by Max Brand
We shrank down to the ice and lay still. Only after a long moment did we breathe freely again and, when I saw the face of the girl, she looked as though she had just awakened from a nightmare. So felt we all, I know, by consulting my own heart.
“By right,” said Sylvia slowly, “I should have gone out to him.”
“By right,” answered her father savagely, “you shouldn’t be a fool, my dear.”
Nevertheless, this remark of hers gave him something to think about. He talked it over with me later on at the end of that day’s work when, the storm having cleared, we camped. We agreed that Sylvia, if her chance was fair, would still feel herself impelled by a sense of duty to go to Cobalt and take the consequences. There was only one thing to do, and that was to push ahead and trust to the blind luck which had helped us so far on the march. It might be that Cobalt had gone for the Chilkoot, to cross down to Dyea. It might be that he was to take our way over the longer White Horse. However, both of these places were close together. A canoe would fetch him around the point that separated them, and he could make inquiries on both sides. Then he would wait for us, but where?
Perhaps he would guess Dyea. Then he might be there as we slipped down into Skagway and, getting into Skagway, we might find a ship ready to sail and so leave him behind us. But only for the time. We could not really trust that such a man as Cobalt would be thrown off the trail so easily. He would be certain to follow in the next steamer any ship we departed in, then he would pick up our trail from the first port and follow us on land. Well, that horror was postponed at least and, once back in the true realm of law and order, we could hope that a power even greater than his own would take him in hand.
XVII. SHELTER AT LAST
WHEN WE CAME through the pass down to Skagway and the gray ocean lay level before us, we fell to laughing and shouting and flopping about on our snowshoes in a ridiculous way. The very feeling of the air was different, and the wind that blew into us from over the inlet and the great Pacific beyond was warm to us, so warm in comparison with the freezing weather of the great inland plateau that we wanted to get into lighter clothing at once. You may believe that we came down the last slopes with a will. When we got into the little town, we stared at the buildings as though each were the face of a friend. They seemed like flesh and spirit and kindliness, though as a matter of fact kindliness was rather at a premium in Skagway as we were soon to learn.
At that time of year it was a fair day in Skagway. The wind had blown warm for some time, the snow had grown soft, and the street we went down was a bog of mud. We had to abandon the sleds and take what little we needed from the loads upon our backs in hastily made packs. But we minded neither the burden on our shoulders nor the mud through which we were sloshing. We were near the end of the journey, and our spirits were so high that we hardly cared whether we met with Cobalt or not. We had pushed through to a decision that only was important.
We got to a hotel. You might rather call it a caravansary, or one-night tavern. At any rate there was shelter over our heads, food to be had, food cooked by hands other than our own, and no more of the piercing cold blasts of the wind. Only a few chill drafts slid under badly fitted doors or through cracks in walls and touched us in the feet or the small of the back. I verily believe that such drafts cause a thousandfold more deaths than the fierce, open attack of the storms upon the vast, frozen tundra. At that moment we saw nothing evil. Everything was indeed good to us.
Our first inquiry was about Cobalt.
“Has Cobalt come in?” I asked.
The proprietor of the hotel was one of those men who always seem to be dressed in the clothes of five years before, so that they are swelling out of the old pattern. He had a double chin, a dark look, and a half-smoked cigar stuck in a corner of his mouth. That part of the mouth never stirred when he spoke. But he did not need to use it. There was plenty of lip yardage remaining. The cigar looked to me as though it might be a relic from the party of the night before.
“Has Cobalt come in?” I said to this red-eyed hulk in his bulging coat and collarless shirt.
He was looking at Sylvia as I spoke. No man could help looking at Sylvia and, with the wolf alongside, she was something to stop the heart. The monster had no eye for anything but her apparently, and yet no one was deceived. Every man in the room knew dogs, I suppose, in a big or a little way, and every man was intent on the points of this giant, yet no one came near.
Instead of answering me, the proprietor said: “Is that an all-white Newfoundland?”
“I guess that’s what it is,” I said. “Has Cobalt come in?”
“Come where?” he said without looking at me.
“To town — to Skagway,” I said. “This is Skagway, I take it?” For he irritated me, the fat-faced beast, slowly getting a new lip hold on the foul-smelling cigar butt.
“Yeah!” he said, hardly hearing me. “And Cobalt. Who’s Cobalt, buddy?”
I was staggered, not at all by his insolence, since men grow accustomed to the most brutal discourtesy in the wilderness of the North, but because I saw that he was not affecting this ignorance. He really did not know the name of Cobalt. He never had heard of the man before this moment! I was properly shocked, for in the Northern camps Cobalt was such a familiar name in the most casual conversation that one could hardly get through the evening without some reference to him. Dogs and weather and even gold hardly got more attention than Cobalt. But here I had returned to a part of the world where Cobalt was not known.
Not entirely unknown, of course, but Skagway had grown. People were coming in from the outside in numbers, and there is nothing like a cheechako for ignorance in all things wherein he should be the most concerned. I went back to Baird with my information.
“He never heard of Cobalt,” I said.
