Blood at Sundown

by Peter Brandvold

  Louisa stepped up onto the brick platform, removed her hat and muffler, and shook her hair so that it spilled loosely about her shoulders, shedding the snow that had clung to it. She stepped to the front door and turned the knob.

  The door squawked open on unoiled hinges. She stepped inside, slowly pushed the door closed behind her, latching it. As she did, she instinctively stepped to one side, not allowing the light from the door to outline her.

  A soft whistle sounded to her left. Louisa jerked her startled gaze to see two men sitting on the bench on that side of the door, running the length of the front wall. They had all manner of gear, including saddles and saddlebags, piled around them. They wore their heavy coats open, and the larger of the two, a tall, fat, bearded, blue-eyed man in a quilted elk-hide coat, wore a battered black felt hat. The smaller man—lean and wiry and rolling a matchstick around between his thin lips—was bareheaded, his hat hooked over the horn of the saddle resting on the bench beside him.

  “Look at that, French,” said the little man. “Ain’t she purty?” He smiled at Louisa. It was more of a leer, revealing one missing front tooth.

  The big man, French, shoved his saddle away, clearing a spot on the bench to his left. He patted the cleared spot on the bench. “Come on over here and sit down beside me, pretty girl. If you’re here for the train, you got a long wait. Ain’t gonna get here till tomorrow afternoon, most like. And that’s only if the tracks don’t get blocked by the snow.”

  “So a train is on the way?” Louisa asked hopefully, ignoring the leers in the men’s eyes. Or trying to, anyway. She almost succeeded despite the way their eyes turned glassy as they raked her up and down.

  “Certain-sure,” said the smaller man, his eyes on the rise where her breasts were pushing out her coat. “Might as well take a load off.” He cleared a small spot beside him on the bench and grinned. “Sit down beside me. French ain’t had a bath since last Fourth of July. He stinks to hog heaven!”

  “That’s a lie an’ you know it, Cully,” accused French, his big, bearded face turning crimson. “I took a bath just the other day over at the Territorial.” He glowered at Cully. “Just before Tutwiler kicked us out on account o’ you cuttin’ that half-breed swamper he had workin’ for him!”

  Louisa rolled her eyes at the seedy pair of hardtails—likely ranch hands laid off for the winter and heading toward warmer climes. They’d spend the winter fighting, gambling, getting drunk, and mistreating the doxies they’d badly underpay.

  Louisa glanced at the ticket cage to her right. It was vacant, though what appeared to be a solitaire hand was laid out on the pine counter just inside, near a whiskey bottle and a shot glass. A quirley lay at the edge of the counter, its burning coal hanging over the edge, sending a curl of gray smoke into the air of the shadowy niche that also housed a telegraph key.

  Louisa turned to the two men now arguing on the bench to her left, and said, “Where’s the stationmaster? Hey, you two—pipe down! Where’s the—?”

  “Here, I’m here!”

  Louisa turned to see a stocky man with longish dark brown hair struggling through a trackside door in the far back wall of the place. He, too, wore a thick beard. Louisa judged him to be in his late thirties, early forties, once a hard worker, judging by a layer of thick muscle, but gone to fat. He had an armload of split wood in his arms, which were clad in a grimy striped blanket coat with a torn and dangling pocket.

  He drew the door clumsily closed behind him and strode into the waiting room, shivering, shaking his long, greasy hair back away from his face, revealing his doughy, rawboned features including a nose like a door handle.

  He shivered, cursed the cold, and walked over to the big potbelly stove sitting in the middle of the room. As he did, he glanced at Louisa.

  He glanced away and then glanced back at her again. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked her up and down. His eyes widened, turned glassy, glistening in the gray light angling through the two windows in the wall behind the pretty, hazel-eyed blonde.

  Cully, who had stopped arguing with French, chuckled seedily. “Me an’ French—we got us a new friend, Jerry. See what happens when you leave?”

  “Somethin’ special happens,” French said, his voice low but teeming with sleazy laughter.

  Jerry’s coal black eyes raked Louisa up and down, a smile gradually growing on his mouth.

  “French and Cully tell me a train is due tomorrow afternoon,” Louisa said to Jerry. “That right?”

