Here is my stab at a horror story set in Dawson city during the Yukon-Klondike Gold Rush of 1896-1899.
In 1897, the Excelsior pulled into Seattle with “A ton of gold,” mined from a small tributary of the Yukon River. By summer of 1898, 40,000 “Stampeders” poured into Dawson City, YT. According to the census taken by the Mounties, only about 16,000 decided to tough out the harsh Yukon winter. Of those, only approximately 500 were women. And most were “Ladies of the Evening,” adept at making their fortunes by mining the miners.
Miners were dropping like flies during the long, dark winters. Flu, typhoid, malaria, scarlet fever, small pox and even just the brutal cold were killers. But the most lethal of them all was scurvy. While the British understood that giving their sailors lime or lemon juice prevented scurvy, the underlying mechanism, vitamin C was not understood. Potatoes were a great source of nutrients as well. Miners were known to give whole bags of gold dust in exchange for a good bag of potatoes.
But why don’t we let our imaginations wander? What if something more sinister were stalking this mining town in the subzero darkness? Enjoy the start of my story below.
“How many so far this week?” she heard Frank ask, as he eyed the frosted burlap sacks of bodies and coffins stacked against the side of the warehouse. The rough wooden fence around the gravel yard somewhat protected them from the wolves, bears and other predators, but not from the relentless wind and snow blowing off the frozen Yukon River. Nor did it protect them from the smaller creatures, the voles and mice that decided a body made a great companion for the long, dark northern winter. Tiny chewed holes in the burlap and wood showed evidence of their residence. The men ignored such grim realities, much as they had ignored the perils of coming to the frozen north in pursuit of a golden dream.
“Fuck, at least twenty,” Joe replied. “They’re dying at a rate of three to four a day, if not more. All the new construction from the fire back in November depleted my store of planks. I’m running out of wood for coffins. I’m gonna’ have to take the sled up the Stewart River tomorrow to the Mill—get more lumber. They’re starting to stack up in bags.” He motioned to the pile inside the fence next to his shop with his gloved hand.
“Can’t believe how bad scurvy’s going ‘round already,” Joe continued as they loaded bags from the pack teams into the open bay of his warehouse. “That and dysentery. It’s barely December and men are shittin’ themselves to death in their cabins. We ain’t even hit the real cold months yet. It’s not just smallpox, typhus, consumptions, or just cold that’s killing ‘em this year.”
“Are they sure it’s scurvy?” Frank grunted, as he picked up a sack of potatoes and tossed it. “I’ve heard rumors. Some people are saying its plague. Hear they’re dropping too fast and too sudden for it to be just mere scurvy or typhoid.”
“Nah, Frank. Dawson ain’t no different than any other rush town, other than they built it on a sloppy mudflat. Dysentery and typhoid wouldn’t spread so quick if they hadn’t—or if men would boil their water long enough. I’ve made too many coffins in my time and buried too many idiots,” Joe said, pausing to spit off to the side. “I know scurvy and typhoid when I see it, and these men are rife with it. Goes from working too hard, eating rotten potatoes and not having a good woman in your life.”
Both men laughed. It was a common joke in Dawson City. The lack of women in the rapidly-built gold-rush town in the Yukon. When the news that the Excelsior had pulled into Seattle with a ton of gold from the Klondike in the summer of ‘87, a literal human stampede began. Over a million people made plans to go to the Yukon, only a hundred thousand made it across the border. By thaw of 1898, a non-stop stream of humanity flowed into the place the Tr’ondek Hwech’in or Han once called the “Hammer Water” or the Tron-duick in their language. Overnight it became the largest city north of Seattle and west of Winnipeg. By the October freeze-up of the Yukon, only fifteen thousand or so remained. Only five hundred or so of them women.
Seemed like even fewer to Helena, being one of the unfortunate few, as she listened to the two men as they talked and threw sacks of goods. She huddled in the shadow of the stacks of coffins, tired of their gossip. Yet the strange turn of their conversation piqued her curiosity.
“But have you seen their necks? I’ve never heard of scurvy doing that before.” Frank said, rubbing his own neck beneath his scarf, then his protruding belly. “They’re purple and bruised. Looks almost like plague. And what about that other guy—the one the crew brought in from El Dorado creek? The doc at the hospital had to saw off his legs. They said it looked like bite marks.”
“Scurvy can make people do some strange shit,” Joe said, shaking his head. “So will the cold and the dark. Starts to get so some folks. There’s a reason they call it ‘cabin fever.’ They pull out their own teeth and hair and claw and scratch at themselves. The start to hallucinate when it gets bad. Saw it all the time over in Steel Creek and Forty-Mile. Hell, that really pretty blonde—Helena? You know, the one that serves whiskey at the Last Dog? You heard what her husband did to her back in the fall?”
“No, what?” Frank asked.
She coughed, subzero night air clawing at her throat and lungs. She shuffled her feet and pulled her dead husband’s wool jacket closer around her. They didn’t realize she was there, standing in the shadows, listening. Otherwise they wouldn’t talk so freely, but now she was tired of their gossip, she wanted them to just shut up and finish their work.
They both looked up, jaws dropping. “Sorry Mrs.—I mean Ms. Olsen,” Joe stammered.
