Gold Fever

by Vicki Delany

  I rustled through my closet looking for a plain housedress. I manage not to own many garments fitting that description. “There, this should do.” I produced a cotton print day dress and a plain shift. “As it is probably about six inches too long, you can use this belt to hold the whole thing up and in. Don’t be shy. Try these on. You can’t go home in my dressing gown.”

  Mary tossed me a look, but I made no move to turn away. She snatched the clothes out of my hands and half turned her back. She tried to wriggle out of the dressing gown while at the same time pulling the shift over her head. She couldn’t keep herself wholly hidden, and I wasn’t terribly surprised to see a row of fresh red welts criss-crossing the knobbly spine at her lower back and the tops of her thin buttocks.

  I looked out the window into the scrap of back garden where Mrs. Mann hangs the laundry she takes in. Working men’s shirts and trousers flapped in the breeze beside a cheap red dress, torn petticoats, and a set of bloomers, all of which had seen better days.

  “You don’t have to stay with him,” I said to the window. “In Canada you have some rights, particularly if you aren’t married. The law can help you.”

  “What do you know, rich white lady?”

  Mary looked like a child playing dress-up in my cheapest dress, far too big for her, the belt holding the excess fabric.

  “I’m not rich. I’ve had a man’s hand raised to me. I vowed it would never happen again, and it hasn’t. I can guess why my son came across you in the river, and I will help you, if only because of him.”

  “Your son.” She gave the belt a strong tug. “A good boy.”

  “You can have our help, if you want it. Or you can leave now and return tomorrow to collect your clothes. I doubt they will fit me.”

  She fingered the edges of the belt. “Rich white lady, there is no help you and your nice son can give me. I thank you for your kindness, but I don’t want you to have trouble on my account. My troubles are not for you.”

  “I have some influence in this town.” I turned my back and made an effort to straighten the contents of my closet in order to give Mary a bit of privacy. She seemed like a proud woman; it wouldn’t be easy for her to accept my charity. Though why it would be harder than crawling back to an abusive man, I didn’t understand. I’ve taken charity when I had to—and been darn happy to have it. “I can make your man sorry for what he’s done.”

  She threw back her head and laughed a cold, bitter laugh. “I belong to no man, rich white lady. Mrs. LeBlanc, she is not afraid of you, I am sure.”

  I sucked in my breath and turned to face her. “Joey LeBlanc. You…work for her?”

  Her head dropped as her shame won out over her pride. “I’ll return your dress tomorrow, Mrs. MacGillivray.”

  “Bugger the dress.” I sat on my bed and patted the counterpane beside me. The window had been left open to let in a bit of air, and, as usual, a thin sheen of sawdust covered everything. The cursed sawmills in this town never stopped working. “Sit,” I commanded.

  Mary sat, back stiff and head bent. “You work for Mrs. LeBlanc, do you? If my son hauled you out of the river, I suspect you’re not happy in your employment. Is that correct?”

  The last piece of her pride crumbled. She lifted her hands to cover her face, her thin shoulders shook, and dry sobs racked her flat chest as she began to talk. “Mrs. LeBlanc owns me. There are some men who like Indian women, she says. So they have to pay well. But not many such men, so she says I am not making them happy.”

  I stroked her luxurious black hair—unbound, it fell almost to her waist—and peeked at the watch hanging on a gold chain from my belt. It was well after seven—long past time I should be back at the Savoy. And I hadn’t yet dressed for the evening. The stage show began at eight, and, as supervision of the dancers was my responsibility, I needed to be there to make sure they all showed up—on time and reasonably sober.

  Once she started to talk, Mary was like the spring breakup of the Yukon River. Nothing could stop her. The gist of it was that she was from Alaska and believed herself to have been sold to one Mr. Smith, a man heading for the Yukon, in payment for some nebulous debt owed by the uncle of her widowed late mother. Mr. Smith had tired of her, and on arriving in the Yukon, he’d passed her on to the infamous madam, Joey LeBlanc. She was honour-bound, Mary told me, to stay with Joey in order to see the original debt paid in full. But the shame was so great that it had eventually taken her to the banks of the Yukon River and the timely intervention of my son. Even now she wanted only to return to the solace of the river, even though the fathers had taught her at school that to take one’s own life was the darkest of sins. Through her tears she asked that neither Angus nor I interfere with her again.

