The Northerners by Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.)

Author:Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) [Pronzini, Bill & Greenberg, Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western Fiction
Publisher: Fawcett Gold Medal
Published: 1990-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

III

Black John played stud that night, and next morning he stepped into his canoe and headed up the Yukon.

Early in the evening of the first day of the month, he lay in the bush at the mouth of the White River and grinned to himself as he watched a smudge of smoke resolve itself into a steamboat forging steadily against the current. “This ort to be good,” he muttered, “watchin three hard guys stick up a steamboat fer a shipment of lead!”

The boat held well toward the middle of the river, and just as the big man began to think that there had been some hitch in the plan—that the dummy shipment had not been made, or that the three robbers had not boarded her—the boat swerved toward shore. As it neared the bank, Black John could clearly make out the name Helen, could see also that there were two men in the pilothouse, and that a dozen or more persons, evidently passengers and crew, were huddled into the bow on the upper deck where a man kept them covered with a revolver. On the lower or freight deck, a boat was ready for launching, and two other men, evidently roustabouts, stood beside four stout, flatfish wooden boxes piled near the boat. These men were also covered with a revolver held in the hand of a large man, and as the boat nosed into the bank, Black John saw that the pilot was also covered.

A bell jangled and the wheel slowed to a churning just sufficient to hold her against the bank. The large man barked an order and the two roustabouts slipped the rowboat into the water, and stowed the four wooden boxes, together with three packsacks, into her. The man on the upper deck kept the group in the bow covered until the man in the pilothouse came down and stepped into the rowboat. Then he joined the two others.

Again the bell jangled and the steamboat backed away from the bank, swung her bow into the stream, and continued upriver. Two of the men in the rowboat manned the oars and rowed into the mouth of the White. Shifting his position, Black John watched them land a short distance above. The three stepped ashore, taking their packsacks with them, but leaving the boxes in the boat which they drew part way onto the sandy beach and secured her painter to a tree.

The sound of chopping was soon followed by the appearance of a thin column of smoke. The men were camping for the night, evidently intending to cache the boxes under cover of darkness.

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