Northern Lights Trilogy (118 page)

On the way home in the cab, Eric turned to her. “Are you all right?”

“Oh yes. Why?”

“You’ve become more and more quiet as the evening went on. In fact, I would say it all started when you ran into Captain Martensen. Yes, that’s when I noticed the change.”

“You noticed no such thing,” she directed, suddenly the captain again. “I am fine. Nothing changed.” She was irritated at his perception, for being put on the spot. Consciously, she gentled her tone, knowing he thought he had hit the nail on the head. “It was a lovely evening, Eric. Thank you for agreeing to escort me.”

He turned to her and grinned. “It was my pleasure. Do you know how much I’ll get out of this? The boys will be begging me for stories all the way to Juneau.”

“You’re a good man, Eric.”

“And you’re a fine woman, Cap’n. The prettiest at the ball. I was a proud man tonight.”

She looked down at her lap then, to the beaded purse. His words echoed in her head, bringing back memories of Karl saying he, too, thought her pretty. It made her sick to her stomach. Why was that? Did she not want her old friend admiring her, giving him a chance to “rekindle,” as he said, something more than friendship? No, that wasn’t it. He was handsome and smart and obviously well established, by the look of his new ship. What was niggling at her?

Elsa thought back to watching Karl and Mara, unable to enjoy her own whirl across the dance floor as she did so. Why was she not happy for them, a couple who were so beautiful together?

Then the thought struck her dumb.

She was jealous.

Jealous of Mara Kenney.

“You’re a sorrowful mess, Elsa Ramstad,” she whispered. “What?” Eric asked.

“Oh, forgive me. I’m just talking to myself.”

“An odd habit,” he said, giving her a wink.

“An odd habit, indeed.” But she wasn’t thinking of odd habits. She was thinking of Karl Martensen, with his ponytail undone, his hair waving in the wind. She was thinking of a gold loop through the hole in his ear and his collar open a few buttons.

Elsa was thinking of what a fine man he was and how she wished it had been she, instead of Mara Kenney, that he had whirled across the dance floor all night.

2 October 1888

P
lease, Tora. Won’t she see me?” he asked, once again at the door of the Storm Roadhouse. Tora was as eye-catching as she had been on the
Herald
eight years earlier, but Soren was determined never to let her know he thought as much.

“No. And I hope she never will.”

“It has been days.”

“It’ll take years for her to get over what you did to her.” “I did not hurt her on purpose.”

“Oh no?” she scoffed. “You thought that leaving her alone on a Dakota farm with a baby was helpful?” “I sent her money.”

“Once.” Tora was like a bur under a horse’s saddle. “Strange.”

“What?” she asked, suddenly wary at his tone.

“That a former mistress of mine would deposit a child on my wife’s doorstep and then years later act as a soldier at her gate. Seems to me that you’ve done your share of hurting my wife.”

“It’s true,” she said, her face falling. “I hurt her badly. But we’ve built our bridges—”

“As I want to do,” he interrupted. “Is that fair? For you to be
allowed to ask forgiveness and heal that rift, but not allow me to do so?”

She said nothing.

“I’m a changed man, Tora.”

She laughed then in derision. “I doubt it.”

“And you, Tora? How have you changed? I didn’t force you to my bed.”

Tora shook her head slightly and then glanced over her shoulder. “You do not fight fair.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I do not want to fight. Truly. I’m a changed man. I just want to see my wife. If she’ll see me.”

Tora looked him in the eye for a long moment, apparently contemplating his words, and Soren refused to look away. Without a word, she went into another room, but she left the door ajar. He assumed it meant that she was going to ask Kaatje if she wanted to see him. He suddenly wished he was a praying man, because it seemed an opportune moment for a talk with the heavenlies to get Kaatje to at least speak to him.
A little “inside” help
, he thought wryly.

When she returned to the doorstep, she gave him a look that reminded him of James Walker’s word of warning.
Don’t hurt her
, he’d said,
or you’ll have me to deal with.
How could little Kaatje have won such fiercely protective friends? There was much he had to learn about his wife.

And suddenly she was there, a sliver of light illuminating her hazel eyes.

“Please. Please, Kaatje. Won’t you come and sit with me? Here on the porch?”

Kaatje still felt as if it were a dream. Or a nightmare. She couldn’t decide. Just when she had given up on her husband, here he was, asking her to come and sit with him on the porch. But all the love she thought she had for him was absent in her heart, surprising her. She couldn’t get over the fact that she felt nothing toward him except indifference…emptiness.

Mutely she followed him out to the front porch where Tora had placed two sets of rocking chairs. The other set was empty.

He gestured toward the near one for her, then quickly sat down on the other, twisting his hat in his hands. “What can I say to you to convince you to give me a chance?”

She shrugged. What could he say? She didn’t want to hear his excuses. His lies. And yet there she sat, riveted. Just like old times. She disgusted herself.

“What if…what if we start over?”

“Start over?” Kaatje found her voice, each word becoming stronger. “How could we possibly start over?”

Soren cleared his throat. “Perhaps we have to go back a bit. Let me explain—”

“No. I don’t want to hear your explanations. There is no excuse for leaving your family for years without a word. Without a word!” Her anger surprised her. Maybe there was more in her heart than she thought.

“I staked a claim, Kaatje,” he said, going to his knees before her, seemingly uncaring of who saw them. “I thought it would be our future. Instead it was just another dead end.” He looked saddened, beaten. “I wanted you with me. Every month, every year. I was determined to make something of myself, so I could return to you and make you proud.”

“I was proud once, Soren. Those first months on our Dakota farm…that’s what I wanted from you. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.”

“I know. I know,
elskling.
Every month it became harder to write to you, harder to let you know where I was, what I was doing. I was wasting my life; I didn’t want to waste yours.”

