by Howard Blum
After a frantic search for a doctor, one of the Utopia’s officers managed to locate a prospector who’d once studied medicine. He conducted a hasty examination and diagnosed that the captain’s appendix had burst. “About a thousand-to-one shot to pull through,” he told the officers hovering around their half-conscious skipper. “I’d operate if I had any tools,” the lapsed medical student added. The words came out as an afterthought; there was no real commitment to them.
Dynamite Johnny, however, lifted his head. “Doc, I heard you say I had a long chance to pull through. I’m a sport and God knows I don’t want to die in this damn place. Go ahead. All you need is a knife and scissors.”
Although anchored, the Utopia was rolling on the rough sea, so it was decided that the operation should be performed on land. The captain was carried ashore in brutal cold to a cargo hut. His men laid him across three planks balanced on two packing cartons, and a knife and scissors were honed to a razor sharpness. Whiskey was the only anesthetic, and Dynamite Johnny drank liberally. Still, he remained conscious for most of the surgery. At one point he softly hummed an Irish reel.
Dynamite Johnny survived the operation, but lay burning with fever in the hut for several days. When the fever broke, the captain, wan and weak, was carried back to his ship. Two days later he managed to rouse himself. From his bunk, he gave the orders to raise anchor and get under way.
The first officer hesitated, then gave Dynamite Johnny the news: The coal bunkers were scraped nearly bare. Without coal, the ship wouldn’t be able to make the voyage.
It took all of Dynamite Johnny’s strength to raise himself up from his supine position. He sat on his bunk and forlornly contemplated the ship’s predicament. Then a thought occurred to him. Before he’d taken ill, he’d noticed that when the tide receded, a coal formation had been revealed. He ordered the crew to begin digging up coal from the bottom of the bay. Exhausted, he fell back onto his bunk.
For the next two days, whenever the tide went out, the crew shoveled coal from the bay floor. Knee-deep in mud, whipped by bitter cold, they did backbreaking work. Ten tons of coal were added to the steamboat’s coal bunker. But more would be needed if the Utopia was to reach Seattle, and on the third day the crew refused to shoulder their shovels and trudge back into the muck of the bay. And since their captain could barely find the strength to sit up in his bunk, they knew no one could force them.
The passengers by this point had grown restless. For Soapy, in particular, the prospect of spending another day anchored in the harbor was a torture. Now that he’d made up his mind to leave Alaska, he was desperate to get under way as soon as possible. He wanted to put distance between himself and this frozen nightmare of a land, the site of his comeuppance. Being moored in the harbor was a constant reminder of his failure. Another grating day sitting here, he thought, and he’d burst more than an appendix. It was in this raw state that Soapy knocked on the captain’s door, then entered.
“When do you sail, Skipper?” Soapy demanded.
“No coal, mister, and no money to buy any with, dammit …”
“How much do you need?”
The captain said it would cost $300 to fill the coal bunkers.
Without another word, Soapy reached into his wallet and took out the bills. The fact that he wanted to get under way was one reason for his generosity, but it was not the only one. It was part of his showman’s nature to make grand gestures. And, truth be told, after Soapy’s run of misfortunes, it restored a bit of his pride to cast himself as the ship’s savior.
Over the three days that it took for the coal to be delivered, Soapy spent a good deal of the time in the captain’s cabin. The two men traded stories, each vying with the other to prove who’d led the more eventful life. Encouraged by their friendly, albeit competitive conversations, Soapy found himself feeling less rueful about the past and more sanguine about what the future might hold. The dialogue was restorative, too, for Dynamite Johnny; nursed by Soapy’s presence and attention, he slowly grew stronger.
At last the coal was loaded on board and the Utopia steamed off. Eight hours later it came to a halt in the middle of the gulf. The engines stopped and the anchor was lowered.
Dynamite Johnny was perplexed. He wanted to investigate, but he couldn’t lift himself from his bunk. All he could do was summon the mate.
The engineers refuse to burn any more of this coal, the mate explained flatly. The quality’s too poor.
