Due to the current popularity of the Canadian Yukon, single staterooms were not available. Clara shared hers with a mother and daughter, the Perys, who were en route to meet with Mr. Pery. It was quite a satisfactory arrangement. Mrs. Pery was in her late twenties and of an age with Clara. Her daughter, Julia, was an even-tempered child of eight or nine years and not inclined toward temper tantrums. At least Clara hadn’t been assigned one of those hard women as a rooming partner. Regardless of the apparent safety and security of her short-term roommates, Clara kept her money and return passage voucher pinned inside her dress. “Lead us not into temptation,” the good book always said.
Clara turned away from the temperate rain forest and made her way toward the front of the boat. Ship, she reminded herself. The wind here was stronger, and the mist that these people called rain kissed her cheeks with ice. The temperature was cooler than Boston, more from the higher levels of precipitation than anything else. She’d been forced to don her heavy wool stockings to combat the chill. She expected another five- to ten-degree drop by the time the ship reached its destination in Skagway.
Smiling, she stood with legs wide to retain balance as the Queen pushed through the sound, slicing through the ocean water. In a scant few days she’d meet her future husband in person and present him with the load of goods her father had purchased. She’d written Jasper prior to her departure from Boston two weeks earlier, and informed him of her estimated date of arrival. There was no telegraph in Skagway yet, so she had no way of updating him now that she’d booked passage. The sporadic contact made her a little nervous. She didn’t know what she’d do if he wasn’t there to meet her. Though she’d seen smaller towns in her rail travels to the Pacific coast, she imagined Skagway as large and as busy as Boston but without the social amenities of a well-established metropolis. How would she get around when there? Did they have boarding houses? She only had the vaguest of notions of Jasper’s location—south of Skagway. How would she get a message to him?
With effort Clara pushed away her worries, falling into the recurrent reverie of life in the wilderness with a husband and children. Skagway wasn’t as large as Boston. Someone would know who Jasper Glass was, and she had the necessary funds to hire a messenger. If there was a persistent dread that Mr. Jasper Glass wasn’t the gentleman he purported to be, she smothered it, imagining herself smoking a cheroot and laughing with confidence as had those admirable women she’d seen aboard the ship. Certainly, if they could make their own way in Alaska without a man or marriage prospects in the future, so could she.
* * *
Callie sat Turkish-style beside Jasper’s headstone. It had taken her a week, but she’d finally chiseled his name and dates into a slab of granite to replace the hastily erected cross. The lettering was crude, but she didn’t feel right not having a hand in her brother’s memorial. Maybe she’d have a headstone professionally done in a year or two. This was enough for now.
She came out every morning and evening, rain or shine, to sit with him. Sitting alone in the cabin had been torturous. At first she’d brought out a stool, but that hadn’t lasted long. She needed to be as close to her brother as possible; seated on a stool so far above him made her feel like a judge squatting on a bench, looking down his fault-finding nose at the accused. The only concession she’d made to the vagaries of weather and comfort was to bring a folded canvas tarp to pad her backside.
“It’s warming up good now. I expect the skeeters are going to be pretty prevalent this year. I’ll have to get some more sodium bicarbonate from town to deal with the bites. At least you won’t miss that, will you?” She unconsciously rubbed her arm, and remembered her initial experience with the veritable swarm of mosquitoes that made Alaska home. That first year she’d looked more pink than tan, her skin pebbled by multiple bites. Jasper had called her a skeeter lodestone, shortening it to Lode. He’d called her that every summer without fail since. A faint smile curved her lips as she remembered his laugh, a smile that quickly faded with the knowledge that she’d never hear his laughter again, never hear the nickname he’d given her.
