by Easy Jackson
Rusty stared straight ahead, furious at being so impotent. The masked man paused in front of him, causing Tennie’s heart to bang her ribcage with a series of thuds.
He put down his tote sack and pulled a rolled cigarette from his pocket, placing it between his lips, meanwhile keeping the six-shooter held steady against them.
He removed a match and tossed it into Rusty’s lap. “Here, kid. Light my cigarette.”
Rusty looked at him without expression, but Tennie knew even before he said anything he was going to refuse.
“My stepmother won’t let me play with matches,” Rusty said, staring at him without blinking.
The pause was so long, Tennie’s nails dug into her palm. She tensed, ready to strike if the bandit’s thumb pulled back the hammer on the pistol or if he raised a hand against Rusty.
He began to laugh. “All right, kid. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble.” He picked up his bag and backed up, keeping the gun on them as he headed for the door.
To the shock of all the passengers, Maribel jumped up and ran toward him. “Take me with you!” she cried, hugging him. “Take me with you!”
“Maribel!” Gid hollered, his face white with shock.
The bandit looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?” he said and pulled her roughly from the coach. They joined the other robbers on horseback, Maribel leaping onto the back of the horse of the leader in black pants like she did it every day of her life. The men fired a few shots in the air, making dire threats to anyone who tried to follow them, before turning and galloping away.
“Maribel!” Gid said, hanging his head out the window and hollering. “You’re nothing but a hussy. You hear me? Nothing but a hussy slut! You’re not fit to wipe the mud off Nab’s boots!” He was so outraged, tears were streaming down his face. “Not even fit to clean Nab’s boots.”
Tennie shot up just as Maribel was almost in the piney woods and out of earshot and yelled out the window. “We’ll leave your trunks in New Orleans, Miss Maribel!”
CHAPTER 22
Shock gave way to excitement and pandemonium. The conductor began yelling at the men to come out and help move the logs. Tennie grabbed Badger and asked him if he was all right. He was, but he had wet his pants. She hugged him and told him it didn’t matter.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gid,” Tennie said.
He was enraged, but he said, “They only got the money out of one boot. I still got some in the other, dang that good-for-nothing Maribel.”
“Mr. Gid,” Tennie said, placing a calming hand on his arm. “You were right. She never was fit to wipe the mud from Miss Nab’s boots.”
He sniffed and nodded. “Yeah. Raiford neither, I reckon.”
“I reckon so. Come on. Let’s go outside and hear the damage.”
Hawkshaw and the horses were fine.
“Did you see it, Mr. Hawkshaw?” Lucas asked. “Did you see Miss Maribel riding away with the robbers?”
He mimicked Maribel, clutching Rusty, and saying in a falsetto voice, “Take me with you, handsome! Take me with you!”
They all laughed, except Gid, who had left to help the men roll the logs off the track.
“That’s right, Mr. Hawkshaw,” Tennie teased. “Rusty, Lucas, and I were sitting in that train car just a-praying for a miracle, and what do you know? Angels arrived in the shape of the Daring Dandies.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Hawkshaw said. “I never met anyone so full of bull . . . corn in my life.”
“It was a miracle,” Tennie pronounced. “A plum bona fide miracle.” She thought about teasing him over losing his fiancée but decided not to press her luck.
Dusk was settling when they finally got the tracks cleared. Hawkshaw told Rusty and Lucas it was their turn to ride in the stock car, and they did not object. Tennie felt bad people had lost money, but she heard many of them say they traveled with money pocketed in various places in case of just such an event. She tried to hide her elation at getting rid of Maribel. It didn’t feel like the seemly thing to do.
Gid, once he’d calmed down, was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to know he had been in prison for train robbery, and they promised they wouldn’t tell. Hawkshaw went to his corner of the car looking utterly relieved.
Another argument with the conductor ensued over Esther.
“You can’t leave her out here in the middle of nowhere,” Tennie said. “She can ride with me to New Orleans.”