The captain couldn’t help but notice the boldness in the mate’s tone. From his bed, Dynamite Johnny did his best to shoot him a withering look.
The mate was not cowed. “We’ve decided to anchor here under the lee of Cape Elizabeth and wait for a supply of good coal,” he went on defiantly. “The crew agrees with the engineers.”
“Why in the devil wasn’t I told of this?” the captain bellowed. Once more he tried to rise, but a pain shot through his side as though he’d been stabbed with a bowie knife. “Who do you think is master of this ship?”
“We didn’t think you were in any condition to handle the ship, Captain.”
Dynamite Johnny exploded: “Call Smith, the bearded passenger. At once.”
By the time Soapy entered the cabin, the captain had managed to get to his feet. Without bothering to go into the details, Dynamite Johnny told his new friend that the crew was mutinous. He needed Soapy’s help.
Soapy opened his long black coat. Leather holsters were strapped under each armpit, and both held revolvers. “Glad to be of service,” Soapy agreed.
It was a struggle for Soapy to lead Dynamite Johnny up the ladder to the deck, and when they arrived, Soapy had to assist the spent and ashen captain into a chair. But the captain’s voice had its old boom as he called for the crew to assemble. With Soapy standing next to him, his guns drawn and cocked, a ferocious and loyal sentinel, the captain ordered each member of the crew to swear their allegiance. They’d get the ship into Juneau where a new supply of coal would be purchased, or else.
“I want steam up in this old tub and I want it in a hurry! Understand me?”
The chief engineer responded with a contemptuous stare. He hadn’t spoken, but he was clearly reluctant to obey the captain’s orders. And if he wouldn’t cooperate, there’d be no chance of getting the other men in the engine room to agree.
Dynamite Johnny looked at Soapy and gave him a small nod. It was a swift and graceful gesture. Immediately, Soapy stepped forward. His face was tight with menace as he pressed the barrel of his revolver into the engineer’s temple.
“Agreed, agreed,” the engineer blurted out at once. And so the mutiny was quelled.
In Juneau, the Utopia took on a new batch of coal, and eight days later it docked in Seattle. The captain gripped Soapy’s arm for support as he walked slowly down the gangplank. Dynamite Johnny had lost nearly forty pounds in the course of his illness, and was a gaunt and stooped version of the sea captain who’d sailed to Alaska two months earlier. As Soapy assisted his new friend down the gangplank, he couldn’t help but feel diminished, too. These were not the circumstances in which he’d expected to return to Seattle.
SOAPY CHECKED into the Butler Hotel, on Second Avenue and James Street, in the city’s raucous downtown. For days he remained alone in his room, trying to come to terms with what to do next. In the past, he would’ve simply concocted a new scam and convinced the boys that Easy Street beckoned. They would’ve followed along obediently. But up in the north he’d lost his sense of purpose. It wasn’t that he no longer knew where to set up his tripe and keister or how a man with guile might proceed to find his next mark. The plain truth was, he no longer cared. He’d lived the con man’s life for so long that it’d become a habit. But now he felt like taking a rest. He no longer wanted to make new plans or pursue new schemes. All he knew with any certainty was that he’d never, never set foot in Alaska again. The whole damn territory could freeze up and disappear, for all he cared.
A MONTH later Soapy was still in Seattle
. His old huckster’s sense had left him so completely that when he looked at his gang, he wondered how he ever could’ve had the ingenuity to command such men. Worse, he knew he was losing their respect. If he didn’t come up with a score, if he didn’t put money in their pockets soon, they’d start drifting off. And he wouldn’t blame them.
It was on one of these long, slow days that he received a letter from his wife. She’d used stationery from the Ingersoll Club, another of his old Denver gambling parlors, and the letterhead immediately brought back memories of better times. But as if to remind him that the past remained forever past, Mary had crossed out the address and written, “St. Louis Mo.”
