Alaska (105 page)

'What fitted a pattern?' an older man asked, and Mr. Reed smiled: 'That's a penetrating question, sir, and it deserves an answer. But I can't give you one yet. I will repeat, I'm not here to inquire about any of you. We've had only the finest reports about you men. Now let's break up, and the less you say about this the better. I know you'll want to discuss it among yourselves, but please, please don't talk about it in public.'

Then, as the men were about to leave, he added: 'Anything else you can tell me about the Concannon case, well, I'd appreciate hearing it.'

'Mr. Reed,' Tom said firmly. 'It could not have been murder.'

'Of that I'm sure,' Mr. Reed said.

ON THE FIFTH DAY AFTER THE STORM MR. REED SUMmoned that first group of leaders to the Golden Gate along with eight or nine others, including all the clergymen in town, and when they were settled he stood before them.

'Gentlemen, you've been very patient and I appreciate it.

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You have every right to know who I am and what I'm here for. My name is Harold Snyder.

I'm a federal marshal from the California District, and I'm here to take action in the fraudulent conversion of property belonging to miners who had perfectly legal claims on Anvil Creek.”Before his listeners could even gasp, he rasped out orders like a spitting machine gun: 'I want the fullest details of what happened to claims Five, Six and Seven Above.

And I should like to meet tomorrow with Lars Skjellerup, citizen of Norway, and with Mikkel Sana, citizen of Lapland. What nation would that be a part of?'

'Could be Norway, Sweden, Finland, or maybe even a tip of Russia.'

'And the Siberian known as Arkikov, no first name.' Then followed a barrage of instructions: 'Get me a plat of Anvil Creek. All papers relating to titles. A timetable of the various meetings. And a complete list of miners who attended the first two meetings.'

He ended with a statement which electrified the businessmen: 'Before this session convened I stationed three of your members, including one clergyman, to watch every move that Judge Grant and Marvin Hoxey make. These watchers will not allow them to burn any papers.' With that, he dismissed the meeting: The next day the original claimants to Five, Six and Seven Above arrived, and when the doors were closed he conducted as minute an investigation as possible, using maps, diagrams, calendars for dates and lists of earlier testimony to nail down the frightful miscarriages of justice which officials in San Francisco had begun to suspect.

At the end of two days he had unequivocal evidence against the two thieves which convinced him but which, he was afraid, would not count for much in a court of law, and apparently Judge Grant and Hoxey knew this, for they continued to operate as usual, with the latter placing aboard the Senator

a huge shipment of gold to go south to his account.

'The problem,' Mr. Snyder warned the committee, 'is that what these two rascals have done is almost impossible to prove to a jury. You men know better than anyone else that Judge Grant has been faithless to his oath as a judge, because it was your property he stole. But how do you prove it in court? You know that Hoxey stole your leases, but how are you going to prove it? Juries don't care much for paper rights. However, if we could nail them in the Concannon case . . .'

'What is the Concannon case?'

'We think they bilked a widow of her just insurance. The Denver people smelled a rat, but the rascals covered their 636

tracks. We have nothing to go on, but if we could put a defenseless widow on the stand . . .' He stopped. 'Dammit, doesn't anybody know anything about that case?'

It was then that it occurred to Tom Venn that Missy could know something about Concannon.

'I can't be sure, Mr. Snyder,' Tom said, 'but I think Missy Peckham might.'

'Bring her here. Now.'

So Tom ran first to his store, where he grabbed Matt Murphy: 'Go to Judge Grant she mustn't see me and fetch Missy.'

'Here?'

'No, the Golden Gate.'

When Matt reached Judge Grant's office he was stopped by the three guards watching the place: 'You can't go in there.'

'Mr. Snyder wants Missy.'

'Judge Grant won't let her go.'

'I'm going to count three, and then I'm damn well going in and get her.'

Missy was delivered, and when she and Tom and Matt sat with Mr. Snyder, the questioning was blunt.

'What do you know about the Concannon case?'

'Not suicide, not murder,' Missy said. 'Insurance policy. Judge Grant and Mr. Hoxey stole a lot of it.'

'How do you know that?'

'I just know.'

'Damn it all, .everybody says ”I just know”and nobody knows anything that can be used before a jury.'

