by Vicki Delany
Mrs. Collins was yelling at Mr. Collins to keep up or they would ‘miss it’. She—the girl—didn’t know what “it” was.”
“The Mae West, apparently. There was no one with them?”
“Not that the child saw.”
An eddy caught the dead fish and dragged it around the bow of a small boat. A few yards off shore, two gulls flew after a can that had once contained condensed milk. They squawked at each other, and the smaller pulled up and flew away, complaining all the while.
“It doesn’t look hopeful,” McKnight said. “They’ve torn this town apart. I hear Joey LeGrand is screaming up a storm about people disturbing her girls when they should be resting and is threatening to complain to Inspector Starnes.”
“She won’t. The Inspector doesn’t give LeGrand the time of day, and she knows it. He tolerates her and her ilk because the miners won’t have it any other way.”
“We may never find her, you know.” McKnight touched Sterling lightly on the shoulder in a surprisingly familiar gesture. “These rivers are treacherous, and there’s a lot of wilderness between here and the sea.”
“I’ll find her,” Sterling said.
“Constable Sterling. Constable Sterling.” Angus ran across the flat expanse of mud that led from the steamboat dock. Mr. Mann lumbered behind as well as Anna Marie, holding her skirts above her ankles. “Millie, we have to follow Millie.”
“Why don’t you go home, son,” McKnight said. “Get some rest. We’ll fetch you if anything turns up.”
“No! Listen to me. I’ve been so stupid. Ma hated every step on the Trail, and never, ever left Dawson, not even to go hunting for frogs.”
All around the waterfront, attention was drawn by the excitement in Angus’s voice. Heads popped up and people drifted towards them.
“Now, Angus, I don’t see what frogs have to do with this. Miss, would you see that the boy gets home.”
“You must hear what Angus has to say,” Anna Marie almost shouted.
“No one would think to look for Ma in the wilderness. But Millie did. Millie doesn’t know Ma hates the bush. She picked up a scent at the Collins’s house. Those two chairs outside. Millie wouldn’t leave them alone. Then she wanted to go up the road, into the hills. Into the wilderness. I had to drag her back to town. But there’s nothing here, and she’s getting confused about why I keep stuffing this robe into her face.”
“Angus, I….”
“It’s better than anything else we have, Inspector,” Sterling said. “Lead the way, Angus, Millie.”
The big white dog ran. Away from the water and back towards town. Her pace was slowed by the rope pulling against her throat, and she tried to encourage the boy behind her to run faster. Millie didn’t look back, but she knew that a stream of people followed her. As they ran through town, more and more people fell into place in the pack.
Millie ran so hard, the leash jerked out of Angus’s grasp. Free, she sprinted back to where she’d picked up the scent, and from there to the wildflower-covered hills.
Chapter Fifty-Five
I watched the morning sun crossing the southern sky from east to west. I’d spent the night alternately dozing and shaking bugs away with my hair. Painful cramps shot up my arms. At least my legs were free, so I could wiggle them to keep the circulation going.
It was early afternoon of the second day when I realized I’d lost contact with my hands. I tried to move my fingers, but there didn’t seem to be anything happening beyond my wrists. I was thirsty. Hungry to be sure, but thirst dominated everything. Any moisture that might be in my throat was instantly soaked up by this damned handkerchief.
Pictures swam behind my eyelids. For a while I believed that I was back in London, dangling from a rope tossed out of the second-story bedroom of a Belgravia townhouse on a rainy February night. As usual, I was dressed in men’s clothes, all in black. I had a pocket full of rings and necklaces and a sack containing the family’s good silver tossed across my back, and I was trying not to breathe too loudly while a constable, tardy on his rounds for one cursed night, stood below, sneaking a quick smoke. My arms ached under the strain and, momentarily trapped between memory and reality, I opened my eyes.
If I fell asleep, would I wake up in my mother’s arms? I decided to give up, to let the wondrous sleep at the end of it all claim me.
Then I remembered Angus, who needed me more than I needed my mother.
