by Lila Bowen
So he wouldn’t run and risk getting shot. But he wouldn’t fumble around the privy, neither, and just get slapped for waywardness. Stealing wasn’t a good option. What he needed, he realized with a sly grin, was to get in a fight.
He glanced back at the train car, but the fellers inside were a sorry damn bunch. Stringy to a man, like Rhett appeared on the outside. He’d feel right bad for popping any one of ’em in the face, and aside from Preacher’s vexful jawing, he had no real quarrel with anybody.
Just then, he saw exactly the sort of target he needed: a big, dumb Irishman. He was roughly the size of a haystack and about as dim looking, with a bright green shirt that even the rough work of the railroad hadn’t yet dulled. The feller was walking, alone, toward the privy trenches, looking a lot like a bigger, meaner version of Earl. And Rhett took off at a steady jog and darted right in front of the redheaded bull moose.
It was about the same as walking into a brick wall.
“’Scuse you,” Rhett muttered, stepping back and looking up with a sneer.
“What the damn hell, man?” the feller said, his eyes squinched down in honest confusion.
“You ran into me, that’s what.”
“Are you lookin’ for a fight, wee manny? Because there’s no one around here who can talk to me like that.”
Rhett glanced left and right. “Well, that’s sure enough. I don’t see any damn girls about.”
He was ready for the punch and turned slightly sideways so it glanced off. Still hurt like hell, but it was like the knock that opens a locked door, the locked door being Rhett’s temper. Rhett’s lips curled off his teeth in a feral grin as he clocked the feller in the chin. The Irishman staggered back, looking ornery and dizzy as a drunk ox. But Rhett was overcome with a mad sort of rage, and he didn’t pause to think about it, just tossed himself right back at a man twice his weight, socking him in the gut and landing a hook in his kidney.
“You—”
Rhett shut him up with a fist in the teeth and let go a sigh he’d been holding for weeks. Hellfire, but it was good to punch things when he felt hopeless.
Before he could land another punch, strong arms yanked him back by the shoulders and cold steel knocked his hat aside and kissed his temple.
“Just what the hell’s going on here?”
“Little bastard attacked me!” the Irishman blustered through bloody lips.
“When a bull ox runs into me, I run right back into him,” Rhett said calmly.
“Freeman, this one of your men?”
Whoever was holding him yanked him around to face Shelton and Digby. Rhett tried hard not to grin and failed.
“Yes, sir, that’s Red-Eye Ned.”
“You not keeping a good watch?”
“Well, sir, I—”
“It’s on me, sir. Mr. Freeman was talking to Boss Shelton, and I snuck out to hit the trenches for my morning movement, but then this feller ran smack into me and nearly busted open my bowels, so I politely asked him to give way, and he started pounding me about the face.”
“That’s not true!” the Irishman shouted, sounding truly offended.
Rhett shrugged. “That’s how I saw it. I am sorry, Mr. Freeman, if I’m out of bounds.”
Digby’s eyes were near to falling out of his head, and Mr. Shelton looked like he kept a church bell in his skull and it wouldn’t stop ringing, and whoever was holding Rhett shoved him roughly away.
“No fighting,” the feller said. Rhett didn’t recognize him, but most white folks looked about the same, anyway.
“Yes, sir. I will keep that in mind.”
The man sighed and rubbed his stubbled cheeks. “Ten lashes each should be a fine reminder. Can’t have workers busting each other up. Come along.”
Rhett nodded and struggled not to grin in triumph.
“Red-Eye, you best do whatever Mr. Lowery says, you hear?” Digby said nervously, to which Rhett nodded his assent.
The Irishman leaned over and muttered, “I’ll kill you for this, lad.”
“Good luck trying, son,” Rhett whispered back. “I don’t take shit off donkeys.”
Mr. Lowery moved behind the two of them and cocked his pistol. “Just go where I say and don’t try anything stupid. I got no problem blowing both of you malcontents to sand.”
