Mystery at Chilkoot Pass (Mysteries through History)

by Barbara Steiner

  Sarah Lancaster seemed to have forgiven Uncle Donall for giving her a ring he had won in a poker game. While packing up, the two got into a snowball fight.

  “Hetty and Alma, come be on my side!” Sarah shouted, hiding behind a huge pile of supplies.

  When a snowball hit Hetty squarely in the stomach, she knew she had to have revenge. She ducked behind the bags and crates and wadded up a ball of wet snow Taking aim, she knocked Uncle Donall’s hat off. Both of them were surprised by the direct hit. Laughing, Uncle Donall ran after her. When he caught her, he tossed her into a snowdrift and rolled her over and over. Hetty shrieked and giggled.

  “Children, children,” Mrs. Vasquez called. “Save that energy You’re going to need it. Come and eat a good, hot breakfast. Our noon meal will be cold. And who knows about supper.”

  Reluctantly, Hetty stopped playing. While they were all eating big bowls of oatmeal with raisins, Papa returned. “The Jacobsons say they’re going to wait until tomorrow to leave. Sophie said she can’t leave little Rosie yet.”

  Smiles disappeared and they all got back to work. Soon they had their supplies packed and were ready to carry the first loads. Mrs. Vasquez said that she and Andy Nickerson would guard, since she wanted to visit with Sophie Jacobson before she moved on.

  Feeling like pack mules again, Hetty and Alma got on the trail. “I can’t imagine leaving a baby sister here. Can you, Alma?”

  With a heavy heart, Hetty walked all day, back and forth, carrying load after load. An icy wind chilled them all. The trail got steeper and steeper. Snow, ice, and mud, churned to a slick mixture by hundreds of tramping feet, made every step uncertain and difficult. Time after time the heavy sleds got stuck, and Uncle Donall and Sarah had to pull and tug to get them loose and continue on.

  By late afternoon, almost too tired to walk, Hetty and Alma lifted their last loads and set foot on the trail again. A short distance from Sheep Camp, they spotted a woman, her pack spilled beside her, lying motionless in a snowdrift near the trail. “Look, Hetty That woman’s in trouble.” Alma and Hetty stumbled through the drift and knelt beside the woman.

  “Ma’am, wake up, you have to wake up! You can’t lie down. You’ll freeze.” Hetty brushed snow from the woman’s arm and tugged at her.

  “Leave me alone,” the woman mumbled. “If I can just rest a few minutes, I’ll be all right.”

  Alma bent down and shook her. “No. No, you won’t. Stopping, sleeping, is the worst thing you can do.” She and Hetty tugged and pulled, forcing the woman to sit up.

  “Help,” Hetty called. “Someone come and help us.”

  A steady stream of people walked by. A few looked in their direction, but no one came to help. Many of the Klondikers looked as if they were ready to give up, too. They put one foot in front of the other like sleepwalkers. Hetty had heard some counting steps, “One-two-three-four-five. One-two-three-four-five.”

  “We have to get her up and walking or she’ll die.” Alma looked around, but they had gotten separated from all of their party.

  Suddenly, Hetty heard a voice calling to them. “Hetty, Alma, what’s the matter?” Hetty looked up to see Sarah Lancaster, who had paused on the trail beside her empty sled on her way back to Sheep Camp for a last load.

  “Sarah, thank goodness. You have to help us. This woman is going to freeze.” Hetty turned back to the woman beside her. “Look, look, ma’am, help is on the way. What’s your name? Are you alone?”

  “Je-Jewel,” the woman said. She was shivering, and her teeth clicked together. “Jewel Higgins. My husband told me to wait for him at Dyea, but I—I got tired of waiting.”

  The three of them were able to get Jewel Higgins onto Sarah’s sled. They placed her pack so she could lean on it.

  “I’ll take her back to Sheep Camp and find someone to take care of her,” Sarah said. “You two go on ahead and catch up to Glen. I’m worried about your papa, Hetty.”

  Alma and Hetty helped Sarah get the sled sliding on the snowy trail, then started walking. In no time, they met Uncle Donall. “Find Sarah, Uncle Donall,” Hetty said. “She may need help.” They explained, and Uncle Donall hurried away.

