Ill Repute

by Nanette Kinslow

  He looked thin, she thought, his skin fair and smooth. She dressed him in the warmed long johns and he lifted his head briefly. “Where’s Alice?” he muttered.

  “I’m right here, Joseph. You need to get in bed.” She prodded and pushed and eventually he lumbered into the bed and fell back against the pillows. Alice put every blanket over him and soon he stopped shivering. She stripped herself, changing into warmed long johns as well and banked the fire. With all their clothing laid out to dry along the bench, she pulled back the covers and gently bandaged his ankle. He lay completely still and she checked his breathing. She could feel that he was chilled. His face was pale and cool beneath her hand. He smelled of the icy creek and pine needles and she tucked the blankets in close to him.

  “Joseph, I do not care about your rules tonight. Move over.” Alice climbed in beside him and wrapped herself around him. The warmed clothing had helped but she could feel the chill of his body and she rubbed his arms and legs briskly as she pressed up against him.

  Once he breathed easier she laid her head on his chest listening to his heartbeat. She had never been so close to him. She could smell his hair, clean and masculine. She reached around his chest and pulled herself to him.

  Her warm tear fell against his chest and she clung to him. She listened to him breathing softly and felt the weight of him beside her. She had always taken it for granted, she thought, how safe and comfortable it could feel to have the body of a man beside her. But this was not just any man. This was Joseph and right now, for this moment, he was beside her, almost holding her the way she wished he would. She wanted to feel his arms around her and his lips on hers. Alice wanted Joseph to love her, the way she had grown to love him. Another warm tear fell.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Joseph awoke he could not recall how he came to be home in the warmth of the bed but he was certain Alice had somehow gotten him there. Lined neatly along the bench before the fire lay all of his clothing, and the room was glowing softly with lamplight. He pulled himself up on the bed and felt that his muscles ached with stiffness. He was wearing clean long johns, something they changed less frequently in the winter since gathering water for laundry had become such an ordeal. He could smell Alice’s dandelion coffee warm on the stove and he detected what he thought was the aroma of a chicken soup. He counted the hens which were now huddled on Alice’s bedroll and saw that their number had been reduced by one. Alice was nowhere in the cabin.

  He climbed painfully from the bed and stood up, feeling the ache of every muscle. Then the cabin door opened, she stepped inside and closed it behind her quickly.

  “You’re awake!” Alice set down her armful of wood and rushed to his side. “I have a pail for you here,” she offered. “You probably shouldn’t walk around much. I’ll step out so you can use the pail and I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m fine,” he argued.

  “Joseph.” She looked at him seriously. “Please.”

  He followed her instruction and when she returned she helped him back into bed, fluffing the pillows until he sat up comfortably.

  “I made soup. I took some of the carrots and potatoes from the dugout. Those birds are getting nice and fat living here in the cabin, but we are not. I think we need something besides dried food once in a while. I noticed how thin you are when I changed your clothes. I’ll try to get some meat on your bones before spring so Yvonne doesn’t think she’s betrothed to a skeleton.”

  “What happened?” he asked as she handed him a cup of the coffee.

  “How much do you remember?” Alice stood beside the bed, tucking the blankets into the sides.

  “I remember getting wedged in the rocks, and the wolves. I called out and then it was as if you were just there.” He furrowed his brow in thought. “Then you had the pickaxe… and it broke!” He sat upright.

  “The rocks were frozen. The axe is broken, but you’re alive.”

  “How did you get me back here?” he asked, settling back.

  “You half-walked and I half-carried you. I guess it’s just as well you’re so thin,” Alice chuckled.

  “You undressed me. These are clean.”

  “You were soaked. Then I put you to bed and warmed you up. In a few days I think you’ll be fine.”

  Joseph struggled to remember. He had an impression of standing next to the bed naked and then she was beside him, warm and inviting amid the quilts.

  He looked at her, searching for the memory, but her expression was open and he saw no trace that anything intimate had happened between them.

  “You were in the bed with me,” he said.

  “Only until you warmed up. Then I slept with the chickens.” Alice smiled and filled a large bowl with the soup.

  He looked at her as she handed him the bowl and she nodded. “Eat. It’s rather good actually.”

  He took the spoon from her, watched her cross the room and tasted the soup.

  The broth was rich, flavorful and delicately seasoned and the warmth of it filled his empty stomach. The chunks of poultry were meaty and tender. They had chosen not to slaughter the chickens until closer to spring but he had noticed himself how thin they both were getting. When the snow melted they would be leaving anyway, he thought. He enjoyed the aroma of the hearty soup and scooped up a chunk of carrot with his spoon and savored the taste of it.

  “Alice this is really good.”

  “I’m sorry I took it upon myself to kill the chicken. It was not easy in the snow. I think we need to eat better. There’s plenty of soup here, we can enjoy it for several days and I’m thinking tomorrow I could throw in some rice.” She handed him a thick slice of bread.

  Once Joseph had shown her how to make the starter into bread she had come up with several ways to make the sourdough, sometimes as loaves and several times as fat rolls. Whenever she cut the bread she’d gather every crumb for the chickens and Joseph tasted a piece of the meat wondering if the sourdough bread was the reason the birds were so fat.

