"Oh, I don"t know about that," Sam said in a thoughtful way that made Julie wonder what she"d said.
"Just who are you, anyway?" she questioned, causing Sam to burst out laughing.
"What a question! You know full well who I am. Your brother and I have known each other for seven years."
"I know all that," Julie said as she stared at the ceiling to avoid losing herself in Sam"s eyes. "I want to know, well, I want to know more."
Sam laughed. "All right. Where would you like me to begin?"
Julie"s forehead furrowed slightly as she considered what she wanted to ask. "I suppose at the beginning," she finally answered. "Where were you born?"
"Sacramento, California, in 1889-although we weren"t there long enough for the ink to dry on the Bible entry. My father was bent on finding gold. He was always late to everything, including the gold rush."
Julie laughed. "Unlike his son, who seems to make a habit of arriving right on time."
"My father had big dreams. He was one of the reasons I came on up to Nome after my mother died," Sam answered.
"Is your father dead as well?"
Sam nodded. "He got into a fight over a claim. The man took a knife out and killed him then and there. They strung the killer up not twenty feet from where my father lay dead and hanged him. My mother was never the same after that. She was left with three children and had no idea how to support them. The miners were good to her, however. They took up a collection and gave her three hundred dollars."
"What happened after that?" Julie asked, fascinated with Sam"s story.
"She moved us around. Sometimes she did laundry for other miners. Other times she"d cook and run a boardinghouse. When my sister married and moved off, I was thirteen and my younger sister was nine. Ma moved us to Seattle, where talk of the gold rush to Nome and the Klondike was all I ever heard tell about. It got in my blood, and I promised myself that I"d one day make the trip to Nome and find the gold that had eluded my father."
"Sounds interesting," Julie said, "but why did it take you so long before you came to Nome?"
"I couldn"t leave my mother and sister, and they didn"t want any part of it. My mother was getting old, so I went to work. I did a little bit of everything but finally stayed with shipyard work. My sister married at sixteen and offered to take my mother back East with her, but Ma wanted to stay close to where my father was buried. She made me promise to bury her in California, so I stayed on."
"You never married?" Julie asked boldly.
"No," Sam said with a smile. "I never found the right woman. My mother died not long before my twenty-eighth birthday, and right after I got her buried alongside my father, I boarded a ship for Nome and never looked back."
"It must have been lonely for you," Julie said thoughtfully. She knew how the loss of her own mother had left an unfillable hole in her heart.
"Yeah, I guess it was in some ways. Of course, I had the comfort of knowing she was saved. I"d see her again, and that made it a lot easier to deal with."
Julie"s eyes opened wide. "So you"re a Christian?"
Sam grinned. "Yes, I am."
"Tell me how you came to know G.o.d," Julie said as she shifted her weight.
August and Vern came in with a tray full of rocks. "Sam, you take the rocks from the bed, while we put these hot ones in their place," Vern said, using tongs to place hot rocks around Julie"s covered feet.
August held the tray, while Vern positioned each rock. Sam put the cooled rocks in a pile on the floor, and when he reached beneath Julie to retrieve the rocks August had placed underneath her, the girl began to laugh.
"I thought this mattress was a little lumpy. Now I see that it was just that I was sleeping on rocks."
Sam bent over her and reached across to get the last of the stones. He gave Julie a wink and quickly handed the rocks to Vern.
"We"ll warm up another batch, Sam. How are you doing, Jewels?" Vern asked as he put a hand to his daughter"s forehead. "You feel much warmer. That"s a good sign. Let"s just hope you don"t suffer from frostbite."
"Please don"t worry, Papa," Julie said and pulled her arm out from the mattress to touch her father"s hand. Feathers flew everywhere, causing Julie to sneeze. It was only then that she realized they"d stuffed her inside the goose down mattress. "What a wonderful idea! Who thought to put me here?" she asked.
"It was Sam"s idea," August replied. "Sam was determined to save your life, and he usually gets what he wants. They don"t call him Lucky Sam for nothing."
"Lucky Sam," Julie echoed as she looked up and met Sam"s eyes.
"That"s right, and so"s the part about getting what I want," Sam declared.
Vern and August laughed as they left the room, but Julie bit her lower lip and stared thoughtfully at the man who remained at her bedside.
Sam returned the look and then spoke. "Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, you were asking me how I came to know Christ. Well, my mother was saved; my sister, too. I always tagged along with them to church on Sunday, at least whenever I could. When I was seventeen, I took a job on a fishing boat. We were pretty far into the Pacific one day when a storm blew up and destroyed the ship. I was left clinging to a piece of the craft, while the storm tossed me back and forth.
