Duncan did not bother to reply. The White Pass, forty-five miles of switchbacked trail that sometimes would lead them across the same river twice, was the easy way. Even at its highest—the aptly named Summit Hill—travelers still had only a thousand-foot climb, over ground that was difficult, to be sure, but not impossible. The Chilkoot was more direct, but it was thirty-five hundred feet up from the town of Dyea. And the top of the always snow-covered mountain could only be reached by climbing a single trail, so narrow and steep that men and beasts had always to go single file.
He’d been in mountains like this before. Fitz’s complaints notwithstanding, the terrain was no more rugged than some he’d encountered in the Northwest Territories.
No, the true challenges of the White Pass were twofold. Dealing with the hundreds of others on the trail. And coping with the difficulties of moving five men, fourteen dogs, and two flat-bottomed sleds loaded with close to two tons of supplies.
Could such a task ever be said to be easy? Until he’d met Darius on that snowy battlefield, he’d always been a warrior. And as a warrior, he’d never given a thought to those in charge of the wagons with the food and the blankets and all of the equipment that kept the army alive—until the army could die for the cause, whatever it might be. He was beginning to consider that fighting and dying were perhaps the simpler jobs.
He stepped carefully around a fall of loose rock. Sam, who was in the lead, had stopped again, pulling his dogs to a halt with a grunted command. It was the third time in the past two hours. Once more, they waited while the group ahead—a half dozen men who had all been neighbors back in Boston—struggled to negotiate a particularly difficult section of the trail. Their overburdened pack animals were weary and skittish. It was obvious to Duncan that their experience with horses had probably been confined to riding in streetcars. Yet the way was too narrow for him, or any of their party, to be of assistance.
So they waited, Duncan and the Indians, with various degrees of patience, Danny as sullen as he had been in the two weeks since they had left Skagway, and Fitz with many a loud complaint. Duncan passed the time remembering with some fondness the moment, centuries before, when he had run Fitz through.
Finally, Sam whistled the dogs to their feet. And the long journey continued.
The easy way, Fitz muttered under his breath. Over a month of up one bloody steep hill and down one bloody soggy valley after another. The White Pass Trail. Porcupine Hill. The horror of Dead Horse Gulch.
They’d nearly lost a sled in a mudhole just after they crossed the border into Canada, right at Summit Hill. Fortunately, one of the Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen on duty there had come to their aid. He’d gotten himself quite mucked up doing it, too, Fitz remembered.
The Mounties, with their colorful uniforms and rigorous sense of duty, fascinated Fitz. He’d shared a smoke and some conversation one night with a party camped nearby at Summit Lake. From them, he’d learned that the Mounties were the law in the Yukon Territory. The old-timer prospectors—the ones called sourdoughs—and most of the Indians were in awe of them. But the thousands of newcomers pouring into the country were straining their resources—and their patience.
After Skagway, it pleased Fitz to know that there was law in the Yukon. Although, of course, that was Alaska and this was Canada.
Well, it looked just the same to him. More rocky hills, more endless bogs. More piles of supplies, left behind by those who had given up. They’d seen dozens of them, weary, defeated men headed back to Skagway, their dreams abandoned with their gear.
And, he would swear on his sword, they had seen one of the horses that belonged to the fools from Boston commit suicide. The poor creature, whipped past the point of exhaustion, had simply walked off the side of the trail, falling to the rocks below.
But they had kept on, through the icy rain, the wet flurries of snow, and the gray gloom that only lifted at the very top of the mountains. They were now, according to their map and Si-wash Sam, in the Tutshi Valley, a day away from journey’s end. They’d camped for the night at the base of a wooded hill beside a small lake, on a spot of land that was almost dry. Campfires dotted the valley, though none were nearby.
Fitz was glad of that. He was gregarious by nature, but for the past several months he had scarcely had a moment of solitude. The journey so far had been from one crowded place to another. Even this supposedly vast wilderness was teeming with gold seekers. They were loud. They were raucous. They were competition.
And, worst of all from his point of view, there was not an available woman to be found among them.
