“Speaking of moving along, why haven’t you done that yet?”
“You mean from Barbrady?”
“Yes!” Byron replied with some amount of urgency. “Lord knows there’s plenty of good reasons for you to want to put this town behind you.”
“And why did you put it behind you?” Whiteoak asked, sidestepping his own response with the nimbleness of a ballet dancer.
Byron’s eyes took on a faraway quality. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“As a visitor. And yet your sister lives here by herself. While the two of you don’t always seem to be in agreement, there is affection between you. A familiarity that comes from proximity.”
Scowling at the professor’s words, it took a few moments before Byron said, “We’re close. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes.”
“We’re brother and sister. And sure we were in the same proximity as well. We were raised together like most other brothers and sisters.”
“I was raised among plenty of family,” Whiteoak said. “When the time came for us to part ways, we were all the happier for it. You and Lyssa are on better terms than that. You lived here in Barbrady for some time?”
“No,” Byron replied plainly. “But we did live in Wichita together for some years. We left town when . . .”
Whiteoak gave the other man a few moments to gather his thoughts, but prodded him a bit when it seemed Byron was retreating into a shell. “Yes?”
Looking up again, Byron’s eyes flashed with anger for a split second. “We left because she made it intolerable to live there. I was tired of indulging her every little whim and so I set out to pursue my own fortune.”
“Now that,” Whiteoak sighed, “sounds more like the family I’m accustomed to.”
“One more time, she insists on staying somewhere that’s more trouble than it’s worth.” As he spoke those words, Byron seemed to be thinking out loud instead of conversing with anyone else. “I mean, what the hell is keeping her in this dusty town full of even dustier old men?”
Whiteoak cocked an eyebrow and nudged him with an elbow. “Perhaps she’s cleaned the dust off of one old man and made him shine?”
“Good Lord,” Byron gagged.
“Or maybe she doesn’t like being told where she should be and how long to stay there.”
Still green from the prospect of his sister being a woman in every aspect of the word, Byron pulled in a breath and nodded. “That’s always been true. You figured it out after such a short time, so what’s that say about me?”
“Actually, it’s what it says about me,” Whiteoak said through a beaming smile. “I’ve known plenty of women and I have studied them quite well.”
The greenness came back to Byron’s face.
“So,” Whiteoak continued, “why were you run out of Wichita?”
“Lyssa wanted to be a lawman.”
“Is that so?”
“She wouldn’t let up about it, no matter how many times she was told how ridiculous it was. And yes, before you spout off about women and their character, I do realize that’s the sort of thing that would steel her resolve. Even so, it didn’t change the minds of all the men she tried to put in their place while showing them up at their job.”
“She showed them up, eh?”
“Every now and then,” Byron said with a glimmer of pride. “She’d take a run at doing the job and wind up doing it just well enough to turn some unkind attention her way.”
“And the lawmen who’d been put in their place ran you out of town?”
“Not per se, but they did make it a trial to live there.”
Now it was the professor who took on a disgusted pallor. “I am quite familiar with how difficult lawmen can make someone’s life.”
Byron chuckled to himself. Then, he started laughing until his shoulder shook and his head drooped as though the muscles in his neck had finally relaxed.
“What is it?” Whiteoak asked as some of the other man’s laughter rubbed off on him as well.
“I was thinking. About . . . about you and my sister.”
“Really?”
Byron’s face was reddening now and he reached out to grab Whiteoak’s shoulder for support. “The way you look at her. The way sometimes she looks at you.”
“I don’t know if that’s funny in as much as it might be amusing in a whimsical sort of way.”
That only made Byron laugh harder. “You keep talking and talking. Just like she said.”
“What did she say?”
Byron shook his head, either as a refusal to betray his sister’s trust or an inability to catch enough breath to do so. “The very thought of her . . . and you . . .”
“I know,” Whiteoak said with a wistful grin.
“She wants to be a peacekeeper. And you . . . she calls you a swindler who won’t give her a moment’s peace with all your blathering.”
“All right,” the professor snapped. “Enough. I get it.”
“You’re so loud! And you must have a price on your head in at least . . .”
Byron couldn’t stop laughing long enough to finish his sentence. And that was just as well since he no longer had anyone else with him to listen.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next couple of nights were quiet. Of course, compared to the nights that had come before, a hurricane might have seemed quiet. Some men thrived in a good storm and Professor Henry Whiteoak was certainly one of those. His shows continued, selling wares to customers who rarely missed a performance. Even the most skeptical townsfolk occasionally found a reason to be within proximity of the garishly painted wagon to hear the bombastic claims of its owner.
When Whiteoak wasn’t selling his products, he was busy inventing new ones. During the day, smoke curled up from the narrow pipe used to ventilate the wagon’s interior. Every now and then, the professor himself would emerge from the cramped quarters like a miner hunched over from working in tunnels that were barely fit for a rat. On one such occasion, one of the grayer citizens was passing by to watch Whiteoak step from the wagon.
“You a magician too, Professor?” the old fellow asked.
Straightening his back and craning his neck, Whiteoak asked, “Pardon me?”
