The Great Alone

by Janet Dailey

All up and down the street men hawked items designed specifically for the gold prospector headed for the Klondike. There was everything from clothing and gear to newfangled prospecting equipment. Several times Marisha paused to listen wide-eyed to the spiels and extravagant promises.

  On one street corner, a man in a checked suit challenged the handful of men clustered around him: “Test your luck. Is the hand quicker than the eye? All you gotta do is guess which one of these three shells that little dried pea is under. That’s right. Step right up here, young man. I can see ya got sharp eyes. How much ya wanta bet. Six bits, a dollar? A dollar it is. Which shell do you say it is?”

  Marisha didn’t think the scrawny youth with the peach-fuzz beard and red and black plaid shirt was as old as she was. He pointed to the middle shell. The man lifted the shell and there sat the pea. The man invited him to try his luck again. Marisha watched while the lad continued to play and win. Finally he walked away with ten dollars jingling in his pocket.

  Each time she had known which shell the pea was under. It looked so easy that Marisha dug out the kerchief in which she had tied the few coins she had left. Before she could step forward to answer the man’s call of “Who’s gonna be next t’ try their luck?” someone laid a hand on her arm.

  She turned, her lips forming the first word of protest to Justin, but it wasn’t Justin. She stared at the stranger dressed in a severe black frock coat, white shirt, and flat-brimmed black hat. He looked like a preacher. She knew all about the sins of gambling, but this was a game of skill and an alert eye, not chance.

  The stranger inclined his head slightly toward her and murmured in a quiet voice so no one else could hear. “It’s all a trick to take your money.”

  Stunned by his claim, she didn’t object to the firm pressure of his hand on her arm as he drew her away from the men clustered around the shell game. “But I saw that boy win—”

  “But you won’t see anybody else win for a while,” he told her. “That boy was the live bait on the hook that lures the fish to bite. If you look over in front of the store, you’ll see him passing the so-called winnings to the shell man’s partner; maybe he’ll get a couple bits in change for his trouble. He’s what’s known in the business as a ‘capper.’ “

  Sure enough, when Marisha looked over at the store the stranger had indicated, she saw something being furtively passed between the boy and another man. Then the boy flipped a coin in the air, smiling widely as he caught it, and went swinging off down the street. She glanced back at the game in progress and heard someone groan.

  “Ya gotta watch close. Come on an’ try it again,” the shell man urged the loser.

  She turned back to the stranger, half convinced of the truth of his claim. “If it’s crooked, why don’t you tell the others?”

  His smile emphasized the deep grooves etched in his face and lit his blue eyes. “All the others are men. If they’re fool enough to be taken in, that’s their problem. But it goes against the grain to see a pretty golden-haired lady cheated out of her money.”

  Marisha preened slightly at his compliment. She still was unaccustomed to hearing words of praise about her beauty instead of the condemnations she’d heard from her aunt. She enjoyed it. “Thank you, Mr.—”

  “Cole. Deacon Cole.” He touched the front brim of his hat, inclining his head slightly.

  “Mr. Cole.” She smiled and shifted a bundle of her belongings to a more comfortable position in her arms.

  “Did you just arrive on the steamer?”

  “Yes. We’re on our way to the Klondike to find gold.”

  His faint smile grew more pronounced. “The color of your hair is probably the closest you’re going to come to it, but I don’t expect you to believe me. Take my advice and stay away from the shell games, thimble rigs, and three-card monte.” Again he touched his hat brim. “Good day to you, miss.”

  “Good day,” she murmured and watched him stroll away, tall and lean-looking in his preacher’s black frock coat. Finally she shrugged aside his disheartening prediction and turned to look for Justin just as he emerged from the semicircle of onlookers at the shell game. He spotted her almost right away and motioned for her to join him.

  “Come on,” he said gruffly. “We’ve gotta find some place to spend the night.”

  As Marisha fell in step with him, she noticed the disgruntled expression. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” he snapped, then grudgingly admitted, “Yes. I lost five dollars back there.”

