The Great Alone (81 page)

She turned slowly, tightening her grip on the shot glass of whiskey, surprised she hadn’t dropped it. The man wore a billed fur cap with the ear flaps turned up, revealing the white hair she had noticed earlier. His clothes looked well made if slightly soiled, although the latter was to be expected in this town.

Her father would have been in his late fifties. This man could be that—or more. It was difficult to tell. Excessive consumption of alcohol had a way of aging a man beyond his years, and there were indications that this man drank heavily. But, then, her father had drunk a lot, too.

“Excuse me.” Glory interrupted Deacon’s conversation with the man. “Did I hear you say that you knew of some property for sale, Mr. … Blackwood, was it?”

“That’s correct, ma’am. Gabriel Thornton Blackwood, attorney.” He doffed his hat.

“Miss Glory St. Clair.” She extended her hand, and he bowed over it. Glory recalled that her mother had often remarked about how gallant her father was.

She searched his face, trying to find a resemblance to an old tintype she’d once seen. She’d found it while going through a trunk of her mother’s things shortly after she’d died. It had been a picture of her father with Secretary Seward and several townspeople. Her aunt had subsequently destroyed the tintype, but that image of her father—the only one she’d ever seen—had remained in her mind. She tried to match it to the man in front of her.

His fair skin was flushed with drink. She could smell the liquor on his breath. His hazel eyes were bloodshot with wrinkled, saclike pouches weighting the lower lids. A network of blue veins crisscrossed his nose, running close to the surface of his skin. His cheeks were round, and a pointed yellow-white beard covered his chin. Maybe it covered a receding chin, Glory couldn’t tell. The man in the tintype had been younger, thinner.

“Are you from Alaska, Mr. Blackwood?”

“No. I’ve only recently arrived from San Francisco via Council City. I’m representing some clients with mining interests in the area.”

“Then this is your first trip to Alaska.”

His hesitation lasted no longer than it took for him to glance at some person behind Glory. Ryan Colby was the only one it could be. “No, I’ve been to this great land before. The Juneau area mainly.”

Something stopped her from asking if he’d ever been to Sitka, even though she was certain in her heart that this man was her father. After all these years, she’d finally met him. But she didn’t know what she felt. Confused mostly. Did she hate him? How could she love someone she had never known?

According to her aunt, this was the man who had wanted her dead even before she was born. This was the man who had abandoned her mother, left her penniless and alone with a baby on the way—the man who had stolen all the silver objects her great-grandfather had made, who had never come back to see the child he’d fathered.

Glory remembered her mother’s great loneliness, the way she had always blamed herself for his desertion. Glory resented him for that—and for her years of growing up without a father, with little food on the table and clothes stitched from her mother’s worn-out dresses on her back. She hated that life, the starkness of it, the lack of warm, tender feelings, and the misery of not being allowed to love or laugh.

If he had stayed, how different it all might have been. With a father to love and care for her, she’d probably never have come to this Godforsaken place in the wilds of the north.

But, likely as not, she never would have had all those trunks of beautiful clothes or the sack of money tucked in the bodice of her corset. Truthfully, Glory didn’t know whether to thank him or to slap him. So she did neither.

“You have already met my partner, Mr. Cole, haven’t you?” But she talked right over his affirmative response. “We are interested in acquiring a lot in Nome on which to build. I think it is very fortunate that one of the first persons we meet turns out to be a lawyer. I feel it is so important to have legal title to land, and who better to insure that than an attorney. You will help us, won’t you, Mr. Blackwood?”

“I should be delighted.” He stood straighter, his chest puffing slightly, obviously flattered by the importance with which she regarded him. “You are very wise to engage legal counsel in this matter, Miss St. Clair, especially here in Nome. As is the case in so many boomtowns, the letter of the law is frequently disregarded. In my opinion, most of the mining claims filed around Nome are invalid.”

“Why?”

