To Hell and Beyond

by Mark Henry

  CHAPTER 3

  “What do you mean, pox?” Blake eyed the doctor. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Holier sighed, stroking his gray beard. “I apologize, young man. I suppose I am rambling. Can’t remember the last time I slept.”

  Blake kicked a drift of snow off the peeling wood on the platform and rested his foot there. It took some strain off his aching thigh. “You say someone with smallpox ended up on this train?” He pointed down the empty tracks.

  “It does appear that way.” Holier shrugged. “His three friends have already broken out into sores. That’s why you have to stop the train. Smallpox carries a hell of a lot of pain with it once the sores come. Double you over like an ax in the belly. Usually puts a body in bed straightaway. But if this fellow’s able to move around by train, he could infect countless people who get on and off before anyone figures out what’s going on. This could be the beginning of an epidemic.”

  The gravity of the situation hit Blake like a cold slap. As far as he knew, neither his mother or father had ever been exposed to full-blown smallpox. Many people in the West had had it in one form or another, but there were just as many who hadn’t. One thing he knew for sure—when an Indian was exposed, the outcome was usually a horrific death.

  “And the lines are down?” Blake looked up at the gray sky. It still sifted a steady powder of snow.

  “Completely cut off, that’s what we are,” Holier said.

  Blake climbed back into the saddle and tugged his hat down against the wind. “If anyone is able to get the lines repaired, get word to Coeur d’Alene to stop them. Use the Army out of Spokane if they have to, but keep everyone on board that train. I’ll ride until I can either catch them or find a place to send the same message.”

  Blake tipped his head to the grim-faced doctor and spurred his Appaloosa into the snow. The news he carried for his father still weighed heavy on his mind.

  CHAPTER 4

  Raucous laughter erupted from outside and the door behind Trap swung open with a gust of cold air. Clay Madsen had his silver-belly hat thrown back in his normally rakish manner. He gestured high over his head with both hands and lowered his voice to finish his bawdy story as he came into the dining car behind the conductor.

  Cold and laughter pinked both men’s cheeks. Madsen smoothed the corners of his thick, chocolate mustache and wiped his eyes. Tears rolled down the conductor’s round face.

  “No need to stand on my account.” Madsen nodded at Trap when he came up alongside the table. The big man’s presence calmed O’Shannon, but not much.

  Birdie Baker piped up like a pestered wren when she spied the conductor. His smiling face fell at once.

  “I am so glad you arrived when you did,” she keened.

  “How can I help you, Mrs. Baker?” The conductor motioned an addled Sidney back to the cook car with a flick of his thick fingers.

  “I assume there are two dining cars on board this train.”

  The conductor nodded. “That’s right, one to the fore of the cook car and one behind it.”

  “Would not the Jim Crow dining car be up front?” Baker folded her arms across her chest, barely containing her huff.

  It was the custom of the railroad to put higher-class patrons in the cars further away from the ash and smoke of the engine. The dining car behind the cook car was usually considered preferable and reserved for the upper crust. Negroes, Indians, and other “undesirables” were supposed to use the forward car.

  “I reckon it would, ma’am,” the conductor said. “But the windows are busted out on the forward cars on account of an avalanche last week. There’s no one riding up there on this trip.”

  “The railroad’s broken windows are none of my concern. I have the right to take my breakfast without the presence of a filthy red savage nearby.”

  O’Shannon fought back the urge to stomp across the car and keep stomping. He seethed inside, but beating on women, even rude ones, gave him pause.

  Clay let out a deep breath and shot a sideways wink at Trap. The big cowboy took off his hat and moved up next to the conductor.

  “I see your predicament, dear lady,” he said, giving a slight bow. “To tell you the truth, I was a mite surprised to see these folks here as well.”

  The conductor’s mouth fell open.

  “At last, a man who understands the laws of common decency,” Birdie sighed.

  “Perhaps I can be of service to you somehow in this”—Madsen shot a glance over his shoulder at Trap, who remained standing with clenched fists—“delicate matter.”