Whatever would become of the Savoy with Ray left to manage it on his own?
I struggled back to consciousness. Margaret may not have planned to kill me, here on the mountainside, but she was a poor judge of the amount of restraint required to hold one woman. If someone didn’t find me soon, she might just as well have stuck her knife into my heart.
It was Monday afternoon. Ray would have noticed by now that I wasn’t in my office, but I came and left the Savoy as I pleased, so he wouldn’t question my absence at least until the dance hall opened at eight. Angus would leave for work, not wanting to wake me. Sunday evening, he would have gone off with his friends as soon as supper was finished—hunting for frogs and spying on girls and whatever sort of boy-foolishness they got up to. When Mrs. Mann came in to clean my room in the morning, she’d see that my bed hadn’t been slept in. She would assume I was with a gentleman friend, and not breathe a word to Angus or to her husband.
So it would be seven o’clock, eight at the latest, before anyone began to wonder where I might be. By the time they thought to do something about it…it might be days before they found me—or whatever remained of my decaying corpse.
I wiggled and jerked and tugged at my bonds. Nothing moved. I kicked my legs in a wild tattoo on the ground and screamed as loudly as I could. Only the mosquito settling on my cheek heard.
But all that effort had some effect: the handkerchief in my mouth shifted. I used my tongue to attempt to ease it out, one fraction of an inch at a time. Fresh air slipped in through the corner of my lips, and I allowed myself to feel a touch of hope.
All hope faded as a great white wolf leapt over the rocks. Its teeth were filed to sharp points; its claws dug deep into the hard earth. It looked directly into my eyes for a slice of time, threw back its massive head and howled in triumph to the northern sky.
“Take care of Angus,” I whispered as I closed my eyes and waited to feel teeth dig into my unresisting neck.
* * *
“Ma. Ma. Oh, thank God. You’re safe.”
I opened my eyes to see half the population of Dawson crawling through the bush. There was Constable Sterling, and Inspector McKnight. Ray Walker and Not-Murray and Jake. Several of the dancers from the Savoy, including Ruby and Ellie, and even a percentage girl or two. One of the Vanderhaege sisters. Sergeant Lancaster and Mr. Mann, who appeared to be weeping—that was surely an illusion. Graham Donohue, who tried to shove everyone aside to reach me but was discouraged by Angus’s sharp elbow in his stomach. Mouse O’Brien was there and Belinda Mulroney. The Indian Fighter and regular Rupert Malloy. Joe Hamilton, who copied reporter’s dispatches before they left for the Outside. A pack of dockworkers and some of the regular barflies, including Barney, who dropped to his knees and seemed to be offering prayers to the sky.
And a gigantic, slobbering, hairy white dog who, if someone didn’t get it off me, was as likely to kill me by licks and kisses as by eating me.
Angus pushed the overly-affectionate animal away, crouched down, and looked into my face. “You’ll be free in a minute, Mother.”
For the first and, I hope, the last time in my life, I fainted.
Chapter Fifty-Six
By all accounts, my return to town was a grand celebration. Some say it was almost as impressive as the Fourth of July celebrations which followed a week or so after. But those are probably Englishmen or Canadians, trying to downplay the numbers of our friends from the south who are pouring into the Yukon Territory every day.
I have only second-hand knowledge of the event. If I wished, I could dine ou
t on the story for the rest of my life, but I’m reluctant to talk about it. Perhaps because I realized that people did care about me. People other than my son, of course, and my business partner, and those men who are interested in what type of undergarments I favour.
They covered me with a soft mantle of red silk and a gold dragon and I was carried home, so they tell me, on a stretcher hastily constructed of weak green wood and half of someone’s canvas tent, which had been collapsing anyway. They laid me in my bed while Mrs. Mann fussed and fluttered about and tried to make me comfortable, and Mr. Mann stood guard at the entrance to his home and threatened to bash out the brains of anyone attempting to cross the threshold.
Fortunately for me, someone managed to locate a respectable doctor to tend to my injuries.
