by Judd Cole
But when Josh asked Wild Bill about all that, the frontiersman only watched him for a long moment with his calm and fathomless eyes. Then he replied simply, “Kid, the red man is a notional creature. It’s always a good idea to watch your topknot in Indian country.”
In Ogallala, however, they soon found more immediate concerns. Wild Bill, Yellowstone, and Josh were playing low-stakes poker in the caboose when a porter delivered a telegram from Pinkerton.
Bill read it silently, cursed, then read it out loud:
“‘Have just confirmed an ugly rumor. Half-breed traveling with Bodmer is in fact the gunslinger called Dog Man. Use appropriate caution—’”
“Is he fast?” Josh demanded. “I never heard of him.”
“Faster than about thirty dead men,” Wild Bill replied. “That’s counting only the ones shot from the front. I’d say only John Wesley Hardin has killed more in gunfights.”
“Hardin and you,” Josh corrected him.
Bill ignored that truism. “Dog Man is doubly dangerous because he’s not a boaster, and he never braces a man. That’s why you don’t know of him. He hides his light under a bushel, so to speak, and lures his victims into a death trap before they even realize it.”
“Then it’s good that I’ve wangled a shift trade with Cas Jones,” Yellowstone said, tossing down his discards. “I’ve taken the twelve hours from supper to breakfast. Nobody’s getting at your caboose from overhead, Cap’n Bill. Unless it’s over this brakeman’s dead body.”
“’Preciate it,” Bill said. “Pinkerton will have a fit, but consider yourself on the payroll, Yellowstone. Jesus, kid! That’s the second trick in a row you’ve taken! The hell have I created here?”
Josh, grinning proudly at his new prowess, scooped in his winnings. But he said, “Dog Man and the other one—Bodmer calls him Big Bat— are watching me all the time now.”
Wild Bill nodded. It was Yellowstone who spoke up.
“’Course they are. Even the Dog Man doesn’t want to go toe-to-toe with Wild Bill Hickok. That bear at Raton Pass couldn’t kill him, and the Rebels couldn’t kill him, and even the entire goddamn McCandles gang couldn’t send Wild Bill under. So they mean to kill him the easy way, if they can find one. You just cover your ampersand, tadpole.”
“You best do the same,” Bill warned the burly brakeman. “Bodmer is getting desperate by now.”
Josh nearly leaped from his chair when someone knocked on the nearest door. But Bill never flinched. He had a gun to hand before Josh could take his next breath.
Hickok checked to make sure that Vogel, busy cleaning Hilda’s interior with an antiseptic solution, was well out of the line of fire. Bill tugged Yellowstone to one side.
“Who is it?” Bill called.
“Elena Vargas, Mr. Hickok!”
“Just Elena?”
“Of course! Who else? Are you so famous that a lady must shout through this door all day in hopes of seeing you?”
“Ach! Anozer vooman?” Vogel shook his hoary head, paling slightly. The memory of Calamity Jane still frightened him.
“If you’ll excuse me, gents.”
Bill kept his gun to hand, unlocked the door, and verified that Elena was alone on the swaying platform. Then he stepped out to join her, shutting the door on his gawking friends.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he inquired, his eyes sizing her up frankly from her pretty satin shoes to her magnificent silver tiara.
“I miss your presence,” she replied just as frankly. “You stay holed up back here like a hermit crab.”
“Maybe. You can thank your companion’s choice in domestic servants for that.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded. “He tells me nothing about his . . . business arrangements.”
“I mean they’re trying to kill me and Professor Vogel, that’s what.”
At first she bristled like a cat, the charge was so enormous. Then Elena’s opal skin went pallid. She shook her head in confused disbelief. “No, you ... I mean, Randolph is a strong-willed man, and very jealous, of course, but—”
“That’s right, lady, he is jealous. You’ll be in one mess of hurt if he catches you with me. So what are you doing here?”
“I . . . he ordered me to stay away from you. In the coarsest, most vulgar words imaginable. He even threatened me. No one talks to a Vargas that way!”
“Mmm. So you came back here to defy him?”
“Yes. And as I said—I miss seeing you.”
