Down the Yukon (6 page)

Jamie stepped off the gangplank and we embraced. I kissed her on the cheek, two, three times as she heaved a sob and I recognized, close-up, those few precious freckles on her nose. We held each other. Jamie was trembling and so was I. When she broke away, tears were streaking her eyes. In one hand was a roll of parchment; her free hand searched a dress pocket. “Oh, where's my handkerchief? My kingdom for a handkerchief!”

Not finding one, Jamie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and then she reached out and dabbed my tears from my cheekbones. “I told myself a hundred times coming up the river that I wouldn't fall apart,” she began. “Look what I've done. It's not like me.”

I wasn't even sure I could speak.

“I knew you'd be here, Jason. Right here waiting for me, like you said you would. Who's this? It looks
like you've found a friend.”

For a moment I was confused, then I followed her eyes to the bent tail rapping the ground. “That's Burnt Paw,” I replied.

“I can see he's favoring that front right paw. You little ragamuffin,” Jamie cooed as she swept him up in her arms. Burnt Paw rolled his eyes. His quick tongue caught her chin.

“I love your half-and-half face. And those ears, where'd you get them? Off a flying fox from Borneo? This paw, did you burn it? Is that how you got your name?”

I reached for her suitcase. “In the Dawson fire,” I said. “Late April.”

Jamie set Burnt Paw down. “I heard about the fire….”

“How? How did the news ever reach a telegraph?”

“By dogsled to Skagway, by boat to Seattle. What a sight coming around the bend to see Dawson already rebuilt!”

With these words Jamie took three bounding leaps to the top of the embankment, no matter that she was wearing a dress. “Come up, Jason. Look, here's a bench over the Yukon. The Golden City is even more splendid than I remembered!”

I sat down beside her, took her hand. “Jamie, I can't believe I'm not dreaming.”

Her voice was etched with sadness as she replied, “‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.' I came across that in one of Shakespeare's plays, and I've discovered it's true.”

“I'm so sorry you lost Homer. Arizona Charlie told me this spring.”

Her father's name spoken out loud brought fresh
tears to her luminous hazel eyes. “It was so sudden, Jason. I had no chance to ask his blessing or what I should do without him. We never had a chance to say good-bye.”

“I'm glad I knew him, Jamie. I never told you this, but I used to imagine birds nesting in his beard.”

“I love that. What kind of birds?”

“Bluebirds. No, Canada geese.”

“Yes, it was that enormous.” I'd made her laugh.

“He was a great poet,” I added, “but an even better man.”

“Thank you.” Jamie sniffled, finding her handkerchief at last in another dress pocket. “Father always said he was a simple cobbler of verses, not a real poet. He'd say, ‘Leave immortality to the Bard of Avon, Bobby Burns, Lord Tennyson, and such. I'll always be able to skin a moose and paddle a canoe better than I can write a line of poetry.' People loved him, Jason. He was kind.”

She took her hand from mine and petted Burnt Paw behind his head.

“You look older,” I began again. “Grown-up. And more beautiful than ever.”

“I just turned sixteen.”

“On the last day of April.”

“More recently, on the last day of May.”

I was jolted. “How many days are there in May?”

“Thirty-one, last time I checked.”

“I would have tied, if only I'd remembered your birthday!”

“Whatever do you mean, Jason?”

“There was a lottery on the beginning of breakup.”

“I remember last year's.”

“Well, I had a system of sorts. If only I'd remembered
your birthday, I would have split the prize with a seamstress. I'd have nearly nine thousand dollars!”

Understandably, Jamie was still confused. “That's a shame, Jason…. I suppose my birthday will be unforgettable now, eh?”

“That's for sure, but enough of that! Breakup is spilt milk, water under the bridge, and there are no bridges over the Yukon.”

“I could listen to you mix metaphors all day.”

“How long was your journey?”

“Fourteen days up the Yukon from St. Michael, after an ocean voyage of three weeks, on the
Ohio.
We sailed the fourth of May.”

“Where did you sail from?”

“Seattle—I was thinking of you.”

“Were the seas rough?”

“Don't I still look green? Imagine a steamer with seven hundred souls aboard tossed around like a toy! We were caught by a spring storm in the Gulf of Alaska and thrown off course. It's a wonder we didn't end up in Japan.”

“Seven hundred people? Where were they going—not to Dawson City?”

“To Nome! Stampeding to Nome!”

“Stop, I'm ill. Seven hundred to Nome—I was hoping to stake a claim on the beach.”

