Secrets in Scarlet by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Collections & Anthologies, Media Tie-In, Mystery & Detective, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781839081828
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2022-10-03T23:00:00+00:00

Strange Things Done

Lisa Smedman

Rex Murphy walked down the pier, suitcase in one hand and portable typewriter, secure in its leather carry case, in the other. His roving reporter’s eye took in the passengers bustling along the wooden planks of Seattle’s Pier 2, noting details for the story he planned to write. Those bound for Alaska included miners in hobnailed work boots and flannel shirts; cannery workers with duffel bags slung over their shoulders and wool caps on their heads; and the occasional tourist.

Rex’s gaze picked out the unusual: a thin man in an expensive-looking suit, with a bright red cravat knotted at his throat – his snappy clothing a sharp contrast to that of the rough and ready workers – and an orthodox priest wearing a black cape and fur hat, his long black beard covering his chest, a reminder that Alaska had once been part of the former Russian empire. The priest strode along the pier, an elaborately carved staff thumping the boards with each heavy step. Closer to the end of the pier, a man in a frayed woollen sweater watched as a shipboard crane lifted wooden crates, each containing a barking dog. Sailors shouted to each other over the din, and the smell of seaweed, creosote and coal smoke hung in the air.

Rex checked his ticket. The ship the dogs were being loaded onto was the one: the SS Martha. When he’d booked passage north with the Alaska Steamship Line, he’d expected something a bit bigger, a bit grander. A modern liner with staterooms and smoking parlor. The Martha looked more like a sailing ship, wooden hulled and only about a hundred feet long, with tall masts fore and aft. Smoke rose from her single funnel as the crew got up steam preparatory to departure. Her hull was scraped and her paint flaking; Rex imagined the antiquated ship had seen a few decades of service, grinding her way through drift ice to the remote ports she served.

The Martha looked old enough for Robert Service to have sailed aboard her. Rex was following the route the poet had taken north in 1904, first by ship to Skagway, then by train to Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon. Rex hoped his usual bad luck didn’t manifest on this trip; it was late in the season, and an avalanche had closed the White Pass & Yukon Route tracks just last week. Not that he’d mind a few extra days in Skagway, with the Advertiser footing the bill. The journey would certainly be more colorful, judging by the mix of characters he saw boarding the Martha.

Rex approached the man with the dogs, who was kneeling beside one of the crates, talking softly to the animal inside it. The dog had one brown eye and one blue, and thick gray-white fur.

“That’s a fine looking dog,” Rex said. “What breed is it?”

“Siberian Husky,” the man answered, not looking up. He poked fingers inside the wire mesh at the front of the crate, scratching the dog’s cheek.

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