BURYING ZIMMERMAN (The River Trilogy, book 2) (37 page)

"Them hills was wilder and steeper than the
ones upriver, and less cut by Injun trails, so tramping up into the
gulches was rough work. When the sourdoughs got down to bedrock on
tributaries like Little Minook and Hunter Creek, they was finding
four dollars to the pan and some ten and twelve-dollar nuggets.
There would of been a stampede to Rampart, if word got out and the
Klondike never happened. In the summer of '97, boats from St.
Michael was stopping at Rampart City to drop supplies, and when
some of the tenderfeet heading for the Dawson heared about Minook
Creek, they got off the boat to go prospecting. Others going to the
Klondike got iced in, so they went up into the hills to stake. By
the time Gig and I got there in July of '99, Rampart City was over
a thousand people in tents and cabins on a dirt shelf above the
Yukon, and there was a hundred claims being worked back on the
creeks."

Zimmerman says that even though Minook and
its tributaries weren't as rich as the creeks in the Klondike and
Indian River districts, Rampart had two compelling attractions. It
was much closer to the coast, and therefore much easier to reach
and re-supply by boat. And it was in Alaska, so no royalties were
paid to the Canadian government. The miners on the Rampart creeks
could keep all their hard-won gold.

"Gig and me talked about it on the boat down
from Dawson," Zimmerman says. "We reckoned that if there was gold
for sure in the beach sands at Nome, every last greenhorn and
gambler and confidence man would get there before the summer was
out. All you need is a shovel, a rocker, and a bucket to work a
claim on the beach.

"The Snake River run into the Bering Sea at
Nome, and some fellers was working the banks. Others was a few
miles back from the river on Anvil Creek. But it was flat tundra
everywhere and no trees, so it was easy to keep an eye on all the
claims and see who was doing what.

"Gig thought maybe Nokes figured out we was
headed for Nome. And maybe Percy and Bill was just a day or two
behind us on another boat. If Gig registered a claim in Nome, they
could stop by the mining office and track him down in an hour or
two. People was pouring in and hotels and cabins and saloons was
going up fast, but it still wasn't easy to hide.

"Maybe we could pull ten or twenty thousand
in gold out of the beach sand, or maybe it wasn't so rich as the
stories was saying. Or maybe before we found out, Percy and Bill
would show up with a summons and walk Gig onto a boat for Skagway.
And the creeks at Rampart might of been just as good a bet. There
was a claim on Little Minook where miners took out two thousand
dollars, just sinking their first shaft to bedrock and no
drifting.

"So we decided to split up. Gig got off at
Rampart and I kept going downriver. I had three thousand dollars
worth of dust and notes, and that was enough for me to catch a boat
from St. Michael and get set up in Nome. If I staked a beach claim
and Percy and Bill come by, I could send a letter up to Rampart
telling Gig to stay away. If he ain't heared from me by September,
he could catch one of the last boats down to St. Michael and get to
Nome for winter diggings.

"Gig was going to climb up Minook Creek and
stake on one of the tributaries like Hoosier or Slate. He had twice
as much money as me, but it was going to cost more to work a claim
back in the hills. He reckoned he could buy a pack horse in Rampart
City."

"Show me where Rampart is."

Zimmerman points to a spot on the etched line
about a fifth of the way from the bend at Fort Yukon to its
terminus at his edge of the table, where the Yukon empties into the
Bering Sea. I stab the table at Rampart and leave the knife erect,
wondering how he'll react. My left hand cradles the Colt in my lap,
just in case.

"You mean after spending his last year and a
half in Dawson dealing cards and pouring whiskey, Gig decided to
start working a claim again? In country that was rougher than the
Klondike, but not as rich?"

"Fellers was finding gold back on the creeks
and selling claims for good money. Others was selling lots and
building hotels in town. And there was two more reasons. First,
there wasn't no Mounties. Rampart City was an Alaska mining camp
with miners making the law. And no one there ever heared of Sam
Nokes.

"The other reason was something I didn't know
when Gig got off the boat. He told me later, when he finally made
it to Nome."

Zimmerman stops for a sip of whiskey, and he
glances quickly at the knife before leaning back from the table
again. He wipes his mouth and smiles a crooked smile as he awaits
my response.

