Winter Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  “I know the place,” Jennings said. “I can show—Well, no, I reckon I can’t show you where it is, after all.”

  “We’ll find it. Come on.”

  Jennings looked surprised. “You still want me to come with you? I figured once we got to Skagway, I’d be on my own.”

  Frank lowered his voice and asked, “How long would you last in this town without being able to see? From what I can tell, there are as many dangerous critters around here as there are in the woods.”

  Jennings sighed. “Maybe more.”

  “So you’re one of us now, at least for the time being.”

  Conway frowned, visibly upset by Frank’s words. “No offense, Frank,” he said, “but this fellow is an outlaw. As far as we know, he may be the one who killed Neville.”

  Jennings shook his head emphatically. “I didn’t kill nobody, Mr. Conway. I was holdin’ the horses while the rest of the boys jumped your camp and grabbed them ladies. I swear it.”

  “Yeah, you’d say that whether it was true or not,” Conway said with a disdainful grunt.

  Jennings held up a hand like he was being sworn in to testify in court. “Word of honor, sir. I…I stole plenty of things in my life, but I never killed nobody, at least not that I know of.”

  “You can travel with us as long as you behave yourself,” Frank said. “Get out of line, though, especially with the women, and you’re on your own.”

  “You can count on me, Mr. Morgan.”

  The three of them walked along the street, Frank resting a hand on Jennings’s shoulder to guide him. Ike’s was a tent saloon with a couple of stumps in front of it where pine trees had been cut down. When Frank pushed aside the canvas flap over the entrance and stepped inside, he saw several more stumps sticking up from the dirt floor. Men sat on them to drink, using them as makeshift chairs. The bar was to the right. It consisted of rough planks laid across the tops of several whiskey barrels. As a saloon, Ike’s was about as crude as it could be.

  It was doing good business, though. More than a dozen men stood around nursing drinks from tin cups, and all the stumps were occupied. Frank looked around and spotted a familiar pile of furs shuffling along the bar, stopping next to each of the customers to ask something. Each of the men shook his head, and some of them barked angrily at the desolate old-timer.

  In fact, one of the drinkers seemed to take offense at being approached like that. He turned toward Salty and said loudly, “Get away from me, you damned bum.” He drew his arm across his body, as if he were about to backhand the old-timer.

  Frank’s left hand fell hard on the man’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you, mister,” he said.

  The man jerked around with a furious glare on his face. He started to say, “Who the hell do you think you—” Then he stopped short as he saw the menace glittering in The Drifter’s eyes. He said, “You know that old tramp?”

  “We’re amigos,” Frank said.

  “You ought to keep him from bothering people, then.”

  Frank took his hand off the man’s shoulder, reached into his pocket, and found a coin. He tossed it on the bar and said coldly, “Next drink’s on me. Just take it down to the other end of the bar.”

  “Sure, sure,” the man muttered. He held out his tin cup to the moon-faced bartender for a refill, then moved away toward the other end of the bar.

  “Thanks, Tex,” Salty said, “but you didn’t have to do that. I’m sorta used to gettin’ walloped.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be. We want to talk to you, Salty. Is there someplace better than this?”

  Salty licked his lips, which were barely visible under the bushy white mustache and beard. “I reckon we could go to my shack.”

  “How about if we take a bottle with us?”

  Salty cackled. “Now you’re talkin’! Damned if you ain’t!”

  Frank bought a bottle from the bartender, who looked like a half-breed. The bottle had no label on it, and he was sure that what was inside had been brewed up in one of those barrels. It was probably raw stuff, but if they were lucky, it wouldn’t give them the blind staggers.

  The four men went outside. Salty led the way to the edge of the settlement, stopping at something that was more shed than shack, a haphazard arrangement of broken boards, tarpaper, tin, and canvas. It looked almost like the various parts of it had been thrown up in the air, and however they came down was the way Salty had left it.