“I’ve seen a man in Prescott who had a cabinet that him and a few girls all stuffed into like they was stepping into a sitting parlor. They stepped right back out again and took a bow without nary a feather on either girl’s dress being rumpled.”
“I’ve had a lady or two in here over the years,” Whiteoak replied. “But it was a different sort of magic that happened if you catch my meaning.”
Both men had a good laugh and the old-timer shuffled along, leaving Whiteoak to catch a few moments of fresh air before getting back to work. The smoke that curled from the ventilation pipe was normally dark gray. Every so often, however, it shifted to a lighter hue while taking on a sweeter odor. When the scent became too sweet, Whiteoak hurried out of his confined workspace. His face was sweaty and he gulped in the clean air like a man who’d been pulled from a lake a few seconds shy of drowning.
The next time the sun dipped low on the horizon and Whiteoak took a quick breather, some folks were waiting outside of his wagon for him. One of them, a squat silver-haired woman who owned a bakery, watched the professor gasp and wipe his brow without the slightest bit of concern. “Will there be a show tonight?” she asked.
“No, Mrs. Cassaday,” Whiteoak said between coughs into one closed hand. He tapped a sign hanging from the rear corner of his wagon. “Next presentation is tomorrow half an hour after sundown.”
The old woman squinted through a pair of round spectacles, pushed them higher up onto the bridge of her nose and then squinted some more. “Is that what the sign says?”
“Most certainly. Perhaps you couldn’t read it due to a condition that produces fogginess behind the eyes?”
Although Mrs. Cassaday’s eyes weren’t particularly foggy, they were most definitely wider than they’d been a mome
nt ago. “What’s this now?” she asked.
“It’s a rare condition, indeed.” Looking around at the few others who still lingered nearby after hearing that there was to be no show, Whiteoak added, “It’s a condition that can take hold and rob us of one of our very senses! The best one, some might say!”
The other locals grumbled to themselves, gave the professor a polite nod and moved along. All except for the silver-haired woman. “What’s this condition called?” she asked.
As far as Whiteoak could tell, the condition was called needing new spectacles. He had a drawer full of them in his wagon and could probably find a pair that suited her better than the ones she currently wore. To her, however, he said, “Optimicum Fataltis.”
Any string of Latin-sounding phrases with a derivative of “fatal” tossed in was usually taken quite seriously to Whiteoak’s most valuable customers and Mrs. Cassaday was one of the best customers he’d found in all of Barbrady.
“Oh, dear!” she said.
“Indeed. I’ll mix you up something very special and have it ready for the show tomorrow. It will require a new apparatus for delivery into those beautiful eyes of yours, which I’ll toss in for free.”
Mrs. Cassaday smiled and fanned herself with her wrinkled hand. “Oh, my. How very generous of you.”
“Such is the benefit of being in a town like this one long enough to become acquainted with the good people within.” If he’d been wearing his hat, Whiteoak would have tipped it. Instead, he tapped his fingers to his temple in a friendly salute.
Once inside the wagon again, Whiteoak allowed the well-practiced and very convincing smile to melt away from his face. The interior of the brightly painted box on wheels was a chaotic assault upon the eyes as well as the nose. Every inch of space was carefully used, with some drawers removed from specially made cabinets to form a small space in which a miniature burner could heat a vial of chemicals within a protective layer of tin. Shuffling down the narrow aisle to the back of the wagon, Whiteoak extended both arms to reach for a powder from one shelf and a pestle from another.
“I’ll need more if this is going to work,” he muttered to himself as the powder was poured into a stone bowl and the pestle was used to make it even finer. “And perhaps a little stronger. There’s always the chance that they won’t drink as much as they need right away. The fossils living in this town may be rich, but they still act like every other coot I’ve ever met. They find something they like and sock it away, divvy it out and try to make it last forever.”
Once the powder was turned into white ash, he took the vial from the heater stand and let out a pained hiss as the tips of his fingers sizzled against the glass. When he added the liquid to the powder he’d ground, smoke rolled upward like the spindly arms of an insect. Whiteoak leaned down as much as he could and sniffed the smoke. Almost immediately, he shook his head and staggered drunkenly for the door.
Without stepping all the way outside, he leaned through the opening and filled his grateful lungs with air. “No, Mrs. Cassiday,” he said in response to the old woman’s shouted inquiry. “I’m fine! Just slaving away to serve my customers.”
The woman shouted something back at him, which Whiteoak could barely hear.
“I know it’s not midnight,” he replied to what he hoped was the general intent of whatever she’d said. “But I must make certain I’ve prepared all the . . .” Dropping his voice to a breathy whisper, he said, “Aaand you’re walking away. Give me that little wave you always do because if I don’t wait for it, you’ll only come back.”
She stopped, looked over her shoulder and waggled her hand at him.
Whiteoak smiled wide enough for it to be seen from a distance and waved back. “That’s it, Mrs. Cassaday. See you tomorrow.”
There was still a lot of work to be done, but not all of it could be completed at once. Whiteoak mixed and cooked and mixed some more until the wagon and his lungs were filled with almost enough smoke to send signals across the prairie. Thanks to a tolerance built up over years of perfecting his craft, the professor was able to soldier on without falling over. When his body reached its limit, he stowed everything back in its place and locked the wagon up for the night.
