“Do what I say now,” Soapy went on softly, but with a tone of menace in his voice.
Palmer and Burns looked at each other. Big Ed shrugged. They turned and went out into the street, slogging through the mud until they reached the drunk. They lifted him and carried him back to the sidewalk, where they propped him against the wall as Smith had told them.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding, mister,” Smith said to Frank with a friendly smile. “My boys and I sort of look out for the well-being of everybody in Skagway. Come on in and I’ll buy you a drink.”
Frank didn’t believe for a second that Smith’s jovial attitude was genuine, but he wanted to talk to the man anyway, so he said, “Don’t mind if I do.”
He walked past Palmer and Burns, well aware that they were giving him hard looks. He had made a couple of enemies there, not that he particularly cared.
Frank followed Smith into the saloon and saw that it was a notch or two above Ike’s. The place had plank floors instead of dirt and real tables and chairs instead of tree stumps. The bar had been nailed together out of planks, but at least they had been planed a little and weren’t just lying on top of whiskey barrels. There was no mirror on the wall behind the bar, but the shelves there held bottles with actual labels on them, although Frank would have been willing to bet that they no longer contained their original contents.
Smith led Frank to a large round table in the rear of the room. This was undoubtedly where the unofficial mayor of Skagway held court, so to speak. According to what Salty Stevens had said, Smith had a tame judge in his pocket, so actual court might be held here, too, although it would be mostly of the kangaroo variety. Smith waved Frank into one of the chairs and asked, “What’s your pleasure, friend? Beer or whiskey?”
“Beer’s fine,” Frank said as he took a seat.
“Two beers, Claude,” Smith called to the bartender. Still smiling, he sat down across from Frank. “Well, I never expected to see the famous Frank Morgan in my town.”
Before Frank could say anything, the Indian whore he had seen earlier came over to the table, carrying a tray with two mugs of beer on it. Obviously she doubled as a waitress, as well as a soiled dove. Frank waited until she set the mugs on the table and returned to the bar before he said, “I don’t recall telling you my first name when we rode into town.”
“You didn’t,” Smith said, “but you looked familiar to me and the name Morgan finally jogged my memory. You’re The Drifter. You rode through a town in Colorado where I was a few years ago.”
“Creede,” Frank said suddenly. “I remember.”
Smith inclined his head to acknowledge that Frank was right.
“You had a pretty shady reputation there, as I recall.” Frank didn’t preface the statement with the words “No offense,” because he didn’t really care whether or not he offended Smith.
“That was due to another series of misunderstandings,” Smith said without hesitation.
“Like the ones in Leadville and Denver?” The memories had come back to Frank in a flash once Smith’s mention of Colorado triggered them. Smith had been well known in those places as a swindler and thief and a suspected killer. Clearly, he hadn’t changed his stripes when he came to Alaska.
Smith picked up his beer and drank from it. He set the mug down and licked his lips. “If anyone would know about how a man’s reputation follows him, whether it’s deserved or not, it would be you, Frank,” he said. “I seem to recall that you’ve been run out of a few towns yourself.”
“If I was asked to leave by the local law, I went along with it because I didn’t want to cause trouble,” Frank said stiffly.
Smith gave a lazy shrug and smiled as if Frank’s answer proved his point. “I didn’t ask you in here to argue with you,” he said. “I really am glad to make your acquaintance. It’s not every day that Skagway gets such a famous visitor. When word gets around that Frank Morgan has been here, it’ll just attract more people to the settlement. I’m for anything that helps Skagway to grow and prosper.”
“So you’ll have more people to fleece?”
For a second, anger danced in Smith’s eyes before he banished it. “Think whatever you want about me. I’m just trying to help this town.”
“Like you helped yourself to all the gold in Salty Stevens’s poke?”
Smith frowned. “Who?”
His puzzlement seemed genuine, Frank thought. Then he realized that it probably was. Smith had had so many victims, he couldn’t be expected to remember them all.