  “I was talking to a preacher—” As Marisha paused to point him out to Justin, she saw him wander into the Pack Train saloon. She’d never heard of a preacher going into a saloon before. She was so startled by the sight that she forgot to finish her sentence.

  “I wish I’d talked to him,” Justin muttered. “I’d still have my five dollars.”

  While she was still trying to puzzle out what kind of preacher went into saloons, she noticed the two women who were lounging about the saloon doors. She knew the type of women who frequented saloons. But these two didn’t resemble the plump and slovenly females she’d seen outside the saloons in Sitka. Their lips were painted a scarlet red, their cheeks were rouged, and their eyes thickly outlined with kohl. One had hair as black as soot; the other’s was a bright carrot red, but both wore their hair piled atop the head in a mass of tight curls. Their waists were tightly corseted, which made their bosoms appear unusually large. But it was the bright colors of their satiny skirts that caught Marisha’s eye—jewel-bright colors of red and green. After she was rich, all her gowns were going to be brilliant like theirs—no more dark, somber browns and blues for her.

  One of the saloon women puffed on a cigar. Marisha had never seen a woman smoke before. She thought it was something only men did. The more she thought about it, the more she thought she’d like to try it sometime and see what it was like.

  Her aunt would certainly never approve of it. But her aunt also considered saloon women wicked and sinful. But what did her aunt know about it? She was an old maid; she’d never loved a man in her whole life; she had never so much as even allowed a man to touch her. She couldn’t possibly know what it was like. All that fuss she’d made about how horrible kissing was—that hadn’t been true at all. Marisha was almost at the point of believing the exact opposite of anything her aunt had told her.

  Fascinated by the sights and sounds of this booming, bustling town, Marisha didn’t mind that she had to follow Justin over half of it in search of a place to sleep. Every place so far had been full. Outside the last one, Marisha lowered her heavy bundle to the ground and waited while Justin went inside.

  Within minutes, he was at the door motioning for her to come in. “They have some empty beds,” Marisha said as she carried her cumbersome bundles into the small inn.

  Justin nodded. “Your room is down this hallway.” He led the way down the narrow corridor and stopped in front of one of the doors. He set his own pack down, then unlocked the door and stepped aside to let her enter.

  The room was small. The bed took up most of the space, leaving little room for moving around. A washstand with a basin and a pitcher stood in one corner. Beyond that, the room was as bare of adornment as her old bedroom at home had been.

  Hesitantly she turned to Justin and tried to find something good to say about it. “It’s … clean.”

  “Yes.” He handed her the key.

  “Where will you be?”

  “This was the last room they had,” he replied. “I’ll find a place to sleep outside. I might as well get used to it. I’ll be doing a lot of it on the trail.”

  “I almost forgot.” She dug out her handkerchief with the money and started to untie the knotted ends. “How much was the room?”

  Self-consciously he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I know I said you had to pay your own way, but I don’t feel right about taking money from a woman.”

  “I can’t stay here. Since you paid for it, you sleep here and I’ll go out
side.” She grabbed up the bundles she’d deposited on the bed.

  “I can’t let you do that.” Justin stood in the doorway, blocking it so she couldn’t get by him. “It isn’t right for a woman to sleep out in the open like that.”

  “Like you said, I’m going to be doing a lot of it on the trail, so I might as well get used to it.”

  “Pretend this room is a present and just accept it. Instead of buying you candy or some trinket, I got you a place to sleep. Stop arguing and be a little grateful.”

  “I am. It’s just the money—”

  “Forget it. After what I lost this afternoon, I’m going to have to find work anyway to raise some more cash so I can buy the supplies and gear I’ll need for the trip. The price of this room isn’t going to change that.”

  Marisha could tell he was becoming impatient with her, but despite what he said, it still didn’t seem fair to her that she should sleep snug and warm while he was out in the damp night.

