Winter Kill Page 4

  He smiled slightly. “Maybe if you’d tell me what the job is, we could figure it out. All I know is that Jacob was supposed to guard some cargo for you. What is it? Supplies? Mining equipment?”

  “Not exactly, although my customers are all miners.”

  Frank suppressed the irritation he felt at the way she was making it difficult for him to find out anything. He asked bluntly, “What is it you’re taking to them?”

  “Women,” Fiona said.

  Frank grunted. He couldn’t hold in the startled question that came to his lips.

  “You’re a madam?”

  It was Fiona’s turn to look shocked again. “I should say not! How…how dare you imply…Do I look like the sort of woman who…who would engage in such…such an immoral, despicable—”

  Frank broke into her outraged sputtering. “You said you’re taking women to Alaska for the gold-hunters up there. What was I supposed to think?”

  “Brides, Mr. Morgan! Mail-order brides!”

  Frank blinked and frowned, then said, “Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed! I’ve never been so…so insulted!”

  “Now hold on a minute,” he said. “It was a natural mistake.”

  “No one else has ever mistaken me for a purveyor of fallen women.”

  “Maybe not, but I meant no offense.” She would probably just be more upset if he told her that he had known some madams who were fine women. The salt of the earth, in fact. She wouldn’t think that was possible. So he went on. “I’ve heard about such things, even known some fellas who sent off for brides like that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “Well, I’m so glad my business meets with your approval, Mr. Morgan.”

  Frank glanced at Captain Hoffman, who seemed to be having a hard time not laughing at him. He supposed the situation was a mite comical. It would have been more so, though, if it hadn’t been brought about by the death of a friend.

  “Is there someplace Mrs. Devereaux and I can talk in private, Captain?”

  Fiona said, “I’m not sure we have anything to discuss.”

  “I made a promise to an old amigo, and I intend to carry it out.”

  Hoffman said, “You can talk in my cabin, if Mrs. Devereaux agrees.”

  Fiona sniffed. “I suppose it woudn’t hurt anything to hear you out,” she said with obvious reluctance.

  “Thanks,” Frank said. He nodded to Hoffman. “Captain?”

  “Follow me, please.”

  He led them down to the main deck and opened a door that revealed some more stairs, heading down this time. They descended into a corridor with several doors on each side. Hoffman opened one of them and stepped back, holding out a hand to usher them inside.

  Fiona went in first, followed by Frank. The cabin wasn’t very large, especially considering the fact that it belonged to the captain, but Frank supposed that space was at a premium on board a ship. There was a narrow bunk, a comfortable-looking chair, and a table strewn with maps, along with a sextant and some other things that Frank didn’t recognize but supposed were navigation instruments.

  “I’m sorry, it’s not very fancy,” Hoffman said, “but make yourself at home anyway. I’ll be topside, if you need me.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Fiona said. She waited until Hoffman was gone, then put her handbag on the table, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked steadily at Frank. “I think I’d like to know more about your relationship with Jacob Trench, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Wasn’t really a relationship,” Frank said with a shrug. “We ran into each other a few times over the years. For all its size, the West is a smaller place than you might think. Jacob and I backed each other’s play a few times, when there was trouble. Out here, that makes a man your friend. Last time I saw him was in New Mexico Territory, ten or twelve years ago.”

  “And was there trouble then?”

  “There was. He was running a freight line, and outlaws were raising he—I mean, stealing shipments from him. I helped him put a stop to that.”

  “How?”

  Frank smiled. “Well, there are some folks who seem to think that I’m pretty good with a gun.”

  “Are you saying that you’re a…gunfighter?”

  “Yes, ma’am. For want of a better term, I reckon I am.”

  “Then you’re as capable of handling trouble as Mr. Trench was?” Fiona didn’t give him a chance to answer the question. Instead she shook her head and went on. “Of course you are. You must be more capable. You’re still alive, and Mr. Trench isn’t.”

