Stamping Ground (21 page)

The engineer and conductor raised their voices in protest. The colonel, however, merely rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“I don't think I can let you do that,” he said finally.

“You don't have any choice.” I turned to the engineer. “Get up steam.”

“You don't understand.” Locke remained calm. “This is a private express.”

“Yours?”

He shook his head, then looked thoughtful again. “Perhaps I can work it out. Will you come with me?”

“Where and why?”

“The last car. A few minutes now might save you an hour.”

He sounded sincere, which added to my distrust. But time was running short. At any minute Lame Horse and his Cheyenne might overcome their fear of trains, and I had no illusions about the ability of six men to stand them off
with only (so far as I knew) four guns and a museum piece among them. Ignoring Gus's protests, I yanked the Walker from his belt and handed it up to Hudspeth. “See that the fireman stokes the box, and put Gus to work clearing the tracks. I'll be back in five minutes.”

“Someone's got to watch the pressure gauge,” the engineer snarled.

“The conductor's not doing anything.”

Colonel Locke and I mounted the steps to the platform of the second coach, where we stopped before the door that led inside. He turned to me and his voice dropped below a murmur.

“I have to whisper.” he said. “The old man has ears like a cat. Just keep quiet and agree with everything that's said.”

Before I could question him he rapped softly on the door. Immediately a voice that had to belong to either an orator or a wounded moose boomed an invitation from within. We entered.

It was just as well that my companion had advised me to keep silent, because I was struck dumb by my first glimpse of the coach's interior. I had expected an ordinary day carrier, narrow and cramped with a double row of hard seats facing each other in pairs on either side of a bare aisle. I wasn't prepared for a palace.

The dominant color was wine red. It covered the two easy chairs in plush velvet, tickled my ankles where I stood on the carpet, threw off a sheen from the curtains on the windows and from the drapes that concealed all but the brass lion's paws that were the feet of a huge four-poster bed in the far corner from view. A chandelier the size of a bull buffalo's head dangled from the paneled vault of the ceiling, its crystal pendants sparkling in the light of two globe lamps, one of which stood on the bar—a bar, by God, of polished oak with a decanter of what looked like burgundy and two long-stemmed glasses atop it—the other on a reading table beside the larger chair, overstuffed with a winged back and arms of curved walnut. The man at the
bar pouring amber liquid from a second decanter into a glass was also overstuffed, but unlike Judge Flood, whose excess tonnage hung out everywhere, this one's was all up front in a solid, rounded globe of belly that started at his collar and swelled out so far that I doubted he could clasp his hands over it without straining his arms, then swept back to balance between his normal-size thighs like a hot-air balloon supported upon a pair of uprights. He was in shirtsleeves and vest, the obligatory gold watch chain describing a grand arc across the biggest part of the bulge. Upon it were strung ornaments representing various guilds and lodges the way an Indian might display scalps on a thong.

“A brandy man, I'll wager,” he announced over his precise operation with the decanter and glass. His voice was not a bellow like Flood's, nor a rumbling bass like that of the black fireman, but its resonance carried the best qualities of both. It was a voice trained to ring in the rafters of a great marble hall. He spoke as if he'd been expecting me and as if we'd already been introduced. “I trust this cognac will cut the dust to your satisfaction. It's not Napoleon, but with the country just emerging from a depression it's inadvisable to flaunt one's affluence. That is the phrase you Westerners use, is it not? ‘Cut the dust?' Or perhaps I should say
we
Westerners, since I am to be one henceforth.”

“I'm partial to rotgut,” I said, but accepted the proffered glass from a strong, stout hand with a thick gold band around the wedding finger.

His eyes twinkled at what I suppose he considered a prime example of frontier wit. They were the kind of eyes that twinkled easily or flared hot with anger or grew soft and gentle, all at a moment's notice and upon command. Like those of Major Harms they were brown, but with a dash of yellow, like the cognac. His face was round but not bloated, the dewlaps folded neatly on either side of a fleshless beak and darting immediately into the cover of his whiskers, which, beginning at the tops of his cheekbones,
grew into a magnificent noose-shaped mass that concealed his vest as far as the second button. He had started growing them before I was born. They were a shade darker than the iron gray of his hair, thinning now but in the best way, retreating in twin horns of pinkish scalp to the left and right of a healthy widow's peak that topped the bulge of his forehead in the style of a Crow pompadour. He would never be as bald as Judge Flood. I looked to the colonel for an introduction.

