White Silence (10 page)

There were still a number of men and women out, even in the lowering dark. Still, Fitz easily recognized the figure headed down the wharf. It was Danny. He’d gotten the message they’d left at the hotel, then. Fitz took the lantern, wound his scarf tightly around his neck, and went to meet him.

The young Immortal’s lips were white with anger, his dark blue eyes fierce. Fitz had never seen him so furious.

“Foster’s coming to my aid in Seattle—are you thinking that too was a part of the scheme?” Danny asked.

“Possibly,” MacLeod replied. They were in the lounge of the
Belle Claire.
Silas Witherspoon’s fine store of liquor was being put to use this night. “Probably.”

“We’ll never know for certain, Danny,” Fitz said. “Smith and his gang are, it seems, such a nefarious group of scoundrels that nothing is beyond them.” He paused.

“For an instance, Minnie Dale”—Danny’s lip thinned—“she’s most likely even more a victim than us. The Indian told MacLeod that the guide who led her party was one of Smith’s men. And he led them straight to the bandits.”

“Who were also in the pay of Mr. Smith,” Danny finished. “But if these things are known to be true, why then isn’t he stopped?”

“Because half the town thinks he’s a fine, upstanding businessman,” Duncan said bitterly, “and the other half is on his payroll.” He stood abruptly and began pacing the cabin. Fitz suspected that he was once more berating himself for his previous night’s conversation with Smith.

“And I,” Duncan continued, confirming Fitz’s suspicion, “I did everything but hand Sam’s brother over to him.”

“That’s past and done, laddie,” Fitz said. If Duncan were not distracted, he could spend hours, days, even weeks, brooding. “If your Indian friend has the truth of it, there’s naught we can do about Mr. Call-me-Soapy Smith. But what we can do is—oh, what that’s Latin saying? I got it from a gorgeous young thing, Sister Immaculata her name was, the youngest daughter of the duke of Napoli. Sent to a convent for no other reason than that she’d taken a liking to me!—”

“Fitzcairn.” Duncan said. He folded his arms, his face set.

“Ah, yes.” Fitz said. “
Carpe diem.
I think that’s it. It means seize the day. Or in this case, the night.
Carpe noctem?
”

Duncan and Danny both stared at him.

“What I mean is—what do we do now?”

Duncan frowned.

“Well, perhaps it’s not quite the right turn of phrase for the situation. But you get my drift?”

“I must go and talk to Minnie.” Danny said. “I’d—this is not the best time for it, now, but—I’d been intending to ask you, Mr. MacLeod, if she might not travel back to Seattle on this boat. I was hoping that you would be willing to write Miz Benét and ask her to look after Minnie?”

Fitz and Duncan exchanged a glance. That was a far more sensible plan than any they had thought Danny would propose concerning Minnie Dale. It seemed the lad could let his head guide his heart.

“I can’t think of any reason why not,” Duncan said. “She can give Claire my first report for her—uncle.”

“With a few facts in it about Jeff Smith,” Fitz added. “We can’t do him harm here, but we can tip others to the truth.”

Danny brightened. “I’ll tell her straightaway, then. I don’t want her to spend another night beholden to that bastard.” He rose.

“Danny. A moment. Fitzcairn’s right. We do need to make plans.”

The young Immortal smiled and shrugged. “We cross that mountain out there. We’ve come too far to do otherwise.”

Sure and I’m fortunate,
he thought. He’d not wanted to raise the town looking for Minnie and the gent she was supping with. So he tried her tiny house the first thing, and found her there. She was in her undergarments, the flouncy white dress she wore for her piano playing spread out on the bed.

As quick and simple as he could, he told her then of what they’d found out about Smith. She paled and grew faint when it came to her that the man who she’d been working for was behind her husband’s death. But before she could take on, he gave her the good part of his news—that he’d found her a way home. In but a day or two, when he and his friends went on, she could board the
Belle Claire
and be gone from this vile place. Long before the winter set in. Just as he had promised.

“You could stay on in Seattle a bit, if you want. Or go on from there back to Vancouver.” He smiled tenderly. “As long as I know where to find you. And when we’re rich, we can live wherever it pleases you most.”

They had been sitting at the small table, chairs drawn close together. Minnie rose and fetched her wrapper from the foot of the bed. She drew it on slowly, her back to Danny. She turned, pulling the belt tight, and sat down again. She took his two hands in hers. Danny felt a flutter in his belly. Something was amiss.

