“They are all the same length, twenty feet. But it doesn’t really matter. You can make the chain as long as you need it to be,” the clerk replied. He picked up the end of one of the chains and showed it to Emmett. “There are hooks on each end, so all you have to do is connect them together. How long a chain do you need?”
“I’m going to snake some sunken logs out of the Colorado River, so I’m thinkin’ I’m goin’ to be needin’ at least a hunnert and fifty feet.”
“That won’t be any problem. I can give you eight, twenty foot lengths. It’s going to cost you forty dollars, though. Do you think those sunken logs are worth forty dollars?”
“I know some people up North who’ll buy ’em. The lumber from ’em makes real shiny floors.”
Emmett made the purchase, then loaded the chains onto the buckboard.
Shortly after nine o’clock, Emmett worked alongside the track in the dark. The train that just left had been in the station for six minutes and ten seconds. He could hear a dog barking. From somewhere a bit more distant, a baby began to cry. The most prominent sounds, however, came from the Scalded Cat Saloon—the tinkling of a piano, the shriek of a woman, followed by the loud guffaw of several men. From the corral of the freight wagon company, came the bray of a mule.
A cat came walking up, looking at him curiously, its eyes shining in the dark.
Emmett looked back into the weeds, but could see no evidence of the work he had just done. So far, not one person had seen him and that was very good. He didn’t need to be arousing any suspicions.
Once his work was finished, he walked back to the jail and went inside.
One man, a soldier, was sitting at the desk. He looked up from the game of solitaire he was playing. “If you’re lookin’ for the marshal, he ain’t here. Him and the deputy is out makin’ the rounds.” He wasn’t one of the three witnesses at the trial, nor had he been there when Emmett and Kirby had come to see Elmer.
“I’m not here to see him. I’m here to see my son.”
“Your son?”
“Kirby Jensen, one of your prisoners, is my son,” Emmett said. “I’d like to visit him.”
The soldier examined one of the stacks of cards, then turned up a card and seeing that he could use it, applied it to another stack.
“That’s cheatin’ you know.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t cheatin’ no one but myself. Leave your gun here ’n go on back. Seein’ as he’s goin’ to get his neck stretched tomorrow, I don’t see no reason why you can’t tell him good-bye.”
“Thanks.”
Emmett lay his gun on the desk, then stepped into the back. Elmer was sitting on one of the bunks, and Kirby was on the other. They looked up as Emmett approached the cell.
“Hi, Pa,” Kirby said easily.
“Kirby, Elmer, I’ve got somethin’ I’m goin’ to need you to do. First of all, make certain that you are awake at eleven o’clock tonight.”
“Hell, there ain’t goin’ to be no problem with that,” Elmer said. “If this here is to be my last night on earth, I sure don’t plan to be awastin’ it by sleepin’.”
Emmett chuckled. “This won’t be your last night.”
“You’ve got it all worked out?” Kirby asked. “Is it just the way we planned?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be ready.”
At a quarter till eleven that night, Emmett took the three saddled horses to the back of the apothecary, two buildings down the alley from the jail. From there, he walked out to the track, hoisted one end of the chain he had stretched out along the track two hours earlier, and pulled it over to the back of the jail.
He looked in through the barred window. “Kirby?”
“Yeah, Pa. We’re here.”
Emmett poked the chain in through the bars. “Take this, wrap it around all four bars, then pass it back out to me.”
Kirby did as Emmett instructed, and taking the end his son had given him, Emmett connected the hook through one of the links. “Now, when you hear the train whistle, get over there to the corner, as far away from the wall as you can.”
“All right.”
With the chain wrapped around the bars, Emmett hurried back to the depot and waited.
He could hear the train before he could see it, first the whistle, then the chugging sound. As it came around the bend, about a quarter mile down the track, he could see the light, the sheltered gas flame set in a polished reflector to cast a beam before the engine. It was little over a minute before the engine reached him, so heavy that the ground shook as it rolled by. Steam was gushing from the drive cylinders and glowing coals were falling from the firebox. The engineer, with a pipe clenched tightly between his teeth, was leaning out of the open window of the cab, staring straight ahead.
