Death Takes Passage #4 Page 2

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  Jessie turned her head to see a stranger swing himself onto the stool beyond the other woman.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Bill Prentice. Don’t want to sound like I’m just hitting on you, but I know you from somewhere.”

  The approach did seem sincere, but it was hard to tell. He paused, smiling quizzically, and waited for her response.

  Plainly startled, she frowned slightly and gave him an uneasy glance before turning her eyes back to Don.

  The bartender waited, still holding her money, giving her a very straight and level look, communicating silently that if she wanted this person gone, he would see to it. She raised her eyebrows, soliciting his opinion. Was he personally acquainted? He pursed his lips slightly, cocked his head, and, with a barely perceptible movement, shrugged his shoulders. It was up to her, he didn’t know the guy.

  Giving her uninvited companion one more contemplative look, with a tiny half-nod and answering shrug she allowed Sawyer to set up the drink. Without accepting payment, he returned to the tap to draw a beer for the newcomer.

  Good man, thought Jessie, who had closely followed both the spoken and silent exchange. She was beginning to like this Sawyer person. A quick look at Jensen’s amused twist of lips told her that he, too, had observed the byplay to their right.

  “Thanks,” she heard the woman say, “but I don’t think you know me. I’m not from around here. Judy Raymond.”

  “Oh, neither am I,” he answered. “Nice to meet you, Judy. Where’re you from then?”

  The bartender set up the beer and smiled. “These are on me,” he told her.

  Another bit of good, subtle work. Without being conspicuous, he had succeeded in giving the guy notice that anything out of line would not be tolerated, and he had explicitly canceled any obligation she might feel by making the beer on the house. As the couple resumed their tentative conversation, Sawyer met Jessie’s watchful eyes, and she smiled appreciatively at him; another small conspiracy of silent communication. He grinned and went on down the bar in response to a customer waving an empty mug.

  Jessie turned back to Alex, who was watching the piano player wend his way through the maze of tables back to his instrument.

  “You about ready to go?” he asked. “I’ve had enough of the noise.”

  “Sure.” She pushed back the last of her ale and slid off the stool to stand beside him. “The boat will be in by eight tomorrow morning and I’d like to see if we can get our stuff on board early. Then we can enjoy the day before we have to dress up.”

  “Great.” Jensen laid a generous tip on the bar for Sawyer, who raised a hand in a brief farewell wave. “I’m tired. Too much bouncing around in the air between here and Juneau.”

  “Were you airsick? We weren’t airborne very long and you fly in small planes all the time with Caswell.”

  “No, I just don’t like it rough, and it’s always rough over the Lynn Canal.”

  Jessie yawned as they stepped out the door. Alex took her hand, tucking it snugly under his arm.

  The street was empty. They did not notice a figure that exited the Onion a few seconds behind them and slipped immediately into the dark shadow of a doorway to watch them stroll in step along the boardwalk toward the hotel.

  3

  10:35 P.M.

  Sunday, July 13, 1997

  Spirit of ‘98

  Lynn Canal, Alaska

  JENSEN LEANED ON THE STARBOARD RAIL OF THE SPIRT OF ‘98 and watched the black waters of the Lynn Canal stream past the moving ship. Out of uniform, comfortable in jeans and a sweater with deck shoes on his feet, he was enjoying the relaxation of a last pipe before going in to bed. The fragrant smoke was whipped away by the wind, disappearing almost instantly into the darkness. Jessie was already cozily ensconced on one of the beds inside the cabin, reading a book on the gold rush.

  The deck was quiet, and Alex could hear the rush of water and see a bit of the white roil of the wake as the ship ran south and west on the second leg of the overnight trip to Sitka. Beneath these noises, the throb of powerful engines was as much a sensation as a sound, a deep rumble from somewhere underfoot.

  Not a single light was visible on the distant shore of this particular stretch of immense and uninhabitable wilderness, but far across the wide waters of the channel he could see the tiny lights of another vessel moving, maybe a fishing boat headed for Juneau, or a sailboat unable to reach safe harbor before sundown. It looked incredibly small and lonely to Alex, giving him the same poignant, solitary feeling that he always had on hearing the haunting whistle of a train going anywhere at night. As he watched, the lights moved slowly away and were swallowed by the dark around some point of land.

