“Why?” John Henry asked.
“Why? ’Cause he’s my ticket out of here, that’s why. I figure he must be someone important, else he wouldn’t be ridin’ in a private car. And I don’t reckon you’d like to see his brains blowed out now, would you?”
“To be honest about it, Semmes, I don’t even know the man, so I really don’t care one way or the other. The business between us has nothing to do with him. You may as well let him go.”
“Ha! Let him go? The hell I will. Don’t you understand, Marshal? I aim to shoot this man!”
“Put your gun down, and your hands up, Semmes. That’s the only way you’re going to get out of here alive.”
“No, it ain’t the only way I’m goin’ to get out of here. It’s like I told you. I got me an ace up the sleeve.”
“And what would that ace be?” John Henry asked.
“What the hell do you mean, what is my ace? Damn it, man, are you blind? Can’t you see that I got this man here?”
“Yes, I can see that you are holding your gun to that man’s head. But my question is, what is that supposed to mean to me?”
“Just how dumb are you, anyway? What it means is, if you don’t drop your gun, I am going to shoot him!” Semmes said, his voice becoming more agitated. “Are you listenin’ to what I’m sayin’, Marshal? If you don’t drop your gun I’m going to shoot him. And I ain’t bluffin’!”
“All right, do it.”
“What?”
“I said do it. Shoot him now so you and I can get down to business.”
“Are you crazy?” Semmes asked, shocked by the answer he hadn’t expected to hear.
“I’m an Indian. What does a white man mean to me? Go ahead, do it. Shoot him,” John Henry said. “And once he’s gone, it’ll just be the two of us.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“If you don’t shoot him, I will,” John Henry said. “Then I’ll shoot you.” John Henry moved the barrel of his gun slightly, so that he was now aiming at Beam. By now several of the passengers had detrained and they were standing out in the darkness, watching as this drama played out before them.
The engine was still, but not quiet, as it vented steam in a rhythmic series of loud gasps.
“You think the marshal is really going to shoot Mr. Beam?” someone asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” a voice answered.
“I don’t know,” another voice added. “I think he’s serious.”
“What’s it going to be, Semmes? Are you going to shoot him? Or am I?” John Henry cocked his pistol, the sound of the hammer engaging the cylinder loud in the night.
“You son of a bitch! You’re crazy! You know that? You’re crazy!” Semmes shouted. In angry frustration, he pushed Beam away and aimed at John Henry. That provided John Henry with the opening he needed, and he aimed and squeezed the trigger. The gun boomed and bucked in his hand, knocking Semmes back against the door of the car before he collapsed in a heap onto the vestibule floor.
“Are you all right, Mr. Beam?” John Henry asked. He was still holding his pistol out in front of him and smoke curled up from the end of the barrel.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank, you,” Beam replied. He was silent for a moment. “Would you really have shot me, Marshal?”
“What do you think?”
“For a minute or two there, I thought maybe you would shoot me.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you thought I was going to shoot you, then Semmes was thinking the same thing.”
By now the conductor had left the train and he was joined by a few of the braver passengers. Even the engineer and fireman were on the ground and they began milling around, looking at the two bodies that were outside the train.
“There’s two dead inside and two dead out here. Any more left that you know of?” the conductor asked the engineer.
“No,” the engineer replied. “There was just the four of ’em that stopped me.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Didn’t have no choice,” the engineer replied. “They put a barricade across the tracks.” The engineer looked at a few of the stronger-looking passengers. “Any of you men want to bear a hand till we get the tracks cleared?”
At least three men joined the fireman and the engineer as they walked up front to clear the barricade from the track.
“You had no right to do that, you know,” the conductor said to John Henry.
“Are you telling me I had no right to prevent a train robbery?”
“No. I mean you had no right to put Mr. Beam’s life in jeopardy like that. He is an important man.”
“Mr. Adams, is it?” Beam said to the conductor.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Mr. Beam, and I want to personally apologize on behalf of the railroad for this man’s action.”
“Let me ask you something,” Beam said. “Suppose this man, Semmes, had taken me with him as a hostage. How long do you think he would have let me live?”
“Why, I don’t know,” the conductor said.
“Well, I’ll tell you how long he would have let me live. Just until we were out of sight of the train. Then he would have shot me dead, just as sure as a gun is iron.”
“I guess, maybe that is so,” the conductor said.
“So instead of chastising Marshal Sixkiller, you should be thanking him for preventing the train from being robbed, and I do thank him for saving my life. It took courage for him to do that.”
“Oh,” the conductor said. “I guess I didn’t consider that. Marshal, I take back what I said. And I reckon I owe you an apology.”
“And I owe you my life,” Beam said. “I wonder if you would do me the honor of accepting my invitation to finish this trip as my guest in my private car.”
John Henry thought that, as a public servant, he should probably decline. But he had never ridden in a private car before, and it was highly unlikely he would ever get the opportunity to ride in one again. He smiled at the invitation.
