Page 7 of Echoes of Twilight (Dawn of Alaska #4)

7

M ikhail crouched to pick up one last piece of firewood, the driest he could find in a valley that got soaked with rain on a regular basis, then stood again. His arms full of wood, he made his way back to the small clearing where they’d stopped to camp. But he couldn’t keep his jaw from clenching as he glanced up at the mountain looming to their east. The snow-covered peak towered over the lower valley, its jagged silhouette cutting against the afternoon light. Twilight was still about an hour away, but he’d wanted to be farther along by now, halfway down the other side of the mountain. Instead they were stuck at the base, setting up camp as if this was some leisurely expedition.

The valley itself was beautiful, of course. The sun—which had stayed out all day—hung low, casting long shadows over the landscape and painting the rocky slopes in a mixture of pink and gold and orange.

If only he could trust the sun to stay and the weather to hold until they reached the Iskut River. But he didn’t, considering it was November.

Voices broke through the stillness, and Mikhail straightened, his ears catching the unmistakable sound of an argument.

He headed toward the voices. He needed tension boiling over within the group about as much as he needed a broken leg in the middle of a mountain pass. But he moved only a few more steps before it became clear that Miss Wetherby was one of the people caught up in the argument.

“You knew where the river was this entire time, didn’t you?” Her sharp voice carried through the trees.

Mikhail quickened his pace, his mukluks thudding against the soft ground until his gaze locked on the two people standing at the edge of the clearing.

The giant trunk filled with specimens sat open at Miss Wetherby’s feet, but she wasn’t looking at the trunk. She was looking at her brother crouched a few feet away, staking his tent to the ground in a relaxed manner that looked terribly at odds with his sister’s tense posture.

“You knew where the river was, and you didn’t take us home.” Miss Wetherby crossed her arms over her chest, every line of her body rigid beneath her fancy coat.

“Stop asking so many questions.” Heath gave one of the tent stakes a tap with a large wooden mallet.

“Is what you just said to Richard true?” she snapped, her eyes boring holes into her brother. “Did you intentionally strand us in that valley?”

Mikhail took a few steps closer, his arms still holding the firewood, but neither of the siblings noticed him.

Instead, Heath sat back on his haunches and wiped his palms on his trousers. “You weren’t stranded. And don’t look at me like that. Richard and I needed time to work.”

“Work on what?”

“What do you think?” Heath picked up his mallet and went back to tapping the final stake into the ground. “The Department of the Interior didn’t exactly send us here to study the flora and fauna.”

Her eyes narrowed further. “What then? What did they send you here to study?”

Heath let out a little laugh and shook his head. “What do you think? What’s the one thing everyone wants from Alaska?”

“Gold?” The word escaped on a whisper so low, Mikhail found himself taking a few more steps forward to hear it. “You’re here to look for gold?”

Heath pushed himself off the ground and turned to face his sister. “Don’t act so shocked.”

“But...”

“But what? The expedition provided the perfect opportunity for us to search an uncharted area for gold. I’m not going to apologize for it.”

“Well, you should. You left us in that valley for weeks longer than you should have.”

She was right about that. Mikhail couldn’t be certain that Richard and Heath had intentionally put the rest of the party in danger by prospecting for so long. In fact, if he had to guess, he’d say it was a miscalculation on their part, and they’d prospected for a couple weeks longer than they should have.

But getting everyone out of the mountains on the brink of winter was bound to be more difficult now than it would have been in October.

Mikhail stepped forward to say so, bringing himself even with one of the last trees separating the forest from the clearing. But the siblings still didn’t notice him, and before he could say anything, Miss Wetherby started talking again.

“I’ll already be arriving home too late to go to college this year. I’ll have to see if they’ll take me after Christmas now, but what if we can’t get out of here before spring? Or worse, what if we don’t make it home at all?”

Heath rolled his eyes. “We’ll make it home just fine. And don’t tell me you’re still stuck on that ridiculous college idea. I thought we settled that last spring.”

Her chin came up a notch. “It’s not stupid.”

“It is. Because if you think that as a woman you can?—”

“What are you two arguing about?” Dr. Wetherby sauntered over, adjusting his spectacles as he looked between his children. “Don’t tell me some of the specimens got damaged today.”

“Your specimens are fine.” Miss Wetherby nodded toward the trunk. “I already checked them like you asked.”

Heath shoved a hand in his sister’s direction. “She’s talking about going to Wellesley again.”

Dr. Wetherby pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not that. Good heavens, girl. How many times do I have to tell you to put that foolish idea out of your head?”

“I just want to become a teacher,” she rasped.

A teacher? Mikhail’s arms tightened around the logs. If she was going to college, he’d assumed she would study science. He’d seen enough of the journals and notes tucked inside the trunk to know the majority of them were written in a woman’s hand.

Teaching seemed like a waste of her talents. But what did he know? Perhaps she loved children, and her father forced her to come on these expeditions.

“Lots of women are teachers.” Miss Wetherby straightened her shoulders and met her father’s gaze. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There’s no need for you to learn how to teach when you’ll be married by this time next year. Now where’s Richard?” Dr. Wetherby surveyed the campsite. “You should be helping your fiancé, not arguing with your brother.”

Mikhail froze. Her fiancé? Were Bryony and Richard Caldwell...

Mikhail looked over to find the man in question approaching the group. Richard had been looking at Miss Wetherby. But he must have sensed Mikhail’s gaze, because his eyes came up, and the man smirked.

“You seem upset about something, Amos.”

