Frank?”
“You can count on it,” Frank promised.
“I know you will…Frank, pull that rag…off my eyes…would you?”
“Sure.” Gently, Frank worked the strip of cloth up onto Jennings’s forehead, uncovering his injured eyes. “Can you see anything, Bart?”
A smile suddenly wreathed the dying outlaw’s face. “Yeah!” he said. “I can see…my ma…and my brothers… and…and…my wife…”
His final breath came out of him in a long sigh. His eyes continued to stare sightlessly at the blue Alaskan sky. With a grim look on his face, Frank reached out and closed those dead eyes.
Then he stood and looked down the hill, seeing a thin column of smoke rising from somewhere along the creek bank. Conway had gotten a fire going to thaw out Salty, as Frank had told him to do. Leaving Jennings where he was, Frank started down the slope toward the others.
They had some planning to do.
Chapter 27
“Here’s the thing,” Salty was saying an hour later. “They didn’t head back toward Skagway. It looks to me like they’re headin’ for an old sourdough’s cabin a couple o’ miles or so east o’ here. It’s the only thing in that direction ’cept some mountains that you can’t get through.”
Conway frowned in confusion. “If they’re Smith’s men, why aren’t they taking the women back to Skagway? That’s why he sent them after us, isn’t it? To get the women?”
The three men were standing near the spot of the brief battle. A mound of rocks marked the place where Bart Jennings’s body lay, wrapped in a blanket that had been tied securely around him. It was the best they could do in the way of a burial, at least right now. Salty had suggested that someone could come back in the spring, when the ground had thawed out, and see to it that Jennings was laid to rest properly. Jennings might not have redeemed himself completely from the life he had led as an outlaw, but at least he had made a good start on it. That was more than some men ever did, Frank thought.
There were two more bodies still lying in the open: the man Jennings had choked to death and another of the bushwhackers, who had been mauled by Dog. They had found that one in the edge of the trees. The bodies would be left for the wolves. It was a hard fate, but they had brought it on themselves by going to work for a murderous snake like Soapy Smith.
Frank was still convinced that Smith was behind the attack, even though the bushwhackers hadn’t started straight back to Skagway with their prisoners. In reply to Conway’s question, he said, “Smith didn’t send them
Salty was wrapped up tightly in a thick fur robe to help ward off a chill. He looked at Frank and exclaimed, “Doggone it if you ain’t right! That’s how come you never spotted ’em when you checked our back trail.”
Conway shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Smith had those men leave Skagway the night before we did, after the attacks at the hotel and the livery stable didn’t pan out,” Frank explained. “Most of them, anyway. I’m convinced that Dixon was with them, but he could have circled around us and caught up to them later with more orders from Smith. Smith knew where we were going and knew the route we’d be taking, so he put his men in front of us to watch for a good opportunity to jump us and grab the women. They must have been hidden in the trees. When they saw Salty fall through the ice and Pete and I rushed down there to help him, they figured that was their chance.”
“Then it’s my fault, gol-durn it,” Salty said bitterly. “I knowed it was early in the season for Eight Mile to be froze over solid, but I figured it’d save us some time if we could cross here, instead o’ havin’ to sidetrack a couple o’ miles. And the ice was good an’ sturdy on this side, too. It played out ’fore I got across, though. If it wasn’t for Dog, I don’t reckon I’d’ve ever come up.” Salty shook his head. “Hope the critter’s all right.”
Dog hadn’t returned after the fight. Frank believed that the big cur had pursued the bushwhackers. He was a little surprised that Dog hadn’t come back by now, though.
Salty was right about Dog saving his life. As it was, things had been touch and go for a while. Salty’s face had been blue when Frank went down the hill to the fire Conway had built, and the old-timer had been shaking so hard that it seemed like the few teeth he had remaining might come flying out of his head. The sled that had been left behind by the bushwhackers had some fur robes on it, so Frank had grabbed a couple of them before starting down, as well as a blanket.
He and Conway had worked the soaked clothes off Salty. They were already frozen and crackling. They dried him as best they could with the blanket, then wrapped the robes around his spindly shanks. Combined with the heat from the fire, that gradually eased the chill that gripped the old-timer. They used branches to rig a framework next to the fire so that his clothes could be draped on it and dry out while Salty was warming up.
Now, dressed again and studying the trail left by the bushwhackers, the old man was still cold but no longer in any danger of freezing. As long as he didn’t come down with the grippe, he would recover from his plunge through the ice.
“At least since there’s not much wind and no fresh snow falling, we shouldn’t have any trouble following their trail,” Conway commented.
“Yeah, and that’s exactly what they’re counting on,” Frank said.
“What do you mean?”
“Smith didn’t send those men just to bring the women back. They were supposed to kill the rest of us.”
Salty grunted. “They ain’t too good at their jobs. The only one they managed to send across the divide was a blind man.”
“I’m sure they thought you’d drown in the creek and that they could gun down Pete and me. When it didn’t work out that way, I reckon they must’ve panicked a mite. That’s why they grabbed the women and lit a shuck out of here. But then they started thinking again. They don’t want to go back to Skagway and have to tell Soapy Smith that we’re still alive. So they headed for that old cabin you mentioned, Salty, instead of the settlement.”
