Joel drew back her hood and undid the first button. “I put the items on our bill. Don’t worry. We’ll pay for them when we find gold in the spring. Don’t get sweaty in there. If you get overwarm and take a chill, you could become ill.” When she raised her hands to remove the parka, he could see the longing on her face to have him take off much more.
To hide his matching desires, he dropped to the bench and began to speak to Kevin. He hoped he was coherent, as his mind was full of images of pretty Sam loving him.
As the winter deepened, Samantha was extremely grateful for the clothes Joel had purchased for her. She discovered the truest meaning of the word frozen. One morning she woke to discover the interior walls of the cabin covered with frigid cascades of ice. She had to go and touch one before she could believe her eyes.
Although the men explained that the ice formed from the steam from cooking food and the fog of their respirations, she could not become accustomed to it. She did learn to appreciate it as a ready source of water, chopping chunks of ice from the wall and boiling them. She learned to sift the boiled water through a towel for splinters. Soon she saw the luxury of not having to make the long climb to the spring in the dim light.
Dark surrounded them. Dark at seven in October, it was pitch black with sparkling stars by mid-afternoon in December. The sun did not show above the horizon before ten in the morning. Inside the cabin, costly kerosene burned in a single lamp. They clung to its pool of light and the warmth of the stove.
Samantha became frustrated with being a prisoner in the small building. Working with Kevin and the rapid progress he made were her only pleasures. He had disparaged his own intelligence so often that she had been unprepared for his ability to grasp everything she offered. Within days, he had mastered the alphabet and numbers, and was reading simple phrases she wrote on the slate. She brought her Bible and the copy of Great Expectations from the loft and underlined passages in them for him to study.
He never worked on it when Joel was around. He did not want anyone else to realize how well he was doing until he could do as well as any of his peers.
Other than those lessons, she found too little to do in the cabin. Cooking and cleaning took too few of her hours. Night after night, the wind howled beyond the door and scratched its way through cracks in the walls. Some days she found it simpler to go to bed early and enjoy the warmth of the comforter over her. Soon it became habit to wear layers of clothes and her warm moccasins to bed.
When the cold snap finally broke, air she would have considered intolerably cold in Ohio felt balmy. Escaping the cabin, she discovered snow up past her knees and a sparkling sun shining on a jewellike crystalline world.
As Christmas neared, Samantha worked to devise the only present she could for her partners—a meal. It would not be as sumptuous as she wanted it to be because many of the ingredients she needed were unavailable. The preparations kept her mind busy, and eased the incredible boredom.
On the day before the holiday, she was rolling out dough for the molasses cookies she loved to make. She shivered when Kevin opened the door and called to her, his smile peeking through the icicles on his mustache. He grabbed Samantha and pulled her away from her task. When she asked what was wrong, he tossed her the bearskin parka. “Come outside. We have something to show you.”
He waited impatiently as she pulled on her sweater first, then the heavy coat. Boots went over the moccasins she wore all the time in the house. She added gloves, a scarf, and a knitted hat under her hood, and she was ready.
The cold bit into her, although she knew the day was mild for the Arctic winter. The temperatures could not be much above forty degrees below zero. By the door, the mercury had frozen solid, but the dish of whiskey remained liquid. “A one dish day.” Fortunately no wind blew from the river to chafe her skin with its sandpaper touch. She shivered once more, then tried to put the cold out of her mind.
Taking her hand, Kevin pulled her around the edge of the house toward the barn. “Merry Christmas, Samantha.”
“Merry Christmas?” she asked in confusion.
“To all of us. Look!” His smile outshone the blinding glare of the snow.
She gasped. Sitting patiently by Joel in the snow were a sled and a quartet of dogs. Strange vehicles that dogs could pull effortlessly along the frozen ground. Sleds seemed too flimsy to her to support the huge loads they could carry. The runners, which curved in the front, were no thicker than her wrist. Above them were two more rows of saplings, slightly lower than the tops of Joel’s knee-high boots. They also had been bent to come together in the front. He leaned on a handle which curved upward from both sides to the perfect position for a man’s hands. Broadly woven rope created a net at each side of the slats, to support any load. It seemed so bouncy that she wanted to push on it.
