The Wildflowers at the Edge of the World

  The Wildflowers at the

  Edge of the World

  Shaylin Gandhi

  Copyright © 2020 Shaylin Gandhi

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Aero Gallerie

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, places, events or incidents are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, or actual events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  To my husband, the most wonderful man in the universe.

  APRIL, 1898.

  San Francisco.

  1. Sophia.

  When Sophia Bellerose’s heart broke for the second time, she vowed to sail away and leave it behind. After all, what use did she have for something that could never be put back together?

  In her cramped tent behind the big top, she tossed her meager belongings into a sack and shuddered. Just as some dark and secret part of her had always feared, Adrian had left her. And the way Adrian had left her, for the very same reason her mother had…

  Jaw clenched, Sophia tried to forget the morning’s awfulness. She yearned to unhear the ugly words, to unsee the cold cruelty on Adrian’s face. To unfeel her heart tearing in two yet again. But the memories clung to her, despite the way she longed to bury them in the dingy tent shadows and leave them behind forever.

  Scraping together an anemic roll of dollars, she shoved her twin long-barreled Colt revolvers into her bag, then stepped out into the watery sunlight. Without a single goodbye, she turned her back on her home of ten years.

  The big top shrank behind her as she stole down a flaxen hillside. Her feet carried her toward the ocean, where a boat would take her away. That was all she wanted—to escape the splintered remnants of her dreams. To leave San Francisco, where memories lurked around every corner.

  In town, Sophia ignored the besotted couples and the affectionate mothers pressing kisses to their daughter’s cheeks.

  Those things are not for me. They will never be for me.

  She hurried onward, passing through the sparkling, uncaring world like a ghost.

  ***

  At the harbor, the docks thrummed with activity. Fresh-faced young boys rushed along the waterfront, shouting of riches in the Far North.

  Sophia stopped, jostled amid the madness. She’d heard the rumors of gold, but the reality of the teeming mob—of slick-haired merchants hawking mining outfits and steamboat captains ushering scores of would-be miners onto ships—pulsed with a chaotic vibrancy the newspapers hadn’t captured. The crowd’s excitement prickled along her skin, distracting her from the sorrow underneath.

  “You setting out for the Yukon, Miss?” A long-jawed merchant stood beside her, a hodge-podge of gadgetry arranged at his feet. His smile stretched as wide as a predator’s.

  “I’m setting out for somewhere,” she said, wary. “I just don’t know where.”

  “Well, everyone’s off to Canada. There’s gold up in Caribou Crossing, just lying there for the taking.” The salesman indicated his wares. “The journey’s long, but I’ve got everything you’ll need.”

  She took in his dark, oiled hair and striped trousers. With that lanky build and swarthy coloring, he looked like Horace, the lion tamer. The two men could very well be brothers…

  She throttled the thought midstream. Horace was part of her old life now—and just as well. The way he’d waggled his caterpillar eyebrows and called her “sweet little doll” had made her itch to draw her guns, every single time.

  “Take this.” The salesman indicated a beaten-up leather valise.

  “I don’t need a trunk.” She lifted the rucksack slung over her shoulder. “I haven’t got much.”

  He leaned in. The scent of his hair tonic curled around her like greasy, clutching fingers. “Maybe so, but the Mounties won’t let you into the Yukon without a year’s supply of nutrition. Luckily, this case is packed with twelve months’ worth of powdered food. Weighs less than thirty pounds, too. You’ll be thanking me for that when you’re hauling it up over Chilkoot Pass.”

  He flipped open the trunk, revealing rows of labeled paper bags. “This here’s scrambled eggs, this one’s bacon, this one’s beef stroganoff. Just add a spoonful of powder to a cup of water, heat it up, and presto! Instant meal.”

  Sophia surveyed the bags. Pork shoulder. Seven-layer lasagna. Bananas foster.

  “Powdered lasagna?” she wondered aloud.

  The salesman’s oily grin never faltered. “Normally this runs fifty dollars, but for a pretty little flower like you, I’ll let it go for forty.”

  Her shoulders tightened. It wasn’t the flattery—after all, she was little, and most people thought her pretty, with her delicate features and sleek black hair. No, it was the way the salesman stared at her, expectant, as if she owed him something for the compliment. As if his words deserved to reach into her pocket and coax out every last dollar she owned.

  She should’ve walked away, but she needed to move on, to leave Adrian behind, to trade the stark ruin beneath her breastbone for something besides the dream of being enough for someone, someday. Rooted to the dusty street, she deliberated. All around, fresh hope wafted on the salted breeze, breathing against the nape of her neck. Gold, the wind promised. Money for the taking.

  She let the siren call take hold, let the song of riches echo through her blood.

  After all, money would never betray her the way people had. She could forge a new life, one filled with wealth, out beyond some far-flung new horizon where she could also forget the first twenty-four years of her existence.

  As if sensing his chance, the salesman slid closer. “It only weighs thirty pounds, but it’s holding five hundred pounds of food. What do you think?”

