Gold Digger: A Klondike Mystery

by Vicki Delany

  “What the hell does it take to get a drink around here?” The new bartender heard the shouting, and with a questioning glance at Sam’s back, abandoned his end of the bar and rushed to serve the reporter with the deep pockets and the pack of new-found friends. Sam halfturned to check what was going on behind his back.

  A man pushed up to the counter and bellowed for a drink. Sam poured him a whisky, his hand shaking so badly that almost as much liquor splashed on the counter as landed in the glass.

  “I can tell you some stories, city fellow.” A rough hand slapped Ireland’s back, and the reporter’s attention shifted.

  Sam tossed a look at the other bartender and slipped away, avoiding my angry eyes. Going for his break, although it was early, and not a good idea in any event, what with Ray away seeing to Barney. I began to follow Sam to ask if he were feeling sick. He’d have to be on death’s door, he’d have to be on the other side of death’s door, to be allowed to go home early on a night that was shaping up to be as busy as this one.

  “Fee!” A man burst through the door, beaming widely and holding his arms out. “What an honour. Here you are standing at the door, waiting to greet me.”

  I caught a glimpse of Sam Collins disappearing into the crowded street as I permitted the new arrival to give me a hug. It felt nice to be held in a man’s arms, warm and close and safe, but I pulled away after the briefest moment of indulgence. Better not to get men’s hopes up. It spoils them. “Graham,” I said, “you’re back.”

  “In the flesh. You look wonderful, Fiona.”

  I smiled. Of course I looked wonderful. I always look wonderful. But I never mind hearing it. “How are things out on the Creeks?”

  “It’s incredible. Let me tell you, my dear, it’s like the inside of a beehive on a sunny day.” Graham Donohue had been visiting the goldfields, collecting stories from the miners. He pulled off his hat and scratched at his black hair, normally kept short and neat, now hanging rough at the back of his neck. “Sorry, Fee,” he said with a grimace. He plopped his dust-coated hat back on his head. “Think I picked up something that crawls out there.”

  I stepped back. “Really, Graham, you might have had a bath and a haircut before coming here.”

  “I couldn’t last another minute without seeing your fair face. Why, the memory of you was all that kept me going through the long days and nights out on the Creeks.”

  I snorted. In a ladylike manner, of course. “Ran out of whisky, did you?”

  “Any excitement in town during my absence?” Graham took my elbow and led me away from the crowd spilling off the street into the saloon. A roar from the gambling room announced that someone was a winner. For the moment anyway. A small crowd poured back into the bar, led by the winner, sharing his good fortune with all and sundry. The new bartender sweated profusely and poured drinks as fast as he could move. I was impressed; he’d risen to the pressure of the moment.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said to Graham.

  He laughed. When he was clean and respectable, Graham Donohue was an extraordinarily handsome man. His nose had been broken a few times, but so good was the bone structure of his face that it scarcely mattered. His cheekbones, high in a thin face, were accented by expressive hazel eyes trimmed by lashes so thick that my dance hall girls swooned over them. He was my height, and so slightly built that he verged on scrawny. Graham’s complexion was clear and unlined, and his warm eyes usually sparkled as if they were planning some act of schoolboy mischief such as dipping the pigtails of the girl sitting in front of him into the inkwell. In an attempt to look more his age, he sported a bushy, ferocious moustache that gave him some whimsical charm: so incongruous in his childish face that he looked like a boy who couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to grow up. The slight, boyish exterior concealed a heart as tough as they come. He was a reporter for a major American newspaper, determined to make his name in the Klondike.

  Graham Donohue was exactly my type: not too large, apparently unassuming, handsome. And he worshiped the liquor-spotted, spat-upon, sawdust-coated, cheap wooden planks that I walked on.

  But I wasn’t in Dawson looking for a man.

  “There’s someone new in town you might like to meet,” I said. “A reporter from San Francisco.”

  The seductive grin disappeared immediately. “Who?”

  “Jack Ireland’s his name. From the San Francisco Standard, I believe.”

  “Where?”