“Because the Swedes that supposedly discovered the gold and filed claims on all these gold-bearing creeks in their own names as well as those of their friends and families are not American citizens. They’re foreigners and therefore not eligible to locate mining claims on American soil. As I have told many of the American miners here, it is my belief that these aliens have no right to the gold here. The land and its minerals belong to Americans.”

“How very interesting,” Glory murmured. “Are you married, Mr. Blackwood?”

“Gracious no,” he answered quickly, startled by her question. Then he assumed an expression of deep regret. “I am a widower. My wife died many years ago. A beautiful woman she was, of Russian descent. God rest her soul.” The words sounded rehearsed to Glory, with no feeling behind them. She wondered if he even knew her mother was dead. “Why do you ask?” He frowned.

“I wondered if you would dine with Mr. Cole and myself this evening. From what you have said, there is much we need to know about our new town and many matters on which we’ll need your advice. Since we have only just arrived and aren’t familiar with the dining facilities in Nome, perhaps you would be kind enough to select a place.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Good. We will meet you here at seven.” With a half-turn, she smiled at the saloon’s proprietor as he rolled the cigar in his mouth. “Mr. Colby has graciously offered us accommodations here.” She glanced at Deacon. His features were too well schooled to show any expression, yet she knew he questioned her actions and her interest in Gabe Blackwood, but she had no intention of enlightening him. “I will want to change for dinner, Deacon. Perhaps we should return to the beach and make arrangements to have our trunks transported here to the saloon.”

“Perhaps we should.” His tone indicated a concession to her wishes rather than an endorsement of them.

She faced Gabe Blackwood again. “Until seven, then, Mr. Blackwood?” She gave him her hand.

“Seven.” He continued to hold her hand as he stared at her with a vague look of puzzlement. “Have we met before, Miss St. Clair? I have the feeling I’ve seen you somewhere.”

She experienced a little rush of satisfaction. “If you’ve ever been in Skagway, it’s possible you’ve seen me, but I’m sure we haven’t met before, Mr. Blackwood. I would have remembered you.” She withdrew her hand from his grasp and turned, setting her drink on top of a wooden keg. “Gentlemen.” She nodded to both men, then took Deacon’s arm and walked at his side to the tent flap.

Everyone watched her leave, including Ryan and Gabe. At the bar, several men gulped down their drinks and hurried after her, not wanting to let her out of their sight.

Ryan lowered his cigar, smiling wryly. “There goes my business. Not that I blame them. She’s quite a beauty.”

“She looks so familiar to me,” Gabe murmured as if thinking out loud. “It’s something in the way she holds her head … or carries herself like—”

“—like a princess.” Ryan missed the startled look Gabe threw at him. “As prostitutes go, I suppose she is a queen of sorts. One thing I do know, though, when the gamblers and whores arrive, that’s a sure sign this place is going to prosper.”

He glanced at the man he’d journeyed to Alaska with so many years ago and absently wondered why a woman like Glory St. Clair had been so captivated by Gabe Blackwood, practically hanging on his every word. He had to concede that neither age nor alcohol had dulled the glibness of Blackwood’s tongue. He could still fire a man’s sense of injustice with his oratories.

His speeches on America for Americans went over big with the vast majority of miners, who had arrived too late and discovered that a half dozen Scandinavians had staked mining claims on virtually the entire area. To add insult to injury, the Scandinavians weren’t even experienced prospectors. A couple of them had been reindeer herders. Yet, in less than a month of prospecting, these greenhorn aliens had found pay dirt. It didn’t set well with men who had looked for gold half their lives.

“You’ve changed, Gabe,” Ryan remarked.

“What makes you say that?” He stiffened.

Ryan knew that while they might be old acquaintances, they were not old friends. If anything, Gabe resented the things Ryan knew about his past.

“There was a time when you wouldn’t have anything to do with sin and corruption. Yet tonight you’re going to have dinner with a whore and a gambler.” Ryan chuckled to himself as he moved away.

