Читать книгу The Klondike Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - Vicki Delany - Страница 28

He had only been working at the hardware store for ten minutes before Angus MacGillivray knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the life of a shopkeeper wasn’t for him. He stuck it out through the morning, dragging stock from boxes stacked at the back of the tent as the stuff up front was sold off, and waiting on customers, although Mr.

Mann wouldn’t let him handle any money or gold dust. Mr. Mann’s shop was down by the waterfront. It fact, it sat smack dab on the waterfront, on a marshy patch of land that had been underwater during the spring floods. But it was close to where the steamboats and rafts tied up after their trip up the Yukon River.

More than a few men staggered off the boats, took one look at the town they’d tried so hard to reach, and offered to sell the nearest merchant all they had. For pennies on the dollar. And merchants such as Mr. Mann were more than happy to help them out. There were as many men eager to buy as to sell, and at the highest prices in all of North America. Mr. Mann specialised in hardware— construction supplies such as nails, hammers and saws— although he was agreeable to handling anything and everything that he could buy for one price and sell for a higher amount. His canvas tent was one of the largest of the multitude that stood storage-box-to-storage-box, guyrope-to-guy-rope, and tent-peg-to-tent-peg all along the sandbar. The tent on one side of them sold tinned goods, on the other, men’s clothes, most of which were heavily worn and many-times repaired.

When Angus and Mr. Mann left for work that morning, Mrs. Mann had handed Angus a large package, wrapped in brown paper, and Mr. Mann had told him that he would have half an hour for his lunch.

He’d never so much as thought about where food came from and how it was prepared before he and his mother had headed for the Chilkoot trail and the Yukon Territory, but he’d soon learned enough to help feed the porters and themselves. Angus had begun to think that he might like to be a chef in a fancy restaurant some day. That was, of course, if for some reason he didn’t become a Mountie. Or a cowboy, riding the range, herding cattle.

But working in the hardware store, along side the taciturn Mr. Mann? He couldn’t imagine anything worse.

At noon, delighted to escape from the narrow world of the canvas tent and Mr. Mann’s watchful, hooded eyes, Angus carried his meal down to the docks to watch the boats coming in and the crowds gathering.

It was a pleasant day, the sun warm in a white and blue sky. The docks didn’t offer any place to sit as every tree or patch of green grass had been chopped down or pounded underfoot long ago. Angus placed his lunch on a tall wooden box and unwrapped it. Mrs. Mann didn’t disappoint, and he dug enthusiastically into a thick sandwich. This working stuff made a man hungry.

A poster had been nailed to the box advertising a prize fight between Slim Jim, “The Pride of New York City” and “Canada’s Own” Big Boris Bovery. Angus wished he could go to the match. But they’d never let a boy like him across the threshold.

The sandwich was dry, could do with a lot more butter, and the bread wasn’t fresh. But the beef filling was thick, and there were two more sandwiches in the packet, along with a pile of cookies.

“What are you doing down here, my lad?” Sergeant Lancaster bellowed into Angus’s ear. “Sterling gave me your message. Said you can’t make the lesson ’cause you have to work. In a store. That’s no excuse for a man missing his boxing lesson. Take me to meet this boss of yours.”

“That’s probably not a good idea, sir. He wouldn’t understand.”

“Nonsense, boy. Soon as the fellow knows what’s what, he’ll let you off work. Nice lunch you have there. Your mother make it for you?”

“No, sir. Mrs. Mann, our landlady.”

Lancaster eyed the remaining sandwiches.

“Would you like one, sir?”

“No. No. Can’t take your food, eh? You’re a growing boy.”

“There’s more here than I can eat.” Angus said. Reluctantly, he pushed the package over.

Lancaster snatched a sandwich and bit off a generous mouthful. “Let’s go talk to this boss of yours.”

“I don’t think…”

“Lead the way, boy.”

Before Angus could fold up his lunch wrappings, Lancaster snatched a couple of cookies. Angus’s boxing instructor was big, burly—owing more to fat than muscle these days—nose broken multiple times, almost bald, with a bullet-shaped head, ears like cauliflowers, and as ugly as sin. All that good stuff, Angus thought, that came with being a genuine boxing champion.

Mr. Mann agreed that Angus could take the occasional afternoon off work in order to have his boxing lesson. Mrs. MacGillivray had no need, he said with a heavy wink, to know that her boy wasn’t working in the store in the afternoons. He also told Angus that his pay on lesson days would be cut in half. Oh well, if his mother asked what happened to half his pay, Angus would explain that Mr. Mann decided he didn’t need help some afternoons. But he didn’t expect her to have much interest in counting the few cents that would amount to his day’s wages.

Lancaster led Angus through town to the fort. “Shopkeeping’s no job for a man,” he said at one point, stepping around the carcass of a horse that had moments before simply decided to stop working and to lie down to die in the middle of the street.

“Mr. Mann does well at it,” Angus ventured to say, feeling some need to be loyal to his employer. “He makes good money.”

“Shop work’s for immigrants and women,” Lancaster explained. “You can stay there for awhile. It’s important you begin to earn some money to support your mother, but not for long.”

Angus was happy to be given the chance to take lessons. And from a former champ at that. After all, there was no one else who could be relied upon to protect his mother. But his face still hurt from the “accidental” blow Lancaster had landed on it at the first lesson.

“Tell you what,” Lancaster said, as they crossed the Fort Herchmer central square. The wind was low, and the Union Jack hung limply on the flag pole. “There’s a match Thursday at the Horseshoe between Slim Jim and Big Boris Bovery. How’d you like to come with me,?”

“Would I? Yes, sir! That would be wonderful, sir!”

“Good lad.” Reality intruded, and Angus’s heart sank.

“But they won’t let me in, sir. I’m only twelve.”

“Don’t worry about it, son. I’ll vouch for you.” Lancaster slapped him so hard on the back, Angus almost tumbled across the square. But he scarcely minded. A real prizefight. He couldn’t wait.

Now all he had to do was make sure his ma didn’t catch wind of it.