“It had better be a long beach. A tent city has sprung up—I saw a photograph—and prospectors are at work with sluice boxes and rockers along the beach and all the nearby creeks. I was tempted just to go see it. It's like the Klondike all over again, only no need to cross mountains and build boats and float a river.”

“They don't talk about Dawson City anymore?”

“Except to say it's no place to get rich. This time last
year, people wore buttons that said
YES, I'M GOING.
This year, the word ‘Klondike' is synonymous with folly. To brush someone off, instead of saying something like, ‘Go peddle your papers,' people say, ‘Aw, go to the Klondike.'”

“But
you
came….”

I meant to say it full of feeling, but it came out like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. I wanted those three words to say that I loved her. I was half certain that in response she would profess that she'd come these thousands of miles solely for my sake.

I thought she might take my hand, but she didn't. Jamie glanced at me, avoiding a full meeting of the eyes, and her gaze went out onto the river, where the swells of the Yukon rolled swiftly downstream. “My heart remains in the Northland,” she said with an enigmatic smile, and stood up briskly.

I was left with the awful uncertainty of wondering if it was the North she'd returned for, or for me. If it was both, what percentage of her heart did I have a claim to?

At a loss, I asked, “What's that parchment in your hand?”

“Oh, this! It was posted on the boat. By now they must be plastered all over Dawson City.”

It was a poster that she unrolled. Its headline proclaimed THE GREAT RACE.

“What is it, Jamie?”

“A race from Dawson City to Nome. It's the Alaska Commercial Company's answer to the N.A.T.'s breakup lottery. Isn't it exciting? Here, I'll read it to you. I know it almost from memory:

“Land!” I interrupted. “There are no roads between here and Nome. I doubt there are even trails. And what could they mean, ‘by air'?”

Jamie laughed. “By balloon? The fellow who wrote this was so full of hot air, he could have inflated a fleet of them. Here, I'll finish it up:

Jamie rolled up the parchment. “The trip down the river is a journey of epic proportions. Of course, there's still the Norton Sound to deal with after that.”

“What a race!”

We looked into each other's eyes, asking the same question.

Jamie said it first. “What do you think, Jason? Did I hear you say you were headed to Nome anyway?”

“I still have my Peterborough,” I replied. “I've paddled the first five hundred miles of this river, but that's the sum total of my experience. I once knew a girl who was an artist with a canoe paddle….”

Jamie was beaming. “We'd be lunatics!” With that, she stifled a sudden yawn. “I'm exhausted. Let's see how we feel tomorrow, Jason. I should think about where I'm going to stay.”

“Belinda Mulrooney's Fairview?” I suggested, pointing. “Where you lived with your father?”

She looked long at the hotel. I saw anxiety creasing her forehead.

“I should have realized, Jamie. The Fairview would only make you sad.”

“It's not that…. My first night back in Canada, I'd prefer to sleep outdoors, if that's possible.”

I was delighted, and I already had an idea. “How
about our storage tent in the yard outside the cabin? It's under a big spruce, which will help to darken it enough for you to sleep. We can move out a few things. We've got a cot and a sleeping bag for you.”

“That will do it. I'll sleep like a stone, midnight sun or no.”

Jamie looked all around, at the river and the town and the landslide scar like a moosehide on the mountain that towered above Dawson. “I'm home. Lead on, Jason.”

Jamie slept through the arrival of four sternwheelers the following morning. My brothers had gone to work, and Burnt Paw and I were watching the swarming activity all along the Yukon's bank. The steamboats from the Pacific added color and size to the flotilla of hundreds of boats assembling for the assault on Nome.

My eyes kept darting over to the tent where Jamie was sleeping, not twenty yards away. My mind was racing with unanswered questions, the first being, Would Jamie really join me in the race to Nome? The two of us, down the Yukon? The prospect was too exciting to be believed.

If we did try it, what were our chances with the canoe?

Suddenly Jamie appeared in the grass next to me.

“Your dress…,” I said.

“I slept in it. Would you look at what's going on along
the river! Boats from up at the mouth of the Klondike to clear past town.”

“It's like the word ‘Nome' is written large across the sky.”

“We have to decide about the race, don't we? But first, I'm starving! There's only one meal I've been craving all this time.”

“What would that be?”

“Flapjacks and bacon.”

“In that case, I can take care of you right here at Jason's Café.”

As soon as we'd eaten, Jamie wanted to inspect the canoe. We tipped it upright, and she pronounced it in perfect condition. Seating herself in the stern, Jamie closed her eyes and began to stroke with an imaginary paddle.

When she opened her eyes, she said, “Your Peterborough is like an old friend.”

