by Jake Logan
The train slowed even more and he knew they would have to plateau before too long. He also felt the temperature drop, and dreaded when he came to the colder vestibule linking the cars, always much colder than inside the cars, and certainly much colder than the little rich girl’s car.
He reached the door, and rapped his secret knock, then keyed in…and came face-to-face with the girl and her damn pistol again. “While I appreciate the attention you’re giving to your own security, I also have to say that it’s making me feel a little unwanted. Plus, I don’t like having guns poked in my face.”
And then he saw her face. And this time, it wasn’t set in that mischievous, smug smile. This time, it was fully red-eyed, and there was wet evidence of hastily wiped away tears.
“Miss Barr, what’s wrong?” Slocum stepped into the small kitchen, closed the door, and locked it. “Where’s Ling?”
The young woman lowered the gun and stepped toward him. He thought maybe she wanted a hug before telling him, but his outstretched arms left him open to a flurry of light punches to the chest. One of her fists held the pistol, and it wagged just under his nose before he snatched up her wrists and held her rigid before him.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on here? Every time I enter your fancy train car, I get attacked in some manner. At first it was with your tongue, then guns and feet, now it’s your fists.”
She struggled out of his grasp and turned away, toward the larger room. “Why weren’t you here?”
“I told you, I had to see what surprises the rest of the train might be able to spring on us for the rest of the journey.”
Now that he wasn’t distracted by the crazy young rich girl, he saw that Ling’s normally tidy kitchen was a mess. Cutlery lay strewn upon the floor, a crock of flour had upended and its powdery white contents had trailed along one counter, then spilled on the floor where something dark had mixed with it, caused it to clump.
“Just what happened here, Miss Barr?”
“I’ll tell you what happened, Mr. Slocum. We were attacked!” She’d spun and now faced him, fire in her eyes. “Yes. While you were no doubt exploring the finer things the club car has to offer, we were attacked.”
“Attacked? By who? You okay? Ling?”
“No, Mr. Ling is not ‘okay,’ Mr. Slocum.” She stepped aside and let him pass into the sitting area of the parlor car. Ling lay back on the plush sofa, a wad of towels pressed to his side, a mixture of shame and pain washing his tight features. He saw Slocum looking at him and looked away.
“Is he hurt bad?”
“He was stabbed. I’m not sure how badly. But we’ll have to get a doctor…somehow.”
Slocum just nodded. The blood would account for the clumped flour. Ling’s blood. He looked down at the carpeted floor. They’d all tracked bloodied flour into the room. He went back to the kitchen and filled a pan with water from the sink’s faucet served by a reservoir tank in the cupboard. He handed it to the girl.
“Here, put this on to boil. I’ve got to tend to Ling. See how bad it is. Strikes me he’d be bleeding a whole lot worse if it had struck anything deep or vital.”
“But he’s in pain!”
“Course he’s in pain. The man’s been stabbed.” Good Lord, he thought. What do they teach these fancy girls in those Eastern finishing schools? “While I tend him,” he said, raising his voice so she might hear him from the kitchen, “tell me everything that happened. And don’t dawdle in there. I don’t want you near that damn door any longer than necessary.”
Slocum knelt by the sofa and eased the little man’s blood-soaked shirt up. He was tempted to mention something about how the Triple Tiger must have been taking a nap when the intruder attacked. But he figured Ling might have enough gumption left to kick him, and that wouldn’t do either of them any good.
Augusta Barr came back into the room, carrying a steaming kettle. Ling must already have had water on to boil. Afternoon tea, thought Slocum. Of course.
“Well, I was in here, going over some…ah, personal business, there at the desk, when I heard your knock.”
“My knock? No, I don’t think so. I only just got back, remember?”
“Well, it was the exact knock that you said you’d use. And then it repeated again. Several times. Finally, I heard Mr. Ling work the lock and he must have opened the door just a bit, because then there was a tremendous crashing sound.”
