Winter Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  They rode up the beach, the young women using the outlaws’ saddles, and it was a lot easier and faster than trudging along on foot. As the miles fell behind them, the hills on the other side of the water drew closer. The inlet was getting narrower. Skagway was at the end of it, Frank recalled from Captain Hoffman’s maps.

  The sky was still thickly overcast, with a cold wind blowing from the north. Jennings licked his lips as he rode in front of Frank on Stormy. He said, “There’s snow comin’. I can taste it.”

  “We’ll be in Skagway before it gets here,” Frank said. He had spotted several columns of white smoke rising against the gray clouds and knew they came from the settlement.

  A short time later, Conway let out a whoop as he spotted the buildings. “There it is!” he said, tightening his arm around Jessica’s waist as she rode in front of him. “We made it, by God! We made it!”

  The women were excited to be reaching Skagway, too, even though it wasn’t their final destination. That was still Whitehorse, Fiona insisted. Frank reckoned she didn’t want to lose the fees she had been promised, and after all she had gone through to get here, he didn’t suppose he could blame her.

  The settlement wasn’t very impressive-looking as they came closer. It was a jumble of muddy streets lined with tents, tar-paper shacks, and crude buildings constructed of raw, unplaned lumber. Plank sidewalks ran in front of the buildings and tall pines loomed over them. The waters of the inlet washed against several docks that were probably the sturdiest-looking structures in town.

  From the looks on the faces of Fiona and her charges, though, it might as well have been San Francisco or Boston. They were that happy to be here.

  Up ahead and to the right, Frank spotted a building with a sign over its door that read CLANCY’S SALOON. Three men leaned against one of the hitch rails in front of it. When they saw Frank and his companions riding into the settlement, they straightened from their casual poses and walked forward to meet them, the mud sucking at their boots. They had the look of a semiofficial welcoming committee.

  The man in the center, who was slightly in the lead, was slender, with a close-cropped black beard, gaunt features, and deep-set, piercing eyes. He wore a dark suit and broad-brimmed hat. One of his companions was a burly, mustachioed gent in a derby. The other wore a cloth cap on the back of his head and had a clean-shaven face that reminded Frank of a ferret.

  The black-bearded man raised a hand in greeting as Frank and the others reined in. His eyes took in Fiona and the young women, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. He had probably never seen this many eligible women in this rugged place before.

  “Howdy, folks,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his chilly eyes. “Welcome to Skagway. They call me Soapy Smith.”

  Chapter 18

  Frank remembered what Jennings had said about Soapy Smith running things in Skagway. During the ride that morning, Frank had asked Jennings to tell him more about Smith, and Jennings had related how the man had shown up not long after Skagway’s founding, accompanied by five tough companions, two of whom were probably the men with him now. Even though there was no official law, Soapy had quickly established himself as a force for law and order by stopping a lynch mob from hanging a bartender accused of murder. No one wanted to buck Smith, especially as long as he was surrounded by such obviously dangerous cronies. For that matter, as long as things stayed relatively peaceful, the entrepreneurs who had come to Skagway to set up businesses didn’t really care who was running things in the settlement.

  “I don’t know it for a fact,” Jennings had told Frank, “but I figure Soapy must be some sort of crook. I don’t know for sure because the boys and me never got into town much. They didn’t like us there.”

  Frank couldn’t blame the townspeople for that. Lawless hardcases like Ben Cregar and his gang made it difficult for those who had come to Alaska to make their fortunes legally.

  Now, as Frank looked at Soapy Smith with narrowed eyes, he felt an instinctive dislike for the man and agreed with Jennings’s hunch that Smith was a crook masquerading as a slick community leader.

  “This is Yeah Mow Hopkins,” Smith went on, nodding to the burly man in the derby, “and Sid Dixon.” That was the ferret-faced man in the cloth cap. “A couple of associates of mine.”

  Smith paused, obviously waiting for Frank to introduce himself and the others. “My name’s Morgan,” he said. “This is Mrs. Devereaux, Mr. Conway, and Mr. Jennings. The young ladies are traveling with us.”

