The Call of the Wild: Klondike Cannibals, Vol. 2 (9 page)

*  *  *  *  *

Her hair was different.
Black, the colour of ravens.

I
n the dim light of the moon he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. How they widened, ever so slightly, when she saw him.

At first, h
e was embarrassed that she’d caught him there in his underwear. But his embarrassment was quickly replaced with confusion.

What was she doing?
he wondered. Pictures from dime novels raced through his mind. The
Argo
was transporting white girls into slavery, somewhere in Africa, or the Orient. The gang knew some terrible secret, and it placed Annie wholly in their power. Maybe she was in disguise, and trying to escape? Maybe that’s why her hair was different. Maybe—

And then all at once he knew.

Of course.
She was one of
them
.

They had al
l been shills, in that crowd in front of Dr. Fiddler’s gaming-table. Annie, her aunt.

E
veryone except Jack.

In the first moment
of his realization, he felt hurt, stung by betrayal. But almost instantly he hardened. Fine, he thought. It’s better this way. The moment of connection he’d thought he’d felt with her had been a lie, just part of the honey-trap.

His blood boiled.
He’d been so easily suckered.

He wondered how many other
s like him there’d been, how many other men she’d played in just this way.

“
I came for my money,” he said.

“Put your clothes on,” she said.
She looked in the direction of the approaching lantern. “Quick!”

“No.”

She glared at him and pressed the tip of the knife forward ever so slightly
. It hadn’t yet broken the skin, but would soon.

They
could hear the barking of the dog getting closer, and a couple of men’s voices now…

“Please
go,” she whispered. “They’ll kill you if they find you here.”

He stared at her.
He knew he could make a break for the railing and hurl himself off the side of the boat. Sure, it would hurt to hit the water from this height, but Jack had done his share of cliff-jumping in his youth, and knew exactly what to do.

But he
wasn’t going to do that.

“Let them
,” he said, fixing her with a steady stare.

The barking o
f the dog got louder and louder, and now they could hear the sound of the dog’s paws scrambling on the deck, too, the slink and slide of its leash, the gnashing of its teeth…

Two lanterns flew past
where they stood, and kept going. The barking receded a little into the distance.

“
This is your last chance,” she said.

T
he intensity between them was electric.

T
hen a lantern was suddenly thrust towards them, and they were caught in its brittle light.

“Our hero is back,” Dr. Fiddler said. He seemed a little drunk: his words were slurred.

“He wants his money,
” Annie said quickly. She lowered her blade from Jack’s throat, and took a step away from him.

“
Oh,” Dr. Fiddler chuckled. “Is that all?” He’d seen them there, caught in an awkward moment, Jack was sure of it.

Annie blushed and looked away.

Jack got dressed as quickly as he could, trying not to get any blood from his hand on his clothes.

In the darkness behind the glare of Dr. Fiddler’s
lantern loomed Indian Jack, holding a growling German boxer on a short leash on one side, and the Chinese boy, his face expressionless, on the other.

As soon as Jack was fully clothed, Dr. Fiddler s
aid: “Let’s go below.” He looked at Annie. “You too.”

“Is that
really necessary, Richard?” she asked, her voice turning soft and melodious. “It’s late, and—”

“Your c
harms won’t work on me, my lady,” Dr. Fiddler said. He pulled a small bottle of medicinal laudanum out of his black coat, unscrewed the tiny cap, and took a swig. His pale throat shivered a little, and his eyes rolled up into his head for a moment or two.

“You know that,
” he said, grinning at her.

*  *  *  *  *

They took Annie, Jack, and the boy, below deck, whisking them down a steep staircase and through a set of double-doors into a saloon, thick with blue cigar smoke, where a dozen rough-looking gangsters sat around a large table, playing poker.

Jack
immediately recognized the man with the bowler hat from the carriage, and the three young wolves that came at him yesterday, seated around the table. He was surprised to see Annie’s prim and proper aunt, dressed now like a Parisian whore, sitting on one of the men’s laps.

“Welcome
!” the man in the bowler hat called out in a rich Southern drawl. “Most welcome!”

To Jack’s surprise, Annie crossed
directly over to the man, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Lindy!” She turned to look at Jack. “This… was the one from yesterday I told you about…”

The man in the bowler hat
put his cards face down on the table. “Ah, yes,” he said. “The hero.” He stood up and walked over.

“
Merritt Lind,” he said, extending his hand.

A
bout forty-five years old, Merritt looked energetic. His black hair was streaked with grey at his temples, and he sported a small and elegant salt and pepper moustache. His eyes were gray, hawk-like, full of intelligence. The cool intellect hinted at in his eyes was warmed in no small degree by the mischievous smile that periodically played across his thin lips.

“
Jack London.”