  The place had a door, though, and when they went inside, Frank saw that it had a rickety table as well, and a tangle of blankets in a corner that served as a bunk. The only places to sit down were a wobbly stool and an empty nail keg. Frank told Salty and Jennings to take those seats, and then placed the bottle in the center of the table.

  Salty licked his lips again and obviously ached to grab the bottle, but he resisted its lure for the moment. “How come you’re bein’ so nice to me, Tex?” he asked.

  “I told you, we’re from the same part of the country. And the name’s Frank Morgan, by the way, not Tex.”

  Salty’s head jerked up. “Frank Morgan!” he repeated. “You mean The Drifter?”

  “Heard of me, have you?”

  “Damn straight I have! You might not know it to look at me, but there was a time I worked as a range detective with a cousin o’ mine and his pardner, and I was friends for a while with a deputy U.S. marshal, too. I weren’t never an official lawman, mind you, but I was next thing to it.” The old-timer sighed. “Them was better days, that’s for damn’ sure. Anyway, I heard of you, sure enough, Mr. Morgan. And the way I heard it, you’re one o’ the fastest fellas ever to slap leather. If anybody’d asked me, though, I’d’ve had to say that I didn’t know whether you was still alive.”

  Frank grinned. “I’m still kicking, all right. Tell me, Salty, where are you from?”

  “Well, I was born in Arizony. Or was it New Mexico Territory? Been so long ago, I don’t rightly remember. But I growed up all over the whole Southwest, a-huntin’ and a-trappin’. Met one o’ the last o’ the old-time mountain men once, a contrary ol’ critter called Preacher. When I got a few more years on me, I done a mite of scoutin’ for the army and drove a stagecoach for a while out Californy way. It was a while later I met that marshal fella and then went to range detectin’. Been a good life, a mighty full life.”

  Conway said, “A man your age ought to be sitting in a rocking chair somewhere, enjoying his old age.”

  Salty got a truculent look on his bushy face. “Old age, is it? I’ll have you know, young fella, that I can still mush all day on a pair o’ snowshoes if I have to, and I can grab a gee-pole and handle a team o’ sled dogs just fine, too.”

  “What brought you to Alaska in the first place?” Frank asked.

  “Gold, o’ course, same thing as brought all these other cheechakos and stampeders up here!” Salty paused, and when he went on, there was a wistful note in his voice. “And I, uh, got a mite tired o’ sittin’ on my granddaughter’s front porch in that rockin’ chair the young fella just mentioned. Figured I might have one last grand adventure in me, so I took off for the Klondike! Found me a nice gold claim, too, and worked it for a while. Had me a poke full o’ nuggets when I got back here.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Soapy Smith and his gang o’ thieves and swindlers and murderers happened,” Salty said. “Soapy claimed I was breakin’ a local ord’nance when I got drunk, and he got his pet judge to sock a big fine against me. One o’ his pickpockets finished cleanin’ me out. I couldn’t go home, couldn’t go back across the passes to Whitehorse, couldn’t do nothin’ but stay here and become a bum.” The old-timer spread his hands. “And that’s what you see before you now, gents. A plumb worthless excuse for an old fool.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Frank said. “You say you’ve been to Whitehorse, so you must have been over Chilkoot Pass.”

  “Yeah, and White Pass, too. You got to go over it before you get to Chilkoot.”


  “What do you think? If a party left Skagway in the next day or two, could they get over the passes and make it to Whitehorse before winter sets in?”

  Salty frowned, but the only way to tell it was by the way the scraggly curtain of white hair lowered over his brow. “Well, I don’t rightly know. I’d have to think on it…and I think a mite better when my thinkin’ apparatus is lubricated.”

  Frank pushed the bottle of rotgut toward him. “Oil it up, old-timer.”

  Salty pulled the cork with his teeth, spit it out, and lifted the bottle to his mouth. The whiskey gurgled as he took a long swallow of it.

  “I hear that,” Jennings said. “It’s a pretty sound.”

  Salty reached out, took Jennings’s hand, and pressed the bottle into it. “Have a slug, old son. It might not restore your sight, but it can’t hurt to try.”