"I began to pray like I"d never prayed before. I asked G.o.d to save me, and I didn"t mean just my worthless hide. I prayed for redemption, and I prayed for deliverance. Some people come to G.o.d in a quiet way, but I came to Him in a flash of lightning on the stormy Pacific. Right after I asked Jesus into my heart, a wave came crashing down over my head, and I kind of figured I"d been forgiven, redeemed, and baptized all at once."
Julie laughed. "What happened next?" she questioned as she caught her breath.
"He saved me. The storm calmed just like the time in the Bible when Jesus stilled the waves. I was found by another fishing vessel about an hour later."
"How fascinating," Julie said with true admiration in her voice.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Sam said thoughtfully. "I"m just mighty glad G.o.d never gave up on me. He"s been a powerfully good friend to have alongside all these years."
Julie liked the open way in which Sam talked about G.o.d. It was exactly the way she felt about Him. He was so much more than a figurehead, sitting out there somewhere in heaven. G.o.d was a good friend and a constant comfort. Julie felt her thoughts blending to include her admiration of Sam. Had G.o.d sent Sam into her life for more than friendship? Already he"d saved her life twice, and whenever she was with him, the aching loneliness she"d known for so many years was absent.
Julie grew suddenly distant, and Sam put his hand out to touch her face.
"Don"t," Julie whispered. Instead of getting mad, as Julie had antic.i.p.ated he would, Sam just shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet.
"I think I"ll go find us something to eat," he said and left Julie to contemplate her conflicting emotions.
Chapter 6.
Julie recovered quickly from her brush with death. She hadn"t suffered any permanent damage, although her pride was sorely bruised. The day after her ordeal, she felt good enough to be up and joined the men in the front room for games of chess and checkers.
"Sometimes," Vern began as he lit one of the oil lamps, "I think I"ll be glad when they string electricity this far. Other times, I"m just as glad not to have it to mess with. When the wind picks up past twenty knots, the lines blow down anyway, and then you have to dig the lamps back out."
"Yeah," August agreed as he moved his bishop to threaten Sam"s queen, "but staying at the hotel in Nome sure spoils a fellow."
"When did you stay at the hotel in Nome?" Julie asked curiously. "I can"t imagine either one of you leaving the dogs long enough."
"It was something your mother wanted to do," Vern answered.
Julie looked up from the table. "Mother? She always seemed to enjoy it here. I never heard her mention a preference for life in Nome."
"Oh, she wasn"t partial to Nome. It was just that she knew we"d never lived in a place with electricity or telephone."
"Well, I"ll be," Julie said as she shook her head. "I never would have thought it."
"I never would"ve thought an old sourdough like you would have forgotten how to take care of herself in the snow, either," Vern said as his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Julie, you can"t be out there on the trail without paying attention to your surroundings."
"Nor to the survival skills that you"ve no doubt known all of your life," Sam added.
Julie felt as though she were a small child being taken to task. "I know I was foolish. I"ve readily admitted it, and I"ve even taken to reading some of Grandfather"s books about surviving in the North," Julie said, alluding to books that her mother"s father had brought with his family during the gold rush.
"Books can"t teach you everything. Besides, you"ve lived it almost all your life. You need to sit back and pay attention for your own good," Vern said seriously, adding, "August and I will work on your memory."
Julie smiled and jumped three of her father"s checkers. "Crown me."
The day pa.s.sed pleasantly, and as long as they sat in her father and brother"s company, Julie didn"t feel uncomfortable around Sam. She even enjoyed hearing about his exploits. Sometimes his stories involved August, and Julie shook her head in disbelief.
"I"m amazed that August never brought you home before I left for the outside," Julie stated, calling the lower forty-eight by the term used by most people in the northern territories. She remembered the five years she"d listened to people in Seattle call Alaska "the frozen North" or "Seward"s icebox." Julie just called it "home" and longed for it with all her heart.
"And I suppose that"s as much a reason as any," August was saying as Julie stared blankly into s.p.a.ce.
"Uh, sorry," Julie said as she cleared her thoughts. "What were you saying?"
"You asked why Sam had never come home with me," August replied.
"And?" Julie questioned over Vern and Sam"s chuckles.
"And, I told you. Sam was working a claim that took all of his energy. He didn"t dare leave it unoccupied."
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "I was fortunate to have August"s help. I don"t think I left the claim for the first three years."
"Do you still work it?" Julie asked, suddenly realizing that she knew very little about Sam"s current life.
"No," Sam replied as he put August in check. "I sold the claim to the Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields. Mr. Summers, the superintendent, came out to offer me an impressive amount of money for the claim. I"d already made plenty off the mine and was thinking of selling anyway. By the time we"d finished settling, I had more money in the bank than I"d ever need to use."
