“How did you get away?” Reverend Dickey asked.
The marshal nodded toward the townspeople. “They came up and took our side. Someone shot into the air, and Soapy’s men scattered.
Miles smiled. “God protects those doing his work.”
Mr. Brown from the mercantile joined them. “Soapy’s outside with his men, but they don’t like the numbers. More folks are headed this way. I knew if enough people went to church, those thugs would back down. We licked ’em today.”
Once the women obtained their possessions, Reverend Dickey offered a prayer. As the afternoon waned toward sunset and flurries filled the air, dozens of church members escorted the women to the shore. They cheered as the majority of Skagway’s sporting women climbed aboard a barge.
“That Soapy’s nothing but a bully,” screamed a woman as they cast off. “Good-bye and good riddance!”
“Without the Lord’s help we never could have accomplished this,” Miles said.
Sam hugged him. “The Lord’s help and you being in the right place at the right time. I’m so proud of you.”
His eyes shone. “I’ll take another one of those.”
Peter intervened. “No you won’t. It’s time for me to shake your hand. I’m proud of you, too.”
The enormous mountains loomed to the west across the gray canal, aloof and frozen in surprise. Three women fluttered handkerchiefs when they reached the steamship. Samantha’s soul soared. Even if they never found Pa, something good had come of their time in Skagway, and Miles had instigated it.
Doc Runnalls crunched across the snowy shoreline carrying the canvas mailbag.
Miles reached into his coat pocket. “With all the excitement this morning, I forgot to give you my letter.” He handed it to the mailman with two bits for postage.
Runnalls examined the envelope. “What’s this town? Port Orchard, Washington?”
“Yes. We’re from there.”
“How very curious. I’ve got another letter for Port Orchard, brought in this morning.” Runnalls noticed Samantha. “What’s your name again, sonny?”
“I’m Samantha Harris from Port Orchard.”
“Samantha? You don’t look like a Samantha to me.” Runnalls dug through the mail bag and extracted a discolored envelope. “This is for a Mrs. Mary Harris of Port Orchard, Washington.”
“My mother. She’s dead. That’s why we’re here.”
“Dead?” He held out the cheap envelope. “If she’s dead, I believe I can pass this on to her next of kin.”
Samantha gasped at the slashing scrawl. “Where did this letter come from?”
“The Tlingits brought it with the cross for the church this morning. Peg Leg sent it. I hope it’s the news you’ve wanted.” Runnalls cleared his throat. “I need to get the mailbag to the steamship.”
Samantha ripped open the envelope. “Pa’s alive!”
Chapter 12
South of Skagway
Miles and Peter huddled around Samantha as she read the letter aloud.
My darling, what I feared has come to pass. I must ask you to send my son. I need Peter to help me. Only his young strength and manhood can bring me home to you.
Dr. Harry Runnalls of Skagway, Alaska Territory, has a letter giving directions on how to find me. If Peter will come, Dr. Runnalls will help him. If you do not have the funds, go to the good John Parker. I know my brother in Christ will lend Peter the money he needs.
Bestow a kiss on Samantha’s crown of golden glory. The good work is finished. I pray I will see you all soon. I will not be there in time this year, but Merry Christmas.
Your loving husband,
Donald Harris
Samantha’s eyes shone as she clutched the letter to her chest. Miles watched Peter blink rapidly and swallow.
When he got control of himself, Peter whooped and spun his sister around. “I knew it. Pa needed us.”
Samantha laughed when he put her down. She stroked her still golden, but not much of a crown, hair. “I knew he’d be disappointed Peter chopped off my hair.”
“You cut it for good reason,” Miles said. “He won’t care.”
Dr. Runnalls returned. “I take it you have good news.”
“The best,” Samantha said.
Peter indicated the letter. “It says you’ve got directions for how to find Pa.”
Dr. Runnalls shouldered his bag. “Come up to the office.”
