Winter Kill

Chapter 14

“Don’t move,” Frank breathed.

“I…I thought bears hibernated during the winter,” Conway said.

“I reckon this one hasn’t quite gotten around to it yet.” A grim smile curved Frank’s raw, wind-chapped lips. “Maybe he wants to fill his belly with a couple of cheechakos before he goes to sleep for the next few months.” He thought back on some things that old-time mountain men had told him. “Bears can’t see worth a damn. They rely more on their sense of smell. The wind’s from offshore, so he’s caught our scent. Or she. Might be a female.” He glanced down at the crate of guns and ammunition. “We’ll take it slow and easy, Pete, so as not to spook that critter, but we need to get the lid off this crate.”

“You think you can get one of those rifles out, load it, and shoot that bear before it charges us?”

“That’s not what I had in mind,” Frank said. He bent his knees and reached down to the crate. They needed some sort of lever to pry the lid off. “There’s a little busted place here. See if you can get your fingers in it.”

Conway had to lower himself to one knee in order to slip the fingers of one hand into the opening. He heaved against the lid while Frank took hold of one of the broken boards from the lifeboat’s hull and began slowly twisting it back and forth. Meanwhile the bear stood at the edge of the trees, sniffing the air with a confused look on its furry face.

“It can’t figure out if it wants to attack us or not,” Frank said. The piece of board came loose in his hands. “See if you can work that lid up a little more, Pete. If you can, I think I can slip this board in there and pry it open.”

Grunting with the effort he put into it, Conway struggled with the crate. With a squeal of metal against wood, the nails holding the lid down gave slightly.

Frank wedged the end of the board into the gap. “You pull up on the lid while I press down on this board,” he told Conway. “Ready?”

Conway nodded as he cast a nervous glance toward the bear. “I suppose so.”

The two men worked together, throwing their remaining strength into the task. The nails screeched loudly this time as muscle power added to the leverage of the board pried the lid up. It came loose suddenly, flying up into the air and nearly hitting Conway, who jumped back, tripped, and sat down down on the beach.

“Oh, hell, Frank, here he comes!” the young man exclaimed.

Frank turned to look at the bear, which had tottered several steps out of the trees. The massive creature stopped short, though, and lifted its head higher as its nose wrinkled. The bear stood there for several tense moments, then turned abruptly, dropped to all fours, and lumbered off into the woods, vanishing into the shadows under the trees.

Conway stared after it uncomprehendingly and muttered, “What…what the hell just happened?”

Frank dropped the piece of board he was still holding. It wouldn’t have done much good as a weapon against a monster like that bear.

“Like I said, a bear’s got a really sensitive sense of smell. I thought all the oilcloth and grease packed around these guns might stink pretty bad to it. If it’s ever been around any hunters, it’s smelled those scents before and knows they mean trouble. So the bear figured it would be better off somewhere else.”

Conway stared at him. “You knew that was going to happen?”

“I hoped it would,” Frank said. “But no, I wasn’t sure. Just played a hunch.”

“It was a good one,” Conway said with a nod. He clambered to his feet. “We’d better get some of these guns out, clean ’em up, and get them loaded before we run into any more wild animals.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” Frank agreed. “Come on, we’ll drag what’s left of the boat farther up toward the trees and make a camp here. It can be our base while we’re searching for the others.”

“You really think we’ll find any of them still alive?”

“I don’t know,” Frank said honestly. “But like with that bear, I’m going to play a hunch.”

They worked hard for the next hour, dragging the wrecked boat and the supplies up to the edge of the trees. They took rifles and pistols from the crate, cleaned the grease off the weapons, and broke open the cases of ammunition to load them. Frank felt a lot better with the weight of a Colt riding in his holster again, even a .32, and with a fully-loaded Winchester leaning against a nearby tree.

Then, while Conway went back up the beach to retrieve the other two crates of supplies, Frank found enough dry wood and pine needles in the forest to make a good-sized fire. He carried the fuel out onto the edge of the beach and made a pile of it, then knelt and used his knife and the piece of flint to start the fire. By the time Conway got back, Frank had a roaring, leaping blaze going, sending a column of smoke high into the gray sky.

“If they’re anywhere along this beach, maybe they’ll see that smoke,” he told Conway. “We can continue searching for them, too.”

“How about if we fire some shots into the air?” Conway suggested. “The others might hear them.”

“Good idea.” Frank picked up one of the Winchesters and cranked off three rounds. “We don’t need to waste ammunition, though, so we’ll only try this every so often.”

They managed to pry off the lids of the other crates and found salt pork, flour, sugar, and salt. Seawater had gotten into some of the containers and ruined the contents, but quite a few of the provisions were still usable. One crate had axes and hatchets in it, and those tools might well come in handy, too.

The fire warmed them and finished the job of drying their clothes. Conway stood with his hands on his hips, gazing into the flames, and said, “We’re a lot better off than we have any right to expect, considering what happened.” His voice caught a little as he went on, “I hope…I just hope we’re not the only ones who survived.”

“I’ll bet a hat we aren’t,” Frank said. “Let’s get some food in our bellies, and then we’ll start searching.”

They skewered pieces of salt pork onto the ends of sticks and roasted the meat in the flames. Frank felt sick for a minute when the food hit his stomach, but the feeling soon passed. When the two men had eaten, they added more branches to the fire and then set off down the beach, taking the rifles with them. Behind them, the column of smoke continued to climb into the sky like a beacon.