  Hetty realized that Sarah Lancaster was lots stronger than she looked. Through the entire trip, she had hauled heavy loads right alongside Papa and Uncle Donall.

  And lately, Hetty was seeing changes in Sarah Lancaster that she liked. Maybe Sarah would make a good wife for Uncle Donall. Maybe it would be good for Uncle Donall to settle down and get married.

  As they walked the trail, crowded with Klondikers, Hetty repeated Colin’s long-ago words in a rhythm, hoping she wouldn’t find Papa lying in the snow. Only the strong will survive. Only the strong, only the strong. “You must get strong again, Papa. You must,” she murmured. She walked a little faster, anxious to locate him.

  About a mile from Sheep Camp, a huge slab of ice hung on the side of the mountain not far from the trail. Hetty hurried past it. Just beyond it, at the next bend in the trail, Papa sat on a boulder, staring at the river. He looked pale and exhausted.

  “Are you all right, Papa?” Hetty asked, studying his face.

  “Fine, I’m fine, Hetty. Just need to get a second wind. But I don’t think we’re going to get to The Scales tonight.”

  Daylight had faded by the time Hetty, Alma, and Papa reached the two-mile point for the day, a place called Stone House. A huge square rock the size of a small cabin stood sentinel beside the rushing river. To the right was a jumble of boulders, the remains of a rock slide.

  “This is it, girls,” Papa said. “I can’t walk any farther. When the others come, we’ll talk it over, but we’re going to have to make a primitive camp here for the night. We won’t even put up tents.”

  When Mrs. V and Moosejaw, then Uncle Donall and Sarah arrived, they agreed reluctantly. Moosejaw said he had always found this spot on the trail spooky. They gathered their supplies in a semicircle and simply laid out blankets on the ground. The next morning, Mrs. V said she never slept a wink. Hetty had been so tired that she knew she must have slept a few hours, but she had often woken to hear Papa coughing.

  Putting packs back on was a kind of torture. Hetty was stiff and sore and vowed she’d never carry so much as a spoon across a room once they reached Dawson.

  The trail climbed higher and higher, and fog surrounded them as if they had walked into the clouds. Finally they reached The Scales with their first loads. Hetty thought it must be the ugliest spot on earth. There was no vegetation, no wood for a fire, and huddled together everywhere were miserable people.

  While Uncle Donall and Sarah took the sleds back to Stone House, where Moosejaw was guarding, Mrs. V, Alma, and Hetty staked out a small piece of ground, more mud than snow. They made Papa rest while they put up one tent and started a fire. Then Mrs. V went back for another load of supplies, leaving Hetty and Alma to stay with Papa.

  “Look, girls,” Papa said, pointing to the trail. “I thought I heard bagpipes, but then I told myself that maybe I still had a fever and was hallucinating.”

  Papa pointed to a group of men marching up the trail wearing, of all things, kilts. Underneath the plaid skirts, the men wore trousers and boots, and they were fat with sweaters and fur coats and mufflers. On their heads they wore the Scottish hats called tam-o’-shanters. Behind them walked Native packers, carrying their provisions. Leading the strange parade, one man played a set of bagpipes. The eerie music floated across the camp and quieted the murmur of voices.

  Once they had marched past, the Scottish men laughing and waving as if they really were in a parade, the camp fell silent for a moment and the clouds lifted. In the stillness, broken only by the whistling of the wind, Hetty heard another sound, faint, even stranger than bagpipes on top of a mountain.

  “What’s that, Papa? What’s that noise?”

  “People in pain, Hetty. Carrying load after load up and over the pass.”

  Clouds drifted away from the mountain pass and weak sunshine tried to b
reak through. The snow-covered peak seemed to reach all the way to heaven.

  “You’re looking at the Golden Stairs,” Papa said. “Men have cut steps in the snow and ice all the way to the top of the mountain. Fifteen hundred stairs. That’s what we have to climb next to get over Chilkoot Pass.”

  Hetty saw a line of people, looking for all the world like a thousand ants, moving slowly up the face of the mountain. The moaning sound came from them.

  Suddenly Hetty was scared. “Oh, Papa. Can we—can we do that?” Hetty shaded her eyes and stared at the mountain again.

  “Hetty!” Alma screamed. “Your papa!”

