by Howard Blum
Now gold, too, helped to establish the allure of faraway Alaska in people’s minds. Back in the 1840s Russian trappers had reported that they’d stumbled upon traces of the yellow metal in the jagged spits of rocky land fronting the icy blue-green waters of the Cook Inlet. For these trappers, however, this discovery was just a curiosity; they were too occupied with the fortunes that could be made selling the soft, thick furs of minks, lynxes, beavers, and Arctic foxes to fashionable aristocrats at the court in St. Petersburg.
More recently, in the 1880s, American prospectors had experienced some luck panning in the tidewater Tlingit Indian fishing grounds that ran along the territory’s coastal panhandle. These were small strikes, but they were sufficient to spark large hopes. In fact, the possibility of further discoveries led George Pilz, an engineer who was already working a claim near Sitka, to come up with an entrepreneurial plan. He offered several bottles of whiskey to any Indian who could lead him to a gold-bearing vein. Soon enough, Chief Kowee of the Auk Tlingit tribe showed up with a piece of quartz rock laced with streaks of gold. There were more yellow-veined rocks like this one, the chief promised, along the banks of a fast-moving creek that lay beyond the Gastineau Channel.
Pilz handed over the whiskey, but he didn’t put too much stock in the Indian’s information. Although he was the one who had proposed the trade, Pilz now realized he just didn’t have it in him to trust any Indian. Besides, he knew that an expedition to search for a specific creek among the dozens, or perhaps even hundreds, of creeks that ran north of the channel would have its difficulties. That was rain-forest country, a dense, inhospitable region that stretched seemingly to the horizon in a maze of tall trees, razor-sharp ferns, and dark, murky swamps. A man could easily lose his bearings and never be seen again.
On the other hand, Pilz didn’t relish missing out on a chance to make a windfall discovery. The prospect, however unlikely, was still too tempting.
He recruited two vagabond prospectors, Joe Juneau and Dick Harris, to investigate. When they returned empty-handed, it simply confirmed to Pilz that his initial instinct had been correct. He should never have paid an Indian any mind. Chief Kowee, though, turned belligerent. He thundered: The two men’s search had failed because of a lack of heart. They had been lazy. They had not journeyed far enough beyond the head of the channel. The Indian’s vehemence took Pilz by surprise; it was the indignant tone of a man defending his honor. And that got Pilz to thinking.
He sent the two prospectors out again, telling them to hack their way through the rain forest and the underbrush if they had to. They were gone for over a month, but when they returned they were proud and gleeful. They had seen some colors in a roaring, spring-fed creek and then, on a hunch, had followed its course back several miles to a steep gulch. And there they’d found gold. “Little lumps as large as peas and beans,” Harris rejoiced.
It was a major strike, the first one in Alaska. Around what they took to calling Gold Creek and Snow Slide Gulch, in October 1880 the two men staked out a 160-acre townsite. Word spread quickly, and within a year a tent-city mining camp had been transformed into a shacktown crowded with prospectors, tenderfeet, hurdy-gurdy girls, and tinhorn gamblers. It was the first town to be founded in the nearly two decades since the United States had taken control of the territory. At a high-spirited, celebratory meeting, the miners voted to name it Juneau.
In 1895, while a great depression ravaged America, Juneau prospered. There were a half dozen hard rock mines scattered around the area, and each one was steadily producing large quantities of gold ore. These were loud and clanking industrial operations employing hundreds of workers and engineers. Each day the thick gray smoke from their smelting furnaces would float in an eerie mist above the town, visible testimony to the new fortunes that were being made. In booming Juneau, it was possible to believe that finding gold in Alaska was not simply a figment of the imagination, and that a new, more satisfying future was somewhere out there, another hidden treasure just waiting to be discovered.
