Gold Dust (9 page)

“That’s the way I like ‘em!” his friend exclaimed. “Come on, missy! We’ll show you a fine time. Pay ya, too.”

Katy got slowly to her feet. At her side, the wolf regarded the men with bored yellow eyes and yawned. “If you don’t want
to lose a good number of your ugly yellow teeth, sucker-bait, I’d be on my way.”

“The bitch is gettin’ nasty,” one of the men observed. “I think she needs shakin’ down off’n that high horse of hers.”

The other agreed, grinning to display the teeth Katy had so disparaged.

Katy sighed with seeming unconcern. Yellow-teeth grabbed at her, but she pushed him away with a strong shove. The other grabbed
her from behind. She aimed her foot backward
in a kick that would have knocked his feet from beneath him, but he anticipated her move and jerked her off-balance while
Yellow-teeth moved in with a lecherous chuckle, his hands reaching toward her breasts.

Jonah needed no more provocation; he burst from the shadows, full of gentlemanly ire, and grabbed the arm of the man who reached
for Katy. The drunk whirled and sent a meaty fist in Jonah’s direction. Jonah ducked and answered with a punch to the gut
that should have sent the man reeling, especially considering he wasn’t very steady on his feet in the first place. The man
hesitated a moment, shook his head, then grinned and took another shot at caving in Jonah’s face. This time he connected.
Jonah staggered back and measured his length along the deck. A shriek of pure fury split the night air.

Jonah hiked himself up on one elbow and watched dizzily as Katy sent the point of her elbow into the gut of the wretch who
held her. When he doubled over in pain and turned her loose, she attacked Jonah’s assailant, spun him around, and landed a
small but effective fist in his paunch and an expert left hook to his jaw. The lecher bounced off the deck cabin bulkhead
and groaned. His groaning buddy backed into a corner created by the cabin and a canvas-covered pile of freight. He was held
at bay there by the wolf, who eyed him with a quiet ferocity that left no doubt of the creature’s ability to wreak mayhem
if he were so inclined.

Jonah looked up into Katy’s concerned face. “Are you all right?” she asked.

He gingerly touched his nose, decided it wasn’t broken, and sighed. “Yes. I’m all right. I should have known that you of all
females didn’t need me rushing to your rescue.”

“It was very sweet of you.” Green eyes twinkled at him. The woman had no mercy.

She turned back to her chagrined attackers. “Why don’t you fellows go find a corner and sleep it off. Hunter, back off.”

Hunter stepped back, still alert. His charge inched out of the corner.

“Go on now,” Katy urged. “Before I tell him to take a piece of your fat backside.”

When the two rowdies were gone, Jonah got to his feet. “Jesus! That ape packs a punch.”

“What do you expect? He outweighs you by about a hundred pounds.”

“You’d think someone that drunk couldn’t hit what he was aiming at.”

“He didn’t. He was aiming at your throat to knock your Adam’s apple down your windpipe. Then you wouldn’t be hurting at all,
would you?”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Yes, he was. Whatever made you jump those two gorillas? You know you can’t handle yourself in a fight!”

Jonah rubbed his injured nose. He wished his injured pride could be comforted as easily. “I can handle myself in a fight.”

“That’s why I’ve had to snatch your bacon out of the fire twice in the short time I’ve known you?”

“I’ll have you know I was middleweight boxing champion at the Smithson School for Young Men in Chicago. I can handle myself
in a fight. The odds here weren’t fair, you know.”

She laughed, a delicious sound that nevertheless made Jonah want to strangle her. “The odds are never fair, and no one ever
fights clean, greenhorn. Fighting’s serious business. You’re going to have to learn to fight dirty.”

“There’s no reason I should be fighting at all.” He wiped his sleeve across his face and grimaced when it came away streaked
with blood. “There are not a whole lot of things that are worth getting your teeth knocked out for.”

Katy smiled impishly. “Well, Jonah Armstrong, since you were nice enough to consider me one of those things, I guess I’ll
take the trouble to teach you how to beat the stuffings out of the other guy before he can do it to you.”