  “One thing doesn’t always follow the other. There’s some luck involved sometimes, too. But yeah, not bragging or anything, I can take care of myself. I can handle the job of guarding you and those mail-order brides of yours, too.”

  “You sound quite confident.”

  “If a man’s honest with himself,” Frank said, “he knows what he can and can’t do.”

  She looked at him for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I suppose that’s true. It’s true of a woman, as well.” A smile curved her lips. “And I know that I’m not capable of taking a dozen young, eligible ladies all the way to Whitehorse by myself.”

  “Whitehorse? I thought you were going to Skagway.”

  “That’s just the first stop,” Fiona explained. “Our ultimate destination is the settlement of Whitehorse. That’s across the border in Canada, in the Klondike country, where the most valuable gold diggings are. From what I’ve heard, the terrain is very rugged. We’ll have to cross over something called Chilkoot Pass to get there.”

  Frank didn’t know anything about the geography of Alaska or Canada, but he supposed he could learn. It was also possible that they could pick up a good guide when they got to Skagway. His job would just be to make sure that Fiona and her charges were safe…assuming, of course, that she agreed to let him come along.

  If she didn’t…well, he might have to try to follow them and keep them safe, anyway. A promise was a promise.

  She seemed more amenable to the idea now, though. She had said we when she was talking about crossing Chilkoot Pass, wherever that was. So he said, “I give you my word I’ll do my best to get you there safely, ma’am.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake. Don’t ma’am me. And you don’t have to call me Mrs. Devereaux, either.” She laughed softly. “We shared a very pleasant dinner last night with you calling me Fiona. I don’t suppose there’s any real reason to change that. Especially not if we’re going to be traveling together.”

  “You’re agreeable to that, then?”

  “Well…I think I’d like to attend that inquest after all. If you’re going to be with us for hundreds of miles, I think I should be sure you’ve been officially cleared of any wrongdoing.”

  Frank fished his pocket watch from his jeans and flipped it open. “I reckon we’d better be going, then. It’s closing in on eleven o’clock.”

  He opened the door and let her precede him back to the deck. They paused there to look up at the bridge, where Captain Hoffman stood with his hands on the railing around it.

  “Captain, it appears that Mr. Morgan will probably be joining my party after all,” Fiona said.

  Hoffman tugged on the brim of his cap. “Aye, ma’am. Whatever you say. That’s your business.”

  Fiona smiled. “It certainly is.”

  As they left the ship, they passed the officer called Brewster, who was still at the head of the gangplank. He smiled and nodded to Fiona, then glared darkly at Frank, who just gave him a cool, level stare in return. Brewster didn’t like him, and Frank didn’t give a damn one way or the other.

  As they walked away from the waterfront, Frank said, “I’ll have to talk to the captain about my horses. I hope the ship can accommodate them.”

  “You’re bringing horses along?”

  “We’ll have to have some sort of transportation once we get to Alaska.”

  “Well, certainly, but I assumed we could hire a couple of wagons once we get there.”

/>   “Wagons may not be able to get over Chilkoot Pass,” Frank pointed out. “We’ll have to look into that. You and the ladies may have to ride all the way to Whitehorse. Seems like I’ve heard that they sometimes use dogsleds to get around up there, too, but only when there’s a lot of snow on the ground.”

  “There’ll be a lot to figure out once we get there, won’t there?”

  “Yes, ma’am…I mean, Fiona.”

  “And I’ll call you Frank.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned, Frank…your wages.”

  He chuckled. “To tell you the truth, I hadn’t even thought about it. Whatever you were going to pay Jacob will be fine by me.”

  He didn’t try to explain to her that he wasn’t doing it for the money, that he already had more money than he could ever possibly spend. That would just complicate matters unnecessarily. All he really cared about was keeping his word to Trench.

  “We can discuss that,” Fiona said. “Isn’t that the courthouse up ahead?”

  “Yep.” Frank checked his watch again. Not quite eleven o’clock. “Let’s get this over with. I never did like court.”