Baird shook his head. “He’s lying. Nobody this far north can grow up without knowing something about Cobalt. He’s lying. He looks like a liar.”
“He looks like anything you want to call him,” I returned, “but he doesn’t know Cobalt. He was telling the truth. We’ll have to ask somebody else. In the meantime get some rooms. You get the rooms, and I’ll go out and circulate a little.”
Baird looked me up and down critically. “Are you packing a gun, Tom?”
“I don’t want a gun,” I told him, and I meant it. For, if I met with Cobalt, no skill of mine could save me. He was far too fast and accurate with shooting irons.
We got a room for Sylvia and another for her father and me. While he arranged the packs and had the luxury of a bath and a shave, I went out with my trail beard still on my face and tried to hunt up information about Cobalt. I went into the first saloon. It was a big affair and worked up a good deal for that far north. It had some long mirrors behind the bar and gilded lamps, and there were gaming tables covered with green felt. I gave that felt a good long look until I saw how the nap was worn and knew that a lot of money was trotted out on those green lawns from time to time. It excited me a deal. Wherever there is heavy gambling, there is likely to be danger in the air, and the look of that saloon already was hostile enough, though only a few fellows were sitting in at a poker game in a corner of the gaming room.
The bartender had a decent look, from a distance, and I decided that I would try to pump him. When I got closer to him, however, I saw that my first flash had been all wrong. He was blond and slender and small, with a retreating chin and a buck-toothed grin that flashed like a silver dollar in the sun. As I approached him, I could see why they trusted that bar to his keeping even in Skagway. He kept right on smiling, but his eye was as cold as a gray January morning.
I ordered a drink and offered him one himself. He thanked me and poured half a thimbleful of liquor into the bottom of his glass. I had not opened the door of his confidence by buying that drink. I could have bought a barrel full of whiskey without buying his confidence because there was no confidence in him.
“Is Cobalt in town?” I asked him.
“Cob
alt who?” said the bartender. “Or what Cobalt?”
I looked hard at him, but I saw that he meant what he said. They didn’t know Cobalt in Skagway.
“If he comes in,” I could not help saying, “you’ll learn a lot about Cobalt on the jump. That’s all!”
I was ready to turn away when the barkeep reached over the bar and touched me on the arm. “What’s all this play about Cobalt, brother?” he said.
“I asked you about the toughest man in Alaska,” I said, “and you ask me right back for his front name. I tell you, there’s no other name for him. What’s the matter with you? You look normal, but to hear you talk a fellow would think that you never knew anything but newspapers.”
He listened to this little denunciation with quite an air of interest. He glanced me over in a casual way, very much as though he were saying: Shall I rap this loon over the head or not?
“This Cobalt,” he said, “must be quite a card.”
“He’s not a card. He’s a whole deck,” I said.
“What’s his specialty?” asked the barkeep.
“Bending iron bars into hairpins,” I said.
“Oh, one of these strong men, is he?” That tough youth yawned at me.
“Yes, he’s one of these strong men,” I said. “With a slap of his open hand he breaks your jaw, and he smashes the wrist of the gunman just with his grip.”
“Tut, tut,” said the bartender, “does his mamma know about these things?”
“You’re hard-boiled, my boy,” I said, “but, when Cobalt arrives, you’ll be able to tell what’s in the can by the label on it.”
“Pineapple,” guessed the barkeep.
He amused me. He was as calm and as cool as iced tea. He kept that buck- toothed smile flashing at me all the time until I was afraid that he would cut the corners of his mouth. “Well,” I said, “I’m not his press agent.”
“I was just wondering,” said the barkeep.
At this I laughed openly and loudly. This bartender, boy though he was, was so entirely and perfectly tough from rind to core that he tickled something in me.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Hay fever,” I said. “It just comes on me now and then.”
His eye grew more friendly. For the first time a wrinkle or two came beside it. He seemed to be almost amused.
“Tell me one thing,” I said.
“Mostly they don’t ask for it like you do,” he replied.
“What I want is information.”
“Lay out your goods, brother. I gotta take something home for little Minnie.”
“I guessed by your kind eye that you had children at home.”
“You guessed wrong. Minnie’s a cross-eyed cat that I’m trying to get straight.”
I laughed in my turn. “Here’s my question. What’s Skagway? I’ve been here before. But what’s Skagway now?”
XVIII. TOMMY’S AGE
THE BARKEEP RAN a finger inside the collar of his shirt and looked me up and down. He seemed so little interested that I should not have been surprised to see him turn away from me, but he did not turn away. He decided that he would answer. Without a movement of the head, without a gesture, he fixed his fishy eyes on me and said: “Over there at the table, that’s Skagway.”
I looked them over. It was the table of poker players of which I have spoken. There was a bearded man just off the trail apparently, sitting deeply in his chair with a gloomy, bulldog look. There was a tall man, thin as a knife blade, with hands that moved so fast they blurred the eye. There was a chap with angling eyebrows. He kept his head down most of the time, and he had a way of looking up from under the brows like a Mephistopheles. The fourth man looked like a pig, not the domestic kind, but a wild boar whose fat was ninety percent muscle. The fifth had a bald head, a black beard, and a white face. He might have been a minister, he kept his head so high and his eyes so low.
