Yukon Wedding. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ to her, pointed to the peak he knew was closest to Treasure Creek. Its permanent veil of snow gleamed rose-gold in the sunset. “Not all of it. Parts are still clean. Untouched. A fresh start. That’s what Treasure Creek was—is—for me. A chance to get a fresh start, to build something solid from the ground up. In a place where there isn’t much of that. Remind folks that God didn’t forsake one inch of a place like this.”

      She turned away from the window, looking at him with her head cocked analytically to one side. “Why does a man like you need a fresh start? Seems you’ve done…fine so far.”

      “Comes a point in a man’s life where he’s made money, he’s made a name for himself, but he wants to know he’s made a difference. Left something better than how he found it.”

      Lana’s laugh had a dark edge. “And you couldn’t leave someplace farther south better than how you found it?”

      “Sometimes you don’t choose your challenges. Sometimes your challenges choose you.” He suspected he was talking about more than Treasure Creek at the moment.

      “I don’t know how to do this,” she said quietly.

      “It’s rather easy,” he lied, thinking it would be anything but. “You get the bed, I get the floor and we both smile a lot in the morning.”

      Chapter Five

      Mack winced as the ornate clock on his mantel struck eleven the next evening. Georgie, as he had done every hour since arriving at his new home, offered eleven loud “bong!”s in reply.

      Lana watched Mack clamp his hand over the little gold chimes and roll his eyes. He was doing his level best to be civil when he inquired, “Does he ever sleep?”

      Mack’s exasperation made her laugh. She’d had that very thought so many times over the past two months, she’d almost come to believe Georgie was incapable of it. Teena Crow, the Tlingit healing woman, had offered her teas to help, but Lana didn’t trust those strange native concoctions. As if aware the conversation had turned to him, Georgie walked over and poked Mack in the knee. This brought Mack to squat down to the boy’s height and consider Georgie with the narrow-eyed impatience of someone who had their last nerve stomped upon half an hour ago. “It’s bedtime, George,” Mack commanded, pointing up at the clock for emphasis.

      “No.”

      Mack caught Lana’s eyes over Georgie’s head. Do something about this, his expression silently shouted. “Ah, but it is. Your mama knows it is, too.”

      The great Mack Tanner, flummoxed by a toddler. Were she not so bone-tired herself, she’d have found it amusing. Wound up by all the excitement and the new surroundings of Mack’s large cabin, Georgie was about as compliant as a mule. A very cranky, very curious, very irritating little mule. “I do indeed,” Lana said, dropping the socks she’d just managed to wrestle off Georgie’s feet and dragging herself to the chair by the small fire. Sinking into it, she patted her lap several times. “Come up here and…” She’d meant to ask Mack to bring her one of the children’s readers from the stack of books they’d purchased, but the question suddenly raised the issue of what to call Mack now.

      “Ugle Ack,” Georgie barked pointing in Mack’s direction.

      “Uncle Mack,” Mack replied, sensing not only her unspoken question, but Georgie’s unsolicited pronouncement. Mack was Georgie’s godfather, and Jed had referred to Mack always as “Uncle Mack” to the boy. For months Georgie could only manage “Ack,” which was amusing enough in itself, but over the Christmas holidays he’d graduated to “Ugle Ack.” Perhaps their new marital status was no reason to change that.

      “Uncle Mack can bring us one of those pretty books with the pictures in them. Mama will read to you.”

      Mack instantly delivered the book in question. “And Uncle Mack will take a walk,” he declared, “to let things settle down.”

      From the moment Caleb Johnson had loudly heralded their arrival on Treasure Creek’s dock, Mack, Lana and eventually Georgie been surrounded by an endless stream of well-wishers. Little wonder Georgie was too wound up to sleep, while she could barely hold her eyes open. Lana nodded her approval as she took the book from Mack’s outstretched hand. “Bye-bye, Uncle Mack.” She used the reader to wave at Mack, fighting a twinge of jealousy at his escape into the quiet night. Georgie babbled a chattering farewell, too, wiggling his fingers while he grabbed at the new diversion.

      Mack grumbled something Lana suspected she’d be glad not to have heard, and plucked his hat from its peg by the door. She felt her whole body collapse as the door clicked shut. Alone. She’d been on pins and needles all day, plastering a happy look on her face despite the terrible night’s sleep she’d gotten. Mack Tanner snored. Loudly. Still, by the endless sets of shifting she’d heard from his corner of the floor, Lana gathered he’d slept no better, if indeed more loudly. Add one exuberant toddler and everyone was on edge.

      “Let’s see.” She sighed, returning her attention to the fidgety boy in her lap, “what have we got here? McGuffey’s Eclectic Primer. Uncle Mack knows you need to learn your letters first of all, and look at the pretty pictures!” Georgie, finding this suitable entertainment, settled in against Lana’s chest and began sucking on his thumb. Turning to the first page, Lana read, “A is for…ax? Good gracious, who starts off the alphabet with axes? I daresay Mr. McGuffey wasn’t a papa, if you ask me.” She yawned. “A is also for apple, too. You like apples.” She’d have a thing or two to say to the esteemed Mr. McGuffey about his opening page if she ever met him. Still, the alphabet continued on with kinder images. Box, cat, dog, elk and so on.

      How many nights had Mack walked the town, praying his way though the streets of Treasure Creek, asking God’s protection over the people who lived there? It had become his evensong, his nightly ritual, his way of laying to bed the troubles of the day and asking God to send enough wisdom to make it through tomorrow.

      It felt different tonight. He could walk through town all he wished, but it would not change the fact that he would go home to a wife and child. Mack had never in his life felt more sure he’d done the right thing, but less certain how to handle the consequences. It might help if his patience weren’t strained to the limit by Georgie’s boundless energy. The rascal had found six things to break in the first half an hour in his new home.

      “Says who?” an angry voice sounded from the side of town where stampeders camped. The constantly shifting tent village housed those waiting their turn up the Chilkoot Trail. Or those limping down off it, thin and hungry. Mack broke up a fight nearly every night. He’d pressed nearly a dozen barely skilled people into stitching up the wounded lately. Even Teena Crow, the healing woman from the local Tlingit tribe, had been forced to double her efforts. Mack wondered how many punches had been thrown—and bones broken—in his time away. These days the medical needs of Treasure Creek threatened to surpass its spiritual needs.

      “I’da been rich by now if it ain’t for you!” another voice called back. He’d heard every version of this argument under the sun, it seemed. Everyone had someone handy to blame for their failure. Even with Treasure Creek’s God-fearing reputation, there were two dozen fools to every successful man. How do I show them, Lord? Mack prayed.

      God had given Moses a few good tricks up his sleeve, divine wonders to back up his authority when folks wouldn’t listen. All Mack had was a good brain, a fine church, a well-stocked provision post that would soon be the region’s best general store and the sheer determination to keep another man from climbing to his death. A loud crash assailed Mack’s ears, and СКАЧАТЬ