Gold Rush Groom

by Jenna Kernan

  “I found a partner,” she said, sitting beside Diinaan on the bench outside the door.

  Nala was busy wolfing down the mixture of rice, dried salmon and bacon grease.

  “Oh, so you going now soon. Yes?”

  “Yes. I’ll need to pick up the sled and buy dried fish for Nala. Plus I’d like to hear anything more you can tell me about the trail.”

  “Yes, I tell you much trail news all the way to top lakes. I miss your good advice and account…” Her words fell off.

  “Accounting.”

  “Yes.”

  Lily had taught Diinaan bookkeeping in exchange for a sled, that for a time there, she had feared she would never need.

  “It’s important to keep track so you aren’t cheated.”

  They exchanged a smile. Lily would miss Diinaan because, although they were separated by race and culture, at heart they were the same.

  Nala began licking the bowl until it spun like a top, the metal bottom ringing against the rock. Lily called her off. It was time to face what she had avoided for much of the day—the man, her partner, waiting in her tent. Her insides went tense as she returned to her tent and Jack.

  She reached her temporary home a few minutes later, hopeful that Mr. Snow had dried his clothing and was now wearing both a shirt and trousers. She called out and waited until he shouted a hello, then she drew a large breath of icy air and ducked inside. Lily gasped as her gaze darted about—for in a matter of mere hours the man had turned her orderly home into chaos. Every crate had been opened and the shavings scattered about. Piles of sheet metal and pipe covered her bed, tools and gadgets of unknown usefulness were strewn over her kitchen table. And there in the midst of the chaos sat Mr. Snow, on her bed beside her oil lamp, calmly polishing some kind of round gauge with a bit of white cotton, that she recognized belatedly as one of her embroidered handkerchiefs as he whistled softly to himself.

  Her jaw dropped at the sight, her nerves and restless anticipation forgotten amid the anarchy. Lily narrowed her eyes upon him and he stilled. The whistling ceased as silence stretched.

  Her voice was a soft exhalation bubbling with indignation. “Isn’t this exactly what comes from letting a man into your home?”

  He flushed and rose, staring down at the handkerchief and then hiding it behind his back.

  “The packing was all soaked. I have to dry the metal or it will rust.”

  “This is the most useless bundle of nonsense I’ve ever seen a man haul from Seattle. Even the piano that went through here had more value than this lot.”

  “No, it will be useful.”

  “For what, building a metal boat? Are you daft, man? You can’t haul two tons of pig iron to Dawson.”

  “It weighs only 820 pounds.”

  She turned in a circle, dismay now rushing in to fill the void left by her shock. “And not one sled or rope or scrap of food or canvas,” she muttered. She fixed him with a cold stare. “Where are your mining tools?”

  “Already cleaned and dried. There.” He pointed to a stack of crates. “Carpentry, mining and sheet metal.”

  “And what are you planning to eat, shoe leather?”

  “I have dried lentils, rice, bacon and coffee.”

  She sighed in relief. Nala whined and Lily was grateful for the distraction of removing the dog’s harness. Once finished, she turned to Jack Snow.

  “When I come back, I’d best be able to sit on my bed.”

  She dropped the canvas flap and stepped out into the cold night. What the devil had she been thinking to bring him into her home?

  Lily snapped her fingers and Nala appeared, trotting beside her as she picked her way through the mud to the saloon, where she took her meals. The men shouted a greeting as she entered. She waved as she went to the back, where Taps had her dinner waiting. The barkeep had been a bugler in the army, thus his name.

  “I’ll need a second plate to go.”

  Taps stilled. “Did you find a partner, Lil?”

  “That’s so,” she piped with a bravado she did not feel. Lily was used to feigning grit and a cheerful disposition, for who wanted to listen to a dour performer? But sometimes she wished she were back in her mother’s kitchen making apricot preserves. No sense in looking back at what’s lost, her mother would say. Forward, girls, forward.

  “Fine, fine,” said Taps, adjusting his greasy hat.

  “And he’s a strapping big one, too,” she added as much to herself as to him. It wasn’t all bad, was it? She’d gotten a man and could head out now. Lily tamped down her rising panic.

  “But he’s got only one leg?”

  Her laugh sounded hollow, but no one seemed to notice but herself. She’d not let them see her anxiety over her new partner. “So far as I can see his only fault is that he’s a man.”

  Taps nodded. “Then you’d best sleep with that revolver under your pillow.”

  Her smile slipped. “Don’t worry about me.” She glanced about and located the closest stampeder. “George! Kiss me.”

  George’s bushy eyebrows lifted but he did not argue. He took one step toward her and wrapped his arms about her waist.

  Nala leapt to her feet, bared her teeth and gave a menacing growl. George lifted his hands in surrender, backing away.

  The others laughed.

