by David Boop
“Hoity-toity?” said George. “I’ve seen what we’re paying you for this job. You’ve no call to—”
“Whoa, there. I am an employee, Mr. Hoinschauffer. A servant of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which in turn has been hired by South Mountain Mining, Limited. You’ve seen what the agency is getting paid for my services; I get a percentage, is all.”
“How much of a percentage?” asked George, curious.
“Enough to keep me in bad whiskey. Not enough to keep me in good,” said Neilson.
George had little response to this, so the two men sat for a while in silence. Neilson seemed perfectly comfortable with that and motioned to the bartender for another round. George felt increasingly awkward sitting next to Neilson and not conversing.
“So…do you think Lorents is actually coming?” George asked as the bartender refilled Neilson’s glass.
“Ha!” said Neilson. “George, for the last three months Randall Lorents has hit every one of South Mountain Mining’s payrolls. This here is number four. What in the world makes you think he’s going to stop?”
“Well, maybe he knows we hired you to—”
“I sure’s fire hope not!” said Neilson. “The anti-summoner branch of the agency does not like to advertise its activities. George, he don’t know I’m here. And he sure as hell don’t care. Not only is he going to hit this train, I would place five dollars that he does so in the next”—at this, Leonard Neilson pulled a rather nice, if worn, pocket watch from his vest—“three minutes.”
George’s back stiffened, and his eyebrows rose at this sudden pronouncement. “Three minutes!” he said.
“Yup,” said Neilson calmly. “That’s when we’ll be in the Lido Gap. Most likely place for an ambush.” Neilson turned back to the business at hand as George stared at him in disbelief. The tall Pinkerton simply slammed the second glass of whiskey down, offering no further explanation.
“But—shouldn’t you—I mean—three minutes! Shouldn’t you be doing something?” said George. He’d always known the train would get robbed, but the sudden immediacy caused goosebumps along both his arms.
“Like what?” asked Neilson, calmly.
George could not believe the insufferable laziness before him. “Mr. Neilson, your agency is contracted with South Mountain Mining to protect its payroll from Randall Lorents and—”
“No,” said Neilson. His voice was quiet, but it held a cold edge that arrested George’s power of speech, “it ain’t.”
“It isn’t? Then why are you here?” George found himself stunned by the man’s demeanor. The Pinkerton Agency had a reputation for getting the job done, not for this. “You have to—”
“Read your contract again, George. It says absolutely rat-squat about protecting this here payroll.”
“But—”
“No,” said Neilson, gesturing again to the bartender. The squealing sound of brakes suddenly intruded upon the conversation, and George snatched at the bar as the sudden deceleration nearly threw him from his stool. Neilson, however, appeared to handle the shift with a peculiar grace.
“That’s them!” said George. “Go!”
Instead, Neilson calmly repeated his gesture to the bartender. The man held the bottle, looking at George, but poured.
George’s irritation grew, and he felt his face going red. “You cannot simply sit here and drink while—”
“George,” Neilson said in that low, cold voice. “That’s exactly as I intend to do. And do you know why?”
“I cannot imagine,” said George, his volume raised, “what madness would cause you to—”
“The why,” said Neilson, his voice staying calm, “is because the Anti-Summoner Division of the Pinkerton Detective Agency never contracts to stop a robbery.”
“But—” spluttered George. His frustration began to turn to panic as the sounds of shouting, and sporadic gunfire, echoed down to the two men from the front area of the train. Someone had to do something.
Neilson threw back his third shot of whiskey, then waved the bartender off a fourth. “George, I am a single man. I am equipped with both a .45-caliber revolver and a lever-action rifle. I flatter myself that I am proficient in the use of these tools. But this train is, as we speak, being robbed by Randall Lorents. A summoner, equipped with the ability to draw on the boundary between our worlds to power his magic. He can move forces and things about as he wills or summon entities from outside our world to his side as allies. And he has planned this robbery out. He is ready.”