A blizzard blew in during the night and shut down White Pass for the rest of the winter. While Miles sought time off from the mercantile, Peter scoured the waterfront looking for someone to guide them down the southeast side of the canal. Samantha could scarcely wait to find the village Donald Harris indicated in the letter left with Runnalls, but Tlingits rarely visited Skagway.
December twenty-fourth dawned clear and cold. A Tlingit Indian hiked into town that morning on a beach trail. After picking up mail and several items from the mercantile, he agreed to escort them to his village and Peg Leg.
The trio stowed clothes, bedrolls, and foodstuffs into packs and followed him.
The small dark man in a thick bearskin coat walked briskly along the rocky shoreline. A bone-chilling wind blew off the water, and sea spray soaked them more than once. They scrambled over driftwood and boulders, grateful for low tide.
Miles was thankful for the days spent on the trail; he had no trouble keeping up.
“Why Peg Leg?” Samantha asked as she dodged a sudden wave.
Peter and Miles didn’t know. Their guide spoke only broken English.
When she struggled in her long skirts over large boulders and nearly slipped, Miles held out his hand. She took it and did not let go, even when the path smoothed. Peter raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Miles’s heart thumped with optimism. “Are you looking forward to returning to Washington?”
Samantha tripped on a piece of driftwood. “I don’t know.”
He hated to say it, but he needed to know her plans. “You probably can begin in the second semester, only one term late.”
She bit her lip. “But I don’t feel like I’m done in Skagway. How can I leave now, when there’s talk of a school?”
Miles stopped. “You would stay to teach school? I thought you didn’t like this town.”
“Things have changed since Lucy’s funeral. People are different. Did you notice the children at church? I can be useful in Skagway. I can’t stay by myself, but with Mama gone, maybe Pa won’t want to go back to Port Orchard.”
Miles tucked her hand under his elbow. His blood pounded in his ears all the way down the coast as he contemplated how to tell her of his own change in heart.
Two hours later, the winter night and rising tide were nearly upon them when they reached a river mouth. Three native lodges sprawled three hundred yards from the shore. Canoes were beached high above the surf line. A pack of barking mongrels rushed to greet them.
Their guide led them to the first house—a long cedar-planked building with a peaked roof covered in bark. They pushed through a door into a great room smelling of smoke and close living. Four decorated corner posts held up the roof, and the floor was dug down in the middle, providing earthen seating around a central fire. Wooden partitions to divide the area into sleeping compartments lined the walls. The fire in the center and two kerosene lanterns provided dim light.
Twenty people startled at their entry, and the deerskin-clad women recoiled in surprise, calling their children to them. An elderly man stepped forward and addressed them in the sliding guttural Tlingit language.
When Miles, Peter, and Samantha removed their wraps, the chief laughed. “I think you speak English. Tillicum”—he motioned to a seated man smoothing a totem pole in the far corner.
“Papa,” Samantha cried, starting forward. Her brother followed.
“Peter? Samantha?” Donald Harris’s deep voice cracked. “But I just sent the letter. How are you here so soon?”
“We’ve been in Skagway looking for y
ou.” Samantha fell at his feet.
Miles blinked back tears.
Donald sat on a skin-covered box with one leg stretched before him, a carved crutch at his feet. His big hands shook as he embraced the twins. His bare head, now shaved bald, shone in the firelight, and his coarse beard was white. The hearty man who had led the trio on hikes and taught them about the outdoors years before looked diminished in the longhouse.
The natives around Miles gabbled in a language he could not understand. Possessions filled the room, fishing gear hung on the walls, and the families obviously were preparing a meal. Their trail guide slipped away, leaving Miles towering over the Tlingit families. Peter looked like a giant.
Donald ruffled his hands along Samantha’s head with a chuckle. “Your crowning glory is shorn these days. Did you think to find riches in your golden hair?”
“Peter and Miles thought I would be safer if I blended in with the Klondikers. I’ve been wearing trousers and pretending to be a man.”
