Her dark eyes glittering with a love of life and her determination to design that life to her specifications tempted him too often. In the middle of the night, he often woke in agony from dreams of holding her slender body and wooing her anger from her with heated kisses. He imagined her coming to him, whispering of the same desire. Driven by her allure, he fantasized other, more exotic ways of loving her. Far too often.
Lost in his thoughts, he could not react fast enough when he heard Kevin splashing toward him. A hand on his arm spun him toward the florid face of his partner. A clenched fist burst into his nose, blinding him with pain and his own blood. The shovel fell from his hands. He dropped to his knees, choking.
Towering over him Kevin said, “Don’t ever suggest again that Samantha Perry is a whore! If you do, I’ll kill you.” Kevin stamped to a spot farther along the sluice and went back to work, thinking about the black-haired goddess he worshipped.
Blood spurting through his fingers, Joel raised his head. Spitting red, Joel rose and leaned against the bank. He wiped blood on his sleeve and groped for the shovel. Although his knees were not steady, he began to work again. The sooner they found gold, the sooner they would be rid of Samantha. It could not be too quickly.
Samantha busied herself to work off her fury. Every time she tried to be decent to that man, he treated her as if she had no intelligence. While the stove oozed heat into the already hot room, she kneaded bread. Her normal, gentle movements replaced by her fists striking the dough, she imagined it was Joel Gilchrist who suffered the blows.
Hearing a strange voice at the door, she wiped her flour-coated hands on her soiled apron. Walking to where a tall form cast a black shadow in the door, she ignored the skinny man’s eager eyes.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Howdy, ma’am. Miss Perry, right?” He belatedly remembered the dirty hat on his head and pulled it off. A cloud of dust erupted from it. When she coughed, he mumbled an apology.
“That’s all right.” She was not surprised he knew her name. It must be no secret she had arrived at Claim Fifteen Above. Forcing a smile, she looked at the man’s hound dog sad, brown eyes. They matched the color of his dirt-encrusted hair and the mud creating a pattern of stains on his clothes. His face was lengthened by a scraggly beard. “And you are?”
“Burroughs. Liberty Burroughs, ma’am. Seeing as how I was born on our nation’s hundredth birthday, my folks gave me the strange moniker.”
She smiled. “It could have been worse, Mr. Burroughs. They could have named you ‘Centennial’ or some such.”
“Sure could have.” He grinned, revealing empty spots where scurvy had robbed him of his teeth.
“How can I help you, Mr. Burroughs? Kevin and Joel are down at the river.”
He nodded. A shy smile appeared amid the unkempt hairs of his dark mustache. “I expected as much. ’Twas you I was wanting to see.” His eyes swept over the immaculate cabin, and he could not hide his envy. When he noted the clean shirts hanging on the pegs over the bedstead, he tried to remember the last time he had washed the two he owned.
“Yes?” she prompted.
“Miss Perry, I know you are bespoken for, but me and the others at Sixteen and Seventeen were wondering if you would consider doing for us as you are for Gilchrist and Houseman.” When he saw her confusion, he hurried to add, “We would be glad to pay you for doing some sewing for us, or washing our things. To tell you the truth, Miss Perry, we have the money to pay you, but no time to do these things ourselves. Even if we did, our needlework skills are poor. Would you consider this, Miss Perry?”
Set to tell him no, Samantha hesitated. Kevin and Joel admitted very little gold had been found on this claim. It could take an eternity to pay back the cost of her fare and earn enough to return to a gentler land. If she took in laundry, she could have the necessary funds much sooner. Calculating how many shirts she would have to wash if she charged what Mrs. Kellogg did, she was pleasantly surprised at how rapidly the funds might accumulate. Perhaps as early as next spring she would be able to go to Dawson, ask for her free passage to St. Michael, and pay for her own way to Seattle.
“Very well, Mr. Burroughs. You may tell your friends I have opened a laundry service here. I’ll charge you no more than is charged in Dawson for washing your shirts, but I must ask you to pay for repairs as well.” She smiled. “My rates will be fair.”
