ONE
Smoke Jensen and his friends, Cal, Pearlie, and Louis Longmont, turned their horses’ heads south and rode out of the town of Noyes, Minnesota. They rode slumped in their saddles, dog-tired after the months they’d spent in Canada working for William Cornelius Van Horne.
Cal, still excited about the adventures they’d had and the unforgettable scenery of the northern Rocky Mountains, jabbered on and on about how he wished he’d been born in the days of the mountain men.
Louis and Smoke just looked at each other and smiled, for they knew those days hadn’t been nearly as romantic as they’d sounded in the stories Cal had heard around the campfire from Bear Tooth and Red Bingham and Bobcat Bill.
Of course, they weren’t about to tell the young’un that and ruin his ideas about the “good old days.”
They rode on for about two miles, until they came to the railroad station that was their goal.
As they reined in their mounts in front of the stationmaster’s office, Louis stretched and observed, “That was very nice of Bill Van Horne to arrange for us to ride all the way back to Big Rock on the train instead of on horseback.”
“Yeah, it’ll sure save some wear an’ tear on my backside,” Pearlie agreed as he stepped down out of his stirrups. “The way I feel now, if’n I never see another saddle as long as I live it’ll be all right with me,” he added, rubbing his butt with both hands.
Smoke laughed. “Not only that, but Bill said we could ride in James Hill’s own private car on our trip south.”
“Hill?” Cal asked. “Ain’t he the man Bill said bought up all the railroads in this part of the country?”
Smoke nodded. “That’s right, Cal. Hill owns just about every inch of railroad track between here and home.”
“Jiminy, then his own private car ought’a be somethin’ to see.”
“I would imagine it will be rather lavish,” Louis said as he got down off his horse.
“I don’t know what lavish means,” Pearlie said, “but I hope it means it’s stocked right well with food, ‘cause I’m hungry enough to eat a bear.”
“Well, now, that’s a surprise,” Cal said sarcastically to his friend. “From the way you was talkin’, I figured you’d be too tired to eat an’ you’d just go right to sleep once we got to the train.”
Pearlie looked at the young man as if he’d uttered a blasphemy. “What? Go to sleep without eating? What kind of man would do that?”
After Smoke spoke to the stationmaster, and their horses and gear were stowed in the cattle car, the man showed them into James Hill’s private car. As they entered, he told them to just pull the bell rope next to the door if they needed anything and a steward would take care of it.
Just before he left, he stopped in the door and looked around the car, shaking his head. “You boys must be powerful friends of Mr. Hill’s,” he said, “’cause this is the first time I’ve ever seen him loan his car out to anyone.” He paused and grinned. “Hell, when the President came out here last year on a tour, Mr. Hill gave him another car. Said this one was too good for politicians to use.”
“Thanks for all your help,” Smoke said, smiling and shutting the door behind the man.
As the stationmaster stepped down out of the car, a man moved out of the shadows next to the station building and stood there staring at the train.
When the stationmaster approached him, the man ducked his head and put a lucifer to the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He looked up, tipping smoke from his nostrils, and gave the stationmaster a lopsided grin. “Howdy,” he said in a friendly tone of voice.
“Hello,” the stationmaster answered. “If you’re here to buy a ticket on this train, you need to see the man in the ticket booth inside the building.”
“Thanks,” the stranger answered. “I might just do that.” He turned toward the building, hesitated, and then he looked back over his shoulder at the stationmaster.
“Uh, by the way, was that man I just saw getting on the train named Smoke Jensen?”
The stationmaster nodded absentmindedly, already thinking about the dozens of things he had to see to before the train could leave the station.
The stranger cut his eyes back at the train before he went into the station to buy a ticket His eyes were filled with hate.
When he got to the ticket booth, he pulled a wad of cash from his vest pocket and placed it on the counter.
“Can I help you sir?” the ticket man asked.
“Yeah. Can you tell me how far Smoke Jensen and his friends are going?”
The ticket salesman looked down at an open book in front of him and pursed his lips for a moment. “I believe they’re ticketed all the way through to Big Rock, Colorado,” he said, glancing back up at the man standing in front of his window.
“Then give me a ticket to the same place,” the man said, pushing his money under the gated window.
“Yes, sir.”
“And I need to know if I have time to send a wire before the train leaves.”
The ticket man pulled a watch from his vest pocket and shook his head as he looked at it. “No, sir, I don’t believe you do.”