She approached the dogs slowly, recalling tales she had heard of the vicious nature of these animals, who certainly were not pets. Four pairs of dark eyes and Joel’s smiling blue ones watched her.
“They are beautiful,” she breathed in a white cloud.
The long-haired, broad-chested dogs were a variety of shades. Their browns, blacks, grays, and golds created color against the snow near the stable. Strong legs, feathered with fur, were relaxed but ready to leap forward at a controlled run at the first command. Blunt snouts sniffed in her direction to investigate her.
“They are fine dogs,” agreed Joel. “You can touch them, if you want. Tex Kresge told me they would be fine around a woman.”
Her eyebrows arched to hide beneath the edge of her hood. “Is that so? And you trust him?”
“Enough.” He laughed, remembering the difficulty she had during the summer in getting the man from Thirteen Above to pay for his laundry. She finally had refused to do his shirts, after he cheated her out of a payment. “The big black at the front is Bear. Next to him, the brown and white one, is, appropriately, Brownie. The others are King and Lucky Star.”
Squatting, she looked directly in the face of the lead dog. Quietly she said, “Hello, Bear. You certainly look like your namesake.” She put out her hand cautiously. “Do you want to smell?”
The dog slowly lowered his massive head and placed his nose briefly against her hand. She reached out to touch his forehead, which was broader than her palm. When he allowed her to pet him, she remembered the dogs on her brother’s farm. Wagging tails, they had been eager to be noticed, not haughty as royalty acknowledging a beggar, like Bear.
“That’s a hell of a fine team.”
All of them spun to see a stranger come into the clearing. In his heavy clothes, it was impossible to tell if he was slight or heavy. Bright eyes glowed at them from above his ice-coated cheeks. Like almost all Yukon men he wore a mustache.
He stepped forward and offered his hand. “The name’s London.” His gaze settled on Samantha, and he grinned. “Well, I’ll be. What’s a pretty thing like you doing out here? You sure are a sight for eyes hungry for the sight of femininity.”
“Thank you, Mr. London.” She saw he must be in his early twenties, but wore the toughened expression of a man accustomed to hardships.
“Where’re you headed, London?” asked Joel, ignoring the low growl in the throat of the lead dog. Kresge had told him Bear often protected what he considered his territory.
He shrugged. “Out. I’ve heard there’s gold on the Stewart.”
“The Stewart?” Joel and Kevin exchanged looks of disbelief. “You’re going all that distance in December?”
“I got tired of Dawson. Too many people. Too little fun.” He dropped his backpack to the ground. “I don’t suppose you people would be willing to offer me the use of your stable tonight?”
Samantha smiled. “No, we wouldn’t be willing to let you use the stable. You’re welcome to sleep in the house. There’s room for a third in the loft.” She felt the cold burning her feet and stamped them in the snow. “I’m going in, if you don’t mind. Mr. London, would you like a cup of coffee?”
“It sounds divine, ma’am.”
Realizing they had not introduced themselves, she told him their names quickly. He hefted the large pack as if it weighed nothing. That did not surprise her. The men who managed to carry all their supplies north on their backs were hardened and tough.
By the time Joel and Kevin returned after tending to the dogs, their guest had made himself at home with ease. Sitting on the bench with his feet turned toward the stove, he was joking with Samantha as if they were the best of friends. Joel saw his partner scowl when she lightly called the man “Jack.”
“Come in, come in,” she urged, placing some of the intended Christmas cake on the table. The luxury of having company was a reason to celebrate. “Jack was just telling me about some of his escapades taking cheechacos along the White Horse Rapids.”