  The Spirit had sailed from Haines promptly at nine-thirty. Now, as it grew late, most of the passengers, pleasantly tired from the bon voyage celebrations aboard and ashore, had already yawned their way to their cabins. A few tipsy diehards, still too excited to consider an end to the festivities, had gone to the main lounge on the deck below for a nightcap, perhaps the last of the afternoon’s champagne, but any sound of their small, continuing revelry was masked by that of the ship and the breeze its motion created.

  A couple, senior citizens still in party dress, came up the companionway and passed behind Jensen, heading aft.

  “Good night,” he called after them, and the gray-haired man raised a hand in response, without looking back.

  Turning his attention again to the dark beyond the rail, Jensen contemplated the barely discernible silhouette of the mountains that lined the shore of the channel, a solid barrier to the south. Behind them, glaciers filled the high basin of the St. Elias Range for hundreds of miles with a deep, interconnecting ice field, above which rose only the tallest peaks and ridges. Between each mountain, hanging glaciers spilled centuries-old fingers of ice over the edge of each lofty valley. In the sunshine, their broken edges reflected blue, so compressed by the annual weight of blanket after blanket of snow they absorbed all other colors of the spectrum. Though originally composed of airy snowflakes, all were now incredibly dense. The few massive rivers of ice that found their way down to the sea were so heavily compacted that, if they ever receded, the land they covered would rebound and rise inches in the absence of their mighty weight. Now, in the dark, these ice floes were as invisible as the peaks they divided, each with an unseen stream of ice-melt falling hundreds of feet to dilute the ocean’s salt with freshwater.

  It had been a long day, and Jensen was glad to catch a breath from his official duty of representing the Alaska State Troopers, though he was pleased to be a part of this unusual trip. The duty was also unusual for him; he was used to the continuing effort of solving homicides in South Central Alaska. For this trip he would be required only to dress in his best uniform and appear at all the official and ceremonial events, representing the state’s law enforcement agencies.

  He and Jessie had boarded the Spirit in Skagway early that afternoon, changed into appropriate period clothing in their cabin, and stood at the rail, watching other passengers come aboard, while he wondered exactly what he had volunteered for. Wearing his Alaska State Troopers dress uniform—medium blue tunic and darker blue trousers with a gold stripe that ran down the outside of each leg with a smaller red stripe in the center, blue Stetson hat, banded with gold braid and decorated with two small gold acorns—made it impossible to relax, always encouraging him to stiffen his spine and draw back his shoulders.

  Running a finger under his tight collar, he straightened his tie and sighed, longing for his well-broken-in jeans and soft cotton shirt.

  “You look very handsome,” Jessie told him with a glint of humor in her eyes.

  He did look especially tall and official. The uniform was thoroughly modern, yet somehow it did not seem out of place on the Spirit, a boat designed on the lines of coastal steamers of the previous century.

  “From the neck up,” Jessie told him, with a glance at his handlebar musta
che, “you could have walked right out of one of those old photos.”

  She was dressed in a costume she had made herself: crisp white blouse with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a long, navy blue, gored skirt, pleated full in the back. The lacy flounce of a white petticoat was occasionally visible, swinging under the skirt as she moved. A similar sea-foam of white lace cascaded from a cameo brooch at her throat, and a small, flat, straw hat, decorated with a pink rose, and carefully pinned to her curls, completed the outfit.

  “You need some of those high-button shoes,” Alex suggested.

  “Not a chance. Getting around the boat in this skirt is challenge enough. I’m happy with these, thanks.” She raised the skirt and petticoat to reveal her everyday shoes, with a very low heel.

  The day was sparkling, clear and warm. The snow on the distant peaks across the Lynn Canal gleamed pure white in the sunshine. Miles away, the glacier faces exhibited a few faint suggestions of blue. Spruce so dark they were almost black thickly covered the lower slopes; the millions of trees contrasted sharply with the mountains that never lost their frozen cover.

