by Vicki Delany
He turned and waited for me to catch up.
“I suggest,” I said, “that you might wish to find us something for our supper.”
“Huh?”
“We need to eat. I expect you to hunt for my dinner.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” He laughed. It almost looked good on him. “I’m so darn excited, Fiona, I completely forgot about eating. Do you need to rest, my dear?”
“That might be a good idea,” I said. We’d reached the foot of the mountain. Naked black rock rose straight up, as though it were a wall. Most of the vegetation had fallen behind us as the elevation got higher, and only a few tough lichens and tiny alpine flowers covered the rocks. It was noticeably colder. I shivered and wrapped my sweater around me.
Sheridan swung one of the packs off his back and pulled out a blanket. He placed it around my shoulders. His fingers lingered and I felt their soft pressure. For a moment, I almost forgot myself and started to lean back into them. “Take care you do not forget your position, Mr. Sheridan,” I said sharply, pulling my shoulders tightly together. The fingers moved away and he mumbled an apology.
A conveniently positioned boulder rested at the side of the trail. I sat down and arranged my tattered, cut-off, shredded, mud-encrusted skirts around my legs. I didn’t bother to reprimand Sheridan for staring.
He didn’t sit, just paced so anxiously I couldn’t possibly relax. After a few minutes of this, I got to my feet. “Very well. Let us continue. If we must.”
He galloped off in unseemly haste.
I watched him go and ran my fingers across my knife.
I was letting my guard down. Sheridan had been exceedingly kind and most solicitous on our journey. Apart from that one incident, he’d acted like a perfect gentleman.
I mustn’t allow myself to forget that he tackled me in a dark alley, fought with me, knocked me unconscious, dragged me off against my will, and threatened to stick a knife in my belly if I didn’t co-operate.
Once again, I heard that sound on the wind. “Mother.”
Dear Angus. I hoped he wasn’t too worried.
“One moment, Mr. Sheridan,” I called. “I see a small stream. Let me fill the bottle.”
He tossed it over his shoulder without turning. He stared, back stiff and straight, at the wall of rock ahead.
I gathered up the bottle and bent to a small trickle of water tumbling through a pile of boulders on its journey down the mountainside. The bottle was not yet half empty, but I feared that as we climbed, water would become hard to find. I knelt on the bank, the feel of spongy, velvet-soft moss soothing on my knees. The water was not much more than an inch deep, but clear and pure, the bottom a bed of gravel and small rocks. Overhead the clouds briefly parted and a long beam of sunlight illuminated the scene. I stopped in the act of placing the bottle into the water. One of the stones was positively gleaming, the light from the sun bouncing off in a thousand directions. I turned my head and took a quick glance up the trail. Sheridan hadn’t moved.
I slipped the frying pan out of the bag. Dipping it into the water, I scooped up rocks, gravel, mud, and water. I tilted the pan and allowed the pure clear water to flow out, the way Angus had told me men searched for gold. When the water was gone, black sand dotted with golden specks and two big golden lumps remained.
I let out a long sigh.
“Don’t dawdle, Fiona,” Sheridan said.
“Coming,” I replied. I slipped the two nuggets into my sweater pocket and poured the grey rocks and gold dust back into the creek. I forgot to fill the bottle.
* * *
It was almost noon when Constable McAllen sprained his ankle. He was bringing up the rear, carrying the rifle, watching out for something to put into the dinner pot. An enormous golden eagle circled lazily overhead, coasting on a thermal, and the young Mountie tilted his head back to watch the graceful movement. He stepped into a hole, his foot twisted beneath him, and he fell to the ground with a cry of surprise and pain.
“Not broken. Thank heavens,” Richard Sterling said, leaning back after examining McAllen’s leg. “Think you can get up?”
Angus took one arm, Sterling the other, Millie barked encouragement, and they lifted McAllen to his feet. He took one step and bit back a moan of pain. “I’ll be all right,” he said, when he could speak again. “Just needs loosening up a mite.”
“I doubt that,” Sterling said.
“Get me a branch, Angus,” McAllen said. “Something I can use as a walking stick.”
