The Floor of Heaven (52 page)

Clearly, anyone setting off to tell a true story about the lives and times of these three men would need to make his way through a deep and murky historical swamp. He’d face the genuine danger—“probability” is undoubtedly more accurate—that he’d soon be knee-deep in a morass of fanciful yarns, self-serving fabrications, and, too often, blatant lies. To write a factual account, he’d need to tread gingerly through some rough historical country. No source—not even a first-person account, or contemporaneous newspaper articles, or, for that matter, an article in a scholarly journal—could be accepted at face value. For example, there are at least six accounts of Soapy’s attempt to rob the gold shipment protected by Captain Zachary Taylor Wood of the NorthWest Mounted Police. There’s a telling in Reverend Robert Dickey’s Gold Fever, a contemporaneous report rediscovered in 1997 by the resourceful Klondike Press; another mention in the reverend’s diaries now at the Yukon Archives in Whitehorse, Alaska; a 1983 article by G. S. Howard in the Quarterly, published by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; a passing reference in Forty Years in Canada, the 1915 memoir by Wood’s boss, Colonel Samuel Steele; a fast-paced account in a 1957 edition of the magazine Fury: Exciting Adventures for Men; and several oblique references in the papers of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency stored at the Library of Congress. Significantly, each of these “true” accounts offers a conflicting version of events.

This is not to say, however, that all these epistemological problems took me by surprise. I knew what I was getting into: Yarns and tall tales are the stuff that has helped keep the Wild West and the far north alive in our imagination. In fact, these sources were my inspiration, too: I hoped to pay tribute to this proudly inflated yet iconic heritage.

I wanted to write a character-driven story about the intrepid men who traveled from one newly civilized frontier to a place that remained excitingly dangerous, a fierce and lawless land. I wanted to tell a story about people so squeezed by the economic hardships of the times that they were willing to do or try just about anything to fill their lives with the prospect of something better. I wanted to write about the heroes, villains, and dreamers who joined the great stampede to the frozen north. I wanted to capture the boldness, self-reliance, and tenacity of the men and women who helped shape a still vibrant strand in the American character. I wanted to tell an engaging tale that contained both high drama and a perplexing mystery. And I wanted to write a true story, to boot.

So, I read. I made my way through piles and piles of books, articles, pamphlets, and monographs. Spreading across my long, light-filled writing room were, to give only a few examples, such diverse mountains of knowledge as scientific treatises on gold mining and metallurgy; tales and histories of the Yukon gold rush; photocopies of 1890s newspaper articles from Denver, Skagway, and Juneau; collected pioneer letters and diaries; and first-person reports of cattle drives up the Chisholm Trail. I gave myself an extensive education—and I knew I was only skimming the surface. I also traveled, going to Matagorda County, Texas, then up along the Alaska Panhandle and into the Yukon Territory; and I even made a quick jaunt up I-95 from my home in Connecticut to Yale University, where the Beinecke Library holds an extensive collection of court records, photographs, and letters involving Charlie Siringo (a treasure trove whose location is not so surprising as it might seem when one considers that Howard R. Lamar, a former president of Yale, is the author of the well-researched and readable Charlie Siringo’s West, published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2005).

Once I’d completed these preliminary researches, after I’d seen with my own eyes many of the places I’d be writing about, I sat down to map out the narrative architecture of this book. I was determined to make this a factual account, but I also had no plans (or, I admit, the abilities or the expertise) to make this a scholarly historian’s tome; I am, after all, a journalist by training and inclination.

I have tried to establish myself, with my previous eight nonfiction books, as a storyteller. So, I would need to make choices. I would need to make judgments about which versions of the past made the most sense to me, which seemed the most reliable. I didn’t want to disrupt the flow of the large story I was offering up to my readers with a litany of caveats squawking that while one authority says this is what happened, another source begs (or, more often, insists) to differ.

Further, I wanted to tell a fast-paced story and to make my characters come alive in the reader’s mind. I wanted to share what they were thinking and feeling with, I concede, a novelist’s immediacy. I wanted the reader to be involved with Siringo as he tried to solve the mystery of the stolen gold; with Carmack as he dipped his pan wishfully into the waters of Bonanza Creek or struggled through a brutal Alaskan winter; with a down-and-out Soapy as he struggled to find the will to bounce back with a vengeance. And, again, I wanted it all to be true.

No doubt about it, I was setting out to make my way across a narrow literary tightrope. It would be easy (and tempting!) to take a false step. So I knew that the only way I could keep my authorial balance would be to set some rules. Let me share them.

