Chapter 6
The next night, Belle made her case again with Seth over dinner. “Seth, please, we’ll find more if we both are in the creek instead of the river. Look at it as saving time. What I find in the river is likely from the stream, anyway. I’ll have a better chance of getting more if it doesn’t wash into the river.”
“You have a point about the gold washing into the river, so we will both work in the creek from now on and see what we get. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn about it, but I didn’t like you trying to tell me my business.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your work. But thank you.”
He clasped her to him with his hands on her waist. “If that’s the thanks I’ll get when I agree, I might just have to do it more often.”
She laughed. Too happy that she wouldn’t have to go into the river again to back away when he pulled her closer.
His lips closed on hers, and he kissed her like he was a starving man and she was the loaf of bread he needed to live. He devoured her. Her heart pounded and her pulse raced. Her legs felt like jelly, and the only thing holding her up was his arms around her waist.
He pulled back and stared down at her with those gold-flecked brandy-brown eyes.
“You have beautiful eyes,” she said finally. Her legs were still weak, but were better and she stepped back, or at least she tried.
He held her tight. “I’m glad you like my eyes. I like yours, too. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that color blue. They are almost violet, they’re so dark.”
“Thank you.” She lowered her gaze for a moment, and then she returned it to stare. “You can let me go now.”
He smiled and looked into her eyes. “I’d rather not. I enjoy having you in my arms.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t try to move away. “Oh.”
He chuckled. “Is that all you can say? ‘Oh’?”
She smiled and pursed her lips. “I have to admit, I kind of like it here.”
“Then we’re making progress. How long until you have to check the cobbler?”
“You’ll have to let me go, so I can see my pin watch.”
He seemed reluctant to let her go, but he did.
She took her watch from her pocket and looked at the time. “I probably should check it now. I don’t know how to regulate the temperature in the oven, and it might bake hotter than I’m used to.”
He just nodded, walked to the table, and sat.
She went out, pull the cobbler from the oven and found it done. The crust was golden brown, and the cherries bubbled around it and in the crevices left from dropping the batter onto the fruit. The dessert looked beautiful and smelled heavenly.
Plus, she now knew how the oven baked, and she could adjust the time on her recipes for bread, cakes, cookies, and pies, accordingly. She thought the only ones that might be trouble were the cookies. Since they only took ten minutes, anyway, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t burn them. She’d have to experiment and see.
She decided she needed at least one day where all she did was bake. She would approach Seth about it.
As she carried the hot pot by its steel wire handle, she returned to the tent.
“Mmm.” Seth sniffed the air. “That smells wonderful. Just like I imagine heaven to smell. What would you say to dessert before supper?”
Laughing, she set the Dutch oven on the floor under the cot. “It needs to cool. I wish we had some cream or even some milk. Either would be so good with the cobbler.”
Seth still sat at the table. “Coffee will have to do.”
“I suppose so.”
After a supper of elk steaks and mashed potatoes and gravy, they enjoyed bowls of cobbler.
“That was amazing. We shouldn’t get too used to eating like that. I’ll have to go hunting before we can have a meal like that again. That was the last of my venison.”
“I know, but we might as well eat good while we can, and the food is fresh. I don’t want any to spoil before we get to it. When we get down to beans and sourdough bread or soda crackers, we’ll know it’s time to go to town again, but not before. I don’t want to go too often. Claim jumpers will think the place is theirs for the taking.”
Seth put a bucket of water on the stove to heat. “That’s true. How do you know so much about claim jumpers?”
Belle gathered their dishes and stacked them to be washed. “I heard other miners talking at the hotel. I didn’t spend all my time in the kitchen. I spent some time serving when Kitty needed help, like if one of the other girls was sick or otherwise occupied.”
She washed the dishes and handed the clean ones to Seth to dry.
When they were done, they sat at the table with cups of coffee.
“Tell me more about you, Belle. What made you and your husband travel all this way? Was it just the lure of the gold?”
