Larkson/ Wish upon a Northern Star

Copyright (c) 2007

CHAPTER {1}

What had gone so wrong?

Christy Macalhaney lay huddled in the berth she shared with a man who was a stranger to her, and a small boy. The day had started out no different than any other, but it had ended with seventeen-year-old Christy on a ship bound for Alaska.

Sleep didn’t come easy and when it did, it was full of nightmares. She could again see the face of Montrose, as he leered at her and spoke of the money she could make for him. Then, his face had been replaced by the face of her mother. All over again she was dying, and whispering words of love, and telling her daughter about the father she had never known. Christy wasn’t aware she had been thrashing about and crying in her sleep until she felt the comforting arms of the stranger who shared her bunk.

“Are you alright son?”

Christy didn’t realize the man was talking to her, until she opened her eyes and his face was just mere inches from her own.

“I’m fine sir, I was just having a bad dream.”

Christy hadn’t paid any attention to the man and the little boy who had been with him when she had first been escorted to steerage and shown her bunk. But she did now. Even though he had a full beard, the same sandy blond as his full head of hair, which tended to curl just on the ends and around his ears, she was sure he was younger than he first appeared.

His eyes were a soft warm blue that reminded Christy of a bright warm summer day, and his lips were full, and looked so soft, even though his upper lip was covered with a thick moustache the same color as his hair and beard. The hand he had put on her side to offer comfort was big and warm. She could tell he was a very strong caring man.

( 1 )

“My name is Jacob Adams, but everyone calls me Jake, and this little tyke here is my four- year old son Mathew, but we just call him Mat.”

Christy almost told him her real name before she remembered women don’t travel alone especially in steerage and she certainly couldn’t afford first class. So she just said, “My name is Chris Macalhaney, I’m traveling to Sitka, Alaska I’m going to look for work there.”

Christy watched in awe as the man’s whole face transformed when he smiled. It was as if the sun had just come up over the horizon.

“Well this must be my lucky day, I live in Sitka, and I’m looking for someone who can stay at my cabin and look after Mat while I’m at work at the cannery. Would you be interested in that job? It wouldn’t pay a whole lot, just room and board and two dollars a month but it sure would take a lot of worry off of me.”

Christy thought about it for just a few minutes. If she were to take this man up on his offer, then she would have a place to spend the winter and she would be making money to boot. Then in the spring she could go in search of her father. She looked him in the eye. “I’ll work for you.” Then she rolled over and went back to sleep.

*****

Within moments, Christy was right back to where her nightmare began.

September 14^th, 1880 had broke with a bright shining sun over a usually cloudy Seattle Washington. Christy’s mother, Sadie Macalhaney had awakened her daughter at daybreak just the same way she had for years.

“Christy time to get up honey, you are going to be late for school.”

Christy slowly forced herself to rise from the floor of the tiny closet, which had served as her bedroom for the last five years she and her mother had been at this particular brothel.

“I’m up mama.”

Christy walked out into the one room she shared with her mother and immediately saw the frown on the face of the woman who still looked young enough to be her sister instead of her mother.

“I know mama, I will put my hair up in just a moment, I just need to relieve myself first.”

Sadie Macalhaney just shook her head.

Christy could almost read her mother’s thoughts.

Will this girl never learn how dangerous it is to take the chance of letting people find out she is in fact a girl? Hadn’t she spent the last almost eighteen years making sure no one knew?

The last thing on earth Sadie Macalhaney had ever wanted for her daughter was to watch her end up being a prostitute like her mother.

If Montrose La Fluor ever found out Christy was a girl of seventeen, instead of Sadie’s twelve year old son Chris, then not only would he beat Sadie for lying to him, but he would have her daughter on her back so quick it would make her head spin. That was something Christy knew, Sadie Macalhaney had no intentions of ever letting happen.

The only other person in the whole world, who knew Christy wasn’t a boy, was Sadie’s best friend Angel, who had been there when Christy was born. Sadie helped Angel the next year when she had birthed a little girl, Jenny, but Angel never tried to hide the fact she had a daughter, she had been so sure Jenny’s father was going to marry her.