“Danny,” she spoke softly, but did not raise her eyes to his, “the man I met with tonight? His name is Fergus, Fergus Cooley. He’s someone I’ve known a good while. He worked with Eamon. Danny—” She squeezed his hands and looked him full in the face. Her eyes were bright, near feverish. “He did it! He found the gold! A rich claim, one of the biggest since the first lot, they say!”

“That’s a happy thing for a man that’s just setting out to hear, Minnie,” he said, carefully. Why was she flushed so? And why was she telling him this?

Abruptly, she pushed back her chair and crossed to the corner of the room where her heavy coat hung on a peg. She reached into a pocket, and took something out. She turned but stayed in the corner.

“He took me to the Pack Train for dinner. And a grand dinner it was! We had the finest of food. And champagne so light it fizzed on my tongue. And sweet chocolate afterward. I’ve not had chocolate since even before I came up here.”

She walked to the table, carefully unwrapping the scrap of red silk she held in her hand. “After the plates were cleared, he told me to close my eyes. And when I opened them this was in front of me.”

She showed him then. It was a ring, gold with one big diamond. Danny knew nothing about diamonds, if they were to be judged by size for instance. But he could see that the ring looked like a gift from someone who had money.

“He’s asked me to marry him, Danny. He came back to Skagway just to ask.”

For an eyeblink, Danny was back once more in Temper-anceville. It was the evening of the explosion at the glass works. He’d found all his belongings sitting on the porch of the boardinghouse, packed up by the widow who ran the place. Though they had been sharing a bed for more than a year, she’d not answered when he knocked and called out her name. He had not loved her. But he had thought that she might love him.

Love. “Do you love him then, Minnie?” he asked, with a dreadful calm.

She hesitated. “He’s a good man, Danny. He was a good friend to Eamon. I think that Eamon would want this for me.” She sighed and sat by him once more. “We came up here, the two of us, so that he wouldn’t have to work behind a counter doing another man’s bidding. And I wouldn’t have to spend my days teaching piano to little girls who dressed far better than me.

“Fergus Cooley is rich, Danny! He can give me everything that Eamon and I dreamed about!”

Danny grabbed her hand and held it fast. The ring lay between them. “I’ll be rich, too, Minnie. If you can wait but a while longer, we’ll be able to live those dreams together!”

“No.” She shook her head. The dark cloud of her hair fell over her shoulders. “I’ve lived too long the months I’ve been here. There’s a hundred times a hundred men I’ve seen pass through. And a hundred times a hundred stories I’ve heard of the few that made it and the many that didn’t. I know now what fools Eamon and I were to have ever left home. And bless you, Danny O’Donal, you and your friends are no different.”

She was weeping now, silent tears staining her pale cheeks. “It makes no sense, coming so quick as it did. Still, it’s true. I do love you, Danny. But I’ll not wait in Seattle in hopes that you’ll come back to me with a pocketful of gold.”

Danny stood. His voice was harsh. “I’ll not be begging you, Minnie Dale. But I will return, with bags full of gold. Whether there’s any one waiting for me or no.” He swept the ring from the table with the back of his hand. Then he picked up the chair and threw it against the wall. It struck the small mirror above the washbasin, shattering it. “And when I do, it may be that I’ll come looking for you and your new man.”

Minnie cringed. He was frightening her, he could tell. He had seen that look on a woman’s face a time or two before. But this woman had herself been an argonaut. She had no lack of courage. She stood, facing him down. Sobbing the while, she asked him to leave. With a muttered oath, he did so.

The night was crisp and chill. Fergus Cooley. It was a name that a barkeep would likely remember. Danny set out for Broadway.

“Mr. MacLeod.”

Duncan stopped and turned. Coming toward him along the snow-dusted street was none other than Soapy Smith.

“You’re an early riser, MacLeod,” Smith said. “I asked after you at the hotel, but they said you’d been up and about for quite some time.”

“What is it you want, Smith?” Duncan asked.

“To do you a favor.” He smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “I like to help people out. I’m sure you’ve heard that said about me.”

“I’ve heard quite a bit about you the last little while,” Duncan answered. “I’m not sure if my friends and I need any more of your help. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve business elsewhere.”