  I took a deep breath and lifted her chin with two fingers. “You don’t have to go back to Mrs. LeBlanc if you don’t want to, Mary.”

  Her dark eyes searched my face. “But my uncle’s debt? There is no one else to repay it. I belong to Mrs. LeBlanc. If I don’t complete my time, she will tell Mr. Smith, who will return to extract payment from my uncle.”

  “Your uncle can pay his own debt. Or not. As he wishes. If they told you you’re bound to Mrs. LeBlanc, they lied. I know this. I have friends in the Mounties. You know the Redcoats?”

  “Don’t condescend to me, Mrs. MacGillivray.”

  I stood up and began unbuttoning the bodice of my day dress. “I mean no insult, Mary. Your English is perfect, your manners beyond reproach. But if people have told you wrong for their own selfish gain, I am not condescending to you if I attempt to set you straight.” I opened my wardrobe and peered in. The wooden cabinet, missing one set of hinges, which housed my entire ensemble, was substantially smaller than what in times past would have stored my shoes or undergarments. I didn’t often miss what I’d left behind, but sometimes… I ran my fingers through my gowns, hoping something forgotten yet perfectly lovely would be waiting to be found.

  “What do you think I should wear tonight? The green satin is the nicest, but I’ve worn that rather a lot lately.” My best dress, a genuine Worth, presented to me in London at the original Savoy Hotel, guarded across seas and continents, carried over the Chilkoot Pass, had recently died an ignominious death. Mrs. Mann was still attempting to salvage something of the crimson silk, the ostrich feathers, and the Belgian lace. Nothing, I feared, would ever replace that gown.

  “Everything you have is lovely, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she said in her soft voice. I knew she was talking about more than my clothes.

  I looked at the garments in question and pulled out the green satin. “What I’m attempting to say, Mary, is that if you think you belong to Mrs. LeBlanc because of someone else’s arrangements, then you’ve been deceived. For heaven’s sake, it’s 1898, and this is Canada. I’ll contact my friend in the Mounties, and he will ensure you don’t have to return to the likes of Mrs. LeBlanc.”

  “Even an Indian woman has to eat,” Mary said, picking at loose threads in the counterpane.

  I dressed quickly, draped a length of fake pearls around my neck, arranged my hair, settled a hat onto my head, thrust several hatpins through it, and regarded myself in the cracked mirror on the wall. I do not succumb to false modesty: if I wasn’t the most spectacular woman in Dawson tonight, I would…what would I do? I would eat the hat on my head.

  I turned to face Mary. “I have decided. Mrs. Mann has only recently begun this foolish enterprise of running a laundry. She complains non-stop about the amount of work, combined with keeping Mr. Mann looked after and caring for this boarding house, although Angus and I are the only residents. She’s been trying to find an assistant, but willing women are scarce on the ground. You will take employment beginning tomorrow as helper to Mrs. Mann in the laundry. Now I must be off.” I slipped pearl earrings through my ears and patted a touch of rouge on my cheeks.

  Mary stared at me. “Mrs. LeBlanc…” she said.

  “If Mrs. LeBlanc has a concern about these arrangements, then she may speak to
me. Do you think these earrings match? Perhaps the gold ones would be best?”

  “The pearls,” Mary said.

  “I agree. Let’s tell Mrs. Mann of our arrangement.”

  Mary cracked a small smile. It went a long way towards putting some life into her pinched face. “I’d like that,” she said.

  I’d had a few encounters with Joey LeBlanc, and none of them had been pleasant. Prostitution was technically illegal in the Yukon. Then again, so was gambling, yet the Savoy operated an extremely lucrative casino. But Dawson was a town full of prospectors from every corner of the world, so the police, wisely in my opinion, decided to let vice have its way as long as they could control real crime. Joey ran a stable of prostitutes, mostly operating out of the cribs of Paradise Alley, along with a handful that were a touch more respectable. The Mounties turned a blind eye: after all, women were as eager to enjoy the residue of a prospector’s dreams as was anyone else. But slavery, indentured servitude, whatever it was called these days, Her Majesty’s North-West Mounted Police would not approve of that one little bit.

