BURYING ZIMMERMAN (The River Trilogy, book 2)

by Edward A. Stabler

  "But Skagway is Alaska and there wasn't no Mounties, so people took it on themselves to keep the peace. Committees was making the rules and miners' courts settling the disputes. Frank Reid been all over the west for thirty years, seen lots of fights in mining camps and Indian country, so they made him surveyor, and he decided all the scraps over land. But that didn't stop the con men, and by January of '98, Jefferson Smith owned that town."

  Zimmerman says there were over a hundred men on Smith's payroll. Dock workers and saloon keepers, money lenders and ministers, journalists and jugglers were all part of an elaborate theatrical performance designed to separate the stampeding greenhorns from their money.

  "You never knowed who was part of the gang or who was a snitch, so you kept your mouth shut. Tommy Santoro was in on it. He was a newspaperman and would meet every steamer. Shake hands with a couple of cheechakos on the dock and welcome 'em to Skagway, then pull out his pen and pad and get their story for the newspaper. Where they was from, who come with 'em, what kind of outfit they was bringing in.

  "Then he would introduce 'em to a couple of friendly fellers named Ross and Joe who would help 'em carry their bags up into town. And Ross and Joe might tell 'em what packing outfit to use, what hotel was safest, and what bartender was a sourdough who just come back from the Klondike. Might even warn 'em to watch out for Soapy Smith's gang. But of course Ross and Joe and all those businesses was in on it too. By the time the cheechakos was ready to look around, the gang was already figuring out how much money they had and how to fleece 'em.

  "Sometimes they would get 'em into a crooked card game, and that was the easy way. If the greenhorn wasn't a sporting man, a nice feller might lead him to the Information Office, and that was nothing but a hut where Jeff's men would put on a show. When an expert behind the counter was going to sell the greenhorn a map, a thief would jump in and take his wallet. All the other customers would holler and grab and punch the thief, and the greenhorn would get knocked out of his senses.

  "One time I seen Jim Foster and the Hotcakes Kid fleece a cheechako named Davis that just come in from San Francisco. Tommy Santoro interviewed him on the dock, and Davis was bringing six pack horses, boat lumber, and a hundred books. He was going to strike it big on the Klondike and open a library in Dawson. He was from Sacramento, and Tommy reckoned he was rich already. Introduced him to Jim Foster, who said he would take Davis down to the Motherlode Saloon to meet Old Man Tripp later that afternoon. Old Man Tripp knowed more about getting to the Klondike than any man in Skagway.

  "When Jim Foster come to fetch Davis from the hotel, he made sure to walk him down Third Street past the Skagway Telegraph Office. I was sitting on a bench out front of the office that day, and Tommy Santoro was standing nearby talking to another feller. When he seen Foster and Davis coming down the street, Tommy knocks three times on the door. Then the Hotcakes Kid busts out of the office just as Foster and Davis get there, and the Kid looks pale-faced.

  "'What's the matter, Kid?' says Tommy.

  "'I got a telegram from my mother in Placerville,' the Kid says, loud enough so Foster and Davis hear every word, 'and there was an earthquake in Sacramento last night! Half her house fell down! She's all right, but now I'm worried about her catching cold!'

  "Davis looks agitated, 'cause his family lives in Sacramento. He told that to Tommy on the dock. 'How bad was the damage in Sacramento?' he says to the Kid.

  "Foster points to the office and says 'why not contact your wife to make sure she's safe?'

  "So Davis rushes into the office and sends his wife a telegram asking about the earthquake and if she and little Stanley is all right.

  "Then Foster and Davis go to the saloon and meet Old Man Tripp, who asks Davis what kind of boat lumber he's packing. Davis says pine, and Tripp shakes his head and says the lakes is full of sap-sucker fish that will dig their teeth into the bottom of a pine boat. Cut holes right through the hull in a week, unless you treat the lumber with humpback wax, and there's an outfitter in town named Brubaker who can sell him just the right amount.

  "After a few whiskeys Foster takes Davis back to the telegraph office, where they already got a reply from Sacramento. His wife is all right and the house ain't damaged, but little Stanley's bed fell apart when the house started shaking, and he broke his arm and now it's in a cast. Can Davis send two hundred dollars for the doctor?

