A couple men onshore help drag our boat from the ice. Mel secures the boat and holds his hand out to the Sisters. The ground’s a mix of snow and frozen mud, so thick along the riverbank, we’ve gotta hop from one tree stump to the next until we’re level with the street. Like in Skagway and Dyea, a muddy road runs through Dawson’s middle. Tents bunch up everywhere with a few snow-covered buildings in between. Men tromp about in hooded coats, dodge dogs that pull sleds through the muck or sleep curled together along the wooden sidewalks. Dawson City’s crowded, dirty, and loud. On the Yukon, we sometimes passed other boats, but mostly we were on our own. I ain’t used to all this up-close living.
Mary Agnes’s gray eyes find mine. “Don’t forget what I told you, Jasper.”
Mary Elizabeth throws her long arms around me and Mel. “If ever you need us—”
“We’ll be at the hospital.” Mary Margaret squeezes my shoulder with her wrinkled hand. Melvin starts for their bags, but Mary Margaret waves him off. “Don’t you worry about that. Father Judge will see to things. Best way you can help is to take good care of yourselves.”
The Sisters cut a path straight through the muddy street. The Midnight Dome rises at the other end. Men step back to give them room, and even sleds pull aside. They’re off to start their work in Dawson’s hospital, and me and Mel, we gotta go find Riley’s claim.
“Let’s get on them Klondike creeks.” I still ain’t sure what them clues of Riley’s mean, but surely things will come together now that we’re so close to his mine.
“Not so fast,” Mel says. “We’ve got to find a few supplies.”
I ain’t sure how we’ll pay for them, but I still follow.
The scent of new wood seeps from buildings as we weave down the rutted street. Most storefronts ain’t yet weathered gray. This town went up fast, slapped together quicker than two sides of a buttered biscuit. Like in Seattle, enormous signs are everywhere:
JOE’S RESTAURANT: OPEN DAY AND NIGHT
NEW YORK SALOON: FIRST CLASS LIQUORS AND CIGARS
WAFFLES AND COFFEE $.25
We pass dance halls and cabins, a Mountie in a crisp red coat who watches over fellows as they chop wood. It looks like they’ve stacked enough logs near the North West Mounted Police station to keep fires burning clean through winter.
A man dressed neat and trim stands on the sidewalk in front of Pioneer Saloon. His arms are crossed against his chest. His little eyes stare down his sloping nose. Well, what do you know. Me and Mel made it to the Klondike as fast as Lord Avonmore.
“Boys.” The lord nods crisply when he sees us. “Didn’t expect to see you after the Palmer House.”
“Me neither,” I say.
“Are you mining, sir?” Mel asks.
“My men have explored every creek from here down to Solomon’s Dome. They haven’t found one open claim.”
They ain’t found a claim. That don’t have to mean they’ve all been staked, but it don’t sound good.
Mel’s eyes dart to me and back to Lord Avonmore.
“I was told when we arrived that every claim along Bonanza Creek was staked two weeks after George Carmack and Skookum Jim discovered that thumb-sized nugget of gold.”
Mel squints like he ain’t hearing right.
Lord Avonmore sighs. “There aren’t hardly any mines left in all the Klondike. The best land has already been claimed.”
“It’s all been staked?” Mel says.
The saloon door opens, and out comes a fellow who holds a sack. “I’ll give you six pounds for twenty-four bottles,” he says.
Lord Avonmore grabs the bag. “That will do.”
“Champagne straight from England,” the fellow shouts through the doorway. “Fill yer mug for one pinch of gold!”
Lord Avonmore has made a trade. Champagne for an ordinary sack. It ain’t something ordinary in there, though, I can tell you that.
“That’s gold, ain’t it?” Six pounds of it, the fellow said.
Lord Avonmore sniffs. “Young man, it’s not polite to ask after another’s wealth.” But that lofty look of his fades quick. He can’t help saying more. “It isn’t how I hoped to find it, but this gold is mine.”
As we move on, Lord Avonmore’s words run through my head. There’s hardly any mines left in the Klondike. What Albert said in Miles Canyon really was about the claims. But how’d he know?
Mel stops before a freshly painted sign. “‘Turner and Company: Outfits Bought and Sold.’ This is what we’re looking for.”
There ain’t one supply that’s gonna change the fact that most everything’s been taken. What Melvin’s after, I ain’t sure.
We scrape our muddy rubber boots on the steps that lead to the door and push inside. In one corner, men warm themselves before a stove. Behind the counter a fellow sorts nails into piles. He wears a red striped shirt and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses at the end of his nose. His jaunty mustache ends in curls. All around him, row after row of wooden shelves stand empty.
“You’re Mr. Turner?” Mel asks.
He shoves the nails aside. “Sure am. What are you after?”
Mel clears his throat and fixes his eyes on an empty shelf up high. “Nearly everything.”
