Iron Cloud fixed on a photo of Joe LeFors, the man who had famously gotten the murder confession from Tom Horn and been responsible for running Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid all the way to South America. “Was it tougher back then?”
“I wouldn’t know—LeFors died in 1940; I’m old, but not that old.”
He smiled. “No, I mean when you started working for Lucian.” He looked back at the old sheriff and Doolittle Raider still holding forth. “Being a deputy couldn’t have been easy with that old coot.”
“He wasn’t old then.” I shook my head. “And he was a good teacher. I was going through a lot of stuff when I got back from the war, and he was patient with me.”
“Jeez, Walt, you’re one of the most patient people I know.”
“Didn’t used to be.” Vic studied me as I sipped my beer. Joe’s attention, however, was over my right shoulder.
“Is that the Star?”
I turned and looked up at an old 8×10 color photograph, overexposed in the sunlight. Twenty-five armed men in cowboy hats and gun belts were standing on the platform beside a locomotive. “No.”
He sat up a bit in an attempt to get a better look. “Shit, that is it—that’s Wyoming’s The Western Star.” He called to some of the other men, interrupting Lucian’s story. “Hey guys, look at this.”
They moved en masse toward the piano and peered at the photo behind me as I sipped my beer. Lucian had turned his stool and was watching me, but I ignored all of them and started playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, a relatively unknown piece.
Vic reached up, pulled the framed photo from the wall for a closer look before handing it to Joe, then let her tarnished gold eyes settle on me.
“Guys, this is The Western Star, the sheriffs’ train that they ran from 1948 to 1972.” He nodded his head in recognition.
“No, it’s not.”
They all turned to look at Lucian as he hefted himself off his stool and approached us, a little unsteady. “The Star was steam; that’s a diesel, you pups. Some pecker head from the Cheyenne Tribune-Eagle had us all stand in front of that locomotive for the photograph because he was in a hurry and didn’t want to wait till they could pull the real Star out of the Union Pacific roundhouse.”
“Is that you, Lucian?” Joe asked.
He smiled a lopsided smile as he studied the photograph. “Front and center—that was ’72, which turned out to be my first year as president of the Wyoming Sheriffs’ Association.” Lucian nodded and poked a finger like a truncheon onto the glass with a snapping sound. “Yep, and you might recognize that big son of a bitch on the end there.”
Joe turned the frame toward me. “Is that you, Walt?”
The man on the far left was big with his hat pulled down low and his muscled arms folded over his chest. He was the only one looking to his right at something not in the frame. If the camera had been closer, you might’ve seen the grimace, but only I knew it was there because I remembered.
Joe held the photo out for a moment more, I guess in the hopes that I might say something, but I didn’t. Then he turned it back toward himself. “Twenty-four armed sheriffs on a train.”
Vic continued to study me. “And one deputy.”
I glanced first at Lucian and then at Vic, as I shifted into playing the old spiritual “This Train” on the piano. “When we started.”
—
“Trouble with that new wife of yours?”
I turned around and looked down at my boss and quickly dropped the ring I was holding into the pocket of my jeans. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
He studied me for a moment and then snorted, shook his head, and walked away.
I followed him as he codgered through the crowd of other sheriffs and their families on the loading platform outside the Union Pacific depot in Cheyenne. It was 1972, and I was going for a ride on a steam train. Not for the first time in the two weeks I’d been under Connelly’s employ, I thought about shooting myself in the foot to get out of it.
I glanced back but couldn’t see her, which was too bad, her backside being my second favorite view. I tried to remember what had set us off this time but couldn’t come up with it—all I did know was the way it had ended: her wedding ring in my pocket.
Standing there as Sheriff Connelly talked with everyone on the platform, I studied on the fact that Martha had made the trip down here from Durant to see me off, even after I’d asked her not to. I’d explained that we were going to be gone for only a couple of days and that I wasn’t even leaving the state, but she’d driven down in my friend Henry Standing Bear’s Baltic blue ’59 Thunderbird convertible to see me off—and now she was gone, in more ways than one.
Four months ago, she’d flown up to Anchorage, where I’d been working. I’d proposed to her in the Paris Club, and we were married three days later. We’d gone back to the hotel and celebrated in the grand style that had resulted in her pregnancy, a condition neither of us was ready for. By the time I’d gotten back to Wyoming a couple of months later, I had a wife, a child upcoming, and less than four hundred dollars in the bank, so I’d taken the job as a newly minted deputy of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department. Two weeks later I had no wife, not much of a family, and even less in my bank account, and was having serious doubts about my choice of vocation.
“Did you get him at the sale barn?”
I glanced down at the man now standing with Sheriff Connelly. “Walt, this is Wally Finlay, the sheriff over in Niobrara County.”
The older cowboy, who had massive silver eyebrows and a drooping mustache, stuck out his hand. I shook it, and he turned to my boss. “I hope you didn’t have to pay by the pound for him.”
I thought maybe I could find her. “Excuse me.”
Sheriff Connelly called after me. “Where are you going—the damn train is leaving here in a few minutes.”