“Thank you, Katy, but I don’t need—”

She punched him lightly in the chest. “Yes you do. Try to punch me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. People are going to think I’m assaulting you.”

“Nah. Most everyone’s drinking beer and playing cards down in the dining room.” She danced around him like a pesky mosquito,
goading him with stinging shots to his arms, chest, and back. “What’s the matter, Jonah? You afraid of a helpless little female—one
of those poor creatures who need to be cared for and coddled.”

“Katy…” He tried to grab her.

Slippery as a little snake, she slid away, whirled, and kicked out. Her foot stopped just short of his groin.

“Katy! For God’s sake!”

Her hand whipped up in a chop that ended with a mere touch on his Adam’s apple. He grabbed again, but she was hard to capture
as air.

Suddenly her foot slipped behind his and pushed. He toppled, hitting the deck hard. “Goddamn it!”

“Tsk, tsk,” Katy chided. “No cussing, please. You’re in the presence of a lady.”

Jonah surged to his feet. Finally managing to grab her, he pushed her back against the deck cabin before she could break free
and work more mayhem.

“See?” she chirped. “I could never fight fair against you. You probably weigh twice what I do, and you’re almost a foot taller.”

“I wasn’t trying to fight back.”

“You would’ve been on the floor before you threw your first good punch.”

She was right. Even if he had been serious, he never would have touched her had she not permitted it. Fearing another demonstration,
he kept her against the cabin bulkhead. She merely smiled up at him.

“The groin, the throat, the eyes.” She gently touched each area to demonstrate. The artless intimacy ignited a fire in one
of those most vulnerable areas. Jonah cursed to himself. The little hussy was an expert at getting under a man’s skin. The
scent of her—how could she smell so clean after five days on this wretched steamer?—threatened to overwhelm him. Where his
hands grasped her arms, her skin seemed to burn against his.

Katy continued. “The gut is a good spot on some. Not on you, I think.” She patted his stomach then punched him—not so lightly—with
her closed fist. “Not bad. Pretty hard. On someone with only flab here you can really put them out with a good gut punch.”

Abruptly Jonah let her go. If he didn’t get away from the damned temptress right now, he would give her something she richly
deserved, but that he would be sure to regret.

“Next time you get in a fight,” she warned solemnly, “just remember what I said. Don’t fight fair. Fight to win.”

“As you do,” he growled

“Exactly.”

With a friendly wave she walked away, hips swinging un-boyishly in that long boyish stride of hers. Jonah combed a hand through
his hair and blew out a frustrated sigh. Katy O’Connell could teach most of the world’s harlots a thing or two about subtle
seduction. What she did to a man ought to be against the law.

Skagua
was an Indian word describing a very windy place, a member of the ship’s crew had told Katy, and Skaguay, true to its name,
was windy on the morning the steamer reached its destination. It was also gray, drizzly, and cold, despite the month still
being August. Ice floes had littered the last leg of their journey and now mingled with the ships in Skaguay’s harbor. Summer
ended early in Alaska, and the air held an ominous promise of autumn.

From Katy’s vantage point in the harbor, the town looked unprepossessing. In fact, it didn’t even look like a town. Few permanent-looking
buildings dignified the settlement. Tents of all sizes and descriptions sat haphazardly on the effluvium deposited at the
mouth of the Skaguay River, which flowed along the west side of the town to empty into the Lynn Canal, a north-reaching finger
of the sea that had Skaguay at its northern extremity.

Despite its drab appearance, the settlement seemed alive with excitement. Boats small and large crowded the harbor, and more
were arriving. Heedless of the danger and waste of good ammunition, high-spirited passengers fired off guns at birds, porpoises,
ice floes—anything that they could get in their sights that wasn’t human, and sometimes that was. To
add to the confusion, lifeboats, log rafts, and dinghies littered the harbor. Passengers, freight, and livestock had to be
transported in these fragile vessels about two hundred yards over the rough water from the anchored boats to the beach, for
the docking wharf was only half-built. Piles of freight decorated the strand like so much seaweed, and men scurried about
with carts and pack animals, moving it to higher ground before the tide could swallow it up.