A month had passed since she’d interred him, a month of everyday struggles with that bottle of laudanum that still sat on the table. Getting past the urge to follow her brother in death hadn’t been her first hurdle. It was a daily fight to get out of bed, ignore the lethargy that had crept into her soul and do what needed doing. There were plenty of people who had fallen sway to the peace of laudanum, just like there were plenty who drank themselves into oblivion every day of their adult lives. It would be easy to follow suit, but Jasper had never cared for opium and morphine addicts. While not a teetotaler, he didn’t think it right to cloud the mind like that. It was for that reason alone that Callie hadn’t chosen to take a dose or two to in an effort to allay her bone-deep sorrow.
The sound of a ship’s bell in the distance interrupted her one-sided conversation. Her eyes drifted past the scrub pushing green shoots from the ground down to the Taiya Inlet. Another steamer rumbled past, its motor muffled by the distance. A crowd of excited passengers mingled while the deckhands prepared for their arrival in Skagway. So many crackbrained people thought they could pull up stakes and come here to strike the red, rolling in money for the rest of their days. When would those idiots realize that the only thing of value was family and blood, acceptance and companionship? All this fuss for a rare metal would never bring back lost loved ones. It couldn’t buy happiness or satisfaction or a sense of well-being. Callie almost felt sorry for the several hundred strangers on that ship.
She watched until it drew even with her and then took a deep breath. Patting the grave stone, she told Jasper, “I’ve gotta go. There’s been wolves raiding the eastern trapline. I set up some traps for them and I need to see if I’ve been able to catch any.” Callie stood, brushed the butt of her trousers, then picked up the tarp and folded it. “I’ll see you tonight when I get home.”
She heard her brother’s whisper in her head. “Be safe.”
“You know I will be,” she said to the emptiness.
* * *
Clara leaned against the rails on the port side of the ship as it entered another inlet. According to the crew, this was the Taiya Inlet, the one that Jasper had mentioned in his letter. She’d been told that the Taiyasanka Inlet was farther west, which meant the finger of land in front of her was the location of her future home. She scanned the rocky coast with eager eyes, following the stretch of new-growth scrub until it transformed from meadow to forest. Was that smoke she saw on the distant rise there? Could that be the Glass cabin, her new home? If there had been any way to jump ship and march up that hillside, she’d have done so in an instant. Contrary to her desire, the ship continued on its course for another fifteen miles or more. Reluctant, she turned to the prow, her groom’s possible homestead passing from sight.
A haze heralded the settlement known as Skagway. Curious, Clara edged forward, ignoring the busy crew and excited passengers. Skagway seemed a sprawling ramshackle town from this vantage. A sea of off-white covered the immediate foreground; a mass of canvas tents that had been erected to temporarily house transient miners as they prepared for their trips along the mountain passes to hopeful riches. The water along the beach teemed with carts and horses, the floor of the wagons just high enough to avoid being drenched. No docks reached out to sea, the water shallow enough to allow the horse-drawn carts to unload the ships. Deckhands, passengers and teamsters swarmed over the few ships already anchored in port as they offloaded tens of thousands of pounds of goods onto carts or pole rafts.
Clara frowned at the industrious activity. It had been almost a year since the first news of gold had reached the nation. You’d think they’d have built piers by now. Goodness! She wondered if she’d be required to slog through a mile of water and muck before reaching the shoreline or if there was some sort of ferry for passengers. Many men waded, hip deep in some cases, but she wasn’t sure if they were new arrivals. She took stock of the f
ashionable boots she’d donned this morning. They’d be ruined if immersed in salt water.
The palaver of the crowd faded as others began reckoning their ability to disembark with their baggage and loads. As the S.S. Queen closed the distance to the shore, the sound of teamsters and haulers calling back and forth became louder, punctuated by the slap and splash of water, the shouts of alarm as an unwieldy load toppled and the general buzz of a large crowd gathered in this pocket between two tall hills. For the first time in several days, the smell of water gave way to that of dense human habitation—smoke, horse and human manure, stale beer and sweat fighting for dominance with every kind of cooking food imaginable drifting across the bay from Skagway.
When the ship dropped anchor, Clara chewed her upper lip in consternation. Several carts had altered direction, water breaking past the horse’s chests as they each vied to be the first to attain legitimate drayage. She raised her chin and mentally kissed her boots goodbye. Footwear would not get between her and her destiny. Besides, she had money enough. Surely in that mass of humanity someone would be an experienced cobbler.