  Sophia sniffed at the case. A faint wooden scent emanated from within. “I think,” she said, “that I’m not as stupid as I look, and that adding water to sawdust probably won’t give me lasagna. But if you’ll answer something for me, I’ll take a look at what else you’ve got.”

  His grin collapsed to a scowl. “Eh? What’s that, then?”

  “Where can I book passage to the Yukon?”

  ***

  In the end, Sophia did buy something from the confidence man, after all.

  Huddled within her new sealskin parka, she braced against the deck railing of the steamer she’d boarded. Frigid waves slapped the ship’s hull as it chugged past Alcatraz Island.

  She glanced back at San Francisco, but only once, and only so she could gather the broken shards of her old life and hurl them into the water. Satisfied, she raised her gaze to the icy wind, letting the salt spray rime her eyelashes. She would look only ahead now, toward the riches that would define her world.

  As the coastline receded, Sophia’s castoff heart sank beneath the cold, dark waves.

  Good riddance. She would never need it again.

  Not unless something truly extraordinary happened.

  MAY, 1898.

  Yukon Territories.

  2. Sophia.

  After five exhausting weeks, Sophia finally glimpsed the mining boomtown the papers had called “the Paris of the North,” and her mouth fell open. The feeble little steamer she’d boarded in Alaska limped upriver, pitching her forward when it bumped against the docks.

  Holy hell, she thought, righting herself.

  Before her, a ramshackle warren of plank-board buildings and false-fronted stores stretched across a muddy river flat
before butting up against a hillside in the distance. Wide streets sliced the town into pieces, but the roads looked more like swamps, despite the raised boardwalks running along their edges. Men inundated the riverfront, stomping through the mud in rubber gumboots, leaving behind gaps as large as post-holes.

  No gold lying on the ground, waiting to be picked up. No gold at all that she could see.

  Gathering a quaking breath, Sophia stepped off the steamer and into the muck. Men flowed around her, leaping from the boat, eager to stake their claims on the hillsides. She let the swell carry her, hoping she might absorb their enthusiasm. But by the time she pressed herself against the wall of a squalid saloon, muck coated her trousers and her own emptiness filled her to bursting. The air smelled of wood smoke and filth, and there, in the shadow of a building far dirtier than any she could’ve found in San Francisco, she realized her mistake.

  She’d forsaken everything she’d ever known, left civilization behind, and trekked to this far-flung corner of the world where she knew not a soul, much less how to mine. Here, she was all alone and had next to nothing—only a few lonely pennies polishing themselves against the inside of her pocket.

  Her pulse quickened as sweat slicked her palms. But while, two months ago, she would’ve succumbed to remorse, today she straightened her spine and scrubbed the moisture from her hands.

  Where once a living heart had beat, a cold chunk of stone sat in her chest, silent. And stone didn’t have regrets.

  “I have my guns,” she said, girding herself. “And I have myself.”

  Sophia raised her eyes toward the looming mountains. For better or for worse, she’d come to the edge of the world, and she’d find a way to grab hold of the only thing that mattered.

  Gold.

  ***

  When dusk fell, Caribou Crossing transformed. Overhead, the fresh May sky softened to a silken shade of lavender as the sun slid sideways along glistening mountaintops. The light liquefied, lancing from the horizon the same way sunbeams spilled through water, and in the unearthly twilight, Sophia wandered the muddy streets, her head tilted skyward.

  But as the day dissolved and evening’s chill came prowling on its heels, she fingered the pennies in her pocket, wondering if they’d buy a room. Just how frigid was a Yukon night, anyway? The Yukon evening already seemed to herald a brutal cold.

  At least, back in Alaska, she’d had the foresight to adopt men’s clothing. In the circus, she’d given up corsets—what use did an acrobat have for such stifling things?—but in Skagway, she’d taken a bold step further and traded her dress for a shirt and trousers. Between those and the sealskin parka, she’d survive until sunrise, but the prospect of shivering all night in a muddy lane threatened her resolve.

  Raising her collar against the chill, Sophia pressed on, into a corner of Caribou Crossing where the mud-drowned lanes gave way to dry, dirt-packed streets. The makeshift tents and hastily constructed storefronts that populated the main street disappeared, surrendering to a row of respectable log cabins. A painted white sign over a door proclaimed North West Mounted Police—Headquarters.

  Sophia clutched her rucksack tighter. Canadian law prohibited her from carrying guns, and though her revolvers had crossed the border safely enough, tucked inside her trousers where the Mounties’ watchful eyes would never think to pry, she didn’t mean to test her luck.

  She turned to retrace her steps, but her attention snared on a gentleman bent double in the street. He appeared to be searching for something, until she glimpsed the mewling ball of fur in his hands.

  What was such a richly dressed man doing with a stray kitten?

  He straightened. Unlike the miners that thronged the mud-caked boardwalks, he looked perfectly clean, not a golden hair out of place. A pristine black frock coat outlined a trim frame, and he carried an elaborate cane, its knob a golden lion’s head. In the soft lavender dusk, his emerald brocade waistcoat shone like a gemstone.