“What did you think I was doing? How did you think I would survive? Alone? With our child? Your children?”

He shook his head in misery. “I know. I know!” He licked his lips. “I thought the Bergensers would look after you.”

She sighed and pursed her lips in disgust. “Get up. Get up, Soren, and sit. People are watching.”

He glanced toward the street and then did as she bid. She knew he saw her comment as giving him an opening, a chance.

“I know it’s been so hard on you, kitten. If I’d known…”

“If you’d
known?
How could you have possibly assumed we would be all right?”

“I was a fool.”

“You were,” she agreed.

He paused, then forged onward. “With each passing month, my future looked more grim. How could I have brought you to that? Somehow I became convinced that you would have divorced me, married another.”

“How could you think that? I have never believed in divorce.” “You had a good reason. I had abandoned you. You thought I was dead.”

She was silent. Had she not been ready to do just that? “Why not just return home? To see?”

“With my tail tucked between my legs?”

“Yes. Exactly. You were too proud, as usual, to come back. Weren’t you? Or was it your Indian lover that held you back?”

His eyes flew upward to meet hers. “How do you know about the woman?”

She shook her head. Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed with Soren. He would confess because he was caught, not because he wanted to change. She rose. “I’m going in now.”

He stopped her with a hand to her arm. “Wait.”

“No.” She shook it off, suddenly remembering being a newly married girl in Bergen, catching him with a milkmaid.
Why, Lord? Why? Why put me through this misery?

“I’ve changed, Kaatje. The girl, the Indian girl—she was being hurt by her people. Abused.”

“Abused? That is not their way. Why would she have been abused?”

“She was beautiful and betrothed to one man. Another caught her eye. When she refused the man she was betrothed to, he claimed she went to him one night to seduce him. She was an outcast.”

Kaatje laughed, a mirthless sound. “And she came straight to you.”

“No. It wasn’t like that.”

“It wasn’t? No, it wasn’t. I know more, Soren. You not only were with one Indian girl, you were with two.”

“No! That is not true! Who told you that?” Her look must have told him. “Him? Walker? Why, the man’s in love with you! He’d say anything to win you from me. Please.
Please.
Kaatje, we have more than ourselves to consider.”

“What?”

“Our children. For the girls. Will you not at least give me a chance?”

His words sliced her. Only the girls could make her feel vulnerable again. “Where is the woman?” she asked through clenched teeth, not looking back at him.

“Away. At Saint Michael. There’s a Catholic priest there. Russian Orthodox. He finds such women work, shelter, food. He’ll take care of her.” He moved back in front of Kaatje. “There is nothing between her and me. Nothing. Please. Please, Kaatje. Give me a chance.”

James followed Soren every day, watched through bleary eyes at night to make sure he wasn’t sneaking out. As far as he could tell, Soren was living the life of an upstanding man. He rose at seven, ordered a bath from the hotel manager—at least Kaatje had not let him stay at the roadhouse—and then took his breakfast at a restaurant down the street. He had taken a job at the mercantile the day before, loading supplies into wagons at the back, and bringing new shipments in. It appeared that he meant to support himself and was prepared to wait however long it took for Kaatje to welcome him back.

But was that all it was? Appearances?

James’s gut told him it was so.

It wasn’t a coincidence that Soren Janssen showed up in town the week before Kaatje was to declare him dead. He was up to something. Down and dead on his luck, James assumed, no doubt Soren had heard of the woman who looked for him on the river and had learned of her means in Juneau. Kaatje had made something of herself in the new territory, was suddenly the wife Soren had wanted all along. Maybe he had finally given up on finding the mother lode himself and had decided to ride on his wife’s coattails.

If only he would go to the saloon! Pick up a woman! Buy a pint of brandy! That would prove to everyone what James could feel in his bones about the man. Instead, this morning Soren had even gone to church, quietly sitting five pews behind Kaatje and Tora and Trent, never attempting to talk to her. But James was sure that he had made a point of pausing outside, making his presence known. Was it all an act? Or had the louse actually changed?

James groaned and slid to the ground outside the hotel’s wall. What was he doing? If Kaatje was going to give him a chance, it was up to her. He rubbed his face, suddenly conscious of how wearing the last days had been. As he sat there, he noticed a bulge in his coat pocket. He reached inside and grasped the bundle and pulled it out. There, inside a handkerchief, was the gold nugget that Kaatje had found outside Soren’s abandoned claim.

He smiled a little bit, examining the glint of it in the dim, overcast light. It didn’t look like fool’s gold today. Maybe he should have it examined. He smiled. Pleased to have a new mission, he set out for the alchemist’s shop. In minutes he would know. And if it was truly gold, he planned to have the last laugh on Soren Janssen.

He rose and hurried down the street. Inside a small man sat hunched over his work with his back to James. The shop was dark, with only one kerosene lamp lit over the books the alchemist kept. “May I help you?” he asked over his shoulder, not looking back.

“I’d like you to inspect this nugget. Tell me if it’s real or fool’s.”

The man turned around, and James saw that he was in his latter
sixties, with silver hair that covered his face as well as emerged from his nostrils and ears. He wore half-glasses low on his nose and clothes that were old but clean. He reached out for the nugget, his face expressionless. In Alaska, he probably had ten men a day asking the same thing of him.

But he paused as he looked over the nugget, about the same size as the tip of his index finger. He pursed his lips in concentration and reached for a bottle of liquid behind him. Then he pulled a leather glove on his hand and put the nugget into a glass dish. He allowed some of the liquid to fall to the surface. It spattered and sizzled but made no dent.

The man looked over his half-glasses at James.

“That, my man, is pure gold.”