  “At the front of the bar. Older guy, well dressed, big crowd standing around him.”

  Graham didn’t give me a second glance and pushed his way through the crowd. Curious, I rounded the bar.

  Ray walked back into the saloon. “Where’s Sam?”

  “Left in a big hurry. I don’t know why.”

  “No’ back in five minutes, and he’s gone.” Ray turned into a blur of motion, pouring drinks, taking money, weighing gold, listening to men’s talk.

  He managed the bar and gambling room staff; I kept the books and handled the money, supervised the performers and dancers, and attracted the customers. We made a good team, Ray and I.

  Graham elbowed men aside to stand face-to-face with Ireland. My friend had his hands on his hips and his chin thrust forward. Ireland smirked with a sort of sick pleasure that gave me an uncomfortable feeling deep in my stomach.

  “Jack Ireland,” Graham said. “I’m surprised you’re not in hell yet.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Donohue, my boy. How’s your dear sister these days?” Ireland turned to his drinking partners. “This lad and I go back a long way, boys.”

  “What are you doing here, Ireland?”

  “Working on a story, my lad. Same as you, I figure.”

  “This is my patch, Ireland. I’ll thank you to stay the hell out of it. And don’t you dare mention my sister again.”

  Ireland threw back his head and laughed. A gold tooth reflected light from the lamps filled with cheap oil. “A real reporter doesn’t put claim to a ‘patch’, boy. Not like a miner marking his stake. A real reporter knows there’s more than enough news to go around.”

  Graham’s face was turning red, which had the unfortunate effect, regardless of the bristling moustache and the layers of mining dirt, of making him look as if he were on the verge of a temper tantrum.

  “Ray,” I said, “I think…” Graham took a swing, but his arm was inhibited by the press of men at the bar. The space surrounding the San Francisco reporter had been thick before, but at the first suggestion of a fight, the people standing at the back shuffled forward to get a good look.

  With no momentum to back it up, Graham’s blow bounced lightly off Ireland’s cheek. The drinkers in striking range stepped back, causing a jam as the two groups of onlookers came together. I knew, along with all the regulars, that Graham’s next punch would have the older man on the floor. Graham had been a champion boxer in his school days. Slight boys often have to be if they’re going to survive a New England boy’s school.

  Ray leapt across the bar, sending men scattering every which way before him. He was a small man, but in Ray’s case his growth had been stunted by the ill-nourishment of a Glaswegian childhood rather than by genes. Ray had never been a boxing champion; he was a street fighter, practically from the moment he vacated the cradle. He grabbed Graham’s arm and twisted it behind his back. “That’s enough o’ that, Mr. Donohue. Time ta be off home.”

  Ireland made a grand show of straightening his hat and tidying his cuffs, trying to recover from the look of sheer terror that had crossed his face in the long second before Ray sailed across the countertop. But I’d seen it. We’d all seen it.

  “Mrs. MacGillivray?” Graham looked at me. He didn’t move in Ray’s grip. “Am I expelled?”

  As if I’d contradict my business partner in front of a room full of customers. “Yes, you are, Mr. Donohue. You may return tomorrow, once you have calmed down. And had a shave and a haircut and changed into clean clothes.”

  Held fir
m in Ray’s grip, Graham still managed a stiff bow. “For you, the raven-haired beauty of the Klondike, I’ll even have a bath.”

  How could I not smile?

  The onlookers cheered lustily at Graham’s chivalrous words. They were a long way from home, all these men trying to be so tough. A great many of them had left cherished mothers, wives and children behind in the depression-plagued cities to the south. They were the most sentimental bunch I had ever encountered. Which sometimes made it difficult to wring every last copper or fleck of gold dust out of them.

  Difficult, but not impossible.

  Graham Donohue looked at Ray. “You can unhand me, sir. Mrs. MacGillivray has asked me to leave. I never refuse a lady.”

  The crowd cheered. Someone shouted, “Come on, Fee, let the boy stay.” They took up the chant. “Let the boy stay!”

