Her face turned chalk-white, and she moved over to the bunk on legs that suddenly would not support her. Rhodes had come to the Klondike looking for her. Not to sight-see. And a man does not pursue a woman half around the world to some wild backwater unless he loves her. Incredibly, the fact beat into her consciousness:
Rhodes loved her!
All her world turned topsy-turvy at that moment. All her old hatreds and old loyalties crumbled into dust. Rhodes had come to Dawson because he loved her—and she had greeted him bitterly, lied to him, sold her very body so that he might be set upon and beaten and robbed and left stranded in a town whose heart was as cold as its climate. She caught her breath. Ashen-faced, she imagined him sitting up in bed holding an aching head, nursing a bruised body, while some insolent prostitute delivered her message:
Roxanne did this to you. She wanted to be sure you knew it.
Her hand flew to her mouth, pressed against it so hard her teeth hurt. Oh, God, what had she done? Rhodes had come seeking her, his love so great he did not care that she was married, did not care that she had gone to the very ends of the earth. He had sought her and found her, and she had promptly destroyed him.
She sat there crouched in the bunk, staring at the pictures in her hand, but not seeing them. She felt as if she were dying.
The cabin door opened to admit Denby. Automatically, she threw a fold of her skirt over the wallet and pictures. She glanced at Denby and turned away.
“Roxanne.” His voice sounded loud and strangely contrite. “Roxanne, I changed our tickets.”
“Did you?” she said absently.
“Roxanne, we aren’t going to San Francisco. We’re going to Nome.”
Slowly that sank in. She turned and looked penetratingly at Denby. “What did you say?”
“I said I’d changed our tickets for Nome—before we boarded. Oh, Roxanne.” He seized her arm, his voice pleading. “It’s our chance. Don’t you see, we were too late for the Klondike—everything was already staked: Bonanza, Eldorado, French Hill. But in Nome, we’ll be in the first wave! We’ll be rich, Roxanne.”
She pulled away from him. At that moment, she could not bear his touch. “It doesn’t matter,” she said in a soft, tense voice. “I don’t care where I go, Denby. To Nome or to hell, it makes no difference!”
Denby’s jaw dropped. Whatever response he had expected from his fiery wife, it was not this. “Then you—you don’t mind?” He sounded amazed.
“No,” said Roxanne woodenly. “I don’t mind.”
Denby took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Still a bit stunned, he left the cabin.
A little while later Roxanne dragged herself from the bunk and went up to the deck. She found a deserted space at the rail and with a sob she tossed the wallet and the three pictures into the river. The wallet sank immediately, but the three pictures drifted for a while before they slipped below the surface. Roxanne watched them go, drowned like all her hopes. Then she put her head down on the railing and wept.
Now she knew she had loved Rhodes all the time—had indeed never ceased loving him. Fate had given her a second chance, and she had thrown it away. She had come to understand herself too late. Her folly had cost her everything.
The storm over, she lifted her head and stared through tear-blurred eyes at the river bank drifting by. They were winding through a low tortuous maze, the labyrinth of the Yukon Delta.
Nome. They were going to Nome. But what did it matter? Her life was finished, over. She had realized too late whom she loved—after she had gratuitously destroyed him. And Denby, poor Denby, she had destroyed him too. Had she not cuckolded him with the most notorious man in Dawson? Case had held her body and Rhodes her heart—what was there left for Denby? Only that sense of guilt that held her shackled to him. Perhaps Denby would discover gold in Nome after all, perhaps it would make him happy. She never could.
Yet she would not spend her life in tears, no matter what happened. With fierce determination she dried her eyes and set her hat more firmly on her head.
At that point Denby found her. He peered at her. “Roxanne, have you been crying?”
She shook her head. “Some soot got in my eyes from the funnel.”
“Never mind,” he said, not believing her. “Things will be better in Nome.”
She gave him a bleak look. Things would never be better, anywhere.
