Gold Dust (30 page)

“My real mother. Her name was Many Horses Woman.” Katy looked Jonah in the eye, almost challenging, and awaited his reaction.
She was proud of her Blackfoot heritage, but she’d been taunted with the name “half-breed” often enough to know that not everyone
shared her respect for her mother’s people.

Jonah’s gaze didn’t waver. “Your mother must have been the prettiest woman between here and the Mississippi.”

A constriction Katy hadn’t known was there loosened around her heart. “That’s what my pa always said.”

“This would be the pa who was running from the law?” he asked, one brow cocked.

“Yeah,” Katy said proudly. “A mob was going to hang him, but I shot the rope in two and made off with him. That was when I
was ten.”

“They were going to hang him,” Jonah repeated slowly. “Why?” He looked as if he didn’t really want to know.

“Murder,” Katy said matter-of-factly.

Jonah leaned his head back and contemplated the brilliant morning sky. “Murder. Great. I seduced the daughter of a murderer.
I wonder how long I have to live.”

“Pa’s not a murderer,” she replied indignantly. “He killed a man who hurt my mother.”

“He only kills people who mess with his family. That’s a comfort.” The look on Jonah’s face made Katy laugh in spite of the
dark memories of that violent time in her young life. Jonah’s eyes caught hers, and the laughter faded away, leaving a glow
in the pit of her stomach.

“I like to hear you laugh, Katydid.”

Her mind was suddenly muddled, roiled by the sudden intensity of his dark blue gaze. She labored to drag the conversation
back to the light tenor of before. “Pa always says I’m too serious.”

“Does he?”

She grinned. “Yeah. He does. Don’t worry about Pa coming after you, Jonah. After all, you aren’t the one who did the seducing,
are you?”

“Wasn’t I?”

The conversation hung on a precipice. Katy swallowed hard. A new warmth was blooming between them, and she discovered that
she wanted more than anything to have Jonah as a friend again. Perhaps for that to happen, some of the clutter of the last
few days needed to be swept away.

“No, you weren’t.” She met his eyes, and found that simple act took more guts than facing a grizzly. “I… I acted like a fool,
prancing around and sniping at you because Maude had gotten me riled. Then things just sort of got away from me. You shouldn’t
feel guilty at all.”

Jonah covered her hand where it rested on the log. “You weren’t any more of a fool than I was, Katy, and I should have known
better.” A brow twitched, and a smile played around his mouth. “But I have to admit truthfully that I don’t regret one minute
of it.”

Katy’s face heated. His fingers played with hers. She understood now that if she didn’t watch herself, she could very easily
be a fool again.

“Katy O’Connell,” Jonah said softly, “if I were your father, I would take a shotgun to me.”

“The shotgun in the family belongs to me. My pa uses pistols.”

His eyes twinkled. “Pistols. That makes me feel a lot safer.”

Katy chuckled. “Don’t worry. Pa’s in Paris with Olivia—she’s my stepma—visiting some of her friends there. Even if he were
here, my pa knows I can take care of myself.”

“Do you want to always take care of yourself, Katydid?”

Jonah’s hand closed around hers. The blue fire in his eyes threatened to burn a hole in the strongest of her resolutions.
She snatched her hand away.

“I do,” she breathed.

Jonah merely smiled.

“Sheee-it!” Jud Hackett spit a brown gob of mucus into the dust at his feet. “That piss-yaller no-good cheatin’ sonofabitch
newspaper scribbler from Back East? Sure I remember ‘im. ‘Member ‘im plain as day.”

Gabriel O’Connell’s eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t care much for either of the Hackett brothers, but neither did he care
for some man luring his daughter into a wild-goose chase for Canadian gold.

“So yer Katy up and ran off with the fancy man, did she?” Jud chortled. “Ain’t that jest like a woman? Fallin’ fer a pretty
face and sweet-talkin’ ways instead of lookin’ fer a man who gits dirty with a bit o’ work. Thought yer Katy had more sense,
though.”

Gabriel glanced across Willow Bend’s main street to the two-story frame house that was Willow Bend’s hospital—Olivia’s hospital,
really, though she claimed it was Willow Bend’s. In a moment or two, his wife would appear at the door looking for him. They
were going to dinner at Millie Perkins’s restaurant. Olivia would have seen him drive into town, and she’d be wondering what
was keeping him. Gabe had seen Jud loitering by the door of the Watering Hole Liquor Emporium, however, and he couldn’t resist
asking a question or two.

