Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen (16 page)

Behind this was a bill McKenzie helped shove through Congress that effectively stripped out the language protecting the rights of aliens to own US land. With that seemingly trivial, overlooked, and innocuous bit of language missing, Alexander McKenzie proceeded to the next step in his plan. His bought-and-paid-for federal team proceeded to “legally” take a number of lucrative mines from their owners—who all happened to be foreigners whose mines were bought and paid for with their own sweat and blood.

McKenzie orchestrated the entire affair, naturally, and then went to Nome himself and personally oversaw removals of rightful mine owners, then saw to it that “his mines” were worked for himself, by his own selected miners. McKenzie took possession of everything at the mines when his thugs “escorted” the men off their own property, along with their tools, clothes, and food. The ample profits from the mines went straight into his personal vault in Nome.

“You can't be serious.” The corner of Red's whiskered mouth rose in a half smirk. He shook his head as he sunk his spade once more, levering out an irksome head-size stone. He didn't glance again at his partner, Duncan (most folks called him Dunk), a reedy drink of water whose neck was all Adam's apple rising and falling as he talked, like a float in a water gauge. The man's face fared no better—it was all rough whiskers and back-sloped forehead that came together in a long, big-nostriled nose.

Finally Red stopped, and still wearing a smile, he looked again at his pal. “You know, Dunk, we been partners at this claim for what? Six, seven months? And I will say that between the two of us we make one decent miner. And fortunately for us one's all this claim needs. We been lucky.”

Dunk nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing in counterpoint to the action. “What're you sayin', Red?”

“My point is you're always coming up with fanciful tales and whatnot.”

“So? I thought you liked my chatter. You told me yourself that it helped pass the time.”

“And so I did, yes sir. But this time you've outdone yourself. I'm used to you running off at the mouth all hot and bothered because you heard some rumor in town that we'll all be kicked off'n our claims. But this one takes the cake.”

The skinny man screwed his begrimed cap down tight onto his head and squared off, as if he were a pugilist before a mirror. “Now see here, Red. You got no right to call me a liar. I may be a lot of things, but I ain't lying. I'm telling you the truth.”

Red stared at his partner as if he'd not seen him in a long time, as if he'd not broken bread with the man every day for the past eleven months. As if he'd not shared the same dingy little cabin no bigger than the inside of a Conestoga wagon for the same stretch of time. Red didn't think that if they'd met anywhere but here in Nome, Alaska, each needing a partner in order to work a claim efficiently, they'd ever have been friends.

“You really do believe in the bull you're shoveling at me, so help me, don't you, Dunk?”

The thin man merely nodded. He was not one to gloat. Though it was true he was prone to pushing and pulling a story to make it even better when necessary. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” his Pap had once said. But this one time he didn't have to do a thing except run back to the claim with the sack of corn meal and tin of milk and tell Red just what he'd heard.

“Now say it again, but slower this time. If you're telling the truth, and so help me I guess you are—though I wish you wasn't—we'd better think on this thing.”

“Yep, but we can't think too long, you know.”

“Why? It's our claim, ain't it?”

Dunk shook his head. “Not for long. Them two fellas, the Pole and the Swede, down the hill? They been evicted. I talked with Jabert and he told me he seen the Swede put up a fight—you know how big the Swede is—and by God if they didn't leave and come back with the law, put shackles on the man's big ol' wrists, led him off.” Dunk pantomimed the action, his long bony legs high-stepping a few paces away, his own hands clasped behind his back.

“But what danger are we in? We have our papers, our deed, all in order. We made doubly sure of that.”

“Yep, but it don't matter. This politician named McKenzie, I think it was.” He rubbed his whisker stubble on his chin, then nodded and snapped a finger. “Yep, Alexander McKenzie, that's the man. He represents, oh, I don't know just who. . . .”

“Himself, that's who,” said Red. “I heard all about him. Just didn't think there was teeth enough in the story to worry about it.”

“You heard about him and you didn't tell me?”

“I just said it didn't seem like anything we needed to worry about, didn't I?”

“So what do we do now?”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough. I hear tell McKenzie won't actually own the mines, but he's the one who'll operate them while the people who own the mines, you and me, for instance, and all our friends up and down the valley here, are booted off our own property.”

“How come it's only the foreigners?”

“Speak for yourself, Red.”

“No, I'm serious. You weren't born of the United States, were you?”

“Well, no.”

