Winter Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  Salty cursed bitterly. “That’s the most low-down, despicable thing I ever heard. Why would anybody take advantage o’ innocent gals that way when there’s already soiled doves up here?”

  “You just said it yourself. They’re innocent. Hargett can charge a premium price for them, and he can keep on charging higher prices for a while, just like Soapy Smith intended to do.”

  “Shoot, if that’s what’s goin’ on, why didn’t Miz Devereaux just throw in with Smith whilst we was in Skagway, ’stead o’ comin’ all the way through that snow and ice to Whitehorse?”

  “Maybe Hargett promised her a bigger cut than she thought she could get from Smith,” Frank guessed. “I don’t know, and I don’t reckon it matters. Did they bushwhack you, too?”

  “They durned sure did. Some fellers came up and started talkin’ to Pete and me, and the next thing we knowed, they walloped us over the head with their guns. Then I reckon they dragged us off and locked us up in…what is this place, anyway?”

  “A smokehouse would be my guess,” Frank said. “Is Pete in here, too?”

  “Danged if I know. Lemme feel around…Yeah! I got him, Frank. He’s here. Got a big, sticky goose egg on his head where they clouted him, too. He’s breathin’, though.”

  Conway regained consciousness a few minutes later. After he let out a few groans, his senses returned enough for him to ask where he was and what was going on. Frank and Salty filled the young man in, and he then exclaimed, “Jessica! You mean they’re going to turn Jessica into…into a…”

  “Not if we have anything to say about it,” Frank said.

  “But what are we gonna do?” Salty asked. “They bushwhacked us ’cause they knew we wouldn’t stand for what they’re plannin’ to do. They got our guns and locked us up in here.”

  “How come they didn’t just kill us?” Conway wanted to know.

  Frank said, “I reckon they had their reasons. As for what we’re going to do…well, I haven’t figured that out yet, but since we’re still alive, I don’t see any point in giving up.”

  Salty chuckled. “You sound like that big galoot of a lawman I used to know. Mighty stubborn cuss, he was.”

  “So am I,” Frank said.

  The rattle of a chain somewhere outside made them fall silent. Frank spotted an orange glow filtering into the sturdy shack through cracks around what appeared to be a door. A key turned in a lock, and the door swung open. Light from a lantern spilled into the square room, making the prisoners squint against its glare for a few seconds before their eyes adjusted. Frank saw a man standing outside the doorway, holding the lantern. He was flanked by two more men carrying shotguns.

  The man with the lantern wore a suit instead of a parka, but didn’t seem to be cold. He was a narrow-faced hombre with dark hair under a flat-crowned hat. The lantern was in his left hand, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver in his right. He covered Frank, Salty, and Conway with the gun as he grinned and said, “Welcome to Whitehorse, gentlemen. Come on out.”

  Chapter 32

  “My name is Jack Hargett,” the man went on by way of introduction as the three prisoners filed out of what proved to be a smokehouse, as Frank had suspected. “You’re already acquainted with my partner, Mrs. Devereaux.”

  “If that’s the case, you ought to know that she’s been looking for a new partner,” Frank said. He didn’t think it would do any harm to try to drive a wedge between Fiona and Hargett. “She wanted me to throw in with her. I reckon I would’ve been taking your place if I’d said yes.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Hargett said, evidently untroubled by Frank’s accusation. “You would have wound up working for us. Fiona told me all about you. It would have been good to have The Drifter backing us. Nobody would have dared to give us any trouble then. But we’ll make do without you, Morgan. We’ve been getting along just fine.”

  Night had fallen, but light from the buildings showed Frank that the smokehouse was located behind Hargett’s saloon. Hargett and his shotgun-toting henchmen marched them inside through a rear door. The place was cleared out now except for Fiona, who stood at the bar with a drink in her hand.

  “Sorry, Frank,” she said. “I wish things had worked out better between us.”

  “Hell will be as cold as Chilkoot Pass before that would have happened,” Frank grated.

