“No, sir. Ain’t none o’ my business.”
“I figured that since you’d worked with that deputy marshal and those range detectives, you were still a badge-toter at heart. Once a lawman, always a lawman, they say.”
Salty chuckled. “Tell that to all the fellers who wore a star and then turned crooked, or the ones that rode the owlhoot and then went straight. You can’t tell what a feller will be by lookin’ at what he was. Folks change all the time.”
“That they do,” Frank agreed with a solemn nod. “Look at you. You haven’t had a drink in more than two days.”
“And I’m feelin’ it, too,” Salty muttered. “But it’s gettin’ better, slowly but surely.”
“Go ahead and turn in and get some sleep. You’ll feel even better in the morning.”
“I hope so.”
Salty was up again when the first hints of gray began to appear in the eastern sky, and he woke all the others, too. “Ever’body up!” he called. “We got ground to cover today!”
They set off about an hour later, after everyone had had breakfast, including the sled teams. Dog didn’t care for the dried fish that the sled dogs ate, so he went bounding off into the trees and came back with a rabbit’s bloody carcass in his jaws. When the other dogs showed an interest in it, a deep-throated growl from the big cur made them think twice about trying to take his prize away from him.
With only a day’s experience behind them, Conway, Jennings, and the women were hardly seasoned veterans of the far north, but at least they had some idea what to expect now. The sleds moved smoothly over the snow, with the others following Salty’s lead. Frank rode alongside most of the time, since he didn’t know exactly where the trails were and Salty had a tendency of weaving in and out of hills and stands of trees, following the easiest route over the terrain. The snow was a little deeper the farther north they went, but it was still less than a foot except in the drifts, and the horses had no trouble with it.
By Frank’s estimation, they covered more ground that day than they had the day before. Whenever he looked toward White Pass in the distance, though, it didn’t appear to be any closer. Salty noticed him doing that one time and chuckled.
“You been in the high country enough to know what it’s like, Frank,” the old-timer said. “The air’s so clear it seems like you can see forever. It’s like crossin’ the Great Plains toward the Rockies. They look like they’re so close you can reach right out and touch ’em, but it still takes you days or even weeks to get there.”
“I know. If anything, the air is even clearer up here.”
“Yeah, especially when it’s cold. Alaska’s a great place, Frank. I don’t know that I want to spend the rest of my borned days up here, but I’m mighty glad I came. Yes, sir, even with all the bad things that’ve happened, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
Frank knew exactly what the old-timer meant. Life held a lot of pain and trouble, as he knew better than most, but those things were just the price folks had to pay for all the moments of beauty and joy. If a person was lucky, they would experience more of the latter than the former.
The women must have been getting used to the cold. There were fewer complaints today. They all seemed quite happy to gather around the fire Frank built at that night’s camp, though. Again, the men—except for Jennings—took turns standing guard all night, each of them paired up with one of the women. As it happened, Meg had the same shift as Frank.
They spoke briefly before splitting up to go to opposite sides of the camp. “You won’t be able to see much, so I’m sending Dog with you,” Frank told her. “He’ll know it if anybody comes around. If he starts growling, get ready for trouble.”
Meg hefted the Winchester in her hands. “Do I shoot?”
“Not unless you’re sure of what you’re shooting at. Could be some innocent pilgrim who saw our fire wandering up, looking for some hot food and coffee.”
“Or it could be Soapy Smith and his men coming to get us.”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, it could be. If you recognize any of that bunch, don’t hesitate to shoot. They’re not going to be up to anything good, that’s for sure.”
Meg started to turn away, then paused. “Doesn’t it ever get old, Frank? Constantly knowing that there’s somebody out there who wants to kill you?”
“I’ve been living with that almost ever since I got back from the war,” he said. “All I wanted to do was come home, marry the girl I loved, maybe someday have a ranch of my own. It didn’t work out that way, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter, so I try not to lose any sleep over it. I figure it was meant to be.”
“You didn’t choose the life you’ve led. It chose you.”
“Something like that.”
“But doesn’t that seem awfully…random? Don’t we have any control over what happens to us?”
“Sure we do,” Frank said, thinking that this was a mighty odd conversation to be having in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, with wolves howling in the distance. But then, Meg Goodwin was sort of an odd young woman. “Life pushes us one way, then another, and sometimes we push back. When we do, sometimes we win and sometimes we don’t. It’s all part of the game.”
“That’s what life is? A game?”
“The biggest one of all,” Frank said.
Meg stepped closer to him, reached up, and rested a mittened hand on his cheek. She brought her mouth to his and kissed him. When she stepped back, she said, “Then I’m all in.”
Then she grinned at him and turned to walk to the other side of the camp and stand her watch on guard duty. Frank stood there for a second, wondering what the hell had just happened, before he said, “Dog, go with her. Guard.”
The big cur loped off into the darkness.
In the morning, Meg didn’t say anything about what had happened, and neither did Frank. The group got started early again, heading toward White Pass. Frank hoped they would reach it today. Once they did, they wouldn’t be beyond the reach of Soapy Smith, but Frank figured the odds of an attack would go down.
Around midday, they came to a valley with a long, tree-dotted slope on each side. Salty brought his team to a halt and the others followed suit, with Meg calling to Jennings, “We’re stopping, Bart!”
Frank had been at the rear of the little convoy, talking to Pete Conway. As the sleds came to a halt, he rode forward to see why Salty had stopped.
The old-timer pointed at the bottom of the valley. “Down yonder is Eight Mile Creek.”
“I don’t even see a creek,” Frank said with a shake of his head.
“That’s ’cause it’s froze over and covered with snow.” Salty stepped off the runners at the rear of the sled and went to the piles of supplies. He started un-strapping a pair of snowshoes that were lashed to one of the bundles. “I’m gonna have to go down there and check the ice ’fore we can drive these sleds over it.”
“I’ll come with you,” Frank said.
Salty shook his head as he started fastening the snowshoes on his feet. “No, you stay here with the others. This here’s a one-man job.”
When the bulky snowshoes were fastened securely to his feet, he started tramping down the hill toward the creek. The snow wasn’t so deep that Salty really needed the shoes, Frank thought. The old-timer could have handled it just in his boots. But it was quicker and easier with the snowshoes, Frank saw as he watched Salty moving down the hill in a peculiar, gliding stride.
Several of the women got off the sleds to move around, and they came up to the lip of the hill to watch Salty’s progress, as well. Meg stood beside Stormy and asked Frank, “Will we just drive right over the ice?”
“If it’s thick enough to support the weight of the sleds and everything on them,” he replied. “The ladies probably ought to get off and walk across, just as a precaution.” Salty hadn’t said anything about that, but it just made sense to Frank.