by Matt Braun
“Evenin’, Mike.”
“Evenin’, Newt.”
“Howdy do, Mr. McCluskie.”
McCluskie just nodded to Smith. They had met earlier in the day and Smith impressed him as a near miss of some sort. A gangling lout whose name was derived from his habit of wearing a hollowed-out marrow bone on his pinky finger. Seeing them together, the Irishman felt his good cheer begin to curdle. A long-nosed busybody and a dimdot who had been shortchanged when the marbles were passed out.
It was a match made in heaven.
Hansberry hawked and spat a wad of phlegm at the tracks. “Gettin’ on time for that train of yours. Oughta be seein’ it any minute now.”
McCluskie eyed him narrowly. “Had any word from up the line?”
“Nope, nary a peep. Seems like ever’body’s got lockjaw where that train of yours is concerned.”
“Newt, I’m not interested one way or the other especially, but what makes you think that it’s my train?”
“Well, it ain’t like it’s a regular run, now is it! I mean, hell’s fire and little fishes. I didn’t even know the dangblasted thing was comin’ in till you told me this mornin’.”
“The Santa Fe moves in mysterious ways, Newt. Not that it performs many wonders.”
“Humph!” Hansberry snorted and screwed his face up in a walleyed look of righteous indignation. “Y’know, I am the station master around here. Seems like some people has a way of forgettin’ that.”
“You’re thinkin’ the brass should’ve informed you official-like. Instead of leavin’ it to me.”
“That’d do for openers. Contrary to what some folks think, I ain’t the head mop jockey around here. I run this place with a pretty tight hand, and seems to me I oughta know what’s what and whyfor.”
“Guess it all depends on how you look at it. Some things are for the doing and not the talking. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Specially if you keep your trap shut.”
McCluskie saw Spivey and Tonk Hazeltine approaching with a stranger. Leaving Hansberry to fry in his own fat, the Irishman walked off to meet the greeting committee. The safest bet in town was that they would have been on hand to oversee the money shipment.
Ringbone Smith whistled softly through his teeth, spraying his chin with spit. “Lordy mercy, Mr. H. That feller must’ve been brung up on sour milk to get so downright techy.”
Hansberry just grunted, and ground his jaws in quiet fury. Sometimes he wished he were back on the farm slopping hogs. Lately he’d come to think that pigs were downright civil alongside some people he knew.
CHAPTER 4
MCCLUSKIE STOPPED short of the three men and waited. Leaning back against a freight cart, he started rolling a smoke. Out of the corner of his eye he saw them mount the steps, and for some reason he was reminded of an old homily that Irishmen were fond of quoting.
“The fat and the lean are never what they seem.”
Spivey and the stranger were both on the stout side. The charitable word would have been portly, but McCluskie wasn’t feeling charitable. They looked like a couple of blubblerguts that had just put a boardinghouse out of business. One thing was for sure. Matched up against one another, the pair of them would make a hell of a race at a pie-eating contest.
Trailing behind them, Hazeltine seemed like a starved dog herding a couple of hogs. He was what Texans called a long drink of water, only more so. Standing sideways in a bright sun, his shadow wouldn’t have covered a gatepost. The brace of Remingtons cross-cinched over his hips seemed likely to drag him under if he ever stepped in a mud puddle.
McCluskie stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, purposely letting them come to him. It was an old trick, but effective. Forcing the other man to make the first move, especially with talk and shaking hands. Somehow it put them on the defensive, just the least bit off balance. Considering the unlikely trio bearing down on him, it was a dodge well suited to the moment.
Spivey commenced grinning the minute he cleared the steps. “Mike, where the hell you been all day? Thought sure you’d drop by for a drink.”
McCluskie exhaled a small cloud of smoke. “Couldn’t squeeze it in. Had some business that needed tendin’.”
“No doubt. No doubt.” Spivey fairly oozed good cheer. “Well don’t make yourself a stranger, you hear?” Suddenly his jowls dimpled in a rubbery smile. “Say, I almost forgot you two don’t know each other. This here’s Judge Randolph Muse, our local magistrate. Randy, shake hands with Mike McCluskie.”
The Irishman waited, letting the older man extend his hand. Only then did he take it, nodding slightly. “Judge. Pleased to meet you.”