  “I’d be grateful for any assistance you could offer, sir,” Birdie said, turning her hooked beak up at the conductor. “The railroad appears to have its priorities askew.”

  Clay nodded. His deep voice was soft and honey-sweet. “Here’s what I propose. If the company in this particular dining car upsets your tender digestion, may I suggest you take your fat caboose back to your own compartment and have your meals delivered—or better yet, skip a meal or two entirely? Looks like it might do you some good.”

  He smiled to let the words sink in and twirled the handlebars of his dark mustache. “If you continue to speak rudely to my friends, I’ll be compelled to pitch your broad ass off this train.” He turned again and tipped his hat toward the O’Shannons. “Forgive the language, Maggie darlin’, but I fear this woman will only respond to the harshest words.”

  Birdie blustered and looked to the conductor for help. He offered none.

  “Well,” she harrumphed. “Never in my life have I been subjected to this sort of . . .”

  Clay cut her off. “Ma’am.” He shook his head. “I believe we’re done. I’m about to buy my friends breakfast. If you aim to perch here any longer, you best keep your pie hole shut.”

  “I must advise you that my husband is the postmaster of Dillon, Montana, and you, sir, shall hear from him on this matter.” Birdie pushed her chair back and strode for the doorway.

  “The postmaster, huh?” Clay shrugged. “Well, that’s damned lucky. If he talks like you, I’ll give him the whippin’ he deserves, put a stamp on his ass, and mail him straight back to Dillon, Montana. I find it’s a hell of a lot easier to deal with rude menfolk.”

  Clay sat down next to Maggie and tipped back his hat to reveal a forelock of dark hair.

  A blond woman in a red shawl and with a matching smile on full lips came in as a fuming Birdie Baker left the swaying dining car. Her tea-green eyes fell straight on Clay and the smile became more animated. She was tall and lean with a strong jaw. Flaxen hair hung in loose curls at her broad shoulders, and a healthy crop of freckles splashed across the bridge of a button nose.

  “I’ d have been here sooner but there’s a man in the next car looks like he’s about to throw up on somebody. I was afraid to pass him until he sat down.” She was in her early forties—just a few years younger than Clay and vibrant enough to make the air around her buzz. Clay and Trap both stood.

  “This man, what did he look like?” The conductor shot a worried glance at the door. “I’ve had two reports about him already.”

  The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. My age, maybe—a little taller than me, stoop-shouldered. Hard to get a good look at his face because he was so downcast. Look for the man who’s green around the gills. That’s him.”

  “Likely the postmaster of Dillon, Montana, drinking away his troubles at being married to such a”—Clay looked at both the ladies and changed his tack—“awful woman.”

  The conductor tipped his pillbox cap and strode off in search of his troublesome passenger.

  “Have I missed something?” asked the blond woman. “The tension is thick enough in here to cut. Clay dear, did you just tell one of your rough-hewn stories?”

  Clay took off his hat and gave the grinning woman a kiss on the cheek. “Nothing that exciting. That gal with her snoot up in the air is just going to get her husband to come back and have a go at kicking my tail. ” He turned to the O’Shann
ons. “Maggie, Trap, I’d like to introduce you to Hanna Cobb, a schoolteacher who finds herself in between appointments. She has a grown daughter in Phoenix, so I convinced her to accompany us on our little journey with the captain.”

  Trap took off his hat and smiled. It seemed that Clay Madsen could convince just about any woman of just about anything. Maggie reached across the table and offered her hand. “Won’t you join us?”

  Hanna took the seat next to Trap. “Sounds like you were all having another one of your adventures before I came in.”

  Clay scoffed. “I wouldn’t call it much of an adventure. More like a case of prickly heat.”

  “Mr. Madsen has told me so much about the two of you,” Hanna went on. “In fact, that’s one of the reasons I looked forward to coming on this trip, to get to know the both of you better. He said the three of you, along with your poor departed Captain Roman, have quite a history together. Besides . . .” She looked at Maggie with a hint of mischief budding on her full lips. “Mr. Madsen informs me he is a widower many times over. I understand he has the reputation of being quite a scamp between marriages. Perhaps you could speak with me, woman to woman, a little later on that particular matter.”

