Winter Kill

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.

During the night, wolves came and dragged off the bodies of the kidnappers. None of them were anywhere to be seen when the gray light began to fill the sky. The howling had disturbed the women, but there was nothing that could be done about that. Nature was taking its course.

Frank told Salty that they would get everything ready to go as quickly as they could. The old-timer nodded and said, “Yeah, I know why, too. We’re already pushin’ it where the weather’s concerned. Winter’s gonna be right on our tail when we get to Whitehorse, if it ain’t overtook us by then.”

Salty knew a detour around Eight Mile Creek, but it took them several miles out of their way that morning. Once they were back on the main trail, they were able to make better time.

By late in the day, they had begun the ascent to White Pass. The snow was deeper now, and Goldy and Stormy had more trouble making their way through it. Frank wished there had been a way to leave them behind and reclaim them later, but he knew he couldn’t have abandoned them to Soapy Smith. They had been through too much together.

The group made camp on the approach to the pass, and despite the fire and the tents, it was a cold, miserable night. When they got ready to push on the next morning, everyone was quiet, conserving their energy for keeping warm, instead of talking.

Frank didn’t like the looks of the sky, and neither did Salty. “If it comes another storm whilst we’re still on this side o’ Chilkoot, we’re gonna be in trouble, Frank.”

“We can’t turn back. All we can do is keep going and hope for the best.”

“Well, there’s at least one thing to be thankful for, I reckon.” The old-timer grinned. “The cold’s done froze the need for a drink right outta me. I don’t crave it no more, not even a little nip to warm my belly.”

Frank returned the grin and slapped Salty on the shoulder. The old man had sure lived up to his name. He was plenty salty. He had plenty of sand, too.

They reached White Pass at midday. It seemed like the top of the world to Frank as he stood there looking around at the vast, empty, snow-covered terrain falling away on all sides in a landscape filled with bleak beauty. But he knew that Chilkoot was even higher and would be more difficult to reach.

The glacier leading to it was like a river of ice running through the mountains. Enough snow had fallen so that they weren’t traveling on bare ice, and Salty told them to be grateful for that. The hard snow was slick enough itself. It was frozen solid enough so that the horses’ hooves didn’t break through it except occasionally, but it still made for slippery footing.

As Salty had warned them, the slope was steep in places. The women had to get off the sleds and walk, their hobnailed boots crunching in the snow as they helped push the sleds along. Frank led the horses instead of riding. The going was slow, and while they weren’t above the timberline, they were high enough so that only a few trees grew here and there. It was an almost colorless world, filled with the white of the snow and ice, the gray of rocks matched by the color of the threatening sky.

Frank could see Chilkoot Pass ahead of them and a little to the right, but it didn’t seem to come any closer during the day. He wasn’t the sort of man to be discouraged, but as they made camp that night under some sparse trees, he wondered if they were ever going to make it. He wondered, too, if he would ever be warm again. He wore one of the thick parkas now, like all the rest of the travelers, but all it did was blunt the force of the frigid winds that always seemed to blow up here.

Hundreds, maybe even thousands of men had traveled through this frozen hell in search of gold. He wouldn’t have done it for that, Frank knew. He had spent a lot of years being poor, so his attitude wasn’t the result of knowing that he had more money now than he could ever spend. He remembered quite vividly being hungry and penniless and not knowing where his next meal was coming from, if it came at all. And even knowing that, he thought that the gold just wasn’t worth it. He was here because he had given his word, that was all.

But everyone was different, he reminded himself. These young women were willing to travel thousands of miles and endure all these hardships so they could marry men they had never met. Men they didn’t know and didn’t love. Maybe they would grow to love their new husbands, but they couldn’t be sure of that. Why would they do such a thing?

There would be as many different answers to that question as there were women, he realized. And he supposed that was true of the men who came here to hunt for gold, too.

The next day was even colder and grayer as they trudged on toward Chilkoot Pass. Salty kept a wary eye on the sky, and so did Frank. But except for a few flakes that spit down briefly, no more snow fell.

The trail became even steeper, and their pace slowed to a crawl. The dogs were exhausted but continued to pull valiantly. As Salty put it, “Them mutts got more heart than I thought they would. A whole heap more!”

Frank harnessed Dog to the lead team so that the big cur could add his strength to that of the others. With maddening slowness, they climbed toward Chilkoot Pass. Stormy and Goldy struggled even more than the dogs, and several times, Frank thought that the horses weren’t going to make it. The bleak prospect occurred to him that he might have to shoot them to put them out of their misery if they couldn’t go on, rather than leaving them behind to freeze to death.

When the trail leveled off somewhat, they camped for a second night on the glacier. “Don’t think it gets any easier from here on,” Salty warned them. “The worst stretch is still up ahead, betwixt here and the pass.”

Frank didn’t see how the going could get any tougher than it already was, but he refrained from saying that. There was no point in tempting fate.

No one slept much anymore. It was too cold for that. They simply lay in their robes and blankets and shivered. As a result, everyone was exhausted. When they gathered around the stove for coffee in the morning, their faces were gaunt and haggard. They looked like corpses, Frank thought, and he knew he looked the same. He felt like he had aged a year in the past few days.

When the time came to push on, Marie sank down in the snow and said, “I cannot. I simply cannot go another step. Leave me here.”

“We’re not going to do that,” Fiona told her. “We’re not going to leave without you or anybody else.” Anger suddenly made her voice even hoarser than usual. “It’s bad enough I lost the two in the shipwreck. You’re all going to Whitehorse so I can collect my money! Get on your feet, damn it!”

Her mittened hands clenched into fists, as if she were about to spring forward and club Marie back to her feet. Frank put his hands on her shoulders and said, “Take it easy, Fiona,” while Meg went over to Marie and bent down to take hold of her arm.

“Let me help you, honey,” she said. “We can make it. We’ll just work together.”

Fiona turned and pressed her face against the front of Frank’s parka as she began to sob. “It’s just so cold,” she said. “So cold. And I’m so tired.”

Nobody could argue with that. They all felt exactly the same way.

After a few minutes, though, Fiona calmed down and stopped crying, and Meg was able to convince Marie not to give up. They resumed their trek through the somber light.

Salty was right, of course: The approach to Chilkoot Pass was the worst of all. Frank hung on grimly to the reins and did what he could to help the horses struggle up the slope. The dogs strained against their traces. The women clung to the sleds and pushed them along. An icy wind rushed down the glacier and pummeled them.

Frank had faced death more times than he could remember, had heard bullets whistle past his ears probably hundreds of times, and yet he had never felt as close to the grave as he did during that long, gray morning as they climbed toward the pass. He was numb in body, mind, and soul, and his brain had slowed to the point that all he could think about was holding on to the reins and putting one foot in front of the other.

He was in such bad shape that he didn’t even notice at first when the slope underneath him changed. He had taken several steps before he realized that he was going down, not up.

“Salty!” he shouted over the wind as he came to a sudden stop. “Salty!”

“Yeah, I know!” the old-timer’s voice came back to him. “I know, Frank! We’re there!”

They had reached the top of Chilkoot Pass.