In the Land of Gold

by Angela Christina Archer

  I closed my eyes. Please God, please.

  A gun fired and the wolf yelped as it released my arm, falling to the ground with a thud. Another shot rang through the air, and another wolf yelped. Snarls, jaw snaps, yelps, growls, all vibrated around me, along with another gunshot.

  And then, silence.

  A hand grabbed my arm, gently pulling my body then releasing just long enough to wrap around my shoulder. Another arm slid beneath my legs.

  I opened my eyes, but couldn’t see anything, just blinding flashes of stars that danced in a sea of black.

  “Cora?” The thick Irish accent seemed so familiar and comforting. “Are yeh all right? Cora, speak to me.” Fingers pressed against my neck below my ear. “Cora, it’s okay. I’ve got yeh.”

  The stars above faded along with the shadow looking down at me, the man who couldn’t say my name without rolling his ‘Ra’s, and I liked that. His voice softened, drowned out until the fuzzy haze finally turned my world black.

  Chapter 14

  Fur tickled my nose.

  Gray and white hairs obstructed my line of sight, and I jerked from the pillow of wadded flannel shirts. I fought against the tangle of blankets covering me, and screeched.

  Snow was lying next to me. She sprang to her paws, and sprinted from the tent with her ears flat and her tail between her legs.

  “What are yeh screaming for?” Flynn shouted, his eyes big as saucers as he scanned the inside of the tent. His feet still planted in the opening, he wielded a wooden stick in one hand, while the other poised over the pistol holstered in his gun belt.

  “Wo—wol—Wolf,” I stuttered.

  “Yeah, so, she’s just been keepin’ yeh warm.”

  Of course, she was.

  She had been tamed—no longer the wild, hunting beast, the likes of which attacked me last night. Although, I could swear the look in her dark eyes said otherwise.

  My head pounded and tears pooled in my eyes. I drew my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, burying my face in my knees. Weak and shaken, I sobbed. My hot tears cascaded down my cheeks, and I didn’t try to stop them.

  Flynn cleared his throat. “Do yeh want something to eat? I made breakfast.” Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders hunched sympathetically. He barely took his eyes from the ground, meeting my gaze for only a few seconds before glancing away.

  Oh, how I must look.

  Covered in mud and crying like a child, a sad pathetic mess who obviously didn’t belong in this crazy Yukon world.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not hungry.”

  “Yeh gotta eat Cora . . . er . . . Miss Colton, even if it’s just a few bites.”

  Drat. He was right.

  I wiped my cheeks and pulled my legs from under the blanket. The fabric from the ripped pant leg had twisted itself around my calf and pinched my skin when I sat up.

  I stuck my fingers through the bite holes and pulled the pants up to examine my leg. Purple bruises blemished my ankle, dark in several places.

  The skin on my neck and one of my cheeks pulled tight as I cocked my head, rough to my touch from being scraped along the granite rock.

  “I scrubbed your wounds as best I could.” Flynn shrugged his shoulders. “But we should watch for infection.”

  “All right.”

  Rising to my feet, my knees buckled. Flynn reached out to help me, but I held up my hand to stop him.

  “I’m all right.” My tone was dismissive. Certainly, his help was wanted and needed. I wanted nothing more than his embrace and strong arms to protect me from the outside world, and yet, such wasn’t allowed.

  He retreated quickly. “I caught a fish from the river. It should be ready within a few minutes,” he said.

  “A fish? From the river? But the river is gone.”

  “A different river,” he chuckled. “We are a few miles east of what was Sheep Camp. I figured yeh might be tired of pancakes and bacon.”

  Good perception.

  I followed him out of the tent and staggered over to the fire. Although, the sun hadn’t yet risen above the mountains, the light of dawn still blinded me.

  My legs ached as I tried to sit. Pain spread through each muscle, until finally, I succumbed to gravity. My rump slammed into the dirt, landing close to the hot flames of the campfire.

  As I pulled my knees up to my chest, Flynn threw a blanket over my shoulders. “The morning air is cold. Yeh must keep warm.”

  He kneeled in front of the cast iron frying pan, then flipped the fish. The scent of the sizzling meat caused my stomach to growl, and he hid his smile.

  Snow lay down on the other side of the fire and rested her head on her front paws. She closed her eyes, then heaved a sigh. The calmness in her deep breath drew peace to my own shoulders.

  “I’m sorry I yelled. I know Snow, well, I kind of know her. I mean, I’ve been around her enough that I should know she didn’t mean me any harm.”

  Flynn handed me a steaming cup filled with coffee, effectively ending my rambling. The heat from the cup eased the ache in my hands.

  “It’s all right, Miss Colton. She won’t hold it against yeh.” With his words, Snow opened her eyes and gave a rumbled growl as if to disagree. “Besides, yeh had quite the scare last night. How do yeh feel now?”

  I stared at the ground as he waited for an answer I couldn’t give.

