15. Behind You
The specter of freeze-up chased us back to Coffin Bone Creek. The ice crept further out from the banks, huge slabs breaking off and grinding together with a sound like tumbling boulders. Every stroke of our oars broke through a skin of ice trying to form across the river. The boat itself became more and more unwieldy as every splash or bit of spray froze to it, until four inches of ice clung to the planks above water, and likely more below.
We camped on the little islets overnight, listening to the squeal and groan of the freezing river. Anyone who hadn’t reached the gold fields by now would soon be trapped on the trail, with only whatever shelter they could wrest from the wilderness to see them through the long months of dark.
A few miles from the creek, the ice finally closed fast around the Golden Belle. There was no breaking her free from the slabs frozen to her and to one another. It pained me to leave her behind, but there was nothing for it.
Speaking little, we shouldered our packs and trudged to the mouth of Coffin Bone Creek. After the cacophony of Dawson, the thunder of grinding ice on the river, the silence that soon settled around us came as a shock. There was nothing but the sifting snow, the muffled crunch as it compressed beneath our feet, and the occasional crack as a branch gave beneath its accumulating weight.
“We won’t be leaving again very easily,” I said as realization set in. This little creek would be our world for the next several months.
“Not without a dogsled,” Doug agreed.
We walked in silence for a while, taking turns breaking trail. After a few hours of toil, my mind wandered to the prospect of stopping, building a fire, and refreshing ourselves with some hot coffee. My stomach grumbled; we could fry up the last bit of bacon we packed for our brief trip.
A great mass of snow tumbled from one of the trees behind me.
Startled, I turned to look. The entire tree swayed, even though no breeze moved those around it. As though something huge had climbed into its branches.
Soft as the whisper of falling snow, Bessie called, “Colin.”
Doug stopped at my horrified gasp. “What is it?”
He hadn’t heard her voice. Of course he hadn’t; it was all in my mind. So instead I pointed a shaking finger at the tree, though its swaying had slowed. “There’s something behind us.”
He frowned—at me, not the tree. “It’s just the wind. Are you getting skittish on me, Col?”
If only he knew. “N-No.” I cleared my throat. “No. Let’s just?—”
He held up a hand. “Stop. What’s wrong with you? Normally we work as a team, but ever since we began this performance, you’ve been acting strangely.”
Performance.Just another scam, albeit one that required far more work than usual.
I hesitated, not wanting to sound like a mad man. But he saw, and said, “The truth. Out with it.”
“I’ve been hearing Bessie. Seeing her.” The words came out in a rush. “I know she’s not there, I’m not crazy.”
Doug stared at me a long moment, and I felt the judgement in his gaze. Then he thrust out his hand. “That bracelet. Give it to me.”
“It isn’t that…”
“Isn’t it? You’ve been obsessed ever since you found it. It’s not hers.”
“I know!”
“Then give it to me.”
Maybe he was right. I pulled the bracelet from my pocket; the heart-shaped charm flashed the pallid winter sunlight as I passed it to him. Doug tucked it into his own pocket. “I’m stashing this somewhere in the cabin,” he said. “So don’t be tempted to look through my things to get it back.”
“All right.” Perhaps it would help. Having a reminder on my person, even if it wasn’t Bessie’s actual bracelet, naturally brought her to the forefront of my thoughts.
I had to push her away, back into the recesses of my mind, never to be looked at or acknowledged.
Doug put a hand to my shoulder. “Pull yourself together,” he said, but his voice was gentle. “I need you, little brother. Hear me? I can’t do this without you.”
At one time, his words would have warmed me. But now I only felt a vague sort of dread. Still, I nodded my assent.
Doug gave my shoulder a rough squeeze and dropped his hand. “Come on, let’s get back to the cabin. I’m about to freeze my balls off.”
* * *
In our absence, the claim had transformed from a place of eerie stillness to one of bustling activity. Eleanor busied herself outside chopping wood, Steve manned the windlass at the top of the mining pit, and the yeasty smell of baking bread wafted on the breeze. A cheerful column of smoke rose from the chimney, promising warmth for our cold, tired bones.
Steve spotted us first, letting out a loud “Hello!” before shouting, “They’re back!” down into the pit.
Eleanor put down her hatchet, wiping sweat off her brow even as she waved to us with her other hand. Anna appeared at the cabin door, and Roland emerged from the pit.
His filthy appearance came as a shock, though it probably shouldn’t have. A mixture of brown muck and ash covered his shoes and trousers, and smeared his skin. With only a bucket to wash from until spring, we’d have a challenge keeping ourselves in any state of cleanliness. His crutch lay near the windlass, and he picked it up so he could limp over.
Steve got to us first, shaking my hand and clapping me warmly on the shoulder. “How was Dawson?”
“Expensive,” I said fervently, and he laughed.
“We won’t have to worry about cost for long.” His blue eyes beamed at me. “Were you able to file the claims?”
My tongue grew heavy in my mouth. Going along with Doug had been hard enough back in Dawson, but standing here, face-to-face with Steve…
“We were,” Doug said. “This is all ours, free and clear.”
Roland, who had come close enough to overhear, let out a whoop. “We’re going to be kings,” he said, shaking Doug’s hand.
“Come in and warm up,” Eleanor said. “Anna’s been cooking all morning.”
While Steve and Roland started up the mining, the women had been hard at work inside the cabin. Most of the previous occupants’ belongings had been put aside in reserve, replaced by what remained of our outfits. Calico cloth hung from the ceiling, modestly sectioning off the bunks from the living space. A bucket of water sat near the red-hot stove for washing, and pots and pans hung from nails on the wall. Our gold scale waited on a shelf, though I doubted it would see a great deal of use before the creek thawed and we could get the sluices going.
