I rose only three times that morning. Two men with a mule team pulled up and we unhitched their animals and led them inside. One tall young cowboy came to claim a long-legged bay horse, muttering that he didn’t care what they said – Texas winters were the tropics compared to Montana and he was riding south before the true blizzards visited. One old bird with a little whiskey in his belly came in and wandered around the stalls a bit, examining the horses.
‘Damn me!’ he said. ‘I don’t know where I could have lost old Paint,’ and he wandered away.
I was through with my napping by then. I lit the lanterns, for it was growing toward dusk outside and there was a streak of crimson in the long sky. I made myself useful by raking up a bit, then resorting to the shovel and wheelbarrow. About the time I was finished with that, the stableman returned.
His shirt was unbuttoned, his face had gotten florid from alcohol or excitement or both. He was smoking a fat cigar. He clasped me as if I were his oldest friend in the world.
‘It’s a boy!’ he yelled, throwing his head back. ‘I’m naming him Bartholomew.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said.
‘Bartholomew Givens! You like that name?’
‘It’s fine, Mr Givens. I’m sure he’ll be a joy to you and the wife.’
‘That’s right, he’ll be …’ He was out of breath and sagged to sit on a nearby hay bale. He kept his cigar clenched between his teeth. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked.
‘Ryan,’ I told him. ‘I know it’s been a crazy day for you. I’ve been watching the stable for you. You told me I could park my horse and myself here for the night.’
‘That’s right … that’s right.’ He rubbed his broad face. ‘Like you say, I’ve been a little overexcited today.’
‘A man has a right,’ I told him. ‘Is this your first child?’
‘First one, yes, first one. Frightening in a way; it all worked out fine. The wife’s well; perky. I’ll have to try it again some time,’ he mused.
I left him to his thoughts although he obviously wanted someone to talk to on this night. Well, I still had someone I needed to talk to – Alton McCallister by name, the railroad’s line manager. I tucked my shirt in, buttoned the sleeves and went out into the bitter night to try finding him.
There was the matter of $74.50 to be settled.
During the day I had taken the time to go through Ben Comfrey’s scant belongings, hoping to find an address where I could send his money to his widow. Of course, if she didn’t live right in town in Billings, there wouldn’t be one, and Ben said he had a little two-by-four farm on the outskirts. The thing was, I didn’t even know her name. You see, in those days, preachers and all were spread awful thin across the untamed West. Not a lot of these parsons were skilled Indian fighters and they weren’t all that eager to venture into the wilds. It could be that Comfrey’s marriage wasn’t even of the legal sort. It had been known to happen.
In Ben’s pack I came across a German silver-framed daguerreotype of a woman and a small flaxen-haired boy. Their sepia faces looked out at me intently. They were standing on the porch of a cramped-looking sod house A lonesome elm tree drooped on one side of the building.
The kid looked serious and maybe a little older around the eyes than was right for his age. The woman, to my surprise, appeared to be no more than eighteen or nineteen. Therefore, she could not have been the boy’s mother – of course, I could have been wrong; guessing ages is difficult. She was very small, her eyes wide and trusting but nearly fearful. Her hair seemed to be dark brown, coiled on the sides of her head like some Swiss girl. Could that young thing be Ben Comfrey’s wife? No matter – all that mattered was getting his money to the folks it belonged to. I hadn’t even considered composing a letter. I didn’t want to write one that began ‘Your husband was murdered. …’
I had put all of those thoughts aside as I went out on to the dark Montana street. First things first. I would get my money and Ben’s from the railroad.
I had just emerged from the stable when I noticed the man in the shadows of the restaurant’s awning across the street smoking a fat dark cigar, eyes pondering me. Enough light shone through the windows behind him for me to recognize him and his silver walrus mustache as the person who had been watching me earlier in the restaurant. He made no move; I gave him no notice, but I felt rather than saw his hooded eyes following me as I walked up the street, the rime crunching underfoot as the day’s muddy slush froze.