  But it was his expression that captured Sophia’s attention. As he considered the pathetic, muddy kitten in his hands, tender pity flooded a face that could only be described as angelic. “Why, hello, you tiny, unfortunate creature,” he murmured.

  Though she stood in the middle of a public street, she felt she’d somehow trespassed on a private moment. The stranger looked so unguarded, so terribly innocent, that she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  She’d met gentlemen before, back in San Francisco, and those with his kind of money all shared one thing—a hardness around the edges, a hint of the ruthlessness that had made them rich. But this man looked like he’d strayed onto this godforsaken street from some heavenly plane, and he looked…kind.

  Except nobody was kind, anymore. The world was full of shysters and heartbreakers, and nowhere would that be truer than in a mining boomtown at the end of the earth.

  Even so, Sophia stood watching as the man took out his handkerchief and set to cleaning mud from the kitten’s fur. Underneath the grime, a striking shade of orange emerged.

  Unable to bear her fascination a moment longer, she cleared her throat.

  The man glanced up, his face changing immediately. While his expression remained polite, a coolness descended, a layer of tranquil distance that concealed the unguarded empathy she’d intruded on.

  “You appear lost,” he said, taking her in from head to toe.

  She smiled tightly. “Not exactly.” But only because I have nowhere to go.

  “Might I inquire as to where you’re headed? Perhaps I can help you find your way.”

  Pulling her coat closer, she tried to radiate confidence, though the evening smelled of winter and the air frosted silver with every breath. A chill snuck in, the promise of misery to come. “Is there a hotel in town, maybe?”

  “The Grand Forks,” he replied. “Though a night there will set you back a princely sum.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty dollars, perhaps.”

  Her gut clenched. Surely she’d misheard. “Twenty dollars?”

  His blue eyes remained serene. “You’ve only just stepped off the boat, then. Allow me to welcome you to Caribou Crossing—the most expensive city on earth.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good news.” Sophia tried for stoicism, but her throat constricted as she contemplated the coming hours. Could she take refuge in a dancehall or saloon? Her handful of copper might buy a drink or some dinner, and she could wait out the night’s coldest hours.

  Her empty stomach chose that moment to growl, and she coughed to cover the sound. Nodding at the kitten, she unleashed the first words that came to mind. “Are you taking him home?”

  The stranger’s polite mask didn’t flicker. “I don’t expect he’d last the night on his own.”

  “No, probably not. Does he have a name?”

  “Well,” he said, checking beneath the animal’s tail, “it would appear that he is, in fact, a she. I don’t suppose you have any suggestions?”

  By his tone, Sophia knew he’d only asked in order to spur the conversation to a close. Clearly, he wished her to move along so could wander in the strange twilight on his own.

  But she was done caring about what other people wanted, and she had no destination, so she squinted at the kitten. The wretched thing mewled, sounding hungry and broken. “Call her…Margaret.”

  “Margaret? Might I ask why?”

  “After Margaret of Castello. The patron saint of the unwanted and unloved.”

  At the stranger’s sharp intake of breath, Sophia wondered if she’d offended, but he fastened on her with intensity as the detachment in his gaze fell away. He scrutinized her, deep and focused. “What do you know of Saint Margaret? You don’t strike me as a Catholic.”

  “Why, because I’m wearing trousers?”

  He just studied her, awaiting her answer.

  Sophia hesitated, but only for a moment. Her past held no sway anymore. Talking about it would only prove that.

  “When I was fourteen,” she said, “my mother tur
ned me out on the street. I had nowhere to go, so I joined the circus. That’s where I grew up. With the freaks and misfits who were hiding from the world. They were my family. And the strongman, he was like a second father. Viktor was a Russian Catholic, and as big as a bear. But he had the heart of a kitten and always took care of me.”

  She unslung the sack from her shoulder, aware of the way the stranger’s eyes reflected the bizarre gemstone sky as he followed her movements.

  Taking care to keep her guns concealed, she fished out an old, sepia-toned postcard. One corner had frayed off and a dozen creases marred the card’s image, but the face staring out still shone with beatific kindness.

  “Viktor gave me this, long ago.” She flipped the card over and read aloud. “Blessed Margaret of Castello, whose incorrupt body lies in the Church of Saint Domenico. May she ever watch over the unloved, the unwanted, and the abandoned.”

  The stranger stared, transfixed, as if his life depended on her next words.

  Sophia fingered the smooth, worn paper. “He meant for Margaret to look after me after my mother threw me away. But you’re right. I’m not Catholic. I’m not even religious. I only kept Margaret all this time because…”

  She shrugged. The rest wasn’t important. It didn’t matter that she’d had the saint tucked into her mirror frame for years, or that she’d relished the idea of someone caring for her. Those memories were dust now. Ash on the wind.

  Nevertheless, the stranger stood stock still, as if her words had stolen his breath. Something unidentifiable transformed his expression. Whatever it was, it left him looking raw and bright-eyed, and it shone from his face like light.

  “Allow me to show you something,” he said, his voice husky. Stepping close, he dug into his vest pocket and withdrew a gleaming golden pocket watch. When the kitten protested, he cradled the animal with one hand and offered his timepiece with the other.