“The old-timer who hangs around the hotel and Ike’s Saloon, begging for drinks and food because he’s broke.”
“You mean that sourdough who looks like a walking pile of furs?” Smith chuckled. “He’s still alive? I thought the booze would have killed him by now.”
“Nope. He’s alive, and he’s going to help me and my friends take those ladies to Whitehorse.”
Smith’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Really?”
“That’s right. And I’d appreciate it if you’d return what you stole from him.”
“Now, I didn’t steal anything from the man. As I recall, he was in violation of one of the local ordinances, and Judge Van Horn had to levy a heavy fine on him. After that, someone stole the rest of his gold, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. And I don’t really appreciate anybody saying that I did.” Smith waved his hand above his beer mug. “But that’s not really important. I’m used to people telling lies about me by now. What matters is the two of us.”
Frank was taken aback and couldn’t help repeating it. “What do you mean, the two of us?”
Smith leaned forward with a wolfish grin on his face. “You know where the real gold mine is, Frank? It’s not across the line in the Klondike. It’s right here!” He slapped the table. “Skagway is the gold mine. It’s where I’m making my fortune, and it’s where you can make your fortune, too. All you have to do is throw in with me!”
Frank stared. “You want me to work for you?”
“No, I want you to be my partner, fifty-fifty. And all you have to do to seal the deal is give me those women.”
Chapter 21
For a long moment, Frank battled the impulse to stand up and smash his fist into the middle of Smith’s face. When he had it under control, he said steadily, “You want me to give you those mail-order brides.”
“I know, I know, they’re promised to prospectors over in Whitehorse. But just think about it. Why should you collect just one time on each of them, when you can collect again and again and again?”
“You want to make soiled doves out of them.”
Smith leaned back languidly in his chair. “They’re reasonably young and healthy, and they look unspoiled, whether they really are or not. They’ll stay innocent-looking for a while, too. Men up here will pay through the nose for something like that, maybe a whole poke full of nuggets or dust.” He laughed. “A poke for a poke, eh? And even once the bloom is off the rose, so to speak, they can still generate a lot of money for us. A man spends five or six months holed up alone in an eight-by-ten cabin, he’ll fork over most of his worldly goods for a few minutes with a woman, especially one who ain’t an Indian.” Smith took another swallow of beer. “The women aren’t the only reasons I want to come to an agreement with you, though.”
“Go on,” Frank said flatly.
“You saw Joe Palmer and Big Ed outside, and you met Yeah Mow and Sid earlier. They’re good men, all of ’em. Tough as nails, and they do what they’re told. Big Ed and Yeah Mow can bust a man in half with their bare hands, and Sid’s real handy with a knife when he ain’t been on the nod too much. Joe handles the gun work, and he’s slick at it. But he’s nowhere near as slick as The Drifter, and none of those boys will strike fear in a man’s heart like the name Frank Morgan will.”
“So you want me to handle your dirty work for you.”
“I want you to earn your share,” Smith snapped. “Fifty-fifty, like I said. Of course, expenses come off
the top before we divvy up.”
Frank nodded. “Of course.”
Smith took that as an encouraging sign. He leaned forward again. “Well, what do you say?”
Frank picked his beer up and took a sip from the mug for the first time. The brew was sour and bitter, as he had figured it would be. He wouldn’t expect anything else from a snake like Smith.
“First of all,” he said as he replaced the mug on the table, “those women aren’t mine to give you, and I wouldn’t even if they were. I’m taking them to Whitehorse like I promised I would. Second, when we leave tomorrow, Salty Stevens is going with us, and I expect you to return his gold before we leave.”
Smith stared across the table at him, eyes narrowing until they were slits of evil. “You son of a bitch,” he breathed.
“Talk like that can get a man killed.”
“Yeah, you! Take a look at that table to your right. Yeah Mow’s over there with a gun pointed at you, Morgan, and all I have to do is say the word for him to pull the trigger.”
“You see my right hand?” Frank asked quietly.
