Alaskan Vengeance

by Jon Sharpe

  ‘‘How much farther to the gold, Frank?’’

  Toomey regarded the nearby peaks and scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘‘Another three days, maybe.’’

  But three more days went by and it was obvious to the rest of them that Frank Toomey was lost. He took to muttering to himself and gazing perplexedly at the surrounding peaks.

  At noon the next day, they stopped to rest the horses. Fargo walked over to the log on which Toomey rested and came right out with it, ‘‘You don’t have any damn idea where we are, do you?’’

  Toomey reacted as if he had been stabbed. ‘‘I can’t understand it. I was sure as sure can be that I was following the same route. But there’s been no sign of the next landmark.’’

  ‘‘What would that be?’’ Fargo asked.

  Earl and Lester were listening with keen interest.

  ‘‘I guess there is no harm in sharing,’’ Toomey said, and once again gazed at the mountains they were wending through. ‘‘The next landmark is a peak. A barren rock peak split down the middle. We should have seen it two days ago.’’

  ‘‘I have an idea,’’ Fargo said. He pointed at a heavily timbered mountain half a mile off to the northwest. ‘‘We climb that one clear to the top. From up there we should be able to spot your rock peak if it is anywhere within fifty miles.’’

  Once their animals were rested, they struck out for the mountain. By nightfall they were a third of the way up. The slopes were steep, the going arduous. There was talus to avoid and deadfalls to skirt. Evening found them on a broad bench that overlooked their back trail, and they had barely settled in when Earl gave a holler.

  Fargo ran with the others to where Earl stood at the edge of the bench. Miles below were several reddish-orange fingers of flame.

  ‘‘Campfires,’’ Toomey said. ‘‘They are still back there, and taking their sweet time.’’

  ‘‘They want the gold,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘They won’t close in until we reach your claim.’’

  Earl laughed. ‘‘That could be a good long spell. It will serve them right if we don’t find it. Another week or two of this and them and their animals will be tuckered out.’’

  ‘‘And us and ours,’’ Fargo said.

  They went back to their own fire. It was Lester’s turn to cook. Earlier Fargo had dropped three grouse on the wing, and Lester busied himself chopping off the heads and legs and plucking the feathers. He had been at it a while, and the ground was littered with feathers and spattered with blood, when their horses suddenly raised their heads and pricked their ears and whinnied.

  ‘‘Something is out there,’’ Toomey said.

  Taking a brand from the fire, Fargo snatched up his Henry and moved to a point between the horses and the timber. He raised the torch aloft but saw only a shadowy wall of vegetation.

  The thing off in the dark uttered a low, rumbling growl.

  ‘‘Oh, hell,’’ Earl said. ‘‘It’s a bear.’’

  Fear tinged his tone, and Fargo did not blame him. Few creatures anywhere were as formidable as bears, particularly grizzlies. He levered a round into the Henry’s chamber.

  ‘‘Don’t shoot unless it shows itself, and if you do shoot, shoot to kill,’’ Earl said. ‘‘A wounded bear is next to unstoppable.’’

  Fargo was well aware of that. He wedged the Henry to his shoulder. ‘‘If it goes after the horses I will try to hold it off while you get them out of here.’’

  ‘‘Better you than me,’’ Earl said with a forced grin.

  ‘‘What kind do you think it is?’’ Toomey asked. ‘‘A black bear or a griz?’’

  ‘‘Neither,’’ Fargo said, and used his rifle to point into the woods.

  Frank Toomey gasped.

  At the fringe of the light cast by their torches, and some ten to twelve feet off the ground, glowed a pair of eyes.

  Only one creature in all of Alaska was that big.

  6

  ‘‘Dear God in heaven!’’ Earl whispered. ‘‘It’s a brown bear!’’

  Fargo had encountered bears many times. Black bears were common west of the Mississippi, and usually fled at the sight of humans. Grizzlies thrived in the Rockies, although there were not as many as in the days of Lewis and Clark. Grizzlies were more aggressive, but nine times out of ten, a grizzly, too, would lope off when it encountered a human, content to mind its own business.

  Black bears and grizzlies. The two most common kinds of bear found in North America. But they were not the only kind.