He, too, had been extended a glass of cognac. He sipped at it, then touched his lips with the corner of a silk handkerchief and returned the latter to his breast pocket.

“Sir,” he said, addressing the host, “this is Page Murdock, deputy marshal for the federal court of Judge Harlan Blackthorne at Helena, Montana Territory. Deputy Murdock, allow me to present Senator Harold Firestone, late of the United States Congress and former Governor of the State of Illinois.” He paused, then added, for the other's benefit, “Deputy Murdock is sympathetic.”

I sipped at the cognac while my host studied me with new interest. I could tell it was good liquor because it didn't have much taste. The ideal spirit, I imagine, has no flavor at all. But that wasn't what concerned me at the moment. I was wondering what a politician was doing away out here in the middle of nowhere and just what it was that I was supposed to be sympathetic with. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a subtle signal from Colonel Locke reminding me of his earlier admonition. I decided to trust him for the time being and kept my mouth shut.

“Tell me, Mr. Murdock,” said the senator. “What is it about this country that you despise? The greed for territorial expansion or the corruption in lofty government circles? Or is it something else? Something personal, perhaps? I am curious to know.”

I was glad I wasn't supposed to say anything. I stood there like a plaster Cupid while he waited for an answer He was a couple of inches shorter than I and had to cock his bearded chin upward to engage my gaze. There was a
hard glint in his eyes now, one of suspicion. Or maybe I was reading something into them that wasn't there. The silence was growing threadbare when Locke plunged in.

“Deputy Murdock is a frontiersman, Senator. He feels that civilization is encroaching upon his world and blames Washington City for its systematic destruction.”

Firestone kept looking at me. “And how did you learn of our mission? It is supposed to be a secret.” This time I caught a genuine trace of distrust in his tone. The colonel had his work cut out for him.

“Deputy Murdock is a friend of a friend,” he said cryptically.

To my surprise that bit of nonsense seemed to satisfy the senator. I got the impression that he was eager to place his trust in me and was prepared to meet me more than halfway. “Very well,” he said. “I caution you to remain silent. As far as anyone else is concerned, I have retired from politics and am on my way to assume the supervision of my cattle herd in Montana.” Then he softened again, visibly, and smiled, crinkling the skin around his eyes. “I knew that you were in sympathy when I looked out the window and saw you boarding this coach. I said to myself, ‘Here is a man who will not accept abuse lying down.' I assure you that you are not alone, and that when we reach our destination you will find many others who feel as you do.”

“He has a partner,” Locke put in. “A marshal named Hudspeth.”

He seemed unruffled. “He, too, is sympathetic?”

“He's my partner,” I said. Now I was doing it. Five more minutes with these two and I'd be speaking in riddles for the rest of my life.

“Then he is welcome also.” He turned to Locke. “Place their belongings in the baggage car and see that they are made comfortable in the other coach.” Back to me. “We will talk more later, after we have both rested. Travel exhausts me. I am afraid that I am no longer the campaigner I was in my youth.” His eyes clouded over and I could see
that he really was played out, as much as a man can get in this life. His complexion was sallow and the whites of his eyes were turning an unhealthy ivory around the edges. If he wasn't dying I had never seen it before.

Locke kept silent until we were back outside and beyond earshot of the rolling palace. Then he produced a metal flask from an inside breast pocket and tipped it up, letting the contents gurgle twice before he lowered it and replaced the cork. He looked as if he needed it, so I didn't blame him for not offering me a swig. He and Hudspeth would get along.

“When did he snap?” I asked then.

