“What about Leah?”
Jacob hadn’t really thought of his sister. He had forced her from his thoughts because he knew he couldn’t take her along. She’d be heartbroken at his departure. It would make her misery complete. After he left, she would truly have no one but Karen.
“I’ll send for her. When I have enough money, I’ll send some so that she can come by boat. Or if the railroad is built through by then, I’ll have her come by train. Pa said the trail is too hard for someone like her. I won’t have her freezing to death like that woman in his letter.”
“Jacob, I wish you’d reconsider. You’re going to tear that little girl completely apart if you leave her now—what with not knowing about your father.”
“She’ll understand,” Jacob said, not at all convinced of his words. “She’ll need to know the truth, same as me.”
“And how do you think you’re going to discover the truth? They were already lighting fires to thaw the ground for digging when I left. They aren’t going to leave folks unburied so that you can get up there and figure out who’s who. That man was tagged as Bill Barringer, and they won’t wait on his kin to show up. Most of those fellows didn’t have kin anywhere nearby. They’ll bury them all quickly and probably en masse. You can’t very well dig them all up to see if one of them is your father. If they can bring him back to bury in Dyea, they will. After all, I told them you and Leah were here. But chances are they’ll bury him with the others. Even then we can’t be sure it was really your pa.”
Jacob held his ground. “I’ll head north, then. I’ll go to Dawson and check with the claims office and see if he has files. If he’s alive, that’s exactly what he’d do. If he’s not alive, then there are supplies and money somewhere that belong to Leah and me.”
“You don’t know that, Jacob. If your father is dead, no one’s going to worry about getting that stuff back to you and your sister.”
“I don’t care. I’m going. You’ll let Leah and Karen know, won’t you?” Jacob asked.
“You don’t plan to go back and get your things?”
“I have some things hidden in the woodshed. Like I said, I’ve been planning to go all along.”
Adrik nodded. “I suppose you have to do what you think is right, but just remember one thing. When you take off from here without the permission or advice of your authority figures, you are setting yourself up for trouble. When we walk away from God’s authority, we are also walking away from His perfect protection. Do you really want that?”
“I’m not leaving God. I know He’s got a reason for everything, and while I don’t understand it, I’m not going to curse Him and die like Job’s friends suggested.” Jacob remembered the sermon preached on the Sunday before the avalanche. The words had impacted him. Job had lost everything and all that was left to him was to curse God and die. But still he hung on, and Jacob would, too.
“Jacob, why don’t you just think about this overnight? Pray on it first and then make your decision. You don’t know what awaits you out there. One trip up the summit and you’ll see for yourself what a mistake this is.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Jacob said, pushing his way past the big man. “I’m going and don’t you try to stop me.”
————
Leah had known about Jacob’s dream to join their father from nearly the moment he’d planned it. That’s why she waited for him in the darkness of the woodshed. She knew he was going to leave her, and she knew he wouldn’t come to say good-bye. Clutching the satchel he’d left there in hiding, she tried to think of what she’d say to him.
When the shed door opened and Jacob entered carrying a small lantern, Leah waited until he tried to retrieve his things from their hiding place before speaking.
“You’re going away without saying good-bye. Just like Pa,” she murmured, stepping out of the shadows.
“Leah!” He said the word almost accusingly.
“Why are you leaving like this? How could you do this to me?” She fought back tears and shivered in the cold. She threw the satchel at him. “There. Is that what you came for?”
She heard her brother’s sigh. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to go. We have to know if that man was Pa. Mr. Ivankov can’t tell me for sure that Pa was the man he saw. We have to know.”
“When will you come back?”
“I don’t know. I’ll probably have to go all the way to Dawson before I know for sure whether the man carrying Pa’s letter was him or not. You’ll be safe with Karen.”
“But you’re all the family I have left.” Leah couldn’t believe he was just going off like this. She’d known of his plans but had always figured on changing his mind. After all, they were close. They’d been each other’s confidants for years.
