Jim Saddler 7

by Gene Curry

  I stayed out of the bunkhouse as much as I could, but as we made our painful way up the coast of British Columbia, the wind began to get a knife edge. One day, with a fair wind behind us, we made nearly a hundred miles before dark, when the ship had to lay over along the unlighted coast. Even so, considering the layovers and stops for wood, it was said that the Falmouth was making good time. There were no women on board, but it wouldn’t have mattered if there had been. These weren’t tropic seas where you could screw a woman on deck in the moonlight.

  The food was rotten, the coffee thin and bitter-tasting, as if they were using the same grounds over and over. But nobody complained too hard, because getting to Alaska was all that mattered. At one wood stop a party of hardy souls went ashore to shoot rabbits. I took no part in the rabbit shoot, and neither did Trask.

  I noticed that Trask spoke to no one. If someone spoke to him, he might answer, and no more. He made no attempt to strike up another conversation with me. He slept at the far end of the bunkhouse, and with men always moving around in that overcrowded space, it wasn’t always possible to see him. But I was careful not to go on deck at night. The thunder of the engines would hide the sound of a shot all too well. A few times Trask went on deck after dark, as if trying to draw me up after him. I stayed in my dirty canvas bunk.

  Everybody was beginning to smell bad. On the Falmouth there was no place to wash or shave, and the few men who tried to stay clean, soon got as dirty as the others. Everybody was bone-weary of the wallowing old tub. The food got worse and the cook was fortifying the rotten coffee with roasted com meal. A man got stabbed for trying to steal a can of peaches from a man with a whole sack of them. There was talk of throwing the wounded man overboard; finally the friends of the injured party decided that stabbing was punishment enough.

  The wounded man died anyway, sometime after we left Queen Charlotte Strait and were beating north toward Calvert Island, and there was much grumbling from the thief’s friends, who were inclined to avenge his death. But the trouble died down after the captain and most of the crew broke out rifles and the troublemakers were warned that they’d be put ashore at some Canadian port and turned over to the redcoats. That cooled their ardor because the Mounties don’t take kindly to men getting killed over a can of peaches.

  Nothing else happened until the Falmouth was back in American waters and out of reach of any good law. By now the bunkhouse smelled like a boar’s nest, the floor smeared with tobacco ash, scraps of food and spit. There was a movement by some hardy souls to let in some very cold fresh air; it was voted down. We were less than a day from Skagway, the jumping off place for the Alaska and Yukon goldfields when the captain appeared one morning and said the bunkhouse was going to be cleaned with a steam hose.

  “We’re going to clean out one part at a time,” the captain shouted, trying to make himself heard above the din of complaints. “Stow your gear at one end while we work on the other. Get a move on, boys. I’m not going into port looking like this. New batch of passengers will complain like hell. I said move it now.”

  To back his play, the captain drew a big Remington revolver from his belt and let it dangle from his forefinger. At the same time a crewman came in dragging a reinforced hose with a brass handle for turning it on and off. The captain went out and the crewman scalded the floor with a blast of steam that immediately clouded up the bunkhouse and made it almost impossible to see. The crewman worked his way down to the other door, using the powerful hose like a broom, sweeping the rubbish in front of him. Crowded in with the other men, I felt a bump but didn’t think anything about it. Everybody was bumping into everybody else.

  The crewman finished steam cleaning half the bunkhouse, then waved us to come down to the wet part. A man with steamed-up glasses walked into the wall and cursed like a bastard. After the crewman finished the whole place he turned off the hose and put it down. I was making my way back to my bunk when something made me look behind me and I saw four tough-looking men coming at me. Three had pistols, and one had a blackjack, about the biggest I’d ever seen. The biggest thug, who looked like a prizefighter turned saloon bouncer, pointed his left hand at me.

  “You just stole my watch, you fucking bastard. Let’s have it back, then you go over the side. Maybe you’ll make it to shore.”

