Ill Repute

by Nanette Kinslow

“You’re the…the,” Jack stammered.

  “Yep, the whore from town. If I give you this you can’t tell anyone you saw me here.” She held the cup before him.

  “They think you’re dead.”

  “Dead?” Joseph exclaimed.

  “They found a girl in the water this morning and talk all over is that the new dove vanished. They thought it was her.” Jack sat down at the table.

  “It’s not me. Joseph said I could hide here for a bit until I can leave. Who is she?”

  “I don’t know.” Jack took a sip of his beverage. “Did you bring coffee with you?” He tasted the drink again.

  “It’s a weed she cooked up,” Joseph said.

  “If you have any more I could make some good trades with this. I can definitely get color for it.”

  “I think that if you can put any real amount of this together, Alice, Jack here could trade it for a few other things as well,” Joseph said.

  “If I could get enough to go home that would be fantastic,” she said.

  “I think maybe you can make a trade with Strawberry first,” Joseph suggested.

  “If I can get me a jar of this myself then you’ve got a deal,” Jack responded.

  “How long would it take to make more, a good amount?” Joseph asked Alice.

  “Not long, and if you both helped, much quicker. I found a huge patch in the clearing upriver. We’d have to gather it and then there’s roasting time and grinding. The grinder is not too big, but if we all work together, a couple of hours,” Alice said. “Who is Strawberry?”

  “Her name isn’t really Strawberry. We can’t say her name really. It sounds something like Shock-woo, with a whoosh at the end sort of. She’s one of the native women and she works with leather mostly. She won’t tell anyone you’re here. She barely speaks English and she lives with one of the prospectors on the east face. Everyone thinks less of her than they do the doves,” Jack said, drinking from his cup.

  Alice furrowed her brow. “Is she a nice person?”

  “No,” Joseph laughed. “She’s great with a hide though and we need to get something on your feet.” He pointed to Alice’s bare feet.

  Jack leaned over and noticed the girl’s shapely ankles and nodded in appreciation. “I have money for other things,” Jack grinned at her.

  “No.” Joseph looked at him sternly.

  “Not a problem,” Jack responded.

  After breakfast, Alice squatted among the dandelions on the sun-washed patch of earth that surrounded the meadow and worked her sharp stick into the soil, prying free the deep roots and dropping them into her pail. “If you leave the tops on I can make a salad for lunch,” she called out to the men.

  Both men continued to dig and within an hour they had filled several containers with the plants.

  In the cabin, Joseph stoked the fire while Alice and Jack rinsed the roots at the creek.

  “I didn’t mean anything calling you a whore and all. Are you with Joseph now? It seemed like he got a little upset there over my offer to you.”

  “It’s okay, Jack. No, I’m not with Joseph, nor have I been. He’s very determined to get home to his fiancée. He has no interest in me.”

  “So you’re not working now then?”

  “Not here, no. I think that Joseph would be very upset if I were to. Maybe another time, alright?”

  “His fiancée must be something else ‘cause if you were living under my roof I couldn’t keep away.”

  “Thank you, Jack. That’s very sweet.”

  Joseph stood in the doorway of the cabin watching the two squatted down beside the stream. It had been clear to him all day that Jack found her very attractive and he had to admit to himself she was quite beautiful. He had no right to tell her what she could or couldn’t do, but he didn’t want to imagine Jack having her, especially here. She could wait and resume her business once she moved on, he thought. Not now.

  “Alice.” Joseph walked out across the yard. “The stove is ready and I need something from you.”

  “Sure,” she responded and stood up, following him into the cabin. She sensed that he did not like the attention Jack was giving her and she stood beside the stove quietly.

  Joseph helped her spread the roots over the long pan and slid it into the oven.

  “I need you to draw your foot on this piece of hide here with this coal.” He handed her the leather and charcoal from the stove.

  “Alright.” Alice looked up at him. He seemed so interested in her being in her bare feet, but a picture seemed odd. It was certainly nothing any man had ever asked her to do before now. She looked at her foot and the leather.

  “The outline,” he pointed out. “So Strawberry knows the size to make your shoes.

  “Ah,” Alice smiled. “That makes sense.”

  When all of the dandelion root had been ground and packed into jars they had nearly two dozen containers and the three nodded to each other with approval.

  “You take one for yourself,” Joseph said to Jack. “And there’ll be more here in a few days. If that’s alright with you, Alice,” Joseph asked. “Take a couple of jars up to Strawberry and tell her I need a pair of moccasins for summer and another pair for winter. I need another leather apron, smaller, and some sort of light jacket. Alice, do you have a blouse or something she could use for size?”

  “Wait,” Alice said. “I heard on the boat that the natives here will trade for clothing, especially anything fancy. Could I give you something, Jack, which she could use for both a size and trade if she’s interested?”

  Both men seemed to think it was a good idea and Alice pulled two dresses from her bags. Both were elaborately embroidered and accented with glass beads.

  “Strawberry will certainly love those!” Jack grinned.

  “The rest of the jars you can take into town and get what you can for them,” Joseph continued.

