The Typewriter Girl

by J. L. Jarvis

  In the midst all this, his wife was swept into the current. He saw her! She cried out and reached for him, and he could have reached her, but he turned and went after a crate of supplies instead. The next instant, she was gone—swept away by the current. He watched her for no more than an instant, and turned back to his outfit. It all happened so quickly. I was in the water and swimming toward her. At first, I thought she was swimming and staying afloat, but that lasted for a few seconds before she started thrashing, and I knew she couldn’t swim. I’d called out to Daniel to help the husband. He was closer to their boat, and he was a big guy, so I left him to help get the boat righted and get the gear back onto it. I’d always been the better swimmer, so it made sense for me to go after the wife. I remember hearing the husband yelling at Daniel for something. Here Daniel was, trying to tether their boat to ours so they could keep it from drifting away while they reclaimed the gear from the water. I later found out that he’d accused Daniel of trying to steal his outfit!

  The woman came to a place where the rocks jutted out and the river went around them. She tried to grab onto a rock, but her hands slipped and the current had her again. I caught up and hooked an arm around her waist. The current was pulling, but the worst part was trying to hold her while she thrashed around. She panicked and nearly pulled me down with her, but we hit a shallow stretch where my foot touched some rocks on the bed of the river. It gave me enough traction to get a firmer hold. I guided her toward the gravelly bank of the river, to where it was shallow enough to stagger onto a dry, flat stretch of land. We collapsed, bruised and exhausted.

  We lay on our backs until our breathing slowed down. The boats passed by us. We lay there resting, relieved, and she turned to me and thanked me. For the first time I caught a glimpse of her face. She was just a girl. I’d known she was a slim little thing from holding onto her in the water. At the time, I thought only of how grateful I was for her being small. It made it easier to get her to safety. But lying there, side-by-side, I recalled her slim form in my hands. That was the first time I reminded myself that she belonged to somebody else. She held my attention completely. She was not a beauty—not the sort that would stand out in a crowd. But her soft eyes took me in. We just looked at each other. Knowing we’d come that close to death had drawn us close in a way we might not otherwise have been. We both sensed it. She shivered. I’d like to think I’d caused it, but we’d been in the water. We were cold, and lying on the ground in wet clothes. I got up and held my hand out to pull her up with me.

  “We’d better try to light a fire and warm up.”

  “But they’ll come for us, won’t they?”

  “I know that they’ll try.” But I didn’t know if they’d succeed. So I gathered some wood. I had no idea how I was going to start it. We were gathering wood when Daniel found us.

  A couple other parties who had seen the commotion stopped to join in the search and make camp. The husband was lurking a short distance away, looking sheepish. By this time, I had decided to bring her with us, if she wanted. I sure wasn’t going to let her go back to that fool of a husband. Another woman—one here with her husband—hooked her arm into the girl’s and ushered her back to her camp. She looked back at me and smiled, and she was gone.

  Daniel and I camped nearby, and I looked over to see how she was. A couple had taken her in. They were talking. I strained to hear her, but her voice was too quiet to hear.

  The tents were soon pitched, and pots of bacon and beans hung over the fires. The slug of a husband must have been hungry, because I looked over and saw him talking to his wife. They were off near some trees. It looked like he must have been waiting for her to go off alone. The coward wouldn’t face her like a man—in front of the others.

  I couldn’t hear, but I saw him grab hold of her arm and yank her along with him. I sprang toward them. At the same time, the couple who’d taken her in must’ve heard, because they arrived just as I did. The others in camp soon joined us when it grew to a shouting match. They’d all seen what he’d done to his wife.

  “Sadie, we’ll take you to Dawson. You don’t have to go back with him,” said the man who had taken her in.

  His wife gently asked, “What do you want?”

  Sadie said, “I’ll never go back to him.” She refused even to look at her husband.

  He ordered her back, and then begged her, but she would not go back. When he started yelling again, we dragged him back to his own camp. Then Daniel practically had to drag me back to ours.

  In the morning, she and I met by the water, washing dishes. I can’t say it was chance, exactly. But my dishes did need washing. So what if I followed her there? She said she’d decided to go to Dawson with the couple who had taken her in. I looked back toward camp to make sure that her husband wasn’t watching from nearby. For her sake, I wanted to avoid any problems with him. I’d have been happy kick his ass a few times, but I didn’t want to put his wife through that. The only person who saw us was Daniel. We talked about how nice the couple had been to take her in like that. I wanted to ask what she’d do once she got there, but I don’t think she knew. She’d have time enough to figure that out on the way down the river. What she needed right now was some peace.

  I liked her. I liked her a lot. But she was married, and I had no business asking her about her future. The truth was, I had no business talking with her now, but I did. I told myself that I was just lonesome. I hadn’t realized it until I was with a soft woman. She brought calm to a place that was brutal and bleak. But she was married, which made Sadie quietly devastating. I told her goodbye, and I hoped for my sake that it was.

  Her boat passed ours that morning. When it was well out of earshot, Daniel said, “Do you think she’ll go back to him?”