Well Jenny’s father hadn’t married Angel; it seemed he already had a wife and four other children, which he had neglected to tell Angel about. Now Angel lived in a room just down the hall and she worried constantly about just when Montrose would come and get her little girl and turn her into a soiled dove just like her mother.

Angel had promised Sadie she would go to her grave with the secret about Christy untold. Christy had hoped her mother’s friend would be good to her word.

Christy had taken the time to dress carefully. She bound her ample breasts, just the way her mother had shown her. It was getting more difficult with each passing day to keep up this charade, as Christy had developed a woman’s figure, which was getting harder and harder to hide.

She put on one of her old wool shirts, which was two sizes to big, and the pair of oversized overalls that had seen better days. She finished her outfit with the plain brown stocking cap her mother had knitted for her.

Her long dark auburn tresses had been fashioned into a braid and wound up on the top of her head, then carefully covered with the brown nondescript cap. Christy slipped on her worn black work boots over her men’s plain white socks and she was ready to go.

Waving goodbye to her mother, Christy headed down the stairs, on her way to the kitchen at the back of the house. She knew Mrs. Olsen would already be there, and her hot cross buns would be there waiting also.

Mrs. Olson was a short chubby kind lady. Though she was at least sixty, her hair was still mostly a golden Norwegian blond, which was always bound, in a strict bun at the back of her head. Her cheeks were always a bright red from having her face in the oven most of the day, and she always had a ready smile for Christy, or Chris as the old cook knew her.

“Guden mornen Chris, the buns are cooling on the sideboard and the milk is cooling on the counter. Help yourself before taking last nights scraps out to my chickens.”

Christy nodded her greeting to the old cook and headed for the buns. She knew this would be the only meal she would have until she arrived home this evening, and she wanted time to have more than one.

“Don’t you just walk out of here without even a bye your leave young man.”

Mrs. Olsen was now facing Christy, and waving a rolling pin at her.

“Good morning Mrs. Olsen how are you?”

“I’m just fine boy and don’t think for a minute I have forgotten what tomorrow is either.”

Christy smiled at the old woman, tomorrow was her eighteenth birthday and although the old woman thought it would be her thirteenth, she never forgot.

“So what kind of cake do you want this old woman to make for you?”

“Chocolate of course,” Christy replied, being very serious as if they were discussing the current events in the world.

“Ya ya chocolate would be goud,” with a conspiratorial wink she added, “I will sneak it up to you and your mama after Mr. La Fluor has gone to the gambling room for the night.”

Christy nodded as she stuffed another bun in her mouth, she chewed quickly then gulped her milk.

With a wave and a thank you to the old woman, she went out the back door with the slop bucket in her hands.

Mrs. Olsen’s chickens were her pride and joy. The cook for the Scarlet Rose was known to grow the largest best laying hens in the whole territory. A fact she was forever letting anybody close enough hear all about.

With the chickens fed, Christy headed for the school.

The Scarlet Rose was on the waterfront and the Seattle prep school was two miles away in the downtown district of the city. Christy was thankful for her disguise of a boy this morning, as she was every morning.

Walking though the waterfront district could be very dangerous for a young girl. There were seedy looking men sleeping in almost every doorway.

Christy looked at the faces of the men this morning just as she did every morning. She knew it was a waste of time to look for a man who had her same features, but she just couldn’t help it. She had never known her father; her mother had always told her he had gone off to war and never returned, she didn’t even know his real name, or what he looked like.

Christy always looked anyway. Her mother was tiny and blond with sky blue eyes and pale very white skin. Christy on the other hand was much bigger boned and she had a rosy complexion with dark auburn hair and very deep dark moss green eyes. She reasoned she must look like her father, so she couldn’t help but look at every man she passed hoping to see the same eyes and that same little mole she had on her right cheek.

As she looked at the men she walked past, she mentally checked them off in her mind. The man, who slept in the doorway of the Golden Goose saloon, was too short and bald. The man in the next doorway was too brown, and his hair was blond, or had been at one time, right now it was a dirty greasy, dishwater color. Man after man, and none of them came near Christy’s idea of what her father might look like. She knew he wouldn’t be found here anyway, unless of course, he was looking for Christy’s mother.

Christy liked to fantasize about her father coming and taking her and her mother away. He would be so happy he had found them after all these years, and he would take them home to his big house on the top of some hill.

