There was her rapping again. “Micah, open the door. Let me in.”
“Go away,” he said. At the sound of his voice he heard both Fay and Jackson sigh with relief. They had been afraid he’d killed himself. Done himself in.
Micah had considered suicide many times in the past. When the blue devils came to call, they always brought those thoughts along with them. It was odd, though. This time it had not crossed his mind. He wondered why. Indifference was what he wanted. It was what he ached for, and suicide was the purest form of indifference. Suicide was caring so little that a person could turn away from life entirely. Suicide was indifference at its most distilled.
Micah felt his brow furrow at the strange realization that this time there had been no thought of killing himself.
Maybe, he didn’t deserve to stop the pain. Maybe, just as Chester had said of Sonny, Micah was already dead.
Sonny. Micah hadn’t killed him.
With the sound of Chester’s words crashing through his head, Micah had moved the shotgun’s muzzle at the moment he pulled the trigger. The blast blew a hole six inches deep into the snow and frozen earth next to Sonny’s head. In his terror, Sonny had screamed nonstop for a full twenty minutes; finally his voice box broke, and as far as Micah knew, Sonny had not made a sound since. Micah had decided the hangman could have Sonny after all.
Now he heard Fay tell Jackson to leave. “I’ll see to him, Jackson,” she said. “You go on.”
“You know, Fay,” the old lawyer said, “it’ll be here in less than an hour.”
“I know. We’ll see how he feels. We’ll see. Now, you go on.”
With grumblings of reluctance, Micah heard Jackson leave. Again there was the rapping. “Micah, let me in. We need to talk.”
Micah wanted to shout that they did not need to talk; there was nothing either of them could say, but the weight of his indifference kept the words inside. Instead, he responded in the only way he could, with silence.
“Micah, I know your sadness for Chester. He was a man who knew things. And he was brave. Braver than us by far. Nothing mattered to Chester except what was right. He was ready to sacrifice himself for whatever he felt was right. He was ready to go to prison for what he felt was right.” There was a pause. When she began again, Micah could hear the tears in her voice. “You not killing Sonny, Micah, that was the right thing. And I’m guessing it was Chester who helped you know that. People like you and me, we’re good enough people. The world needs us to protect it against people like Sonny. But sometimes even good people need to be shown the right thing to do. We need someone like Chester Hedstrom to point the way. Maybe even show us it’s all right to sometimes take a risk. Chester could see things none of the rest of us could see. It was like we were all huddled in darkness, and ol’ Chester, he stood up, and he walked out into the light.”
She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, in his mind’s eye, Micah could see her straighten the front of her dress in that prim, no-nonsense way she had. “His passing is a sad thing, and we’ll never forget him, but now, Micah McConners, it’s time for you to open up this door and let me in.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Number Twenty was a coal-fired steam engine that, according to its builders, was the fastest train in America. On Tuesday, January 1, 1901, in celebration of the new year and the new century, a demonstration had been arranged for the Twenty to travel from Casper to Cheyenne, a distance of a hundred and eighty miles. It was claimed by the rail line they could make this journey in two hours and forty-five minutes. One railway official suggested if everything went as planned, it was possible they could make it in less than two and a half hours. They boasted that on many areas of the refurbished track, the Twenty would reach a speed of one hundred miles per hour.
In addition to the engine, the train would be made up of three cars: the coal car, which was, of course, behind the engine, a caboose at the end, and in between the coal car and caboose, the most luxurious of sitting-cars. In this sitting-car would ride the president of the railroad and the governor of the state, along with their wives and children.
For months beforehand, advertisements of the event had filled every paper in Wyoming. Half the dignitaries in the state had been invited to attend a huge luncheon in Casper on the day of the trip. Dignitaries not attending the luncheon had been invited to a midafternoon reception in Cheyenne upon the train’s arrival.
The promise of seeing an object moving at such speeds proved to be a tremendous lure. On the morning of the Great Ride, as it had come to be called, people began to line the track. Even though no stops were planned, and the train would be in and out of all the towns along the way in a matter of seconds, every community on the route planned its own celebration.
Probity was no different. A dais large enough to hold the mayor, city council, county commissioners, and all their wives had been erected on the depot’s platform. The Twenty was scheduled to depart Casper at precisely one o’clock. Probity was fifty miles to the southeast, so the train might pass through as early as one-thirty.
Mayor Thompson, who was always loquacious, began his speech at one. He was in his finest form on this New Year’s Day—New Century’s Day, as he described it—but despite the mayor’s skill at turning a phrase, the crowd’s attention was divided—focused more on the track to the northwest than on anything the mayor had to say.
Jackson Clark’s attention was also pointed up the track. For his entire life Jackson had been fascinated with trains. When he was a boy growing up on his father’s Ohio farm, every afternoon at three-oh-eight the train that ran from Hillsboro to Chillicothe would pass through. And no matter what Jackson was doing, he would stop doing it long enough to wave at the train’s engineer.
For all his sixty years, Jackson had watched the changing face of trains, but he never would have believed he’d live long enough to see one capable of traveling as fast as the Twenty. He admired the courage of the train’s passengers. He would not dream of getting on anything that could go a hundred miles an hour. He questioned a person’s ability to breathe moving at such speed. He feared the air would be passing so quickly it would be impossible to suck it in.