With a grin, Burroughs nodded. She could have asked for far more gold, and they would have paid. The luxury of clean, mended clothes was something he could hardly recall.
“I will spread the word, miss.”
“Not too far. There is only one of me, and I have my other chores to tend to here.”
“Yes, miss.” He decided to keep this for only the neighboring claims. Let the other sourdoughs find their own lady to take care of them. As he bid her farewell, he was thinking of what Marie would say when she saw him in Grand Forks, decked out in clean clothes. She might give him a few extra minutes of her time, off the dance floor.
He risked a glance over his shoulder as she turned back to her breadmaking. The aroma of the food teased him. He could not remember the last time he had smelled such a luscious scent. His own efforts at making bread invariably fell flat.
Gilchrist and Houseman had found themselves quite a gal in Samantha Perry. She was not afraid of hard work, and pretty as a spring morning after a long winter. Climbing the hill toward his claim, he wondered exactly how things were arranged in the small cabin. The two men had spoken of the mail order bride, but never mentioned which one of them actually intended to marry her.
Samantha spent the rest of the afternoon planning exactly how she would manage her load of chores to give this new work the highest priority. For the first time, she felt truly independent. No one would run her life. She would have her own income and be able to escape soon.
After she had served their dinner, she casually mentioned the deal she had made with Burroughs. The reaction was exactly what she expected.
“You what?” exploded Joel, his voice oddly distorted. She had mentioned earlier that his face looked puffy, and he ignored the comment. She had not offered more sympathy. “Are you insane? You’ll be working day and night to deal with all the work they’ll bring you.”
She toyed with the meat pie in front of her. “Don’t worry. I won’t neglect my work here.”
As he often did when hot words flew through the cabin, Kevin jumped to the defense of his partner. “He didn’t mean that, Samantha. We don’t want you to feel as if you have to slave for all the men in the valley. You’re looking exhausted as it is.”
“Thank you!” she retorted heatedly. “I certainly look better than Joel. What did you do to yourself?”
“Nothing,” Joel mumbled, concentrating on his supper. His face ached, but he refused sympathy. He was sure Samantha would laugh wildly if she knew of the fight in the river.
She gave him a questioning look, but said only, “A few extra shirts when I do the laundry will be no trouble.” She did not discuss the financial arrangements she had made, afraid that would make them only more resistant to the idea. It was none of their business, anyway. “After all, if I can clean all the mess you two put on your clothes, I surely can do the same for a few others. Look at your shirts! They were clean just days ago. Now they are covered with all the crud from the riverbank.”
After her visit to the river, Samantha avoided both men as much as possible. She sat at the table with them during meals, but spoke only if they asked her a direct question. Her terse replies did not invite further conversation. As soon as she was finished with the dishes, she went to her loft room, leaving them staring at each other in silent recriminations.
The other men living along the Bonanza received far different treatment. When they brought their filthy clothes to be laundered or picked them up fresh and repaired, she sparkled like the sun on the river. Joel suspected she was being paid very well for her laundry service, but she never spoke of it.
He did not want to snoop through her loft to discover where she hid her accumulating riches. He tried to convince himself that he did not care what she had planned, but it did not work.
For two weeks they lived this stalemate. Each of them had thrown up a wall. Samantha grew more and more fatigued. Joel wondered if she went to bed early to avoid them, or simply because she could not stay awake. As he had warned, the additional work sapped her. Carrying buckets of water from the distant spring and heating it on the stove added to her job of trying to repair each article of clothing after months of neglect.
As the third week of the standoff started, Joel wanted to end the glum climate in the cabin, to find some method of keeping Samantha from killing herself with work. All her joy had disappeared, leaving an empty void. They missed her vibrant laugh.
Thinking of ways to ease the tension, he worked with Kevin to repair a major hole they had discovered that morning in the sluice.
