Blood Ties

by Quincy J. Allen

“That fella all in black from the poker game,” Jake added.

  “Aw shit,” Tyler said, knowing from even the brief encounter that Ghiss was a dangerous man.

  “You don’t miss much,” Jake said, smiling. “He’d be a handful if he decided to cause a fuss, but like I said, there ain’t no proof. Leastways, not yet.”

  “I’ll have some of my boys ask around, check with the passengers, see if they saw him doing anything suspicious. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “I sure as hell hope so,” Jake said, “and there may be one other person to look into.”

  “Who’s that?” Tyler asked.

  “Don’t know her name, but I know she got on board in Denver. Tall woman in a maroon dress … worn a veil both times I seen her. And she was in the salon just before the ruckus with the cowboy.”

  “I’ll look into that, too,” Tyler said.

  “She may have nothing to do with it, but we did see her talking to Ghiss when we came up from the cargo hold.” Cole added.

  “Yep.” Jake scratched the back of his head again. “Damn, I wish I knew what the hell was going on?” he added and punctuated it with a yawn.

  “You and me both,” Tyler agreed. “Get some sleep boys. I gotta go make my report to the captain.”

  “Goodnight, Tyler,” Cole said.

  “See ya in the morning,” he replied.

  Tyler walked back through the door to the crew’s quarters while Cole and Jake headed back to their own cabin.

  When the door closed behind them, Cole asked, “So, do you really think Ghiss is in on this whole thing.”

  Jake closed his eyes and sighed, dreading the answer he knew he couldn’t avoid. He threw his hat on the peg over his bunk and looked at Cole with a touch of worry in his eyes.

  “Cole, I’d bet my life on it, which means me and old Ghiss are probably gonna have our little showdown one of these days, sooner rather than later.”

  Chapter Thirteen – Morse for Breakfast

  “Some say, ‘Sleep when you’re dead.’ I say, sleep when you can. You never know when you’ll get another chance.”

  ~ Cole McJunkins

  Jake put down Cole’s fountain pen and poured himself another cup of coffee. He had to admit, the fancy writing implement was pretty slick. Mid-afternoon sunlight filled the far half of the dining compartment, and both Jake and Cole were relaxing over a hearty meal. They’d slept most of the day, gotten up, and gone straight to the dining car for chow. Jake actually felt rested, because his dreams of the war and what followed managed to stay away for a change. He chalked it up to being exhausted after a night of mayhem.

  The dining room was mostly empty, with only a few other passengers having afternoon tea. Every one of them stuck their pinky fingers out as they sipped. Jake and Cole, seeing as they’d just gotten up, grabbed heavy breakfasts off of the small, steam-powered trolley that chugged its way slowly around the dining car on a track suspended from the ceiling. From the kitchen it would enter through a small hole in the wall, travel along one side of the car, rise on angled tracks over the doorway, drop back down, and return again to the kitchen. The little train gave off small puffs of steam and a soft hiss-clack as it made its way around the dining room. It trailed a dozen large trays laden with various meals, drinks and, Jake’s favorite—full pots of coffee.

  He grabbed a fresh pot off the trolley and stared down at what he’d written, a perplexed look on his face. He scooped up another spoonful of Spanish grits and eggs, topped off his coffee cup, and chewed thoughtfully. He read over the translation several times, trying to see something in it that made even the slightest bit of sense.

  “So?” Cole asked hopefully, “What’s it say?”

  “Damned if I know,” Jake shook his head and gave up on the notion of piecing it together. He pushed the paper around in front of Cole. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  “I doubt it, but lemme see.” He pulled the page over and set it next to his plate with what remained of his hash, bacon, and eggs. “Um, Jake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I have my twenty back?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jake smiled as he reached into his vest and pulled out a fresh twenty-dollar bill. “Here, I’m gonna hang on to the one you gave me, if that’s okay.”

  “Don’t make me no never mind,” Cole said and slipped the twenty into his vest. Taking another bite of bacon, he read over what Jake had written.

  ZEPPLIN: A*i terminat misiunea?