Mayor Thompson’s speech droned on. He spoke of the power of modern machinery and the promise the new century held. Jackson recognized all these sentiments, every single one, as ones the mayor had borrowed from Chester Hedstrom. At first he found that irritating, but then he decided it was a fine thing, indeed. Chester would be pleased.
Jackson kept his eyes on the track. He had a clear view from where he stood. He could see all the way down First Street, past Antelope Flats, farther even than Lottie Charbunneau’s. He checked his watch: one-twenty-six, and the Twenty was not in sight.
It was exciting for Jackson waiting for this mighty train to roar into their town, but it was a hollow excitement. Chester had looked forward to this day. He’d followed all the newspaper stories about the train. There were dozens of articles written, some of which even included schematics of the engine’s design. Being educated as an engineer and having once even worked in a factory that built locomotives, Chester understood a great deal about the Twenty’s construction. Prior to the trial, when it was assumed he would be going to prison, Chester had told Micah and Jackson that one of the things he regretted most was that he would miss the coming of the Twenty. It would be, Chester had said, quite a sight.
One-thirty-three. Jackson squinted toward the northwest. Still there was no sign of the train. He expected younger eyes than his would see it first, and he’d only know it was coming by the sounds made by the crowd.
Even as he had that thought, Jackson heard gasps and whispers. He squinted harder up the track, but still his old eyes couldn’t see a thing.
The whispers grew louder, and there was a stirring from the other side of the dais. Jackson turned and saw why. Coming toward him—the crowd stepping back out of their way—was Micah McConners and Fay Charbunneau. Jackson smiled when he saw the surprise
d disbelief that draped the face of everyone who watched.
As Micah and Fay came toward him, they did so holding hands. The pale fingers interlaced with the dark was a sight never seen by the eyes that saw it now.
The crowd’s attention was no longer divided. Not a soul looked toward Mayor Thompson—not even his wife, Muriel—as he delivered his windy oration. After a bit, he too had to turn to see what was happening. What he saw stopped him in midsentence. His practiced rhetoric was transformed to stammers and stutters as he grappled for something to say.
But before the mayor could find his words, a shrill scream ripped the afternoon air. It hit the buildings, rattled windows, and ricocheted through the town. Sparrows wheeled in panic from their perches by the river.
The stirring among the crowd stopped. Now they faced up-track, wide-eyed and mouths agape.
The Twenty was coming. A tornado of black smoke billowed from its stack. It was still a mile away, but the rails hummed with its power. It was a roaring juggernaut, the blast of its whistle growing louder with every second.
It came like an army toward them, a massive, inexorable force.
In moments it was there. The heat of it made the people in front shove back hard against those behind. The air in front of it was pushed aside. It blew hats from heads and caused women’s hair to fly.
In the brief instant the train was parallel to the station, the engineer again blew the Twenty’s whistle, and terrified children cupped their hands to their ears. To Jackson the shriek of it seemed loud enough to rend the sky and open up the heavens.
There was a quick blur of waves as the sitting-car blasted past. Then a two-fingered salute came from the brakeman who stood at the back of the diminishing caboose.
As fast as the Twenty came, it was gone, and the sudden quiet was engulfing.
Dust and papers whirled in circles. For a full fifteen seconds—more than three times as long as it took the great train to pass—the citizens of Probity, Wyoming, stood in total silence.
But then as if on cue—as if as one, they burst into cheers. They yahooed and yippeed. The Probity Brass Band began to play. The people laughed and hugged. They spun and danced. It was as though this mighty engine screaming across the winter prairie had left a field of pure energy in its wake.
Jackson felt it as much as anyone, and he began to do a jig. He knew it looked strange and old-fashioned, but the old lawyer didn’t give a damn. It was a jig he’d learned back in Ohio as a boy in the middle of what was now the previous century. And despite his years and the crick that always plagued his back, Jackson Clark was certain he had never done it better.
He grabbed Fay and twirled her around, then grabbed Micah and twirled him too.
Jackson could still see the sadness in Micah. It was thick and hung in his eyes like a storm. Micah felt things stronger than most folks. Jackson would wager that was one of the things that would make him a fine attorney—and a fine man to boot.
He gave the boy another spin, then let him go. Micah smiled at Jackson, then moved to his lovely dark-skinned woman.
Yes, the sadness was there all right—it probably always would be—but Jackson saw it soften some when Micah looked at Fay.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert D. McKee has had a number of jobs in his life, including four years in the military. He has also been employed as a warehouse worker, radio announcer, disc jockey, copywriter, court reporter, and municipal court judge.
After school in Texas, Bob settled in Wyoming, where he lived for over thirty years. He and his wife Kathy now make their home along the Front Range in Colorado.
His short fiction has appeared in more than twenty commercial and literary publications. One of his stories was selected to appear in the prestigious annual publication Best American Mystery Stories, edited that year by Otto Penzler and Michael Connelly. He is also a recipient of the Wyoming Art Council’s Literary Fellowship Award, as well as a three-time first-place winner of Wyoming Writers, Incorporated’s adult fiction contest and a two-time first-place winner of the National Writers Association’s short fiction contest. His first novel, Dakota Trails, was awarded the 2016 Will Rogers Silver Medallion for Best Western.
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