Chapter Eleven
Duff had just settled in his seat on the train when he saw the woman from the Occidental Saloon come onboard. She looked around the car for a moment, then seeing Duff, came back to his seat. He started to stand, but she held out her hand.
“Don’t be troubling yourself, Mister, I won’t be bothering you,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you again.” She held up her ticket. “I’m going on to Central City. There’s nothing here for me now, and I’ve got a friend there.”
“You gave up your job?”
The woman smiled. “Mister, in my line of work, jobs are easy to come by,” she said.
The train whistle blew two long whistles, then the train started forward. As the slack in the couplings was taken up, the young woman, still standing in the aisle beside Duff’s seat, was thrown off balance and would have fallen had Duff not caught her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll go find a seat somewhere and be of no further bother.”
“Nonsense, you are no bother,” Duff said. “Please, sit here.”
The woman sat down, not on the seat beside him, but on the seat across, facing him.
“My name is Belle,” the woman said. Then with an uncomfortable smile, she shook her head. “No, it isn’t. That’s just the name I use when I’m working. My real name is Martha. Martha Jane Radley. I don’t know why I told you my real name. I never tell anyone. I would not want it to get back to my pa that I am a soiled dove.”
“Soiled dove? I don’t know the term.”
“Soiled dove is what we, that is, girls who are on the line, call ourselves.”
“On the line?”
“I am going to have to come right out and say it, aren’t I?” Martha said. “I don’t just serve drinks. I am also a prostitute.”
“I see.”
“I came west from a small town in southeast Missouri,” she said. “I thought I could make it on my own, but it is very hard for a woman, alone, to find honest employment. Out of desperation, I drifted into prostitution. You can’t be just a little bit of a prostitute—you either are, or you aren’t. And I am. I was told that it would be easy work, and I would make a lot of money.”
“Och, but it isn’t what you thought, is it?”
“You got that right, Mister. The saloon gets most of the money, and as for easy work”—she put her fingers to the scar on her face—“there is nothing easy about dealing with drunken cowboys when they get frustrated because they can’t—uh—perform.”
“Yes, I saw an example of that back in the Occidental Saloon.”
“That was Clyde Shaw,” Martha said. “He isn’t the one who cut me, but he does like to slap the girls around a bit. You haven’t told me your name.”
“Oh, please forgive me, lass, I apologize for my lack of manners. The name is MacCallister. Duff MacCallister.”
“Mr. MacCallister, believe me, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Duff chuckled. “If that were but true,” he said.
“MacCallister. Are you kin to Falcon MacCallister?”
“Aye,” Duff said, surprised to hear Falcon’s name mentioned. “He would be my cousin. ’Tis surprised I am to hear ye say his name! How is it that ye know him?”
“I know who he is, but I don’t know him. I’ve never met him,” Martha said.
“Then, how can it be that ye know who he is, if ye’ve never met him?”
“Don’t you know?” Martha replied. “Falcon MacCallister is well known throughout the West. Why, there have been books written about him, as well as his famous father.”
“He has a brother and sister who are famous as well,” Duff said. “They are actors upon the stage in New York.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. Oh, how I would love to visit New York someday. And go to a play. And see all the sights. Have you been to New York, Mr. MacCallister?”
“Aye.”
“If I ever get to visit New York, I will never leave,” Martha said.
Duff and Martha continued their visit for the four hours it took to travel from North Bend to Central City.
“I had a true love once,” Martha said. “But his father was a very wealthy man and he wanted his son to marry the daughter of a wealthy man. My pa was a preacher man and he barely made a living from it. Leo, that was my beau’s name, came to see me the night before he was to get married. He wanted me to still be there for him after he got married. He said he would set me up with a house and would come see me when he could. I got very angry with him for asking me to do something like that. I wanted to know what kind of woman he thought I was. The truth is, I wanted to do it, but I was afraid to. Something like that would have killed my pa. So, I left home, rather than stay there and take a chance that I might take Leo up on his offer.”
Martha made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “I was too good to be a kept woman—but now look at me. I am a whore.”
“We cannot always direct the paths our lives will take,” Duff said. “We can only but go where life leads us.”
“If you mean we have no control over our own lives, you’ve got that right,” Martha said. “Take you, for example. You said you are from Scotland, but here you are in America. Did you plan to come here?”
Duff shook his head. “I had no such plans.”
Duff told Martha about Skye, and that she had died on the day before they were to wed. He did not tell her how she died, nor did he tell her of his own actions after she died. But he did tell Martha how deep his love was for Skye and how much he grieved for her.
Duff’s tale left Martha in tears, and she reached across the space that separated them and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Mr. MacCallister, you are a good and decent man,” she said. “You are as good and decent a man as I have ever met. I hope that you can find peace in your heart. And I hope that someday you can find a woman who is worthy of your love.”
Duff had welcomed Martha’s company while she was on the train, for the conversation helped pass the time on the long journey. As the train continued west, Duff stared through the window at the vast, open, and featureless plains, interrupted occasionally by small, strange-looking houses that appeared to be made of the same ground from which they rose. That idea was confirmed when he asked the conductor about them, and was told that they were sod houses, built by cutting sod from the ground. They passed through places like Elm Creek, Plum Creek, and Oglala, and he was once again alone with his thoughts. Being alone with his thoughts was not all that pleasant, for he could not get that last picture of Skye from his mind.
