Alaska Steel (A Neal Fargo Adventure #3)

by John Benteen

  “I see.” Fargo assayed the scheme in his mind; it made sense, from the standpoint of a man like Whetstone. “But that’s pretty rough on the miners around here, isn’t it? The ones on Birch Creek and all the rest. Having the town filled up with a bunch of outlaws?”

  Whetstone laughed. “They’ll have to take their chances. I can’t help it if one of these fellers here runs short and has to lift a poke from some creek-rat. That’s none of my affair. Oh, yeah, there’s been a lot of griping from the old settlers, but there wasn’t a lot of them left and they’d have starved to death anyhow if the town hadn’t been built back up. Anyhow, there’s nothing they can do about it; I’ve got control all legal-like, and as long as there’s no Territorial Warrant out for a man, I can rent him his house and sell him his winter grub and his booze and his women, and nobody’s got any call to complain. Come spring, I’ll be a rich man, Fargo.”

  His cigar had gone out. He relit it. “So that’s my story. What’s yours ? You may be wanted in Klondike, but you came up from Nome. Why?”

  Fargo’s mind worked rapidly. It was too early to mention Dolan or the Committee of Ten. Those names might mean nothing or everything to Whetstone; he had to feel out the ground first. He said, “Well, you take off with another man’s wife, you want to go where he can’t track you down so easy. You understand?”

  Whetstone looked at Jane; something flickered in his eyes. “Oh,” he said softly; and Fargo knew at once that he was believed. “So that’s it.” Then he looked at Fargo curiously. “And you’re afraid of her husband? I never heard that Neal Fargo was afraid of anybody.”

  “I just didn’t want to have to kill him,” Fargo lied. “He’s a man that draws some water back in the States and there’d have been a murder rap against me sooner or later. Besides, it’s been a while since I was in Alaska and I was ready to come back. I thought there might be enough poker and blackjack action here in Circle when the miners come in to give me something to do. I didn’t know I was gonna have to pay a premium to stay here. What are you charging?”

  Whetstone leaned back in his chair, eyes hooding themselves. “I’m probably not charging you anything, Fargo.”

  “That’s mighty generous,” Fargo said thinly.

  “No. I’m not a generous man. But... You saw those two guys I had backing me a while ago ?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve got some more like them on my payroll. But not enough. You know, Fargo, when you got a town full of people like this town is full of, you wanta stay top dog, you’ve got to be the toughest, meanest one of the bunch. Otherwise, somebody’s gonna move in on you. Okay, I’m tough, I’m mean. But I need people siding me that are just as tough. They don’t come any tougher than you. I think you and I could get together, work out a deal. The flunkies I’ve got now are hard and they’re fast with guns, but they’ve got no brains. I need somebody with me that’s both—good with a gun and smart. Somebody like you.”

  Fargo felt immediate gratification. Whetstone could not have made things any easier for him. A deal like that would put him in the best possible position to gather information about Dolan. And that was why he was here, not to buck Whetstone. He said, “It sounds interesting. Depending on how big a piece of the action I get.”

  “You get to stay in Circle free. You get ten percent of what I take in every month—that ought to come to plenty at what I’m charging and the rate the town’s filling up. In return, you back me up, help me prove to the owlhooters coming in that they’d better mind their manners around Jason Whetstone. And whatever you make gambling is yours, no cut to me.”

  “That’s a lot of money, just for walking around town with my guns on.”

  “No,” Whetstone said. “You’ll fight for it. Before the winter’s over, you’ll fight more than once for it. And not only these tough boogers from Canada. There’ll be miners in from the creeks that won’t like the setup and they’ll have to be kept in line. And the old settlers here, there’s still about eighty or a hundred of them. They don’t like me worth a damn. There’ll be fighting enough to earn your pay. The only thing is, you got to be hard, you got to be—” he broke off, as the door to the back room suddenly slammed open.

  The man who stood there was short, blocky, in his early fifties, his hair gray. He wore a town suit, with a heavy sweater beneath his coat, and he swayed slightly; it was obvious that he was drunk. Belle’s hand went to the jut of her breasts and her eyes widened. “Papa!” she said. “Oh, Papa—”

  “Shut up, you whore,” he said harshly. He blinked, then focused his eyes on Whetstone. “You, Jason. I want to talk to you.”

