Dead Man's Hand Read online

  “And you sentenced to die as a spy the very next day,” Yellowstone added. “Fate took a hand that day.”

  Bill nodded. “That’s when I became a poker player. So what is it, old campaigner? You hitching a ride?”

  Yellowstone laughed, then shook his shaggy head. He had an ugly but affable face distinguished by an easy, snaggle-toothed grin. Like many big men Bill had known, he had no chip on his shoulder.

  Yellowstone nodded toward the iron wheel beside Bill’s head.

  “God help me, Cap’n Bill, but I’m a brakeman now! It’s the clickity-click and clackety-clack for me, sir—the song of the rails! I’m a railroad man now, God bless my poor mother. ‘My only lad, spared by the great war,’ cries she, ‘only to be killed by Union Pacific!’”

  Bill nodded. Yellowstone’s mother was not just being overly maternal. After switchmen, who coupled the cars together with metal pins while they were still moving, the brakeman’s job was the most dangerous in the railroad business. Trains would not be equipped with air brakes for another decade, so they had to be stopped manually by brakemen, who ran along the roofs of the cars turning the brake wheels. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off, these brakemen lived on top of the trains, in sleet or sun. One false move could turn them into paste beneath iron wheels below.

  “And you, Cap’n Bill?” Yellowstone demanded. He yanked down the beak of his pillow-tick cap. “What brings you to the famous Ice Train? Besides your trouble-seeking nature, I mean.”

  “I’m a Pinkerton man now,” Bill answered, his tone that of a man confessing he had come down in the world a mite. “I’m keeping my eye on an old man, a machine, and a girl who’s pretty as four aces.”

  Yellowstone nodded, tugging his chin whiskers and watching Bill with one butternut eye slyly cocked.

  “I’ve read this ’n’ that about Wild Bill Hickok. He’s good to all women, they say. But he’s got this special weakness for quality gals. Actresses and royalty and such. That’s what I read, anyhow.”

  Bill shrugged, already backing down the ladder. “Life is too short to drink cheap whiskey, trooper.”

  “Smoke ’em if you got em!” Yellowstone roared back. “Cap’n Bill, you’ve got enough guts to fill a smokehouse. But you won’t get old.”

  “My very point,” Bill agreed. “By my own calculations, I’ve been dead three years already. But it’s good to see you alive, Yellowstone! I’ll come back later, we’ll broach a bottle to the old days.”

  “Wild Bill!” Josh shouted from below. “Hurry! We’ve got trouble!”

  Chapter Eight

  After Wild Bill had climbed topside, Josh had continued to interview Vogel about his amazing new ice machine. Already the professor had been forced to shut it down—the train was completely supplied with more ice than was needed.

  Josh had been in the middle of a question when the knob on the locked door rattled. The young reporter glanced up sharply when it was rattled a second time. All train porters and conductors had been instructed to knock and identify themselves.

  Vogel, an annoyed frown wrinkling his face, started toward the door. But Josh stopped him with a warning touch, shaking his head.

  Josh recalled the virtual arsenal those two gunsels with Bodmer carried. Then the youth heard a noise that made his bowels go loose and heavy with fear: a metallic scraping sound as someone tried to pick the lock.

  Josh leaped to the rear platform. “Wild Bill! Hurry! We’ve got trouble!”

  Bill didn’t bother climbing down—he simply let go of the ladder and landed hard on both feet, a gun in his right fist even as he landed. Josh pointed toward the locked door at the front of the caboose, and Bill nodded.

  Josh watched Bill gently, but firmly, push Vogel into a side bunk, out of any potential line of fire. Josh’s eyes cut to his carpetbag in one corner, but then he realized—feeling guilty at the relief—that even if he could fire the beautiful old pinfire revolver Bill gave him, he had no cartridges for it.

  “Ease off, kid,” Bill advised him. “You’re here to write the news, not make it. Time may come when you have to throw lead, but don’t rush it.”

  Bill holstered his Colt and plopped down at a little table that was bolted to the floor to keep it from sliding. He removed a deck of cards from his shirt pocket and began idly shuffling the deck.

  “Open the door, Longfellow,” he instructed Josh with quiet confidence. But Josh heard in his heart a great actor saying: Let the play begin.