I pushed open the double glass doors, and stepped into the depot, but she wasn’t there. I walked past the ticket counter and a couple of long wooden benches where a few individuals loitered, one napping with a newspaper over his face. I exited on the street side of the building just in time to see Henry’s Thunderbird disappear around the corner.
“Well, hell.”
I stood there in the crisp autumn air and thought about just leaving, hopping a cab to the airport or setting out onto the open road to see if I could find her. I was antsy and indecisive, and I wasn’t even sure if Wyoming was where I wanted to be anymore.
There was a bar across the street, but I decided I didn’t want that, at least not yet. Walking back inside the depot, I veered in the direction of the newsstand and bought a roll of Reed’s root beer candies and a paperback. Ever since I’d gotten back from Vietnam, I treated the company of books like life preservers.
I paid the old guy and stood there, trying to decide if I was getting on this train after all.
Stuffing the book under my arm, I sat on the bench near the man who was sleeping, peeled off a candy, unwrapped it, and popped it in my mouth. Pulling the ring from my pocket, I contemplated the diminutive diamond flanked by two chips, but ended up looking at the chemical burns on my left hand.
“You gonna eat all them yourself?”
I tucked the ring back in my pocket and glanced over, noticing that the drifter had pulled the paper from his face and was looking at me. He was incredibly thin, with a multitude of wrinkles around his eyes and about a three-day gray beard—he had only one arm, his left. “Probably.”
He continued to stare at me. “It’d be gracious of you to give one up.”
Not in the mood, I tried to brush him off. “Get a job.”
“Got one.”
It was odd, but he didn’t seem intimidated by my gun belt or badge. “Sleeping at the train station?”
“Sometimes.” He swung his legs around, placing his boots on t
he tile floor, and folded his newspaper with the one hand. “She sure had it figured out, didn’t she?”
I glanced at the door and then back to him. “Excuse me?”
“Your book. Agatha Christie, is it?”
I looked at the cover. “Um, yep.”
I’d barely looked at the title, let alone the author’s name, when I bought it.
“There are only so many permutations—he did it, she did it, nobody did it, or they all did it.” He set a pinch-front Stetson that had seen better days back on his thinning hair. “You read that book yet?”
“No.”
He stood and dusted off his gray slacks with the newspaper and straightened a suit jacket with one elbow worn to a thin shine. “Well, look me up when you finish it and we’ll talk.”
I ignored him and glanced at the platform.
“Taking a train?”
I looked at the cover, trying to get past the fact that a bum had just used the word “permutation”—things sure had changed since I’d been away. “No.”
He walked into my line of sight and stood there with his back to me, watching the locomotive as it pulled away. “Never seen a train I didn’t want to be on.”
I nodded and stood. “Well, if you’re going to jump the next one you’d better do it outside of town, but I’d advise against it.”
“Why’s that?”
“The Western Star—it’s the sheriffs’ association junket—goes to Evanston and back once a year.”
“A sheriffs’ train, huh?”
“Yep.”
He studied me. “You a sheriff?”
“Deputy.”
“How come you’re not getting on it?”
“You ask a lot of questions for a guy who sleeps in train stations.”
“Asking questions is how you get answers, Deputy,” he said with a slight smile. Figuring I wasn’t going to give up a candy, he strolled off toward the public restrooms.
I watched him go, then started off to the platform, pushing my way through the heavy glass doors and back out into the crowd of Wyoming law enforcement.
The bum had a point about trains. I was in a mood to travel, and why not have the sheriffs’ association pay my way across Wyoming? What the hell, I could always take the train to Evanston, get off there, and just keep heading west, jump a tramp steamer, reenlist in the Corps. . . . The options were endless.
“Walt, get over here. I want to introduce you to some fellas.”
I went over to where Sheriff Connelly was standing, along with two other men in gun belts and hats. The men were both large, so at least I didn’t have to worry about being looked over like I was a prize steer. “Howdy.”
Lucian did the introductions. “This is Bo Brown out of Natrona County.”
He was the older of the two, with a big, open, farmer face and sad eyes, and was wearing a broad-brimmed hat and an Indian blanket coat. “Hey, so you’re Lucian’s new whipping boy, huh?”
“And this is George McKay from down here in Laramie County.”
The other man stepped forward with a slight smirk on his face and a great deal of assurance in his eyes. I’d seen the type numerous times, good ol’ boys who were never satisfied unless they were bending rules or breaking heads. He was almost my size with maybe a little more weight on him, and he gripped my hand like a hydraulic press.
I studied his fringed jacket and pencil-roll hat, stylish for a thug.
“Lucian says you were some kind of big Marine detective over there; you find out who shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand?”
“We think it might be a member of Young Bosnia or an affiliate of the Black Hand.”
McKay nodded, smiling at Sheriffs Connelly and Brown. “Well, he’s not just big, but well read, too.”
An odd-looking woman with an extravagant ash-blond hairdo and dressed in a striped pantsuit squeezed in and took his arm. “George, those hateful men over there say I can bring only two bags on the train, and there’s no way I can be gone for that long without all my things.” Then she glanced up at me. “Well, hello.”