  “No,” said Whetstone. “I’m not talking to you anymore. Belle’s made up her mind and—”

  “Made up her mind.” The man’s deep voice was full of agony. He pointed at her. “Look at you,” he said scathingly to Belle. “My own daughter. Dressed and painted like some damned red-light slut. And it’s your fault, damn you, Whetstone. She was a good girl, a decent girl until—”

  Whetstone’s voice was tired, losing patience. “Doc. I have been over this with you all I aim to. It ain’t my fault your daughter’s the prettiest gal in this port of Alaska, and that she was damned sick and tired of being stuck back here in the woods because you’re too much of a rummy to hold down a practice in a real town. Now, I’ve told you before and this is the last time I’m telling you—you leave me and Belle alone or you’re in real trouble.”

  The doctor’s lips curled. “Real trouble. Do you think I’m afraid of you? Why, damn you, Whetstone—” And then his hand moved. It went into his coat pocket, came out holding a snub-nosed Banker’s Special. “No,” he said, steadying himself with his other hand on the door-jamb. “No, I’m not afraid of you. I came here to kill you, Jason. I’m goin’ to kill you and then I’ll take this painted, whiskey-drinkin’ slut that used to be my daughter back home with me and try to make a woman out of her again.” His voice shook, but his hand was steady, holding the gun centered on Whetstone’s chest. “I doubt you know how to pray. But if you do, you’d better—”

  That was when Fargo moved. He was the closest one in the room to the doctor, and he had turned in his chair at the man’s appearance. Suddenly his booted foot lashed up and out. It caught the doctor’s hand, and the little pistol roared as it was kicked high. The bullet chugged into the ceiling and before the doctor could recover, shoot again, Fargo was on his feet and had the doctor’s wrist. He clamped down hard, felt bones move beneath his grip, grate. The doctor groaned and the gun fell from his spread fingers.

  Whetstone was on his feet, too, and around the table. “Let him go, Fargo,” he rasped. Fargo turned loose, stepped back. Belle said, in a trembling voice, “Jason—no!”

  “I’ve had all from him I aim to take.” Whetstone’s hand lashed out, open; it hit the doctor and he sprawled into the main room of the store. Whetstone was after him like a panther, caught the slack of the sweater before the man could hit the floor, pulled him upright. His hand lashed back. “Jason, please!” Belle screamed.

  Whetstone stood with hand upraised. “You choose,” he rasped. “You choose once and for all, then. Me or him.”

  “Jason, I love you, but—”

  “Choose!” Whetstone roared.

  Belle, eyes wide, face working, stood there a moment, breasts heaving beneath the tight bodice of the red dress. Then she seemed to go limp. “Jason,” she whispered, “I choose you. God help me, I do.”

  “Then good,” Whetstone said, savagely, and he hit the doctor again. “Damn you, you damned old coot!” His hand lashed back and forth, slamming the doctor’s head from left to right as Whetstone marched him across the room. “Try to shoot me, will you? You heard, didn’t you? Your daughter’s chosen.” His hand blurred, blood ran from the doctor’s mouth as he hit the man and hit him again. Then they were at the front door. “I’m warning you!” Whetstone yelled. “You bother me again, I’ll kill you!” This time he hit the doctor with his closed fist. The man’s head
snapped back, and he went lurching backward out the door, as Whetstone released him. He fell down the steps, hit the street hard, and lay there, dazed. Belle ran toward the door; Whetstone’s out flung arm caught her, stopped her. “No,” he said. “No. You chose me.” He turned to her, his handsome face composed, calm, and he looked into her eyes. “Remember?”

  She seemed to wilt, to dissolve, under his gaze. She cast one despairing look at her father, scrambling to hands and knees in the street, a beaten man. Then she let out a rasping breath. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes, darling.”

