“We’ve been a mile or less behind ya clear ‘cross the Pass,” the more talkative of the two said. “If it’d been up ta me, we would have laid inta ya long ago.” He nodded his head toward the dark hillside. “Zimmer said no, said that Mr. Smith didn’t want his business done in the open. Said we had to wait ‘til we could do the job and get clear away. All that damn way, all those damn dead horses,” he said bitterly, “then Zimmer tips ya by shooting too soon.”
“Soapy not be happy with you.” Sam said.
The man winced.
No one, bound or free, slept well that night.
The next morning, though MacLeod raged quietly about it, they decided that there was nothing for them to do but to let the two go free. There were most probably Mounties ahead at Lake Bennett. But that was still a day’s journey away. Adding two bound men to their party would not only slow them down, it would be dangerous.
Better to let them return to Skagway, to face the wrath of Jefferson Randolph Smith.
They collected all of the guns. What they didn’t keep, they threw far out into the lake. Then they waited until the two men had vanished over the hill, back toward the border. The bodies they left where they lay.
As they broke camp, the carrion birds were already circling.
Dear Claire,
We’re camped now by the headwaters of the Yukon River, on the shores of Lake Bennett. Although “camp” doesn’t really do justice to the situation. For it is here that the travelers who have climbed the Chilkoot and those who, like us, have crossed the White Pass converge. So great is the number that what might in time become a small town has sprung up. It was thus that Skagway came to be, I’ve been told.
There’ll be no Soapy Smiths here, though. The Mounties are present, as they were at the border. They keep order, supervise the boat building that is the occupation of the citizens of this “town,” and generally see to the common good. They are a marvel! How I wish they had been nearby when we were attacked in the Tutshi Valley.
I’m sending this letter, and my dispatches of the last month on to you by the hand of an American named Peter Moore. He and his friends are leaving this morning to return to Skagway. It seems that they had thought that the Klondike was just the other side of the mountains. When they reached here, and realized that a water journey of five hundred miles still lay between them and Dawson City, they lost all heart.
Moore intends to travel home by way of Seattle and has promised, for a price of course, to see that this gets to the Rainier Grand. I’m not sure what part, if any, you will want to share with Witherspoon. You would know, far better than I, whether or not it would be best for him to keep his illusions about this expedition.
For myself, Claire, the trail of dead horses has blasted any illusions that I might have had left after Skagway. Yet there is something that compels me to continue. And I have more confidence that this peculiar adventure may come to a positive conclusion since the Indian who calls himself Siwash Sam has joined with us.
He has proved his worth time and again. Most recently, it was only because of him that we were numbered among those given permission by the Mountie commander to continue our journey. This late in September, heading for the Yukon is a risky business. Only the soundest of crafts and the soundest of argonauts are being let by. The rest will winter here—except for those, like Peter Moore, who will turn back.
But our boats were solidly built, to Sam’s specifications. And the commander was impressed with his knowledge of what lay ahead.
And so we will go on, bound for—what??
The Irishman has done this work before,
Sam thought, as he watched the young man load gear onto the second of the rafts.
The Englishman—well, he is strong enough and willing enough.
As for the Scotsman—Sam still doubted his claim that he had lived for a time with a tribe of the Southland. White men were known to be liars. But the Scotsman had, sometime in his life, lived off the land. Sam had watched as he’d felled the slender spruce that ringed the lake, and shaped them into planks in the whipsaw pit. He’d watched as the man lent his hands to the building of the two raftlike boats that would carry them down the river. And he’d watched as he caught a string of trout, then cleaned the catch with no questions or hesitation.
Now he watched as the Scotsman stood on the first of the rafts, lashing down the sled and the supplies. When he had finished that, Sam would have him secure the extra rope to the deck. Later, Sam would look at what he had done. He knew that the work would be good.
Danny sat alone in the dark, leaning against a sled. After the wet snow and chill rain of the mountains, it was almost pleasant in the camp by the lake. Pleasant, but still damp. There was a fine mist in the air. He pulled his hat brim down to shield his face and stared across the water. The rafts were ready, anchored in place. They would leave before dawn. Tonight, at the insistence of Siwash Sam, the five of them would keep watch in turn. The first shift had fallen to him.