  "Lucky for him there's a Western Union desk right there in the telegraph office, so Davis hands over two hundred dollars and spells out his wife's name and address.

  "The next day he gets a telegram from his wife saying she got the money and Stanley is feeling better, but she found cracks in the foundation, and can he send another three hundred.

  "So Davis gives the Western Union man three hundred. Then afterward he's so upset that his boy is hurt and his house might fall down that he goes to see Brubaker the outfitter and says he's catching the boat back to San Francisco and wants to sell his outfit. Of course Brubaker works for Jeff Smith and he already heared Davis was coming.

  "Brubaker says he understands and wants to help. He says he'll send a couple of men and a wagon to pick up the outfit and another to tend the horses. And then he asks Davis his name and address and writes it down in his ledger book. Opens his cash drawer and hands Davis a hundred dollars, says he'll put the outfit on consignment and mail him the rest when it sells.

  "There's a steamer leaving for Seattle the next day, and Davis decides to take it, figuring he can get a boat to San Francisco from there. Maybe on the trip home he might of thought it was funny that the two men Brubaker sent to pick up his outfit was Ross and Joe, who helped him with his bags the first day, and that Tommy Santoro was there on the dock to shake his hand and wish him well.

  "And maybe he even met someone on that boat who knowed what most folks in town was afraid to tell you. The Telegraph Office and the Western Union desk was run by Jeff Smith's gang, and there wasn't no telegraph line within a thousand miles of Skagway."

  Chapter 34

  "Jeff Smith and his Denver gang come into Skagway in August of '97," Zimmerman says, "and they was dug in deep by the end of the year. That winter there was holdups every day in town, men found robbed and shot every week on the Skagway Trail. But mostly they liked to cheat you out of your money, if you was a stampeder passing through.

  "If you ran a business or worked in Skagway, you was safe. Better than safe, maybe you was on the payroll. If your cabin burned down, Jeff might buy you lumber for a new one, and if you got sick and died broke, he'd pay for your funeral. Get into a fight in a saloon and shoot someone, there might be a lynch mob coming, but Jeff would jump in front of you and tell the mob to stand aside, 'cause the people of Skagway wasn't going to tolerate vigilante justice. From the stories you might think he was a red-eyed mountain-man, but he dressed like a gentleman and had a soft way of talking and a silver tongue. Plenty of people in Skagway loved Jeff Smith, and even them that saw the truth about him figured he was above the law.

  "And that wasn't just 'cause he bought a couple of judges or inspectors. It was 'cause he had an army. Two hundred strong, with guns. He called it the Alaska National Guard, and told people they was training to fight in the Philippines. Everyone was still up in arms over the sinking of the Maine, so Jeff opened his recruiting tent in Skagway in April of '98, when we gone to war with Spain.

  "Then on May first, Jeff leads his militia through town. There's flags and banners and a brass band, and a thousand people cheering on both sides of the street. In front of his saloon on Third Street he got a stage set up, and when the parade gets there he gives a patriotic speech and burns a dummy of the Spanish governor in Cuba. Then he leads the whole regiment into his saloon, where there's extra casks of whiskey and eight bartenders ready to take money from thirsty men.

  "I was packing up on the trail that day, but when I heared Jeff was marching with his private army, I knowed some kind of showdown was coming. There was still plenty of people that seen Skagway as
the gateway to the gold fields and was trying to make an honest profit. Maybe they was running a restaurant or a blacksmith shop or helping build the toll road, and they didn't like the reputation Skagway was getting from all the cheating and stealing and shooting. If stampeders got scared away from Skagway, they was going to lose everything they been working for.

  "I wasn't ready to head Inside myself – only had half an outfit – but I decided that day it was time to take my horses down the Lynn Canal to Dyea."

  Nine weeks later, Zimmerman says, a miner named Stewart crossed White Pass and descended the trail to Skagway with twenty-eight hundred dollars worth of hard-earned Klondike gold, and within hours his entire poke was stolen by the Smith gang. Stewart reported the theft to the U.S. deputy marshal in Skagway, but the officer was on Smith's payroll and said nothing could be done. When a judge visiting from Dyea appealed directly to Smith to return Stewart's money, Smith replied heatedly that it was lost in a fair game of chance.