  The inquest went smoothly, however. Frank was sworn in and testified as to what had happened, and several witnesses who had been on hand for the shoot-outs agreed with his story. The police had also taken statements from a number of witnesses who weren’t there to testify, and those were entered into the record, too. The coroner’s jury didn’t have to deliberate. They rendered a verdict of murder in the case of Trench’s death at the hands of one of the Haggarty brothers, and the other four deaths were ruled to be self-defense on the part of Frank and Trench. The coroner dismissed the proceedings, and Frank was free to go.

  “Satisfied?” he asked Fiona as they left the courthouse.

  “As a matter of fact, I am. There’s just one more hurdle you have to clear, Frank, before you officially become a member of our party.”

  “And what’s that?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “You have to meet the brides.”

  Chapter 6

  Frank and Fiona went back to the Majestic Hotel. Along the way, Fiona explained, “These are fine, upstanding young ladies from respectable families in places like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, you understand. Many of them are quite well educated. I’m sure you’re wondering why such women would want to travel thousands of miles to a wilderness such as Alaska to marry men that they’ve never met.”

  “The thought crossed my mind,” Frank admitted. “I can understand why a man might send off for a wife when he’s in a place where there aren’t any women, but I can’t quite figure why a woman would be interested in a deal like that.”

  “There are a number of reasons. Some of them simply have a thirst for adventure. Others have suffered tragedies of some sort—the loss of a loved one, a failed romance, things like that—and want to make a fresh start somewhere else.”

  “I reckon Alaska’s about as much ‘somewhere else’ as you can get,” Frank commented with a smile.

  “Indeed it is. To these young women, it’s as faraway and exotic as, say, China would be.” Fiona paused. “But to finish my thought, and to be totally honest with you, Frank, some of the women who enter into arrangements like this are rather unattractive and don’t believe they’ll ever have a man any other way. Also, some are looking for a degree of financial security. If a man can afford to engage my services and have a bride brought to him, generally he’s either already well-to-do or has excellent prospects for being so. The women know that.” She laughed. “So, if you want to look at it that way, I suppose what I do is sort of like being a madam. I shouldn’t have been so offended when you mentioned it earlier.”

  Frank shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that at all. Seems completely different to me.”

  “I am in the business of selling women for money.”

  “Nope, not the same thing,” Frank insisted.

  “Well, I’m glad you feel that way.” She looked up at the front of the hotel. “Here we are.”

  They went inside the redbrick building and up the stairs to the second floor. Fiona said, “We’ll go to my suite, and I’ll have the ladies assemble there. I engaged six rooms for them, two to a room.”

  The mail-order bride business must pay pretty well, Frank thought. The Majestic wasn’t the fanciest hotel in the world, but Fiona had to be doing all right if she could afford to rent a suite and six more rooms for her charges.

  The sitting room of Fiona’s suite was comfortably furnished. She discreetly closed the door to the bedroom, then told Frank, “Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He felt a mite odd, standing there holding his hat in the sitting room of a lady’s suite, but luckily Fiona wasn’t gone very long. When she came back in, she had a dozen young women trooping along behind her.

  They were all shapes and sizes, Frank saw right away, with hair that ranged from palest blond to black as dark as a raven’s wing. The only thing they had in common was their age. Frank estimated that all of them were around twenty-five, past the first blush of youth but hardly getting on in years. Although some people uncharitably figured that a woman past the age of twenty who had never been married was an old maid, Frank thought.

  As Fiona had pointed out, some of the women were rather plain, but there wasn’t a single one of them Frank would have called downright ugly, and a few were pretty darned good-looking, in his opinion. One blonde in particular was really pretty, he thought. She had a nice quirky smile and cornflower blue eyes.

  She was the one Fiona introduced to him first, as well. “Frank, this is Margaret Goodwin. Meg, as she’s called.”

  Frank nodded. “Miss Goodwin.”