“And neither was I. And the Swede and the Pole? Nah, nor the two Russian brothers. But you take that other fellow, the one who keeps to himself, John Quinton is his name. He's not been molested yet, has he?”

“I don't think so.”

“So what should we do?”

“We should go to town, see what we can make of this with the law.”

“But Red, from what I've heard, he is the law. Or at least he owns it. He's the man who got all them appointed to their positions.”

“Well this can't just happen. Has to be somebody who can help us. I tell you what. You help me gather up what we can. We have to stash it somewhere, then I'll go to town, see if I can figure out who to meet with. Got to be somebody who can help us.”

“Why you?”

“Because we need someone to stay at the diggins', else we're sunk before we float.”

Dunk thought about it a moment. The logic addled him, but he nodded. Red always seemed to know the right thing to do right quick, whereas he had to take his time and mull things over a spell before a solution came to him, right or no. Maybe his mammy, God rest her, was right—she had once told him he was a blessedly simple creature.

The broad-waisted man drummed fat fingers on the worsted-wool vest stretched drum tight on his ample midsection. An aroma he recognized immediately tickled his conditioned nostrils. Here was a warm feast not long from the stovetop. A civilized meal while out and about making the rounds with his security force—now here was a treat. And all his!

“Sir, that's the man's supper.” The man who spoke abruptly shut his mouth and backed a pace toward the door when his employer fixed him with a steely stare. He didn't dare say another word as he watched the fat man, Alexander McKenzie, settle himself down at the table and tuck into the hapless mine owner's afternoon meal.

Despite himself, the hireling had licked his lips. The meal smelled good and looked even better. He bet it tasted even better than that. Corn bread, thick stew—spuds and carrots and hunks of beef all piping hot. Real beef? Nah, had to have been moose or venison. But still. . . .

Fact was, he was beginning to regret ever taking on this job. The rest of the boys were numb enough between the ears that they'd follow along lock-step with McKenzie's orders, but he was growing increasingly distressed as time wore on. Half the men he had “arrested” were fellows he knew. Good, honest, hardworking gents who sent most of what they mined back home to their families. Or else saved up to buy bigger stakes. And he had begun to have serious doubts about the legality of Alexander McKenzie's claims on these men's holdings.

“I know what you're thinking,” said McKenzie in between chews and swallows and gulps of the absent man's rapidly disappearing hot meal.

Now here was McKenzie, with the gall to tell him he knew what he was thinking? “Oh?” He folded his arms. “And what's that?”

McKenzie dragged his cuff across his mouth and said, “First of all, when I speak to you, you address me as Mr. McKenzie. And second of all, I don't like your tone. But I'm going to tell you what I was thinking anyway. You think all this business of appropriating those mines that are rightfully mine is somehow a seedy business, don't you? You are becoming disillusioned with it all. You think that you have discovered some truth, some hidden morsel that makes you feel holier than high, don't you?”

“No, no sir.” The hireling reddened and felt this face heat up. How did McKenzie know what he'd been thinking?

McKenzie resumed eating. Presently he spoke again. “You're not the first, you know. Nor will you be the last. But I tell you,” he wagged the knife, gravy dripped from the point, hit the floor. “The law is the law and a man has to make his own way in this world, else he'll be nothing but somebody else's rube. You hear me?” He gulped wine. “I hired you because you seemed to have a head on your broad shoulders, which doesn't hurt, and now I see that maybe I made a mistake.”

“Oh no, sir. Mr. McKenzie. I didn't mean that. I . . .”

“That you what?” McKenzie smiled. “Never back up. Never give them an opening. Keep moving forward. And believe in what you're doing.”

Even if it's wrong? He watched his employer gobble down the rest of the man's meal. Before the afternoon was gone he'd watch McKenzie do the same to three more meals miners had prepared for themselves.

Knowing they would not get a fair shake in Nome, and finding themselves without mines or much in the way of personal property, the miners, many of them Swedes, ventured all the way to San Francisco to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The judge there saw McKenzie's duplicity for what it was and overturned the decision of the corrupt, handpicked judge in Nome.

The outraged McKenzie refused to acknowledge the validity of such an action. This proved to be the turning point in the case—the fabled “McKenzie's Machine” had flouted the law a little too aggressively. While McKenzie stayed on in Nome and continued to rummage with his fat hands in the rich diggings he'd stolen, the judge from San Francisco readied two federal marshals to travel north to Alaska to arrest him.