“Everything?” Mr. Turner shakes his head. “You must be new around here.”
“We are,” I say. What’s wrong with that?
“Then you probably haven’t heard Dawson’s in bad shape right now. Food’s scarce. Richest city in the world, but we can’t get nothing once the Yukon turns to ice. We got gold aplenty, but you can’t eat it. And it sure won’t keep you warm through the winter.” Mr. Turner flicks a strand of hair off his forehead. “Inspector Constantine of the North West Mounted Police posted a notice last week that said starvation stares us all in the face, and a man without his own supplies is a man who courts death.”
Mel’s cheeks have gone a pasty color. My belly pinches like it’s full of unripe cherries. This whole time I’ve thought that as long as we could get to Dawson City, we’d be safe.
“Best thing you two can do is turn around and go home. Find someone with a dog team who can take you to Dyea.”
Home ain’t something we got anymore. “Mr. Turner,” I say, unhooking them Chilkoot rubber boots from Mama’s washboard. “What could we get for these?”
He peers at me over his glasses before he takes them in hand. “Haven’t had any sort of boots to sell since last spring. I’ll give you twenty dollars for one pair or fifty dollars for both.”
Fifty dollars. That’s a whole bunch of money.
“Of course, I can’t pay in cash,” Mr. Turner says. “Hardly any of that around. We pay with gold dust and nuggets here. But I can make a trade.”
“Food,” Mel says, “if you’ve got it. And some mining gear.”
“Gear’s not a problem.” Mr. Turner lifts a pickax from a pile stacked along one wall. “But you won’t find a claim easily. Pretty much everything is staked. Most men who’ve just arrived in Dawson will have to hire themselves out and work another man’s mine. It’s food we don’t have much of, but let me see what I can find.” He ducks into his storeroom.
“Hardly any claims left,” Mel mumbles to himself. “A man courts death without supplies.”
For once, I don’t got nothing to say. The space between us fills up with silence. It makes me want to drum my fingers on the counter or whistle a tune, anything to make this uncomfortable quiet go away.
Riley’s mine. We need it now more than anything.
Mr. Turner returns a few minutes later, a near-empty sack in his hand. “These beans are all I got, about five pounds. If you’re careful, you could make them last a couple of weeks if you caught yourselves a rabbit or two.” He sets the sack on the counter next to the pickax, which seems useless now that them claims are taken. “There you go.”
Mel’s cheeks are pricked with red. “That’s all you got? That’s everything fifty dollars bought?”
“Prices around here ain’t going to be what you had at home.” Mr. Turner picks up a nail. “These sell for twenty-eight dollars a pound right now. ’Course, if you want variety, you can always try another shop.” He grins, and his mustache lifts on both sides. “I hear the Alaska Commercial Company is swimming in ax handles and sugar.”
Mel slides the pickax back across the counter. “I guess a cook pot and a tin of matches is what we really need.”
Mr. Turner sets the pickax with the other mining tools. “Matches cost extra. I’ll sell you a pot someone traded last week so you can afford both.” He hands Mel a cook pot with a broken handle. It’s dented on one side.
Some deal that is. I grab the bag of beans, as light as a newborn kitten.
“Wait.” Mr. Turner drops his voice and looks at Mel over the top of his glasses. “You see those fellows over there?” He tilts his head toward the men around the stove. “They’re new in town. Some will try to stay and work for wages. Others will head back to where they came from, as soon as they get their bearings. A few have been here for weeks and haven’t done much more than wander the streets or sit in my shop, staring with them vacant eyes. All their effort went to getting here, and now that effort’s used right up. It’s not too late for you to hire a sled and get out while you can.”
“I appreciate your kindness,” Mel says, “but we’re staying.”
“All right, then. Best of luck.” Mr. Turner shakes his head as he spreads those nails across the counter again. “You boys will sorely need it.”
• • •
Me and Mel, we stand on the steps in front of Turner’s store. The road’s less crowded than when we went in half an hour ago, probably because it’s dinnertime, a comfort we can’t afford.
I can’t hold back my thoughts for one more second. “No claims means every Stampeder will be desperate for Riley’s mine. And all those fellows brought supplies. They got food and tools and blankets and can search long as it takes.” I kick against the wooden steps. “All we got is a measly sack of beans, a tin of matches, a sorry pot, and a worn-out piece of canvas.”
Mel pulls me from the steps as new folks try to enter. “Jasper, I need you to listen.” His cheeks are flushed like they were inside, but his brows are set in a determined line.
Through my busted lens, I spy shapes and colors and lots of busy movement. I close that eye so all I see is Melvin.