“Tell me about the man,” Gabe growled.

Jud grinned. “He was purty, all right. Slicker ‘n a skunk that’s been in the goose grease. Suckered me’n’ Jacob into a game
of cards—and you know we ain’t easy to sucker. Let us win a few hands to get us hooked, then started some fancy stuff with
the cards. When I calls ‘im on it, yer girl took it in her mind to butt in. Guess he suckered her as well as he did me and
my brother.”

Gabe’s eyes narrowed even more. “Young?”

“Young ‘n’ snortin’ as a green stud horse jest turned out o’ the barn.”

“Good-looking?”

Jud blew a breath through the gap in his front teeth. “Real ladies’ man, from what I could see. Kinda’ surprised he took up
with Katy. Seems ta me that curvy singer over at the Strand
or even that pretty widder woman who runs the hotel would be more his style.”

Gabe gave Jud a black look that made the grin fade from the man’s face. Unreasoning anger welled up to choke him. Anger and
fear—a combination not conducive to levelheaded thinking, but at the moment, Gabe didn’t care about levelheaded. A man could
think and ruminate and cogitate all the day long on a problem and not move a single step toward solving the damned thing.
Action was what he needed. To hell with level heads.

“Thanks, Jud.”

Jud regarded him cautiously. “Anytime, Gabe. If’n you see the greenhorn skunk, tell ‘im he owes me.”

As Gabe had predicted, Olivia appeared at the door of the hospital. When she saw him leave Hackett’s company, her head tilted
in curiosity. She greeted him with one raised brow, but he didn’t give her a chance to speak.

“I’m going to Dawson,” he declared.

Olivia sighed. “Myrna said—”

“Yeah, I know Myrna said this Armstrong was some sort of church school teacher—”

“That’s not exactly what she said. She described him as a nice, innocuous fellow who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“That tipped her hand right there,” Gabe insisted. He took Olivia’s arm and led her into the hospital. The sharp pungency
of disinfectant leaked into the reception area from the adjoining surgery, but after being married to a physician for eight
years, Gabe scarcely noticed the odor. He associated the scent with Olivia as another man might recognize his wife’s favorite
perfume. “No man who drinks and plays cards with the likes of Jud and Jacob Hackett is that innocent. Myrna’s got a soft heart,
and she’s just trying to keep Katy out of trouble.”

Olivia sat down in one of the chairs along the wall. She picked at an imaginary flaw in her white apron. “I can see you’ve
made up your mind.”

Gabe sat down beside her. The look she gave him was more
amused than annoyed. “I’ve been doing some reading on the Klondike,” he said.

“Of course you have.”

“The fastest way to get there is to take a steamer from Seattle to the mouth of the Yukon and then go up the river on a steamer
to Dawson.” Now that he’d made up his mind to go, Gabe felt the stir of adventure in his blood. New York and Paris had been
all right because Olivia had been with him, but the Klondike was really more to his taste. For a moment he understood why
Katy had gone. She was more like Gabe than a daughter should be. Not that she wasn’t in a load of trouble for running off
with some slick-talking, card-cheating no-account. The thought made him angry all over again.

“Gabe,” Olivia said. “I want you to promise to keep a cool head where this young man is concerned. If you were anyone but
her father, you’d know that Katy can very well take care of herself.”

Gabe leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his broad chest. “Katy can take care of herself with a bear or an
ornery horse—but a man?” He scowled. “Jud Hackett says this Armstrong’s a young, good-looking, cocky sonofabitch. A man like
that has mostly one thing on his mind.”

Olivia smiled wryly. “You ought to know.”

Gabe’s glare was only halfhearted. “I should have married a nice, meek Irish girl like my mother wanted me to.”

“And I should have married my father’s junior banking partner in New York.” The dance of light in Olivia’s eyes belied her
Hippocratic dignity. “We seldom do what we really ought to do. Remember that when you catch up with Katy and this young man.”

Katy could scarcely refrain from jumping up and down like an eager child. “We have a boat! I don’t believe it!”

“Big enough for all five of us,” Jonah said proudly as Andy and Patrick joined Katy at the campfire. “Hunter, too.” He picked
a piece of cold squirrel meat from the congealed leftovers
of the night’s supper and tossed it to the wolf. “Can’t leave our best hunter behind.”

“How the hell did you do it?” Patrick demanded. “I must have talked my tongue off at those boys up at the sawmill, and all
they could say was they weren’t takin’ no more contracts.”