“Well, I thought you might be concerned about young Mr. O’Donal.” Smith shrugged. “If not …”

Duncan hesitated. Fitz was at the moment gone to Minnie Dale’s to fetch Danny. They’d assumed he’d spent the night there.

“What about Danny?” he asked, an edge in his voice. This was not a game he cared to play.

“He went a bit wild last night, I’m afraid. You know Mrs. Dale? The woman who plays piano in my establishment? She’d accepted the proposal of an old friend earlier in the evening. O’Donal spent hours drinking and looking for her intended.” He shook his head in mock dismay.

“Never found the man. But he did run across Jim Foster. They got into a fierce row. Some of Foster’s friends came to his defense and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, your young friend got the crap beat out of him.” Smith held Duncan with his clear gray eyes, gauging his reaction.

“And where might he be now?” Duncan asked, levelly.

Smith gestured across the street. “The boys locked him in the back room of Clancy’s.”

Duncan started towards the bar, Smith following behind. “Of course, if I’d known about this earlier, I’d have made sure he got medical attention. But no one told me ’til this morning.”

The bar was closed. Smith produced a huge ring of keys from inside his coat. After three attempts, he found the correct one. The two men entered, passed through the deserted room, and stopped in front of a small door to the left of the make-shift stage where the dancing girls performed. Smith sorted through the keys again. He turned the lock and pushed the door open.

The room reeked of whiskey. Inside, Danny lay curled up in a dark corner, snoring loudly. Duncan shook him awake. He got to his feet, with some assistance, and shuffled into the light.

There was a good deal of blood spattered on his coat front, and dried blood around his nose and in his hair. He was clearly hungover. But other than that, he was fine. The damage done to him had healed during the night. And judging by the look of surprise that Smith could not hide, that damage must have been major.

“Go outside, Danny,” Duncan said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

The young Immortal left, and Duncan faced Soapy Smith. “Hear me well, Mr. Smith. I know what you are. I know your game.”

“Yes?” Smith said coolly. “That would be?”

“At the least, you’re a cheap crook and a lowlife grifter. At the worst, you’re some sort of human vulture, feeding on the hopes and dreams of decent people. You’ve had a piece of luck here in this town up to now. But that will change. You’ll go down. I’ve seen it happen more often than you would believe.”

Duncan moved closer to the man. Only a few inches separated them. “I almost wish I could be here when the good people of this town—and I do believe there really are some—come for you. However, my friends and I are leaving Skagway. By noon tomorrow, we’ll be gone.” He reached out and fingered the fur collar on Smith’s coat.

“Between now and then, it would be in everybody’s best interests if none of the boys cross paths with us. Or with Siwash Sam and his brother.”

Smith moved back a step. He took out his gold watch and made a show of consulting it. “Noon tomorrow you say? I hope, Mr. MacLeod, that I can count on that.” He clicked the watch shut and inclined his head. “Good day, Mr. MacLeod. And Godspeed.”

Siwash Sam was native to the land. He was not old by the standards of his people. But compared to the cheechakos, he was as ancient as any of the elders.

He and his brother had been working with the white men for many years. The Canucks, the squaw men who lived among the Indians, the red-coated Mounties who tried to bring a law based on books to the land. And for the past two seasons, they had made much money by guiding the men (and some women, too) who had poured in from the south and the east. They came like the vast herds of elk, driven by a hunger not for food but for the gold that hid in the rocks and streams.

The wealth the white men coveted had been buried for time beyond time. The land did not give it up easily. Sam had seen more, many more, fail than succeed. But he and his brother were paid, whatever the outcome of the quest. It was their life.

Siwash Sam had known from early on what manner of white man Jefferson Randolph Smith was. Accordingly, he and his brother had avoided Skagway, hiring out instead to haul gear from Dyea, north of Skagway, over the fearsome Chilkoot Pass. But an avalanche at Chilkoot had recently closed the pass (and killed scores of luckless cheechakos). So they had come to Soapy Smith’s town, where his brother had nearly lost his life by being in the wrong place at the right time.

That he was alive was due to the Scotsman—and Sam’s true aim with a snow-covered rock. Now the Scotsman and his two friends—the wiry little Englishman and the young Irishman—were to be Sam’s responsibility. He had made an agreement, settled by a handshake, to guide them over the White Pass, and on to Dawson. Where they would no doubt be lost to the gold fever.