Far From Home (27 page)

Beside her, Charlesworth harrumphed. ‘I’m not sure that the panorama justifies the difficulty of getting here. As far as I’m concerned the whole effort has been a waste of time and money.’

‘But surely,’ Georgiana looked at him, ‘you must have believed in the venture at the beginning?’

‘When Dreumel told me that he was risking the Marius to look for gold so he could buy cattle, I did believe that it was worthwhile. I speculated that no-one would take that kind of risk unless it was a one hundred per cent sure thing.’

That’s just what I said to Mr Dreumel, Georgiana thought. And he
was
sure. But now he is not!

‘However, they’ve been weeks and not brought out enough gold to buy a decent supper, let alone cattle. No,’ Charlesworth gazed down into the valley, ‘it’s not for me. I’ll sell my interest in the claim for the best offer and think I’m well rid of it.’

Georgiana saw Lake give a derisory glance at Charlesworth, but his only remark was that they must get on. They should ride whilst the morning was cool and stop again at noon. Lake led the way along the track, with the packhorse behind him, Georgiana following and Charlesworth at the rear. But the going was slow as, within an hour, Charlesworth complained that his saddle was loose and he was uncomfortable. They stopped whilst it was adjusted and a little later he said that he must stop to have water, and again they waited whilst he unfastened his water bottle and took a drink. Eventually, Lake insisted that Charlesworth rode behind him, leaving Georgiana to take up the rear position.

Their stop for rest was at the cabin where they had spent the night on their outward journey, and they were glad of the respite and the chance to quench their thirst from the stream. Kitty had brought slices of meat, soda bread and dry biscuits. Charlesworth greedily took more than his share. Lake refused all food but drank deeply from the stream. Fifteen minutes later he urged them on.

‘Good heavens, man,’ Charlesworth objected. ‘These ladies need more time to rest.’

‘There is no more time,’ Lake insisted. ‘We have only one more rest before nightfall. And a storm is gathering.’

Georgiana was happy to continue, wanting the journey over as soon as possible. Charlesworth in front of her was constantly grumbling. About the heat, about his horse, about banging his head on the overhanging branches and about the futility of his excursion. She yearned to tell him to be quiet for she needed time to think, and to savour the experience of travelling in a country which was still wild, as yet untamed by man’s hand.

Mr Dreumel will take care of his valley, she deliberated. If he gets the chance. But there will be others who would not. Men like Charlesworth who want only to make money for their own use and not for the common good. I wonder how much his share of the mine is worth, she mused. Mr Dreumel hasn’t the funds to buy Charlesworth’s share
and
sink another shaft. She thought of Ted, so committed to the mine, yet without the money to put into it. How strange, she suddenly realized, he said he has Edward Newmarch’s letters of credit, yet he hasn’t attempted to use them. She gave a silent derisory laugh at herself. And I thought he was a rogue!

But he could use it, she reflected. It’s of no use to anyone, left in his pocket. And May doesn’t know of it. Then she felt guilty at such an improper notion and dismissed it.

She was still thinking on the matter when Lake called a halt at the end of the day. It had been a difficult journey with fallen trees across their path which had to be negotiated, and a heat which became more and more sultry and intolerable. ‘We must make shelter quickly,’ Lake said. ‘Before the storm breaks.’

They had been steadily descending the forest trail and had come out into a clearing where a stream gathered into a pool then cascaded over the edge of the crest. A clap of thunder sounded loud over their heads. Lake dismounted and lifted Kitty down. ‘Hurry,’ he said to her as he unbuckled the packs and released whippy poles which had been strapped to the pony’s side, and set them down. ‘Unfasten the packs and take the canvas over there.’

He indicated towards a hollow set into the mountain wall. It was almost a cave yet not deep enough to be called one, and it was here that Lake unrolled the canvas which Kitty had shaken from one of the packs. He fastened the poles together with twine from his deep pocket, and quickly placed the canvas over them to make a tent.

Georgiana led Hetty, Lake’s horse and the packhorse to the pool to drink and expected Charlesworth to do the same, but he sat astride his mount and looked around him. ‘I don’t think this is a very good place,’ he pronounced. ‘We should stay in the forest.’

‘You stay in the forest if you want to,’ Lake muttered without turning round. ‘But this is the best place to camp. We can’t light a fire in the forest.’