  Ireland was forgotten, which he didn’t appear to be at all happy about. Judging by the way he looked at me, he, the righteous victim of an unprovoked attack, blamed me for the loss of the crowd’s attention.

  Tough.

  I jerked my head towards the door; once an order was given, it had to be upheld, no matter what. Ray and I had both served our time on the bottom of life’s ladder, the one with half the rungs kicked out. We knew better than to show a hint of weakness. Graham bowed, and although he was still held in Ray’s powerful grip, he managed to be as gracious as the great ship on which I’d left Southampton harbour, heading for the New World. Several men pounded him on the back as he passed.

  Ireland swallowed his drink, elbowed the man beside him out of the way and went into the gambling room. His face resembled one of the thunderclouds that would hover over Toronto on a hot summer’s day.

  “Close one,” I said to Ray, once he’d seen Graham out the door.

  “What was all that about? Never seen Donohue fly off the handle like that before. Cool as they come, he usually is.” At least that’s what I think Ray said. His Glaswegian accent is so thick when he’s angry or confused or, on a very rare occasion emotional, that even I, born and raised on the Isle of Skye until the age of ten, can’t always understand him.

  I shook my head: who knows what comes over men at times? The customers, disappointed that the fight had fizzled into nothing, went back to their drink.

  All I’d have to do, I’d thought naïvely, was to keep Graham Donohue and Jack Ireland apart, and everything would be well.

  Chapter Five

  Angus MacGillivray had never enjoyed himself so much in all of his life as he followed Constable Sterling on his rounds.

  Wherever they went, men nodded at Sterling; the few women smiled and occasionally blushed, and everyone grinned at the sight of the gangly boy tagging along at the constable’s side.

  It was early evening when they made their way down Front Street. The street was filling with men headed for the bars and the gambling tables. The dance halls didn’t open until eight, but the crowd would find ways to entertain themselves in the time remaining.

  In front of the Savoy a drunk straightened up from a muddy puddle of his own vomit, clutching his stomach and emitting a low moan, sounding much like a cow in labour. Ray Walker stood in the doorway, disgust filling his battered face. He shook his head, caught Sterling’s eye, nodded, called a greeting to Angus and went back inside. The drunk turned and tripped. He waved his arms in the air like an outof-control windmill, but to no avail, and pitched forward into the street, collapsing face first into the mud.

  Several men were lounging outside the bars; they laughed. A plainly dressed, no-nonsense woman with a bosom like the bow of an ocean liner threw the drunk a look that would curdle milk and gave him wide berth. Sterling walked over to the moaning pile of mud. “Get up, man. Horse ’n wagon’ll be coming down this road any minute, and then you’ll be done for.”

  The man groaned.

  “Get up.” Sterling kicked at the fellow’s ribs, barely making contact.

  The drunk staggered to his feet as the onlookers cheered. Many wore suits that were once of high quality, but that they no longer had the money—or the energy—to maintain. They were young, with the frightened, vacant look of privileged young men who’d set out seeking thrilling adventure and found only hardship and toil.

  “Don’t you fellows have any place to be getting to?” Sterling snarled at them. “If you don’t, wood needs chopping down at the Fort.”

  They scattered, looking for another place to drink and to pass the time until they could find passage out of this God-forsaken place.

  “Many thanks, Cons’ble,” the drunk mumbled, touching the brim of his hat, which miraculously hadn’t come off in the fall. He staggered down the street, trying to keep some semblance of dignity whilst coated in reeking, gluttonous muck from head to toe.

  Sterling turned to Angus. “Before the dance halls open, I’m going into Paradise Alley. You can’t come with me.”

  Angus’s heart sank—he’d been looking forward to the chance to have a good long look around the infamous Paradise Alley, while appearing authoritative and responsible, not like a boy who’d snuck out after his mother’d gone to bed. “I know what sort of things happen there,” he said, hoping to sound mature and responsible.

  “Do you, now?” Sterling didn’t sound impressed at Angus’s maturity, so the boy hurried to add, “My ma told me.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “To stay well away from there and not to talk to any of the ladies, even if they talk to me first, except to say hello which is only polite, of course.”