Skye lifted her hand to his face and put her fingers against his jaw. She smiled. “’Twould have been such a lovely wedding,” she said. She drew another gasping breath, then her arm fell and her head turned to one side.
Duff shook his head to clear it of such thoughts, then continued to stare through the window at the boundless, grassy plains. On the one hand, there was nothing to see; on the other, there was almost a grandeur to the vast openness and desolation, a vastness of solitude without a tree, river, bird, or animal of any kind.
As they approached the mountains, now a purple line far to the west, the plains began to change. The grass was greener and the wildflowers more profuse and more colorful. Finally, the isolation, the rhythmic motion of the car, the drone and clack of the wheels as they passed over each rail section, and the comfort of his seat caused Duff to drift off to sleep.
Duff was cold. It had surprised him when he first arrived in Egypt to learn that the desert could get cold at night. Part of the chill, he realized, might be the task that lay before him. The Egyptians had set up their defenses at Tel-el-Kebir. The desert around Tel-el-Kebir was extremely flat, so any approach by the British would easily be spotted. As a result, the British decided to march across the desert by night and attack the Egyptian positions at dawn. The British army was guided by Commander Wyatt Rawson, naval aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Wolseley. Calling upon his experience as a navigator, he plotted their cour
se across the desert as if they were at sea, using the stars to guide him. The army reached their destination, then moved into position silently.
As a captain, Duff MacCallister was the commanding officer of one of the companies in the 42nd Foot, and once they were in position, he visited with his troops, calming them, preparing them for the battle that was to come.
“Captain, will we hear the pipes?” Private Kirk asked.
“Aye, lad, the pipes will play.”
“Pity the man who hears the pipes and was not born in Scotland,” Kirk said.
Although many of the men were visibly nervous, none seemed so frightened as to be unable to perform his duty, and after visiting every one of his men, Duff returned to the front of his company.
“’Tis a good officer ye be, visitin’ with the men like that,” First Sergeant Wallace said.
“’Tis easy to be a good officer when I have good men and good NCOs, First Sergeant,” Duff replied.
“Captain MacCallister? Where is Captain MacCallister?”
Duff heard his name being called in the darkness, and he recognized the voice of Colonel Groves, the commanding officer of the regiment.
“I am here, sir,” Duff called back.
Groves materialized in the dark and Duff saluted him.
“Captain MacCallister, General Wolseley has chosen our regiment to lead the attack, and I want your company on point. Is your company up to it?”
“Aye, Colonel,” Duff replied. “If it’s killin’ o’ the enemy you be wantin’, we are the lads that can do it for you.”
“Hear, hear,” those soldiers who were close enough to overhear the conversation said.
“Very well, Captain, move your men into position and begin the attack,” Colonel Groves ordered. “The rest of the brigade will move forward on your signal.”
“Thank you, Colonel, for affording us this honor,” Duff said.
“’Tis an honor well earned,” Colonel Groves replied.
At exactly five a.m., as the high skirling sound of bagpipes could be heard all across the desert, Duff ordered his men forward. With fixed bayonets, they rushed the Egyptians. The predawn darkness was illuminated by the flash of a thousand and more rifles. Bullets whizzed by Duff’s ear, some of them so close that they made popping sounds. Men to either side of him screamed in pain or fell silently as they were hit. All the while, above the bang and whiz of rifles and bullets, above the deep-throated yells of men in desperate battle, could be heard the sound of the pipes.
The charge continued until the British and Egyptian lines melded. The British soldiers were armed with Martini-Henry rifles, to which were attached bayonets, and they made frightful use of them until their blades were running red with the blood of the hapless Egyptians, who had no bayonets and thus were ill equipped for the hand-to-hand fighting that developed.
Duff, driven by adrenaline, leaped over the parapet and into a trench filled with Egyptian soldiers. Because he was an officer he was armed not with the Martini-Henri Rifle but with the Enfield Mark 1 pistol. Using his six-shot revolver, he killed six of the ten Egyptians who were in the trench. The other four, without regard to the fact that Duff was now out of ammunition, leaped out of the trench and ran.
The pipes were still playing, but one of them seemed badly out of tune and Duff could hear none of the drone pipes but only the high, screeching whistle.
The high screeching whistle awakened him, and sitting up in the dark car, Duff realized that it was not the pipes he was hearing, but the whistle of the train. He was not in North Africa, he was in America, on a train going mile after mile after endless mile. Just how large was this country anyway? He had no idea America, or anyplace in the world, could be as large as this magnificent country was.
Closing his eyes, he drifted back to sleep, but this time, thankfully, it was deep and dreamless.