A GRAINY photograph taken in 1895 shows a ragtag group of new arrivals coming off a small one-smokestack steamer tied up to the dock in Juneau. It is a rainy day, possibly spring, judging by the hip-length coats most of the men are wearing, and they are making their way in a lackadaisical procession along the narrow wooden wharf. Some have packs on their backs, others carry valises. The photographer must have set up his camera stand on Front Street, at the end of the long wharf, and from such a distance the faces are indistinguishable. Anyway, the rain is sheeting, and broad-brimmed hats are pulled low on many of their heads. Yet perhaps it is not necessary to be able to identify the newcomers to know at least the broad strokes of their histories. The tumult of the age had driven them to look for something better in the far north. At the same time, undoubtedly they were also running away from something in their own lives. The bittersweet legacies of high dramas had assuredly played a part in each man’s decision that it’d be better to move on. Charlie Siringo, Soapy Smith, and George Carmack had, as it happened, walked in similar circumstances down the wooden planks of this very wharf on their way toward Front Street, and on into Juneau. Traveling north with the flow of history, hardened by disquieting events, eager to leave hurtful memories behind, they’d come to Alaska. Like so many of the other newcomers, they were intrepid. They embraced large ambitions. And they, too, had no way of anticipating the mystery, danger, and adventure that lay ahead in such a wild and unknown big country.
THIRTEEN
harlie missed Mamie every day. He had agreed to take the case and go to Alaska for one reason: to forget. He wanted to put distance between himself and his memories, to separate himself definitively from all that had come before. Alaska, he’d reckoned, promised experiences that would overpower his lingering sense of loss. The truth was, even before his meeting with McParland Charlie had realized something had to be done. He knew it wasn’t his nature to keep to himself, or to spend his days all hangdog and steeped in melancholy. He was a garrulous sort, a man who’d spent a lifetime spouting off to whomever he encountered in a loud, cheery, self-confident voice. Why, all through his married days, he’d indulged in a cowboy’s weakness for the company a man could find in saloons and dance halls; a lot of his nights, he freely conceded with a bemused grin, had been spent carrying on in a manner that “would make Rome howl.” But after Mamie’s death he’d retreated to a lonely, private place, and despite his growing recognition of his predicament, he’d found he couldn’t manufacture the will necessary to extricate himself. He just couldn’t see the point.
Then he had met with McParland; and later, in the course of a long night, he’d come to grasp the full measure of what the superintendent was offering. He was being given not only the chance to solve a mystery that had stymied the Portland office, but also the opportunity to reclaim his life. In Alaska he could escape the constant torment of his memories. He could make a fresh start. Newly hopeful, looking forward to reconnecting to his work, he’d agreed to take the case.
Yet as soon as he boarded the SS City of Topeka in Tacoma, Washington, Charlie felt he’d made a colossal mistake. He was being disloyal. Escape, Charlie now decided, was a coward’s play. He was disgusted with himself for trying to steer a course that would leave Mamie behind. Even worse, his plan failed completely. His journey brought him no comfort. The memory of his departed wife was as steady as the hard gray rain that followed the steamship each day on its way north. It clung to him. It would be part of him forever, like the long scar that ran down from his knee, the result of a bullet wound suffered in the course of a foolish night in Dodge.
Charlie, same as any hand who’d cowboyed about the frontier, had been witness to his share of sudden, untimely deaths. Marauding Indians, stray bullets, feisty rattlesnakes, even lightning bolts—all had struck with a lethal arbitrariness that he’d learned to accept as simply bad luck. Nine out of ten times a cowboy could be in that exact spot and nothing would happen—only this time it did. On the plains
and prairies either you learn to shrug off the unpredictability of life or else its dangers become too overwhelming. But now each day he would find himself once again dwelling on Mamie’s death, the unfairness of such a kindhearted soul’s dying so young and leaving their daughter motherless. It took all the discipline he could muster to prevent himself from standing on the deck and screaming in raw anger at the vast slate-gray sky above. He desperately wanted to ask for her back; yet he knew that would never happen. He wanted to turn back time and once again be the rascal outlaw sneaking down the hallway to the lonely widow’s bedroom in a Fort Laramie boardinghouse. He wanted to be traveling off to this new case with Mamie at his side. But he was alone.
