Gold Fever (7 page)

“Not very sporting.” “Sergeant Lancaster told me that too, sir. He said you never hit a man below the belt in a fair fight.”

“Well, that wasn't a fair fight. You did good, Angus. But next time—if there is a next time—run to the Fort, will you?”

“Yes, sir. What will happen to these two now, sir?” “This one will get a blue ticket and be out of town by nightfall. Permanently. The old Indian? I'll send someone to fetch one of the ladies from St. Paul's. They'll give him a hot meal and a bed in the church for the night and see he gets home to Moosehide tomorrow.” “But he'll drink again. Why won't he stop drinking?” “Don't judge, Angus. The white man took everything from his people and gave them only disease in return. Alcohol is as much a disease for Indians as smallpox or typhoid. It takes longer to kill them, that's all.”

I was in a fine temper when I got home. A bird flew overhead as I crossed the yard. It was a tiny thing, lost and confused amongst the noise and bustle of Dawson, no doubt searching for a tree to nest in, but she was out of luck—the trees had all been chopped down for lumber and firewood.

I stormed into the laundry shed and stripped down to my bloomers—even my petticoat was filthy—right there and then. Mary and Mrs. Mann watched me with wide eyes. Huge vats of boiling water steamed over open fires, and acres of sheets were being rung out on a wooden press ready to go on the line, which was already filling the yard with men's undergarments and shirts, billowing in the wind. The whole place smelled of a disgusting mixture of lye soap, filthy water and unwashed men's clothes.

“If this isn't the most God-forsaken town,” I shouted, bundling the dress into a ball and stuffing it into Mrs. Mann's arms. Mary was holding the huge wooden paddle they used to stir the laundry in the hot water as if this were a tennis court and she were about to return my serve. “I might as well go to work in sackcloth and ashes. I expect you to take care of that dress, Mary. It has scarcely been worn.”

“Yes, Mrs. Fiona.”

I had to cross the yard to get back to the house. I snatched a clean sheet off the folding table and wrapped it securely over my corset, bloomers and stockings. “I'll bring this back,” I snarled as I stalked out. I had once worn a sheet to an extremely daring party at Lord Alveron's Welsh country house. The party was so daring, in fact, that it could only have been held as far away from London, and Alveron's grandmother, as he could get. The sheet was supposed to represent a classical Roman toga. I wore an expensive set of pearls with the sheet—Alveron's great-grandmother's pearls.

They'd come in handy not too many months later when I'd sold them to secure Angus a place at a good school. The memory of my somewhat less respectable days did nothing to improve my mood, and I grumbled heartily as I stomped through the house to my rooms, tore off my hat and washed my hands and face. The water was cold, slimy with the residue of the morning's soap scum; Mrs. Mann had not yet changed it. Fortunately my hat was unscathed. It had cost almost as much as the dress. I struggled into my old day dress with no easing of my temper. The dress didn't go with the nice hat or the paste-sapphire earrings I'd carefully selected for the ensemble. Dawson was proving to be hard on my wardrobe.

If I ever sold the Savoy, I might consider going into ladies' apparel. I bravely faced myself in the mirror as I tore out hairpins and attempted to repair my hair.

My anger began to dissipate under the slow, rhythmic action of the brush against my hair. I'd been afraid Euila would notice that my son carried my maiden name. I didn't give a whit about my reputation, and most of the townsfolk of Dawson would care even less, but I had led Angus to believe I'd been married to his late father. When he was born, I didn't even consider giving my son his father's—if I weren't a lady, I would spit on the floor—name. Angus MacGillivray had been my father's name, and a kinder, gentler man I had yet to meet.

Fiona was my mother's name. Sometimes, if I close my eyes and concentrate very hard I can hear my father's voice saying “Fiona” in his rich Scottish brogue. He was full of adoration for my mother, full of fun towards me. Regardless of where I happen to be, whenever I hear that rough, beautiful accent, I fly through space and time back to our crofter's cottage on Skye. It's a cold winter's evening, snow blowing outside, peat fire burning in the hearth, Father bouncing me on his knee and asking my mother if I weren't the bonniest wee lass.