“Damn!” he shouted, drawing his right hand from the side of the splinter-filled board and cradling it in his left. His eyes blurred with the sharp pain cutting through him. He tried to focus on Kevin. “Didn’t you see my thumb there?”
Instantly apologetic, the shorter man said, “I thought you would pull away before I swung the shovel. I’m sorry, Joel. Do you want—?”
“No!” he snapped. “You’ve done enough. Keep working to fix that leak before the water really busts through and wrecks it totally. I’ll get some binding at the cabin. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Joel wanted to growl that he would manage alone when Kevin put his arm under his elbow to help him onto the shore. This assistance sent another pain through him that further unbalanced his reeling head. Only his partner’s help enabled him to get onto solid ground. He waved aside any more offers and shuffled toward the cabin.
Again and again his feet caught on the roots of trees where their shovels had stripped away top soil which might bear the prize they sought. Every motion added to his anguish. The quarter mile from the river to the cabin seemed like a league.
“Joel!”
Samantha’s voice cut through the cobwebs of pain and he forced his eyes up to meet her concerned ones. Her distressed expression astounded him, for he had not guessed she would feel such concern about his misfortune.
“Don’t worry,” he heard himself say with faked levity. “It’s only a small bruise.”
“Bruise?” She grabbed his arm with soapy fingers and forced the hand up so she could see it. The thumb already had become an angry, violet hue. “My God! You call this a small bruise? Come in the cabin.”
Weak, her hand holding his wrist, he had no choice but to follow her like a well-trained cur. Again he was surprised, when she kept a pace he could maintain easily. She seemed to sense the agony which had ripped his balance from him. Her eyes closely gauged every step his wobbly feet took.
Despite his pain, he enjoyed having her near. Gazing at her hair shining from under the mosquito netting she wore while doing laundry, he wished his hand did not ache with a grinding pulse. He wanted to stroke those dark strands which sparkled with spray from the laundry tub.
Samantha seated him carefully on the bench, telling him not to move. She poured water from the pot warming on the stove and placed a shallow bowl on the table in front of him.
He flinched when she picked up his thumb and lightly ran her finger along its surface. Softly she said, “I’m sorry. I must check it.”
“That’s all right.” He gritted his teeth. “Just hurry!”
“Soak it in here. It shouldn’t be too hot. If the swelling goes down slightly, we might be able to tell if it’s broken.”
“Broken! Dammit, it can’t be broken!”
She glanced over her shoulder as she searched for a rag to rip into bandage strips. “No?” Her smile was compassionate.
Joel smiled as her warm expression muted the fierce pain in his hand. Her sympathy did not surprise him. From her letters, he knew she was a caring woman.
“You must admit it’ll be highly inconvenient,” he said, trying to maintain his sense of humor.
Sitting on the opposite bench, she began to rip the thin fabric. “That’s one way of putting it. How did you do this?”
“We were trying to resecure a brad on the sluice to stopper a leak. Kevin swung the shovel, and I did not move my hand quick enough.”
“The shovel?” she gasped. “Why didn’t you use the hammer?”
He grinned wryly. “It was here at the cabin, and we were—”
“In a hurry,” she finished. Laying the strips in a line on the table, she looked him directly in the eye. “Don’t you two ever think before you embark on a new project?”
He understood exactly what she meant—in the flurry of excitement to find a woman who could love one of them, they had not planned beyond the time when she arrived at Fifteen Above.
When she rose to walk toward the door, he called, “Wait a minute.”
Samantha hesitated. The laundry must be finished, but she knew if she did not stay here, he would follow. He needed to soak that thumb.
She returned to the table. When he sat, she smiled. It was involuntary. She enjoyed exchanging words with Joel. As she had barely spoken to him in days, she had not been able to delight in trying to outwit him.
“Does it hurt very much?”
“It hurts like hell.”
“I’m sorry.” Leaning her elbows on the table, she asked, “Why do you try to be so offensive all the time, Joel? I’m willing to call a truce, if you are. We have to live here together until my share is enough for me to go.”
