Calamity Jane 11

by J. T. Edson

  Having noticed how a wistful note had crept into Lincoln’s voice when referring to Calamity’s ability as a driver, the burly freighter felt certain that the plot hatched in Freddie Woods’ sitting-room would succeed provided its other elements could be implemented. Because of the rumors about his clandestine and illegal cargoes, Lincoln had great difficulty in obtaining the services of skillful and conscientious employees. He was likely to leap at an opportunity to acquire one as capable as she had been taught to be since joining Killem.

  Not only had Calamity and her employer already been meaning to visit Stokeley for the purpose he had given to Lincoln, appreciating how great would be the cost in human lives and suffering if the conspiracy was allowed to be accomplished, they had expressed their willingness to help circumvent it. Showing the reckless disregard for danger which had produced her sobriquet, the girl had expressed delight rather than apprehension over the part she would be expected to play. She was, although she had not mentioned it, looking forward to participating for a second time in a perilous assignment with the Rebel Spy. 30 It said much for Killem’s faith in her ability to look after herself that, even knowing everything possible was to be done to lessen the danger she would be facing, he had raised no objections to her taking part in the scheme. What was more, he was playing his own role with considerable histrionic ability as befitted a man known for his skill at poker.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Vera answered shortly. ‘We were assured that Mr. Cavallier is a competent guide, so he can take us to where we want to go.’

  ‘We might’s well go and take a drink with him and Calam then, Dobe,’ Lincoln suggested, sharing le Loup-Garou’s wish to have a change of company from the unsociable “Mr. and Mrs. Roxby”.

  ‘We might at that,’ Killem assented, nothing loth for all his earlier apparent reluctance. ‘If I’m there, she ought to stay something like sober.’

  ‘My name is Arnaud Cavallier, mon chérie,’ le Loup-Garou was saying, in response to Calamity’s request to be told what she might call him, as the two freighters arrived at the bar.

  ‘Damned if I could get my tongue around anything’s fancy as that,’ the girl objected. ‘So, happen it’s all right with you, I’ll just stick to “Mon-sewer”.’

  ‘But of course, mon chérie, whatever you wish,’ Cavallier authorized. ‘And what can I get for you?’

  ‘I’d take me a snort of that fancy red-eye and a cigar, ‘less you don’t hold with smoking,’ Calamity replied.

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ Cavallier declared. ‘May I order for you, gentlemen?’

  ‘Well I’ll swan if it’s not getting to be just like old home week,’ Calamity ejaculated, swinging her gaze to a man and woman who had entered the car from the opposite to that in which she and Killem arrived, after she had been served and was holding a smoking cigar. Raising her free hand in a friendly wave, she went on, ‘Hey, boss-man, look who’s here.’

  ‘Do you know them?’ Cavallier inquired, glancing over his shoulder at the newcomers as the man gave an almost languid-seeming gesture in response to the red head’s salutation.

  ‘Name’s the Remittance Kid. He’s English, but one hell of a good feller, and his latest lady-love, which he likes old ’n’ skinny and she’s no son-of-a-bitching lady for all her airs and graces,’ Calamity answered, conveying the impression that she had considerable dislike for the woman in question. ‘Hey, Rem you old tinhorn, come on over and get acquainted with “Mon-sewer” here.’

  ‘I thought we were going to sit down, Rem!’ Belle Boyd protested as the Englishman strolled forward, her attitude suggesting the dislike was mutual.

  ‘Sit down if you want to,’ Captain Patrick Reeder replied, without pausing or looking back. ‘Hello, Wolf, old chap. I wasn’t expecting to see you on the train.’

  ‘Hey, do you two know each other?’ the red head inquired. ‘

  We played blackjack together yesterday,’ Cavallier explained, then turned his gaze to the Englishman. ‘But I have a feeling we’ve meet somewhere before that.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ the Kid admitted, although he hoped the suggestion was not prompted by a remembrance – or at least a suspicion – of where the meeting had taken place. ‘I’m sauntering to New York from San Francisco, so we could have run across each other along the way.’

  ‘If you was in Fort Connel a week Tuesday, you’d’ve seen him likely,’ Calamity stated. ‘Only, way he carved up that card shark with his fancy old toad-sticker, you’d not soon have forgotten him.’

