by Gene Curry
I said, “Sure I remember you, Jerry. You were beating up sick whores back then. I heard you killed a few that couldn’t work.”
Sullivan stuck another handful of lemon candy in his mouth while I was pulling on my boots. His fat man’s smile wasn’t working as well as it had been.
“I don’t think you’re such a card, Saddler. Let me ask you something. How come you ain’t afraid of me? Your guns are over there on the dresser. Mine is close to hand. So how come you ain’t a-scared?”
I got my coat on. “Because Soapy gives the orders in any outfit he runs.”
Sullivan spat a piece of candy on the floor. “Fucking goddamned right he does. In this whole town he does.” And so he did.
I went out ahead of Sullivan and we went down the street where the hotel was, Seward Street. When we were crunching along the icy boardwalks of Broadway I saw Jeff’s Place, and by the size of it I knew how well Soapy was doing. It was so big that it took up most of a block, and there was so much light and noise that it looked like four circuses going full blast. It was a three-story building with saloons and gambling halls on the first and second floors. In Skagway, on the coast, it doesn’t get half as cold as in the interior, and some of the windows were open. The so-called music of racket made by mechanical pianos was deafening. A bottle broke a window and there was a shot and then the noise was no worse than before.
Walking with me—the two gunmen behind—Sullivan said through his lemon drops, “How you like it, Saddler?”
“A garden of Eden,” I said.
The ex-pimp had no more smiles now. So close to home, he felt safe. “What the fuck does that shit mean?”
I said Holy Bible shit.
Sullivan said walk on in.
Once we got inside it was clear that Sullivan was of some minor importance in the hell town of Skagway, for the loudmouth boozers and gamblers made way for us as we cut through the crowded saloon to the door of the back room. In front of this stood not one, but two shotgun guards with unfriendly faces. Sullivan gave them a nod and they opened the door—and there was Soapy Smith, fifteen years older—and I had never known him to be young—sitting at a polished table with a great smoking steak, a long cigar and a tall drink in front of him. Across the table a young woman, no more than eighteen, was pushing her tits back into her blue silk dress. There was no steak on her side of the table, but there were spots of meat gravy on the front of her dress.
Well, I thought, Soapy is getting old and has to do something different with his women. Like maybe smearing their breasts with steak gravy.
“How do, Soapy?” I asked him.
“Right good, Saddler,” he answered. “Better than good. Been a long time I haven’t seen you. You hungry for steak, or you want the other kind of meat?” Soapy Smith gestured toward the girl.
“Just had some of that, Soapy. Maybe later.”
Soapy snapped his fingers at the girl and pointed to the door. “Scat, honey,” the great man said.
Soapy poured a drink for me. I knew it wasn’t poisoned because he had a drink from the same bottle. It was real Jack Daniels, my favorite sourmash, and it went down as smooth as spring water after the slop I’d been drinking.
After he got a good cigar going, Soapy puffed clouds of contentment at the ceiling. He seemed in no hurry to talk, but that was always Soapy’s way. The fine broadcloth suit he was wearing said he’d come a long way from peddling soap. If he ever dug for gold, it was in other people’s pockets.
“Sullivan says you run this town,” I said by way of a compliment. I didn’t want to tangle with Soapy if I didn’t have to. Looking at Soapy, thinking of the power he had, suddenly I felt a long way from home.
“I always wanted my own town,” Soapy said. “Back in the States that’s a hard thing to do. In the States even a powerful man has to play ball with other powerful men. Then there’s always some reform movement raising its ugly head. No such thing in Skagway. This is my last stop, Saddler, and I’m going to make it a good one. I could retire now on my takings, but don’t want to. The only thing that bothers me about this country is the cold. But I get around that by staying indoors all I can. I’m like a general safe and snug in his tent. I let other men go out in the cold and do the fighting.”
“You always were smart,” I said.
“Well yes,” Soapy agreed with a slight smile. “But I never got organized till now. And to think I owe it all to the judge.”
