Alaska Steel (A Neal Fargo Adventure #3)

by John Benteen

  “All right,” he said. “Thirty thousand and you go along. But there’s one thing you’ve got to remember. From beginning to end, I’m the boss and I give the orders.”

  She let out a long breath; suddenly she smiled. “All right,” she said. “It’s a deal. Shall we drink to it?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  She handed him a freshly filled glass, raised her own. “To Alaska.”

  Fargo nodded and drank. She was standing very close to him; her perfume was strong in his nostrils. He could look down into those amber eyes, and down into the valley between those big, white breasts. Suddenly desire was like a gust of hot wind across a desert; he wanted her. And he knew, from the glint in her eyes, that she wanted him, too; and that she was waiting.

  So he put out one big hand, and pulled her to him, and she came quickly, easily. When he brought his mouth down on hers, her lips parted immediately; he felt the quick, hungry touch of her tongue. Her breasts pushed against him hard and he was aware that her hips had begun to move, slowly, grindingly, with an exciting rhythm. Then she pulled away, breathing jerkily. “Wait,” she said. “Wait a minute, Fargo.” She set the glass aside.

  Her hands did something with the buttons on the back of the dress. Then, with a whisper of fabric, it was over her head and gone; and, as Fargo had guessed, there was nothing under it. Clad only in silk stockings with red garters at the thighs and high-heeled shoes, she stood naked before him, and she was magnificent, her body like ivory in the dim glare of the lamp. She moved toward the sofa. “Fargo,” she whispered. “Come on, Fargo.”

  Fargo shrugged out of the coat, reached for his belt. She lay back, her body very white against the black leather. As Fargo loomed over her, she reached up, took his hand, and pulled him down ...

  It was, Fargo thought, as his body covered hers, going to be the damnedest trip to Alaska he’d ever made ...

  Chapter Three

  Although it was mid-August, the wind from the Bering Sea was cold, and Fargo turned up the collar of his mackinaw as he walked the muddy main street of Nome, caught up in a current of humanity frenzied in its effort to make the most of summer. Miners from the nearby diggings spent their dust, prospectors and trappers scrabbled for scarce supplies, outfitting for the long winter after freeze-up in mid-September; tourists and sportsmen strolled about wide-eyed; Eskimos stayed apart from the crowd and chattered among themselves; and all the vultures, the whores, pimps, gamblers and touts who preyed off this Alaskan town were in full cry. But so far, in this swirling throng, Fargo had found no trace of a man named Dolan.

  When he had awakened the next morning with Jane Deering in the big house in Beverly Hills, he had outlined his plan of action over coffee. She was lovely, alluring, in a gauzy negligee that hid nothing of a body Fargo knew intimately by now; and she listened closely, keenly, as he talked.

  “The first thing’s to write the territorial authorities and the Alaskan Railroad headquarters at Anchorage to see if they have any information on Dolan.”

  “I’ve already done that. None. The only clue’s that last letter from Circle City.”

  “Okay,” Fargo said. “Then we leave for Nome. It’s twenty-five hundred miles by ship from Seattle, but it’s the easiest way in the summer to get to Circle. From Nome, we go down to St. Michael’s and take a river boat up the Yukon. But we’ll have to hurry; the summer’s moving on.”

  Jane frowned. “I’ve got to finish the picture I’m in. It’ll take another ten days.”

  “That’ll work out all right. Once we go to Circle, we’ve got to figure on spending the winter there or coming out overland. Either way, we’ll need an outfit. If it turns out we need dogs and sleds, we can get those at Circle or at Fort Yukon. But we’ll still have to have a lot of other gear—and if we take our own grub in, we’ll be better off, too. I’ll go ahead by ship to Nome, outfit us there, and you come right behind me, meet me there. Meanwhile, I’ll see what information I can pick up about Dolan. Nome’s a good place to start.”

  Jane nodded. “All right, then. Before you leave here, I’ll give you a check. Ten thousand on account and another three for expenses. Enough?”

  Fargo nodded.

  She looked at him across her coffee cup. Her mouth curved. “It ought to be worth it, even if we don’t find Hal. After last night, Fargo, I’m looking forward to spending a winter in Alaska with you.”

