Chapter Twenty-Five

Ray Walker had never been a lucky man. Born in the slums surrounding the great Glasgow shipyards, where luck was in exceedingly short supply, he’d been raised to use his fists almost from the cradle. His father was a good man but none too bright, out of work more often than not, usually because he didn’t always remember to do what he’d been told. Ray’s mother worked long hours at the fish canning plant and then hurried home to take care of her family. She gave birth to twelve children in twenty years but only three of them survived. Ray and his two wee sisters.

Ray Walker began working on the docks when he was twelve years old, handing over what money he earned to his mother to pay the rent on their stinking tenement flat and buy food for the younger children.

When Ray was fifteen his father died, coughing up blood until there was so much he drowned in it. Ray stayed at home until his youngest sister was safely wed and then left. He sent part of his wages to his mother, visited his sisters and their wee ones on a Sunday, but otherwise could pretty much be counted on to get in a fight on a Saturday night and drink up what remained of his pay packet.

One night, not long after his mother died, finally crushed by life, Ray was with a woman — a cheap slag who prowled the shipyards — in the filthy flat she worked out of. She said something that offended him, he never remembered what, and he beat her until she passed out.

He quit his job the next day, said goodbye to his sisters, and left Glasgow. Not because he was afraid of the police, no one cared about a slag getting herself smacked around, but because he realized he was on a very dangerous path indeed.

He went to London, worked at odd jobs, mostly stayed away from the pubs and the prostitutes, and saved his wages until he could buy passage to the New World. He wanted to go to America, but as it happened, when at last he went to purchase his ticket, the next ship out was bound for Halifax.

Life was still hard, but he never thought it any harder than that of most of the poor people he came across as he made his way across the continent.

He used the last of the money he’d made working on the Vancouver docks to buy supplies and passage to the Klondike.

He got off the boat in Skagway in August of 1897.

And had his first bit of luck in all of his forty years.

He met Fiona MacGillivray.

She’d been like a dream, Fiona. Not because she was beautiful and proper and charming, but because she was as smart and cunning and unscrupulous as ever a man Ray had known.

She reminded him in some ways of his mother. Or perhaps what his mother might have been able to be if she hadn’t wed at fourteen and given birth to twelve children by the time she was thirty-five.

He’d never felt anything sexual toward Fiona. He could rub her feet when they ached at the end of a long day, or watch her arranging her hair in front of the cracked mirror in her office, and find no strain in his trousers or shortage of breath.

She was, quite simply, the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was as tough as they came, tougher than most, and a true Scotswoman, holding loyalty to family and clan above all. And he, Ray Walker, was part of her new-world clan. He trusted her completely, but nevertheless he checked the ledger every week and popped into the bank on occasion to ensure the business accounts were as they should be. They ran a hugely successful business, and Ray Walker had no worries about the future. He’d stay in the Klondike as long as there were miners to be mined and salt away most of his share of the profits in anticipation of the day the gold rush ended.

And then there was Irene Davidson. Not beautiful, like Fiona, but also a woman with a determination to make a success of the part she’d been given in life. He might even think of proposing to Irene one day.

Today he wasn’t feeling so confident about his future. Fiona wasn’t here and he wasn’t sure how long he could manage the business without her. He tried to cheer himself up by remembering that if anyone could find her and bring her back it would be Richard Sterling. To Ray Walker, it was as obvious as the pack of men shoving themselves toward the bar that Sterling was in love with Fiona. About the only thing clearer was that she was in love with the Mountie. Too bad neither of them were prepared to admit it. To themselves or to each other. Yet.

The Savoy was packed early on Monday morning. The front room full to the point of bursting at the seams. Men lined up at the bar, three deep, elbow to elbow.

Fiona had once remarked that nothing seemed to abate the flood of drinkers and gamblers pouring through their doors, and once news of the kidnapping of Mrs. MacGillivray and the hunt for a mountain of gold had spread through town, everyone gathered, wanting to be part of the excitement.

There must have been a hundred men lined up at the door at ten o’clock, when Ray opened up. All the talk was of a tropical valley full of gold no more than a few days’ hike away. Ray’d been there when Inspector McKnight said he’d give a blue ticket to anyone who whispered word of Sheridan’s map. He should have known someone would tell. Lancaster perhaps, the doddering fool, or young Constable Fitzhenry trying to impress a dancehall girl. Before twenty-four hours had passed, half the town knew about it.

Men were bent over tables and the bar counter, sketching out copies of the map Angus had tried to reproduce. They got further and further from reality. Some had paths heading west to Alaska, some due north to the Arctic Sea, some back down the Chilkoot to just outside of Dyea.

Old Barney was regaling the crowd with stories of other great treasure hunts. He told a fresh-faced cheechako that, once his glass was refilled, he’d tell them about the crystal mountain he’d seen years ago, far in the distance. Pure glass it was, as clear and brilliant as a jewel around a lady’s neck. The man ordered another whisky, and when his back was turned, Barney gave Ray Walker a cheeky wink.

“Bad business,” Joe Hamilton said.

“Mounties have set out after her,” Ray said. “They’ll be back soon.” He wiped the mahogany counter with his rag.

“I’d like to help,” Hamilton said. He leaned across the bar and lowered his voice. “I went after them, yesterday. But Sterling told me to get back to town, tell you he’s found her trail. I know where they’re going.”

“Do you now?” The man beside Hamilton turned. He was alone and drank his whisky very slowly. He looked Hamilton up and down, taking in the rotten teeth, the filthy clothes, the hat with half the brim missing, the acrid odour of rough nights and hard-working days. “The corporal was right. Man can’t go rushing off into the wilderness, friend, unprepared. How about I provide everything we need in the way of supplies, and you show me the way? Finish your drink. We’d better be going now, before anyone else gets the same idea.”

Hamilton grinned. Ray started to say something but at that moment the dancer Betsy came through the doors. Fiona didn’t allow the girls onto the premises when they weren’t working. Not only was having women in the bar a shady matter of the law, but she thought it reduced the value of the dollar-a-minute dance if men could drink with them any time they liked. Ray crossed the room to tell Betsy to get out. The man offering to travel with Joe Hamilton called to Murray, “Bartender, I’ll purchase two bottles to take with me.”

But Betsy wasn’t here to drink or to meet friends. She spoke to three men sitting at the big centre table. She didn’t bother to sit, and the men did not stand. She put her hands on the table and talked in low, serious tones. As Ray approached, she straightened and scurried out. The men at the table stood as one and followed her, leaving unfinished drinks in front of them.

When Ray turned back to the bar, Hamilton and his new friend were gone.