Winter Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  “Count on two days, at least. ’Taint far, but like I said, it’s slow goin’.”

  “And then on to White Horse?”

  “Another week, if we’re lucky and these brutes do better’n I think they will.” Salty waved a mittened hand toward the dogs pulling his sled. “Could be ten or eleven days.”

  Frank thought it over. “So it’ll take us at least two weeks to get to Whitehorse, maybe longer.”

  “It’ll be longer,” Salty declared. “I’d bet this fur hat o’ mine on that.”

  Fiona must have been listening to the conversation. She turned around to look at the old-timer. “Will it be this cold all the way, Mr. Stevens?”

  “Cold?” Salty repeated. “Beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am, but this ain’t cold. This here’s a nice balmy day compared to what it’ll be once we get up around them high passes. Problem is, it’ll be even worse a month from now.”

  “You think winter will hold off that long?” Frank asked.

  “I durned sure hope so. If a real storm comes in whilst we’re up there betwixt White and Chilkoot…”

  Salty’s voice trailed off, but the old-timer didn’t have to finish the sentence for Frank to know what he meant. A blizzard striking at the wrong time could easily mean death for all of them.

  The first day’s travel went well, although some of the women complained bitterly of the cold and their muscles were stiff and sore from riding all day on the sleds.

  Meg really took to it, though. She had taken Bart Jennings literally when he told her to sing out so he could follow her voice, because a lot of the day she sang songs as she stood on the back of the sled and steered it with the gee-pole. She tried, without much success, to get the other women to sing with her.

  When they stopped at midday, while watery sunlight filled the sky, Meg came over to Frank and asked, “How am I doing?”

  “You’d have to ask Salty,” Frank said. “He knows a lot more about handling sleds than I do. Matter of fact, I don’t know a blasted thing about it.”

  The old-timer came over, slapping his mittened hands together. He grinned and said, “I heard what you asked, girlie, and I don’t mind tellin’ you, you’re doin’ a top-notch job. You sure you’re really a cheechako and not an ol’ sourdough like me?”

  Meg laughed and pushed the hood of her parka back off her blond hair. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold, and at that moment, Frank thought she was one of the prettiest women he had ever seen.

  “Maybe it just comes naturally to me,” she said. “I don’t know if Frank told you or not, but I used to do a lot of plowing.”

  “I reckon that experience comes in handy.” Salty moved on to Jennings and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re doin’ a fine job, too, Bart. Never would’a figured a blind man could steer a sled, but you’re managin’.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Stevens.”

  “Shoot, call me Salty. That’s all anybody’s called me for nigh on to fifty years.”

  “What’s your given name?” Frank asked curiously.

  Salty frowned. “Well, now…I wish you hadn’t asked me that…I’m tryin’ to recollect. Been so long since I heard it. Seems like it’s George. Yeah, that’s what it is. George. Maybe.”

  They set up one of the Primus stoves Frank had bought at the store back in Skagway, melted snow and heated water for coffee, then set off again with Frank riding Stormy this time instead of Goldy. Most of the travelers were gnawing jerky so their bodies would constantly have fuel to burn. Hunger just increased the effects of the cold. During the long, gray afternoon, they stopped several more times to rest the dogs, pushing on each time after only a short halt.

  They had to find a place to camp for the night before darkness fell. Salty led them to a spot where a scattering of boulders formed an irregular ring. The big rocks blocked the wind to a certain extent, and so the snow hadn’t drifted as deeply in the space between them. Salty pointed out that they could clear off a spot and build a decent-sized fire.

  “I reckon the ladies’ll like that,” he said. “It’ll help ’em thaw out a mite.”

  “I’m all f-for th-that,” Fiona said through chattering teeth. “This is a h-hellish country.”

  Frank wondered what she had thought it would be like when she came up with the idea of delivering mail-order brides to the miners all the way in Whitehorse. She probably hadn’t thought much about the hardships involved, only the money she could make.