It was a bad way to head into an investigation, he understood, and he knew he needed to get his thoughts fixed on the case at hand. This proved difficult. Charlie remained mired in a finality he could not bring himself to accept. Nevertheless, as the cold rain continued to pour down, as the little steamship rose and fell on the choppy, thick sea, as, no less relentless, he battled through his own internal hell, a sense of duty came to prevail. In his years as a trail boss, he had led men through hard times and across rough country. Now he made up his mind to apply the same unforgiving discipline to himself. Without further delay, he focused his attention on the operation, and the mystery he’d need to get to the bottom of.
AS CHARLIE stood on the rain-swept deck, his mind traveled back to his last meeting in McParland’s office in Denver. The superintendent was a heavyset man, and it was his habit even indoors to wear a bowler hat with the brim pulled so low that it nearly covered his eyes. No less oddly, the room was always as dark as a tomb. The superintendent had once explained to Charlie that he kept the curtains drawn tight and his desktop kerosene lamp at only a faint glow because he didn’t want to be spied on. He claimed he was fearful that someone from across the street or on a nearby rooftop might be watching the goings-on in his office. “Lots of people make it their business to know Mr. Pinkerton’s business,” he’d said. But Charlie suspected that both the bowler pulled low enough to veil the eyes and the cavelike office were ploys inspired by a more playful calculation. These were an actor’s affectations. McParland, Charlie had come to recognize, had cast himself as nothing less than the master Pinkerton sleuth, and his shadow-filled lair was center stage for the role he so clearly enjoyed performing. Not that Charlie was of a mind to be critical of such brazen showmanship; after all, he was the rodeo rider who had loped about Denver’s River Side Park corral sporting a large white sombrero, leather-fringed chaparejos, a flaming red kerchief, a sash of a similar bright-red hue tied tight around his waist, and a pearl-handled revolver jutting out of his holster. The way Charlie looked at it, a man could gussy himself up as he saw fit—as long as he could deliver on the fancy promise. And McParland had certainly done that. He was a legend. Before taking control of the Denver office, he’d worked three dangerous years undercover in a Pennsylvania mining town to build a case against a ruthlessly violent and corrupt cabal of union men. As a result of the unshakable evidence McParland had obtained at great personal risk, nineteen of the men, known as the Molly Maguires, were hanged. During Charlie’s time working with McParland, the superintendent had earned his respect, too: He was shrewd, thoughtful, and completely honest, a man who did as he’d said. In Charlie’s world, there was no higher praise.
That morning in Denver, after Charlie had announced that he’d changed his mind and was prepared to go to Alaska, he’d sat attentively in the straight-backed chair opposite his boss’s huge desk and waited to be briefed on the particulars. That was how things had always worked in the past. In his careful, orderly way, McParland would lay out a case without ever commenting on the difficulties or risks involved. He was a man who dealt in hard facts, not opinions. But that morning’s briefing had been different. Uncharacteristically, McParland had not proceeded in his typical straightforward fashion. Instead, he’d begun with a statement that was expressed with such heartfelt urgency that Charlie recognized that it was a plea: a plea for his help.
“It is imperative that this case be brought to a successful resolution,” McParland exclaimed. He let the words fill the room. When he was apparently satisfied that he had his operative’s full attention, he continued: “Nothing less than the reputation of the entire Pinkerton Detective Agency hangs in the balance.” Leaning his considerable bulk across the desk and in the same moment fixing Charlie with his sharpshooter’s stare, he spoke in a low, harsh whisper: “And that means, Siringo, that my reputation is at stake. I am counting on you.”
Charlie was taken aback. McParland had never expressed a personal interest in the outcome of any investigation. Nor, for that matter, had the superintendent ever placed such a singular importance on a specific case. What, Charlie wondered, had he gotten himself into? At the same time, he was excited. His vanity enjoyed a sharp challenge; in fact, he even relished the prospect of heading off into an adventure with so much on the line.
As for McParland, he now seemed a bit embarrassed, as if he had surprised himself, too, by the earnest passion he’d expressed. He quickly settled his large body back into his chair; adjusted—a habitual tic—the tilt of his bowler; and then proceeded in a more measured pitch to explain the string of events that had conspired to put such an unlikely importance on this case.
