“There are a dozen pretty girls up there that will do whatever pleases you. And most of them are even prettier than me with full bosoms and thighs that will give you sweet dreams every night.”
Joseph could not believe what he was seeing. Alice’s voice was honey sweet and she moved so openly against him, touching his chest and rubbing her thigh up against him. He cleared his throat loudly. He had never seen her behave in such a manner. The thought occurred to him that although she had teased him constantly she had never acted in such a way towards him.
“I sure would like that.” The man removed his hat and wrung it in his hands. “I wasn’t gonna climb up those rocks, but if you’re sayin’ that there are women up there even half as pretty as you I will just have to do that very thing. Thank you for telling me about them, Ma’am. You have a nice time with her, mister.” He nodded to Joseph and hurried towards a crowd of men that stood on the edge of the ravine. They talked among themselves and Alice and Joseph stood, holding their breaths. The men rushed to gather their packs and began to head up the gorge.
Alice wiped the lipstick from her face with her handkerchief and looked up at Joseph. He stared down at her in complete surprise. For a moment he wondered if she really had wanted him so badly why she had never approached him that way. He was certain that even after all this time he really didn’t know Alice at all.
Joseph hurried Alice along trying to put distance between them and the men in case they changed their mind and returned.
“I need to get off my feet and eat something,” she said eventually. “Can we take a break?”
Joseph nodded his head and looked at her seriously. “Alright. In fact, I don’t want to go on until the temperature drops. Yes, we can stop.”
He followed her into the woodland and helped her assemble the tent, watching her as she moved in his shirt, gathering firewood and setting up camp. He still could not believe what he had seen earlier.
The fire blazed and Alice prepared the best meal she could from what they had brought in their packs. Joseph had told her that they were nearly halfway in their journey and that their travel time was good. He dug into the sauerkraut hungrily.
“I don’t like how many people we’re seeing. They must have started up here just on the rumors of discovery. The real news of those strikes could not possibly have gotten out before now. These people had to have been ready to come here immediately when some of the rivers began to melt. Once the word of a big find hits the cities I don’t want to be anywhere around here. It could be worse than a rush. By the end of summer it could be a stampede.”
Alice looked up at him from her meal. She knew the meaning of the word well and she was sure Joseph was not using it lightly.
“There’s something else, something in the look in their eyes,” Alice said. “Like that man on the rocks.”
Joseph did not want to talk about the man on the rocks. He could see what the man was thinking when he looked at her.
“I’d like to get some sleep,” he said. “When we cut through the lower part of the gorge I want to do it in the darkness with the torch. There are some large ice formations along the way that should hold up better during the cold of night.” He gathered their belongings from around the campfire and climbed into the tent. When Alice joined him she noticed that he had laid out the gun.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At nightfall they dressed warmly as the temperature had dropped significantly. Alice had to admit that she felt safer hidden in the massive parka.
“On the cliff face there are springs that drip all year and build up clusters of huge icicles called cascades,” Joseph told her as they folded up the tent. “They can get big and when they fall they can kill you, and they will be beginning to melt down now. We’ll need to move along one side of the gorge and keep an eye out for them. The torch should give us enough light to spot them and we can work as a team, one of us spotting the icicles on the rock face and the other watching the path along the gorge.”
He looked up at her, wanting to be sure she was paying attention. “The path is wide enough, but if you misstep there’s a drop of about five hundred feet.”
Alice nodded that she understood.
“At night I’m hoping that not only will fewer of the cascades fall but that there will be less people to walk past on the path.”
Alice looked up and saw that the moon was only a thin crescent of light in the sky, peeking out amid thick passing clouds. All of their light would have to come from the torch.
They didn’t ignite their light until they had felt their way around in the near darkness and both packs were on their backs. Joseph touched the torch to the flame and Alice doused the campfire. Then they set out towards the pass.
Alice heard a horrible crash, like the sound of a hundred crystal vases hitting a tiled floor, and she held her breath. A group of people hurried from the pass, clearly terrified. They carried no form of light.
“How many people are coming up through the gorge right now?” Joseph asked one of them.
“There was a group behind us,” he replied, his voice shaky. “But I don’t think they made it.”
Joseph took Alice’s arm and spoke to her seriously. “I want you right beside me.” He reached down and tied a rope around her waist, fastening the other end around himself.
Alice thought that if she fell he could easily pull her back and save her but if he went they would both be lost. She listened closely to every word he said.
“Stay right up next to the wall and if you see a cascade pay attention. They will mostly be only across from us, but on this side there are a few as well. We’ll need to have our wits about us anytime we pass under one. If you encounter anyone at all do not let them pass between you and the wall. You stay right up against the wall and make them go around you. Understand?”
She nodded and let him lead her to the opening in the gorge. Sheer walls of stone stood on either side of a narrow gap, barely twenty feet across. The stone was smooth and black with narrow trickles of frozen mud oozing along the sides. The narrow trail was wet with mud and a large cascade of ice hung from the opposite wall.
