The Floor of Heaven (46 page)

Of course, there was one occurrence that could upset his carefully reasoned plan. There was always the possibility, Charlie had to concede, that Schell might belly up to the bar or mosey out of the back room and find himself staring straight into the face of the man who had busted him. That happened, Charlie knew, cover stories and aliases wouldn’t do him any good. That was why he wore his Colt strapped to his hip. And he made it a point to keep his coat unbuttoned and his gun hand free. If Schell wouldn’t go quietly, Charlie was prepared to shoot it out. Sure, the fugitive might have a room full of friends to back him up, but Charlie had never known a thief or a bunco man who could handle a gun. Soon as he plunked the first one, Charlie reckoned, they’d all back off.

And so Charlie settled in at the bar. But he’d taken only a few sips from his drink before all his carefully laid plans fell completely apart. He reached for his glass and, without meaning to, noticed a man down at the end of the bar. Charlie was surprised, and that was why he made his mistake. He held his glance for a moment longer than he should have. In that instant the man at the end of the bar looked up and recognized him, too.

Charlie hadn’t spotted Hiram Schell. He had found a murderer.

THE TWO of them stood alone in the dark on the Skagway wharf. As soon as Charlie had locked eyes with Bill Moore he realized it’d be best if the two of them did their catching up someplace quiet. They went back quite a ways, and there was a lot to talk over. He’d given a small nod of his head, then walked out of the bar. Moore had followed.

In the days when Charlie was a top hand, Moore had run the LX Ranch. Charlie had enjoyed working for him. In his experience, Moore was a born leader of men and one of the best cowmen in the west. But Moore was a complicated fellow; he also was prey to his larcenous heart and killer’s temper. All the while he’d managed the LX, he’d been stealing cattle. Finally, he put his own brand on the stolen herd and went off to establish a ranch in New Mexico, down in the American Valley. But Moore’s days as a cattle baron didn’t last too long. After an argument in a saloon, he shot two men dead. Charlie knew his old boss was now on the run, with a big price on his head.

I heard you’re working for the Pinkertons, Charlie, Moore began as the two stood on the wharf. He spoke in a whisper, but the night was so quiet that Charlie thought he might as well be shouting. Don’t turn me in, he said with some force.

Charlie had no intention of turning in his old compañero. And he’d no desire to draw on him. They’d done too much together for that to be a serious possibility. But Charlie saw no reason to share that with Moore, at least not until he got the information he needed. Course, if Moore went for his gun, Charlie reckoned, he’d have no choice but to go for his, too. He was hoping, however, that Moore wouldn’t be so bold. After all, Moore had witnessed the now famous shooting match at the LX when Charlie had matched Billy the Kid shot for shot. If friendship wasn’t sufficient to keep things civil, Charlie hoped, then perhaps that memory would discourage Moore.

So Charlie didn’t respond to Moore. He simply asked if he’d happened to run into Hiram Schell. Big bear of man with a full beard, Charlie added, trying to prod Moore’s memory.

Moore thought for a moment. Lot of folks come to Soapy’s place, Moore said, as if making an apology. Maybe. Sounds familiar. But I can’t be sure.

Well, I need you to be sure, Bill, Charlie said, his voice turning rough.

Perhaps it was the harsh tone in Charlie’s voice that caused Moore to grow anxious. Look, he offered, I know lots of things. The sort of stuff a Pinkerton might find useful.

I’m only interested in Schell, Charlie said flatly.

But Moore went on, a man bargaining for his freedom. They’re planning a robbery, he announced. A big one. A quarter of a million dollars. They’re gonna rob some prospector when he takes his haul of gold to the boat to Seattle—

No interest to me, Charlie interrupted.

But Moore was nearly frantic. He couldn’t stop. The way he saw it, he was trying to make a deal to save his life. He was on the run for murder and negotiating with a lawman he knew he couldn’t beat in a gunfight. All he could do was play the only card he had. So he continued: Old sourdough’s name is Carmack. George Carmack. A genuine Klondike millionaire.

Suddenly Charlie was all attention. What was that about Carmack? he asked.

I tell you about the robbery the Soap Gang’s planning, you let me go? Deal?

Deal, Charlie agreed.

