“It can’t be all that good for your business if he greets all your visitors like that,” he said.
“He’s a bully,” the bartender said. “He has the whole town buffaloed. I reckon he figured he needed to take you down just to show everyone else that he was still the top rooster.”
Hawke nodded. “That’s a plan, I suppose.” Finishing his drink, he put the glass down and slapped another coin on the bar beside it. “I’ll have another.”
“No, sir,” the bartender said, pushing the coin back. “This one is on me.” He used the new bottle to pour a fresh drink.
“Thanks.”
“Now, I’m going to do something I should’ve done a long time ago,” the bartender said.
Reaching under the bar, he pulled out a sawed-off, double-barrel, twelve-gauge Greener and pointed it toward Metzger’s prostrate form. He handed one of the other men in the bar a glass of water. “Here, Paul. Wake the son of a bitch up.”
Paul was about to pour the glass of water on Metzger, then put it back down.
“No, I’ve got a better idea,” he said. Reaching down by the bar, he picked up the spittoon, then turned it upside down over Metzger’s face.
Metzger came to, spitting and swearing. When he sat up, he saw Paul holding the spittoon.
“Why you—” he said, getting to his feet angrily. “I’m going to—”
“Leave,” the bartender said.
“What?” Metzger looked at him, his face stained with tobacco juice. Little flecks of expectorated tobacco clung to his beard.
“I was just finishing your sentence for you. You were about to say that you were going to leave.”
“I wasn’t about to say no such thing,” Metzger sputtered.
“Yes, you were.” The bartender augmented his observation by pulling back both hammers of the shotgun.
“Wait a minute, you ain’t the law in this town. Fact is, this town ain’t got no law, so you got no right to run me out of town,” Metzger said angrily.
“This says I do,” the bartender said, emphasizing his statement by lifting the shotgun.
“Listen, what about you other fellas?” Metzger asked. “Are you just going to stand around and let this happen? I though we was pards.”
“There’s nobody here who is pards with you, Metzger,” Paul said. “We’ve had about enough of you.”
Metzger looked at the others, who, emboldened by the fact that they were all together now, stared back at him without sympathy.
“All right, all right, I’m a’goin’,” Metzger said. He looked at each one of them. “But I plan to remember who was here and who didn’t stand beside me. And when I come back, there’s going to be a settling of accounts.”
“If you come back, we’ll kill you,” Paul said quietly.
The anger and defiance on Metzger’s face was replaced by a flicker of fear. He stood there blinking, trying unsuccessfully to regain a little of his self-respect. Finally, he ran his hand through his beard, combing out some of the bits of tobacco, and turned toward Hawke.
“You,” he said. “You’re the cause of this. One day me ’n’ you’s goin’ to run across each other again.”
“I look forward to the day,” Hawke said easily.
“Go, now,” the bartender said, coming around the bar and poking Metzger with the end of the double- barrel.
Metzger moved toward the door with the bartender behind him. Everyone but Hawke went to the door as well, and they watched as Metzger climbed onto his horse.
“Gittup!” Metzger shouted to his horse, and a moment later the clatter of galloping hoof beats filled the street. The patrons of the Brown Dirt Cowboy cheered.
Chapter 4
ON THE UNION PACIFIC TRACKS, THE EASTBOUND train on which Pamela Dorchester was a passenger made a midnight stop for water. Asleep in the top berth of the Pullman car, Pamela was only vaguely aware that the stop had been made. She was too comfortable and too tired from all the packing and preparation for her visit to Chicago to pay too much attention to it.
Rolling over in bed, she pulled the covers up and listened to the bumping sounds from outside as the fireman lowered the spout from the trackside water tower and began squirting water down into the tank.
“I tell you what, Frank, we didn’t stop a moment too soon,” the fireman called back to the engineer. “This here tank is dry as a bone.”
Pamela could hear the fireman’s words. She thought of him standing out there in the elements in the middle of the night. In contrast, it made her own condition, snuggled down in the covers of her berth, seem even more comfortable. She felt herself drifting back to sleep.
Just outside the train, Poke Wheeler and Gilley Morris slipped through the shadows alongside the railroad track. The train was alive with sound; from the loud puffs of the driver relief valves venting steam, to the splash of water filling the tank, to the snapping and popping of overheated bearings and gear boxes.
The two men had been in position for nearly an hour, waiting by the tower where they knew the train would have to stop for water. Behind them, tied to a willow tree, were two horses. One of the horses was hitched to a travois.
“Which car is she on?” Poke asked.
“Well, according to what we was told, she’ll be in the first Pullman behind the baggage car,” Gilley answered. “First berth on the left.”
Glancing up toward the tender, they saw the fireman standing there, directing the gushing water from the spout into the tank. Satisfied that his attention was diverted, the two men stepped up onto the vestibule platform. They remained there a moment to make certain they had not been discovered, and when they were sure they were safe, they pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The car was dimly lit by two low-burning gimbal-mounted lanterns, one on the front wall and the other on the rear. The aisle stretched out between two rows of closed curtains, and heavy breathing and snores assured the two men that everyone was asleep. Toward the back of the car the porter sat on a low, wooden stool. He was leaning against the wall, asleep himself.
Gilley took out a small bottle and poured liquid from the bottle onto a handkerchief. That done, he nodded to Poke, who jerked open the curtains of the berth.
Pamela, suddenly awakened when the curtains parted, turned in her bed. Before she could react, however, a handheld handkerchief clamped down over her face. She tried to scream, tried to fight against the cloying smell, but it was a losing proposition. Within seconds she was unconscious.
Still unobserved by anyone else in the car, Poke and Gilley lifted Pamela from her berth and carried her off the train. No one noticed them putting her unconscious form on the travois.
“Let’s go,” Gilley said.
The two men mounted and rode off, even as the train, its tank now full of water, got underway again.
Troy Jackson was the porter for the first Pullman car. A former slave, he been a railroad porter now for five years, and he enjoyed the job.
“Best job they is for a man of color,” he would tell anyone who asked. As a porter, he had traveled all over America, from New York to San Francisco, and from Chicago to New Orleans.
He took pride in his work too, which is why he was beginning to get nervous about the lady in berth number one. It was nine o’clock in the morning and her booth was the only one still not made up. He didn’t want to arrive in Cheyenne without all the berths being properly made.
He had stood just outside the closed curtains of her berth a few moments earlier calling out to her, but she didn’t answer. He couldn’t very well stick his head in. Suppose she was just getting dressed? Finally, he stepped up to the seat of a lady passenger who was only one seat behind the still-made berth.
Bowing slightly, Troy touched the brim of his cap. “Beg pardon, ma’am, but I needs to check on the lady in
