The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion

by Loren D. Estleman

Meagher held her gaze as he had Johnny’s. “I’m looking forward to the play. I’m told you catch a thief in it.”

  “And without a shot fired. Primitive, those Elizabethans.” Cyrus stumbled over the last word. He was drunk.

  “We don’t catch him so much as teach him a lesson,” April said. Johnny couldn’t tell if she was fascinated with Meagher or transfixed by him, as a hen by a snake.

  “Lessons are lost on outlaws. The only way to get them to change their habits is to change them for them.”

  “Perhaps that’s why people enjoy our little fantasies,” she said. “The world is so much less—forgiving.”

  “That’s just what I was saying,” said Johnny. “Look, there is Mr. Munn. I met him when I went to the Longhorn Bank to make change. Please excuse us, gentlemen, while we mingle.”

  The men inclined their heads; all except Cyrus, who was draining a bottle into his glass. Johnny entwined his arm with April’s and they moved away. “Munn’s the manager,” he murmured.

  “Gracious, he’s as big as a barn!”

  “Not so solid as that. He has the lecher’s eye. Let it rest on you a moment and he’ll tell you the combination of the vault and how much he has in his wallet.”

  “It hardly seems possible he and that splendid marshal belong to the same gender.”

  “Steer clear of Meagher. I swear he suspects us of something.”

  They were nearing the fat bank manager, who turned toward them and away from a member of the city commission, tugging down the corners of his swollen vest. She giggled and fluttered a fan in front of her mouth; Johnny would have thought it over-the-top if she’d suggested it, but in practice it seemed to work. “Actors are always suspect,” she whispered. “You’ve a touch of stage fright, that’s all. You haven’t trod the boards in months.”

  “You’re right, I suppose. I just wish his brother weren’t sheriff. They’re both killers, Cyrus says. That stacks the odds a bit.”

  She laughed gaily and lifted her voice. “Oh, Johnny, don’t be ridiculous! I’m sure Mr. Munn is much too important to offer investment advice to someone of my small means.”

  “Good girl,” he whispered, and made the introductions. When the pair were deep in conversation he wandered over to join the rest of the troupe, where the Major insisted on addressing the mayor as “m’ lord.”

  Philip Rittenhouse, sitting up in bed chuckling over Allan Pinkerton’s The Expressman and the Detective, looked up at a knock on the door of his room and set aside the elaborately bound volume. He slid his revolver from under the adjoining pillow and padded over in his stocking feet. He put his ear to the panel.

  “It’s Meagher.” The voice was muffled, but he recognized the slight brogue. He twisted back the latch and opened the door.

  “I’ve just come from the reception,” said the marshal when they were locked in. His gaze swept the room and alighted on the open book lying face down on the bed. “I hope you haven’t been reading too much of that. If you hadn’t told me what you have, I’d take them all for jackanapes; though the girl’s a dash of ginger, I’ll say that. They might pinch a watch or a poke, but as to desperadoes I’d be laughed out of town if I said that to a soul.”

  “That’s good news. I asked you not to take anyone into your confidence, especially the bank manager. He’d tip his hand the first time he laid eyes on them, and we’d be back where we were last fall.”

  “I’m not so sure you shouldn’t be. They seem harmless enough. I couldn’t rattle them.”

  “These are actors. They’re trained to stay in character. It isn’t like buffaloing a drunken cowboy or chasing guerrillas. According to our calculations, they’ve stolen close to forty thousand dollars from seven places, probably with the same Colt revolver, without busting a cap. We don’t even know if it’s ever been loaded.”

  “I hope yours isn’t. You’re waving it around like an umbrella.”

  Rittenhouse returned the weapon to its hiding place. He’d forgotten he was holding it.

  “They’re not your usual marauding gang,” he said. “Unless they’ve changed their method, which based upon its success so far I doubt they will, they’ll send one of their actors into the bank while the rest are performing onstage, cleverly switching costumes back and forth so that no one in the audience realizes any of the cast is missing. The robber could be any one of them, even the women; both are experienced at portraying male characters.”

  “Not April Clay. Not even a bank cashier is that stupid.”

