Winter Kill

Chapter 12

He should have known better.

Even before he climbed out of his bunk the next morning, Frank knew something was wrong. The ship was pitching around more than it had been earlier in the voyage, and he could hear the wind howling. He got up, swallowing the queasiness that tried to take hold in his stomach, and pulled on his clothes, including the sheepskin coat. Then he headed for the deck to look for Captain Hoffman and find out what was going on.

His boots slipped as soon as he stepped outside, and he had to grab hold of the side of the door to keep from falling. A thin, almost invisible layer of ice coated the deck. More sleet pelted down, making little thudding sounds against his hat as he started cautiously across the desk toward the stairs leading up to the bridge.

He went up them carefully, and when he reached the top he saw Hoffman at the wheel, huddled there in a slicker and rain hat. “Captain!” Frank called.

Hoffman looked back over his shoulder in surprise. “Mr. Morgan!” he exclaimed. “You’d better get back to your cabin! This isn’t fit weather for you to be out!”

“It doesn’t look like fit weather to be sailing in!”

“Don’t worry about the Montclair! She can handle a little blow like this!”

If Hoffman thought this was a little blow, Frank would have hated to see what the captain considered a major storm. The wind lashed viciously at the ship, and the angry waves seemed to be trying to toss it straight up into the sky. The sails were lowered, so the Montclair was running on its engines alone. Frank thought the wind would probably rip the sails to shreds if they were raised.

He leaned closer to Hoffman and asked, “We’re not that far from the coastline, are we? Maybe you should make a run for shore so we can ride out the storm there!”

“And risk being battered to pieces on some rocks?” Hoffman shook his head. “I know what I’m doing, Morgan! We’ll be all right! This squall will blow itself out before the day’s over!”

Frank didn’t believe that. It looked to him like the first of the winter storms had arrived a few weeks earlier than Hoffman expected it.

But he had to admit that he was no sailor, and certainly no expert where the sea was concerned. Hoffman had made this Seattle-to-Skagway run before. He ought to know what he was doing.

“All right!” Frank said. “But if there’s anything I can do to help…”

“Just go below, dry off, and don’t worry! We’ll be fine!”

As the day went on, though, it began to look like they would be anything but fine. The storm continued unabated. If anything, its ferocity seemed to grow stronger. Fiona and all the young women were sick again, as were some of the cheechakos. The ones who had purchased deck space were allowed belowdecks to huddle miserably in the corridors, because they would have frozen to death and wound up ice-covered corpses if they had remained topside.

Frank weathered the storm better than most of the landlubbers. His stomach was a little unsettled, but he never completely lost his appetite. He wound up taking his meals in the officers’ mess, at Captain Hoffman’s invitation. The officers expressed confidence in the captain and in the Montclair’s ability to handle this rough weather, but Frank thought he saw worry lurking in their eyes.

It was the same sort of concern he had seen more than twenty years earlier at Fort Lincoln, in the eyes of some of the junior officers of the Seventh Cavalry as they were about to follow Colonel George Armstrong Custer into Indian country. Frank had been passing through, headed in the opposite direction, and he remembered thinking that he wouldn’t have gone with those soldier boys for all the money in the world.

Now he had no choice but to put his trust in Captain Rudolph Hoffman. Hoffman was the only man who could get them where they were going.

The seas were still extremely rough that evening, but the wind had died down slightly. Sleet showers still lashed the vessel and added to the layer of ice that had formed on the deck. Frank slept only fitfully, and during the night he heard groans coming from some of the other cabins. The women were suffering a lot more than he was, but there was nothing he could do for them.

The next morning, he sought out Hoffman again and found the captain in his cabin, pouring over the charts. “Do you still think we’ll reach Skagway today?” Frank asked bluntly. He knew from looking at the maps that they would have to sail through Glacier Bay and then up a long inlet to reach the port city, and he hoped that once they made it to the bay, the water would be calmer.

“I…I don’t know,” Hoffman replied, and Frank didn’t like what he heard in the captain’s voice. The confidence and decisiveness that had been there earlier were gone now. “I’ve never seen a gale quite this bad. So early, I mean.”

Frank had a feeling Hoffman meant he had never encountered a storm this bad before, period. That wasn’t good.

“You do know where we are, don’t you?”

Hoffman got to his feet and glared angrily at Frank. “Of course I know where we are. Taking readings has been difficult because of the weather, but I’ve sailed these waters more than a dozen times. We’ll be fine, Mr. Morgan, and the best thing you can do is go back to your cabin and wait. If there’s anything you need to know, I’ll make sure you do.”