Their steamer had anchored at midmorning and for the last hour had worked at unloading. Two lifeboats were in use, but Captain
Jeffries wouldn’t allow livestock to go ashore in his precious boats. Log rafts were floated out from the shore for those
passengers who had to transport mules, horses, and the like. One fellow had traveled with a sled and an eight-dog sled team,
despite it still being summer. Another had brought a bicycle with him and protested loudly when it wouldn’t fit into the lifeboat.
Finally, he was forced to endure the passage to shore on an open raft.

Katy waited on the deck with Hunter and her little valise, content to wait her turn on one of the rafts. She wasn’t impatient.
This experience was worth savoring, despite the wind and the drizzle. Besides, she would just as soon wait until the anxious
ones, the ones who overloaded their rafts and didn’t take the time to balance their loads, were already on the beach or had
dumped themselves into the cold water. Did they believe a few minutes, or even a few hours, would make a difference in them
finding gold? Katy wondered.

In the early afternoon she watched Jonah Armstrong and his little group of goldseekers cross in a lifeboat. Their crossing
was a rough one. The weather had deteriorated during the day. When the boat tipped dangerously, Jonah was the one who was
up and ordering that the weight be redistributed. Katy recognized him from his size—he was as tall as her pa, and that was
tall. He didn’t seem so tall up close, because he had a masculine broadness that put him nicely in proportion, but next to
the others on the lifeboat, he was easy to pick out.

Katy had said a cheerful good-bye to him when she had served his breakfast that morning. She’d even been generous enough to
wish him luck. He would need it. There was little chance of him coming to his senses and rehiring her as his guide, even if
the much-vaunted Mr. David Hayes turned out to be a crook. Jonah Armstrong had very definite ideas about what women should
do and should not do, and what Katy wanted to do certainly didn’t fit his picture of what was proper or possible. Too bad.
She was beginning to like the fellow, even if he was too citified to be of much use. It would be a shame if he got into trouble.

“Miss O’Connell?” Captain Jeffries’ voice boomed from behind her. “I believe the time has come when I can be rid of you. The
next raft is the last.”

“I appreciate the ride, Captain,” Katy said as she picked up her valise.

“Just don’t let me catch you on my ship again, young woman.”

As she started down the companionway to the lower deck, Hunter at her side, the captain’s mouth twitched in what might have
been the sparse beginnings of a smile. “And Miss O’Connell…”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know how to do a day’s work. Good luck to you.”

Katy smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

She would need luck, Katy admitted when the raft finally beached against the sand and she and the other passengers waded through
cold, calf-deep water to dry land. Everywhere was confusion: men shouting, dogs barking, mules braying, carts creaking and
rumbling. Towering above the tents, noise, and chaos were the mountains the goldseekers had to cross to reach the goldfields.
Wrapped in dignified, eternal silence, the great massifs frowned down upon the town that sat so precariously on its little
fluvial fan of a beach. Looking at the mountains, Katy almost felt dizzy. Her heart expanded at the awesome splendor.

But less poetic concerns had to be dealt with, such as finding a place to sleep and something to eat—and in the long run,
buying the supplies she needed for the trek to the goldfields.

She called Hunter from where he was dodging in and out of the little waves that foamed onto the sand. “Playtime’s over,” she
told him. “Time to go to work.” With the possibilities of gainful employment in mind, Katy set out to explore the town.

The exploration did not take much time. The mountains and the sea left little room for civilization to gain more than a toehold
on the edge of the land. The Skaguay River flowed out of the mountains to a sandy beach. Perched on that beach and the little
river plain behind was the scraggle of tents and hastily constructed shelters that was Alaska’s newest boomtown. The streets
of the town were muddy paths running between ramshackle structures. The canvas walls of the tents flapped and shivered in
the wind and sagged beneath the wet weight of the drippy weather.