Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine

by Caroline Starr Rose

  There ain’t no talk about what we’ll do once darkness falls.

  On we go through the steep and muddy forest with no trail to follow, Bonanza on our left. Mel asks miners the name of every staked-up creek we pass. He writes in Trail, Pure Gold, 49, and Mosquito. A mountain rises beyond Mosquito Creek, not high and snowcapped like Mount Rainier back home or the peaks at the Chilkoot Pass. This mountain ain’t so tall as it is broad and smooth on top.

  “You see that?” I point across Bonanza. “Don’t that mountain remind you of a rising loaf of bread?” My stomach growls just thinking about it.

  Mel stares where I point, then rubs his eyes. “Do you mean the mountain in front or the one behind?”

  “You see two mountains?” I stand exactly where he is and cover my eye without the lens to get the best view I can, but that don’t change nothing.

  Mel shakes his head. “I’ll get those glasses fixed for you soon as I can.”

  In the few minutes we’ve been still, the cold’s crept closer and clouds have crowded up the sky. I tug my muffler so it covers my chin. There ain’t no time to dillydally.

  We walk on a couple of miles. Usually Mel races ahead, but today he stays in back. “Them Riley clues,” I say over my shoulder. “Three of them got words that are similar. Below. Bottom. Down. What do you think it means?”

  “They fit with what we’ve seen today. Prospectors dig holes from the creek beds clear up to the hills. They search every shovelful of dirt for gold.”

  We stop nearby the next two creeks. Mel adds in Boulder and Queen.

  “Queen?” I say. “Like our steamer? That’s where I first heard about Riley.” It feels like a chance we can’t pass up. “Let’s go take a look.”

  That means we gotta cross Bonanza, because Queen’s on the other side. We find a sourdough who lets us over his part of the creek. It ain’t easy, on account of the ice. Me and Mel, we balance on one rock to the next until we make it through.

  Queen’s a whole lot shorter than Bonanza but has the same sort of old-timers scooping dirt. “You heard of One-Eyed Riley?” I ask the first fellow we see. He wears a set of overalls and a kerchief around his neck.

  The old-timer shakes his head. “You know someone named Riley?” he shouts to a miner one claim over. “He’s only got one eye.”

  “I’ve heard his name, but I don’t know him personally,” he answers.

  It takes almost an hour to walk the whole length of Queen. Either no one out here’s familiar with Riley or they just don’t want to talk. When we turn around, the sun has broken through them clouds. It lingers over the hills ahead. Day is fading fast.

  “Why don’t anyone know about Riley, Mel? I figured everyone would have heard his story by now.”

  For the longest time, Mel don’t answer. All I hear are his footsteps behind me, the faintest trickle of water from the almost frozen creek. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I’m not sure what to think.”

  The whole length of Queen Creek I go over what Mel said and what he didn’t. I feel squeezed around the middle like I’m wearing trousers that have grown too tight. Mel ain’t sure what to think. Because here’s the thing: If One-Eyed Riley’s mine is real, wouldn’t folks here know about it? Or did the story of his claim grow bigger than it was ever meant to be?

  Like when Cyril dared me to let that rooster loose. It was just a little prank thought up on the way to school. But whispers flew from desk to desk, and by the end of the day some kids were sure I’d bring a piglet the next morning and a big glop of mud for him to wallow in on the cloakroom floor.

  Is that what’s meant when they say Riley whispered his riddles into the breeze, that a small story grew into something it weren’t, passed from one man to the next?

  As we near Bonanza, twilight’s shadows stretch clear across the creek. Mel calls to a sourdough on Queen, a fellow we didn’t see when we first passed through, with a washed-out beard pale as straw. “Did you ever meet a man named One-Eyed Riley?”

  “No,” the sourdough says, “but you could try looking for him in Grand Forks. It’s a new town about two miles south of here, right where Bonanza veers to the east and Eldorado joins in.”

  My heart sits heavy in my chest. What if One-Eyed Riley’s mine is just a dream?

  This time me and Mel gotta cling to each other just to cross Bonanza’s slippery ice without a lick of sunlight. Oh, I’m ready to stop, but where are we gonna go? We’ve already walked ten miles, easy, probably more. The sun is only a memory.