  I don’t know why I liked Mary so much almost immediately upon meeting her. I’d hired Indian packers to take us over the Chilkoot. They had been, by and large, efficient and taciturn. They kept a respectful distance from me, although on the trail and around the campfire Angus had hounded them for stories from their tribal history and information about their customs. Our packers were Tagish, he’d told me. I had no idea if Mary was of that tribe or another. Other than working as packers and the occasional guide, the Indians kept pretty much to themselves in the Yukon. They weren’t allowed in the bars and dance halls, and there were so many white (and some black) men looking for work in Dawson there was no need to hire Indians. Mary was the first Native I’d seen in town.

  How lonely she must be. And caught in the talons of Joey LeBlanc to boot.

  Everyone looked up as I came back into the kitchen. Mary followed, dragging the overlarge dress behind her like a bridal train.

  “Angus,” I said, “I have to be at the Savoy. Go with Mary and find Constable Sterling. Ask him to accompany you to get Mary’s belongings from her place of…residence.”

  “We don’t need…” Angus began. “Yes, you do. Don’t go there without a Mountie. There might be some opposition to her leaving, and I want this entirely above board. Then take her to one of the empty rooms at the Savoy. I don’t think we have anyone in residence today. Use the back stairs.”

  Occasionally some of the bartenders or croupiers who are temporarily short of accommodation are permitted to sleep in the upstairs rooms beside the offices. Good customers, who collapse over the bar or fall asleep over their cards, we put up in a cot in the big room at the end of the hall. Poor customers, and certainly those who are winning, we toss out into the mud of Front Street.

  “I have no money,” Mary said. I waved a hand. “You can pay your rent out of your wages.

  Mrs. Mann, I have found you a helper for the laundry. I’m sure you can come to an agreement when she arrives for work first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “My friend owns a laundry,” Mary said to no one in particular. “On Fifteenth Street. She works hard, but she makes good money.”

  What Mrs. Mann thought of this arrangement, it was impossible to tell. I was thrusting a complete unknown— not to mention an Indian—at her. But she simply said, “Be here at seven.”

  Mr. Mann stood up. He cleared his throat. I half expected him to throw Mary out on her ear, and me after her for suggesting that such a woman come and work for his wife. For him it would be enough that she was an Indian— without even knowing her (former) occupation. “I go with Angus,” he said. “Help carry.”

  I smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr. Mann.”

  He almost blushed and turned away.

  My suggestion that Mary take employment in Mrs. Mann’s laundry and residence in the Savoy wasn’t entirely altruistic. I was rather delighted at the idea of having a confrontation with Joey LeBlanc, while knowing that the law was, for once, on my side.

  I can be such an idiot sometimes.

  Chapter Three

  Constable Richard Sterling settled his broad-brimmed hat on his head, said goodbye to the corporal in charge of the Dawson town detachment and opened the door. A lanky blond boy, a tumble of too-long arms and legs, stood in front of him with his hand extended towards the latch.

  Sterling grinned. “Angus, what brings you here? Looking for me?”

  “Yes, sir. Well, we’re looking for a Mountie, that is.” “We?” Sterling said, before noticing two people watching the exchange from the bottom of the steps. He nodded to the man. “Mr. Mann.”

  “My ma said we had to get a Mountie. Let’s go.”

  “Hold up, Angus. Where are we going?” Sterling touched the brim of his hat.

  “I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to this lady.” Which was factually true, although he knew well enough that she worked out of a crib on Paradise Alley and handed her earnings over to Joey LeBlanc.

  Seeing the recognition in his face, the woman lowered her eyes.

  “Oh, right,” Angus said. “This is Mary…uh…just Mary. My friend.”

  “Sterling,” Mr. Mann said. “Weeze wasting time. Youze gos now.” He made a sort of shooing gesture with his hands towards the woman, and she set off down the street with long determined strides that belied her short legs. She was wearing a dress far too large for her and made of considerably better fabric than most of the cloth one saw in Paradise Alley.

