CHAPTER THREE

 

“Are you all right, lass?” Mike Finnegan touched her shoulder, his brows knitted together in concern.

His touch was gentle, undemanding. How she had often longed for a human caress that expected nothing in return. The skin on her shoulder flinched in anticipation and she pulled the quilt closer, suddenly aware of her nakedness, both physically and emotionally.

“What were you about, and you in this condition?” Finnegan lowered his gaze to her stomach, lingered there for a breath, then returned his assessment to her face.

“I’m a whore, Constable. What other reason do I need?”

The words, bitter and regrettable spurted out of her mouth like snake’s venom. She had no reason to hurt this man who’d probably saved her life and yet, some instinct bade her to put a wall between them. Perhaps it was a guilty conscience because he represented the law in the Yukon Territory and she knew all too well the money that had brought her here was stained with blood.

He narrowed his gaze, unshaken by her bold comment. “I suspect you’re more than that, lass, and too smart to get caught up in the likes of this without good reason.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Situations such as this happen from time to time in my business. Don’t you encounter circumstances, constable, where people act very differently than you would have supposed they would?”

“Aye,” he said with a sly smile, “I do. I would have supposed a lass as smart as you would have found Mr. Sage’s request more than a little odd. And Lucy, you should know better.”

Lucille greeted his criticism with wide eyes. “He’s one of our best customers, Mike,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper and stepping closer. “Heavens, he’s building the new bank. I thought all he wanted was a little time with her and maybe a . . . ,” Lucille paused and swallowed, then stepped closer until her painted red lips nearly touched Finnegan’s ear. “And now I’d like to get you and your very colorful jackets out of my house before everybody in town knows you’re here.”

“Take Mr. Sage out the back way, Constable,” Finnegan said, jerking his head toward the stairs that led to the kitchen. “Miss-“ He waited, expectantly.

“Hanson. Jenny Hanson.”

“Miss Hanson and I’ll be right along.”

Jenny went to her room and quickly dressed. Returning to the hallway, now quiet, she found Finnegan waiting for her just inside the stairway.

“I thought waiting in the hall would make the customers nervous,” he responded to her unasked question, holding the door open for her to brush past.

“You’re awfully careful about offending the people you should be arresting.” Holding up her skirts, Jenny picked her way down the dark, narrow steps.

Behind her she heard his disarming chuckle. “If I were to arrest every prostitute in this town, where would I put them all?”

They emerged in the alleyway that ran behind Miss Lucille’s. The dank odor of urine and mold filled the moist night air as they moved quickly down the alley and across the street. A single lamp was lit in the post office and the young constable waited to open the door. With a furtive look down the street in both directions, Finnegan closed it behind them.

Sacks of mail were stacked in a lumpy mountain. Atop them, curled up in sleep was Percy Sage, his cheek pillowed with one arm.

“I sat him down here and went to the back for the lamp. When I returned, he’d crawled up there and was sound asleep.” The young constable shrugged his shoulders.

“Chasing one’s marbles makes a bloke tired, I’d imagine,” Finnegan said with a wry smile. “Let him sleep. I’ll take Miss Hanson back to the office and make out a report.”

“I thought we weren’t going to make this official,” Jenny said as he led the way down a narrow hallway, a lamp throwing a halo of light in their path.

“No one’ll see this except me and Constable Harper.” He sat the lamp on a desk made of planks and two wooden crates. A quill sat in an empty whiskey bottle and a stack of papers lay scattered across the surface.

“While you were dressing, I talked to Lucy. She thinks Mr. Sage has family in Seattle. I’ll send them a wire tomorrow and have somebody come and get the poor lad.”

So he and Lucy were on a first name basis. No one else called Lucille Lucy, as least none Jenny had heard. An unexplained edge of jealousy worked its way into her head like an embedded splinter.

“What exactly do you need with me, Constable? I believe that you saw everything you needed to see back at Miss Lucille’s.”

Finnegan looked up from the paper, a smile jerking at the corners of his mouth. “Should I put down, too, that the lady has a sassy tongue?”

“I don’t care what you put down.”

