13. The Thief
Everyone’s eyes gleamed at the sight, and the others crowded around me. Roland picked up a nugget, gazed at it rapturously, then laughed. “My God! We’re rich!”
Steve let the dust run through his fingers…then reluctantly pulled back his hand. “It’s not ours, though, is it?”
“It is now,” Doug said. “Clarke killed himself, and his partner is surely dead out in the woods somewhere. So long as old Bill didn’t get around to officially staking the claim, what’s to stop us from doing it in his stead?”
I looked down at the glittering mound before me. It was at least three hundred dollars right there in front of us—a year’s worth of wages in a single coffee can. And this was just the beginning; the real wealth lay in the paystreaks at the bottom of the pit outside.
A winter’s worth of work, and we’d be set for life.
Still, something in me didn’t like the idea of stealing a dead man’s gold. “If he has any relatives, surely the claim belongs to them,” I said half-heartedly.
I wanted someone to change my mind. As usual, Doug stepped up to the task.
“And the rest of the claim? There’s already a cabin, sluices, the beginnings of a shaft. A stove. Probably even supplies, or the remnants of them.” He pointed up at what looked to be sacks stored atop the ceiling beams. “The creek is already frozen, and the river not far behind. Do you want to try to build a cabin in a snowstorm, risking frostbite, while Eleanor and Anna huddle in tents?”
Roland nodded as he looked around. “This is a godsend. We’d be mad not to make use of it.”
He was right—our choices were limited. We could take over the claim, spend the winter mining, and leave wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. Or we could risk freezing to death in our tents trying to build adequate shelter.
Or go to Dawson, which might be soon filled with desperate, starving men, and hope to survive the winter with nothing to show for it. Having to pay for months of lodging would surely wipe out our remaining funds; we might not even be able to afford the paperwork to stake a claim once spring came.
“Is it really even a choice?” Steve asked softly, apparently having had the same thoughts as me.
“Not really,” I agreed.
Doug’s fingers tightened on my arm, then released. “What should we tell the women about this?”
“The truth?” I said, confused.
“No.” Roland shook his head vehemently. “If Anna knew we’d found a man’s arm torn off, she’d panic. I won’t have her upset over nothing.”
His words left me uneasy. Surely Anna had the right to know what she was getting into.
But then, Doug and I were hiding things from everyone else, weren’t we? Didn’t they have the right to know Doug was planning on robbing them all blind? Or that I was having occasional hallucinations of my dead sister?
If we were to have our secrets, what harm in keeping one more? Steve seemed certain the bears were hibernating, of no danger until spring. Anna already hated this rough, wild place; why add fear to her burden?
“It’s decided, then,” Doug said. “Let’s bury the arm, and tell Eleanor and Anna that the cabin was empty, with no sign of Bill. We’ll get settled in here, then tomorrow Colin and I will go into Dawson and register our claims.”
“And we’ll start digging,” Roland agreed, clapping Steve on the arm.
“All right.” Steve looked at me. “But promise you’ll hurry back.”
* * *
Doug and I left the very next morning.
We hiked back to the boat with enough supplies to last us the journey to Dawson, plus a bit more in case we encountered some delay. We took the boat, keenly aware freeze-up was almost upon us. Every tributary we passed gushed slush ice into the meandering channels of the Yukon, adding to the floes choking the river. Anchor ice broke free from the bottom and bobbed to the surface, reminding us the river was freezing from beneath as well.
“We’ll spend as little time in Dawson City as possible,” Doug told me as we navigated the braided channels between countless small islands. The bare trees clustered on them were black against the white earth, the gray river. “We don’t want to be memorable. So no card games or dances; we keep our interactions with everyone as brief and infrequent as possible. We’ll just be names on a ledger—that’s the important part.”
His instructions puzzled me; he loved card games, and I’d assumed he’d lighten the purses of a few men while we were there.
He was planning something. What, I didn’t know, and he turned aside my questions anytime I tried to ask.
He’d never done that before, had always made sure I understood exactly what we were doing and what part I was to play. And, to be honest, I liked it that way. Far easier to be whoever the scheme called for me to be, lose myself in the role until I barely remembered my original name.
We’d prospered by lying to everyone else, and telling each other only the truth. This trip had already puts cracks in my truth-telling, though, hadn’t it? I’d pretended to agree with his plans to steal from everyone, intending to use the long winter ahead to talk him out of the swindle.
Maybe he’d sensed it somehow. Because now he clearly had some kind of scheme in mind…and for once, I was on the outside with the other suckers.
As we drew closer to Dawson, the creeks flowing into the river went from deserted to packed with miners. Soon, every hill we passed was denuded of timber. Snow blanketed lumpy ground that had been churned up by human activity: mining pits, tailing piles, sluices, latrines. A haze of smoke rose from every claim as the miners set fires overnight to thaw the permafrost for digging in the morning.
At last the town came into view, crammed into the junction of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. A great gray scar showed on the hill behind it; Doug pointed eagerly. “That’s the Moosehide Slide,” he proclaimed, and I knew he’d gotten the information from his Secrets of the Yukon guidebook. “It was an early landmark, before the town was founded.”
