William Johnstone - Winter Kill

“I told you, we’re from the same part of the country. And the name’s Frank Morgan, by the way, not Tex.”

Salty’s head jerked up. “Frank Morgan!” he repeated. “You mean The Drifter?”

“Heard of me, have you?”

“Damn straight I have! You might not know it to look at me, but there was a time I worked as a range detective with a cousin o’ mine and his pardner, and I was friends for a while with a deputy U.S. marshal, too. I weren’t never an official lawman, mind you, but I was next thing to it.” The old-timer sighed. “Them was better days, that’s for damn’ sure. Anyway, I heard of you, sure enough, Mr. Morgan. And the way I heard it, you’re one o’ the fastest fellas ever to slap leather. If anybody’d asked me, though, I’d’ve had to say that I didn’t know whether you was still alive.”

Frank grinned. “I’m still kicking, all right. Tell me, Salty, where are you from?”

“Well, I was born in Arizony. Or was it New Mexico Territory? Been so long ago, I don’t rightly remember. But I growed up all over the whole Southwest, a-huntin’ and a-trappin’. Met one o’ the last o’ the old-time mountain men once, a contrary ol’ critter called Preacher. When I got a few more years on me, I done a mite of scoutin’ for the army and drove a stagecoach for a while out Californy way. It was a while later I met that marshal fella and then went to range detectin’. Been a good life, a mighty full life.”

Conway said, “A man your age ought to be sitting in a rocking chair somewhere, enjoying his old age.”

Salty got a truculent look on his bushy face. “Old age, is it? I’ll have you know, young fella, that I can still mush all day on a pair o’ snowshoes if I have to, and I can grab a gee-pole and handle a team o’ sled dogs just fine, too.”

“What brought you to Alaska in the first place?” Frank asked.

“Gold, o’ course, same thing as brought all these other cheechakos and stampeders up here!” Salty paused, and when he went on, there was a wistful note in his voice. “And I, uh, got a mite tired o’ sittin’ on my granddaughter’s front porch in that rockin’ chair the young fella just mentioned. Figured I might have one last grand adventure in me, so I took off for the Klondike! Found me a nice gold claim, too, and worked it for a while. Had me a poke full o’ nuggets when I got back here.”

“And then what happened?”

“Soapy Smith and his gang o’ thieves and swindlers and murderers happened,” Salty said. “Soapy claimed I was breakin’ a local ord’nance when I got drunk, and he got his pet judge to sock a big fine against me. One o’ his pickpockets finished cleanin’ me out. I couldn’t go home, couldn’t go back across the passes to Whitehorse, couldn’t do nothin’ but stay here and become a bum.” The old-timer spread his hands. “And that’s what you see before you now, gents. A plumb worthless excuse for an old fool.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Frank said. “You say you’ve been to Whitehorse, so you must have been over Chilkoot Pass.”

“Yeah, and White Pass, too. You got to go over it before you get to Chilkoot.”

“What do you think? If a party left Skagway in the next day or two, could they get over the passes and make it to Whitehorse before winter sets in?”

Salty frowned, but the only way to tell it was by the way the scraggly curtain of white hair lowered over his brow. “Well, I don’t rightly know. I’d have to think on it…and I think a mite better when my thinkin’ apparatus is lubricated.”

Frank pushed the bottle of rotgut toward him. “Oil it up, old-timer.”

Salty pulled the cork with his teeth, spit it out, and lifted the bottle to his mouth. The whiskey gurgled as he took a long swallow of it.

“I hear that,” Jennings said. “It’s a pretty sound.”

Salty reached out, took Jennings’s hand, and pressed the bottle into it. “Have a slug, old son. It might not restore your sight, but it can’t hurt to try.”

While Jennings took a drink, Salty looked up at Frank and went on. “If folks was to leave right now and had good sleds and dogs, I reckon they could make it through the passes to Whitehorse.”

“You couldn’t go on horseback?”

Salty shook his head. “No, there’s already snowpack up there. You could go part of the way on horses, but you’d have to break out the dogs to get over the passes and on down to Whitehorse.”

“How about getting back here?”

“That’d be riskier. Still, a fella might could do it, if he knew the quickest way there and back.”

“Someone like you, you mean?” Frank said.

“Well, come to think of it…yeah. I know all the trails.”

Frank didn’t hesitate. “How’d you like to go to Whitehorse with us?”

Before Salty could answer, Conway stepped forward and lifted a hand. “Wait a minute, Frank. We’ve already picked up a blind outlaw—”

“You’re an outlaw?” Salty said to Jennings.

“I was,” Jennings replied with a sober nod. “I’ve given up banditry. I’m a changed man because of Mr. Morgan.”

As if he hadn’t been interrupted, Conway went on. “Now you’re going to add a drunken old man to our party? You’d put the safety of those ladies in the hands of a—”

“A former range detective, army scout, and unofficial deputy U.S. marshal?” Frank said. “I reckon I would.”

Salty reached for the bottle again. “Now, the young galoot may have a point there, Mr. Morgan. I ain’t all that dependable these days, not since I got a taste for this Who-hit-John.”

Frank picked up the bottle before Salty could. “Then maybe it’s time to put this away. How about you have the rest of it when we get back to Skagway from Whitehorse?”

“But…we might not make it back till spring. That’s a long time!”

“You’ll be all right, Salty. You’ll have a job to do.”

The old-timer ran gnarled fingers through his tangled beard. “That would be nice,” he said in a half-whisper. “Folks used to depend on me, and I never let ’em down.”

“You won’t now, either.”

Salty gave an abrupt nod. “Count me in,” he declared. “Put the cork in the bottle, and we’ll have it when we get back.”

“Maybe,” Frank said, “or maybe we’ll have something better.”

Conway looked like he thought they were making a big mistake.

The young man would really feel that way, Frank thought, if he knew that before they left Skagway, he intended to have a talk with Soapy Smith about an old man’s stolen gold.

Chapter 20

Before leaving the shack, Frank asked Salty if he had any more bottles of whiskey stashed there. The old-timer insisted that he didn’t. “I ain’t never had enough money to buy a whole bottle since Smith and his varmints cleaned me out,” Salty declared. “Most I could ever beg was enough for a shot or two.”

Frank believed him. “You can stay here for now, but tomorrow you’re going to help me pick out some sleds and dogs and everything else we’ll need for the trip.”

“Why’re you so bound and determined to go to Whitehorse? This got somethin’ to do with them pretty young gals who come into town with you?”

“It has everything to do with them,” Frank explained. “They’re mail-order brides, and they have husbands-to-be waiting for them in the Klondike.”

Salty let out a little whistle of surprise. “Doggone! No wonder you’re anxious to get through. I reckon some o’ them prospectors who’ve found good claims would pay a mighty handsome price to have a comely gal keep ’em warm all winter.”

“That’s the idea,” Frank said with a grin.

“Makes me feel like I’ll be doin’ some good for the world by helpin’ you get ’em there.”