We peeled off our coats and hung them on a line above the stove, where they steamed and filled the cabin with the smell of wet wool. As we ate a hearty bowl of beans and bacon, Doug spun a tale of our trip to Dawson, making it into more of an adventure than it actually had been. When he paused to take a bite, Steve turned to me.
“You’re awfully quiet, Colin,” he observed. “Was Dawson less to your liking?”
Damn it, why did he have to notice? Everyone else had been hanging on Doug’s story, letting me fade into the background as I preferred.
But Steve noticed me. It shouldn’t have made me feel warm, quite the opposite.
I looked into his face with its lovely cheekbones and square jaw. Blond curls tumbled over his smooth forehead; they looked impossibly soft.
I curled my hand shut to keep from touching them. I couldn’t develop feelings for a man I was in the process of swindling. Even if I could somehow convince Doug not to follow through, I’d already betrayed Steve and his family by leaving their names off the claims.
“It was fine,” I said, forcing myself to meet his eyes as I lied. “Everything was just as Doug says.”
* * *
I opened my eyes and stared up at the bunk above me.
Doug slept on the other side of the wooden slats, cradled by pine boughs and wrapped in blankets. Steve and Roland took the top and bottom of another bunkbed, and the women slept on a narrow third, wedged into the center of the tiny “bedroom.”
Something had awakened me. I strained my ears, but heard only the deep silence of a long arctic night?—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It came from the front door: three sharp knocks. Then silence. Then three more.
Dread flooded into my veins like freezing water. In something of a daze, I rose and walked to the door, dressed only in my union suit.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Someone—something?—was out there, knocking to get in. Another cheechako, come too late in the season, looking for shelter?
I reached out and opened the door.
The warm golden light of a late summer afternoon flooded inside. Beyond the doorway lay the endless flatness of the plains. A field of wheat stretched as far as the eye could see.
I stepped out into the warm air and started walking. I brushed the stalks with one hand, like dipping my fingers into an amber sea. The smell of ripening grain in the sunlight filled my nostrils. This was home—my first home.
Back when Bessie was alive.
The sky darkened, and lightning flashed far off. My pulse raced, and I smelled iron and blood.
A train whistle split the air.
I spun on my heel and ran. Wind flattened the wheat around me, tangling it with my legs. Flames crackled behind me, their heat scorching my skin. Blood poured down my face from the painful gash in my forehead, making it hard to see where I was going.
The rattle of the train wheels grew louder and louder, and as the whistle came again, I realized I was running down the center of the tracks.
The rails were covered in blood.
* * *
My eyes flew open with a gasp. My heart hammered so loud I could hear my pulse in my ears, and the scar on my forehead ached. I couldn’t move, couldn’t flee, couldn’t do anything but lay here helplessly…
In the cabin on Coffin Bone Creek.
It had just been a dream.
I put my hand to my forehead, half expecting it to come away bloody. It didn’t, of course, and my old wound no longer hurt. That had surely been a part of the dream as well.
Still a little unsure as to what was real and what not, I propped myself up on my elbow. About a foot away from me, Eleanor let out a whimper in her own bunk. One of the beds creaked as someone else tossed and turned. The rustle of covers directly overhead told me Doug had shifted as well.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one having a restless night.
I laid back down, but found myself half-afraid to fall asleep, lest the dream return. Instead, I dipped in and out of true consciousness, sliding off toward sleep only to jolt awake. It made for a miserable few hours until everyone else began to stir.
I pulled on my trousers beneath the covers, put on another layer of socks, then grabbed the rest of my clothes and slipped into the main room to put them on. Roland, Steve, and Doug soon followed, leaving Anna and Eleanor privacy to dress. Roland swung open the door to the stove and tossed some wood on the coals.
“I’m going to take my measurements,” Steve declared. In our absence, he’d placed a thermometer, anemometer, and aneroid barometer just outside the cabin, with the intention of recording the daily weather.
“I’ll go with you,” I said. “You can show me how to read the instruments.”
Steve flashed me a smile. “Glad to.” He pulled on his hat and gloves, and opened the door—then froze.
“What in the devil’s name is that?”
* * *
Animal prints formed a trail from the hillside forest to the front door of our cabin. Different species, even to my untrained eye, all walking along the exact same path.
“Shut the door,” Doug called from inside. “You’re letting the heat out.”
I joined Steve outside and closed the door behind me. He was already crouching down beside the tracks, studying them with an expression of confusion.
“I take it this isn’t normal animal behavior?” I asked. “Various species walking in a single-file line, I mean.”
“You could say that.” His gloved fingers hovered in the air, moving from one track to the next. “This looks like it came from a pony—but what would such a creature be doing out here?”
“It escaped from Dawson?” I suggested.
“I suppose. These are wolf tracks, or at least, a wolf track. A right paw, specifically.” He pointed down the path trodden into the snow. “No left.”
I couldn’t make sense of the jumble. “Maybe you just can’t make the left-side prints out.”
“But what is this?” He indicated a series of vaguely shovel-shaped impressions, as if someone had taken the blade, rounded it down, then pressed it into the snow. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Unease crept up my spine. “Why did they come to the door like that?”
“I suppose the smell of food might have drawn them,” he said, but I heard the doubt in his voice.
Something had come up to the door last night. Knocked on it.
No—the knocking hadn’t been real. Just a part of my nightmare.
Hadn’t it?