“Mr. Turner said these beans will last a couple weeks if we catch a rabbit, which we can’t, since we have no way to hunt. If we eat one meal a day, I bet we could stretch the beans out for a week, maybe longer. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll start at Bonanza and ask around if anyone knew Riley. Every creek we pass we’ll write on your newspaper map. The whole time we’ll try to figure out those clues. We got a week to learn as much as we can. After that . . .”
Mel don’t finish, and I don’t want to hear what comes next.
It takes only a few minutes to walk the mucky streets past tents and buildings to the south side of town. We cross the bridge over the Klondike River, right where it joins with Bonanza Creek. Both are smaller than the Yukon, and their ice is almost frozen solid. The cold out here tears straight through me.
Forests spread across a maze of hills and frozen swampland, a gray world of bare bushes and snow-covered evergreens. Mel don’t move as quick as usual, so I get plenty of time as we walk to check if any nuggets cling to empty branches, then catch myself. That’s just a made-up story.
Bonanza Creek runs in the valley below us. We step out from them pines and spruces into the strangest sight I’ve ever seen. Near the top of the hill where we stand, long wooden troughs propped up with spindly legs snake down to the creek bed. Tree stumps are everywhere. The hill’s so torn up with holes, it’s a wonder there’s any room for the tents and cabins set up here and there. Men dig through mounds of dirt, climb out of pits, lift buckets of earth from deep underground. It don’t look much different from a huge anthill with men standing in for bugs.
Mel nods to an old-time sourdough who sifts through a pile like the dirt’s real special.
The sourdough nods back, not friendly, not otherwise.
We keep near the top of the hill close to the forest’s edge, follow the curve of the creek below. Any space that ain’t packed with tents or holes or them wooden troughs has got a prospector nearby. No one talks to us, but they sure do like to stare.
Down near the creek there’s a clearing along the bank. A willow tree droops its branches overhead. What was it Mr. Horton on the Queen said about willows and gold? Something, that’s what. I hustle down the hill, push my hand through the ice, and dig into the creek’s sludge.
A man with mud caked on his trousers and his tattered flannel shirt storms over. “What’re you doing on my claim?” He taps a grubby piece of string tied to a willow branch. “See this? It means five hundred feet on both sides of the creek is mine.”
I weren’t gonna take it. I just wanted to see if I could find some gold. But maybe that ain’t the best thing to say. “Sorry,” I tell him instead. I let the mud drip from my fingers and wander back to Mel.
Mel touches a wooden stake marked FIFTY-FOUR ABOVE. “See this? It’s his claim.”
“I got that figured out.”
A sourdough with a gray-streaked beard that hangs clear to his belly stops his shoveling. “Y’all are a year late. There’s nothing here for you cheechakos.”
“Cheechakos?” Does this old-timer think we’re from that big city in Illinois?
“Greenhorns. Folks like you who’ve never spent a winter in the goldfields.”
Beads of sweat gather on Mel’s forehead. His eyes have got a peculiar shine.
“You okay?”
“I’m just a little hot.”
That’s strange. Since we’ve left Dawson, the cold has taken on a sharper edge.
“Do you know One-Eyed Riley?” Mel asks.
The old-timer takes up his shovel again. “Riley, that old cheat. When you find him, let him know Bill over on Bonanza’s looking for him. He still owes me seventy dollars from a few years ago.”
Me and Mel hike back up the hill. He checks the sun. “What time is it?”
“Almost three o’clock.”
“Then we’ve got four hours of daylight left. Let’s look at that newspaper map.”
We move far enough from Bonanza we ain’t on anyone’s claim, find a place where the ground’s flat and ain’t too soggy, and spread out near some pines.
Mel smooths the newspaper across his lap. In the region labeled the Klondike, three rivers join together like a wiggly letter C. The Klondike River’s to the north, the Yukon River’s in the west, and the Indian River runs along the southern edge. The goldfields are everything inside those rivers, which includes a mess of tangled creeks. Could be every Klondike creek’s got gold in it, or maybe not. Until a fellow searches, he ain’t gonna know for sure.
“Here’s where Bonanza runs into the Klondike.” Mel marks the map with the pencil. “Here’s where Eldorado runs into Bonanza south of here.” His usually fine hand ain’t nothing but a shaky scrawl.
“I ain’t heard of Eldorado Creek.”
Mel pushes his hair off his forehead. Somehow he’s sweating in this cold. “Some of the men on the Portland mined on Eldorado. Bonanza’s discovery claim is close to where the two creeks meet. We’ll follow Bonanza to Eldorado and add in each creek we see to the map.”
There ain’t no talk about what we’ll do once darkness falls.
On we go through the steep and muddy forest with no trail to follow, Bonanza on our left. Mel asks miners the name of every staked-up creek we pass. He writes in Trail, Pure Gold, 49, and Mosquito. A mountain rises beyond Mosquito Creek, not high and snowcapped like Mount Rainier back home or the peaks at the Chilkoot Pass. This mountain ain’t so tall as it is broad and smooth on top.
