Ill Repute

by Nanette Kinslow

  “He was so passed out that he never noticed the chickens pecking at his pants, until they shredded them. It seems he had spilled some rye flour on himself and they were simply cleaning it up. One leg of his pants was nearly pecked away and the other was not much better. His limbs were so damn skinny underneath I told him they were just trying to show off that his legs looked just like theirs. He took to telling everyone and the name stuck. I didn’t know until later that year that he had been known as ‘Trading Jack’. I’m not sure why he liked ‘Chicken-leg’ better.”

  “I liked him. I did,” Alice said.

  “I did too,” Joseph said.

  “I’m going to try to sleep now,” Alice said. The events of the night before had left her drained and exhausted and she knew they both needed to rest.

  Joseph tied a handkerchief around her neck and slid her arm inside the sling. When he had helped her get situated he smiled at her.

  “You alright?” she asked, concerned about the sad look in his eyes.

  “I’ll be glad to get out of here.” He lay down beside her and pulled her close to him and they shared their warmth and relief while listening to the torrents of rain beating against the sides of the tent.

  When he finally heard her breathing ease to a slow rhythm he kissed her forehead, whispered good-night and fell asleep himself.

  Chapter Thirty

  Two days passed before Joseph would even attempt to resume their trip. He wanted to leave as soon as possible but would not risk doing damage to Alice’s shoulder. Once he saw her moving without pain he decided they would set out the next morning.

  The number of people headed north seemed to double every day and soon they had no privacy except inside the tent. He had built a fire to dry their clothing and Alice remained inside the tent most of the time resting.

  She knelt in front of him holding her clothing against her chest while he massaged a strong liniment into her shoulder. He knew it was not powerful enough to ease all of her discomfort, but it seemed to bring her some relief. He wondered how much was due to the medicine. It could just have well been the massage or his attention he thought. He’d noticed since she had fallen she had been quiet and pensive.

  When he reached over her shoulder to apply the salve he stopped.

  Alice did not move, he had run his fingertips down so that they rested on the top of her breast. Instead of pushing him from her thoughts and desires she had found herself wanting him more every day. The thought of him leaving her became increasingly real and more upsetting. She considered moving his hand down, wondering if he might stay with her were he to make love to her.

  He pulled his hand away slowly. If he could just make it through, he told himself, just get home to Yvonne he would have no regrets.

  Alice put her clothing back on and thanked him softly and got ready to sleep.

  “There are a couple of things I want to say to you before we get to town.” He spoke low in the darkness.

  “Alright,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Alice,” he began. “I’m sorry what happened in the gorge. I’m glad you’re alright, but I’m sorry it happened. If you had fallen I would never have forgiven myself.”

  “Forgiven yourself? For what? You saved my life.”

  “I never told you what happened that day I went into town, when I slipped into the creek coming back and caught my ankle.”

  “I didn’t know that anything had happened.”

  “Jack had mentioned there was a girl who had been killed. They thought maybe it was you.”

  “I remember,” she said.

  “There were actually three girls and a couple of men as well. After you disappeared the madam hired some men to find you. They were threatening everyone and looking for you. I think they threatened some people too hard. Then someone remembered that they had seen you and me together. I told him he was wrong and I had no idea where you were.

  “I was afraid that if we left that way together, they would come after you so I chose this route instead. I guess I had forgotten how difficult it was. I was alone the first time through and the weather was much more consistent. There were no other people and I moved at my own pace.”

  “You thought that even with all this it would be safer for me than going through Tutchone?” she asked.

  “Yes, I really thought that. Now I’m not sure.”

  “Oh, Joseph I didn’t know that. I feel so terrible that you had to do that. You could have been getting on that wagon without all of this.”

  “It was my decision. I’m the one who’s sorry. I just wanted to make the safest choice. I’m sorry you got hurt and again, I wish things were different.”

  “Don’t apologize. It should be me apologizing to you,” she said. “I was the one who made you take me in, live with me and take this route out. I know it was never what you wanted. We’ll be down the mountain soon, right? Then you can go home and live your life. I never meant to be so much of a burden.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I worry about what will happen to you.”

  “Don’t. I’ll be just fine. Let’s get some sleep.” Alice turned her back and set her jaw.

  In the morning they packed up the tent as a steady stream of fortune hunters headed for the gorge. Alice tried to smile when Joseph helped her into the backpack and they skirted the line of people toward the trail. Joseph remembered every inch of the trip from his previous journey, but the switchback stood out most clearly in his memory. He spoke to her quietly.

  “This trail is a switchback. That means it zigzags back and forth and it takes a long time to get anywhere. You can cross the same creek a dozen times up and downhill and double back on the sharp bends. There aren’t many cliffs. A few, but not many.”

