William Johnstone - Winter Kill

He wasn’t all that surprised. Having women around usually made it hard for lonesome hombres to concentrate on anything else.

Frank stepped forward, getting between the sailors and the cheechakos. He lifted a hand to stop them and said, “Hold it right there, fellas. This is a private get-together.”

“Why should it be?” one of the sailors demanded belligerently. “We got rights, too, you know.”

“Yeah, and you can’t toss us all overboard, mister!” another man added.

Frank’s jaw tightened. No one was really mourning Brewster’s death, but they hadn’t forgotten about it, either.

“Captain Hoffman gave you orders to steer clear,” Frank said. “If you’re off duty, I reckon you’d better go back to your quarters. If you’re supposed to be on watch, you’re neglecting your jobs.”

“Just one dance,” the first sailor insisted. “That’s all we’re askin’.” He grinned at the young women. “How about it, ladies? Wouldn’t you rather dance with some real men, instead of these gold-crazy landlubbers?”

Neville stepped forward, clenching his fists and bristling with anger. “You can’t talk about us like that,” he snapped. “At least we’ve got some ambition. We won’t spend the rest of our lives swabbing some deck!”

This was turning into just the sort of confrontation Frank had hoped to avoid. He held up both hands this time and said, “There’s no need for trouble here. You sailors go on about your business—”

“The hell with that!” one of the crewmen exclaimed. “I want to dance!”

He rushed forward, obviously intending to grab the nearest young woman. That was Jessica Harpe. Frank would have intercepted the sailor, but he didn’t get the chance. Pete Conway sprang in front of Jessica and met the sailor with a hard punch that knocked him off his feet and sent him skidding across the deck on his butt.

With howls of outrage, the other sailors surged forward, ready to fight. The cheechakos did likewise, pushing the young women aside. Dancing and socializing were forgotten. The men on both sides were ready to brawl instead.

“Frank!” Fiona cried. “You said you wouldn’t let this happen!”

“I’m not,” he snapped. He palmed out his Colt, pointed it at the night sky, and squeezed off two rounds.

The pair of shots made everyone on deck freeze in their tracks. The reports were loud, even out here on the vast, open sea.

“Everybody hold it!” Frank shouted. “The next man who throws a punch will answer to me!”

He didn’t actually say he would shoot the next man who tried to hit somebody, but the sailors and the gold-hunters all seemed to take it that way, which was exactly what Frank intended. He knew they were all aware of his reputation as a gunman, so he figured he might as well take advantage of that fact.

One of the sailors pointed at the cheechakos and yelled, “They started it!”

“The hell we did!” Neville responded. “Pete was just protecting Miss Harpe from you lugs!”

“I can take care of myself, thank you!” Jessica put in, clearly annoyed. But when she turned to look at Conway, a smile appeared on her face. “But you really were gallant, Mr. Conway.”

That made the big youngster grin from ear to ear.

Captain Hoffman came stalking up from belowdecks, followed by the first mate. The sailors started to scatter before Hoffman reached them.

“Get to your posts!” he shouted. “Right now, by God!” He came to a stop in front of Frank and glared at him. “I assume you fired those shots, Mr. Morgan?”

“I figured that was better than letting these fellas beat each other half to death,” Frank said as he opened the revolver’s cylinder. He reached under his sheepskin coat and took a couple of shells from the loops on his belt to replace the ones he had fired.

“You said there wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“I said I’d handle it if there was,” Frank corrected. He finished reloading and snapped the cylinder closed. “It’s handled. You don’t see men fighting all over the deck, do you?”

The group of sailors had dispersed, even the man Pete Conway had knocked down. The young women and the gold-hunters were standing separately, with the fiddler in the middle looking a little forlorn as he held his fiddle and bow at his sides. From the looks of things, his services wouldn’t be needed anymore tonight.

“I think all the passengers should return to their accommodations now,” Hoffman said tersely.

“So do I,” Fiona added. Her eyes glittered with anger as she looked at Frank.

He wasn’t sure why everybody was blaming him. He had warned them of the possible consequences. It had been their own decision to go along with the idea.

Fiona started herding the brides below to their cabins. Muttering with disappointment, the cheechakos withdrew to the other end of the deck. Some of them had cabins, but many of them had paid only for deck space, so they were spending the voyage outdoors, under tarps they used as makeshift tents.

“We’ll reach Skagway in two more days,” Hoffman said to Frank. “I hope you can keep a lid on this trouble until then.”

“I intend to,” Frank said. “But again, it was your men who disobeyed orders and bulled in where they weren’t supposed to be.”

The captain sniffed and turned away, refusing to acknowledge that his crewmen were the ones who had caused the trouble.

Conway came up and said, “I’m sorry, Frank. I suppose I shouldn’t have punched that fellow. I couldn’t just stand by and let him grab Miss Harpe like that, though.”

“He didn’t actually grab her,” Frank pointed out. “You didn’t give him the chance.”

“Yes, but he was going to. You could tell that.”

The young man was right. And if Conway hadn’t walloped the sailor, Frank thought, he probably would have. That really would have set off a fracas.

“Do you think we’ll get a chance to spend any more time with the ladies before we get to Skagway?” Conway went on in a plaintive voice.

Frank clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know, son. Probably not, if Mrs. Devereaux has anything to say about it, and she’s in charge of them. But you got those good memories you were talking about, the ones you can hang on to when you’re wondering why the hell you came to Alaska in the first place.”

“I suppose so,” Conway said with a smile. “I just hope that’s enough.”

Frank did, too, but mostly he hoped that the rest of the voyage to Skagway would pass peacefully.

Chapter 12

He should have known better.

Even before he climbed out of his bunk the next morning, Frank knew something was wrong. The ship was pitching around more than it had been earlier in the voyage, and he could hear the wind howling. He got up, swallowing the queasiness that tried to take hold in his stomach, and pulled on his clothes, including the sheepskin coat. Then he headed for the deck to look for Captain Hoffman and find out what was going on.

His boots slipped as soon as he stepped outside, and he had to grab hold of the side of the door to keep from falling. A thin, almost invisible layer of ice coated the deck. More sleet pelted down, making little thudding sounds against his hat as he started cautiously across the desk toward the stairs leading up to the bridge.

He went up them carefully, and when he reached the top he saw Hoffman at the wheel, huddled there in a slicker and rain hat. “Captain!” Frank called.

Hoffman looked back over his shoulder in surprise. “Mr. Morgan!” he exclaimed. “You’d better get back to your cabin! This isn’t fit weather for you to be out!”

“It doesn’t look like fit weather to be sailing in!”