  Hetty turned her eyes away from the Golden Stairs only to see that Papa had collapsed beside the fire.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE BLIZZARD

  Hetty didn’t see anyone nearby who could help them. But Papa wasn’t a big man, and as she and Alma half carried, half dragged him into the tent, Hetty realized that Papa was awfully thin. They wrapped him in his bedroll, then went back outside to heat water for tea.

  “Mama will know what to do, Hetty She should be here soon.”

  Alma mixed flour and water for tortillas and hung a pot of bean soup over the fire to continue cooking. “I’m glad she sent tonight’s dinner and the cooking pots on the sled with Donall’s first load.”

  All of a sudden, Hetty felt weak with all her worries—the thefts, Uncle Donall, now Papa so ill. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t do any more for Papa right now, but maybe she could do something about the other problems.

  “Alma, if Uncle Donall is the next one here, will you give me a few minutes alone with him?”

  “Of course, Hetty. Come help me with dinner.”

  Hetty dampened her hands and reached for a ball of dough to pat into a thin circle. She’d keep busy until the rest of their party arrived. She couldn’t keep her mind from bouncing round and round as she worked, so she planned what she was going to say.

  Sure enough, Uncle Donall was the first to return. He staggered into camp with a groan, pulling a sled loaded heavier than ever.

  “Papa is too sick to go get another load, Uncle Donall. You’ll have to carry his share. But I have hot water ready to make tea. Sit down by the fire, rest, and drink a cup before you leave again.”

  “I’ll do that, Hetty, thank you. What an insane way to travel—pulling or carrying load after load up this mountain. I heard that someone was going to build a tram line, but it will come too late for us to use.”

  Alma got up and went into the tent. Wind gusted, flickering the meager fire. Hetty pulled her coat tighter and sat quietly, letting Uncle Donall get warm, forming her thoughts. Finally she spoke. “Uncle Donall, I have some things I need to say to you. I—this may make you angry, but I don’t care. You’re the one who took Mrs. Vasquez’s money, aren’t you?”

  Donall McKinley stared into his mug of tea, as if answers were there. Hetty couldn’t hold back tears. Crying left her frustrated, but she often cried when she was angry.

  “Hetty, you’ve got me dead to rights. I had a losing streak. What could I do? I couldn’t borrow from Sarah, could I? And I returned the money. With interest.”

  “That doesn’t make it right!” Hetty bit her lip and took a deep breath. “How can you be so irresponsible? What if you’d lost all of Mrs. Vasquez’s money? You know how hard she worked to make it back after it was stolen in Dyea. But I guess since you’ve borrowed money from me and Papa in the past, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d borrow from Mrs. Vasquez.”

  Usually Uncle Donall would have kept talking until he charmed Hetty out of her anger. This time he sat quietly, head bent, and listened. His silence encouraged Hetty.

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you what’s right or wrong, Uncle Donall. You’re supposed to set an example for me.”

  “Fortunately you took after your mama, Hetty. I’ve meant to tell you for a long time how much I admire the way you took over when your mother died. Emily was a wonderful woman, so good for Glen. Neither he nor I know how to manage money, Hetty. You know that.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “You’re right.” Uncle Donall took off his hat and ran his hands through his hair. He pressed the back of his hand to his lips.

  “Did you take my locket, Uncle Donall? And Papa’s watch? And Mrs. Vasquez’s brooch? Alma’s doll? And Mr. Nickerson’s knife? Did you sell them or put them into your poker games when you ran out of money?”

  Uncle Donall looked at Hetty for the first time. His blue eyes were sad and he shook his head. “Of course not, Hetty. I know how much that locket meant to you, that it carried a photo of your mother. How could you believe I’d do that, or take any of those things?”

  “The same way I could believe you’d take Mrs. Vasquez’s money. A thief is a thief.” Hetty knew she was being harsh, but she might as well get this all out in the open.

  “Glen gave that locket to Emily when they were married. I remember how she treasured it. I didn’t take it, Hetty. Maybe you just lost it.”

  “You know I’d never lose it.”

  “I know, Hetty. I know.” Uncle Donall got up, set down his mug, and kissed Hetty on the top of her head. “I’ve got more trips to make. I’d better get to it. I think a storm is coming.”

