The station agent, an elderly gentleman of considerable beard but not much else, approached the counter as they entered. "Good day, gentleman. What can I do for you?"
"Oh, yes, I, um," Wilton took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. The Gentleman thought to intervene, but then he spied a piece of paper and pencil on the counter. He picked up the paper, holding it at arm's length and squinting his eyes. Wilton cleared his throat and began again. "I, uh, I need two tickets for tomorrow's train to—into Livingston if you please … please."
"This your telegram paper?" the Gentleman asked, waving the slip of paper in the air.
Taking his attention from poor stammering Wilton for a moment, the station agent looked up at the Gentleman. "It is indeed, sir."
"Can't see a damned thing up close without my glasses," the Gentleman admitted conversationally, doing his best to stall for Wilton and his scattered thoughts.
"I'm the same way, sir, the same way." Bringing his attention back to Wilton, the station agent asked, "Two for Livingston you say?"
While the station agent and Wilton completed their business, the Gentleman picked up a pencil and began scribbling a quick note. He cupped the paper in his hand, writing against his palm. Twice he scratched out what he'd written and started again before finally perfecting his short message.
Taking his tickets from the agent, a thought occurred to Wilton. "Oh!" He fished a carefully folded letter from his breast pocket, offering it to the station agent. "I also have a letter here I wanted to mail if it's not too much trouble."
"What're you mailin', Wil?" the Gentleman asked.
Wilton flushed. "Just a letter. I penned it last night before we bedded down."
"No trouble at all, no trouble at all," the station agent cum postmaster said. He took the letter and pulled a small pair of glasses from his breast pocket to read its destination. "Says here it's bound for St. Louis?"
"That's right."
"That'll be two cents." Wilton held up his coins and offered them to the station agent, who took the change and pulled out a drawer behind the counter to find a stamp for Wilton's precious letter. "I thank you," the agent said.
"No, thank you." Wilton turned to leave, relief apparent on his face as he waited for the Gentleman at the door. The Gentleman waved him on with a smile.
"Be there in a minute, Wil. Got my own little piece of business to attend to." As Wilton stepped outside, the Gentleman turned back to the station agent, offering him a folded telegram sheet. "Would you mind sending this just as soon as you're physically able?"
The agent took the sheet and unfolded it, a ten dollar bill lying over the message. He lifted the bill and, taking his glasses once more from his pocket, scanned the message that had been covered beneath. His mouth dropped open, and he looked up at the Gentleman with wide eyes.
The Gentleman smiled, tipped his hat, and headed for the door. "Much obliged, sir." Wilton was waiting for him on the depot steps. Like a dog, the Gentleman thought to himself. He smiled at him and clapped an arm around his shoulders. "Who you mailing letters to, Wil?"
Wilton flushed, his cheeks turning pink as if they were sunburnt. "My fiancée, Anna. The girl I told you about? Her father says I won't be able to support her. Ha! Boy, is he wrong! After tomorrow, I'll be able to buy her anything she wants! Isn't that right?"
The Gentleman patted Wilton's back. "Oh, you'll be living in a big house before long, that's for sure."
"I've got her photo right here if you'd like to see her." He took the photo card from his breast pocket, holding it up with pride. A girl with dark, ringlet hair stared off to the right side of the photo with a soft, angelic glow around her. The Gentleman had to admit she was beautiful: plump with very rounded features, almost cherub-like.
"That your girl?" he asked in wonderment.
"Oh, yes. That's my Anna."
"She's a looker, Wilton. What're you doin' ridin' with us when you've got somethin' like that waitin' on you at home?"
Wilton laughed nervously.
Making their way back to the hitching post where they'd left McCoy and his boy, they found them arguing in hushed tones. Or, more accurately, McCoy spoke in an agitated, harsh whisper while Elliot made the occasional one- or two-syllable reply, short sounds that fell on deaf ears. McCoy turned to the Gentleman as he came back into view, spat tobacco at his feet, and slowly drawled, "I still don't see why you ain't ridin' the train, too."
The Gentleman shook his boot but found the sticky mess too thick to shake off. "Because I'm a wanted man, McCoy. You boys knew me the minute I walked into that saloon back in Lovell. You think they'll so much as let me near a train?"