  Alice didn’t think it sounded so bad, and she was glad to hear there were not so many cliffs.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Wind howled between the tall peaks, moaning mournfully and buffeting the steady line of huddled people and overloaded pack animals. Everyone climbing the trail struggled to remain on their feet in the pounding wind. Joseph and Alice emerged from the woodland and stood watching the migration of travelers.

  They started down the trail moving through the thousands of travelers who were trying to make their way up. Again and again they were jostled or bumped by someone who had their head covering down and was simply following the feet of the person in front of them. Joseph knew that once they had passed farther down the line it would be wider and the wind wouldn’t blow as hard, but for the first few miles it would be this way. He tucked Alice in behind him, taking the brunt of the collisions on himself and attempted to set a steady pace.

  By midday the wind had subsided and people began to remove their hoods, now looking ahead of themselves as they climbed. Joseph saw that many beards were flecked with icicles and he reached up to break away the frozen moisture from his own whiskers. He turned to check Alice and she continued behind him, wearing the fur covering.

  A gentle snow began to fall as they moved away from the surge of people to rest and they took some food from their packs. Alice took a moment to sit down on a large boulder and Joseph could see that she was exhausted. Her face was chapped and her lips were cracked. They ate quietly and he insisted on rubbing small dabs of his ointment on her cheeks, even touching a bit to her lips and instructing her not to taste it. When they had finished eating they walked back to the trail and resumed their descent.

  The woodland closed in around them and the trail began to take sharp turns. It felt to Alice that they could not be making any progress because they just seemed to be going back and forth along this trail. She thought about what Joseph had said about a switchback and consoled herself with the fact that he had climbed it once and managed to get through.

  Snow began to fall and within an hour the trail became more difficult to pass. As the hordes of climbers walked they packed down a narrow trail. As the snow continued to fall, walls grew up on either side making it more and more
difficult for Joseph and Alice to pass through the crowds. Several times Alice lost her footing and, when she was nearly trampled by an overloaded mule, Joseph climbed out and pulled her up from the trail. They donned snow shoes and walked above the tide of travelers on high banks of snow. Eventually they reached a summit which afforded them a view of the trail below and they looked down in awe. Alice stepped up beside Joseph and spoke softly, her voice filled with amazement.

  “It’s like a migration,” she said. “They look like a herd of animals.”

  “A gold rush,” he said reverently. “I’d heard a lot about them. I even thought I was part of one when I first came up here. The prospectors who were already here all told me that when I saw a real rush it would look more like a stampede. I didn’t know how right they were.”

  Against the bright white of the freshly fallen snow the stream of men, women and pack animals trailed up the hillside, a line of black dots that stretched far into the distance. They were huddled beneath layers of clothing with their faces turned away from the wind. Alice thought they looked like refugees fleeing some horrible fate.

  They watched them passing slowly, trudging through the snow in search of their fortunes. Their animals were pitifully overloaded. Even though most were unfit for labor of any kind they now bore massive bundles of supplies. Alice knew horses and she could see that most of these were animals that had endured years of abuse and neglect as work animals. Nearly all of them should have been retired, not brought into this brutal environment for such a treacherous climb. The prospectors whipped the animals mercilessly to keep them moving along within the tide of people.

  “What will they do with those horses when they reach those jagged rocks or that narrow path along the gorge?” Alice wondered aloud.

  Joseph merely shook his head.

  They kept as far away as possible from the sea of prospectors, traveling over the snow in their snowshoes. Soon the route became narrow again and the trail returned to winding its way through the rocky woodland. They stopped several times to remove their snowshoes in order to cross streams and rivers, but were forced to wear them again as soon as they had reached the other side.

  The trail reached a sheltered area where the path widened and the snow was not nearly as high. They removed their snowshoes and again walked through the throngs.

  “Why are you going back?” the fortune seekers asked regularly. “Did you find any gold?” “Do you have gold?” The questions continued all the way down the line. Alice could see that Joseph grew tired of their inquiries and even a mere, grunted response took energy they did not have. She reached up and took the Amish hat from the rucksack and stuffed it under her clothes against her stomach.

  She moved to the lead position in front of Joseph and he watched her, furrowing his brow.

  “I’m just going down to have my baby.” Alice patted her midsection over the hat and smiled. “Just going to have my baby, then we’ll be coming back up to dig. Just time for my baby to come,” she repeated along the trail. She made her announcement periodically, soon discovering that she would make the explanation and the prospectors would relay the story down the line. She did not have to tell her tale again until the word had run out down the trail. Joseph did not say anything and traveled silently behind her.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Alice covered her face with her mitten and sobbed silently. Joseph pushed her from behind in order to keep her moving. The sight of a burly man beating his fallen horse mercilessly was more than either of them could take in their exhausted state. Again and again they witnessed the abuses, pitiful horses and mules being beaten or shoved out of the line because they had crumpled under the weight of their burdens and could no longer climb. They cried out in agony with heartbreaking sounds.