I was thinking only of Alton McCallister. I had never met the man, and I had seen him but once up on the Yellow Tongue. Prosperous-looking with red hair so thin you could see through it to his bare scalp. He was narrow and tall. He wore a gold watch chain that swayed across his stomach. He had a tie tack that must have held a diamond the size of a pea. His clothes were tailor-cut and his narrow reddish-brown mustache was tightly clipped. Beyond that I knew nothing of the man’s habits, methods or inclinations.
McCallister might have been a thief, a good-natured grandfather, a womanizer, a cut throat – anything at all. All I knew of him was that he was wealthy and that wherever he had ensconced himself, it was going to be in luxurious surroundings.
New Madrid, Montana, was not rife with luxurious accommodations. There were, as I’ve said, a dozen or so saloons all roaring on this evening as I walked the frozen streets, but I didn’t expect to find him in one of these gin joints throwing away his money on the spin of a wheel or the flip of a card. Wealthy men don’t grow wealthier by gambling, and to me it always had been evident that the wealthy always have a need to grow still wealthier.
The finest hotel in town, as far as I could see, was a two-story white-painted monstrosity called The Palace. Gingerbread dripped from every eave and four wooden columns supported an overhanging portico. Surreys arrived and women in long dresses and tiny hats were handed down to step to the boardwalk in front of the hotel.
I stood watching for a minute, scraped my boots and straightened my trail-duty clothing as well as possible and started that way, crossing the muddy street.
The man with mustache was behind me, moving slowly, heavily from shadow to shadow.
The entranceway of The Palace blazed with light from the chandeliers behind. I approached the heavy double doors and a man in some sort of silk-livery with the face of a Welsh miner sidestepped in front of me, blocking my way.
‘Are you a resident here?’ he asked in a gravelly voice.
‘Not yet. I was hoping to find a room,’ I replied.
‘You ought to try the Tumbleweed, bub. They got rooms there for two bits.’
‘Maybe I have more than two bits, partner.’
‘Then you can get two rooms,’ the unbending doorman said.
‘Look, pal,’ I said, ‘the truth is, I need to find Alton McCallister. I thought he might be staying here.’
The big-chested man looked across my shoulder and spoke to me out of the side of his mouth. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place, friend. Try the railroad cars.’
I nodded my thanks. ‘I appreciate it,’ I told him.
‘Yeah, well, beat it now, would you? I got a job to hold on to.’
I don’t know how the encounter would have worked out if I had known McCallister was in there, but I imagined it wouldn’t have been good for my cause. The doorman, bouncer – whatever he was – had given me the tip I needed, however; I made my way back across town under the light of a cloud-fringed silver moon toward the depot, the standing locomotive and two Pullman cars.
I didn’t figure I would be any more welcome there than I had been at New Madrid’s swankiest hotel, but that didn’t matter. I was going to have my talk with McCallister and that was that. The night wind snuck through the alleys and twisted bits of paper down the street. The occasional leafless tree cast odd moon shadows against the rime-coated mud. Uptown the piano banged at intervals and then had its sound torn away by the rising winter wind.
The monolith of the train sat just beyond the last building in sight. A
stray dog looked at me, snarled and then slunk away, its tail curled under. I made my way toward the railroad cars. The car directly behind the diamond-stacked 4-4-2 locomotive was dark. Apparently anyone inside that Pullman was asleep beneath warm coverlets. Soft music played from inside the second car where lights blazed and kerosene lanterns burned hotly. I could smell cigar smoke and beneath that the scents of bay rum and talcum powder. I made my way to the rear of the car.
A guard in a buffalo coat rested there on a wooden chair. He had his boots propped up and a Winchester rifle cradled in his arms. He was drowsy and slack, but when he saw me he came alert and he came quickly to his feet.
‘Who’s out there?’ he demanded. ‘What do you want?’
‘Take it easy, brother,’ I said, lifting my hands. It does no good to argue with a Winchester in the dark. ‘They sent me down to report to Mr McCallister.’
‘Who sent you?’ the guard asked suspiciously, as the muzzle of his rifle lowered.
‘I’m down from Yellow Tongue timber camp. There’s problems out there.’
‘What kind of problems?’
‘If I explained it to you, you still wouldn’t understand. I’ve got to talk to Mr McCallister. It’s company business, friend.’
