Clara glances toward the end of the bar, where our rifle hangs concealed. I take her arm firmly. She’ll never reach and load a firearm before these three can draw theirs.
Soapy looks at me with a flicker of approval. “Good girl,” he says, a portion of his southern polish restored. “No beauty, but at least you’ve got a brain. Now, I’ve given you my pitch. You’ll both stay and work the bar.” He eyes Clara. “Unless you want to try dancing.” Her expression should disembowel him, but he only shrugs. “Suit yourself. You work the bar, Miss Lily will manage dancers and musicians, and I’ll organize everything else. Deal?”
I shake my head, trying to clear it. “Not yet. What’s the split?”
He actually winks at me. “I do believe I like you, Miss Lily. Eighty-twenty is what I’ll do for you, if you’ll shake my hand here and now.”
That doesn’t sound so terrible, if we can just set aside the threats, the guns, and the sick fear I feel in his presence. “Eighty percent . . . for us?”
His mirth is sudden, immense, and genuine. When he can stand straight again, he mops the tears from his cheeks and beard, and even his henchmen are snickering. “Did I say you had brains? It’s eighty for me, you numskull. And that’s only tonight. You can sleep on the decision, but it’ll cost you. Tomorrow’s split is ninety-ten. And the day after that, this here saloon is mine.” He looks around, taking in the polished oak bar, the bright oil lanterns. “I think I’ll call it Jeff Smith’s Parlor.”
I hate his greasy condescension, but that’s not why my skin feels aflame, my throat strangled. I stare at him for a long minute. At last, I manage to croak, “This is flat-out extortion.”
Smith beams at me. “Welcome to Skaguay, m’dear.”
“I’d rather burn it to the ground than hand it over to that bastard,” Clara snarls, slamming down the last tray of whiskey glasses.
It’s four o’clock in the morning and we are finishing the dishes. The ones Clara hasn’t broken, anyway. “I know,” I say. “But we can’t burn down just one building; the whole town would go up in flames in about ten minutes. We’d destroy everyone’s future.”
“So what? They’re all hiding under their beds while that festering scab of a cheechako destroys our lives.”
It’s true. Smith and his henchmen left soon after his ultimatum. While I took care of the bar, Clara slipped out to talk with other Skaguay business owners. It seems there’s a lot to know about our would-be associate, none of it good. He was a street-corner flimflam man turned card shark. He earned the nickname “Soapy” for his most famous racket, in which he auctioned off bars of soap. His many saloons and gambling dens in Colorado were the perfect fronts for his cons, all of which involved stealing from unsuspecting marks.
With so much gold dust flying around the Klondike, and thousands of feverish tenderfeet stampeding their way up here, it’s no wonder Soapy reckons he can strike it rich too. He doesn’t need to pan for gold; he can steal it right out of everyone else’s pockets. And it’s no mystery why he’s chosen Garrett’s Saloon as his first target either. We are young. We are women. If I were Soapy, I’d have picked on us too.
Clara twirls the front-door key around her finger. “What do you say, Lil? I’m all for dousing the place in kerosene and lighting a bonfire so big they’ll see it in Canada. Then I’ll bury this key in a dog turd and leave it at Soapy’s door.”
I’ve never seen my sister like this. Then again, we’ve never faced this kind of threat. Lu Garrett didn’t have a rule for dealing with brazen extortion. “Where would that leave us, Clary? Homeless and destitute.”
“Not destitute: we have our savings. We’ll get the first boat to Seattle tomorrow morning.”
“D’you really think Soapy would wave us off from the dock after we destroyed the saloon? From his perspective, we’d have burned down his property. How many hoodlums does he have? Do you think we’d even make it on board?” I shiver. “I don’t think he’d be merciful just because we’re young women.”
She goes very still. “The opposite, I think.”
“Yes. He’d make an example of us, to whip everyone else into line.”
“We could give him the slip, head north over the White Pass.”
I raise one eyebrow. Locals know that the nearest trail to the Yukon is, well, impassable. Even now in midwinter, when the ground is solid ice instead of boggy mud, the route is narrow, treacherous, and putrid with the half-rotted corpses of hundreds of starved and overworked horses abandoned by their owners. Only the greedy and stupid attempt the White Pass. They try by the hundreds each week.
Clara’s eyes are wide, her face milky pale. After a long pause, she whispers, “Then we’re trapped. We have to agree to his terms.”
“The others won’t stand with us against Soapy? If we all worked together, we could run him out of town.”