“Thanks for the tip, friend.” Ireland signalled for Sam to pour a drink for his informant and slid a few feet down the bar. The crowd shifted, like the waters of the Yukon River on a still day when a raft drifts by. Sam Collins’s weather- and life-worn face had gone pale, and he stared at the floor as he placed the glasses on the counter.
“Young man there says you know some stories of the strike of ’96.” Ireland slapped Barney on the back. The old man belched.
“Another drink for my friend here,” the newspaperman shouted.
Barney lifted his freshened glass in one worn paw. “Summer of ’96,” he said before toppling forward, planting his face into a puddle on the shiny mahogany bar.
Ray moved before I had time to snap my fingers. Sam had turned his attention to a newly arrived pack of Yankees, still wet behind the ears from river water, so Ray yelled at the new boy to give him a hand. Together they lifted Barney off his stool. The crowd parted to let them through.
Ireland picked up his drink and walked over to me. “Bet you have some stories to tell.” He spoke directly to my cleavage.
“No,” I said. “Not a one. If you’ll excuse me…”
He grabbed my upper arm. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Talk in the room stopped as abruptly as if it had been scripted. Everyone stared at us, frozen in place, mouths open, glasses half-raised. They looked as if they were performing in a tableau for the entertainment of the Prince of Wales.
I stared at Ireland’s hand, before lifting my eyes to his face. “Release me,” I said.
He looked at me, and I tensed, expecting trouble. He backed down and let go. As one, the clientele let out a single breath and returned to their drinks.
Ireland knew he’d lost face. His cheeks were red, his eyes small, dark and cold. His fists were clenched tightly at his sides, and a vein throbbed in his neck.
I smiled my best dance hall hostess smile. “Have you had a look into our gaming rooms, yet, Mr. Ireland? The finest roulette wheel in Dawson. And of course, we have faro and poker as well.”
The reporter didn’t return my smile. “Quite the piece of work, aren’t you, Miss…?” His grammar and accent seemed to shift, depending on to whom he was speaking. He’d been excessively formal with me when first we met, his speech turning coarser and rougher when he talked with the men around the bar.
“Mrs,” I said. “Mrs…” I bit my tongue, remembering, just in time, what I was talking to. A newspaper reporter.
“Mrs. what?” He snapped, reading layers of meaning into my hesitation, a skill he would have honed to perfection in order to succeed in his business.
There was no point in not telling him my name. Everyone in town knew it. Besides, it was unlikely that anyone in London read North American newspapers, and in Toronto I’d used another name.
“Mrs. Fiona MacGillivray, at your service, sir. Please allow me to escort you into the gambling room.”
“MacGillivray. I’ll remember that.” He turned on his heels, and the bar hangers-on parted to let him through.
Ireland slapped his money down on the counter. But this time no one rushed to serve Mr. Ireland of the San Francisco Standard. The new bartender, so new I didn’t know his name, had returned and was busy at the far end. There was no sign of Ray, and Sam was dusting off the whisky bottles behind the bar as if we didn’t have a customer in the place. The man wasn’t deaf or blind, surely he could see the anxious faces of rows of would-be-drinkers reflected in the glass protecting her Majesty’s visage, which hung directly in front of his face.
“Bartender!” Ireland shouted, his face turning redder, the too-ample flesh around his tight collar bulging at the insult of being ignored when he had a full bar watching him. Sam turned and asked a short, fat man with a full glass in front of him if he’d like another. Our head bartender was very pale.
“What the hell does it take to get a drink around here?” The new bartender heard the shouting, and with a questioning glance at Sam’s back, abandoned his end of the bar and rushed to serve the reporter with the deep pockets and the pack of new-found friends. Sam halfturned to check what was going on behind his back.
A man pushed up to the counter and bellowed for a drink. Sam poured him a whisky, his hand shaking so badly that almost as much liquor splashed on the counter as landed in the glass.
“I can tell you some stories, city fellow.” A rough hand slapped Ireland’s back, and the reporter’s attention shifted.
Sam tossed a look at the other bartender and slipped away, avoiding my angry eyes. Going for his break, although it was early, and not a good idea in any event, what with Ray away seeing to Barney. I began to follow Sam to ask if he were feeling sick. He’d have to be on death’s door, he’d have to be on the other side of death’s door, to be allowed to go home early on a night that was shaping up to be as busy as this one.
“Fee!” A man burst through the door, beaming widely and holding his arms out. “What an honour. Here you are standing at the door, waiting to greet me.”
I caught a glimpse of Sam Collins disappearing into the crowded street as I permitted the new arrival to give me a hug. It felt nice to be held in a man’s arms, warm and close and safe, but I pulled away after the briefest moment of indulgence. Better not to get men’s hopes up. It spoils them. “Graham,” I said, “you’re back.”
“In the flesh. You look wonderful, Fiona.”
I smiled. Of course I looked wonderful. I always look wonderful. But I never mind hearing it. “How are things out on the Creeks?”
“It’s incredible. Let me tell you, my dear, it’s like the inside of a beehive on a sunny day.” Graham Donohue had been visiting the goldfields, collecting stories from the miners. He pulled off his hat and scratched at his black hair, normally kept short and neat, now hanging rough at the back of his neck. “Sorry, Fee,” he said with a grimace. He plopped his dust-coated hat back on his head. “Think I picked up something that crawls out there.”
I stepped back. “Really, Graham, you might have had a bath and a haircut before coming here.”
“I couldn’t last another minute without seeing your fair face. Why, the memory of you was all that kept me going through the long days and nights out on the Creeks.”
I snorted. In a ladylike manner, of course. “Ran out of whisky, did you?”
“Any excitement in town during my absence?” Graham took my elbow and led me away from the crowd spilling off the street into the saloon. A roar from the gambling room announced that someone was a winner. For the moment anyway. A small crowd poured back into the bar, led by the winner, sharing his good fortune with all and sundry. The new bartender sweated profusely and poured drinks as fast as he could move. I was impressed; he’d risen to the pressure of the moment.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said to Graham.
He laughed. When he was clean and respectable, Graham Donohue was an extraordinarily handsome man. His nose had been broken a few times, but so good was the bone structure of his face that it scarcely mattered. His cheekbones, high in a thin face, were accented by expressive hazel eyes trimmed by lashes so thick that my dance hall girls swooned over them. He was my height, and so slightly built that he verged on scrawny. Graham’s complexion was clear and unlined, and his warm eyes usually sparkled as if they were planning some act of schoolboy mischief such as dipping the pigtails of the girl sitting in front of him into the inkwell. In an attempt to look more his age, he sported a bushy, ferocious moustache that gave him some whimsical charm: so incongruous in his childish face that he looked like a boy who couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to grow up. The slight, boyish exterior concealed a heart as tough as they come. He was a reporter for a major American newspaper, determined to make his name in the Klondike.
Graham