Long, low hills spread out around them, and the black and white mountain lay straight ahead. Not a tree was in sight, and no bushes with a branch any wider than Angus’s little finger, nor much longer.
“I’m leaving men scattered all over the bloody countryside,” Sterling mumbled. “I’m sorry, Constable, but if you can’t walk, you can’t come with us.”
“Angus, give me a hand.” Angus hurried to get under the young officer. McAllen wrapped his arm around the boy’s shoulder and leaned on him. McAllen wasn’t a large man, but Angus almost staggered under the weight. “This’ll do until we can find a branch I can use,” the constable said, in a failed attempt to sound cheerful and optimistic.
“And we’ll never catch up to Fiona,” Sterling said. Angus tried to give McAllen an apologetic look. He’d been thinking exactly the same thing.
“There’s nothing for it, but you’re going to have to wait here, Constable,” Sterling said.
“I won’t hold you up. I’m feeling better all ready.” McAllen unwrapped his arm from Angus and hopped forward on his good foot. “See?” Angus hovered beside him, ready to catch the Mountie should he collapse.
“Walk to that rock over there,” Sterling said, pointing about five feet in front of them.
“Sure.” McAllen alternately hopped and took baby-sized steps. When he reached the rock, he collapsed with a groan. His face was red and streaked with sweat.
“I’ll leave you the stove and some coffee and food. There isn’t much around here to use to prop up the tent, but you need shelter. Angus, collect a few good sized rocks and we can create a small cave off the side of the hill.” Angus rushed to do as he was asked.
Finally, McAllen stopped insisting he would soon be able to walk. “Sorry, Corporal.”
“Not your fault. I can’t leave you the rifle. We know Sheridan has one. We’ll be back shortly.”
Angus tried to give the downcast constable an encouraging smile as they moved off. It was only him now. Him and Corporal Sterling. And Millie.
They walked for several hours before Sterling stopped.
“What?” Angus said. Millie whined.
“Look ahead. What do you see?”
Angus looked. Solid black rock of the mountain wall rose sharply up from the brown plain. A path, wending slowly upwards, appeared to be carved out of the mountainside. The top was wrapped in snow and mist. Thick black storm clouds were moving in fast from the east.
Angus said, “We’re almost there.”
“Look at the path on the right. Is something moving?”
Angus sucked in a breath. “Mother,” he whispered. Then he shouted, “Mother.”
“I suspect so,” Sterling said. “Can you see how many people there are?”
Angus narrowed his eyes and stared. Something was moving for sure, almost certainly people. “Two maybe.” When he looked at Sterling the corporal had a touch of a smile at the edges of his mouth. He shifted the weight of the rifle. “Unload Millie. We’ll leave everything here. Now we need speed.” Sterling tossed his pack at the side of the trail. Angus and Millie’s things joined it. Only the rifle remained. Sterling talked as they walked. “I need you to listen to me, Angus, and listen good. We have no idea what state Sheridan’s in or what he’s capable of doing. We know he has a weapon, and we have to assume he’s prepared to use it. He didn’t bring your mother all this way to allow her to turn around and come back with us. You’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you, and nothing else. Do you understa
nd, Angus?”
“Sure,” the boy said. He was hurrying now. The people ahead had disappeared, probably as the path twisted or ducked behind a wall of rock, but his heart was singing. Mother.
He felt a weight on his shoulder, pressing him down, slowing his pace. He lifted a hand to knock Sterling away. The Mountie grabbed his arm and held it tight. “If for one minute I have reason to believe you won’t do as you’re told, I’ll leave you behind.”
“You can’t. I won’t let you.”
“Angus, this is not a lark. Look at me.”
Angus looked. Sterling’s eyes were dark and his face set into tight lines. “This is a police operation. Are you going to obey orders? Or not?”
Angus lowered his head. “Yes, sir.”
“Good lad.” Sterling shifted the rifle once again and strode on ahead, his long legs eating up the ground.
Angus wanted to be a Mountie. He’d known that meant sometimes he’d have to do things he didn’t particularly want to do. Maybe even things he objected to. He’d assumed, without thinking much about it, that he’d follow orders for the good of the force and to uphold the law.