  Salty started showing Bart Jennings how to unhitch the dogs, working by feel. While they were doing that, Frank and Conway walked into the trees and found enough dry wood for the fire. When they got back, they found that Meg and Jessica had swept an area clean with their mittens. They piled the wood on the hard-packed dirt. Frank picked out some of the branches and arranged them so that they would burn properly. He had a plentiful supply of matches and tinder now, so he didn’t have to rely on flint and steel this time. Within a few minutes, he had a nice little blaze going, and the women made grateful noises as they gathered around the flames.

  Fiona stood close beside Frank and said, “It was a good start today, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, a good start,” Frank agreed.

  But they still had a long way to go, he reminded himself. As Soapy Smith had said that morning before they left the settlement, a long, hard way.

  And as Frank looked out across the wilderness in the fading light, he couldn’t help but wonder what the night would hold.

  Chapter 25

  Before everyone went to sleep, Frank set up shifts for guard duty. He wanted two people awake at all times, and of course he relied heavily on the senses of Dog, Stormy, and Goldy to alert them if any danger came around, too. The women would have to take their turns, but it wouldn’t be necessary for all of them to stand guard every night. They could rotate the duty among them, so that some of them would get a full night’s sleep each night.

  Somewhat to his surprise, the first night passed quietly except for some wolves howling in the distance. The sound spooked the women for a while, until Salty explained that the wolves wouldn’t come near the fire.

  “If it was after a hard winter and they was starvin’, they might risk it,” the old-timer said. “Right now, though, we don’t have to worry about them varmints.”

  At one point during the night, while the guard shifts were changing, Frank and Salty were both awake and had a brief conversation by the fire while the others slept in the tents that had been set up. Salty nodded toward the flames and commented, “When I was a young feller growin’ up, I didn’t dare have a fire like that whilst I was on the trail. It’d be too likely to draw attention from some Comanch’ or Apaches lookin’ to lift my hair.”

  “I know what you mean,” Frank said with a nod. “It goes against the grain for me to have a fire that big at night, too. Drawing attention’s never a good thing.”

  “You ain’t as old as me, Frank, but you been around long enough to’ve seen the elephant a time or two. I’ll bet you’ve rid some hard, lonely trails.”

  Frank had a cup of coffee in his hand. He took a sip from it and said, “I’ve heard the owl hoot a time or two, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No, sir. Ain’t none o’ my business.”

  “I figured that since you’d worked with that deputy marshal and those range detectives, you were still a badge-toter at heart. Once a lawman, always a lawman, they say.”

  Salty chuckled. “Tell that to all the fellers who wore a star and then turned crooked, or the ones that rode the owlhoot and then went straight. You can’t tell what a feller will be by lookin’ at what he was. Folks change all the time.”

  “That they do,” Frank agreed with a solemn nod. “Look at you. You haven’t had a drink in more than two days.”

  “And I’m feelin’ it, too,” Salty muttered. “But it’s gettin’ better, slowly but surely.”

  “Go ahead and turn in and get some sleep. You’ll feel even better in the morning.”

 
“I hope so.”

  Salty was up again when the first hints of gray began to appear in the eastern sky, and he woke all the others, too. “Ever’body up!” he called. “We got ground to cover today!”

  They set off about an hour later, after everyone had had breakfast, including the sled teams. Dog didn’t care for the dried fish that the sled dogs ate, so he went bounding off into the trees and came back with a rabbit’s bloody carcass in his jaws. When the other dogs showed an interest in it, a deep-throated growl from the big cur made them think twice about trying to take his prize away from him.

  With only a day’s experience behind them, Conway, Jennings, and the women were hardly seasoned veterans of the far north, but at least they had some idea what to expect now. The sleds moved smoothly over the snow, with the others following Salty’s lead. Frank rode alongside most of the time, since he didn’t know exactly where the trails were and Salty had a tendency of weaving in and out of hills and stands of trees, following the easiest route over the terrain. The snow was a little deeper the farther north they went, but it was still less than a foot except in the drifts, and the horses had no trouble with it.