Dear Husband,
I would have written to you sooner but Jeff swallowed a fish hook and I did not want to worry you until I found out it would be necessary for him to go under an operation, but he is getting along all right and doesn’t seem to suffer.…
It is dreadful hot here, suffocating, lots of rain and then intense heat. I nearly went crazy the day Jeffy swallowed that hook but I know now that he will be all right.…
When he put down the letter, Soapy was no longer a man filled with questions about what to do next. Instead, he was a father a long way from his family, wondering how his ten-year-old son had managed to swallow a fish hook. And why he wasn’t with them.
TWENTY-FOUR
he two detectives were also beginning to have their doubts. They had sailed the rainbow canoe down the Dyea River, crossed wide, choppy waters to Bischoff Island, continued south until the scalloped snowcapped peaks of the immense mountains surrounding Sitka jutted above the horizon, and then abruptly turned east to revisit the heavily forested lee coast of Admiralty Island. They’d abandoned even the pretense that they were following the thieves’ trail. Now each new day’s course was set by a guess. But despite Charlie’s recognition that Alaska’s coastline was strewn with uncharted islands and broke off into hundreds of twisting channels, that the prospects of their finding the schooner were slim, he insisted that they continue the search. Most likely it’d been rash to have given McParland his word that he’d corral the thieves and recover the gold, but there was no taking it back. So doggedly they sailed on. Then, on a morning when the chill in the air was brisk enough to cause Charlie to flinch whenever the wind slapped his face, he steered the canoe across the whitecapped waters of Chieke Bay and saw the schooner anchored in front of an Indian village.
When they sidled past the sleek boat, the two detectives got a further surprise. The deck of the schooner was loaded with farm animals, some in crates, others tied to the masts. Charlie joked that it looked like Noah’s ark. But there were no signs of the two thieves, so they put their bewilderment aside and headed without delay to the shorefront Indian village.
As they were beaching their canoe, Charlie noticed two men coming down from the cabins to meet them. Even from a distance, Charlie could see they were Schell and Hubbard; they fit the description Durkin, the mine superintendent, had supplied. In another stroke of good luck, Charlie knew straight off that he’d never met them at the mine and he doubted that they’d ever seen him, either. That would certainly make things easier. He whispered to Billy to follow his lead.
Schell came up close, staring at them as if irritated by their presence. He was a large man, as big and threatening as a bear. A scraggly beard running to gray hid most of his wide face, except for two dark, sullen eyes and a nose that looked like it’d once been busted, then never properly reset. A few yards back Hubbard, arms folded across his chest, slouched with a deadly stillness against a tree. He was a runt of a man, with a shiny, bald dome for a head and a belly protruding from his checked shirt. A holster packing a Colt rode low on his hip. Charlie had met many a gunny who didn’t look threatening but nevertheless was a crack shot—Billy the Kid quickly came to mind—so he kept a wary eye on Hubbard. It was also plain that Hubbard was drunk; and while drink could affect his draw and his aim, it might also turn him nasty. Very casually, Charlie unbuttoned his mackinaw. If it became necessary, he wanted to be able to reach for the big revolver tucked into his waistband. And as if it were the most natural of things, he moved a few steps away from his partner. Billy eased away, too. Both detectives understood there was no advantage to being bunched close together like grazing buffaloes.
Schell seemed not to notice the cautions the two men were taking. His manner was both confident and insolent. Without a word of greeting, he demanded to know what they were doing in the Indian village. His gruff tone made it clear that it wasn’t an idle question; he’d better be satisfied by the answer or there’d be consequences.
Making sure to put plenty of south Texas in his voice, Charlie played the genial cowboy. Schell had been loud and direct, and in other circumstances Charlie would’ve taken offense at such rudeness. But Charlie hadn’t come this far simply to arrest the two thieves. He wanted to find the stolen gold, and to accomplish that, he reckoned he’d need to win their confidence. He didn’t want to gamble on trying to sweat the information out of them. They looked like hard cases, and too much was at stake. Besides, if they stonewalled, Charlie realized, it wasn’t just the gold that would be lost. He might not even be able to prove to a judge’s satisfaction that they were the thieves.