She wrapped her hands around her cup and looked at the rich, black liquid inside. The heat of the hot liquid warmed the cup and her hands. Finally, she took a deep breath. “Amos was always chasing the next big get-rich-quick scheme. The Klondike gold rush was just his most recent one. He was good with cards, or, at least cheating at cards. He rarely got caught, and when he did, he somehow talked the other gambler into letting him go. How, I don’t know. If it had been me, I probably would have shot him. I still might have, if he wasn’t already dead.”
“You would have had to get in line behind me. The man was scum.”
Belle’s heart started to melt at his words. But did he truly mean them, or was he saying what he knew she wanted to hear?
For the next two-and-a-half weeks,they worked the little stream together. True to Belle’s prediction, they collected twice the amount of gold than Seth had been getting on his own.
She worked upstream about twenty feet from him.
Both of them wore their sidearms every day. On this day, two strangers showed up. She saw them coming and hurried down to where Seth stood watching them approach. They were riding horses that looked like they hadn’t had a good meal in a very long time.
Seth held his left hand up and kept his right hand on his pistol. “That’s far enough, gentlemen. What do you want?”
They stopped and the man with dirty blond hair leaned forward and crossed his arms over the saddle horn. “No need to be surly. We’re just looking for directions to Dawson City from here.”
“Just head north up the river. It’s a days travel, then you’ll come to it. Now, I need for you gentlemen to ride on so we can get back to work.”
“Having any luck?”
While Seth was occupied answering the blond’s questions, the dark-haired man’s hand drifted toward his pistol.
Belle swiftly yanked hers from her holster and aimed it at the dark-haired man’s head. She hoped he was smart and didn’t try to shoot them. “You heard him, men.” No way would she call these men gentlemen. “Ride on. And don’t look back.”
The men both raised their hands. “We don’t want no trouble, lady. Just directions.”
Seth palmed his Colt 45 Peacemaker.
She never lowered her gaze or her weapon, she brought up her other hand and narrowed her eyes. “And you have them. Ride on.”
“Sure. Sure.” The blond lowered his hands toward the reins. Then he swiftly pulled his gun.
Belle fired.
He fell off his horse, a bullet in the middle of his forehead.
The dark-haired man turned white. His eyes were wide as saucers. “I’m leavin’. I’m leavin’.” He grabbed his reins, turned, and galloped upriver just as fast as his horse would take him.
Considering the condition of the horse, it surprised Belle the animal could walk much less gallop. She finally holstered her gun. Her hands were shaking and her stomach roiled.
Seth nodded toward her and then hurried over. “Belle, honey, are you okay? No, of course you’re not.” He wrapped her in his arms.
That kindness was too much. She wept. Belle had just killed a man. Someone she didn’t know, but she was sure, she or Seth would be dead now, if she hadn’t pulled the trigger.
“Honey, that was a good job. They’d have killed us. You saved our lives. Don’t cry over that scum. He brought it on himself when he turned to stealing from other miners.”
She leaned back, tears still rolling down her cheeks. “But I killed him. I should have wounded him. I should have?—”
“Done exactly as you did. You saved us, Belle. Don’t ever forget that.” He pulled back until he was arm’s length away and gazed down at her, then he smiled. “You did good. Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
She sniffled. “My father taught me.” She sniffled again and her voice wavered. “Well, actually he was teaching my brothers with a pistol and a rifle and when he saw me watching, he had me come over and told me to join them. I apparently have a natural affinity for weapons.” Her eyes narrowed, her tears dried up, and her mouth formed a flat line while her hands fisted. “That was before he sold me to Amos, when Dad still seemed to care about me.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, but if he hadn’t sold you to Amos and he’d not left you in Dawson City, I wouldn’t have met you. So,” he ran his thumb across her cheek and wiped away her tears. “I guess, in a way, I’m grateful.”
She sniffled again. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but as much as I like you, I don’t know that it was worth the pain of the last ten years.”
He cast his gaze downward and then returned to look into her eyes. “No, I don’t suppose it was.” He walked over and looked down at the dead man. “You only took one shot to put him down. It went straight through his forehead. That’s amazing. You learned very well. But now I need to bury the body.”