"What was the other reason?"

"Gig wasn't going to be working by a claim by
hisself. His old friend Wylie been up on Little Minook Creek since
April."

Chapter 44

When Zimmerman mentions Wylie, I feel
impelled to reach toward Fort Yukon and extract the knife from the
table. I lay it flat on the headwaters of the Porcupine River,
close to my edge and safely out of his reach. Something I can't
identify troubles me about Wylie.

"You said Wylie disappeared the night someone
tried to strangle Alice Maine. That was in February. And you said
he never came back to Dawson. How did he get five hundred miles
downriver in the middle of winter?"

Zimmerman raises his watery eyes to mine but
doesn't answer.

"You said he was working a claim in Rampart
in April, but the Yukon stays frozen into May, so he didn't get
there on a boat. Are you saying he got his hands on a dog team and
sledded there by himself, without any time to put together an
outfit?"

"I ain't saying one way or the other,"
Zimmerman says. "I never knowed how Wylie got hisself to Rampart."
He lifts his cup from the table for a sip, then lowers it to his
lap and leans back against the aft wall. "It's just fifty miles
from Dawson to Fortymile," he offers. "Could be he went there
first, spent a couple of weeks scavenging grub and gear. Wasn't
much left at Fortymile, but there was still a few miners working
back on Birch Creek and a trading post and warehouse in town. You
got plenty of empty cabins for shelter and firewood, and some of
'em might of had jerky or flour or cans of meat."

My doubts seep through my skin in the form of
sweat, which I wipe from my forehead with my sleeve. "Then Wylie
managed to send word back upriver. After he staked a claim in
April, but early enough for his message to reach Dawson before you
and Gig left in July. And even though you saw Gig in Lousetown
whenever you weren't packing, he never told you Wylie made it
safely to Alaska and was working a claim on Little Minook Creek. He
didn't even tell you he was going to join Wylie when he got off the
boat in Rampart."

Zimmerman turns his head and gives me a
derisive look. "For a feller that wants to know the whole story,
you sure got a pinholed way of seeing things."

While wondering what that statement implies
about Zimmerman's adherence to the truth, I can't think of an
appropriate reply, so I answer with a quick tilt of whiskey. Its
warmth floods my chest and radiates toward my fingers. I exhale
deeply and try to set my reservations about Wylie aside for the
moment.

"You said Gig told you about Wylie when he
got to Nome. When was that?"

"A year later. Summer of 1900. By then Nome
was ten times what it was in '99. It sucked all the prospectors out
of Dawson and all the outlaws and con-men and whores out of every
rat's nest in the world. Nome made Skagway look like Soapy Smith's
garden party. So even though Gig got bigger problems than Sam Nokes
by the time he left Rampart, no one was going to bother him in
Nome. In that town there was wanted men standing on every street
corner and drinking in every saloon."

"What problem did Gig have that was bigger
than Sam Nokes?"

"He and Wylie got tangled up with a miner who
jumped Gig's claim on Myers Gulch, and that man got killed. The
other miners all come looking for Gig, but it was too late. He left
on a boat for St. Michael. When Gig got to Nome, he told me Wylie
done it on his own. And he said Wylie disappeared again, along with
that feller's gold."

I remember the rumor about Gig Garrett
stabbing a fellow miner in Alaska, and a wave of recognition and
doubt rises and falls inside me. Before tonight, nothing I'd heard
about Garrett ever connected him with someone named Wylie, but
Zimmerman says Wylie was responsible for Garrett's alleged crimes
in the Yukon. It was Wylie who tried to strangle Alice Maine in
Dawson, and Wylie who killed the miner in Rampart. If that's true,
it's not surprising that Garrett's peers might find him complicit,
since the two of them shared a tent in Lousetown, and the miner in
Rampart was found on Garrett's jumped claim.

Something seems discordant about Zimmerman's
story now. I can't pinpoint it yet, but it must be why my pulse has
quickened a few beats. I need to understand this claim-jumping
conflict.

"This miner Wylie killed. What was his
name?"

"Perlmutter," Zimmerman says, almost spitting
the word. "A dairy farmer that quit dairying and was going to build
a bible school in California with money from Yukon gold. Gig told
me he was the kind of feller most sourdoughs got no use for. Thin
and twitchy, all wrapped up in 'praise the Lord' this and 'we give
thanks for' that. Short brown hair and a baby face that probably
couldn't grow whiskers. And eyeglasses he was always taking off and
wiping clean."

