Frank nodded. “I’ll go get ’em.”
One at a time, he led Stormy and Goldy up the gangplank, onto the deck, and then down the makeshift ramp into the hold. As he expected, neither of them had any trouble. They were both almost as nimble as mountain goats. The sailors had put up some partitions to form stalls in one corner of the hold, and buckets of fresh water and grain were already in place. Hoffman had done a good job of preparing for the unexpected four-legged passengers, and Frank intended to thank him and compliment him for his efforts. He left Dog belowdecks as well, telling the big cur to stay with Stormy and Goldy. Dog didn’t seem to like it much, but he would do whatever Frank told him.
When Frank started topside again, he heard women’s voices before he even emerged from the hold. As he came out on deck, he saw that Fiona and the young women had arrived at the wharf in several carriages, followed by a wagon piled high with baggage.
Captain Hoffman stood at the railing, a frown on his face. He glanced at Frank and said, “I hope we have room for all those bags. Women don’t travel lightly, do they, Mr. Morgan?”
“Don’t ask me a question like that when there are ladies in earshot, Captain,” Frank responded with a grin. Fiona had reached the top of the gangplank.
“Good morning, Frank,” she said. “Captain Hoffman, do we have your permission to come aboard?”
“Indeed you and your charges do, Mrs. Devereaux, ma’am,” Hoffman said. “Welcome to the Montclair, all of you.”
Chattering excitedly, the young women came up the gangplank and onto the ship. Hoffman had one of his officers show them to their cabins. It wasn’t Brewster who got the job, Frank noted. In fact, Frank hadn’t even seen Brewster this morning. He wondered if Captain Hoffman had assigned him to duties belowdecks to keep him out of the way. If so, that was fine for now, but Frank doubted if Hoffman would be able to keep the two of them apart all the way to Skagway.
The rain began to fall harder, which drove everyone inside except the sailors who had to be on deck. Frank lingered for a moment with moisture dripping off the brim of his hat as he said, “We’re putting ourselves in your hands, Captain.”
“Don’t worry,” Hoffman said as he buttoned up the slicker he had put on. “In less than a week, you’ll be in Skagway. And once you’ve seen that hellhole, you may wish you were back on my boat, Mr. Morgan!”
The captain’s prediction stayed with Frank as the ship weighed anchor a short time later and used its steam engine to push itself away from the dock, out into Elliott Bay and then Puget Sound itself. Just how much of a hellhole was Skagway?
Frank had seen many boomtowns in his time, most recently the silver mining town of Buckskin in Nevada. He had served as the marshal there for a while, and he had to admit that it had been an exciting, violent time. It was entirely possible that Skagway was worse, since it was more isolated. Frank didn’t know if there was any law up there beyond what the settlers themselves made.
He wondered if Whitehorse would be better or worse. At least across the border in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had jurisdiction. Frank had run into a few Mounties in the past and knew them to be tough, capable hombres.
But he was getting ahead of himself. They still had several days worth of sailing to go before they arrived in Alaska. He went to the tiny porthole of the cabin he had been assigned and looked out at the rain-lashed waters of the sound. He felt the faint vibration of the deck under his feet from the engines and heard their deep-throated rumble. That was reassuring. The engines were powerful enough so that they sent the vessel through the water at a steady pace. The ship pitched some—enough to make Frank a little queasy, in fact—but he thought he would get used to it without much trouble. He hoped so, anyway.
But even if he did, he would still be mighty glad to have dry land under his feet again.
He remembered looking at one of the maps in Captain Hoffman’s cabin. From Puget Sound, the ship turned west and headed through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which led to the Pacific Ocean. Frank had seen the Pacific on numerous occasions, most recently during a dustup in the redwood country of northern California, but it was always an impressive sight, stretching out endlessly to the horizon. Frank looked out at the mountains that wore a gray shroud of clouds and rain and knew that he was bidding farewell to land for a few days.
A knock sounded on his door, taking him a little by surprise. He turned away from the porthole and went to answer the summons. When he swung the door open, he found Fiona standing there. She had shed her coat and hat and wore an elegant traveling gown of some dark gray fabric that clung to her body.
“Well, we’re on our way, Frank,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. I was just watching the shoreline fall behind us.”
She lifted a bottle that had been partially concealed behind the folds of her dress. “I thought we might have a drink to commemorate our departure and the start of our new venture.”
“It’s your venture, not mine,” Frank pointed out. “I’m just a hired hand.”
“I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. I could use a partner, Frank. I was considering making that offer to Mr. Trench, once I got to know him better, but since he’s gone…I’m making it to you.”
“Me? In the mail-order bride business?” Frank managed not to laugh at such a loco notion. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea. I don’t have much of a head for business.”
That was why he had firms of high-priced lawyers in San Francisco and Denver looking out for his interests, he thought…but he didn’t say that to Fiona.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’d handle all the business end of the operation. What I need is a man to make the details run smoothly, and I must say, I’ve been very impressed with the way you’ve handled everything. I’m sure that if we run into trouble, you’ll handle that, too.”
“That’s what I figure, but you don’t need a partner for things like that, Fiona. You just need somebody to work for you, like Jacob was going to. Like I am.”
“A man does a better job if he has a personal stake in something,” Fiona said as she moved closer to him and shut the cabin door behind her. “That’s why I thought we could have a drink and talk about extending your involvement.”
He was slow as molasses sometimes, Frank thought as he suddenly realized why she had really come to his cabin. He said, “I’m still not sure that would be a good idea…”
She was right in front of him now, only inches away. She laid her free hand on his chest and murmured in that intriguingly hoarse voice of hers, “I think it would be an excellent idea.”
Frank was as human as the next hombre, and Fiona Devereaux was a beautiful woman with what appeared to be an excellent bottle of whiskey in her hand. He slid his left arm around her waist and pulled her closer.
“Sailors have a saying,” she said as she tipped her head back to look up into his eyes. “Somewhere in the world, the sun is over the yardarm.”
“I reckon I’ll drink to that,” Frank said. “Later.”
Chapter 9
Despite the rough seas, the Montclair handled the waves easily that first day. Frank went up on deck when the rain stopped that afternoon and saw that Captain Hoffman had ordered the crew to raise the sails. They were full and billowing as the ship tacked back and forth, running before the wind. The engines still chugged along, but they didn’t have to work as hard with the sails raised.
Frank quickly discovered that being on deck where he could see the horizon rising and falling with each wave made his stomach feel worse. He was about to turn around and go below when Captain Hoffman hailed him from the bridge.