The Long Walk (The Verge Walker Book 1)

by Ben Reeder

  “Hey boy,” Caleb rasped, flipping a silver disk into the air toward the indolent urchin. “Make sure no one else rides off on him.” Another coin flew. “Then get him rubbed down, stabled and fed. Grain and hay.” A third coin followed the arc of the first two.

  “You bet, mister!” the boy said, snatching all three coins from the air before disappearing into the depths of the barn, and re emerging moments later through the large front doors.

  “Make sure he don’t drink too much, and mind your feet. He has a liking for stepping on toes.” Without waiting for a response, Caleb walked across the street. A row of horses stood in the sun, heads down in the midday heat. Three close to the door caught his eye and made his jaw tighten. All three would have been majestic looking mustangs, save for the pale mud caked on their legs and tangles in their manes and tales. One had a pair of old lash marks across its rump, and all three bore sloppy brands. With a grimace at the obvious abuse of fine horseflesh, he pushed the swinging doors open.

  The Gantry was a narrow building, barely more than twenty feet wide, with a bar that ran half of its seventy feet along the back wall. A stage was built against the back wall, its red curtains showing signs of their best days having passed years before. The bartender, a heavy set man with curly brown hair and a well kept handlebar mustache, looked up at the newcomer, eyeing him for potential trouble, and conversation stopped for a moment. The pistol at the stranger’s right hip was as commonplace as dirt and horse manure, but the long coat and heavy gloves were nothing he’d ever seen before.

  Caleb didn’t stand in the doorway, but made his way straight to the bar. “Beer,” he said as he took a stool and laid a quarter down on the wooden surface. The barman grabbed a thick glass and pulled a draught from a barrel set behind the bar, then put the glass in front of the stranger with one hand while he laid a wooden token on the counter and took the two-bit piece with the other. “Token for your second?” the barman asked. At the stranger’s nod, he broke into a broad smile. “Two beers for two bits! The names Smitty, sir.”

  “Caleb.” he responded, turning to observe three men holding court at the end of the bar. Taking a long, slow pull from his mug, he let out a satisfied sigh as he put the mug down.

  “So, you really saw it?” one of the other patrons asked the three pontificants eagerly. “You saw the aether train?”

  “Ya, we did,” another man said, his voice thickly accented with some Eastern European flavor. “Glowed red as the fires of Hell itself, it did, with great red and yellow sparks flying from the wheels as it drove through the Verge. Sounded like a thousand lost souls screaming, the wheels did. And fast!”

  “Oh, it was fast!” another man said in a similar accent.

  “Barely saw it, we did,” a third man offered, “and it was halfway across the horizon.”

  “Like lightning!”

  “Wish some of us coulda been there with you fellas,” another man said as he got up and went to the bar. “Smitty! Another beer for me and the Hamori boys.”

  “That’ll be four bits, Sam,” Smitty said. To both of the local men’s surprise, it was the stranger who laid down two quarters on the bar.

  “White,” the stranger said without looking up from his beer.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “The Verge,” the stranger said slowly. “It’s white, and bright, like lightning. That’s why riggers wear goggles. To protect their eyes, and so they can make out details.”

  “It is red, with red and yellow sparks from the wheels,” one of the Hamori brothers said.

  “Aether train’s wheels don’t touch the tracks when it’s going over thirty, maybe forty miles an hour. All the weight is on the aether stirrups. The wheels don’t spark. They don’t even touch the tracks.”

  “Are you calling us liars?” the biggest of the Hamori brothers asked, stepping forward and cracking his knuckles. The stranger stood slowly and turned to face the rest of the bar, pulling his left hand out of his pocket with a gold coin between his index and middle finger. With deliberate precision, he laid the coin on the bar next to the two coins he’d just placed.

  “Four whiskeys for the Hamoris and their friend here before they leave,” the man said over his shoulder. He turned to face the others. “I’m not calling you a liar. I’m just telling you that whatever you saw out there, it wasn’t an aether train. When did you see this apparition, anyway?”

  “It was Tuesday morning, on the tracks north of here,” the biggest one said. The other two nodded.