“You see that?” I point across Bonanza. “Don’t that mountain remind you of a rising loaf of bread?” My stomach growls just thinking about it.
Mel stares where I point, then rubs his eyes. “Do you mean the mountain in front or the one behind?”
“You see two mountains?” I stand exactly where he is and cover my eye without the lens to get the best view I can, but that don’t change nothing.
Mel shakes his head. “I’ll get those glasses fixed for you soon as I can.”
In the few minutes we’ve been still, the cold’s crept closer and clouds have crowded up the sky. I tug my muffler so it covers my chin. There ain’t no time to dillydally.
We walk on a couple of miles. Usually Mel races ahead, but today he stays in back. “Them Riley clues,” I say over my shoulder. “Three of them got words that are similar. Below. Bottom. Down. What do you think it means?”
“They fit with what we’ve seen today. Prospectors dig holes from the creek beds clear up to the hills. They search every shovelful of dirt for gold.”
We stop nearby the next two creeks. Mel adds in Boulder and Queen.
“Queen?” I say. “Like our steamer? That’s where I first heard about Riley.” It feels like a chance we can’t pass up. “Let’s go take a look.”
That means we gotta cross Bonanza, because Queen’s on the other side. We find a sourdough who lets us over his part of the creek. It ain’t easy, on account of the ice. Me and Mel, we balance on one rock to the next until we make it through.
Queen’s a whole lot shorter than Bonanza but has the same sort of old-timers scooping dirt. “You heard of One-Eyed Riley?” I ask the first fellow we see. He wears a set of overalls and a kerchief around his neck.
The old-timer shakes his head. “You know someone named Riley?” he shouts to a miner one claim over. “He’s only got one eye.”
“I’ve heard his name, but I don’t know him personally,” he answers.
It takes almost an hour to walk the whole length of Queen. Either no one out here’s familiar with Riley or they just don’t want to talk. When we turn around, the sun has broken through them clouds. It lingers over the hills ahead. Day is fading fast.
“Why don’t anyone know about Riley, Mel? I figured everyone would have heard his story by now.”
For the longest time, Mel don’t answer. All I hear are his footsteps behind me, the faintest trickle of water from the almost frozen creek. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I’m not sure what to think.”
The whole length of Queen Creek I go over what Mel said and what he didn’t. I feel squeezed around the middle like I’m wearing trousers that have grown too tight. Mel ain’t sure what to think. Because here’s the thing: If One-Eyed Riley’s mine is real, wouldn’t folks here know about it? Or did the story of his claim grow bigger than it was ever meant to be?
Like when Cyril dared me to let that rooster loose. It was just a little prank thought up on the way to school. But whispers flew from desk to desk, and by the end of the day some kids were sure I’d bring a piglet the next morning and a big glop of mud for him to wallow in on the cloakroom floor.
Is that what’s meant when they say Riley whispered his riddles into the breeze, that a small story grew into something it weren’t, passed from one man to the next?
As we near Bonanza, twilight’s shadows stretch clear across the creek. Mel calls to a sourdough on Queen, a fellow we didn’t see when we first passed through, with a washed-out beard pale as straw. “Did you ever meet a man named One-Eyed Riley?”
“No,” the sourdough says, “but you could try looking for him in Grand Forks. It’s a new town about two miles south of here, right where Bonanza veers to the east and Eldorado joins in.”
My heart sits heavy in my chest. What if One-Eyed Riley’s mine is just a dream?
This time me and Mel gotta cling to each other just to cross Bonanza’s slippery ice without a lick of sunlight. Oh, I’m ready to stop, but where are we gonna go? We’ve already walked ten miles, easy, probably more. The sun is only a memory.
“How much longer, Mel?” I ask when we reach the wooded hill above Bonanza.
“Three more creeks, then we can quit.”
I run through Riley’s clues again, more from habit than anything. Last chance. Nine below. That number feels different now. “Wait a second. Tell me again what the claim on Bonanza was called?”
It’s so dark with the trees and the clouds that cover the moon, I can’t see Mel, but I can hear him. “Fifty-four above.”
Above what, I don’t know. Could it mean fifty-four mines above discovery claim? “Maybe I’ve been thinking about nine below all wrong. What if it ain’t a temperature, but the name of Riley’s claim?” Hope flickers inside me. “That’s it. What else could it be? Now all we have to figure out is the name of the creek and . . .”
I hear a thump. Then nothing.
“Mel?”
The silence stretches deep into the woods.
“Are you all right?”
It’s like Frank’s got me around the throat again, like he twists my shirt so tight, I can’t hardly breathe.
“Melvin, answer me.”
I race back through the shadows. Branches grasp my jacket, scratch my face, and there’s my brother, slumped over on the ground, behind a thicket of trees.