Dawson itself was a thick cluster of tents, cabins, and warehouses, along with a hospital and a half-built church. Watercraft from canoes to barges lined the riverbank, and a few piers that looked in danger of sinking jutted out into the water. Great stacks of lumber piled up alongside a sawmill, the constant buzz of which echoed out across the river. All of the streets were packed snow over mud, without even boards to keep pedestrians out of the muck. Smoke rose from the chimneys of every tent and cabin, thickening the haze over the river valley.
We pulled up onto the bank beside a line of other boats. “You cheechakos better secure your things!” shouted a sourdough in a moosehide jacket as he sat whittling on one of the log piles. “Dogs’ll eat everything otherwise, including your boots.”
Dogs roamed everywhere, the cacophony of their howls and barks drowning out almost every other noise. They lay in front of buildings, sat in harness guarding sleds, hauled logs to the sawmill, and growled and fought with one another.
We took his advice, securing our things in a cache outside of the reach of snapping jaws, then walked along the street fronting the river. A surprising number of men were sitting atop the lumber piles, or simply milling about aimlessly. It was as if, after rushing to reach the gold fields they didn’t know what to do now that they were here.
If we hadn’t found the deserted cabin on Coffin Bone Creek, we might have joined their ranks over the winter.
My steps slowed as we reached one of the large warehouses, which had ALASKAN COMMERCIAL COMPANY painted on the side. Two armed guards stood in front of the doors, looking like they meant business. A sign posted out front read:
NOTICE:
Those who have not laid in a winter’s supply will be in danger of starvation, sickness, and scurvy. Do not linger here.
- T. Fawcett, Gold Commissioner, Canada
“Doug,” I said to get his attention, and nodded to the sign. “The Mounty at Tagish Lake was right.”
“With what was left in the cabin, we should have just enough,” he said. “We might have to stretch things, sure, but we’ll be fine.”
I hoped he was right. How would the men loitering everywhere make it through the winter? Did they have provisions stored somewhere?
We passed a bakery selling waffles and coffee for an outrageous twenty-five cents, and a barber offering a shave and haircut for a dollar and a quarter—seven times the price back in Seattle. There was no shortage of saloons with grandiose names like the Monte Carlo, cheek-by-jowl with dance halls that were little more than shacks.
“They seem to have plenty of alcohol, at least,” I observed.
Doug slowed his steps. “Let’s go inside,” he said, gesturing to the largest saloon. “We’ll get a drink, listen to any gossip that might be useful. If anyone asks, we stick to our story and no more than that. No mention of Eleanor or the Kilgores.”
Unease touched me. This must be part of whatever scheme he’d cooked up. “Why not?”
“I’ll explain later. Come on.”
We stepped inside. The interior was a humid fug of smoke from cigars, kerosene lanterns, and tallow candles. A few tables clustered around a pair of stoves burning red-hot, and the smell of wet wool rose from the coats hung to dry above them. A man in an apron stood behind a plank, wiping down a glass as he watched the proceedings in his establishment.
Doug paused instantly, and I nearly walked into him. A tense air filled the room, which was packed full of miners. All of them looked to be old-timers, as they wore the sort of gear not sold by Seattle outfitters: wolf or beaver-skin caps, walrus-hide mukluks, well-worn moosehide mittens. They made me feel unprepared in my cloth cap and mackinaw jacket. Their weathered faces wore grim expressions as they stared at a cluster of men standing in front of the rest.
The man in the center of attention was younger than me, a frightened look on his smooth face. Beside him stood a grizzled man holding a shotgun; it was pointed at the ceiling for the moment, but he was clearly ready to use it if needed.
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” he asked the younger man.
“I-I didn’t do it! I don’t know how the food got in my pack. I didn’t steal nothing!”
I winced; the thief was a poor liar.
“All right, then,” said the man with the shotgun. “Michael Fairchild stands before us accused of stealing food. All voting guilty?”
The other miners raised their hands en masse.
“Innocent?”
If anyone disagreed, they didn’t bother to raise their hands against the overwhelming vote for guilt.
“No!” Fairchild’s eyes widened. “No-no, please, I didn’t do it; I was hungry; I made a mistake. Please!”
“If you were hungry, you could’ve asked any one of us to share food,” another miner said in disgust. “You’re a thieving weasel and nothing more.”
The man with the shotgun spoke so that his voice rang clearly over the gathering. “Michael Fairchild, you’ve been found guilty of theft. In accordance with the miner’s code, you’re to be stripped of your coat and hat, and put on a log to float down the river. If we see you here again in Dawson, you’ll be hung on sight.”
The miners rose to their feet, blocking Fairchild from our sight as he begged and pleaded. All the blood seeped from my head, and my hands went numb.
He’d stolen food and in return been sentenced to a slow death from the cold. Between the icy water, the snow, and the wind, he wouldn’t last until sundown with no coat and no shelter.
Doug caught my sleeve and pulled me out of the way as the miners marched Fairchild out of the building, on the way to deal out their rough justice. My brother’s face had gone pale, and he looked almost as sickened as I felt. As the last of the miners filed out, we exited behind them, stopping just outside while they continued on to the river.
“I thought you wanted to hear the gossip?” I managed to ask.
Doug shook his head. “Forget it. Let’s just file our claim and get the hell out of here.”