  Much farther to the north, where the ice ruled and winter reigned nine months of the year, polar bears were the undisputed lords of all they surveyed, feasting on seals or walrus or whatever else was hapless enough to succumb to their slashing claws and razor teeth—people included. Polar bears were notorious for their savage temperament. To a polar bear, everything else, human beings included, was flesh waiting to be eaten.

  Polar bears, even more than grizzlies, were universally feared. But there was one bear feared even more. One bear that filled Eskimo and Indian and white man alike with fear so potent, it paralyzed the limbs and turned minds to mush.

  That bear was the Alaskan brown bear.

  Its ferocity was legendary. On the voyage from Seattle, the brigantine’s skipper had related tales of brown bear attacks that would curl the hair. It was not their carnivorous natures alone, for polar bears and grizzlies were just as fierce. What made brown bears even more formidable, and more widely dreaded, was their sheer size.

  Brown bears were some of the largest bears and some of the largest meat eaters anywhere in the world, far larger than lions and tigers and twice as heavy as their Ursine kin, the grizzly. The brown bears of Kodiak Island and other parts of Alaska were especially noted for their immense bulk. A full-grown male could be over ten feet long and weigh upwards of fifteen hundred pounds. Nothing could stand up to them. They went where they wanted and did as they pleased and woe to any puny humans who got in their way.

  And here was Fargo, not twenty feet from one of the monsters, its shaggy head looming gigantic in the night, its feral eyes blazing like the orbs of a demon spawned from a nether realm.

  ‘‘Shoot it!’’ Frank Toomey bleated, and brought up his rifle to fire.

  ‘‘No!’’ Fargo swatted the barrel down.

  Toomey took a step back in surprise. ‘‘What are you doing?’’ Again he went to raise his rifle, and this time it was Earl who grabbed the barrel and wrenched the weapon from his grasp.

  ‘‘Use your head, Frank! All you’ll do is make it mad, and the last thing we want is to rile it.’’

  ‘‘But the horses!’’ Toomey protested, snatching at his rifle.

  Earl jerked it away. ‘‘Quiet down! Or so help me, I will bean you with your own gun.’’

  The brown bear picked that moment to give voice to a roar that sent the horses into a panic. Lester and Earl dashed over to calm them. Toomey was rooted in shock.

  Fargo stood rooted as well, but not for the same reason. Someone had to cover them. He kept the Henry’s sights on that enormous triangle of hair and bone and teeth, hoping against hope the bear would not charge. He was under no illusions about the outcome. A bear’s skull was incredibly thick and proof against all but the heaviest caliber firearm. A brown bear’s skull was the thickest of all, and dropping one was like trying to drop a steam locomotive.

  ‘‘I’ve never seen any up close like this,’’ Toomey said. ‘‘I never realized how big they are.’’ He started to back away.

  ‘‘Stand still!’’ Fargo snapped, but not too loudly.

  ‘‘The others moved. They ran to the horses,’’ Toomey complained.

  ‘‘We were lucky,’’ Fargo said. Lucky that it had not provoked the brown bear into attacking. One of the first lessons he had learned when he came west was to never, ever flee from a meat eater. ‘‘Or as sure sure as shootin’,’’ said the old-timer who had imparted the wisdom, ‘‘they will come after you.’’

  The Indian tr
ibes Fargo had lived with agreed. To flee from a bear or a mountain lion or a wolf was to invite them to chase you, and all three could run faster than any human who ever lived. Fargo had taken the advice to heart, and on more than one occasion it had saved his hide.

  The brown bear took a lumbering step toward them. Erect on its hind legs, it resembled a beast out of antiquity, the kind the newspapers loved to write about whenever prehistoric bones were found.

  ‘‘Oh God,’’ Toomey said. He was poised to bolt.

  ‘‘If you run I will shoot you,’’ Fargo threatened. And he would, too. In the leg or the arm.

  The brown bear took another shuffling step, and now they could see its huge forepaws and the long claws that could shear through flesh and bone as a bowie sheared through paper.

  Toomey would not shut up. ‘‘Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God.’’

  ‘‘Don’t talk,’’ Fargo commanded.

  ‘‘Why not? What can it hurt? It’s not like the bear will attack us just because I’m talking.’’