IT HAD all begun routinely enough. Ten thousand dollars’ worth of gold bars had been stolen from the busy Treadwell mine on Douglas Island, just across the harbor from Juneau, Alaska. This was a significant sum. Yet possibly more disturbing was the fact that the mine and its mill were patrolled around the clock by a small army of Winchester-toting guards. If despite all these precautions a thief could somehow smuggle out such a large amount of gold without being detected, what was to stop him from doing it again? And again?
Concerned, angry, and perplexed, Thomas Durkin, the superintendent of the Treadwell mine, sent a letter out the next day on a steamer leaving Juneau for Victoria, British Columbia. Addressed to the Western Union Telegraph Office, it instructed the operator to wire the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Portland, Oregon, in his name. The wire did not reveal the nature of the inquiry the agency was being hired to conduct; Durkin was reluctant to let word get out that a thief was preying on his mine. The wire simply requested that the office send three operatives to Alaska on the first available steamer. Cost, the telegram bluntly stated, was not an issue. A swift response, however, was essential.
The Portland office was a newly opened branch of the agency, and Franklin Wooster served as its superintendent. He had been a deputy in Abilene and then a police officer in Denver before he’d applied to the Pinkertons. He had no investigative experience, but he was middle-aged, possessed a sober demeanor, and had an unblemished, albeit undistinguished, record in law enforcement. That had been sufficient pedigree to earn him the appointment six months earlier to the supervisory position in Portland.
When Wooster read the telegram, he rejoiced. Three operatives! Expense no object! After six uneventful months, he now saw his opportunity to solidify his position in the Pinkerton organization. He hastily rounded up three men and, as had been requested, dispatched them on the next steamer to Juneau. With that accomplished, he triumphantly wired William Pinkerton in Chicago, stating that he’d procured a very lucrative operation for the agency. In all his fulsome excitement, it never occurred to Wooster to inquire from the Treadwell supervisor what manner of investigation his operatives would be asked to pursue. Nor did he pause long enough to consider whether specific skills or traits of character would be required of the men sent out to crack this case.
The three men were all new recruits to detective work; the Portland office was, after all, a recently opened branch of the agency. Still, they proved to be, as even Durkin would later grudgingly concede, models of industry and tenacity. With great authority, they prowled about the mill and mine every day for two months, asking questions, making observations. In that time, they identified no suspe
cts. They uncovered no promising clues. But while they were in Alaska, two more robberies took place at the mine. When a third occurred, a frustrated Durkin angrily ordered the three detectives to leave his mine at once. Then he sent a terse telegram to the Portland office: The agency’s services are hereby terminated forthwith.
It was a blemish on Wooster’s career and an embarrassment for the Pinkerton agency. Nevertheless, neither William nor Robert Pinkerton, the two brothers who had inherited the agency after their father’s death, was overly concerned. It was a reality of detective work, they both recognized, that some cases remained unresolved. During their father’s time, for example, the railroads had hired the agency to apprehend Jesse James and his gang. Two Pinkertons had closed in on the outlaws, but Jesse had gunned them both down. And in the end it was Bob Ford (who would later become Soapy’s nemesis) who’d snuck up on Jesse and shot him in the back, thus ending the case. The mystery of the thefts at the Treadwell mine would be relegated to a similarly embarrassing category—unsolved. Anyway, the matter was no longer the Pinkerton agency’s concern. It had been summarily dismissed.
Then, as fate would have it, a small and seemingly uneventful coincidence occurred. Mr. Robert Pinkerton decided that he and his wife would escape the rigors of a New York winter with a restorative stay at a resort hotel in balmy San Diego. It so happened that there was another guest at the hotel that same week who’d also decided to treat himself to a respite from icy weather: Mr. Thomas Durkin, the supervisor of the Treadwell mine. The two men met by chance at the hotel bar, and a brief conversation ensued. Pinkerton, intrigued by making the acquaintance of someone who lived in the far north, asked his drinking companion to join him and his wife at their table for dinner that evening. Durkin readily accepted.