A copy of the San Francisco Chronicle lay folded on the table. I guessed it was the one with my name on it. My name and Judge Phineas Slocum’s.
“The judge sent you to prison,” I said.
“Twenty years hard labor in federal prison,” Soapy said. “But I broke out after two years and made my way here. A lucky thing I picked Alaska to run to. Now I’m a rich man, a free man with the finest pardon money could buy. I owe all that to the judge. You think I’m as rich as the judge was?”
I helped myself to another Jack Daniels. “Probably not,” I said. “The judge came from a rich family and got richer along the way.”
Soapy studied the back of his hands, admiring the shine of his nails. Still viewing his gambler’s hands, he said in his guarded way, “They say the Slocums are worth millions. I don’t mean the judge’s two brothers. The rest of the Slocums. I mean the widow and the others in Los Angeles. But I mean the widow in particular.” Soapy tapped the newspaper with a skinny finger. “Here it says the widow will come into ten million, maybe more when it’s all counted up.”
“That’s what the paper says. Why all the interest? You got yours.”
“I only got about a million, Saddler. How much are you getting for bringing back the body?”
I told him because I figured he knew.
“I hear you did some dirty work on the boat,” Soapy said. “Scalded a gang of skull busters and killed a man named Ben Trask.”
“No way out of it,” I said. “Before I left Frisco Trask warned me off.”
I explained what Trask had said. About how old enemies of the judge wanted him to rot in the ice and snow. Naturally, I said nothing about the Slocum brothers, Bart and George.
“You ever hear of this Ben Trask?” I asked.
Soapy said no. “Of course I wasn’t in Frisco that long before I got nabbed in the swindle. Sullivan went to look at the body, and he didn’t know him either. You believe Trask’s story about the bad boys hating the judge so much?”
“I don’t know. Trask said he was a city detective at one time. There was a big graft ring the judge broke up. The ringleaders and a lot of others were sent to prison.”
“The judge sent plenty of good men to prison.”
“He sent you to prison.”
“Sure he did, I’m glad he-did.”
“Then you don’t hate him like the others?”
“For two years I hated him. After I broke out I put it down to the fortunes of war. A man shouldn’t break the law if he can’t take his punishment. That’s the way it works, or ought to. I tell you the judge gave me everything I have.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. Professional crooks like to pretend they have a business arrangement with the law. Maybe some of them don’t hate the judges that send them away, but I found Soapy’s story hard to swallow, especially when I considered that the old bastard got twenty years for a fairly small swindle and had never been convicted of anything else.
At last I asked the main question because it had to be asked. I’d known the elderly crook for fifteen years, and we weren’t enemies of any kind. On the other hand, Soapy didn’t make much distinction between enemies and friends.
“Level with me, Soapy. Do you have anything to do with the men Trask was talking about?”
Soapy pulled the point of his well-trimmed beard. “Me?” he said in surprise, or in what might have been one of his con man’s acts. “My friend, if I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be here talking to me, drinking my whiskey. Sullivan and the boys would have killed you and nobody would bli
nk an eye. I could have sent twenty men to kill you. Didn’t I tell you I run this town? Absolutely run it. Is that good enough for you? On my word as a gentleman, I had nothing to do with Trask. You’re forgetting it takes a long time to get from here to Frisco. I didn’t know a thing about you till I got the Chronicle a few hours ago.”
That part of it made sense, but I wasn’t ready to trust Soapy or anything about him. The man had been a double-dealer since the moment a doctor slapped his backside and brought him to life.
“Your word’s good enough for me,” I said.
Soapy poured us a drink. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “How do you plan to get to the camp where the judge is? It’s four or five hundred miles from here. You even know where the camp called Dulcimer is?”
“I know where it’s supposed to be. Somewhere west of Dawson. I figure to go over White Pass, across Lake Bennett, then down the Yukon to Dawson, then stay with the river until it crosses back into American territory. You know if the steamers are still running this time of year?”