He’d taken the small square of white from his pocket. Long, long ago it had held the scent of the green-eyed girl-child. Through the years, Danny would hold it in his hand and think of her.
Now, the pale linen reminded him of Minnie Dale’s face. He wondered what she was doing and where. Were she and Fergus Cooley back in Vancouver yet? Had they married in Skagway beforehand? Or was Cooley planning a Church wedding?—a High Mass with a full choir singing the Gloria, the priest in heavy white vestments, lilies on the altar, and Minnie a vision in white satin and lace.
He wondered if he would really have killed Cooley. He’d killed a mortal once before, by plan. It was not a thing he spoke of. Even Hugh did not know of it.
The man—Michael Sheehan, his name was—had needed killing. He and Danny had both worked for the great political machine called Tammany Hall. Tammany ran the city of New York after the War. Not all of the job was on the up and up. But the Organization was there, if a man had to step over the boundaries, now and then.
Sheehan had had some education at the Church schools. And he affected manners that he’d learned when he was in service. So he thought he was better than the likes of Danny. He tormented him without end, in ways both large and little. They’d come to blows a few times. Though Danny was by far the smaller of the two, he had no trouble holding his own. The practice work he did with his sword had given him skills that were of use in many a fight. And the fact that he could not trounce Danny seemed to make Sheehan hate him all the more.
Still, for the most part, Danny held his temper. He’d learned a lesson in Temperanceville—it was best not to call attention to himself. Too many bruises that healed in a day’s time would raise questions.
Then one night, Sheehan told Danny that one of their regular contacts, a crooked copper named Russell Grady, wanted to meet with them on a certain street corner at a certain time. Danny arrived—and found himself in the cross fire of a gang fight. As he died in the gutter, coughing up bright blood from a torn lung, he realized that Sheehan must have known that the two gangs had plans for that evening. With his last breath, Danny swore revenge.
A week later, he’d followed Sheehan—who’d been mightily surprised to see him alive the morning after the shooting—as the man made his way home along the gaslit paths of Central Park. In the shadows of an underpass, he ran up behind. As Sheehan turned, Danny shot him once, square through the forehead. Then he took his billcase and the flashy ring from his finger. He’d thrown both into the lake.
That night, he’d drunk himself to sleep. His dreams had been troubled. He knew that what he’d done was wrong. But he had done it anyway.
And I could have done it again, wrong or not,
he thought.
Fergus Cooley, you are a lucky man indeed. If I had found you that night—
“Blast!” Hugh’s voice startled him. He looked up. His teacher stood on the shore, slapping at his cheek.
“Is it time for you to take my place already?” Danny asked.
“No,” Fitzcairn answered. “But MacLeod and the Indian are busy jabbering at one another in two different heathen languages. There wasn’t a lot I could add to the conversation.”
“Come out on the raft, then. But I should warn you—the bugs are just as bad here.”
“Mosquitoes!” Fitzcairn muttered, as he joined Danny, stepping carefully over some coils of rope lying on the deck. The dog called Vixen followed him, settling at his feet. “Is this not the Frozen North? Why then, I ask, haven’t these intolerable pests been reduced to mere bits of insectoid ice?” He swore again, swatting at his sleeve.
They sat for a while in silence. Danny continued to stare out at the lake. Fitz took out his pipe. As he went about the business of filling it, he hummed softly. The tune was one that Minnie had played. Danny drew his breath in sharply.
“She was a lovely girl,” Fitz said. “You’ll carry her memory with you for a long time, I’ve no doubt.”
“And as I am an Immortal,” Danny said, bitterly, “the time could be measured in centuries.” He turned on Fitzcairn, fiercely.
“We’ve talked of this before, Hugh. But I must ask it again—what is it for, this living forever? What good is it to be able to rise when you are done to the death, if your rising brings you nothing more than just another day?”
“Consider the alternative, lad.” Fitzcairn said. “Consider those four left rotting back on the trail.”
“That’s no answer, Hugh,” Danny said. “Sure and I know that any mortal would say he wanted to be like us.”