Fitz stood outside the large tent in the misty gloom of early dusk. The night was silent, the camp quiet. Vixen, the light brown-and-white bitch that was the swing dog for Siwash Sam’s team, whined softly and pawed at his foot. She was a handsome beast, Fitz thought. Most of the dogs were mixed breeds, a bit of this, a bit of that—even a bit of wolf here and there. But she was a husky, purebred from her mix-matched gold-and-blue eyes to the tip of her plumed tail. Her bark was a high-pitched yip, her small size belied by her prodigious strength.
She’d taken a fancy to him from the first. And he, never one to disappoint a lady, had reciprocated. She sat, ears pricked, tongue lolling out. He smiled and tossed her the bit of salted fish she’d smelled in his pocket.
Rip, Sam’s lead dog, came over, wagging his tail. Though the black-and-gray was the dominant male of the pack, even he deferred to Vixen. She snarled. He stopped, then turned away, wandering over to where the rest of the dogs were staked out. Some had already curled up, asleep after their day’s labors.
Sleep. He’d be for that soon himself. There was hardly a stir from inside the tent. MacLeod, Danny, even the two Indians, all had turned in soon after their meal. Early to bed, early to rise would bring them all the more quickly across the one last bloody mountain to their destination. He’d wanted a moment or two with his thoughts and his pipe before joining them.
Vixen growled, a low rumble in her throat.
“Now, my pretty,” Fitz said, reaching down to ruffle the fur on her neck. “Don’t be so demanding. I’ve nothing left that you can eat.” He stopped. The dog’s ruff was up, her ears back. He raised his head, peering into the foggy darkness.
A shot rang out. Fitz felt a hot pain in his side. As he fell face forward into the embers of the campfire, he heard first Vixen, then Rip, then all of the dogs fill the night with barking.
In that darkness, in that time before he breathed again, Fitz remembered the first time he’d been shot. He had died many a time before then, by the blade for the most part. And once, when he’d jumped out of a window just as someone’s husband came in through a door. But he’d not died from the gun until one summer’s dawn. There had been a duel, fought over the honor of a lady, of course. And he had lost.
The ball had taken him in the chest. The pain was like some hideous flower blooming, spreading through his lungs. A sword, a dagger—those were bright, swift pains. Over and done, until the light returned. This gunshot—quite something else again.
Afterward, he’d made it a point to learn to shoot straight. But since then, he’d tried to avoid pistol duels.
And, he thought as he gasped back to life, I’d also prefer to avoid being set upon in the dark by armed brigands, thank-you-very-much. He rolled over, his face covered with ashes, and struggled to his knees. Now the night was filled with sound. The dogs were still barking. Gunshots could be heard and seen, as rifle muzzles flared.
“Hugh!” Danny was by his side. “You’re back, then.”
Fitz nodded.
“Here,” the young Immortal said, thrusting a rifle into his hands. “We’ve got them pinned down.”
He disappeared into the night. Fitz followed, cautiously. Though a pale moon had risen, it would be hard to tell friend from foe in the darkness. He had no desire to be shot again, by either.
He found the two Immortals huddled together in the shelter of a boulder. As he approached, MacLe
od stood and fired up the hill toward a stand of trees. An answering shot followed, barely missing Fitz’s head.
“Why don’t ye just stand atop this rock and be done with it, ye great idiot?” MacLeod muttered. “Haven’t you had enough of dying tonight?”
Fitz crouched beside them.
“According to Danny, you have our assailants pinned down.” He ducked his head as a bullet struck the boulder. Small chips of rock flew through the air. Danny jerked back, a thin rivulet of blood running down his cheek. “If they’re pinned down, then why are we the ones kneeling in the mud, being shot at? Is there some great strategy here that I’m missing?”
“Sam and his brother have gone up the hill.” Duncan replied. “They should be in position soon. We’ll have them then on two sides.”
“It’s a good thing that the dogs made such a fuss when you were shot, Hugh,” Danny said. “It was a warning to us.”
“Hugh Fitzcairn at your service,” Fitz said, through gritted teeth. “Always glad to die in a good cause.”
