by Lou Cameron
“So I’ve heard,” Stringer said. “The Mormons have a half-tame herd grazing an island in their Great Salt Lake, though.”
“Well, some Indians have to be poor shots,” the other man said. “It’s only fair. Lord knows we miss a shot now and again. Although missing a buffalo calls for piss-poor shooting, if you ask me.”
Stringer agreed. “But I’m not hunting buffalo this evening,” he added. “They told me I might find a railroader called Red Fagan in this place. Before you tell me you never heard of anyone by that name, I’d best point out that I’m not looking for anyone unfriendly. I have a possibly profitable deal to offer Fagan.”
“It’s your misfortune and none of my own, either way,” the man replied. “I can’t make old Red out in this crowd from here. But they got a new French wheel of fortune over in yon rear corner. That’s where I’d expect to find such a gambling fool about now.”
Stringer thanked him, picked up the beer schooner, and worked his way through the crowd in the direction indicated. It got harder as he got closer to the roulette layout in the corner. The local miners were acting as if they’d never seen such a wondrous way to lose money before, and from the way the hatchet-faced croupier manning the wheel was raking in their bets, they hadn’t.
Stringer knew he was expected to act polite if he wanted to stand smack up against the table. So he placed two bits on the green felt, betting on black as he tried to figure out which of the other suckers could be Red.
The others were all betting numbers, not even hedging by covering red, black, odd or even, as a side cover bet that offered a chance to possibly break even. The only person at the table with hair red enough to matter was a big buxom gal. She made up for it by having a real carrot top. She was also wearing a railroading cap and a mighty mannish outfit for anyone who’d grown up so curvesome as well as husky. Stringer still might have thought the idea was silly had not another player called her Red as she lost her bet on the double zero.
Stringer had won on black. The croupier betrayed no emotion as he doubled Stringer’s bet and raked in all the losses with his stick. Stringer picked up his modest winnings and moved down to the far end, with some effort, to join the big-boobed redhead. She never glanced his way as she placed yet another cartwheel on the green double zero.
“I can see the method in your system, ma’am,” Stringer told her. “But if betting with the house always worked, nobody would ever bet against the house.”
The big redhead shot him a sullen look, and in a brogue thick enough to spread with butter and jam, growled, “A mo mala, and who asked your advice, shorty?”
He smiled. “You’re right, and I can see someone you pay more attention to has told you the zero and double zero are the house numbers. So it only stands to reason they should come up more often. Agus a chaileag ghorach, na creid sin.”
Then he ticked the brim of his hat and moved discreetly away.
It worked. She plowed after him through the crowd and spun him around in a hardly dainty manner. “This is no time to be after running off and leaving a lady in distress, ye sassunach loon!” she told him.
Stringer smiled. “Bite your tongue. I may have a Scotch accent to my Gaelic, but the last man who called a man of Clan MacKail a lime-juicer hasn’t recovered yet. As for your scientific system, I never argue with a lady, even when she hasn’t got her Irish up.”
“My own dear mother told me never to argue with a man who has the Gaelic,” Red Fagan said. “So tell me, ye wee Scotch warner of warnings, what’s wrong with betting with the house when it’s a fact of nature that the house always wins in the end?”
He led her closer to a wall, and they both leaned against it as he explained. “The flaw in that reasoning is that you’re not the house. That croupier is raking in all the losses so he can pay the few winners with other bettor’s money while he waits for that little ball to land on green. That’s when he gets to sweep the board clean, of course.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “Not all of it. He has to pay them of us smart enough to bet the house numbers, doesn’t he?”
“If you want to call that smart,” Stringer replied. “With your money all on green, you don’t get the money bet on red, black, odd or even. Guess who does, and don’t forget none of his own money was on the table to begin with. He only has to dip into the bank on the rare occasions the game is running with only a few suckers and one of them gets lucky as well as dumb.”
“You was after betting, wasn’t you?” she protested. “Sure I seen ye bet, and win.”
“Betting even-money is just a way to stay in the game a while without losing it all at once,” he said.
“There’s just no way to win at roulette in the long run. That’s why joints like this buy roulette wheels in the first place, see?”
She didn’t seem too convinced. She asked why such a pessimist had joined the game to begin with.
“I was looking for you,” he replied. “That short winning streak was a fluke.”
The big redhead looked even more suspicious, and while it would have been unfair to call her ugly, scowling didn’t do a thing for her fine-featured but freckled face. “Well, and if ye was looking for me, ye found me,” she said. “It’s true I’m a single gorl at the moment. But it’s a dacent gorl I’ve ever been, and if ye dare to lay a hand on me body, it’s a stump ye may be drawing back!”
He laughed lightly. “It’s the honor of your rolling stock I’m out to trifle with. They tell me I need your permission to bum a ride as far north as the pass you take across the Divide.”
She shook her head. “That’s true, and the answer is no. There’s a company rule against it, and it’s hard enough for a gorl like me to get a dacent job in this cruel man’s world.”
He sensed that mentioning money to such a proud, stubborn lass was as likely to get him a punch in the jaw as a ride on a train. So he tried, “I’ve life-and-death reasons for getting up to the Yellowstone Park, and yesterday might have been too late. I figure I could save two days or more on the trail if I could ride part of the way with you.”
She shrugged. “Ain’t that the truth? We get up to thirty miles an hour where the track’s at all straight.”
“Good,” he said, “How soon is that next ore shipment leaving?”