  “Then I know you couldn’t have seen the aether train out of Denver that runs those tracks.”

  “And how do you know this thing?” the smallest of the brothers asked, his narrow face contorted in a sneer as he pointed a riding crop at the stranger. Caleb’s eyes narrowed as he saw the flecks of blood and hair on the crop, connecting it to the bloodied horse outside. Suddenly, the prospect of a fight wasn’t so bad, even if he did take a beating from it, so long as he knocked the little son of a bitch around some.

  “Because I was on it,” Caleb said, lifting his hand to reveal the punched stub of a train ticket. A spark crackled from his fingertips to the ticket and tiny arcs of electricity crawled over the surface of the ticket as he lifted his hand away, and all eyes in the bar went wide. The bartender leaned forward to inspect it, then looked up at the Hamori brothers as Caleb rubbed his thumb across his tingling fingertips and inspected his own hand as if it was suddenly strange to him.

  “Yup, it’s a ticket on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Aether Railroad Company’s Denver line. Says here it left Denver at nine in the morning,” reported Smitty. Sam uttered a disbelieving shout as the brothers all got up and advanced on the stranger.

  Caleb stood slowly, and sighed. Win or lose, there was no way he was going to be able to face off with these three men and not take a few lumps. And winning was not the way things were likely to turn out for him unless guns were drawn. But so far, no hand had reached for iron, and he half smiled in relief. Better to take a few lumps than the alternative.

  “Y’all take your problems outside!” the bartender said.

  “Up to you boys which you want more,” Caleb said. “Busted knuckles or good whiskey.” For a moment, the bar itself was silent as the three brothers eyed the bottle of liquor on the bar. Outside, the sounds of a team at full gallop being drug to a stop and the urgent shouts as a man called for the sheriff.

  Half the crowd in the bar migrated to the street windows, but Caleb kept his full attention on the three facing him, knowing that a momentary loss of eye contact could have fatal results.

  “Why don’t we take this fellow out back and teach ‘im some manners, then have him pay for his education,” the shortest brother said with a sly grin.

  “Yep,” the biggest one said. “Seems only fair we get fair pay for a days work. Only I expect he’s gonna be a lot more generous with his money than just buying a bottle of whiskey.”

  The bartender raised a hand and was about to speak when a woman’s scream split the air. Few things in the West held more power over men than a woman in peril. Even a man who might be so low as to cheat at cards or steal a horse could be counted on drop whatever he was about at the moment when he heard a woman’s cry. So it was in The Gantry in that moment. Every man present bolted for the door, disputes forgotten, joined in the fraternity of chivalry. They spilled out the door and onto the street to the sight of a woman in a blue gingham dress bent over the back of a wagon across the street. Packages and parasol lay forgotten in the dirt as she let out a wail, punctuated with sobs. The sheriff was emerging from his office on the far side of the wagon with a tall Indian in tow. Beside the tall Navajo, Sheriff James Broward seemed a man of normal stature, with thick brown hair and a simple horseshoe moustache. It wasn’t until he towered over the weeping woman that his height became truly evident. He put one arm around her shoulders and pulled her away from the wagon a couple of feet. The Indian reached in and lifted a bloodsoaked tarp.

&
nbsp; “Mrs. Carson, please,” he said, his tone a little condescending until he caught sight of what was in the wagon. “Lord help us!”

  “Yee naaldlooshii,” the Indian said in a shaky voice. “Yee naaldlooshii!

  “Sheriff, get that stinkin’ redskin away from her,” someone called out. “She don’t need to hear that heathen nonsense.”

  “Joe,” the sheriff said. “Git on inside. And don’t come out ‘lest you can keep a civilized tongue in that heathen mouth of yours.” At that moment, the woman gave a little sigh and fell against the sheriff, who caught her and picked her up. “Someone fetch Doc Howard.” he called as he strode across the boardwalk into the Jail.

