Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [159]
It was some time before she realized that the noise in the saloon had stopped, and she opened her eyes to see a hundred or more men looking at her. Most were probably about Sam’s age, but they had that weatherbeaten look that made them look far older. Some were in fancy suits, boiled shirts, ties and homburgs, others in grubby shirtsleeves, with braces holding up trousers that had seen better days and broad-brimmed hats that could tell a few stories. There were pale-faced Europeans, brown faces from South America, black faces and Indians too. Some had untrimmed beards and moustaches, others were clean-shaven. In amongst them were a few women as well: a prettily plump one with a straw hat trimmed with feathers, another with roses on hers; women in silk and lace, others in plain cotton from the trail. But regardless of who they were, whether they’d already found gold or were helping someone who had, to spend it, they were all listening to her play.
‘Bravo!’ a big man in a checked jacket called out as she finished the first number. ‘Don’t stop now, give us more!’
It was after one when Beth picked her way through the mud to get back to the tent. She was exhausted but satisfied that she’d made her mark on Dawson, for Jack Smith had claimed she was the finest fiddle player he’d ever heard.
She had no idea where Theo and Jack were. They’d been in the Monte Carlo for the first hour she was playing, but then left and hadn’t returned. She hadn’t minded, for while she wasn’t playing, there were plenty of people only too happy to buy her a drink and keep her company.
The sky was as bright as day, and no one else appeared even to be thinking of sleeping, for the muddy tracks between tents and cabins were full of jostling people. Above the sounds of thousands enjoying themselves down on Front Street, laughter, chatter and clinking glasses, she could hear thumping feet on a dance floor, the wheeze of a mechanical organ, and a saxophone playing a plaintive ballad.
She’d been told Dawson City buzzed until eight in the morning, and she supposed that was understandable in a place where they were cut off from the Outside by snow and ice from September till the end of May.
Tied around her waist was a leather bag which someone had thrown at her, with a quantity of gold dust in it. She’d added to it the small fortune in notes and coins that had been collected for her. As she walked, it clonked against her hip bone, making her smile with satisfaction. Money and success would never compensate for her brother’s death, or make her miss him any less, but tonight those black clouds of grief had rolled back sufficiently to make her want to live again.
∗
A week later, at four in the morning, Beth was being walked back to her tent along Front Street by Wilbur, one of the bartenders at the Monte Carlo.
‘Looks like there’s a big game on at the Golden Horse Shoe,’ he said, indicating a crowd of people outside a saloon up ahead. ‘You can bet it’s Mack Dundridge playing poker in there. Folks always want to watch him play; when he’s winning everyone gets free drinks.’
Beth smiled up at Wilbur, for this tall, lanky young bartender from Seattle was not only her regular escort home, he always had tales to tell her about the larger than life characters of Dawson City.
He’d told her about Mack Dundridge just the day before, for Mack was one of the celebrated Eldorado Kings. He had been drifting around Alaska and the Yukon for years searching for gold, and he was close by when George Carmack and Skookum Jim discovered it in Rabbit Creek. Mack rushed there when he heard the news and staked a claim that was soon to bring him a fortune. And Rabbit Creek became known as Eldorado.
But like many of the old-timers who’d struck it rich, Mack was feckless with his fortune. He would come into town and sling his poke, a leather bag of gold nuggets, down on the bar and treat everyone.