  He looked questioningly at Hickok, nervous about actually doing it. The little metal scraping sounds continued.

  “Damnit, kid, don’t be rude,” Bill told him. “Let our guests inside.”

  Josh shrugged, turned the lock, and abruptly swung the door wide open, almost knocking one of Bodmer’s thugs in the skull.

  “Jee-zus!”

  The white “domestic servant” with the perpetual sneer went tumbling backward, almost tripping Bodmer. They and the half-breed were crowded together on the crazily shifting platform between this extra caboose and the regular crew caboose, presently empty, just ahead.

  Josh watched the white gunsel drop something and hastily scramble to pick it up—a bar key, a favorite tool of “cracksmen,” or burglars, and safecrackers. It consisted of the shaft of an ordinary key fitted with several bits, for locks of the day were all quite similar in structure.

  Bill ignored all of it, or seemed to. He riffled his cards and asked in a bored tone, “Something I can do for you gents?”

  Josh watched Bodmer quickly regain his composure. Now the wealthy entrepreneur was staring at Vogel’s refrigeration compressor— staring, Josh realized, with the same kind of lust men usually reserved for the right kind of woman. Professor Vogel, understanding that covetous gaze, quickly moved to block the view of Hilda. Vogel had already told Josh that Bodmer would have to look inside the machine, and the cooling mechanism, to steal anything useful.

  “There’s something you can stop doing, Hickok,” Bodmer finally replied.

  Bill cut the deck. “Do tell?”

  Josh had to bite his lower lip to keep from snickering. The words Bill had just spoken might have been a yawn. And Bodmer didn’t miss it.

  “Yes, I do tell,” he went on boldly. “I’ve seen the way you look at my fiancée. It’s a good rule to check the brand before you drive another man’s stock.”

  “Better take a closer look yourself,” Bill said tonelessly. “That girl isn’t wearing any brand. She’s a maverick—free for the taking.”

  Josh watched Bodmer’s eyes go smoky with rage. But he managed to reply coolly enough, “Free? I wouldn’t put one red penny on that. Elena knows the better man.”

  “She will soon, perhaps,” Bill deliberately goaded him. “In a biblical sense, I mean.”

  Bodmer’s veneer of cool composure now cracked completely. “Hickok, you’re no goddamned hero. You’re a cold-blooded killer.”

  Bill continued shuffling cards. “Opinions vary,” he said reasonably. “I shoot first and ask questions later. Call it what you will. Maybe there’s been some mistakes, maybe not. But my system has served me well, and I plan to stick with it.”

  Bill had their full attention now. He set the cards aside. His eyes cut to the heavily armed gunmen as he added, “Glad you fellows stopped by. I calculate I’ll have to kill both of you before this trip’s over. But I wanted to tell you that now so you can both live with the thought before I do it.”

  Josh gaped in astonishment. Even Bodmer, trying to look tough, was forced to laugh in nervous discomposure. His hirelings shot their boss lethal glances. Bill had made his chilling remark in the tone of a man soothing a fussing baby.

  In the ensuing silence, no one knew where to look. Josh tasted coppery fear when the half-breed’s right hand twitched closer to his holster.

  “Do it,” Bill said, and his simple invitation made the half-breed go pale and look away, his anger traded for fear.

  Bodmer stood there in silent, impotent rage, stewing in h
is juices. Bill picked up his cards again, his face suddenly tired and his tone showing some irritation.

  “Get out of here, all three of you. This is a private car. You’ve been warned. Next time you show in that doorway, I’ll do the decent citizens favor and skip the cost of trial and prison.”

  Josh saw Bodmer send a high sign to his dirt workers. They began to back off.

  “Enjoy your little show, Hickok, you’ll pay for this,” Bodmer promised. “You can chisel that in granite. You will pay.”

  “That’s cast-iron fact,” the white thug tossed in. “Mr. Pretty Curls here has just bought the farm, bull and all.”

  “Don’t let that door hit you where the good Lord split you,” Bill called out just before Josh swung the door shut and locked it again.

  “Vhat zis?” Vogel demanded, aiming a peeved glance at Wild Bill as if he had caused this barbaric episode. “You vild Americans haff turned my laboratory into za O.K. Corral! Ach, I am a scientist, I must haff peace and quiet!”

