As Blue turned to continue her mission, an elderly man who appeared to be very drunk and too spritely for his own good came up and grabbed at her, but she smiled and dodged away with practiced grace. He stumbled into a poker table, upset the game and caused all manner of profanity to bloom. Then Blue was on her way again.
Lawson removed a thin Marsh-Wheeling cigar from inside his coat and lit it at the flame of a lamp on the bar. He drew the smoke in and exhaled it, aware that he might appear to be a man in need of sunlight but that he was far removed from the human breed. And growing further removed, it seemed to him, with the passage of every night. Even in this hothouse, he was always cold. True rest was something denied him, for in the daylight he slept as the vampires did: one part tranced, gathering strength for the hunt, and another part on edge, senses questing, fearful of discovery and the power of the sun to sear his flesh and burn his eyes out. Though he appeared strong and indeed was—also in the way of the vampire—his body was withering inside. He could not eat food, he could drink only a little, the taste of water sickened him, and the blood need was a constant pressure. The cattle blood was a poor substitute for what his transformation from human to monster desired, and though he fought it with all his power of will he did on occasion find a derelict in the darktime streets of New Orleans and take what he needed to survive a little longer.
It was LaRouge he needed to find. She, who had turned him. If he could find her, and drink her dry…
He recalled what he’d been told by another vampire, a legless Confederate named Nibbett, there in the root cellar where they’d kept him near the devastated battlefield of Shiloh. After you feel and see and you are, you won’t care to go back. Only way…is to drink the ichor from the one who’s turned you. Drink it all down. Then you go back to what you were, and you age. Hell, some of ’em would turn to dust, if that was to happen. Ain’t gonna be a thought in your head, though. All that goes away. You’ll see. Trust an ol’ rebel, Cap’n. Once you get turned…you ain’t ever gonna want to go back.
Lawson had escaped that house of hell by cutting off Nibbett’s head with a butcher knife. He had been pursued by the horde, had jumped from a bridge into a river and that was the beginning of his story.
Where it might end he dared not think. If LaRouge and the Dark Society could not take him into the fold, bend and break him into becoming a true monster intent on consuming the life’s blood of men, women, and children, they would have to destroy him. Tear him to shreds, scatter what was left of Trevor Lawson across the bloody fields of their war against humanity.
He was an if, and he could not be allowed to let others question their fates.
They were out there, watching him. They tracked him with powers and senses much older and keener than his own, he was sure. They waited for him to walk into a snare, and thus he was always so careful where he stepped. And yet…how else to reach LaRouge, but to let them get their claws on him?
He blew smoke toward the ceiling, his face grim and his eyes cold, and he watched the girl earning her five silver dollars.
She went to the group of men standing around the big Put & Take spinner. She touched on the right shoulder a tall, lean, black-haired man with streaks of gray at his temples. He was wearing a black suit and was clean-shaven, showing a chiselled profile that would have served him well among the ladies of New Orleans. He turned from the game, gave Blue a thin-lipped smile…and then his right hand came up and seized her chin with what appeared to be violent intent. The man was smoking a stub of a cigar, and he removed it to lean toward Blue and kiss her roughly on the mouth. When the man pulled back, the slick smile still on his face, Lawson saw Blue make a mistake.
Her eyes darted toward the bar and Lawson. They showed fear, and Lawson knew the man had seen.
But the man gave no reaction. He released her, said something to her, she nodded and walked away just as the saloon girl in the pink lemonade dress was moving in. A few heartbeats passed, and then the man slowly turned his head toward the bar, where his sharp-eyed gaze slid from one face to another until he came to the two he’d never seen before.
Lawson by this time was not looking directly at the man but could feel himself being examined. Now there was a sense of impending danger in the room; the man was not a vampire, but he had the second-sight of a born survivor. When Lawson next looked, the man was still standing at the spinner but he was tracking Blue as she pushed her way toward the roulette table. Lawson took a drink of blood and whiskey and said to Ann, “We’ve been discovered.”