And for the next twenty minutes, Charlie listened. He heard the secret plan Carmack had devised to get his fortune out of Alaska, and then he heard Soapy Smith’s scheme to thwart it.

BACK IN his hotel room later that night, Charlie began to think through the decision he had to make. No one had seen him talking to Moore. And even if they had, where was the harm? Just two old cowboys talking over better times. He could return to the bar tomorrow night and that would be that. Grateful that Charlie had let him go, Moore had hightailed it for tall timber. He wouldn’t be coming back to Skagway for a while. Charlie could continue to hang out at Jeff’s Place until either he got a line on Schell or the fugitive walked in.

Or he could warn Carmack.

He was a private detective, not a lawman, Charlie reminded himself. He only worked for people who hired him. Carmack wasn’t his client. Besides, he was already on a case. It was the Pinkertons who paid his salary, bought his liquor. He had a responsibility to the agency.

Mamie, he thought silently, as if appealing to a higher judge, what would you do?

It took a while for Charlie to fall asleep. Yet he woke up early and dressed quickly. Then he hurried off to settle an old debt.

FORTY

s Soapy finalized the plans for “the great gold robbery,” as it would become known in Alaska, his attention was diverted by the events surrounding a spree of shootings. On the one hand, his concern was a businessman’s: The wave of killings would discourage new marks from coming to Skagway. On the other, it was personal: Soapy had reason to fear that the outraged townspeople would lynch him if the murders didn’t stop.

His problems had started back in February, after a whore doped the drink of a young prospector. Andy McGrath had been sitting with one of the working girls in the Klondike Saloon, above the Peoples Theatre, a song-and-dance hall over on Holly Street. She was giggling, and that brought back happy memories; Andy hadn’t heard a girl’s mischievous laughter since he’d left Ohio eight months ago. The next thing he knew, though, he was feeling very wrong. He woke up lying facedown on the wooden floor. When he finally got to his feet, Andy anxiously checked his pockets. His $140 nest egg was gone.

Andy felt foolish. It was a damn steep price to pay for a few peals of naughty laughter. Quickly his embarrassment turned into a red-hot anger. There was no sign of the girl, but he saw Jake Rice, the proprietor, sitting at a table. Andy charged over and demanded that Rice find the girl who’d taken his money. His voice shook with outrage and belligerence.

Rice didn’t cotton to the young man’s disrespectful tone. Besides, he had no sympathy for anyone naive enough to allow himself to be gaffed by a whore, particularly when the girl was part of his stable and a chunk of the purloined $140 would wind up in his pocket. He signaled to John Fay, the bartender. In an instant Fay and a couple of the boys were all over Andy. Andy put up a fight, but there were three of them. They had done this sort of thing before and always enjoyed taking the prospectors down a peg or two. Once they had Andy on the floor, they kicked away at him. Rice coolly watched his goons punish the young man until he feared that if they kept at it any longer, the prospector would wind up dead. Enough! he ordered. So they dragged Andy out of the saloon and heaved him into the icy street.

“I will come back and settle for this,” Andy managed to say as he got to his knees. The three men walked back into the theater without bothering to turn around.

Andy made his stumbling way through the street. He wasn’t going anywhere in particular, but then he happened to glance through a window. There was Deputy U.S. Marshal James Rowan, who’d recently settled in Skagway from Dyea, having a late supper in an all-night restaurant. Ignoring the floods of pain caused by each new step, the prospector hurried to the marshal’s table. I want to borrow your gun, he said.

Rowan studied the young man. Andy’s face was badly bruised, and blood dripped steadily from a cut under his eye. Better I go with you, the marshal said after he’d finished the last bites of his meal.

Andy led the way back up to the saloon. “There’s the man,” he told the marshal, pointing at Fay.

The bartender shot him. The bullet hit Andy in the groin, and he fell back into a chair. He sat there stunned, a river of blood gushing out of him.

The marshal started to draw his revolver, but Fay fired first. The marshal let out a piercing scream. He’d been hit by a gut shot. As the bullets started flying about the bar, the town fireman reached for his pistol. He aimed at Fay, but he had had a few whiskeys and his bullet wounded another man in the leg. Blood splattered across the floor.