“Your mother agreed to a disguise?” Donald laughed.
The twins shared a glance.
“That’s why we’re here, Pa.” Peter took his father’s hands. “Mother died in June. We’ve been in Skagway since August looking for you.”
Donald’s joy crumbled. “Mary’s dead?”
His distress caught the ear of the natives. The elder who had greeted them stepped closer, and a nearby woman moaned. Miles scanned the room; all the Tlingits watched Donald, waiting. For what?
The man buried his face in his hands. “Tell me.”
Samantha recounted her mother’s illness, the hours spent reading the Bible, the moments of her death. Peter described the decision to close up the house and head north. “We needed to find you.”
Donald’s shoulders shook, and Samantha hugged him. Peter completed the circle, and the three cried together.
At their tears, the Tlingits murmured a low sympathy. Miles went to his friends. Peter pulled him, too, into the wide embrace.
There in a native house on the edge of nowhere, the civilized, cultured, devout Mary Harris’s death was fully mourned by those who loved her best.
Donald opened his watch and gazed at a photograph of his wife while the native women served them dried salmon and tea. Miles chewed on the salted smoked fish. Sips of spruce tea cleared his sinuses.
“This is not what I expected,” Donald finally said. “She never wrote of illness. Mary’s refinement had no place in Alaska, which is why she stayed behind. She argued she would get in the way of God’s work and slow me down. She always sent me without her.”
“But you wanted to return to Port Orchard.” Peter leaned forward. “That’s what you said in the letter.”
Donald gestured to his leg. “I broke it right after I wrote in June. I can’t walk without a crutch. I finished my task—the totem—and I wanted to see my family. But now Mary’s gone.”
“You have us, Pa,” Samantha said. “And Miles.”
Donald scrutinized him. “Ah, Miles. How did you escape your mother?”
Miles set his jaw. “I sent my parents a letter and said I was leaving. Here I am.”
The Tlingit chief joined them around the fire. Behind them, the families prepared their meals, settled their children to sleep, and murmured among themselves. A log shifted on the fire, and the light danced. With his stomach full and his body finally warm, Miles should have relaxed, but Donald’s steady gaze held a challenge. He smoothed his beard and moustache.
Samantha rubbed Miles’s arm. “He’s done very well, Pa.”
Donald noted her movement. “Were you ordained?”
“No sir. I finished my coursework but missed ordination. The missions board members laid hands on me before I left and charged me to preach the gospel.”
His questioner’s right eyebrow went up just like Peter’s. “Have you done so?”
“He has.” Samantha declared. “He preached to the Sourdoughs and sporting women on the ship. He read his Bible to packers on White Pass. He nearly killed himself building the church, and then he started teaching Bible study in the restaurant.”
She gazed at him with shining eyes. Miles’s heart hammered. “He’s the one who instigated the sporting women leaving Skagway, and then he took on Soapy Smith when we collected their belongings. The town has seen God in action ever since Miles arrived.”
Peter slapped Miles on the back. “Miles bought our provisions. He’s watched out for Sam. We never could have made this trip without him. ‘All for one,’ we always said, but it’s really been all Miles for us.”
Donald smiled “The Tlingits like nothing better than a good story. My three musketeers have all grown up. I’d like to hear about your adventures.”
They told their story long into the night.
Chapter 13
Tlingit Village
Christmas
Samantha woke the next morning fully clothed but wrapped in a blanket beside the banked fire.
Peter and her father snored softly while the Tlingits moved quietly about their chores. Miles’s bedroll lay folded in a neat pile. Samantha stretched, pulled on her boots and coat, and headed outside.
Dawn took a long time coming in the December north, and at the shoreline she saw a broad-shouldered man wearing a misshapen bowler hat watching the waves. He stepped backward as a roller slipped far up the beach and bumped into a driftwood log.
She sighed, but he stepped nimbly over it and laughed.
Pa was right. Miles had changed.