  Whetstone pulled her to him, kissed her, hard and carnally on the mouth, and Fargo saw her body move against him, begin to rub against him; and he knew that she was totally, completely, Whetstone’s captive. He looked at Jane, and she was staring wide-eyed at this spectacle, her amber eyes lit, and he realized with a certain surprise that there was something in Whetstone that struck a chord in her, too. Something ticked in his mind, a sudden intimation of, perhaps, deeper trouble than he had anticipated thus far. Then Whetstone had let go of Belle and was coming back into the room at the rear. He looked unruffled, even amused.

  “Little family difficulty,” he said. “I told you the old settlers didn’t particularly like me. Thanks, Fargo. If you hadn’t been able to kick high, the old bastard might really have ventilated me. That’s what I mean. I need a man like you to side me. You want the job?”

  Fargo looked at Jane. She seemed, for that moment, completely unaware of him; she was still staring at Whetstone. Then Fargo let out a long breath and nodded. “Yeah, Jason,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

  Whetstone grinned. “Then good. From now on, you’re the second man in Circle City.” He reached for the bottle. “And I think we ought to have another drink on that.”

  Chapter Six

  The wind from the north was cold. Fargo had discarded the campaign hat in favor of the wolf skin furs with the bandolier of shotgun shells draped around his torso and the Fox ten-gauge slung on his shoulder. Now, the day after his first meeting with Jason Whetstone, he strode down the board sidewalk of Circle City under a lowering sky that promised a premature blizzard. Winter was going to come this year even earlier than anybody had dared expect.

  He and Jane had spent almost the entire day, yesterday, with Whetstone and the girl, Belle Dalton. And Fargo had not missed either of two things: how Whetstone and Jane had looked at each other, or how Belle had looked at him.

  Now, walking along the main street of Circle, his thin lips curled in a wry smile. Whetstone was handsome, no doubt of that; as handsome as any movie star. And he was a son of a bitch, first-class, and that had its allure for women, too. Add to that the fact that Jane had a perpetual case of hot pants, and it was no wonder that, before the day was over, she had begun to play to him, ever so subtly, but enough to arouse the man. Enough, too, to dismay Belle Dalton, who was already upset about the beating Whetstone had given her father. Maybe that was why Belle had looked at him the way she had, as the evening wore on. More than once, he had found those violet eyes fastened on him curiously, appraisingly; or staring at Jane with ill-concealed jealousy.

  Fargo’s smile widened into a wolf’s grin. Put two women under the same roof and sooner or later you had an explosion. He was not jealous of Jane Deering. He had taken his pleasure with her, and she was to pay him some money if he succeeded in finding Hal Dolan. He was more interested in the money than anything else; in that and in not stirring up trouble prematurely, until he had the lay of the land here. He was in an ideal position to get that, as Whetstone’s second-in-command, and he was beginning to get an idea of the sources he might turn to.

  But for the time being, he had to play his cards close to his chest. Be Whetstone’s man, until he learned all there was about Circle City to know. He’d tried to get that idea through Jane’s head last night, when they’d returned to the cabin, which the Indians had not only stowed carefully with every bit of their supplies, but which had also been rechinked and made weather-tight.

  He and Jane had lain together under the four-point Hudson’s Bay blankets and made love. She had been even more passionate than usual, and he had a wry, cynical notion that her passion had something to do with Jason Whetstone, and the way Whetstone had looked at her during the afternoon. And so he had laid it on the line with her:

  “Listen,” he said. “Our deal was that I give the orders. I’m giving you one now. You keep away from Jason Whetstone.”

  She had stretched lazily, naked to the waist, where the blanket covered her loins, and looked up at him with molten amber eyes. She smiled. “You’re jealous of Jason?”

  “No,” Fargo said.

  “That’s good,” she said. “You don’t need to be. He’s an exciting man, yes. But not as exciting as you, Fargo. He’s too pretty. I had enough pretty men in Hollywood. But... yes. I played to him. I know how to tease a man, lead him on. I thought it might be a good idea for us to be in as solid with Jason Whetstone as we could be. There’s a chance I could get some information out of him that way.”