He would remind her of her single status—he’d only proposed twice since she’d been widowed. No one in this town of thousands of single men wanted a young woman like her to remember she had been married once—to a murderous bastard at that. Everyone glossed that fact over when they spoke to her about the virtues of being married, how she needed a protector. The fact that her first husband had nearly beat her to death, and succeeded in killing her unborn baby was a minor detail in their eyes.
“Please excuse the foul language,” he said, tugging at his fur cap in the cold night air.
“Of course,” she replied with a nod, wrapping her thick blue knit scarf closer around her face, as if it would offer some protection from their scrutiny. The two men gaped at her for a moment longer—all of the men in the town did. She stiffened her back, wrapping her arms around her chest. She clenched her jaw, dying to tell them to stop staring, knowing it would do no good. She knew exactly what they were looking at. She tugged her wool cap closer over her platinum blonde curls, the rough fabric of her scarf scratching against the fair skin of her cheeks and forehead. Her porcelain-white skin always turned rosy with cold—courtesy of her Danish ancestry. She chafed her arms, digging her fingers into the fabric of her dead husband’s thick wool coat as Joe’s eyes roved over her. Even with the multiple layers of clothing, she felt him undressing her with his mind.
She supposed she was pretty; she couldn’t remember the last time she felt even close to that. Here in this strange frozen world, she felt like some sort of freak on display. At the saloon every night, men called her lots of things: pretty, beautiful, a goddess. The “Angel of Dawson” was their favorite. She received at least five if not six proposals over the course of an average evening from drunk men starved for female attention. It wasn’t hard to be beautiful in a world with nearly no women. She drew a deep sigh, thinking once more of her dead bastard of a husband, Charles, and how she’d ended up in this icy, dark hell.
The men lowered their voices, occasionally glancing her way. She ignored them, clutching the heavy, rough coat closer. She trained her eyes on the neat stacks of crudely constructed caskets. People dead too late in the season to be put into the frozen ground or hauled away like cargo to be buried in their homelands. For most, after wasting all their time and money in the desperate search for gold, there wasn’t enough left for a ticket home in a box, even if the steamers were running on the frozen Yukon.
After three months, she didn’t have to count her way to the right one anymore, or even dust the frost off to read the name inscribed on the side, she knew the pattern of the warped birch by heart.
She came here nearly every night if the weather wasn’t bad. She came here to stare at the coffin and curse his name. She swallowed hard against the bitterness rising in her throat. Too bad he wasn’t still alive so she could choke him to death with her own hands for what he’d done to her. Her belly ached in sympathy with her thoughts. She closed her eyes and put her hand over her already flat stomach, made even smaller by the tightly laced corset beneath her coarse gray woolen dress. The purple bruises Charles had left on her skin had faded, but the memories of that final fatal night never would.
But why? Why did he have to take that from me too before he died leaving me in this place?
And then the good people of this shitty mining town had the nerve to put my dead baby in with the bastard.
Every night she fantasized about wrenching open the casket and ripping the tiny mass from the dead monster’s arms.
Without meaning to, she began to listen to the conversation of the two men again. Probably because it concerned her boss, Gus Bronstein.
“Speaking of women—have you been to the new ‘parlor’ that’s opened?” Frank asked.
“Nah, have you?”
“No, but I walked by there the other night, the old Lewiston place. They’ve renamed it ‘The Crimson Glove.’ It’s appointment only. Real classy—pretty spendy too. Not like the whores in Paradise Alley. Bronstein owns the building. He’s renting it out to this foreigner and his gals. They arrived three weeks ago by dog sled from Whitehorse. The ladies are something else.”
“That’s the problem with this town,” Joe said as he tossed another bag into the warehouse, he paused again. Helena caught his stare out of the corner of her eye. He adjusted his belt and looked her over. The hair prickled on the back of her neck. She willed herself to focus on the wooden box.
“Too many men blowing their load on Hurly-gurdy girls and whiskey, rather than focusing on hard work. The only way to make it in this town is to mine the miners and stay away from the cribs and Saloons.”
“Yeah other than Bronstein and the other saloon owners,” Frank said. “I think you’re the richest man in town, what with all the coffins.”
“That and the wood for sluice boxes and construction,” Joe said a smirk playing on his broad face. “I’ve already got enough orders placed to build new cabins through next September. They’re going to be popping up like daisies, Here and along Front street. People rebuilding after November’s fire. You could say I’m doing pretty good. Even if there are rumors that the boom is over.” He stole another look at Helena, combing his fingers through his beard.
“Whatta’ ya’ mean?” Frank pausing as he dragged a box of nails off the back of the wagon.
I should leave. Before Joe gets it into his head to propose again. Helena thought, crossing her arms over her chest. The pistol she wore at her side beneath the coat dug into her hip. Joe took a step her way and opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. Another voice cut through the blowing wind, attracting Helena’s attention. Joe scowled and put his hands on his hips for a moment before stomping away into his warehouse.
“Helena? Helena? What you do out here?” the low, soothing voice scolded from the darkness. A smile came to her lips at the woman’s familiar broken English.
Thanks for reading! I am in the final stages of editing A Drink of Darkness and will start querying soon. The sequel, Cutting the Night, is 50% complete.