Winter Kill

Chapter 23

By the time Frank got back to the livery stable, Conway had brought all the women across the street. They were gathered in the big center aisle of the barn, fully dressed, with blankets wrapped around them. The stable’s feisty little proprietor was there as well, and he greeted Frank by saying, “Mr. Morgan, this here is a livery stable, not a danged hotel!”

“It’s only for one night, Clem, and we’ll pay you extra,” Frank told him. “But the ladies are staying here. Soapy Smith’s men just tried to kidnap them.”

The stableman’s eyes widened. “You know that for a fact?”

“I can’t prove it, but I’m sure Smith was behind what happened.”

The man rubbed his beard-bristly jaw. “Well, I got to admit, I wouldn’t be surprised. Soapy’s friendly, but sometimes he seems like a mite of a shady character, too. I wouldn’t go spreadin’ stories about him that I couldn’t prove, though. Those fellas who work for him can be mighty rough.” The stable man lowered his voice and went on. “I don’t reckon you need to pay me any extra. It ain’t costin’ me nothin’ to have these ladies here, and it’ll be good for business when word gets around that nigh on to a dozen honest-to-God women spent the night in my stable!”

Frank grinned and clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Thanks, Clem.” He turned to the women. “Ladies, right up that ladder is the hayloft. I think you can take your blankets and make yourselves comfortable up there. We’ll stay down here to make sure no one bothers you again tonight.”

“All right,” Meg said with a smile, “but you should have seen Ruth and Wilma blazing away at those men who tried to get into our room. They were a couple of real Annie Oakleys!”

The two young woman blushed, but they looked pleased by the praise.

Frank asked the proprietor, “Is there an outside door into that loft?”

“Yeah, but it’s closed and bolted from the inside. Nobody can get in that way. Only way is up the ladder.”

Frank nodded. “Good. One man can guard it, then. Pete, Salty, we’ll take turns doing that, along with Dog. Bart, you find yourself a place and get some sleep.”

“Dadgum it, I wish I could help more,” Jennings protested. “I still feel like I owe you folks for what I helped Ben and those other fellas try to do.”

“Maybe the time will come,” Frank said. “Your sight might come back when your eyes heal up some more.”

“I sure hope that’s true.”

The women climbed up into the hayloft, taking their blankets with them. The proprietor retired to his quarters in the rear. Only one lantern was burning, and Frank turned the flame on it down so that it cast only a faint glow. The doors were all closed and fastened, and he didn’t see any way that Smith’s men could get at them easily. He should have brought the women in here earlier, he told himself, but he’d been trying to give them as much comfort as possible before they started the long, arduous journey to Whitehorse.

Of course, if Smith was angry enough over what had happened, he could order his men to set the barn on fire. Frank was convinced Soapy wouldn’t do that, though. For one thing, if the barn burned down and the women were killed in the blaze, then Smith would lose any chance of getting his hands on them. For another, the inhabitants of most frontier communities lived in fear of fire, and Frank figured Skagway was no different. With so many frame and canvas buildings, out-of-control flames might spread rapidly, and the whole settlement could burn to the ground. It had happened many times before in the West. Frank had even witnessed such an inferno firsthand, a number of years earlier.

So as far as Frank could tell, this was the safest place for all of them tonight.

Salty came over to him and volunteered to take the first watch while Frank and Conway got some sleep. Frank studied the old-timer intently and said, “Are you all right? The thirst isn’t too bad?”

Salty licked his lips. “That’s one reason I figured it might be best for me to take the first turn,” he said. “Right now, I ain’t got the fantods yet, but I ain’t sure how long that’ll last. Without some Who-hit-John to ease me through the night, the bugs’re liable to be crawlin’ all over me ’fore mornin’. I’m hopin’ that ain’t the way it is…but it might be.”

“All right, then it’s a good idea for you to take the first watch, like you said,” Frank agreed. “Let out a shout if there’s any trouble, though.”

“Don’t you worry. If anything bad starts to happen, I’ll holler so loud they’ll hear it clear down on the Rio Grande.”

Nothing bad happened, though. The night passed peacefully except for a brief commotion when the young women discovered that they were sharing the hayloft with a few rats. Frank shooed the varmints away, and the ladies settled down after that and got some more sleep.

The snow had stopped by morning, but the storm had left about six inches on the ground with deeper drifts in places. The Swede delivered the dogs at eight o’clock, as promised. By that time Frank and Conway had the sleds ready in front of the livery stable, with the supplies already loaded on them. Salty supervised the hitching of the dogs to the sleds, trying to pick out the best animals and split them up among the teams. While that was going on, Frank saddled Stormy and Goldy, using saddles and tack that had been on a couple of the outlaws’ horses, then told everyone else to go over to the hotel and have a good breakfast before they left.

“I’ll stay here to keep an eye on our outfit,” he added.

Salty shook his head. “Let me do that, Frank,” the old-timer insisted. “I never have much of an appetite of a mornin’, and I sure as shootin’ don’t today.”