  “I can see that,” Smith murmured. “What brings such a bevy of beauties to a backwater burg like this?”

  “The ladies and I are bound for Whitehorse,” Fiona said stiffly, “where they will be marrying gentlemen who are waiting for them there.”

  “Oh, ho!” A grin tugged at Smith’s mouth. “Mail-order brides! I should have known someone would come up with that idea sooner or later. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that it’s taken this long.” He glanced toward the docks. “I’m also surprised that you didn’t come in by ship. There’s one due any day now. Overdue, in fact.”

  “The Montclair?” Frank asked.

  A puzzled frown appeared on Smith’s narrow face. Hopkins’s expression remained stolid and unreadable. From the way Dixon’s eyes darted around nervously and he constantly licked his lips, Frank figured he was some sort of drug addict.

  “That’s right, the Montclair,” Smith said. “Do you have news of her?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. She sank in a bad storm a couple of days ago.” Frank leaned his head toward his companions. “We’re the only survivors, as far as I know.”

  He included Jennings in that group, figuring it was easier to do that than to try to explain the real circumstances that had led to him accompanying them.

  Smith’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “You survived the ship sinking in rough seas? That’s mighty lucky, Mister…Morgan, was it?”

  “That’s right. I won’t deny that we had guardian angels watching over us.”

  “Seems like it,” Smith said. “Where’d you get those horses?”

  Frank had hoped to avoid having to explain about that, but obviously, he wasn’t going to be able to do so.

  “We were attacked by a gang of outlaws. When the fight was over, they didn’t need their horses anymore.”

  Sid Dixon let out a low whistle. “You must be a fightin’ fool, mister, if you killed a whole gang.”

  “Never said I killed them by myself,” Frank drawled.

  Smith chuckled. “Even more impressive. It’s not every day you meet a group of mail-order brides who can tangle with outlaws and come out on top.”

  Frank didn’t want to continue this discussion. He asked, “Have you got a hotel here in town?”

  “Yeah. It ain’t fancy, but you can put up there.” Smith turned to point along the curving street. “Go on around the corner, past the general mercantile, and you’ll see the Klondike Hotel on the left.”

  “I thought the Klondike country was in Canada,” Conway said.

  “It is, but since that’s where so many of the gents who come to Skagway are bound, the proprietor thought that would be a good name for the hotel,” Smith explained.

  Frank nodded. “Much obliged for the information.” He lifted Stormy’s reins.

  “If there’s anything else I can help you with, come on back down here to Clancy’s place and ask for me,” Smith said quickly. “I’m sort of the unofficial mayor of Skagway, I guess you could say, and Clancy’s is the unofficial city hall, until I can get a place of my own built.”

  “We’ll remember that,” Frank said. In reality, though, he wanted as little as possible to do with Soapy Smith. He didn’t trust the man and had been suspicious of him on sight.

  In fact, there was something familiar about Smith, both his name and his appearance, and Frank couldn’t help but wonder if he had run into the man somewhere before. A memory tickled at the back of his brain, and he knew it would come to him sooner or
later.

  In the meantime, he led the group around the corner, following Smith’s directions, and found the Klondike Hotel. As Smith had said, it wasn’t fancy. It was a one-story frame building with a false front, and extending out from each side were a couple of wings with walls made of canvas. In the winter, which was coming soon, it would probably be ice-cold in those rooms, but at least the canvas would block the wind and keep most of the snow out.

  A cadaverous man with a smile on his skull-like face stood near the hotel entrance with a Bible in his hands. “Welcome to Skagway, my friends,” he said as Frank and the others drew rein in front of the place. “I’m Reverend Bowers, and if you have any spiritual needs to tend to, I’d be happy to help you in coming to the Lord. In the meantime, I’m collecting for our permanent fund for widows and orphans, if you’d care to contribute.”

  Frank swung down from Stormy’s back and shook his head. “Sorry, Reverend. We don’t have any spare cash.” He didn’t add that so far he hadn’t seen any children at all in Skagway, and the only woman he had seen other than the ones with him was an Indian whore leaning in the doorway of Clancy’s Saloon. Frank wasn’t sure there was a single widow or orphan in the whole settlement, not counting Fiona, of course.