  “How much longer, Mel?” I ask when we reach the wooded hill above Bonanza.

  “Three more creeks, then we can quit.”

  I run through Riley’s clues again, more from habit than anything. Last chance. Nine below. That number feels different now. “Wait a second. Tell me again what the claim on Bonanza was called?”

  It’s so dark with the trees and the clouds that cover the moon, I can’t see Mel, but I can hear him. “Fifty-four above.”

  Above what, I don’t know. Could it mean fifty-four mines above discovery claim? “Maybe I’ve been thinking about nine below all wrong. What if it ain’t a temperature, but the name of Riley’s claim?” Hope flickers inside me. “That’s it. What else could it be? Now all we have to figure out is the name of the creek and . . .”

  I hear a thump. Then nothing.

  “Mel?”

  The silence stretches deep into the woods.

  “Are you all right?”

  It’s like Frank’s got me around the throat again, like he twists my shirt so tight, I can’t hardly breathe.

  “Melvin, answer me.”

  I race back through the shadows. Branches grasp my jacket, scratch my face, and there’s my brother, slumped over on the ground, behind a thicket of trees.

  Chapter 11

  Mel’s skin is damp, and his cheeks burn hot as cinders. Why didn’t I guess he’d been feeling poorly?

  “Come on, Mel. Come on, wake up.” I try to wipe his forehead like the Sister did when I had the influenza, but I ain’t got a fresh rag or a basin of water, all I got is my sleeve, and oh, my hand is shaking fierce. Over one eyebrow Mel’s skin is wet with something sticky.

  Blood. He must have hit it when he fell.

  Mel’s sick and hurt, and there ain’t a thing I can do about it.

  I try to breathe, but the air don’t go down right. It’s like a needle’s been jammed between my ribs.

  “Come on, Mel, you gotta answer me.”

  The nighttime sky is flooded with clouds. Only the faintest moonlight breaks through, outlining gnarled tree branches that reach like bony arms. What am I supposed to do, my brother sick and with his head banged up? I ain’t even sure where we are, anyhow.

  I ain’t gonna cry like some little kid, I ain’t gonna do it.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I whisper, though I ain’t sure I believe them words myself.

  My sleeve soaks fast with Melvin’s blood, and now that we ain’t moving, the cold sinks in, clean and deep. Mel’s legs are kind of crooked, and his head’s tilted to one side. I straighten him as best I can and cover him with my coat.

  No one knows we’re out here. The Marys said we could call on them anytime we needed, but they’re in Dawson.

  “Why’d this have to happen?” I shout to them silent trees. My brother’s hurt. Everything is all staked up. We don’t got much to eat and nowhere to sleep. And Riley’s mine—if it’s real at all—feels as distant as when I heard about it back on the steamer Queen.

  “Mel?” I lean over him. “Can you hear me?”

  Mel’s head moves beneath my sleeve.

  My heart beats swift.

  “Jasper?” His voice rasps like it hurts to speak.

  “I’m here. I’m with you.”

  But Mel don’t say no more, and that’s worse than anything.

&n
bsp; He’s breathing. I feel it in the rise of his chest, only it’s like he’s slipped away to a place miles from sleep.

  A bitter wind snakes through the trees. Them empty branches scrape and groan.

  What if Mel leaves, like Mama did?

  I shake my head. She didn’t leave. Mama died.

  After the influenza, when I was strong enough, Mel took me to the cemetery. There was no special stone with “Abigail Johnson” written on it, not even a cross to mark her grave. Only a jagged piece of wood stuck in the ground.

  Tears slip from my eyes, they splash on Melvin’s face, but he don’t move a wink.

  “Don’t you go. Don’t die, Mel. You’re everything I got.”

  I wipe and wipe his forehead clean. Mel’s blood, my tears, the grime of six long weeks, it coats my sleeve and stiffens his hair.

  I hum Mama’s lullaby, the song that’s soft as rippling water. It’s the only comfort I got to offer. Then I do something I ain’t done for years. I kiss my brother light on his cheek.

  Maybe there are a few folks still out on Bonanza who could help.

  I tuck my coat underneath Mel’s chin. “I’m gonna go, but just for a little bit. I’ll be back for you. I promise.”

