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Goldie briskly walked into the cabin and carelessly tossed her pickaxe and shovel aside.
“Be careful! If ye break my supplies, you’ll have tae pay me!”
She turned her head over her shoulder to look at the miserly grungy miner, walking into the cabin behind her and rolled her eyes. He growled and went to carefully lay down his tools, and check on the ones Goldie had thrown.
Goldie slumped down on the bed and started picking the semi dried scab on her hand. An hour ago when they had been mining, Scrooge had yelled at her for being too slow and lazy and in her frustration and determination to show him that she was just as capable as him she accidentally gashed her left hand. That certainly didn’t make her seem any more capable, so she had assured Scrooge that she was fine and when he turned away from her and focused on his own mining, she wrapped her hand in the under skirt from her dress and tried to continue working.
It was pretty bad but she didn’t want to further show him how out of her element she was. She could have used the injury and feigned being super hurt so that she could get out of doing the terrible work and maybe even had time to look for the lockbox. But she knew Scrooge would never let her in the cabin alone. In fact, once he noticed that she was using her pickaxe with one hand and that really wasn’t doing anything he grudgingly, and with a lot of muttered curses, sent her to the cabin and decided to end early for the day himself so that he could go and make sure she didn’t steal anything. Showing weakness wouldn’t do her any good while she was stuck out here with him.
She felt her cheeks slightly burn from the embarrassment and frustration with herself that was starting to swirl in her empty stomach. Ughhh, she had been so foolish. She couldn’t let his angry words affect her this much. She always had to be under control, not a klutzy damsel in distress. But why did she care what he thought of her anyways? She was the Ice Queen of the North. That’s why. She had a reputation to keep. She couldn’t let him see her as less of a formidable threat. But strangely that explanation seemed hollow and almost like an excuse and the implications of that made her feel nauseous.
Suddenly she felt a sharp spark of pain that pulled her out of her thoughts and made her hiss under her breath. Absorbed in her reflections on the events of the day, she had lost attention of her hands and now noticed that she had scraped open a part of the gash that had already been starting to heal. Her hiss spread through the cramped air of the small cabin and startled Scrooge. He was crouched by the stove, putting in wood to build up a fire, and now he looked up and across the room at Goldie.
“There’s some gauze on the table. Ye should go wrap up yer hand.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you cared about me?” Goldie scoffed.
Scrooge lowered his head and Goldie couldn’t see the pink rising on the surface of his cheeks. It's just the fire, he told himself.
“I don’t care about you. Just your ability to dig up gold.”
“Ha! I almost forgot that you’re an inconsiderate and selfish jerk.”
“As if you aren’t,” Scrooge retorted and she gasped, pretending to be offended. She continued to sit pouting on the bed. She was so frustrating. If she didn’t want to deal with her hand, so be it.
She wanted to snap back at him in some way to restore her pride and not let him win but her hand was aching and the part she had just scraped open was starting to bleed. As much as she hated following his advice, she got up and walked over to the table. She took the roll of gauze and tried to rip a portion, but she felt a sharp prickling sensation shoot through her hand and she tried to stifle a shriek.
Scrooge had stood up and walked over to the table by this time and she felt his eyes fixed on her. “Hmm, ye seem to be managing this well” he taunted her and she furrowed her eyebrows in exasperation. She lifted up the gauze to her beak and sunk her teeth into it, hoping to tear a part off. It was pretty tough though and she struggled to even make a slight rip.
She didn’t seem so vile when she was focusing her neverending fury on something other than him. It reminded him of his younger sister Hortense and that filled him with a sense of warm comfort and tenderness that diffused his annoyance and bitterness. Scrooge chuckled and extended a hand.
“Let me help,” he said, much softer than Goldie expected. He seemed genuine and benign which caught her off guard and made her wonder if she should be cautious. She grunted and reluctantly dropped the roll of gauze into his open palm. He closed his fingers over it and then gestured at one of the chairs by the table. Goldie sat down and watched Scrooge grab a bucket of water, a cloth and a second chair from the other side of the table and bring them over to her.
“Give me your hand,” he said as he sat down beside her. She obeyed and felt his rough fingers grip her hand. He dipped the cloth into the bucket, squeezed out the excess water and started to wipe the blood and dirt off the small matted feathers of her palm. She flinched and jerked her hand when she felt the damp wetness trickle over the ravenous edge of her exposed gash. Scrooge tightened his grip on her hand and continued going over her wound. As much as she annoyed and infuriated him, he didn’t particularly want to inflict her any pain. But this was for her own good.
He finished cleaning her wound and started to wrap the gauze around her hand. He was slow and thorough and the repetition made her feel a bit more relaxed. It was almost hypnotic. Normally it irked her to have her personal autonomy restrained but his strong grip on her hand was actually oddly comforting. She settled into the calmness of the moment and let herself lower her defenses as she raised up her eyes to watch him.
She prided herself for her self sufficiency, her ability to take care of herself after her family kicked her out many many years ago, to survive in this lawless wilderness and build a business and a name for herself. But here was this rough mean miner, holding her hand in his and actually caring for her wellbeing like no one had done ever since she was a very young child and her mother sang to her a special lullaby when she was sick. She had so many painful memories from her childhood that she tried to hide behind tall icy walls and never think about, so even the few happy ones were veiled by a forgetful haze. She was surprised she was even remembering this now. She had no idea when she had last thought about her mother’s song. She couldn’t remember the words anymore but a faint melody floated to the forefront of her mind from her subconscious. Her cold exterior was melting and an innocent peacefulness slowly spread through her.
The cold Yukon winds pushing against the walls of the cabin, all his past failures that always hung over him, his dwindling hope in finding his fortune all faded away as he focused on bandaging Goldie’s hand and her soft humming that curiously almost sounded like a lullaby.
He’d spent all these years mainly on his own and while that generally didn’t bother him, there were increasingly many nights this past year in the Klondike when he’d lay in bed in his small cabin and feel almost crushed by the emptiness, the vastness of the valley around him, the distance and time away from his family. But now he didn’t feel as lonely. She was here with him.
He stopped to take a quick glance at her. Her eyelids had closed over her emerald eyes and she was resting her head sideways on the back of the chair. The light from fire had reached out and hugged around her golden locks of hair, surrounding them in a warm glow that made them even more beautiful than they already were.
Goldie felt Scrooge’s fingers slip from her hand, taking their warmth with them. She opened her eyes and saw that he had finished wrapping her hand up and had neatly tied the ends of the bandages. She reached out with her hands to his, yearning for their comfort again. Scrooge looked up at her as she wrapped her hands around his. He knew she’d never thank him but the soft gratitude in her eyes was enough for him. Scrooge slightly smiled at her and she couldn’t help smiling back. They sat a while longer, holding each other’s hands, in a small warm cabin, safe from the boundless shimmering white snow and deep northern darkness of the desolate Klondike. Two silent souls not alone for once.