Danny lowered his gun. “I didn’t mean—”
“Quiet.” MacLeod said. Farther up the hill, a light appeared briefly.
“Sam and his brother, I presume.” In the dim moonglow, he could just see MacLeod’s nod.
“Now!” MacLeod shouted. He rose and began a volley of shots. Danny joined him. Fitz, keeping his head carefully down, fired also, aiming toward the flashes of muzzle fire that flared in the trees.
Though the three Immortals could not see the Indians, the results of their attack were quickly evident. Cries of pain echoed down the hill. A body fell from a tree, rolling like a rag doll down the slope. To Fitz, the exchange of gunfire seemed an endless series of explosions in the night. The smell of sulfur hung in the air.
In truth, it was over in a moment. Two men appeared out of the trees, holding their hands above their heads. They called out their surrender, fairly running down the hill in their desire to give up.
A short time later, they were securely tied up, sitting back to back at the entrance to the tent. Vixen, her head on her paws, lay not far away, watching them intently. Rip circled them several times, then lifted his leg. A stream of urine soaked the men. They cursed the dog. Rip walked away, and settled down close by.
MacLeod smiled. It was not, Fitz decided, a smile that anyone with any sense would care to see, even in the light of day.
“They not go anywhere,” Siwash Sam said. “You all come with me.”
He led them back into the night, and up the hill. Three more bodies lay under the trees. The Indian’s brother bent down and rolled one of them over. Sam shone the lantern in the dead face. The man was as ugly a specimen as Fitz had ever seen. Broken nose, scarred eyebrows, and a wart on his chin that his scraggly beard could not quite hide.
Fitz thought he had seen the face before. But where?
MacLeod rarely swore. So Fitz was startled when he did so now. He followed the oath with a name.
“Zimmer?” Fitz repeated. “Zimmer! The heinous thief who stole our money!” Now he recalled the brief glimpse he had gotten as the man snatched the wallet from his hand.
“Did you not tell us, Mr. MacLeod, that he was one of Smith’s men?” Danny asked quietly.
Duncan confirmed the fact. Fitz was astounded. “You’re saying that Soapy Smith sent his men after us? That we’ve been followed for all these weeks, clear across that trail of infamy?”
“These all Soapy’s men,” Siwash Sam said. “I know them to see.”
When they questioned the two prisoners, they found that the Indian was right. The six were indeed all in the employ of Soapy Smith. Zimmer had volunteered to lead the group, anxious for the chance to settle his score with MacLeod. But the plan had been Smith’s. He’d wanted them all dead, argonauts and Indians alike. “For the principle of the thing,” he’d said.
“We’ve been a mile or less behind ya clear ‘cross the Pass,” the more talkative of the two said. “If it’d been up ta me, we would have laid inta ya long ago.” He nodded his head toward the dark hillside. “Zimmer said no, said that Mr. Smith didn’t want his business done in the open. Said we had to wait ‘til we could do the job and get clear away. All that damn way, all those damn dead horses,” he said bitterly, “then Zimmer tips ya by shooting too soon.”
“Soapy not be happy with you.” Sam said.
The man winced.
No one, bound or free, slept well that night.
The next morning, though MacLeod raged quietly about it, they decided that there was nothing for them to do but to let the two go free. There were most probably Mounties ahead at Lake Bennett. But that was still a day’s journey away. Adding two bound men to their party would not only slow them down, it would be dangerous.
Better to let them return to Skagway, to face the wrath of Jefferson Randolph Smith.
They collected all of the guns. What they didn’t keep, they threw far out into the lake. Then they waited until the two men had vanished over the hill, back toward the border. The bodies they left where they lay.
As they broke camp, the carrion birds were already circling.
Dear Claire,
We’re camped now by the headwaters of the Yukon River, on the shores of Lake Bennett. Although “camp” doesn’t really do justice to the situation. For it is here that the travelers who have climbed the Chilkoot and those who, like us, have crossed the White Pass converge. So great is the number that what might in time become a small town has sprung up. It was thus that Skagway came to be, I’ve been told.
