Page 30 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“I’d love to tell you that I can be gravely ill for weeks, come within minutes of dying, and then bound out of bed bursting with energy and vigor. Unfortunately, I can hardly stand up.”
“This is terrible, just terrible,” Juliette moaned. “They should at least let us do something about wet shoes and stockings. My hem got wet, too. It will be a miracle if we don’t catch our death of cold. My feet already feel like lumps of ice.”
Zoe sat down hard on top of someone’s crated goods. If she’d seen any possibility whatsoever of doing it, she would have carried her outfit farther ashore. But she felt exhausted. Steady inside, but too bed-weak to stand comfortably, let alone make twenty trips back and forth carrying heavy supplies.
“I need your help again,” she stated grimly, looking at Clara and Juliette. The request cost her dearly. The Wilders had never been people to ask for help or favors, refused to be beholden to anyone. But here she was dependent again on the two people whom she detested most in the whole world.
“Oh!” Juliette bent at the waist and turned in a circle, striking her hips with her fists. “You don’t know what you’re asking! Or how long…I can’t possibly carry…”
It was the first time Juliette had lost control so totally, and even Clara watched the performance with an interested eye. Then she pulled back her shoulders and narrowed her eyes into hard brown beams focused directly on Zoe.
“Moving three outfits is going to take a long time. Especially with one of us able to carry only about two pounds a trip.” She jerked her head toward Juliette, who was still turning around and around. “You find us a place to put our things. Surely you can do that much.”
Tents and piles of goods stretched out as far as Zoe could see. “I’ll find us a place,” she snapped.
“How will we know where it is?”
“My body’s weak, not my mind.” Zoe thought a minute. “I’ll tie a scrap of pink on our marker.” The sea of pole markers all looked alike. A spot of pink would stand out.
“And you’re responsible for supper.” Clara stared at her. “You can take your time and do it slowly. But at the end of this, neither Juliette nor I are going to feel like cooking. We’re going to want to eat and then collapse. You can set up the tent and organize it, too.”
“Why don’t I just chop down the trees left on that mountainside and build us a cabin?” Zoe returned her stare.
“All you have to do is find us a place and get us set up. Come on, Juliette. The sooner and faster we get moving, the sooner and faster our shoes and feet will dry out.”
Without another word, they walked toward the piles of goods accumulating like hills at the water’s edge. Juliette stumbled along beside Clara, looking like a woman about to fall over with shock. Clara plowed forward with a grim set to her shoulders.
Swearing beneath her breath, Zoe sat slumped on the crate, the only still person in a mass of rushing humanity, struggling to find the strength to get up and search out a campsite. All the close-in spots were already claimed and staked out.
She was going to have to walk at least a mile to find a scrap of space not already occupied. On the other hand, her shaky legs would have to make the trip only once, instead of dozens of times like Clara and Juliette. She was too exhausted to feel much gratitude for this boon.
“Zoe? Zoe Wilder?”
Hundreds of men swarmed the beach, so she didn’t immediately spot the man calling her name. When she did, she recognized him at once.
Tom Price. From Newcastle. He was a friend of Jack’s, her second-oldest brother. If she had felt better, she might have smiled at meeting a Newcastle boy this far from home. Instead, she wondered how he had recognized her, considering that she looked worse than she remembered ever looking in her life.
And he wasn’t a boy anymore, she realized, watching him dodge hurrying men and step around supply piles, smiling as he made his way toward her. He must be about the same age as Jack, thirty-three. When had she last seen him? It must have been about ten years ago. She couldn’t be certain, because she hadn’t paid a lot of attention to her brother’s rowdy friends. She’d had nothing to do with them, and even then had known she never would. Not a boy from Newcastle.
“This is a surprise,” he said, sweeping off a wide-brimmed hat and swinging it against his thigh. “Did you come in on theAnnasett?”
People said such silly things on greeting someone they hadn’t seen for a long while. If she wasn’t fresh off theAnnasettwhy would she be sitting on a crate on a beach with seawater dripping out of her shoes and hem?
“Were you on the ship, too?”
Oddly she didn’t remember Tom Price as an especially good-looking youth. But he’d grown into a strikingly handsome man with strong square features and a solid, confident air about him. The men charging back and forth took care not to bump or jostle him as if a quick glance warned that here was a man it would be unwise to offend. Her pa and her brothers had that air about them, too, as did most Newcastle men. Miners worked hard, drank hard, took offense easily, and fought hard. It showed.
Lifting his boot, he propped it against the crate beside her, then leaned forward and rested his forearm on his thigh, studying her face. “I’ve been up here for a couple of years. Maybe Jack told you that I started my own packing business.”
“No, he didn’t.” First she noticed that his eyes were dark green, then she noticed his flicker of disappointment. “I’m sure it slipped Jack’s mind. I’m living in Seattle now, working for my uncle. There’s so much to talk about when I go home, that we don’t always have time to cover everything. And sometimes I don’t see Jack at all. He’s married now, you know.”
“Jack? Married?” A grin lit his face and made him look more like the boy she remembered. “That old son of a gun. Did he marry the Snodgrass girl? Do they have any children?”
“He married Abe McGraw’s youngest daughter. They have a boy who’s almost two, and they’re expecting another around Christmas.”
“My sister married one of the McGraw cousins. He died at the mine last year.”
“I heard about that.” Zoe nodded. “Ma mentioned a dance the ladies gave to raise money for Mrs. McGraw and her children. So that was your sister?”
