William Johnstone - Winter Kill

Meg laughed and pushed the hood of her parka back off her blond hair. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold, and at that moment, Frank thought she was one of the prettiest women he had ever seen.

“Maybe it just comes naturally to me,” she said. “I don’t know if Frank told you or not, but I used to do a lot of plowing.”

“I reckon that experience comes in handy.” Salty moved on to Jennings and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re doin’ a fine job, too, Bart. Never would’a figured a blind man could steer a sled, but you’re managin’.”

“Thanks, Mr. Stevens.”

“Shoot, call me Salty. That’s all anybody’s called me for nigh on to fifty years.”

“What’s your given name?” Frank asked curiously.

Salty frowned. “Well, now…I wish you hadn’t asked me that…I’m tryin’ to recollect. Been so long since I heard it. Seems like it’s George. Yeah, that’s what it is. George. Maybe.”

They set up one of the Primus stoves Frank had bought at the store back in Skagway, melted snow and heated water for coffee, then set off again with Frank riding Stormy this time instead of Goldy. Most of the travelers were gnawing jerky so their bodies would constantly have fuel to burn. Hunger just increased the effects of the cold. During the long, gray afternoon, they stopped several more times to rest the dogs, pushing on each time after only a short halt.

They had to find a place to camp for the night before darkness fell. Salty led them to a spot where a scattering of boulders formed an irregular ring. The big rocks blocked the wind to a certain extent, and so the snow hadn’t drifted as deeply in the space between them. Salty pointed out that they could clear off a spot and build a decent-sized fire.

“I reckon the ladies’ll like that,” he said. “It’ll help ’em thaw out a mite.”

“I’m all f-for th-that,” Fiona said through chattering teeth. “This is a h-hellish country.”

Frank wondered what she had thought it would be like when she came up with the idea of delivering mail-order brides to the miners all the way in Whitehorse. She probably hadn’t thought much about the hardships involved, only the money she could make.

Salty started showing Bart Jennings how to unhitch the dogs, working by feel. While they were doing that, Frank and Conway walked into the trees and found enough dry wood for the fire. When they got back, they found that Meg and Jessica had swept an area clean with their mittens. They piled the wood on the hard-packed dirt. Frank picked out some of the branches and arranged them so that they would burn properly. He had a plentiful supply of matches and tinder now, so he didn’t have to rely on flint and steel this time. Within a few minutes, he had a nice little blaze going, and the women made grateful noises as they gathered around the flames.

Fiona stood close beside Frank and said, “It was a good start today, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, a good start,” Frank agreed.

But they still had a long way to go, he reminded himself. As Soapy Smith had said that morning before they left the settlement, a long, hard way.

And as Frank looked out across the wilderness in the fading light, he couldn’t help but wonder what the night would hold.

Chapter 25

Before everyone went to sleep, Frank set up shifts for guard duty. He wanted two people awake at all times, and of course he relied heavily on the senses of Dog, Stormy, and Goldy to alert them if any danger came around, too. The women would have to take their turns, but it wouldn’t be necessary for all of them to stand guard every night. They could rotate the duty among them, so that some of them would get a full night’s sleep each night.

Somewhat to his surprise, the first night passed quietly except for some wolves howling in the distance. The sound spooked the women for a while, until Salty explained that the wolves wouldn’t come near the fire.

“If it was after a hard winter and they was starvin’, they might risk it,” the old-timer said. “Right now, though, we don’t have to worry about them varmints.”

At one point during the night, while the guard shifts were changing, Frank and Salty were both awake and had a brief conversation by the fire while the others slept in the tents that had been set up. Salty nodded toward the flames and commented, “When I was a young feller growin’ up, I didn’t dare have a fire like that whilst I was on the trail. It’d be too likely to draw attention from some Comanch’ or Apaches lookin’ to lift my hair.”

“I know what you mean,” Frank said with a nod. “It goes against the grain for me to have a fire that big at night, too. Drawing attention’s never a good thing.”

“You ain’t as old as me, Frank, but you been around long enough to’ve seen the elephant a time or two. I’ll bet you’ve rid some hard, lonely trails.”

Frank had a cup of coffee in his hand. He took a sip from it and said, “I’ve heard the owl hoot a time or two, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, sir. Ain’t none o’ my business.”

“I figured that since you’d worked with that deputy marshal and those range detectives, you were still a badge-toter at heart. Once a lawman, always a lawman, they say.”

Salty chuckled. “Tell that to all the fellers who wore a star and then turned crooked, or the ones that rode the owlhoot and then went straight. You can’t tell what a feller will be by lookin’ at what he was. Folks change all the time.”

“That they do,” Frank agreed with a solemn nod. “Look at you. You haven’t had a drink in more than two days.”

“And I’m feelin’ it, too,” Salty muttered. “But it’s gettin’ better, slowly but surely.”

“Go ahead and turn in and get some sleep. You’ll feel even better in the morning.”

“I hope so.”

Salty was up again when the first hints of gray began to appear in the eastern sky, and he woke all the others, too. “Ever’body up!” he called. “We got ground to cover today!”

They set off about an hour later, after everyone had had breakfast, including the sled teams. Dog didn’t care for the dried fish that the sled dogs ate, so he went bounding off into the trees and came back with a rabbit’s bloody carcass in his jaws. When the other dogs showed an interest in it, a deep-throated growl from the big cur made them think twice about trying to take his prize away from him.

With only a day’s experience behind them, Conway, Jennings, and the women were hardly seasoned veterans of the far north, but at least they had some idea what to expect now. The sleds moved smoothly over the snow, with the others following Salty’s lead. Frank rode alongside most of the time, since he didn’t know exactly where the trails were and Salty had a tendency of weaving in and out of hills and stands of trees, following the easiest route over the terrain. The snow was a little deeper the farther north they went, but it was still less than a foot except in the drifts, and the horses had no trouble with it.

By Frank’s estimation, they covered more ground that day than they had the day before. Whenever he looked toward White Pass in the distance, though, it didn’t appear to be any closer. Salty noticed him doing that one time and chuckled.

“You been in the high country enough to know what it’s like, Frank,” the old-timer said. “The air’s so clear it seems like you can see forever. It’s like crossin’ the Great Plains toward the Rockies. They look like they’re so close you can reach right out and touch ’em, but it still takes you days or even weeks to get there.”

“I know. If anything, the air is even clearer up here.”

“Yeah, especially when it’s cold. Alaska’s a great place, Frank. I don’t know that I want to spend the rest of my borned days up here, but I’m mighty glad I came. Yes, sir, even with all the bad things that’ve happened, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”