When dialogue appears in quotes, these are words that can be directly attributed to an actor in this drama. They are taken from either one of the principal’s own writings—books, letters, diaries—or a contemporaneous newspaper or literary account. For example, when Soapy Smith first sets up his keister in Denver, I introduce this event with a long monologue spoken by the con man. The words are not a writer’s invention. My source was George T. Buffum, a witness to the occasion who then set it down on paper (Smith of Bear City and Other Frontier Sketches, Grafton Press, New York, 1906).

When I describe what someone in this story is thinking or feeling, these are thoughts and emotions that were first reported by the individual. For example, Siringo’s whirlwind courtship of Mamie and his devastation after her death are poignantly detailed in his own books (Riata and Spurs: The Story of a Lifetime Spent in the Saddle as Cowboy and Detective, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1927, and A Cowboy Detective: A True Story of Twenty-two Years with a World-Famous Detective Agency, W. B. Conkey Company, Chicago, 1912). When I share George Carmack’s thoughts as he heads over the Chilkoot Pass or mourns a lost love, these are ruminations I found in his letters and diaries that are now stored in five large boxes at the University of Washington or from his self-published pamphlet describing his prospecting days.

When a location or an incident is described in this story, the details are grounded in my research. For example: Siringo’s own amazed description of the Treadwell mine on Douglas Island in A Cowboy Detective was further fleshed out by my reading of a 1902 tour of the mine reported by Charles Palanche in volume 34 of the American Geologist and the observations of the members of the Harriman Alaska Expedition, in a book of the same name (Doubleday Page, New York, 1904); my description of the Panic of 1893 was informed by my readings in at least a dozen sources, but most significantly Richard Timberlake’s essay in Business Cycles and Depressions (Garland Publishing, 1997); and the details of Carmack’s experiences as a sheepherder were also shaped by William Douglass’s Sheepherders of the American West (University of Nevada, 1986).

Yet, as I have previously stated, this is not an academic work. I set out to tell a story, to write a narrative history. Therefore, I don’t feel it would serve much heuristic purpose to list the hundreds of books and articles I consulted as I put this story together. However, the interested reader who would like to delve deeper into the characters that run through this story and into the times in which they lived might enjoy spending further time with (in addition to the invaluable primary sources I list in the opening Note to the Reader) the works I found myself returning to most frequently: Pierre Berton’s The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush (Basic Books, 1958) is the best book I’ve read on the events surrounding the rush to the north; at times the writing is lyrical. Tappan Adney’s The Klondike Stampede, a compilation of his experiences as a reporter for Harper’s Weekly during the gold rush and first published in 1900, is a keen-eyed report with a good deal of valuable observations about the mechanics of gold mining (UBC Press, Vancouver, 1994). George Carmack: Man of Mystery Who Set Off the Klondike Gold Rush (Epicenter Press, Fairbanks, 2001) by James Albert Johnson is a lively and well-researched account by the man who providentially found Carmack’s papers in a secondhand bookstore and who later graciously donated them to the University of Washington. While there is a small library of books on Soapy Smith, the only one an interested reader needs to make his way through is Jeff Smith’s exhaustive Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel (Klondike Research, Juneau, 2009). Nevertheless, Jane G. Haigh’s King Con: The Story of Soapy Smith (Friday 501 Media, Whitehorse, Yukon, 2006) is a carefully researched and written biography. And for an engaging tour through aspects of the gold rush days that are too often ignored in standard histories, both Lael Morgan’s Good Time Girls (Epicenter Press, Fairbanks, 1998) and Claire Rudolf Murphy and Jane G. Haigh’s Gold Rush Women (Alaska Northwest Books, Anchorage, 1997) are essential.

Finally, let me share below, chapter by chapter, the main sources of information for each chapter of this book.

PROLOGUE: Pierre Berton, The Klondike Fever (KF); Tappan Adney, The Klondike Stampede (KS); Alaska History and Cultural Studies, Chapters 4–9: River Transportation, www.akhistorycourse.org; A. C. Drysdale, “From Tombstone to the Yukon: Ed Schieffelin’s Alaskan Expedition,” Alaska Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, Summer 1983 (TTY); Frank C. Lockwood, Pioneer Days in Arizona, Macmillan Co., New York, 1932; Jeremy Rowe, “Following the Frontier from Arizona to Alaska: The Photographs of Charles O. Farciot,” http://vintagephoto.com/reference/ChFarciot; C. L. Andrews, The Story of Alaska, Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID, 1938 (SOA); Walter Noble Burns, Tombstone, Doubleday, Doran & Co., Garden City, NY, 1929; M. H. E. Haynes and Taylor H. West, Pioneers of the Klondyke, Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., London, 1899 (POK); C. H. Hamlin, Old Times in the Yukon, Wetzel Publishing Co., Los Angeles, 1928 (OTY); W. J. Loudon, A Canadian Geologist, Macmillan Company of Canada, Toronto, 1930 (CG); Edward Burschall Lung, Black Sand and Gold, Vantage Press, New York, 1956 (BSG); Frederick Palmer, In the Klondyke, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1899 (ITK); Warburton Pike, Through the Subartic Forest, Edward Arnold, London, 1896 (TSF).