“A year and a half ago, when he lost his bid for a third term in the Senate.” He returned the flask to his pocket. I noticed a similar bulge on the other side of his coat, but not from another flask. I wondered if this was some new style I hadn't heard about, or if it was just that a man whose drinking habits required a portable supply found it necessary to carry a hideout gun as well. “He was planning to, go for President in eighteen eighty, and had his eye on that election. When a thirty-two-year-old war veteran knocked him out of the seat he'd held for twelve years it was too much for him. Ostensibly, he's on his way to take over the ranch he owns south of Medicine Hat. He thinks he's going there to meet up with his private army and prepare to cleave off Idaho, Washington, and Oregon and start his own country.”

He paused to let that sink in. It didn't take as long as he expected. I said, “When a politician loses his grip he doesn't fool around, does he?”

“It's really not so farfetched when you think about it. Every politician harbors a secret desire to be king of something.”

“I wouldn't know. I stopped voting after the last election.”

He smiled without mirth. “The Hayes steal. That little stunt did more to undermine popular confidence in the democratic system than four years of civil war.”

“Is there an army?”

“Forty men in army surplus, armed with war-issue Springfields. No ammunition. He'll finish out his life in that lonely spot, drilling his tin soldiers and strutting around like a Mexican general in the uniform he designed for himself. He'll be out of the way and harmless.”

“Who's paying the soldiers?”

“He is. You don't spend half your life in public office in this country without becoming a millionaire. The bank draft he's carrying in his vest pocket would feed a family of ten for thirty years.”

“Is that why you're armed?” He started. I smiled. “Next time you have a suit made, tell your tailor to leave more room around the left shoulder. What is it, a shoulder rig or a pocket like Hudspeth's?”

He swung open the left side of his coat to reveal a glossy leather holster beneath his armpit, tilted forward to bring the ivory-handled butt of a small Remington within easy reach. The rigging was concealed beneath his vest.

“What are you, his bodyguard?”

He shrugged. “Bodyguard, adviser, companion—”

“And keeper?”

That didn't bother him. Not much did, I guessed. “It pays well.”

“Better than the army? Why'd you leave?”

“You can only go so far in the service, unless you've distinguished yourself in battle, in which case the White House is the logical next step. I don't like politics. Besides, men who erect privies for generals' wives don't get their names on the front pages of newspapers.”

I didn't ask him why he felt riding herd on a madman had any more future than service in the 16th Engineers. At best it would just make him angry, and I didn't know how much reserve he had or how good he was at getting that Remington out of its nook, and didn't care to find out at this point. That was one thing about life in the West. With everyone packing a weapon you had to be careful what you said or did. I reversed directions.

“What's a friend of a friend?”

His face cleared at the question. He was glad of the change. “Conspirators in high places,” he explained. “Firestone is convinced that the country is rife with them west of the Mississippi. Not that it isn't, and on the other side as well, but not the kind he thinks. He hopes to strike the first blow for revolution.”

“Oh, Christ, not another one.”

He laughed, a trifle too heartily. “There's small danger of that happening outside the twisted confines of the senator's skull. Let's go see if we're ready to push on.” He almost threw an arm around my shoulders as we struck out toward the other end of the train, there was that much politician—and liquor—in him. But there was enough soldier in him to refrain, and to change the sweeping gesture at the last moment into a tug on the back of his collar as if it had become twisted.

“How do you plan to explain the Indian?” I asked.

“Don't worry about that. The old man never leaves his car. Just to be safe, though, you might consider locking your prisoner in with the baggage.”

“No good. I'm keeping him in sight to end of track.”

“Then lock yourself in with him.”

“Not without windows.” We had reached the engine, where the fireman was busy chucking wood into the box while the engineer, having cleared the debris off the tracks, leaned against the wall of the cab with an eye on the pressure gauge. The conductor stood about studying his watch and looking impatient. Hudspeth glared at them from the ground. Jac's Spencer was in his hands, my own Winchester lying at his feet with our gear, which he had carted from the other side of the tracks. Ghost Shirt, who had accompanied it, lay propped up on one elbow nearby, in as comfortable a position as he could manage considering his trusses. The steady throb of the boiler drowned out whatever conversation there might have been.