  “Meg,” she said. She held out a hand to shake, just like a man would have. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan. Mrs. Devereaux tells us that you’re a famous gunfighter.”

  “Well…some folks might say infamous,” Frank said as he shook hands with her. “Or even notorious.”

  “Yes, but if you’re going to be protecting us on our voyage, I prefer to think of you as famous.”

  Fiona motioned forward a little brunette with a lush figure. “This is Jessica Harpe.”

  Frank said, “Pleased to meet you, Miss Harpe.”

  For the next few minutes, Fiona continued the introductions. The names began to run together in Frank’s head: Elizabeth Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly, Marie Boulieu, Gertrude Nevins, Maureen Kincaid, Ginnie Miller, Constance Wilson, Wilma Keller, Elizabeth Tarrant, and Lucy Calvert. Elizabeth Jenkins went by Elizabeth, Elizabeth Tarrant by Lizzie, so Frank tried to make a note of that in his head. He knew it would take him a while to remember all their names, though. They were all unfailingly polite, and Frank instinctively liked them.

  When the introductions were finished, Fiona said, “Well, ladies, you’ve met Mr. Morgan. What do you think of him?”

  “He’s very handsome, in a rugged way,” Meg said with a smile.

  “I don’t care much for that gun, though,” Gertrude added. “Would a gentleman wear a weapon out in the open like that?”

  “Not in Philadelphia, where you’re from, my dear,” Fiona said. “I assure you, Seattle is not Philadelphia.”

  Gertrude sniffed. “I know. I heard all sorts of shooting and yelling in the street last night. It frightened me.”

  Frank said, “No offense, miss, but where you’re headed will be a lot more rugged and dangerous than Seattle is. You may have to ride horseback for miles up and down mountains, and there’ll be men who won’t hesitate to try to take what they want…which might include you.”

  A pink flush spread over Gertrude’s face. “That’s not really a proper thing to say, Mr. Morgan.”

  “I was raised to believe that it’s always proper to speak the truth. And the truth is, you ladies are in for a long, difficult journey. You may be faced with bad weather, bad food, and bad men. I promised a friend of mine that I’d do my best to se
e to it that you get where you’re going safe and sound. That’s what I intend to do if Mrs. Devereaux agrees, and the way I understand it, she’d like for you ladies to agree, too.”

  “That’s right,” Fiona said with a nod. “I had originally engaged his friend Mr. Trench to accompany us, but unfortunately, Mr. Trench was killed last night.” She looked at Gertrude. “It may well have been some of the shots you heard that were responsible for his demise.”

  Gertrude paled. “How terrible.”

  “Yes, it is. But Mr. Morgan has offered to step in for Mr. Trench. I appreciate that gesture on his part and intend to allow him to travel with us. What do you say?”

  “I’m all for it,” Meg said.

  “So am I,” Lucy added. She was a tall, lanky young woman with long, light brown hair.

  Several other women nodded or voiced their agreement, and one by one they all joined in until only Gertrude and Marie hadn’t said one way or the other. Marie, a slender young woman with a lot of curly black hair, shrugged and said with a slight French accent, “One gunman is much the same as another, I suppose.”

  “Well, I’m not going to vote against everyone else,” Gertrude said. “I do hope you won’t have to use that awful gun, though, Mr. Morgan.”

  “So do I, miss, so do I,” Frank said.

  He was going to be damned surprised if that was the way it turned out, though.

  With the question of whether or not Frank was going with them settled, Fiona sent the young women back to their rooms. Then she said, “Would you care to join me in the dining room for dinner, Frank? We can discuss the arrangements for the trip.”

  “I’d like that,” Frank replied with a nod. “I’ve got some questions about supplies and things like that.”

  They spent the next hour in the hotel dining room, eating and discussing the trip. With Skagway being the jumping-off point to Whitehorse and the rich gold fields of the Klondike country, it made sense to buy as many of the supplies needed for the journey as they could here in Seattle. Goods were cheaper and more plentiful than they would be in Skagway.