To her credit, Blue was still working for her money. At the roulette table she touched on the shoulder a heavy-set, brown-bearded gent who wore a black skullcap and a brown leather jacket with a fleece collar. This man, like the first, was intent on the game and gave no response. Lawson glanced quickly toward the gamblers at the spinner, and though the spinner was going around in a blur of red, white and black numbers the man who had seized Blue’s chin was smoking his cigar and watching the girl as a cat might watch a mouse.
Blue approached another man at the roulette table. This man’s back was to Lawson and Ann, but he had a mass of curly dark brown hair and he was wearing a navy-blue coat. She touched his shoulder, he looked up at her, showing a profile that included a full beard, and she leaned her head down and spoke.
Lawson could see her mouth form the last word.
Omaha.
“Get ready,” Lawson said.
“For what?” Ann asked, but she was already as tense as an arrow about to fly from its bow.
He answered, “Anything and everything.”
Eric Cavanaugh stared up at Blue for a few seconds as if he hadn’t understood. The wheel was spun and he had not put down a bet. The little wooden ball clattered and clattered and clattered. The young man—older-looking than his father had described and made older and nearly unrecognizable by the beard—turned around to peer through the layers of smoke toward the bar. Blue was already on her way back to get her coins. Lawson’s right forefinger went up to touch the brim of his Stetson, and both Eric and the gambler at the spinner saw.
There was a moment where the young Cavanaugh turned back to the roulette wheel and Lawson thought the rich man’s son had no idea what was happening or what was about to happen. Lawson smoked his cheroot and waited, patience being one of his remaining virtues…and suddenly Eric stood up from the table and began to wend a path to the bar.
At once, the clean-cut gambler at the big spinner—Deuce Mathias himself, Lawson guessed—tossed his cigar stub into a spitoon and started moving. Not toward Eric, but toward the heavy-set figure in the black skullcap. Whatever was going on, Mathias didn’t like it and he was alerting either Presco or Rebinaux.
Blue reached the bar first. She took the coins with a speed that would have been admired by any creature of a vampiric nature.
“You did well,” said Lawson. “Thank you.”
“Ain’t exactly sure what I d…did.”
Ann said, “Company’s coming.”
She didn’t mean only Eric Cavanaugh. She meant that the oily-looking gambler Lawson had pegged as Deuce Mathias was approaching. Behind him the heavy-set man had paused to alert the younger one with the mop of brown hair at the Faro table. Mathias was wearing a gunbelt though the actual pistol was hidden by his black coat. The other two began their advance through the crowd as well, and they also were packing iron. None of them appeared to be appreciative of this sudden intrusion by strangers.
“Who are you?” Eric asked when he got close enough. He had sharp features and a look of wildness in his gray eyes. His face bore the weathered lines of hard living and perhaps the hard travels of many roads that led to regret.
“Your father’s emissaries,” Lawson said. “We’re getting you out of here.” Lawson’s eyes went to the young man’s gunbelt. “You do want to get home in one piece, don’t you?”
“Home? My father?” Eric sounded genuinely stunned. “He…sent you?”
“Train leaves for
Helena in forty minutes. We intend to be on it. Are you with us?”
“I…I…can’t…they won’t…”
“Eric?” The voice was as silky as the man’s ruffled shirt. “Who are your friends?”
“My name is Trevor Lawson and this is Ann Kingsley.” Lawson kept his voice light and easy. Ann had stepped to one side where she had a clear shot if need be. She was aware of the two others coming in from different directions. “Your name, sir?” Lawson prodded.
“I may be called the man who wishes you to leave this establishment,” came the softspoken answer. His eyes were deep-set, icy blue pools that Lawson was sure had frozen many a victim. “You have no business here.”
“Then we seem to be of different minds.”
“Yours may be a bit afflicted. Easy, Johnny,” he said to the young man who was showing a glimpse of a hogleg Navy revolver from underneath his gray jacket. “Let’s give these two a chance to see another sunrise.”
