Murder in Nome
by Charles Shugart Jr.

EXCERPT

Chapter 1
Life on a Sternwheeler

One of North America’s mightiest rivers, the Yukon normally flowed at a swift seven or eight miles an hour. Where it squeezed through narrow canyon walls the speed increased. Where the country opened up, causing the river to spread out, its speed slowed.

Jonathan had thrown his pack and bedroll in the double-bunked 2nd class cabin he shared with three other men, and spent all the rest of the day on deck. He watched the river and the surrounding forests of evergreen spruce and deciduous cottonwood, aspen and birch. It was only late summer, yet some of the leaves of the softwood trees were already beginning to change colors. A little yellow at first. Jonathan reckoned that by the time his boat had made the 1700-mile journey to the mouth of the river, there would be gold in the trees. Thinking about the color of autumn leaves caused him to think about the gold dust he’d turned in to the Imperial Bank in Dawson City. He’d exchanged it for U.S. currency and a bank check, which were easier to carry. Tucked securely in his money belt – out of sight under his shirt – Jonathan believed there was little to worry about while he was aboard the sternwheeler, and later, when sailing south to the states. Besides, he carried a Colt .44 revolver strapped to his hip except when he was asleep. The other three men in his cabin seemed to be honest. There should be no problem. He thought.

Jonathan stood at the main deck railing for a couple of hours, looking at the scenery and thinking about his two-year adventure in the North, then he began prowling the Northern Queen. It was one of the largest of the 200 or so sternwheelers that plied the Yukon River from Dawson City upstream to the brand new town of Whitehorse, and downriver to the Bering Sea and Saint Michael.

Of greatest interest to Jonathan was the gigantic stern wheel. It loomed above him, yet circled down to the river where it thrashed the water. Quiet and gentle it was not. The steam-powered engine turned an axle, which turned the paddle wheel. The blades of the wheel whomped the water with incredible power; it was hypnotizing to watch.

Because they were headed downstream, the Northern Queen went fast, probably twice the speed it would make on the return journey. The problem with going downstream quickly was that the pilot really had to know how to read the river, and had to anticipate what would happen long before it actually happened. Making quick corrections was not possible on the downriver runs. While the Captain and pilot were busily trying not to run aground on sand bars, the passengers, Jonathan included, simply enjoyed the ride.

After being sufficiently awed by the size and power of the paddle wheel, Jonathan went into the main dining room for a light mid-day meal. Handed the menu by a very well dressed waiter, Jonathan glanced at the prices and realized he had mistakenly sat in the First Class Restaurant. Quickly rising, he set the menu on the table and scurried out before the return of his waiter.

A few minutes of searching brought him to the 2nd class dining area, next to the boiler room. The food turned out to be better than Alaska Charlie’s cooking – although not by much. But then, Charlie hadn’t been all that great of a cook, anyhow. Still, it was much better than what he’d been forced to eat (“Eat it or starve”) on his first trip sailing along the Inside Passage some two years earlier.

Conversation in the dining room was varied, as could be expected. Many of the men were doing the same as Jonathan; they had finished their Klondike adventure and were bound for home with moderate amounts of money and gold in their possession. Others had spent more than a year digging in their claims, but had so little to show for their efforts that they could barely cover transportation costs to get home. There were also a few who had struck it rich and were returning home as wealthy men. Jonathan didn’t see them often because the first class passengers were separated from everyone else. They had their own cabin area, dining room, and stairways. They even had their own deck, as Jonathan discovered when he mistakenly set foot on it. A “gentleman” saw him and harrumphed, “I say, old chap; are you first class?”

Jonathan was about to reply that he was as much a first class person as the stuffy old Englishman was. Instead, he remained silent, turned and retraced his steps back to the second class section, muttering to himself that some rich people were pleasant, but not many of them.

There were few women on the boat. Some were wives traveling with their husbands. Some had probably found husbands in Dawson City. Others, more flamboyantly dressed, were dancehall types. They were very pretty, yet perhaps of questionable character. But then, Jonathan reflected, who was he to judge others only by their appearance. A woman was a lady until proved to be otherwise. At least, that was Jonathan’s belief. It had better be his belief, or his mother would give him what for. As Mrs. Tibbs had written in her last letter, “Jon, you’re having the adventures of a lifetime, and your father, sisters and I share your excitement. Just continue to take care of yourself, and don’t forget who you were raised to be, and who you are.” Unsaid were such thoughts as “Treat all women like ladies.” Jonathan didn’t need to be reminded.

He was 20 years old, and had been on his own for almost two full years, yet, with only a half dozen “lapses,” his thinking and behavior left him with few feelings of guilt. Except, of course, for the three people he had killed.

