“Two miles off,” he said. “Maybe three.”
“We’ll come close enough to see it,” Pike said. “Then we’ll follow. But we’ll keep a half a mile between us and it. I don’t want anyone to notice us until we get to its next stop. Wherever that may be.”
It was not long before they sighted not the track itself but the gray remains of smoke in the air, a dull haze where the train had just passed. They followed its curve up through the land. Signs of civilization began to appear. More roads, a ditch. The odd road sign. More fences. Then homes appeared, squatting far away, and then they saw the first person they’d seen in hours, a young man carrying a shovel. He took no notice of them but they did not relax.
“Be alert,” said Pike under his breath.
The tracks led up to what had once been a jerkwater town, nothing more than a few buildings clinging to an intersection of tracks and roads. Roonie spied it from far off and Pike dropped to his knees and scoped it out as best he could.
“What do you think?” asked Hammond.
“I think that’s where the train we were once on stopped,” he said. “That’s what I think.”
“And?”
“And we’re going to play this very, very carefully,” he said.
They waited until almost nightfall. Hammond spotted a few people ambling up the road, a little less than a dozen. Pike said it would be best if they joined them and muddled their numbers. If there was a lookout at all, he reasoned, it’d be for six or seven men, not more.
“If that,” he added. “Those boys on the train were probably going to kill anybody riding the rails. Seemed to be their orders.”
They mixed with the other strays and moved in as the sun sank below the earth. The new people did not mind. They assumed Pike and the others had hopped some line a few miles back. When they made it into the town proper they split off. Pike turned and said quietly, “It’d be best if we split up. Two groups. Roonie, Hammond, Monk, you go around to the north end. Rosie, Connelly, you’re coming with me. We stay low, we don’t raise any attention. Don’t ask any questions, none about the shiver-man, none about nothing. You just keep your ears open. You just listen, see?”
“We see,” said Connelly.
They parted and Rosie and Connelly decided an inn or bar would be the likely place for talk to be heard where a hobo was acceptable. They dusted themselves off and wound through the side lanes and broken fences until they found a shanty inn, some dirt-cheap gin house with riotous clientele and no small measure of whoring. Men with skin like leather drank ale from metal tankards while women smeared in makeup swanned through their ranks. Someone somewhere pounded on a piano to the point of ruin. Everything stank of tobacco and moonshine.
“I like it,” said Roosevelt with a smile.
“Keep control of yourself, boy,” Pike muttered to him. “It’ll be far easier to avoid attention with your eyes in your head and your prick in your pants.”
“Oh, these ideals, Pikey,” said Rosie. “These lofty ideals you have.”
They sat at the bar and rustled up change and bought a few drinks. Connelly still had money sewed into the cuffs of his pants but he didn’t think now was the time to mention it. They sipped at their drinks and tried to keep their heads.
There was no news of interest, almost no talk beyond bar banter. “I don’t know why you were so worried,” said Rosie to Pike. “These fellas is all just worried about the railroad lines. Who’s signed up on what engine and who’s shacked up with whose whore. This ain’t enemy territory. This ain’t even territory. Just a whole lot of nothing.”
“Maybe so,” said Pike reluctantly.
“Come on,” said Roosevelt. “Let’s rent a room.”
“A room?” said Connelly.
“When’s the last time you seen a bed, Con? It’ll be worth it, I swear. Listen to your back, not your wallet, for once.”
“What do you say?” asked Connelly, looking at Pike.
“Pike would say we’re living our cover,” said Rosie under his breath. “Three drunks fresh in town, getting a room? That’s no news at all.”
Maybe it was the liquor or maybe it was the days of walking, but Pike eventually gave in. The bartender called his boy up to lead them to their room. He groused and clambered to his feet, but then stood up straight as a pole when he saw Connelly. The boy’s eyes grew wide with fear as they wandered up his towering frame.
“You going to lead us to our room or what?” said Rosie.
The boy blinked, then looked from Roosevelt to Pike. His glance stayed far too long for Connelly’s comfort. The boy shook himself and led them up.
The room was no more than a closet with a bed that seemed hardly better than the ground. The three men climbed into it and shared the mattress along with a blanket. When Connelly was flat on his back he had to admit, it was slightly better sleeping arrangements than normal.
Sleep fell on him quickly, better sleep than he had had in weeks.
Connelly awoke in the middle of the night. Something troubled him. He could not place what it was until he realized that he could no longer hear the racket of drinking and piano from downstairs. It had halted sometime, sometime recent.
He stood and went to the window. The streets were empty, but he saw something far down at the end of one. Two little sparks, fluttering in the night.
Torches. Two, maybe even three.
He went to the door and opened it as quietly as he could. He walked out and peered around the staircase. He could see and hear no one, but the lights were on downstairs. Then he heard hushed voices, whispering to one another, and the fall of a boot. He snaked into an empty room across the hall and stood there, listening. More footfalls came until there were at least four men outside the room where Roosevelt and Pike still lay. Connelly ducked his head around the doorway, just far enough to see the shining cylinder of a rifle. He pulled back into the shadows, heart pounding.
The men kicked the door in and the inn filled with yelling. Some shouted for them to get up and some shouted for them to stay down, a confused and furious assault that soon degenerated into a flat-out beating. He heard Roosevelt and Pike crying out, their attackers shouting back to shut up, only to cause more noise. Finally one of them shouted, “Where is he? Where is that bastard?”
“Who?” said Roosevelt’s voice. “Who the hell do you mean?”
Another blow. Roosevelt moaned.
“The big one! Where’s the big bastard you came in with?”
“Who? I don’t know!”
Someone shouted in rage. A crack, and this time it was Pike who howled and snarled.
“You stay back! You stay back and down, old man! Now where’s the big damn bearded bastard you came in with or I swear to God, I’ll shoot every one of you men right here and now!”
But now Roosevelt and Pike were beyond answering. “Christ,” said their attacker. “Look at these fuckers. Blake, round them up and get them out on the damn street. Boss wants to look at them.”
“I thought there’d be more,” said a voice.
“So did I,” answered the other.
Connelly stayed pinned to the wall as Hammond and Pike were dragged out of the room. The men spoke and laughed to one another as they tossed their prey down the stairs. Connelly did not move until he heard their voices move outside. Then he dashed back into his room, put back on his boots and coat, and tried to find some section of the street outside that was empty.
He darted from room to room, peering through badly built windows to the streets below. Firelight flickered from the front. There was either a lot of fire out there or a lot of people carrying fire, but he could not see, nor would he risk a glance.
He wound his way through the second story of the inn until he found a small window that opened out onto the back. Behind the inn the land sunk down into a ditch filled with refuse and gravel. He pried the window open and