  When Joseph had satisfied his hunger he lay back on the pillow, oddly tired. “How long have I been asleep?” he asked.

  “Three days.”

  He sat up. “Three days?”

  “Yes, it was getting terribly lonely. How could anyone possibly live up here alone? You were out cold but at least I could talk to you. I would die up here alone.”

  Joseph recalled how he thought when he first met Alice that she was too frail to survive in Alaska. Instead, she had spent every day on her feet and worked constantly. It was he who had suffered the mine collapse and now had nearly frozen to death. He was the one being cared for and in bed. He laid back his head.

  “Alice, come here.”

  She set aside the dishes and walked to the side of the bed.

  Joseph threw aside the covers and gestured that she get into the bed.

  Alice looked at him seriously. She did not understand why he was inviting her into the bed. Afraid to imagine that he cared for her, she climbed in beside him cautiously and lay stiffly beside him.

  He pulled her close to him and she laid her head against his chest.

  Alice felt his hard sob and then another. He never said a word but she snuggled close to him while he cried silently until he drifted off to sleep. It was just an emotional release, she thought, hoping that another time he would ask her to his bed for more. She leaned up to his face and kissed his cheek softly and ruffled his beard. She wondered, not for the first time, what his face looked like beneath all the hair.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the dark months of the Alaskan winter Alice never again lay beside Joseph in the bed. As soon as he was active again he cut wood and fashioned a bed for her, low to the floor and covered with a heavy hide so that she could sleep and still have the chickens gather about her feet. He noticed that although she could run in bare feet through the summer months, she often sat with her feet before the stove in the evening to avoid a chill.

  He had measured out all of the gold they had c
ollected and was determined that they would leave in the spring before the earth thawed. There were few choices of routes away from the mountain and he decided that, rather than depart along the nearby inlet, they should hike out the twenty-five mile route to Mooresville. He also knew that the longer they waited the greater the chances were that they would run into not only eager prospectors but also those who would be looking to take advantage of them.

  If he had another man with him, someone who knew the ways of bandits and thieves along the trail he would be less concerned, but a woman would have less chance of defending herself and would attract trouble. He’d watched Alice in her native garb over the winter and decided that it would be best if they traveled while it was still cold enough for her to wear the heavy clothing. It would also be a good idea to hide her face somehow. He’d seen her when they returned from trapping or gathering wood. She’d throw off her hood and smile up at him and it never failed to surprise him how beautiful she was within the bulk of the leather and furs. If she were to flash that smile the wrong way he was sure it would only mean trouble.

  Jack had visited them several times over the months and Joseph could not help but notice the effect Alice had on him. He even began to wonder if Jack was falling in love with her. Once or twice he figured that he couldn’t blame him. Alice was capable and beautiful but she wasn’t the right kind of woman. He wondered, had she been raised to be a lady, if she wouldn’t turn every head. But that was not who she was.

  “I’d like to talk about leaving,” he said to her one night after dinner.

  “It’s so early,” she said. “There’s still so much darkness.” Alice folded the clothing she had washed and hung to dry, now clean but stiff from drying beside the stove.

  “Come here and sit down,” he said.

  She looked up at him curiously, set aside the laundry and faced him across the table.

  “I’m considering not going into Tutchone at all.”

  “How else would we get to the river?” she asked.

  “We’ll go through the White Pass. It’s much longer, over twenty miles and hard traveling most of the way, but we can get out sooner. We’re about halfway down that trail where we are now. If we wait until May or June to go out we’ll hit the rush. The town’s already a mess. Lots of prospectors will be hiking in, maybe hundreds. We’ll be going out early and in the opposite direction. My biggest concern is not the hiking. It’s the men we’ll meet along the way.”

  “Alright,” she said.

  “We’ll take the gold of course, whatever food we’ll need, the gun and some other supplies. I’m going to build you a pack to carry and I want you to start wearing it around the cabin and while we’re out. We’ll put some rocks in it, start small and work up. I’ll do the same. I’m also going to fashion some belts to carry gold in as well. I want to be ready immediately at the first thaw, no later. We should kill the last of the chickens before we go and do some extra trapping.”

  Alice nodded. They’d spoken of leaving for months, but now it seemed so serious and she found herself choking back a tear.

  “Are you afraid of leaving?” he asked, puzzled by her reaction. He had expected her to be excited.

  “No, not afraid. Maybe a bit sad is all.”

  He studied her face and although she seemed to try to smile it was clear she was upset.

  “Do you really like it here?” he asked.

  “That’s not it. Don’t worry Joseph I’ll be ready and I trust you to make the right choice about when we should go.” She stood up and returned to the laundry, turning her back to him so that he did not see her distress. She knew that the moment they stepped off the boat in Seattle she would never see him again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alice ducked as another snowball flew past her face. They had trapped a dozen rabbits in their snares and laid them out in front of the cabin to be dressed. She found a fat clump of the snow beside the woodpile and tossed it at Joseph hitting him in the center of his back.