There’ll be no Soapy Smiths here, though. The Mounties are present, as they were at the border. They keep order, supervise the boat building that is the occupation of the citizens of this “town,” and generally see to the common good. They are a marvel! How I wish they had been nearby when we were attacked in the Tutshi Valley.
I’m sending this letter, and my dispatches of the last month on to you by the hand of an American named Peter Moore. He and his friends are leaving this morning to return to Skagway. It seems that they had thought that the Klondike was just the other side of the mountains. When they reached here, and realized that a water journey of five hundred miles still lay between them and Dawson City, they lost all heart.
Moore intends to travel home by way of Seattle and has promised, for a price of course, to see that this gets to the Rainier Grand. I’m not sure what part, if any, you will want to share with Witherspoon. You would know, far better than I, whether or not it would be best for him to keep his illusions about this expedition.
For myself, Claire, the trail of dead horses has blasted any illusions that I might have had left after Skagway. Yet there is something that compels me to continue. And I have more confidence that this peculiar adventure may come to a positive conclusion since the Indian who calls himself Siwash Sam has joined with us.
He has proved his worth time and again. Most recently, it was only because of him that we were numbered among those given permission by the Mountie commander to continue our journey. This late in September, heading for the Yukon is a risky business. Only the soundest of crafts and the soundest of argonauts are being let by. The rest will winter here—except for those, like Peter Moore, who will turn back.
But our boats were solidly built, to Sam’s specifications. And the commander was impressed with his knowledge of what lay ahead.
And so we will go on, bound for—what??
The Irishman has done this work before, Sam thought, as he watched the young man load gear onto the second of the rafts. The Englishman—well, he is strong enough and willing enough.
As for the Scotsman—Sam still doubted his claim that he had lived for a time with a tribe of the Southland. White men were known to be liars. But the Scotsman had, sometime in his life, lived off the land. Sam had watched as he’d felled the slender spruce that ringed the lake, and shaped them into planks in the whipsaw pit. He’d watched as the man lent his hands to the building of the two raftlike boats that wo
uld carry them down the river. And he’d watched as he caught a string of trout, then cleaned the catch with no questions or hesitation.
Now he watched as the Scotsman stood on the first of the rafts, lashing down the sled and the supplies. When he had finished that, Sam would have him secure the extra rope to the deck. Later, Sam would look at what he had done. He knew that the work would be good.
Danny sat alone in the dark, leaning against a sled. After the wet snow and chill rain of the mountains, it was almost pleasant in the camp by the lake. Pleasant, but still damp. There was a fine mist in the air. He pulled his hat brim down to shield his face and stared across the water. The rafts were ready, anchored in place. They would leave before dawn. Tonight, at the insistence of Siwash Sam, the five of them would keep watch in turn. The first shift had fallen to him.
He’d taken the small square of white from his pocket. Long, long ago it had held the scent of the green-eyed girl-child. Through the years, Danny would hold it in his hand and think of her.
Now, the pale linen reminded him of Minnie Dale’s face. He wondered what she was doing and where. Were she and Fergus Cooley back in Vancouver yet? Had they married in Skagway beforehand? Or was Cooley planning a Church wedding?—a High Mass with a full choir singing the Gloria, the priest in heavy white vestments, lilies on the altar, and Minnie a vision in white satin and lace.
He wondered if he would really have killed Cooley. He’d killed a mortal once before, by plan. It was not a thing he spoke of. Even Hugh did not know of it.
The man—Michael Sheehan, his name was—had needed killing. He and Danny had both worked for the great political machine called Tammany Hall. Tammany ran the city of New York after the War. Not all of the job was on the up and up. But the Organization was there, if a man had to step over the boundaries, now and then.
Sheehan had had some education at the Church schools. And he affected manners that he’d learned when he was in service. So he thought he was better than the likes of Danny. He tormented him without end, in ways both large and little. They’d come to blows a few times. Though Danny was by far the smaller of the two, he had no trouble holding his own. The practice work he did with his sword had given him skills that were of use in many a fight. And the fact that he could not trounce Danny seemed to make Sheehan hate him all the more.
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