  Fiona’s face hardened. “Fine,” she snapped. “You had your chance. The three of you are lucky to still be alive. But after tonight, Jack and I won’t need you anymore. The only reason we kept you around was so that the ladies would be a little more cooperative. You see, we promised them that we’d let you go if they went along with what we wanted.”

  “What happens tonight?” Frank asked, although he had a sinking feeling that he already knew the answer.

  Fiona lifted her glass in a little salute. “The auction.”

  Conway started to curse. Hargett slapped him on the side of the head with the Smith & Wesson and said, “Shut up.”

  Fiona went on. “In a little while we’ll open the doors, and men who haven’t seen a white woman in months, let alone one as innocent as those ladies, will pour in here with their bags of gold to bid on the privilege of being first with them. We’ll make a small fortune, and by morning the ladies…well, they won’t be ladies anymore, will they? They’ll know by then that they have to go along with what we want.”

  “So you can kill Salty and Pete and me,” Frank said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Would you have done the same thing with Jacob?”

  Fiona shrugged. “I might have given Mr. Trench the opportunity to join us in our enterprise once I got to know him, like I did with you, Frank. I might not have. Who knows? And it really doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “Nope,” Frank said heavily. “It doesn’t.”

  Salty said, “I’m surprised the Mounties are lettin’ you varmints get away with this. Last I heard, there was a constable posted here in Whitehorse.”

  “There was,” Hargett admitted. “He’s dead now. My men and I run Whitehorse.”

  Just like Soapy Smith in Skagway, Frank thought, although Hargett had evidently gone further and indulged in outright murder, of a lawman, at that.

  He looked back and forth between Hargett and Fiona and said, “You two knew each other before, didn’t you?”

  “We met in San Francisco years ago,” Fiona said. “We’ve been partners ever since and pulled off some nice jobs. None of them ever had the potential to be as lucrative as this one, though. This is just the start, too. There’s a fortune to be made in the Klondike, Frank. More money than you could ever imagine!”

  Frank started to laugh. She had no idea she was talking to one of the richest men west of the Mississippi.

  Fiona’s face flushed with anger. “What are you laughing at?” she demanded. “Shut up!”

  “Let’s get on with this,” Hargett said. “Bring the girls out so they can have a look at these three and see that they’re still alive. Then we can lock them up again and let the customers in.”

  Fiona jerked her head in a nod. “All right.” She looked at Frank. “Just so you know, the opening bid for each of them will be a thousand dollars. More than ten thousand dollars in one night, Frank, maybe twice that much…and you could have had a share in it.”

  “I wouldn’t touch money like that to save my life.”

  “Well…we’re past that point, I’m afraid. Nothing will save your life now.” Fiona tossed back the rest of her drink, set the glass on the bar, and took one of the .32 revolvers from a pocket in her dress. She went up the stairs to the balcony and moved along it, knocking on each of the doors as she passed them and calling, “Come on out, ladies. It’s almost time for you to meet your…suitors.”

  None of the doors opened. Fiona waited a moment, then said angrily, “Come out here. You won’t like it if Jack has to send some of his men in to get you.”

  Someone jerked a door open. Frank wasn’t too surprised when Meg came striding out onto the
balcony. She looked furious. She wore a thin, low-cut shift that must have been cold in the chilly saloon. She glared at Fiona and said, “I can’t believe we ever trusted you.”

  Fiona smiled. “People are always eager to believe what they want to hear. I promised you a new life. Well, that’s what you’re going to get, honey.” She went to the next door and slapped it hard with her free hand. “Get out here, now!”

  The other doors opened and the women came out slowly and reluctantly onto the balcony. They were dressed like Meg, and as they lined up along the railing, Frank knew the miners waiting anxiously outside would be happy to bid on them. Some of the miners in the area really would have preferred wives, but men like that probably wouldn’t come to a saloon auction of brand-new soiled doves in the first place.

  Lining the women up like that and putting them on display had another effect. It drew the eyes of the two men holding shotguns. They stared up at the half-dressed women and forgot for a second about their job. Even Jack Hargett couldn’t help but look up at them with an expression of mingled lust and greed on his face.