‘I’ll get kindling, shall I?’ Georgiana asked him as she tethered the horses.

Lake looked up and nodded and she went back into the forest, bringing out short dead branches, dry pine needles and cones. ‘Good,’ he said, when she came back and piled them into a pyramid in front of the tent. ‘You bin a trapper’s bride?’

‘No!’ she laughed. ‘I saw you do it when you brought us here.’

‘Ah!’ Again he nodded. A man of few words, she thought, yet she was aware of a warm sense of approval tinged with something which she couldn’t quite define. Then she flushed as she realized it was admiration she saw in his glance.

‘There won’t be room for all of us in there,’ Charlesworth interrupted.

‘That’s right,’ Lake replied. ‘This is for the women. We sleep outside.’

‘But we’ll get soaked if it rains!’ he spluttered and Georgiana and Kitty both turned away to hide their amusement at his red-faced annoyance.

‘Isn’t there a cabin nearby?’ Charlesworth asked angrily. ‘I cannot stay outside all night. What about wolves?’

‘We’ll stay by the fire. Wolves won’t come near. And I’ve got a gun. Water your horse,’ Lake said abruptly, ‘and tether her safely. They don’t like thunder.’

The fire was no sooner lit and sending up spirals of smoke than the rain started and they dashed for shelter. ‘Please. Do come into the tent!’ Georgiana called. The two men had crawled into the hollow beneath the cleft and were sheltering under another piece of canvas. ‘At least until it stops raining.’

‘It won’t stop raining, lady,’ Lake answered. ‘Not until morning.’

‘I shall certainly come in, if you will allow me,’ Charlesworth said, rushing towards the tent. ‘He’s not much of a scout, if you ask me,’ he grumbled as he crawled in under the canvas. ‘I’m sure there’ll be another cabin along the route.’

‘But we’d get wet going to it,’ Georgiana said, moving up to make room for him. ‘I’m quite sure that Lake knows what he’s doing.’

‘This is another reason why I’m glad to be out of this mining business,’ Charlesworth said irritably. ‘I’m out of my depth here. There’s got to be another trail through to the valley! This fellow told me that this is the only one, but I’m not sure that I believe him. I know that Dreumel goes in from Philadelphia, but I can’t work out which route he takes.’

Georgiana was silent. When she had asked Lake if there was another trail he had raised his eyebrows in a non-committal manner, but he hadn’t said that there wasn’t. And she had the feeling that this return journey was over more formidable terrain than when they had come. Certainly she hadn’t remembered this particular clearing. Was Lake making it more difficult for them?

‘I’d like to ask you a question, Mr Charlesworth,’ she ventured, and had to raise her voice as the noise of the rain increased.

‘Yes, my dear Miss Gregory.’ He shuffled around to make himself comfortable, which meant that Georgiana and Kitty had to move up even more to accommodate him. ‘I will answer it if I can.’

‘I only wondered. How much are you asking for your stake in the mine?’

Charlesworth laughed and patted her knee in a patronizing and overfamiliar manner, then let his hand linger. She smiled as if she didn’t mind, then slowly placed her hand over his and removed it.

‘I like a little gamble now and again,’ she said in a girlish voice. ‘I’m sure Mrs Charlesworth does too.’

He cleared his throat at the reminder that he had a wife. ‘Occasionally,’ he admitted. ‘On the horses. But never in business matters.’

‘Of course,’ she said sweetly. ‘We women couldn’t be expected to know of such things.’ She heard Kitty give a snort and turn over in her blanket. ‘But in fact, Mr Charlesworth, I would like to buy into a gold mine, just to say I have done it, you know! But I would have no idea how to find another such as Mr Dreumel’s, unless I went to California of course.’

‘Preposterous!’ he exclaimed. ‘A young woman such as you? Why, the place is swarming with thieves and roughnecks, you’d lose all you had within days of arriving.’

‘I couldn’t afford a great deal, you understand,’ she continued, as if she hadn’t been listening to him. ‘But I have some ready money. Sovereigns and American eagles. I believe they are better than paper money?’ She put on an innocent expression and was pleased to see a glimmer of interest. ‘Perhaps we could speak of it in the morning?’

He didn’t make any attempt to move out of the tent when Georgiana wrapped her blanket around her and lay down to sleep, and she reconsidered her imprudence in suggesting that he and Lake should shelter with them. Though I can hardly blame Charlesworth, she thought. The rain was coming down in torrents and the forked lightning lit up the tent. As the thunder cracked over them, Kitty drew deeper into her blanket and made little whimpering sounds.