Jonah gave them all a roguish grin. “You’ve gotta have the touch. Those poor lambs are out of their league dealing with a
big city wolf like me.”

Patrick returned his grin. “You part Irish, Armstrong?”

“Not a bit. Pure cussed Chicagoan. It’s just as bad.”

The dark night beyond the campfire suddenly seemed brighter as Katy contemplated being on their way once again. The promise
of progress toward the goldfields made her heart beat and her toes tingle with the urge to dance. Traveling with Jonah once
again had nothing to do with her excitement, Katy assured herself. Over the last few days, they had begun to build a friendship
on the ruins of what had gone before. Nothing more than friendship, safe, undemanding friendship between two people who were
sharing an adventure.

“How soon do we get our boat?” she asked.

Jonah’s eyes twinkled at her. “Start packing your gear, Katydid. And fork over some coin. The boat’s ours as soon as Mr. Rocco
sees the color of our money.”

Katy’s heart warmed at the silly name he’d begun calling her. She’d told him huffily that she wasn’t a bug, and he’d replied
with an easy smile that it was no worse than being named after someone’s horse. All the same, the nickname made her smile.

When morning dawned they got their first good look at the craft that would ferry them down the treacherous headwaters of the
Yukon River. “I’m glad I know how to swim,” Katy commented.

“It’s not too bad,” Patrick said.

Camilla, still sunk in the lethargy of grief, said nothing at all. Patrick put a cautious arm around her. “What do you think,
lass? Our chariot to gold, eh? When we’re rich, I’ll buy
you the fanciest house in Boston, and you’ll have so many silk dresses that you’ll wear one once and toss it in the ragbin.
What do you think?”

Camilla shook her head sadly, her mouth a tight line.

The boat didn’t look like much, but neither did any of the other flat-bottomed craft that daily started the journey downriver.
Plenty large enough to take the five of them along with their gear, the boat had a sharply pointed bow and a wide, unwieldy-looking
stern. It needed a final sealing with pitch, so despite Jonah’s optimistic words, they couldn’t leave that morning. In a few
days time they would be on their way, though, which was a much more favorable prospect than the few weeks it would have taken
them to build a boat from a share of lumber that Patrick and Jonah cut for the mill. A good thing it was, too, for an extended
stay at Lake Bennett would not only have increased the risk of winter blowing through the pass and trapping them somewhere
on the Yukon, but it also would have meant buying more food. The price of flour in the tent town was $140 per barrel, compared
to $4 per barrel in Dyea. Other foodstuffs sold at similarly inflated rates. Understandably, nobody wanted to go grocery shopping.

After Liam’s burial, the Armstrong and Burke parties had joined their camps in unspoken and mutual assent. Jonah’s help during
the crisis had bound them into a family of sorts, and his offer to share his precious boat solidified the union. They worked
together to get the boat ready for its journey, and on the third morning they set sail just as the first golden rays of the
sun touched the wooded slopes of the St. Elias Mountains, which rose steeply from either side of Lake Bennett. It was a glorious
sunrise, a gorgeous day with a clean blue sky arching above them and just a hint of a breeze rippling the lake. Sitting in
the bow with Camilla, one arm draped around Hunter while they watched the golden sunlight crawl down the mountain slopes,
Katy took the day’s beauty as a sign that from this time forward, the trip was going to progress without a hitch. What more
could happen, after all?
So far she had been mistaken for a boy, unjustly fired from her first real job, attacked on the decks of a filthy, crowded
little steamer, rained on until moss grew between her toes, nearly drowned in a flood, upstaged by a whore, and shown in a
very hands-on demonstration just exactly what married ladies whispered about behind their hands. Worse than all that rolled
into one, she’d had to watch a baby die.

No, Katy decided. The trip couldn’t get any harder than it had already been. If she managed to get to Dawson in one piece,
she would deserve every ounce of that fortune in gold she intended to find.

“Katy!” Jonah hollered from the stern, where he tended the rudder. “Quit staring at empty sky and raise the sail. There’s
a nice breeze coming up.”

“Aye, aye,” she said cheerfully.

Their makeshift sail, however, was not as easily handled as Katy had imagined, especially with that “nice breeze” making the
heavy canvas billow and snap in her hands. Katy felt rather than saw the amusement in Jonah’s eyes as he watched her struggle.
Finally he turned the rudder over to Patrick and joined her at the mast.