After the engine came the tender, the express car, the baggage car, then the four passenger cars, lit from inside. The train squealed and screeched to a stop. It was still, but it wasn’t silent as overheated journals snapped and popped, the water in the boiler bubbled, and escaping steam made a quiet hiss.
Grabbing the end of the chain and bending low, Emmett stayed in the shadows as he hurried up to the rear of the train. There, he wrapped the chain through the coupling, connecting it back on itself. That done, he ran back to the apothecary and, untying the horses, held the three sets of reins in his hand and waited.
The engineer gave two short toots on the whistle, and a gush of steam spewed forth as he opened the throttle.
Emmett watched the chain lift from the ground and grow taut He heard the loud crashing sound as half of the back wall of the jail was pulled down and hurried up the alley with the three horses. “Let’s go!” he called, as he saw Kirby and Elmer climbing out through the hole.
“Hey! What’s going on back here!” the soldier shouted, coming from the front. Seeing the two men escaping through the collapsed wall, he pulled his gun and fired, but Kirby and Elmer were already out of harm’s way.
“Here’s your gun.” Emmett handed Kirby’s pistol and gun belt to him.
“And here’s your horse.” Emmett handed Elmer a set of reins.
The three men galloped down the alley, onto the main road, and out of town.
“Did you steal this horse?” Elmer asked the next morning. “The reason I ask is, do I need to be worryin’ ’bout someone hangin’ me for horse stealin’?”
“Here’s the bill of sale,” Emmett said. “I’ve already signed it over to you.”
Elmer shook his head. “I ain’t got no money to pay you for it. Fact is, I ain’t got no money at all.”
“Here.” Emmett gave him fifty dollars in cash.
“No, sir.” Elmer shook his head, pushing the money away. “I didn’t say that hopin’ for some money.”
“I know you didn’t, Elmer. But the way I look at it, it’s my way of sayin’ thanks for lookin’ after my boy while I was gone.”
“It warn’t exactly that way. When we was ridin’ together, he was lookin’ out for me half the time ’n I was lookin’ out for him the other half the time.”
“All right. Then this is for the times you was lookin’ out for him.”
Reluctantly, Elmer took the money. “You’ve kept me from gettin’ hung, you’ve given me a horse, ’n you give me some money. I don’t know what to say. Like as not, we ain’t never goin’ to run into each other again. I don’t know how I’m ever goin’ to be able to pay you back.”
“Then don’t try,” Emmett said.
Elmer nodded, then got mounted. “I do have a piece of information you might be interested in. I heerd where Shardeen is.”
“What?” Kirby asked excitedly. “Where?”
“I only heerd where he is. I cain’t say for sure ’cause I didn’t see him for my ownself. And I don’t know if he’s still there or not. But, last I heard, he was in Dorena.”
“Pa?”
Emmett nodded. “All right. We’ll go to Dorena.”
Emmett and Kirby surveyed the town as th
ey rode in. Kirby had seen many small towns like this since he left Missouri. At this point in his life he didn’t realize it, but he would see many hundreds more in the years to come.
Dorena wasn’t that unlike Salcedo, except there was no railroad. The single street was faced by false-fronted shanties, a few sod buildings, and even a handful of tents, straggling along for nearly a quarter mile. Just as abruptly as the town started, it quit, and nothing but open road and empty prairie existed ahead.
The street was baked hard as a rock from the summer heat. The sun was still yellow and hot in early September. In the winter and spring, the street would be a muddy mire, worked by the horses’ hooves and mixed with their droppings so that it became a stinking, sucking, pool of ooze.
The biggest and grandest structure in town was a building with a sign stretching across the front that read EL CABALLO Y EL TORO CANTINA. It also had a picture of a beer mug on one end of the sign and a liquor bottle on the other. Across the street from the building, they saw a man leaning up against the post that was supporting the roof of a leather store.