I remember telling him that the big wolf was coming and I remember his kind smile as he checked the abrasions on my wrists, and that was about all I remembered for a long time.
“I’m dreadfully thirsty.”
“You’re awake, Mrs. MacGillivray. Praise God.” Gentle hands lifted my head and a glass of fresh, clear water touched my lips. I drank every drop, terrified that there would be no more.
“I have to get to the Savoy,” I said, struggling to sit up. “Something’s wrong.”
“You rest. I’ll be right back.” Firm hands pushed me back into the soft bed.
“Angus, come. She’s awake.” My son came into the room. It was late afternoon. The summer sun spilled through the tiny window and lit up Angus’s blond head in a halo of golden light.
“The dance hall,” I said, scratching at my right hand. “It will fall to rack and ruin without me there to supervise. They’ll cheat us blind. Help me up.”
“Ray’s managing perfectly well, Mother. Miss Ellie’s supervising the dancers till you get back, and everyone’s been so worried about you, they haven’t dared misbehave. Not that Constable Sterling would let them.”
“I don’t believe a word of it, Angus. Help me up.”
“Here’s a mirror, Mother. Perhaps you should have a look.”
He held it up to my face, and I screamed so loudly, Mrs. Mann hurried back into the room.
“Oh, spare me nothing,” I cried. “Is it the smallpox?” Angus laughed and fluffed my pillow. Mrs. Mann poured more water.
“No, Mother. Only the Yukon mosquito. The doctor said the bites’ll be gone in a day or two, and as long as you don’t scratch at them, they won’t leave a mark.”
I was a very grumpy patient for the next two days as, regardless of how I well I felt, there was simply no way I would leave my sick bed until that hideous mass of mosquito bites disappeared. Angus dug my heavy winter mittens out of the storage boxes, and I sat in bed for two days and nights with my hands confined in the mittens so I wouldn’t scratch at the bites.
I allowed only Ray Walker to visit me to report on the day’s takings, which were greater than ever.
He brought my big ledger and carried a bag of gold and money over twice a day. I sat in bed instructing Angus on how to do the accounts. I could hardly write in the books with my hands in Yukon-strength winter mittens, now could I? If I took the gloves off, even for a second, my nails would have been tearing at my throat and face.
When Angus finished, Mrs. Mann took the money to the bank, escorted by Constable Sterling, and everyone politely stepped aside to allow her to go to the front of the line. On his daily visits, the doctor tut-tutted a good deal about the cut to my face, while looking quite worried and telling me that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
As soon as he left, Mrs. Mann slipped in with her green paste. And before I was ready to get up and face the streets, the mark of the knife slice across my cheek was fading, save for a tiny nick beneath the cheekbone that Angus assured me gave me quite a fetching and mysterious air.
The scar running from the base of my throat down to the swell of my breasts, I still carry today. I am told that men find it fascinating.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
“Heading back to work, Mrs. MacGillivray?” Richard Sterling fell into step beside me as I left Mrs. Mann’s boarding house, for my first visit to the Savoy after what would forever be known as “The Collins Incident”.
I would have thought his arrival a coincidence had I not glimpsed Angus disappearing around the corner of the house as I nibbled on a slice of breakfast toast.
“It’s time,” I said. “May I walk with you?”
“Of course.”
Mr. Mann had insisted he would escort me to the Savoy.
I insisted, with equal passion, that I did not need assistance. We had glared at each other across the kitchen table, each one of us more stubborn, I suspect, than the other. He hadn’t liked me very much, Mr. Mann, when Angus and I had first come to live at his wife’s boarding house. Now I feared that he liked me too much—as if he were my father or elder brother. Mrs. Mann quietly intervened and passed me a warm package containing freshly baked scones for my midmorning snack, and more of the magic green poultice. I might walk to work by myself, she told me, offering a compromise, but I was to be ready precisely at noon, when Mr. Mann would be at the door of the Savoy to escort me home for lunch. Angus, she said, would mind the store in her husband’s absence. We all meekly agreed.