“Yes!” cried George, seizing the moment. “That’s why we hired you.”
“You hired the agency because the Anti-Summoner Division has a demonstrated record of returning bounties on summoners. Bounties, Mr. Hoinschauffer. Not protection. The only way to deal with a summoner is from as great a distance away as one is comfortable making the shot. I have no intention that Lorents know anything until my bullet pierces his skull, which is why we are here enjoying one another’s company instead of getting killed like a pair of fools.”
Cheering erupted from ahead of them, and soon after a half-dozen men rode fast past the car, heading back down the tracks out of the Lido Gap, in the direction from whence the train had come. George’s anger gave way to fear as the summoner and his men passed within feet of George’s own person, separated only by thin dining-car windows.
Neilson stood from his stool and walked behind George to the door of the refreshment car. George could only watch as the Pinkerton grabbed his rifle from where it leaned up against the wall. Neilson nodded at the bartender, and then stepped outside. From behind him, George heard the bartender politely cough. The noise catapulted George into motion at last. Anger surged back, covering up his fear as he slapped a bill on the counter and moved to follow the Pinkerton.
Neilson had stepped off the train and moved three cars down, to a stable car. As George stormed toward him, the tall man unlatched and pulled back the door, before leading his own horse onto the bare dirt.
“Well,” said Neilson in his matter-of-fact tone, “They took the bait. Now I can get to work.”
George knew he wasn’t in control of himself. He let the anger direct his words, losing any semblance of being a proper gentleman and pointing furiously at the hired gun. “That’s your plan? Go after them?”
“Well,” said Neilson, pausing for a moment, “yes, I reckon that when you boil it to its core, that’s my plan. Go after them, find myself a nice little perch overlooking whatever valley they choose to rathole up in, and kill me a summoner. There’s some parts at the end involving getting paid and spending a fair amount of time with the ladies at Miss Sandy’s up in Buffalo Creek, but you’ve struck at the heart of it.”
“I’m coming with you,” George said, firmly trying to regain control of this situation.
“Well, now,” said Neilson. The Pinkerton removed a cheap-looking cheroot from inside his vest and placed it in his mouth. “That does strike me as a singularly terrible idea. I would advise against it.” He struck a match.
George let his semblance of self-composure give way, and he yelled at the target of his ire. “Mr. Neilson! You, sir, are contracted with South Mountain Mining, Limited, of which I am a representative. I have already observed you idling your way through a robbery, and now you announce that your plan is simply to ride off into God-knows-where to do God-knows-what before you claim that you have completed your end of the contract. I will not have this, sir. If my company acknowledges your performance, it will be because I have witnessed it, as I no longer trust that you intend to act in good faith!” He stared at Neilson, trying to display his resolve. Instead, his hands shook, and his breaths came only by panting.
Neilson rose an eyebrow toward George for several seconds. Then he took a deep draw from his cheroot and held it for a moment. The Pinkerton tilted his head backward and released a billow of smoke upward to the sky, then looked back down at George.
“George,” Neilson said, still in that calm, low voice. “You
are a damned fool. But I reckon that’s just your nature, and there’s little to do about it. And I also reckon further that there ain’t a way I can stop you mounting up and riding after me when I go. That is, no way short of shooting you here and now, an act to which I ain’t inclined. So, get your horse and let’s get on with it.”
George straightened his jacket, regaining his aplomb. By his tally, he’d actually won this round with the imposing Pinkerton. He stepped toward the stable car, and as he began to enter he heard Neilson’s voice behind him.
“But, I will remind you again that the Pinkerton Agency has no contract to protect anything here. That’s the payroll, sure, but that also means I ain’t obligated to save your fool self when you do something stupid. My job is to kill Lorents. All the rest is gravy, far as I’m concerned.”