“Tell me, mister,” Emmett said, pointing to the building. “Would that be a saloon?”
“It’s a cantina,” the man said. “That’s Mex for a saloon.”
“What does the name mean?”
“The horse and the bull.”
“Thanks.”
They rode over to the cantina, dismounted, and tied their horses off at a hitching rail. The shadows gave an illusion of coolness inside, but it was an illusion only. The dozen and a half drinking customers had to keep their bandanas handy to wipe the sweat from their faces.
Over the last few months, Emmett had taught Kirby how to enter a saloon. “We’re lookin’ for men we aim to kill,” Emmett had explained. “As time goes on ’n more and more people find out what we are about, we’re likely to have men looking for us as well, for one reason or another. So you need to know how to enter a saloon, and it needs to become a habit with you so’s that you do it without even thinkin’ about it.”
Following the lesson his pa taught him, Kirby was on the alert as they stepped inside. He and Emmett surveyed the place with such calmness that the average person would think it no more than a glance of idle curiosity. In reality, it was a very thorough appraisal of the room. They checked out who was armed, what type of weapons they were carrying, and if they were wearing their guns in the way that showed they knew how to use them.
Less than half of the drinkers were even wearing guns, though there was a man standing at the other end of the bar who was armed. His gun was in a holster that was kicked-out in the way that indicated he might know how to use it.
The walls of the saloon were decorated with game heads and pictures, including one of a reclining nude woman. Some marksman had improved the painting by putting a single bullet hole in a most appropriate place.
Several large jars of boiled eggs and pickled pigs’ feet sat on the bar. A stairway led to an upstairs section at the back. Kirby could see rooms opening off the second-floor landing as he watched a heavily painted saloon girl take a cowboy up the stairs with her.
The upstairs area didn’t extend all the way to the front of the building, which meant that the main room of the saloon was big, with exposed rafters below the high, peaked ceiling. Nearly a dozen tables were full of drinking customers.
The piano player wore a small, round, derby hat and kept his sleeves up with garters. He was pounding away at the piano, though the music was practically lost amidst the noise of a dozen or more conversations.
“What’ll it be, gents?” the barkeep asked as he moved down toward them. He wiped up a spill with a wet, smelly rag before draping the rag over his shoulder.
“A couple beers,” Emmett said.
“That’ll be ten cents,” the bartender said as he put two mugs on the bar before them. Emmett slid a dime across to him.
A bar girl sidled up to Kirby. She was heavily painted and showed the dissipation of her profession. “Oh, honey, you are a sweet one, you are.”
He was embarrassed by her attention. It wasn’t the first time he had ever been in a saloon, but it was the first time he had ever actually been approached by one of the bar girls.
“Whoa, Becky,” said a man at one of the tables. “You sure you know what you’re doin’ there? You don’t want to be robbin’ the cradle, do you? Seems to me like you’d be better off goin’ after the old one.”
Several customers laughed.
“Yeah,” one of the others said. “The old one looks like he ain’t had a woman in near twenty years, and the young ’un there, why, I bet he ain’t never had no woman.”
“Would you like a drink?” Kirby asked Becky.
“A drink? Well, yes, honey, I think I would like a drink.”
Kirby turned to the bartender. “Sir, would you give the lady whatever it is she would like to drink?”
The bartender took a bottle from beneath the bar and poured it into a short glass. “That’ll be a quarter.”
“Kirby, it would appear that your lady friend has expensive taste,” Emmett said with a smile as Kirby put a quarter on the bar.
Becky picked the glass up and tossed the drink down in one gulp. Then, smiling, she put her hand on Kirby’s shoulder. “Why don’t you come upstairs with me, honey, and let me make a man out of you?” she suggested.
Kirby had no idea how old she was, but he was sure that she was older than Miss Margrabe would be.
Wherever Miss Margrabe was.
“No, thank you, ma’am,” Kirby said. “I bought you a drink because you were being nice to me. But, I don’t want to do anything else.”