  By Frank’s estimation, they covered more ground that day than they had the day before. Whenever he looked toward White Pass in the distance, though, it didn’t appear to be any closer. Salty noticed him doing that one time and chuckled.

  “You been in the high country enough to know what it’s like, Frank,” the old-timer said. “The air’s so clear it seems like you can see forever. It’s like crossin’ the Great Plains toward the Rockies. They look like they’re so close you can reach right out and touch ’em, but it still takes you days or even weeks to get there.”

  “I know. If anything, the air is even clearer up here.”

  “Yeah, especially when it’s cold. Alaska’s a great place, Frank. I don’t know that I want to spend the rest of my borned days up here, but I’m mighty glad I came. Yes, sir, even with all the bad things that’ve happened, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  Frank knew exactly what the old-timer meant. Life held a lot of pain and trouble, as he knew better than most, but those things were just the price folks had to pay for all the moments of beauty and joy. If a person was lucky, they would experience more of the latter than the former.

  The women must have been getting used to the cold. There were fewer complaints today. They all seemed quite happy to gather around the fire Frank built at that night’s camp, though. Again, the men—except for Jennings—took turns standing guard all night, each of them paired up with one of the women. As it happened, Meg had the same shift as Frank.

  They spoke briefly before splitting up to go to opposite sides of the camp. “You won’t be able to see much, so I’m sending Dog with you,” Frank told her. “He’ll know it if anybody comes around. If he starts growling, get ready for trouble.”

  Meg hefted the Winchester in her hands. “Do I shoot?”

  “Not unless you’re sure of what you’re shooting at. Could be some innocent pilgrim who saw our fire wandering up, looking for some hot food and coffee.”

  “Or it could be Soapy Smith and his men coming to get us.”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, it could be. If you recognize any of that bunch, don’t hesitate to shoot. They’re not going to be up to anything good, that’s for sure.”

  Meg started to turn away, then paused. “Doesn’t it ever get old, Frank? Constantly knowing that there’s somebody out there who wants to kill you?”

  “I’ve been living with that almost ever since I got back from the war,” he said. “All I wanted to do was come home, marry the girl I loved, maybe someday have a ranch of my own. It didn’t work out that way, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter, so I try not to lose any sleep over it. I figure it was meant to be.”

  “You didn’t choose the life you’ve led. It chose you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “But doesn’t that seem awfully…random? Don’t we have any control over what happens to us?”

  “Sure we do,” Frank said, thinking that this was a mighty odd conversation to be having in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, with wolves howling in the distance. But then, Meg Goodwin was sort of an odd young woman. “Life pushes us one way, then another, and sometimes we push back. When we do, sometimes we win and sometimes we don’t. It’s all part of the game.”

  “That’s what life is? A game?”

  “The biggest one of all,” Frank said.

  Meg stepped closer to him, reached up, and rested a mittened hand on his cheek. She brought her mouth to his and kissed him. When she stepped back, she said, “Then I’m all in.”

  Then she grinned at him and turned to walk to the other side of the camp and stand her watch on guard duty. Frank stood there for a second, wondering what the hell had just happened, before he said, “Dog, go with her. Guard.”

  The big cur loped off into the darkness.

  In the morning, Meg didn’t say anything about what had happened, and neither did Frank. The group got started early again, heading toward White Pass. Frank hoped they would reach it today. Once they did, they wouldn’t be beyond the reach of Soapy Smith, but Frank figured the odds of an attack would go down.

  Around midday, they came to a valley with a long, tree-dotted slope on each side. Salty brought his team to a halt and the others followed suit, with Meg calling to Jennings, “We’re stopping, Bart!”

  Frank had been at the rear of the little convoy, talking to Pete Conway. As the sleds came to a halt, he rode forward to see why Salty had stopped.