  The crowd followed the sheriff as he carried Mrs. Carson into his office. Caleb found himself frozen in place, his eyes drawn to the wagon. Something had the hair on the back of his neck up. It was hard to place it, but something just felt wrong. He walked around to the rear of the wagon and saw the bloody tarp draped over two impossibly small bodies. Three small feet stuck out from under the canvas. One seemed relatively whole, unmarred. The other two, however, looked like raw meat. Caleb stumbled back as the hard reality of what he was seeing seemed to reinforce the odd sense of wrongness he’d been fighting.

  He was looking at the bodies of two young boys. One had been skinned. The other...something had chewed the poor kid’s foot clean off. And if the blood on the tarp served as any guide, other parts of him were either missing, or torn open. But more disturbing was what was not there.

  There were no flies. Caleb had seen enough dead bodies to know that flies were the vultures of the insect world. Where you found the dead, you found swarms of the little buggers. And where they should have been crawling all over these two poor souls, there was nary a buzz to be heard. But the physical evidence...or its lack...just went to confirm the uneasy feeling in his gut, that this was a sign that something unnatural was going on. He made the sign of the Cross with rapid motions.

  “In Your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers,” he said, the words soft and slow in coming. “In this life you embraced them with your tender love; deliver them now from every evil and bid them eternal rest. Amen.” It was far from the complete prayer, but it had been some time since Caleb had spoken to God. He wasn’t sure if He’d listen.

  Doc Howard shooed the crowd out of the Jail and they returned, pushing and shoving to get a better view of the macabre scene in the rear of the wagon. Caleb felt their growing numbers pressing in on him. Seeking a little elbow room, he started to retreat across the street to the shade of the Gantry. Halfway there, he heard a shout. Stopping, he turned to look back over his shoulder at the commotion, and found himself the center of attention.

  “There he is, sheriff!” the smallest of the Hamori boys said, his riding crop quivering in Caleb’s direction. “He just rode into town, ain’t no one else coulda done for them poor Carson boys but him.” Broward frowned and put a hand on the young man’s shoulder to keep him back, then stepped out into the street with his pistol drawn.

  “What’s your name, stranger?” Broward demanded.

  “Caleb Archer.”

  “Mister Archer, I need you to put your hands up,” Broward said. People scrambled to clear the way between the two of them, and Caleb slowly raised his hands. The sheriff reached in and took his pistol with his left hand, then gestured toward the porch behind him. “Okay, inside, and don’t try nothin’, or I’ll fill you with lead in a hurry.”

  “Don’t worry none, sheriff,” Caleb said slowly as he walked toward the building. “I won’t give you any trouble.”

  The Hamori brother who had pointed Caleb out took two quick steps and backhanded him across the cheek with his riding crop, laying the skin open. Caleb spun with the blow and into the the ham-sized fist of the largest of the brothers. His knees seemed to turn to water and he staggered back a couple of steps, then fell flat on his back. The world spun around him, and his eyes sought something to focus on to anchor his whirling head. His gaze fell on the wagon wheel to his right, and the streaks of pale gray mud that coated the wooden spoke. Bits of green were smeared on the iron rim of the wheel. He blinked and reached for the memory of where he’d seen that same thing. Slowly, he looked to his left, across the street, to the horses tied up at the Gantry. His mind made the connection between the horses and the wagon wheel, and that somehow, it was supposed to be important. Then something was poking at his side, and he looked up. The sheriff was standing over him, gun out and pointing at the two Hamori brothers.

  “Step back, boys, I’m going to take this man to my office and we are going to have a visit. Now, I have an empty cell for you three if y’all want to keep prodding.” Sheriff Broward offered as Caleb blinked at him and focused.

  “He was back-talking you, sheriff,” the smallest brother said with an insincere grin.

  “Can you get to your feet, son?” he asked Caleb.

  “I can try,” Caleb said. He grabbed the wagon wheel and pulled himself upright, then stood for a moment to test his equilibrium before letting go and standing on his own.

  “Okay, come on,” Broward ordered. As Caleb stepped back up on the boardwalk, Stefan made a quick feint toward him. The snide grin on his face melted at the sound of the hammer drawing back on the sheriff’s Colt. “I’m about done talking with you fellas. You can walk away or be carried. Toes forward or toes up, it’s your choice.” The smallest brother recovered a little of the bravado and sneered at Caleb.