“All right,” Frank said, his face and voice grim. “I don’t mean any offense, Captain, but I promised an old friend that I’d get Mrs. Devereaux and those young ladies safely to their destination. I intend to do that.”

“So do I, Mr. Morgan. So do I.”

Frank went back to his cabin, and paused in front of the door to shake off some of the ice pellets that clung to his hat and coat before he went in. While he was standing there, the door to Fiona’s cabin opened. She peered out at him, her face haggard with strain.

“We’re not going to make it, are we, Frank?” she asked.

“I reckon we will,” he replied, trying not to sound as worried as he felt. “I just talked to the captain, and he says this is nothing to worry about.”

“Of course he says that! He’s not going to admit that we never should have left Seattle this late in the season!”

Frank refrained from pointing out to her that she had been just as determined to get to Skagway as Captain Hoffman was, if not more so. That wouldn’t do any good.

Fiona pawed hair out of her eyes and moaned. “We’re all going to die,” she said. “Frank…Frank, come in my cabin and hold me. I…I don’t want to die alone.”

“None of us are going to die,” he told her. “And I’m covered with melting ice right now.”

“I don’t care.” She clutched at his arms. “I’m so scared, I can’t be alone—”

With a grinding racket, the ship gave a sudden lurch. The deck tilted for a second under Frank’s feet, then settled back. That tilt was enough to throw Fiona into his arms. She screamed in fear as she fell against him. He held on tightly to her to keep her from toppling to the floor.

Eyes wide, she stared up at him and exclaimed, “Oh, my God! We hit something! We’re going to sink!”

“No, we’re not,” Frank said, although he didn’t know if that was true. “I’ll go find the captain and see what happened.”

By now, the doors of the other cabins were opening and the brides started to pour out into the corridor. Fear had banished their sickness for the moment. Several of them cried out, demanding to know what was going on.

Meg Goodwin was really the only one who didn’t look like she was on the verge of hysteria. Frank called her over and practically thrust Fiona into her arms.

“Take care of Mrs. Devereaux,” he said. “I’ll go find out what’s going on.”

“We hit something,” Meg said. “It’s just a matter of how bad the damage is.”

Frank figured she was right about that. He said, “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

He left the crowd of panicky women in the corridor and ran up the stairs to the deck. Something felt wrong, and as he emerged from the hatch, he could tell what it was. The ship had started to list a little to the right. Starboard, that was what the sailors called it, Frank told himself, then shoved that thought aside because it didn’t matter now. The important thing was that the Montclair must have suffered some serious damage, or it wouldn’t be tilting like that.

As he hurried toward the bridge, slipping a little on the ice that coated the deck, he saw that a frigid fog had closed in around the ship, but through those billows of white, he saw dark, hulking shapes sliding past. Ice-mantled pine trees thrust up from some of them. The ship was in the middle of a bunch of rocks and tiny islands, Frank realized. That meant they were a lot closer to shore than he had thought they were.

He wondered if Hoffman had known just how close those rocks were. Frank had a hunch that they had taken the captain by surprise.

Unfortunately, the storm was as fierce as ever. The waves tossed the Montclair back and forth. Frank felt the deck shuddering under his feet as the engines strained mightily to keep up. As he started to climb the steps to the bridge, he heard a dull boom somewhere from the bowels of the ship, and felt an even stronger shudder go through the vessel.

“Damn it,” he said under his breath. He didn’t know what the explosion meant, but it couldn’t be anything good. A boiler bursting, maybe?

He stumbled onto the bridge, saw Hoffman wrestling with the wheel while he shouted orders to several officers clustered around him. Over the howling of the wind, Frank caught one of the commands.

“Ready the lifeboats!”

Frank Morgan wasn’t the sort of man who ever gave in to despair, but even his fighting heart sank a little at the sound of those words. Hoffman wouldn’t order his men to prepare the lifeboats unless he planned to abandon the ship, and he wouldn’t abandon ship unless it was sinking. Frank glanced out at the storm-tossed waves and the jagged rocks sticking up through them like fangs. The thought of trusting his life and the lives of Fiona and the brides to a little boat in that maelstrom made a chill even icier than the wind go through him.

“Captain!” Frank shouted as he came up behind Hoffman. “Captain, what can I do to help?”

Hoffman spun toward him. “Morgan! Get those women together and into a lifeboat! The ship’s going down!”

“Do you have enough lifeboats for everybody?”

“Of course! They’ll be crowded, but we can make it! I recognize these islands! We’re not far from Glacier Bay. I…I miscalculated somehow!” Hoffman’s pale face under the rain hat was stricken as he made that admission. “But the current will carry the boats in to shore if they can stay off the rocks! You’ll be all right! Take as many supplies as you can, and if you follow the shoreline, it’ll take you to Skagway!”