The conductor didn’t like it, and Tennie got mad. “She can sit by me. And we are not greasing your palm a second time to let her do it.”
Her frankness infuriated the conductor, but he held his temper. “All right, but see to it she sits by the window, next to you and away from everybody.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Tennie agreed. “Come on, Miss Esther.”
Tennie was glad she didn’t expect any gratitude from Esther, because she didn’t get any. Esther sat looking straight ahead in stony silence.
Once the excitement of the robbery wore off, and people quieted down, Tennie asked her what she wanted to do. “You can stay in New Orleans or go on to Texas with us. Or we can put you on a train back home.”
“Can’t go back,” Esther said through tight lips, still not looking at Tennie. “Dang fool Beauregard will renege on his word if I’s go back. Don’t want to go to that heathen Texas. I got people in New Orleans.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Tennie asked.
Esther nodded, again repeating she had people there. She didn’t invite further conversation, and Tennie didn’t try to press anything else out of her.
When it grew dark, Esther got up without comment when Tennie asked her so she could put the seats down. She arranged the blankets as she had the night before, telling Esther to take her place by the window. Esther threw her a brief hard stare but did as she asked, and the two of them shared a makeshift bed.
Tennie couldn’t sleep, and she knew Esther was awake, too. “I guess I’ll have to write Mr. Beauregard and tell him Miss Maribel decided to stay in Mississippi with some new friends she made,” Tennie said, talking low so as not to disturb the rest of the passengers.
Esther waited a minute or two before replying. “Better send the letter to Miss Helen, and let her break it to him.”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” Tennie said.
Esther again did not respond right away. “She talked him into it,” she said after a moment or two went by.
Tennie rolled over to look at her. “Talked who into what?”
“Her husband,” Esther said. “She lied and told him Mr. Lafayette seduced her against her will. When all the time she was playing up to Mr. Lafayette so bad he didn’t know if it was his feet touching the ground or the tops of his ears. Crying about how mean her husband was when that man done spoiled her, giving her everything she wanted.”
Tennie took a deep breath. “Are you saying she purposely played it that way hoping Mr. Lafayette would kill her husband just so she could be rid of him?”
“Yes’um, that’s what I’s saying.”
“Oh my,” Tennie said. “Oh dear. I don’t know if I should tell that to Mr. Lafayette or not. He thinks they just had a tragic love affair that went wrong.”
“Wasn’t no love on her part. She didn’t know people was going to turn against her, making her stay in the mourning the rest of her life. And her having them fancy clothes made up on the sly and prancing around in her room at night, drinking and playing with herself,” Esther said, making a spitting sound.
“Good heavens,” Tennie said, hardly knowing how to take any of it.
“That man she run off with, he gonna knock her around to kingdom come. You see the way he shove her off this here train? She gonna get more than she done bargained for with that lowdown scoundrel.” Esther said with grim satisfaction.
Tennie made a noncommittal reply, feeling guilty for being so happy to be rid of Maribel when Esther’s words of prophecy were ringing so true in her ears.<
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They ceased their whispering, and the silence of the passengers, the repetitive noises the train made, and the weariness that comes after excitement soon had Tennie in a deep sleep.
She dreamed of Wash. He appeared, his face so near hers, smiling and full of tenderness. The waves of pure love emanating from him flooded over her. A stab of grief shot through her—that she had ever allowed thoughts of her own unworthiness to come between them appalled her. But in the dream, she put down every negative fear to delight in his love and happiness, returning it with her own.
Tennie opened her eyes. She was back in the noisy railcar with snoring passengers breathing in sooty smoke, but the deep emotion she’d experienced while sleeping stayed with her. It was some minutes before she realized the scar Wash bore across his lips from a violent sword fight had been missing. She thought perhaps she had dreamed of the true Wash, shorn of everything that did not matter. She only knew she loved him with all her heart.
She went back to sleep. She thought Esther nudged her once during the night, but she fell back into a deep and dreamless slumber.