‘It’s all right, Kitty,’ Georgiana murmured. ‘It’s only noise. It can’t hurt.’

‘But suppose the mountain falls down, or some of the trees get hit by lightning?’ Kitty peered out of the blanket, her face red and her eyes frightened. ‘We might get killed.’

‘I’m sure this is why Lake chose this place,’ Georgiana said. ‘We’re well sheltered here.’

She slept fitfully, aware always of Mr Charlesworth’s presence. He snored and shuffled and turned so constantly that eventually she gave up trying to sleep and lay with her eyes wide open, thinking still of Wilhelm Dreumel and his shattered dreams.

Presently the rain eased and the only sounds were the drip drip of raindrops and the gush of the stream. Then she heard the solitary call of a bird, and slipping out of her blanket she stepped over Charlesworth and crawled out of the tent. Lake was standing at the edge of the clearing, looking down the mountainside, and she saw that at some stage of the night he had brought the four horses into the hollow under the shelter of the cleft.

He saw her looking at them and signalled her to come. ‘They were frightened of the thunder,’ he said softly, ‘so I brought them in with me.’

She smiled. So he wasn’t such a hard man as he had appeared to be.

‘Not sentiment, lady,’ he said curtly. ‘Without the horses we travel on foot.’

Her smile faded. How foolish of her. A man like him must be aware of all possibilities at all times. But his abrupt manner disappeared as he again beckoned her near.

‘Watch,’ he said softly, pointing towards the east. A slim finger of gold was rising in the sky behind a mountain range. It touched the rain-spattered needles of pine and fir trees which covered the slopes, making them sparkle and shimmer. As the finger grew wider and broader and the gold transformed to flame-red and orange, it flushed and illuminated the green valley, turning the fast-running babbling streams into liquid gold.

‘Beautiful,’ she breathed, hardly daring to speak lest she break the moment.

‘This is the best place in the world to see the sunrise,’ he murmured. ‘And I have seen many.’

‘And you never tire of them?’ she asked.

‘Never.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re cold?’ he said as she shivered.

‘I left my shawl in the tent. But no matter, I wouldn’t miss this.’ She let her gaze follow the changing kaleidoscope of colour.

He unbuttoned his leather coat. ‘Come.’ He put out his hand and drew her towards him. He opened the garment and wrapped it around her, enclosing her within his arms. She stood perfectly still, hardly daring to move or breathe, a flush suffusing her cheeks. She had never been so close to a man before. Never been so close to anyone, not even her parents when she was a child. She was facing away from him and felt the heat of his body warming her back and shoulders, and his arms encircling her waist.

‘I have never shared this view before,’ he said softly. ‘Always I have watched it alone.’

She swallowed. ‘Sometimes – it is good to share,’ she murmured huskily. ‘Sometimes words cannot convey such a scene.’

‘No,’ he breathed, close to her ear. ‘Some things are impossible to describe.’

And it is not possible to describe how I am feeling now, she thought, with him so close and intimate. She closed her eyes for a second. She could feel his steady breathing through her body, feel his heart beat, smell the sweat on him, and the pungent odour of leather and horses, and she felt her own heart hammering.

Slowly she turned within his coat so that she was facing and looking up at him. They neither of them spoke, then he bent his head and kissed her on the mouth. ‘Gianna! You are a good woman,’ he whispered. ‘A strong woman. You are right for this country.’

Her lips parted. ‘Why do you give me that name?’

‘The old man – Isaac.’ He touched her cheek with his rough fingers. ‘That’s what he called you.’

She smiled and was about to reply, when a sudden stamping and snorting of the horses alerted her. She glanced over his shoulder and froze.

‘What is it?’ He was instantly alert.

‘Wolf,’ she breathed, her legs turning to jelly as she saw the pacing animal.

Slowly, his movements measured and unhurried, Lake turned, releasing her and pushing her behind him. His hand slid to his belt and as the wolf sprang, its jaws wide, exposing sharp yellow fangs, the knife flashed in his hand, aiming at the unprotected belly of the animal as it leapt. Lake’s sharp cry and the anguished howl of the wolf as its blood gushed forth, spattering them both, echoed around the mountains.