“Hey, Sweaze!” somebody yelled. “Injuns!”
Sure enough, near some foul-smelling frontier types in greasy animal skins stood a shabby group of Indians in white people’s clothing, wearing feathers in their braids and necklaces of beads and talons, the men’s black eyes glassy—from whiskey, we learned—as they begged from new arrivals by silently holding out their hands; one woman, more aggressive, offered peeks at her baby for ten cents.
Sweasy, shoved forward by Mac and Gould, forked over fifty cents to actually hold the infant. As he did so, a strange softness came over his face. We watched in amazement as he made cooing sounds and tried to nuzzle the baby. Alarmed, the mother snatched it away. We burst into laughter. From then on she was known as “Sweaze’s squaw.”
A ragged black huckster emerged from a line of baggage and express wagons and approached us, shouting the merits of the Cozzens House. Brainard finally yelled, “That’s enough! We know about it!”
The man paused, doffed his hat with comic politeness, and bowed deeply. “Which road does you own, suh, de Union or de Westun?”
Brainard’s cheeks burned.
Hatton and Champion decided it would be better to take the next day’s express rather than wait around for a mixed train—freight and passenger—which would stop at every station. I felt relieved when we finally shouldered our bags and set out in search of the Cozzens House. I wasn’t wild about staying overnight in Omaha, but at least I wouldn’t have to feel like a clay pigeon at the station.
We’d anticipated a woolly frontier town. Instead we found a bustling city of twenty-five thousand. The mud in the broad streets looked rich enough to yield crops, but downtown boasted clusters of four-story brick buildings.
The Cozzens House turned out to be owned, like much of Omaha, by an eccentric promoter, George Francis Train, who’d had the foresight to buy hundreds of acres of prime land, including the port area now called “Traintown,” at nominal prices. The coming of the transcontinental line made him a multimillionaire. The desk clerk told us that Train expected Omaha to mushroom to one hundred thousand, making it the largest city after New York and a veritable Athens of the West.
Don’t hold your breath, I thought.
The local ball clubs quickly found us and took us around in open carnages. We saw dizzying numbers of UP supply yards and storage sheds. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about railroad construction. But I did enjoy seeing the Lincoln Car—the famous coach in which the President’s body had been conveyed from Washington to Springfield—reserved now by the UP for ceremonial occasions.
Our hosts showed us new frame dwellings going up by the hundreds. Single lots sold for a thousand dollars and up. Housing was at a premium.
“Shoot,” said Allison, eyeing one tract. “Them dinky things’re crabbed so close they’d all go together in a fire!”
Champion gave him a sour look.
“I been counting,” Waterman informed us. “It’s a close thing, but the grog shops lay over the churches.”
As though picking up on his cue, our guides deposited us at the Tivoli Gardens, where we hoisted schooners of lager that evening under gaslit locust trees and swatted mosquitoes the size of bees. George purchased pennyroyal leaves to rub on our skin, but it didn’t repel them.
“Interestin’ out this way,” said Andy, examining a bite on his hand. “But I wouldn’t fancy it.”
“Me neither.” I sat against the wall, gun in pocket, keeping watch on the entrance.
A noise at the door. Had I dreamed it? I sat up in a sweat, eyes straining in the early light. It came again, a faint tap. Heart racing, I looked around. The others—Andy, Sweasy, and Mac—were asleep. I moved to the door, gun in hand. Would they really try it here?
Again a tap. I pressed against the jamb and muttered, “Who is it?”
“Sam?” came a whisper. “It’s me.”
It was Johnny’s voice.
Distrusting my ears, I opened the door a crack. He stood in the hallway holding a battered valise. I pulled him inside. He waited silently while I slipped into shirt and pants. We stepped into the hall.
“How’d you find us?”
“Followed you,” he said tentatively, as if fearing my reaction. “Got on the next train after yours. Didn’t figure to catch you till Frisco.”
“Why’d you come? What about Helga?”
“She took it hard, but she understood I had to make a change. I sold my wheel to buy my ticket.”
“What about the money you won?”
“Used most of it to settle up with Helga.” He smiled faintly. “Still have most of what’s left, since they’ll only let me ride third class. Said there ain’t special colored cars yet—but took my money quick enough. Damn near a freight car, what I been in.”
“Johnny, why’re you doing this?”
His amber eyes blinked. “Gonna make a new life out West.”
I was thinking that the fairgrounds race had hurt him more deeply than I’d thought when his next words startled me.
“And I knew you weren’t coming back, Sam.”
I stared at him. “That’s a hell of a lot more than I know. How can you say that?”
“I only been close to a few people,” he said. “They all went away. By now I know when it’s set to happen.”
It gave me a funny chill. “I’m just taking a trip.”
He shrugged and said, “Me too,” as if each of us had our little delusions.
“Johnny, what is it you want with me?”
“What if I said when it got down to brass tacks, I didn’t want you going off without me?”
“I’d say that was pretty hokey,” I told him.
“I could pass as your manservant. Hell, I’d be your servant to go first class!”
I considered it. We were already short of space; his presence would hardly be welcome in our car.
“I’d pay the extra fare, wouldn’t cost anybody—”
“I don’t think you can come with us, Johnny,” I said, and felt bad when I saw his expression.
“How about you take a different train, Sam? We go to Frisco together.”
“But I’ve already paid for my ticket with