  “She’s better at defending me than my dear old dad,” said Lily, pressing a hand to her chest. In truth her father hadn’t given a fig about her and had left them like the rest. What was it about her that made them all go? Her mother insisted it wasn’t Lily’s fault, but why then?

  Taps slid her dinner onto the bar and Lily quickly finished her only meal of the day, using her bread as a sponge to capture the last of the gravy. Then she patted her middle and allowed two men to boost her up to the bar. She began with a hearty rendition of “My Darling Clementine,” followed by several rousing drinking tunes that the men could sing along with, then turned to some sweet love songs and finished with “Pretty Saro.” That one made many a greenhorn weep. Her hour done, she climbed down from the bar, gathered up the second plate of food and headed back to her partner.

  When she reached her tent she found he’d packed up the crates and bags of gear. Only a few items of clothing still remained on the line and he sat in the single chair beside the stove with a leather journal clutched to his chest and his head thrown back as he snored softly.

  He’d turned down the wick of her oil lamp. That and the glow from the small window in the potbelly stove made his skin a warm, rosy color. Lily studied him again. Asleep, Jack Snow was still handsome, but the threat was gone. Now she felt only an inexplicable tenderness and the need to brush the locks of hair from his forehead. She reached and then stopped herself by clenching her fist. No, not that way. That was the way to build attachments that would make his leaving more painful. She sealed herself against him in an effort to protect her bruised heart from further battering.

  She was freezing from her walk across the tent town. It might be only October, but the temperature dropped at night like a rock tossed from a cliff.

  Nala whined.

  “Shh,” said Lily as she moved forward to place Jack’s supper on the flat round top of the stove to warm. As she straightened she caught the unfamiliar scent of him—sawdust, leather and the musty smell of the sea. The heat of the stove penetrated the frosty cold that seemed to cling to her skin, making her linger near him.

  It wasn’t his full open mouth or the straight line of his nose, it wasn’t those feathery black eyelashes brushing his cheek that drew her. No, it was only the stove. She needed the heat, that was all, and tonight the cast iron was throwing more than usual, wasn’t it?

  “Damn, it’s him again,” she whispered.

  Nala nudged Jack’s hand with her big wet nose and he startled awake to find himself surrounded with Lily on the left and Nala on the right. He clutched the armrests of the chair for an instant and the book slid to his thighs. His eyes
grew wide and then he relaxed, resting his hand on Nala’s head and scratching her behind the ears.

  Lily didn’t know which shocked her more, that Nala had sought attention from this stranger or that he had given it without thought. So much for her watchdog. Lily felt Nala’s betrayal like a pinprick in her heart.

  She’d seen several men try to approach Nala, hands out, voices soothing, but she had snapped at them all. Lily stared at Jack Snow. What made him different?

  He stretched and then cast her that beguiling smile. The man could coax cider from an apple. Lily frowned.

  “Must have dozed off.” He glanced about. “Got it all stowed, partner.”

  Partner. She liked the sound of it on his lips. Lily dropped her gaze and pointed to the stove. “I brought supper.”

  Jack’s smile broadened. “Excellent. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.” He thumped Nala on the ribs. “Present company excluded.”

  Nala’s tail thudded against the chair back.

  What was happening here?

  “Eat your supper.”

  He drew the plate to his lap and looked about. It was in that instant she realized she had no utensils. So she brought him the large spoon she used to measure coffee and handed it over. His fingers brushed hers and she stilled at the startling sensation running up her arm like the feet of tiny birds.

  She backed away, sitting on the bed behind him. He turned his chair so that he faced her but he did not fall upon his food. He must be hungry, yet still he hesitated.

  “Go on,” she urged.

  He pursed his lips. “You’ve eaten?”

  It seemed hours ago. She smiled and nodded. “Yes—eat.”

  He waited a moment longer and then attacked the beans and rice as she poured him a cup of coffee, black. When she set it on the stove she found him laying the three strips of thick bacon into the bread, which he folded in half. He finished the sandwich in five large bites.

  “Where did you find Nala?” asked Jack, resting a large hand on her dog’s wide head.

  Lily smiled before she answered and for a moment Jack forgot the question. Did she even know how lovely she was?

  “When I first laid eyes on her, she was in the jaws of an alley cat that was big as a lion. She was a pup no bigger than this.” Lily indicated a distance of six or seven inches between her palms. “But I chased that cat down and made her drop the pup. She gave me this for my trouble.” Lily pointed to the little puncture below her right eye, the only flaw in her beautiful skin. “Tried to take my eye out. And Nala’s still got the scars on her head where that cat bit into her.” She patted the dog’s ribs affectionately.

  Jack scratched the dog’s head feeling the bumps on her scalp.

  “I feel them,” he said.

  Lily nodded and continued her tale. “I carried her home in the pocket of my coat. Can you imagine? She was so tiny, her eyes weren’t even open. Had to feed her milk from my finger, and it was no small trouble stealing milk each morning, I can tell you.”