  The small town of Skagway was nestled in a narrow valley between the long arm of ocean and its own surrounding promontories, little more than a mile long and the width of four city blocks. A few homes climbed the northern slopes, where a road looped around eight miles of ridge that separated Skagway from the starting point for the Chilkoot Trail. Skagway was alive with the hundreds of tourists brought by the huge tour ships that docked at the wharf. Its streets were festooned with banners, flags, and decorations, which contributed to the revelry of its seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, most of whom were on the street or dock.

  “All this enthusiasm is catching,” Jessie said.

  The whole idea of the centennial reenactment pleased them both with its appropriateness. It seemed exceptionally well planned and orchestrated.

  They couldn’t have had a better place for watching the events preceding the sailing than the highest bridge deck of the Spirit, with its antique, coastal steamer appearance. From this position, they had a view of everything that was happening on the dock below and back as far as the main street, where they could see activity in front of the Old White Pass and Yukon Railroad Depot, currently a National Park Service Visitor Center. In a still impregnable hundred-year-old safe, the ton of gold designated for the trip had been secured the night before. A group of men were bringing it out now in wooden boxes, loading it onto a solid old baggage wagon for the short journey to the dock.

  “Look.”

  A sharp, piercing cry drew her attention, and Jessie pointed out a bald eagle, drawing circles in the air high overhead, gliding like a hang glider on invisible thermals. Like everyone else, it seemed to be observing the dockside activity.

  “Curiosity, do you think?” she asked Alex, watching it float.

  “Probably looking for dinner.” He pointed to a miniature poodle on a leash held by a woman on the dock. “One swoop and that pooch would be history, if there weren’t so many people around.”

  Shouts of laughter turned their attention back to the crowd milling about on the dock and coming, single file, up the gangway. Jessie, an amateur photographer, had brought along her 35mm Minolta and a variety of lenses. Now she busied herself taking pictures of the activity below and those who were coming aboard.

  It was a festive group, many in costumes of the late 1800s, representing the diversity of those who had come north during the gold rush a century before. Among them was a gang dressed as scruffy miners, one with a pickax over his shoulder. He waved at the crowd of Skagway residents assembled on the dock.

  A married couple came up the ramp, he in miner’s garb, she in the long skirt of the period. Between them they carried a blanket rolled around what was supposedly their wealth of gold. Feigning extreme difficulty in supporting its weight, they staggered laboriously and dramatically aboard, playing to their audience.

  A bookish-looking man in gold-rimmed glasses seemed in studied contrast to the furs he wore and, from mukluks to hooded parka, appeared overheated and distinctly uncomfortable in the July temperature that hovered in the mid-eighties.

  “Ho for the Klondike,” someone shouted, and a cheer rippled through the crowd, followed by applause for a woman who swept onto the ship in a striking costume of deep red velvet. One by one, the passengers came up the gangway, excited to be embarking on the reenactment of a historic journey.

  Boarding with the costumed passengers were some who had chosen to retain their modern mode of dress.

  “Probably hated Halloween as kids,” Alex speculated.

  One of these, Jessie noticed, was the woman from the bar stool next to her in the Red Onion the night before. Dressed casually in beige slacks and a knit top, carrying a light blue windbreaker, Judy Raymond’s dark hair was covered by a hat the color of her jacket, with a brim that shaded her eyes over a pair of dark sunglasses. She greeted the ship’s captain with a conservative half smile, hurriedly escaped up the gangway, and immediately disappeared, as if she wished to separate herself from the celebration.

  Alex and Jessie stared after her, curiosity aroused at the odd behavior. Why would anyone go on such a trip and not want to take an active part in it?

  The captain, first mate, and several Centennial Committee members were at the bottom of the gangway, welcoming passengers. Among them were dignitaries coming aboard only for the first leg of the journey and planning to leave when they reached Haines, an hour and a half later, after a reception to mark the beginning of the cruise. For the most part, these—the mayors of Haines and Juneau, legislators, other officials and their wives—did not wear costumes but arrived in their everyday professional attire. The governor and his wife, however, had outdone themselves in dressing to suit the occasion as had the mayor of Skagway and his spouse.

