The Klondike Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Vicki Delany
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of her hair flew out of its pins. “I’ve paid you good money. You’re bought now, like a whore. You’re coming with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
He slapped her across the face, hard.
Men’s boasting voices and women’s false laughter died away; musicians stopped playing mid-note; dancers froze mid-step. One man snickered, the laugh cut short.
Ireland pulled back his fist and punched my best dancer full in the stomach. The blood drained from her face, and Irene folded over and vomited.
Chapter Sixteen
Irene would have fallen to the floor if Jack Ireland hadn’t been holding her arm. He slapped her again, hard. The ugly sound echoed throughout the room. Silence spread out from the centre of violence like a tidal wave sweeping all before it.
“You whore. You’ll do what I tell you.”
I freed myself from my rescuers’ hands, lunged forward and raked my nails across Ireland’s face.
He released Irene’s arm and fell back with a cry. “What the hell?” He touched one hand to his cheek and looked at the blood on the pads of his fingers.
I danced back and brought my foot up with a straightlegged jab, placing the heel of my high-heeled boot directly into his crotch. He screamed—the sound highpitched, unworldly—and doubled over.
Blood swam before my eyes. I clenched the back of one hand with the fist of the other and prepared to bring them down across the back of his unprotected neck.
My target disappeared before I got into position. Ray Walker had run through the door, slammed his not-tooconsiderable weight into Ireland and knocked the reporter off his feet. Then, like the scrawny streetfighter from the back alleys of Glasgow that he was, Ray proceeded to kick with a vengeance at every exposed bit of Ireland’s body.
Women screamed, men shouted, as many trying to drag Ray off as were encouraging him to kick harder. I waded through the throng, shouting Ray’s name. I wrapped my arms around his skinny, sunken chest and tried to drag him away, with as much effect as a horsefly attacking a bull moose in rut. I hoisted my skirt past my knees and jumped up to wrap my legs around Ray’s non-existent hips, hoping to drag him down by my weight if nothing else. I heard fabric tear. Ireland had curled into a ball, trying to protect his tender parts. Blood streamed from his nose, blending with the stuff coming from the scratches and the effluent from his eyes into a gory mess of blood, tears and mucus.
If Ray killed Ireland, we’d be shut down for sure, with jail time for Ray, maybe me as well. I prayed for the sound of the booming voice of Constable Sterling arriving to break up the fight, but all I could hear were Ray’s grunts, Ireland’s moans, the distant roar of men yelling and women screaming. And the sound of my own voice, shouting Ray’s name, over and over. Eventually some semblance of common sense fell over the bystanders, and a group of men dragged Ray away, although they were considerably hampered by my weight hanging off him.
I clambered down. Two men held Ray by the arms, and others helped Ireland to his feet. A dark stain spread over the front of the trousers of the San Francisco Standard’s prize reporter. The smell of fear and blood and bloodlust filled the crowded room. The men were murmuring in a dangerous tone.
Ireland pushed away the men holding him. He lunged towards Ray, but Murray grabbed his arm.
“You bastard,” Ireland spat. A mouthful of blood and a shiny white tooth fell onto the floor. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Perhaps, but not in Dawson.” Mouse O’Brien pushed his way through the crowd. Mouse was so big that he could push his way through a brick wall if he ever took a mind to. “Every man here saw you hit that sweet little lady, Miss Irene. We reckon you got what you deserved. Ain’t that right, boys?”
The onlookers shouted their agreement. Now that someone was expressing their feelings, in a calm, rational voice, the muttering and the threat of further violence began to die down.
“We also reckon that if you show your ugly face in this bar again, we’ll finish what Walker didn’t.”
The men cheered. One of the dancers took Irene’s arm, and they slipped into the crowd.
Mouse held up one hand. The crowd hushed, the silence broken only by Ray’s heavy breathing and the wheezing of Ireland’s lungs.
“’Course, maybe we won’t have to. Looks like Mrs. MacGillivray here coulda managed you all by her pretty self.” The men howled with laughter. It was hard to tell through the mess of blood and snot, but Ireland appeared to redden at the insult. His breathing was ragged, and I suspected he’d suffered a broken rib or two.
“Your time in Dawson is done,” Mouse said. “Now get outta here and go clean yourself up. You stink. You’ve interrupted my dancing.” He walked back into the crowd.
Sam Collins stood in the shadows watching as Murray and a couple of onlookers dragged an unresisting Ireland out of the dance hall. The men holding Ray gripped him tighter as they passed, but the fight had gone out of the Scot. He glared at Ireland but made no move to break free. I followed to make sure the newspaperman did indeed leave the Savoy.
Helen Saunderson watched from the doorway of her kitchen slash broom closet, wringing her dishcloth in her hands. The other new bartender, whose name I still didn’t know, stood behind the bar with nothing at all to do. Not a single person waited for a drink. Everyone stood still, watching us pass.
Murray made a move to shove Ireland into the street. I held up a hand and walked around to face the newspaperman. “Surely I don’t have to tell you that you are not to step foot in these premises again, Mr. Ireland.”
He glared at me with such venom that I took a step backwards. In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much hatred in a man’s eyes—the emotion amplified a thousand times by the angry bruises, the right eye swelling shut, the rivers of blood drying across his face. And the rank smell of humiliation and urine-soaked trousers.
“You toffee-nosed English whore,” he hissed. “You’re hiding something beneath your fancy dresses and proper manners. I’ll find it, then I’ll ruin you. Don’t think I can’t. Or I won’t.”
“Please don’t insult me again, Mr. Ireland,” I said. “I am most certainly not an Englishwoman. Goodbye.”
I nodded, and Murray propelled Ireland out the door, not giving a care for the reporter’s bruised and battered body.
Margaret Collins, Sam’s wife, leapt back to avoid colliding with the man being so unceremoniously expelled. Her eyes widened with surprise.
“Margaret,” I said. “What’re you doing here at this time of night?”
“Worrying about Sam,” she replied, watching the battered man struggling in the mud. “It’s almost closing, and I thought I’d walk home with him. Who is that?”
“American newspaperman,” I said. “Nothing but trouble.”
“Mountie coming,” Murray said. Constable Richard Sterling was making his way down the street, attracted by the not-at-all-unusual commotion of someone being thrown out of a bar. With a final bloodspeckled spit, Ireland staggered off in the opposite direction. Sterling watched him go. The reporter looked like any other Saturday night drunk trying to remain upright.
Sam came out of the back and saw his wife in the doorway.
She raised one eyebrow. “Come inside. Help Helen clean up. Quickly.” By the time Constable Sterling walked into the Savoy, Murray and the other new bartender, who I was beginning to think of as Not-Murray, were serving one last round, men were leaning against the bar, laughing uproariously at each other’s jokes, Ray Walker was keeping a steely eye on the roulette wheel, Helen Saunderson and Margaret Collins were putting away pails and wringing out rags, the orchestra was playing its heart out, and the girls were dancing as if it were the last dance of their lives.