Jacob moved to close the distance and put his hands on her shoulders. “Look, I’m going to send for you. I promise. I’ll get enough money so you won’t have to go up the Chilkoot Trail. I’ll send you enough money so you can take a steamer all the way to St. Michael and then down the river to Dawson City. You’ll ride like a queen!” He tried to make it sound wonderful, but Leah wasn’t convinced.
“Take me now. Take me with you.”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t. The way is too rough. You read Pa’s letter, didn’t you? The way is just too dangerous for someone like you.”
“It’s dangerous for you, too. Grown men died in that avalanche—one of them might have been Pa. What makes you think it’ll be any better for you?”
Jacob’s jaw fixed in that determined way she’d come to recognize. It was a characteristic he’d inherited from their father. “All I know is that I have to try.”
Wrapping her arms around him, Leah hugged him tight. “Please don’t go, Jacob. I’m scared for you. I don’t want you to die.”
Jacob held her for several minutes, then gently pushed her away. “I’m not going to die. You just wait and see. I’ll send for you before you know it, and who knows, maybe I’ll find Pa and everything will be all right again.” He turned from her but not before Leah saw the tears on his cheeks. Seeing him in such pain, she decided to say nothing more.
He pulled on his pack and reached into his pocket to hand her something. “I bought this and planned to give it to you for your birthday next month.”
Leah opened her hand to find a delicate gold chain. At the end of the necklace was an equally delicate gold cross. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never had anything like it.”
“I know,” Jacob replied. “I wanted you to have some gold from the north. I wanted you to believe in the dream.”
She looked up and saw the hope he held for his future. “I believe in
you
, Jacob—but not gold or land or anything else but God.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Leah. Stay with Karen and I’ll find you again.”
Then he was gone. Leah stared after him, watching the amber glow of the lantern bob and swing as he walked away. “I love you, too,” she whispered. Numb from the truth of the moment, Leah made her way inside and up to the room that she now shared with Karen alone.
She opened the door cautiously. The night was still young enough that Karen might well be reading or writing letters, and Leah didn’t want to make too much noise. But the room was empty.
Sitting down on the bed, Leah unfastened the clasp on the necklace. Putting the necklace on, Leah felt the cold metal against her skin. It did little to reassure her.
“Nothing has gone right today,” Karen declared as she came into the room and slammed the door. Seeing Leah, she halted a moment, then went on raving. “I’m so tired of bad news. Everybody is talking about one horrible thing after another downstairs. I came up here because I just can’t stand to hear another word! I’m going to go wash up for bed.”
Leah nodded and slipped the necklace beneath her blouse. Giving no further thought to telling Karen about Jacob, she curled up on the bed and cried softly into the pillow. She thought for a moment of a verse her mother had once read to her about how God collected your tears in a bottle and saved them.
He’s sure going to have a lot of bottles from me
, she thought as sleep overcame her.
WHEN KAREN AWOKE the next morning, she found Leah sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room. The child, rapidly turning into a beautiful young woman, had been crying. It broke Karen’s heart to see the girl so grieved. Karen saw herself in Leah, recognizing the raw misery and open wounds of her father’s death. She longed to say something comforting, but words eluded her. How could she comfort Leah when Karen could find no comfort for herself?
Yawning, Karen stretched, then pushed back the covers. The room felt like ice. She was surprised that Jacob hadn’t started a fire in the small stove. Pushing back long strawberry-blond waves of hair, she looked to Leah.
“Where’s Jacob? Why didn’t he get a fire going?”
“He’s gone.” Leah’s flat words registered no emotion.
Karen got up and pulled on her warm robe. “It’s not like him to go off to work and leave the stove cold.”
“He didn’t go to work. Like I said, he’s gone.”
Karen looked down at Leah. “Gone? You mean gone from Dyea?”
Leah looked up mournfully. “He left last night.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you wake me up so I could stop him?”
Leah picked up her skirts and stood. “You couldn’t have stopped him. He didn’t want to be stopped. I tried.”
“You should have at least told me about this last night. I could have sent for Adrik to stop him.”
Leah looked almost accusingly at Karen as if she were responsible for Jacob’s disappearance. “You didn’t want to hear about anything else that was bad. Remember?”