"I ain't leavin' my boy with you."
"Look." The Gentleman spoke slowly and firmly. "It'll take more than one man to run that many horses up along the tracks. Wil here is the best man to be on that train because he looks the type that would be ridin' into the park for some sightseein'. From there, it's a simple process of elimination. I'm a wanted criminal who would be shot 'tween the eyes if I ever dared try to so much as board a train. And your poor boy over there would be locked up in quarantine if he were to take one of them coughin' fits of his in a nice passenger car like those. All that leaves is you, McCoy. 'Sides, it'll be good to have your muscle to help talk some of the less cooperative riders into parting with their goods. I'm tellin' ya', this is the way to go."
McCoy set his head back to stare down his nose at the Gentleman.
"And if you don't like it," he continued, "to Hell with you. You can pack up and head back to that dustbowl where I found ya and we'll find some local boy willin' to go along with a plan that could make him a rich man for the rest of his life. Or maybe you'd like to figure out how we could rob a big ol' fancy train like that with only one of us onboard. Kindly ask the driver to stop so that we might rob all his passengers? This ain't some little stage line we're talking about. This is a four man job, minimum.
"Now, you and Wil take your tickets, and you board that train tomorrow morning bright and early. Like I've told you before, the boy and I'll be waiting on the other side of town, 'bout ten miles out, somewhere before Big Timber. We'll ride up along either side of the train with all the horses so you'll be sure to see us. That'll be your signal to start grabbin' everything you can. Either force the train to stop or jump and roll. Once we pick you two boys up, we'll head back toward Red Lodge and make our separate ways from there. Give me twenty-four hours, McCoy, and then you won't have to disagree with my plans anymore and you can go back to doin' whatever the hell it was you were doin' before I met ya."
The Gentleman pulled out his money purse and produced a handful of crumpled bills, handing them to Wilton once more. "Here. This is for a hotel room. I want both of you to look like you belong on that train tomorrow mornin'. Get yourselves cleaned up and rested before you board that train. If they figure you for robbers right off, they'll have a station agent on you like a dog on a bone, you got it? Now McCoy, you and your boy there say your good byes. He and I have to be headin' on towards Livingston or else we'll be the ones missin' the train tomorrow."
McCoy took Elliot by the arm, dragging him alongside a store building to continue speaking with him in the same hushed, harsh tones as before. The Gentleman eyed them narrowly, studying their body language. McCoy was as fierce as any bear he'd ever seen, towering over his prey and using his size to intimidate, used to getting his way and throwing his weight around. Elliot, on the other hand, was again the very picture of a spooked jackrabbit. Small and timid, one false move and he'd bolt, never to be seen again. But under McCoy's gaze? There was nowhere to run.
"You good, Wil?" the Gentleman asked, not taking his eyes off the little scene playing out in the alley.
"'Good' sir?"
"You're not gonna let us down tomorrow, are ya? Get nervous and run off or anything like that?"
"Oh, no." Wilton shook his head. "No, sir."
The Gentleman elbowed Wilton and pointed toward McCoy and Elliot
. "Keep an eye on him and make sure he does the same. I need you both on that train or else this is all for nothin'."
"Yes, sir."
McCoy and Elliot finished their conversation and headed back to where the others stood. McCoy eyed the Gentleman as if to say he knew he'd been watching. The Gentleman clapped Wilton on the shoulder, finally turning to look at him. "You're m' man, Wil. I'd almost say I'm goin' to miss you when this is all over."
"Well!" Wilton's face lit up with delight at the compliment. "Thank you."
"No drinkin' and no whores tonight, okay?" the Gentleman said now that McCoy had rejoined them. "I won't stand for you two to be oversleepin' or fallin' down on the job. Come tomorrow at this time, boys, all our lives are gonna change."
*~*~*
It was an unexpectedly quiet ride out of Laurel. The Gentleman's few attempts at conversation ended in one or two word responses, leaving him wondering what McCoy could have said to Elliot before they'd parted ways to put him in such a dour mood. He decided not to press the issue, keeping his thoughts to himself as they rode along the Yellowstone River heading west.