“Hm,” said Lawson, with as much of a friendly smile as he could summon. He was well aware that his friendly smiles could frighten small children. “I don’t really care for sunrises.”
“I’m m…m…movin’,” Blue said, and with the silver dollars in her fist she started to go past Mathias, but he reached out quick as a snake and grabbed her wrist. Her hand opened and there was the shine of the coins.
“I believe,” said Mathias, “that there has been some shit going on here behind my back. Our backs.” He twisted Blue’s wrist enough to bring a wince of pain. “Nealsen, go about your business please,” he told the bartender, who had paused in his pouring to take in the scene. Several other men at the bar were watching, and now they realized where the line of fire was and that they ought to be somewhere else. The black piano-player was still pounding the cracked ivories; he was unaware of the confrontation because his eyes were closed.
Mathias took the coins from Blue’s hand and shoved her back toward Lawson and Ann. The girl’s face showed red even under all the makeup. She shouted in a ragged and desperate voice, “That’s m…my money! Give it back, damn you!”
Which brought an end to the piano-playing. With it the hollerings and cursings of the gamblers diminished as all realized a drama was being played out in their midst. In another moment there was only the ticking of the big spinner going around and around and a hiss as an oil lamp’s wick sparked overhead.
“Mr. Cantrell don’t like no trouble!” the piano-player spoke up, indicating a soul who was either very brave or ready to be shot.
“Mr. Cantrell is not here right now,” Mathias answered. His gaze never left Lawson’s. “No trouble is intended. These strangers are on their way out.”
Johnny Rebinaux had pulled his revolver. It hung in a loose grip at his right side. About ten feet to Rebinaux’s left, Keene Presco had placed a hand on the buckle of his gunbelt but no weapon was showing yet. To emphasize the threat, Deuce Mathias pulled his coat back to reveal two Colts with black grips in their holsters. He pushed the five silvers into a pocket and then casually rested his hands on his hips.
“Now,” he said, “before either you two walk out or are carried out…tell me the why of things. Eric, do you know them?”
“No.”
“But they know you?”
“I…don’t…”
“His father has sent us to bring the boy home,” said the vampire. “Eric, he told us about the letters.”
“Letters?” Mathias frowned, and now he was not nearly so handsome. He looked like a cunning predator on the hunt for fresh meat. “I am all at sea about this. What letters might those be?”
“He sent his—”
“I can speak for myself, Mr. Lawson.” Eric had found his courage, for the moment of decision had come. He was helped knowing gunfighters were standing behind him, even if one did happen to be a woman and the other looked to be as bloodless as a white stone. “I’m done with this life, Deuce. I want out of it. Yes, I wrote a couple of letters to my father asking for help, and I passed them to the post clerk. I want to go home. Can’t you understand that?”
“Eric wants to go home,” Mathias said to his compatriots, in a mocking tone. “Says he’s done with this life. Been sneaking around behind our backs, and us taking him in like family. Now that’s a fine plate of bad hash, isn’t it?” He turned his gaze again upon Trevor Lawson. “We’ll send the boy home, if that’s what he pleases. Seems to me his father must love his son very much, to send a couple of guns after him.” Mathias put one hand on the grip of a Colt. “Seems also,” he said, “that dear Father must have some money in his pockets. You two take back word to him…we’ll send his boy home, in due time.”
“Deuce, I’m leavin’,” Eric said. There was grit in his voice, but also a quaver. “I’m done with all this.”
“Leaving, he says.” Mathias was still speaking to the others. “After all we’ve been through together. No, I don’t think so.”
“Eric, walk out of here,” said Lawson. His voice was quiet but commanding. “Blue, step aside.”
“I want m..my m…money!” And with that she lunged at Deuce Mathias, going for the pocket in which the silvers resided.
What happened next was a blur to everyone but Lawson, and though Ann was fast she had not expected Johnny Rebinaux’s speed and recklessness. His Navy revolver flashed up, catching yellow lamplight. Presco’s gun was out, the hammer being cocked. Mathias was drawing both guns at once, and an instant before Rebinaux’s pistol went off Mathias knocked Blue away from him with a wicked elbow. She staggered back as a haze of gunsmoke bloomed around her. Ann’s pistol cracked and the gun in Rebinaux’s hand blew to pieces, the bullet having hit the cylinder. He yowled with pain and danced a madman’s jig, his gunhand torn open by jagged metal.