  As Alex watched the mayors glad-hand each other and everyone else within reach, Jessie used a zoom lens to capture the look of their authentic gold rush outfits. She was not alone in her photography, for half those in attendance, residents and tourists alike, were clicking shutters and using up film at a rate that would have pleased Kodak.

  A bright yellow, old-fashioned vehicle, not quite recognizable as either a van or a bus, pulled up near the gangway, and its passengers began to clamber out through multiple doors along each side. The logo on the front door announced it as part of The Skagway Street Car Company. The driver, in black period suit with a gold watch chain across his vest, stepped out, still telling tales of Skagway history, and circled the vehicle to make sure all the doors were closed.

  “Hey, Steve,” someone shouted from the crowd. “You going on the cruise?”

  He waved and smiled but only shook his head in answer, still engaged in the business of caring for his streetcar and passengers.

  “What the heck is that taxi … bus … thing,” Alex wondered aloud. You have any idea?”

  “Yes!” Jessie crowed, “I do!” glad for once to be able to tell him something he didn’t already know. “Ever see pictures of Yellowstone in the early days? They used to have those in the lower-forty-eight state parks to ferry tourists around.” She explained that a small fleet of the unusual vehicles had been purchased and brought north when their usefulness became outdated in the parks. Reconditioned and well maintained, they now fit right into the gold rush appearance of Skagway.

  “Hey.” Jensen pointed toward a man who had exited the streetcar and was approaching the Spirit’s gangway. “Someone’s playing Soapy Smith. What a great costume. He even looks like the old photographs. Get a picture of him, will you, Jess?”

  Dressed in a broad-brimmed hat and dark suit, with a vest buttoned high over a cravat, the man wore a neatly trimmed beard and carried what looked like a briefcase. From somewhere in the crowd of observers came a hiss of disapproval, followed by laughter for this notorious Skagway con man, now a century dead. The man with the case turned, swept off his hat in an exaggerated bow to the onlookers, grinned, and proceeded
to shake hands with the members of the welcoming committee.

  In less than an hour the Spirit would sail, but a ton of gold had to be loaded first. This voyage would commemorate the first gold—over two tons—that had been brought almost exactly a hundred years earlier on the SS Portland, from the rich Klondike claims to Seattle. For this centennial trip, an actual ton of gold had been amassed by miners still working in the Dawson City area; it was now being brought down to Skagway for transport to Seattle. Watching the passengers, Jessie and Alex had forgotten its approach. Now, in fifteen wooden boxes stacked on the antique baggage cart and pulled by a modern cargo tractor, it was eased slowly and carefully down the long vehicle ramp and onto the dock. Clearly, no one wanted to risk having somewhere between thirteen and fourteen million dollars in gold plunge over the side of the concrete dock into the frigid waters below.

  Even in the wooden boxes that had more than doubled its size, it didn’t seem possible that it could weigh over two thousand pounds.

  “Is that all?” Jessie asked. “Looks awfully small.”

  “Gold’s heavy,” Alex told her. “A ton in one container would be about the size of a footlocker, or three five-gallon cans, maybe. Of course you couldn’t lift either one … but …”

  Laboriously, with hand trucks, each hundred-and-fifty-pound box of gold was carried aboard, disappearing onto the Spirit through a door that opened onto the Main Deck, making it unnecessary to move it up the gangway.

  Throughout the morning, one of the boxes had been open for display in the visitors center, under the watchful eyes of a pair of guards who had accompanied it down from Lake Bennett on the narrow gauge railway. Alex and Jessie had gone to take a look, and they’d been rewarded with a view of the assorted kinds of gold that made up the ton: dust and nuggets in canvas bags, opened for the curious, and bars or ingots, both professionally made and smelted into rough shapes by the miners themselves.

  “Where are they keeping it for the trip?” Jessie asked.