Nome, Alaska 1899—1900
Chapter 27
Roxanne was still silent and pale when they transferred to another steamer to make the trip across Norton Sound toward what Denby insisted on calling “the golden gates of Nome.”
Those gates did not open very wide, Roxanne observed cynically, for while one could journey to within sight of Nome, it was almost impossible to land there. Their ship, as did most others, anchored miles offshore, and they waited for days for the sea to be quiet enough so that a landing barge could take them close to the narrow strip of dark sand fronting the driftwood and tent community that was Nome. Leighton was not with them, so Roxanne lifted up her skirts and waded through the rough surf with the others.
Built on a spit along the mouth of a sluggish river, Nome was a man’s town. A boom town. A gold town. Above all, it was a rough town. The only women Roxanne saw on her first day there were prostitutes and dance hall girls. From one saloon raucous laughter spilled into the street. From another two men erupted, shouting angrily; they were being thrown out. Past a driftwood shack, she saw a public latrine: tickets available here, twenty-five cents. All around she could hear the sound of hammering and once, of gunfire. The law was far away here and tempers were short.
In Dawson she had seen Indians. In Nome she saw Eskimos, and turned to call Denby’s attention to them, fascinated by their round rather Oriental faces, their exotic dress of fur parkas and mukluks. Many Eskimos owned handsome teams of malamute sled dogs. Denby ignored the Eskimos and their dogs. His only thoughts were of heading for Anvil Creek, which he did at once. He found it staked, of course, and came home haggard to the hotel room Roxanne had managed to get for them by flirting with the proprietor.
She wondered what they would do now.
In the morning, sharing a three-egg breakfast—it cost a dollar and they were almost out of funds—they heard a hoarse cry from the street. “There’s gold in the beach sand! Feller down there has a pan that shows color—musta been washed in from the ocean!”
The men in that jerry-built restaurant jumped up so fast they overturned their rude benches. Denby was among them. “Got to stake my claim, Roxanne!” he cried and was gone, leaving Roxanne to finish the overcooked eggs alone. When she finished breakfast, she sauntered past Wyatt Earp’s place, with its sign proudly proclaiming it The Only Second Class Saloon in Alaska. Continuing on down to the beach, she found the scene there quite incredible.
The dark sands swarmed with people, digging with shovels, swirling sand in their pans, perspiring, calling to others. From the sea more landing barges spilled out eager new arrivals who promptly joined the fray. As Roxanne stood watching, a group of prostitutes with fancy hats and fancy hairdos rushed by with shovels, which they thrust energetically into the sand. One of these women, a big coarse redhead, saw Roxanne watching them and straightened up to call, “Business bad, kid? Try this!” To the accompaniment of general laughter among the redhead’s overdressed friends, Roxanne turned away. Eventually, in the excited mob she found Denby, flushed with perspiration and digging madly. “I need a pan,” he shouted, a desperate note in his voice. “Can you find me one, Roxanne?”
Back into town went Roxanne. As they had on her way to the beach, the men in the streets turned admiringly to watch her pass. Several tipped their hats, some of them spoke. Many of their faces she knew from the mines around Bonanza, and to those she gave a civil nod. The others she ignored. Recognizing one of the regular customers of Marge’s laundry standing in a group, she asked him about acquiring a pan. He gallantly lent her his. She thanked him with a brilliant smile and hurried
back to the beach.
Roxanne soon discovered that, although they both worked hard, neither she nor Denby was very good at panning gold. After hours of back-breaking work they had only a couple of dollars worth of fine dust—not enough to feed them for one day in Nome.
Finally, Roxanne straightened up stiffly and studied Denby.
“Come on, Roxanne,” he cried in an encouraging voice. “It’s light almost all night here. We can keep working.”
“No,” she said. “I’m tired. I’m going back to the hotel.”