Soapy smiled at me. “There’s only one steamer, Saddler. It’s on a run to Dawson right now. If the river doesn’t freeze up too fast it may make it back before winter. If not, it’ll stay there till spring.”
“There must be other boats on the river,” I said. “Some boats, plenty of rafts. It’s a bad, wild river and freezes up without warning. If it’s frozen now you’ll have to walk in or sled in. You’ll have to wait till spring to bring the body out. Then you can take the steamer.”
“The widow doesn’t want to wait till spring.”
“Impatient woman, this widow. How does she want you to bring the body out in the dead of winter. By balloon?”
“By dog sled.”
“You’re crazy. I don’t know that it can be done. You’ll have a coffin as well as a body.”
“The widow wants the body soon as possible. I’ll come back the same way I go in. Across the ice, then back over White Pass.”
Soapy shivered at the thought of all that hard travel. “This widow, would I know the lady? Newspaper says her name is Cynthia.”
“Cynthia Diamond that worked in the Bella Union in Denver, as well as other places.”
“Ah yes,” Soapy said, sucking on his cigar. “A juicy lady. You been dipping your wick around there, have you?”
I grinned to show good fellowship. “Around there,” I said.
“No wonder you want to get back so fast. I always thought Cindy was too good to be selling it for the prices she got. Think of it now, Cindy Diamond married to a federal judge. I still think you’re crazy.”
“Maybe I can get help.”
“Not likely. Men crazy for gold won’t throw down their tools to sled out a corpse. You’re forgetting what a superstitious bunch gold miners are. All they believe in is luck. They won’t want to have anything to do with a stiff. Mark my words, Saddler. You’ll be all by your lonesome. But who am I to stop a man that wants to get back to Cindy Diamond’s sweet bush? Not to mention ten million dollars. By the living Jesus, that’s a nice pile of money. You got all the things you need?”
“Everything except supplies,” I said.
“I can help you there,” Soapy said. “Prices are a bitch in this town.” He smiled. “I help keep them that way. You’ll be needing plenty of fatty bacon, among other things. Nothing like fat to keep out the cold. Of course I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Thanks, Soapy,” I said, wondering why he was being so good to me. But his boys hadn’t killed me, which was a plus.
There was a knock on the door and Sullivan, still grinding lemon drops, came in and whispered in Soapy’s ear. Soapy made a face at the candy smell and waved the ex-pimp back outside.
Soapy said mildly, “You’re full of surprises, Saddler. I guess you forgot to say you’d been in Alaska before?”
“Somebody say I was?”
“One of the bartenders recognized you as a man he’d been in the army with. Not in Skagway, he said. No army ever here. Way up north. Fort Yukon. Bartender’s name is Dave Durkin.”
“Good old Dave,” I said.
“How’d you get in the army, Saddler?”
“I shot a man had a rich daddy and figured the army was a good place to hide out. I hoped for Arizona or New Mexico, got sent to Alaska instead. I was there a year before I got transferred.”
“Then you know the country pretty good?” There was some hardness in Soapy’s voice that hadn’t been there before. “You won’t be just another pilgrim, is what I mean.”
“I hope not,” I said. “I wouldn’t take this job if I was.”
“That’s good to hear,” Soapy said, smiling again, as if he had made up his mind about something. “I always say there’s nothing like a man that knows his way around. Otherwise he might get lost or take a wrong turn on the trail.”
I smiled too. “Not me, Soapy. Over White Pass, down the Yukon River, back the same way.” I didn’t know what the old con man’s game was, but I didn’t like it. If there was any other way back to the coast, I was going to take it. What I didn’t understand was, if Soapy didn’t want me to fetch the judge’s body, then why wasn’t I dead? But for now all I could do was play the hand I’d been dealt and see what happened.
“If anyone can do it, you can do it,” Soapy said. “You’ve got a reputation for seeing things through. Now I’ll call Sullivan and you can tell him what you want. See you back here in a few months. The best of luck to you.” Soapy shook hands without getting up from the table. We smiled at one another. Then he called the ex-pimp. Like it or not, I was on my way.
