William Johnstone - Winter Kill

“Some of ’em might even need a third or a fourth chance before it takes,” Jennings said with a smile under the cloth tied around his eyes.

When everything was squared away and ready to go, Frank led Stormy and Goldy out of the stable. He shook hands with Clem, the proprietor, and then swung up into the saddle on Goldy’s back. The street was crowded by now, even though it was still dark. The sun wouldn’t make its brief appearance until later in the day. Many of the citizens of Skagway had turned out to say good-bye to the women who had brought some femininity and excitement to the raw frontier settlement, even if only for a short time.

“You know the trails, Salty,” Frank called to the old-timer. “Lead off whenever you’re ready.”

“All right.” Salty’s beard bristled in the cold air as he stood on the runners at the rear of the sled and looked around at the others. “Ever’body ready at the gee-poles?”

Meg, Jennings, and Conway called out that they were, and Salty lifted a hand over his head and swept it forward.

“Mush, yuh danged hairy varmints!” he called to the sled dogs. “Mush!”

With a noisy chorus of barking, the dogs strained against their traces and pulled ahead, drawing the harnesses taut. The sled’s polished runners began to glide over the snow. The other teams followed the example of the leaders, and with a big racket, including cheers of encouragement from some of the onlookers, all four sleds departed from Skagway.

Frank rode ahead, and Dog bounded even farther in front. The barking of the sled dogs seemed to excite him, and he turned from time to time to bark back at them.

Even though the sun wasn’t up, gray light filled the eastern sky. It would stay that way for hours yet, but during that time, the glow was enough for the travelers to see where they were going. Frank could tell from the light that they were headed almost due north.

He rode ahead of the sleds at times, alongside them at others, and every now and then he dropped well behind them to check on their back trail. Soapy Smith had all but said that he was coming after the women, or at least sending men to run them down and capture them. Frank had a hunch that Smith would let them get away from Skagway before he tried anything else, but not too far. He would want to kill Frank and the other men and take the women prisoner while it would still be fairly easy to get them back to the settlement.

Because of that, Frank knew he would have to be on guard nearly twenty-four hours a day.

Which was a shame in a way because his vigilance didn’t allow him to just ride along and appreciate the magnificent scenery around him. Vast, snow-covered slopes; majestic stands of pine, fir, and spruce trees with their branches also decorated with the white, powdery snow; rugged mountains that were studies in black and white and gray looming over everything…Frank had seen some mighty pretty places in his life, but Alaska was right up there with the best of them.

It was too bad that like most of the other places Frank had been, lurking in all that beauty were scores of dangers, dozens of ways a man could get himself dead in a hurry.

One time when Goldy was trotting alongside Salty’s sled and Frank was leading Stormy, the old-timer pointed into the distance and said, “See that little notch where them two mountains come together?”

“Yeah. Is that where we’re going?”

“That’s White Pass, where we’re headed first. ’Bout thirty miles from here. Chilkoot’s only about ten miles beyond it, but it’s a mighty brutal ten miles. You’ll feel like you’re goin’ straight up a sheet o’ ice durin’ some of it. It’ll be hard goin’ for them horses of yours.”

“They can make it,” Frank said. He had every confidence in the world in Stormy and Goldy.

“The ladies’ll have to get off and walk when we get there. The dogs can’t pull the loads on the sleds and their weight, too, not at that angle. That’s why I told you to get hobnailed boots for all of ’em. Otherwise they won’t be able to make it on the ice. If we’re lucky, there’ll be a little snowpack. It ain’t as slippery. Then, once we get past Chilkoot, things don’t get much easier for a while. The goin’s still slick, it’s just downhill instead of up. We’ll tie the sleds together and put all the dogs behind ’em, instead of in front, until we get down from the pass.”

“What’s the terrain like after that?”

“A mite better. Hills instead o’ mountains. We’ll have to cross some cricks, but they’ll be froze over already and shouldn’t be a problem, long as the ice ain’t too thin.”

“Where’s the border?”

“White Pass. By the time we get to the glacier that runs along there and turn northwest along it toward Chilkoot, we’ll be in Canada.”

Frank nodded. He figured that Smith would make his move before they reached White Pass, not because that landmark was the borderline between Alaska and Canada, but because Smith wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of having to bring the women back that far, over such rugged ground.

“How long will it take us to reach White Pass?”

“At least three days, more likely four or five, dependin’ on the dogs and what we run into betwixt here and there. It looks a lot closer’n it really is.”

So for the next five days, he couldn’t let down his guard, Frank thought, and he couldn’t once they passed that point, either, because Soapy Smith was hardly the only threat out here. The wilderness itself was an even bigger danger.

“How about from White Pass to Chilkoot?”

“Count on two days, at least. ’Taint far, but like I said, it’s slow goin’.”

“And then on to White Horse?”

“Another week, if we’re lucky and these brutes do better’n I think they will.” Salty waved a mittened hand toward the dogs pulling his sled. “Could be ten or eleven days.”

Frank thought it over. “So it’ll take us at least two weeks to get to Whitehorse, maybe longer.”

“It’ll be longer,” Salty declared. “I’d bet this fur hat o’ mine on that.”

Fiona must have been listening to the conversation. She turned around to look at the old-timer. “Will it be this cold all the way, Mr. Stevens?”

“Cold?” Salty repeated. “Beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am, but this ain’t cold. This here’s a nice balmy day compared to what it’ll be once we get up around them high passes. Problem is, it’ll be even worse a month from now.”

“You think winter will hold off that long?” Frank asked.

“I durned sure hope so. If a real storm comes in whilst we’re up there betwixt White and Chilkoot…”

Salty’s voice trailed off, but the old-timer didn’t have to finish the sentence for Frank to know what he meant. A blizzard striking at the wrong time could easily mean death for all of them.

The first day’s travel went well, although some of the women complained bitterly of the cold and their muscles were stiff and sore from riding all day on the sleds.

Meg really took to it, though. She had taken Bart Jennings literally when he told her to sing out so he could follow her voice, because a lot of the day she sang songs as she stood on the back of the sled and steered it with the gee-pole. She tried, without much success, to get the other women to sing with her.

When they stopped at midday, while watery sunlight filled the sky, Meg came over to Frank and asked, “How am I doing?”

“You’d have to ask Salty,” Frank said. “He knows a lot more about handling sleds than I do. Matter of fact, I don’t know a blasted thing about it.”

The old-timer came over, slapping his mittened hands together. He grinned and said, “I heard what you asked, girlie, and I don’t mind tellin’ you, you’re doin’ a top-notch job. You sure you’re really a cheechako and not an ol’ sourdough like me?”