  The man would never know how close he came to having his head introduced to a rifle stock. Fargo was tensing to slam the Henry against the side of Toomey’s head when the brown bear abruptly dropped onto all fours and came toward them.

  ‘‘We’re doomed!’’ Toomey shrieked, and fled toward the fire.

  Fargo did not move. He fixed a bead on the monster’s right eye as the eye grew steadily larger. Suddenly the brown bear was in front of him, its black twitching nose inches from the Henry’s muzzle. The wheeze of its lungs was like the wheeze of a bellows. Fargo swore he could feel its warm, fetid breath fan his cheeks. He could see every hair, see its nostrils flare, see into the depths of its bottomless eyes. His skin prickled, and he braced for an onslaught of fang and claw.

  Then the miracle occurred. Or maybe it was not a miracle. Maybe it was the bedlam, the whinnies and the shouts and the squalling of Toomey for someone to shoot the thing. Bears did not like loud noise. So maybe that was why the brown bear unexpectedly turned and crashed off into the brush.

  Fargo did not lower the Henry until the sounds faded. Letting out the breath he had not known he was holding, he walked to the fire, set down the Henry, and poured a cup of coffee.

  Toomey was beaming. ‘‘It didn’t attack us!’’

  ‘‘No thanks to you.’’ Fargo hunkered and took a sip, and it was just about the most delicious coffee he ever tasted.

  ‘‘I’m sorry. I was scared. I couldn’t help myself.’’

  Fargo’s disgust knew no bounds but he bit off a sharp retort. ‘‘How did you ever make it in and out the last time?’’

  ‘‘I’m not totally helpless,’’ Toomey said.

  ‘‘You could have fooled me, Frank.’’ This from Earl, who followed Fargo’s example. With his battered tin cup in his hands, he sank down cross-legged. He sipped and smacked his lips.

  The horses had quieted down now that the brown bear was gone. Lester was checking that none of the picket pins had been pulled loose.

  ‘‘I have had some close shaves in my day,’’ Earl commented, ‘‘but that was one I could have done without.’’

  ‘‘It might take it into its head to come back,’’ Fargo said. ‘‘We should stand guard tonight. I’ll take the first watch.’’

  Presently Earl and Lester turned in, and Lester was soon snoring loud enough to be heard in Sitka.

  Frank Toomey nursed a cup of coffee until the coffee had to be cold. He glanced at Fargo several times as if about to speak.

  ‘‘If you have something on your mind, say it,’’ Fargo finally prompted.

  ‘‘I don’t want you to think poorly of me.’’

  Fargo looked at him. He wondered if Toomey realized he already did. ‘‘Care to explain?’’

  ‘‘I did find gold. I bet my claim knowing I might lose, and I had no hard feelings when I did.’’ Toomey grinned. ‘‘Well, almost none.’’

  ‘‘Understood,’’ Fargo said.

  ‘‘There’s more. You see, Earl’s comments have me worried you might think I am trying to trick you. That I know where the gold is but I am misleading you so you will give up and go back to the States and I will have all the gold for my own.’’

  Fargo waited.

  ‘‘That is not the case. I have been sincere with you from the beginning. I am a man of my word.’’

  ‘‘If I thought you weren’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here,’’ Fargo said.

  ‘‘Thanks. I just wanted you to know. I am trying my best. But I am not a scout, like you. My sense of direction leaves a lot to be desired. As for how I made it in and out the last time, I will tell you a secret I have not told anyone, not even Earl and Lester.’’ Toomey paused. ‘‘I had a guide.’’

  ‘‘You what?’’

  ‘‘An old Indian. He came up to me out of the blue and said he had heard I was looking for the yellow metal and would I like for him to show me some. Naturally, I said yes. He brought me right to the spot and took me out again.’’

  ‘‘This old Indian have a name?’’

  ‘‘He had an Indian name I couldn’t pronounce so he had me call him Gray Fox. He said that was what all the whites call him. On account of his gray hair, I guess.’’

  ‘‘What tribe was he from?’’

  ‘‘I didn’t ask and he didn’t say and I can’t tell one from the other,’’ Toomey replied, and sighed. ‘‘I wish Gray Fox was here now. He could lead us to the gold with no problem.’’

  Fargo had one more question. ‘‘What did he get out of it?’’