“You mean the preacher yonder?” I asked.
“What makes you think so?”
“Because he’s ten years younger than he looks.”
“Well, that’s Soapy Jones. That’s Skagway, too, as you can take for granted.”
“I’ve been inside for a long time,” I answered. “Perhaps I’m out of date.”
My friend drummed on the edge of the bar with light, rapid fingers. “Have a drink on me and tell me how you learned to keep your face.”
“I mean it,” I said earnestly. “I haven’t seen many newspapers.”
“You’re asking me for a lot of faith, brother, but I’ll tell you something. When they go out walking in Skagway, they leave their pokes at home.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I begin to understand. He’s not alone — Soapy?”
“No, he’s got a full deck.”
I went back to the hotel and found the Lightning Warrior and Baird in Sylvia’s room. I sat down and talked things over with them.
“Skagway is wide open,” I told them, “and the chief thing inside is a fellow named Soapy Jones. He works with a big gang, and he runs the town. He’s the big boy here. I can’t get any information about Cobalt. It may be that he is here now, lying low and waiting for us. It may be that he’s at Dyea. It may be that he’s already gone on to Vancouver or San Francisco to meet us at the dock. Any of those things may have happened. In the meantime we’d better lie low in our turn and wait for the boat. This ought to keep us amused.”
I pointed toward the wolf. My move was a little too sudden, and he flashed from his corner half way across the room to meet my gesture. He made not a sound, but the silent beast was ready to leap at my throat. Sylvia spoke one word, and he sank at her feet, but he still kept those wicked blue eyes fixed on me.
I went downstairs, got some hot water in a kettle, and a big laundry tub. Then I went back to my room, shaved, stripped, and gave myself a bath. It had to be a scrub, I can tell you. When I finished scrubbing and rinsing, I felt lighter, and I looked lighter. I stared at myself in a small, cracked mirror that hung on the wall, and I saw that I wore a mask of tan that covered my forehead, eyes, nose, and cheekbones. But all the lower part of my face was white as could be. That was the effect of the beard which had grown out upon the long trail. That mask of tan had a strange effect. It really gave me the look of a robber, and this amused me so much that I laughed a little out loud. I was neither very big, very strong, nor very bold, but the white and the tan made me seem a fairly dangerous fellow.
When I joined Sylvia and Baird for a meal a little later, they both laughed at me. The Lightning Warrior merely snarled. Sylvia put down her hand and slapped him until he was silent, but he kept on watching me. I never had manhandled him or even given him bad language, but he had built up a growing hatred for me during the outward march. The beast was human in his sympathies and antipathies.
What a meal we had! Not that Skagway offered much beyond meat and coffee, but the coffee was a change from tea. It tasted like nectar to us all, and we finished off with plum jam in quantities on fresh baker’s bread. Afterward we sat around for a while, Baird and I smoking. Sylvia came out of her dreams to talk a bit. She began to put questions to me.
“Tell me, Tom, why you never talk about yourself?”
“Oh, I talk enough,” I said.
“I mean about your past life.”
“Well, on the inside, a man’s a bore if he begins to talk about his home.”
“I used to talk about mine,” she said.
“You’re different, Sylvia. You could talk about anything,” I assured her.
She shook her head at the compliment. “I used to talk about everything, from the pet canaries to my poor old pinto, Jerry, and the story of Champ Allison at the rodeo and everything.”
“You could tell them all over again, and I’d sit as still as a mouse eating bread and butter and listen. Start now, and I’ll prove it.”
“Tom, do you think that I’m such a baby?”
“You’re not a baby, Sylvia. You’re a great big grown-up woman. Th
at’s what you are.”
Baird laughed a little. Then he got behind a newspaper he had bought and began to grunt and cluck from time to time with surprise and interest as he read the items. It left Sylvia and me alone, and I stood up.
“If you’ll excuse me, Sylvia,” I said, “I’m going to go up and take a nap.”
“You sit down again, Tom,” she commanded. “You can’t run away now. I’ve got you safely here. This isn’t inside. This is outside. And you’re not sleepy. You’re only nervous. That’s why you want to get away.”
I sat down again gingerly. “Oh, what’s the matter, Sylvia?” I queried. “I won’t be able to tell you as much as the back page of that newspaper.”
She looked at me. I began to feel worried and cornered.
“Everybody else used to talk to me,” she said, “but you always dodged. Why do you dodge, Tom? Have you got a black spot?”
“You can call it that.” I would have agreed to anything to avoid argument.
That girl had the most impish persistence. She looked me over calmly. The assurance of a pretty girl is an amazing thing. “How old are you, Tom?”
“I’m middle-aged, my dear.”
“Fortyish or fiftyish?”
“Oh, fortyish, around about.”
“Mostly around, and not about. Why won’t you tell me? I’ll tell you my age.”