Mary Connealy Read Online Free Page B

couldn’t let Amy do hard labor she was obviously unsuited for.
    He moved to her side. “What is this thing?”
    Amy looked up from her position on her knees. “It is an umiak .”
    “What?”
    “It is a boat called an umiak. It has a wooden frame, and Wily has his covered with walrus hide. It is suited for shallow water and heavy loads.”
    Braden thought about it and figured if a walrus wasn’t waterproof then nothing was. His supplies—six good-sized boxes—would nearly fill it. Good thing Amy didn’t seem to have anything beyond the small satchel she slung over her neck and shoulder. Just more evidence of how ill-equipped she was for this journey.
    “Let me do that.” He dropped on his knees beside her and gave his head a little sideways jerk to get her out of the way.
    With a grateful smile, Amy got to her feet and let him take over. Between him and Wily, they had the boat launched in a couple of minutes. Wily pulled the floating umiak down the bay toward Braden’s supplies.
    Braden and Wily worked in silence loading. Wily looked up at Amy and asked, “Ride, little Amaruq?”
    Braden tried to figure out just what he’d heard. Amaruq? The man slurred his words like he almost never used his voice, which Braden could believe considering how little he’d spoken so far.
    “Until you hit the current.” Amy nodded. “Then I’ll walk.” She climbed in.
    Braden noticed the lack of room for him in the umiak. He didn’t get a chance to ask where he was supposed to sit before Wily began leading the boat up the bay, away from Goose Chase and civilization.
    Amy and Wily were about twenty feet away from him before Braden realized he was walking, no doubt all the way to Ian’s camp, over twenty miles away through some of the roughest territory in the world. The steamship had docked early, and they’d walked the miles to Goose Chase as quickly as possible, towing the cart. The trip could be made in one day easily in the normal course of things. Then Braden looked ahead at the big, blue water of the bay. It narrowed in the distance and cut between two mountains that sprang straight up from the water’s edge. How were they supposed to walk through that?
    A rustling of bushes behind them reminded Braden of the men who had shown interest in accompanying them. It made no sense. The stampeders headed up the Chilkoot Pass toward Dawson’s Creek. Why would a gold-hungry miner want to follow them? Braden had turned down an offer of company from Stucky and that sharp-eyed stranger named Thompson, who’d hovered too close to Amy on the boat. Neither had seemed as interested in the gold as they were in Amy.
    Braden had done his best to lose them in the horde at the dock, even though they had to tug along the cart Amy had found. They’d headed out of Skaguay, walking down what looked like a game trail to Goose Chase. He’d thought they’d slipped away unnoticed. Now those rustling bushes made him wonder.
    Should he investigate? He studied the undergrowth, then looked forward toward the mountain Wily seemed determined to walk over. Braden forgot the bushes and trudged forward, filled with dread.
    ❧
    Filled with wonder, Amy leaned forward, so eager to get through the bay and into the narrow waters of the Skaguay River that she could barely stay seated. Hearing her Tlingit name for the first time in years renewed her spirit. She’d known Wily from her earliest memory.
    The beauty was so profound Amy wondered if God had created Alaska as a drink for a thirsty soul. She longed to get out of Wily’s slow-moving umiak and march away from this easy water passage and into her wilderness. She stayed put, of course. She was in a hurry to get to Papa. Now wasn’t the time to reacquaint herself with her magnificent home. And she knew there’d be no riding when Wily’s umiak started scraping along the bottom of the river. They’d need every hand on the ropes. With her ribs still aching, she did the practical thing and saved her