William Johnstone - Winter Kill

Frank shouted, “Dog! Hunt!” Then he whirled and fired both guns again. Two more men fell. It was chaos in front of the burning cabin now, and Frank was like a phantom gliding through it, the guns in his hands spitting death. Men dropped with slugs in their heads or blood fountaining from bullet-torn throats. The close range allowed him to place his shots perfectly without hitting the women. Frank heard the heavier crash of rifles, along with growling and snarling, and knew that Salty, Conway, and Dog were getting into the fight, too. The sled dogs, tied up a short distance from the cabin, barked and yelped crazily, adding to the noise.

“Shoot the women!” one of the men yelled. Frank put a bullet in his mouth while it was still open from that shouted order. He bulled to the side, barreling into another kidnapper and knocking him away from the hostage he’d been holding. As the man fell, Frank snapped two shots from the smaller revolver into his face.

“Frank!”

That was Fiona’s voice. Frank whipped around and saw her trying to run as one of the kidnappers drew a bead on her with a pistol. Frank fired both guns without hesitation. The bullets punched into the man’s body and drove him backward over the threshold into the burning cabin, which was fully ablaze by now. The flames engulfed the man, filling the air with the stench of roasting human flesh.

The rest of the gunfire had died away, but as Frank turned from the cabin, he heard the sounds of struggle still going on. He saw Pete Conway and one of the kidnappers trading punches, slugging away at each other. A few yards away on the ground, Salty Stevens was wrestling with one of the men. Salty was on the bottom, doing his best to hold off the hatchet that the kidnapper was trying to bring down in his face. Salty’s hand was locked around the man’s wrist, but the kidnapper was younger, bigger, and stronger, and Frank knew the old-timer couldn’t hold out much longer.

Both revolvers clicked as the hammers fell on empty chambers when Frank tried to shoot the man, though. Frank dropped the guns and launched himself in a diving tackle that knocked the man off of Salty. They rolled through the snow, grappling desperately.

Frank saw starlight wink off the head of the hatchet as it slashed toward his face. He jerked his head aside so the hatchet hit the ground instead and bounced back up. With a grunt of effort, Frank stuck a foot in the man’s belly and heaved him up and over his head. The kidnapper howled in surprise as he found himself flying through the air. He lost his grip on the hatchet as he crashed down on his back.

Frank was there to snatch up the weapon. He brought it up and over in a looping strike that buried the razor-sharp head in the center of the kidnapper’s forehead. The man spasmed as the keen, cold steel sunk deep into his brain, then went limp. Frank left the hatchet where it was and stood up.

When he looked around, he saw that the fight was over. The bodies of the kidnappers lay sprawled around the area in front of the burning cabin. The light from the flames turned the snow a garish red, but it was a deeper crimson where blood had been splashed. He tugged the white cloth off his head and stood there with his chest heaving and his breath pluming in front of his face.

Meg ran up to him and threw her arms around him. “Frank!” she cried. “Frank, I knew you’d come for us!”

He held her and looked over her shoulder at the other women. Some of them seemed to be disoriented. They were wandering around crying. But as he counted them, including Meg and Jessica Harpe, who was being embraced by Conway, he saw that all eleven of them were there, on their feet and apparently unhurt. Salty was all right, too. He picked up his rifle and started checking on the bodies of the kidnappers, making sure that all of them were dead.

“How many men were there?” Frank asked Meg. He wanted to be certain that none of them had gotten away.

“T-ten, I think,” she replied. “Not counting that awful little man Dixon. He already went back to Skagway to tell Smith that they had captured us and were laying a trap for you.” She smiled at him. “But I knew you wouldn’t fall for it, Frank. I knew you’d figure out some way to save us.” She paused. “I just didn’t know it would involve running around in your underwear.”

Frank glanced down at himself and chuckled. Before, he had been so caught up in carrying out the plan that he hadn’t really thought about how cold it was. Now he realized that he was frozen clear through. At least, he would have been if not for the heat coming from the burning cabin.

Salty came over to him and said, “They’re all dead.”

“Ten of them?”

“Yep, countin’ the feller just inside the door of the cabin. Ain’t much o’ him left, though.”

Frank nodded in satisfaction. They had wiped out Smith’s men. By the time Smith figured out that the kidnappers wouldn’t be returning to Skagway with the women, Frank and his companions would be well on their way to Whitehorse and it would be too late for Smith to do anything about it.

Even though they had ruined Smith’s plans, it had come at the cost of Bart Jennings’s life, as well as with considerable pain and terror for the women. Those scores would have to be settled, although it might be spring or even summer before Frank got a chance to do so.

But one thing he was sure of: Soapy Smith would be seeing him again.

Chapter 29

Conway and Salty moved the sleds and the dogs well away from the burning cabin while Frank retrieved his clothes from the woods and got dressed again. It felt mighty good to shrug into his thick coat, but even better to buckle on his gun belt and settle his hat on his head. He was The Drifter again, not some hombre who crawled around in the snow.

Fiona seemed awfully quiet. Frank went over to her and asked, “Are you all right? Did any of those varmints hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine, Frank,” she told him. “Thank you for saving us. It seems like you’re always saving us.”

He shrugged. “I set out to get you where you’re going, safe and sound.”

“Because of that promise you made to Jacob Trench.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, we should reach Whitehorse in, what, about two more weeks?”

He nodded. “If we’re lucky.”

“Then you can wash your hands of us.”

“I wouldn’t look at it like that,” Frank said with a frown. “Anyway, I’ve got a hunch we’ll both be staying there until spring. I don’t think we’ll be able to get back through those passes to Skagway. I’m not sure I want to, right away. If there’s somewhere else you’d like to go, back to Seattle, maybe, we’ll find another way, and then I can go back by myself.”

It was Fiona’s turn to frown in puzzlement. “Why would you go back to Skagway if you didn’t have to? It was a terrible place.”

“Smith’s there,” Frank said flatly. “He and I have some business to take care of.”

“In other words, you’re going back to kill him.”

“He needs killing.”

“With all his hired guns, the odds may be twenty to one against you,” she pointed out.

“Bad odds never stopped me before, when a thing needed doing.”

“No,” Fiona said with a faint smile and a shake of her head, “I don’t expect that they did.”

They made camp in the woods, not far from the cabin, which continued to burn until it was a pile of ashes and charred logs. They had two extra sleds and dog teams now, along with the supplies Smith’s men had brought with them. That would make the rest of the journey to Whitehorse easier. Not surprisingly, Smith’s dog teams were made up of excellent animals. Salty planned to split the animals up the next morning while hitching them to the sleds, so that each team would have several strong, experienced dogs on it.