The marshal succeeded in getting to Doc Daniel Moore’s. Gut shots, though, were always a bad business, and he died on the examination table. Andy bled to death in the saloon, his body slumped in the barroom chair. In the meantime, the bartender had fled out the back door.

Fay was in a panic. He reckoned no good would come out of this. He might’ve been able to talk his way out of shooting the prospector, but a dead marshal was a whole different matter. People would come looking for him for sure, and he suspected they’d be carrying a rope. Fay considered going to Rice for help, but he knew Rice would give him up once he saw a mob marching up the street. Anyways, Rice might run the Klondike Saloon, but he wasn’t really the boss. Rice took orders, too. There was only one way he’d have a chance of escaping from this sort of entanglement. He needed to go to the man in charge. Fay ran to Jeff’s Place. Then he tucked his pistol into his belt, pulled himself together, and, after wishing himself luck, headed into the back room. His only hope was to beg Soapy for protection.

THE NEXT afternoon the church bell tolled. This was the signal for the Committee of 101 to assemble. In the days when Skagway was first established, Major John Strong, a stern former cavalryman, had come up with the notion that since “the United States in its wisdom has seen fit to enact no laws which would give Alaska any measure of local self-government,” the townspeople should form a group to protect themselves. He’d organized the local citizens, an assortment of merchants and prospectors, into what he called “a committee of safety, or vigilance committee,” and he’d christened the group with a name that’d been first used during the California gold rush.

The men of the Committee of 101 were vigilantes. The code of justice on the frontier was unforgiving, and they took it upon themselves to be judge, jury, and executioners. If they determined that someone had crossed the line, the punishment would be swift: They’d string the culprit up from a high tree. After a U.S. marshal had come to Skagway, though, the committee had pretty much disbanded. Only now the marshal had been shot down, so Strong rang the bell once again summoning folks to a meeting.

A crowd hurried to the church. But even before Strong convened the committee, its actions seemed a foregone conclusion. All that needed to be discussed, most people anticipated, was from which tree to string the rope.

Soapy, however, wasn’t of a mind to see Fay hanged. It wasn’t that he was particularly fond of the bartender. In fact, he’d no sympathy for the crime; Marshal Rowan had left a widow and an infant son, and that struck a chord in Soapy’s sentimental heart. But there was an important principle to be reinforced. He wanted his gang to know that they could count on him. He’d return their loyalty with his own. When Fay asked, Soapy didn’t hesitate to offer his protection. And in his shrewd, resourceful way, he quickly came up with a plan that not only would keep Fay safe but would also make it appear as if Soapy were doing the town a favor.

First, Soapy summoned a bunch of his hardest men and sent them off with Fay. No one gets near him, he ordered. You see a crowd, no discussions. Open fire.

Next, he went to the U.S. commissioner in the territory, John Smith. The commissioner, a lawyer from Oregon, was a federal appointee whose primary job was to record real estate transactions and adjudicate property disputes. But since there was no real law in Skagway, he’d often intervene in criminal matters, too.

We want to prevent a lynching, we need to act fast, Soapy earnestly told the commissioner. I want you to deputize my men. They’ll make sure Fay gets on the next ship to Juneau.

Commissioner Smith didn’t need to consider the suggestion. If it made sense to Soapy, it made sense to him. After all, Soapy was paying him more each month than he received from the government as salary for the entire year. He dutifully followed Soapy to where Fay had been hidden and swore in the Soap Gang thugs. Any actions they’d take to protect Fay would now be legal.

Finally, Soapy went to the Committee of 101 meeting. He let the angry crowd have their say. The discussion drifted between those who wanted to hang Fay at once and those who wanted a jury trial. It would take only minutes to reach a verdict, it was pointed out, and then the hanging could proceed. After the debate had gone on for a while, Reverend Dickey took the floor. With the fervor of an Old Testament prophet, the clergyman argued that it would not be sufficient to inflict vengeance on Fay. It was necessary to bring to justice the people truly responsible for crime in Skagway: the gang of cutthroats who controlled the town.

Soapy decided he’d heard enough. He stood and in a calm voice called for reason. Law and order must prevail if Skagway is to become a civilized community, he lectured.

Voices attempted to shout him down. “Lynch the murderer!” someone yelled. This cry incited the crowd, and the words became a chant: “Lynch the murderer! Lynch the murderer!”