In the privacy of the stable car, George allowed himself a flash of panic. He was about to go after a wanted outlaw—a summoner of great power—with no training, a single derringer pistol, and this lazy, indifferent man at his side. But he could not let Neilson get the better of him, and he had been tasked with seeing to the payroll.
“Your warnings are noted, Mr. Neilson,” George said, hoping his fear did not show in his voice. He led his horse out of the stable car, then huffed and clambered into the saddle. “Now, shall we be off?”
* * *
Neilson’s method of tracking completely mystified George. He’d read several stories, in the digests of New York, of men who could tell the path of an enemy by no more than a bent twig, or a subtle imprint. He’d secretly delighted in the tales of men who could put their ear to the ground to find a herd of buffalo, or an enemy troop of cavalry.
But Neilson did none of these things. He did not dismount. He simply…rode. The two men kept a steady canter, around this rock and through that valley, based on some guidance that George E. Hoinschauffer simply could not understand.
It was not until the sun began to approach the horizon that Neilson dismounted. He tied his horse to a tree and gestured for George to do the same. He handed George a bucket, then pointed at the small stream running through the valley.
“Fill it, and let it warm a bit before you give it to the horses,” Neilson said.
“Shouldn’t we push on?” asked George. “They got a head start on us, and likely they’re still going.” He peered ahead, trying to get a sense of their next destination.
“Not likely,” said Neilson. “They’re just on the other side of that ridge, there.” The tall Pinkerton pointed to a small ridge to their…North? South? In these hills, George had lost all sense of direction.
“How do you—”
“Because the tracks sent them down there, and I pulled us over here tonight. Unless I miss my guess, you should keep your eyes on that ridgeline.”
Neilson rubbed down the horses while George fetched the water. Upon returning, George saw a thin stream of smoke from the other side of the ridge.
“Now, that’s about right,” said Neilson.
“We caught up to them?” George said, still bewildered.
“They left that train at a full gallop,” said Neilson. “Gave them a head start, sure, but it was still a damned fool piece of riding. Winded their horses. Never ride a beast that fast unless you don’t need him to go very far, you see?”
“Oh,” said George. The pulp-digest heroes galloped everywhere, but what Neilson said made perfect sense.
“So, tonight we’ll go without a fire,” said Neilson. “No sense letting them know where we are. They’ll be getting drunk. Successful robbers always get drunk. Tomorrow morning, when Lorents is hung over and stumbles out his tent to make water, I’ll be up on that ridge with a rifle. He clears his tent, I shoot him in the head, contract fulfilled. Nice and simple.”
This plan sounded like it offered minimal risk to one George E. Hoinschauffer while providing a reasonable chance at recovering the payroll, and therefore he found it acceptable. The two lay out their bedrolls as the sun descended and gave way to night.
“Where did you learn how to track like that?” asked George. “The agency is known for hiring skilled men, not training them.”
“Rode with Buford back in the war,” said Neilson, calmly.
“General Buford? You wore the blue?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” said Neilson. “Not every rough-and-tumble horseman put on a gray uniform. And Buford was one of the best.”
George nodded. “Well, that explains why you’d spend your time hunting summoners,” he said after a moment.
“How do you figure?” asked Neilson, a note of genuine curiosity in his voice.
“Wasn’t Buford there on the First Day at Gettysburg? When that Reb general—what was his name—Heath? Heth? The man summoned a devil to kill General Reynolds.”
“Oh, that mess?” asked Neilson. “I guess so. But it ain’t like we had no summoners either; that demon killing General Reynolds was just a fluke. Don’t believe what you read in the Times; summoning’s just a tool, like being good with this here rifle. Some folk use it to rob, some to help. The agency pays an extra twenty percent if you go after summoners, and a man who can shoot from a long range makes a good living that way.”
That had to have been about the most positive thing George had ever heard anyone say about the practitioners of the dark arts. As to the rest, George found himself disappointed. He wasn’t sure why; every other business that men engaged in, his own included, they did so in pursuit of money. Why should being a Pinkerton be any different? And yet, it felt like a life this dramatic should have an equal amount of drama motivating it. Instead, it turned out Neilson functioned like every other man. You offer to pay him, he does a job.