The charming smile of the slender London was ingratiating. “It’s easy to have many tales, when so many idiots tried to make a journey of which they were incapable.” He laughed, his eyes crinkling with easy humor as he pushed dark waves of hair back from his narrow face. “If they were stupid enough to pay me twenty-five dollars to navigate them through the rapids, I was glad to take their money. Most of the fools had never been aboard a ship before they came north.”
“So why didn’t you stay?”
London pierced Kevin with a stare which must have daunted much larger men, but the blond man did not back down. “It got boring. Money’s fine, but there must be more to life than the simple gathering of greenbacks.” When he paused, a wistful, gentler expression softened the mercenary expression. He added quietly, “Besides, a man can’t become a famous writer without experiencing life to its fullest.”
“A writer?” Joel sat at the table and accepted the piece of dark, rich cake. He winked at Sam. When she stroked his shoulder quickly, he had to force his attention back to their guest. Feeling her hands on him drove all other things from his head. He picked up his fork and dug deep into the cake. “Do you belong to one of those newspaper syndicates which sent their reporters north to cover every detail of our lives? Fortunately most of them have gone back where they belong, but there was a time when one of them peered from behind every tree. A man likes a little privacy, especially behind a tree!”
Jack London crowed with amusement, slapping his thigh. He had missed convivial company, had met few here who were willing to share intelligent conversation. Although he wanted gold as much as any other prospector, he did not understand how so many could ignore everything else around them. “Not a reporter. I want to write books.”
Samantha sat next to Joel, leaving the space by their guest for Kevin. “How wonderful! Maybe we’ll appear in one of them.”
Graciously he lifted a forkful of cake in a salute to her. “Rest assured, Samantha, if I ever need a pretty lady to steal my hero’s heart, she’ll be modeled on you.”
“Spin the words as lyrically when you write as when you talk, and you’ll sell every volume you can print,” she teased in return.
When Joel changed the subject to the sled dog team he had purchased, London exhibited a great deal of knowledge, from his work along the Dyea Trail. The Dyea was shorter than the one they had taken but also harrowing. Its steep slopes daunted even the sturdy dogs which carried loads on their backs like miniature horses.
The hours passed quickly as they savored the luxury of having a guest. Nothing Joel could say would change Jack’s mind about heading south and east to the Stewart River. The large tributary of the Yukon lay far south of Grand Forks, as Dawson lay to its north. Jack had learned of the first prospectors in this area finding gold in the river more than fifteen years ago. That news encouraged him to try where only a handful of gold rushers had staked claims. London told them he had been a smuggler before joining the San Francisco harbor police to corral those who had been his rivals. He would not be daunted by worries about survival in the uncompromising Yukon.
Despite his outward brashness, Samantha saw his pleasure in having a meal warm from the stove. She raided the dishes she had set aside for their holiday and prepared a gala feast. The conversation remained light, with their guest contributing more than his share to the outlandish stories of the gold rush. He asserted each one was true, and they believed him. Strange things had happened along the trails. A man carried a sackload of kittens north to sell at a tremendous profit to lonely miners. A woman pulled a stove along the arduous trail on a rickety sled, in order to open a bakery in Dawson.
Samantha was sorry when the evening came to an end. She did not want to go to sleep. Adrenalin raced through her, and her jaw ached from the hours of laughing. Finally she pressed her face into the dampness of the cold pillow and let sleep overtake her.
In the morning, she woke to the sound of muted singing. Rising on one elbow, she saw Joel trying to be quiet by the stove while he wiped his face clean of shaving soap. A twinge of delight ran through her. She enjoyed watching him shave. The smooth rippling of his muscles always delighted her eyes. She loved the masculine scent of his aftershave, which he put on with such horrible grimaces that she wanted to laugh at his antics.
She moved, and the soft creaking of the bed alerted him. He turned to see her watching him, and a slow smile climbed the slopes of his cheeks. Placing the razor on the table, he crossed the room to the bed. Her breath stopped in her throat as he caught her face between his hands. She sighed in indescribable rapture when his lips swiftly covered hers. Her arms encircled his shoulders, and he leaned her back into the tick still indented with the shape of her sleeping body.