He never thought his mother would be his first case. He gave Millie’s lead a tug and they set off at a trot after Corporal Sterling.
Chapter Forty-Four
I said nothing to Sheridan about finding gold. Could the man’s foolish fantasy be reality? Was this indeed a gold mountain? Back in the Savoy, we enjoyed a hearty laugh at the expense of men who came to the Yukon expecting to pick nuggets off the ground like windfall apples, yet today I’d done that very thing. I touched my pocket. I’d pushed the nuggets in deep, past the knife. They weren’t particularly big nuggets; I’d seen larger ones laid down to finance a night of drinking or a serious hand of poker, or as a gift to a dance hall girl.
But considering it had taken all of about one minute’s effort, I’d done rather well.
I eyed Sheridan. He was ahead of me, moving fast. The path was increasingly steep, carved between enormous boulders and walls of rock. Perhaps it had been a watercourse long ago, picking its way down the side of the mountain. Surprisingly, the path wasn’t too rocky but smooth hard-packed earth in most places. As we climbed, it got steadily colder, and I shivered in my sweater and tattered evening dress. Fingers of icy mist swirled around the path, getting thicker as we walked. Ahead and above us, the mountains disappeared into the clouds.
I ran my index finger across the sheathed blade of the knife. Sheridan’s back was protected by the packs he carried, but his front was exposed. Easy enough to slip around him so I was on the higher ground and thus taller than he, murmur sweet nothings into his ear, stroke his cheek with my left hand, playfully lift his head up.
Expose the throat.
A single silent swipe with my right hand, and that would be the end of Mr. Paul Sheridan.
And then what? I stopped and turned around. We were very high and the limitless tundra lay at my feet. The carpet of flowers and grasses and rock, far below, stretching as far as I could see, reminded me of the Highlands when the heather bloomed. It was so quiet up here, not even the sweet murmur of leaves rustling in the wind. Sheridan had turned a corner and passed out of sight. I heard a scratch on rock and looked up to see two sheep watching me. They stood on a ledge that was scarcely more than a crack in the solid surface. They were white with brown horns swooping upward, curling at the edges. Large brown eyes blinked at me, and their mouths moved as they ate unseen grasses.
I imagined a city at the bottom of the mountain. Dance halls and bars and waffle bakeries and tent shops. Doctors and dentists and pickpockets. Mining officials and priests. Gentlemen and drunkards and layabouts. Prostitutes and percentage girls and laundry women. The tundra churned into mud, wildlife fleeing. Everything beautiful and powerful subdued or broken in service of the all-encompassing lust for gold.
Who would rule here? The North-West Mounted Police, as in Dawson, or the likes of Soapy Smith, as in Skagway?
Or me?
I wouldn’t be a queen and Gold Mountain would not be my kingdom. This was Canada, after all. A dominion in the British Empire. Not unclaimed territory. But I could stake a claim. I could make a great deal of money. I would be rich beyond all my dreams.
First, Mr. Paul Sheridan would have to go.
Without warning, the sheep leapt from one crevice to another and were gone. I heard a sound, someone calling. Perhaps it was the wind, whistling through rock. Something moved at the edges of my vision. I pulled my eyes away from the horizon and focused on the path below, twisting and turning down the mountain. I’d thought I’d seen something, but all was still and nothing moved.
“Will you hurry up, woman.”
I turned to see Sheridan standing on the path several feet above me. His hands were on his hips and he was breathing hard. He looked positively angry.
“I’m getting tired,” I said, putting on a pout. “I want supper. I don’t suppose you’ve managed to shoot anything.” I waved my hand to indicate our surroundings. “I can’t imagine where we’re going to make camp. There’s not enough wood to start a fire and not a flat piece of ground on which to lie within miles.”
“Stop your moaning,” he replied. “You’ll have all the comfort you need soon enough. Now get moving.”
I lowered my head submissively and took a step. He turned and continued on his way. I slid the knife out of its sheath, to check if it would come clear easily, and then put it back.
Soon enough.