“If one that size drops it will hit us on this side as well. Step carefully,” he said.
Alice put her pack against the wall and stepped cautiously along the edge. They stopped at every glacier of the dripping ice and then hurried by, holding their breath.
A very large ice cluster fell just ahead of them and the mountain shook violently from the collision. Alice could feel her breathing quicken and she swallowed hard. Joseph touched her arm gently and held the torch where he could see her face. She resumed walking.
When the next clump of ice fell, another few feet ahead of them, they heard a scream as someone fell down the ravine. There was the shuffling of panicked steps and several people came upon them and tried frantically to pass. Joseph put his arm across Alice, pinning her to the mountainside as the group clawed their way through, screaming and terrified. Then they heard another scream as another man fell.
Alice shook, Joseph’s arm still hard against her and she tried to calm herself down.
“I’m alright,” she whispered to him and she felt his grip relax.
“We need to keep going,” he said.
Alice heard the ice fall both ahead of them and behind them, and one time it fell so closely the sharp icicle struck her and Joseph hard, clattering against them and then falling far below. When they heard the next group approaching he put his arm across her again.
“We’ll follow you with that torch,” said a large man as he appeared beside Alice.
“We’re going the other way,” Joseph said. “You’ll have to get through in the darkness.”
The stranger lunged for the torch and Joseph held it high. “If you make another move like that you will find you’re fighting fire. You decide, mister. Move past us or go back.”
The man growled and stepped past them. Then another man followed him and then another. After several
had passed Alice noticed that the first man was on the other side of Joseph and had remained behind.
“Watch him,” she said as the man reached again for the torch.
Joseph moved the flame to his left hand and Alice took it from him.
“If he does not burn you I will,” she said. She waved the torch towards him and the man moved along. She handed the light back to Joseph and they continued.
The next group of panicked men scrambled from a huge crash of ice ahead of them. Alice and Joseph pressed themselves back against the wall to let them get past as safely as possible. Alice could not imagine how anyone could think about trying to make it through the dangerous gorge in the dark. The ice fell so often she could not see how it might be more dangerous in the daylight. As the last man passed he felt and grabbed at her, pulling her from the ledge.
She felt pressure around her chest before she was even certain what had happened. The full weight of the man clinging to her ankles made the rope tighten in a vice-like grip. He clawed at her legs and ankles and Alice struggled to breathe. She could feel Joseph trying to pull her up but the weight of her body, the pack and the man were too much. She felt him tug again and the rope tighten more. She reached up and felt Joseph’s hand on her wrist. The man at her feet grabbed her thigh and tried to climb up her and she thought her arm would tear from her shoulder. Then the man put his hands onto her pack and she could feel him stepping over her back.
When he finally reached the cliff’s edge Joseph pulled him up roughly with his other arm and the man scrambled up the trail. When he finally pulled her onto the ledge Alice could barely breathe.
He loosened the rope around her chest and held her by both arms.
She coughed violently and he held fast, trying to keep from her tumbling over again. He spoke to her firmly trying to calm her down while struggling to contain his own terror. He was shocked he had been able to hang onto both her and the man. When she finally caught her breath she looked up and could see that Joseph was trembling, his face white in the light of the torch. The intense pain in her arm began to spread.
“I’m alright.” She struggled to speak and swallowed hard. “I think I’m alright.”
Joseph took up the torch that lay on the ledge beside them and leaned back against the rock wall, pulling her to him. They sat for several minutes against the hard stone trying to calm themselves and come to grips with what had just happened.
It began to rain heavily and they tried to go on, stepping along slowly but they had only managed a few yards when the torch sputtered and the flame went out. Joseph moved around to the lead position and squatted down. With their packs against the wall behind them they continued for several more yards until he had found one of the deeper areas on the ridge and they sat with their backs against the wall in the darkness. He put his arm around her and she leaned into him.
The rain fell hard and Alice put down her head. Water flowed from the front of the hood onto her parka. Soon her leggings were soaked through and her clothing began to wick the water from beneath her. By the time the sun began to brighten the sky both of them were completely drenched. Alice found that, although the dampness chilled her body, it also numbed the pain in her arm and shoulder. She tried to block out the horrible thought of what would have happened had Joseph not bound her to him.
As the sky turned from black to grey, Joseph helped her to her feet in the torrential downpour. The gorge turned sharply to the east and the cliff face fell away revealing an open swampy area. Alice staggered beside him as he picked his way through the muddy quagmire toward higher land, urging her along protectively.
He led her past several tents into a thick stand of trees until they were deep into a forested area. As he took the pack from her back she cried out in pain. He sat her on a rock.
“Just stay there until I get the tent up.”
He moved quickly to erect the tent. Then he laid out the bedroll and shoved the packs inside. He helped her in gently. Joseph removed his own parka and climbed in beside her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alice sat silently on the bedroll inside the tent and Joseph lifted the parka from her head and shoulders. She could see he was drenched as well and wished they could set up a fire for warmth.