So he played along. He was all high spirits, as friendly as a cowpuncher jawing with the other hands as they washed away the day’s dust at the bar. In this garrulous manner, he dished up the cover story Billy and he had concocted at the start of the voyage. They were whiskey peddlers and they were doing a hurrah business in the Indian villages, while at he same time managing to stay one step ahead of the law. This Chinook camp looked as good a place as any to unload some of our firewater, Charlie went on heartily.
Schell’s reaction did not betray anything. He might’ve believed Charlie, or he might not have.
It was a tense moment. Charlie saw that Hubbard’s arms were no longer folded. They now rested by his sides, as if ready to draw. At the same time, Billy had inched backward, toward the canoe; the Winchester lay in its stern.
Reckoning he’d nothing to lose, Charlie decided to improvise. Days earlier, when they’d put into Killisnoo, a nearby settlement, a prospector who’d happily shared their bottle of rye had told them a fanciful tale about the “Lost Rocker” gold mine. According to legend, some forty years ago three old sourdoughs had been working a rich mine somewhere in the rolling hills beyond the waterfall, near the head of Chieke Bay. But before they could register their claim, a passel of renegade Tlinglits had swooped into their camp and smashed their skulls. By the time the bodies were discovered the following spring, all that was left of the camp was a wooden rocker, the handmade device the prospectors had used to “rock” the gravel as they sifted for colors. And so the legend of the Lost Rocker Mine had been born, a tale of a bonanza waiting to be rediscovered. The yarn had tickled Charlie’s imagination when he’d heard it, he being an accomplished storyteller, and instinct told him it might now come in handy. After all, Schell and Hubbard surely had gold fever. They might cotton to a couple of prospectors. So he tried it out.
Course, he began to palaver, selling whiskey ain’t the only reason we crossed Chieke Bay. We figure that while we’re at it, we might get lucky and find us the Lost Rocker Mine.
You think there’s any truth to that story? Schell asked. His tone was now less like that of a man looking for a fight. In fact, he seemed genuinely interested.
Catching his partner’s drift, Billy answered: If anyone’s gonna find that mine, it’ll be us, he snapped. They’d done some prospecting in Nevada and California, he explained, and knew a few things.
Suddenly Hubbard spoke up. All this talk is making me thirsty, he said in a voice so high it reminded Charlie of a child’s. How ’bout you fellows gather your wares and we try some of that whiskey you’re selling.
IN THE camp, the two whiskey peddlers did a booming business. It was clear Schell and Hubbard had forged some kind of relationship with the Indian chief
. Were they paying him? Had they promised him a share of their gold? Or were they simply giving him whiskey? All Charlie knew for certain was that there was a bond between the two thieves and the chief, and that, he worried, might make for complications when it came time for arrests. He figured he could handle the two men, but a whole village of angry Indians might prove more of a challenge.
For now, though, everything was under control. Although the Indians lined up to buy their bottles of rye, Hubbard proved to be their best customer. Even Charlie had difficulty keeping up with him. Course, Charlie was also being careful. He knew he needed to get the men to talk, and he also had to remain sober enough to listen. But even before the first bottle was drained, Charlie asked the question that’d been on his mind ever since they’d paddled by the schooner. All day it’d been itching his curiosity nearly as much as the whereabouts of the stolen gold. How come, he asked, you’ve all those animals on your boat?
Hubbard broke out laughing as if it was the funniest question he’d ever heard. You tell him, he finally managed to say, pointing the bottle at Schell.
With a sudden hesitancy, Schell started to explain. He’d come up with the idea of going into the stock business, he began finally. So he’d ordered some chicken, hogs, and cattle from a stock dealer in Seattle and had them shipped by steamer to Killisnoo. Yesterday they’d sailed over in the schooner to pick up the animals. He waited a moment before going on, and Charlie saw that a pained expression suddenly covered the big man’s face. The plan had been to breed them, Schell said at last with a shrug.
Breed ’em? Hubbard challenged, and now tears of laughter were running from his eyes. That’d be a good trick all right, he continued derisively. We got a dozen leghorn hens, but no rooster. A big ol’ razorback hog, but no sow. And two black muley cows, but no bull. I don’t see no stock business coming out of those pickings.