Page 29 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“If I have to.” Clara turned to Juliette. “Are you going to get off this ship or are you going to stay on board and go back to Seattle when theAnnasettturns around?”
By now Zoe knew her companions well enough to predict what Juliette would do. Juliette would join them in the tender to Dyea, fully intending to return to theAnnasettbefore it sailed. But in the end, after a lot of whimpering and hand-wringing, she would decide to go with them to Dawson City, pissing and moaning every step of the way.
She glared at the cot where Juliette sat. “If you decide to continue to Dawson City, then by God you better not give up at the halfway point! You better be prepared to go the full distance. Because I’m not going to bring you back to Dyea. I’ll just leave you on the trail and go on.”
Juliette stiffened, and her expression turned cold. “Well! Your gratitude and sentiment overwhelm me. Hearing that you’d abandon me makes me so happy that I spent three weeks nursing you, washing out vomit buckets, and bathing and feeding you.”
“You two don’t want gratitude, you want everlasting servitude and groveling! How many times do I have to thank you?”
“Once would be nice,” Clara snapped, staring at her.
Ordinarily Zoe would have argued and defended and walked out feeling triumphant, but she was too weak to rise to the challenge. The damned ship rocked at anchor and she felt only marginally better than she had during the voyage. She yearned for terra firma with a need that was visceral, longed to stand on solid ground as she would have longed for a missing limb. She could hardly think of anything else.
“All right,” she said between her teeth. “Thank you for caring for me while I was dying. I’m sure I said it before, and now I’ve said it again. I’m not going to keep saying it.”
Truly, she appreciated everything they had done. In her heart she felt certain she’d be dead now if they hadn’t fed her and nursed her. But she was not going to fawn over them or anyone else for that matter. Trusting Clara to follow with the bags, she glanced about to make certain she hadn’t forgotten anything, then lifted her head and wobbled out of the cubicle.
A shock of cold air braced her the instant she stepped on deck. The deck itself she didn’t look at, as she suspected the slant would lead to the humiliation of throwing up in front of the men staring at her. She supposed she didn’t blame them for staring. Clara had reported they referred to her as the mystery passenger whom few had glimpsed since Seattle.
By the time Clara appeared, carrying her bag and Zoe’s, cold perspiration had appeared on Zoe’s forehead, and she swallowed repeatedly, beginning to feel desperate. She needed to get off this ship and right now, but a line of men stretched down the deck, impatiently awaiting their turn in the tender.
That’s when Bear Barrett appeared, a golden giant coming to the rescue. He took the bags out of Clara’s hands, studied Zoe, then walked to the head of the line and knocked aside the man about to descend the ladder leading down to the tender.
“These ladies go first, gents,” he boomed at the men scowling back at him. He winked at Zoe. “In ten minutes you’re going to feel like a new woman.”
To her vast relief no one argued. Some under-the-breath grumbling occurred, but the line stepped back as Bear handed her down the ladder. At the bottom, another man caught her by the waist and helped her sit.
The small rocking, bobbing, tilting, tipping tender was too much. She managed to gasp, “Excuse me,” before she leaned over the side and embarrassed herself. Lord, would it never end?
When she straightened, Juliette pushed a handkerchief into her hands so she could wipe her mouth. “You decided to come.” Guessing correctly didn’t especially make her happy.
“I might as well see Dyea before I go back.”
“Look at those mountains!” Clara said as the tender floated away from theAnnasettand headed toward a rocky beach.
Before Zoe groaned and closed her eyes against the waves, she spotted a tide of white tents pitched around a raw town that had obliterated the original Indian fishing village. The snowcapped mountains that interested Clara rose sharply from a flat valley floor, but Zoe could not have cared less.
Then finally, finally, finally, thank God, a man helped her out of the tender, and she walked through frigid calf-high seawater to the beach, so thankful to reach land that she hardly cared that no one had told them they would have to walk through water. When she stood on the rocky beach, she dropped her skirts and closed her eyes while the water ran out of her shoes.
A blessed stillness spread through her stomach. Her brain didn’t rock from side to side. Her legs felt shaky and her knees unsteady, but that was a result of her long illness. Nothing inside her was sloshing, churning, slipping, or sliding.
Tears burned her eyes, and she felt like falling down and kissing the unmoving earth.
“Feeling better?” Clara asked. Setting down their bags, she planted her hands on her hips and looked toward town, a distant collection of unpainted storefronts.
“It’s a miracle.” And it happened swiftly, almost instantly. Cold bright air poured strength into each breath. She could feel color returning to her cheeks and throat. The sour scald at the back of her tongue had already faded, and she knew with marveling confidence that she would not vomit in the next two minutes.
“I knew this would happen, I just knew it,” Juliette said, hurrying up to them. “Can you see over there? Those tenders are bringing the outfits to the beach. The stevedores are dumping our goods on the shore and we have to move them somewhere else!”
“To where?” Clara asked, frowning.
“Well, look around you!”
Now Zoe noticed that the men scurrying around them were staking out spots to pitch their tents, then rushing off to begin transporting their goods. Caches of supplies piled up in front of tent stakes driven into the ground to mark each man’s territory.
Juliette pressed gloved hands to her temples. “They said we have to move our goods immediately to make room for the outfits coming in on the next tenders. I forgot to tell anyone not to bring my outfit ashore. And now…” She turned a plea to Clara. “I don’t know what to do. Do you think Mr. Barrett would help us move our outfits?”
“He’ll be moving his own things.” She slid a frown toward Zoe. “And I see some handwriting on the wall here. You aren’t going to be any help. We’ll have to move your outfit, too.”