  RADU: Nimic nu este

  ZEPPLIN: Suntem pe drum. Preg*ti*i-va pentru sosirea nostr*

  “What do the stars mean?” Cole asked.

  “It means that there wasn’t a letter in Morse that matched up, but everything else did.” Jake took a long sip of coffee then leaned back and rubbed his good eye.

  “Sure as hell ain’t English.”

  “Nope,” Jake said, looking out the window at the Nevada desert that stretched out beneath them.

  “Not Spanish neither.”

  “Nope.”

  Cole scooped up some hash, sent it mouthward and chewed thoughtfully. “Well, that one fella, Szilágyi, he was definitely European, and this does look like some sort of language.”

  “Yeah, but which? There’s a lot of countries in Europe,” Jake pointed out unnecessarily.

  “I know. Hell, there’s no way we could figure this out … and we’re assuming that this is actually in a language as it stands. Maybe it’s code,” Cole muttered, exasperated.

  “That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I’ll go ahead and make a copy for Tyler, and maybe we’ll have a chance to ask someone in San Fran. Ain’t gonna waste my time in Carson City, there’s nothing much more than miners, bankers, and whores in that burg.”

  “Never been there,” Cole said, taking a sip of apple juice.

  “You wanna get off and look around during our layover?”

  “Naw … I’ll take your word for it. I’ve seen my fair share of miners and whores, and I ain’t all that interested in bankers.”

  Jake chuckled. “Me neither.”

  “How’s your leg and foot, by the way?”

  “Pretty much all healed up, if healed is the right word.” Jake shook his head. He’d never gotten used to the metal of his arm and legs reforming when they were damaged.

  “That is the damnedest thing.”

  “Yeah. Maggie Mae really did me up right. There’s just a divot left in my foot, and the thigh looks brand new. Almost makes me feel sorry for Ghiss.”

  Cole gave Jake a disapproving frown.

  “I said almost, didn’t I?” Jake added.

  “Did you feel it when the bullets hit?”

  “Usually I feel most of the stuff when it happens, just like if they were flesh and blood.” Jake ran a finger into the tear in his pants and the perfectly mended surface beneath. His finger picked out the engravings as he ran it over the otherwise smooth surface.

  “But does it hurt?” Cole asked, genuinely curious.

  Jake took a sip of coffee and thought about it for a second. “Naw. More of a tingle, almost a sting, like when a really big horsefly latches on to your skin, right before it starts digging. I do feel hot and cold, though, just not as much as I used to,” Jake added.

  “How much hot and cold can you take?”

  “Don’t know. Can’t say they could ever get too cold. Slogged through a blizzard without pants once, and my legs have been on fire before … that was a while back.”

  Cole snorted and almost shot apple juice out of his nose. “On fire?”

  “Yeah. This was back in ’69. Guy by the name of Balleau got out of hand in a bar one night … what did they call him?” Jake rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Oh yeah, Wobblin’ Willie Balleau.”

  Cole nodded. “I heard of him … drunk gunfighter, mean as a snake, I hear.”

  “He was. It started out as a regular bar fight … in Oklahoma somewhere … don’t rightly remember what town. Anyway, I ended up on top of the bar, don
’t ask me why, then one of his buddies cracks me in the knees with a whisky bottle. The thing shatters and soaks my pants with whisky … pretty good stuff … not watered down. It didn’t hurt, but it pissed me off.”

  “I bet,” Cole agreed, smiling.

  “Yeah, well, this guy comes at me with the broken bottle. I managed to grab his wrist with my right. Then I hit him … with the left … really hard.”

  “You hit him with the left?” Cole asked with disbelief. He’d seen Jake’s metal left hand punch through thick boards.

  “Yeah. I’ll tell ya, that boy’s head spun around like a top. I’m pretty sure he was dead before he hit the floor.”

  Cole chuckled and pushed the translation back to Jake so he could make a copy of it. “So what happened next?”

  “Well, ol’ Wobblin’ Willie sees his friend go down in a heap, neck sorta bent the wrong way, and that’s when he pulled his pistol and fired. Lucky for me somebody bumped him as he drew, ’cause his aim was low. The bullet hit my leg and sparked enough to light the whisky on fire.”