  “Pioneers are hard to deceive, yet she’s managed to convince several hundred of them she’s a boy. It’s even easier for Elizabeth Mort-Davies; she needs her corsets and ruffles just to convince people she’s a woman. She has a bosom, but it’s easier to conceal than you might think. It’s just flesh, after all.”

  “I was married, Mr. Rittenhouse. It’s more than that.”

  “Only if the woman chooses to make it so. Clearly you don’t know much about the theater.”

  “I’ve never attended a performance. When that curtain goes up I’m too busy rattling doors.”

  “Assign a deputy to that duty Friday night. I suspect you’re in for a treat, no matter how you feel about Shakespeare.” As he spoke, the Pinkerton indicated that day’s number of the Wichita Beacon on the nightstand, open to a quarter-page advertisement announcing the opening of The Merry Wives of Windsor (An Abridgment) at Saunders’ variety theater three nights hence.

  Meagher shook his head. “If what you say is true, or even if it ain’t, I’ll be inside the Longhorn Bank that night. They’ve got a coat closet just big enough for a man and a Stephens ten-gauge. I hope you’re right about that Colt not being loaded, or it’s one of them three men sticking the place up. I never busted a cap on a woman. It don’t mean I won’t, if it comes to that; but I’ll lose some sleep.”

  “They’ll choose the matinee Saturday,” Rittenhouse said.

  Meagher made no comment, no matter what he thought of the bald statement. The Pinkerton admired that. Some of these frontier lawmen were more than guerrillas with badges. He went on.

  “The Longhorn closes at four o’clock, same as every other day of the week, and all the employees including Manager Munn go home at half past the hour. At two o’clock Saturday afternoon, Munn and Edgar English, his head cashier, lock themselves in with the week’s transactions and the ledger and make sure everything balances before the bank reopens on Monday. That gives them all day Sunday to clear up any discrepancies. The guard isn’t present, and no customers are flowing in and out. They’re never less than two hours adding up the columns and double-checking the figures. The curtain goes up on the matinee of The Merry Wives of Windsor at one-thirty Saturday. If I were the Prairie Rose Repertory Theater, I’d give my audience one act to become absorbed in the genius of the Bard, then rob the Longhorn Bank shortly after intermission; say, between a quarter past two and three o’clock, when Falstaff is making his escape from the clothes basket. I’d choose Major Davies for the actual stickup, as he’s invisible from the audience for most of that scene. I could be wrong on that detail.”

  Marshal Meagher smoothed the corner of one of his moustaches. “You wouldn’t mind showing me those credentials of yours once again, Mr. Rittenhouse?”

  Rittenhouse laughed and produced them from beneath the Bible in the drawer of the nightstand. “Detective work is worlds away from merely keeping the peace,” he said. “You find yourself thinking more often like a criminal than like a defender of justice.”

  Meagher returned the badge and business card. “All the same, I hope you won’t take it hard if I skip Saunders’ theater and try the door of the Longhorn Friday night.”

  “Certainly not. I’ll be in the doorway of the Occidental, just across the street.”

  Cornelius Ragland looked up from his pocket-size translation of Molière, realized the horse-faced waiter standing there had asked him a question, and pushed forward his glass for a refill of mineral water. The waiter carried away the
empty vessel with an air as if it weighed ten pounds. Cornelius considered withholding his gratuity, or perhaps leaving one of preposterous size to teach the fellow humility, but knew that in either case he would have lost the battle of the classes. Johnny, he felt sure, would have sent the fellow after some impossible vintage of French wine, and regardless of whether the waiter was successful, reduced him to his station by leaving a banknote of an unconscionably large denomination. Instead, he sighed, fished out a quarter, and slid it under his linen napkin, to be discovered after he’d drunk his water and retired upstairs. He would never be Johnny Vermillion no matter how hard he tried.

  “Thank goodness I found you, Corny. I knocked and knocked at your door. I thought you’d taken a sleeping draught.”

  Molière was better than his press, and his press was exquisite. He’d lost himself once again in those lines, so deceptively featherweight in their grasp of the gravity of the absurd, and had missed the descent of an angel (devil?) into his world. April, still clad in the exquisite jewel-colored dress she’d worn to the reception upstairs, stood before his table with a beautifully embroidered shawl drawn over her shoulders. She cradled the hefty manuscript of The Tragedy of Joan of Arc in one arm.