  “Well, if I can be of assistance to you, don’t hesitate to let me know.” Still smiling, Reverend Bowers moved off down the muddy street.

  As Frank helped Jennings down from the horse, the blinded outlaw asked quietly, “Was that that phony sky pilot talkin’ to you, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Reverend Bowers? Yeah.”

  “Don’t trust him. He’s in with Soapy Smith. I got a feelin’ he’s a crook, too.”

  “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

  Frank left Jennings standing there holding on to the hitch rail where he looped Stormy’s reins, then moved over to Goldy to help Fiona dismount. He would have tried to help Meg, too, but she swung down with ease on her own. Conway lifted Jessica from the saddle with one hand on either side of her waist, handling her as if she weighed no more than a doll. Then he hurried to help the other young women dismount, too, although he wasn’t quite as solicitious of them.

  The Klondike had a narrow porch that ran along the front, with a couple of ladderback chairs on it. A bulky bundle of furs was piled on one of the chairs. As Frank started past it, the bundle of furs moved, and he was startled to see a head lift from it. An old man’s wizened eyes peered out from under a fur cap and a mop of white hair. Not much of his leathery skin was visible because a bushy white beard covered most of his face.

  “I heard the rev’rend put the touch on ye,” the old-timer rasped, “so I won’t bother. But if ye’ve ever got a spare crust o’ bread or such, I’d be obliged if ye’d remember ol’ Salty.”

  “That’s you?” Frank asked.

  “Aye. Salty Stevens, by name. And I’ve fallen on hard times, amigo. Mighty hard times.”

  Frank heard the soft drawl of the Southwest in the old man’s voice and felt an immediate kinship with him. He rested a hand on the man’s shoulder for a second, or where he thought the shoulder would be in that pile of furs, and said, “Maybe I’ll have something for you later.”

  “Be much obliged, Tex. That’s where you hail from, ain’t it?”

  Frank smiled. “You’ve got a good ear, Salty.”

  “Been all over that country.” The old-timer sighed. “Wisht I was down on the Rio right now, listenin’ to some Mex play the guitar in a cantina and watchin’ the señoritas.”

  Frank patted his shoulder. “Sounds good. We’ll have to get together and talk about old times.”

  He led the others into the hotel, where a skinny, balding man with spectacles perched on the end of a long nose waited behind a desk. Frank gestured toward his companions and said, “We’re going to need some rooms.”

  The prominent Adam’s apple in the clerk’s neck bobbed up and down. “I don’t have but three rooms empty, mister, and they’re in the east wing. No heat over there. Got plenty of blankets, though. You’re lucky we have any empties at all.”

  Frank wasn’t so sure about that. The streets of Skagway were less crowded than he had thought they would be. He figured that most of the men who were headed for the gold fields around Whitehorse had already set out, hoping to reach their destination and get situated before winter closed everything down. Most of the people in Skagway now were either gold-hunters who planned to wait out the winter here or folks who worked in the settlement.

  He and his companions couldn’t afford to be too particular about their accommodations, though. He nodded and said, “We’ll take them. You ladies can have the rooms. Pete and Bart and I will find someplace else to bunk down.”

  “I hate for you to have to do that,” Fiona said. “For one thing, I was hoping to have you close by in case of trouble, Frank.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t be far off,” Frank assured her. “I think I spotted a livery stable across the street. We can bed down with the horses.” He smiled. “After all we’ve been through, I reckon that’ll seem almost like the lap of luxury.”

  “Yes, but there’s one more thing…” Fiona tugged him aside and whispered, “How are we going to pay for this? All my traveling funds went down with the Montclair.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Frank told her. He reached under his coat and shirt and took out a thin leather wallet. The greenbacks in there had gotten soaked in the various drenchings they had taken, but they hadn’t fallen apart and were dry by now. He slipped a couple of bills out of the wallet.

  Fiona smiled. “I thought you told that preacher you didn’t have any money.”

