ALASKAN BRIDES 01: Yukon Wedding

by Allie Pleiter

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  Mack stared at her for a moment, and she could see a decision forming behind his eyes. “I have something to show you,” he said, the words stiff and forced.

  Lana nodded, hesitant to say anything.

  He pulled out the folded paper she recognized from earlier, but left it still folded. “You’re my wife. You and Georgie are my responsibility now. There are things I suppose you should know, things you may need to know…someday.”

  She waited for him to venture further information.

  “This is the map to where my gold is, Lana. It’ll be…” He actually hesitated. It really was difficult for him to share this information, and while his secrecy agitated her, she could at least appreciate the effort this seem to cost him. “It will be buried in a tin box under the southwest fence post of the garden in back. That’s all you’ll ever need to know while…while I’m here.”

  The unspoken, “unless I die and leave you a widow twice over” hung in the air between them, thick as suspicion.

  Lana didn’t know how to respond. He clearly didn’t trust her. Not completely. Yet her intuition told her he wasn’t capable of trusting her completely. At least not now. Still, it hurt to know he kept things from her. The deep wounds of Jed’s deception left scars too big for it not to hurt. Lana managed a “thank you,” but she suspected it sounded too much like the reply she’d given at his gift of the brooch. She should be more gracious at his effort, but she couldn’t. Why must everything be such a double-edged sword between them? What a sad pair they made. Every attempt Mack made at healing their wounds only served to open them back up again.

  He never unfolded the map to show it to her. She didn’t ask to see it.

  After a moment, he slipped it back into his pocket. She knew that after Mack returned from his walk tonight, when the sun finally surrendered the sky, she would hear him shoveling in the backyard, burying this map they would probably never speak of again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Town meetings in Treasure Creek happened once a month. That was probably as often as the residents could stand. Mack couldn’t remember a single one that hadn’t ended in some kind of argument. With all the treasure-hunting ruckus of the past week, Mack said a prayer for peace twice over, as folks filed into the church pews.

  The first “town meeting,” held around a fire in the cluster of tents that had been Treasure Creek’s earliest settlement, had also been its first fight. Over this very church. From the moment God had called him to build this town, Mack knew its church must be the first true building to be raised in Treasure Creek. It had to be right in the center of town, had to be the first four walls to go up anywhere on the settlement. “A symbol,” Mack had proclaimed, “of who we are and what we stand for.”

  Not everyone thought that so fine an idea. Lana, as a matter of fact, found it particularly hard to swallow. Tent walls were thin, and more than once he’d heard her sharp words to Jed about “not waiting in line behind God’s house for a house of her own.” Granted, March evenings were cold, and he couldn’t much blame her when twice she took Georgie “back to Skaguay to sleep within solid walls.”

  It always surprised him that Jed had never once questioned his decision. While he would have liked to say Jed shared his faith and vision for Treasure Creek, it was sadly more accurate to say that Jed lacked the spine to disagree. Jed never shared Mack’s values as much as he merely surrendered to them. Still, there was something about Jed that made him a fine friend despite his many weaknesses. Mack missed him every single day, just as he missed his brothers who had joined Jed and the thousands of other men who lost their lives up on the Chilkoot Trail.

  First order of town meeting business was always the welcome of new residents. Viola Goddard received her formal welcome, as did two families with new babies, two couples and five bachelors. A total of ten new “households” were formally added to the community tonight, each of them drawn to the God-centered values this little church declared. At the rate things were going, Treasure Creek would hit five hundred residents next month, and easily a thousand by the end of the year, if not the end of the season.

  Mack was about to move on to the next order of business when Margie Tucker stood. “In relation to those new folks here,” she began, when Mack recognized her to speak, “we’ve been discussing a proposition.”

  The other Tucker sisters, not to mention about a dozen other people throughout the room, nodded in agreement. There wasn’t much that went on in Treasure Creek without Mack’s knowing about it, so this struck him as distinctly odd. And a bit unnerving.