We walked around the side of the cabin for another look at the crowded banks of the Yukon. Jamie shaded her eyes and gave the fleet a long, careful appraisal. “They're all scows or rowed boats,” she said finally. “I don't see any canoes. But then, that shouldn't be surprising. I wonder what became of mine and Father's after he sold it.”

“I can't remember the last time I saw a canoe. They always were a rarity.”

“When it comes to the race,” Jamie said, “no one could match your canoe in a sprint, but fifteen hundred miles down the Yukon is no sprint. I woke up thinking that if we go to shore to sleep, and surely we'll need to sleep…”

“That whole navy will pass us by. I've been thinking the same thing.”

“On a scow,” Jamie said tentatively, “we could set up a tent for sleeping. For cooking, we could make a mud hearth or even set up a Yukon stove. There's no doubt we could float twenty-four hours a day, but of course a scow is nothing but a floating platform and we couldn't go any faster than the current.”

Jamie fell to scratching Burnt Paw behind his ear while her eyes drifted down the river in a thoughtful trance.

I was pondering, too. A nice, sleek skiff was what we really needed. The only problem was, rowed boats of any description had become more and more valuable with half of Dawson, it seemed, rushing to Nome. Even before the race was announced, skiffs were selling for hundreds of dollars.

A skiff today might cost five hundred or more. It seemed lunacy to suggest spending such an amount on a simple wooden boat, but our chances might depend on it.

“What about a skiff?” I suggested, thinking Jamie had arrived with a large sum of money.

Jamie brightened. “We'd pass the scows by like they were fastened to the bottom! We could carry a world of gear and grub, with room to stretch out and sleep. Not only that, a sturdy skiff might be able to handle the Norton Sound between St. Michael and Nome. There must be a hundred and fifty of them down there. Maybe someone would sell.”

Our eyes were asking each other the identical question, but Jamie spoke first. “Can you afford a rowed boat, Jason?”

“No,” I answered, and I realized that this was the time to tell her of the calamity that had befallen me and my brothers. I told it all, from the moment that the
Sydney Mauler was about to boot Burnt Paw into the street that day in March, to Ethan's rise and fall, to the fire and the loss of the mill. In distress, Jamie listened intently. At last I said, “All this to explain that I can't afford a rowboat. After the supplies I've bought in the last week, I have twenty dollars to my name. Jamie, I'm back in poverty's basement.”

She heaved a sigh. “We've landed there together then—add my wealth to yours and we have sixty dollars.”

It was my turn to be surprised and dismayed. “There's no money to be made on the stage?”

“That's not it—I was one of the lucky few. We were making so much money it seemed like water out of a faucet, but Father kept spending like there was no tomorrow. After his life in the bush, mostly trading for whatever he needed, spending was a novelty he couldn't resist. When he died I had little more than enough to get back to the North. It cost fifteen hundred dollars to get here from Philadelphia!”

I told her of my vow to buy the mill back from Cornelius Donner, that I'd thought I could accomplish it by staking a claim in Nome.

“You might get there in time to stake a worthwhile claim—it depends on the extent of those golden beaches. But there must be several thousand people already there, with more on the way.”

“I know—I'm ill thinking about it.”

“I'd almost prefer our chances of winning the race, even if we can't afford a skiff. Your canoe—as far as it would take us—will be our good luck charm.”

“I always fancied you were born with a paddle in your hands.”

“Funny you said that—Father always said so. He
would like our chances as far as the river will take us. I believe we could arrange the gear in such a way that one of us could sleep on it while the other paddled. We could be hundreds of miles ahead when we reach the sea.”

“At the mouth of the Yukon, we trade for an oceangoing craft?”

With a nod, Jamie said, “I can't picture if the racers will attempt to cross the sound or will be forced to hug the coastline all the way to Nome. The latter, I would think. The only thing we know for sure is that there's much more that we don't know than what we do know.”

I laughed. “That's what will make it an adventure. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it—if only there were a bridge.”

Jamie chuckled at my nonsense.

“What will you do with your half of the prize money?” I asked.

She laughed. “Aren't you counting your chickens a little early?”

“I'm just being optimistic. What do you say, then?”

Her eyes were lit with competitive fire. “If we're going to Nome anyway, to try our chances on those golden beaches, why not join the race? If we fail, and then we go bust prospecting, we'll work our way back to Dawson by winter, chopping boiler wood for the riverboats if necessary. We can't be much broker than we are now.”

“We're partners, then!”

“Partners!”

“Good. Splendid. I was afraid…”

“Afraid of what, Jason?”

“I was afraid that with it being just the two of us, you wouldn't.”