  Jerry’s eyes brightened even more. He smiled even wider. He turned away from Louisa and dropped the wood from his arms into the bin beside the stove, glowering at French and Cully and saying, “This ain’t no hotel. If you two are gonna hole up here till the train pulls in, you can at least split wood and keep the stove fed, damnit!”

  He turned to Louisa again, and his unctuous smile was back in place, his eyes roaming across the swollen top of her coat. He brushed his hands together. “What’s your name, pretty lady?”

  Louisa smiled stiffly. “The train.”

  Cully chuckled through his teeth. French gave a snort.

  “What about it?” Jerry said.

  “One is pulling through here tomorrow afternoon?”

  “That’s right. If the weather holds.”

  “Can I purchase a ticket?”

  “Why, sure you can,” Jerry said, planting his fists on his hips. “But first you gotta give me a smile.”

  Louisa stared at him blankly.

  Cully chuckled through his teeth again. Again, French snorted.

  “All right, all right,” Jerry said, glowering at Louisa as he pushed through a Dutch door to enter his cage. “You’re purtier’n a speckled pup, but you sure are a sour little thing. A pretty girl should cheer a place up. A storm’s on the way, don’t ya know. That’s what the old man said.”

  Staring through his cage now, over the playing cards, whiskey bottle, and shot glass, he plucked the quirley off the counter and stuck it in his mouth. He slid his eyes from Louisa to Cully and French, now sitting behind Louisa as she stood in front of the cage.

  “The old Injun who lives down by the creek says so,” Jerry continued. “That old dog-eater’s bursitis starts actin’ up somethin’ fierce when a storm’s on the way. He goes through twice as much wood in his old shack, keepin’ the place warm. When he starts howlin’ about his bursitis, you know you’re in for one hell of a storm!”

  “I’m sorry about your Indian’s bursitis,” Louisa said. “Tell him to grind up some mint and lavender and liberally apply the paste to his joints. Now, it’s getting late and I have horses to tend, so I’d like to purchase a ticket for Bismarck and be on my way.”

  Jerry sat on the high stool fronting the counter inside the cage and squinted his eyes as he took a deep drag off the quirley. “Bismarck, eh?”

  “Right.”

  “What you got goin’ in Bismarck, pretty lady?” Another sleazy smile tugged at the agent’s mouth corners as he blew smoke out his nostrils at Louisa through the cage.

  “That’s none of your business, Jerry. Just the ticket, please.”

  “Just the ticket, huh?”

  Cully and French snorted and squirmed around on their bench. Louisa heard one of them take a pull from a bottle. He chuckled, choking a little on the tangleleg, and drew the bottle down sharply, coughing. The other man squealed hoarsely.

  Louisa removed her mittens and gloves and set them on the counter. “Just the ticket.”

  “All right,” Jerry said, drawing on the quirley again and holding the smoke in his lungs as he said, “that’ll be twenty-five dollars.”

  “Twenty-five dollars?” Louisa shuttled her gaze to the various ticket prices chalked on a board on the cage to her left. “The board says it’s three seventy-five to Bismarck.”

  “Oh, that,” Jerry said. “That’s summer prices. I ain’t gotten around to changin’ ’em yet. Yeah, in winter the cost goes up. You know—on account o’ the weather an’ such. Costs mo
re to run a train in the winter.”

  “It sure does, that’s true!” laughed Cully.

  There was the sloshing sound of either him or French taking another drink from the bottle.

  Louisa pulled her mouth corners down.

  “Is that too much?” Jerry asked.

  “I don’t have twenty-five dollars,” Louisa lied. She looked up at him again and injected feigned beseeching into her gaze. “Please, Jerry. I have to get to Bismarck. I can’t afford twenty-five dollars, but I have to get to Bismarck just the same. Oh, please, Jerry—you must help me!”

  “Help you?” Jerry said, his eyes brightening like those of a wolf smelling fresh meat.

  Chapter 14

  Louisa raised her brows in mock helpless pleading. “Please, Jerry. You have to help me. I have to get to Bismarck!”

  “Of course, of course,” Jerry said, nodding slowly, eyeing her cagily. “How could I not help such a purty girl in need? Such a pretty girl on the run—now, ain’t that right?”

  “On the run?”