  “We think Treasure Creek needs a mayor. And every single one of us thinks it ought to be you. You do everything else around here, it can’t hurt to just make it official.”

  “Mayor?” Mack stepped back a bit from his place behind the pulpit, genuinely surprised. He’d expected the residents of Treasure Creek to resist any further formalization of the town, not instigate it.

  “Sounds a whole lot better than ‘Mr. Treasure Creek,’ don’t you think?” Margie said, wiggling her fingers at the crowd to elicit cries of agreement.

  “I expect we could add a town council, eventually,” Ed Parker offered. “We’re getting big enough to need one.” He looked back at the row of folks standing in the back of the room. “We barely fit in here as it is.”

  “There will always be room for every person in Treasure Creek to come inside this church,” Mack said, meaning it. “Even if we have to build out every two months to fit them in.” He gestured to the newly expanded sanctuary foundation already underway. It hadn’t been the first church construction effort, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  “You best build fast,” Caleb Johnson replied. “There’s three more big ships docking this week alone. Which means we’ll keep getting more people, which means we need a mayor.”

  Mack wiped his hands down his face. He’d always thought of himself more as a “founding father” than a politician, but Margie had a point; being declared mayor wouldn’t change his day-to-day existence much—folks came to him for everything as it was. “Don’t mayors have to be elected?”

  Margie planted her hands on her hips. “Well, now I figured that’d just be a formality. All in favor of making Mack Tanner mayor, say ‘aye.’”

  In Treasure Creek’s first—and perhaps only—act of total agreement, the entire room erupted in “aye.”

  “What if someone else wants to run?” Mack felt obligated to point out. Weren’t elections generally involving a choice of candidates? This was feeling a bit like a spontaneous coronation.

  Margie’s answer to that question was to level a glare of defiance around the room. “Anyone else want to run against Mack?” The way she put it, it wasn’t a real question at all. More like a “raise your hand and I’ll wallop you,” without words. Unsurprisingly, silence filled the room.

  Duncan MacDougal stood and cleared his throat. “I move we elect Mack Tanner Mayor of Treasure Creek.” He sounded terribly official, as if he would record it on some tablet somewhere, the moment the deed was done. As it was, Lucy Tucker, who acted as secretary to the town meetings because she’d learned shorthand somewhere along her many adventures, was already bent over her papers scribbling furiously. “All in favor…”

  “I already did that,” Margie interrupted.

  “You needed a motion.” Duncan sounded put out. “And a motion must always be seconded.”

  “I should think you just seconded the idea I had first.” Margie did not care to be second on anything. Mack thought he was watching Treasure Creek’s one and only “unanimous” go up in smoke over a procedural formality.

  “Just second MacDougal and be done with it,” snapped Hattie Marsh, one of the older residents in Treasure Creek. Hattie’s husband nodded in mutual frustration. Miners weren’t sticklers for procedure, that was clear.

  Evidently, Tuckers were. “I was first,” Margie protested.

  “It do
esn’t matter.” Ed Parker stood up to his full height, giving him almost two feet over feisty little Margie Tucker.

  “I suppose not,” Margie acquiesced. And not half a minute later, Mack Tanner became Mayor Tanner.

  The warmth and width of Mrs. Tanner’s smile didn’t escape Mack’s notice.

  They walked home an hour later, Georgie fast asleep on Mack’s shoulder. There was something comforting about the warm weight of the little boy, even if he was soaking through the shoulder of Mack’s shirt as he sucked his thumb. He’d been right about the effect families would have on the men up here. Men often got wild up on the trail—one only had to float the ten miles downriver to Skaguay to see how civilized men could combine liquor and money into a dangerous brew. Adding women to the mix often did as much harm as it did good. But families—mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles—those things grounded a man, made him think beyond his next diversion.