Frank knew it was possible that there might be men in this wilderness who weren’t friendly. The smoke could attract danger. But it was a risk he was willing to run if it meant there was a better chance of reuniting with other survivors from the Montclair.

The fog had thinned out, so they were able to look back and see the fire for quite a distance as they followed the curve of the beach. Then they came to an area where jagged rocks thrust up out of the sand, and they had to work their way through them before they came to another open stretch.

As they stepped out onto the sand, Frank caught a glimpse of movement at the edge of the trees. The sky was still overcast, but enough sunlight filtered through the clouds to show him a golden gleam in the shadows. He stopped in his tracks, his heart pounding. He thought he recognized that sleek, shining hide.

“What is it, Frank?” Conway asked.

Instead of answering, Frank lifted his fingers to his mouth and used them to help him let out a shrill, piercing whistle. In response, Goldy burst out of the trees, followed by the rangy gray stallion called Stormy. Both horses tossed their heads in the air and then galloped along the sand toward Frank and Conway.

Frank ran to meet them, throwing his arms around Stormy’s neck and then Goldy’s. He had known there was a chance the horses would be able to swim to shore, but he hadn’t really expected that hope to come true.

“Son of a gun,” Conway said in an awed voice. “They made it.”

“They sure did,” Frank said. “That means some of the others could have, too.”

“Do we ride now?”

Frank shook his head. “We’ll keep walking for the time being. These fellas have been through hell, just like we have. They can use some rest.”

Leading the horses, Frank and Conway continued down the beach. After another half hour or so, Frank stopped again and listened intently.

“Hear that?” he asked as a smile tugged at the grim lines of his mouth. “That’s barking.”

Sure enough, it was. Stormy and Goldy heard it, too, and broke loose, tugging their reins out of the hands of Frank and Conway. The horses trotted down the beach with the two men following.

A few moments later, Dog came into sight, bounding along the sand. Frank saw human figures struggling along behind the big cur. Dog reached Stormy and Goldy and capered around them in sheer joy for a few seconds before launching himself at Frank with a madly wagging tail and an eagerly licking tongue. Frank wrestled happily with Dog for a moment, then looked along the beach and felt his spirits lifting as he recognized Fiona Devereaux, Meg Goodwin, Jessica Harpe, and the cheechako from New York named Neville. They were all pale and drawn from their ordeal, and their clothes were still wet, but they were grinning at the sight of Frank and Conway.

Fiona threw her arms around Frank, and Jessica did likewise with Conway. “We thought you were dead, we thought you were dead,” Fiona babbled. “We saw you fall off the ship into the water, Frank. My God, how did you survive?”

“You just explained it,” Frank said. “El Señor Dios was watching over me, and Pete there gave Him a hand.” He looked at the others. “How many of you made it?”

“All of us except…except Constance and Gertrude,” Fiona said in a grief-wracked voice. “They…they fell out of the lifeboat while it was being tossed around so madly. We never saw them again.”

Frank nodded. He and Conway had survived going into the water, but he held out no hope that the two young women had. They wouldn’t have been strong enough to stay afloat and fight off the cold.

“Mr. Neville and three of his friends were in the boat as well,” Fiona went on. “They made it, too, and we have the supplies we were carrying.”

“Pete and I managed to salvage some supplies, too,” Frank said, “including the guns. Seen anybody else from the ship?”

Fiona shook her head. “No. No one.”

Frank figured that Captain Hoffman and most of the crew had still been on the Montclair when it broke up. He doubted if any of them had survived.

Neville said, “We saw that dog of yours swimming for it and pulled him on board the lifeboat with us, Morgan.”

Frank kept his left arm around Fiona’s shoulders and held out his right hand to the little cheechako. “Then I owe you a big debt, amigo,” he said. “Dog and I have been through a lot together. I’d have hated to lose him.”

Neville gripped Frank’s hand. “Glad we could help. I see your horses made it, too. What now?”

Frank felt Fiona trembling against him. “Now we need to get all of you back up the beach to the camp Pete and I made. We have a fire burning there. You can thaw out and dry your clothes.”

Through chattering teeth, Fiona said, “Th-that sounds w-wonderful.”

“Pete, show them the way. I’ll gather up the rest of the party.”

Conway led the women and Neville back up the beach. Frank sent Stormy and Goldy with the group, but kept Dog with him. He hurried along the sand, calling out the names of the other women. They emerged from the trees, along with the three other gold-hunters. The young women had to hug Frank, and the men had to shake his hand.

“Grab all the supplies you have and let’s go,” Frank told them. “By nightfall you should all be warm and dry and have some hot food in your bellies.”

They all exclaimed with joy at hearing that.

It took an hour to herd everyone up the beach to the camp. Conway had started feeding branches and pine needles into the fire as soon as he and his companions got there, so by the time Frank and the others arrived, the blaze was roaring again, throwing off waves of welcome heat. Everyone gathered around it.

Frank studied the survivors as they basked in the warmth. There were seventeen of them in all, counting him. The Montclair had carried between forty and fifty passengers and had a crew of more than twenty men. That meant there had been about seventy souls on board. At least fifty of them had died in the wreck. It was a sobering thought.

But no more sobering than the fact that the ones who had survived were still in great danger, despite the incredible good fortune that had brought them this far. They had supplies, guns, and ammunition, but they were a long way from any outposts of civilization, faced with an overland trek through some of the most hostile country in the world. And if another storm blew up, they would be in even worse shape.

Frank knew all that…but he had to smile anyway. They had a fighting chance.

That was all he had ever asked for in life.