Gold Dust (15 page)

Not that any of the other pack animals they saw on the trail were in much better condition than Decker’s. Most had ribs and
hipbones jutting into ridges and peaks beneath their skin, eyes that looked out upon the world with the dullness of near starvation,
and skin that suffered open sores rubbed by ill-fitting pack saddles and halters. The fact that all the other packers on the
trail abused their animals equally didn’t excuse Jack Decker in Katy’s eyes. It only made her madder. Her options were limited,
however. The five horses in their train belonged to him, not her, and as long as he delivered the services she had paid him
for, Katy had very little room to object.

Jonah, however, being a greenhorn, was less indoctrinated with the Westerners’ code of live and let live. When they stopped
to make camp that first night—just before the log toll bridge leading into the canyon of the Taiya River, the matter came
to a head. The sun was high enough above the horizon to give them time before sunset to make camp, but not high enough for
them to make it to Camp Pleasant, the little settlement just above the canyon. Several other parties had decided to stop as
well, and cookfires were making the air pungent with their smoke.

They chose a clearing well off the trail to set up the tent. The spot showed the scars of other parties that had been there—a
smoke-blackened ring of stones, a square of logs set around the fireplace as benches, a too hastily dug latrine, and several
patches of flattened weeds and wildflowers where tents had sat. Katy gratefully shed her pack and propped it against one of
the logs. Then she went to help unload the pack train so the animals could eat and rest. Jonah was already in frowning discussion
with Jack Decker.

“This is my pack train,” Decker was saying to Jonah, “and
I’ll run it as I see fit. No pissant ignorant dandy is gonna tell me what to do with my nags.”

“And no sonofabitch is going to abuse animals this way while taking my pay!”

“You pay me to haul your goods, mister. I’m haulin’ ‘em. End of story.”

“It’ll be the end of your story unless you—”

“What’s going on here?” Katy interrupted. The look on Decker’s face made her nervous. The look on Jonah’s face was downright
scary.

“He’s not going to unload the horses,” Jonah told her. “And he’s not going to feed them.”

“They can graze,” Decker said, and spit a wad of tobacco onto the ground.

What grass had once grown at this popular camping spot had long since been grazed off by other horses and mules. Only a few
weeds remained to poke through the needles of spruce and fir that covered the ground.

“There’s not much fodder here,” Katy pointed out.

“There’s enough. I don’t see no reason to waste freight space carryin’ feed along. And I’m not gonna unload ‘em, neither.
We’ll take off what we need for the night, but the rest of the stuff stays on their backs. You want to waste time in the morning
loading ‘em again?”

“They need the rest,” Katy said. “Unload them.”

“I need the rest a helluva lot more than they do,” Decker declared. “If you unload ‘em, missy, you’ll load ‘em back up in
the morning. Ain’t part of my job to waste time and effort because some softhearted female’s got her corset in a knot.”

Jonah growled a warning. “Watch your mouth, Decker.”

“Jesus Christ!” Decker groaned. “You damned uppity know-nothing city boys don’t have the brains to take your pants down before
you shit. Who’re you to be telling Jack Decker what he can say and what he hasta do?”

“You’re fired, Decker,” Jonah said in a voice hard as steel. “I’ll buy your goddamned horses.”

“Like hell you will!” Decker laughed and threw the first punch. Jonah threw the second, which landed precisely in the center
of Decker’s nose.

Katy’s hands curled into fists as she groaned. Jack Decker was going to pummel Jonah to a bruised and bleeding pulp. She knew
he was. “Remember what I taught you!” she shouted into the fray.

She doubted that Jonah heard her, for he was busy defending himself against Decker’s fists and landing a few blows himself.
Decker was bloodier than Jonah, but the packer didn’t seem to notice. The grin on his face showed his enjoyment of the brawl.

Decker’s assistant scuttled over to stand beside Katy. His bony arms delivered punches to the air in sympathy with the fight.

“It’s about time someone took on that sonofabitch!” he said.

Since the boy hadn’t know Jonah long enough to think he was a sonofabitch, Katy concluded he referred to Decker.