Miss Wetherby turned Mikhail’s direction, finding where he stood under the low-hanging bows of the spruce.

“I noticed you two talking on the trail earlier.” Richard came up and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, his gaze still pinned to Mikhail. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to steal my fiancée away?”

“I’m not in the market for a wife,” Mikhail gritted, but the hairs on the back of his neck prickled at the notion of Bryony Wetherby—or anyone, really—marrying Richard Caldwell.

“Stop it, Richard.” Miss Wetherby shrugged away from Richard’s arm. “We’re not engaged, and you know it.”

“The two of you should get married in the spring.” Dr. Wetherby gave a determined nod of his head, as though he hadn’t even registered his daughter’s objection to Richard. “That way you can have time to acclimate to married life before we leave on the expedition next summer.”

She threw up her hands. “I’m not going to Yosemite Valley. I already told you. The expedition leaves before I’ll?—”

“I agree.” Richard flashed a condescending smile at the scientist. “If Secretary Gray retires, I won’t be going on the expedition next summer, and neither will Bryony as my wife. That will be too long for us to be apart.”

Her eyes shot little hazel sparks at Richard. “I’m not?—”

“Right, right. I keep forgetting about that.” Dr. Wetherby scratched the side of his head. “I do hope you get the position after Gray retires. You’ll be quite good at it.”

“The position? You mean, secretary of the interior?” Mikhail blurted. He hadn’t met Secretary Jacob Gray personally, but the rest of his family had. The man had toured Alaska just a few months ago with two senators who wanted to see the land firsthand.

And why wouldn’t he? Secretary Gray was in charge of Alaska in every way possible. As secretary of the interior, he alone was responsible for appointing Alaska’s governors.

No one had said the man was in poor health or planning to retire.

“My, my.” Richard made a tsking sound. “You don’t look very happy about this, Amos. Have a problem with me becoming secretary of the interior, do you?”

“Can’t think of a worse man to fill the position,” Mikhail gritted.

Richard straightened, bringing himself to his full height. “Be careful. My father’s a senator.”

“Do you think I care? Because I don’t.” That, and he was tired of members of the Caldwell family throwing their names and positions and titles around as though it somehow made them better than everyone else.

But unfortunately, the Alaska Commercial Company, which the large and sprawling Caldwell family owned, had made everyone in Richard’s extended family filthy rich. Richard’s second cousin, Preston Caldwell, lived in Sitka managing the ACC, and Mikhail’s own family had had several run-ins with the man who thought nothing of hunting Alaska’s seal population into extinction.

Back in August, Secretary Gray had actually named Preston’s brother, Simon, the next governor of Alaska.

Richard wouldn’t know that, though. He’d been traipsing around the wilderness when the former governor had resigned.

Was all this some kind of plan? To have one member of the Caldwell family be secretary of the interior and another be governor of Alaska, all while earning profits from the Alaska Commercial Company?

Mikhail didn’t want to think about how many of Alaska’s natural resources would be exploited if Richard Caldwell became secretary of the interior, nor did he want to think about how much richer every member of the Caldwell family would become, or how much more power the family as a whole would amass.

“We should probably start dinner before it gets dark.” Miss Wetherby offered the group a tense smile. “Mr. Amos, did you have something specific in mind to eat, or do you want us to eat pemmican and biscuits? I’m happy to make some again if you give me the flour.”

“I... ah...” Mikhail blinked. “Biscuits. Right. Let me get the flour.”

“I don’t understand, Amos.” Dr. Wetherby scratched the side of his head, causing a tuft of snowy white hair to stick out. “Why don’t you want Richard here to become secretary of the interior? He’s spent the past decade working for the department. He’s gone on numerous expeditions to catalog natural resources in remote areas, and his father’s position as a senator means Richard has an excellent understanding of the administrative tasks and paperwork that go with the position. He’s the perfect man to fill the role.”

“Yes, Amos, why don’t you want me to be secretary of the interior?” Richard sent him another mocking smile.

“You probably don’t know it, being all the way up here in Alaska, but Richard is quite famous back in Washington.” Heath jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Richard. “He’s published several books.”

Mikhail’s jaw clenched even harder, but he forced himself to keep his mouth shut.

“Yes, yes,” Wetherby blustered. “His first book was about the Athabaskans living along the Yukon River in Alaska’s interior. I’m surprised you haven’t read it, being an expert on Alaska yourself.”

“I’ve read it,” Mikhail finally gritted. About two years before it was published, and then again after the book had gone to press and everyone was talking about it.

“Have you ever been up the Yukon River?” Miss Wetherby asked. Her voice was soft and calm, and something about it reminded him that he couldn’t lunge forward and wrap his hands around Richard Caldwell’s neck—no matter how badly the other man deserved it. “Have you met any Athabaskans?”

“Yes.” Mikhail didn’t take his eyes off Richard as he answered. “My family was exploring that region of Alaska for trade when Richard was living there. It was where we first met. In fact, there’s one person we both knew back then. Her name still stands out to me. Sadzi.”

Most men wouldn’t be able to help looking at least a little guilty, or sucking in a deep breath, or doing something to indicate the mention of the name from a decade ago affected them.

But not Richard Caldwell. He stood there completely unaffected, with a smug smile on his face.

It made Mikhail hope with a renewed sort of fury that Miss Wetherby didn’t marry the man. That no woman ever married him.

“Get the fire started,” he ordered through clenched teeth, setting the wood down in front of him. “I’m going to hunt some rabbits.”