  They were still coming forward through the clouds of steam when I grabbed up the hose and dropped the latch on the nozzle. A blast of steam across the legs cut them down, and when they fell I put another blast right over their heads. They rolled on the wet deck screaming in agony. All the other men were scrambling for the doors or huddled against the wall. I looked for Trask and didn’t see him.

  I gave the big man another blast in the legs. By raising or lowering the latch on the nozzle you could aim the steam jet like a gun. I shut off the steam and pointed the nozzle at the big man’s face. He knew I could turn his face to dripping jelly with a single blast.

  “Don’t do it!” he yelled. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  While he was yelling one of the others made a grab for his fallen pistol. I blew his face away with steam. It cooked his face and blinded him instantly. I turned the hose back to the big man.

  “Who put you up to it?” I said, knowing damn well it was Trask. The theft of the peaches must have given him the idea.

  “Don’t know his name,” the big man howled, staring at the hose in mortal terror. “Man in a beaver hat.” Just then Trask stepped out from behind a mass of frightened men and fired a pistol at me. I couldn’t use the hose because it would mean disfiguring innocent men. Instead, I dropped the hose and had my pistol out before it hit the deck. He fired again and clipped a patch of fur from my coat. Then I fired and got him squarely between the eyes. I heard the captain yelling outside and put my gun in my holster. In a minute I found myself looking at the captain’s cocked Remington. Behind him were six crewmen with rifles. All those guns were ready to kill me. This was a tough ship in tough country.

  Backed by his riflemen, the captain came forward to look at the man without a face. Then, covered by seven guns, I told my side of it. It took some prompting to get the scalded thugs to tell the truth, but they changed their minds when the captain, a bitter-faced Scotchman, picked up the hose and pointed the nozzle. After that the other passengers had their say, and I was a free man.

  “Just don’t run too fast,” the captain said after I gave him the watch the man who bumped me had planted on me. “They may want to talk to you in Skagway, but I guess you’re in the clear.”

  I wasn’t one bit sure about that.

  Chapter Three

  Only one man wanted to see me in Skagway, and that man was Soapy Smith. Jefferson Randolph Smith was his real name, and he came from a good Virginia family, but he didn’t object if you called him Soapy to his face. Although he had a smooth, oily voice, the nickname didn’t come from that. Old Soapy got his start in life selling cheap soap at high prices; the name stuck to him like a soap ring in a bathtub. Some years later he worked as a confidence man—all Colorado knew him as the King of Bunco—in various parts of the Southwest, before he fled north by way of a jail term and a jailbreak in California. There, in Skagway, he had made himself undisputed ruler of the wildest, most lawless town in Alaska.

  Of course I didn’t know Soapy was boss of Skagway when I arrived there. But I was to find out before many hours had passed. Operating from the back room of Jeff’s Place, Soapy controlled a gang estimated to number between three and four hundred. This collection of badmen included card sharps, confidence men, bunco-steerers, pickpocket whores, highway robbers and murderers. Early in his Skagway career the good people of the town tried to run him out by forming a Committee of One Hundred and One. Soapy countered by forming his own Committee of Three Hundred and Three. There was an election a few weeks off and he rigged it and filled every political office with his own men. In Skagway, so remote from the rest of the world, if you didn’t get along with Soapy you stood a good chance of getting killed.

/>   Like I said, I learned all this fast. On the face of it, it looked like my kind of town. By that I mean no law of any kind, territorial or federal. There must have been a hundred saloons, gaming houses and whorehouses in the place. The main street was called Broadway and it was hard-packed with snow and bright with yellow light when I came up from the docks looking for a room. After weeks on the steamer I wanted a bath and a long drink of whisky and especially a woman. The judge would have to wait.

  Money had little value in Skagway unless you had a lot of it. The bottle of whiskey cost me twenty dollars, and it was a doubtful-looking brand at that. I found a rickety hotel and for one night they didn’t charge me more than a working cowhand made in two months. And that was just for a night. But at least I didn’t have to bunk in with three or four other fellers. The man behind the desk was some kind of foreigner, and when I asked about the bath, he said sure—and how about a “nize gurl?”