She cast her eyes down modestly, ashamed for being so forward with him. Bill noticed how the long black lashes curved sweetly against her cheeks when she closed her eyes.
“Maybe you and I can have our little visit,” he told her. “Personally, I don’t care a jackstraw about Bodmer’s blustering and threats. But you’re another story. I believe he would hurt a woman. Tell me, does he mean anything to you?”
“Once he did,” she replied bitterly. “I even thought I might love him. But that Randolph was a deliberate impostor. By the time I realized his true nature, it was too late. The banns have been announced, and I am bound by law.”
Bill abruptly cupped her chin in one hand and kissed her on the mouth. “We’ll see if it’s too late. I don’t think so.”
“Be careful, Senor Hickok,” she warned him when she could trust her voice again. “I am a Latin—you are a good kisser, and I have a short fuse.”
Bill grinned. “Then next time I light it, I won’t put it out. But for right now, you get on back to your Pullman, sweet love. Don’t give Bodmer any reason to lash out at you.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Those cuts on the half-breed . . . and his disappearance near Kansas City. Are those two really trying to kill you?”
“You can take it to the bank.”
“Then of course Randolph ordered it.”
Bill nodded. “But listen. I didn’t tell you all this so you can confront Bodmer. It’s just a warning to a prideful girl. Take care, and don’t provoke him anymore. From here on out, you let me do that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Josh, using a stub of pencil, was making quick notes in his flip-back pad when Bill came back inside the crowded caboose, a mysterious little smile in his eyes.
“Stir your stumps, kid!” he called out heartily. “Brew us up some coffee, wouldja? Then run to the dining car and fetch us some grub. But keep a weather eye out for Bodmer and his gun-throwers. I’d feel better knowing where they are at all times. You can be our scout.”
Sometimes it rankled at Josh, the way Wild Bill could order him around like he was a colonel’s orderly. But he could tell now that Bill wasn’t speaking figuratively—he was really trusting Joshua Robinson, an untested brat from the wilds of Olney Street, West Philadelphia, to give a good report.
A scout! Josh threw a handful of beans on to boil, then reported to the dining car and presented Vogel’s letter of authorization from the sponsors of the tour. The staff were instructed to “ignore all expenses and make all amenities available.”
Josh ordered ribs and potatoes and baked salmon, with plenty of French-custard ice cream and fruit sherbets for dessert. Vogel had read him the riot act, sputtering in bad English, when Josh once foolishly forgot dessert. The old eccentric ate a little, but indulged a powerful sweet tooth. And naturally he preferred treats made possible by Hilda’s ice.
While he waited for a steward to prepare a huge tray, Josh glanced around the plush dining car. Though it was approaching sunset, it was still too early for a lively dinner crowd. There were only a few well-groomed men in evening coats and glossy paper collars, and a few fashionable ladies in bustles, boas, and pinned-up petticoats.
But Josh felt his pulse quicken when he spotted Randolph Bodmer’s sharp features.
The businessman sat off by himself on a pleated-leather banquette along the south wall of the Pullman. There was no food before him, just a carafe of coffee and a folded newspaper. As usual, the self-absorbed Bodmer did not seem very eager to socialize
with anyone around him.
He seems bored, Josh thought. Impatient even, the youth realized as Bodmer again thumbed back the cover of his watch to check the time. Yet he continued to sit there all by himself, pretending to read the paper.
Almost, Josh worried suddenly, as if he’s making a point of being seen here. Maybe to construct an alibi later?
That last thought made Josh more eager to locate the whereabouts of Dog Man and Big Bat quickly.
“I’ll be back for that tray,” he promised the steward, and moments later Josh was on his way to check the third-class coaches.
He got lucky and spotted Bodmer’s thugs right away in the first smoke-filled, sweat-stinking car he checked. They both sat sweating on the floor, playing checkers, the board on a bench between them.
Moving slow and easy so they wouldn’t spot him, Josh started to ease the door shut. A heart skip later, fire ripped into his right cheek, and Josh howled with surprise and pain.
Dog Man collapsed on the floor, laughing so hard he had to hold his ribs. Big Bat coiled his blacksnake up again and slid the whip back under the bench.