  ‘It was purely in self-defense, dear girl,’ the Kid protested. ‘It’s a rather peculiar perversion of mine, but I find myself taking the gravest exception to there being more than four aces in a – deck, don’t you colonials call it – of cards.’

  ‘So do I,’ Cavallier seconded, having been told much the same about what had happened in Fort Connel by a sergeant and corporal who were stationed there when he had talked with them in the Fair Lady Saloon the previous evening. He indicated the hilt of the badik, which still protruded from beneath the Englishman’s jacket and asked, ‘Is that the knife you used, M’sieur?

  ‘It is,’ the Kid confirmed.

  ‘I would have thought with a hilt that shape, it would be difficult to handle in a fight,’ Cavallier suggested, genuinely interested.

  ‘One gets used to it,’ the Kid pointed out truthfully, for he had always found the badik an exceptionally effective weapon after he had grown accustomed to its pistol-like hilt and having been taught how to hold it properly when wielding it. ‘Certainly the Bugis find it to be so. They call it the “butterfly knife”, because it’s supposed to look like one, but it stings more like a damned deadly wasp.’

  ‘Mademoiselle – No, I’m sorry, madame. How remiss of me?’ Cavallier said, with well simulated contrition, as Belle drew attention to her presence by giving a sniff which was redolent of indignation at having been neglected. ‘We have overlooked you.’

  ‘Don’t worry none, “Mon-sewer”,’ Calamity put in. ‘She’ll make sure you don’t do that. I thought you wanted to sit down, girlie?’

  ‘I’ll stand, or sit, as I choose!’ answered Belle, to whom the question had been directed. Then she turned a more pleasant face to the Metis and continued in his paternal language, ‘And it is mademoiselle, m’sieur. I’m not married.’

  ‘May I congratulate you on your excellent French, mademoiselle?’ Cavallier praised in English.

  ‘She has to be good for something,’ Calamity sniffed.

  ‘At least I don’t have to go around dressed like a man to get people to look at me,’ Belle countered. ‘I think it’s disgraceful and most unladylike to wear such clothes.’

  ‘Listen, skinny gal!’ Calamity growled, reaching towards the Rebel Spy with her left hand and knotting the right into a fist. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Quit it!’ Killem barked, catching the red head by the upper arms and swinging her bodily away from Belle.

  ‘Lemme go, god blast you!’ Calamity yelled, struggling futilely against her employer’s powerful grip. ‘Damn it to hell, boss-man, turn me loose. No son-of-a-bitching calico cat’s going to mean-mouth me!’

  ‘You started it, you cheap, low-bred hussy!’ Belle shouted, sounding just as furious and clenching her fists while acting as if contemplating attacking the incapacitated red head.

  ‘Stop that!’ the Kid thundered, swinging towards the Rebel Spy and lifting his right hand as if prepared to strike her as a means of compelling her to obey.

  ‘Come now, ladies,’ le Loup-Garou supplemented pacifically, although he would not have been averse to the confrontation being allowed to develop into a hair-pulling brawl. ‘Why don’t we all have a drink and be friends?’

  ‘I’m all for that and so is Lavinia,’ the Kid declared, scowling in a threatening fashion at Belle until she gave what appeared to be a reluctant and sulky nod and lowered her hands.

  ‘You won’t get any argument from this one, either!’ Killem stated, giving the
red head a reasonably gentle shake and shove which propelled her away from Belle. Meeting her apparently resentful and hostile glare, he continued in threatening tones, ‘Now quit it, damn you. Don’t you go forgetting what I told you afore we left Mulrooney. If there should be any more trouble on your doing, you can start looking for some other kind of work. Because, if I have to kick you out, you’ll never be handling the ribbons on a freight wagon again. I’ll see to that and I’m the man who can do it.’

  ‘I’ll keep what you say in mind!’ Calamity promised bitterly, spitting out the words in a kind of defiant anger which suggested it was mingled with a realization that her employer could make the threat good. Then she gave what passed as an attempt at a devil-may-care shrug. ‘Oh what the hell! Come on, let me set up the drinks to show there’s no hard feelings. Then how about us playing a few hands of poker. Damn it, I shouldn’t hurt nobody’s feelings doing that.’