With an assurance she didn’t feel, she marched across the deck in search of a purser.
Chapter Six
Clara leaned uncertainly against the canvas sacks that bore the food she’d had shipped north. Her trunks peeked from beneath one corner. Several hundred pounds of potatoes, onions, sugar, coffee, cornmeal…the list she’d created from her research had been precise and exhaustive. The wait for a cart to unload her goods had been tedious, but the work was quick once it started. She’d asked among the workers about Jasper Glass and had received responses ranging from common ignorance to amusement and actual disgust. When questioned about his location, none who said they knew him could say where he lived. The whole affair caused Clara to wonder if she’d made a mistake. Why would Jasper’s name engender such an assortment of reactions?
She fretted silently until a man with the Pacific Freight Company arrived at her side, a sheaf of papers in hand and three men at his heels. He wore overalls and a Scottish cap that had seen much better days. “Miss Stapleton?”
“Yes, sir.” Clara put on her most pleasant expression.
“I’m Mr. Lutkins, the foreman.” He studied her bill of lading. “Have you examined your belongings, miss? Was anything damaged or missing?”
Clara looked at the large pile of goods. “Everything appears to be accounted for, Mr. Lutkins, thank you.”
He nodded a grizzled head and proffered the papers. “Sign here please.” Once she did so, he smiled, revealing a gap where his front teeth should have been. “Very good. And will you be taking immediate possession?”
She stared at him for a brief moment of befuddlement. “I’m not certain. I find myself at a slight loss as I need to locate my…party before I can make arrangements for delivery.”
“Very good.” Lutkins scribbled something on her paperwork. “I’ll have my men keep an eye on things for a nominal fee of one nickel. If you haven’t returned by nightfall, we’ll secure your inventory at a rate of twenty-five cents a day, payment upon return. Is that acceptable?”
Clara calculated the prices, weighing the cost of storage against the difficulty of locating Jasper in this unfamiliar town. Her father had given her more than enough to rent a room at a boarding house—should she be able to find one in any case—for a month. A dollar for four nights of security and storage seemed most satisfactory, and she told Lutkins so.
“Very good.” He wrote the additional charges on her paperwork. “Your merchandise is safe here for the next ten days. If you haven’t checked in with the office after that time, we’ll be forced to sell the goods to cover our costs.”
She refrained from a wry snort. If she couldn’t find Jasper in ten days, she’d no doubt be on her way back to Boston. They could have the load without argument. Rather than make such a bald statement she agreed to his terms, signed the papers again and watched him trundle off to the next person awaiting his attention.
Now what? She adjusted her hat, unsure if it was crooked and unable to confirm or deny the possibility. The ground remained damp from the horse that had pulled her goods to shore, and she picked carefully along the path heading inland. At least her boots had survived the trip to land. In Seattle she’d only purchased foodstuffs, which had lightened her load considerably compared to those who planned to continue on to Dawson. Without the additional mining equipment, there had been plenty of room in the wagon for her to ride.
It had been early morning when the S.S. Queen had arrived in the bay. The sun sat lower in the sky than Clara was accustomed to, but the delicate pocket watch she carried proclaimed that it neared the midday meal. Her stomach agreed with the assessment as she left the loading area for the ramshackle bustle of a bursting frontier town.
Feed stores and saloons, mining outfitters and packing companies, land assayers and hardware stores advertised their services and goods with placards that jutted out into the street. Wooden plank walkways lined both sides of the busy lane, allowing pedestrian access without the dangers of encountering horse manure. Clara eyed the soft dirt that comprised the avenue, and realized that a good rain would turn the dusty road into a veritable quagmire. She counted herself lucky that she’d come during a dry spell. Her boots may have survived her landing but they certainly wouldn’t last long in mud up to her calves.