“Kiss for ya, squaw-boy!” Big Bat grinned through his red beard scruff. “You tell Papa Hickok he’s gunna get plenty of them kisses himself.”
Josh touched the swelling welt on his cheek, It was hardly serious, but it burned like hell.
Josh’s Quaker leanings from his mother were tempered by his judge father’s cast-iron sense of right and wrong. He also had his father’s hair-trigger temper.
“You had no right to touch me, mister,” Josh said in a nervous, but strong and determined, voice. “And the last man who hit me got drilled right through his goddamn heart by Wild Bill Hickok!”
Josh didn’t even see the half-breed move. One second he was laid out on his back, laughing; the next, his long-barreled Colt Walker was out of its holster and pointed at the gaping reporter.
Despite his fear, Josh felt his jaw drop open in pure astonishment. That wasn’t just honed reflexes—it had to be magic! There wasn’t even a blur!
“Pups will bark like full-growed dogs,” the ’breed told him. “But Hickok ain’t here to carry your load. You best dust, dunghill, before I irrigate your guts.”
While the others ate, Josh filled them in on Bodmer’s whereabouts and the brief run-in with Dog Man and Big Bat.
“Something’s on the spit,” Bill agreed calmly when Josh fell silent. “Sounds like Bodmer wants to make sure his ass is covered. Professor? Why’n’t you hand the kid a piece of ice for his cheek? Nice little war scar, Longfellow.”
Bill lifted his coffee mug to his lips, then grimaced.
“Jesus!” he complained, scowling at Josh. “You could cut a plug off this coffee!”
“You said you like it strong, I—”
“Not strong enough to chew!”
“Well,” Yellowstone Jack cut in, “I do hate to break up an important debate, but it’s back to the traces for this old warhorse.”
The brakeman stood, stretched out the kinks, then tugged on his pillow-tick cap. He snatched up his lantern and headed for the rear door of the caboose.
“Remember,” Wild Bill called out behind his friend, “take care up there tonight. I’ll stop by later with a bottle.”
“And bring the cards,” Yellowstone suggested. “Might be moonlight.”
After the professor had dozed off, Josh and Bill stepped outside on the platform to cool themselves. It was baking hot tonight, and night heat was more suffocating.
Josh watched Wild Bill take a good look all around them, including a glance into the crew caboose. His face looked brassy in the fading sunlight. Looking south over the vast, limitless, treeless expanse, Josh watched the wind move through the grass like waves. A nascent moon, white as bleached bones, appeared high in the indigo sky.
“Seems too peaceful to be so dangerous,” Josh remarked.
“The mind,” Bill said, “wants things to be one way or another. But it ain’t that simple. Winning second place in a target match will win you a ribbon. But in a gunfight, second place is first loser.”
“‘Second place is first loser,’” Josh repeated, and Bill laughed when the kid scrawled it down for his next story.
Soon they passed a deserted settlement, a cluster of sagging houses with weather-grayed boards. Now and then they also rolled past some homesteader’s dugout, squat edifices of mud and lumber, their hind ends backed into the side of a hill.
“Warmer than any frame house in winter,” Bill remarked of the dugouts. “Only trouble is, animals graze on your roof. I know a fellow who was crushed by his own cow up in Cherry County.”
But Josh saw that, even while Bill made such small talk, his vigilant eyes left nothing alone.
“You think Bodmer’s getting pretty mad, huh?” Josh coaxed.
“Mad? Christ, he’s screaming blue murder.”
Josh said, “Is Elena—”
“Stow it, kid. I don’t discuss ladies with anyone, least of all news hawks.”
Josh sulked, but Bill took no notice. Soon a cloudburst opened up, and for a few welcome minutes the rain came slapping down. When its hissing subsided, Josh said, “Bill?”
“Ahh?”
“How come you left Illinois in the first place? Buntline never mentions that.”
“I had to,” Bill replied tersely. “The law in Troy Grove was after me for stealing a steamboat.”
Josh goggled in the new darkness. “Man alive! You stole a steamboat?”
“Sure,” Bill said, poker-faced. “And damn near got away. But my big mistake was when I came back to steal the river.”
Josh flushed at being so green. “Awww … ”
“Fresh off the turnip wagon.”