  Clay raised a beefy hand. “You may ask Maggie anything you want about me, my dear Mrs. Cobb. I admit that I have been a rounder in my time, and may very well continue to be one. But I am honest about it. And if I may say one thing in my own defense, I never once jumped the fence while I was married.”

  Hanna grinned. “Ah, you never jumped the fence, but from what I hear, you were a bull that was all too happy to play with every heifer in the herd when the Good Lord opened the gate between engagements.”

  Trap had to hand it to this Mrs. Cobb. It looked like Madsen had finally met his match.

  Clay took her hand across the table and gazed at her as if she was the only woman in the world, his hat thrown back on his head like a lovesick puppy. “What you say is a fact, my dear. But I do believe I feel that gate swinging shut again.”

  The Widow Cobb narrowed her eyes. “Oh you do, do you?” She withdrew her hand and turned to a smiling Maggie, who sat enjoying the show. “I hear you all met when you were quite young.”

  “I was fourteen.”

  “And you’ve been married how long?”

  “Thirty-two years,” Maggie whispered.

  “Thirty-two years with this little wart?” Clay shot a grin at Trap. “I reckon I’ve known you for all of that but a day or two. I was just tellin’ Hanna how we got started, the three of us. It makes a mighty good story when you think of it. The country was still so fresh back then. . . .”

  Hanna rested both elbows on the table in front of her and leaned her chin on her clasped hands. Her green eyes twinkled and she suddenly looked more like a schoolgirl than a teacher. “I don’t mean to pry, but we have a long trip ahead of us while we wait for that huffy woman’s husband to come challenge Mr. Madsen.”

  Trap chuckled in spite of himself. “The way Clay spins yarns, it would likely be a heck of a lot more interesting than it really was. . . .”

  He stared out frosted window, watched the snowy landscape lumber by—and remembered.

  CHAPTER 5

  April 1878

  Near Lebanon, Missouri

  Patrick “Trap” O’Shannon was about to leave the only woman he’d ever love, except for his mother, before he even met her.

  He slumped in a high-backed wooden chair and stared at the buds on huge white oaks outside the rippled glass of the second-story window. His father, the Right Reverend James B. O’Shannon was a head taller than him, lean and wiry of build with the keen eyes of a boxer. He had a ruddy complexion with thick, sandy hair. More often than not, he showed at least a day’s growth of dark red beard when he became too engrossed in his studies to remember to shave.

  Though in coloring and complexion they were complete opposites, both father and son shared a short button nose and the propensity to grow a heavy beard if left unattended by a razor. They also shared the same intensity, albeit about different things. When he wasn’t doting on his wife, the Reverend O’Shannon spent his days at study of the Scripture and other zealous pursuits in better understanding the ways of God. Trap had inherited a love for the outdoors from his mother, and preferred the woods and what they had to teach to any book or chapel.

  The reverend broke the news in his customary way. A Scots-Irish Presbyterian, he believed a sharp knife cut quickest and always went directly to the meat of the matter. His Apache wife, Hummingbird, was spirited but tenderhearted, so he always followed his direct pronouncements with quiet explanations, allowing room for understanding if not debate.

  The elder O’Shannon sat across from his son in an equally uncomfortable chair, his hands folded across his lap. Trap’s mother once confided that when his father folded his hands in his lap, his mind was made up for good. In all his sixteen years, Trap had never known his father to change his mind once he’d voiced an opinion, so he doubted any hand-folding made much of a difference.

  “It will do your mother good to be nearer her family,” the reverend said. His voice was soft and sure as if he was trying to calm a frightened horse, but his green eyes held the same passionate sparkle they had when he preached. “God wants us in Arizona.”

  Trap had been to Arizona once before when he was very young. He still remembered the oppressive heat and bleak desert. If God sent a person to a desolate piece of ground like that, they must have done something particularly bad to displease Him.