  I said I wanted a “nize gurl” that wouldn’t make me piss funny for a month and the clerk got huffy about it.

  “Ve haf de cleanest gurls in the woild,” the clerk said.

  Well, I sure hoped so because I didn’t want to start out on the trail with a dose. But you have to take chances, and I was horny as a bastard. I got the room key from the clerk and he told me I could find the bath-house at the end of the hall. He said I could tell the wash-house attendant about the girl when I got through with the bath.

  I took my guns, clothes, a bottle of whiskey, everything to the bath-house. In a wild town like Skagway you can wind up naked and broke if you’re careless about bathing. The hotel was new but smelled old, all but the wash-house: a strong soapy smell came through the half-open door. When I opened it I found a strong-looking girl who looked like a farmer’s daughter strayed far from the south forty. There were three tin tubs and the floor was wet and she was mopping it. A big copper tank bubbled on a kerosene burner.

  The girl was young and blond and dressed in a clean canvas miner’s suit and wooden shoes. I guess the clogs kept her feet out of the water. She was sweating from her exertions and she brushed her hair out of her eyes with a sigh.

  “You want a bath?” she asked.

  “A bath and then a girl,” I said.

  “The girl isn’t me, mister.”

  “That’s too bad. I think I’d like you better than the other girls.”

  I didn’t mean anything, but she got mad just the same. “Don’t include me with the other girls. I’m no whore.”

  “Whores are just women. No need to get preachy about it. How about drawing some hot water for me? I can argue just as well from the tub.”

  “There’s a time limit,” she said. “If you’re real dirty and want a second bath you have to pay double. If you want me to scrub your back that’ll be extra.”

  I thought back to having my back scrubbed in Cynthia’s gold-fitted bathtub on Nob Hill. This farm girl probably didn’t have Cynthia’s know-how. Even so, she wasn’t bad. Not by any means.

  “I’ll take ten dollars’ worth of back scrubbing,” I said. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you lock the door and I’ll pay for all three tubs.”

  I was sitting in hot water drinking whisky and she gave me a whack with the back of the brush. “Behave yourself, mister. This house is strictly business—I rent it from the hotel—so no more dirty talk.”

  “It wasn’t so dirty,” I said. “You mean you run this place?”

  She scrubbed hard at my sweaty back. “That’s what I said. I am going to work hard in Alaska, then go home and get married. But not to some man who thinks he owns me because he feeds me. Maybe I will be the one to feed him.”

  “Lucky man,” I said. “How are you doing with the money?”

  She sighed. “Not so good. Men are so dirty in Alaska. It’s so hard to keep clean, they don’t even bother.”

  “That’s hard to believe, with your back scrubs, I mean.”

  “They know that’s all they’ll get, so they’d rather keep the money.”

  “Men must offer you money for other things?”

  “Very few offer enough. I am very expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “Why that figure?”

  “I like the sound of it. And I must like the man before I agree. I do not like men with bad teeth, fat bellies, skinny legs. You think two hundred and fifty dollars is too much?”

  “If you want it bad enough. I do.”

  Well sir, it turned out that she was a sweet fuck; what the colored people call a honey-fuck. For all her dealings with naked men, she was sort of shy. It was plain that she didn’t have that much experience, but she made up for it in energy and willingness to please. She had a well-cushioned body and her waist was far from waspish, yet I liked all of it. Her muscled legs gripped me like a vise. I had been tired when I got into bed with her—that steamer was hell on sleep—but I soon revived after a little more whiskey. She gave me a good fuck and a good massage, kneading my back and neck muscles with her strong farm-girl hands. Something she did to my neck made it snap, and after that I felt ten times better. She was tight for such a large girl, and the muscles of her hot, sopping cunt worked like a mouth on my fiercely thrusting cock. Jesus Christ! It was good to be on top of a soft, pretty girl in a big bed with clean sheets. And she wasn’t one of those women who grab you and stare into your face while you’re fucking them. This girl kept her eyes closed all the time. She hadn’t spread her legs for so many men that she had become mechanical about it. After I’d been in her for just a few minutes she came with a great sigh of contentment that was pleasant to hear, and after I had my own come she held me tight, moving easy but saying nothing until I got hard again.