He heard Hugh sigh. “Well, yes, most would. Until they heard the part about the swords.” He drew up his knees and rested his arms on them.
“Some would say that we are what we do. That we live for the Game, for the chance to be the One. For them, that’s reason enough.” He drew on his pipe and blew out a plume of smoke.
“It’s not for you, I know. Nor has it ever been for me.” He turned and leaned forward. Danny could read the concern on his face.
“I asked the same question of Henry Fitz six hundred years ago. He could give me no answer. But, after he was gone, I came to realize that he had lived all his long life to prove, over and over, to mortals that were long dead that he was worthy of their family. That was his answer, the one he had came to for himself.” He paused.
“My friend Darius—you’ll meet him someday when we go to Paris—he’s one of the oldest of our kind. In his lifetime, he found two answers. And very different they were. For centuries, he lived for conquest. Now he’s a man of peace. The Highlander—”
“He lives for justice,” Danny broke in. “You told me so in Skagway. And I saw that it was true when we had to let those two thugs go. It pained him.”
“It’s his way,” Fitz said. “It always has been, I think. Though he used to be more inclined to seek that justice at sword’s point.” The dog stirred. Fitz reached down and scratched behind her ears.
“Ah, Danny, here’s all the wisdom I’m capable of. Your Immortality—it’s a treasure given to you. The great luxury of time to find your own answers. Whatever span of years the search consumes, you’ll live on to pursue it. And all those men camped here …” He gestured toward the shore. “They’ll be gone, dying with their own unanswered questions. And no time left to ask them.”
Danny stood abruptly. The dog pricked up her ears, growling softly in her throat. He turned his face away, and spoke with great intensity. “I hear the truth of what you are saying Hugh. I know there are times when you must doubt that I’ve a brain in my head. But I do. And that part of me understands.” His shoulders slumped.
“But there’s a part still that can’t fathom the notion that you and Mr. MacLeod were alive before white men ever saw this land. That I will be alive when the grandchildren of the men who stood beside me at Gettysburg are dust in the wind. That part feels—well, it’s dark and bleak, it is.” His voice broke.
“Do we get less like mortals as the time passes, Hugh? It might be a thing to be wished for, not to be human …”
Fitzcairn rose to his feet. “I should hope not, lad. If we were not human, why then we couldn’t love.” He put one hand on Danny’s shoulder.
“But we can love, lad. We can lose our hearts, and have them badly handled. Yet as long as we don’t lose our heads, we can go on living and learning.” He drew the young Immortal into a brief hug.
“Ah, Danny. Think what a blow it would be to the women of the world if Hugh Fitzcairn could not love! Imagine the lamentations!”
Danny laughed, shakily. Impulsively, he returned the embrace. His teacher’s words had comforted him. Though a black core of his anger remained, he felt a new hope, a new resolve.
If Fergus Cooley, a mere mortal, could find his fortune in the Klondike in a matter of months, then the odds of striking it rich were even more in favor of men with all of time on their side!
“Look there,” Fitzcairn said. The two rafts had just rounded a bend in the river. He stood and pointed. On the shore, tied to a tree, was a piece of red cloth. Directly beneath it, a hand-lettered sign bore the single word “CANNON.”
“Are we to be under fire now?” he shouted.
As the dull roar ahead became more pronounced, Siwash Sam spoke to him tersely. “Englishman—sit down. Hold on to sled. Not gun. Big water.”
Fitzcairn sat, crouching in the midst of the dogs, who were tethered tightly to the deck. At the back of the raft, Danny knelt at the sweep, the long heavy oar that served as a rudder. He steered at the Indian’s direction.
The second raft, with Sam’s brother at the front and MacLeod handling the sweep, was directly behind.
And spread out behind them, over the fifty or so miles back to the shores of Lake Bennett, was an assortment of boats that looked as though they had been whittled by the hand of a small demented boy. Rafts of all sizes, boats with sails of all description, even a craft that looked like a side-wheeler in miniature. It was hard to comprehend that this strange flotilla was the cull, the best of the hundreds and hundreds of floating conveyances that had been brought piecemeal or whole and entire over the mountains, or built painstakingly by the side of Lake Bennett.