He directed them around the maze of tents, nudging them with his gun to save spit. As they moved, Rhett realized the camp matched perfectly the layout he’d first encountered, minus the knee-deep mud. But they didn’t go to a tent, and they stopped way short of the false fronts of the shebang still being raised; they headed for an open space between all the construction. Hammers and saws filled the air with rough music as the buildings came together piece by piece. Rhett quickly saw that Lowery was directing them toward a corner-type beam sunk deep in the ground, a pile of dirt and rocks holding it upright.
Almost like the sort of thing you’d hang a man from.
Rhett’s step faltered, but the gun barrel against his back kept him on track.
“Bring the cat!” Lowery shouted, and some far-off feller nodded and ran into the nearest storefront.
Rhett was about to mouth off about liking cats, but the snarling faces of the men gathering in a loose circle suggested that more than one man would be glad to make him bleed. His fight rage had drained off, and now he became aware of a thousand tiny sensations. The way his sweat-scratchy shirt clung to his back, the fact that his eye kerch had slipped in the fight, the rude rattle of dirt in his boot. The day wasn’t horribly hot—yet. Rhett had seen much hotter. And yet sweat began to trickle down his spine.
He’d expected to be escorted directly to Trevisan’s car to explain himself or just to face the whip. He had not considered that punishment might happen in a far more public way without Trevisan present at all.
Rhett licked dry lips. “What about the big boss?” he asked.
Lowery walked to the wooden post, putting a palm against it and leaning in to determine its strength. The damn thing was well planted and didn’t budge.
“Wouldn’t bother the big boss for a piddly thing like fighting,” he said. “Now, if you’d tried to run, that’d be a different story. But you won’t want to run for a while, not after I’m through with you.” He laughed, and the knot of gawking onlookers tightened, and Rhett looked up at the big Irishman, suddenly feeling like a right bastard for what he’d done.
“If it’s worth much, I’m sorry for this,” he muttered.
“It’s not worth shit, and I’ll be payin’ you back one day,” was the reply.
The crowd split to admit the feller who’d been sent for the cat, which most certainly was not a cat. It was a whip like that three-headed Debil dog at Haskell’s outpost, but nine separate heads sprouted from the handle, each tipped with a silver spike.
“Don’t think I like cats anymore,” Rhett grumbled.
A hungry sort of laugh went up among the men. One produced a rope, frayed and filthy with what looked and smelled like crusted cow shit, and Lowery tossed it over the top of the gallows and tested its strength by dangling from it.
“Who goes first?” he asked.
Rhett looked at Lowery, and then he looked at the Irishman, and he reckoned that whoever went first would get the harder lashes, while maybe the second feller would take a lighter load, accounting for Lowery’s arm getting tired from beating the first one half to death.
“I’ll go first,” he said, hating the upward squeak in his voice. He cleared his throat and added, “I never did get to take my piss, and I’m getting antsy.”
The Irishman glared at him with slitted eyes, not sure about the gambit. Rhett figured the feller would try to kick his ass either way and settled for giving him a manly nod.
Lowery nodded. “Well, come on, then. Folks got business to get to.”
Rhett stepped up, and Lowery yanked on his wrists, knotting the rope around them and tugging until Rhett was up on his toes.
“Aw, shit. Forgot your shirt,” Lower
y muttered, loosening the rope, and that’s when Rhett nearly lost it. If they took off his shirt to whip him, they’d realize he was…well, he had the parts of, at least…a girl.
“I don’t mind being punished, but I’m awfully shy about my scrawny chest,” Rhett squeaked. “You got any alternatives to the whipping?”
A rumble of laughter went through the crowd.
“Not in general, but considering the way that big Irish bastard’s looking at you, I reckon we could come up with one on the fly, seeing as how it’s unofficial.”
He yanked Rhett’s wrists back up and pulled the rope hard before handing it off to a mean-looking feller who kept on yanking. It was all Rhett could do to stay on his toes and not have his hands jerked right off his arms. He spun a little as he found his balance and turned to face the Irishman.