She explored this last bastion of civilization, and asked after Jasper, giving the scant information she had to any who would listen. Most people she approached didn’t know him, small wonder with the heavy influx of strangers into the area. Those that did find his name familiar either didn’t know him well or couldn’t give her any more specifics than that his property lay south of Skagway.
A petite-looking man with a slender triangular face was the exception. He smiled at his rough companions, stroking a beard that he’d grown in two tufts from his chin. “Are you a tom as well then?” He scrutinized Clara from head to toe. “You certainly don’t look it. I doubt he’ll be interested.” He and his friends burst into laughter. “Come looking for me, Jamie Perkins, when you want a real man, sweetheart.” He sauntered away, leading his vulgar pack down the street.
Clara stared after him, not sure if his words had been meant as insult to her or Jasper. She was half-tempted to chase after him for more information regardless of the repugnance oozing from his pores. If he knew Jasper, then he could at least give her some idea of where to search for him or who could run a message. She watched the slender man shove one of his comrades into a bystander, and the bystander cringed aside. No. Better not to engage that gentleman any more than necessary. He was bad news whoever he was.
She put the altercation from her mind, and considered that the first order of business was to find something to eat. Despite the rough appearance of this predominantly male crowd, the majority of the men she encountered were solicitous. One directed her to a hotel that boasted an attached restaurant. Upon her arrival she was dismayed to discover a line of folk awaiting a table. She realized that she had no luxury to be picky. It was here or the saloon across the street and, regardless of those assertive women she’d seen on board the ship, she didn’t have the courage to brave that particular establishment quite yet. She joined the back of the restaurant line, the closest men doffing their hats in her direction as she attempted to mentally calm her stomach’s growing demands.
Half an hour later, the line had moved a few steps closer to the door. The passage of time gave the people in the queue a sense of casual acquaintanceship, and one of the men in front of Clara glanced back at her. “Newcomer, eh?”
“Is it so obvious?” she asked with a faint smile.
“Yes, ma’am. There ain’t no way I’d miss a girl as pretty as you walking about town.” He grinned at the chuckles from his companions.
Clara felt her skin heat, but ignored the compliment. She wasn’t an uneducated rube; she’d spent years fending off the polite advances of interested men. At l
east this one is polite. The smile remained upon her face, neither waxing nor waning as she regarded him with a cool eye. “I’m here to meet my fiancé. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? His name is Jasper Glass.”
Her impending nuptials dashed the overly familiar smile from his bearded face, in favor of a thoughtful expression. “Glass. I reckon I’ve heard that name.”
“He’s a trapper by trade,” Clara offered, inching closer in her eagerness for word.
The man stepped out of line, and peered at those in front of them. “Ho! Daryl! Daryl McKenzie! You know a Jasper Glass, dontcha?”
An elderly gentleman turned and looked back at them. His hair and beard were snow white, framing a gaunt face and deep-set eyes. “I do. He’s a trapper. Lives south of here with his sister.”
Sister? Jasper hadn’t mentioned a sibling. Clara filed that tidbit away as the men’s conversation continued.
“This little lady says she’s here to marry him.”
Daryl McKenzie raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard anything about that.” His gaze was stern as he studied her. “Come here, young lady. Join me.”
Clara demurred, not wanting to cut the line, but the man who’d started the conversation took her by the arm and guided her forward. “Go ahead, missy. A half hour between us and a meal ain’t gonna make that much of a difference.”
“Says you, Al,” someone grumbled as Clara walked past. She thought she heard the thwap of someone’s head being smacked. The others all gave her respectful nods.
“Marriage, eh?” McKenzie asked. He gestured for her to step into line ahead of him. “I don’t recognize you and I know Jasper hasn’t been south in years. How’d that happen?”
Clara stood proud, refusing to fall beneath his critical eye. She’d faced down her parents; the opinion of a stranger in the middle of nowhere hardly mattered. “A matrimonial advertisement in the Boston Herald.” She held out her hand. “I’m Clara Stapleton, Mr. McKenzie. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Alaskan Bride Page 5