  “Uncle Donall, promise me that you’ll apologize to Mrs. Vasquez for ‘borrowing’ her money.”

  “I will, Hetty. I promise I will.” Saying that, Uncle Donall started back toward Stone House. He disappeared in seconds.

  Alma stepped out of the tent. “Your papa is sleeping, Hetty. Did Donall leave? What did he say?”

  “He said he ‘borrowed’ your mother’s money, and that tonight he’ll apologize to her. But he said he didn’t take the other things, and I believe him. I know there’s another thief, Alma.”

  All that afternoon, load after load came in until everyone agreed they had only one more. While Hetty and Alma waited for the last of the supplies, the wind picked up. The late-afternoon sky turned dark gray. Ghostly clouds pressed lower and lower, closing in on their campsite. Alma looked at Hetty, and Hetty read her thoughts. The storm was going to catch her mother, Mr. Nickerson, Uncle Donall, and Sarah on the trail.

  People were so crowded together on this small, flat piece of snow-covered ground that it should have been noisy. Instead, it seemed as if people were holding their breath. Waiting.

  Hetty’s skin prickled. She and Alma sat huddled near the fire, with nothing to do but wait. Then huge flakes of snow started to fall, fast and furious.

  “I’m sure your mother will be here soon.” Hetty made them each another cup of tea. She didn’t really want it, but it was something to do. She watched tea leaves swirl in the hot water. Wind started to swirl snow around them in the same manner.

  They had heard wolves howling in the distance the last two nights. Now the wind sent up a similar wailing, keening moan.

  “I’m scared, Hetty.”

  “So am I, but there’s nothing we can do but wait and keep the fire going. Let’s get inside the tent.”

  “No, I’m going to wait here.” Alma pulled her shawl tighter over her head and shoulders.

  “I’ll check on Papa.” Hetty crawled into the tent. Papa was asleep, but his breathing was shallow and his face flushed. She piled her own blankets on top of his, knowing that sweating helps a fever. He didn’t move.

  “Please, Papa. Please be all right. A snowstorm has started. We can’t leave for the pass tomorrow anyway, so we’ll stay here until you feel better.” To use up time, Hetty got out her journal and wrote by candlelight. Pouring her heart out in words soothed her. Finally she heard Alma shout, “Mama!”

  Hetty pinched the candlewick, dropped her journal, and stepped outside the tent. Four snowmen staggered into camp—Sarah and Uncle Donall pulling their sleds, and Mrs. Vasquez and Moosejaw behind them, each roped to a sled. They carried the last of their supplies and set them in a semicircle around the camp.

  “Oh, my goodness, I di
dn’t think we’d ever get here,” Sarah said. She set down her backpack and started unloading her sled. “I was afraid we’d walk right past you in this storm.”

  Alma brushed snow off her mother and hugged her. Mrs. Vasquez had a big smile on her face. “Fortunately, Donall made me tie a rope to his sled, and then he led the way.”

  “But Sarah broke trail for that last stretch.” Uncle Donall hugged Sarah.

  “The Jacobsons are right behind us,” Sarah added. “They said Colin Brandauer urged them to pack up and push ahead. He knew a storm was coming. And he found some Indian women to help carry their supplies.”

  “How is Glen?” Mrs. V asked. “Girls, make a big pot of tea. That fire is never going to last in this storm.” Mrs. V quickly brushed the snow off her clothes and stepped inside the tent.

  They never even tried to put up a second tent in the storm, but all moved into one. Even Mr. Nickerson brought in his bedroll so that they could pile his tent full of their things.

  There were times during the evening that Hetty thought the wind was going to lift up the canvas tent and roll it away with them inside. But bags, barrels, and crates had been lined up against the tent walls to help hold it down. Sarah and Uncle Donall had hammered extra pegs into the ropes before they came in for the night.

  Sarah kept joking and teasing as if being in this storm was the most fun she’d ever had. After supper, she and Uncle Donall started a game of cards by candlelight.

  Hetty had to admit that their laughter was a welcome diversion from the howling wind. Uncle Donall even pulled out his harmonica and played softly between hands. Sarah sang off-key again, but when she hit a sour note, she just laughed. Hetty sat beside Papa, holding his hand. As long as the noise didn’t keep him awake, she was glad for the music.