“I’d be glad to,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-five
As the train wheels clacked rhythmically beneath him, John Henry noticed that Mr. Beam’s car rocked much more gently than the rough-riding car he had been in.
The car had a bar and Beam poured a drink and handed it to John Henry.
Over the course of his life, John Henry had drunk just about every type of alcohol available. He had drunk beer that was so green he could still taste the yeast, and whiskey that was aged with rusty nails and flavored with tobacco juice. Once he had even drunk champagne, but never had he tasted anything like the “sipping whiskey” he was drinking now.
“Do you like it?” Beam asked.
“I do, indeed,” John Henry replied. His answer wasn’t adequate to express how much he really did like it, but he never was a man for words.
“My grandfather, David Beam, started our whiskey business,” Beam said. “This is Jim Beam, named after my father, and a product of our finest line.”
“How did you get from the whiskey business into the railroad business?”
“Well, I’m not in either, actually. My father and my brother are running the distillery, and I am but an investor in the railroad. I have an equal investment in the KATY Line, by the way.”
John Henry chuckled. “Well, there’s nothing like covering your bet.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
It was nearly midnight by the time the train reached Baxter Springs, but you couldn’t tell it by the amount of activity. The railroad workers and the town were still celebrating the fact that they had reached the border ahead of the KATY.
John Henry stepped down from the private car and looked around at the ongoing celebration. On the platform all around him, there was a discordant chorus of squeals, laughter, shouts, and animated conversation among all the people
When John Henry looked toward the baggage car of the train, he saw that the four bodies had been taken down and laid out, side-by-side
at the far end of the platform. Already, the curious were beginning to gather around to look down at the four dead men. A man with a badge came toward him.
“I’m Sheriff Denman.”
“Sheriff,” John Henry acknowledged, with a nod.
“I’m told you did this.”
“I did.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is John Henry Sixkiller. I’m a—”
“I know what you are, Mr. Sixkiller. I’ve heard your name spoken a few times. You are a member of the Indian Police, and that’s a pretty responsible position, but you had no business takin’ these men on, whether they were tryin’ to rob the train or not.” Sheriff Denman pointed to the badge on John Henry’s shirt. “That badge you’re a’ wearin’ don’t mean nothin’ outside of the Territory.”
“Maybe you had better take a closer look at the badge,” John Henry suggested.
“What do you mean?” Sheriff Denman looked at the badge again, moving closer so he could see it more clearly in the glow of the gaslights that were illuminating the depot platform. “Wait a minute. U.S. Marshal? Are you telling me you are a United States Marshal?”
“Yes.”
“What’s an Indian doing as—” Denman started, then he interrupted his sentence. “Never mind. Just forget that I said anything. Of course, you bein’ a U.S. Marshal, why, that changes ever’thing.”
“I thought you might see it that way. By the way, is there a hotel in town?”
“No hotel,” the sheriff answered. “You might get a room down at the End of Track Saloon if the whores aren’t usin’ all of ’em. But what with ever’-one celebratin’ like they’re doin’, well, more’n likely the whores are goin’ to be busy all night long.”
John Henry walked down the street from the depot toward the town. The End of Track Saloon was the most substantial-looking building in a row of ramshackle shacks and tents. There was a drunk passed out on the steps in front of the place and John Henry had to step over him in order to go inside.
Because all the chimneys of all the lanterns were soot covered, what light there was inside was dingy and filtered through drifting smoke. The place smelled of whiskey, stale beer, and sour tobacco. There was a long bar on the left, with dirty towels hanging on hooks about every five feet along the front. A large mirror was behind the bar but, like everything else about the saloon, it was so dirty that John Henry could scarcely see any images in it and what he could see was distorted by imperfections in the glass.
“Yes, sir,” someone was saying. “By the time this railroad goes through Injun Territory, then on through Texas, why this here town will be the biggest town in Kansas.”
“Biggest town in Kansas? Hell, it’ll more’n likely be one of the biggest cities west of the Mississippi. There will be St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco, and Baxter Springs. Mark my words.”
Out on the floor of the saloon there were eight tables, with nearly all of them occupied. A half dozen or so bar girls were flitting about, pushing drinks and promising more, for the right price. A few card games were in progress, but most of the patrons were just drinking and talking. There were two subjects of conversation, one being the railroad reaching the border and the other, the gunfight that had taken place in this same saloon earlier in the day. But by now they had also heard of what had taken place on the train and, already, there was speculation as to which of the two victors was the best.
“In my mind there ain’t no doubt,” one of the men at one of the tables was saying. “The marshal took on four men. Four, mind you, and he kilt all four. You can’t compare that with Matt Dixon killin’ just one man.”