  “We got a rope ready for you, mister,” he said, placing the crop in the middle of Caleb’s chest before he stepped out of the way.

  Caleb entered the sheriff’s office, followed by Broward, who closed the door behind them with his foot. “Stop there, Archer,” he said when Caleb reached the door of the the open jail cell. “Joe, lock that door and pull the shutter. Robby, get that coach gun and cover this fella.”

  Caleb felt his shoulders tense at the sound of the lock being turned, and he took a short, quick breath at the clatter of the shutter being drawn.

  “Take your coat, your gloves and your hat and drop ‘em on the floor behind you.” With careful movements, he stripped his heavy gloves off, then shrugged his long coat down over his shoulders and let it slide off his arms. It hit the floor with a loud thump, and he finally slid his hat off and dropped it behind him. Removing the long coat also revealed a 12 inch Bowie knife on his left hip.

  “The gun belt, now,” the sheriff ordered.The belt came off, and Broward stepped forward to collect it. “Don’t fret none, mister,” Broward said as he drew the blade and laid it on his desk. “You’ll get your plunder back if I can clear your name, or if someone can vouch for you. Now step on inside there.”

  Caleb stepped forward and heard the hinges squeak behind him as the door shut. “It isn’t the knife I’m so concerned about,” he said. He heard the sheriff grunt as he picked up the coat, gloves and hat. “It’s the coat.”

  “I’ll take good care of that, too,” the sheriff grunted. “Ain’t many men walk around wearing three thousand dollars or so in the lining of his coat. Right about now, though, you got bigger problems, son.” He pushed the cell door shut, and it clicked as the lock closed. “Because without someone to vouch for you, it don’t look good for you.”

  “There was a woman I came upon on the road yesterday,” Caleb offered, “said her name was Miller.”

  “Miller’s a pretty common name,” Broward said, sounding doubtful. “What did she look like?”

  “Came up to about here,” Caleb said, holding his hand at shoulder height. “Blue eyed, fair skin, dark blonde hair. Has some Irish in her. Maybe fifteen, twenty miles out of town, along that trail that runs along a river. She should be in town some time today.”

  “That sounds like Widow Miller,” Robbie said. “Though she was just in town yesterday. It’ll be a week or more b’fore she needs to come back.”

  “She’ll be back today,” Caleb said. “Talk to the wheelwright. She busted a lynch pin o
n her front wheel on the left side.”

  “We’ll see,” Broward said. “Robbie, you keep an eye on this fella.” The Deputy emerged from the back, his face long. He nodded, and Broward took the heavy ring of keys. “In case you get any ideas,” he said as he rattled the keys.

  “Take your time,” Caleb said as he made his way to the bunk on the wall. “That mattress looks pretty soft.” Broward chuckled and turned toward the door. Caleb’s voice stopped him. “Sheriff, you might want to look to the wagon wheels and the legs of the Hamori brothers’ horses. Looks like they been to some of the same places.”

  “And what about yours?” Broward demanded, his eyes narrowing.

  “Ask the boy at the livery stable...if Mrs. Miller’s word isn’t enough for you.”

  “I may just do that.” He turned and stepped back out into the heat, slipping his hat back onto his head. It wasn’t his way to grumble, but this Archer fellow had brought way too many problems with him. Looking towards the livery stable, he saw Widow Miller’s lacy parasol bobbing as she made her way across the street.

  “Huh,” he grunted. “Fancy that. Just like the man said.” It was tempting to just go talk to her and take her word if she corroborated Archer’s story and leave things at that. But damn if those Hamori boys hadn’t caused folks trouble in the past, and Archer’s words had opened up some new avenues to start looking down. There had been accusations of theft, cheating and worse yet, horse thieving. No one had been able to prove anything, though, and most of the time, the folks doing the accusing ended up dead. The Hamori boys usually claimed self-defense, and their Pa had the clout to make it stick, even if the supposed attacker died with three bullets in his back. But if Archer was right, then he might finally be able to get rid of three of his least favorite “law abiding citizens.”