  Frank saw that and knew this would be his only chance to act.

  “Ready, ladies?” Fiona asked mockingly.

  “Yeah,” Meg said, “I’m ready…bitch!”

  She launched herself at Fiona, knocking the gun aside and tackling the older woman. Both of them crashed against the balcony railing, which broke with a sharp crack under the impact. Suddenly Fiona and Meg were plummeting toward one of the tables below.

  Frank couldn’t wait to see what happened when they landed. He spun, grabbed the barrels of one of the Greeners, and wrenched them upward. The weapon came out of the hands of the distracted guard. Frank slammed the twin barrels into the middle of the man’s face and felt bone crunch under the impact.

  “Kill ’em, damn it, kill ’em!” Hargett yelled.

  The second shotgunner had his hands full with Pete Conway, though. Conway grabbed the gun with both hands and jerked the man against him, trapping the shotgun between them. The muzzles jabbed up under the man’s chin, and he just had time to widen his eyes in shock and terror before Conway shoved the weapon up, tripping both triggers. The double blast blew the man’s face off and threw him and Conway apart.

  Meanwhile, Frank hit the first guard again, this time driving the shotgun’s butt into his already shattered face. The man went down with a bubbling moan. Frank spun when he heard the blast. He saw Conway staggering backward, covered with blood, and yelled, “Pete!”

  “I’m all right!” Conway shouted. “Help Salty!”

  The old-timer was wrestling with Hargett. Both his hands were locked around the wrist of Hargett’s gun hand. Hargett slammed his other fist into Salty’s face and knocked him loose, sending the old man stumbling back a couple of steps. Hargett brought the pistol up.

  “Hargett!” Frank called.

  The man was fast. He whirled and actually got a shot off, sending a bullet whipping past Frank’s head. Then Frank touched off one barrel of the shotgun he held and planted a load of buckshot in the middle of Hargett’s suddenly bloody chest. The charge blew Hargett back against the bar, where he hung for a second, eyes wide with pain. Then the life went out of those eyes, and he flopped forward on his face to lie there on the plank floor in the middle of a slowly spreading pool of blood.

  Finally, Frank had a chance to glance toward the table where Meg and Fiona had landed. It had collapsed under their weight. The other women had rushed down the stairs by now and were helping Meg to her feet. She appeared to be shaken but all right, so Frank turned his attention back to other matters.

  He bent over and started checking the pockets of the man he had knocked out. He found a handful of shotgun shells and brought them out. “Pete, reload!” he said to Conway as he tossed a couple of the shells to the young man. He broke open the Greener in his hands and replaced the round he had used to kill Hargett.

  The doors of the saloon were locked, but men were slamming against them. Probably Hargett’s men, Frank thought as he closed the shotgun, trying to get in here because of the shooting.

  With a splintering crash, the doors popped open. Five men spilled into the room, holding revolvers, and Frank recognized them as some of the men who’d been in the saloon when he and the others first arrived.

  “Hargett’s dead!” he shouted. “Drop your guns!”

  The hardcases didn’t follow his advice. They jerked their weapons up to fire, but Frank and Conway let loose with the Greeners first. At this range, the spreading charges of buckshot cut the men down like a reaper with a scythe. Their bloody bodies clogged the doorway.

  There might be more of Hargett’s men, Frank thought, so he threw a couple more shells to Conway and used the last two to reload the shotgun he held. But before they had to use the weapons, a man outside shouted, “Did you hear that? Hargett’s dead! Let’s get those bastards who work for him!”

  Men yelled and cursed and shots rang out in the street. But that racket lasted only a few moments before it was replaced by screams of pain and fear, and then those grim sounds died away as well. Evidently Hargett and his men had been ruling Whitehorse with iron fists, and when that happened, the oppressed always rose up against the oppressors when they finally got the chance.

  Meg came over and touched Frank’s arm. “Frank,” she said. “She wants you.”

  He didn’t understand at first what Meg meant. But then he looked around and saw Fiona still lying on the floor amidst the debris from the wrecked table. Even at first glance he knew something was wrong, and as he came closer, he saw what it was. Her neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. She must have broken it when she landed.