  That was the last straw for the honest businessmen of Skagway. As word of the theft spread throughout town, dozens gathered to discuss how to respond. They sent an emissary to Smith's saloon to demand that Stewart's money be returned in full by the following afternoon. By the time the deadline passed, the entire town was on edge and Smith had been drinking for hours. He set out across town with his rifle to confront and intimidate his detractors, who had gathered at the waterfront. By then the meeting had grown into a mob.

  Town surveyor Frank Reid barred him from the dock, so Smith leveled his gun at Reid's head. Reid grabbed the barrel with one hand, pulled a pistol with the other, and shot Smith in the heart, but not before the surprised villain could return fire. The legendary Soapy Smith died minutes later where he fell, while Reid succumbed to his wounds after a few days.

  "That was the story we heared up on the Dyea Trail," Zimmerman says. "I remember it was just past the fourth of July, and I already been in Dyea and Skagway a year."

  Zimmerman says that by the time he headed back to Dyea in June, he had half an outfit and four horses, the sum of which he purchased for almost nothing.

  "Them first few months there was plenty of men that got stuck on the Skagway Trail. Maybe their horses broke down or died, or maybe they got sick of the struggle, but they didn't make it up to the pass and they couldn't pack their way out. So they was selling their outfits for ten cents on the dollar or just leaving bags by the side of the trail. When I was building corduroy bridges I didn't get more than a couple bags of flour, but when I worked for the packers I got beans and tinned meat and oakum and nails. Cached what I could get my hands on when I was heading up the trail, then loaded it onto my horses on the way down. That was all before the snow got deep.

  "When the snow come in, men was packing to the foot of the hill and then turning their horses loose and carrying their outfits up to the pass and down to the lakes on their backs. So Skagway was full of used up horses. Some of 'em could pull wagons or carriages in town, but the ones no one wanted got shot, and some probably got ate by dogs. Maybe even by men.

  "By May I been working in Skagway for the best part of ten months, saving most of my money. The grub and tools I got didn't cost much, so I had some left over for horses and feed. I quit working and spent a week looking at horses. Reckoned I could make a team pay for its keep on the Dyea Trail up to Sheep Camp. From my canal days I was partial to mules, but the onliest one I found was a one-eyed mule named Dottie that a packing company didn't trust no more on the Skagway Trail. Bought her for thirty dollars.

  "Then I got an old burro named Clyde and two horses I figured I could mend – a gray gelding with sores on his legs and back and a sorrel mare that was starving to death. Them four was my team, and for a couple weeks I let 'em rest. Fed the mare as much hay and oats as she wanted and treated the gelding's sores with salt water and lard. Bought nails and a couple dozen shoes from a trader in town. He got hundreds of shoes from a kid that was working the trail the first few months, prying 'em off dead horses."

  Almost a year after he first disembarked, Zimmerman led his pack team onto a steamer and headed back downwind to the apex of the Lynn Canal. It was June of '98, five months after the Swedes made it Outside with their Klondike gold, and the Dyea Trail was choked with stampeders, with pack trains led by Indians, and with businesses catering to both. Even Soapy Smith's con men were working the trail up to Chilkoot Pass, dealing crooked games of monte and faro at the places men found to rest along the trail.

  "The Siwashes was charging seventeen cents a pound to pack outfits from Dyea to Lindeman Lake," Zimmerman says. "They had horse trains going up to Sheep Camp, and from there it was on their backs, up over the pass and down to the lakes. Even in the summer there's snow on the pass, so the Chilkoots paint their faces black to save their eyes, and it makes 'em look like the devil's own disciples.

  "I was packing outfits up to Sheep Camp for five cents a pound, working for tenderfeet coming off the boats. Took care of my team and that's how I kept 'em on the trail. Shook out their blankets every night, washed their backs and legs. If my mare lost a shoe fording the river, I'd stop and unload her, then hammer on a new one.

  "It's eleven miles to Sheep Camp, and it didn't look nothing like what I seen in July '97. By June '98 there was hundreds of people moving up and down every part of that trail. Mostly men, but women too, even some children. Hotels and restaurants and saloons opening up at the canyon and Finnegan's Point and Sheep Camp. Up at the Scales you got steam-powered cables hauling loads up that last pitch, one with a dozen small buckets that hold a hundred pounds and one with a couple of big ones hauling five hundred.