  “Of course.” “But it’ll be fine with her as long as you’re with me.”

  The edges of Sterling’s mouth turned up.

  “Let’s go>then. But if there’s any trouble, you get yourself out of there. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They left Front Street and walked east on Queen to the section of road below Second Avenue known to everyone as Paradise Alley.

  The street was narrow, lined on either side with a wooden boardwalk and the occasional plank, or duckboard, stretched across the road. The cribs, where the women conducted their trade, were tiny, some of them no more than three or four feet across, and packed together, wall touching wall, with pointed roofs and a single tiny window inset beside the door. A name was painted over most of the doorways. Some of the women smiled at Angus and Sterling, a few seductive and inviting, but most merely extending greetings to a friendly face. Some turned their heads away and hurried past.

  “My father’s a preacher,” the constable said, as much to himself as to Angus. “When I was growing up, he talked a lot about heaven and hell. I don’t think he’d be able to imagine a place further from paradise than this wretched, mud-streaked patch of humanity.”

  Angus said nothing.

  The women were plain-faced and sturdy, dressed in shapeless, well-worn work dresses. A few had tried to add some cheer to their drab surroundings, and even drabber lives, by threading colourful ribbons through their hair or putting a touch of sequins on their belt or a scrap of fur or lace on the collar. Their hands and faces were red and chapped from hard living in a hostile climate, and many had missing teeth. The road to the Klondike wasn’t for delicate women.

  A woman stood on the boardwalk on the other side of the street, watching them. “Lovely day, ain’t it, Constable?” she called.

  “Lovely.”

  “Nice lad you’ve got ’ere. Looks like a perfect angel. Your favourite?”

  “Watch your mouth, Joey.”

  She was tiny, the size of an undernourished child; the bones of her wrists as delicate as a bird’s. Angus knew who she was: everyone knew who she was. Madame Josephine LeGrand owned many of the cribs that lined Paradise Alley. And, even though the law didn’t approve, she owned the women who worked in those cribs as well. Midwest farm and eastern factory girls looking for adventure, abandoned wives trying to make a living, seasoned prostitutes from Montreal, Chicago, St. Louis or San Francisco, Joey LeGrand had paid their
way to the Klondike, where they now worked, day and, mostly, night to pay for their passage.

  Angus stared at her open-mouthed; his mother had warned him to have nothing to do with the small woman with the Quebec accent.

  Joey stared back. The smile on her thin lips didn’t touch her eyes. She placed her child-sized feet on the duckboards and crossed the road. Her dress was of plain homespun, her brown hair streaked with grey and pulled back into a severe bun, her only jewellery a plain gold band on the third finger of her left hand.

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Angus stuttered. “I’m…”

  “Never mind,” Sterling interrupted.

  She folded her petite white hands in front of her and smiled up at Angus. “No matter,” she shrugged. “I can guess the lad’s name.” The smile fell away and her attention shifted. “Any reason you’re in the neighbour-hood, Constable?”

  “Checking that the law is being upheld, Madame LeGrand. Even in Paradise Alley.”

  “Oh, yes. The Law. Me, I never forget about the importance and the power of The Law.”

  “See you keep it that way.” “Certainement, monsieur. Bon soir.” She grinned at him like a cat at play with a particularly stupid mouse.

  Sterling didn’t say goodbye. He continued on his rounds, an unusually silent Angus following.

  “Anyone ever show you how to box, Angus?” The constable said, apparently out of nowhere.

  “No, sir. But I’d like to learn.”

  “You’re growing into a big lad, Angus. Be not much longer before some men in this town try to take you on, not caring how young you are. Sergeant Lancaster was the boxing champion of Manitoba in his youth, I hear.”

  Angus’s initial flush of excitement was quickly replaced by disappointment. He looked at his shuffling feet. “My mother won’t allow it, sir. She doesn’t want to hear about me fighting.”

  “You mother doesn’t have to know.”

  Angus lifted his head. “Would he charge for lessons? Ma won’t pay.”

  “He loves to teach boys. He’ll probably do it for free.”