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.”