White Pass looked like the entrance to hell. A frozen hell. Snow was blowing and Skagway was twenty miles behind. Men laden with equipment—some with too much equipment—were toiling their way up to the wind blasted summit of the pass. There were a few men that didn’t make it to the top of the pass, but that was only the start. Somewhere on the other side of the pass was Lake Bennett, twenty miles away on the downgrade. There the wayfarers built boats and rafts that would take them downriver to Dawson, biggest of the boom towns in the Yukon. Well over half of them sank or were ripped to pieces in the rapids of the Yukon, and unless I could pay my way on a sturdy craft I might have more to worry about than Soapy Smith or the others.
Near the top of the pass, which was the start of Canadian territory, there was a Mounted Police post manned by tough-looking lawmen in their bright red uniform jackets. They were turning back men without enough supplies for the journey ahead. One redcoat had a thick sheaf of wanted posters from the States and was checking every man seeking to enter Canadian territory. There was no wanted notice on me, at least not lately, and after they looked at my supplies, my sleeping bag and other gear, they let me through.
It was all downgrade after that. I had enough grub to last me six days. More than that would have been too hard to carry. The snow stopped and the great gray mountain peaks came into view. I had started early from Skagway and there wasn’t much light left. There was no way to reach Lake Bennett by nightfall, and I didn’t want to try. Travel in that country is dangerous at any time; at night it’s a sure way to get killed unless there is a bright moon. After the snow there was rain and fog that lasted for well over an hour. I was glad to see the lights of a relay station.
It was operated by a man who was packing in supplies for the Mounted Police. He let me sleep on the floor but didn’t ask any money for it. In the morning he gave me a mug of black tea and a bacon sandwich. I never did get his name, but he was a gloomy-looking man with almost nothing to say.
I was on my way again as soon as the sky was a dull gray. Sometime that morning I caught sight of Lake Bennett far in the distance, a long gray sprawl of water trapped between the mountain peaks. This was the beginning of the waterway that led to the goldfields of the Yukon and finally emptied into the Bering Sea, nearly two thousand miles away. This was the end of the land trail from the outside world; the place where boats were built, for the 600-mile journey down
the Yukon to Dawson. It was the last place in the world I wanted to be.
It took me hours to reach the big lake. All along its shores a shack-and-tent city had sprung up, but there was none of the whiskey-fired foolishness of Skagway. This was a place of hard work and firm determination. Long before I got there I could hear the sounds of rafts and boats being built. The sounds of saws, hammers and axes echoed across the icy waters of the lake. Smoke curled up from dozens of fires, the only cheery sight in all that wasteland.
As I came into camp men stared at me with that flat suspicion you find in all bleak places where men live by their guns and their fists. A few men nodded stiffly, but no one spoke. A few looked at my fur coat and sleeping bag, my rifle and sheep-lined boots, and I could see the greed in their eyes. This country was better policed than the American side of the line, but the redcoats were few and far between. Here, any man who didn’t watch himself all the time was a goddamned fool.
After looking around for a bit I found a group of men who had stopped to eat. They had a fire going in an old bucket with holes in it. Coffee was on and it smelled good. They looked like Americans, not that being a fellow American would mean anything if they decided to be unfriendly.
“How’s the work going?” I asked one of them, a rangy man with a scarf wrapped around a battered leather cap.
“All right,” he said curtly. “You’re welcome to use the fire, but there’s no grub for you. Hardly enough for us. Thought we could buy enough in Skagway, but were told wrong about the prices. Sons of bitches there are robbing the people blind. Now we’re short as you can see.”
A handful of fried potatoes sizzled on a greased skillet.
“And that’s the last of the coffee,” the man said. There were grim lines in his unshaven face.
“I got coffee and bacon and beans. You’re welcome to some of my grub.” I said. “I plan to shoot game along the way. Used to be a hunter, and was in this country for a whole year.”
“Well now, is that a fact,” the man said, nodding me closer to the fire. “Maybe we ought to have a talk.”