When he asked her to lift her arms to remove her tunic she shook her head.
“I don’t know if I can raise my arm.” She looked at him with fear in her eyes.
He helped her pull one arm from the tunic and then attempted to lift her injured arm to remove the other sleeve and she wheezed in pain. Without moving her arm he gently pulled the sleeve away.
When he had finally undressed her to her soaking wet long johns he moved around behind her.
I want you to unbutton your clothes so I can pull the sleeve down and look at your shoulder.
Alice reached up and fingered a button with one hand and was certain she could not push the button through the hole.
“I can’t do it with only one hand,” she said.
He moved around to face her and unbuttoned her slowly. Alice held the top of the clothing against her and he slipped down the sleeve to reveal her shoulder.
It was plain that her arm had been dislocated. Her entire shoulder was swollen and discolored.
Alice could see from his expression that her condition was not good.
“Just say it,” she said, breathing carefully.
“I’m going to have to put your arm back in the socket. The good news is that as soon as I do it you will feel much better. The bad news is that when I do it, it’s going to hurt.”
“Will I be able to keep going?”
Joseph considered her question. “We’ll keep going if I have to carry you out,” he said. “I’m going to lay you down so I can pull out your arm. I know it’s going to be really painful but I need you to try and relax your arm as much as possible. I’ll need to stretch the muscles and move your shoulder back into place.”
“It’s going to feel like it did while I was dangling up there isn’t it?” she asked.
“Just like that.”
“Have you ever done this before?”
“I dislocated my own arm once when I was a kid. I can do it.”
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.”
Joseph could see that she was still shaking hard. He was sure it was not just from the cold.
He helped her lie down on the bedroll and pulled off his boots. He got down beside her and put the arch of his foot into the pit of her arm. She lay there looking up at him trustingly, strands of soaking, wet hair clinging to her face and her eyes wide. The long undergarment clung to her and Joseph could see that she was slender, quite thin in fact, yet she had a softly curved shape.
“Set my arm first and then you can look all you like,” she said.
Joseph cleared his throat and took hold of her hand. He laced his fingers into hers and told her to relax.
Alice lay back and took as deep a breath as she could and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine him kissing her, running his hands along her body and drawing her close to him.
“Go ahead,” she said.
He pulled her slender arm firmly and steadily, gently stretching the muscles while holding her torso solidly with his bare foot. He continued to pull and he saw tears fall from her eyes. Then her shoulder moved into place and Alice moaned.
She lay back on the bedroll and panted softly. He pulled his foot away and waited until she recuperated.
“It is better. It hurts, but it’s much better,” she said, opening her eyes slowly.
“I’m going to help you get changed. Try not to move it too much and then I’ll make up a sling.” He helped her sit up and unpacked dry clothing.
Alice stood as upright as possible in the tent with Joseph behind her and stepped out of the drenched clothing. She lifted one foot and then the other and he helped her into dry long johns.
“That feels good,” she said, shivering slightly as he brought the clothes up her
back. She put her arms inside and turned to face him, waiting for him to button her.
He looked at her, on his knees in the tent and Alice held her breath. He reached up and buttoned each button carefully.
“I can’t help thinking I liked it better when you were undressing me,” she said softly.
Joseph smiled and pulled out dry clothing for himself.
Setting her pack up behind one end of the bedroll and raising it up for her, he helped Alice sit back. He took the blankets and tucked them in around her.
“Thank you. I mean it. You saved my life,” she said. “I feel so much better. I was really afraid.”
“When you fell I didn’t know…” his voice trailed off. “I don’t want to be around all these people. We need to get down the mountain,” he said.
“How much longer?” she asked.
“A couple of days. One more narrow trail and then it changes. Not long. Just through the switchback and down the slope. Then we’ll be in town.”
They dined on pickled eggs and cold potatoes and sat back and chewed on pieces of dried meat.
“I heard you introduce yourself as ‘Amish Joe’ back there,” she said quietly, trying to distract herself from the recurring recollection of her fall. “Tell me about it.”
“Everybody up here gets a nickname sooner or later. I brought that hat up, wore it up on the boat in fact, and the name just stuck.”
“You don’t wear the hat anymore. I’ve been wearing it.”
“Then I guess I should call you ‘Amish Alice’,” he said.
She chuckled. “I like that better than some other names I can think of. What about Jack? Why ‘Chicken-leg’?”
“When I came back the second time and brought my supplies I hired him to help me move everything up to the cabin. Then again later to help me with some other things. I had brought a little whiskey with me. It wasn’t much, but enough to get Jack pretty happy one day. He stopped and had a couple of pulls on the bottle as part of his payment. After showing me a rather colorful version of his dancing skills he passed out in the coop we had just built. I’d had a pull or two myself and was sleeping it off as well.
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