  Chapter Seven – You Can Trust Me

  ‘There are two colors in a deck of cards,’ Captain Patrick Reeder said to Calamity Jane. ‘Reds and blacks. Which do you want?’

  Night had just fallen and the lights of the club car were glowing warmly as the train continued its journey northwards. After breaking off for dinner, the players in the poker game organized by Calamity were once more gathered at their table. Before play was recommenced, a question about the Remittance Kid’s badik had started him reminiscing on his travels in and around the East Indies. His anecdotes were so amusing and interesting that the others had encouraged him to continue. When he had mentioned the way in which Indian fakirs and other holy men had the power to direct another person’s thoughts to an object of their own choosing, Calamity had stated vehemently that it would not work on her. Claiming he had learned how to do it, he had taken and looked at the top card of the deck. Placing it face down on the table, he had gazed at her for a moment and asked the question.

  ‘Reds,’ Calamity answered.

  ‘The reds are divided into hearts and diamonds,’ the Kid went on. ‘Which suit do you want?’

  ‘The diamonds,’ Calamity decided.

  ‘Which are divided into odd and even cards,’ the Kid continued, still looking into the girl’s eyes. ‘Which do you want?’

  ‘The evens,’ Calamity selected.

  ‘That leaves the odds for me, dear girl. And out of the odds you’ve left, which would you prefer, the three high cards, nine, jack and king, or the low cards, three, five and seven.’

  ‘I’ll take the high ones.’

  ‘Out of the high ones, there are three combinations of two, nine and jack, nine and king, or king and jack. Which combination do you want?’

  ‘The …’ Calamity began. ‘The nine and the king.’

  ‘And which would you prefer out of the nine and the king?’ the Kid inquired.

  ‘I’ll take the nine,’ Calamity answered.

  ‘And here it is,’ the Kid declared, turning the card over and tossing it to land before the girl.

  ‘Wh…!’ Calamity gasped, staring at the nine of diamonds and, for once, taken aback. Frowning in puzzlement, she examined the card to make sure the king she had rejected was not behind it; although she could not imagine how the Englishman could have known what she would choose and so remove them. The king was not there and she asked, ‘How the hell did you do it?’

  ‘Controlled your thoughts and directed them the way I wanted,’ the Kid drawled, as if stating the obvious, noticing that Dobe Killem, Arnaud Cavallier and Jebediah Lincoln appeared to be equally baffled.

  ‘If that’s what it is,’ Calamity said pensively, ‘I’ll bet you can’t do it again.’

  ‘Did you say bet, dear girl?’ the Kid asked.

  ‘That’s just what I said,’ the red head confirmed. ‘And I’ve got ten lil ole iron men’s says you can’t.’

  ‘I doubt whether my aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Brockley, would approve of me taking money from a lady,’ the Kid protested.

  ‘Don’t let that worry you none,’ the red head replied. ‘ ’Cause I ain’t no son-of-a-bitching lady and don’t pretend to be …’ She darted a glance to where Belle Boyd was sitting at a nearby table. ‘Not like some folks I could name. Anyways, you won’t be taking it offen me?

  However, being just as puzzled as the others, the Rebel Spy did not respond as she would have if she had been less interested in trying to work out how the trick was done.

  Throughout the afternoon, Belle had continued to play the pair of the jealous woman sensing she had a rival for her man’s affections. She and Calamity had bickered at intervals, with the Kid and Killem keeping the exchanges from passing beyond the verbal stage. She had noticed the two anarchists studying her and the Englishman, but neither had offered to strike up a conversation. Nor had Cavallier, although he too had subjected them to considerable scrutiny.

  ‘Ten dollars?’ the Kid inquired.

  ‘Cash on the barrel head,’ Calamity promised.

  ‘You’re on, dear girl,’ the Kid accepted, retrieving the nine of diamonds and shuffling it into the deck.

  ‘Is this a closed hand, or can anybody sit in?’ Lincoln asked.

  ‘I leave it to the lady,’ the Englishman replied.

  ‘I tell you I ain’t no lady!’ Calamity grinned. ‘But anybody’s wants to win along with me can get in on it.’