I was still shaky, and although I would never admit to weakness, I was pleased to take Constable Sterling’s arm.
We walked down York Street towards the river then turned onto Front.
“No news of Mr. and Mrs. Collins,” he said. “Without telegraph or telephone, we’ve no way of alerting the stops up the river to hold the Mae West.”
“Will you think less of me, Richard, if I say that deep in my heart I hope they get away?”
He lifted one eyebrow.
“Sam would have let it all go a long time past, but Margaret couldn’t. If Ireland had recognized Sam, and gone on to write his most-certainly dreadfully biased account of what happened in some long-forgotten battle in that long ago war, who in Dawson, who in the United States come to that, would care, after all these years? I suspect Sam knew that, and as much as he might not have been happy to see Ireland in his town, he knew he had no need to run. But not poor Margaret. She gave up everything for Sam—wealth, family, position—only to be tormented for thirty years by some insignificant incident in some silly little war.
“I believe Margaret was driven by fear of what her disapproving family would think if ever they got wind of Sam’s supposed disgrace. Although they probably wouldn’t even recognize his name, all these years later, if they came across an account of it in the San Francisco Standard. Assuming any of them are still alive.”
It was going to be another beautiful day, a long, soft, precious summer’s day such that you only get in the North. A day of gentle sunshine, warm winds and circling birds. A day worth savouring and remembering well into old age and long winter nights.
A raft, so loaded with boxes and barrels of supplies, it was a Yukon wonder that it had made it this far, drifted down the river. They’d gone too far; helmsman asleep probably. Hopefully someone would wake him up before they drifted another few miles up river and back into the unrecognizable wilderness. At the sight of the passing of their hard-sought destination, the cluster of men crammed in amongst the supplies yelled and leapt into the air, waving hats and arms.
“Will they ever stop coming?” Sterling said.
“Perhaps not.” I lifted my face to the sun and let my heart warm.
“Before much longer, I believe every person in the world will drift up the Yukon River. Why, if we stand here long enough we may see Her Majesty, and the President of the United States, and the King of the Zulus pass by on a raft just like that one.”
“If we apprehend Mr. and Mrs. Collins, you’ll be expected to testify, Mrs. MacGillivray.”
“I understand. I haven’t forgotten that she left me out there, not much caring whether I lived or died.” Or if I was scarred for life by bears and wolves and ravenous insects. “
It’s sad that some people live lives tormented by their past. The past is over. It should be forgotten.”
Sterling watched the river. “Have you forgotten your own past, Fiona?”
I threw back my head and laughed. Fresh air, tinged with sawdust, filled my lungs.
“The past is past, Richard. Another time, another country. But perhaps I should ask you about your own history. I suspect that there’s a story to be told in that.
“Oh for heaven’s sake: are those the Gearing twins on the Savoy doorstep? They’ve been banned. Ray will be in a rage. He hates to be disobeyed.”
I ran across the road. A horse and wagon pulled up sharply to avoid hitting me. I tossed the driver a poisonous look. I was crossing the street—couldn’t the man keep his animal under control?
* * *
Richard Sterling, Constable of the North-West Mounted Police, watched Fiona MacGillivray stare down a badtempered packhorse and nasty-faced driver.
The past was past. Indeed it was. But the future was looking to be very interesting indeed.
About the Author
Vicki Delany was fortunate enough to be able to take early retirement from her job as a systems analyst in Toronto, and is now enjoying the rural life in Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch. She is the author of several standalone novels of psychological suspense as well as the Constable Molly Smith series ( In the Shadow of the Glacier) published by Poisoned Pen Press. She can be visited online at www.vickidelany.com
Acknowledgements
Early reading and excellent advice was provided by Gail Cargo, Carol Lem, Julia Vryheid, Jan Toms, Karen Wold, Joan O’Callahan and Karen Mitchell. Jerry Sussenguth provided advice on the German accent. My sincere thanks to you all.
Thanks also to Sylvia and Rendezvous for taking a chance on Fiona and Angus, and to Rick Blechta for the introduction.