With the assistance of Gabe Blackwood, Glory and Deacon had managed in less than two weeks to acquire possession of a prime lot on the main thoroughfare of Nome, called Front Street. Construction had begun on their building almost immediately. Still, Glory came up with a variety of excuses to seek Gabe Blackwood’s counsel, and she conferred with him on nearly every detail, regardless of Deacon’s protests.

Summer in Nome brought twenty-four hours of daylight and allowed building to continue around the clock. At half past ten in the evening, Glory stood in front of the building site and inspected the progress being made by the carpenters presently framing in the structure’s second story. The high collar of her multi-tiered shoulder cape of shamrock green wool with gold piping grazed her chin as she turned her head to gaze at the elderly man on her right, her arm companionably linked with his.

“I am so relieved that you don’t feel the workers should be any further along than they are.” She leaned closer to make herself heard above the pounding of the hammers and the breaking of the surf on the nearby beach. “I always wonder if they’re actually working while I’m sleeping. It would be so easy for them to take advantage of the situation.”

“Well, you can rest assured that this time it isn’t the case.” He patted the gloved hand that lay along his forearm.

“My partner knows so little about such things. I confess I didn’t know who else I could ask except you.”

“It is my pleasure, as always.” He paused, frowning slightly. “Where is your partner this evening?”

“In the midst of a poker game at the Double Eagle.”

“For your sake, I hope he isn’t losing.”

“When I left, he had a tall stack of chips in front of him. Deacon is very lucky. He rarely loses. Of course, he’s an excellent player who believes you don’t have to cheat to win,” Glory lied. “Once the local people realize that he runs honest tables, our place should be very popular.”

“Then this will be a gambling hall and saloon. I was never quite clear on that.”

“No, not exactly. There will be gambling and liquor on the premises, but we intend to operate the Palace as a kind of private club. A place where a man can relax, have a quiet drink or two, play cards or dice, and enjoy the company of a beautiful woman if he chooses. It won’t be for the ordinary man on the street. Some I’ve met haven’t bathed in months. That isn’t the sort of customer we want,” Glory declared. “We hope to attract gentlemen such as yourself.”

She’d heard about such clubs that catered to people with money. Whether it was called a club or saloon, the cost of doing business was practically the same. As far as she was concerned it made more sense to call it a club. They could charge more for the drinks; the price for female company would be higher; and more money could be won at the gaming tables. She’d seen some of the gold dust and nuggets the miners were taking out of the mountain streams. A man with money always felt he was entitled to the best. She intended to convince him he was getting it at the Palace.

“You are such a lovely, intelligent girl. You don’t belong in this business.” His graying brows were drawn together in an intensely earnest frown. “A woman like you should be married to a fine, upstanding young man.”

“Unfortunately, the young man I met was neither fine nor upstanding. By the time I realized that, I was ruined. No decent man wants a fallen woman for a wife.” Very early, Glory had learned that men preferred such stories to the truth. “If I had met someone like you, I wouldn’t be here today.”

“Now you’re flattering an old man,” he chided, but she noticed he stood a little taller. She had also noticed that lately he took more pains with his appearance—always neatly dressed, his cheeks shaven, his beard trimmed. He was not so old that his interest wasn’t aroused by the attention she’d been paying him.

“You’re not old,” she protested, hugging his arm a little tighter. “I never think of you that way. You look much too wise and distinguished, like some important person—a governor maybe.” She laughed softly while closely watching his reaction. “Imagine me on the arm of a governor.”

His expression softened with melancholy as he gazed at her. “Any governor would be proud to have you at his side, Glory. May I call you Glory?”

“If I may call you Gabe.”

He smiled. Of common accord, they started walking, moving away from the din of hammer and saw and strolling leisurely in the direction of the Double Eagle.

“I once dreamed of becoming governor of Alaska,” he mused aloud.