"You said he jumped Gig's claim on Myers
Gulch. But earlier you said Wylie was working a claim on Little
Minook Creek. So Gig and Wylie weren't working together?"

"That last part ain't right. They was working
together."

"Where?"

"On Little Minook Creek. Wylie staked two
claims side by side. One for him and one for Gig."

"I thought you couldn't stake for someone
else."

Zimmerman grins at my objection. "You can
stake for whoever you want – just can't record a claim for someone
else. And if you stake but don't record, some other feller can come
along and take it. Cut your name off the stakes, carve his own, and
pay the recording fee. Then it's his claim.

"You ain't supposed to do what Wylie done, so
most fellers don't. But nobody bothered him about it. When Gig got
to Rampart, he went up to visit Wylie on Little Minook. Then he
come back down to the Commissioner's office to record the claim
Wylie staked for him."

"So Gig and Wylie are staked and registered
on Little Minook Creek, on adjacent claims. How did Gig get into
trouble on Myers Gulch?"

"It was only a couple weeks after he started
working on Little Minook. They was running low on grub, so Gig took
Wylie's pack horse down to town to stock up. Rampart City ain't far
from their claims – just a couple miles west to Minook Creek, then
five miles north to the river. When he got to the main trail, he
passed two fellers heading upstream and carrying shovels, with pans
strapped to their packs. A few minutes later three more come along,
moving quick up the trail just like the others.

"Gig asked 'em if they was stampeding, and
they said there been a strike on one of the gulches above Slate
Creek. So Gig turned around and went back up the Minook Creek
trail, five miles south to the mouth of Slate. Then he gone west up
the valley, following the fresh tracks in the mud. The walls is
steep with spruce down near the creek, but they back off into
meadows as you go higher up. About a mile up Slate Creek he come to
the gulch where the stampeders was measuring off claims and
staking. It was a cut into the north slope of the valley, maybe two
hundred feet across and running uphill for almost a mile. Had a pup
stream in the middle you could cross in three steps. There wasn't
no name on it yet, but later it got called Myers Gulch.

"Discovery was five minutes up the gulch, and
the two claims below it was already staked. Gig tied up his horse
near Slate Creek, took the rope and knife and hatchet out of his
saddle bag, and climbed up the gulch past all the stakes. The last
claim was 6 Above, and that was where the meadow rises into a stand
of spruce that eases back to the base of a headwall. Gig measured
off five hundred feet following the pup through the trees and
staked 7 Above. He said there wasn't another full claim left before
the pup come out of the wall at the top of the hillside, but before
he finished carving his stakes, another feller was walking off 8
Above. And from 8 Above to 2 Below, that was Myers Gulch staked top
to bottom.

"Gig panned out colors from 7 Above, but some
of the stampeders on the lower claims washed out a dollar to the
pan. And Judah Myers, the feller who staked Discovery, showed Gig
some twelve-dollar nuggets he found at rim rock. Them nuggets was
what started the stampede."

"Did Gig record his claim?"

Zimmerman shakes his head. "He took the horse
down to Rampart 'cause they still needed grub. Didn't get there
until late at night. Stocked up the next day and come back to
Little Minook."

I remember something Zimmerman mentioned
earlier. "He couldn't record, could he? Because it's one claim per
mining district, and he already had a claim on Little Minook. Wylie
did too, so neither of them could record on Myers Gulch."

"Gig told me he wanted to see what prospects
was on the gulch. If it looked rich, he was going to keep 7 Above
and sell Little Minook. Folks already knowed what Little Minook was
worth. Him and Wylie ain't started working Gig's claim yet anyway,
just using it for sluice-water while they was digging a cut on
Wylie's."

"So they were breaking the rules again and
hoping nobody noticed, like Wylie did when he staked for Gig on
Little Minook."

Zimmerman squints at me condescendingly. "Gig
and Wylie was three years Inside by then. They seen and done
everything twice on a Yukon placer mine. They knowed what they was
doing, just like all the real sourdoughs on them Rampart creeks.
But you can't say that for Perlmutter."