They shook hands.

“A most memorable name! How fortunate for you.”

Then Merritt noticed
the boy at Dr. Fiddler’s side.
“And who is the little Chinaman?” he asked.

The boy
didn’t say anything: he just stared stonily down at his feet.

When the gangsters took notice of the boy, Ja
ck heard a low mutter go round the table. Anti-Chinese feeling had been running high for years, and that was
before
the recent outbreak of the plague…

“He is my servant
,” Jack blurted out.

He
didn’t know why he did it. Not really.

Perhaps i
t was a reflex from his old tramping days when he’d have to invent stories on the spot to beg himself a hot meal, or talk his way out of a tight fix. In troubled times, it paid for tramps to stick together. You never knew when the man at your side would repay the favour.

“What I mean to say,” Jack continued earnestly, “is that
Bao has worked for my family for many years. When his older sister died of consumption last year his care passed to me…”

Jack was a good talker:
he was through and through what the road kids called “profesh.” He could instantly concoct a story with the ring of truth to it. He had a fluid soul that could fill vessels of any shape: he got along just as easily with librarians as with sailors.

Jack used that skill now, inventing a hundred details about the boy’s
backstory as he started recounting the sad story of his sister’s tragic illness, and the family’s hopes for the boy’s education. In Jack’s telling, he’d told Bao to wait on shore while he’d snuck aboard the
Argo
, but the boy had disobeyed and followed him anyway, out of an excess of loyalty.

Merritt held up his hand at this.
“You intrigue me Jack,” he said. “But I know a bullshitter when I see one.”

Jack held steady, returning his gaze.
“Likewise,” he said.

A murmur of surprise went round the poker table. Jack k
new challenging Merritt like this in front of his gang was dangerous, crazy even.

But at least
he was committed to a course of action. There would be no backing down now. He boldly returned Merritt’s gaze.

“Ha!
” Merritt said after a moment. He took another puff of his cigar. “I like your grit, boy!”

“I hate to interrupt,”
Dr. Fiddler said. His eyes were icy blue, cold as night. There was something of the infinity of space in them. “But perhaps Miss O’Quinn can help us understand this breach in our security.” He turned to Annie. “Just how
did
you happen to find our friend Jack here running around on deck half-naked?”

It was as if Dr. Fiddler was intentionally trying to make Merritt jealous.

Whether he was or not, it seemed to work: a slight frown flickered across Merritt’s brow as he looked first at Annie, and then over at Jack.

The gangsters
at the table held still, sensing violence.

“I spotted her on deck
and followed her,” Jack said smoothly. “But she got a knife to my throat, in the end.”

Merritt
laughed, and Jack saw the glint of a couple of gold fillings in his mouth.

“
That’s my Sadie,” Merritt said. He turned to look at her. They all did.

She was even more
impossibly beautiful here, by gaslight: there was a wildness in her emerald eyes as she stared back at them, still fuming at Dr. Fiddler’s insinuation that she’d been caught in some sort of intrigue with Jack.

Merritt t
urned to Jack and inspected him a little more carefully, as if measuring his potential as a rival. “I suppose you are now madly in love with her. If so, you’d better rescue her quick. You see, we are to be married upon our arrival in Dawson City…”

Jack felt a surge of
hatred for her—Annie, Sadie—whatever her name was.

“
You can keep her,” he said. “I just want my money back.”

Merritt
hardened a little. He waved his hand dismissively. “Consider it a fee for your weakness, my boy,” he said. “A college education in the way of the world. Those who can, take…”

“
Well you’re gonna have to kill me then. Because I’m not leaving.”

The gangsters sitting at the table
chuckled and looked at each other. Jack saw the three wolves exchange hungry glances. The one whose nose Jack had broken reached down and rested a hand on the revolver holstered around his waist.

Merritt just
kept smiling, and Jack noticed for the first time the unusual smallness of his front teeth. “We got your money,” Merritt said, “which is good for us. You get to stay at home, which is good for you. I’d call that a bargain.”

“I’m not staying anywhere,
” Jack said defiantly.

“So what’s your game then? You want to go North
, I suppose?”

“Yes.” Jack saw no reason to lie.

“And
why
should we take you?”

Jack
could see that Merritt was half-serious, and sensed an opportunity. He certainly didn’t have any problems with joining the gang from a moral point of view. After all, the whole world was run by criminals: industrialists, politicians, bankers—none of whom felt the least shame about their crimes. Why should anyone else?

Jack ha
d often been involved in trades operating on the other side of the law. He’d been an oyster pirate after all, and found he could sometimes earn more in a week or a month than he could in a year working in legal professions.

H
e’d rolled with a gang of road kids out of Sacramento for a couple of weeks, preying on drunks and bindle-stiffs in small towns throughout California, though he hadn’t enjoyed the stealing part of their carefree lifestyle.