“See if you can beat ’im to death,” Lowery said, clapping the Irish feller on the back.
Rhett smiled.
The Irishman smiled, too, and he did his goddamn best to comply.
After the first punch to his gut, Rhett didn’t smile anymore.
At some point, he must’ve passed out. That’s all Rhett could figure, as the last thing he remembered was a bone-juddering series of punches to the ribs and the crowd crowing like a pack of Lobos. He woke up lying on his back, eye swollen closed, trying to decide which part of him hurt more.
“You are a fool,” said a soft voice, not without some amusement.
“That you, Cora?” Rhett struggled to say through a mouth that felt like it was stuffed with broken glass and rocks.
A soft, warm, wet cloth brushed over his eye, and he did his best not to wince and whimper like a damn baby.
“Of course. You’ve been out for quite a while. If you were human, I suspect you would have a crushed skull and brain damage. You made Big Red very angry.”
Rhett barked a laugh that made his ribs burn. “Big Red beat Red-Eye black and blue. Why, our names go along like cows and shi—” He cleared his throat. “Like sunshine and bluebirds, begging your pardon, ma’am.”
“Quiet, now.” He couldn’t see her, but he heard her draw in a deep breath, and then something very hot covered his eye with an unwelcome pressure. But she’d told him to stay quiet, so he did, pursing his split lips to hold in the scream. A wet cloth followed, and when it was removed, she said, “You should be able to see now.”
Rhett gingerly opened his eye, finding it far less swollen if still gritty and tender. He just barely spied Cora hiding her orange-scaled hand, busying herself with the cloth and water bucket floating with green herbs that filled the air with a sharp, clean scent.
“You’re very strong,” Cora observed as she went about cleaning his many cuts with the cloth. “Lowery said he’d never seen someone so small last so long under such a vicious assault.”
“He said that?”
A chuckle. “No. What he said was something like, That cocky little bastard just flat out won’t die, even after a solid hour of beating, so fix him up and get him back on the cut line.” She’d done an admirable job of mimicking Lowery’s twangy accent. “But I heard the men talk as they brought you in. For someone who seems to find trouble, at least you are capable of withstanding it.”
The cloth touched Rhett’s split lip, and he hissed. “We’re all hard to kill. That’s why we’re here, I reckon.”
A secretive smile. “Something like that.”
She dabbed at him, here and there. He allowed it. When she unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, though, he gently caught her wrist in bruised fingers. “Keep it above the neck, sugar. Nothing to be done for me, down below.”
Cora smirked. “As you say.”
Rhett couldn’t puzzle out what she meant by that, but he liked lying down and holding still and being dabbed at as he healed, so he did his best to relax and oblige her.
“You do this a lot?” he asked.
“What, patch up men who get in fights? Not all that much. Few return for a second whipping. Most know that you only get three chances here. And then…” She flicked her fingers at him. “Poof! Sand.”
“Wait. What happened to Big Red?”
Cora shrugged. “They gave him five lashes. It was enough. I spread them with salve. He did not thank me—they never do—and was sent back out to work. Only one more chance for him. He tried to run, once, you know. A whole group of Irish tried. Many died. If he wasn’t so big and strong, they might’ve just killed him on the spot. But he does the work of three men and doesn’t shirk or drink, so there is a chance they will continue to be lenient. So long as he will work.”
Rhett’s split lip twisted. He hadn’t thought about the consequences of picking a fight with the feller and had only seen Big Red as his golden ticket to Trevisan. Now, because of Rhett, and for no other reason, the feller had only one more chance to behave. And Rhett himself was no closer to killing the big boss.
“Did that hurt?” Cora asked, dabbing her cloth at the blood crusting his busted knuckles.
“Probably not as much as I deserve,” he muttered, feeling like maybe he was the one who was a complete and useless ass.