  I didn’t know. A woman alone out here had it rough. She might not be able to go it alone. Strong men with a dream had grown discouraged, and this was not even her dream. How long she would last, I could not say.

  Daniel nodded. We did not discuss her again. Our boats passed a couple of times after that, but I waited until they pulled over to camp, then I went on a few miles before stopping. I did not see her again on the river.

  Klondike Region: June 1898

  Our mining camp looked like so many others that lined the Yukon River that year. It was practically summer, but behind us thick blankets of snow hid the metal gray rocks on the mountains around us. They jutted upward like broken fortresses walling us in with cold beauty. The view had a price. We had only begun paying up with hard labor.

  We sat down for lunch on our chairs made of branches at a table we’d fashioned from logs. It was Daniel’s turn to prepare it. I laughed to myself when I watched him with his brawny shoulders and hands battered from mining. He looked so out of place in the kitchen—not that we had one, exactly. But how much kitchen do you need to cook beans, rice and bacon? The cabin had one room that served every purpose, and poorly. In the center of the room was a stove where we cooked and huddled for warmth in cold weather. Keeping it clean—or our bodies, for that matter—was not high on our list. After hours of digging away in a hole ten feet deep, and hauling out dirt by the bucket until all that was left of our bodies was the ache, that cabin looked like a palace to us.

  There we sat that day, eating and talking—well, Daniel was talking. This friend, whom I’d known for too long to remember, was in a terrible state. Daniel Rogowski was in love—not just regular love, but sorry, hard to look at love.

  This presented a problem, not only for him, but also for the girl who was waiting at home. Everyone knew she was hoping for marriage. She did not take the news of his leaving too well, but she came to accept it. What choice did she have? She wrote letters. He told me she had cooked up a dream of him waiting to make his fortune in gold so he could come back to sweep her away to wedded bliss. I knew for a fact that this was not Daniel’s plan. But Daniel did not like to hurt people’s feelings. He had a marshmallow heart—the kind only big, brawny guys can afford. He never p
romised her anything, but he did not discourage her, either. Some folks might call it selfish, but I knew Daniel better than that. He never talked much about it, but I think at one time he might even have believed that love would happen with her.

  After we left for the Yukon, I think he secretly hoped he would fall in love and get married to someone up here just so he wouldn’t have to tell her that he couldn’t marry her. He hadn’t quite thought this all through. He was going to have to face her, married or not. More than that, he was going to have to hurt her. He just couldn’t bring himself to cause anyone pain. That’s how Daniel was. He took things easy—at least that’s how it looked from the outside. Now I look back and wonder. His feelings were deeper than anyone knew—for himself, and for those that he loved.

  This relationship back home had grown out of control. He never meant for it to go as far as it did. But because she was happy, he put off hurting her. And who knows? They might have married and made a good life. There are all kinds of love, and even more kinds of reasons for falling into it. It might have been good for him someday. But what might have been ended the day we arrived in Dawson.

  Chapter 4

  A couple of whiskeys inspired us to go to a dance hall. The truth is, from the time we left Seattle, the trip had been brutal. All along, we had seen people selling their outfits and heading for home without having made it to Dawson to stake even one claim. We had been unbelievably lucky, which is not to imply we did one single thing well to deserve it. It was all we could do to inch forward each day. We made lots of mistakes, but we kept moving forward. That was all that we did. The rest was dumb luck. The trail was relentlessly grueling, and hazards lay hidden and waiting. People drowned. People just disappeared. Somehow, Daniel and I persevered. Don’t think we were brave. We just fought to survive. Fear of death is a great driving force.

  When we managed to make it to Dawson, we were ready to have a good time. We had a good meal at a tent where a woman served good home cooking. That was her gold mine. Men were hungry, lonely, and willing to pay a good price for something that tasted like home. After that we were thirsty, and we needed to feel like we were men again. We’d been beasts of burden for weeks, and the touch of a woman was a good cure for that.

  We walked into a place that looked more like a barn, but the music was lively. A dollar bought you a drink and half of that bought a dance with a girl. One lady caught sight of us first, and she gave us this smile. She had a distinctive arrangement of features, and beautiful teeth—all half a dozen of them. She came toward us. I made a mad dash for the bar. I thought Daniel was with me, but no. My big buddy Daniel was just nice. He couldn’t say no, or do anything else that might hurt someone’s feelings. That’s what I loved about him, but it got him in trouble. I took a drink and thanked the good Lord I was here and not there. Then I leaned back, rested my elbows on the bar, and just watched.

  Those two dancing were something to see. Now, Daniel’s a big, beefy guy. He’s a bear with a pick ax and shovel. But put him on a dance floor? He looked like a pig on ice, completely at the mercy of this gangly woman. By the time the song ended, he looked a bit peaked. But he managed to thank her. He glanced around and spotted me, but she hooked her arm into his and hung on. I don’t know what she whispered into his ear, but he turned away and came over to me with a face that was so red you just had to feel sorry for him. The trouble was, you just had to laugh, too. A lot. That was when I discovered the end of Daniel’s patience.