'Well, I do know,' Missy said stubbornly.

'How do you know?' Mr. Snyder stormed.

'Because I wrote it all down.'

Mr. Snyder, feeling life flow back into the veins of his case, forced himself to ask in a low voice: 'You kept notes?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Because after one week on the job I knew these two men were up to no good.'

'Two men?'

'Yes. I typed all of Mr. Hoxey's letters.'

Silence, then very cautiously Mr. Snyder asked: 'You took notes on Hoxey's dealings too?'

'I did.'

'And where are those notes?'

Now came a very long silence, for Missy was recalling Skagway when Soapy Smith's men dressed like clergymen to defraud, and like mail carriers to steal, and like freight for—

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warders to gain possession of goods which they never shipped. In those ugly days every man was suspect, and she could even see Blacktooth Otto scurrying like a rat up to the scene of that terrible avalanche to steal the packs of the dead. Like one of Soapy Smith's henchmen, Mr. Snyder could be an imposter brought to Nome by Judge Grant and Hoxey to ferret out and destroy any evidence against them. She would confide nothing further to this unknown man.

'Where are your notes?' Mr. Snyder repeated.

Missy was mute.

'Tell him,' Matt said, and his plea was so insistent that she turned in anguish to Tom and blurted out: 'It's just like Skagway. How can we know who he really is? How can we trust him? How do we know he isn't working for Hoxey?'

It was a cry that both Tom and Mr. Snyder understood, for when a society allows total chaos, it engenders total suspicion, and the normal processes by which any society is held on a steady keel trust, dedication, reliability, penalty for wrongdoing corrode, and things begin to fall apart, for the props are gone.

Patiently, forthright Harold Snyder, no longer a mysterious Mr. Reed, produced his credentials for Missy to finger and digest. He was indeed a federal marshal; he did have orders from the federal court in San Francisco to inquire into the malfeasance of a judge in Nome, and he did have the power to arrest. But still Missy was unconvinced: 'Soapy's men had documents. Soapy printed them himself.' Looking in turn at each of the three men, she asked: 'How can I really know?'

'Missy,' Tom said. 'Remember what Sergeant Kirby told you when Superintendent Steele wanted to protect your money? ”If you can't trust Superintendent Steele, you can't trust anybody.”Same situation.'

She saw that it was, that at some point in any crisis you simply had to trust someone, and she indicated that she would surrender her notebook, and with that, all the fight went out of this sturdy little woman. Too much had hit her in the face in too short a time, and she let her head fall heavily to the table and covered it with her arms.

Matt and Tom left her there, and after a hurried trip to the cabin, returned with the notebook, which Matt placed on the table unopened.

'Is this the famous book, Missy?'

'It is.'

'Now let's go over each item carefully.'

In the late afternoon Snyder asked: 'What does this entry mean?' and she said: 'Judge Grant had me claim for seven 638

hours of extra work which I didn't do, but when I was paid he kept the money.'

Snyder pushed the book away as if its odor offended him: 'Jesus Christ, if a man had his salary, you would not expect him to cheat on his secretary.'

But it was when he reached the Hoxey entries that he became really enraged: 'I'm an officer of the law and I take it very seriously, but I find myself wishing that I could lock these two in a room with that big Norwegian, that Siberian and that tough little Lapp. I'll bet they could handle this case in fifteen minutes and save the taxpayers a lot of money.'

And then, on his second morning with Missy's notebook, he came upon the Concannon case, and he was sickened: 'A woman loses her husband in a crazy accident that cannot be explained, and two skunks defraud her of her insurance.'

He could read no further. Storming from the hotel, he went to where Judge Grant and Hoxey were skulking and slapped handcuffs on them. 'Where are you taking us?' Judge Grant whined, and Snyder said: 'Protective custody. So these people here don't lynch you.' Two days later, when the Senator

sailed south, these two were aboard. They had been in Nome less than four months, but in that time they had smeared across the face of blindfolded American justice one of her most disgraceful stains.

THE SAGA OF NOME GROUND TO A STUMBLING HALT. THE Golden Gate Hotel burned again and was rebuilt. The glacier of frozen urine filled the alleys once more in winter and melted into the sea in summer. The golden beaches continued to throw up gold for another year and then were exhausted, while the placer mines along Anvil Creek continued modestly for several decades.

