Winter Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  Salty cast an eye toward the sky. “With this snow fallin’, that’s a good idea. Come on. I’ll take you to see a feller who’s got some dogs.”

  They were going to need at least four sleds and teams, according to Salty. The sleds wouldn’t be a problem, as there were still plenty to be had in the settlement. Coming up with twenty-four good dogs would be.

  “Most folks use huskies or malamutes,” Salty told Frank, Conway, and Jennings. “You may have to settle for mostly mutts, though.”

  “As long as they can pull the sleds,” Frank said, “that’s all that matters.”

  “Oh, they’ll be able to pull, but they won’t have the stamina or the experience a good team would. We’ll have to teach ’em and toughen ’em up as we go along.”

  The man Salty took them to see had such a thick Swedish accent Frank understood only about half of what he had to say. Salty could converse with him, though, and after some haggling, they went behind the man’s cabin to look into a long kennel made of posts and wire. A couple of dozen dogs were behind the fence. They were all big and shaggy and looked strong enough to Frank, but Salty shook his head in dismay. “This is the best we can do,” he told Frank, “but it ain’t good.”

  “Like you said, maybe they’ll get better as they go along.”

  The Swede agreed to have the dogs in front of the hotel at eight o’clock the next morning. That was well before dawn at this time of the year.

  From there Frank and the others went to the general store to make arrangements for their supplies. While they were in the store, Frank spotted some Stetsons hanging on pegs driven into one of the log walls, and went over to take down one very similar to the hat he had lost in the Pacific. He had been hatless since the shipwreck, and he was tired of his head feeling naked. He bought the hat as well, and felt better when he had settled it on his head. He got a fur cap for Conway and better coats for everyone, along with blankets, furs, more ammunition, food, and plenty of dried fish for the dogs. Sled dogs, Salty explained, lived on fish, not beef.

  They also bought four sleds at the store. The supplies would be divided among them, leaving room for the young women to ride. Settling up with the storekeeper took most of the cash Frank had left.

  As they stepped outside, Frank saw that the snow was still coming down and that there was already a thin layer of the white stuff on the ground. Salty looked at that and nodded.

  “Yeah, we might as well start off on the sleds,” he said. “Ain’t no need to bring all them hosses. You’d just have to leave ’em somewheres along the way.”

  “My two are coming with me.” Frank wasn’t going to abandon Stormy and Goldy to Soapy Smith. He didn’t care about the horses they had taken from the gang of outlaws.

  “That’s fine, you can prob’ly get a couple o’ horses through the passes. There’s a chance you won’t be able to, but it’s your decision to make, I reckon. We’ll need men to handle the dog teams, though.”

  “You can handle one, can’t you?”

  “Yep.” Salty jerked a thumb at Conway. “I figure I can teach this big fella how to, as well. But that still leaves two teams.”

  “What about me?” Jennings asked. “What would I have to do?”

  Salty squinted skeptically at him. “A blind man, drivin’ a sled team? I don’t see how it’s rightly possible.”

  “I can hear just fine,” Jennings insisted. “Put my sled in the middle and shout a lot. I can steer by sound.”

  Salty scratched at his beard. “Well…it might work. Them dogs got a natural tendency to foller each other, anyway. I reckon we can give it a try. If it don’t work, maybe one o’ them gals can take over. Looks like we’re gonna need one of ’em for the fourth team, anyway.”

  “I have an idea one of them will volunteer,” Frank said, thinking of Meg Goodwin. Following a dog team might not be too different from following a plow mule.

  “Well, then, it seems to me like you’re ’most ready to go.”

  Frank looked up at the sky. The light had already faded from it, and the snowflakes continued to swirl down.

  “All we have to do is make it through the night,” he said.

  Chapter 22

  Salty had long since traded his guns for whiskey, so Frank saw to it that the old man was armed with a pistol and rifle from their supplies. Then he told Conway, Salty, and Jennings to stay with the horses in the livery stable. Even though they weren’t going to use the mounts, Soapy Smith and his men didn’t know that. Frank thought they might be tempted to try to steal the horses in order to strike back at him.