  I was doubled over, when I glanced up and realized he was not laughing with me. I pulled myself up and grabbed hold of his arm. “Daniel—”

  “Don’t say it,” he warned me.

  Tears came to my eyes as I forced back more laughter. I tried, but I just couldn’t stop. Daniel tried to help me to stop with a sharp jab in the ribs. It hurt, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t stop. He gave up and just turned away.

  When I finally stopped laughing enough to look at him, he was frozen. His eyes were just fixed. I followed his line of vision to the opposite side of the hall, where a girl was just standing by the wall. All I saw was a girl in plain clothing. I couldn’t see her face. I couldn’t see anything special about her, but Daniel did. He just stood there thunderstruck.

  When his old dance partner saw his face, she proved her good business sense. We later found out that she had an interest in the place. She managed the percentage girls, who were paid to dance and talk with the men to make sure that they kept drinking whiskey. She followed Daniel’s gaze and walked over to the girl, grabbed her arm and practically dragged her to Daniel.

  As she came into the light, I saw for the first time that it was Sadie. I hadn’t seen her since I’d pulled her from the river. Had he looked at her like that back during the trip? I hadn’t noticed. I was too busy looking myself to pay attention to Daniel. But now, he was staring at her. I’d never seen him like this—with anyone. From the look on his face, you’d think he was the one close to drowning. Daniel’s first dancing partner gave Sadie a jab between the shoulders, which brought her back to her senses, but threw her off balance. She stepped forward—well, tripped was more like it. Daniel caught her by the elbows and held her. If her job was to ask him to dance, she didn’t do it too well. But he didn’t need her to ask. He lifted her hand to his shoulder and took her right hand, and they danced. Their feet scuffled slowly as they stared at each other. She looked small in his arms and too fragile to be in this place. I reminded myself that she’d withstood marriage to that lousy excuse for a man. If she could do that, she was strong enough to survive working here. But she wasn’t meant for this work. I had an urge to go take her hand and walk her out of the place. But she was with Daniel. I knew him, and I knew that he liked her. If she’d left her husband, I was glad. But now Daniel had found her. She wasn’t for me anymore.

  I watched them dance, and I remembered her looking at me as we lay on the bank of the river. Her features were fine. They were practically lost at a distance. I don’t know what Daniel saw now, but I saw her eyes. They were soft and they grabbed my attention and held me, as firmly as I had held her in the water. I stopped myself there. She was somebody else’s, and I didn’t look at other men’s women that way.

  I later asked around and found out that she’d finished the trip with the couple that took her in. She never spoke to her husband again. Her husband came around a couple of times, but there were enough men who’d seen the whole thing to discourage the bastard from coming around anymore. Along the way, they held a miner’s court, and they declared her divorced. Up there it was the closest thing to a legal proceeding, and nobody argued against it—not even her husband. I suspect that he might have had some out-of-court convincing by some of the men. I wouldn’t have blamed them. I only wish I could have been there to help.

  So Sadie was free. She was a single woman. When she got into Dawson, she had to find work. There weren’t a lot of job choices for women in Dawson. This was her first day. It was strictly dancing, but that was enough.

  There they were, dancing. Daniel was dazed, hardly moving his feet as he danced, and he watched her until she looked down at his shirt with a blush. She looked small in his arms as he shuffled his feet, barely dancing. She wasn’t much better. She stared at his collar. I’d never seen a more awkward pair. By the time the song ended, at least one of those two was in love. The music stopped, and they stopped, but they held onto each other. She looked up at him, grateful and safe in his arms. She didn’t even know that his big heart was hers.

  Well, there’s only so much you can watch people falling in love before you start to get restless. For me, that’s about one dance long. So I picked out a girl and I started to dance. She was looking for fun. So was I, and we had it. And when I was ready to leave, it was over and done. For Daniel, it was only beginning.

  Upstate New York: Autumn 1899

  In the morning, Benjamin took Emma’s hand and led her down the path to the lake. She was staying for now. Plans would have to be made, but he w
as in no hurry for her to make them. For now, she was here. They were drawn to each other. Since holding her in his arms, he had known that he wanted her there. But she was engaged to be married. They had gone past the bounds of propriety, and still he knew little about her.

  “So you left home that night, from your home in Newport.”

  “Yes, our summer cottage. We live in New York, but I’ve spent most of my time in Newport since I finished school. I love the water.”

  “Your name’s Farlowe, not Madding.”

  Emma nodded.

  “Why Madding?”

  “I got it from a book.”

  Benjamin glanced pointedly, and then smiled. “Good choice. Bathsheba would not have suited you.”

  Emma smiled.

  “That photograph your father showed me, it was—”

  “My coming out party.” Emma smiled, embarrassed.

  “I was going to say beautiful.” He smiled as he saw color come to her cheeks.

  He listed the new facts. “Fancy gown, coming out party, New York home, Newport cottage.” With a skeptical glance, he said, “What street?”

  “Bellevue. Do you know Newport?”

  “I’ve been there. Those aren’t what the rest of us think of as cottages.”