Ling tried to sit up, groaned, and fell back against the arm of the sofa. His face was an unhealthy shade of gray. “Kick door, big man.” He forced himself to sit up then, sucking air through his teeth. “Red hair man!” Then he collapsed and passed out.
But that was impossible, thought Slocum as he bathed the unconscious man’s wound. The red-haired giant had always been on the wrong side of him—in front of him when he’d gone forward and first seen him in the club car, and behind him when he’d left him behind to come back here.
But wait, he thought. That’s not entirely true. Big Red had been before him when he’d left the club car. Certainly not long enough to get all the way down here, do this, then get back to the seat Slocum had seen him in. No way that could have happened. Unless…no, there couldn’t possibly be another one of them. But hadn’t he thought two was just about as many as any man could take? Then he’d met a third. But a fourth? Good Lord. And where were they keeping it? In the stable car with the other large animals? Well, he thought, that was an idea worth checking on…
“Did the man get at the chest?” Even as he said it, he glanced at the secured box for the first time. It appeared unchanged.
“No thanks to you, the madman didn’t make it into this room. I have Mr. Ling to thank for that.”
And Mr. Ling to thank for letting the man into the car in the first place, thought Slocum, but he didn’t bother mentioning the obvious.
But how could the mystery man have known his special knock? Slocum ground his teeth at what that meant. His employer’s daughter, this fine-looking young woman, had strong reason to suspect he was somehow selling her out. And why wouldn’t she think so? He was conveniently absent when the attack occurred, and whoever it was who barged in had used his own made-up knock. Dammit all to hell, thought Slocum, grinding his teeth together. This will not stand.
Ling groaned and snapped Slocum out of his musing. He finished washing the knife wound, and though it was a wide cut, nearly two inches, it was neither deep nor did it slice into anything vital, as far as Slocum could tell. Ling had saved his own life by evading most of the full intended impact of what must have been a large blade.
Not unlike the big ol’ Bowie knives he’d seen swinging from the belts of the dead twins and probably on their brother in the car earlier. So was there a fourth man? A fourth big, redheaded man? It seemed beyond unlikely, and yet, as he’d already concluded, so did two, let alone three of them. Damn.
As if she were reading his thoughts, Augusta Barr said, “Something tells me I should trust you, even though you’ve given me little reason to, Mr. Slocum. But so far in my life, I’ve been shown little evidence that deferring to one’s intuitive instincts helps anyone overly much. So if you don’t mind—and even if you do—I’m keeping my purse pistol close at hand.” She waved it in a slightly less menacing manner than she had earlier.
“You have any whiskey in here?” Slocum looked around for a bottle neck, spied an array of them on a special sideboard, and browsed through the bottles, all of which were sequestered in individual, felt-lined compartments. He found the whiskey in a cut-crystal decanter and filled a glass.
“I’d have thought you would have had enough of that in the club car, Mr. Slocum.”
He didn’t bother looking at her, but as he dipped a clean corner of a towel in the amber liquid, he said, “I don’t expect you to believe me, but I really was scouting the train, trying to find suspicious characters. It’s a mighty hard task, especially considering you won’t open up and tell me what you know about all these damn redheaded goobers running around
trying to kill me and you and Ling here. And all for whatever’s in that damned box. Again, something I’m not allowed to know.”
He really wanted to tear into her, make her feel bad, but that wouldn’t solve a thing. “And I didn’t have a thing to drink either.” He turned and glared at her. “But I did find a big, redheaded man.”
“What?”
“Yep, and what’s more, he couldn’t possibly have done all this to you and Ling. He was in my sights most of the time and out of ’em no more than half a minute. Not long enough to get down here and menace you.” He gritted his teeth and dumped the whiskey into Ling’s wound.
“Now, fetch me my saddlebags and get on over here and help me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to sew up this hole in Ling’s hide.” Slocum shifted to his other knee and glanced at Ling’s still thankfully unconscious face.
She laid the saddlebags beside Slocum. “But…you’re no doctor. You’ll hurt him.”