Randolph Muse was no fledgling. He knew the gambit well, had used it on other men most of his life. Still, he’d let himself get sucked in. His ears burned, and despite a stiff upper lip, he felt like a bumbling ass. Perhaps Spivey was right, after all. This ham-fisted Mick would bear watching.
“The pleasure’s all mine, Mr. McCluskie. Bob has been telling me about you. According to him, you’re about the toughest thing to come down the pike since Wild Bill himself.”
“That’s layin’ it on pretty thick, Judge. From what I hear, Hickok’s got Abilene treed about the same way he did Hays City. Just offhand, I don’t think I’d want to try twistin’ a knot in his tail.”
Tonk Hazeltine snorted through his nose. “Hell! Hickok ain’t so much. Just got himself a reputation, that’s all. There’s lots of men that could dust him off ’fore he ever had time to get started.”
Spivey and Muse looked embarrassed. McCluskie blew the ashes off his cigarette and studied the coal without expression. It was obvious to everyone that the lawman’s raspy statement was sheer braggadocio. A penny-ante gunslick tooting his own bugle. With all the finesse of a lead mallet.
The saloonkeeper cleared his throat and nimbly changed the subject. “Mike, what time’s this train suppose to be in, anyway? Near as I recollect, all you ever said was somewhere after suppertime.”
McCluskie smiled and cocked one eye eastward along the tracks. “With the Santa Fe it’s sorta a case of you pays your money and you takes your chances. I didn’t give you an exact time because my crystal ball is busted.”
“You mean to say nobody’s got any idea of when it’ll be in?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, I reckon. Best I can tell you is that we’ll know it’s here when we see it.”
The judge grumped something that sounded faintly like a belch. “That’s a hell of a way to run a railroad, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
McCluskie eyed him closer in the flickering light from the depot lantern. Clear to see, Newton’s judicial wizard was a crusty old vinegaroon. Yet his character didn’t exactly fit any of the handy little pigeonholes McCluskie normally used to catalogue people. There was something of a charlatan about him. Not just the precise way he spoke, or the high-falutin clothes he wore, but a secretion of some sort. A smell. The kind the Irishman had winded all too often not to recognize it when he was face to face with the live goods. All the same, he exuded a dash of dignity that lacked even the slightest trace of hokum. It was the real article. Which made for a pretty queer mixture, one that didn’t lend itself to any lightning calculations. Plainly, Randolph Muse wasn’t a man to be underestimated. Especially if he was tied in with Spivey somehow.
“Your Honor, I couldn’t agree with you more. Course, I’m just hired help, you understand. The Santa Fe don’t pay me to solve their riddles, frankly, I’ve never paid it much mind one way or the other. ’Fraid you’ll have to take it up with the brass if you want the real lowdown.”
Spivey leaped in before the judge could reply. “Now don’t get off on the wrong track, Mike. Randy didn’t mean nothin’ personal. It’s just that we’ve both got a lot at stake in this deal. He’s one of the investors in our little bank, and it’s only natural he’d be skittish about this train being late and all. Hell, to tell you the truth, I’m sorta jumpy myself. What with everyone in town knowin’ we’
re supposed to open for business tomorrow, it kind o’ puts us behind the eightball.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much, gents.” McCluskie took a drag off his cigarette and flipped the stub into the darkness. “The Santa Fe might be slow as molasses, but they’re not in the habit of losin’ strongboxes. Besides, till the money gets here, it’s the railroad’s lookout, not yours.”
“That’s all very well, Mr. McCluskie,” Judge Muse remarked. “But it isn’t the Santa Fe who must face the townspeople tomorrow morning if those bank doors don’t open.”
“Like I said, Judge. There’s no need gettin’ a case of the sweats. Not yet, anyway.”
Spivey frowned like a constipated owl. “That’s not offering us much encouragement, Mike. Just to be blunt about it, I never did understand why you’re bringin’ the money in at night, anyhow. Randy and me talked it over, and the way we see it, that’s about the worst time you could’ve picked.”
“It’s called security. Which means doing things the way folks don’t expect. Specially train robbers. So far I haven’t lost any strongboxes playin’ my hunches. Don’t expect to lose this one either.”