  ‘‘Pardon?’’

  ‘‘What did he want in return for taking you to the gold?’’ Fargo clarified. ‘‘I doubt he did it out of the goodness of his heart. Not when so many of the tribes in these parts hate whites.’’

  Toomey was stunned. ‘‘I never gave that any thought. But you know, now that you mention it, he never did ask for anything in return, not so much as a dollar. That’s a bit peculiar, wouldn’t you say?’’

  ‘‘I would say it was a lot peculiar,’’ Fargo amended. And troubling. Yet another complication he could do without.

  Toomey set down his coffee cup and stood. ‘‘Well, I just wanted you to know where I stood so you would not think poorly of me.’’

  ‘‘You shouldn’t be here,’’ Fargo came right out and said it.

  ‘‘Excuse me? I have a half-interest in the claim. You gave it back to me, remember?’’

  ‘‘By here I meant here.’’ Fargo gestured to encompass their wild surroundings. ‘‘You should not be in Alaska. You should not be anywhere on the frontier. You should be in a rocking chair in front of a hearth in a cozy house somewhere east of the Mississippi. Somewhere where it is safe to walk the streets at night.’’

  ‘‘I am out of my element—is that it?’’

  Fargo did not say anything.

  ‘‘I appreciate the sentiment. I truly do. And since we are being honest with one another, I will admit you have a point. I am no woodsman. I was raised in a city, not the country. But I had to do this. I just had to.’’

  ‘‘No one ever has to do anything if they do not want to,’’ Fargo said.

  ‘‘I want to.’’ Toomey hesitated, then sat back down. ‘‘I want to amount to something. I want money, lots and lots and lots of money, even if I leave most of it to my children and my grandchildren. That is why I came to Alaska in the first place. For their future, not for mine.’’

  ‘‘But the odds—’’ Fargo began.

  ‘‘I know, I know. For every ore hound who strikes it rich, a thousand end up with empty bellies. But I did not let that stop me. I felt in my bones that it was my destiny, that the Almighty was on my side, if you will.’’ Toomey was growing excited. ‘‘And I was right! It was a miracle, that old Indian coming to me. It was a miracle, him leading me to gold. Now I will amount to something. Now my family will look up to me. All my prayers will come true.’’

  ‘‘When something is too good to be true,’�
� Fargo said.

  ‘‘It probably is,’’ Toomey finished. ‘‘Yes, I have heard the saying. But in this instance, it does not apply. I have seen the gold with my own eyes. It is there. It is real.’’ He stood again. ‘‘I will prove it to you. I will show you that your trust in me is not misplaced. Wait and see if I don’t.’’ With a smile and a nod he moved toward his blankets.

  Fargo refilled his cup and sat back. He sipped and pondered and listened to the chorus of bestial cries that filled the Alaskan night: the howls of wolves; the snarls and grunts and occasional roars of bears; the ear-piercing shrieks of mountain lions; the screeches of the lesser cats; the hooting of owls; and the bleat of prey taken by predators. It was a riotous din of primal life in all its many savage facets.

  Fargo loved it. That many of the creatures he was hearing would devour him if they could was incidental. The wilds had the same pull on him that gold had on men like Frank Toomey. He could never get enough, no matter how far or how long he wandered.

  He reminded himself to never lose sight of the fact that for all its breathtaking beauty and natural splendor, the wild places were dangerous places. A single misstep could get a man killed. Sometimes a man did everything right and still became worm food. It was simply how things were.

  A snore from Lester drew Fargo’s gaze to the sleepers. They had made it this far, but as Earl had noted, there was no guarantee any of them would survive to see Sitka again.

  Forces other than the land and the animals were conspiring against them. As if that were not bad enough, some of his own party could not be trusted.

  Off in the brush, there was a flurry of sound and movement. A bird was pounced on and twittered its death cry.

  ‘‘Hell of a note,’’ Skye Fargo said.

  7

  At first light they were up. By sunrise they had resumed the climb. It was slow, laborious going, with some of the slopes too steep or too treacherous for the horses.

  Frank Toomey was in excellent spirits. He hummed and whistled and beamed at the world until Earl said, ‘‘Will you please quiet down? I am a grump in the morning and you are not helping my disposition any.’’