It was after lunch but before dinner. Every part of him that needed tending had been tended, and the bruises elsewhere were already fading. No real harm had been done, except another tally added to his failures. Grandpa Z looked him over and grunted to indicate that Rhett was ready to go back to work. Cora opened the tent flap and bowed him out.
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat.
Her smile was radiant, her cheeks rosy. She always looked like they were in together on some secret joke that never failed to amuse her. “You are welcome, Red-Eye.”
He squinted against the afternoon sun, considering. If he ran now, he’d have his second strike and maybe that meeting with Trevisan he so coveted. But he was beat to hell, aching in every bone, still sticky with dried blood, and hungry as all get-out, not to mention awful fond of his legs. Now was not the time to try anything clever. Failing once per day was more than enough. And there was a scout with a rifle on top of one of the train cars, watching him especially closely now.
Rhett tipped his hat at that feller, too, and headed off for the pickax man. With his tool slung over his shoulder, he walked slower than usual to the front of the train, where somebody would eventually show up with a handcar to deliver Rhett out to the dig. Every step, he knew he was being watched. He’d have to sit tight and toe the line. For now.
Chapter
22
From then on, Rhett focused on something he thought he’d left behind: behaving.
He swung his pickax, ate his slop, slept hard, and held his piss at inopportune moments. His bowels became as regular as sunup, and he no longer thought about how far the engine had pulled him away from Dan’s meeting place. He tried to lure Notch into talking about Trevisan, but the feller had gone sullen and silent, or sullener and silenter, for whatever reason. He usually ended up arguing with Beans about which kind of horse was best just so he’d have something to do.
For the first few days after the fight, Digby Freeman kept an especially close eye on him. Feller even pulled his cot in front of the door every night, and Rhett had to reckon that the freshly nailed board over his little hole in the wall wasn’t a kindness on the boss’s part to keep out the cold.
They didn’t want him to get more ideas about going outside on his own.
“Thanks for blocking up that rain hole, sir,” Rhett said, tipping his hat to Digby. “It’s right nice, how it keeps out the cold and noise.”
Digby nodded back and said nothing else about it. So long as Rhett did his work, nobody seemed to notice him. The men were kept quiet during the day and too tired at night to talk much. They hit a hard and sunny patch, no rain for a week, and Boss Shelton sobered up for five minutes and hollered that they were by God and the devil going to hit ten more miles by the first frost or die trying. So they tried. They tried hard.
Rhett knew he had to bide
his time and wait for the right moment or risk losing his chance at Trevisan. He’d only hurt Big Red this go, but now he understood that his actions would ripple down to Digby, the men of Car 18—hell, the whole camp. He just had to push himself so hard that he didn’t have time to chew on his frustration like a worn-out plug of chaw. He was dropping weight and constantly thirsty, and it wasn’t much of a surprise when his monthly flux was barely a brown trickle.
One day, he was singing along, minding his pickax, when his belly gave a big wobble. He jerked upright, pickax still in the bank, and looked around for the trouble. It wasn’t Trevisan or a Lobo; it was a sound he knew well: a wagon. But it was coming way too fast, and nobody else seemed to notice. Two mules were running full tilt, straight for their cut, dragging an unmanned wagon full of spikes right at Rhett’s crew. And Digby Freeman, his back to the wagon and his hands clasped, was singing his song and completely unaware.
It seemed to Rhett like everybody was in slow motion except for him as he leaped out of the cut, shoved Digby into it with a shoulder, and waved his arms at the mules, flapping his hat and hollering.
For one mad, glittering moment, Rhett was pretty sure he was going to get run over by two tons of horseflesh and a mess of metal, but the mules turned in time and took off across the prairie, the wagon on two wheels, leaving nothing but spikes and shit in their wake.
“What the devil?” Digby asked, looking up from the hole, one hand to his forehead like he thought he might have a fever.
“Runaway mule team,” Rhett grunted, readjusting his eye kerch and pulling his hat back down.