He looked at me uncertainly, glanced at the interior of the lighted Pullman car, shrugged and answered, ‘I’ve got to see if it’s OK.’
‘I understand. Make it quick, would you,’ I said, dancing a little. ‘A man could freeze out here on a night like this.’
The guard vanished into the interior of the car, a brief cloud of smoke and sound emerging as he did so. I looked up to the stars for a moment, wondering just how crazy I really was. After a few minutes the man with the rifle reappeared. He carried the Winchester loosely in his hand now, however, and he waved me up the iron steps.
‘The boss says to come on in,’ he told me and, after I took a brief glance back at the big-shouldered mustached man who was watching me from the depot shadows, I clambered up the steps and followed my watchdog into the interior of the opulent Pullman.
FOUR
It was like stepping into another world, entering that railroad car. That’s exactly what it was, of course. These gentlemen in their stiff shirts and their ladies lounging on red velvet settees with their satins and lace had no idea of what life was outside of their warm cocoon, out where the cold winds blew.
I had to unbutton my coat quickly or faint. The interior of the car had to be at least seventy degrees. There were two free-standing wood-burning stoves, one at each end of the car, both black iron embellished with yards of brass filigree. Six or seven men, well-shaved and barbered, sat around an octagonal card table with green baize covering. Stacks of poker chips and sheaves of bills sat in front of them. They were smoking long cigars and laughing, sipping from crystal glasses. A woman’s dark eyes peered up at me over the black lace of her fan. I turned to my escort.
‘McCallister is the one seated next to her,’ he told me.
Then I vaguely recognized the red-haired, mustached man with the prominent thin nose. He had cutting pale-blue eyes that followed my progress as I approached. The card players looked up at me in passing with various degrees of interest or disdain. I halted before McCallister. He rose slowly to his feet.
‘Tom says you’re down from Yellow Tongue,’ McCallister said in a baritone voice. He had his coat open, his thumbs in his trouser pocket. He watched me curiously, with a sort of impatient prodding in his eyes.
‘That’s right,’ I said quietly. People were listening, and I didn’t want them to catch what I had to say; there was no point in provoking their interest.
‘What is it, then?’ McCallister said loudly, unconcerned with what anyone else might hear. ‘Trouble with the trestle?’
‘Not that I know of,’ I answered. ‘Could we step aside into some more private place?’
‘Not necessary,’ he snapped. ‘What is it that you want to report?’
‘It’s a matter of pay, Mr McCallister.’ I pulled the two worn paybooks – mine and Ben Comfrey’s – from my coat pocket and explained. ‘The railroad owes me seventy-four dollars fifty as you can see.’ I offered him the paybooks but he declined to accept them. ‘And the same amount is due to my friend Ben Comfrey. I have his book because he was killed along the trail. I need the money; Ben’s widow will be needing it.’
I didn’t expect him to laugh, but he did. Long and loud, throwing his head back as he looked around at the other well-groomed influential men in the car. ‘You’ve come all this way for seventy-four dollars!’
‘And fifty cents. The same for Ben Comfrey.’
He never heard the end of that sentence. He had begun laughing again. A woman smiled and turned her head away; a man at the poker table chuckled and slapped his hand on his thigh.
‘This isn’t meant to be funny, Mr McCallister,’ I told him, feeling a coldness begin to trickle down my spine. Maybe it was easy for these men to laugh over a month’s pay. It wasn’t that easy for me. I wouldn’t be eating, my horse wouldn’t be fed if I didn’t collect. Ben Comfrey’s wife would be up against a hard Montana winter without supplies.
‘Go on back and talk to the paymaster,’ McCallister said, moving his hand dismissively.
‘I already have,’ I said, feeling my face flush a little. ‘He wouldn’t cough it up.’
‘Why not?’ the railroad boss asked with a crooked smile. ‘Is it because you didn’t earn the money after all? Maybe you just found these paybooks,’ he said, slapping at them with the back of his hand.
‘No, sir. He wouldn’t pay us because someone is a chiseler. Someone is cheating the trusting hardworking men you hired.’
His smile was gone in an instant, hardened to a tight scowl. ‘Are you saying that I am a welcher – that I would resort to such petty machinations?’