Her hazel eyes, dead serious, met mine. “I trust you, Jason. You're a gentleman. I know you.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “Yes, you'll always be able to trust me.”

“Let's hurry, then! We have so much to do and so little time. My clothes will be useless on the river. I need to find trousers and shirts and such. Gum boots…a wide-brimmed prospector's hat like yours.”

“Men's clothes, like you wore coming over the Chilkoot.”

“Yes, or the country will eat me alive—especially the mosquitoes. I don't suppose that any woman on the trail was less a woman for wearing practical clothes.”

“I hope your hair isn't an inconvenience.”

“You like it long? It's much longer than when you saw me last.”

“I love it past your shoulders like that. It would be a great tragedy if you had to cut it.”

I realized I was blushing.

Jamie giggled and gave me a poke. “Then I won't.”

 

On the morning of June 15, race day, the riverbank was bedlam. With several hours left until the noon starting gun, 329 teams of two had already registered for the Great Race. Add to those 329 boats the eleven steamboats now docked in Dawson and the various and sundry craft not participating in the race, and it was only by luck that we found a sliver of water to float our canoe. With all the shouting and the comings and goings on all sides as the boats were being loaded, it was a scene of the utmost confusion.

Abe and Ethan helped us load. They were nearly as excited as we. I should have known I could count on my brothers. They'd given us our fifty-dollar entry fee, which allowed us to complete our outfit with our funds. At the last, Jamie spent six dollars on a shotgun of the
same make as her father's, shells to go with it, and a canoe paddle for a spare. Five dollars was all we had left to spend downriver.

It was ten minutes before noon when Jamie stowed the shotgun under the lashing that crisscrossed the oilskin tarp covering our gear. “All set,” she said, giving her wide-brimmed hat a good tug on her forehead. She'd braided her hair into a lively black rope that swung back and forth as she worked.

Abe and Ethan were watching, their eyes twinkling. The men on either side were equally entranced—we were wedged between two skiffs, each of which had two rowing stations. “What do you aim to do with that shotgun, miss?” a grizzled fellow asked her. “Blast your competitors?”

“If we run out of grub,” Jamie told him good-naturedly.

“Cannibals in the race, Harry. What is the world coming to?”

“How do you aim to cross the Norton Sound in that wee bucket?” called an Irishman from the skiff on the opposite side.

“We've got a balloon in our outfit,” I volunteered. “We aim to inflate it, tie on with the canoe, and fly to Nome. It's legal, I hear. You watch for us—we'll wave.”

There was laughter all around.

Jamie and I shook hands with my brothers. They wished us Godspeed. Burnt Paw seemed to know exactly what was going on, and was leaping around us like a jack-in-the-box. Anticipating the starting gun, I snatched up my paddle and made ready to board. Suddenly Burnt Paw launched himself into the canoe.

“I'd say he wants to go with you,” Ethan observed.

The men on either side were now seated in their
rowing stations and poised for the gun. They barely cracked a grin at our foolishness.

I grabbed Burnt Paw and set him down on the bank. He immediately lifted the one paw up, with the wrist slack. “You be a good boy,” I said.

He whined and he whimpered.

“Take him with you for good luck,” Ethan insisted. “You never know when he might come in handy.”

“One minute!” a voice from upriver boomed.

I boarded and, keeping low, made for the bow. Standing in six inches of water in her gum boots, Jamie pushed off enough to float the canoe free. She stepped carefully into the stern; then we paddled a few strokes until we were abreast of the bows of the neighboring skiffs.

Jamie took a look around. She gave me a smile more golden than the midnight sun. “Take a deep breath, Jason.”

I heard Burnt Paw's shrill bark. I heard my brothers calling “Good luck!” and “Ho for Nome!” The starting gun went off, loud as a cannon.

Amid the shouts and the cheers and the splashing of oars, it was pandemonium.

“Watch our smoke!” I yelled. “Nome or bust!”

Jamie and I started paddling in earnest, and our canoe shot forward. With a glance over my shoulder toward my brothers, as I freed a hand to give them a last wave, I saw Burnt Paw in the river. Waterworthy as any muskrat, he was paddling after us with all his might.

I stopped paddling, I was laughing so hard. “Jamie!” I cried. “Look behind us!”

Here came that mongrel, with only his black-and-white face above water, his ears hinged forward
with determination. The shore was slipping away; my brothers were bent over laughing. We were about to be swept into the boils at the edge of the main current.

Jamie spun the canoe sideways so that Burnt Paw would have a wider target. I stowed my paddle and made the catch. “Down the Yukon!” Jamie shouted. “Three for Nome!”