Chapter 17
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Radioville Island, AK
Joe pulled his rowboat alongside the supply ship that was anchored off Radioville.
A rope ladder dropped, and Virgil Fellows’s skinny-kid form appeared, climbing awkwardly down with a green leather briefcase in one hand. He wore tan slacks, a wool jacket over a light blue button-down shirt, and utterly impractical leather dress shoes.
Joe still thought Fellows was the right choice for a partner.
He was young, probably early twenties. He was immature and made some poor decisions, but he had the right enthusiasm and worked hard.
Anyone who met him would believe him as a typical crazy young independent prospector.
Fellows had come to Alaska to mine with the usual dreams of striking it rich, but like most prospectors, he’d come up empty-handed.
Joe met him in Sitka right when his money ran out and sold him on a plan where he was guaranteed to find gold.
“Had em use the crane to hoist your booze, you know,” Fellows said as he lowered himself into the small rocking vessel, almost falling as his smooth leather soles slipped on the slick wooden floor. He sat down facing Joe.
Joe suppressed a laugh. “Nice watch.” He caught a whiff of cologne. “Dressed for church, I see. Today’s Friday, y’know. What’s the briefcase for?”
Fellows rocked the boat as he brought the briefcase into his lap. “Suits lug around them briefcases for their fancy papers and stuff. I’m a businessman now, you know.” Fellows released the latches and opened the case toward Joe. “See? Combo locks for security.”
“What in tarnation…is that gator skin?” Joe ran a finger across the coarse texture of the alligator leather. “You aware there ain’t no gators in Alaska, right?”
Fellows waved proudly toward the case. “Most expensive one I could find.”
Joe took a few papers from Fellows’s briefcase, pretending to study them. He reached into his rubber boot, palmed three bags of gold, and slipped them with the papers back into the case.
Fellows flipped through the pages, pulled one out, and handed it back to Joe. “Our recent business bank statement—lays out the cash from the past few hauls.”
“Put that away. I trust ya.” Nobody seemed to be watching from the deck of the ship above them.
“Keep that paperwork away from here. Next time, stash it at home. I can peep at our bank account when I’m in town.
I don’t need to see it till the time comes to divide it up.
” He checked again for anyone who might be listening from above.
“Then we better be square or I’ll skin ya. ”
Fellows lifted one eyebrow and his forehead furrowed. “Half that mining claim is tagged with your name, so there ain’t no law saying you can’t have your own business papers.”
Joe placed a hand on the side of the ship to steady the rowboat. “I ain’t keen on folks here catching wind of my stash of cash. Just stirs up suspicions, you know?”
Fellows shook his head. “However you want it, boss. Just aiming to keep things on the up-and-up.”
“You putting in the hours to keep our Sitka claim looking on the up-and-up, or you just out there shopping for shoes and briefcases all day?” Joe said. “Now that you’re a big-shot businessman and all. An remember, I ain’t your boss—partner.”
Fellows blinked rapidly, then frowned. “I’m out there most ever day shiftin plenty of rock around, boss.
It’s tough labor. Hit some quartz last week, got my hopes up for a real strike, but it turned out to be a bust. Anyway, if anyone comes pokin their nose around that claim, they’ll see genuine prospectin. ”
Joe and Fellows had acquired a worthless piece of land near Sitka and submitted a mining claim on it with the General Land Office.
Fellows had worked the claim for the last two years and hadn’t found any gold there, but he’d made a good enough show of it that it backed up the story that the mine was producing the stolen gold Fellows sold at the assay office in Sitka each month.
“Only job you got is to make that claim look like a real mine,” Joe said. “Don’t you forget it. That’s what earns you your cut. And don’t blow it all on fancy outfits. Remember, we owe our silent partner his share. That’s his dough and mine you’re burning through, too.”
“Got it. I’ll take it from my one-third. I reckoned it was a business cost since we aim to seem on the level.”
Closer to your one-sixth, but it’s a good thing you ain’t privy to that information.
Joe gave Fellows his best threatening stare. “Time comes to divide the profits, if that account ain’t square, I’m takin it from your hide.”
“It’ll be square, boss.” Fellows looked down at his shoes. “I just took out some legit business expenses—mining gear and stuff. That’s it.”
“You spot anyone else in this neck of the woods dressed like that?”
Fellows shifted abruptly in his seat, and the rowboat tilted to one side. Joe lowered an oar and steadied them, deliberately splashing Fellows a bit in the process. Fellows wiped the salt water from his cheek.
Joe definitely smelled cologne.
“Yeah, I said I understand. Why won’t you spill the beans on who our other partner is, anyway? Don’t you trust me by now? What if something goes haywire, and I gotta reach out to him straight?”
“That’s exactly why we gotta keep things apart,” Joe said. “You ain’t acquainted with the guy at the mine. He don’t know you. No need for anyone to sniff around if you two ain’t never crossed paths. He gets the gold. You move it. I’m just the radio man.”
A wooden crate was being lowered over the side of the supply ship, and Fellows stood up to meet it, almost losing his balance as the little wooden boat rocked wildly.
Joe steadied the boat again and helped Fellows unhook the load, securing it in the rowboat. “You got on perfume? You’re aware that kind of scent draws bears, ain’t ya?”
Fellows chuffed. “Hope that crate of booze holds up for the rest of the month,” he said with a sneer. “Partner.”
The gangly, overdressed kid climbed back up the ladder to the supply ship, accompanied by the boisterous clank clank clank of the huge anchor being hauled up.
Fellows was clumsy and a little out of place in Alaska.
But then again, just about everybody in Alaska was a little out of place. That was part of the attraction.
That briefcase, though, that’s just plain dumb.