“Good God, man!” the judge yelped. “Are you standing there telling us that you shipped one hundred thousand dollars on a hunch?”
“Get a hunch, bet a bunch.” The Irishman grinned, thoroughly amused that he’d given the two lardguts a case of the fidgets. “What you fellows can’t seem to get straight is that it’s out of my hands. Leastways till the train gets here.”
“Judas Priest!” Spivey groaned. “That’s what we’re talkin’ about. Where the hell is the train?”
“Somewhere between here and there, most likely. Tell you what. Why don’t you and the judge go get yourselves a drink? Little whiskey never hurt anybody’s nerves. When the train gets in, I’ll bring your money over with a red ribbon on it.”
“Don’t you fret yourself none, Mr. Spivey.” Tonk Hazeltine came on fast, trying to regain lost ground. “I’ll stick right here and make sure ever’thing goes accordin’ to snuff.” He gave the holstered Remingtons a flat-handed slap. “Long as we got these backin’ the play there ain’t gonna be no miscues on this end.”
The other men stared at him as if he had just sprouted measles. McCluskie’s earlier suspicions had now been confirmed in spades. As a peace officer Tonk Hazeltine was long on luck and short on savvy. The man’s attitude was that of flint in search of stone. Abrasive and needlessly pugnacious. Anybody who went around with that big chip on his shoulder was running scared. It was the act of a tinhorn trying to convince everybody he was sudden death from Bitter Creek. Inside, his guts probably quivered like jelly on a cold platter.
“Deputy, it strikes me you’ve pulled up a chair in the wrong game.” McCluskie’s voice was smooth as butter. “If I need help you’ll hear me yell plenty loud. Otherwise I guess I’ll just play the cards out my own way.”
Hazeltine went red as ox blood, and the scorn he read in the Irishman’s gaze pushed him over the edge. “Mister, you might be somethin’ on a stick with your fists, but you ain’t messin’ around with no cowhand. I’ll go wherever I goddamn please and do whatever suits me. Now if that notion ain’t to your likin’, whyn’t you try reachin’ for that peashooter on your hip.”
McCluskie smiled and eased away from the freight cart. “Girls first, Tonk. You start the dance and we’ll see who ends up suckin’ wind.”
The goad was deliberate, calculated. An insult that left a man only two outs. Fish or cut bait.
But whatever the lawman saw in McCluskie’s face sent a shiver through his innards. Just for a moment he met and held the flinty gaze, then his eyes shifted away. He had a sudden premonition that the Irishman would kill him where he stood if he so much as twitched his finger.
“Another time, mebbe. When we ain’t got all this money to keep watch on.” Hazeltine’s eyes seemed to look everywhere but at the three men. “Guess I’ll mosey down and see if Newt’s got any word over the wire. Wouldn’t surprise me if he knows more about that train than the whole bunch of us.”
The deputy walked off as if he hadn’t a care in the world. But his knees somehow seemed out of joint, and when he tugged at the brim of his hat, there was a slight tremor to his hand. Spivey and Muse stared after him in pop-eyed befuddlement. They had seen it, but they couldn’t quite believe it. Tonk Hazeltine with his tail between his legs. It shook them right down to the quick.
Randolph Muse was the first to recover his wits. “Mr. McCluskie, if I wasn’t standing here, I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that such a thing could never happen.”
“Me too,” Spivey agreed. “Beats anything I ever heard tell of. Why, I would’ve bet every nickel I own there wasn’t nothin’ that could make Hazeltine eat dirt.”
McCluskie started building another smoke. “Yeah, it’s queer awright. The way a man’ll lose his starch when his bluff gets called. Interestin’ though.” He licked the paper and twisted one end of the cigarette. “Seein’ which way it’ll fall, I mean.”
The older men digested that in silence and remained quiet for what seemed a long while. McCluskie’s statement, perhaps more than his actions, left them momentarily nonplused. They had seen their share of hardcases since coming west. Cowtowns acted as a lodestone for the rougher element, and the sight of two men carving one another up with knives or blasting away with guns wasn’t any great novelty. But they had never come across anyone exactly like the Irishman. The way he’d goaded Hazeltine was somehow inhuman, cold and calculated with a degree of fatalism that bordered on lunacy. Like a man who teases a rattler just to see if he can leap aside faster than the snake can strike. They had heard about men like that. The kind who had ice water in their veins, and through some quirk of nature, took sport in pitting themselves against danger.