A house just like the ones that sat on top of Volunteers Hill, where the timber barons of Seattle lived, where the children who went to the prep school lived. Then she could go to the school also and be a real student, instead of just the boy who worked there.

Every morning, Christy walked to the school and started the fire in the potbelly stove, which was used to warm the small school. Then she would wash the blackboard and make sure the chalk was just the way Mr. Higgins wanted it.

Mr. Edgar Higgins was the headmaster and a very strict man, to the outside world anyway. Christy had seen Mr. Higgins leaving Aunt Angel’s room more than once though and the sounds she heard coming from that room could not in any way be described as dignified.

Christy had to giggle as she remembered the skinny little man with the pencil thin moustache, the boulder hat, the three-piece suit, and the straight black walking cane was the same man she had heard just yesterday.

“Miss Angel, your teacher is here to instruct you again,” then he would enter her room.

Luckily Mr. Higgins hadn’t arrived at school by the time Christy did. If he had gotten to the school before Christy, then she would have to listen to him whine all day about it being so cold.

Christy removed the key from its hiding place under the rock by the front door and went inside. She lovingly ran her hands over the rich mahogany wood of the desks. She would give almost anything to be a student here. To be able to wear pretty dresses like the other girls.

Christy had never worn a dress, outside anyway. She had slipped one of her mother’s fancy dresses on one day a couple of years ago, but her mother caught her. Christy thought her mother would whip her, but instead she had sat down and cried. The thought of her daughter dressed as a whore was more than she could take. That had been the first and last time Christy had ever put on a dress.

Christy set to work; first she went out back and gathered enough wood for the day. Then she built the fire in the stove and in just a few minutes the chill that had hovered over the one room schoolhouse was gone. Next she put out the chalk and cleaned the chalkboard. Then she made sure the trashcans were empty and she mopped the floor.

For all her effort, Christy was paid a dollar a month and she was more than glad to get it. She and her mother had been saving for two years now and they had saved up almost fifty dollars. Sadie got to keep a dollar for herself after every ninth customer she serviced and she usually made about a dollar and a half, on a good night.

They had to pay Mr. La Fluor a dollar a week for room and board, but everything else went into the pouch Sadie kept hidden under her mattress. As soon as they had enough money, Christy and Sadie were going to move into a rented house and lead normal lives.

Lately though, Christy noticed her mother was always tired and she had been coughing almost constantly for the past few weeks. Christy begged her mother to go and see one of the doctors in town, but Sadie had just smiled, and told her respectable doctors don’t treat whores.

*****

Christy woke with a start. For a moment, she didn’t realize where she was. Then the memories came flooding back. Covering her head with the thin blanket so Jake and his son would not hear, Christy let the tears she had been holding at bay fall.

Mama would never need a doctor now, and they would never live in that rented house and Christy knew, she would probably never find her father. All she had in the whole world was a thin blanket, and a small patch of berth on a ship bound for the end of the world.

Jake was quite satisfied with himself though. Not only had he gotten the young boy to forget about his nightmare and go back to sleep, but he had secured a person to stay with his four-year-old son while he worked.

The best part though, was the fact he didn’t have to ask the Widow Thompson to watch Mat. He hadn’t wanted to give the woman any ideas. The last thing on earth Jake Adams wanted or needed was a woman around who thought she could snag him. He didn’t plan on ever getting married again. Once had been more than enough.

Jake lay in his bunk thinking about the last few days and his life. He had arrived in Seattle just a short week ago. His sister Emily had sent him a letter a couple of months back. It had been short and to the point. He could remember it almost word for word.

Dear Jake.

I am expecting again, this will be number five for us. With little Ian still in diapers, I hope you will understand what I am about to say. I can no longer care for Mathew, as I already have my hands quite full with my own brood.

Dear brother, the boy belongs with his father. I doubt he even remembers you, after all, he was less than two when you first brought him here. Please come and get your son as soon as you can.

Love Emily.

It certainly wasn’t Emily’s fault he was in the predicament he was. His son cried when he had taken him from the only home he had ever known. Now he was taking him to a wild untamed country, what had he been thinking?

