Chapter 33
The few weeks after Danny and her da had left passed quietly, the evenings long and lonely as winter drew in.
Maggie hadn’t realized just how much she’d enjoyed her father’s company—the tunes on the harmonica, the ridiculously tall tales, his easy way with Sheetka, as well as the cheerful way he approached just about everything—until he was gone, and she and Sheetka both felt his absence very keenly.
As the nights got colder and darker, Sheetka crept into her bed and they slept with their arms wrapped around each other, both for warmth and for comfort. Maggie kept the pistol by the side of the bed. Just in case, like her father had said, but she was glad she had had no call to use it… yet.
Just a few days after Danny and her da had left on a steamer for Mooresville, there was a knock on the cabin door. It was evening, the sun having already set, and Maggie had hid the pistol in her skirts, her fingers trembling on the trigger, as she’d gone to crack the door open an inch.
“Brendan!” She’d sagged with relief, and then had put the pistol down on the table, while he’d raised an eyebrow.
“Expecting trouble?” he’d asked as he’d stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
“No,” Maggie had replied shakily. “But prepared for it, as a woman on her own.” She’d glanced toward the bedroom, where Sheetka had been sleeping, and he’d nodded in understanding.
Whenever Maggie had gone into town with the girl, she’d still received some dark looks or even audible grumbles. She would not have put it past some drunken miner to stumble up to their home and say he was going to sort them out, just because he thought he could.
“I heard about Danny and your da,” Brendan had said. “Shipping out to the Klondike.”
Maggie had nodded. “They should be over the Chilkoot Pass by now,” she’d said, trying to smile.
She’d traced the journey on a map with them before they’d left—a steamer down the Inside Passage and through the Lynn Canal, a natural, narrow fjord, to the settlements of Mooresville and Dyea, then up and over the treacherous pass, and finally to Lake Bennett, where they’d build a boat to sail down the Yukon River to Dawson, a town formed for the gold rush at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers.
She hadn’t been able to bear to think of them out there in the icy wilderness alone—the Yukon was said to freeze by the end of October, with temperatures dipping as low as fifty below zero—and so she’d tried not to.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again,” she’d confessed, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but her voice had caught and Brendan’s expression had softened.
“Oh, Maggie…” he’d murmured, and there had been so much tenderness in his voice that Maggie had had to blink back tears. She’d turned away quickly, not wanting to show her emotion.
“It’s all right,” she’d said, grateful she sounded stronger. “I knew it would come one day. Danny’s been desperate to strike it rich; even back in San Francisco he was talking about gold! This shouldn’t have taken me by surprise.”
“But it did?” Brendan had surmised gently.
“Well… I thought Da had gotten used to the good life here,” she’d admitted with an attempt at a laugh. “The home-cooked meals, the welcoming hearth…”
“You’ve made a very nice home,” Brendan had told her, glancing around in admiration, and Maggie had tried to see the humble cabin through his eyes.
In the year since they’d moved there, Maggie had tried hard to add welcoming touches—rag rugs on the floor, a sampler on the wall, pots of herbs on the windowsill.
There were dried flowers from the summer in a jar on the table, and a single shelf of precious books against the wall.
In addition to the furniture the cabin had come with—the cookstove and table and chairs—Da had bought her a rocking chair for by the fire, and a shelf for dishes.
There was a water barrel in the corner and a basket full of balls of yarns and scraps of fabric by her chair.
It was a simple place, one of the simplest places Maggie had ever lived, and yet she loved it.
It had felt like she had finally found a home.
“Thank you,” she’d said, and Brendan smiled.
For the first time in what felt like forever, it had seemed as if they were friends.
“Would you like some coffee?” Maggie had asked, and he’d nodded.
“That’d be grand.”
She’d gone to the cookstove and stirred up the embers before reaching for the coffeepot. “Thank you for checking on me,” she’d told him. “It’s reassuring, to know there’s someone who is thinking about us.”
“I am thinking about you,” Brendan had replied quietly, and a ripple of awareness and pleasure had shivered up Maggie’s spine. What exactly, she wondered, had he meant by that? “And Sheetka, too,” he’d clarified. “Was she much bothered by your da and Danny’s leaving?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie had admitted. “She doesn’t tell me anything, of course, since she still doesn’t speak. But… I feel her sadness.” As the coffee had started to simmer, she’d turned around to face him. “Or maybe just my own. It’s strange, being out here, just the two of us. It’s so quiet.”
He’d nodded slowly. “I can imagine. You’re a fair way out of town.”
“Yes… although I like it, mostly.” She had tried for a laugh.
“Maybe I should get a guard dog, or a cat? Something to keep us company.” Brendan held her gaze in a way that made Maggie’s cheeks warm, and she looked away.
“Anyway, how are you?” she asked. “O’Donaghue Dry Goods is taking Juneau by storm, I’m sure? ”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Brendan had replied with an easy smile. “But I think I’m doing well enough. The town’s getting bigger, it needed another store like mine, especially if we get a rush of prospectors coming through.”
Maggie had frowned a little. “Hamilton’s didn’t mind you setting up some competition?”
“I went with his blessing. I’d worked hard there, and he knew it. He was glad for me, and I was grateful.”
“That’s good.”
Again, the silence had stretched between them, comfortable yet expectant. Then the coffee had started to boil, and Maggie had turned back to the stove. Brendan had taken a seat the table, and that simple action warmed her heart. She’d felt so much less alone.
“Can you believe we’re here?” Brendan had asked with a wry smile as Maggie had poured the coffee and added a splash of canned milk.
“Here?” she’d returned with an answering smile.
“Here in a log cabin in Juneau, Alaska, drinking coffee with canned milk while the wolves howl outside.”