  “Aren’t you staying in the stable?” Conway asked.

  Frank shook his head. “I’ll be around,” he said cryptically. “It’s possible Smith might try to grab the ladies. I want to be able to stop that if it happens.”

  As Meg had suggested, the women had worked out a guard schedule. At least two of them would be awake at all times during the night, watching out for trouble.

  With that settled, they all ate supper in the hotel dining room. The fare at the Klondike was simple but filling: moose steaks, potatoes, and beans. The women were all still tired and turned in as soon as they had eaten, except for Ruth Donnelly and Wilma Keller, who had drawn the first shift on guard.

  Before he left them, Frank spoke to Fiona in the corridor just outside the canvas-walled room that all the women were crowded into now. “Ought to be warmer with all of you sleeping in such close quarters,” he said wryly.

  “Is Smith going to try something tonight, Frank?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I reckon he’s got spies all over town, so he’s bound to know that we’re pulling out first thing in the morning. If he’s going to make a move against us, it’ll have to be tonight. So I wouldn’t be surprised either way.”

  “I’ll be glad when we get to Whitehorse and all of this is behind us.”

  “Just keep thinking about that,” Frank told her.

  Fiona acted like she wanted a kiss, but Frank just brushed his lips across her forehead before leaving the hotel. He stepped back out into the snowy night. The crystals crunched under his boots as he walked along the planks.

  He started around the hotel, intending to make sure no one was lurking behind the wing where the women were staying. He had just rounded the front corner when he heard snow crunch under someone else’s boots in the shadows ahead of him. Instinct made his hand flash toward his Colt as he threw himself to the ground.

  A huge orange flash lit up the night, accompanied by a thunderous roar. Frank knew that someone had just unleashed both barrels of a shotgun at him.

  The would-be killer had made two mistakes, though. He had gotten too close before firing, so the loads of buckshot didn’t have time to spread out much and Frank was able to avoid them by diving to the ground. The other mistake was triggering both barrels at once. Now the weapon was empty.

  As he sprawled on the thin layer of snow, Frank tilted his revolver’s barrel up and fired at the spot where the muzzle flashes had ripped through the night. The Colt blasted just once, but the shot was rewarded by a cry of pain. Even though Frank was a little deafened by the shotgun going off, he heard the thud as the weapon hit the ground.

  Before he could get to his feet and investigate, a woman screamed somewhere nearby. Knowing the cry had to come from either Fiona or one of the brides, he leaped up and whipped around the east wing of the hotel. A smaller-caliber pistol cracked several times. The gunfire had a panicky sound to it, as if the wielder of the pistol had simply pointed it and started pulling the trigger as fast as she could.

  As Frank approached the back of the room where the women were staying, he saw lantern light from inside spilling out through a huge rent in the canvas. Knowing that one swipe of a knife could open up a big hole in the wall, he had been afraid that Soapy might try something like that. Some of Smith’s henchmen could try to grab the women at the same time as the shotgunner attempted to dispose of Frank.

  Not su
rprisingly, shots blasted from across the street, too, as Smith and his men tried to make a clean sweep of it by attacking Conway and the other two men at the livery stable as well. Frank couldn’t go to their aid right now, so they would have to fight off their assailants alone. He had to make sure the women were safe before he did anything else.

  A man reeled into the light between Frank and the hole in the canvas wall. He moved like he was injured, but he wasn’t hurt so bad that he couldn’t jerk up a revolver and fire. Frank dropped to a knee as he heard a slug whistle past his head. The Colt roared and bucked in his hand. The man doubled over as the slug from Frank’s gun punched into his belly.

  Frank sprang up and clubbed the man in the head to get him out of the way. “Fiona!” he shouted. “Meg!”