  “The bed’s big enough for two people,” she said, then saw his shocked look.

  “Marisha, are you saying that I sleep with you? Do you know what you’re suggesting?”

  For a brief moment she didn’t follow his meaning. Then it occurred to her that a bed was a place where people did more than sleep. It was where a man and woman mated. She stared at the bed, wondering about the act her aunt had so reviled—the one that God had designed man and woman to be able to perform. She didn’t trust her aunt’s word on anything. She wanted to find out things for herself, experience everything and decide for herself if it was good or bad.

  Soberly she faced Justin. “I know what I’m saying. I want you to stay here tonight with me.”

  Still he hesitated. “Marisha, I’ve made you no promises.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m on my way to the Klondike as soon as I can get the rest of the money I need.”

  “I know. That’s where I’m going, too—to find gold.” She opened the bundle in which she’d packed the food she’d taken from the house. “If you’re hungry, I can offer you a cold meal. It isn’t much, just some dried salmon, bread, and homemade cheese.”

  “The bread and cheese sounds good.” Justin hauled his heavy pack inside the room and shut the door.

  Later that night as the wick burned low, the flame sputtered and wavered, throwing out a faint light that left the bed in shadows, Marisha lay in Justin’s arms. She was aware that the way he kissed and caressed her had eased much of her anxiety. Still, no matter how much she was enjoying the way he was making her feel now, she didn’t know what was to come.

  She wished there had been someone she could have asked before she lay with a man for the first time—someone who could have explained things to her.

  Her knowledge of the mating act was limited to the most rudimentary level, garnered from observing animals coupling. She had never seen a man’s organ—not even that of a baby boy. She could only surmise that it protruded from him the way it did on a dog or a bull. She resented her ignorance and nearly threw back the heavy quilt so she could see him, but that was too bold for even her to countenance.

  During the awkward, fumbling moments after he moved on top of her, she didn’t know what to do. She could feel something hard probing for her opening, then he found it and pushed into her, but there was resistance from within. It hurt. At the moment of full penetration, a sharp, searing pain ripped through her. As she bit her lower lip to keep from crying out, Marisha was prepared to concede that in this instance maybe her aunt was right and there was nothing enjoyable about the mating act despite the pleasurable kissing and caressing that had preceded it.

  Gradually, as he continued to rock in and out of her, the aching began to ease, and the sensation of his rhythmic movement became faintly pleasurable. The tempo increased. Within moments, he began to groan and jerk convulsively. When the last shudder faded, he lay motionless, his weight heavy on her. Then he levered himself off of her and rolled onto the mattress in apparent exhaustion. There was a faint throbbing sensation between her legs. It wasn’t so much pain as it was a vaguely hollow feeling.

  “Mmm, that was good,” Justin murmured.

  Marisha concluded that she must not have been as inadequate as she had thought. When she tried to decide how she had felt about it, she couldn’t make up her mind. She couldn’t truthfully say that she had enjoyed it, but neither could she say that she had hated it.

  CHAPTER XLII

  Since Marisha had never slept with anyone before, she hadn’t realized another person’s body could hold so much heat. It was like cuddling up to a glowing coal stove. If for no other reason, she probably would have considered letting the sleeping arrangement stand for that one alone; but she had found that the second time Justin made love to her was better than the first, the third better than the second, the fourth better than the third. As each time became more pleasurable than the last, her sexual curiosity increased. She became more actively involved—not merely responding to his touch but touching him. Sometimes they had made love twice in one night. Once they had even done it in the morning with the light from the rising sun streaming through the window. After that, Marisha no longer had to guess by feel what his organ looked like. It was as if she finally had an outlet for all the passions that had been repressed for so long, and she had to explore them all fully. The discovery process proved to be highly satisfying.

  Not that they were able to spend all their time making love; they couldn’t. The Klondike and its gold was still their priority, but the lack of sufficient funds had forced them to delay their departure to Canada’s Yukon Territory. First they had to find work to earn the necessary money.