Finnegan laid the quill aside and leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. “Do you have some problem with authority, miss? You’ve been at me like a viper since I walked into your room. Then, I believe, you were at the disadvantage.”

“I apologize,” she said, chagrined at her behavior. The man had just rescued her and she couldn't even give him a civil answer. “Law enforcement and I don’t usually mix well.” If he only knew just how true that statement was.

“Aye, I can see where that’d be a problem for you.”

He paused, obviously waiting for her to say something else. When she didn’t, he leaned forward over his work again. The scratch of his quill filled the silence.

“How long have you been a . . . working lady, Miss Hanson?”

The suddenness of his question startled her. “Since I was fifteen.”

He paused in his writing, the only sign he’d heard her, then he continued. “Had you ever seen Mr. Sage before?”

“You mean ‘seen’ as seen on the street or ‘seen’ as in serviced him?”

He glanced up briefly with a wry smile. “At Lucille’s.”

“No. His favorite is Claudette.”

“So, he was a frequent customer?”

“One of our best, according to Lucille. I haven’t been . . . working, not like that, since Lucille hired me three months ago.”

“What have you been doing?”

How on earth had she let the conversation drift down this path? She hadn’t meant to reveal her past to anyone, let alone this Mountie.

“I’ve been cleaning, doing odd jobs.”

Finnegan raised his head to pin her with those eyes that could change from laughing to serious in a second’s passage.

“Most men don’t want a pregnant whore, constable. In fact, I’m a rarity, most whores get rid of unwanted pregnancies.”

She’d meant to shock him into silence, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t react, keeping her wriggling beneath his gaze.

“But you want to keep this baby?”

“Yes.”

She expected him to ask why and she had the it's-none-of-your-business answer waiting to fire, but he returned his attention to the paper before him.

“This report will go into my file. No one else will see it unless there’s more trouble.”

“May I leave?”

He sprinkled sand across the paper and dumped the excess to the floor. Then, he handed the document across the desk. “As soon as you sign your name here.”

She accommodated with a flourish and handed it back. He picked it up and surveyed the paper.

“Surprised I can write?”

“No,” he replied with a smile. “Just admiring your hand.”

She rose and walked to the door.

“Miss Hanson.” His voice stopped her in the doorway and she turned.

“You can tell me this is none of my business, but what do you intend to do once the baby’s born?”

She put a hand on the door facing. “I intend to raise it, Constable, and give it the home I never had.” Then, she slipped through the door without a backward look.

When she passed through the front room, Constable Harper lowered his feet to the floor from where he’d rested them on the desk. Percy was still asleep, curled in a ball, slumbering through his insanity. She allowed herself one memory of this evening, one image of the madness in his eyes, wrought by sorrow and loss and love. Then, she vowed never to think on it again.

A paper on the wall next to the door caught her eye and she turned for a closer look. It was a roughly sketched map of the area, gold fields, rivers and streams were noted and named. A red line followed a crooked path from south to north with the words ‘mail route’ sketched next to it.

“Constable Harper, what is this? She tapped the paper with one finger.

Harper tilted back his head. “It’s the mail route Constable Finnegan takes when he delivers mail to the gold fields. With all this,” he gestured toward the mountain of canvas bags over his shoulder, “the Mounties’ll be making regular runs now.”

Tiny black boxes appeared at several points along the red line. ‘Matthews’ was written next to one. ‘Anson’ next to another. An unnamed box sat in the jut of land labeled Cutter’s Fork. “And these boxes with names. What are they?”

“They’re the stopovers, ma’am. The Police are paying folks along the route to take in our men on their runs. Going up and coming back.”

“What’s this one? This little one here with no name by it.”

“That’s an old trapper’s cabin. Nobody lives there now. Was somebody there a while back, but they cleared out. Constable Finnegan’s going up there in a day to two to find out whether or not it’s fit for us to use.”

Regular, steady money. A cabin along the route would produce income and provide a safe place for her to have and raise her baby. She traced a finger down the black ink line until the Yukon River made a deep bend. She knew just the place and a gullible man that would sell it to her.