* * *
In New Orleans the next morning, hungry and thirsty passengers exited the train. The station again teemed with people, and before Tennie could say good-bye, Esther had disappeared into the crowd. Tennie looked in the direction she had headed and silently wished her good luck.
As the crowd swirled in front of her, Tennie remembered the first warning Hawkshaw had given them about New Orleans. She felt in her pocket for the small purse she carried. As her fingers closed around it, she realized it did not feel right. Pulling it out, she opened it.
“What’s wrong?” Hawkshaw asked.
“Esther stole my money,” Tennie said.
He shook his head in disgust. “Well, you knew what she was like when you insisted she stay on the train.”
“I couldn’t help it,” Tennie said. “We couldn’t just leave her stranded in the middle of nowhere.”
The conductor began calling for people to get back on the train. A Pinkerton agent had arrived and wanted to talk to some of the passengers.
“Quick,” Hawkshaw told Gid. “Take Miss Tennie and the boys to the stock car and stay there.”
Gid didn’t question him, but Tennie did as Hawkshaw began impelling her in the direction of the stock car.
“Because Louisiana people don’t always like Texans, and they especially don’t like the Texas Rangers,” he said in answer to her question. “All we need is for you to start babbling about your Texas Ranger fiancé or for them to find out Gid’s been in prison for train robbery, and we’re liable to never get out of this town. Now just let me do the talking.”
They started up the side steps to the platform at the end of the stock car. “Don’t let anybody in, no matter who they say they are, you hear me?” Hawkshaw ordered. “No matter who. Tell them they’ll have to talk to the owner of the horses later.”
“I do not babble,” Tennie said as she climbed the steps behind Badger.
“Get in there,” Hawkshaw said.
The conductor was yelling, “Hey you, there. Come back here!” at Hawkshaw.
He hollered, “Coming!” at the conductor, and with one last thrust, got them all in the stock car, shutting the door behind them.
The horses began to neigh and paw, knowing something was happening and wanting out of the train car. Gid began to talk in low comforting tones to them.
“How are we going to keep people out?” Tennie said. The big sliding doors could be kept shut from the inside or the outside with metal bolts, but the side door couldn’t be locked.
It opened from the outside in. Rusty took a pitchfork, turned it upside down, and jammed it under the doorknob. He searched until he found a hammer and a flour sack full of nails and pounded the nails around the handle of the pitchfork so it couldn’t be moved.
While Gid and Rusty worked with the horses to keep them calm, Tennie and the younger boys looked between the gaps in the boards and tried to figure out what was going on. When a murder had occurred in front of witnesses in Ring Bit, the U.S. deputy marshal had sent instructions that Tennie was to interview each witness and write down their statements of what happened. But the Pinkertons seemed content to question only a few people. She wondered what Hawkshaw was telling them and decided it was better she not know.
“Look, Miss Tennie,” Lucas said, pointing. “There’s some men coming this way.”
Four men walked toward them, smiling, talking, and seemingly carefree. All had dark hair, some curlier than others, dressed in pants with suspenders over white shirts with rolled-up sleeves. They approached the car, looking entirely harmless and respectable. One of the men stepped forward, his jaunty hat cocked to one side.
“Bonjour!” he called. “Open this here door so we can see your horses.”
“Can’t do it,” Gid hollered back. “Got orders from the owner to keep the door shut.”
“But we are from le commissaire ’s office,” the man said. “We must inspect the horses. We have no desire to make the misere, my friend.”
“Don’t matter whose office you is from,” Gid said. “I ain’t opening that there door for nobody but the owner.”
“But sir,” the Louisianan said, “If you do not let us inspect these horses, we could impound them, and you would be tied up for weeks in paperwork trying to get it straightened out, man.”
Tennie and Rusty looked at Gid. The man outside sounded so friendly and reasonable. Would it hurt to let them inspect the horses? Tennie did not want to spend a minute longer in New Orleans than she had to.
“No can do,” Gid said, taking out his gun.