“The hell you can’t,” another man contended. “That marshal done his killin’ in the dark. Dixon called Luber out and stood up to him, face to face. And did you see Dixon’s draw? Faster’n greased lightnin’ it was. Why it was that quick I never seen nothin’ more’n a jump of his shoulder and the gun was in his hand. In his hand and blazin’, it was, and Luber was grabbin’ his chest and fallin’ down, already deader’n a doornail without gettin’ off even one shot.”
“Still, four to one,” one of the others said, and the argument continued.
“Whoowee! Wouldn’t you love to see them two go ag’in one another?”
“Which one do you think would get kilt?”
“Sixkiller, for sure.”
“I don’t think so. I think Sixkiller is the one who would do the killin’.”
The men who were carrying on the conversation were unaware that the subject of their conversation was right there in the room with them.
When John Henry stepped up to the bar, the bartender was pouring the residue from abandoned whiskey glasses back into a bottle. He pulled a soggy cigar butt from one glass, laid the butt aside, then poured the whiskey back into the bottle without qualms. John Henry held up his finger.
“Yeah?” the bartender responded.
“I’d like a room.”
“There ain’t no rooms.”
“I was told that you had rooms for the whores to use.”
“That’s right. We do have rooms, but they are for the women.”
“Do they use the rooms alone?”
“What?”
“When someone buys a whore’s time, does the whore go into the room alone?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then I want a room with a whore.”
“Why didn’ you say so in the first place? Which one do you want?”
“I don’t care.”
“You’ve got to have a choice.”
“Pick one.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, you choose one.”
The bartender looked over at a woman who was standing alone at the end of the bar. She was clearly older than any of the other women, and there was a drained look about her. She was alone and she was nursing a beer.
“Suzie,” the bartender called. “This here man wants you.”
“Really?” Suzie smiled at John Henry, but the tiredness didn’t leave her eyes.
“You have a room?” John Henry asked.
“Yes, of course I have a room.”
“How much if I spend the whole night with you?”
“The whole night? You want to spend an entire night with me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’ll be midnight in another few minutes, so it’ll only be half price then, if you want to wait.”
John Henry pulled out a silver dollar and handed it to her. “Why wait?”
“Mister, are you serious? You’re willin’ to pay full price now, instead of waiting no more than five minutes?”
“Yes.”
Suzie led John Henry up the stairs, then down the hall to her room. It was very small, only slightly larger than the bed.
“I’ll, uh, get us a towel,” Suzie offered.
“We won’t need one.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m tired, Suzie. To be honest with you, I came up here for the bed. All I want to do is sleep. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Mister, I could kiss you. You don’t know how wonderful it would be for me to just sleep all night.” She smiled, showing two missing teeth. “And get paid for it besides.”
There was a photograph of a young girl on the chest, and Suzie saw John Henry looking at it.
“That’s my little girl,” Suzie said. “She lives with my sister back in Kansas City. She doesn’t know I’m her mother, and I don’t ever want her to know.”
“She’s very pretty,” John Henry said.
“Yes, and very sweet.” The smile left Suzie’s face. “She must never learn who her mother is, or what I do for a living.”
“You obviously love her,” John Henry said.
“Yes, I do. Very much.”
“Any child who has a mother’s love is lucky,” John Henry said. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he started to remove his boots.
“Wait,” Suzie said. “At least let me take you
r boots off for you.” Suzie turned around, straddled one of John Henry’s legs, then pulled off the boot. She did the same thing with his other boot.
“Thanks,” John Henry said.
John Henry awakened the next morning to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. When he opened his eyes, he saw Suzie putting a coffeepot, two cups, and a plate of biscuits on the chest.
“Coffee and biscuits,” Suzie said. “Not much of a breakfast, I admit. But I thought it might hold you till you can get a proper breakfast in you.”
“Suzie, it is a wonderful breakfast,” John Henry said. “Even more so, because I will be able to share it with you.”
Suzie’s smile was almost a blush, and, for just a moment, the tiredness in her eyes went away.
Suddenly from outside there was a series of loud pops, followed by the high peal of a woman’s laughter.
John Henry moved over to the window and pulled the curtain to one side as he looked down on the street. The street was full of men and women who seemed to be celebrating.
“What’s going on down there?” John Henry asked.
“I imagine they are still celebrating that the railroad reached the border,” Suzie said. “They don’t know yet that they haven’t really reached it.”
John Henry looked at Suzie in surprise. That was exactly what he had heard when he met with Colonel Stevens, Stand Watie, and others of the KATY Railroad. He didn’t know that anyone here realized that, though.
Fifteen minutes later, John Henry was down on the side of the street, watching the celebration. When the sheriff saw John Henry, he smiled and came over to him.
“What’s the celebration about?” He wanted to hear if Suzie had been correct in her assessment of the cause of the celebration.
“Two things,” the sheriff said. “We are celebrating that the railroad has reached Indian Territory. And, of course, you are also the cause of our celebration.”
“How am I the cause of your celebration?”
“I take it you haven’t gone down to look at the display on the porch of the general store,” the sheriff said.
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