  Marisha was lucky. On her second day in Skaguay, she got a job washing dishes at one of the hash houses. Although she was paid very little, she was entitled to a free meal. Plus she always managed to slip out some food for Justin so he wouldn’t have to spend his money to eat. Still, her daily wages amounted to little more than the rent they had to pay for the room.

  After she had spent three days washing dishes, one of the customers commented to the cook and owner of the eating establishment, “You’re making a mistake, Mabe, keepin’ that purty yeller-haired gal hidin’ back there in the kitchen, a-slavin’ over them dirty dishes. She should be takin’ orders out front so the boys can see her. I’d bet you’d do twice the business.”

  Just like that, she went from being a dishwasher to a waitress. She not only caught on to the new job quickly, but she also learned to handle the customers, who were almost exclusively male. After a week of being surrounded by men, Marisha couldn’t figure out why her aunt had regarded them as crude, objectionable brutes, ready to pounce on the first female they saw. A smile or a kind word was all most of her customers wanted. Some seemed lonely and wanted to talk.

  Still all the attention she received from the men was a new and heady experience for her. Now she walked with her head held high, at last taking pride in her looks. “Glory Girl,” they called her. It all started shortly after she started working in the front. A customer—an old sourdough—who’d been there in the morning came back that noon with a friend and pointed to Marisha, declaring, “There she is. Ain’t she a glory to behold?” The tag stuck. Truthfully, Marisha liked it.

  She wrapped a rag around the handle of the coffeepot to shield her hand from the metal’s heat, then picked up the pot and began making the rounds of the tables, refilling cups. She paused beside the preacher’s chair.

  “More coffee, Mr. Cole?” She smiled with practiced ease. Although he’d only been in the restaurant twice since she’d been working there, he wasn’t the sort of man a person could forget.

  He nodded affirmatively and slid his cup over so she could fill it. As usual he was dressed in his somber black coat and starched white shirt. She’d never seen him wear any other clothes, yet he always looked neat and clean. She especially noticed his hands. They were smooth and pale, not imbedded with grime and roughened by calluses like the han
ds of most of her customers. There wasn’t even a speck of dirt under his blunt fingernails.

  “Hey, Glory Girl, bring that pot over here! We need some more coffee.” The request was bellowed across the room. Marisha didn’t have to turn around and look to recognize the voice of a leather-skinned wrangler with one of the pack outfits in town.

  “Be right there, Curly,” she called back, then inquired of the preacher, “Need anything else?”

  “This’ll do.” He picked up the coffee cup and rocked the chair back onto its rear legs as Marisha started across the room.

  The preacher always sat at the same corner table in the chair facing the door, and he always sat alone.

  When she reached Curly’s table, he held out his cup for her to fill. A flop-eared cap covered his head and hid his thin crop of hair. Marisha doubted that Curly was much past thirty, but he was already going bald. She glanced at the two men with him, not recognizing either of them.

  “Got a smile to sweeten this coffee for me?” Curly asked.

  She smiled at him as she turned to pour coffee into his companions’ cups. Although she was conscious of their ogling stares, she was almost used to that.

  “You work too hard in this place,” Curly declared.

  “A girl has to eat.”

  “If eatin’s the only thing keepin’ you here, we can solve that, can’t we, boys?” Curly grinned at his friends.

  “You bet,” replied the scraggly-bearded man sitting in the chair closest to Marisha. “You can move into the shack with us. Why, that way you’d have a place to sleep and plenty to eat, too. An’ you wouldn’t get lonely ’cause we’d be there t’ keep you company.”

  “I already have those things. Sorry.” Such suggestions had been made to her countless times already, too many for her to regard them as offensive.

  “A purty gal like you needs someone t’ look after her and protect her an’ keep her safe from harm,” he insisted. “Someone like us.”

  “Sorry, fellas, but I’m already spoken for.” Marisha smiled as she went about filling the second man’s cup with coffee.