  ‘Give me ten dollars’ worth,’ Lincoln requested.

  ‘You have it,’ assented the Kid, extracting the four of hearts. ‘Anybody else who doubts my powers can join in.’

  ‘Not me,’ Killem refused with a grin. ‘I don’t know how you do it, but I do know you will.’

  ‘Your judgement is good enough for me,’ Cavallier stated, remembering the bet made at the end of the blackjack game. ‘So I’ll decline with thanks.’

  ‘Well, here we go,’ the Kid announced, peering into Calamity’s face. ‘There are two colors—’

  ‘I’ll take black,’ the girl interrupted, deciding that the card would be a spade or a club as the previous one had been red.

  ‘Which leaves me the reds,’ the Kid answered. ‘Which are divided into diamonds and hearts, which do you want?’

  ‘I’ll take the diamonds,’ Calamity selected, on the principle that a double bluff was being pulled.

  ‘And leave me the hearts. Out of which there are odd cards and evens—’

  ‘I’ll have the evens.’

  ‘Which are comprised of the high ones, the eight, ten and queen, or the low ones, the two, four and six. Which do you want?’

  ‘The low ones.’

  ‘They make three combinations of two, deuce and four, four and six, or six and deuce. Which pair do you want?’

  ‘The six and the deuce,’ Calamity said.

  ‘And that leaves me with the four of hearts,’ the Kid declared, exposing the card and reaching for the money.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ Calamity gasped. ‘You’ve done it again.’

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ the Kid smiled.

  ‘Amazing’s the word,’ Killem said dryly, having noticed and drawn an accurate conclusion to how the trick was performed from listening to the way the questions had been posed in response to the previous answer.

  ‘Come on, Kid,’ Calamity pleaded. ‘How do you do it?’

  ‘Actually, dear girl, it’s a case of mind over matter,’ the Englishman answered so soberly he might have been speaking the truth. ‘I remember well my aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Brockley explaining it to me. She said …’ his voice changed to a rich, fruity contralto, ‘…“Patrick, my boy, it’s all a case of mind over matter. I don’t mind and you don’t matter”.’

  ‘Ugh!’ the red head ejaculated, giving a shudder. ‘I wish I hadn’t asked. Come on. Let’s play us some more poker and we’ll see if you can control my thoughts at that.’

  ‘How much longer are you going to be playing, Rem?’ Belle asked in an irritable tone, glaring across the car.

  ‘Until the game ends,’ the Kid answered shortly.


  ‘Then I’m going out on to the observation car for a breath of fresh air!’ Belle stated, rising with a show of indignation.

  ‘I think I will have to sit out for a few hands,’ Cavallier remarked, doing all he could to make himself sound casual and regretful, glancing at the Rebel Spy’s departing back. ‘After all, “Mr. and Mrs. Roxby” are hiring me and I’ve not said a word to them all afternoon. I’d better go to their stateroom and make sure they have everything they want, then I’ll be back and see if you can control my thoughts as well as Calam’s, Kid.’

  In spite of the excuse he had given for taking his departure, le Loup-Garou made no attempt to join his fellow conspirators. Remembering the surly way in which “Matthew Devlin ‘ had been glowering at him all afternoon and Vera Gorr-Kauphin’s increasing annoyance when he continued to ignore her, he doubted that he would receive a very cordial reception if he visited them. What was more, he considered that he could spend his time more profitably elsewhere. So, although he went by the temporary quarters to which they had retired in high dudgeon after dinner, he had no intention of entering.

  Serving the needs of the more wealthy passengers who required privacy on the journey, the car containing the line of staterooms was the rearmost of the train. In addition to offering separate accommodation to those who could afford it, there was a small covered-over observation platform at the back upon which the occupants could stand and view the scenery, or take the fresh air. Opening the door which gave access to it, Cavallier found the person he was seeking and was pleased to see she was alone.

  ‘Oh!’ Belle greeted, turning as le Loup-Garou came on to the platform. She reverted to French as she went on, ‘It’s you, m’sieur.’

  ‘Did you expect it to be the Kid?’ the Metis inquired, stepping forward after he had closed the door.