“In a hurry?”
“Aren’t you? Isn’t that why you two do everything with such impatience, and end up making tasks twice as long?” Her voice grew more serious as she checked the hand soaking. “At least the bruises won’t be as obvious as last time, when you had a quarrel with a shovel.” When he regarded her with a studiously blank expression, she arched a challenging eyebrow at him. “Was that really an accident?”
He allowed his amusement to show. She had decided he and Kevin had been fighting. He said nothing. Unless Kevin told her, she would never learn why two partners who seldom disagreed came bruised and bloody to the cabin after her visit to the sluice.
“I’m glad you and Kevin aren’t angry at each other any longer.” She put a finger in the bowl to test the water. It was still warm. When he began to lift his hand from it, she ordered, “Keep it in there! It’s still swollen.”
He obeyed her curt command. Trying to keep his voice nonchalant, he said, “We’ve been getting along well.” His eyes narrowed as he saw the betraying blush climbing her cheeks. “And you two are getting really pally, aren’t you?”
Samantha wondered what emotions hid behind his strong cold face. Joel often seemed to detest her. If so, perhaps he did not want her involved with his partner. Softly she said, “We are friends.”
“Friends? Is that why it took you so long to come from the cabin to the river?”
“Kevin was telling me about his life in Pennsylvania.”
“He did? He usually says very little about that.” He frowned. “You seemed awfully gay for two people who had been discussing murder.”
All color faded from her face. She tried to speak twice before she managed, “Murder?”
He nodded his head knowingly. “I thought so. He told you nothing. I only learned the truth one night last winter, when we were depressed about being snowed-in.”
“But, murder?” Her eyes widened. During the last, great gold rushes, many men had fled west to lose their pasts and emerge with new identities, but gentle Kevin could not be a murderer.
“You are jumping to conclusions again,” Joel warned, correctly gauging her thoughts. “Kevin didn’t murder anyone. I don’t think he could. It was his father. He idolized the man.”
“I could tell that.”
“His old man was a miner in northeastern Pennsylvania in ’74. Like most of his co-workers, h
e joined the labor movement. You may have heard of the violence that broke out there when the Molly Maguires decided to strike?”
She nodded. In a whisper, she said, “Men were hanged. Is that what happened to Kevin’s father?”
“No.” He grimaced, but not because of his sordid tale. Accustomed to talking with his hands, he had automatically moved his aching thumb. Swallowing, he forced himself to go on in a normal tone. “He was killed in one of the violent attacks on the mine management. Something about mishandled explosives or wrong signals.” When he saw the horror on her face, he finished soothingly, “It was over many years ago. You must have been just a baby, then.”
Sorrow darkened her eyes. “Poor Kevin.”
“Yeah, poor Kevin.” Sincerity lacking in his tone, he lifted his hand from the bowl of warm water. “The pain is lessening. I don’t think it’s broken.”
She leaned across the table to run her finger cautiously along his thumb. “I think you’re right. You must stop being so bullheaded. You have tools, you know. Take time to get a hammer or whatever, instead of that blasted shovel.” When she released his hand, he gripped her fingers and drew them back over his.
“Check it again,” he commanded.
“I told you it isn’t broken. There is no need—”
Her eyes were caught by the cobalt blue of his as she stretched over the plank table. Fiercely she fought the warmth spinning within her. She did not like this man. If forced to choose, she would select kind, dependable Kevin.
He smiled slowly, his amused expression warning her that her feelings were displayed vividly on her face. “You make a very good nurse, Sam.”
“My name is Samantha,” she said, but there was no venom in her voice.
“Nearly every woman gains a nickname here in the Yukon. One of the dance hall girls in Dawson is called Diamond-tooth Gertie, because of the gem implanted on her front tooth. Another is called Free Frieda, for reasons I don’t have to explain.” He laughed as she colored. “You look good when you blush, Sam.”
At the Rainbow's End Page 8
