“Board!” the conductor called and he smiled and touched the brim of his hat as Duff stepped aboard.
“You gave the bully what was coming,” the conductor said. “Good for you.”
Duff looked at him in surprise.
“I was there, I saw everything. You didn’t notice me, because I took off my coat and hat.” He laughed. “I can’t eat ham and fried potatoes every meal, either.”
Chapter Eleven
Duff had just settled in his seat on the train when he saw the woman from the Occidental Saloon come onboard. She looked around the car for a moment, then seeing Duff, came back to his seat. He started to stand, but she held out her hand.
“Don’t be troubling yourself, Mister, I won’t be bothering you,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you again.” She held up her ticket. “I’m going on to Central City. There’s nothing here for me now, and I’ve got a friend there.”
“You gave up your job?”
The woman smiled. “Mister, in my line of work, jobs are easy to come by,” she said.
The train whistle blew two long whistles, then the train started forward. As the slack in the couplings was taken up, the young woman, still standing in the aisle beside Duff’s seat, was thrown off balance and would have fallen had Duff not caught her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll go find a seat somewhere and be of no further bother.”
“Nonsense, you are no bother,” Duff said. “Please, sit here.”
The woman sat down, not on the seat beside him, but on the seat across, facing him.
“My name is Belle,” the woman said. Then with an uncomfortable smile, she shook her head. “No, it isn’t. That’s just the name I use when I’m working. My real name is Martha. Martha Jane Radley. I don’t know why I told you my real name. I never tell anyone. I would not want it to get back to my pa that I am a soiled dove.”
“Soiled dove? I don’t know the term.”
“Soiled dove is what we, that is, girls who are on the line, call ourselves.”
“On the line?”
“I am going to have to come right out and say it, aren’t I?” Martha said. “I don’t just serve drinks. I am also a prostitute.”
“I see.”
“I came west from a small town in southeast Missouri,” she said. “I thought I could make it on my own, but it is very hard for a woman, alone, to find honest employment. Out of desperation, I drifted into prostitution. You can’t be just a little bit of a prostitute—you either are, or you aren’t. And I am. I was told that it would be easy work, and I would make a lot of money.”
“
“You got that right, Mister. The saloon gets most of the money, and as for easy work”—she put her fingers to the scar on her face—“there is nothing easy about dealing with drunken cowboys when they get frustrated because they can’t—uh—perform.”
“Yes, I saw an example of that back in the Occidental Saloon.”
“That was Clyde Shaw,” Martha said. “He isn’t the one who cut me, but he does like to slap the girls around a bit. You haven’t told me your name.”
“Oh, please forgive me, lass, I apologize for my lack of manners. The name is MacCallister. Duff MacCallister.”
“Mr. MacCallister, believe me, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Duff chuckled. “If that were but true,” he said.
“MacCallister. Are you kin to Falcon MacCallister?”
“Aye,” Duff said, surprised to hear Falcon’s name mentioned. “He would be my cousin. ’Tis surprised I am to hear ye say his name! How is it that ye know him?”
“I know who he is, but I don’t know him. I’ve never met him,” Martha said.
“Then, how can it be that ye know who he is, if ye’ve never met him?”
“Don’t you know?” Martha replied. “Falcon MacCallister is well known throughout the West. Why, there have been books written about him, as well as his famous father.”
“He has a brother and sister who are famous as well,” Duff said. “They are actors upon the stage in New York.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. Oh, how I would love to visit New York someday. And go to a play. And see all the sights. Have you been to New York, Mr. MacCallister?”
“Aye.”
“If I ever get to visit New York, I will never leave,” Martha said.
Duff and Martha continued their visit for the four hours it took to travel from North Bend to Central City.
“I had a true love once,” Martha said. “But his father was a very wealthy man and he wanted his son to marry the daughter of a wealthy man. My pa was a preacher man and he barely made a living from it. Leo, that was my
