Whyborne
“No,” Christine said, sounding numb. “We’re too late.”
Griffin frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said looking down the slope to Hoarfrost. “Everything seems ordinary to me. There are people moving about, and we still have almost a week until the solstice. Surely the town can be saved.”
“Not the town,” she snapped. “My site! Look at it, man!”
It was, I had to admit, a depressing sight. The low, reddish sun was already on the wane. Even so, it gave more than enough light to see the extent of the destruction.
The forest had been cleared for hundreds of yards to either side of the river, nothing left but hewn stumps and broken branches. Deep holes pitted the riverbanks, accompanied by piles of raw earth waiting to be sluiced for gold once the spring thaw came. Scaffolding and sluices crisscrossed the landscape, ready for use once the water flowed free once more. Ramshackle cabins stood near the pits, built on the same claims the miners worked. Other buildings sprang up away from the diggings themselves, although many of them were nothing more than wooden fronts with large tents behind them.
Even in the cold, Hoarfrost was a hive of activity, with curses and shouts, the hiss of saw blades on downed trees, and the omnipresent bark of dogs. The scent of smoke hung heavy on the air, too thick to be accounted for by the stovepipes projecting from the cabin roofs.
Beyond the camp, the mountains rose sharply up, their flanks of bare rock mantled with snow. The great mass of a huge glacier wended down the valley toward us, a river of ice creeping inexorably onward.
I patted Christine’s shoulder, glancing back to see if anyone overheard Griffin. Certainly it would lead to awkward questions. No one seemed to have, however, over the wild barking of our dogs in response to those howling from the camp.
“Perhaps something might yet be salvaged?” I suggested weakly.
“Salvaged? Look at that!” She gestured rudely in the direction of the gold camp. “The site is completely disturbed.”
Jack joined us. “The broken stele has been preserved,” he assured her. His attitude toward me had altered strangely since the incident at the waterfall. Where before he’d been confident in speaking to me, now he seemed uncertain, and I’d caught him watching me thoughtfully several times.
“There will have been more to the site than the damned stele,” Christine bit out. “Even if it was the only monument, people can’t go anywhere without leaving some sort of detritus. Broken projectile points. Bones from dinner. Beads spilled from a necklace. Pottery like the Eltdown Shards. All of which was desperately important in understanding who they might have been, and is now gone. Gone! And for what? Most of these men will leave here no richer than when they came.”
“There’s nothing to be done now, dear heart,” Iskander said soothingly. He took one of her hands in his. “Let’s proceed into the camp and see what awaits us.”
The corners of her mouth had gone white, but she took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. You’re quite right, Kander. We’ve experienced setbacks before, and we’ve overcome them, just as we will now.”
Work stopped as we drew close; no doubt word of our coming preceded us. Men filthy with mud climbed out of the pits, or else stared at us from the rope and pulley system used to winch the pay dirt up from the bottom of the shafts. A second look showed not all were men; women worked the claims as well, alongside husbands or each other.
Our journey ended in what passed for the town here in the wilderness. We trudged past the low row of mixed tents and buildings. A post office rubbed shoulders with a gambling hall, which sat immediately beside a hovel carved out of the hillside and advertising itself as a hotel.
Dear lord, if that were to be our lodgings, I’d burrow into a snow bank with the dogs.
“Twenty-five cents for waffles and coffee!” Christine exclaimed. “Robbery!”
“A good meal can be hard to come by out here,” Jack replied with a shrug. “A lot harder than gold dust. When you can dig money out of the ground, it begins to have less value to these men than a hot meal or a tin of tomatoes.”
“Hmph.” Christine’s dark brows lowered in disapproval. “I hope at least the working ladies are getting paid well for their time.”
Jack looked shocked at her comment, but I rather thought she had the right idea.
“Which claim is yours?” Griffin asked.
Jack pointed. “The one with the tent over it. We put it up to protect the find.”
“At least there’s that,” Christine muttered.
Griffin frowned. “And you said Nicholas took up running the saloon while awaiting our arrival?”
“Yes—there it is.” Jack indicated a ramshackle building with THE NUGGET SALOON on a crude sign out front. “He realized pretty quick we could make more money selling whiskey and running gambling tables than we could hope to haul out of the ground. We’d already intended to hire a few men to work our claims in our place. The stele changed our plans, of course. Come on—he should be inside.”
The saloon was murky after the brightness of the snow, even given the dim light of a short winter day. An iron stove heated the building’s interior, at least in its immediate surroundings. Two men sat at one of the crude log tables, and a third behind a rough-cut counter, but otherwise it seemed deserted at the moment. Parkas, fur pants, and moose hide gloves hung from the rafters near the stove to dry, and the air smelled strongly of wet wool and sweat.
“Nicholas!” Jack called as he knocked the snow off his boots. “I’m back, and I’ve brought the Ladysmith expedition with me.”
The man behind the counter looked up. He was older than Jack, perhaps in his late thirties, the sandy hair beneath his bowler hat touched with gray. But his body remained sturdy, shoulders straining at his coat.
A bright smile immediately creased his weather-seamed face. “Jack! Well done, well done.” He emerged from behind the counter to shake hands with his partner.
Jack introduced each of us, and Nicholas Turner shook our hands with great enthusiasm. “I’m so glad you’ve come,” he said. “I’d wager few camps in Alaska have entertained such eminent guests, Dr. Putnam, Dr. Whyborne.”
Christine looked somewhat mollified. Why Turner thought me eminent, I didn’t know, unless he was unusually familiar with philology. Or perhaps Jack had told him my father ran one of the biggest railroads in America. That seemed more likely, although somewhat depressing personally.
“You must all be exhausted after your long journey,” Turner went on. “I’ll show you to your cabins.
“I’d like to see the stele,” Christine said.
“First thing tomorrow,” Turner agreed with a nod. “For now, even though most of our work takes place in the dark, Hoarfrost still marks the end of the day with sunset. The saloon will fill up soon, and I won’t be able to get away. I confess I’d like to be on hand when you first see the stele.”
Blast. We didn’t have much time left—only six days until the seals became their weakest, and we still had no idea what the umbra might be. Let alone from where we could expect it to emerge—through a tear in the veil to the Outside, from beneath the stele itself, or from somewhere else. I exchanged a glance with Griffin, but what could we do? Hopefully a few hours wouldn’t make much difference.
Christine seemed no happier than us, but she conceded with a nod. “Very well, Mr. Turner. We shall do things your way.”