Page 45 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“I doubt it. Why would I? Everything and everyone who’s important to me is in Newcastle.” He shrugged, turned the fish on the grill over the fire. “Ma and two of my sisters still live in the hollow. My pa is buried on the hill. Given my druthers, I would have stayed in Newcastle.”
Zoe gasped, and her spine snapped upright. “With all your prosperity and your accomplishments—you’d rather be working at the mine in Newcastle?”
“Conditions at the mine improve a little every year. Still, it’s a hard life, I know that. But no man works alone. You have your mates there with you. And friends to share a pint after the whistle blows the shift change. There’s Saturday nights at Ned’s Place and sometimes a dance. And Sunday morning in the Price pew or explain to the Reverend Greer why not.” He smiled.
“I don’t believe this. Everyone in Newcastle wants out except you.” She stared at him.
He studied her face with a curious expression. “Do you really believe that?”
“Of course I do! You’re a perfect example of why people want to leave. You couldn’t have made your fortune in Newcastle!”
Tom placed the fish on plates, added the potatoes, and heaped biscuits on the side. After serving Zoe and emptying the canteen into their beer mugs, he sat across from her at the flat rock.
“I’m glad I’ve prospered,” he said after a minute. “I’ll have things and I’ll live a life I couldn’t have lived if I’d remained in Newcastle and worked at the mine. But I’ve paid a price, Zoe. These have been lonely years. I don’t have a wife and family like Jack does or like other friends do. I know a lot of people up here, but I don’t know any of them well enough to tell them the story I just told you. Or to expect they would care if they heard it.”
“But you’ve made something of yourself,” Zoe argued. “You’re better than you would have been if you’d stayed home.”
His brow lifted, and he tilted his head. “I’m different, not better. I’m different because I’ve had experiences I couldn’t have had in Newcastle. But I’m the same person I was, and I’d be that person no matter where I lived. Same as you.”
That’s what she hated and what she fought against. The idea that Newcastle was part of her, like ground-in dirt, and it always would be. “Don’t you remember the Owner’s Day Parade? They still have that parade, Tom. All the owner’s friends and colleagues driving past in their fancy carriages, looking at us like we’re trash, like we’re there for their amusement.” A long violent shudder shook down her spine. “I want to be better than trash. Better than someone to pity and laugh at.”
“Why do you care what those people think? No one can make you feel diminished, Zoe, unless you let them do it.”
“You’re wrong,” she said flatly. “But that isn’t the point. The point is to improve yourself. I believe that people can overcome their backgrounds. I believe people can better themselves through education, or hard work, or…marriage.” Her cheeks grew hot. Marrying to improve her lot hadn’t worked out for her, but for some it might be a successful tactic. Tactic? No. She had married Jean Jacques because she’d believed she loved him. She felt sure of that.
Tom considered her comments. “You might better your finances or your position, but I don’t think you make yourself a better person by accumulating money or learning more or by marrying well. We are who we are, and that’s a mixture of the values we grew up with and our experiences and what we believe in and what we think is important. These values don’t change with more education or harder work or a brilliant match.”
He looked at her across the cloth spread atop the boulder. “And a person’s values don’t change with the scenery. If you’re a loyal person in Newcastle, you’ll be a loyal person in New York City. If you’re honest in Newcastle, you’ll be honest in Alaska.” His gaze met hers. “You and me, we’re never going to welcome debt, Zoe. We’ll always remember our families scraping to pay the company store. That’s going to be true no matter where we are in life or what we’re doing or who we’re married to. That’s just one example of who we are, and an example of the Newcastle in us. And it’s not a bad thing. You’ll find good people and solid values in Newcastle. I don’t see Newcastle as a background we have to ‘overcome,’ as you put it.”
“Are you telling me that you didn’t care about those people looking at you like you were a worthless piece of trash?”
“I’m telling you that I don’t accept their opinion, if that’s what their opinion is. I know the people at home. Those swells in the parade don’t know anyone in Newcastle except the mine owner. When it comes to my friends and neighbors, I trust my own opinion more than anyone else’s.”
“Since you’re so enamored of the place, maybe that’s where you should buy a house and business when the Yukon boom goes bust and you return to the outside.” Her voice snapped and crackled in the cold air. “But I’m never going back to Newcastle.”
Tom laughed. “I’ll always have ties to home, but Newcastle is strictly a company town, and I don’t aim to buck the company again.” They finished their lunch in silence, then he said, “So, Zoe Wilder. Why are you in Alaska?”
She wished he hadn’t said that a person who was honest in Newcastle would be honest in Alaska. The best she could offer was a half-truth. “I’m looking for a man,” she said after a pause.
“Ah, I see,” he said in an offhand tone. But she knew he didn’t see. “Would that be a specific man? Or do you mean you’re looking for a man in the sense of seeking a husband?”
“A specific man,” she said reluctantly, knowing she couldn’t reveal much more without betraying her promise to Juliette and Clara. And she didn’t want Tom to know that she had lied about not being married or that she was hunting a runaway husband.
“What’s the man’s name? Maybe I know him.”
For Tom to know Jean Jacques, Jean Jacques would have had to go to Dyea instead of Skagway. He would have had to hire packers to get him over Chilkoot, and he would have had to choose Tom’s company from the dozen or more packing companies in Dyea. Finally, he would have had to speak to Tom instead of one of Tom’s employees. Certainly, such a chain of events could have happened, but Zoe thought it unlikely. She hoped it was.
“I doubt you know him,” she said, wishing she had evaded his question in the first place.
“Zoe? Look at me.” When she glanced up, his green eyes were clear and steady. “You can trust me.”
“It isn’t that I don’t trust you,” she said, rising from the rock she sat on. “I don’t care to discuss this subject with anyone, not just you.”
“You’re saying it’s none of my business.” A grin widened his mouth, and then he laughed. “Now there’s a reason I understand.”
“I’m getting cold, and I’m concerned that my traveling companions are worried that I didn’t turn up for lunch.”
Rising, he picked up their plates and utensils. “We don’t see things quite the same, do we? It’s funny. I felt certain that we would.”