He’d
been made hallman inside the Erie County Penitentiary by a mobster he’d befriended at the courthouse during sentencing…

This
last experience gave Jack an idea. “I was a grafter in prison,” he said smoothly.

“
Prison? Now we’re getting somewhere! In for murder, I suppose?”

Jack
shook his head. “No, I rode the rails to see Niagara Falls…”

“And they pinched you
for that?”

“
Vagrancy…” Jack shrugged. “I got thirty days.”

“The bastards.”

“A pal I made on the inside got me made hallman on my cellblock a couple of days after they put me in, so I didn’t catch the worst of it…”

Merritt nodded, seeming to see Jack in a new light. But he was still sceptical.
“I have plenty of grafters already,” Merritt said, nodding in the direction of the poker table. “What else have you got?”

Jack blinked.
What could he say? He thought a moment. “I’m an author,” he said, finally. “Or rather, I will be.”

“Ha!
” Merritt flashed him a hard, hawk-like look. “You want to be poor all your life?”

“
I will be famous someday.”

The gangsters all laugh
ed when they heard this.

B
ut Merritt just watched Jack steadily. “And in the meantime you’ll be starving somewhere, writing pretty trash no one reads. Can’t imagine a fate worse than that—”

“Try working in a cannery.”

Merritt’s eyes lit up at this. He threw his head back and howled.

Embol
dened, Jack pressed on. “I don’t mean to be unread. Or starve.”

And s
omething about the challenge in Jack’s eyes convinced Merritt it must be so.

Without another word, Merritt
took two cigars out of his inner coat-pocket and handed one to Jack. It was from
Viñales
, Cuba,
according to its cigar-band label.

Me
rritt struck a match and lit both cigars, and soon Jack felt the tingle of citrus-flavoured smoke on his tongue.

The gangsters at
the table looked at each other. Jack got the sense that they didn’t like the fact that he was getting along so well with the boss.

Mer
ritt stood back and inspected Jack one last time. “You’re not stupid,” he said at last. “And I like your fire. I’ll start you at ten dollars a day—”

A surprised whisper went round the table.

Dr. Fiddler cleared his throat, as if he wanted to say something.

Merritt ignored him
, and Jack saw the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Once we arrive in Dawson you will have a choice: I’ll give you a standard outfit and you and your servant boy may go on your way and try your luck, or you will have the opportunity to renew our partnership, if both parties are sufficiently interested. Deal?”

Ten dollars a day! It was ten times what Jack had earned at the steam-laund
ry. But how could he trust Merritt to fulfill such generous terms?

“But
we don’t have any spare outfits—” Dr. Fiddler interjected.

“Sure we do,” Merritt looked
over at the table with sudden malice. “We’ll just take one of theirs.”

Dr. Fiddler looked a
little shocked. “Whose?”

Merritt raised his voice a little, so that the gangsters could all hear him.
“I’ll decide
that
when we get to Dawson.” Then he sighed, and turned to face Jack again. “That ought to keep all my pawns in line, don’t you think?”

Jack said nothing.

Sadie touched Merritt’s arm, pouting. “Please Lindy… You know I can’t stand having a hero about…” She stroked his forearm lightly, with the tips of her fingers. “I just want to enjoy our trip… without distractions…”

“Beware the Q
ueen most of all,” Merritt said to Jack, with a wink. “The true power behind the throne.”

Sadie frowned,
suddenly furious, and removed her hand from Merritt’s arm. Then she turned around and stormed off, avoiding Jack’s gaze.

They all watched her go.
She slammed the door as she left.

Merritt
stood there smiling, as if nothing had happened. “Dr. Fiddler will arrange a cabin for you and...” He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the boy’s name.

“Billy… I call him Billy,”
Jack began, glancing over at the boy, half-expecting him to choose this moment to speak up and expose Jack as a liar.

“We don’t have any sp
are cabins…” Dr. Fiddler interjected. “Although we could lodge them below, in the bunks—”

“So kind of you to volunteer
your cabin, Fiddler. Quite right. Our newest additions to the King’s Men should have comfortable accommodations aboard the
Argo
.”

Dr. Fiddler’s pale face darkened. “
Of course… I should only be too happy.”

“
So, do we have a deal?” Merritt asked Jack. He took a snakeskin wallet out of his coat, opened it, and pulled out a ten-dollar bill.

Jack
looked at the money. Perhaps this was just another shell game, just another bait-and-switch…

Merritt could sense Jack’s reluctance.
“Life is a race, my boy,” he said, at last. “Come with us. Get there first.”

Jack
thought about it. The offer was quite possibly just a trick. To get him to back down without resorting to violence.