  Trap stood and stepped across the polished hardwood to the window, looking out but seeing nothing. “Is she unhappy here?” He could force no spirit into his words. The thought of leaving behind the rivers and oak forests of Missouri caught hard in the boy’s throat. His mother often walked with him and taught him the ways of her forebears—how to hunt and track and make his way in the woods. He’d always believed she liked it here. It didn’t matter. His father hadn’t called him to the office to ask for his opinion. To James O’Shannon things were as they were, and that was that.

  “No, she is not unhappy,” the reverend said. He moved to the window beside his son. Coach wheels chattered across the stone drive below. “But she could be happier. My duty as a husband is to see to her complete happiness. You’re what now, sixteen? Nearly a man. One day you’ll meet someone—and nothing else in the world will matter. Everything you do, down to the very breath you draw, will be meaningless unless that person is content. . . .”

  Trap’s head felt numb. His father’s words hit his ears but went no further. Arizona was a world away from White Oak Indian Academy and the place where he’d grown up—the place where he thought he would live forever.

  He watched as the door on the newly arrived coach—a refit Army ambulance—opened slowly. Three Indian girls in their early teens stepped timidly onto the drive, a toe at a time, as a doe might enter a clearing from the safety of the dark wood line.

  Four horses of mixed size and heritage pranced in the morning mist, tugging at the harness. The heavyset driver hauled himself out of the seat and climbed down to grab the lead horse, a thick roan, by the headstall. His presence only seemed to irritate the animal, and the entire team began to rock the coach back and forth in an effort to move forward.

  A flicker of movement inside the dark ambulance caught Trap’s eye. A moment later, a fourth girl appeared at the door. She was young, no more than fifteen, but had the sure movements of a woman who’d seen a great deal of life. A loose, fawn-colored skirt covered her feet and made her appear to float in the air.

  All the new arrivals, including the fidgety driver, wore various designs of frock or coat, but not the floating girl. A loose white blouse fell unbuttoned at the neck and hung open enough; Trap could see the bronze lines of her collarbone and the smooth beginnings of young breasts. Despite the morning chill, she’d pushed her long sleeves high on her arms. The garment was an afterthought, something she’d be more comfortable without.

&n
bsp; The horses kept up their jigging fit while the driver continued to make things worse by facing them and shouting. The new girl hopped from the rocking coach and floated up next to him. There was a liquid grace in the way she moved that reminded Trap of a panther. For a moment he wasn’t sure if she intended to melt into the shadowed oaks or pounce on the horses and kill them all.

  The animals knew, and calmed immediately at her presence.

  The big driver cocked his head to one side, scratched his belly under a baggy wool cloak, then walked back to check the brake.

  Vapor blew from the horses’ noses. Steam rose from their backs. The floating girl rubbed the big roan’s forehead. Then, without warning, she turned and looked directly at the window—and Trap.

  Trap felt a sudden knot in his gut. His face flushed and he glanced up to see if his father had noticed.

  The reverend spoke on, his hands clasped behind the small of his back; touching on the varied reasons the move to Arizona was inevitable, sprinkling his discourse as always with liberal points from the Scriptures.

  Trap turned his attention back to the girl. He was at once relieved and disappointed that she was no longer looking at him. She’d calmed the spirited horses, but even from the second-story window, Trap could see there was nothing calm about her. Where the other girls looked small and frightened in their new surroundings, this one looked around the brick and stone buildings of the Indian school as if sizing up an opponent—an enemy she had no doubt that she could beat.

  Thick, black hair flowed past full hips in stark contrast to the bright material of her blouse. Trap felt his mouth go dry. He’d never seen such long hair; so black in the morning light it was almost blue.

  Mrs. Tally, the mistress of girls, waddled out like a redheaded hen to welcome her new charges. She spoke briefly to the driver, then turned her attention to the newcomers, three of whom huddled around the floating girl with the long, blue-black hair.