Once they were out of sight of the houses and farms they'd found near their ten mile cutoff, they set about making camp for the evening. Granting their horses a welcome reprieve, they unloaded their saddles and left them around the fire pit the Gentleman had begun work on. Elliot then led the four horses, McCoy's and Wilton's having been regulated to glorified pack animal status since leaving their riders behind, up the hillside to a patch of green meadow, tying them within lead's reach of a stream rolling down from the mountains to feed into the river below. When he'd finished, he returned to the now-burning fire to watch the Gentleman busy himself with boiling a piece of dried meat in Wilton's borrowed coffee kettle in an attempt to bring it back to edibility. Watching the meat bob and bubble in the water, his knees drawn tightly to his chest, Elliot stated plainly, "I know some of the words to 'Dixie.'"
The Gentleman paused momentarily in his work, taken aback by the sudden break in the silence. He retrieved the can he'd been looking for from the feed sack and pulled his knife from his belt to pop the lid. "Is that right?"
"Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton," Elliot sang flatly, speaking the lines more than trying to put any tune to them. "Old times there are not forgotten." The Gentleman joined in to sing the refrain, "Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land."
The Gentleman smiled. "Not bad. Maybe we'll sing it again sometime." He popped the lid on a jar of pole beans, pouring a small portion into his mug and offering the remainder to Elliot, who took the jar and set it by his feet with his empty mug.
"That's all I know."
A blank look wiped the Gentleman's face of all expression. "Ya know," he said, "I think that's all I know of it, too."
"Really?"
He snorted. "Maybe it's best I don't head back to Virginia. Not knowin' 'Dixie' used to be a hangin' offense." Elliot gave a small smile.
The Gentleman used his knife to poke at his boiling meat, picking it up on the blade to squeeze with bare fingers. "God, that's hot!" He returned the meat to the kettle, removing the kettle from the fire before attempting to cut the tail end of a backstrap in two. "Well, I think I've done all the damage I can do to this pronghorn here. Might as well eat him as is. Put your mug up here." He skewered a chunk of the meat on the end of his knife and slid it into Elliot's mug, warning, "Now watch, it's hot." He put his own mug to his mouth, eating a few beans from it. It wasn't a bad meal. If they'd had a little piece of bread or something the least bit sweet to end it with, that'd be the kicker. He'd have to see what he could find later. He leaned back on the seat of his saddle, for the time being allowing Elliot the full warmth of the space between the fire and the small rise in the landscape they'd found to act as a windbreak. "You wanna start tonight," the Gentleman asked, "or does that count as my first question?" He took a few more beans from his mug, tossing his head back to force them into his mouth.
Elliot knit his thick brows in consideration, worrying over a bite of the backstrap. He finished chewing and swallowed before speaking, something the Gentleman was sure he hadn't learned from McCoy. "What're you going to do with your share of the take?"
"Honestly?" The Gentleman chuckled. "I have so much invested in this job, I don't figure I'll so much as break even in the end. It's just as well. You don't need too much in life to get by. You think McCoy would let you keep your share?" He held up his knife and tore off his own bite of backstrap to worry over.
"I dunno."
"Hm."
"But what if you did make a lot of money off of it? If you had all the money that was on that train, or all the gold in Fourteen Mile City, what would you do with it then?"
"Oh …" The Gentleman set his mug on his chest and scratched his chin in consideration. "Something grand, I 'spect. Buy a big ol' house. Maybe open a saloon."
"I think I'd buy a sheep farm," Elliot said, his heart's desire causing his words to take on an airy quality as he spoke.
"A sheep farm?"
"They're pretty useful, really. You can use their wool to make clothes and all that. They're good eatin'." He spoke dreamily about his grand plan, staring into his nearly empty mug as though he could find his farm somewhere in its depths. "I even saw a guy out t' South Dakota who trained rams to pull a little cart for him. And if they get bull-headed or want to cause trouble, they're small 'nough you can turn 'em over like a calf."