  Already, the man he’d been had changed because Georgie and Lana were in the picture. Thinking past himself for the sake of Treasure Creek, that hadn’t been much of a stretch for a natural-born leader like Mack. Thinking past himself for the sake of his family—that had pushed him too far already. Lana had begun to figure into his decisions, and far too many of this thoughts. He’d come to draw a surprising comfort from the sounds and scents of her in his house. In their home. There was no denying it, Lana had made his house a home. Walking to that home, feeling the boy’s head settled into the crook of his neck, feeling the rise and fall of that little chest against his collarbone, an assurance settled into Mack; Treasure Creek had been the right thing to do. It was worth any battle, worth doing whatever it took. Even if it took becoming mayor.

  “Welcome home, Your Honor,” Lana said, as she lifted the latch on their cabin. She dropped a comical little curtsey as she stepped inside.

  “I don’t know what they think having a mayor will do.” He angled himself and Georgie through the door, holding Georgie off him just enough for Lana to get the boy’s coat off. “They won’t argue any less.”

  “They’ll just rely on you more.” Lana cocked her head to one side. “You know that.”

  “I’ve no illusions my life just got easier, that’s for certain.” Mack turned Georgie over in his arms so that he cradled him now, letting Lana unlace her son’s boots and tug them gently off. It still amazed him that Georgie could be such a crazy little monkey while awake, and yet look so sweetly peaceful when asleep. He’d been a noisy, fidgety distraction during half the town meeting, before finally conking out. “I suppose you’ll need to do a lesson on government this week, now that you’re the mayor’s wife.”

  “We’re learning science lessons tomorrow,” Lana said with no small amount of pride, as she opened the door that led into her and Georgie’s room. “Metals, to be precise. I thought it a relevant subject.” He angled past her, brushing close to all her soft scents as he did so. Glory, but that woman smelled wonderful all the time.

  “Metals?” Mack grinned as he laid the boy down. Georgie, who always seemed to take forever to fall asleep but thankfully slept like a rock once out, made a small mumbling sound and snuggled in. Lana’s “proud mama” smile beamed as she pulled the quilt up over his round little body.

  “Iron, tin, silver and, of course, gold.”

  The next morning, four objects sat on Lana’s classroom desk. Things they’d all seen, things some of the students used every day, but each representing the four metals she’d chosen to teach. “Iron is used in many everyday objects, mostly for its strength, durability and price.” She wrote “IRON” in large letters on the slate behind her, then held up the horseshoe she’d borrowed from Duncan yesterday. “We get iron ore out of the ground and make things with it. Who can tell me who does this for us in Treasure Creek?”

  “Mr. MacDougal,” one girl blurted out with enthusiasm.

  She did the same process with the three other objects, knowing full well most of her students were waiting for her to display the last item. “The final metal we’ll be studying today has particular meaning to our town. It’s precious, very pretty, but not as practical as our other metals, for a variety of reasons.”

  “Everybody wants it,” a student said from the front row.

  Men die for it, Lana thought silently as she wrote “GOLD” on the slate. She banished the thought’s shadow from her countenance as she turned to face the class again. “So, everyone, who can tell me why are our plates are made from tin but our pins made from gold?”

  While the variety of answers was entertaining and inventive, none of them were the fact she was looking for. “Gold is too soft for many practical uses.” She wrote the word “SOFT” beside “GOLD”—the class was most competent at words between three and five letters, which is why she’d chosen gold, silver, tin and iron as their subject matter. She held up the dented pin Jed had given her. “Georgie is just a little boy, and he was able to do this damage.”

  “That’s sad.” Leo’s deep voice rang through the room. “It was pretty before.”

  The rest of the class time was so energized and effective, Lana was bursting with pride. The attention her students gave to the lesson confirmed her hunch—reading and spelling went much better when the subject matter was of interest. Lists of words, even with pictures next to them, failed to garner much enthusiasm with this crowd. The conversations and effort they put into reading today’s words made Lana beam with satisfaction as she dismissed class for the day. She was good at this. She should be tired, but Lana hummed in high spirits to herself as she returned books to their shelves and wiped off the slate.