  Quickly he closed his book and rose, nearly upsetting his glass. “I wasn’t sleepy. Will you join me? May I order for you?”

  But the horse-faced waiter was already there, genuflecting. April never had to wait more than a few seconds for service. She smiled. “Tea, I think. Charge it to two-oh-eight; and the gentleman’s order as well.”

  “The gentleman is having water.”

  “The gentleman will have tea as well,” said Cornelius; and for that one moment knew what it was like to be Johnny. “Charge both to two-sixteen. I insist,” he told April firmly.

  He managed to beat the waiter to her chair and held it for her, then returned to his own. She placed the stack of pages on the table in front of her and pushed her shawl back off her shoulders, seemingly oblivious to the male heads that turned her way from nearby tables. She spent some moments turning back sheets. Their tea came. She paid no attention as waiter and tray withdrew. Finally she paused with her finger on a line of neat cursive, then slid a gold lorgnette from between her breasts and peered through the small egg-shaped lenses. Cornelius smiled. This was a new affectation.

  She lifted her eyes to his. “‘Seraphic’?”

  “Angelic,” he said. “Isaiah had a vision of seraphim hovering above God’s eternal throne. In this case I used it as a substitute for ‘pious.’ It’s difficult not to overemploy the term when one is writing about St. Joan.” He stirred his tea. “Shouldn’t you be reading Merry Wives? We open in three days.”

  “ ‘The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships’ company.’ I know it backwards and forwards. For the leading lady, it isn’t a very big part. Not like Joan.”

  “It’s much smaller in the original. I borrowed some of Mrs. Page’s best lines for you; I’m afraid it altered the character. Somehow I doubt Shakespeare would object if he ever saw you in performance.”

  “That’s charming, and quite sweet. People are always presuming to speak for Shakespeare, but I have an idea he was a tyrant in rehearsal. Look at Johnny.”

  “He has a lot on his mind. It’s more important to him that we all behave like actors than it is to the head of the average company.”

  “You needn’t apologize for him. I know him better than anyone. That’s why I proposed marriage.”

  A lance went through his heart. He had to clear his throat of the butt end before he spoke. “Does that mean congratulations are in order?”

  “Not just yet. He said no. I’m wearing him down, however.” She shuffled pages, and remembered the lorgnette. “Joan’s frocks are very simple. The scenes in armor will be stunning, but the rest of the time I might as well be one of Lizzie’s nuns. This huge cross, for instance; it says here I’m to hang it around my neck. Can I not wear it a bit off the hip?”

  “I’ll have to consult my sources, but offhand I’d say no. It was the Dark Ages, not La Belle Epoch.”

  “I’m concerned about the waistline. There isn’t one.”

  “We can do something about that, I suppose. Do you like the part?”

  “It’s fascinating. She’s a bit less humble than I’d expected.”

  “I wrote her with you in mind. You’re more interesting than Nilsson.”

  “You’re a dear.” She sprang up before he could rise and leaned down to kiss his cheek. She gathered up the pages. Her teacup was untouched. “A bit of gold braid, perhaps, around the waist; with a tassle. I almost forgot.” Her voice dropped. “Johnny said to make sure the revolver’s in working order.”

  She said good night and left, her skirts rustling like pages of gold leaf falling.

  Cornelius drained his cup of a beverage for which he had no liking, then drank water to rinse the brown taste from his tongue. His face felt hot, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with his old malady. He knew then that it was possible to burn with jealousy. He had no doubt April would wear Johnny down. They would marry, and she would take him away.

  22

  Ed Kettleman said, “Is that train slowing down?”

  From the Kansas Pacific tracks, the land sloped down gently toward a patch of scrub oak almost directly across from the stand of trees where General Matagordo’s Mexicans waited on horseback for the first of Tom Riddle’s two charges to go off. Ace-in-the-Hole lay on their bellies among the stubbly growth, their horses down beside them, each with a hand on its neck to comfort it while in such an unaccustomed position. From there, every man could see the sputtering sparks and coxcombs of smoke belonging to the two fuses, the one to the left burning faster; Tom had allowed a gap of ten seconds to give them time to mount up during the confusion caused by the collapsing trestle. The frontal assault would commence simultaneous with the second explosion behind the train.