“What?” Smith looked at the table. Frank’s left hand was still wrapped around the handle of the beer mug, but his right was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ve had a .45 lined up on your belly pretty much from the moment we sat down,” Frank went on. “My thumb’s over the hammer, and that’s all that’s holding it back. You can have your boy Yeah Mow shoot me, but you’ll get a bullet in the guts at the same time. I’ve got a hunch there’s not a doctor up here who could pull a man through with a wound like that. You’d be a long, slow, hard time dying, too.”
Smith’s lips writhed with hate. “You…you…”
“Don’t call me a son of a bitch again,” Frank said.
“Get out.”
“Have Hopkins put his gun on the table first, then stand up and move away from it.”
Smith hesitated, and for a second Frank thought the man was going to call his bluff…although it really wasn’t a bluff at all. Frank was prepared to shoot his way out of here if necessary. Then Smith made a curt gesture to Yeah Mow and said, “Put your gun on the table and get out.”
“But, Boss—” the man started to protest.
“Just do it!”
Hopkins laid a heavy revolver on the table and stood up. He glared at Frank as he moved toward the doorway.
Frank got to his feet, keeping his Colt in his hand. The men drinking in Clancy’s must have sensed that something was going on, and at the sight of Yeah Mow’s gun and now Frank’s, they knew it. Most of them headed for the door, eager to get out of the line of fire if gunplay broke out.
“You’re going to walk me back to the hotel, Soapy,” Frank said.
“The hell I will,” Smith snarled.
“It’s that or I gun you down right here and now and take my chances.”
Their eyes dueled for a second; then Smith muttered a curse and stood up. “All right. But you’re gonna regret this, Morgan.”
“Now, you see, that’s another mistake.”
“Another?”
“Your first was thinking that I’d ever throw in with a polecat like you,” Frank said. “It’ll be your second if you don’t let this go. You see, I didn’t come to Skagway to clean up the town or anything like that, Smith. I don’t like you, and somebody ought to put a stop to what you’re doing here, but I have another chore I need to take care of, namely keeping a promise to an old friend and getting those women to Whitehorse. We’ll be leaving tomorrow, and if you and your boys don’t bother us in the meantime, we won’t bother you. But if anything does happen…I’ll be coming for you, Soapy. And that’s a promise, too.”
“You always act so high-handed with folks, Morgan?”
“Only those who deserve it.”
Muttering under his breath, Smith turned toward the door. Frank followed closely behind him, gun still drawn. As they stepped out onto the plank sidewalk, Frank glanced in both directions. He saw Yeah Mow Hopkins standing nearby, along with Big Ed Burns and the opium addict, Sid Dixon. There was no sign of Joe Palmer.
“If Palmer tries to bushwhack me, my thumb’s going to slip off this hammer, sure as hell,” Frank told Smith. “At this range, the slug will blow your spine clean in two. I’d speak up if I was you.”
“You’re trying to make a fool of me in front of the whole town,” Smith said between clenched teeth.
“You made a fool of yourself when you asked me to help you turn those women into whores.”
Smith took a deep breath, then said in a loud voice, “I’m gonna walk over to the hotel with Morgan. Nobody better bother us.”
Frank nodded. “Go ahead.”
With Smith in front, the two of them walked around the corner toward the hotel. As they approached, Pete Conway stepped out of the livery stable across the street, holding a rifle. “Are you all right, Frank?” he called.
“Yeah, fine,” Frank replied. Dog stepped out of the stable as well and stood there stiff-legged, the fur on his back ruffled with anger. Frank knew that at a word from him, the big cur would bound across the street in the blink of an eye and rip Smith’s throat out before anyone could stop him.
The two of them came to a stop on the hotel porch. Frank said, “You can send Salty’s gold over here to the hotel. I’ll see that it gets to him, and I’ll expect it before ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“You believe in pushing your luck, don’t you?” Smith said.