All the saloons she passed were bursting with customers. Men tried to pick her up, but she brushed by them, eluding one clutching drunk by dodging behind a group of miners. Several places she heard brawls erupting. From many doorways came the tinkle of tinny music and sometimes thin female voices or husky whiskey ones, singing. The bright white night of Nome was beginning.
Tiredly, Roxanne sank down on the narrow cot she was to share with Denby and looked around at her room, which was little larger than a closet. That Denby wasn’t going to strike it rich mining the beach sand was all too apparent. Finding a way to survive was going to be up to her. She lay there, exhausted.
When she’d rested a little, she tipped the tin pitcher into the cracked washbowl and bathed as well as she could. Putting on her only party dress, a peach georgette much the worse for wear—it had been worn almost the whole of last summer at Bonanza—she unbuttoned the high neck and adjusted it so that it was almost off the shoulder. Carefully, she combed her hair into a tall pile of gold, from which she allowed a curl or two to escape coquettishly and bob along her white neck. Ready at last, she started out to find work.
Whistles and delighted catcalls followed her from the hotel. In the street it was worse. Miners whooped at the sight of her, but with the help of a friend from Bonanza, a young man named Toby Hart, she made it to her destination—the town’s only “first class” dance hall.
If this was first class, Roxanne decided, she would have hated to see second class. The place barely had a roof. In the center of the hall stood a crude, raised wooden platform, sprinkled with sawdust, upon which three homely perspiring women were dancing doggedly with a trio of booted miners. At a raw wood bar, drinks were served and the proprietor, Big Mike, a man with heavy shoulders, beady eyes and a slick kind of smile, collected a dollar for each one-minute dance with his bevy of beauties.
“You sure you want to do this, Miss Roxanne?” Toby asked uncertainly. “Ain’t much of a place, is it?”
“I’m sure,” said Roxanne steadily, and stepped up to ask for a job.
The beady eyes took in her sumptuous figure, her low-cut dress that tantalizingly exposed the white tops of her round, young breasts, her silken dark-blond hair and reckless sapphire eyes. “Ma’am,” was the prayerful response, “you’ve sure come to the right place. Hey, ain’t I seen you someplace? Dawson, maybe?”
“You might have,” sighed Roxanne. “I might have washed your shirts.”
His eyes widened. “That’s it!” he cried. “Step right up, boys,” he bellowed. “This here’s the Dawson blond! Right up on the platform there, Miss—”
“Roxanne.”
“Miss Roxanne. We split fifty-fifty, Miss Roxanne,” he muttered in an aside. Then his voice rose again to a roar. “Best-looking woman ever to hit the Klondike. You’re in for a treat tonight, boys. Step right up and dance with Miss Roxanne—the Dawson blond!” Roxanne climbed up on the platform so they could see her better. She took a deep breath and lifted her head and looked up at the roof, then down to the hot eyes of the men who crowded around the platform. Her beauty as she stood there, a delicate figure of peach and gold, caused a sudden silence—perhaps the men were remembering the girls they’d left behind them. The silence was broken by a stampede as the piano struck up a tune and men fought to pay their dollar to dance around for a minute with the celebrated Dawson blond.
With first one man swinging her about, then another, this way and that way, Roxanne went home that night exhausted but a hundred dollars richer. The streets were still bright as she entered the hotel, for the long summer days had come to Nome and it was still light at midnight. She was glad she had had the presence of mind to button up her high-necked peach dress before she got back to the hotel, because she found Denby sitting on the narrow cot glaring at her accusingly. He looked exhausted.
“Where the devil have you been?” he growled.
Roxanne, giving him a level look, showed him the hundred dollars. “I’ve been working.” And at his aghast expression, added, “A dollar a dance—you must have seen the place. It’s called Big Mike’s.”
Denby groaned. “Roxanne, you’re a lady. How could you?”
Roxanne pulled off her shoes to ease her throbbing feet. “Denby,” she asked, “how much did you make today?”
“Three dollars,” he growled.
“And do you think that can keep us? Here in Nome where it costs more than that a day to feed just one of us? It will be snowing soon. Even the sea will freeze over. Where will we sleep? The beach?”