  While Jennings took a drink, Salty looked up at Frank and went on. “If folks was to leave right now and had good sleds and dogs, I reckon they could make it through the passes to Whitehorse.”

  “You couldn’t go on horseback?”

  Salty shook his head. “No, there’s already snowpack up there. You could go part of the way on horses, but you’d have to break out the dogs to get over the passes and on down to Whitehorse.”

  “How about getting back here?”

  “That’d be riskier. Still, a fella might could do it, if he knew the quickest way there and back.”

  “Someone like you, you mean?” Frank said.

  “Well, come to think of it…yeah. I know all the trails.”

  Frank didn’t hesitate. “How’d you like to go to Whitehorse with us?”

  Before Salty could answer, Conway stepped forward and lifted a hand. “Wait a minute, Frank. We’ve already picked up a blind outlaw—”

  “You’re an outlaw?” Salty said to Jennings.

  “I was,” Jennings replied with a sober nod. “I’ve given up banditry. I’m a changed man because of Mr. Morgan.”

  As if he hadn’t been interrupted, Conway went on. “Now you’re going to add a drunken old man to our party? You’d put the safety of those ladies in the hands of a—”

  “A former range detective, army scout, and unofficial deputy U.S. marshal?” Frank said. “I reckon I would.”

  Salty reached for the bottle again. “Now, the young galoot may have a point there, Mr. Morgan. I ain’t all that dependable these days, not since I got a taste for this Who-hit-John.”

  Frank picked up the bottle before Salty could. “Then maybe it’s time to put this away. How about you have the rest of it when we get back to Skagway from Whitehorse?”

  “But…we might not make it back till spring. That’s a long time!”

  “You’ll be all right, Salty. You’ll have a job to do.”

  The old-timer ran gnarled fingers through his tangled beard. “That would be nice,” he said in a half-whisper. “Folks used to depend on me, and I never let ’em down.”

  “You won’t now, either.”

  Salty gave an abrupt nod. “Count me in,” he declared. “Put the cork in the bottle, and we’ll have it when we get back.”

  “Maybe,” Frank said, “or maybe we’ll have something better.”

  Conway looked like he thought they were making a big mistake.

  The young man would really feel that way, Frank thought, if he knew that before they left Skagway, he intended to have a talk with Soapy Smith about an old man’s stolen gold.

  Chapter 20

  Before leaving the shack, Frank asked Salty if he had any more bottles of whiskey stashed there. The old-timer insisted that he didn’t. “I ain’t never had enough money to buy a whole bottle since Smith and his varmints cleaned me out,” Salty declared. “Most I could ever beg was enough for a shot or two.”

  Frank believed him. “You can stay here for now, but tomorrow you’re going to help me pick out some sleds and dogs and everything else we’ll need for the trip.”

  “Why’re you so bound and determined to go to Whitehorse? This got somethin’ to do with them pretty young gals who come into town with you?”

  “It has everything to do with them,” Frank explained. “They’re mail-order brides, and they have husbands-to-be waiting for them in the Klondike.”

  Salty let out a little whistle of surprise. “Doggone! No wonder you’re anxious to get through. I reckon some o’ them prospectors who’ve found good claims would pay a mighty handsome price to have a comely gal keep ’em warm all winter.”

  “That’s the idea,” Frank said with a grin.

  “Makes me feel like I’ll be doin’ some good for the world by helpin’ you get ’em there.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Frank said.

  “One thing you got to remember, though…this late in the season, the best dogs is prob’ly already gone. You’ll be gettin’ the runts of the litter.”

  Frank nodded. “We’ll do the best we can.” He wondered how Dog would take to being hitched to a sled. They might find out before the journey was over.

  He and Conway and Jennings went back to the hotel to check on Fiona and the rest of the women. They had split up among the three rooms and were resting, some on the bunks, some on blankets spread on the floor. After everything they had been through, even such primitive accommodations seemed almost like the lap of luxury. Frank didn’t disturb them, but left them sleeping instead.