“Now,” Neilson said. “If you don’t mind, we have something of an early morning tomorrow, so best we turn in.”
And with that, the Pinkerton rolled over onto his side and promptly began to snore, leaving George to stare up at the stars as they began to peek out through the twilit sky.
As he did, his thoughts began to turn. This man had waited through the robbery back at the train. Oh, he’d given his reasons, such as they were, but he’d ignored his real purpose. He’d allowed George to come along with him only after George held his contract hostage. And he’d been careful to warn George that George might not live through this little trip.
Now, maybe Neilson was playing straight. But all George had as firsthand evidence was a fire on the other side of the ridge, and that said little about who had started that fire or how. And if Neilson put a bullet into George, and then regretfully reported him as a casualty, he could claim the contract complete. After all, George was a man who’d been well and duly warned of the dangers and ignored them to his detriment. South Mountain Mining would pay the Pinkertons, the Pinkertons would pay Neilson, and Lorents would remain at large.
The more he lay there, wrapped in his own thoughts, the more George knew he was right. Neilson had no intention of claiming a bounty or filling a contract. Not when all he had to do was kill George.
George drew the small derringer he kept in his vest pocket, cocked it, and pointed it at the back of Neilson’s head.
No.
He had to be sure. If he were going to murder the man, in the middle of the night, while effectively lost, then he’d need to know. He slipped the hammer back down and stood from his pallet, leaving his questionable companion at rest.
Then he began to walk up to the ridgeline, using the moonlight as his guide.
Once atop, he looked over a small cliff and saw three large tents made of thick canvas down below, arranged in a wheel-spoke pattern. A stovepipe poked its way through the top of each tent’s roof, happily puffing its smoky release to the night.
How in the hell had they—thought George, then interrupted his own train of logic. Right. Summoner. That bastard can bring the comfort to them; no need to weigh a horse down with a sleeping roll when you can simply summon a full tent with a bed inside. The thought that Randall Lorents and his b
andits lived a life of comfort, regardless of where they were, irked George to no extent. The bandits in the digests always lived lives of hard misery, not this kind of portable luxury.
An owl hooted, flying above George. Another, which sounded as though it were perched up the ridge from George, hooted in response. Then a third from below the ridgeline. George couldn’t remember if he’d ever heard owls communicating like this, and wondered whether the species was particular to—
And then he found himself in a tent.
No showy flash of light accompanied his teleportation. No slow bending of time, and no sense of anything out of the ordinary happening. One moment, he pondered the sounds of the owls around him. The next, he was sitting on the ground, within the confines of a canvas tent, looking directly at the little Franklin stove in its rear.
“So,” said a voice behind him. “You’d best introduce yourself and tell me why you should live through the night.”
George tried to spin around, but it was a difficult maneuver while still seated on the ground. Instead, he executed something of a graceless half-fall, half-spin maneuver, coming to rest on his elbows facing the front of the tent and the man who stood in it.
Whoever had drawn Randall Lorents’s wanted poster had done a spot-on job. The bandit stood tall and broad shouldered. His face was coated in stubble, and his dark hair had been slicked back along his head. The faint smell of booze lingered about the tent, but Lorents did not appear mightily affected.
“I, uh—I…” George said.
“You don’t look much like a bounty hunter,” said Lorents.
“I’m not,” said George. “I am a duly appointed representative for South Mountain Mining.”
“And you are here to…what, exactly?” asked Lorents. “Negotiate with me? Is there something you have that I’m not already taking?”
“Uh…” George, still trying to get his grasp on the situation, improvised. “Yes, exactly. The company has authorized me to offer you a, well, let’s call it a tribute of sorts. One hundred dollars a month. No risk, no work, just a nice, easy cash stream, and you let our payroll through.”