Leaving behind a few mixtures that were stewing and some compounds that were drying, Whiteoak headed across town. Not all of his efforts were left behind, however. Placing his hands into the pockets of his suit coat, he found a small piece of folded paper and used a fingertip to make sure it was still sealed.
“Should be enough for at least two trials,” he said to himself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was late, but not too late for poker. If there was one constant throughout every one of the states and territories of a wild, incredible land, it was that it was never too late for poker.
Whiteoak sat at a table nestled in the middle of the Dove Tail Saloon. To his immediate right was Byron, three beers in his stomach and a dwindling stack of chips in front of him. A thick fellow by the name of Sammy Owens sat to Whiteoak’s left. He had black hair, a thick beard and a paunch that came from eating too much of his aunt’s cooking. Dell North sat directly across from the professor, fiddling with his cards, nervously touching his money and dabbing at the sweat on his brow. Alan Weir sat between Dell and Byron, a quiet man with salt-and-pepper whiskers sprouting from a mostly friendly face.
“Who do you think that is?” Byron asked.
Whiteoak propped a single chip onto its edge with one finger while using the thumb on that same hand to set the chip to spinning. “Who are you talking about?”
“That man at the back of the room with his back to a wall. He looks like a gunfighter.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he’s got his back to a wall and . . . well . . . he’s wearing a gun.”
Whiteoak let out a sigh and shook his head.
“What?” Byron said defensively. “I’ve never seen him around here before and he’s been glaring in this direction as if he’s set to kill everyone at this table. You don’t think he might be a gunman?”
“On the contrary. I think he is absolutely a gunman.”
“Then why the sigh?”
“Because he might as well be wearing a sign around his neck as he sits there trying to look like a bad man.” Giving his chip another spin, Whiteoak added, “It’s no wonder that so many men like him wind up dead so early in their careers.”
“Wanna know why I’m sighing?” Owens asked.
Whiteoak looked over to the dark-haired fellow and asked, “Why’s that, Sam?”
“Because there’ll be snow falling outside by the time Dell makes his damn bet.”
Dell, a large man whose clothes were so poorly tailored that he looked like he’d stuffed a lumpy mattress under his shirt, bobbled his head and continued to rearrange his chips. “Laugh all you want, mister. I’m about to take down one hell of a pot and I need to figure how much I can fleece you gentlemen for.”
“Is that a fact?” Alan grunted. “You’re gonna do all of that fleecing with two pair?”
Dell snapped his head toward Alan, causing multiple fatty chins around his neck to wiggle. “What makes you think you know what I’m holding?”
“You drew one card, missed your full boat, and now you’re trying to figure how to make the best of it,” Alan replied.
“Maybe I got my full house and am trying to figure out how much to bet.”
Alan raised his eyebrows as if entertaining the notion of playing along with the larger man’s serious tone. A second later, he took a drink from the whiskey glass in front of him. “Yeah,” he chuckled. “Maybe you did.”
His charade deflated, Dell tossed in a modest raise and checked his cards for the fifteenth time.
“Call,” Alan said immediately.
Byron was already out of the hand, so he looked over to Whiteoak who was last to act.
The professor looked at Dell for less than a second, shifted his glance to Alan and shrugged. “Raise
,” he said while tossing in twenty dollars.
“I call,” Owens replied, which was what he said to pretty much every raise anyone made.
Dell was next and when his pudgy hand remained on his chips for more than a trio of heartbeats, Alan told him, “You take another forever to make your play and I’ll toss your fat ass through that wall.”
Doing his best to maintain some semblance of dignity, Dell looked at his cards one more time before shaking his head. “I know when I’m beat,” he said before tossing his cards onto the stack of dead wood.
“You don’t know shit,” Alan muttered. “I’m out. What’ve you got, Dandy Dan?”
“I’m guessing that would be me,” Whiteoak chided as he straightened the lapel of his pearl-gray waistcoat. He placed his cards face up in front of him and then reached into his breast pocket for a silver cigarette case.
All of the men looked at the cards, but not all of them were pleased with the sight. “Tens and jacks?” Alan said before leaning forward to spread the cards even further apart. “You only had two pair?”
“That’s the hand I was dealt,” Whiteoak replied.
“And you didn’t think I could beat that shit?”
“Of course you could.”
Knowing he’d been read like a book was one thing. Bringing that knowledge into the open was another. Recognizing that he would only make himself look worse, Alan kept his mouth shut and shifted his focus to the one man at the table that might help ease his flaring temper.
Sammy Owens looked at Whiteoak and gnawed on the same piece of beef fat that had been wedged between his teeth all night. “Eh, you got me,” he said while tossing his cards without showing them.
“He got you?” Alan snarled. “You can’t even beat two damn pair?”
Owens shrugged, his eyes already drifting to one of the girls working the saloon.
“What the hell is goin’ on here?” Alan sighed while settling back into his seat. “If I’d known I was playing with a bunch of idiots, I’d change my strategy.”
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