He looked away, mumbling.
“Denby, if you strike it rich, I promise to quit. It isn’t a job I love, you know.”
Moving away from her on the cot, he turned his back to her. Roxanne looked at his rigid, angry back and sighed. She took off her peach dress and, edging onto the cot against him, was soon asleep.
The next morning she bought a flashy dress from one of the other girls who worked at Big Mike’s. It cost her fifty dollars, but it was worth it. For Roxanne had had an idea. She didn’t intend to stay in Nome for the winter. Passage to San Francisco could be had for three hundred dollars now. That meant she needed six hundred for her and Denby. They’d need money to get started when they got to San Francisco, but most of all, they needed money to live here even in miserable conditions—big money; she could see that.
Denby, home early from his back-breaking work on the beach, toiling just a shovel’s length away from the next digger, lay on the cot and watched her dress for her evening. His expression was one of pure horror. “Roxanne, you aren’t going to wear that!” Peering into the little bit of foggy cracked mirror that hung on the wall, she finished combing her up-swept hair and smoothed the red satin dress down critically over her hips. It had fit her bustline readily enough. But Flo—from whom she’d bought it—was on the plump side and the waist had had to be taken in with a needle and thread. Roxanne hoped she had done a neat job. Denby’s horrified expression told her she had.
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“It’s cut too low,” he cried. “Your—everything shows!”
“Nothing shows,” corrected Roxanne. “Except a little bosom.”
“And it’s too tight,” he said, aggrieved. “You might as well be naked.”
Fine. That was exactly the effect she had hoped to achieve. She turned to face him. “Will you walk me there, Denby?”
“No,” he said, looking sulky.
Roxanne sighed. She tied a black satin ribbon around her neck and another around a narrow wrist; they accentuated the gleaming whiteness of her lovely skin. She was sorry she hadn’t shortened the skirt so her trim ankles would show, but she decided that since the dress had a little train, she could always gracefully hold it up with one hand and give a glimpse of pretty leg as she danced. Yes, that would be very good. She started for the door.
On the cot, Denby suddenly sprang to a sitting position. “If you go out in that dress, Roxanne, I’m going to leave you!” he cried.
Roxanne gave him a look. Without answering, she turned and went out the door. As she closed the door, she could hear him cursing.
Once again she found an old friend from Bonanza to escort her through the streets. The men, all very admiring of her white shoulders and plunging neck-line, couldn’t take their eyes off her. On the way to Big Mike’s, Roxanne collected quite a following.
When she arrived, Big Mike himself stepped forward to greet her. His eyes gle
amed. “You’re looking very fetching tonight, Miss Roxanne.”
“And I’ve brought a lot of people with me.” She indicated the small crowd milling behind her.
“That’s good.” He rubbed his hands together.
“As your stellar attraction,” she said soberly, “I think I should get a better cut than fifty percent. I think it should be seventy-five-twenty-five.”
Big Mike looked affronted. “Fifty-fifty is generous!” he protested.
Roxanne bluffed it out. “On the way here,” she said, “a fellow I danced with last night stopped me and asked me if I would dance for him if he set up a dance hall. He said he’d give me seventy-five.”
Her employer looked aggrieved. “I was the one started you out,” he said reproachfully. But when Roxanne turned as if to go, “All right, all right, you got a deal, sister.”
Briskly, Roxanne stepped up onto the platform, posed to show her white shoulders in the low-cut dress to best advantage. She took a deep breath and smiled brightly.
“Step right up,” roared Mike. “Step right up—” Afterwards Roxanne was sure she had danced with half the men in Nome that night. Her feet felt like it. Still, she was going back to the hotel with a hundred and fifty dollars.
She found Denby gone when she got there.
That surprised her. But she was so tired she fell onto the bed and went to sleep. She rose again only in time to eat and dance.
These Golden Pleasures Page 33