"You could"ve sent it to your sisters," Julie said innocently.
Sam"s brow wrinkled and behind his beard stubble, Julie could see him grit his teeth. "They"re dead."
"Both of them?" she questioned.
"Yes," Sam replied sadly. "My youngest sister was killed in an accident, and my older sister died during the influenza epidemic."
"How awful," Julie replied.
"We lost an awful lot of folks up here as well," August said as he conceded defeat to Sam. "Especially the Eskimos and Indians. They can"t stand up to some of the diseases that accompanied the white man north."
Sam nodded and began to reset the chess board. "I know. I remember reading in the Nome Nugget that the influenza epidemic left more than ninety-one flu orphans."
"That"s true," Julie replied, remembering the awful time. "Poor things. Some of them are still quite young."
"It"s always amazing who lives and who dies in a situation like that," Sam said, sitting back. "I always wonder what G.o.d"s overall plan is when I see a family of youngsters left without their folks."
"Me, too," Julie agreed. "And I have a real hard time when children are the victims of sickness. I"ve had to nurse dying children," she added, remembering her days in the Seattle hospital. "I don"t think I"ll ever get used to it." Her words sobered the atmosphere considerably.
"Yet," Vern finally spoke, "we have to trust G.o.d"s wisdom. He always knows best. I know when your mother was dying, she kept reminding me of Job and how much he endured. "Curse G.o.d and die," Job"s wife told him. Agneta used that example whenever I grumbled too much about the injustice of her condition. She loved to remember Job"s patience and strength whenever her own gave way to the sickness. Her favorite verse was Job 13:15: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." I admired her loyalty. It strengthened my faith."
"I can well imagine," Sam said with a thoughtful look toward Julie. "A woman of strong faith is one to be cherished. I don"t think G.o.d intended for any man to live alone."
"You know," Vern said as Julie won the checkers game, "I believe the Bible says that two are better than one."
Sam nodded. "It sure does. It"s in Ecclesiastes. Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour."
" "For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up." " Julie recited the verse from somewhere in her memory.
Vern reached for his Bible and flipped through its pages to Ecclesiastes four. He continued reading from verse eleven. " "Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?" " Julie glanced up at Sam and found his eyes on her.
"That"s true," August added. "I remember times when the weather was like this, and Ma would put us all together in bed with you and her."
"I remember that, too," Julie said, forgetting about Sam"s fixed stare. "I loved it. I always felt safe and warm. It was so hard to leave and go to Seattle. It was like you were all here together in one safe haven, and suddenly I was left out."
"You were never left out," August said with a smile. "Ma always remembered you in prayers, and Pa talked about you constantly."
Vern nodded and reached across to affectionately squeeze Julie"s shoulder. "That"s true. Even in Seattle, you were an important part of our family. Almost as if you were never separated from us."
"That"s sure not how it felt in Washington," Julie responded. Forgetting about Sam and how he might perceive her, Julie continued. "I remember watching Nome disappear as we steamed to the south. I wanted to jump overboard and come home. I was so lonely. School left so little time for any kind of social life, and I didn"t get to attend church regularly because of my hospital duties." Julie needed to say more, but it was difficult to continue, so she fell silent.
"Didn"t you have any friends among the other students?" Vern asked.
Julie thought for a moment. "I suppose there were one or two whom I felt comfortable with. We studied together and often worked together, but it wasn"t like having a real friend. I suppose that"s my own fault, though. I didn"t want to be close to anyone."
"Why was that?" Sam asked.
"I guess I was worried about having ties in Seattle. I didn"t want anything to hamper my homecoming. I suppose I created my own prison."
"Oftentimes we do," Vern said as he closed his Bible. "Everyone is different, and how they handle their fears varies. I wish I could have saved you the loneliness."
"Truth is," Julie said without thinking, "I still feel empty at times. I have my faith in G.o.d and my family, but, well..." She paused for a moment. "I don"t know. I guess I"m just anxious to be at my job." Getting to her feet, Julie was just as anxious to drop the subject. "Now, if you"ll all excuse me, tomorrow is October twelfth and that means it"s August"s birthday. I"m going to see what I can whip up in the kitchen."
August grinned. "I figured everybody would forget."
"Just why do you think I braved the weather to come this way?" Sam said and laughed. "Besides, why do you think I let you win at chess yesterday?"
"Well, if it was a birthday present, you should have let me win today as well. I"m a bit humbled by the entire experience," August said as he got up, stretched, and looked at his watch. "I guess I"d better go check on the dogs."