The Floor of Heaven (44 page)

Soapy was untroubled by the obvious inconsistencies in his behavior. He had an actor’s ability to slide into different roles. Rationalizations came easy to him. If Yeah Mow or Ed Burns was required to give a brutal pounding to an ornery mark, Soapy had no qualms. “The greatest kindness one can do to such people,” he’d explain with a shrug, “is to force them to get out of Skagway and to take the next boat home.” Or if a victim of one of his scams was wiped out before even heading into the Klondike, Soapy was unruffled. “Infinitely better,” he’d insist, “that any man who is such an infant as to try to beat a man at his own game should lose money here at the seaport, than he should get into the inhospitable Arctic, where such an idiot would lose it anyway or be a burden on the community.” His was a stern, unyielding philosophy; and yet it was also generous with Christian charity. He could hold two totally opposing points of view, be both underworld kingpin and the champion of law and order, and navigate with ease through the contradictions. In all things, Soapy was guided by what he believed served him best at the moment.

At the core of his mercurial temperament, though, was a master plan. He still held to the idea that one day, after all his dreary moneymaking shenanigans were no longer necessary, he and Mary and the children would settle down in a big house. In his mind he pictured them living in St. Louis, a comfortable city where his exploits were largely unknown. He saw a day when he and his wife would be granted the respect due to pillars of the community. Like so many of the other gold rush stampeders, he’d come north with the dream of refashioning his life. To his way of looking at things, all his operations, however scampish, were justifiable, activities undertaken in his pursuit of his family’s future happiness.

In the meantime, the conventions of lesser men should not restrain him. His success, he felt, was proof of his uniqueness. He’d catapulted above bothersome rules. And even as he vowed his “love to death” in his weekly letters to Mary, he was living in Skagway with another woman.

NEVERTHELESS, SOAPY had a politician’s instincts, and he took care to polish his image. It caused him a good deal of distress that the San Francisco Examiner had it in for him. Not long after he’d arrived in Skagway, it had published an unflattering likeness on the front page, with the caption “Soapy Smith, the uncrowned king of the town of Skagway.” Salting the wound, the accompanying article made several snide references about “his ambition to be Chief of Police.” So when he learned from one of his many sources that the Examiner was sending Edward Cahill, its ace reporter, to investigate the goings-on in Dyea and Skagway, Soapy was there to welcome him when he got off the steamer. Over the next week Soapy wined, dined, and charmed the correspondent with the persistence of a suitor—which, in a way, he was. At Soapy’s command, all doors in Skagway opened up to Cahill. The resulting article provided one more proof of Soapy’s con man’s skills:

“Soapy” Smith is not a dangerous man, and not a desperado. He will fight to very good purpose if he must, but he is not in the least quarrelsome. Cool in the presence of danger, absolutely fearless, honorable in the discharge of those obligations which he recognizes, generous with his money, and ever ready with a helping hand for a man or a woman in distress.… Not the least amusing trait of “Soapy” Smith’s character is the eager interest which he takes in the preservation of law and order.

But while Soapy could fool some of the people, he couldn’t fool all of them. Oscar Dunbar, the editor and owner of the newly created Daily Alaskan newspaper, had no tolerance for Soapy’s activities. He ran a series of articles warning newcomers about rigged shell games on the White Pass Trail and the “pack of tin horn gamblers” under Soapy’s control.

When Soapy had just about enough of the insults, he paid a call on the editor. “I’m sure you’re wrong about Soapy Smith,” he explained as he shook Dunbar’s hand, “because I’m Soapy himself.” With his easy charm, he then offered a proposition. Soapy would pay $50 an issue to keep his name out of the Alaskan. “That shouldn’t be hard to do for that price, should it?” Soapy suggested lightly.

“It shouldn’t be,” Dunbar agreed.

To seal the arrangement, later that afternoon a gang member delivered two bottles of Mumm extra dry champagne and a box of Havana cigars to the editor. “With Mr. Smith’s compliments,” the burly messenger explained.

Without skipping a beat, the editor picked up the edition of the Alaskan that had just rolled off the presses. “To Mr. Smith, with the compliments of Mr. Dunbar,” he said as he handed over the newspaper.