  Here and there along the trail animals had fallen and panted in agony as they lay in the deep snow or lay silent, their eyes staring blankly in death. When the ravens began to appear and peck at the dead animals Alice could not bear it any longer.

  “I need to stop, please.” She turned to Joseph. He pulled her aside and looked down at her wind-burned face.

  “Stopping will not put an end to this. We must get through and get out of here. We can’t fix this or stop it. We can only stay alive and get down the mountain. I understand what you’re feeling. I do. But if we stop it will be you and me at the mercy of the ravens.”

  Alice looked up into his eyes. He too was exhausted and overwhelmed. They needed to eat and rest or they would not survive, but she knew it could not happen now. His eyes were kind and patient and she understood that, with everything they had endured, he did not need her to fight him. He needed her help.

  “If we only stop after dark to sleep and start early we will be out tomorrow. Tomorrow, do you understand?” he asked her.

  Alice nodded and fought back her tears. She fell in behind him where she would stare only at his back and shut her eyes against the horrible atrocities. She put her mittens over her ears and tried singing to herself, the same melancholy tune over and over incessantly.

  Joseph heard her behind him as she sang. He was glad to hear it because he could tell she was close behind without having to turn and make sure she was there. The sound she made helped him to tune out the surroundings as well.

  They reached one of the few cliffs on the switchback trail and Joseph stopped her before they ventured farther. He instructed her to wait close to a stand of trees above the trail while he scouted a path for them.

  Joseph felt a rising rumble beneath his feet and he looked up to see a plume of snow building at the mountain’s peak. He rushed back through the snow towards her. As he reached her side he pushed her up against a sturdy spruce and yelled to her to grab onto the tree. He wrapped his arms around her beneath her pack and clung to it as well. He had barely taken hold when the avalanche hit them.

  Alice felt Joseph push up hard against her, pinning her against the big tree. Then she felt the impact of the snow hitting her like a wave, but solid and painfully cold. She struggled to breathe and kept her mouth closed and her face down against the tree trunk. The roar of the landslide shook the earth beneath them and she could hear people and animals screaming in terror. Then it was completely still. She stood there frozen in fear and felt Joseph move against her. They were entirely engulfed in snow. He flexed his back and pushed against her and she tried to move her arms.

  The two of them squirmed against one another and the tree trunk until enough of the snow fell away that they could see the light of day again. Joseph pushed away the snow rapidly and they fell back into the bank that had encased them. Joseph grabbed her and flipped her over, pushing the snow from her and took her face in his hands.

  “Are you alright?”

  Alice panted softly, shaking with fear. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

  He pulled himself up onto the mound of snow and helped her up beside him. There were people emerging from the snow down in the far distance but the trail along the cliff side was wiped clean. Anyone who had been crossing when the avalanche hit had been swept into the deep ravine.

  They sat in the snow and Alice leaned into him and cried hard.

  Joseph would not allow her to linger, explaining that they needed to get past the ravine as quickly as possible and urged her ahead. Alice felt as if she were walking in a nightmare from which she could not awaken, except that she had Joseph by her side. She looked up at him often, watching him as they climbed down.

  He looked weary now. He was no longer driven on by the anticipation of returning home rich and successful. Now he was thin and hungry and exhausted, spurred on only by the struggle to survive. His shoulders were hunched and his slender limbs ached as he trudged down the mountainside.

  Once they had passed the ravine and crossed a freezing river they departed from the trail into the woods and struggled to set up camp. Alice had gathered whatever wood she could carry as they plodded through the snow, breaking off dead branches whenever possible. He turned to see her w
ith her arms filled with firewood and he nodded.

  Before nightfall they had a blazing fire and Alice used the last few granules of their dandelion coffee.

  She handed him the steaming cup as they sat beside the fire warming their hands and he looked up at her.

  “Tomorrow right?” she said. “We’ll be out tomorrow?”

  He nodded silently.

  “We’ve almost made it,” she said. “You’ll be able to go home tomorrow.”

  His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked so fatigued, she thought. She had never seen him so lethargic and listless. She pulled out several pieces of the chicken fat she had frozen into cubes and dropped them into the pot with some vegetables and fresh snow. Soon she had a rich broth simmering and she filled his cup again.

  He sipped at the soup distractedly and looked off into the distance.

  “Talk to me,” she said.

  He simply shook his head.

  Before darkness had enveloped the land she had urged him into the tent and climbed into the bedroll beside him. He lay with his back to her and she began to rub his shoulders, gently trying to warm him and ease his mood.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “I’m worried about you. We’re almost past this. I see the look in your eye. We can’t let this ruin our spirits. We have to make it through.”

  “Why?” He rolled onto his back and stared up into the tent. “What’s it all for? Gold? I came up here just to get a few rocks to prove myself to someone. Why? Look at those people, those poor animals. So many dead and for what? For gold? For money to prove their worth? It seems so pointless.”