  The wind cuts across my face and with it swirling snow. I try the best I can to run, but it ain’t easy in the darkness. Maybe this swampy hill’s gonna trip me like it did Mel, knock me down and claim two Johnson boys, easy as that. It ain’t only sticks or rocks or snowbanks my feet gotta dodge, either, but them deep mine shafts that run from the creek bottoms up into the hills.

  Fires smolder on the creek’s far bank, left alone to burn down to ash. They blanket the valley in heavy smoke thick as the night sky. This whole world feels empty. Even if I shout for help, there ain’t one living soul who would hear me.

  I best push on. Long as I keep traveling south, I’m sure to come on one of them last few creeks that flow into Bonanza. The wind mixes up my ears, the snow confuses me, how it comes from all directions.

  I wrap my muffler around my head, turn up my shirt collar at the cold, which pricks and lashes. Long as I keep moving, it can’t get too bad, but that ain’t true for Melvin. How much good’s an extra coat gonna do him when he’s burning up with fever in this snow?

  Oh, Mel. I ain’t gonna let you down. I promise you that.

  For ages, them enormous pines have blocked the bit of moonlight that tries to escape the clouds, but suddenly between the trunks and smoke I glimpse the smallest flash of light. I run down the hill so fast, my feet fly out from under me, and then I’m up again, shouting with all I got. “Help! I need some help!”

  “Where are you?” a voice calls.

  Someone’s there! “On the hill,” I answer.

  Boots crunch over twigs and snow, and I make out two dark shapes.

  “It’s a boy,” one says. “What is it, son?”

  “My brother.” My chest is so tight, I can’t hardly get the words out. “He’s sick. I had to leave him.” Then I do that thing more awful than any old kiss on the cheek. I bawl like a baby.

  “Don’t worry.” The second man puts his coat across my shoulders. “We’ll find him for you.”

  • • •

  An hour later, me and Mel are wrapped in blankets inside a tiny cabin. I’m perched on a tree-stump stool, and Mel’s asleep in the only bed. One of the men who rescued us is barely more than skin and bones. He feeds wood into a stove as the other tugs off his boots. Dancing flames shine on the strangest window I’ve ever seen, one made of glass jars stacked one on top of the next and stuck together with what sure looks like dried-up bits of moss.

  Mel’s face is as gray as the meat we got cheap in Kirkland, but these fellows have cleaned his wound, and he’s breathing steady. “You better fight,” I whisper, though he probably don’t hear me. “You gotta beat this.” Melvin’s gonna be all right, because I can’t lose him.

  The skinny fellow pours something from a kettle into a dinged-up mug. His gray hair grows past his chin, but his face is shaved clean. “Want some?” he asks.

  “What is it?”

  “Boot broth.” He tilts his head toward the other man. “Made special from Edwin’s pair.”

  The man called Edwin has his feet propped near the stove. He runs his fingers through his thick brown beard as steam curls off his socks. Them boots ain’t nowhere to be seen.

  “Keeps you hardy,” the skinny one says. “Out here we boil up a pair when the weather starts to change.” My face must show I’d rather lick a beehive than try that stuff, because he laughs, his wide mouth full of gaps where teeth should be. He shuts the stove door, which cuts most of the room’s light. “I’m only teasing,” he says as he pours himself a mugful from the kettle. “This ain’t a broth made from boots. It’s spruce needle tea. I ran out of coffee a good while back, and it ain’t a bad substitute.”

  Edwin nods. “Helps with scurvy, too. Last winter, Spare-Rib would have lost all his teeth if it weren’t for his tea.”

  “I’ll try a little.” It’ll be warm, at least.

  The fellow called Spare-Rib pours me some.

  The first taste of spruce needle tea is bitter, but oh, it goes down good. “Thank you.” I must have said them words a hundred times since Spare-Rib and Edwin found me near a creek called Adams. They followed me back to Mel and didn’t think nothing to scoop him up and carry him between them. He was awake by then, confused and feverish. We wandered past a couple cabins, dark and rough, until we reached this one.

  “You don’t have to thank us for doing what’s decent,” Edwin says. He pulls on his boots again. “I’m gonna go. You boys need your rest. Spare-Rib, I’ll walk Little Skookum Creek one more time, see if I catch sight of that fellow.”

