly stifled, saw that he had lost none of that air of reckless confidence, none of the pantherish grace she remembered from Baltimore. She swayed dizzily. Rhodes—here! She might have turned and run, but just at that moment he looked in her direction, and his bright smile flashed. Roxanne stood rooted, wishing she were anywhere but here. His step quickened as he shouldered his way through the crowd toward her. When he reached her, he swept off his hat in an exaggerated bow. He looked just as she remembered him, handsome, arrogant, very sure of himself. And for some reason triumphant.

  “This is my lucky day, it seems,” he said. “My first day in Dawson, and I walk right into an old friend.” She had not dreamed that seeing him would hurt her so. Her tormented heart was thudding in her chest. Somehow she got out an answer, was relieved that her voice had a light, almost indifferent ring. “Old friends we’re not. What are you doing here, Rhodes?”

  “I thought I’d drop in on the Klondike. The Virginia Lass is anchored offshore—didn’t want to risk her on the river trip.”

  From the crowd, somebody jostled Rhodes. As Rhodes turned, a bearded miner’s baritone rang out, proudly telling a little knot of newcomers, “You don’t have to go to Bonanza to see the Dawson blond, boys—there she stands in the doorway, one of the sights of the Klondike!”

  Roxanne crimsoned. Rhodes could see the speaker was indicating her.

  “So you’re the Dawson blond,” Rhodes said, amused. “I’ve been hearing glowing reports of your beauty all the way upriver.”

  Bitterly aware of her worn dress, the patches on her sleeves, she said, “Well, now you know the reports were unjustified.”

  “On the contrary.” His lazy smile wandered over her lovely body. “You wasted no time after I left, Roxanne. I heard you got married.”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced at the sea of men who ogled her as they passed by. “And your husband lets you out alone?” he asked. “Faith, he’s a fool to do it with a flirt like you.”

  Bright anger flooded her. He’d used her, raped her, cast her aside—and he still had the gall to needle her. “Denby has struck it rich,” she lied airily. “We’re off to San Francisco to spend the money.”

  He looked at her sharply, his eyes noting the worn dress.

  “Where I’m to buy an all new wardrobe—jewels, furs,” she added hastily.

  “Of course.” He was studying her, looking for chinks in her bright new armor. She preened before him, hoping to make him suffer. He’d cast her aside, but now she was rich! It was a lie, but it didn’t matter. Making him think it was true was all that mattered.

  To her horror, one of the miners who frequented Marge’s laundry chose that moment to emerge from the crowd. He tipped his hat to her. “Well, it’s pretty little Miss Roxie,” he said. “Them shirts you laundered for me is the whitest yet. Never thought nothing would get this muck off them, but your little hands sure done it. It was a lucky day for Marge when she hired you, ma’am!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mayberry,” said Roxanne in a stifled voice. Bright color flooded her face as he departed.

  “I presume,” murmured Rhodes politely, “you launder as a hobby?”

  “It’s better than working for the Coulters,” she said evenly.

  His sunny green gaze lost its warmth. “What a lovely winter you must have spent—washing clothes in this climate.” He laughed. “Almost as pleasant as mine. The Lass was frozen in the ice in the Bering Sea.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said sweetly. “May I wish you many more of the same?”

  He studied her. “You’ve grown bitter, Roxanne.”

  “Just older.”

  “No, hardly that.” He considered her gr
avely. “Just harder shelled.”

  And who made me that way? she wanted to scream at him. You! You and your deceitful brother!

  “There was a day,” he mused, “when you were soft as the summer breeze. I see all that is far behind you. Have you the courage to have a drink with me? Or does your ladylike spirit keep you out of these dens of iniquity?” His gesture took in the saloons that lined Front Street.

  Suddenly she blamed him for all her troubles—all of them. Rhodes had known she loved him, and he had used her vilely. Her hatred of this powerfully built man who stood before her, cool and insolent and infinitely desirable, flamed up like a torch, to give venom to her words. Her level gaze was unwavering. “I wish I were a man,” she said through her teeth. “I’d gun you down right here and now for what you did to me in Baltimore.”

  “Then it’s fortunate you aren’t,” he said coolly. “For I’d be forced to defend myself, wouldn’t I? And you might end up on your back in the mud.” His insolent gaze moved down from her angry face, past her panting round breasts to her supple waist, down past her hips to the skirt-hem she was holding up with one hand to avoid trailing it on the muddy boardwalk, revealing a pair of worn but dainty boots. “Of course, you could always kick me to death with those,” he mused.

  Her teeth clenched painfully in her soft lower lip. “Stay out of my way, Rhodes—and out of my life.”

  “Tell me where you’re staying,” he said.

  Roxanne stared up at him, at his smiling face looking down at her. He hadn’t heard her at all. He thought he could pick up where he’d left off in Baltimore—pick up, that is, where he’d stood before he’d raped her! Out of her fury at his smugness, came a plan. She would bring him down! She forced her stiff lips to smile—an attempt at coquetry. She could see it puzzled him.

  “I’m staying at the Astoria.” She tried to sound gracious. “You’ll find it’s the best in town.”