  Jack filled his packs carefully with the jars and strode down the trail, a wide grin upon his face.

  “I’d like to do some digging at the spot you found yesterday,” Joseph announced.

  Alice was certain he was glad to be rid of Jack. She’d noticed him looking at her ankles enough that she had let down her skirt and kept it down over her knees whenever she needed to squat down. Now her skirt was filthy and drenched from the dandelion leaves. Joseph was kind to allow her to stay with him but, no matter how he obviously disapproved of her, it would not change who she was.

  “Why did you ask Jack to get winter shoes? How long do you think I will need to stay?”

  “Before I answer that I have to say that I wasn’t comfortable, Alice. Not here. You do whatever you want somewhere else. I can’t have you doing your business here, not in my place.”

  “You made it clear that, not only do you disapprove of what I do, but also that you don’t want it to happen here, at your place. It didn’t. I respect that, Joseph. I just want to know how long I might be here, that’s all. I will do no business with your friends or partners or anyone else while I am here, I promise you that. I know you don’t like me, or what I do, but if I’m going to be here through the winter I would like to know how long.”

  Joseph took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at her and saw the frustration plain on her face, her soft features hardened like the stone ground.

  “The wagon comes sometimes in the fall, but only sometimes. If it doesn’t come this year you will be here all winter.”

  “Oh,” she replied.

  Chapter Nine

  The afternoon hours melted into evening before the pair sat back along the clearing, the day’s treasure in the pan glittering in the sunlight.

  “I was nearly ready to give up.” Joseph watched the light sparkle on the handful of nuggets they had extracted from the scorched earth. They had built a fire over the spot when the hole got too deep into the permafrost, then cleared it away and dug where the ground had melted. The excavating was hard work and Joseph had turned to his pickaxe. One of the nugg
ets was nearly the size of a walnut and it was beginning to sink in that he might actually have struck it rich.

  Alice looked down at her raw hands. “I don’t know what those pieces are worth. They told me how much to measure out at the house, but that doesn’t help really. Some of them are pretty good sized and there’s probably more. How many would be enough for your fiancée?” she asked.

  “Well,” he said, looking into the hole. “I’m not sure, but it’s more than this.”

  He turned to look at her a bit surprised at her biting question. She was plainly as exhausted as he was. Her face was streaked with clay dust and perspiration and her dress was filthy. He saw her look down at her hands and he could see they were raw and blistered. He knew that the claim was his and thus so was all the gold on the land, but she had worked alongside him all day without complaint. She had been unusually quiet and he suspected it was because he had not allowed her to have sex with Jack.

  “Do you think I’m wrong? That I have no right to tell you who you can have sex with? I guess I don’t have the right.”

  “What?” she looked up at him, her eyes questioning beneath the black hat.

  “You’re angry right, because I said you couldn’t have sex with Jack?”

  “No, Joseph, of course not. I’m just sorry that you don’t approve of me. I understand though. You were brought up to think there are two kinds of women. Good women who keep their legs closed and then women like me who are lewd and filthy. We’re different. I have my own ideas too. Maybe when you go home, if your fiancée enjoys sex you’ll understand. It can be nice and not so terrible. I’m a good person, really I am. If I’m upset it’s because you don’t seem to see that. That’s harder than you thinking that I’m just a whore.”

  “I don’t like that word,” he said quietly.

  “Me either,” she responded. “Joseph, tell me about your fiancée. What is it she wants you to do up here?” Alice wondered why any woman would send her man so far away and for such a long time on a mission such as this.

  “It was her father actually. She passed my hardware store every day on the way to her riding lesson and I began to watch for her. She always looked very beautiful and one day the carriage hit a rut in front of the shop and broke a spoke. She was upset and terrified. I was able to repair it and the next day I stood outside and waited for her to pass and she waved. One day I signaled for the wagon to stop and asked if I could pay her a visit.”

  Alice could see the faraway look in his eye and it was plain that he was completely taken with her.

  “I visited for a year before I got up the nerve to ask her to marry me. I had saved every penny for a ring. She told me first I had to ask her father. He let me know on no uncertain terms that the income I made from my store would not keep her in the style he wanted. He sent her away to a fancy school in New York and told me to come back when I had made my fortune. I read that there were rumors of gold up here so I closed the shop and brought up all the gear I could that first summer. I’ve been here digging ever since.”

  “So there’s no exact amount you’re looking for?” she asked.

  “No.” He furrowed his brow. “I have to say that we found more today than I found all summer last year.”

  “Have you heard from her? A letter, anything?” Alice asked.

  “Yes, a couple of letters. She loves New York. I don’t imagine she’d care for this place up here,” he chuckled.

  Alice looked down at her hands thoughtfully.

  That night, while lying in the dim light of the cabin, Joseph imagined Yvonne in the wagon as she passed his shop. In a pretty turquoise ensemble she looked freshly pressed and her hair was perfectly arranged. She was slender and delicate and very much the lady, proper and prim and modest at his approach. She was everything any man could ever want in a woman he thought, frail and helpless, and he could not wait to get home and show her how successful he had been.