 

* * *

 

Sleep did not visit Mike Finnegan although he tried mightily to get some relief from the thoughts speeding through his head. But as he tangled his blankets into a fine mess, green eyes and rich chestnut hair chased away all thoughts of sleep. She was a beauty, skin like fine cream and a body built to pleasure a man. Pity she’d ended up in that way of life. He sat up on the side of his cot and ran his fingers through his hair. Fine one he was to admonish anybody for a life of excess.

The thick smell of over-cooked coffee beckoned. He stood and headed for the stove. The dark liquid ran from the tin pot in a ribbon and one taste said it was worse than usual. Grimacing, Finnegan took another swallow.

He paced to the window and stared out at the clear night sky. Stars winked peacefully over the man-made chaos. No errant cloud drifting by would guess that the tiny creatures below complicated their lives in ever-amazingly intricate ways. And Jenny Hanson was complicating his.

Whore. The word grated on his nerves. Always had. Just the sound and the way the human mouth pronounced it, expelling the syllables in one swift breath, spoke of disgust and loathing. A woman who sells her body for profit. As opposed to brides who married rich husbands for the money. What was the difference? And yet society drew a neat line with a moral ruler, condemning one to shame and elevating the other to respect.

Niggling doubts haunted him. Something about Jenny Hanson reminded him of someone he’d once known. But the familiarity ended there. He could put no name or place on their meeting. If he’d once known her, even back in his alcohol-fogged days, he’d remember those eyes and her rich curves.

She was a worldly woman, no naive miss that could have innocently misjudged poor Richard Sage’s intentions, he thought, shifting the direction of his musings. So why did she place herself in such peril? Did carrying the babe make her so desperate for money?

She’d laid herself a hard path, that was for sure. Once the child was born, she couldn’t work in a brothel. Most madams frowned on girls who brought the baggage of children with them. And no respectable man would marry a woman of her ilk. Maybe she’d be lucky and some lonely miner would take her to wife. Then, she’d live a hard, if less lonely, existence, dependent on his futile and speculative scratching. And she’d bare him children from her beautiful, haunting body.

He closed his eyes and willed away the image of her gentle curves, terror in her eyes. At that moment, his attention had been on Percy and his madness, but his mind had recorded her image and now played it back with torturous repetition.

Lucy had sent for him because she knew he’d be discreet. If there was one thing he knew something about it was houses of ill-repute. Many nights he’d awakened in the alleyway behind one, hungover and robbed. Then, there were other mornings when daylight poured across a rented bed to illuminate a snoring partner with little in common to the tempting vixen he’d taken to bed the night before. Funny how half a bottle of whiskey could make a man compromise.

Past is past, he thought, firmly shutting out those old, well-worn memories. Today he lived a new life. No whiskey. No women. No complications. He was a representative of justice, making the minutes of his existence count for something other than the passage of time.

He moved from the window and stared up at the spot on the mail sacks where Percy Sage had slept in oblivious repose. He’d sent him home and instructed Constable Harper to accompany him. Tomorrow he’d wire Sage’s family in Seattle. By the end of the month, someone would come for poor Percy and take him away, another casualty of love and desire and life’s twisted sense of humor.

Across the street, an intoxicated soul staggered out of Lucy’s and paused by the hitching rail, as if getting his bearings. He misstepped off the sidewalk and tumbled into the muddy street. With awkward flounderings, the figure struggled to his feet, climbed back up on the sidewalk and trudged away crookedly, his steps stiff and studied, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity. With every effort the shadowy figure made, Finnegan felt a corresponding twinge in his own body. The feel of wet, horse-trod mud slipping into his mouth; the jarring thud of meeting the ground face first; the overwhelming embarrassment at not being able to walk down the street without the last five hours of your life readable to everyone who passed.

Finnegan drained the cup and, leaving it on the stove, padded down the hall and back to the cot in his makeshift office. But even as he slipped between the blankets, he knew sleep would still be a stranger.

 

* * *

 

“How much do you want for it?” Jenny leaned forward, her heart pounding.