"Hm." The Gentleman watched Elliot with a warm, proud expression. "I had an uncle who raised sheep outside a little town back home called Monterey. I guess he's still there. Like I said, I've not been home for a while. Can't sing 'Dixie' and all that. Maybe you could buy his place."
"You can teach a dog to herd 'em up for you, too. They ain't much bigger than a dog themselves."
"That they ain't," the Gentleman said. "That they ain't …" He finished his meal in silence except for the low roar of the fire. Elliot was apparently lost in his lamb-filled reverie, but he offered no further daydreams of his life as a shepherd. The Gentleman wiped his knife on the inside of his duster and returned it to his belt; then he eyed his empty mug. He pulled the feed sack nearer and began pulling cans and jars out of it to examine in the firelight, holding them out at arm's length to attempt to determine their contents. "You're supposed to keep me out of this," he told Elliot.
Elliot looked up from the jar of beans he'd been pecking at. "You're the one who bought it. I figured you had final say."
The Gentleman smiled. "Smart boy." He found an appropriately colored jar and tossed it across the fire to Elliot, who caught it fumblingly with one hand. "See what you think."
Elliot held the jar to the fire, turning it from side to side to examine it. "Looks like some sorta berries?"
"That's what I was after."
Putting his jar of beans back by his feet, Elliot pulled his own knife from his belt to begin working on the jar's seal. "This isn't eating more than our fair share, is it?"
"Naw. As much money as I gave those two?" The Gentleman continued digging through the sack, hoping to find the remains of a biscuit packed into one of the corners, but he found only crumbs. "They're probably eating better than the King of England himself. It's the least we can do to allow ourselves this little pleasure."
The lid popped with a satisfying gasp, part of the loose contents spilling onto Elliot's hand, which he licked at unabashedly. He made to hand the jar back to the Gentleman, but before he could, the Gentleman spoke up. "No, get yourself some first."
Obediently, Elliot poured a small pile of the huckleberries into his mug and then passed them along. A pale violet stain lingered on his hand even after the berries and their syrupy liquid had been lapped up. "Wish we had something to put it on," Elliot lamented.
The Gentleman took the jar and poured his own sampling into his mug. "Should have saved some of those biscuits you liked so much." Elliot flushed slightly, a hint of pink creeping across the tops of his cheeks. "Ah well,
save some of it for later. I'm sure we'll find something." He tipped his mug back, savoring the twang of both bitter and sweet as he took only a few of the fruits into his mouth at any time. "It's my turn, isn't it?" Elliot nodded, and he set his thoughts to questions. With nothing but food on his mind, he asked, "Wha'd'ya want for breakfast in the morning?"
"Apple pie," Elliot replied through a mouth full of berries.
The Gentleman rolled with laughter, letting the sound carry as far and wide as it pleased without the other two around. When he finished, his stomach ached and he had to catch his breath. He even pulled his silk handkerchief from around his neck to wipe the tears that had formed at the crows-footed corners of his eyes. Elliot looked quite proud of his accomplishment. "Apple pie," the Gentleman muttered to himself and chuckled lightly. "That's a good one." He stood and walked over to sit beside Elliot; the night air beginning to chill, he longed for the warmth of the fire. He shook his duster off one arm at a time, keeping his mug of berries held tightly in the other, and offered it to Elliot. Elliot wrapped the coat around his shoulders once more, and after the Gentleman had sat, Elliot rested his head on his shoulder.
The Gentleman chuckled again before taking another mouthful from his mug. "Apple pie."
Biting his lower lip, Elliot ran a finger around the lip of his mug. "When this is over," he began, hesitating before continuing, "do you think maybe I could take up with you? Ride with you, I mean?"
The light in the Gentleman's smile changed. The mischief and humor that had held sway over his expression softened and grew warm as a tenderness overcame him. "Truth be told, that was my intention. Though it might not be all you think it'll be; it ain't all campin' out under the stars, plottin' train robberies and playin' the bad guy, ya know."
"Anything's better than Lee."
"Lee?"
"McCoy," Elliot said. For the first time, his even tone turned sharp as he mentioned him. He continued slowly, "He killed my dad, back when I was little. Did it right in front of me. Even made me watch. He's terrible … Mean …"
"You ever try to run away?"
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