  More muzzle flame spurted from the shadows. Frank returned the fire, then a second later heard running footsteps slapping against the ground. The second gunman had lost his stomach for the fight. Was he the only one left, or were there more of Smith’s men lurking in the shadows?

  “Frank!” That was Fiona’s voice, coming from inside. “Frank, are you all right?”

  “Blow out that light!” Frank called to her. “Get down and stay down!”

  As the room went dark, Frank weaved to the side in case anybody in the shadows tried to aim at the sound of his voice. Knowing that they might be able to spot the dark shape of his body against the light-colored canvas, even without a lantern burning inside, he moved away from the hotel, stepping as quietly as he could in the snow.

  A man loomed up beside him and whispered, “Where’d that bastard go?”

  Frank just grunted.

  “Soapy’s gonna be mad as hell if he gets away. He wants that son of a bitch dead!”

  Frank didn’t wait to hear any more. His hand rose and fell, and the Colt crashed against the man’s head. Smith’s henchman folded up without a sound.

  Pouching his iron, Frank bent over and yanked the man’s belt off, then used it to tie his hands behind his back. He left the man there and resumed stalking any more of Smith’s men who might be hanging around the rear of the hotel.

  He didn’t find anyone, though. A considerable uproar had started in the street. No more shots came from the area of the livery stable, and now that the trouble seemed to be over, men were coming out of hiding and demanding to know what was going on.

  What Frank wanted to know was whether Fiona, Meg, and the other women were all right, as well as Conway, Jennings, and Salty. He moved along the back of the hotel’s east wing, and as he approached the slit-open canvas wall, he called softly, “Ladies, it’s me, Frank Morgan.” He didn’t want any of them getting trigger-happy and blasting him when he stuck his head through that opening.

  Fiona stepped out through the flapping canvas. “Frank!” she said as she flung her arms around his neck. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Didn’t even pick up a nick, even with all that lead flying around. What about you and the rest of the ladies?”

  “None of us are hurt,” she said, and a wave of relief went through him when he heard that. “We’re just scared. Most of us had dozed off when there was a sound like cloth ripping, really loud.”

  Frank nodded, even though she probably couldn’t see him in the dark. “That was Smith’s men cutting through the canvas.”

  “Smith?”

  “Who else would try to grab you like that? They sliced open the wall and were probably planning to drag you off and lock you up somewhere. They came after me at the same time, and from the sound of it, Pete and Salty and Bart over in the livery stable, too.”

  Jessica must have heard that inside the room, because she rushed out through the opening. “Pete!” she exclaimed. “You say Pete was attacked, too?”

  “I’m about to go find out,” Frank replied grimly. “You ladies stay here. Keep your guns handy.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Jessica insisted.

  “Better not.”

  Meg stepped out and put an arm around her smaller friend’s shoulders. “Stay here and let Frank check it out, Jess. That would be best.”

  Fiona still had hold of Frank. He stepped away from her and said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Be careful,” she told him.

  “I intend to.”

  The three-pronged attack didn’t surprise him. He’d had a hunch Smith would try something tonight, while they were still in Skagway. The man’s pride had been wounded too deeply to let Frank get away with showing him up in front of the whole settlement. Plus Smith’s greed meant that he really wanted to get his hands on the women and use them to turn a big profit.

  The street was full of men who had emerged from the saloons to see what all the shooting and yelling was about. They got out of Frank’s way as he strode toward the livery stable. He felt relief go through him again as he saw Conway and Salty emerge from the barn, carrying rifles. Jennings followed them.

  “Frank!” Conway called. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. How about the three of you?”

  “I got a little scratch on my side from a bullet, but that’s all. What about the ladies?”

  “None of them are hurt,” Frank said, leading Conway to exclaim, “Thank God!”

  Frank went on. “Some of Smith’s men tried to get into the hotel by cutting through that canvas wall, but the ladies held them off until I got there.”

  Salty said, “I thought I heard a Greener go off. You know anything about that?”