  Vogel sputtered on, oblivious to anything but his important goal of transforming modern society through the new science of refrigeration.

  “Kid,” Bill said. “Go get me that bottle now, wouldja? I’ve got a hunch this is going to be a long night.”

  Professor Vogel, still muttering darkly about the hereditary imperfections of the American bloodline, curled up in his bunk and promptly fell asleep, wheezing like a leaky bellows.

  “That old coot gets on his high horse,” Bill remarked. “And he wouldn’t last two days out here without nursemaids. But his heart’s in the right place, and that machine of his is some pumpkins. Kid,” Bill added, watching Josh deftly disassemble the firing-bolt group of the gun Bill had given him, “looks like you took my advice.”

  Josh nodded, pride evident in his gleaming, fresh-scrubbed features. “I can break the LeFaucheux down into its major groups, and reassemble it, in thirty seconds.”

  “That’s under a good light,” Bill qualified. “How fast can you do it in the dark?”

  Josh looked up, trying to see if Bill was just playing with him again. He already admired Hickok greatly, but the man had a disconcerting tendency toward what Josh’s pa, a judge back east, called “private irony”—it wasn’t always clear when a fellow was supposed to laugh.

  “I mean it, kid. You think guns only misfire under a gaslight? First time I ever had a stoppage in a shooting fight was in—”

  “In 1865,” Josh said eagerly. “In the public square at Springfield, Missouri. You killed Dave Tutt, a former fellow Union scout who had turned traitor and joined the Rebels.”

  “I was going to say,” Bill cut in dryly, “in the dark. Jesus, Longfellow! Do you also know the names of the first team I drove for Overland?”

  “No,” Josh confessed. “But you really liked them. It was four big Cavalry sorrels, broke to the doubletree because they knew the old soldier trails so well.”

  Bill was stunned into a respectful silence. He poured another shot of bourbon, saluting the reporter.

  “Kid, right now, when it comes to actually firing that weapon, you couldn’t locate your own ass at high noon in a hall of mirrors. But we can fix that, and we’d best start pronto. Bodmer talks the he-bear talk, but he’ll show the white feather if shooting starts. But not those old boys who were with him. Those two are hell-bent on throwing lead my—our—way. It’s best to make sure you can toss some back.”

  “Starting when?” Josh pressed. “And where, Wild Bill? Besides, I’ve got no pinfire cartridges.”

  Bill glanced out the window. Brassy late-afternoon sunlight formed a shimmering haze over distant hills to the north. From here they looked like a pod of whales.

  Bill, it seemed to Josh, was thinking out loud, not answering the question.

  “Your ma’s a Quaker,” he said. “And though I poke fun at thee for it, it’s a fine sect. I don’t mean to go against a man’s mother. But out here in the West, there’s too many people like Bodmer, people who never learn. Out here it’s a good idea to get handy with guns.”

  Bill’s distant gaze focused squarely on Josh. “So no sense putting it off. Lay that pinfire down and take this.”

  Bill slid one of his pearl-gripped Colts from the holster, spun it so the grip was proffered, and handed it to Josh.

  “C’mon out onto the platform,” Bill said, heading out himself.

  Josh followed, handling the .44 as if it were King Arthur’s sword. He noticed a small brazing on the trigger guard.

  “Bullet hit it,” Bill said, seeing Josh look at the repair.

  This could be the very gun that killed McCandles and his gang, Josh marveled. This could be—

  “Damnit, kid, wake up, wouldja?” Bill snapped. “I’m not talking for my health. I said do you see that cottonwood down in the wash? The one with the lightning-split trunk?”

  Josh nodded.

  “Shoot the damned thing.”

  Josh thumbed the hammer back, lifted the heavy gun, began to aim.

  “Don’t waste time aiming,” Bill ordered.

  Josh looked at him, puzzled.

  “Aiming is fine with a rifle,” Bill said. “You just point a handgun. Like it’s a natural extension of your finger. Point at your target and shoot, all one movement.”

  Bill took the gun from Josh. “Point at the tree with your finger.”

  Josh did.

  “See how quick and easy you did that? So stop aiming. Kid, I don’t just draw fast, drawing isn’t the main mile. It’s how fast you get the shot off that counts. Now, on my command, point this gun and shoot.”