  One thing was for sure: this girl who wanted to make enough money to go home and get married to a respectable man was going to bring a lot of experience to the marriage bed. I felt like telling her not to show too much experience; her respectable husband might—probably would—enjoy it, but it would be taken as a bad sign. But maybe she knew all that and would act the blushing bride.

  But there was nothing bashful about the things she did to me. I had given her the two hundred and fifty dollars and no doubt she was looking forward to later sessions at the same price. Who could blame her? Four long fucks and she’d be a thousand dollars richer. But money or no money, she fucked like a woman who really loved having a big cock inside her. She was still tight because she hadn’t fucked a lot, not at that price. And she was strong all over, especially her hands, what with all that massaging and back-scrubbing.

  After I came again my balls dropped down, as they do after a fuck, and she kneaded them gently. An inexperienced woman who rubs your balls can hurt you. This young blond girl did anything but. After working on my balls she worked on my cock so expertly that it began to stand up straight and when it was ready for her mouth she sucked it. I wasn’t sure I could come again so soon, but there was no one banging on the door demanding a bath. She sucked me until my eyes were popping out of my head.

  My cock was rigid, my whole body was rigid as she sucked faster and faster. Finally when I could stand it no more I came in a gush and she swallowed it. I was covered with sweat and she insisted on giving me another bath and she didn’t even charge me extra. Feeling her hands all over me, especially when she washed between my legs, got me hard again and I fucked her again and had to get another bath.

  After moving to my room, the fun just got better.

  I had two more drinks and, she turned me over, sat on my ass and worked on my back a second time. Sweet fucking Christ! but it felt good. Before I drifted off to sleep I heard her say, “You’re a nice man, mister. Whoever you are.”

  I must have slept for about two hours, and then I heard the door opening. “You came back, little sister,” I said, flipping back the blankets so she could get in with me.

  “That’s what I done, little sister,” a rough voice said. “Don’t reach for a weapon
or I’ll have to use you up. Me here, two more in the hall. I’ll just light the light and you put on your pants. Nobody’s about to rob you, all right?”

  Gun talk always clears my head, no matter how much whiskey I take aboard.

  “Then what?” I asked, smelling the lemon drops on his breath.

  A match flared and light from the lamp flooded the room and then I saw a fat man, with a mustache and a quilted coat, holding a stubby pocket revolver on me.

  “Then what?” he repeated, grinding the hard candy between his store teeth. “The what is Soapy Smith wants to talk to you.” He put the short gun in a side pocket. “Sorry to point a gun at you, Saddler. Just a precaution, you understand. Better you than me is my motto. Soapy said you were smart in the ways of not getting shot.”

  “Good for Soapy,” I said, getting off the bed to drag on my pants. “Didn’t know the old boy was in this neck of the woods.”

  The fat man laughed until his jowls shook. “Then you must be awful new in these parts—which of course you are. My name is Jerry Sullivan, by the way. You want to shake hands?”

  I got my pants buttoned and my shirt stuffed in. “I always shake hands with a man with two friends in the hall.”

  We shook hands cautiously and Sullivan said, “Soapy said you were a card. Years ago in Denver we met if you recall the place that Soapy was working at the time. No blame if you don’t recall. That time, in them days, I was a lot thinner than I am now. Make a joke on that if you like. These days I’m rich as well as fat. These days I’m Soapy’s right-hand man.”

  Well, he said I could make a joke. “There’s enough of you to make three right hands, Jerry.”

  Sullivan laughed with the evil good nature of his double-crossing kind. “Soapy said you were a card,” he repeated. “You don’t recall me, do you, cowboy?”

  One thing I hate to be called is cowboy. It’s like calling a farmer a farmer, or reminding some other man that he has a birthmark or jug ears.