“Git ‘im in the balls!” he shouted to Jonah. “Shove his eyes down his throat!”

The boy was a fighter after Katy’s own heart. She shouted her own encouragement. “The throat, Jonah! Remember the throat!”

The fight ended before much of an audience had a chance to gather. Decker was big, powerful, and his body odor alone could
stagger a bull. Jonah was also big, however. He was fast, and, more important, he was deadly angry. He had absorbed what Katy
had taught him about ‘act-as-if-your-life-depended-upon-it’ fighting. After his first blow caught Decker in the nose, he danced
away from the infuriated retaliation until Decker left himself open out of sheer frustration. Then Jonah pounded the man’s
paunchy gut. When Decker bent over, gasping for air, Jonah sent a fist directly to his jaw. The big packer flew back and skidded
into the dirt. He moaned, but he didn’t get up.

Jonah took a roll of bills from his shirt, counted out a few,
and dropped them onto Decker’s heaving chest. “There’s your fee through today.” He peeled off a few ‘more. “There’s for your
horses, though the poor creatures aren’t worth half that. As I said before, you’re fired. Get out of here.”

Decker didn’t argue. He heaved himself to his feet, grabbed the money, and, keeping a cautious eye on Jonah, scuttled away.

Katy felt a ridiculous sense of pride in her pupil. “Not bad,” she conceded with an impish smile. “For a man who claims not
to fight at the first cross word, you get into a good number of battles.”

Jonah wiped a hand over his face as if to clear away the anger that still stiffened his features. “There’s a few things in
the world worth fighting for,” he said softly.

She had been worth fighting for, Katy remembered. And horses were worth fighting for also. Katy admired his priorities.

“Besides.” His face relaxed into a smile. “Decker and I were long past the first cross word.”

Katy chuckled. “Jonah, you should have been born in Montana. You’re wasted on being an Easterner.”

“I am, am I, sister mine?”

“You are, brother. Come on. Let’s get the horses unloaded. Then I’ll see if anyone else camped around here has some grain
they can spare.”

They were untying the canvas that covered the packs when the boy tapped her on the shoulder. Katy had almost forgotten about
Decker’s young assistant.

“I could do that for you, ma’am,” the boy said.

Katy looked at Jonah, who looked back uncertainly. Apparently he had forgotten about the kid also.

“I can do a lot of things to help,” the boy said. “And I ain’t no trouble. I’m good with the horses, and I don’t eat much.
I’d ‘preciate it if you’d keep me on, even though you fired Mr. Decker.”

Hunter, who’d been watching with lupine interest, walked
over to the boy and nudged his hand. The boy instinctively scratched the plush gray fur between the wolf’s ears. The simple
gesture made it almost impossible for Katy to refuse the boy. In a way that was almost painful, the kid reminded her of herself
not too many years back. Besides, he had been cheering for Jonah in the fight.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Andy.”

“Do you have a last name?”

“Reese.”

“All right, Andy Reese. You can start by going around to the other camps to see if you can buy some grain. Jonah, give him
a dollar. No one’s going to part with feed for cheap.”

Jonah watched the boy doubtfully as he ran from camp with a greenback clutched in his grubby hand. Then he turned his eyes
on Katy, one brow raised.

She arched a brow right back at him. “Decker would’ve taken it out on him, and we can use the help. Loading and unloading
five packhorses is no snap of the fingers.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Jonah denied.

“You were thinking I should have sent him off with his boss.”

Jonah smiled. “No, Katy. I wasn’t thinking that. I was simply admiring your gentle heart. You should have been born Back East.
You’re wasted on being a Wild Westerner.”

Katy hid her flush behind a grimace. “Yeah. Right.”