But there had been stunning if brief glory. In one twelvemonth period alone, Nome produced $7,500,000 worth of gold, more than the price paid for all Alaska back in 1867. In all, more than $115,000,000 was taken out when gold was valued at $20 an ounce.

Claims Five, Six and Seven Above, once more controlled by their rightful owners, produced only modest fortunes because Marvin Hoxey had sequestered the best portion of the gold, and had hidden it so effectively that during his trial in San Francisco and his time in the penitentiary, the government was unable to find his two million in loot. He kept it all.

An outraged judge sentenced him to fifteen years, just punishment for a man who had defrauded so many of so

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much, but after three months President McKinley pardoned him on the grounds that his health was threatened by imprisonment, and besides, everyone knew he had been, in prior life, an exemplary citizen. He would function another thirty productive years as one of the most effective lobbyists in Washington, continuing to prevent any constructive legislation for Alaska's self-governance. Legislators listened to him, for he continued to boast: 'I know Alaska like the back of my hand and, to speak frankly, it's just not ready for self-government.'

Judge Grant's case had a surprising conclusion. As Harold Snyder had predicted, despite Missy's notebook, no specific charges could be proved against him, for with an almost animal cunning he had, during his frantic weeks in Nome, conducted his affairs so carefully and with such complete knowledge of what was happening, that he manipulated what evidence that did surface to condemn Hoxey while revealing himself as a forthright Iowa judge striving to do his best. Snyder, listening in court to the evidence, burst into laughter several times: 'All of us in Nome thought Judge Grant was the dummy.

Used as a cat's paw by clever Marvin Hoxey. No, Grant was the smart one. He maneuvered it so that he went free and Hoxey went to jail.' At the end of one court session in which Judge Grant's evidence absolved him and damaged his partner, Marvin came over to Snyder and said: 'I was Hoxey, he was foxy.'

Declared 'Not guilty' by a federal jury, Grant returned to Iowa, where, after a lapse of two years during which he mended his fences, he resumed his position on the bench before which his father had practiced, and there he was known favorably as 'the eminent jurist who brought a system of justice to Alaska.' Repeatedly, while he was on the bench or delivering orations locally or in Chicago, admiring people would comment: 'He looks like a judge,' proving that in many circumstances it is more important to look like something than to be something.

Tom Venn prospered, as such dedicated and well-trained young men so often do. He kept his assayer's scales clear of rust, and when the R&R store in Nome was closed because of the catastrophic drop in population32,000 in 1900, counting drifters; 1,200 three years later, counting almost no working miner she was promoted to the big store in Juneau, the new capital of Alaska, where he tended to business as before, but also began looking carefully at all his younger female customers for a potential marriage partner.

The biggest change came in the lives of Missy Peckham and Matt Murphy. No, his wife in Ireland did not die so that 640

he could remarry, and since they were Catholic, divorce was not possible, but one July afternoon after the Yukon thawed, a tall stoop-shouldered stranger arrived in Nome, taking a room not in the expensive Golden Gate but in one of the cheaper makeshift places, half wood, half canvas.

He registered, and threw his canvas duffel in a corner without unpacking. Then he started roaming the streets, and after a few inquiries, was directed to a miserable shack, where he knocked on the door and announced himself: 'I'm John Klope,' and Missy, showing no surprise, quietly said: 'Come in, John. Sit down. Can I get you coffee?'

He wanted to know what had happened to them, so Matt recalled his bicycle trip down the Yukon and he and Missy explained how they had fitted in with the famous gold rush: 'Got here too late, like always, for the good placers. Didn't even file a claim.

Missed the beaches too. That was a madhouse. We found jobs, and I'm sure we did better than most of the people on the beach.'

'What kind of job?'

'Missy worked for that corrupt judge, what a mess. I worked for Tom Venn when the store got big.'

'Tom Venn! Is he in town?'

'Juneau. Big promotion.'

'How is Tom? How'd he do?'

'I just said, big promotion.'

'He was a fine boy.' He sipped his coffee, then pointed to the mean quarters they shared. 'Things not going too well?'