  Until she looked at her desk.

  “I can’t believe it’s gone!” Lana was near tears as Mack rushed to the church with her.

  “You’re sure?” Mack pushed open both doors of the church to let as much sunlight into the sanctuary as possible.

  “I’ve gone over every inch of the room—twice—and it’s not there. I can’t have lost it. I should never have used it in the first place.”

  Mack had entertained that thought, knowing it was the key to the map he’d drawn for her. He’d been annoyed—angry even—that she’d suddenly pulled it out of her hiding place and planned to take it out to school, of all places. Still, it wasn’t as if he could forbid her to do so. He surely couldn’t tell her why her old pin was so valuable.

  Mack surveyed Lana’s desk, a table set up in the front of the pews that served as the makeshift classroom. Each of the three other objects were still lined up on the desk in perfect order. He didn’t like the conclusion forming in his mind. Lana would like it even less. “Where were you standing when you dismissed the class?”

  Lana pointed to a back pew. “Over here, helping Jenny Wilson make a proper letter ‘G’.”

  Across the room, with her back turned to the desk. Mack pinched the bridge of his nose, hating what he had to say next. “Lana, someone took the brooch.”

  “That’s not possible. No one was in here but…” Hurt cut so sharply through her features that he felt it behind his ribs. “My students would not steal from me.”

  This was Alaska, and they’d barely been her students a week. It was highly possible, probable even. He’d seen grown men do worse for less.

  “No,” she repeated, but even as she declared the single word, he could see her coming to the same inescapable conclusion. And he hated what it did to her eyes. “It’s got to have fallen somewhere and I just can’t see it. They loved the lesson. Everyone had something to contribute. It was such a good day. And now my precious brooch is gone.” She tucked her hand to her mouth to keep from crying.

  They spent another ten minutes combing every inch of the sanctuary—Lana’s desk, her pockets, even the hem of her skirts in search of the pin, but Mack knew they’d find nothing. He tried to offer some words of comfort, but they sounded hollow and trite. Map key aside, he hated the part of him that was hurt by her loyalty to that pin. She loved Jed. He had no right to rese
nt that love. He’d known exactly what he was getting into when he married her still deep in her grief. He’d known exactly what he was trying to do—and how foolish it was—when he replaced that pin. “I’ll find who took it, Lana, and get it back to you,” Mack said as he gathered up her shawl and hoisted Georgie on his shoulders. It didn’t make up for all his tangled motives, but it was a start.

  Lana pulled the church doors shut with a defiant force. “I won’t believe a student took it.”

  That was the trouble with Alaska. People were always believing things in spite of the hard truth in front of them.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lana and Mack ate lunch in near silence, lost in their own thoughts. Georgie, quick to pick up on tensions, became extra fussy, and she’d had to work hard to get him to go down for an afternoon nap. Mack had left soon after lunch, telling her he was going to the homes of each student to ask questions. He’d promised not to be heavy-handed, but his dark look said otherwise. Bumps in the road were bound to happen as she tried to craft this odd little classroom, but she hadn’t expected something so…mean. The act of theft itself felt like such an attack. That it was Jed’s brooch just made it all the more painful.

  Why, Lord?

  The instinctual cry to heaven stopped her. She hadn’t even bothered to trouble God with so much as an angry thought since Jed’s death. She’d shut that part of her off entirely.

  Why are You stealing everything from me? There. She’d said it. Lana waited for a instant, half expecting a thunderbolt to crash down out of the clouds and smite her for daring to be angry with the Almighty. Where’s the good in this? The higher purpose?

  Georgie whimpered from his room, and she had the startling thought that all had not been taken from her. She had Georgie. And she had the protection Mack offered.

  But she’d been driven to the desperation of taking it. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, that was the only verse of which she could be certain. Loving kindness, justice, grace, all those things Mack seemed able to see around him? Those felt miles away from anywhere she stood. Will You take this class from me now, too? Crush me to bits after I’ve found something that makes me so…happy?