The Burkes were among the people who stopped before the toll bridge to set up camp for the night. Katy caught glimpses of
them as she helped Jonah unload the horses and set up their tent. Camilla looked even more tired than she had at Finnigan’s
Point, three miles back, but she had no sooner taken off her pack and found a safe resting place for Liam than she was helping
Patrick unload from their cart the things they would need for the night. Then, with no fuss or bother, she dumped flour and
salt into a bowl and began to mix a batch of biscuits. Katy remembered the heavenly biscuits her sister Ellen could make.
Her mouth started to water, and she was struck with sudden inspiration. Leaving Jonah to finish staking down their tent, she
wandered over to Camilla’s fire.

“Howdy,” she said.

Camilla looked up with a welcoming smile. “Hello, Miss O’Connell.”

“Call me Katy. Look’s like a dandy batch of biscuits there.”

“Patrick thinks he cannot live without biscuits for dinner and biscuits for breakfast.” She cast a fond look toward her husband,
who had abandoned the task of putting up their tent and was swapping stories with the men of the neighboring campsite.

“Have you ever had fresh roasted hare?” Katy asked.

“Do you mean rabbit?” Camilla laughed quietly. “Patrick and I are both from the city. In the part of Boston where we lived,
the only wildlife one sees are rats. I’m not sure I would recognize a rabbit if I saw one.” She greased the inside of a heavy
cast iron Dutch oven with lard and started to roll balls of biscuit dough in her hands. “Patrick is not a huntsman, so we
brought lots of salt pork, dried beef, and bacon, as the pamphlets said we should.”

“There’s no sense eating that stuff before you have to,” Katy said. Those biscuits of Camilla’s were going to be light and
fluffy and delicious. She could almost feel one melting in her mouth. In boasting to Jonah of her cooking along with her other
myriad talents, Katy had stretched the truth a bit. At home, she preferred to chop the wood for the stove and let Olivia and
Ellen prepare the food.

“I’m going out with Hunter to bring in some rabbits,” she told Camilla. “Why don’t you and Patrick join us for some fresh
meat roasted over the fire?”

“You are very gracious,” Camilla said. “But we couldn’t impose.”

“We’d be glad of the company. Besides, there’ll be plenty. You could… uh… bring the biscuits. It’ll give us a chance to get
to know each other. After all, we’re fellow Irishers. At least, I’m half an Irisher. And Jonah, too, of course, ‘cause he’s
my brother.”

“Yes. Of course.” The twinkle in Camilla’s eyes said that she didn’t for one moment believe Katy was Jonah’s sister, but her
smile was warm, and it made her face look much younger. “You are very kind. I will ask my husband, and I think he will like
the idea.”

“We’ll see you both a little later, then.”

Back at camp, Jonah was scribbling in his notebook by the last light of dusk. In the fireplace was a blaze that would soon
burn down to a good cooking fire. The greenhorn learned fast. Building a good fire was an art. Andy fussed with the horses,
brushing the caked mud from their coats while they munched the grain he’d scrounged for them. Katy looked on approvingly.
Mud on a horse’s coat ground into the skin and produced sores when it was caught beneath a cinch, saddle, halter, or harness.

“Hunter and I are going after dinner,” she announced. She half hoped Jonah would come. She wouldn’t have minded showing off
her skill with her rock sling. But he only looked up from his writing and smiled.

“If you’re going to the market, would you get some fresh greens and a loaf of bread?”

Katy chuckled. “The only market I’m going to is the nearest rabbit hole. Why don’t you whittle me a spit, and while you’re
at it, take out the best china and polish the silver. I invited the neighbors to dinner.”

“Yes, sister dear,” he teased.

The Burkes arrived in camp just as Katy and Hunter returned with dinner. Katy had sent Hunter in one direction, and she had
gone in the opposite. The skirt she wore made moving noiselessly through the brush impossible, and she cursed the awkward
thing. She didn’t know why she was still wearing such impractical clothing, except that she wasn’t quite ready yet to give
up her pretense of being a lady. The role she’d played back in Skaguay seemed to cling to her, somehow. Noisy skirts regardless,
she bagged two hares with her sling, and Hunter brought in one. No doubt it was the second to fall to his powerful jaws, and
the first had continued on down to his stomach. Expecting him to donate everything to the pack would have been unreasonable.