CHAPTER ONE: Charles A. Siringo, A Texas Cowboy; or, Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony, edited with an Introduction by Richard W. Etulain, 1885; reprinted by Penguin Books, New York, 2000 (TC); Charles A. Siringo, A Cowboy Detective, facsimile of the 1912 edition, University of Nebraska Press, 1988 (CD); Charles A. Siringo, Riata and Spurs, facsimile of the 1927 edition, Sunstone Press, New Mexico, 2007 (RS); Howard R. Lamar, Charlie Siringo’s West: An Interpretive Biography (CSW); J. Marvin Hunter, ed., The Trail Drivers of Texas, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1985 (TDT); Beinecke Library, Yale University, Western Americana Collection, Box 2–3; E. C. Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith, We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher, Lakeside Press, Chicago, 1991; Charles D. Peavy, Charles A. Siringo: A Texas Picaro, Steck-Vaughn Co., Austin, 1967 (TP); Donald F. Worcester, The Chisholm Trail, University of Nebraska Press, 1980 (CT); Raymond W. Thorp, “Cowboy Charlie Siringo,” True West vol. 12, 1965; Orlan Sawey, Charles A. Siringo, Twayne Publishers, Boston, 1981 (CAS).

CHAPTER TWO: Jeff Smith, Alias Soapy Smith (ASS); Jane G. Haigh, King Con (KC); William Ross Collier and Edwin Victor Westrate, The Reign of Soapy Smith, Monarch of Misrule, Sun Dial Press, NY, 1938 (RSS); Frank C. Robertson and Beth Kay Harris, Soapy Smith: King of the Frontier Con Men, Hastings House, NY, 1961 (KFCM); Lyle W. Dorsett, The Queen City: A History of Denver, Pruett Publishing, Boulder, 1977 (QC); Carl Abbott, Stephen J. Leonard, and Davis McComb, Colorado: A History of the Centennial State, University Press of Colorado, 1994 (HCS); Smith family letters as cited by Jeff Smith (SFL).

CHAPTER THREE: James Albert Johnson, George Carmack: Man of Mystery Who Set Off the Klondike Gold Rush (GC); Carmack letters and diary, University of Washington Collection (CLD); KF; KS; William Douglass, Sheepherders of the American West, University of Nevada, 1986 (SAW).

CHAPTER FOUR: CD; TC; RS; CSW; Charles A. Siringo, History of “Billy the Kid”: The True Life of the Most Daring Young Outlaw, facsimile of the 1920 edition, Steck-Vaughn, Austin, 1967; Robert R. Dykstra, The Cattle Towns: A Social History of the Kansas Cattle Trading Centers, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1968; Jon Tuska, Billy the Kid: His Life and Legend, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1985.

CHAPTER FIVE: George T. Buffum, Smith of Bear City and Other Frontier Sketches, Grafton Press, New York, 1906; ASS; KC; RSS; KFCM; QC; SFL; Rocky Mountain News archives, Denver Public Library (RMN); Robert L. Perkins, The First Hundred Years: An Informal History of Denver and the “Rocky Mountain News,” Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1959.

CHAPTER SIX: GC; CLD; SOA; BSG; TSF; H. H. Bancroft, History of Alaska, 1730–1885, A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco, 1886 (HOA); Bruce Miner, Alaska: Its History, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1899 (AIH); Joseph Grinnell, Gold Hunting in Alaska, David C. Cook Publishing Co., Elgin, IL, 1935 (GHA); James Michener, Alaska, Random House, New York, 1988; Andrei Grinev, Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741–1867, University of Nebraska Press, 2008 (TI); Nore Dauenhauer, Russians in Tlingit America, New York, 1960; E. R. Scidmore, Alaska: Its Southern Coast and the Sitka Archipelago, D. Lothrop and Co., Boston, 1885 (ASC); George C. Shaw, The Chinook Jargon and How to Use It, Rainer Printing Co., Seattle, 1909.

CHAPTER SEVEN: CD; RS; CSW; Frank Moran, “The Eye That Never Sleeps”: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1982 (ENS); James D. Horan, Desperate Men: Revelations from the Sealed Pinkerton Files, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949 (DM); Horan, The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty That Made History, Crown Publications, Inc., New York, 1967 (DD).