There were several men on board who looked like old sourdough prospectors. The rest looked like they’d been away from families and normal living for a year or two. Just normal folks. The second day on the river, Jonathan sat across from two of the old-timers at supper. During their conversation he mentioned that he’d been partnered with a sourdough named Alaska Charlie, and asked if either of the men knew him.

“Know him?” the shorter of the sourdoughs laughed. “Why shucks, he stole fifty dollars from me in a poker game at Diamond Tooth Gerty’s! Well, not exactly stole; he just played better than me.”

The other sourdough said that he’d first met Charlie a few years earlier. Their trails had crossed while working the gold creeks of small streams that fed into Forty-Mile River. “Didn’t know he was in the Klondike, though,” he added; “but with more than thirty thousand people wandering around Dawson and the Klondike creeks, that’s not much of a surprise.”

The two sourdoughs immediately became friendlier toward Jonathan, and introductions were made. As Jonathan had come to expect, neither used the names they were born with. Living the life of a true gold prospector seemed to lend itself to nicknames. The tall, slender, wiry man went by the name of ‘Frisco Jack. The short, chunky sourdough introduced himself as Wooly D.

Curious as always about how old-time prospectors had acquired such unique-but-strange names, Jonathan, as always, could not think of a polite way to ask. So he didn’t. Even with his friend and partner Alaska Charlie, he hadn’t asked the origin of his name. And he’d never found out Charlie’s last name, either. Some things weren’t meant to be, he concluded as the two men left the table.

After only eight or nine hours on the river, the Northern Queen approached what had been the thriving mining community of Forty-Mile. Coarse gold had been discovered along Forty-Mile River and some of its feeder streams in 1886. That was a full 10 years before the Klondike discovery. Word spread surprisingly fast in the far north, even way back when there were relatively few prospectors combing the creeks. Gold had a way of stimulating men into action, and all this action led to a small stampede the next spring. Forty-Mile grew steadily as a mining and trading town. By 1896 it had a couple dozen real buildings; it even had an opera house.

The big gold discovery in the Klondike, however, had siphoned away almost every resident, prospector, storekeeper and trapper. Within a week after George Carmack, Skookum Jim and Tagish Charley registered their Bonanza Creek claims at Forty-Mile, the small town was deserted. That was in late summer of 1896.

The sternwheeler powered its way past the ghost town, disturbing nothing except a pair of large ravens scrounging through the garbage dump at the edge of town.

Friendly and eager to learn from the longtime sourdoughs, Jonathan saw ‘Frisco Jack leaning against the railing. After exchanging greetings, Jonathan asked the old-timer if they were on the port side, or the left side. He knew that on ocean-going ships the left side was called “port,” but what do you call the left side of a riverboat?

Jack chuckled and said, “It don’t make no nevermind to me where the boat is, or how big it is. To me they’re all boats and left is left an’ right is right. I don’t worry none about it.”

Jonathan smiled, “I guess I just have a lot of questions, and I was taught that there aren’t any dumb questions. So, I ask them.”

“Hmmm,” Jack replied, “I reckon you was taught wrong, ‘cause that sure sounded like a dumb question to me.”

Jonathan turned, surprised at Jack’s response. The tall, skinny prospector was trying hard not to burst into laughter. He couldn’t manage it, though, and laughed long and hard. Then he apologized to the younger man, “Sorry; I guess I shouldn’t tease you since we jest met yesterday. But you seem so easy to tease.”

Jonathan relaxed, “No apology needed; I’m used to it. Alaska Charlie did it all the time.” He added, “What is it with you old geezers? Am I really that easy to lie to?”

“Well, for one thing,” and Jack smiled slightly, “you can call me old an’ you can call me a geezer, but when you say them together, you might hurt my feelings an’ make me cry.” Realizing that Jonathan wasn’t buying any of that, he continued, “You’re jest a trusting person, that’s all. Besides, I wasn’t lyin’. I was teasin’. You know the difference between lyin’ an’ teasin’?”

Jonathan snorted, “Yeah, Charlie explained it. Teasing’s when people know you’re lying, and lying is when they don’t know.”

Smiling broadly, Jack said, “You got that right. Pretty good for a Cheechako.”

“I’ve been up here for almost two years,” Jonathan replied somewhat defensively, “and Charlie told me I’d earned the right to be called Sourdough.”

Jack laughed again, saying, “Well, Alaska Charlie should know, so I won’t insult you again. In fact, I might just give you a nickname. Hmmm, how about Farmer Jon? You come from farming country, don’t you?”

Jonathan straightened to his full height and said, “Yes, but I’d rather you just called me Jonathan, please.”

The conversation lapsed into a companionable silence for a few minutes as the two men watched the scenery pass by. Then ‘Frisco Jack took his leave, saying that he wanted to find out what trouble his partner, Wooly D, had gotten himself into.

Back to Order Page

writing writers software