“Now, just a minute here, boy.” The man at the other end of the bar stood up straight. “I think you just insulted my woman.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, if I insulted you,” Kirby said.
“Honey, you didn’t insult me.” Becky turned her head back toward the man who had spoken. “And Streeter, I ain’t your woman.”
“Sure you are,” Streeter replied with an evil grin. “You’re anybody’s woman that pays you. I’ve paid you, so that makes you my woman.”
“Well you ain’t payin’ me now.”
“Are you sassin’ me, woman? ’Cause I ain’t goin’ to stand for no sassin’.”
Becky put her hands on her hips. “I’m not sassin’ you. I just told you that I’m not your woman, and I’m not.”
“I say you’re sassin’ me, ’n if you don’t apologize to me right now, why I might just have to knock some manners into you.”
“I’m sorry,” Becky said, showing genuine fright.
“You’re sorry all right. You are sorry, washed up, and ought to be glad that anyone at all would talk to you.”
“Mr. Streeter, why don’t you leave the lady alone?” Kirby said. “She told you she’s sorry.”
“What?” Streeter nearly shouted the word in surprise that the young boy would talk to him like that. “What did you just say to me?”
“I asked you politely to leave the lady alone.”
“First of all, she ain’t no lady. But I reckon you’re too dumb to know the difference.” Streeter’s tone of voice had gotten very challenging. With such a sharp edge to it, all other conversation in the bar had stopped. Everyone watched to see what was going to happen next.
“Miss Becky, I’d be real pleased if you would have another drink with me.” Kirby put another quarter on the bar.
“Boy, you’re beginnin’ to put a burr under my saddle, you know that? But I’m goin’ to let it pass for now. Because you’re new in town, maybe you don’t know who I am.”
“The lady called you Streeter, so I reckon that’s your name.”
“That’s it. Emile Streeter. I reckon you’ve heard of Emile Streeter.”
Kirby shook his head. “No, sir, I can’t say as I have.”
“Tell ’im who I am, Jake,” Streeter said to the bartender.
“Mr. Streeter, why don’t you leave him alo
ne. He’s just a boy.”
“He’s a boy with a smart mouth, and he needs to be taught a lesson,” Streeter said. “Tell ’im who I am.”
“Young man, Mr. Streeter is a man of some notoriety in these parts. He is quite good with a gun.” Jake pointed to the nude painting. “You might have noticed the bullet hole between the young lady’s legs. Streeter put it there.”
“You shoot paintings, do you?” Kirby asked. “Do they ever shoot back?”
“Boy, I’ve had about enough of you!” Streeter said.
Kirby smiled at the man. “Mr. Streeter, it looks like me ’n you got off on the wrong foot. If I’ve put a burr under your saddle, I apologize. Bartender, I would like to buy a drink for Mr. Streeter.”
“Uh-uh,” Streeter said, shaking his head slowly. “This has come too far for you to back out now.”
“Streeter, for God’s sake, leave him alone. Can’t you see he’s tryin’ to apologize?” the bartender said as he put another whiskey in front of Streeter.
“You stay out of this, Jake, or I’ll be settlin’ with you after I’m finished with the boy here.”
“Streeter, that’s enough! What has gotten into you? Leave the boy alone!” Becky turned to Kirby. “Honey, I’m sorry I come up to you like I did. Believe me, I would have never done so, if I had had any idea that this fool was going to carry on like this.”
“Well now, boy, ever’one seems awful worried about you, so I tell you what. If you’ll get down on your knees and ask me, please, not to shoot you, this can all be over. Otherwise, me ’n you’s goin’ to have us a little dance.” Streeter laughed, a high-pitched, insane sound. “Me ’n you’s goin’ to dance. I like that.”
“Please do it,” Becky begged. “He’ll kill you.”
“Don’t worry. He’s not going to kill me,” Kirby said, his voice flat and amazingly calm.
Smoke Jensen, the Beginning Page 16