Bill chuckled softly as he slid a cheroot from his pocket. He nibbled off the end, tucked it into his mouth, struck a sulfur match with his thumb, and fired up the cheroot. Keeping the door slanted open so they could see Vogel, the two of them stood there in the rain-cooled air, watching their young nation roll past them in moonlit darkness.
Josh’s young fancy was still stirred to fever pitch from his encounter earlier with Bodmer’s hirelings. A war scar, Bill called his welt.
His mind was busy coining more adventurous notions when Josh felt something drop down the back of his neck. Just rain water, sure. But why so warm?
Josh touched the wetness, then looked at his fingers in the shaft of yellow light spilling through the open door behind him.
His thoughts scattered broad, and a liquid fear chilled his veins—that was fresh blood on his fingers!
“Look, Wild Bill!” Josh showed him the blood.
“Christ Jesus,” Bill muttered. “Yellowstone!” He lunged at the metal rungs of the ladder beside them. “Kid! You bolted to the damn floor? Get your skinny ass back inside and lock the caboose! Break out your shooter and stand by. Ventilate anybody who tries to force his way in!”
The first thing Wild Bill spotted as he cleared the top of the caboose was the lifeless body of Yellowstone Jack.
His surprised eyes, still wide open, stared unseeing toward heaven. The big brakeman’s throat had been savagely slashed before he could even get his gun out of its holster. His pillow-tick cap lay beside him, sopping wet with blood. Bill looked at the former Union Army hero who had survived the carnage of Bull Run and Antietam Creek, the horrors of Andersonville Prison, only to die by a murderer’s hand on the high plains.
But if he gave vent to emotions, Bill knew he was buzzard bait, too. The killer had to be nearby. Resorting to his usual detached alertness, Bill remained protectively crouched at the top of the ladder, trying not to skyline himself.
He quickly ascertained that no one was hiding on top the last caboose. The rear door, Bill thought, hauling himself the rest of the way up and stepping carefully over his dead companion. Bill already had a Peacemaker in his right fist.
Later, berating himself as a fool, Bill realized his stupid mistake. Still shaken over the discovery
of Yellowstone, Hickok had forgotten his cardinal rule about covering his back trail at all times—he failed to first thoroughly search the top of the crew caboose behind him.
Only the sporadic shifting and swaying of the train saved him. Bill was hurrying along a narrow plank walkway, toward the ladder at the back of the last caboose, when a rough section of rail bed below sent him stumbling hard.
At the very moment he pitched sideways, a gun barked behind Bill, and he felt a sharp tug as the bullet passed through the folds of his shirt under the left armpit.
By long necessity, Bill’s reflexes were primed against back-shooters. Rather than recover from his stumble, Hickok let himself drop, even as a second bullet creased his back like a tongue of fire licking him.
Hickok tucked, rolled hard, and prayed he wouldn’t run out of rolling room on the narrow railcar. The lithe frontiersman came up in a squatting position at the very edge of the roof, already fanning his hammer.
Coolly, deliberately, Bill shot the weapon out of Dog Man’s hand.
“Pick it up, gunman,” Hickok ordered him. “Then holster it. Slow. That’s it, by the muzzle.”
There was enough moon tonight for Bill to see that the half-breed was copiously sweating. But there was a bold, mocking tone to his words when Dog Man spoke.
“Best to shoot me now, yellow curls! That way you preserve the legend of your supposed manhood. No fool gives the Dog Man a second chance! I will piss on your grave!”
“Oh, I’ll shoot you soon enough,” Hickok promised calmly. “But the man who murders Yellowstone Jack deserves special. I mean to shoot you low in the belly so you bleed hard inside and die slow. I’ve seen it before. You’ll lie helpless and screaming for hours, Dog Man, and you’ll bleed so dry you’ll beg for water. Oh, Christ Jesus, you’ll beg! You’ll burn up with hell-thirst at the end, and inside your belly? Why, like jagged glass churning—”
“Put a sock in it!” the half-breed snarled. At Bill’s cold, methodical description Dog Man’s face had lost its lopsided, mocking grin. His Colt Walker was holstered now. But Dog Man’s nerves had become unstrung, and he hesitated.