He gapes for a full minute at her glorious red-gold hair, her startling violet eyes. He wobbles visibly — a common response to Clara — and actually attempts a bow. “F-Fenton, miss. Stanmore Fenton. It’s a real honor to meet you, miss.”
Clara smiles, reaches over, and plucks the pistol from his limp fingers. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you to our humble town, Mr. Fenton. I know our ways are different from those Outside, but let’s start with this: the Indian gentleman in the corner is a member of the Tlingit tribe and a respected trader in town. He’s also a friend of ours. Why don’t you sit down and refresh yourself? I suggest you stand John a drink, to show there are no hard feelings. We have scotch, bourbon, gin, brandy, and beer. And champagne, of course.”
Her smile stays frozen in place until she gets to the bar, where only I can see her expression. “Come on, Lil,” she says in a fierce whisper. “You catch —”
“I know, I know. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
She whips off fur-lined mittens and sheds her Indian-style parka. “If you know it so well, why can’t you act on it?”
“I stopped him from pointing the pistol at John,” I mutter. It’s pathetic, a classic kid-sister kind of protest, but she isn’t giving me any credit at all.
“Yes, but it took me to confiscate the gun and sell him another round of drinks.”
“Well. Want me to mix him a vinegar cocktail?”
Clara snorts, a sound of amusement. Her ire never lasts. Unlike mine. She checks the gun — unloaded, which only confirms Fenton’s stupidity, to my mind — and drops it into a box under the bar, where it clanks against a motley array of other weapons. That’s another of Garrett’s rules: all firearms must be unloaded. Even our hunting rifle, which hangs discreetly along the side of the bar.
Our mother, Lucinda Garrett, made the rules. She raised Clara and me single-handed while running taverns from San Diego to Seattle. She taught us everything we know. When Lu died last year of influenza, we couldn’t bear to stand in her place behind the bar. Still, we wanted to keep up the Garrett tradition. We sold everything, took a steamer north, and were among the first to wade ashore along the mudflats of Skaguay.
Clara pours a tray of double scotches — that’s one shot of cheap whiskey, the same again of melted snow — and delivers it to Fenton’s table. John’s expression is serious, but he accepts his drink and takes a sip before slipping out the door with a brief nod of farewell. Fenton orders another round for his table. I slide a pair of logs into our wood-burning stove. Life in a gold rush town roars on.
“We need to be on the lookout,” murmurs Clara, setting the empty tray on the bar.
“What for?” I fiddle with the weigh-scale, and my fingertips come away glistening with gold dust, the second currency of Alaska. Sure, we prefer old-fashioned paper dollars, but with so many big spenders wandering around with pokes of gold dust looped through their belts, half our profits are weighed out in ounces.
“There’s a new con man in town. Name’s Soapy Smith.”
“‘Soapy’? That doesn’t sound so dangerous to me.”
“He was here for a spell last fall, running shell games and card scams out on the trails. Left at the start of winter. But now he’s back,” says Clara. “Apparently he’s greedy, ruthless, violent, and completely amoral.”
“I sure hope,” interrupts a silky male voice, “your sources also mentioned my considerable charm.”
Clara spins around. The speaker stands just behind her, a man with a thick black beard that hides his mouth and threatens his cheekbones. He has two friends with him, one at each elbow.
Fear twists my gut. The trio has been sitting near the bar this whole time, quietly drinking spruce beer. I’d written them off as cheechakos in their stiff boots, new coats, and inadequate gloves. We see hundreds like them stumble into town each week, fresh from the Outside, their pockets stuffed with cash and their heads with cotton wool. They roll into our saloon, certain that they’re just a couple weeks away from striking it rich, and celebrate in advance.
But if what Clara said was true, these three are entirely different.
“Evening, ladies,” says Soapy, tilting his hat to each of us. “Jefferson Randolph Smith the Second, at your service, although I hope you’ll call me Jeff.” He speaks with a soft southern lilt. “I believe I heard you introduce yourselves as Miss Clara Garrett and Miss Lily Garrett?”
We nod.