McCluskie was the first one they had ever met, though, and it was a sobering experience.
Presently Judge Muse came out of his funk and remembered his purpose in being there. He tried to keep his voice casual, offhand. “Bob tells me you’re chief of security for the Santa Fe.”
“One handle’s as good as another, I guess.” McCluskie glanced at him, alerted somehow that new cards had just been dealt. “The railroad’s got a habit of pastin’ labels on people.”
“Now that’s passing strange, for a fact.” Muse stared off into the night, reflective, like a dog worrying over a bone.
The Irishman refused the bait. Leaning back against the freight cart, he puffed on his cigarette and said nothing.
After a moment, failing to get a rise out of McCluskie, the judge shook his head and grunted. The act was a good one. He looked for all the world like a man faced with a bothersome little riddle. One that stubbornly resisted a reasonable solution.
“Puzzles always intrigue me, Mr. McCluskie. Just a personal idiosyncrasy, I suppose. But something Bob said struck me as very curious. He told me that neither you nor the Santa Fe had heard about the Wichita & Southwestern.”
“You mean this two-bit railroad somebody’s tryin’ to promote?”
“That’s the one. To be more precise, the men behind it are a certain James Meade and William Grieffenstein. Reputedly, they have connections back east.”
“You sort of lost me on the turn, Judge. What’s a shoestring outfit like that got to do with me or the Santa Fe?”
“Well it does seem strange. That a line as large as the Santa Fe would remain in the dark on an issue this vital. Don’t you agree?”
“Beats me. Course, in a way, you’re talkin’ to the wrong man. The Santa Fe don’t tell me all its secrets, y’know. There’s lots of things the brass keeps to themselves. Most likely they don’t think it’s as vital as you do. Assumin’ they even know.”
“That seems highly improbable. A line between here and Wichita would provide some pretty stiff competition. Unless, of course, the Santa Fe bought it out.”
McCluskie held back hard on a smile. The old reprobate had finally sunk the gaff. He felt Muse’s
bright eyes boring into him, waiting for him to squirm. It was downright pathetic. Especially from a man he’d sized up to be a slick article.
“Judge, much as I hate to admit it, all that high finance is over my head. Just offhand, though, I’d say the Santa Fe has got all the fish it can fry. What with the deadline on pushin’ rails west, they’re stretched pretty thin. Don’t seem likely they’d start worryin’ about some fleaflicker operation out of Wichita.”
Spivey came to life with a sputtered oath. “By damn, there’s nothin’ silly about it to us! It’s just like I told you, Mike. If they ever get that bond issue through, Newton’s gonna dry up and blow away.”
The Irishman pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. “Well, it’s sort of out of my bailiwick, but if I can lend a hand some way, you give a yell. I don’t guess the Santa Fe would object to me helpin’ you folks out. Not with this being division point and all.”
Judge Muse batted his eyes a couple of times on that and started to say something. But as his mouth opened the lonesome wail of a train whistle floated in out of the darkness. The three men looked eastward, and through the night they spotted the distant glow of an engine’s headlamp. The light grew brighter as they watched, and the distinct clack of steel wheels meshing with spiked track drifted in on a light breeze. Then the train loomed up out of the darkness, passing between Hoff’s Grocery and Horner’s Store. A groaning squeal racketed back off the buildings as the engineer throttled down and set the brakes. Like some soot-encrusted dragon, the engine rolled past the station house and ground to a halt, belching steam and smoke and fiery sparks in a final burst of power.
Spivey and the judge stood transfixed, staring at the slat-ribbed cars in aggrieved bewilderment. It was a cattle train.
McCluskie left them open-mouthed and gawking, and walked off toward the caboose. Tonk Hazeltine, trailed by the station master and Ringbone Smith, followed along. Judge Muse and Spivey exchanged baffled frowns and joined the parade. None of them had even the vaguest notion of what was afoot, but they were determined to see the Irishman play out his string.