“Lady, I’ve patched more holes in people, horses, chaps, trousers, shirts, vests, you name it, than any sawbones can lay claim to. Hell, I even sewed up a dog once, not that he liked it much. So don’t ride me. Just hold this cloth right on there.”
She transferred her pistol to her other hand and pressed her perfect, long fingers against the wadded cloth. Ling moaned and she pulled back.
“Dammit, woman! Hold that on there until I tell you otherwise.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve never—”
“Just tighten up, and we’ll talk apologies later.”
He proceeded to bathe the wound one last time, then stitch up the ragged gash using his own sewing kit. It always amused him when people who weren’t familiar with cowboys and cowboying ways were surprised when a hand broke out a sewing kit and proceeded to darn his own socks, repair a shirt or a shoulder—either of which could have been hooked by a stray horn or caught on mesquite thorn—or patch up a busted head from a bar fight or getting thrown by a crow-hopping pony.
When he’d finished, he stood up, rolled down his sleeves, and reached up to poke his hat back on his head. Then realized it was still on his head, so he removed it and tossed it on a velvet-covered chair. The girl didn’t seem to notice or care. The way she stared at the glaze-eyed Ling, Slocum could tell the man meant much to her. Probably a longtime trusted employee of the family, from the unspoken bond the two shared. He was like a loyal dog, but a whole lot more devoted, and deadlier.
“We shouldn’t move him. He’ll be comfortable enough right where he is.”
Ling’s eyes snapped open wide. “No, no. Not right…”
“I won’t hear a thing about it, Mr. Ling. Mr. Slocum’s right. If we move you, we risk your wound opening again and we can’t have that.”
“But Ling cook for you.”
She shook her head and Slocum watched the little man shrink back on the sofa, exhausted and looking like he’d lost the argument before it began. It looked to Slocum like Miss Augusta Barr’s word was the final one around here. We’ll see about that, he thought.
“I’ll take care of the cooking, Ling. Don’t worry. I’m sure I can’t match you in that department, but I’ve been known to scare up a mean mess of eggs and biscuits, stews, and such. You may end up a cowhand yet, ma’am.” He smiled, and for once, she returned his peace offering.
Then she cupped Slocum’s elbow and guided him toward the kitchen. “You are correct, of course. Mr. Ling should stay where he is. I’ll make sure he’s comfortable. But that…well, that was where I intended you to sleep.”
“Where does Ling normally sleep?”
“That’s the awkward part, Mr. Slocum. He has never seemed to require much sleep. And on the rare occasion when I’ve seen him catnapping, he’s done it in chairs or sitting on the floor.”
Slocum looked back at the man. “Cat’s the right word. Odd, but it seems to work for him. Ling should stay put on the fancy sofa until he recovers. And as for sleeping, the carpet before that fine stove will provide more comfort than I usually get when I’m sleeping rough on the trail, I can assure you.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Slocum. This is an awkward situation all around, but I’m confident we can come to some arrangement that suits us all.” She returned to her desk and hastily stuffed papers into a brown leather binder.
While he had not assumed that she was someone more interested in looking pretty than using her head and hands, he had noticed that the paperwork she was so concerned with looked more official than merely jotting a few letters to friends.
Slocum rasped a hand across his face, surveying the rest of the car. He wondered what she meant by that. He admired the gentle swell of her backside as she shuffled her paperwork, and he decided that anything she might have meant was of a professional nature only. All that, and he’d have to shave every day in the company of a lady of finery. Another reason he preferred being alone on the trail to traveling by train with others.
“Yessir,” he said almost without thinking, “give me a roaring fire or a warm woman—”
“That, Mr. Slocum, is quite enough.”
He felt his face redden. She was right, of course. He’d meant it as a funny, offhand sort of remark, but it came out as anything but that. Her perfect mouth was set in a disapproving hard line; those green eyes were sparking and filled with flinty anger. This is one to watch, he thought. If he wasn’t careful, her old man or Mr. Ling, or both, would have his head on a stick.
He usually kept his mouth in check in front of a woman, be it a dance hall girl or a fine young thing of fancy breeding such as Miss Barr. He’d definitely have to keep track of his wagging tongue, mischievous eyes or no.