  He laughed without much humor. “It may not be as much fun as you think. Alaska’s like Texas in a lot of ways. They say Texas is fine for men and mules and hell on women and horses. Alaska’s fine for men and Malamules, but you won’t find many women or horses there.”

  So he had come on ahead, had disembarked at twilight last night. It was fine to be back; all the way up the coast, he had spent as much time on deck as possible, drawing in the superb, cold, absolutely clean air, feasting his eyes on the wild, magnificent scenery. The world was filling up, he thought; there were too many people in it. The wild places were going fast; and so were the wild men who made their homes in them, wanting nothing so much as to be free of petty restrictions, laws, rules and the maddening trappings of civilization. But Alaska was big and clean and cruel, and it would be a long time before it filled up, and when it did, it would be with a people as tough and hardy as the country itself. It was good to be back.

  Now, in the old campaign hat, a heavy caribou-hide jacket worked to beautiful softness by the patience—and teeth—of Eskimo women, the shoulder-holstered Colt concealed by its drape, and in whipcord pants and boots, he let the flow of traffic carry him along through the streets of Nome. Eventually it brought him, as he had known it would, into the end of town where there were bars and gambling houses, some of sawed lumber, some made of logs. He had learned this a long time ago: if information was what you wanted, you could get it in the saloons.

  They were crowded and they stank; these men in from the creeks, the mountains and tundra smelled like grizzlies. Most were as bearded and shaggy, too; and the majority of them as fierce, if you crossed them. But, also like bears, they did not go out of their way looking for trouble; the North gave them all the trouble they could handle without seeking any more.

  That was why Fargo was surprised when one of them turned on him.

  He’d just gone down the line, hitting each place in turn, keeping his ears open, nursing his drinks, striking up conversation here and there when he could, making his inquiries about Dolan discreetly. In the first three joints, nobody seemed ever to have heard of the man or reacted to the name at all.

  The fourth place was bigger, fancier. A piano player tinkled ragtime music, and there were even a couple of percentage girls who were past their prime and wouldn’t have been worth a second glance anywhere else. But up here any human female was a rarity and had all the attention she could handle from women-starved frontiersmen. Fargo found a place at the long mahogany bar, ordered a drink and sized up the crowd. His eyes came to rest on a giant of a man, with a thick black thatch of hair and shaggy beard, towering over a group a few feet down the bar. The fellow’s voice was loud, raucous, carrying even over the noise of conversation, the hammer of the piano. Fargo listened. Then he caught a phrase that made him straighten up. “Yeah, by God. I come into Circle City with a thousand ounces from that one damn’ claim—a thousand ounces for a single summer! But that was three years ago, and the streak run out the next year—”

  Fargo sipped his drink, tilted back his hat, edged down the bar. The big man turned, poured another drink from his bottle, tossed it off at a gulp, dragged a ham-sized hand across his bearded mouth. He was four inches taller than Fargo, and his torso, in a dirty flannel shirt, was as thick, as powerful, as a Kodiak bear’s. “But three years ago, Circle was the place to be ...” He started to pour another one.

  Fargo’s manner was courteous. Fighting was his stock in trade, but like any businessman, he hated to use up his stock without profit. In a crowd like this, he was careful to be easy-going. “Excuse me, friend. Did I he
ar you say you’d been up in Circle City the past few years?”

  The big man nodded. “That’s right. You ask anybody up in Circle about Jesse Hannon. Anything you wanta know about that place, I can tell you. I’ve prospected all that territory ’round there, took more gold outa them creeks than most damn sourdoughs see in a lifetime—and spent it all. But that’s okay, I know where there’s another pocket. What can I do for you, buddy?”

  “There was a fellow I used to know that I heard was up there—or had been. A man named Hal Dolan.”

  Hannon’s big-nosed, weather-beaten face changed in an instant. His black eyes turned opaque, his mouth twisted away from stained teeth in a snarl. “Dolan?” he whispered. Then his voice was a rasp. “Get away from me, buddy.”

  Fargo stared. “What the hell ?”