“The wolves!” Maggie had exclaimed. There were wolves in the area, but they tended to keep to themselves—and to the woods. “Maybe the owls.”
“And the bears,” Brendan had added, and she nodded. During the summer, she’d seen a fat black bear eating berries in the meadow behind the cabin.
“And the bears,” she’d agreed, smiling.
They sipped their coffee in silence, and when an owl hooted outside—who cooks for you—they had both burst out laughing. A warmth had spread through Maggie like melting butter. She hadn’t been able to remember feeling so happy.
They’d chatted for a few more minutes, Brendan talking about his store while Maggie told him about Sheetka’s school and her own work at the hospital.
“I never thought I’d see so many cases of frostbite,” she’d remarked wryly, and his eyebrows lifted.
“You’re likely to see many more.”
“You really believe there’s going to be a rush?”
“I’d say a stampede,” he’d replied frankly. “Based on some of the gossip I’ve heard coming through from the miners that were already there.”
“Danny and Da must have made it to Lake Bennett now,” Maggie had remarked. “They’ll be building a boat.”
“If they went over the Chilkoot, they’d have had to travel it twenty or thirty times with all their supplies. I’ve heard if you go over the White Horse Rapids, you only have to do it a few times, since you can bring a pack animal. It’s more expensive, though.”
“Who knows what they did, then,” Maggie had replied. Her father, she knew, liked to spend money, but she hoped he wasn’t foolish about spending too much. “I just hope they made it.” She managed a shaky laugh. “I hate that there’s no way to know.”
“They might send word soon,” Brendan had told her, briefly resting her hand over his. “Dawson’s meant to get a post office soon, and miners come through all the time.”
“Not over the winter, though,” Maggie had replied practically. “It’ll be freezing soon.”
“Yes.” He’d nodded somberly. “Some miners brave the frozen rivers, though. If you’ve got a dogsled, it’s easier to travel the way the natives do. Some prefer it to all the mud.” He’d squeezed her hand once more. “You never know, Maggie,” he told her. “You might hear soon.”
Maggie had smiled back gratefully, although, in truth, she hadn’t been able to believe him.
As fall deepened into winter, Maggie didn’t hear anything. The leaves fell from the trees and snow dusted the ground that was now hard with frost, the mud frozen into deep ridges.
Maggie was too busy to worry overmuch. Besides working at the hospital and taking care of Sheetka, she had all the household chores that had once been shared by her brother and father—chopping wood, stoking the stove, meals and washing and simply keeping warm.
Brendan continued to stop by their cabin every so often, sometimes every few days, usually once a week. They were pleasant visits, sharing a cup of coffee by the stove, the sky endlessly dark outside, the hoot of the owl always making Maggie smile.
She started looking forward to those evenings far more than she knew she should, making sure the cabin was clean and there was something nice to offer him to eat, even when she didn’t know if he’d be coming.
Sheetka, she could tell, looked forward to them too, her little face lighting up when they heard Brendan’s familiar knock at the door—a rat-a-tat-tat that mimicked the hoot of the owl.
And then, in November, when the days were so desperately short, the nights endless and everything so very dark and dreary, six inches of snow already on the ground, Brendan told her he was leaving.
He came to the cabin just after dinner, when Sheetka was curled up by the woodstove and Maggie had gotten out her basket of darning.
“Brendan!” The wide, welcoming smile slipped from her face when she saw his grave expression. “What… what is it?” Had he somehow had news of her Danny and Da? Her stomach hollowed out and she clutched the door.
“It’s nothing like that,” he said quickly, reading her mind. “Don’t worry on your family’s account.”
She nodded and stepped aside so he could come in, bringing a gust of cold, clean air with him.
Maggie went to the stove to stir up the coals and put water on to boil, as she always did, but all the while she felt as if she were waiting for something.
Sheetka had given Brendan a welcoming smile, but she too sensed the mood, for her expression had turned as serious as Brendan’s.
“I’m leaving,” he told her bluntly once he was seated at the table, his coat and hat hanging by the door. “Just for a month or so. I hope to be back before Christmas.”
“Before Christmas!” Maggie turned slowly from the stove. “But where are you going?”
“Down to Seattle, for supplies. The prospectors are going to start coming this spring, and, if I’m right, it really will be a flood. Every miner will want to get his outfit here, because the prices in Mooresville will be sky-high.” He smiled wryly. “I’m hoping they will get it from me.”
“But it’s dangerous to travel by sea at this time of year!” Maggie protested numbly. She couldn’t bear the thought of him going—even though steamers ran all through the winter for mail and supplies, they sank or crashed in the winter storms far too often for her comfort.
“It’s a risk I need to take,” Brendan replied. “I’m not so different from Danny or your da, Maggie, even if you think I am. I want to make my fortune, too.”
“Selling shovels to the miners, rather than panning for gold,” Maggie reminded him with a shaky smile, recalling his similar words from back in Chicago.
“Yes, exactly. But I don’t like the thought of leaving you… or Sheetka.” He glanced at the girl with a smile before turning back to Maggie. “Do you know how to shoot that pistol your father gave you?”
“I’ve never tried,” Maggie admitted.
Brendan gave a decisive nod. “Tomorrow morning, before I go, I’m coming up here to give you some shooting practice. I don’t like the thought of you not being able to defend yourself.”
Maggie swallowed hard and nodded. She didn’t, either, but she’d rather Brendan stayed here and defended her.
She really had changed from the spunky, spiky young woman who had insisted on doing everything herself, her own way, she reflected.
And yet here in Juneau she was more independent than she’d ever been before.
“Till tomorrow, then,” Brendan said, and Maggie nodded again.
Already, she was dreading saying yet another goodbye. She’d come all the way to Alaska to stay with the people she loved… and yet they kept leaving her, for one reason or another.