Kissing any gal never took as much time as telling her you didn't want to. So he took the nice little old lady in his arms and gave her a good one, sort of surprised but not upset when she kissed back French.
Old Ben Franklin had warned younger jaspers things like that might happen around nice little old ladies, Longarm reflected as he legged it along the platform to where some dim figures were gathered near the only lantern at their end.
When he showed his badge and introduced himself to the small-town freight agent, he was told the line would be proud to ride him up to the North Platte as long as he didn't get in the way. So when the way-freight hissed in to a short stop a few minutes later, Longarm set his Winchester aside and helped them unload a mail- order piano before he swung aboard the caboose with a wave back down the tracks to any lady who might still be there. You couldn't tell with the moonlight and inky shadows shifting so in the night breezes.
He'd been asked to stay out of the way. So he found a seat on the rear platform and lit up as they followed the tracks away to the north from Crow Creek, hugging a contour line of the now not so distant Laramies, a sort of orphan range running in line with but apart from the main thrust of the Rockies.
They passed a ranch house with the lamplight from the windows somehow making a passing stranger feel left out. Longarm had assured himself often enough that he wasn't really missing anything when he lay snugabed with a train whistle calling far off in the night. But it often seemed to promise new thrills and adventure in some far-off parts he'd never been while, contrariwise, whenever he was riding a train through the night, he got to wondering what he might be missing behind those cozy lamp-lit window curtains he was passing with no chance to ever ask.
He laughed and told the Winchester in his lap, 'The man of that house back yonder is likely stiff in the joints from working all day, and even if he does feel like turning in early with the lady of the house, she'll likely tell him she has a headache.'
He found himself wondering how long it would take good old Covina to get home, and what she and little Daisy would talk about when they got back to pulling taffy or went to bed in those flannel nightgowns.
He laughed at himself and told his Winchester, 'I reckon I've about recovered from that Indian campaign if I'm starting to picture nice little old ladies in flannel nightgowns or, better yet, nothing at all, and wouldn't that be a party!'
He'd seen enough of young Daisy to picture her buck naked in bed with him and French-kissing Covina. The way-older widow had as narrow a waist but fuller breastworks and bottom than the mature but not that mature Portia Parkhurst, attorney-at-law.
He snorted in disbelief at his own wild imagination and allowed he might as well imagine an orgy with all three of them, seeing it would never be more than a fantasy.
So he did and it was giving him one hell of a hard-on when the way-freight stopped again at Horse Creek to unload a ton of barbed wire and some crates of preserving jars.
And so it went as the night dragged on, with Longarm really feeling the hours since last he'd slept solid by the time they got as far as Chugwater, winding like a damned old snake and stopping at tiny towns with names humble or grand.
The brakeman came out on the platform to smoke with him as they rolled out of Wheatland. Longarm asked how soon they'd get in to Fort Laramie. The brakeman told him he was on the wrong line.
Longarm said something dreadful about railroad lines in general.
The brakeman smothered, 'You told us you wanted to go to Keller's Crossing, a day's ride up the North Platte from Fort Laramie. So it's just as time-consuming either way. We don't run a train this late along the spur that leaves Cheyenne to the northeast to hit the North Platte at Torrington and cut west to follow the river upstream. So you're saving hours this way, even though you have to catch a coach going downstream, from Wendover, if you want to wind up in Keller's Crossing. Think of the rails as the main lines of a spiderweb with stage lines the cross webs, at this stage of the game. Some day they'll likely have tracks and telegraph lines strung all over from town to town, but right now a man has to sort of zig and zag his way across this world.'
Longarm sighed and said, 'I've been zigging and zagging until I'm too tired to keep my damned eyes open. But I reckon the time I might have saved this way will make up for the last few dusty miles. And wouldn't most Wyoming hands expect me to grab that other feeder line out of Cheyenne to Keller's Crossing?'
The brakeman took an expansive drag on his own smoke and confided, 'The gent who said there was more than one way to skin a cat must have rid the rails out our way, some. Folk new to the territory are always confounding old Fort Laramie with the newer township of Laramie, eighty miles to the southwest, albeit still on the same North Platte river because of the way it hairpins around the Laramie Range. Eastern greenhorns and even old cowhands are always getting off at the wrong Laramie stop. There's two Virginia Cities you can get to by rail, and you want to get off this train at Wendover, Wyoming, not the one on the Utah-Nevada line way off to the west.'
Longarm asked if the stage line the brakemen had advised him to catch at Wendover was the same one running down the Bozeman Trail from the northern gold fields.
The brakeman said it surely was and cautiously added, 'Might you not be the same federal deputy who bummed a ride north from Denver early this morning with One Thumb Thurber on the Burlington Line?'
Longarm nodded but marveled, 'Lord have mercy, was it really less than twenty-four hours ago? Maybe I ain't making such slow time, after all.'
The brakemen said, 'I heard some Burlington hands talking about your dust-up with the Black Swede, Gus Bergman. One Thumb thought he had it coming when you threw him off that rattler. He'd told the Swede not to mess with you.'
Longarm shrugged and said, 'So did I. I suspect there's a screw loose inside his thick skull.'
The brakeman chuckled and said, 'So did the Cheyenne dispatcher for the Burlington Line. He fired the Black Swede when he limped into town, demanding the railroad swear out a theft-of-service charge on a federal officer invited to ride free.'
Longarm said, 'I suppose I ought to feel more pleased to hear the man lost his job. He surely wasn't meant to handle it. But I can't help wondering where a congenital bully with a temper he can't rein in ought to look for work to occupy his restless nature.'
The brakeman said, 'The Black Swede seems to think he has to kill you before he worries about anything else. That's the real reason I came out here. If you say I told you I'll deny it. But the boys say you're all right, and Gus Bergman ain't your average hot-tempered bully. He's killed more than one man, and they weren't all unarmed 'bos. Gus packs a double-action Harrington Richardson.38, concealed.'
Longarm said, 'I know. He showed it to me. But I thank you for your timely warning just the same. If you knew right off who I had to be, the Black Swede might have figured I'd be hopping a night train out of Cheyenne, and unlike some other rascals after me, old Gus may be far better at figuring railroad time tables. You say the natural place for me to drop off this platform would be Wendover on the North Platte?'
The brakeman allowed it was, if he meant to make connections with a stage coach to Keller's Crossing.
Longarm took a last drag, snuffed out the smoked-down cheroot, and decided, 'I have to hire both a mount to get around and a saddle to replace one I wasn't able to get at, this evening. Once me and this Winchester are mounted up, it won't really cut much ice whether we ride into Keller's Crossing from any expected direction or not. What's the stop before we reach the river, and how far from the North Platte may that leave me?'
The brakeman said they'd stop at the trail town of Dwyer, seven or eight miles this side of the spurhead at Wendover. He thought and then volunteered, 'You might wind up saving a few miles if you ride east from Dwyer on a hired mount, now that I study on it. For we'll roll on to hit the river at a thirty degree angle at Wendover, so-'
Longarm cut him off by fishing out two fresh smokes and offering one as he said, 'I'll get off at Dwyer, and I'm much obliged, pard.'
The brakeman declined the offer and got back to his feet, saying he had to go forward and get back to work. So Longarm knew he owed the older gent more than idle gossip about the Black Swede. His railroad pals had spread the word that he might be in deep shit.
He put the two smokes away, unlit. Smoking too much when you were tired or hungry only seemed to make you feel worse, and his ass was really dragging now.
He didn't feel any fresher when the way-freight stopped at the dinky foothill settlement of Dwyer late as hell. He forced himself to wake up and help the crew unload some crates and a windmill kit before he asked the freight