The idea of trekking a hundred miles or more overland in weather like this wasn’t very appealing, but it beat the hell out of drowning in the icy Pacific, Frank thought. He nodded and turned to hurry back belowdecks.

Fiona and Meg were waiting for him, and to his surprise, so were Pete Conway, Neville, and a couple of other gold-hunters. Fiona grabbed his arm and asked, “What did the captain say?”

“Get some warm clothes on and grab everything else you can,” Frank said. “We’re abandoning ship.”

“So it is sinking!” Conway exclaimed. “We hit a rock or something, didn’t we?”

Frank nodded. “That’d be my guess. The same thing goes for you and your friends, Pete. Grab as many supplies as you can and head for the lifeboats.”

Conway looked scared, but he didn’t waste time asking any more questions. He turned to the others and said, “Let’s go, fellows.”

The next few minutes were barely controlled chaos. Frank made sure that the women were gathering supplies and understood what they were supposed to do; then he headed for the cargo hold where Stormy, Goldy, and Dog were. The horses would have to swim for shore. They wouldn’t fit in a lifeboat. He knew their chances of survival were slim, but he couldn’t leave them here. If any animals had the strength, stamina, and gallant hearts to make it through this ordeal, it was Stormy and Goldy.

The horses were frightened but not panicking. Dog barked furiously as Frank swung down into the hold. He came to Frank and reared up to slobber on his face. Frank grinned and roughed up the thick fur around Dog’s neck. “Stay with me, boy,” he said. “We’ll find room for you in the lifeboat.”

He looked around for the heavy planks that formed the ramp, intending to put them in place so that Stormy and Goldy could get out of there. He had just found them when a couple of sailors dropped into the hold.

“Captain Hoffman sent us to help you!” one of the men said. “He figured you’d want to get those horses of yours out of there!”

“Thanks!” Frank said. “Let’s get that ramp up!”

With grunts of effort, Frank and the two sailors wrestled the planks into place. Then Frank said, “We’ll need some of these supplies when we get to shore. Load as many of the crates as you can into the lifeboats!”

The men got busy with that while Frank slipped harnesses on the two horses and led them up the ramp to the deck. It was slippery for them, too, and he worried they might fall and break a leg before they ever got off the ship.

The women staggered up from below, their arms full of bundles. One of the ship’s officers had them place the supplies in one lifeboat, then climb into another themselves. “Hang on, ladies!” he told them, lifting his voice over the gale. “We’re about to swing you over the side!”

Several of the women screamed as the boat swung out on its davits and then was lowered to the stormy sea. It bobbed and leaped, and they had to hang on for dear life.

Frank bit back a curse as he watched. He wished he was in the same lifeboat, but it was too late to do anything about that. He’d been too busy loading supplies to stop.

Pete Conway came up beside him, grunting with the effort of carrying a crate. “I don’t know…what’s in here…Mr. Morgan,” the young man said, “but I reckon…we can probably use it!”

Frank recognized the crate containing the rifles, pistols, and ammunition and realized that Conway was carrying by himself what it had taken two sailors to load onto the ship. He took hold of it and helped Conway put it in one of the lifeboats.

Captain Hoffman came along the deck, shouting, “All passengers in the lifeboats! All passengers off! Abandon ship! Abandon ship!” He paused and looked at Frank. “God, I’m sorry, Morgan! I…I don’t know what happened!”

Frank didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if Hoffman was truly to blame for this catastrophe or if it was purely a case of bad luck, and right now he didn’t care. He took hold of Conway’s arm and said, “Climb in, Pete! I’ll be right back!”

He hurried over to his horses, grabbed their harnesses, and led them toward the edge of the deck where a section of railing had been swung out to let the lifeboats through. “You boys are gonna have to swim for it!” he told them. “I never had a better pair of trail partners! I’ll see you on shore!”

Frank didn’t know if the horses would jump off into the water or not. He didn’t have a chance to find out, because at that moment someone yelled, “Look out! The rocks!” and the Montclair gave a violent lurch. A rending crash of wood and metal and rock filled the air. The impact threw Frank off his feet.

He landed on the icy deck and slid toward the edge. Twisting, he slapped at the deck to try to slow himself, but the ship kept tilting. Timbers groaned and snapped and bulkheads crumpled as the waves drove it against a giant rock. Frank had no chance to stop his slide.

Like a rocket, he shot off the deck and plummeted toward the icy water below.