After days of passing through towns that were so small they scarcely deserved to be called a town, his arrival in Denver proved to be a most pleasant surprise. Every other town since St. Louis was so small that the engine and last car of the train, while at rest in the depot, stretched nearly from one end of the town to the other. For the most part they had been windy, desolate-looking places with low, featureless buildings. But Denver was actually a city, with buildings of brick and stone, or wood that was painted and glistening in the sun. The depot was a large, three-story building, huge and impressive, and other trains either sat in the station or arrived and departed on tracks that fanned out in all directions like the spokes on a wagon wheel.
From Denver, Duff would board his final train, the one that would take him to the town of MacCallister. But he learned, when checking the schedule, that the train to MacCallister would not leave until nine o’clock the following morning. Duff was going to have to find a hotel room for the night—but the thought of spending the night in Denver was not daunting. In fact, he was looking forward to it.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the hotel clerk said. “But we are completely filled.”
With a frustrated sigh, Duff ran his hand through his hair. “This is the third hotel I have been to, and not one with a vacant room. Is it always this difficult to find lodging in this city?”
“I am afraid that you have come at a bad time, sir. Our state legislature is in assembly, and legislators from all over the state have come for the session. That always fills the hotels. I doubt there is any hotel in the city with a vacant room.”
“Very well,” Duff said. “I suppose I can try to make myself comfortable in the depot.”
“I know where you might find a room, though being a gentleman as you are, it might not be a room that would be to your liking.”
“Sure’n where would that be?” Duff asked. “I’m that tired that ’twould not take too fancy a room to suit me tonight.”
“Many of the saloons have rooms upstairs. You might inquire at one of them.”
“A saloon then? Aye, I will try.”
The bartender was pouring the residue from abandoned whiskey glasses back into a bottle when Duff stepped up to the bar. He pulled a soggy cigar butt from one glass, laid the butt aside, then poured the whiskey back into the bottle. Duff winced as he saw what the bartender was doing, but he wasn’t here to drink, he was here to find a room.
“What will it be, friend?” the bartender asked.
“I’m told one might find a room here,” Duff said. “Have you a room to let? Or have I been misinformed?”
“No, you ain’t been misinformed. You want it with, or without?”
“With or without what?”
“Are you kidding me, Mister? With or without a woman.”
“I have no wish to share my room with a woman.”
“The room will be six dollars.”
“Six dollars?” Duff replied in surprise. “That’s quite expensive, isn’t it?”
“If the girls used the room for their customers, we could make three, maybe four times that,” the bartender said. “Six dollars, take it or leave it.”
Duff had been on the train for a week, and the thought of a real bed, in a non-moving room, was very attractive to him. He nodded.
“Very well, I will pay the six dollars.”
The bartender held out his hand, and when Duff gave him the money, he said, “It’s upstairs.”
“Which room?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the bartender replied.
“The key?” Duff asked.
The bartender laughed. “Key? What makes you think there is a key? There ain’t no key. Just go on in. If there’s a man and woman in there, then just keep openin’ doors ’till you come to one that is empty.”
“I see.”
“You might try the first one to your left up at the head of the stairs. That’s the room Suzie normally uses, and I see her over there in the corner, so like as not, that room is empty.”
“Thanks.”
The room the bartender had suggested appeared empty, but Duff couldn’t be sure until he tur
ned on the light, a single incandescent bulb that hung down from the long cord. He saw that it was, indeed, empty. With the light provided by the electric bulb, Duff made a closer examination of the room.
The room had one high-sprung, cast-iron bed, a chest, and a small table with a pitcher and basin. On the wall was a neatly lettered sign that read: “WE EXPECT OUR GUESTS TO BEHAVE AS GENTLEMEN.” Duff placed a chair under the doorknob to act as a lock. Then he opened the window and saw that his room looked out over the street.
It was a busy night. In addition to the clanging bells and puffing steam of arriving and departing locomotives, he could hear the voices of scores of animated conversations spilling through the open windows and doors of the town’s buildings. Leaving the window open to catch the evening breeze, Duff turned out the light and climbed into bed, gratified to find that it was actually quite comfortable.
Within moments, Duff was asleep, and again he dreamed.
The regiment was back in Scotland, and in formation. The pipes and drums were playing as Lieutenant-General Wolseley stepped to the front.
“Adjutant,” General Wolseley said. “Summon the honoree.”
“Captain Duff Tavish MacCallister, front and center!” The adjutant shouted.
Duff, who was standing at the rear of the formation, marched to the front, then halted in front of Lieutenant-General Wolseley and saluted.
“Read the citation, Adjutant,” Wolseley said.
The adjutant, also a captain, began reading. “Attention to orders. Know all ye present by these greetings that Captain Duff Tavish MacCallister of the 42nd Foot, Third Battalion of the Royal Highland Regiment of Scotts, is, for intrepidity and performance of his mission, above and beyond the call of duty, by the Queen, awarded with his nation’s highest award, the Victoria Cross.”
When Duff awakened the next morning, he opened his sea bag and looked at the clothes he had, those he had bought in New York, those he had bought in Kansas City, and the uniform of the Black Watch that Andrew and Rosanna had given him. He thought it strange that twice, during this trip, he had dreamed of his time in the army. Perhaps it was because he knew that he had this uniform with him, the last vestige of his life before America.
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