  “Dammit!” Hannon roared. “I said get away!” Without warning, his right fist, clubbed, slammed into Fargo’s face. It was like being kicked by a mule. The blow’s impact lifted Fargo off his feet, knocked him backward, threw him against the piano. The player yelled something as the piano rolled across the room under Fargo’s weight. Fargo’s head rang; he tasted salty blood from a cut lip; rage, immediate and fierce, flared in him, and then he was on his feet, just as Hannon ran at him with both hands ready to strike like sledge hammers, lifted and wide.

  Dazed as he was, Fargo’s footwork was instinctive. He dropped into a crouch; before those great hands came down, he slammed left and right, short and hard, into Hannon’s belly. He heard Hannon’s breath whoosh, then he dodged as Hannon struck at him. The big fists missed, and Fargo came in again before Hannon could get them up. This time his hands took Hannon in the face, right, left, and whacked Hannon’s head around like a punching bag.

  The miner roared like a wounded grizzly. He staggered backward, threw up arms to shield himself as Fargo came in again. Fargo’s blows glanced off their oaken thickness. That gave Hannon time to recover. As Fargo stepped back, Hannon lurched forward. One big paw wrapped around Fargo’s wrist; Hannon jerked Fargo to him. Then Hannon had him in a hug, Fargo’s body pressed hard against his, and Hannon’s clawed right hand spread across Fargo’s face and pushed his head back while Hannon’s great left arm kept Fargo’s torso cinched, immobile. Hannon was out to break his neck, kill him, and in a second more, Fargo realized, the man would do it; he brought up his knee, hard, and felt it crunch exactly where he’d aimed it.

  Hannon howled; the pressure eased; Fargo wrenched away. His vision was blurred, his neck hurt; it had been a near thing. His breath was gone; he paused to suck in more before he attacked again. But he had underestimated Hannon’s vitality, his ability to endure pain. With his face pale beneath his beard, the big man threw himself at Fargo with amazing speed, caught him again, and bore him down under two and a half hundred pounds of hard, rank-smelling flesh. Fargo’s back hit a table; his weight and Hannon’s combined was more than it could take; it splintered and they both fell to the floor on top of its wreckage. Fargo was underneath, and Hannon wallowed on top of him, hands seeking Fargo’s throat. Hannon’s voice shook with pain. “This time, I will kill you!”

  He got his hands on Fargo’s neck, his massive weight straddled Fargo; he dug in his thumbs. Fargo tried to buck him off, pull out from under, but it was like being buried under a mountain. He wrapped his hands around Hannon’s wrists, tried to pry them loose, but they were like iron. Fargo’s eyes bulged, his vision blurring, his breath gone. In a moment more, Hannon would pop his windpipe.

  Then his out flung right hand touched something, closed about it. There was no time for niceties or rules; this was a barroom brawl, and a deadly one. Fargo swung the splintered table leg with all his remaining strength.

  It caught Hannon on the back of the head; and its impact made a sound like an ax chopping into a log. He grunted. The gouging thumbs loosened; Fargo swung the leg again, harder. Hannon’s head dropped and he sagged to one side. Fargo bucked with all his strength, and Hannon rolled off. Gasping, Fargo staggered dizzily to his feet. Hannon, like the grizzly he resembled, was nearly indestructible. Shaking his head, he was coming up, too, was already on his knees. Fargo gripped the table leg in both hands, swung it like a baseball bat. This time it broke in two, with a sickening crunch. Blood ran from Hannon’s nostrils and he fell face forward on the floor, dead weight.

  Fargo stood there panting. It had been close, damned close. He glowered at the silent, awed crowd that formed a circle around him and the unconscious giant on the floor. “You all saw it,” he rasped. “He slugged me for no reason. He was trying to kill me.” There was nothing left in him for fist fighting. His hand fished the Colt from its holster. “Anybody want to take up where he left off ?”

  The bartender answered for all of them: “Ease off, stranger. Nobody’s got no fight with you. Jake, you better go get Doc Fielding. When this man hits, he hits hard.”

  Nome had a police force, and the fight was a matter in its jurisdiction. Fargo sat across the table from Inspector Ross at headquarters, an hour later. Ross, a weathered sourdough who’d hit Alaska in ’96, hauled a year’s supplies on his back over the brutal height of Chilkoot Pass, made and spent a fortune in gold in his time in the Yukon and the Klondike, had now, tired of the hard life of a prospector, pinned on a badge. It was not the first time he and Fargo had run into each other; and though there was no particular liking between them, there was mutual respect.