Eager kisses peppered her face and every visible inch of her skin. A gasp flew from her lips as he drew aside the covers and slipped his hand along the gentle curves of her body, nearly hidden by her layers of clothes. Nothing could halt the powerful sensations emanating from her center, created by his touch.
“Oh, Sam,” he whispered against her hair. “I love you so much. To have you so close and yet so far is the most exquisite torture I can imagine.”
His words broke the enchantment of his fingers on her. She asked urgently, “Joel, have you told Kevin? If—”
“He and London are out with the dogs, for an early morning run. Let them have their fun.” His eyes twinkled with merriment, and she had no trouble guessing what lies he had concocted to excuse himself from going so he could have this time with her. “Happy Christmas, my love.”
“The same to you, darling.” She relaxed into the nest of his arms. “I wish I could give you something you want for Christmas.”
“You’re what I want,” he murmured huskily. The tip of his tongue teased the skin along the high collar of her nightgown.
Barking dogs neared the cabin, announcing the return of the two men. Rising and holding out his hand to Samantha, he said softly, “You’d best dress before they arrive. My love, we will celebrate Christmas as soon as we can.”
She caressed his hand over her cheek. The sorrow in her voice matched the pain in his eyes. “Yes—soon.” She whirled to collect her clothes and race upstairs where she could have the privacy so seldom found in the small house.
When Samantha emerged from the cabin fifteen minutes later, her holiday felicitations put smiles on their wind-reddened faces. She delightedly accepted the opportunity to ride along the frozen river.
Only Joel, as he tucked the blankets around her, could see how forced her words were. Only he knew the anguish of the love they could not express. Vowing to tell Kevin as soon as London left, he listened as the young writer from San Francisco offered hints on how to use the sled. He concentrated on that, glad to get the advice of this man who had spent so many hours with sledders and their dogs.
Samantha half turned on the flat bed of the sled and looked at Joel. With her face shadowed by her hood so the other men could not see her, she mouthed, “I love you.” He grinned, patted her shoulder, and shouted, “Let’s go!”
Christmas, like all the days of the past months, was sweeter because of Sam. He smiled, silently celebrati
ng something no one could destroy—love which would bring him all he wanted.
Chapter Fifteen
Samantha flipped back her snow dusted hood as she entered the stable. When she patted it on the haunches, the horse made a blustery sound in the twilight.
“Oh, hi, Sam.”
She turned to smile at Joel as he placed a pitchfork load of hay on the floor and spread it carefully. With hay running nearly a thousand dollars a ton, he did not want to risk wasting any of it. More than once, she had overheard the men suggesting they sell the horse. Its upkeep took too much of their money. Neither spoke the truth, but she knew why they kept it. In an emergency, if rations were short as they had been the previous year, they could eat horsemeat.
“I’m almost done,” he said, taking the pitchfork to the other side of the tiny building and sticking it into the ground. It did not go far.
“Frozen?”
Glancing up, he smiled. “Like a rock. Only being inside the barn keeps this ground from being frozen even more solid. What do you think of these winters, now?”
“I am so cold,” she whispered, without the humor he expected. She moved to take his hands, her eyes burning with the same feverish intensity he held in his own heart. She wound his arms around her. “I am so very cold, Joel, but not only because of the weather. The last time you truly held me was two months ago, at Christmas. I need your love.”
With a moan of hunger, he pressed his lips into her welcoming mouth. His arms tightened around her. He wondered if she knew how often he had dreamed she would do exactly as she was doing—come to him when he was alone, murmuring of the love tormenting him.
When she felt his hands on the clasps of her coat, she looked up in surprise. He smiled into her baffled face as he opened his own parka and pushed aside the front of hers. Now the thick pelts did not separate them. His hand slid beneath the back of her coat to stroke her through her thin cotton shirt which glowed pink from the flannel beneath it. She closed her eyes and breathed with the rhythm of his hand moving along her.
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