  The door slams shut, and me and Mel are left with Spare-Rib. His trousers are big enough for two of him, and he wears a cinched-tight belt to hold them up. Spare-Rib’s one big jangly mess of bones.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  I’m glad Mama ain’t around to know I haven’t introduced myself yet. “I’m Jasper Johnson, and my brother’s name is Mel.”

  Spare-Rib offers me his hand. “I’m Jimmy Mackinson. ’Course, no one’s called me that for years. I’ve been Spare-Rib since my Fortymile days, when my landlady wouldn’t let me use her sheets on account of my pointy hips and elbows. Said I was sure to rip a hole clean through.”

  Fortymile, that mining town where Mr. Theroux claimed to live.

  “Ever heard of Theroux?” I say.

  “Thee-row?” Spare-Rib squints. “What’s a thee-row?”

  “A fellow me and Mel met on our way to Dawson. He said in Fortymile he was partners with Salt Water Jack and mined along with Buckskin Miller and Pete the Pig.”

  “Well, ain’t that curious.” Spare-Rib takes a swig of tea. “The Salt Water I knew worked alone. And never have I met two men who hated each other more than Pete and Buckskin. Pete swore he could smell Buck a mile off, on account of the fact he never bathed.”

  If a fellow named Pete the Pig gets stirred up about someone else’s stink, it’s gotta be real foul.

  “Buckskin’s partner was Two-Step Louie. Ain’t never heard about a Thee-row.”

  Spare-Rib’s story proves Mr. Theroux is a liar, one hundred percent. “But how’d Mr. Theroux learn them names if he’s never been to Fortymile?”

  Spare-Rib shrugs. “I heard Ol’ Buckskin left the Klondike on a steamer a few months back. And Pete took a sled to Dyea last winter. Could your friend have run into one of them?”

  “Maybe,” I say, because who’s to know? “But that Mr. Theroux ain’t no friend of mine.” Why he was so set on us believing he’d mined up here before, I don’t know.

  Outside the wind screams long and lonely. The fire, the blanket, the strong tea soak warmth clear to my bones. Apart from that night in the Palmer
House Hotel, I’ve stayed in tents since that morning we left the Queen.

  “You boys are lucky me and Edwin found you when we did. These last few nights there’s been some thieving along Adams Creek, where we ran into you, and Little Skookum, this creek we’re on right now. We planned to surprise the fellow if he came through again.”

  A shiver passes through me. What would that thief have done if he’d bumped into me or Mel?

  Spare-Rib cracks the door, and cold air blasts into the cabin. “It’s really coming down out there. When I saw them clouds roll in, I knew we were due for a good one.” He shakes off the snow that blankets his boot and returns to the fire. “Not the best time to travel. I take it you and Mel have just arrived.”

  I nod, sort of embarrassed. “If we’d known the goldfields had been staked . . .” I stop right there. We did know, kind of, and still we didn’t turn around. I ain’t sure how to explain we got no home to go back to.

  “Mining’s about luck and timing, and, I hate to say it, neither are on your side,” Spare-Rib tells me. “You hungry? I got moose-meat jerky, sourdough for biscuits, and plenty more spruce tea.”

  I remember what Mr. Turner said. “Ain’t there a food shortage?”

  Spare-Rib laughs, and I count seven teeth in that mouth of his. “Every year I’ve mined these parts, there’s been a shortage of one thing or another. But as long as I catch me some rabbits or buy a moose from the Indians, it works out fine.”

  I tear right into the jerky. Spare-Rib pours me a second cup of tea. “We’ve got some beans we could share.” Though it’s all we got, it ain’t right not to offer. Spare-Rib’s been so good to take us in. I find the mostly empty sack and give it to him. Even if Spare-Rib keeps us on until Mel feels better, there ain’t no way we’ll make it through the winter with only a weathered piece of canvas and a week’s worth of beans.

  “Now that would be real tasty.” Spare-Rib sets them on the table. “Thank you for that.” He sits down beside me. “Might be you’ll find a claim where Mel could earn wages, but with him sick, that won’t be soon. The last three years the Klondike’s frozen solid in the middle of October. That’s just a week from now. After that, everyone hunkers down for the winter. Men work their diggings some, but not like in the summer, when the sun’s up all hours. No one hires extra hands until the creeks and rivers break up in the spring.”