  There were only five cars, counting the tender and caboose: a day coach where the officers rode, the strongcar containing the payroll for the Indian campaign, and a flatcar behind that, bristling with armed troops, made up the rest. With the troops exposed in the crossfire from the Mexicans and Brixton’s men, and Tom hurling more dynamite from horseback as they charged, the cargo would be theirs for the taking. But Ed had been right. The train was definitely throttling down as it approached the trestle, and the brakes were being applied; the wheels screeched, spouting geysers of orange sparks from the friction. The chugging slowed.

  “Maybe the engineer don’t trust the bridge,” Ed Kettleman said.

  Tom chuckled. “He don’t know the half of it.”

  “Pipe down and get ready.” Brixton’s voice was tight.

  The trestle went up in a huge blossom of smoke and fire and dirt and sawdust and twisted girders; they felt the rumble beneath their sternums and rose as one, scrambling into their saddles even as the horses struggled upright, galvanized by their training under battlefield conditions. The troopers aboard the flatcar, well trained also, assumed combat positions, some kneeling, the rest standing to clear their field of fire. When the second explosion came, erupting in a dome of earth and steel like an elephant-size mole bursting through the surface, Ace-in-the-Hole was galloping full speed up the slope, spreading out and firing their pistols with rebel yells. Tom, carrying a coil of unattached fuse burning at the end, used it to light a stick of dynamite, whirled it over his head by a loop of fuse like a lasso, and flung it toward the flatcar, then lit another and threw that after the first. They discharged short of their target, but threw up a screen of dirt and smoke, through which the gang rode, shrieking and shooting, like demons through brimstone.

  The returning fire, however, was heavy. Ed Kettleman yelled and fell off his horse. Breed’s mount went down with a squeal of pain; the rider got his feet out of the stirrups in time to land running, caught Ed’s riderless horse, and swung a leg over without losing momentum or his grip on his revolver. A bullet spl
it the air next to Brixton’s right ear with a crack.

  “Where in hell’s the Mexicans?” he shouted.

  Just then he broke through the smoke into the open—and hauled back on the reins hard enough to throw it onto its haunches had not that splendid animal the instinct and experience to adjust to the abrupt change. As it was, it reared and clawed the air, twisting for balance and nearly unseating its rider. Mysterious Bob, reacting even faster, spun his sorrel into a wide circle to slow it down and take himself out of the main path.

  The rest saw the danger too late. Charlie Kettleman, Tom Riddle, and Breed were still charging hard when the big side door on the strongcar finished sliding open. When the sun struck the brass-bound barrels of the Gatling gun mounted inside, they tried to change course, but the chattering lead found them all and flung Ace-in-the-Hole in every direction like so many bloody cards.

  It’s not for nothing that professional thespians are so often referred to as players. When the trunks were brought up from the basement of the variety theater and the Prairie Rose dove inside to retrieve costumes and properties they hadn’t laid eyes on in months, they laughed and jostled one another like children opening a chest filled with toys.

  Major Davies, who was as fast as any of them once he got his bulk into motion, clawed out Falstaff ‘s sword belt and doublet (these had served as well for Twelfth Night’s Sir Toby Belch, and would in fact suffice for all of the Bard’s older gentlemen of gravity and healthy appetite, except perhaps the Romans), and had them fastened in place while Cornelius was still looking for Dr. Caius among the jumble and April and Lizzie were each tugging at a sleeve of the same ornate frock. Johnny, aloof to the scavenger hunt, waited until the congestion had cleared, then stepped forward and claimed his prize: a fencing foil with an elegantly rounded guard, fashioned from tin but painted to resemble gold.

  Holding it at shoulder level, he peered down its length, frowned, exerted pressure with both hands to straighten a bend in the blade, then went into fighting stance and described a swift figure eight with the blunted point. At the swish, Cornelius looked up from the bit of lint he was removing from the plumed crown of the French physician’s hat. He read the eager expression on Johnny’s face, then shrugged, clapped the hat onto his head, and drew another foil from the same trunk compartment. They squared off.