  "A feller named Wallace hired men to put a cable lift straight up to the pass from Canyon City, and that's fourteen miles. It ran on steel wheels mounted on thick concrete towers. They started building in '97 and finished a couple weeks before I was on the trail with my team. Would of finished sooner but there was a blizzard in early April and then a snow slide on a wall above the trail between Sheep Camp and the Scales. Snapped the cable and destroyed a tower, and seventy people near the Stone House was buried ten feet deep. A thousand fellers scrambled up from Sheep Camp to dig, but it just takes a few minutes for that wet snow to set like cement. They said you could hear voices calling out from under the snow, and then they went quiet one by one. Only a few of them buried was pulled out alive.

  "I spent six weeks coming and going between Dyea and Sheep Camp, and that lift was broke down half the time, but when it was running it was a hell of a sight. Buckets carrying three hundred pounds going by a hundred feet over your head, one every minute. You could see which way the tide was turning, and there wasn't going to be much use for packers once they got that cable running steady. By the end of summer, half the Chilkoot pack trains was just bringing supplies up to the restaurants. Beans and pork and milk, and fish they netted out of the Dyea River."

  Zimmerman says that by late July he'd bought and traded his way into an outfit that would sustain him for a year Inside. Since all his goods were purchased in Alaska, he'd have to pay customs duties up at Chilkoot Pass, but the Mounties wouldn't turn him back.

  "Toward the end of July I packed for three fellers from Montana – a man named Rafferty and his boy, maybe sixteen, named Tim. The third was a schoolteacher named Orrie from the same town. I noticed they was carrying more tools than most – a whipsaw and three handsaws, spare blades, a bag of planes and chisels, even a hand-drill and a level. Rafferty told me he was a carpenter, and that got me thinking on the way up to Sheep Camp. Them three was agreeable fellers. Didn't talk much and never been mining, but all of 'em was comfortable on the trail and knowed how to use their hands. I figured that was about the best kind of company I was going to find that summer."

  Zimmerman says he realized that Tim liked horses, so he talked with the boy about what made a good packer and taught him how to throw a diamond hitch.

  "Used the Dyea River to show 'em how to scout a creek and pan for colors. Told 'em how
you could use a rocker to wash out dumps when you wasn't near the water. By the time we got to Sheep Camp we was on good terms, so I made Rafferty an offer.

  "I said I was putting together my outfit and I'd be ready to head Inside after a few more days. I knowed they was planning to build a boat at Lindeman Lake, and I'd be pleased to help if they was willing to let me travel with 'em to Dawson. Told 'em I knowed my way around boats and rivers, and wasn't no stranger to tools or hard work. And I said I wasn't going to charge for packing 'em up to Sheep Camp if they was my partners."

  "Rafferty said they was going to pay the Chilkoots to pack their outfits over the pass and down to Lindeman, but the money I was going to save him wouldn't be enough for the Chilkoots to pack mine. I told him that don't matter. I could move my outfit over the pass myself and meet 'em at Lindeman in two weeks.

  "Then I told him the trees was mostly gone at Lindeman, so it was better to keep moving to Bennett Lake. During the spring there was a couple hundred tents up there, and while the stampeders was waiting for the ice to go out, they turned Bennett into something like a town. Had a saloon and a sawmill, so that was the place to stop if you was building a boat."

  Zimmerman swivels toward the table to tilt back a slug from his cup. I reach for my own and do the same.

  "What did Rafferty say?"

  "He said they brung plans for a scow and he reckoned they could make it a few feet longer. Should hold four men and three tons, and might even ride the rapids better that way. So we shook hands at Sheep Camp and I said I'd find 'em at Bennett in two weeks. Told 'em I'd bring twenty pounds of oakum and pitch and nails."

  I squint skeptically, remembering how long Zimmerman said it took Gig Garrett and Nokes and the Swedes to move their outfits from Sheep Camp over the pass and down to Lindeman Lake, which was five miles closer than Bennett.

  "You said the Mounties wouldn't let you over the pass unless you had a full year's outfit. Rafferty and his group had a head start and Indian packers. How were you going to catch up to them while moving a ton of gear?"