“How are you doing?” Frank asked.

Salty lifted a slighty shaking hand and stroked his beard. “Not as bad as I figured I would be. I reckon I’m in plenty good enough shape to stand guard over our belongin’s, but I don’t figure I could stomach any food. Maybe later I can gnaw some jerky on the trail, and if we stop in the middle o’ the day to brew up some coffee, I might give that a try.”

“All right, if that’s the way you want it,” Frank said with a nod. “Pete and I will go over to the hotel with the women, to make sure Smith doesn’t try anything again over there. Dog, stay here with Salty.”

The old man grinned under his beard. “You might as well be leavin’ a regiment with me. That critter’s worth a heap o’ fightin’ men in a ruckus.”

Frank and Conway escorted the women across the street to the hotel. It was frozen solid now under the snow, so they didn’t have to worry about the mud. Frank scanned the street carefully for any sign of Soapy Smith and his minions. He didn’t see anybody he recognized, but he realized Smith could have plenty of men working for him that Frank didn’t know about. Still, no one made a move that was out of line.

The women’s entrance into the hotel dining room caused quite a stir among the men having breakfast. The news of what had happened the night before had gotten around town, and men who would have craned their necks anyway to get a glimpse of the mail-order brides were even more interested because the women were accompanied by the notorious gunfighter known as The Drifter.

Frank ignored the curious stares, as he always did, and ushered the women to a big, empty table. They were the only females in the place. A waiter brought coffee for everybody, and Frank ordered hotcakes and bacon all around. This would clean out the last of his cash. From here on, though, they would be living on the supplies he had already bought, plus whatever fresh meat they could kill along the trail.

“Eat as much as you can,” Frank told the women as the platters of food arrived at the table. “You won’t be getting another meal like this for a while. Not until you get to Whitehorse, anyway.”

The women followed his advice and ate heartily, finishing off several platters of hotcakes and bacon and washing the food down with three pots of coffee. When they were finished, Lucy Calvert moaned and said, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll need to eat again for a month!”

“You’d better remember that,” Meg told her with a grin. “The rest of us will split your share of the supplies.”

“Now, hold on—” Lucy said before realizing that Meg was joking. She smiled and laughed then, too.

Frank settled the hotel bill, including the breakfast, and then he and Conway took the women outside again. Fiona said quietly to him, “I owe you more than I can ever repay, Frank, and I’m not just talking about money. Although I intend to make things right with you on that account, too.”

“Wait and see how things go when we get to Whitehorse,” he told her.

“All right, but just don’t forget…you can have anything you want from me. That’s how much I’m in your debt.”

Before he could think about what Fiona meant by that, he heard Conway say in a warning tone, “Frank…” and looked up to see Soapy Smith standing near the sleds, along with Yeah Mow Hopkins, Joe Palmer, Sid Dixon, and Big Ed Burns. Salty Stevens was on the other side of the sleds, clutching a Winchester tightly in his gnarled hands. Dog was at his side, growling softly.

Smith grinned and waved a hand toward the old-timer and the big cur, saying, “Call off your dogs, Morgan…both of ’em.”

Frank didn’t respond to Smith right away. He said to Conway, “Take the women into the livery stable, Pete. Keep them there until I tell you it’s clear.”

“Right, Frank,” the young man said. He glared at Smith and kept his rifle pointing in the man’s general direction as he went with the women into the stable.

Still smiling, Smith said, “All this caution isn’t necessary, Morgan. We may have had our differences yesterday, but that’s all in the past. I’m not the sort of man who believes in holding a grudge.”

Frank didn’t believe that for a second. “What about last night?” he snapped.

“Last night?” Smith said, raising his eyebrows in apparent innocence. “I heard that there was some sort of ruckus at the hotel, but it didn’t have anything to do with me. What was that all about, anyway?”

“Somebody tried to kidnap the women and kill the rest of us.” Frank paused, then added meaningfully, “I figured you knew all about it.”

Smith shook his head. “No, this is the first I’ve heard exactly what happened.”

That was a bald-faced lie, and all of them knew it, but Frank didn’t have any proof to the contrary. He thought about the man whose throat had been cut and glanced at Sid Dixon. The little opium addict gave him a sly grin that caused anger to well up inside Frank. Dixon could have untied the man and helped him to escape. Instead, he had taken the quick, easy way out and used his knife, probably because he enjoyed it. As far as Frank was concerned, a man like Dixon was lower than a snake’s belly.

“Anyway, I’d heard that you were leaving this morning,” Smith went on, “and I just wanted to come over and wish you good luck on your journey. I’m sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement on a business arrangement,” he shrugged, “but I respect your decision on that.”

“You came to wish us good luck,” Frank said, allowing a tone of skepticism into his voice.

“Sure. It’s a long way to Whitehorse. A long, hard way.” Smith was still smiling, but hatred burned in his dark, deep-set eyes. “And I figure that you’ll be able to use all the luck you can get.”