“I figure who my sister might marry would be her own business. Did some lawman give you a hard time, once, about your accent? Or do you just hate all us gringos?”
“One time might not have bothered me,” the yard bull said bitterly. “It gets tedious being called a greaser after the first hundred times or so. Look, you don’t have to butter me up to get me to cooperate. What do you want from me, Deputy?”
“I said it already. Trying to get a line on slow freights passing through the Blackfoot reservation at night.”
“I heard someone might be shooting Indians from the passing trains. The roundhouse gang was talking about it the other evening. If any of ‘em saw anything, they didn’t let me in on it.”
“I know you don’t ride the trains. Can you think of anyone who might, aside from the regular crews?”
“Freight trains? Hoboes, if we let them. The insurance company says we’re not to give rides to Indians any more. Damn fool Shoshoni fell between the blinds a few months back and his squaw sued the line. Some free passes being given out, back East, but only to ride the passenger trains. Freight crews have enough to handle without some idiot getting in the way as they run the catwalk.”
“Don’t suppose any hobo could get by you, maybe late on a dark night in the rail yards?” the deputy asked.
“Sure, one could, once in a while. Play hell doing it regular, though. My boys and me have orders to dust their asses with rock salt, getting on or getting off.”
“All three of you carry shotguns charged with salt, on duty?”
“Twelve gauge, double barrel, sawed off. I carry a sawed-off baseball bat, too. You want to hop a freight in my yards, mister, you’d better ask the dispatcher for permission, first.”
“None of the caboose hands or maybe a friendly engineer could give a pal a lift?”
“Sure they could. I only check the cars for bums. I have a helper go up one side with a lantern while I ease up the far side in the dark to dust the rascals as they slip away from him between the wheels. I dusted one boy right in the ass that way a month ago and you should have heard him holler. But I don’t ask who is riding the caboose or up in the cab. It’s not my job.”
Longarm tapped absently on the bar with the silver dollar in his hand and the yard bull added, “This sniper or whatever would have a hard time doing mean things from the cab or caboose, though, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah. I may as well tell you, I’ve wired about the country for suggestions about crazy people working for your railroad. Nobody thinks it likely a full crew of lunatics are working out here.”
A worried expression appeared on the railroad cop’s face. “You know about that colored boy I killed in Omaha, then?”
“Yeah. Nebraska says you got off on self-defense. You said that hobo pulled a knife on you, right?”
“He did, and he had two other niggers with him. They dropped the subject when I blew his face off. I warned him twice to drop the knife before I shot him, too, God damn it!” Mendez slammed a fist down on the bar.
“Cool down, old son! You don’t have to convince me. You already got let off by a grand jury. I know you have a rough job.”
“They fired me anyway. Said I’d overstepped my authority. Ain’t that a laugh? They fire you if you let the bums ride and they fire you if you get in a fuss with ‘em.”
“There ain’t no justice,” Longarm commiserated. “I see you had no trouble getting another job out here, though.”
“Oh, a railroad bull with a tough rep can usually get hired somewhere. I don’t get paid as much, though, and the prices out here are higher than back East. If I had it to do over, those three coons could have driven the damned locomotive and I’d have looked the other way.”
Longarm shook his head and said, “I don’t buy that. The roundhouse gang has you down as a good, tough bull.”
“Well, I’ll get tougher if they don’t quit calling me a Mex. I’m from Paraguay, not Mexico, and both MY mother and father were pure white!”
Longarm nodded and said, “I suspicioned as much. How’d you get up here from such a far piece south? Merchant marine?”
“No. Worked for a British railroad down there when I was a teenager. Paraguay hasn’t got that much in the way of railroading, but I liked it better than punching cows, so I followed the trade north.”
“You’ve been here a spell, judging from the way you speak English.”
“Hell, I fought in the War for Lincoln!” Mendez said proudly. “Least I could do to get back at Texas. The first time I was called a greaser was in Galveston and I haven’t learned to like it yet.”
Longarm promised never to call Mendez a greaser and left him alone at the bar. He walked to the land office to use the federal wire. After he’d reported his lack of progress and asked a few questions that nobody in Denver had answers to, he sent an inquiry to the Chicago stock market. As Agent Chadwick came in to join him under the telegraph batteries, Longarm said, “Beef’s up a dollar and six bits a head and one of your battery jars is leaking.”
Chadwick looked at the charred black spot on the blotter next to the telegraph key and said, “Cigar burn. Them wet cell jars are glass. They leak all at once or never.”
“Doesn’t it make you nervous working with all that acid up there?” Longarm asked.
Chadwick shrugged. “The batteries have to be somewhere. That’s a pretty stout shelf.”
“I’d have ‘em on the floor if this was my wire shack. It’s good to have a box of baking soda handy, too. Met a telegrapher who saved his eyes with baking soda, once, when a Sioux arrow shattered a battery jar in his face and spattered him with vitriol.”
