William Johnstone - Winter Kill

They rode up the beach, the young women using the outlaws’ saddles, and it was a lot easier and faster than trudging along on foot. As the miles fell behind them, the hills on the other side of the water drew closer. The inlet was getting narrower. Skagway was at the end of it, Frank recalled from Captain Hoffman’s maps.

The sky was still thickly overcast, with a cold wind blowing from the north. Jennings licked his lips as he rode in front of Frank on Stormy. He said, “There’s snow comin’. I can taste it.”

“We’ll be in Skagway before it gets here,” Frank said. He had spotted several columns of white smoke rising against the gray clouds and knew they came from the settlement.

A short time later, Conway let out a whoop as he spotted the buildings. “There it is!” he said, tightening his arm around Jessica’s waist as she rode in front of him. “We made it, by God! We made it!”

The women were excited to be reaching Skagway, too, even though it wasn’t their final destination. That was still Whitehorse, Fiona insisted. Frank reckoned she didn’t want to lose the fees she had been promised, and after all she had gone through to get here, he didn’t suppose he could blame her.

The settlement wasn’t very impressive-looking as they came closer. It was a jumble of muddy streets lined with tents, tar-paper shacks, and crude buildings constructed of raw, unplaned lumber. Plank sidewalks ran in front of the buildings and tall pines loomed over them. The waters of the inlet washed against several docks that were probably the sturdiest-looking structures in town.

From the looks on the faces of Fiona and her charges, though, it might as well have been San Francisco or Boston. They were that happy to be here.

Up ahead and to the right, Frank spotted a building with a sign over its door that read CLANCY’S SALOON. Three men leaned against one of the hitch rails in front of it. When they saw Frank and his companions riding into the settlement, they straightened from their casual poses and walked forward to meet them, the mud sucking at their boots. They had the look of a semiofficial welcoming committee.

The man in the center, who was slightly in the lead, was slender, with a close-cropped black beard, gaunt features, and deep-set, piercing eyes. He wore a dark suit and broad-brimmed hat. One of his companions was a burly, mustachioed gent in a derby. The other wore a cloth cap on the back of his head and had a clean-shaven face that reminded Frank of a ferret.

The black-bearded man raised a hand in greeting as Frank and the others reined in. His eyes took in Fiona and the young women, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. He had probably never seen this many eligible women in this rugged place before.

“Howdy, folks,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his chilly eyes. “Welcome to Skagway. They call me Soapy Smith.”

Chapter 18

Frank remembered what Jennings had said about Soapy Smith running things in Skagway. During the ride that morning, Frank had asked Jennings to tell him more about Smith, and Jennings had related how the man had shown up not long after Skagway’s founding, accompanied by five tough companions, two of whom were probably the men with him now. Even though there was no official law, Soapy had quickly established himself as a force for law and order by stopping a lynch mob from hanging a bartender accused of murder. No one wanted to buck Smith, especially as long as he was surrounded by such obviously dangerous cronies. For that matter, as long as things stayed relatively peaceful, the entrepreneurs who had come to Skagway to set up businesses didn’t really care who was running things in the settlement.

“I don’t know it for a fact,” Jennings had told Frank, “but I figure Soapy must be some sort of crook. I don’t know for sure because the boys and me never got into town much. They didn’t like us there.”

Frank couldn’t blame the townspeople for that. Lawless hardcases like Ben Cregar and his gang made it difficult for those who had come to Alaska to make their fortunes legally.

Now, as Frank looked at Soapy Smith with narrowed eyes, he felt an instinctive dislike for the man and agreed with Jennings’s hunch that Smith was a crook masquerading as a slick community leader.

“This is Yeah Mow Hopkins,” Smith went on, nodding to the burly man in the derby, “and Sid Dixon.” That was the ferret-faced man in the cloth cap. “A couple of associates of mine.”

Smith paused, obviously waiting for Frank to introduce himself and the others. “My name’s Morgan,” he said. “This is Mrs. Devereaux, Mr. Conway, and Mr. Jennings. The young ladies are traveling with us.”

“I can see that,” Smith murmured. “What brings such a bevy of beauties to a backwater burg like this?”

“The ladies and I are bound for Whitehorse,” Fiona said stiffly, “where they will be marrying gentlemen who are waiting for them there.”

“Oh, ho!” A grin tugged at Smith’s mouth. “Mail-order brides! I should have known someone would come up with that idea sooner or later. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that it’s taken this long.” He glanced toward the docks. “I’m also surprised that you didn’t come in by ship. There’s one due any day now. Overdue, in fact.”

“The Montclair ?” Frank asked.

A puzzled frown appeared on Smith’s narrow face. Hopkins’s expression remained stolid and unreadable. From the way Dixon’s eyes darted around nervously and he constantly licked his lips, Frank figured he was some sort of drug addict.

“That’s right, the Montclair, ” Smith said. “Do you have news of her?”

“Unfortunately, yes. She sank in a bad storm a couple of days ago.” Frank leaned his head toward his companions. “We’re the only survivors, as far as I know.”

He included Jennings in that group, figuring it was easier to do that than to try to explain the real circumstances that had led to him accompanying them.

Smith’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “You survived the ship sinking in rough seas? That’s mighty lucky, Mister…Morgan, was it?”

“That’s right. I won’t deny that we had guardian angels watching over us.”

“Seems like it,” Smith said. “Where’d you get those horses?”

Frank had hoped to avoid having to explain about that, but obviously, he wasn’t going to be able to do so.

“We were attacked by a gang of outlaws. When the fight was over, they didn’t need their horses anymore.”

Sid Dixon let out a low whistle. “You must be a fightin’ fool, mister, if you killed a whole gang.”

“Never said I killed them by myself,” Frank drawled.

Smith chuckled. “Even more impressive. It’s not every day you meet a group of mail-order brides who can tangle with outlaws and come out on top.”

Frank didn’t want to continue this discussion. He asked, “Have you got a hotel here in town?”

“Yeah. It ain’t fancy, but you can put up there.” Smith turned to point along the curving street. “Go on around the corner, past the general mercantile, and you’ll see the Klondike Hotel on the left.”

“I thought the Klondike country was in Canada,” Conway said.

“It is, but since that’s where so many of the gents who come to Skagway are bound, the proprietor thought that would be a good name for the hotel,” Smith explained.

Frank nodded. “Much obliged for the information.” He lifted Stormy’s reins.

“If there’s anything else I can help you with, come on back down here to Clancy’s place and ask for me,” Smith said quickly. “I’m sort of the unofficial mayor of Skagway, I guess you could say, and Clancy’s is the unofficial city hall, until I can get a place of my own built.”