  Jack frowned at the thought of Lily having to steal milk. He found himself wondering what Lily had endured in her youth and how she had managed to come out so well. True she was guarded, but who could blame her? Likely she had seen enough of life’s troubles to be streetwise and was apt to be much more astute in that regard than he was.

  Nala sat beside his chair, eyes closed as she enjoyed the stove’s heat.

  Jack lowered his plate, still sticky with the gravy and a few stray grains of rice, to the floor. Nala needed no second invitation. Her pink tongue lapped the pewter until it seemed spotless.

  Lily retrieved the plate and set it aside.

  “Was that good?” said Jack to Nala in a friendly tone that made Lily’s stomach flutter.

  “She’s not your dog.” Her voice came out harsher than she’d intended.

  His eyes rounded. “I’m sorry. I should have asked permission before feeding her. It’s just. Well. I had a black dog once.”

  “What kind?”

  “Teddy was a chow. When his eyes got cloudy, we just stretched a rope in the back, like a clothesline. He loved to run and knew exactly when to stop. He was a good boy.” His sad, wistful expression made her sorry for her sharp words.

  Lily extended her hand and Nala moved to sit beside her cot. “Do you have a tent?”

  He nodded.

  She tried to turn her mind to business, instead of the crisp, dark, curling hair that showed above the open two buttons of his union suit.

  “We’ll need to compare lists of gear to see what we still need and what can be left behind.”

  His brow wrinkled as if he couldn’t understand leaving things. Did he even know what was involved in this journey?

  “Yes, all right,” he said.

  They talked late into the night, her new partner taking notes and making lists of the items they had, needed or would abandon. He was educated, but lacked practicality, as she had feared. She failed to get him to agree to leave the metal behind, nor would he share the utility of this load, except to say it would be “the practical application of a working model” whatever that meant.

  She liked that it was practical, at least in his eyes and since she would not be carrying it, she said no more. She shared what she had learned from the Chilkat Indians and he spoke of what he had gleaned from newspapers, maps and geography texts. But in truth, neither of them had seen the trail that would take three to six months to cross, stretching over five hundred miles, first through the narrow gap between great mountains and then down lakes and rivers that became the Yukon River, which would finally carry them to the goldfields in Dawson City.

  Exhaustion took hold and they grew silent.

  He gazed at the woman who only looked more beautiful by firelight. She was an astute planner, he’d give her that, but that was not why his gaze lingered on the graceful curve of her neck and the soft wisps of dark hair that caressed her skin.

  “Why did you come?” she asked.

  Jack snapped his gaze back to hers, shaking from his reverie. He was uncomfortable with the personal question.

  “For the same reason as other men. I came to test myself and my ideas.”

  She laughed. The musical sound made his palms sweat. He clamped them to the arms of the chair.

  “You’re a strange sort, Jack, and the first I’ve come across wanting to test ideas. The rest of them come to get rich. I’ve come for that, too, but I’ve also come for the adventure.”

  He leaned forward, drawn by the energetic sparkle in her eyes. Lily’s thinly veiled accent marked her as lower-class Irish. Not the sort of woman he must have to regain his social position. But he didn’t rule out an affair, if she was willing.

  She’d be used to hard work, at least.

  Once upon a time, he would not have even spoken with someone the likes of her, yet here they were—partners. What would she say if she knew that the only labor he’d done involved rowing on crew and playing for Princeton’s football team? They’d won the national championship last year against Lafayette. He wondered how they were faring this season without him. He thought of his teammates. Many would be graduating without him come spring. He’d been too ashamed to say goodbye, didn’t want them to know of his family’s ruin, but now that he thought of them he wondered how many others had lost everything when the bottom dropped out of the market. Still, he couldn’t tell them, not even Eric, his roommate and closest friend. He was too humiliated and found it easier to wall away his sorrow. Sins of the father. His chin sank a little closer to his chest as he wished he had Eric along instead of this lovely, resolute little woman. His head nodded forward, surprising him. He snapped upright.

  “You have a bedroll?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Stretch it out beside the cot.”

  He was wide awake now. He’d never shared a room with a woman, and just thinking of sleeping in the same tent as Lily Delacy Shanahan aroused more than his mi
nd.

  “But what will people think?”

  “People? You mean the raggedy greenhorns sleeping on the beach or the swindlers in town? Here, men care only for themselves. Plus, I don’t give a fig what they think or what they say. I answer to no one but myself. What you should be worried about is what I think, because if you so much as lay a finger on me in the night, I’ll shoot you through the heart.”

  That said, she laid her hand on the grip of her revolver and eyed him. He nodded his understanding, but could not help but notice the quick rise and fall of her chest. It didn’t match the cool look in her eyes. Something didn’t fit, but he said no more as he retrieved his blanket roll.