  “Holy shit!” Cole blurted.

  “Yeah, I gotta admit, I pretty much panicked. Someone tackled Balleau, so I jumped off the bar, dove out the window, and leapt into a horse trough full of water … lucky for me.”

  “And it didn’t hurt?”

  “Nope … just tingled and itched all over … kinda like skin feels after a sunburn.”

  “So what happened to Balleau?” Cole asked.

  “Well, as I jumped out the window, Judge Mathers stormed into the bar … he was hell on wheels, that one. As I stood there soaking and making sure my block and tackle wasn’t scorched, someone clobbered ol’ Mathers with a chair. He come sailing out the front door and landed in the street, dazed and as wobbly as a new calf. Balleau follows him out and raises his gun. Mathers reached for his, but he was a mile too late.”

  “But I thought Mathers was the one who killed Balleau,” Cole said, eyeing Jake suspiciously.

  “Aw, hell no. Mathers woulda bought it right there. Balleau raised his gun, but my Peacekeeper got there first.” Jake patted the filigreed pistol on his left hip.

  “Lemme get this straight,” Cole said, a trace of disbelief in his voice, “you killed Wobblin’ Willie Balleau.”

  “Sure as I’m standing here,” Jake affirmed seriously. “Mathers didn’t have his gun up and aimed till after Balleau was already laid out.”

  “Really? How’s that possible?” Cole asked. “I read it in the papers.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, Cole, this is how it happened. Everyone comes rushing out of the bar and sees Mathers on the ground with his gun up. They just assume he did the shooting. They raised him up on their shoulders, everybody shouting and cheering on account of Balleau being such a bastard and all, and before Mathers can really say anything, he looks at me, his eyes asking me what to do.”

  “Well, what’d you do?”

  “I shook my head at him and put my finger over my lips. I figured Balleau had enough friends that they’d come looking for me, and I didn’t want that kind of trouble unless there was money in it. Then I went back to my room and put on some pants. The others were burned pretty bad.”

  “Unbelievable!” Cole said.

  “If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’,” Jake added. He took a big mouthful of Spanish grits and turned to the paper in front of him. He had just started scribbling again when Cole spotted Tyler entering the dining room. The big man pulled a thick pair of brass goggles with dark glass inserts off his face and let them dangle around the thick trunk of his neck. He was dressed in cold-weather clothes made of dark brown leather with a tawny lamb’s wool lining. A sheen of perspiration shone on his head as he removed a leather grimwig he’d been wearing backwards.

  “Everything okay, Tyler?” Cole asked.

  “Seems that way. O’Malley and some other men inspected the cargo hold and didn’t find anything out of place. I just made an inspection of the outside of the gondola to make sure them foreigners didn’t do anything to the outside.”

  “Good thinking,” Jake mumbled around his grits. “Did that chaingun do any damage to the envelopes?”

  “Yeah, actually, it did. Ruptured some of the ballast lines and pierced a few of the smaller envelopes.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Well, the engineers have it patched up good enough for now, but Captain Wordsworth is waving off our layover in Carson City and we’re pushing straight through to San Fran so we can get her shipshape. We’ll arrive early in the wee hours of the morning.”

  “Won’t some of the passengers be upset?”

  “No one was getting on or off. It was just a cargo run … textiles and such. We can drop that off on the way back in a few days. Them miners and whores can do without new dresses for a little while longer.” All three men chuckled. Tyler looked down at the paper in front of Jake. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, looking expectantly at the note under Jake’s pen.

  Jake transcribed two more words and then handed over the copy. “Sure is. Don’t make no sense, though.”

  Tyler took the paper and read over the messages. “And you’re sure this is what it says?” He asked, scratching the back of his head.

  “Well, I’m sure that’s what the Morse code letters are, but I can’t say for sure that it was originally done in Morse. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I’ll get this to the captain. I did talk to both Ghiss and the little lady.