Soapy was livid when he read its editorial detailing how he’d tried to bribe the editor. For a few rough moments he no doubt recalled the thrashing he’d given Colonel Arkins in Denver when that editor had proved insolent. But soon Soapy, who prided himself on learning from his experiences, came up with a more efficient plan. He approached Billy Saportas, a reporter for the paper, and put him on the payroll. After that, the Alaskan, at least in Saportas’s dispatches, took to singing Soapy’s praises.

A few of the gang complained that Soapy was wasting his money. Why pay Saportas when a bullet would quiet Dunbar at a much lower cost? But Soapy shrugged off the expense. Reputation was crucial; it was the bricks upon which his power rested. Besides, the money he was spending was the down payment on the bright future that was shaping up at last for Mary and him.

THIRTY-EIGHT

ll through the fall and winter, as the first stampeders rushed north and Soapy established himself in Skagway, George continued to work his site. There was so much to do that he hired a dozen men to help with the underground digging and paid them in gold dust; that way he was able to keep his operation going around the clock. It reminded him of his time at the Treadwell mine where the work had also been divided into shifts. Only now George Carmack was the boss. It was his mine. And it was his gold.

Each day, as another big haul of gold-bearing gravel was added to the dump, he felt that he was getting closer to achieving his dream. In his mind he pictured himself in a well-pressed city suit, the chain of a pocket watch dangling across his waistcoat, a big Havana cigar between his lips, and there he’d be striding into Rose’s parlor.

Increasingly he sought refuge in an imagined future. Its possibility became the answer to everything. There was no longer any harmony with Kate. He dismissed her as a tyrant, a shrill squaw unworthy of his companionship.

Kate couldn’t understand his behavior. She had no appreciation of the transforming power of greed or how the white man measured success. She was simply angry and hurt. In her resentment, she attacked.

One Sunday afternoon Ed Conrad, a miner who had a nearby claim, heard screams. It sounded to him like a woman calling for help, and he rushed over to the Carmack cabin. He found Kate outside, yelling in Tagish as if intent on alerting the whole countryside.

A moment later George walked out of the woods hauling a sled loaded down with firewood.

“What’s going on?” Conrad asked with concern.

“Oh, that woman,” George answered lightly, a man accustomed to this sort of drama. “She’s just telling me no wood, no fire, no dinner. She thinks her screaming will make me move faster.”

In a letter later that winter to Rose, he complained, “My wife had more work than she could do all winter but she is getting too high toned to work now.”

Though they were surrounded by great riches, their life on Bonanza Creek had turned into a living hell.

YET EVEN with all his newfound wealth, George was not the richest man in the Yukon. It was the latecomers who’d no choice but to stake Eldorado Creek who reaped the most fantastic fortunes.

There was Antone Stander, for example, a twenty-nine-year-old immigrant from Austria. Stander had worked his way across the continent as a cowboy, sheepherder, farmer, and coal miner before deciding to head to the far north to try his luck at prospecting. Only he didn’t have any luck; two years of looking for gold left him dead broke. When he heard about Carmack’s find, he rushed up to Bonanza. But he was too late; the creek had already been staked. On an impulse, he decided to explore the country beyond Carmack’s site. As the creek twisted south, he followed it into a wooded ravine. Absently, he stuck a pan into the water: The gravel was laced with gold! That afternoon he measured off a claim that would be worth more than $4 million.

As soon as Stander started working the creek, other veterans began to take notice. Jay Whipple, an old sourdough who’d gone broke searching in vain for years in the rough country around Sixtymile; Frank Keller, who’d been a brakeman for the railroad in California; J. J. Clements, who’d earned the money for his passage north by carrying the mail on horseback; William Johns, a rough-and-tumble former newspaper reporter from Chicago—all struck it rich on Eldorado Creek.

Even the bartender from Bill McPhee’s saloon made a killing on Eldorado Creek—without leaving the barroom. Once Stander had staked his claim, he needed supplies to get him through the winter. Clarence Berry helped him out, and got half of Stander’s claim in return. It was more an act of kindness than a business deal, yet the bartender wound up making several million dollars from the transaction.

The yield on Bonanza was not as rich; nevertheless, George was not the only prospector to find his fortune along its banks. Louis Rhodes worked a claim a mile or so above George’s. After two disappointing months of shoveling through icy muck, he was ready to sell out. He wanted $250 for his claim, only he couldn’t find any takers. So he reluctantly kept at it. When he finally reached bedrock, he scooped golden nuggets out of the clay by the handful.