And then Presco and Mathias saw that Trevor Lawson was leaning against the bar, his Colt with its rosewood grip and load of deadly lead aimed somewhere between the two thugs as if he’d been standing that way for half-an-hour, yet neither one of them had seen him move from where he’d been half-a-heartbeat before. He was just there.
Their guns were still aimed at the floorboards, ready to shoot some sawdust.
Lawson blew a little O of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Drop them,” he said.
Presco’s pistol hit the floor. Mathias was thinking of gambling.
Ann said, “Damn! I was going for the third button on that little bastard’s shirt!”
But Lawson knew she’d decided not to kill him, as death seemed such a constant these troubled days. Two more pistols fell.
The smell of fresh blood flooded Lawson’s senses. It hit him like the need for whiskey would hit an alcoholic three days in the gutter. Rebinaux’s hand was dripping red and he was sitting on the floor mewling like a hurt kitten, but the bloodsmell was stronger than that.
Then he knew.
“Oh…my God!” Ann said. She was already bending down to where Blue lay crumpled on her right side and the crimson was spreading around her.
The bartender started to reach for something under the bar. Without looking at him, Lawson said, “Don’t do that,” and Nealsen raised his hands and backed away.
“She’s still breathing!” Ann started to turn her over and then thought better of it. “It’s bad, she took it near the heart!”
“Clear this place,” Lawson commanded. “Everyone out!” He didn’t have to give that order twice. Money was scooped up, bottles were drained and cards were left scattered across the tables. The piano-player abandoned his instrument. Nealsen took a long drink from a bottle and he too took to the wind. “Stand with your backs against the bar and your hands behind your heads!” Lawson told Mathias and Presco. “Lock your fingers! Eric, is there a doctor here?”
“Yes, he’s…”
“Go get him. Fast.”
Eric went, and then the vampire and the sharpshooter were left with the three dregs and the girl on the floor whose pooling blood began to make the ichor in Lawson’s veins burn with d
esire.
Mathias showed a cruel smile. “Shall I give the girl her money now?”
Lawson came so close…so close to putting his gun’s barrel against the man’s throat and making him eat the last of the Marsh-Wheeling, but he was a gentleman and he would not stoop to such a thing.
“You’ve hurt one of my friends,” Mathias went on. “Probably finished his gunhand, looks to me. Well…the girl got in the way, so I guess Johnny deserved it.”
Johnny made a strangled sound, showing that he disagreed with the man’s opinion.
“Take Eric and go on,” said Mathias. “The girl’s dying. Go on and take him to the train. If he wants to leave so badly. But I’ll tell you this, sir…” And here the man’s smooth voice became harsh and ugly. “I don’t know what those letters said, but Eric James did some things the law would be very interested in. Now I can find out who those letters went to. Take me maybe five minutes with that post clerk. So take him on home, sir, and I’m glad to be rid of him.”
“We could kill you all and be done with it,” Lawson answered.
“Oh…you two may be hired guns but you’re not natural-born killers. Otherwise we’d already be laid out on the floor.”
“Jesus, Deuce!” Presco’s voice was like a saw grinding over rusted iron. “Don’t give ’em ideas!”
“Just giving him food for thought,” was the reply, delivered with a nasty smirk. “Just food for thought.”
Lawson was thinking about food. The feast of the vampire. The blood that was flowing from Blue’s body only a few feet from where he stood. In fact, tendrils of the blood were reaching toward his boots, a further enticement to fall upon the dying girl and drink her dry. He shivered; he was so very cold.
In the distance the train’s whistle blew, announcing an imminent departure. There were two trips a day, one in the late afternoon from Helena and one back in the early dark, the last train from Perdition.
Last Train from Perdition Page 4