  “Yeah. Maybe from a husband out on some ranch around here. You got mail-order bride written all over you, sweetheart.”

  “She does got mail-order bride written all over her!” French said, slapping his thigh with the sudden realization. “I’ll be damned but you’re good, Jerry!”

  “Sure, sure,” Jerry said. “I know how it goes. You prob’ly came in on the train this summer. Up from Bismarck or God knows where. Answered the ad of some lonely rancher. Married up with him. Ate his food, enjoyed the shelter he put over your head. But now when it starts turnin’ a little cold, an’ maybe he slapped you around a little bit, teaching you how it is, you think you can just turn tail and run back home to Ma an’ Pa—leavin’ the poor old rancher high an’ dry!”

  Louisa stared at him, as though both amazed and taken aback by his insightfulness. “How . . . did you . . . know?” she cried softly, making her upper lip quiver.

  “This ain’t my first rodeo,” Jerry said. “I seen it all.”

  “Please, Jerry . . .”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do,” Jerry said.

  “What’s that?” Louisa asked, again hopeful.

  “I’m gonna go ahead and let you pay the summer price for the ticket to Bismarck.”

  “Oh, thank you so much, Jerry. I can’t tell you how obliged—”

  Jerry held up his hand. “Hold on, hold on!”

  Louisa feigned a puzzled look.

  Jerry stared at her darkly, his lips fashioning a dark smile. “But you’re, uh, gonna have to stay right here with me an’ Cully an’ French tonight. Gonna be a long, lonely, stormy night, don’t ya know.”

  “Sure is,” French said, walking slowly up behind Louisa. He was a big man, Louisa saw now, glancing over her left shoulder at him. Almost as tall as Lou, but with a large, round gut. His neck was as thick as a bull’s neck, and the hands he held down at his sides were the size of hams. “Gonna be a long, cold, lonely night. We could use a girl to purty the place up a bit.”

  “Uh, fellas,” Cully said after clearing his throat behind French.

  Ignoring him, French stopped behind Louisa and placed his hands on Louisa’s shoulders. He drew her back against him. He closed his hand over her shoulders.

  “Wait,” Louisa said. “I . . . I really . . . I don’t think this is at all fair. It’s not right to take advantage of a poor, defenseless young woman down on her luck!”

  “Oh, it’s fair, all right,” Jerry said, rising from his stool and pushing back out through the swinging Dutch door. “You be good to us or we’ll kick you out in the cold. If the man you’re runnin’ from catches you, he’ll likely bullwhip you and leave you out in the snow to die slow, wolves feedin’ on your purty parts. We’re doin’ you a favor. You just gotta pay us back, see.”

  “Oh God!” Louisa cried in a pinched, little-girl’s voice. “Please don’t let him find me!”

  “Don’t you worry, purty one,” French said, pressing his nose to Louisa’s neck and taking a long, deep, animallike sniff. He himself smelled like sour sweat, stale whiskey, and cheap tobacco. “We’ll protect you. You’ll be right here. With us.”

  “Fellas,” Cully said again, tentatively.

  Again, French and Jerry ignored him. Jerry beckoned to French, grinning, then walked toward a closed door just beyond the cage.

  French closed his hands even more tightly on Louisa’s shoulders, turned her away from the cage, and, keeping his hands on her shoulders, shoved her toward the door through which Jerry now stepped.

  “Please don’t do this,” Louisa said, making her voice quaver. “All . . . all I want is a ticket to Bismarck!”

  “We’ll get you that ticket to Bismarck,” Jerry said. “In due time, li’l girl!”

  “Uh, fellas . . .” came Cully’s voice once more, pitched with singsong warning.

  French pushed Louisa into the room, which appeared to be Jerry’s private, sour-smelling sleeping quarters with a small cot covered in animal skins, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and not much else. A lamp burned low on the chest, casting a weak, fluttering light about the small room. Jerry turned to Louisa, grabbed the front of her coat, spun her around to put her back to the bed, then slammed the back of his hand savagely against her left cheek.

  The scream that vaulted out of her throat was as real as the sudden blow that sent her sailing backward onto the lumpy cot.