  “You asked about a man named Dolan,” Ross said, “and he hit you—just like that?”

  “That’s right,” Fargo said. “The name seemed to drive him crazy.”

  “Dolan, Dolan. It rings no bell.” Ross’s blue eyes narrowed, locking with Fargo’s gray ones. “What do you want with him?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “It’s mine, too, if you’re gonna go around all over the Territory cracking skulls.” Then his tone changed a little. “Not that it wasn’t justifiable. Hannon’s a hard man. If you hadn’t got him, he’d have got you. But you ain’t gonna get anything about Dolan or anybody else out of him any time soon. The doc says he’s got a fractured skull. No tellin’ how long he’ll be in a coma.” Ross lit a cigarette. “How long you plan to be in Nome? Not very, I hope.”

  “No,” Fargo said. “I’m waiting for a partner to come in on the next steamer. Then we’re taking a river boat up to Circle City.”

  “Hannon’s stamping grounds. You’d better walk easy up there. Hannon was a popular man in those diggin’s.”

  “I had nothing against him. He shouldn’t have hit me, that’s all.”

  Ross snorted. “Maybe you ought to wear a sign around your neck. My name’s Fargo; you hit me, you’ll be sorry.” He got up. “Okay. You’re free to go. We’ve got a law here against carrying guns, but I know you well enough to know you won’t use that one of yours unless you have to. See that you don’t have to, and I won’t make an issue of it. You aim to winter in Circle?”

  “I don’t know,” Fargo said.

  “If you do, you better make damn sure you’re well outfitted. The Injuns and the Eskimos are predictin’ this’ll be one of the worst winters we’ve ever had, and that it’ll hit early. I don’t know how they know, but they do. All my years here, I’ve never seen ’em wrong yet.”

  “Neither have I,” Fargo said. “Thanks for the tip.” He arose. “I’ll try to stay out of trouble, Frank.”

  “You’ll never do it,” Ross grunted. “It follows you like your shadow. Just make sure no more of it happens in my jurisdiction.” He and Fargo shook hands and Fargo went out.

  Tough as he was, the fight with Hannon had taken a lot out of him. He decided to try nothing else for the day, but to go straight back to his hotel, get some rest. As he strode a little stiffly along the board sidewalks of Nome, his throat and face still aching, his mind would not let go of what had happened. Just mention the name of Dolan and a man tries to kill you, he thought. Whoever or whatever Dolan is or was, he sure left his mark on the territory around Circle.


  The hotel was a two-story frame near the harbor. Fargo entered its tiny lobby, carrying with him a bottle of whiskey he’d bought on the way. The clerk behind the desk, a young man who’d come to Alaska to make his fortune and whose courage had failed him, who’d not dared try the interior, spoke as he went by. “Mr. Fargo.”

  Fargo turned.

  “There’s a message for you.” The youth handed Fargo an envelope.

  Fargo looked at it. There was no return address, no stamp. Only his last name, scrawled in pencil. He said: “Who brought this?”

  “I don’t know. It was here when I came on duty.”

  “All right.” Fargo ripped the flap. He took out a cheap piece of paper. It bore only a couple of scribbled lines in shaky, smudged pencil. He read it twice.

  Stay out of Circle City if you like living. Don’t even mention the name Dolan in Alaska again.

  It was signed: The Committee of Ten.

  Fargo folded the note and stuck it in his pocket.

  When he was in his room, he checked all his weapons again, and this time he stripped them and re-oiled them with a very light oil, rendered and re-rendered from the blubber of sperm whale. It would not gum or freeze in the terrible cold; and he knew now that if he stayed in Alaska for the winter, he would need his guns and that they must all work on a hair-trigger.

  Then he drank a lot of whiskey and rested.

  Chapter Four

  In a fight, Fargo could be a reckless, raging demon; but he never went into one without carefully getting as many of the odds on his side as he could. A winter in the North would be a fight, too, against a merciless, unpredictable enemy; and he went about outfitting for it with the same finicky precision that marked the care he gave his guns. He bought only the best; it cost him dearly, but nothing but the best would serve.