  “It’s probably a stupid question.” He turned his attention back to the fish.

  “No, it’s not stupid.”

  I glanced in his direction and looked away before he met my gaze. The question was stupid. At least to me it was. I’d survived a flood, a near drowning, and an attack by wild creatures set to eat me alive. I had no words for the last twenty-four hours, and I sincerely doubted I ever would.

  I sipped my coffee, distracting thoughts of my tired and sore muscles with the bitter taste, made worse by the lack of cream and sugar. How I longed for the sweetness to swirl in my cup as it had mere months ago.

  “Where are the horses?” I asked, looking around our little campsite.

  “We lost the one I left with you, two escaped and fled during the landslide, and I turned the last one loose.”

  “How are we going to carry all the supplies?”

  “Yeh mean the unnecessary thousands of pounds people drag behind them up here?” He didn’t even try to stifle his snorting laugh.

  “But, we’ve been living off of those unnecessary thousands of pounds this entire time,” I snapped, mimicking his words.

  “If yeh know how to live off the land, yeh don’t need all that stuff. We’ll survive, if we stick together. Besides, I carried everything we needed on that sled over there.”

  He flipped the fish one last time before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a knife. He sliced the head off, and then cut the rest of the body into several pieces.

  The fish smelled wonderful, but with its charred burned spots, it was the grossest looking meal I’d ever been offered.

  “It’s not much, Miss Colton, but it’s food.”

  As I gripped the side of the plate he offered, he sat next to me. His own plate secured in his lap as he scooped a large bite into his mouth.

  By the time I finished eating my share, the nauseous swirling in my stomach vanished along with my hunger. Flynn poured me another cup of coffee, then tossed my empty plate in the bucket of sudsy water with his own.

  “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Nah, yeh should just rest.” He scrubbed the dishware and the skillet clean, then leaned them against a fallen tree to air dry.

  “Thank you for saving my life, and for breakfast, too.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Colton.”

  “Please, just call me Cora. I
mean, no sense in formalities out here. After all, I left proper on a boat deck in Tacoma, right?”

  He looked toward the ground and nodded, barely breaking a smile at my mock.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I don’t know how, exactly. I just started searching. Figured, you’d head back to Dyea so I just started walking.” He sat beside me again and let out a deep sigh. “It wasn’t until I heard yeh scream that I knew where yeh were and how close I was without even knowing it.”

  “I thought I was going to die.”

  He adjusted the blanket across my shoulders. His hands lingered as he gave me a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

  “Everything is gone.” I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my jacket. “My supplies, my money, and the deed to my claim. Everything.”

  Flynn’s sympathetic glance only exaggerated the truth I didn’t want to face. Nothing like pity to make one feel even worse about themselves or the situation they are in—whether by their own actions or because of reasons beyond their control.

  Did the fault even matter, whether by my own actions or some cosmic karma laid upon me by uncontrollable forces? Never had I desired a life beyond my own means, and look what happened. Shame and regret filled my soul.

  Flynn rose to his feet, walked over to his tent, and retrieved a brown pack. He set it at my feet and it fell over.

  “By the time I reached your tent, yeh were gone, so I grabbed everything I could.”

  “But my tent was swept away with the flood.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It was still there when I got to it.”

  Of course, it was. I’d left it to search for Rhett and only returned when I couldn’t find him.

  Unclipping the front pocket, a rush of relief spread through my shoulders. The white envelope containing my deed and money lay in the exact spot I’d left it. My name stared up at me, etched on it with the black ink of Anne’s pen and in her handwriting. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

  “Is everything there?” Flynn asked.

  “Yes,” I said, closing the pocket flap. “How can I ever thank you?”

  “It was nothing,” he shrugged.

  “No, no, Mr. O’Neill, it’s not nothing. You saved my life, in more ways than one. When I left to find Rhett, I didn’t think to grab my pack. It was just so, so foolish.” My hands trembled as I wiped my face with a handkerchief I’d pulled from the side pocket of the pack.

  “Yeh should get some rest. Yeh had a rough night.” He sat beside me and cocked his head to the side. “And, if I have to call yeh Cora, than I think it only proper for yeh have to call me Flynn. I mean, don’t yeh think that’s fair?”

  A fire cracked and popped outside the tent. Light flickered through the canvas and the scent of smoke filled the air as my eyes still squinted with the pounding pain in my head. I rolled over on my side before sitting up, peeling the blanket from my legs, and stepping out of the tent.

  “How are yeh feeling?” Flynn asked. He sat on the fallen tree log in front of the fire, with a knife in one hand and a twig branch in the other.

  “Better.” I sat next to him, eyeing a couple of sausages, and several chunks of disgusting looking meat on a plate in his lap. “Dinner?”

  “Will be ready in just a bit,” he smiled.

  “What are those?”

  “Chicken livers.”

  I pretended to gag and he laughed at my disgust.