  “I don’t have any money for a crooked sky pilot, and I had a hunch that’s what he was. Bart confirmed it.” Frank turned back to the desk and slapped the bills down on it. “That cover the rooms for a few days?”

  The clerk scooped them up. “Yes, sir!” He pointed. “Go right through that door over there. They’ll be the third, fourth, and fifth rooms on the left.”

  Frank nodded. “Much obliged.”

  The next ten minutes were spent carrying in their supplies and arranging for the horses to be stabled across the street. The liveryman was agreeable to letting Frank, Conway, Jennings, and Dog stay with the horses, for an extra price, of course.

  The hotel rooms were crude and primitive, with dirt floors, no windows, and only a flap of canvas for a door. The flap could be tied closed, but that wouldn’t keep anybody out who wanted to get in.

  “Tell the ladies to keep their pistols handy,” Frank advised Fiona as they stood in the dirt-floored corridor of the hotel’s east wing, just outside the rented rooms. “And if there’s trouble, let out a holler. We’ll be just across the street, so I reckon we’ll be able to hear it.”

  “Thank you, Frank.” She put a hand on his arm and rubbed her fingers back and forth on the sleeve of his sheepskin coat. “And thank you for getting us this far. I don’t think there’s another man in the world who could have pulled us through all that trouble.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Frank said. “I’m just trying to keep my word to Jacob. As soon as we can figure out what we’ll need, we’ll round up an outfit and set out for Whitehorse.”

  “You think we can still make it before winter sets in? Captain Hoffman was wrong about how much time we had left to get here to Skagway.”

  “Maybe that storm was just a fluke and there’s still some time. Jennings has been up here for a while. I’ll talk to him about it.”

  Fiona frowned at him. “You’d trust that man? He’s an outlaw! He kidnapped us!”

  “Yeah, but he seems genuinely grateful that I didn’t kill him. Don’t worry, he’s not the only one I plan to talk to. If we have to, we can wait out the winter here, I suppose.”

  “My clients in Whitehorse won’t like that.”

  “Better to have a warm wife next spring than a frozen fiancée this winter.”

  She looked at him for a second, then laughed. “You do have a w
ay with words, Frank Morgan.” With a sigh and a shake of her head, she went on. “I was hoping we might be able to spend some time together here, just you and me.”

  “Maybe when we get back from Whitehorse,” Frank said. “We won’t be able to return to Seattle until spring, so we’ll be spending all winter in Skagway.”

  “A long, cold winter…” Fiona mused. “We’ll have to come up with some way to keep warm.”

  Frank smiled. “I reckon we’ll manage,” he said.

  Chapter 19

  Frank had noticed when he went across the street with Conway and Jennings to stable the horses that Salty Stevens was no longer huddled in his furs on the front porch of the hotel. He asked the clerk, “That old-timer who was outside earlier, where can I find him?”

  The clerk frowned. “You mean Salty? Did that old beggar bother you, mister? I try to run him off whenever I see him out there. The boss doesn’t like him hanging around the hotel.”

  Frank wondered if the boss was Soapy Smith. Smith had been quick to direct them here to the Klondike and might well be the owner of the place.

  “No, the old man didn’t bother us,” Frank said in reply to the clerk’s question. “I just want to talk to him. I think we may be from the same part of the country.”

  “Oh. In that case…there’s a saloon down the street called Ike’s. I think Salty hangs around there a lot, too, trying to cadge drinks.” The clerk shook his head. “I warn you, though, mister, it’s a pretty squalid place.”

  From what Frank had seen so far, most of Skagway fit that description. But he just nodded and said, “All right, thanks.”

  As he came out of the hotel, Conway and Jennings emerged from the stable across the street. They had been tending to the horses, or rather Conway had, since Jennings couldn’t see. He was able to stand and hold a saddle, though, if somebody handed it to him.

  Frank told them, “I want to talk to that old-timer who was at the hotel earlier. I figure he can tell us something about what the weather’s going to do. The clerk says that if he’s not here, he’s probably at a saloon called Ike’s.”