  Frank chuckled. “Yeah, it was pointed at me when it made that racket. I was able to duck under the buckshot, though.”

  Conway let out an impressed whistle. “That was lucky. They came at us with pistols, front and back, and it was a hornet’s nest in there for a while. That dog of yours got hold of one of them, though, and tore him up. We must’ve winged a couple of others, because they yelped and ran.”

  “Took off for the tall and uncut, they did,” Salty added. “Reckon we put up more of a fight than they was expectin’.”

  “How about the horses?” Frank asked. “Any of them hurt?”

  Conway shook his head. “No. The walls of those stalls are pretty thick. They stopped all the bullets that came their way.”

  “Did you manage to grab any of the varmints?” Frank hoped to have at least one prisoner who could testify that the attackers had been acting on Soapy Smith’s orders. There might not be any official law here, but faced with solid proof of Smith’s villainy, the community might rise up against him.

  Conway replied, “No, I’m afraid not. The only one who was left behind was the fellow your dog got hold of, and…well, he won’t be talking anymore.”

  Frank knew what the young man meant. Dog had probably torn the attacker’s throat out. The big cur didn’t take it easy when it came to fighting.

  “I knocked one man out and tied him up, and there may be some others behind the hotel who are wounded,” Frank said. “I’d better go see.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Salty said.

  “No, Salty, you and Bart stay here. Pete, go across to the hotel and get the ladies.”

  Conway sounded confused as he said, “And do what with them?”

  “Bring them back over here with you. Everybody’s staying in the barn tonight. If Smith tries anything else, he’ll find us all forted up together.”

  Conway nodded. “That sounds like a mighty good idea.” He headed toward the front of the hotel while Frank began circling the canvas-walled east wing again.

  He drew his gun as he moved along the wall. His foot struck something soft, and he knew he had found the man he’d left tied up. Frank figured the man might have regained consciousness by now, but he didn’t react to the inadvertent kick. Reaching down to grab the man’s shoulder, Frank said, “Wake up, mister. You’re going to tell everybody in Skagway that Soapy Smith ordered this attack tonight.”

  The man simply sagged back and forth limply when Frank shook him. Frank knelt, fis
hed a lucifer from his coat pocket, and snapped it into life with his thumbnail.

  The sudden flare of light revealed a grisly picture. The man lay there with his hands still tied behind his back with his own belt. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. Blood stained the snow crimson in a big circle around his head.

  Frank muttered a curse under his breath as he dropped the match, letting it hiss out in the snow. He came to his feet and turned in a half circle, ready to fire if the murderer was still nearby and came at him. Everything was quiet back here, though.

  He had gotten a pretty good look at the man’s face and hadn’t recognized him. That wasn’t surprising. Smith probably had dozens of henchmen working for him. He had probably recruited some of them to come along on tonight’s raid, although Frank suspected that one of Smith’s cronies, like Joe Palmer or Big Ed Burns, had been in charge of the attacks.

  During their conversation in Clancy’s, Smith had mentioned that the little opium addict, Sid Dixon, was good with a knife. Frank had a hunch that Dixon had been responsible for slitting this man’s throat so that he couldn’t tie Smith to what had happened. Frank knew he couldn’t prove that, though.

  He struck another match and looked around quickly, finding more splashes of blood on the snow but no dead or wounded men. The others must have taken the man he shot in the belly with them. That hombre would be dead soon, too, if he wasn’t already, and unable to testify against Smith.

  Soapy’s try for the women had failed, but he was going to get away with making the attempt, Frank thought.

  The question now was, would he try again before they could leave Skagway?

  Chapter 23

  By the time Frank got back to the livery stable, Conway had brought all the women across the street. They were gathered in the big center aisle of the barn, fully dressed, with blankets wrapped around them. The stable’s feisty little proprietor was there as well, and he greeted Frank by saying, “Mr. Morgan, this here is a livery stable, not a danged hotel!”