  Frank handed the loaded shotgun to Salty and said, “You and Pete keep an eye on the door.” Then he went to a knee beside Fiona and looked down into her eyes.

  “F-Frank,” she said in that hoarse voice that had intrigued him from the time he first met her. “Frank, I…I’m sorry…it turned out…like this…You should’ve…taken me up on it…such a…damned shame…”

  “Yeah,” he said. “In a lot of ways.”

  But she was beyond hearing him. She had died as those final words came out of her mouth.

  From outside the broken doors, somebody called, “Hey, in there! Don’t shoot! Is it true that Hargett’s dead?”

  “Durned tootin’ he is!” Salty replied.

  “Thank God! Hold your fire!” A man moved into the doorway, his hands raised to show that he meant no harm as he stepped over the crumpled corpses of Hargett’s gun-wolves. He was dressed in a thick coat and floppy-brimmed hat and had the look of a prospector about him. “You don’t have to worry about the rest of his gang,” the man went on. “All the fight’s gone out of ’em. The ones who are still alive, that is.”

  Frank rose from where he knelt by Fiona’s body. He said to Meg and the other women, “You ladies get back up there and get dressed.” As they hurried upstairs, he stepped over toward the bar to pick up the .38 Hargett had dropped. He asked the man, “Who are you?”

  “Name’s Keenan. I’ve got a claim not far from here.”

  “You came into town for the auction?” Frank asked in a hard voice.

  “Hell, no!” Keenan responded. “I was over at the general store with a bunch of fellas who didn’t like Hargett and his plans any more than it looks like you did, mister.” He glanced at Hargett’s body as he spoke. “We’re the ones who went after Hargett’s men. The bunch who came for the auction scattered when the shooting started. Gold or no gold, most of ’em were no-accounts anyway.” Keenan paused. “You’re the fella we heard them talking about. The gunfighter. Frank Morgan.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s right.”

  “All right to put my hands down now, Mr. Morgan?”

  Frank gestured with the Smith & Wesson. “I reckon so.”

  Keenan lowered his hands and went on. “If you’d like a job, Mr. Morgan, we’ve sure got one for you. Marshal of Whitehorse! We haven’t had any law
and order here since Hargett back-shot Constable Fleming.”

  “The Mountie who was posted here?”

  “That’s right. Hargett’s been riding roughshod over the whole town since then, and nobody dared to stand up to him. You changed that in a hurry.”

  Frank lowered the .38 and said, “I’m not a lawman, Keenan.” He pointed at Salty. “There’s your man.”

  “Wait just a gol-durned minute!” Salty protested. “There’s still bodies leakin’ blood all over the floor, and you got me wearin’ a badge already? I done told you, I’m goin’ to Mexico!”

  “Not for a while yet,” Frank said as the women, fully dressed now, began to come back down the stairs from the second floor. He saw how Keenan’s eyes followed them with interest, admiration, respect, and a touch of lust. He struck Frank as a decent hombre, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like to look at a pretty girl. Frank went on. “Remember, we’re stuck here in Whitehorse until the spring.”

  Salty lowered his shotgun and scratched at his beard. “Yeah, there’s that to consider, I reckon,” he admitted. “Marshal. Don’t that beat all.”

  “At least until the Mounties show up again,” Frank added. “I’m sure somebody will come to find out what happened to Constable Fleming.”

  Salty nodded and said, “All right, Keenan, you got yourself a badge-toter…on one condition.” He jerked a thumb at Conway. “I want this young feller as a deputy.”

  “Wait a minute!” Conway exclaimed. “I came to look for gold, not wear a badge!”

  “I reckon you’ll have plenty o’ time for prospectin’, too,” Salty said. “’Cause as long as I’m marshal, Whitehorse is gonna be a plumb peaceful place!”

  Chapter 33

  Frank stood at the railing of a ship called the Jupiter and watched the wharves at Skagway coming closer. The town had grown in the months since he had been here last, he thought. It had a ways to go yet, but it was actually starting to look respectable.