When I calmed down at last, under the steady stroke of my hairbrush, I realized I was worrying for nothing. Euila had probably never known my surname. Even the house servants only called me Fiona. Euila hadn't met my parents in all the years they'd lived on her family property, other than to nod a polite but distant good day as she passed. There were people from London and Toronto who would no doubt still be searching for me—thus, I tried, most unsuccessfully, to keep a low profile—but none of them would be able to trace me through Euila.

I sighed happily. All would be resolved. I had recently joked to Richard Sterling that I expected everyone from the king of the Zulus to our own dear Queen to pass through Dawson one day. But I hadn't expected Euila Forester.

I tucked the last strands of wayward black hair into their pins and chewed on my lips to bring up a bit of colour, deciding to drop in on Euila for old times' sake. Although I wouldn't go so far as to let my son anywhere near her.

I took the sheet back out to the laundry shed. A wave of steam erupted from a huge cauldron over the fire. “I'm returning the sheet I borrowed, Mrs. Mann,” I said, waving my hand in front of my face. “How's my dress?”

She stepped out of the steam like the fairy maid of legend emerging from the mists of Avalon. Although Arthur's Lady was unlikely to have had hands and face so red. “It will come clean like new,” she said. “With good soap.”

“Do you have good soap?”

“No.”

“Where would you get good soap?”

“Mrs. Bradshaw on Harper, near Seventh Avenue. She keeps a small supply of good soap for special customers.”

For special, read high-paying. “I'm late enough for work, I might as well walk all the way up to Mrs. Bradshaw's,” I said with a heroic sigh.

“Good idea,” Mrs. Mann said, as if she hadn't thought of it herself.

Seventh Avenue at Harper Street was uphill all the way. Grumbling, I made a quick detour and stopped at the Savoy to collect Helen Saunderson, who could ferry the precious soap back to Mrs. Mann.

“Heard ye had a wee bit of excitement down at Bowery Street this morning, Fee,” Ray said as I waited for Helen to hang her apron in the storage room-cum-kitchen which served as her domain. “Saved a lass from drowning by jumping into the river all by yourself.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said. Helen wanted to hear the whole story, so I related it to

her as we walked. I kept to the truth and put that way, it did sound rather boring compared to the tales that were flying around town.

It was past midday, and once we got away from the teeming waterfront, the streets were almost empty. All the respectable folks were at work, the layabouts snoring it off somewhere, the whores taking a well-deserved nap, the gamblers and drinkers back in the bars.

Helen huffed and twitched and cleared her throat, until I finally said, “Do you have something you want to say to me?”

“Not my place to be telling you what to do in your own place, Mrs. Mac,” she said, with a nervous cough, “but I think maybe you don't know, being a foreigner and all...”

“Know what?” “That woman you've got living upstairs. It ain't proper.” “She's behaving perfectly respectably, Helen,” I said.

“You may rest assured I wouldn't stand for anything illegal or immoral going on up there.”

“I don't mean that. Mrs. Mac, you gotta know she's an Indian. Ain't proper to have Indians living with white people. Men start hearing you've got an Indian in the Savoy, they'll stop coming.”

I doubted very much that anyone drinking in the bar, dancing with a percentage girl, or dropping a thousand dollars in the gambling room would care if a tribe of Hottentots took residence on the second floor of the Savoy. I was about to tell Helen so when she carried on.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Mac, but long as she's there, I won't be able to bring my girls 'round to help with the upstairs cleaning.” Helen had four children, the eldest the same age as Angus. “I can't have my children wondering if it's proper to have them living amongst us. Send her back where she came from. It's for her own good, mind. They're not happy living with us, you know.”

That gave me pause. I didn't care one whit whether Helen cleaned the upstairs rooms herself or if her daughters helped her. I paid the same regardless. But if Helen thought that way, what about the other supposedly respectable townspeople? I didn't need anyone asking questions about the type of establishment I kept.

“Isn't that Miss Irene up ahead?” Helen said, glad of the chance to change the subject. She opened her mouth to trill a greeting.

I clamped my arm on hers. “I don't think she wants to be disturbed.”

