Page 73 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

Then the loneliness of living in Mrs. Stein’s grand mansion, ignored by the other servants, wondering if she’d made a mistake yet still holding onto that precious dream. And Chicago, when that dream had turned into fleeting, glittering reality, and for six months she’d thought she’d reached the summit of her paltry ambitions, only to tumble right down to the ground.

Her mind moved to San Francisco, where she’d discovered her calling to be a nurse, and Juneau, where she’d discovered her calling to be a mother.

She’d learned through it all, Maggie thought, and she was grateful for those lessons even if she still ached with regret. If only she’d realized she’d loved Brendan sooner. If only she hadn’t been so stupid…

“Maggie!”

Her head jerked up and she let out a shriek of surprise as Brendan’s hands gripped her shoulders hard enough to hurt and he thrust her away so hard she stumbled.

“You almost walked straight off the ridge!” he shouted at her, and blinking, Maggie realized, in her reverie, she had walked far too close to the edge of the trail, which led steeply down a granite canyon.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped out, reeling back, but Brendan just shook his head.

“Be careful,” he ground out, and he strode back to his own horse.

Maggie knew his anger masked a far greater fear, but she still felt ashamed as she forced herself to focus on the trail right in front of her. Now was not the time for maudlin reflections or pointless daydreams.

For she soon learned Brendan had been right, and the hardest had indeed been yet to come, and now it was here. A grueling, mile-long ascent to the summit, steeper than anything ever before, so her horse balked again and again and Maggie glimpsed the rotting carcasses of those animals who had been unable to make the climb.

She broke the switch she’d been using and had to cut another, whipping the animal up the hill and sobbing all the while, out of exhaustion and frustration and fear. She wanted to give up as much as the horse did.

Ahead of her, she could see Brendan urging his own animal up the steep path, the mud now mixed with snow, his head lowered, his face set in alarmingly grim lines. The once warm day had turned cold, the wind bitter. The sweat dried to her skin and the weeping blisters on her fingers froze. Still, they went on.

There was nothing, Maggie thought, but this trail, this climb, this endless striving. Tears and sweat blurred her vision so she could barely see, and yet still she kept going, yanking the poor horse when she had to, her cold, bleeding hands hard on the rope.

And then somehow, like a miracle, they were at the top. The trail fell away, the ground flattened out, and gasping for breath, Maggie straightened to view the incredible vista all around them—snow-capped peak after peak, stretching endlessly under a bright blue sky. Snow had been piled high to clear a trail past several raggedy-looking tents, the way down to the other side. It was early evening, but the sun was still high, although the air at the summit was frigid.

Around them, miners and their animals were in various states of exhaustion—doubled over, their hands on their knees, slumped or even collapsed on the ground. Maggie watched one man kiss the snowy ground, tears streaming down his face. Theywere all so relieved to have made it, and yet there was so much more to come.

And yet… they’d done it. She looked to Brendan, who was wiping his forearm across his brow, his face drawn in taut lines of exhaustion. She followed his narrowed gaze to one of the tents and realized it was the newly formed customs post. The thought of having to go back felt utterly inconceivable; she could neverdo that ascent again, Maggie thought with more resolve than panic,never.

And thankfully, she didn’t have to. When she and Brendan approached the tent, they found it empty.

“He’s gone for his supper,” another miner explained. “He said they need more men up here, but it’s not a job many want.” He shrugged. “For now, you can just walk by.”

Maggie exchanged an incredulous look with Brendan, and then he laughed, shaking his head.

“Let’s get down beyond the snowline,” he decided, “and then we’ll make camp.” He paused, and then a smile, wide and genuine, split his face. “We made it, Maggie,” he said, a wobble in his voice that told Maggie he hadn’t been sure they would. Well, she hadn’t been sure, either.

“We made it,” she agreed, and still exhausted, aching, and dirtier than she’d ever been in her life, Maggie followed Brendan through the pass and down the trail on the other side.

They were that much closer, she thought with a pulse of relief, to finding her father and brother.

CHAPTER 37

Lake Bennett was a flat, glassy stretch of water between the snow-capped mountain peaks, its shores crowded with tents, horses, piles of supplies and felled trees.

The sound of hammering and sawing filled the air as men set to work building their boats, punctuated by the occasional sudden crack, as loud as a gunshot, of ice breaking. The lake still had sheets of ice on its deepest parts, but the Yukon was flowing, others said, although with chunks of ice bobbing in its turbulent waters. It would take Maggie and Brendan a few days at least to build their boat, and by that time Brendan had said he hoped the river would be freer of ice, which could create dangerous jams.

It had taken Brendan and Maggie three more days to reach the head of the Yukon River, and Maggie didn’t think she’d ever been so tired—or so dirty. She’d washed her face and hands in a mountain stream, but beyond that, she hadn’t been able to bathe, and she was sure she smelled.

She was grateful, though, to be over the worst of the trail—from now on, they would be sailing down the river, which, while it certainly possessed its own dangers with its many rapids, at least meant she wouldn’t have to pull her horse along a rocky, muddy trail, every muscle she had screaming in protest.Brendan intended to sell the horses before they set off in their boat; it would be too difficult to keep them fed and sheltered for the rest of the journey.

“We’ll make camp,” Brendan told her. “And then we’ll start sawing tomorrow.”

As they headed over toward a clearing by the lake to set up their camp, Maggie glanced curiously at the other miners who were hard at work, their boats in various stages of completion. Many were simple scows shaped like a rectangular box, with sides a few feet high; others were built like canoes or skiffs. The woods surrounding the lake were already being stripped bare as miners took their lumber straight from the trees that grew there.

An hour later, their tent was set up, the horses fed and watered, and Maggie was warming a can of stew over the campfire while Brendan went to talk to some of the other miners to learn the lay of the land.