So had Samantha’s opinion of him. She went to her childhood friend with a shyness she’d never felt before.
“Merry Christmas.” He put his arm around her shoulders to protect her when a gust of frigid air threatened to knock them over.
“The same to you.”
“I wonder if mistletoe grows here.”
Samantha tilted her head. “Why?”
“After what you said to your father last night, I’d like to kiss you.” The cold wind blew ruddiness into his face.
Satisfaction swelled from deep within. “We don’t need mistletoe. I’d be honored to kiss you.”
His brow wrinkled. “Do you mean it?”
“I do.”
He considered her. The water crashed; a shorebird scooted past. The village dogs barked, and a curl of cedar smoke reminded her breakfast would be ready soon.
She held her breath.
“What happens next, Sam?” Miles asked in a husky voice.
“Pa will tell the Christmas story.”
“Will you stay in Alaska?”
She gazed toward the jagged white mountains across the canal. “Mollie is taking her restaurant to the top of the pass in the spring. You and Peter are headed to the Klondike.”
“I’m not going to the Klondike.” Miles pushed at the driftwood with his heavy boot. “I feel like your Pa. He stayed because of the work he believed God called him to do. Reverend Dickey heads over the Chilkoot soon. He means to start a church in Dawson.”
“Will you take his place?”
“Only if I don’t have to minister alone. I’m not as strong as your father and mother.”
Her lips parted. She moved within a breath of a kiss but stopped when she heard rocks shift on the beach.
Peter jogged up. “Happy Christmas. You need to come inside. Pa’s going to explain his totem pole. Hey. What’s happening here?”
Miles gazed a rueful moment longer and then tapped Samantha’s chin. “Everything.”
They made their way back to the longhouse, shucked off their wraps, then joined the clan seated around the central fire hearth. Babies cuddled on their mothers’ laps, small children played at their feet, and the men stood behind. Donald leaned on his carved crutch beside a blond totem, the scent of freshly cut wood still in the air. The trio found spots beside the fire.
“I came to you a year ago,” Donald said. “You asked me to tell more about the good news other missionaries brought. It has been an honor to read the script
ures and to teach some of you to read. But not all can read the words, and so for this Christmas, I did what missionaries asked me to do when I came: I’ve carved a totem so you can remember God and how he came to earth to live with his people.”
Samantha’s father spoke in simple English with a young interpreter by his side, but the way he communicated with the native people filled her with pride. They wanted to hear the story of the Creator who sent His Son to teach them about love and how to know Him better. The contrast between the “savages” in a wooden longhouse hungering for the Christmas story and the thugs controlling Skagway couldn’t have been plainer.
Her father pointed to the top figure on the totem. “Raven is the emissary of the great Chief of Heavens who holds the Christmas star.”
“Raven is a sort of an angel here, but he often is a joker,” Miles whispered.
Peter nudged her. “Trust Miles to have done his homework, even on native tribes.”
In the past, she would have laughed with her brother at Miles’s need for research, but that day Samantha thought about how thorough Miles had been in his preparations. He not only learned about the Alaskan country before he left his books at the seminary, but he investigated the beliefs of people he expected to meet.
She smiled to herself, however, realizing how he had miscalculated on the sporting women.
“Joseph is the wood carver who led Mary on a journey to Bethlehem. Here I’ve represented him by a man holding a canoe paddle.” Donald pointed midway up the totem at a mother and child. “Many people came to the potlatch where the powerful chief wanted to display his wealth. Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus at the gathering.”
Samantha took Miles’s hand. He had provisioned their trip and made sure they had what they needed. He worked the pass with her brother, but he came back to Skagway to watch over her. Because he loved her.
Just like that, she knew what she wanted.
“The bear lives in a cave, or a manger,” Donald explained, “and the keepers of the fish trap, the men who tended animals, proclaimed the good news. The chief beneath them is one of the three wise men who brought gifts to the newborn king.”
A Pioneer Christmas Collection Page 55