  The old-timer pointed at the bottom of the valley. “Down yonder is Eight Mile Creek.”

  “I don’t even see a creek,” Frank said with a shake of his head.

  “That’s ’cause it’s froze over and covered with snow.” Salty stepped off the runners at the rear of the sled and went to the piles of supplies. He started un-strapping a pair of snowshoes that were lashed to one of the bundles. “I’m gonna have to go down there and check the ice ’fore we can drive these sleds over it.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Frank said.

  Salty shook his head as he started fastening the snowshoes on his feet. “No, you stay here with the others. This here’s a one-man job.”

  When the bulky snowshoes were fastened securely to his feet, he started tramping down the hill toward the creek. The snow wasn’t so deep that Salty really needed the shoes, Frank thought. The old-timer could have handled it just in his boots. But it was quicker and easier with the snowshoes, Frank saw as he watched Salty moving down the hill in a peculiar, gliding stride.

  Several of the women got off the sleds to move around, and they came up to the lip of the hill to watch Salty’s progress, as well. Meg stood beside Stormy and asked Frank, “Will we just drive right over the ice?”

  “If it’s thick enough to support the weight of the sleds and everything on them,” he replied. “The ladies probably ought to get off and walk across, just as a precaution.” Salty hadn’t said anything about that, but it just made sense to Frank.

  The dogs sat there watching as well, tongues lolling from their mouths and their breath fogging the air in front of their faces. Dog had followed Salty down the hill, and the old-timer hadn’t sent him back.

  Frank took off his mittens and rubbed his hands together, trying to get some warmth back in them. He could handle the reins just fine wearing the mittens, but he couldn’t hope to draw and fire a gun with them on, so he left them off part of the time and wore them at others. His knuckles had begun to chap from the cold, but that was a small price to pay to be able to slap leather if he needed to.

  Fiona walked up on the other side of Frank’s horse. “Will we reach White Pass today?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Salty said that’s called Eight Mile Creek, and I’ve got a hunch it got the name because it’s eight miles from here to the pass. That’s the way things like that usually work. If I had to guess
, we won’t be able to cover that much ground in the time we have left today before it starts getting dark, but maybe we’ll be there by the middle of the day tomorrow.”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’m not sure why I’m anxious to get there. From what Mr. Stevens said, it’s just going to get worse on the other side of the pass.”

  Frank was about to nod when he saw that Salty had reached the creek. He moved out carefully onto the snow-covered ice, pausing for long seconds between each step with his head cocked slightly. Frank knew that Salty was listening for the tiny telltale noises that meant the ice was cracking underneath him. If he heard them, he would have to pull back to the bank.

  That would also mean that they couldn’t risk driving the sleds across the ice. They would have to find a way around the creek, or a section where the ice was thicker and sturdier. Either alternative meant adding more time to the trip, and with every minute that went by, they were that much closer to the first real storm of the winter.

  Salty kept moving slowly until Frank was sure he must be getting close to the other side of the creek. Suddenly, he lunged ahead, snowshoes flashing now instead of moving deliberately. Frank leaned forward in the saddle in alarm, knowing that Salty’s frantic reaction meant the ice was giving way underneath him. The old-timer had known better than to turn and try to come back, though. He was closer to the other bank, and reaching it was his only chance.

  With a crack so loud that Frank could hear it even at this distance, the ice abruptly went out from under Salty’s feet, and he was plunged into the frigid waters of Eight Mile Creek.

  Chapter 26

  Salty fell through the ice so quickly he didn’t even have a chance to let out a yell before he disappeared under the creek’s surface. Meg screamed, though, as she saw him disappear, and so did some of the other women. Conway yelled, “What the hell!” and started floundering forward through the snow.

  Frank was already in motion, pounding down the hill on Goldy. As he leaned forward in the saddle, he saw Dog bunching his muscles to leap into the creek in an attempt to save Salty. The big cur ran out onto the ice and splashed into the stream before Frank could call out to stop him.