“It’s not luck if you can back it up. And I can, Soapy. Don’t doubt that for a second. I’ve been through all sorts of hell getting here with those women, and I’m not going to let a second-rate crook like you stop us now. So take my advice. Return the old man’s gold, let us go on about our business, and you go on about yours. Just forget we ever came to Skagway.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
From the hollow sound of Smith’s voice, Frank knew that was unlikely.
“Go on back to Clancy’s. I don’t expect to see you again.”
Smith stalked off without a word. As soon as he was gone, Conway hurried across the street, along with Jennings and Dog.
“What the hell happened?” Conway wanted to know. “How come you marched Smith over here at gunpoint?”
“He did something that bothered me,” Frank said. “He suggested that I partner up with him so we could put the ladies to work as soiled doves.”
“You mean he wanted to turn Jessica into—” Conway’s hands tightened on his rifle. “I ought to go down to that saloon and—”
“It’s already taken care of.” Quickly, Frank related the highlights of the conversation in Clancy’s and its outcome.
Jennings said, “Do you really think he’ll return the old man’s gold and leave us alone?”
“That would be the smart thing to do. We’re not trying to drive him out of power here in Skagway. He can go on fleecing the citizens until they decide they’ve had enough of him…or he can try to stop us from leaving and wind up with a war on his hands. So tell me, Bart…how smart is he?”
“He’s smart, all right,” Jennings said, “smart as he is crooked. But he’s loco, too, and he may lean more on his pride than his brain when he goes to makin’ up his mind what to do.”
“In that case,” Frank said with a slight smile, “we may have to fight our way out of here.”
Now that Smith knew Salty was one of Frank’s allies, Frank didn’t think it was safe for the old-timer to stay at the shack alone. He sent Conway to fetch him and left Dog at the stable to guard the horses. Then he called the women together in the hotel to explain the situation to them.
“Why, that…that scoundrel!” Fiona exclaimed when she heard what Smith had proposed to do. “You should have shot him, Frank!”
“I thought about it,” Frank admitted wryly. “I figured that might just shake things up even worse, though. At least Smith has some control over what happens around here. If he was dead, all hell might break loose. The important thing is that w
e get out of Skagway and get started toward Whitehorse as soon as possible. Until we do, I want all of you to be alert. Keep your guns handy, and don’t be afraid to use them.”
Meg pushed her blond hair back off her forehead. “We should set up some sort of schedule for standing guard, and maybe we should all be in the same room.”
Frank nodded and said, “I was thinking the same thing. It’ll be crowded, but at least you can keep an eye on each other that way.”
“What are you going to do?” Fiona asked.
“As soon as Conway gets back with Salty, we’re going to start getting ready to leave early tomorrow morning. I want to line up our dogs and sleds and supplies today, if I can.”
“We have to go by dogsled?” Marie asked.
“Part of the way, according to Salty. We’ll take the horses as far as we can.” Frank paused. “It’ll be a rough trip, make no mistake about that. But we’ll get through, and once we get to Whitehorse, you’ll have your new husbands to rely on. It’ll be all right.”
They seemed to take some comfort from his encouraging words, but a sense of worry still hung over the group. Frank understood that well enough. He was worried himself.
He became more so when he stepped outside and saw that the leaden sky had started spitting down snowflakes. The snow was falling only lightly now, but as he gazed up at the clouds, he had a hunch it was going to get worse. If a blizzard blew in tonight, they might not be able to take the horses at all and would have to leave Skagway by dogsled.
They had come too far to turn back now, he told himself, and besides, with Soapy Smith as an enemy, it wouldn’t be safe to try to spend the winter in Skagway. They had to make the run to Whitehorse.
Conway came along a few minutes later with Salty Stevens. The old-timer said to Frank, “The young fella tells me you had a big fallin’-out with Soapy on account o’ me.”
“That wasn’t all of it, by any means,” Frank said.
“Well, no matter what caused it, you don’t want to hang around Skagway if Soapy’s got blood in his eye for ye.”
“That’s why I want us to leave as soon as we can. First thing tomorrow morning, if possible.”
Winter Kill Page 15