“I apologize, ma’am. Meant it only as a funny sort of remark. Won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
That set his teeth tight together. “I’ll see to righting around the kitchen, then.” He tucked into neatening the mess, grateful for the task and for the chance to keep busy with a bit of cooking, and to keep his mind off the fact that he regretted everything about taking this job. He felt sure he could have found some other way of making a bit of cash back in Pearlton. Give me time to think this whole crazy mess through before something else happens that all but convinces her I’m working with the mysterious redheads to rob her of whatever it is she’s transporting.
The rest of that afternoon and evening passed uneventfully. Slocum took the opportunity to doze a bit, knowing that, should another attack happen, it would most likely occur at night. And he wanted to be awake and fresh for it.
With Miss Barr’s permission, Slocum had made a thorough investigation of the outside of the chest and found that it was bolted securely to the floor and hidden from plain sight by a ruffled curtain that rimmed the side table she’d placed over it. It was a fine effort, he thought. Only then did he realize that it had probably been built for the purpose.
He wondered if there was any reason why she had the box out there, pretty much in plain sight—save for the curtain—when she could have had it hidden away back in her bedroom. But he didn’t feel like asking her, nor sparring with her any more that day.
With Ling out of commission, for the near future anyway, leaving Miss Barr’s car was out of the question for Slocum. But it didn’t set well with him. With the possibility of two more of the damned redheaded men running around on this very train, it chafed him raw to sit still and wait for them to come to him. He wasn’t used to letting things happen to him.
He preferred to make things happen, to walk right up to them, jam the Colt in their snouts, and back them up, whatever and wherever they may be. But this time he felt like a sitting duck.
Here I am, he thought. Making stew and biscuits in a kitchen in a fancy private rail car on the Central Sierra and Pacific Railroad, heading up and up and up in the dead of winter into some of the deadliest mountain passes a man would be likely to find anywhere—particularly this time of year.
All these thou
ghts got trampled together in his mind, prodding him into a deeper pit of gloom. Slocum glanced at Ling, asleep on the sofa, his little body tucked up tight to the back of the cushions.
Almost before he knew it, an entire day had passed, and he found himself in nearly the same position he’d been in the day before at that time. In that dull twenty-four hours, he and Miss Barr had exchanged a few pleasantries, but conversation had been light and tense.
Slocum looked out the window just above the still-snoozing Ling. And all he saw was close pelting snow slanting in and swirling around the fast-moving train so thick that he could no longer make out the increasingly rugged and decreasingly treed landscape of the foothills of the Sierra. He groaned, “Oh, now that is all we need.”
“What’s that, Mr. Slocum?”
He leaned out of the kitchen. “The snow.” He nodded toward the windows.
“Oh my,” she said, a hand to her chest. “I hadn’t noticed. I was too busy dealing with these fig—”
“Now that’s another thing,” he said. “I expected a pretty young Daddy’s girl like yourself to spend her time eating bon-bons and reading a novel, or some other way to waste your time. But it looks to me like you’re training to be a bookkeeper or something.”
She closed the ledger and looked at him over the silver rims of spectacles. He’d not seen them on her before, and he had to admit they made her look even more fetching, if that was possible.
“Mr. Slocum—”
“John, please. The name’s John.”
“Mr. Slocum, as with many men of the West, you are, from the outset, entirely too familiar. Please know that you are in the employ of my father’s business, here for one express purpose. As such, your comments and observations, above and beyond anything that might even remotely pertain to the safeguarding of the precious cargo, are not necessary and not necessarily welcome.”
He knew he should be offended, but he just didn’t have it in him. Instead, he felt a wide smile break across his face. “Ma’am, that surely was a mouthful. And if your elocution instructors could hear you now, they’d no doubt be right proud of you. I reckon I’ll heed your advice, then, and stick to what I’ve been hired to do.” He ducked back into the kitchen, then popped his head back around the door frame. “Oh, and the cooking and doctoring, too, of course.”