  Joseph’s excitement at finally being able to return to his Yvonne had greatly improved his spirits. Alice fought to smile every day and tried to enjoy their remaining time together.

  When Joseph threw a snowball back at her she responded to his cheerfulness and returned fire.

  The snowy war continued until they were both out of breath and they tumbled into the cabin together laughing hard. Alice wriggled out of her backpack. She was now able to carry nearly fifty pounds easily and she reached up to help Joseph out of his own, much heavier pack. He turned to her and laughed as she threw off her hood and smiled at him broadly.

  Alice noticed that he always looked at her oddly whenever she took off her hood, as if perhaps she annoyed him in some way.

  Joseph suddenly thought about all the times she had smiled that way. He could not remember her being irritable or demanding or ever acting spoiled or childish.

  “You’re nothing like I thought,” he said. “The day you came up here I thought you would be impossible to live with. I almost sent you to stay with Jack once.” He chuckled dryly.

  “You almost sent me away?” she asked, choking on the words.

  “Once, way back. Before the mine caved in that day. It was just a thought.”

  Alice swallowed hard. “Excuse me,” she said quietly and left the cabin.

  “What?” he said after her. “I didn’t do it,” he muttered. “It was just a thought.”

  Alice ran along the creek until she found a private place hidden amid the evergreens and she kicked hard at the snow.

  Why had she let herself think he was any different than any other man? It didn’t even matter if you have sex with them or not, women were a convenience, like a pet. As soon as she was in his way or he didn’t like what she had done he was like all the others. He would just get rid of her, just send her away. She was a fool to fall in love with him. Her mama was right. Men could be really nice and sometimes terribly generous, but they all thought just of themselves. She had taken such good care of him, though she had never expected anything in return, just basic kindness. He had taken her in, she told herself, but soon it would be over.

  Alice wondered if that was what really bothered her. As soon as they were out of Alaska he’d go off on his own, off to Yvonne. He would never see another woman, and certainly not her, Alice thought. She was just a whore who slept under his roof for a while. In fact she fully expected he would never tell anyone about her and would likely forget about her completely before long. She cursed under her breath that she, on the other hand, would remember Joseph Southers for the rest of her life.

  Alice took a deep breath, refusing to cry over something she could not change and gathered an armful of wood.

  “It bothered you what I said before,” he said as she hung up her parka and then stirred the soup.

  “What was that?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “About sending you to live with Jack. It bothered you.”

  “No,” she replied. “It happened all the time when I was working. Even in the beginning when I was young. I was there for sex, not a wife or a companion, just for sex. You and I never had sex, but it’s the same thing. I’ve been sent away before. Don’t worry about it.”

  Her words struck him as cold and hard. It was true they had not had sex of any kind and she was not his wife. He looked down at his calloused hands and stared at them blankly.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” He looked up at her and saw that her jaw was set.

  “Don’t worry about it, Joseph. You’re making it into something it isn’t. I’m used to it. It happens when you’re a whore.”

  Joseph sat back on the bench and watched her moving with determination around the room. He hadn’t said it. In fact, more and more he didn’t even think of her that way. He thought about what would happen when she went off on her own. What would she look like to someone who knew nothing about her past, who only saw her as a woman? She set out the starter for bread, stirred the soup, and strai
ghtened the beds. She’d look capable, he thought, and pretty. Some men would think she’d make a good wife, until they took her to their bed. Then what? Would she turn into a she-devil, forcing herself onto a man sexually? It occurred to him that he had no idea whatsoever what it would be like to have sex with a prostitute… or any woman at all. He shook his head. He was sure when the time was right Yvonne would not be disappointed. Besides, she was certainly a lady and had no experience either. Thoughts of Yvonne demurely clad in a lacy robe on their wedding night filled his mind and he stared into space.

  Alice knew his expression and she sighed. She decided that she had better get over Joseph before they began their journey down the mountain. By the time they reached the river she wanted to feel free of him and her emotions towards him. She’d find the right place, open her shop and see all the men she liked or none at all if she pleased. Joseph had assured her she would have enough gold to never have to worry over money. She knew that she would not have sex for money. She’d be free, free of the whorehouses, free of Alaska and free of Joseph.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Joseph looked at the icicle clinging to the corner of the roof and knew it was time to leave. The last month had been difficult but he was elated to be going home a rich man. He worried about the trip down the mountain, especially with Alice along, but it would be worth it. He went over his plans for leaving Alaska every day and his plans for returning home to Pennsylvania every night. One minute in his imagination he’d be emerging from the White Pass, the next finely dressed for his wedding day. It was all just a matter of time.

  Alice stepped up the trail to the cabin and saw him looking at the ice. She too knew it was time. Now she wanted it to be over. She knew that she had no hope of getting Joseph out of her heart while they lived together in the cabin. She saw him smile more lately than he had the entire time she had been there, little lines of joy around his eyes. She wanted him to be happy and she wanted happiness for herself. She tried to tell herself that she had to walk away from Joseph before she could begin to search for her own happiness without him.