had to go and spoil it all on purpose, all because of her own stupid, girlish fears, not just the fear of falling in love with someone totally wrong for her, but of being with a man at all.
What did she know about men? And for heaven’s sake, Clint was ten years older than she! He’d been married, and only the Lord knew how many other women there had been in his life, maybe women like Collette. How could an ignorant young woman who knew little beyond church and family be a wife to a man like that? And why in the world was she even thinking that way? Clint Brady drank, often cussed, and he killed men with no remorse. He wore a gun and never hesitated using it…even on men.
She wished she was already with Peter, or that she could talk to her mother. They would know what to tell her. They would pray with her, show her passages in the Bible that might help.
You should be talking to Me.
Where did those words come from? She actually looked around.
God, that’s where. He was speaking to her through that still, small voice from deep inside. Yes, she should pray more. She should ask forgiveness for being so selfish and judgmental. Then she should pray to God again to help her please to sort out her feelings, find the right words for Clint Brady. Whether he cared about her or not, she already cared too much about him to let him go on in such bitter loneliness.
The only distraction from her thoughts was the hardship of their journey. The climb had grown steeper and steeper, the pathway more and more narrow, the canyons below deeper and deeper. Her legs felt like bricks, and her breath grew shorter and shorter as they trudged ever higher. If White Pass was higher than this, and covered with deep snows to boot, how in the world would they get over it?
Clint finally stopped at what seemed the highest point, although stark, gray walls of snow-capped granite rose on both sides of them, much higher than where they stood now, in spite of the climb. When Elizabeth caught up to where Clint stood, she realized why he’d stopped.
“Oh, my,” was all she could say. Before them lay another mountain, a much higher mountain. From where they stood they could see several parties climbing it, and several more men coming back their way—giving up and returning. Those climbing it looked like small black dots against a wall of white. In the area just below them they could see abandoned caches, a few dead horses lying stiff and frozen. Between them and the next mountain was more of a depression than a valley, an open area where a few trees grew. A closer look at the entire area brought more debris into focus, more abandoned back packs, tents, more dead horses and a general array of trash.
“What do we do?” Elizabeth asked Clint.
“We make camp down there and let the horses rest for a full day, then we go for it. Part of the problem with losing horses is most men headed for Dawson are in such an all-fired rush that they don’t let their animals rest in between. Since we aren’t breaking our necks to get there and make the first claims, we can afford to slow down.”
“Except for the fact that it’s September and by the time we get there it will surely be very wintry. That old guide I talked to back in Skagway told me that last winter a lot of men starved to death in Dawson because they didn’t bring along enough supplies. I hope my brother wasn’t one of them.”
Clint sighed. “Right now my only real concern is getting over White Pass. Then we have to hope that the Yukon isn’t frozen shut. We’ll reach Dawson a lot faster if we can float a raft on the river than if we have to walk.”
“A lot of those men are turning back. It must be pretty bad up there in the pass.”
“We’ll make it,” Clint replied matter-of-factly. He headed down the other side of the mountain they had just climbed, a much more gradual slope that did not lead as far down as on the other side. The lower they got, the more mushy the ground became, until by the bottom the ground was marshy and sported a little grass. Elizabeth suspected there once had been more, but that most of it