  “Yeh need to eat them, Cora. They’ll keep yeh from getting scurvy out here.”

  “I’ll eat the sausages, but I will not eat the chicken livers.”

  He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Will yeh at least try one? I can’t have yeh getting sick.”

  “Maybe.” I lied. He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand to silence him. “I said, maybe. So where did you get the meat?”

  “From the Indian tribe a few miles from here. If yeh’ve been in the Klondike long enough, yeh make friends. My pal, Payuk smokes it with the perfect amount of flavor.”

  “And, you’ve had them all this time?”

  “Nah, Payuk passed through Sheep Camp the night we arrived,” he winked. “But yeh wouldn’t have known that since yeh flittered off wanting to set up camp with your friends and all.”

  My halfhearted smile faded with the thought of not only my foolish choice, but of Rhett. Gut feelings told me he was dead, but I ignored them, wanting to believe differently.

  “How long have you been up here?” I ignored the teasing honesty in Flynn’s voice and how it sent butterflies fluttering wildly in my stomach.

  “Nearly four years years.”

  “Is that when you left Ireland?”

  He glanced at me, and flashed a broad smile with a hinted sparkle in his eyes. “No. I left Ireland when I was just a small lad.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “I miss the land. There’s beauty here, but not like Ireland.”

  The way he pronounced the name of his home country, with a wistful awe, made me want to go there. “Why did you leave?”

  “Got no family, and didn’t want to grow up in the orphanage.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “What happened to your parents?” I paused. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “They were killed in an explosion in the iron foundry in Dublin. I was six years old and taken in by a priest.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Guilt overwhelmed me, twisting in my gut with a weight that left a bad taste in my mouth. My life hadn’t been as filled with such hardship, yet I foolishly believed it had.

  “That was a long time ago and I’ve had many great adventures in my life to wish otherwise.”

  “So you moved here from, where?”

  His amusement faded into a grimace, not of anger, but of pain. He inhaled a deep breath and continued shaving the stick.

  “Was the fish cooked enough for yeh this morning?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Blindsided by the change of subject, I blinked a few times as I glanced at him.

  “The fish, this morning, was it cooked enough for yeh?” Obviously on edge, the roll of his ‘r’ sounded heavier than usual.

  “Oh . . . yes, it was fine. For fire-cooked, river fish I’d never eaten before.”

  The tension lifted in Flynn’s shoulders, and his smile returned along with a whisper of confidence. “Are yeh saying I’m a bad cook?”

  “No,” I laughed.

  He sheared off the last bit of bark on the stick, then pushed the pointed end through three sausages.

  “Hope yeh like them burned almost black, because that’s when they taste the best.” He winked.

  I bit my lip, my eyes danced around, and I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Burned is fine with me.”

  “I’ve got a canteen of whiskey over by the tent if yeh want a drink.”

  “No, thank you. I think I’m done with liquor for a while.”

  Flynn chuckled. His eyes danced with mischief. “Yeh don’t really seem like the type of woman who longs to stampeded across the frontier, headed for the land of gold.”

  Admitting my difficulties to another soul and admitting the truth, proved nearly impossible, made worse by looking into such gorgeous eyes.

  “No, I suppose I don’t,” I shrugged.

  “Then why come here? Was your fiancé so bankrupt that yeh decided to hunt down your own wealth?”

  Flynn’s mocking tone as he brushed his shoulder against mine should have angered me, but it didn’t. His expression humored me too much to be angry.

  “Gold has yet to really pique my interest. The other stampeeders can have all the gold they desire as long as I have what I need to support myself in Dawson. And, Christopher was wealthy enough, perhaps too much so,” I mocked.

  Flynn rolled his
eyes. “Wealth doesn’t make a man a great one.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “Not in the slightest. How could I ever be jealous of a fool who had a lass like yourself on his arm and was stupid enough to not love her?”

  The butterflies in my stomach fluttered to life once more and danced joyfully.

  Drat. Ignore him.

  The glint in his eyes vanished. “So, why are you really here, lass?”

  “I just needed a life of my own.” I looked away from his gaze, staring at the ground, and cleared my throat.

  “I can understand that.” He pulled the hot, smoking sausages from the stick and threw them onto a plate, then blew on his fingers to cool his burning skin. After tossing on a few dried chicken livers, he handed me the plate, then he stuck three other sausages on the end of the stick, and hung it back over the fire.

  “We can leave in the morning, if yeh feel up to it.”

  “We’re leaving so soon?”

  “We still have a few hundred miles to Dawson and we better start as soon as we can, winter is coming.”

  “Dawson City?”

  “Don’t yeh still want to go?”

  “Yes, I do. I just thought, with the horses gone and most of the supplies, that—”

  “We’ve got enough supplies to get us to Payuk’s village and can restock there. If Dawson is where yeh want to go, we might as well get moving.”

  “Our deal stands. I will still pay you what I said I would.”

  “We can deal with that detail later.”