  “What are you and Mr. Mann doing in the company of that woman, Angus, and where are we going?” Sterling asked as they fell into step behind the German man and the native woman.

  “To get her things,” Angus said. “She’s moving into the Savoy.”

  “She’s moving into the Savoy!” Sterling almost stopped in his tracks. Angus kept on walking, forcing Sterling to take a skipping step to keep up. “Does your mother know about this?”

  “Of course. It was her idea.”

  “Of course. Do you know where this…Mary lives?”

  “Second Avenue, I think.”

  “That’s right. Angus, before we go any further, you’d better tell me what you’re doing and why you need a police escort to do it.”

  They turned the corner, and Mary picked up her pace. She scurried through the street with her head down, looking at nothing but the ground in front of her feet. This part of Second Avenue was popularly known as Paradise Alley, for obvious reasons. Although Sterling’s father, a stern, strict preacher who ruled his flock, and his family, like an old testament prophet expecting judgement any moment, would have had more than a few strong words to say about such blasphemy. The street was narrow, full of mud and debris, lined with two neat rows of nearly identical narrow wooden dwellings. These were the cribs, where women plied their trade, peak-roofed, wide enough for only one long thin window beside the door, their frontage not much more than a few feet wide. A few sported an awning over the door, presumably to keep the customers dry while they waited their turn. In the early evening there weren’t many men around. A few women, with worn faces and tired bodies, tattered dresses and cheap jewellery, stood in their doorways or gathered together on the strip of boardwalk, exchanging gossip and watching the passing traffic. No one spoke to Mary as she marched down the middle of the street, mindless of several inches of her ill-fitting dress dragging through the mud and ignoring the men and boy following her.

  She stopped in front of one of the shacks. “Here,” she said. It was no better, and no worse, than any of the others.

  Angus stepped forward, ready to go inside with her. She lifted a hand. “Please wait.”

  Sterling stood in the street with a scowling Mr. Mann and a red-faced Angus, feeling conspicuous in his red tunic, broad-brimmed hat, and high black boots. The women watched with expressionless eyes. The few customers on the street stayed well clear.

  He could see them coming from a long way away. Two toughs with many
-times broken noses, calloused hands, good clothes and a practiced swagger. As they approached, the women disappeared into their homes, slamming doors behind them as if a skunk were coming down the road with tail raised. A small woman in an unadorned brown housedress stood alone on the far side of the street, watching.

  One of the men stopped several yards short of Sterling, and the other approached with a friendly smile that didn’t touch the steel in his eyes. Sterling doubted the man had given anyone an honest smile since he ceased to be a toddler. “Help you, Constable?”

  “No.” Mary came out of her home, clutching a cloth-wrapped

  bundle to her chest. Mr. Mann took the package then handed it to Angus. His arms hung loosely at his sides, but his body was as tense as wire on a range fence, and Sterling was glad the German would be on his side if worse came to worse.

  “We’re in no hurry. Get the rest of it, Mary,” Angus said. “There is no more.” “This is all you have?” He sounded as if he couldn’t

  quite believe it. Considering he was the son of Fiona MacGillivray, Sterling had no doubt the boy truly didn’t believe a woman could get by with so little.

  Then Mary saw the two men. Her colour didn’t change and her expression didn’t waver, but Sterling saw the tension crawl into her neck and shoulders.

  “Leaving?” the man asked in a voice as polite as his false smile.

  “Yes,” Sterling said.

  The man took one step to stand in front of Mary. She stared at her feet. “Mrs. LeBlanc would like you to stay.” Mary’s eyes flicked towards the woman in the brown dress watching the exchange. “Go back inside, and there’ll be no hard feelings.”

  “Mary doesn’t want to stay,” Angus said.

  “Angus,” Sterling said, “be quiet. Shall we go, Mary?”

  The big man was solidly in her path. She took a tentative step to one side. Without appearing to move, he shifted slightly and blocked her. “Mrs. LeBlanc says you owe a month’s rent on your cabin, Mary.”