“Well . . .” Jules Winstead looked between the two women bending over him. “It’s played out. Didn’t find nothing there more’n a couple of nuggets and a little dust. The real gold’s further up the Yukon River.”

“Then you oughta be willing to sell it real cheap.” Thelma glowered at Jules across Loni’s kitchen table.

“Well . . .” He paused again. “I reckon I can let it go for . . . say seven hundred dollars.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Jules. No, I wouldn’t say that at all.” Thelma deepened her frown.

Jules again glanced between the two faces hovering near him. “Five hundred?”

Loni sliced an onion with a thunk and threw him one of her scolding looks.

“Four fifty or I cut you off . . . permanently.” Thelma crossed her arms over her ample bosom, drawing Jules’ attention there.

“You wouldn't do that for a rickety old cabin and some thin ground, would you?” He looked pleadingly up at her.

“You oughta take three hundred, then, and consider yourself lucky.”

“All right. All right, I reckon it’s a deal, before you gals talk me into giving it to you.”

Jenny counted out the gold with shaking hands and shoved a paper across the table. “Sign this bill of sale.”

“I can’t write,” he complained.

“Then make your mark and I’ll witness it,” Thelma added.

“Wait a minute, I want it read to me first.”

Thelma planted a fist on a cocked hip. “Now Jules, if you can’t read, how do you know I’m going to read it to you truthful?”

“I trust you, Thelma. Hell, I done asked you to be my wife five times now.”

Thelma sent him a heated glance and snatched up the paper. Carefully she read the terms of purchase. He pretended to listen while creeping a hand up her thigh.

All the while Jenny’s heart hammered. Finally, she’d have her own place. Her own house, her own porch. Her yard and her kitchen. Bought and paid for. No one could ever take it away from her. It was on the mail route between Dawson and Forty Mile, equal distance between two other stops, if Jules was telling the truth. Now, she had to convince the Mounties to stop there.

“Satisfied?” Thelma asked, slapping the paper down in front of Jules.

He picked up the quill and carefully made an ‘X’. “Not as satisfied as I’ll be in about an hour. You owe me something special for this, Thelma.”

Jenny snatched up the paper and scanned over the careful lettering. Then, she folded it and put it into her apron pocket. “Thank you, Jules.”

“I don’t reckon I need the place anyhow.” He gazed up at Thelma. “Not when my other claim’s making enough to support two.”

“You go on down to the claims office and file that. I know you don’t want to do no prospecting, but just in case there’s something on it Jules overlooked,” Thelma urged. “You got everything right there you need. Go on, now.” She turned to smile down at Jules. “I got a debt to pay.”

 

* * *

 

Jenny stepped out of the claims office and suddenly the air smelled fresher. Weak sunshine seemed as bright as summer and the winter wind that swept down out of the mountains was colder, fresher.

The baby stirred and love for that tiny bit of life overwhelmed her, bringing quick tears to her eyes. She owned a home, a home for the two of them. She touched her swollen stomach, soothing a hand across the rough material of her dress. From the moment she knew she carried new life, she’d felt a sense of contentment, completion. Ridding herself of it had been unthinkable. Now, she was in command of her own future. Pulling her coat closer up around her neck, she set off down the street toward the office of the Northwest Mounted Police.

In front of the temporary office a dog team waited. Gray wolf-dogs sat on trembling haunches, their attention trained on the door of the tiny building. The door opened and they wagged their furry tails, making little sweeps in the snow. Mike Finnegan appeared, a large, canvas sack thrown over his back like Santa Claus. He deposited the load in the sled and turned when she approached. A smile played at the edges of his mustache and his eyes crinkled. “Miss Hanson.”

“I have a business proposition for the Mounted Police, Constable Finnegan. Could we go inside and discuss it?”

Finnegan shifted his weight to one hip, crossed his arms over his chest and smiled wider. “I was of the opinion last night that you held the Police in none too high a regard.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy on her. An edge of anger crowded into her thoughts, but she chased it away. All she needed from him was an agreement. His friendship was unnecessary. But, a tiny voice whispered, “I apologize for my rudeness last night. I was upset.”