  “I’m going down to Clancy’s,” he told Conway and Jennings. “I want to have a talk with Soapy Smith.”

  Jennings shook his head. “I ain’t sure that’s a good idea. You’d do well to stay as far away from him as you can, Mr. Morgan. He’s a bad man, and he’s got those toughs workin’ for him.”

  “You heard what Salty said. Smith stole his poke, or was responsible for stealing it, anyway.”

  “You can’t prove that, and you can’t hope to get the old man’s gold back after all this time.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Frank said with grim determination.

  Conway sighed. “Then we’re coming with you. I am, at least.”

  Frank shook his head and said, “I’d rather you didn’t, Pete. I want you and Bart to stay here and keep an eye on the ladies in the hotel and the horses in the stable. We can’t afford to have anything happen to any of them. And I’m sorry about the way I put that, Bart. I shouldn’t have told you to keep an eye on them.”

  Jennings waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Morgan. I know what you meant. You can’t change the way you talk just on account of me.”

  Conway said, “I don’t like the idea of you going to see Smith in his den by yourself. Although, I guess if anybody can handle something like that, it’d be you, Frank.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t be looking for trouble. I just want to see if I can talk Smith into doing the right thing.”

  “Pretty long odds against that,” Jennings said glumly.

  Frank grinned. “I’ve beaten ’em before.”

  He left the two men at the livery stable and followed the plank sidewalk around the corner, avoiding the worst of the mud in the street. As he approached Clancy’s Saloon, he saw a man stagger out of the place, vomit in the street, and then collapse on the plank sidewalk. By the time Frank got there, the man had started to snore.

  Two men in derby hats came out of the saloon. From the looks of them, Frank wondered if they worked for Soapy Smith. That was confirmed when one of them said, “Grab that bum’s feet, Big Ed. Soapy wouldn’t want him blockin’ the sidewalk.”

  The man called Big Ed got the drunk’s feet while the other one took hold of his shoulders. They lifted the man and threw him into the street. He rolled over a couple of times and came to a stop facedown in the mud without waking up. The two men turned to go back into the saloon.

  “Hey!” Frank called to them. “Are you going to leave him like that? He’ll suffocate!”

  They stopped and looked at Frank in surprise. “That fella a friend of yours, mister?” Big Ed asked.
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  “No, I never saw him before.”

  “Then why do you give a damn whether he suffocates or not?”

  “Because I wasn’t raised to stand by and let a man die when there was something I could do about it,” Frank snapped.

  The other man shrugged. “Then do something about it. You go out there and turn him over. I ain’t gettin’ my boots muddy doin’ it.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said, “you are.”

  Both men stiffened in anger. “Do you know who we are?” Big Ed demanded.

  “A couple of no-accounts, as far as I’m concerned,” Frank said.

  “I’m Big Ed Burns, and this is Joe Palmer. Maybe you heard of him.”

  Frank shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.”

  Big Ed sneered. “He’s the fastest gun in Skagway, maybe in all of Alaska, that’s all.”

  Slowly, Frank shook his head. “I’ve got my doubts about that.”

  He knew from the rage that appeared on Palmer’s face that the gunman was going to rise to that challenge. Palmer stepped forward and pushed his coat back so that his hand hovered near the butt of his gun, fingers curled, ready to hook and draw. Frank was ready, too, although he didn’t make such a production out of it.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Soapy Smith said as he stepped out the front door of Clancy’s. “What’s going on here, Joe?”

  Palmer nodded toward Frank. “Me and Big Ed threw that drunk in the street to get him off the sidewalk, and this fella took exception to it.”

  “I don’t want the man to suffocate,” Frank said.

  “Well, of course not,” Smith said with a nod. “Look how he landed. You boys go get him out of the mud.”

  Palmer and Burns looked at their boss in surprise. “What’d you say, Soapy?” Big Ed asked.

  “I said go get that fella out of the mud,” Smith repeated. He gestured toward the drunk. “Prop him up against the wall so he can sleep it off safely.”

  “But—”