He knew he wasn’t equipped to take care of a child, Mat would be better off if he had just placed him in the orphanage, like his brother-in-law, Stanley Rinehope the Third told him would be best for the boy.

Jake couldn’t stand the pompous Stanley Rinehope though, so he told the man he was going to take the boy back home with him and raise him to be a man.

The problem was though; Jake didn’t have the first clue on how to go about raising a child. It was at times like this Jake wished Sarah were still alive.

Yes, sweet pretty little Sarah, he had loved her from the first moment he laid eyes on her and he had thought she loved him.

After just one year of marriage, she had given him a son. Jake was the happiest and proudest man on earth. What they lacked in money, they had made up for in love. He didn’t mind working sixteen hours a day down at the pier in Seattle, if it meant coming home at night to the family he loved and one that loved him in return.

After Mat was about a year old though things began to change. Not so much you would take notice right off, just small subtle changes. Jake would come home and Sarah wouldn’t be there. The neighbor lady would be watching Mat. When Sarah would get home, Jake could smell the lingering fragrance of another man’s cologne, and the pungent odor of hard licquer on her skin and clothes.

Sarah would just say she had been out visiting a sick friend or caring for a sick friend’s children. She didn’t want to take Mathew along because she didn’t want him to get sick too. If what she said was true, then why had she done up her long blond curls into a fancy do? And why had she started painting her lips? And just where had she heard those tunes she was forever humming under her breath?

The biggest change of all though, was the fact she no longer wanted Jake to touch her. She would say she was too tired, or she had a headache, or it was her monthly time. Every night it was a different excuse.

Jake remembered the night he had come home early, intending to set his wife down and talk out their problems. She wasn’t there. Jake went out looking for her and found her at the Golden Goose saloon, dressed like a floozy and sitting on the lap of Jake’s boss, Mr. Williams.

Mr. Williams was a mean son-of-a-bitch, who treated his men unfairly and worked more than one good man into an early grave. Jake had gone over to his wife and he had jerked her off of the other man’s lap. They had argued and Sarah had told him to go home, she didn’t love him anymore and she didn’t want to live in squalor with him anymore either.

That was the last time Jake had seen his wife alive.

The knock on his door had come early the next morning. It was the dock warden and he wanted Jake to identify his wife’s body. It seemed Sarah and Mr. Williams had gotten quite drunk the night before. They had decided to go swimming off of one of the piers in the Seattle bay, and their nude drowned bodies had floated up onto the shore.

After the funeral, Jake had taken Mat to his sister Emily and then he had caught the first boat leaving. It was destined for Alaska and the cold rugged country had been a balm to his wounded soul.

Now he had a small boy who looked more like his mother than he did his father, and it was his responsibility to care for him.

Jake had been alone for more than two years now and he had liked it that way. There was no room in his life or his heart for this small stranger. Perhaps having the boy Chris there would help Mat learn to adjust to a very different lifestyle than the one he had known up to now. Jake just hoped he could put the hatred for his dead wife behind him and learn to love his son once more.

His young son slept contently at his side, but he was closer to Chris than he was to Jake.

Jake watched in wonder as Chris pulled Mat into his embrace and Mat cuddled up to the other boy. Mat must have been use to sleeping with Emily’s other children.

Jake watched Chris sleep and he wondered what the story behind a young boy traveling to a strange land by himself really was. Not that he really cared, but he was curious. What kind of parent would let their thirteen or fourteen year old son go off to the Alaska wilderness? Maybe the boy didn’t have any family or maybe he was running from something he had done?

He appeared to be a homely little fellow. Jake had no idea what color his hair was, as Chris seemed mighty attached to the ugly brown stocking cap he wore. The young boy had very expressive eyes though. When he had awaken with tears in his soft moss green eyes, Jake’s heart had gone out to him.

Jake had never had a brother; it had just been Emily and himself. Well if Chris would allow it, he would treat the young boy like he thought a brother should be treated. Perhaps together, they could teach Mat to trust Jake, and Jake to love his son again.

Jake yawned and rolled over he needed to sleep. They would have only a few more nights on the ship and then they would be home. He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep. He just hoped the dreams would not come tonight. Dreams of the saloon, and the piano playing, and of the painted lifeless face of his wife.

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