Farther up the creek were the three Scouse brothers. They’d worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines before heading to the Yukon, so they had no misgivings about digging underground. And with the three brothers working in shifts, it didn’t take them long to hit bedrock. Only the pay streak seemed to elude them. Day after day, they’d fill big buckets with gravel, but when they washed the loads they found nothing but dirt. Then, on a guess, they cross-cut in another direction. When they hoisted the first bucket up on the windlass, there was no need to pan the contents. Gold nuggets lay sprinkled over the gravel like shells on a beach. They would make over $1 million from their claim.

But of all the old sourdoughs who struck it rich, “Big Alex” McDonald, the King of the Klondike, was the shrewdest. When the news of George’s strike spread through the Yukon Valley, McDonald didn’t have a dime. He was determined, however, not to miss out on an opportunity he knew would be his one chance to turn his life around. So he managed to buy a load of groceries on credit, and then he traded the supplies to a down-on-his luck sourdough for half of a claim on the Eldorado. Next, he leased out a section of his half stake to a group of miners for a percentage of their take. He used the proceeds from this “lay,” as the practice came to be known, for the down payment on another claim. He continued borrowing to purchase more claims and then leasing them, too. As soon as money came in from one site, he’d use it to make another transaction. He never sold. Within a year, he had interests in twenty-eight claims, and his holdings were worth about $10 million.

Still, no one had forgotten the man whose discovery had started it all. In the Dawson saloons, the sourdoughs would raise their tipsy voices and sing a heartfelt tribute to the man who had changed the course of their lives:

George Carmack on Bonanza Creek went

Out to look for gold,

I wonder why, I wonder why.

Old-timers said it was no use, the water was too cold.

I wonder why, I wonder why.

They said that he might search that

Creek until the world did end

And not enough of gold he’d find a postage stamp to send.

They said the willows on the creek the other way would bend.

I wonder why, I wonder why.

After the second winter’s dump was sluiced, in the spring of 1898, George, accompanied by the two rifle-toting Indians for protection, brought the gold into Dawson to be assayed. He found that his take, after the 5 percent tax taken by the Canadian authorities, was worth about $224,000. He could now go home.

His intention was not to leave Bonanza Creek permanently. There remained a lot more gold to dig up. He’d simply shut the mine down for a spell. And rather than worry about what Kate and his partners were up to, he decided he’d be better off taking them with him. They could stay in Seattle while he traveled south to surprise Rose in Modesto.

But as George began making these plans, a great anxiety came over him. There were no secrets in the north. Everyone in Dawson had heard that he’d taken nearly a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of gold out of his claim. Up in the Yukon, the Mounties had a steady control of the territory; he didn’t worry much about robbers swooping in to steal the gold he’d mined over the past two years. It wouldn’t take long, though, before the word would’ve spread down to Alaska, and the American district was sheer lawlessness.

Alaska, George imagined, was seething with people who’d jump at the opportunity to steal a fortune of gold. Its port cities were filled with the sort of desperadoes who wouldn’t hesitate to cut a man’s throat to get what they wanted. He tried to control a sudden surge of panic, but it was no use. He’d heard a story about a prospector who had washed out $30,000 worth of gold, and then became so plagued by the fear of being robbed that he shot himself. For the first time, George understood how the man’s mind had skidded out of control. It was truly worrisome. He knew his gold wouldn’t be out of danger until it was locked in the safe of a boat steaming to Seattle.

THIRTY-NINE

harlie Siringo was in Vancouver in pursuit of a bunco artist who had sold a salted Mexican gold mine when he received the telegram informing him that Hiram Schell had escaped. Charlie had been working the phony-mine case for nearly six months; the trail had first led him up to Fort Steele, in British Columbia, then down to northern California, where, posing as a rich Texan, he’d discovered that the crook had used his profits from the caper to buy a sprawling ranch near an Indian village on Canada’s Alberni Canal. With the sense that the end of a long chase was finally approaching, Charlie had hurried north and checked into a Vancouver hotel. In the morning, he’d board a steamer for the three-day trip up to Alberni. But tonight he’d been looking forward to sitting down in front of a beefsteak and a bottle of whiskey before tucking himself into a comfortable bed, until the clerk had handed him the telegram.