‘I haven’t figured that part out yet, McCallister,’ I told him. ‘Maybe it was the paymaster; maybe it’s you; maybe it’s the whole railroad. All I know is that I want my pay. That’s why I came. Give it to me and I’ll be on my way and you can get back to your poker and your whiskey and your lady friends.’
Maybe I had gone too far. This man wouldn’t like his pride being chipped at among his friends. Nevertheless, I was right. Now I had had my say. He could have scooped up ten times what he owed me from the corner of the poker table and given it to me. He didn’t.
He made a gesture like a man dusting away an insect and motioned toward the front of the car. Another rough-looking man I hadn’t seen before started making his way toward us while the one called Tom stood behind me with his Winchester.
‘Escort this man down the line,’ McCallister said. He stepped away and I clutched at his coat sleeve.
‘Listen …’ I said, and then from the corner of my eye I saw Tom raising the stock of his rifle. It crashed against my head sending off thundering bells inside my skull. Before I could hit the floor the other man had caught me under the arms, and together he and Tom dragged me to the back of the Pullman and out into the frigid night. My head was swimming and my heart seemed momentarily to have stopped beating. I could feel hot blood trickling down my scalp. I tried to fight my abductors off, but my arms and legs were moving like those of a four-year-old child’s, like a man trying to fight his way out of a dream.
The wind was in full icy rage. The door to the Pullman slammed behind us, cutting off all warmth and sound. On the platform, I heard Tom ask, ‘Well, what do we do with him?’
‘McCallister said to take him down the line. I don’t think that meant just dump him to the side of the road here.’
‘No, I guess not,’ Tom said. He hit me in the face for good luck. ‘Damn you! I don’t want to be out in weather like this.’
But we went, the three of us. Tom’s friend arrived with a buckboard and they threw me into the back of it. We bounced away behind two steaming horses flying down a rutted road into the dark distances. The wind remained firm and cold. My teeth chattered and I drew up
into a fetal position, trying for warmth I couldn’t find.
It seemed we drove on for hours. My face gathered jagged splinters from the weathered bed of the old wagon. The blood had quit leaking from my skull, but my head still throbbed on unbearably. I must have passed out at least once, because I don’t remember the wagon being drawn up beside the trail, only rough hands being placed on my legs and shoulders and being thrown out on to the frozen ground.
The buckboard turned and started away. There was not a light to be seen on the vast prairie from horizon to horizon. I tried to rise but couldn’t. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. In the darkest hour before dawn it began to snow again.
I rose stiffly like a man’s shade emerging from a frozen grave. Rising, the full blast of the snow and wind hit me full in the face. It was numbing; if there had been a place of shelter I would have curled up there for as long as it took the storm to pass. There was no such place. Blinking into the sting of the driven snow, I started walking. There was virtually no visibility, but I knew that wind was driving out of the north, and so I kept my face into it using the wind as a primal compass, bowed my head and slogged on over broken ground. If I didn’t find the railroad tracks soon then I would turn to my left, knowing I had been dumped to the north of the tracks, but I thought it had been to the south of them.
Not that I had much memory of the events. I was moderately surprised that I had survived the night. It seemed Tom and his partner were not stone cold killers at least. I tugged my coat more tightly around me, trying to fight off the waves of icy wind. Snow had collected on my shoulders and head. Touching my skull, I winced with the pain. It was not bleeding, but my hair was matted in a saucer-sized scab at the back of my head. I kept my eyes turned down, straggling on. My hat had been lost of course, but they had carelessly left my pistol in its holster. I would have more use for that Colt than for the hat before this was over.
I tripped over an unseen rock and fell down. That set off the flaring pain in my skull once more. I rose and walked on blindly. Once, during a brief clearing of the day, I thought I saw a small building off to the south, but it was far distant and my hopeful eyes might have been playing tricks on me. I needed to find those railroad tracks, otherwise I was going to walk right past New Madrid and continue wandering on the lonesome plains until I was frozen and exhausted. Then I would simply lie down never to rise again, not to be discovered until spring when the weeds would grow tangled through my bones.
The Drifter's Revenge Page 3