  Her head struck the cot’s hard wooden frame, and her vision dimmed. Her cheek was on fire. She could feel the welt swelling hotly. She lifted her head. As she did, she looked up to see two gauzy images of Jerry laughing and crouching over her, bringing his right hand back toward her face.

  This time his hand connected with her mouth, tearing the left corner of her bottom lip.

  The second blow set up a loud ringing in her ears. It dimmed her vision further. It may have even caused her to pass out briefly. The next thing she was aware of, as she lifted her head from the cot, was blinking her eyes to clear the cobwebs.

  Giving a lusty wolf’s howl, Jerry threw his thick body on top of Louisa. Abruptly, the howl died in his throat. He turned his face to hers. His eyes were wide, glazed with apprehension.

  His mouth was half-open. His breath smelled like a dead fish rotting in the sun. It made Louisa’s eyes water. She blinked them clear and returned Jerry’s gaze with a threatening one of her own.

  She quirked the corner of her mouth into a knowing half grin.

  “What?” Jerry croaked. “What’s . . . what’s that?”

  Louisa said, “Twin Colts.”

  She’d shoved her pistols into her overlarge coat pockets before entering the depot station. She’d positioned them for the cross-draw. She was so good with the little ladies, and so instinctual, that even in her addled state, she’d pulled them as Jerry had hurled off his heels and onto the bed. She hadn’t quite gotten them turned forward before he’d jumped on her, but she did so know, feeling Jerry’s soft belly yielding to the barrels pressing into it.

  She cocked both pistols. The clicks, muffled by Jerry’s body, sounded little louder than the twin croaks of baby frogs.

  Jerry stared into Louisa’s eyes, wincing and shifting his weight to accommodate the shooting irons. Louisa stared back at him, trying to ignore his fetid breath blowing against her own mouth, from which she could feel the cool wetness of blood trickle.

  A sweat bead popped out just off the corner of Jerry’s left brow and began to slowly make its way down through the three-day growth of beard stubble on his ugly, pitted face.

  “Hold on, now,” Jerry said tightly.

  He grimaced, nearly closing one eye. Slowly, keeping his gaze on Louisa’s eyes, he pushed his bulk off her until he knelt over her, straddling her. He raised his hands, palms out, his face slack, eyes wide with fear. Clumsily, he slid his feet back behind him and off the bed to the floor. Keeping one hand raised in supplication, he pushed off the bed and straightened, staring down at her, slack-jawed
.

  “Ah hell!” French said when he saw the guns in Louisa’s hands, resting on each of her hips, the intricately decorated barrels aimed at Jerry. “What in tarnation . . . ?”

  “Fellas?” came Cully’s voice again from the waiting room. It sounded far away, tentative.

  Jerry backed away toward the open door. “Don’t now . . . don’t . . .”

  Louisa sat up on the edge of the cot, extending both cocked pistols straight out before her. She could feel her right cheek swelling hotly. Blood continued to dribble from her torn lower lip. She stared unblinkingly, stone-faced at Jerry, who slowly, slowly backed toward the door standing open behind him.

  French stood to Louisa’s left, staring wide-eyed at her twin Colts.

  “Easy,” he wheezed, slowly raising his hands. “Easy . . . easy . . .”

  Louisa canted her head toward her right Colt, narrowed that eye as she aimed down the barrel.

  “No, no, no, no!” Jerry cried.

  The last “no” was drowned by the explosive roar of Louisa’s right-hand .45.

  Jerry screamed and slapped his right hand to his left, bullet-torn shoulder. He’d no sooner made the motion than Louisa’s left-hand Colt roared, punching a hole through Jerry’s right shoulder. He flew straight back through the door and hit the waiting room floor, howling.

  “No!” French bellowed.

  He’d just made it to the door before Louisa’s bullets began chewing into him, the flashy Colts bucking in her hands. She’d punched four bullets into French’s side and his back—she wasn’t beneath shooting such a devil in the back—before she stopped and peered through the powder smoke wafting before her, peppering her nose.

  French was down on the floor about five feet beyond the door, to the right of Jerry. Jerry was on his back, writhing. French was on his belly, also writhing and bellowing loudly.

  Louisa rose from the cot. She crouched to retrieve her hat from the floor. She set it on her head then strode purposely out into the waiting room.