Lucas had never taken his eyes off the men. Tennie looked between the cracks again. One of the men tried the door. Another walked around the side of the stock car. Tennie stared, the knob turned, but the pitchfork held. Still another tried the other big door in the back.
“I got a gun, and I don’t mind firing it,” Gid said. “I also got a woman and some children in here, so if you was to decide to fire back, that’s who you’d be shooting at.”
“We mean no harm!” the man said, looking truly contrite.
“Don’t matter what you mean or what you say,” Gid said. “You ain’t getting in here without risking a hole in your stomach. And I’ll be warning you, the owner of these here horses will be back directly, and he is mighty handy with a Colt revolver. One of them new ones. The ones with the big bullets.”
The men outside huddled in a conference then came to a decision.
The man with the cocked hat who had been doing all the talking took a step forward. “Pas mal, my friend. We will return with le commissaire and la police.”
“You do that,” Gid said. “We’ll be here.”
The men left, disappearing into the crowded streets by the station.
Tennie took a deep breath and swallowed. “Mr. Gid?”
“Don’t you worry none, Miss Tennie. They’s all mouth.”
Hawkshaw stayed gone for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time. Tennie kept waiting for the police to arrive, but they never did. Lucas was the first to see Hawkshaw approaching. He and Rusty ran to the door and slid it open. They all began talking at once.
Hawkshaw was not in a good mood. “Get back and hush. Gid, what happened?”
Gid explained.
Hawkshaw let out a mild oath, but dismissed every word spoken by the young men. “The police are going to keep Maribel’s trunks at the station in hopes she returns with one of the robbers to fetch them.” He looked at Tennie. “They congratulated you for being so quick on your feet to think of a way for them to capture the gang leader by yelling that you would leave her things at the station, but I explained you thought you were just being polite.”
“Well, there went my reputation as a fellow law enforcer,” Tennie said, patting her hair.
Hawkshaw didn’t bother to give her a smart reply or even a curse word. “We can’t leave until tomorrow. I found a
decent livery stable just up the street. Word is already getting around that we’re hauling some unusual specimens. I don’t know how people here know stuff so fast, but they do. I’m just darn lucky those train robbers didn’t know what we had.”
He turned to Tennie. “We’ll have to spend the night in the stable with the horses. I need Gid with me, and this town is not a good place for a woman, even one with children, to be roaming around by herself. Will you sleep in the stable with us?”
“Of course,” Tennie said. “As long as we get some good Louisiana food to eat. These people know how to cook, anyway.”
“What about the stock car?” Gid asked. “Is it safe to leave it?”
“I’ve hired some railroad bulls to watch it. We’ll be safer in a public place than we would be stuck out here alone tonight.”
While they waited for the men Hawkshaw hired to arrive, Gid and Rusty left to buy food. By the time they returned, and everybody had eaten their fill, the men Hawkshaw hired showed up, ready to work. Broad shoulders, with wide, thick necks, they looked as mean and tough as any man Tennie had ever seen.
She nodded and said, “Hello,” glad she wasn’t spending the night in the stock car with them.
They unloaded the horses, Hawkshaw and Gid leading the stallions, Tennie and the boys leading the mares. Gid packed their things on the backs of the mares, and as Tennie walked near Hawkshaw on their way to the stable, a thought struck her.
“I’m glad Miss Maribel didn’t have a very high opinion of Gid and Nab’s horses,” she said. “Or those train robbers would have gotten them, too.”
“That’s just now dawning on you, is it?” Hawkshaw said.
“You sure are grouchy, you know that?” Tennie said.
“I’m just trying to get out of New Orleans alive.”
Tennie fell silent, and she didn’t speak anymore until they reached the stables and turned the horses loose in a corral. Even then, she left Hawkshaw alone and concentrated on keeping the boys out trouble. She took one look at the big livery barn and wondered if she had made the right decision by agreeing to sleep in it. They weren’t that far from the Mississippi River, and all she could think of was wharf rats running across her as she tried to sleep. It brought back memories of being kidnapped by the Miltons, and she had to fight an attack of shaky nerves.