He didn’t look convinced and his smile deepened. “Somehow, lass, I don’t think you’d have been any more agreeable if you hadn’t been.”

No comeback sprang to her lips and she stood there, marinating in his sarcasm.

“Come inside,” he said finally, opening the door.

She brushed past, trying to keep the anger out of her eyes and her voice. Her future hinged on his answer. Pleasing men was something she did very well but something told her Mike Finnegan was a man not easily coerced.

She stopped in front of the map and placed a finger on the thin, red line that bisected it. “I’ve purchased a cabin here.” She pointed at the bend in the river the claims officer had shown her. “I’d like to offer it to the Mounted Police as a stopover on the mail run for the fee of a hundred dollars a year.”

Mike backed up against the desk, crossed his arms and studied the map. “The old cabin at Cutter’s Fork.”

“Yes.”

Beneath her practiced look of detachment, desperation swam in Jenny Hanson’s eyes. Despite this haunting sense of that seemed to float around her, there was something else only his policeman’s instinct picked up on. Something about her just didn’t ring true. Where had she gotten so much money? And what was she running from to hide herself and an unborn infant in the harshness of the Yukon?

She’d calculated well, whether she knew it or not. The bend of the river in which her cabin sat was a treacherous place where, even in frigid temperatures, the ice was unreliable and apt to break through. A stopover there could prove valuable, a fact he’d been about to pursue in the interest of the Police himself.

He pushed away from the desk and stepped to her side. Pretending to examine the map, he watched her from the corner of his eye. “I think we can reach an agreement.”

Relief flooded her face for an instant before she reapplied her mask of indifference. “I’m sure the arrangement will benefit both of us.”

Only she knew the true depth of those words, but Finnegan was sure it went deeper than a mere business deal. She turned to face him, her gray, oval eyes meeting his directly. “Thank you, Constable. May I ask a favor?”

She blinked and then swallowed, small signs that asking the impending question made her uncomfortable. “May I travel as far as my cabin with you on your return trip north?”

“A dog sled’s a mighty bumpy ride for a lass in your condition.”

Her expression never changed, but Finnegan sensed waves of panic rolling off her. When had he become so attuned to the thoughts of another? And if he was reading her thoughts, was she also reading his?

He took a step backwards and a slight frown crossed her face. “It’s the only way I have of getting to my cabin, Constable.”

“Are you going to live there alone? Just you and the wee one? Who'll deliver it when your time comes?”

“I’ll do it myself.”

Finnegan snorted and walked to the desk. “You’re risking your life and that of the child. Stay here in Skagway until after the baby is born.”

“I’ve seen babies born before. Do you know how many I’ve delivered, Constable?”

He turned and met her steady gaze.

“Ten. Twenty maybe. When I worked in Seattle, we took the women in labor up to the attic so the customers wouldn’t hear their screams. The mothers couldn’t see their babies when they were born, of course, or they’d want to keep them. And then mother and child would be cast out onto the street to starve.”

Riveted where he stood, Finnegan listened, trying to shut out the pictures her words evoked.

“So I’d wrap the baby in rags and sneak down the back steps.”

The hair on the back of Finnegan’s neck stood in anticipation of a horrific confession.

“Then, I’d take the baby and slip through town while everyone was asleep, down to the river.”

Finnegan closed his eyes.

“Where I’d meet Father O’Hara and give him the child. He always found someone to love them.” She studied his face and a slow smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “Did you think I was going to say I threw them in the river?”

She’d played his emotions like a fine instrument. Miss Hanson read people very well. “No, I-“

“You did think that.” She slowly shook her head. “You must believe me a monster, indeed. Did you think, Constable Finnegan, there were never babies to be dealt with in a profession such as mine?”

“No, I would-“

“We are women before we are whores. We feel the same things as the women who hold their heads up when they walk down the street.”

She whirled and walked to the door. “I can make other arrangements to get to my cabin.” She stopped with her hand on the doorlatch. “But I intend to hold you to our agreement.”

He nodded and started to say more, but she slipped through the door.

“Damn stubborn lass,” he muttered to himself, feeling as though he’d just endured a windstorm.

 

***~~~***