It was Irene all right, standing under an illiterate sign advertising a “Dresmakers” shop. Her back was to us, but I could tell by the set of her neck and the rigidity of her spine that a friendly interruption would not be welcome. She faced an older woman whom I did not know. The other woman wore a stiff homespun dress, an unadorned straw hat, and no jewellery. She was older than Irene, very thin, with plain no-nonsense features. Her eyes filled with emotion as she put her hands on Irene's shoulders. She was so short, she had to almost stand on her toes to reach. Her sixth sense, if it were that, caught me watching, and she looked up. Her face was set in hard, tight lines, and her eyes flashed with what I thought might be a warning.

“We've come the wrong way,” I said to Helen, dragging her down Sixth Avenue.

“You said it was up ahead. And ain't that Miss Irene over there?”

“No,” I said. “That wasn't Irene. Looked a good deal like her though. Oh, look, that must be the street.” I plunged down the nearest alley. A man relieving himself against a wall tried to stuff himself back into his pants.

“I'll have the Mounties on you, if I witness that again,” I shouted, still dragging a bewildered Mrs. Saunderson. “Imagine, frightening proper ladies.”

The man almost took flight, his shirtfront trapped in his trouser buttons.

“Mrs. Mac, what in heaven's name are you doing?” Helen wheezed.

“There we are,” I almost shouted. “Seventh Avenue. Look for Mrs. Bradshaw's shop. Remember, I want only the best soap. Bugger the cost.”

Mrs. Saunderson gasped, as well she might. I had chosen my words carefully in order to distract her from my rather odd behaviour.

I suspected I now knew the identity of Irene's secret lover.

For, as the woman in the homespun dress reached for Irene and looked into my eyes, my best girl, the most popular dance hall girl in Dawson, had leaned forward in anticipation of a kiss on the lips.

It had not been a good lesson. Angus had been so thrilled at how he'd helped Constable Sterling in the fight in Paradise Alley, he'd let his mind wander and his guard down. Sergeant Lancaster moved in with a single-minded determination that put the dazed boy flat on the sawdust floor in seconds. Angus struggled to his feet, shaking his head and wondering what had happened, encouraged by the few Mounties who stood around the makeshift ring which had been thrown up behind the kennels.

“If your mind's not on it, boy,” Lancaster said, playing to the audience, “you're gonna lose. Every time.”

After the lesson, they ducked their heads into barrels of rainwater and were towelling off when Angus explained to the sergeant why he'd been late.

Lancaster rubbed at his face with a scrap of towel. “Indian, eh?” the boxer said. “They're always causing trouble. Watch out boy, Sterling's got a reputation as an Indian-lover.”

When he left the Fort, Angus headed for the river to meet up with Ron and Dave. He could hardly wait to tell them the whole story. He was almost bursting with pride at the way he'd brought down that man who was about to make a cowardly attack on Constable Sterling. Maybe he'd embellish the story a touch. Have the man put up more of a fight. Angus made his way along Front Street towards the boys' gathering place on the other side of town, turning the whole incident over in his head. You didn't see many Indians in Dawson. And here he'd met two in two days. First Mary and now the old drunk. Sterling had called drinking a disease. Angus didn't see how that could be—lots of white men drank. And most of them went back to work or their families when they'd slept it off, although there were some who couldn't hold down a job because of it. Angus's mother ran a bar, and she told him what she thought of some of her clients. But people said Indians took to drinking so bad, the bars weren't even allowed to sell liquor to them.

“My dear boy! Isn't this a most fortuitous encounter!” Angus looked up to see Miss Witherspoon and Miss Forester bearing down on him. At least, Miss Witherspoon was bearing down; Miss Forester glided behind as if she were caught in a strong draft.

“Ma'am.” Angus doffed his cap politely. “I hope you're feeling better, Miss Forester.”

“She is, she is,” Miss Witherspoon said. “A short nap, and she's as right as rain. Aren't you, dear? We've come from visiting your lovely shop to thank you for your noble efforts, but your employer said you had left for the day.”

“Uh...” Angus said.

“Now, now, young man, don't say it was nothing. You were terribly quick to react.” She pulled her pencil and notebook out of her bag. “Your mother called you Angus. What's your last name?”