Karen could hardly comprehend Leah’s words. Jacob was just a boy. Where had he gone? And for what reason? She tried to remain as calm as possible. After all, the boy had probably just taken off to mourn. Maybe even find out where they’d taken his father’s body.
“I’m sure he won’t be gone for long. It’s still winter out there and too cold for pretty much anyone, let alone an unseasoned child.” Karen picked up several pieces of wood and put them into the stove atop the cold, lifeless ashes.
“He’s not coming back.”
Karen straightened at this and looked at Leah. “Of course he will. You’re here.”
Leah shook her head. “He said he’d send for me.”
“Send for you from where?”
“From the goldfields. From Dawson City.”
A tremor ran through Karen. It started somewhere in her heart and radiated out from there until her entire body felt like it was shaking. “He wouldn’t really have gone—would he?” She darted to the window and pulled back the drapes. The frost kept her from seeing beyond the room. She turned back to Leah. “He wouldn’t just go like that, leaving you here. Not when he knew what it felt like to be left behind.”
Leah nodded, and her tears began to fall. “He said he had to know if that dead man was our pa. If it was Pa, then Jacob wants to take up his dream. Either way, he’s gone.”
Karen paced the small room for several moments. The floorboards creaked in protest as she picked up her steps. She forgot about the fire and finally plopped down on the corner of the unmade bed. Angry, she reached out and threw one of the pillows. “That’s just great. Things just seem to go from bad to worse.”
Leah went to where Karen sat and took hold of her hand. “I know things have been hard, Karen. I’ve been praying for you. For us. My ma used to say that it seemed like it didn’t rain but it poured. I guess that’s the way it’s been with us.”
Karen softened as she met the child’s red-rimmed eyes. “I’m sorry. I know you’re hurting.” She reached out and pulled Leah into her embrace. “I’m so sorry, Leah. I know you’re feeling bad and that I’m not helping it.”
“You can’t help it.”
The truth of Leah’s words seemed to hold a double meaning. There was nothing Karen could do to change the events of their lives, and she seemed powerless to even say the right thing—to point Leah back to her faith and hope in God—to bring herself along as well.
“I’m sorry,” Karen murmured. “Sometimes I just feel like . . . well . . .” She wanted to say that she felt deserted by God. That He no longer cared. She wanted to say that her anger was making her forget her upbringing. Then a picture came to mind—the angry face of Peter Colton. She had stirred his anger. She had caused his rage by promoting her own hatred of Martin Paxton. She saw herself in that angry face, knowing the only difference between her and Peter was that he would actually pull the trigger and kill Paxton. Karen could only dream of his reckoning.
“I know I should have told you last night,” Leah said softly. “I shouldn’t have just let you go to bed without knowing about Jacob. I’m sorry.”
Karen shook her head. “Don’t be. I deserved it. I pushed you away, along with everyone and everything else.”
“Even God?”
Leah’s softly spoken question seemed to rip apart Karen’s stoic facade. “Yes. I suppose I must confess that, as well.” She tried to smile at Leah, hoping the action would reassure her without words. It didn’t.
“It’s easy to trust God when things are going well,” Karen began. “There’s no real effort in that. But when things go wrong and then keep going wrong until you feel like nothing good is ever going to happen again . . . well, then it gets harder.”
“It has to get better.” It was Leah who offered the encouragement.
Karen nodded. “I want to believe that, but right now I feel as though my life is as cold and lifeless as those ashes in the stove. Nothing makes sense anymore. Everyone has either died or gone away.”
“Everyone, ’cept you and me.” Leah paused and put her hand atop Karen’s. “I need you, Karen.”
Karen saw the fear and questioning in Leah’s eyes. She reached up and touched Leah’s tear-stained face. “I need you, too. I know exactly what it is to lose the people you love. It makes you feel all alone—like nobody in the world even knows you’re alive.”
Leah nodded. “Like God’s too busy.”
Karen knew God was working on her spirit through the words of her young friend. She hated feeling the way she did, all bottled up and walled in, while at the same time so very resentful. “God’s never too busy,” she finally responded. She knew the words were true, and by speaking them she thought maybe she’d broken a little chink of the mortar in her walls.