  Several days had passed and he and Alice had spent nearly all of their time thawing and melting their way into the ground. The hole had grown deep enough that Joseph had decided it was time to begin to shore up the sides. It seemed that the deeper they dug the more gold they discovered. He lay awake at night thinking about Yvonne, pretty in her dress. Meanwhile Alice watched her hands grow calloused from the hard digging.

  Alice imagined things too. She imagined being completely independent for the first time in her life. If the gold was worth what Joseph seemed to think it was then neither of them would ever have to work another day in their lives. He talked about how they would have to get it down the mountain and leave the area as discreetly as possible and cash in the gold in Seattle for banknotes. Then they could go anywhere they wanted. He said more than once that she’d never have to be with a stranger again. As long as she could remember, there had been strangers, a constant succession of them. She wondered who she would be if she wasn’t a prostitute.

  “Haven’t you ever imagined living somewhere amazing or having a place of your own?” he asked.

  “I thought about having a hat shop one summer,” she replied. “But who would come, except maybe the ladies from the brothel?”

  “If you don’t go back you’ll never have to tell anyone about that life,” he advised.

  “What would I tell them?”

  “That you just came from somewhere else.”

  “What if I fell in love?” Alice had begun to consider it might be quite nice to be in love and completely comfortable with someone.

  “Especially then,” he said.

  “Then I’ll never be able to be honest with anyone.”

  Joseph shook his head.

  “If you leave maybe I’ll stay here,” she considered aloud.

  Joseph frowned. “You’d change your mind in the winter. This is not place for a woman alone.”

  Chapter Ten

  The beam split with a wrenching creak and the soil collapsed around him, dumping onto his shoulders and knocking him to the ground.

  Alice scrambled across the clearing and began to claw at the gravel and stone. She saw him move slightly beneath the rubble and called to him loudly as she pulled away the debris. When she felt his shoulder she pulled as hard as she could until he began to sit up. She pressed him to get to his feet.

  Joseph groaned and tried to shake his head.

  “Get up! We need to get out of here.” She tried to get him to his feet. He stood up and staggered and she led him to a boulder where he sat down. She filled a cup with water and offered it to him.

  He drank down the water and looked around in confusion. “What happened?”

  “I sounded like one of the support beams gave way.”

  “I need to fix it,” he said and tried to focus.

  “Not today,” she said. “We’ve been out here too late as it is. Let’s go home.”

  “I’ll be alright. We’ll just dig out whatever fell.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Joseph. Let’s go.” Alice led him to the water’s edge and they washed their hands and faces. She noticed he seemed somewhat disoriented and she took her time leading him back to the cabin.

  At the cabin he lay down on the bed and she propped him up with all of the pillows from both their beds. She watched that he did not sleep too hard and when he began to complain that he was hungry she made up a light meal and pulled up a chair next to the bed.

  “I’m fine, really. I’d prefer you did not fuss over me,” he insisted.

  “If you don’t care if you get hurt then I do,” she scolded. “If anything happened to you I would be lost. You’ve hidden all the gold and I have no idea how to get out of here except to wait for a wagon with no schedule and that friend of yours who comes and goes before we’re even awake.”

  “That reminds me, did you check the hen house? There’s a box behind it where he leaves things.”

  “That is exactly what I mean. I don’t know anything.” Alice sighed and walked out to the coop and found the sturdy wooden box in the bac
k. It had a lid attached with leather straps.

  She pulled open the heavy cover and found several neatly wrapped packages, all bound tightly with sinewy cords.

  “I had a feeling he was by this morning,” Joseph said as she entered the cabin.

  Alice set the packages on the bed and sat in the chair. Inside was a small jar of gold dust, several tightly wrapped packages of meats, mostly bacon and dried moose. The larger packages contained a pair of soft moccasins and a fringed shift which Joseph pulled out and handed to her. Beneath the bundle was a letter.

  Alice admired the items, setting the moccasins on the floor and slipping her feet inside them. The footwear was carefully made and fit her perfectly. They were simple and unadorned and Alice loved them immediately. She held up the shift, a soft chemise with a long fringe and slipped it over her head.

  Joseph could not help but smile at her delight. “A fair trade for your fine dresses?” he asked.

  “My fine dresses didn’t keep me warm at night and even I am tired of walking about in my bare feet. I was foolish to come up here so ill prepared.”

  “I’ve heard those words before. When I first came up here I was not prepared either. I suffered a lot trying to get supplies up here and I lost plenty of time and money. That’s how I met Jack. He helped me find the equipment I needed and get it up to the clearing. I lived in a tent up here for a couple of months while I built the cabin. I can’t imagine how people winter up here with nothing but a canvas covering.”

  “What do you do over the winter months? If the ground is this hard in the summer and the creek freezes how do you survive?”

  “That creek runs most of the year and you can bring in ice to melt for drinking. We’ll dig as much as we can, but to use the sluice boxes and pan you have to wait. You think a lot mostly, and try to keep the fire going.”

  “That stove will keep it warm in here all winter?” she asked.

  “I will keep you from freezing to death.”

  “It’s not like any stove I’ve ever seen.”