  Not feeling very confident, Josh nonetheless did as he was told. At his very first shot, a fist-size chunk of gnarled bark chipped away from the tree.

  “I hit it!” Josh said in a welter of excitement. “I hit it, Wild Bill!”

  “Sure you did. Look who’s teaching you.”

  Josh’s first shooting lesson went on until the sun became a dull red ball on the western horizon.

  When they were back inside the caboose, Bill said, “We can pick you up some pinfire cartridges in Kansas City, if not before. Meantime, you keep a weather eye out for trouble. Just remember, you’re not strolling down Market Street with your mother. And you aren’t just writing about the Wild West now, kid, you’ve become part of the story. From here on out, your life is on the line.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Dogs, but that man is purty!”

  Calamity Jane took a few more seconds to study the handsome face of her beloved frontiersman. Then she loosed a tragic sigh and tucked the dog-eared photograph back into the Bible where she always carried it.

  “Bill needs this Bible,” Jane told her sway-backed team, for she talked to them all day long. “I’m a sinner, but I believe. Bill’s just a sinner. Dear God, it’s true Wild Bill’s been scarce around the church house. But just think of all the scoundrels he has sent to Lucifer.”

  Jane lifted her homely, careworn face to study the country hereabouts. She had driven all day and all night. Now she was still in Colorado, but just west of Garden City on the Arkansas River in western Kansas. From here, the flat tableland near the river valley, she could see the vast plains undulating all around her like curtain folds. The westering sun forced her eyes to slits.

  Jane had selected a spot where the railroad tracks, impeded by rocky bluffs, took enough turns to make a cow cross-eyed. The train would have to slow to a near crawl through this stretch. Jane had been able to get ahead of the Ice Train because it was scheduled for a daylong layover in La Junta, Colorado, site of the first demonstration of the ice machine.

  “It’s destiny, Bill Hickok,” she said out loud. “Come hell or high water, the Lord means for me to be with you.”

  Jane gazed at a deep groove in her right palm—her “love line,” that palmist in Old Mexico had assured her. The old visionary’s third eye also confirmed what Jane felt in her heart of hearts. Her life was meant to intertwine with Bill’s, like two separate but intimate
ly close strands of a rope. Bill didn’t realize it yet, was all.

  Jane wore frayed men’s trousers, an Indian-made beaded leather jerkin, and men’s hobnailed boots. But she was still bursting with pride over the only clean thing she owned: her new “John B.,” as everyone out west called John B. Stetson’s top-quality felt hats, the first American plainsman’s hat designed by an American for the American West. Annie Oakley, Jane’s only female hero, wore a John B. Ever since Jane had seen her in Colonel Cody’s show, she had wanted one.

  But if Bill Hickok wanted Jane in a calico bonnet, by grab, she’d wear a calico bonnet! Not that Bill had so far shown much interest in whether she was even alive or not. Jane was used to such apathy from most men. Even on the woman-scarce frontier, where desperate men married “the first female off the train,” Jane had received no offers of marriage.

  Well, maybe she was no lady. But most of the “decent” people who boarded that train with Bill would stoop to robbing poor boxes. Jane had fled into the empty spaces to avoid the stupidity and greed of such people back in so-called civilization.

  If only Wild Bill would share this solitude with her! But until such time as the Lord enlightened him, Jane was determined to protect Bill. That’s why she had decided to sneak on board the Ice Train—to keep a closer eye on him. She had seen the heavily armed trash boarding that train, and she had seen how they looked at Wild Bill.

  Jane found a thick, rain-sheltered covert near the river and stashed her buckboard there. The team she simply unhitched and turned out to graze in the hock-high bunchgrass. She might have to scour the countryside for them later, but they bore distinctive brands, and Jane had yet to meet a man—white or red—who had the gumption to steal horses from her.

  For a few moments, her tasks done, Jane squatted on her ankles to smoke and finish off a bottle of Doyle’s. She listened to the crackle of insects, the bubbling chuckle of the river, the soft song of the prairie wind. And she scowled as she recalled the beautiful Elena Vargas, whose name and striking face were in every far-west newspaper lately. Somehow Bill, a man whose reputation was carved out beyond the fringes of “high society” nonetheless always wangled a way to get near a beautiful woman.