I slipped my hat off, the paperback, which I still had under my arm, dropping onto the concrete as I did.
Brown scooped it up as the woman studied me and in a husky voice asked, “And who are you?”
“Longmire, Walt Longmire, ma’am.”
She glanced back at McKay. “Did you see that, George, the way he took off his hat? Now, that’s how a gentleman treats a lady.” She started off but not before giving me a wink. “See you later, handsome.”
“Don’t worry, youngster, you won’t have to take off your hat again—not too many ladies on this train.” He looked at my boss. “Right, Lucian?”
He went after her, and we watched as the couple made their way through the crowd, McKay looking like a pulling guard, the woman wobbling on high heels as they went off to give the porters hell.
Brown handed me my copy of Murder on the Orient Express. “Studyin’ up?”
“No, I just needed something to read.”
He glanced around. “You’ll have to meet Leeland. I think he’s read every damn book that’s ever been printed.”
Lucian looked up at me. “Sheriff of Uinta County and the current president of the Wyoming Sheriffs’ Association.” He gestured around us. “This is kind of his going-away party.”
I nodded. “What did that fellow McKay mean about not meeting any ladies on the train?”
“I’ll see you fellas on board.” Sheriff Brown seemed embarrassed and quickly departed.
“I say something wrong?”
“Nope.” Pulling a pipe and a beaded leather tobacco pouch from his jacket, he walked toward the rails. “When we first started running the Star back in ’48, it was just a sheriff from each county, but then some of ’em started complainin’ about how they wanted to bring either their wives or undersheriffs—so we loosened up the rules and started letting each sheriff bring a guest.” He stuffed his pipe, clamped the stem between his teeth, and returned the pouch to his pocket. “Well, one thing led to another, and pretty soon some of the fellows started showing up with women that they weren’t particularly married to.”
“Oh.” I glanced back down the platform. “Am I to take it then that the woman with Sheriff McKay is not Mrs. McKay?”
He struck a match and puffed on his pipe, getting it started. “You are to take that, yes.”
“What about you?”
He froze for a second and then glanced at me with one of those mahogany irises of his. “What about me?”
“You ever bring any female guests?”
He puffed on his pipe some more and then blew out the flame, flicking the dead match onto the cinder bed of the gleaming rails. “If I did, it wouldn’t be any of your business, now, would it, Troop?”
I smiled at my boots. “I suppose not.”
He smoked his pipe. “I gotta go say hello to more of these fearless lawmen. . . . You wanna join me or have you had enough?”
I took out another Reed’s candy. “I think I’ll pass. I figure I can meet the rest of them on the train. When does it get here, anyway?”
“They’re pulling it up from the side rail, and it’ll be any minute.”
I looked at my wristwatch. “Should I go get our bags?”
“Already had the porter deposit ’em on the train, and then it’ll be your job to get ’em to our cabin. Now, normally I always take the bottom bunk, but I don’t want to chance that you might collapse yours and land on top of me, so just this once I’ll take the upper and you can have the lower.” He turned to walk away but then hesitated. “You don’t snore, do you?”
“No.”
“Good, ’cause I do, and I don’t need competition.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me which car we’re in?”
He smil
ed. “You can’t miss it; the coaches are divided into Wyoming mountain ranges—the Laramie, the Medicine Bow, the Absaroka, the Wind River . . .”
I called after him. “Which one are we?”
“The Bighorn, of course!” He disappeared into the crowd, and I looked for somewhere to sit. A little ways down the platform, I spotted another wooden bench, only to see the same one-armed vagrant who had been sleeping inside now sitting there, reading his paper.
Thinking I’d do a little fence mending, I walked over and sat beside him. “Hey, um . . . I just wanted to say I was sorry for the way I acted a few moments ago.”
He looked up from his article on the president’s reelection. “Oh, that’s all right. I figured it had something to do with that girl you were chasing after.” I remained silent, and he gestured with the paper. “Can you believe we’re stuck with this sad sack for another four years?”
I held the roll of candies out to him, and he looked at me for a moment before taking one. “Mmm . . . root beer. You know, I met Eisenhower one time.”
I decided to play along. “Really?”
“Yes, and he told me he wasn’t the one that chose Nixon as his running mate back in ’52, that it was one of those smoke-filled backroom deals in Chicago. I guess he softened to him after their kids got married, but when I met Ike, he said he wouldn’t hire that man to serve drinks at a party, let alone be vice president of the United States.”
There was a thunderous noise, and the ground shook.
The vagabond stood and looked down the rails. “Well, son, here’s your train.”
I followed him toward the tracks to take in the spectacle.
As you begin your life there is something that attends you, something that will be an image of yourself and will meet you somewhere in that journey. It can take many forms, but for me, I will always remember mine as an FEF-3 class, 844 “Northern,” the Union Pacific’s oldest serving engine and the only steam-powered locomotive that held the distinction of never having been retired from a North American Class 1 railroad.
The Western Star Page 2