  “Ghiss said he was in his cabin the whole time, and there’s no one on board who says otherwise. The lady, her name’s Penelope Kremlin, didn’t talk too much, but she said the same thing … she was in her cabin all night. They both went out when the ruckus started.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  Tyler nodded. “We’re not much better off than when we started, but I agree with you. That Ghiss feller gives me the creeps. If Ghiss ain’t involved, then I’m General Lee.”

  Cole and Jake both laughed.

  “Clearly you are not a fine southern gentleman like the good General,” Cole added in his best southern drawl.

  “No, sir,” Tyler said, bowing, “I am not.”

  “Did you learn anything at all about the woman?” Jake asked, desperate to learn anything he could about her.

  “No, although I got the sense that she’s not quite a lady.”

  “What do you mean? She a workin’ girl or something?” Cole asked.

  “No, no, nothin’ like that.” Tyler thought about it for a few seconds, trying to put it into words. “Well, she seemed awfully young, I suppose, but real sure of herself.”

  “Did she take off the veil?”

  “Nope. But she’s in one of the biggest cabins on board, and she was still wearing that maroon dress,” Tyler added, sounding as if he thought it was important.

  “What do you mean?” Cole said.

  “I think I see …” Jake chimed in. “A fine lady with the money to get one of the nicer cabins would have come with a wardrobe. And it sounds like this little lady seems to have just one dress.”

  “Exactly,” Tyler agreed.

  “Jake, what is it with you and that lady?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said and drank some more coffee. “I can’t figure it. Ain’t never heard of a Penelope Kremlin, and you’d think I’d remember a name like that.”

  “Why don’t you just go introduce yourself?” Cole asked. He nudged Tyler’s shoulder. “Jake claims to be a real lady’s man,” he added.

  “Is that so,” Tyler said, raising an eyebrow and grinning.”

  “Aww … knock it off, Cole,” Jake said, almost blushing. “It ain’t like that.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Cole said, laughing harder.

  “Y’all can kiss my ass,” Jake mumbled, which only sent the men into more fits of laughter.

  “Look,” Tyler finally said after getting hold of himself, “I gotta get going, but thanks for the translation, Jake. I know the captain will appreciate it,
and he did want me to thank you both for your help last night.”

  “Our pleasure, Tyler.” Jake said and held out his hand. “Tell him ‘anytime’,” They shook, and then Tyler shook Cole’s hand before walking back the way he’d come.

  “So, basically, we’re no better off now than when we hauled you back up into the cargo hold, right?”

  “It does appear that way. Although, look on the bright side, we’ll be in San Fran before the sun comes up.”

  “I guess that’s something. So, how do we kill the next twelve hours?”

  “The same way we killed the first eight … a nap and then a poker game.”

  “Fair enough. I just hope it don’t end with gunplay again.”

  “Can’t argue with that. Besides, what are the odds that we’ll run into trouble again?”

  “With you, Jake,” Cole said slowly, “I’d say the odds are pretty good.”

  “I sure as hell wish I could argue with you.”

  “So do I.”

  Jake and Cole finished up their breakfast and headed back to their cabin where they both settled into their bunks.

  “Jake?” Cole asked from underneath the hat keeping out the sunlight.

  “Yeah, Cole?” Jake peered from under his own hat.

  “I been thinking.”

  “’Bout what? San Fran?” Jake asked slowly.

  “Yeah, about how the moment we land there’s a good chance the Tong is gonna be all over us.” he offered casually.

  “I must admit, the thought did cross my mind,” Jake replied a bit worriedly.

  “You thinkin’ we maybe oughta just hole up here, skip the poker game, and get as much sleep as we can before we get there?”

  “Yeah. It may be our last chance for a while if this goes the way I suspect it’s gonna.”

  “Hard to argue with ya,” Cole agreed.

  “Do you really want to? Argue, I mean.”

  “I guess I gotta lay even odds this is a trap, so, no, I don’t think I do,” Jake said, smiling.

  “Good. I was hopin’ you’d see it my way.”

  “I usually do, amigo. I usually do.”

  Chapter Fourteen – Big Trouble in Little China

  “Skeeter has brains and guts to spare. Hell, sometimes it felt like we were working for her.”