“What about this hard ground? Won’t that make it difficult?”
“It will. I won’t be able to dig it deep and so I’ll have to cover it with rocks, too.
“I’ll start gathering large rocks.”
“Thanks. That would be very helpful.” He walked back to the tent and got the pickaxe.
“It’s the least I can do since I shot the man.” She went to the tent and took off her coat. She wouldn’t need the warmth of the coat working the way she was about to. She grabbed her gloves off the cot and walked out, following Seth.
He walked back to the start of the forest and began to dig. Seth spent several hours digging the hole until it was about three feet deep. Beyond that, the permafrost was much too hard, even with a pickaxe.
Belle didn’t want to touch the man. She’d never touched a dead body before, but she couldn’t let Seth do it alone. This was her fault. She needed to help.
She and Seth carried the man to the grave and covered him with dirt and then the rocks, to keep the animals away.
When they were done, they walked back to the tent and lit the stove to heat a bucket of water so they could wash. Until then, they sat at the table and drank the coffee leftover from breakfast.
After they’d rested at the table for about twenty minutes, Belle checked the water. It was warm enough and she used a pan as a ladle to fill their basin for washing. She dipped a washcloth into the water, washing her face first and then her hands.
Seth did the same.
After they were clean, Belle carried the basin outside and dumped the dirty water away from the tent. Then she walked back inside and prepared their dinner. She was sure that Seth was hungry. Though she had little appetite, she knew she should eat.
After they finished eating, they cleaned up the dishes together. She knew washing dishes was a good way to make sure her hands were clean. Belle moved the almost empty bucket of water off the stove and put the coffeepot back on.
After eating and washing the dishes, Seth walked down to the river and refilled the bucket.
While he was gone, Belle slipped off her clothes except for her long johns and climbed under the blankets.
Seth reentered the tent with a full bucket of water. He chuckled when he saw her. “Your red long johns won’t stop us from making love tonight. It’s been three weeks.”
She pulled the covers up under her chin. “I know. I’m afraid.”
He promptly placed the bucket on the stove and returned to her, kneeling by her side. “You know what? I haven’t been a good husband to you. You’ve been through a traumatic experience today and I won’t force the issue tonight. Even though I promise I won’t hurt you. All you know is Amos and he was an animal. He should never have been allowed to marry, especially someone as gentle as you.”
A single tear rolled from an eye into her hair. “I don’t know why you’re so nice to me. I haven’t been that way to you. I know I’ve tried to avoid you at least in the beginning. And tonight.” She grinned.
“I know.” His mouth turned up at the corners and his eyes twinkled. “And I’ve let you succeed some times, including tonight. But tomorrow, I don’t think so. I want so much to make love to you.”
She bit the side of her bottom lip. “It’s very hard to put so many years of abuse behind me.”
He caressed her cheek with a knuckle. “So soft.” He gazed down at her. “I know it’s hard for you, but I’m asking you to trust me. Do you...will you...trust me?”
Belle looked up at him, kneeling beside her on the mattress, and decided she would trust him, at least once. She wanted to know what this pleasure was that he talked about.
“Yes, I trust you. And tomorrow you’ll learn just how much.” She threw back the blankets and stood. She unbuttoned her garment and then stopped. Belle cocked her head. “If you intend to hold me like usual, you better get a move on.”
Seth’s smile was wide and genuine. “Yes, ma’am. Your wish is my command.”
He sat back and removed his boots. All of his clothes soon followed.
Now she was the one out of step, and she removed her clothing. Seth was glorious to look at. His body was well-honed from lots of physical labor, not from selling men’s suits. She couldn’t help but admire him.
She got under the blankets with her arms at her sides.
“You need to loosen up. Remember, I’m just holding you tonight. Just like I have every night for the last three weeks.”
She nodded and willed her body to relax. This was Seth. He hasn’t hurt you. She would try to remember that. But what about tomorrow? Would she remember it then?