Chapter Forty-Five
I don’t know from where I got the strength. I’d scarcely had a decent meal for a week, and I hadn’t eaten for hours. The water bottle was empty, and we hadn’t come across water in a long time. Perhaps Sheridan’s enthusiasm, as he bounded ahead almost as easily and surely as the mountain sheep, was giving me some energy. Or perhaps my own thoughts drove me forward.
With sufficient funds, not only could I return to Scotland and extract my revenge on Alistair Forester, the man who murdered my parents, but I’d no longer have to worry about the law and my past, uh, profession. No British policeman would arrest an excessively wealthy lady for stealing silver or jewellery. The nobility did it all the time. At the end of a country house party, more than one householder had waved away the last of the guests only to discover valuable items had been unwittingly gifted to their visitors. If a maid pocketed a cheap trinket, she’d be sacked, a footman would face a stretch in Wormwood Scrubs, a hanger-on such as I would be socially ruined if not jailed. Lord or Lady Fitzjames-Worthington-Montague would be assumed to have taken the item by mistake, and it would be impolite to ask for it back.
With my newfound wealth, I’d purchase a country estate of my own, send Angus to Eton and then to Oxford or Cambridge. Eventually buy him a title. Set him up as a proper gentleman.
So happy was I with these thoughts, I almost bumped into the back of my captor. It was well after suppertime and long shadows crossed our path. Tendrils of cold mist curled around our heads and feet. The mountain closed in around us and sheer black rock rose up on either side, as straight as if it had been cut with a giant’s knife. The path narrowed to not much more than a foot wide, as if a doorway of sorts had been carved out of the stone. I squeezed forward to stand behind Sheridan and peered over his shoulder.
I gasped.
We stood high above a valley. Mountains, black and sleek, rose up on all sides. Below us, hawks and eagles circled. A wide blue river flowed lazily across the landscape, and plumes of white steam drifted into the air from several places on the valley floor. Everything was green and verdant, the ground hidden by vegetation: tall trees with large flat leaves and dense undergrowth. The sun was lowering itself behind the peak opposite where we stood, and the hills were bathed in a clear golden glow. The air at my back was Yukon-summer cold, bearing the threat of snow and icy winds. Ahead of us it blew soft and warm, perfumed with what might have been citrus.
The trail dropped sharply away and descended in a str
aight line, eventually to disappear into a clump of trees heavy with vines.
Gold Mountain.
Sheridan stepped backward. His mouth hung open and he looked into my eyes. He said nothing as he dropped slowly to his knees. A single tear travelled down his left cheek.
He lifted his face to mine.
His throat was wide and white, rimmed with a torn and dirty collar. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I found it,” he said in a whisper. “We’ve made it, Fiona, we’ve made it.”
I gripped the handle of my knife and slowly pulled it out of its sheath. I envisioned piles of gold stacked at my feet, diamonds on my fingers and emeralds in my ears and loops of pearls around my neck. Gowns of silk and satin and lace. More beautiful than ever, I’d bask in the adoration of all who encountered me. Angus would be prime minister some day. Sir Angus of the Yukon. Lord MacGillivray of Skye. He’d marry an insipid, buck-toothed great-granddaughter of the Queen, and I would take tea at Buckingham Palace and be the grandmother of a future king of England.
“Thank you, Mr. Sheridan” I said, “For bringing me here.”
I pulled the knife free.
“You are needed no longer.”
A dog barked.
For a fraction of time, I assumed it was a wolf. Then I remembered Angus telling me wolves do not bark, they howl. Only dogs bark.
Another bark, followed by an excited shout, from the path we’d recently ascended. A gust of wind came out of nowhere, carrying the single word “Mother.” The word lingered in the air like mist.
I looked at my hand, knuckles white on the handle of the knife.
What on earth was I doing? Was I seriously contemplating slicing a man’s throat? I didn’t even want to take tea with the Queen, nor to have a dreary daughter-in-law and buck-toothed grandchildren. Paul Sheridan knelt at my feet, submissive as a lamb to the slaughter. He had not heard me speak. I shoved the knife away and gave my head a proper shake.
“Someone’s coming,” Sheridan said. He pushed himself to his feet. The small pack he’d worn across his chest for the entire trip, the one containing his knife, dropped to the ground. I kicked it aside.