  Fargo snorted disgustedly, got up and went to the table in the middle of the room, which was cozy with the heat of the Yukon stove. He found cigarettes, thrust two in his mouth, lit them, passed her one. “Don’t be a damned fool. You have never played in the same league with a man like Jason Whetstone. He’s pretty, but he’s not one of your Hollywood fairies. He’d chew you up and spit you out when he got through with you. And in the meantime, you might force us to have to fight each other, and that’s not in my plans.”

  “You’d fight Jason over me?”

  Fargo looked at her coldly, ruthlessly. “No. But you go teasing him and he’ll have the idea that he’ll have to get rid of me first, before he can have you. And I’ll tell you this, if anything happens to me, you’ll never get back to the States or the movies, either one. Whetstone will take you over, and when he’s through with you, he’ll hand you over to the rest of the hard cases in town for whatever they’ll pay for you. And by the time these birds get through with you, you won’t photograph worth a damn. You’ve got to remember one thing, and you’ve got to remember it good. You’re a sheep in the middle of a pack of wolves, and you’d better not trifle with them. They’ll eat you alive if you do. These aren’t play-actors. They’re men.”

  Jane sat up, breasts bobbing. And her face was serious now. “All right. I’ll stay away from Jason, then. And you stay away from Belle. I saw how she looked at you after she’d had a few drinks. Jason Whetstone’s not the only one that’s getting tired of the same diet.”

  “I’m not going to go near her,” Fargo said. “I’m going to talk to her father, though.”

  “Her father?”

  “He’s been around here a long time. He’s a doctor. He will have known everybody—and he’s got a grudge against Jason Whetstone. If there’s a source of information, it’s him.”

  “After what you did to him this afternoon?”

  “We’ll see,” Fargo said. “Maybe I can square it. But it’s a matter that’ll take time. And you’ll have to be patient.”

  “I’ll be patient,” Jane said. “I’ll leave it all up to you. That’s what I’m paying you for. Along with this.” Her lips parted slightly, and she reached up for him; and Fargo came to her.

  Now Fargo reached Whetstone’s store. He went up the steps and inside. Whetstone was behind the counter, weighing gold dust. The two men who stood before the counter were no miners, though. Both wore heavy mackinaws and fur caps, and one, with a long red beard, had two Colt .45’s strapped around his waist on crisscrossed belts, their holsters thonged down. The other wore one gun, a Smith & Wesson .38, in a flapped holster with a lanyard running from it around his neck, Mounted Police style, and he carried cradled in his arm a Marlin .45-.70 rifle. He had a thin face and beady eyes which were focused dubiously on the scales as Whetstone weighed out what must have been twenty ounces of dust.

  Then Jason laid the weights aside, tipped the cradle of the s
cales so that the dust poured back into a buckskin bag. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “that comes to fifteen ounces. And at thirty dollars an ounce —”

  The thin-faced man with the Marlin snorted. “Fifteen ounces, Whetstone? What do you think we are? There’s twenty ounces in those pokes if there’s an ounce.”

  Whetstone straightened up. He looked from one to the other. His blue eyes were hard, cold. “It weighs out to fifteen on my scales.”

  “Then you got crooked scales!” Redbeard exploded. “We’ve weighed that dust twice since we lifted it off a sucker on Bonanza Creek, and we damn well know how much it is! Now, either you give us honest weight or—” his hands hovered over the walnut butts of the Colt, and the thin-faced man tilted the muzzle of the rifle around. “We didn’t come here to be screwed,” Redbeard finished in a rasping voice.

  Whetstone stood erect. His hands were on the counter. “You don’t think I’m treatin’ you fair, eh?” he asked softly. Then his right hand moved. Almost no time elapsed, hardly the wink of an eye, before it was above the counter again; and this time it held a cocked .44 pointed at Redbeard. Fargo had never seen a faster draw. “Maybe this will convince you,” Whetstone rasped.

  “You sonovagun!” Redbeard’s hands had started for his Colts, then had frozen with the guns half-dragged from leather. He let them slide back.

  “Well,” Jason said. “You gonna accept my weight or not?” The gun muzzle swung from Redbeard to the thin-faced man with the rifle and back again. Then his eyes lanced to Fargo. “You’re backing me?”

  Fargo unslung the shotgun. “I’m backing you,” he said.