“Not until sunrise,” she said, then added, “Running through deserted mountain ranges in the dark, with bandits said to be in the neighborhood, would be bad enough. Allowing a stranger to ride with all that gold in any kind of light at all would be suicidally foolish. Sure, I hate to refuse a man with the Gaelic and a Mac to his name. But even if you didn’t rob and murther us all along the way, it would be me job if ever they found out I’d taken such a risk. So ye see how it must be, and can I buy ye a beer by way of consolation?”
He raised the half-filled schooner in his hand and started to say no thanks. Then he wondered why he’d want to do a dumb thing like that. “I’d like that,” he said. “But it’s awfully crowded in here. Isn’t there some place, close, we could enjoy the creature with more elbow room?”
She thought a moment. “The Last Chance, just up the walk, has been half empty since this place got in the new French wheel. But it’s only one round I’ll be having with ye. For, sure, drinking is a dreadful waste of money, and it can get a gorl in other sorts of throuble.”
They left. It wasn’t easy, even after he’d found a place to put down the beer schooner, for more people seemed intent on getting in than getting out. They did better after the big redhead got in front of him to run interference. He was simply too polite to plant the heel of a palm in a total stranger’s face and shove.
Out on the walk they both paused for breath, and Red Fagan laughed. “I’d forgotten what fresh air tasted like. The Last Chance would be this way, beyond the mouth of that alley.”
They started walking. As they reached the dark alley mouth, a brace of tough-looking birds stepped out of it to block their path. One said sadly, “We don’t know who you are, frien
d. But you made our boss sort of morose just now by touting one of our best customers away from us.”
The other addressed the redhead. “Yeah, you know we run an honest house, Red. How come you want to leave so early? This could be your lucky night.”
“Get out of our way,” Stringer said before she could answer. “I mean it.”
The two toughs exchanged amused glances. One said, “Now don’t the man talk brave? I wonder if he really means it.”
The other said, “Naw, he don’t mean it.”
Then Stringer grabbed each by an ear, banged their heads together, and sat them both in the cinders.
As one sat up, dumbfounded as well as dazed, to reach for his hip pocket, Stringer drew his own gun. “Now that would really be dumb,” he growled. “You boys just sit tight and we’ll be out of your way in no time. Coming, Red?”
The big redhead kept up with him as they walked around the two thugs seated in the cinders. But as soon as they’d made it up the walk a ways, she told Stringer, “Now you’ve done it. If ye’ve a horse anywhere around here, get on it and ride. If ye don’t have a horse, steal one. For ye just acted morthal rude to No Nose Warren and Black Jack O’Shay. They’ll no doubt ask permission from their keeper before they gather up serious weaponry to resume the discussion. But gather it they will, and come after ye they’ll be certain now.”
He shrugged. “They didn’t seem so tough.”
She sighed. “Jasus, Mary, and Joseph, will I never meet a mortal with a Mac to his name and a brain to his head? Ye took them off guard just now. It’s a long time it’s been since any man in town would mess with one of them alone, and they could hardly have been expecting any man to take on the two of them at once! It’s fast on the draw I see ye are as well, ye mad Scotchman. But now it’s a blood feud ye’ve started, with two of the meanest hired toughs who ever drew breath. Let’s hope ye didn’t really frighten them back there. For if ye did, they’ll be asking Squint Morgan to come after ye as well, and Squint Morgan makes them two look civilized! He never goes after any man just to beat him up, ye see.”
“I’ve been through towns like this before,” Stringer said. “That’s why I carry five in the wheel. You’d be surprised how seldom it comes down to that. Where’s this quiet saloon we were headed for, Red?”
She took his left arm and hauled him off the walk. “I can’t abide noise, even if you just can’t stand living through the night. Do ye think they’d give ye a fair chance if they spotted ye sitting inside in the light? We’ve got to get ye out of sight if not out of town, ye loon. I can square it with the owner of the Lady Luck, for it’s a regular customer I am. But they’ll be out to gun you for sure now. Men of that ilk can’t afford to let another humiliate ’em and live.”
He didn’t resist as she hauled him catty-corner across the street toward the switch yards. “Where are you taking me?” he asked. “That paint pony we’re about to miss is mine, and I can’t leave it there all night, Red.”
She let go his arm. “Then get him and be quick about it. They know where I live, alone. I value me windows too much to take the two of yez there.”
He jogged over to the hitching rail, untied the paint, and leading his mount afoot, rejoined her.
“I know a boxcar they might not expect a stranger to be hiding in, with or without a horse,” she said. “Do ye think the brute can leap up into one, MacKail?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Let’s ask when we get there. If it was up to me, I’d stand my ground. But I don’t want them annoyed with you after I leave town. So okay, I’ll lay low awhile. But it will have to be a short while, Red. I’m still in a hell of a hurry to get up north, the hard way or the easy way.”
By this time they were crossing the switch yard. The paint had more trouble crossing the tracks and switch points than they did. Then they were between two lines of parked rolling stock. Red Fagan pointed at the gaping maw of a boxcar. “That’s it. I know it’s high, but the floor’s covered with bedstraw. We just used this car to deliver a team of mine burros. Do ye think he can make it?”
Stringer tried. He had no trouble getting himself aboard with the reins. After that it didn’t work so well. The paint simply didn’t understand why anyone would want it to leap up into mysterious blackness, and it outweighed even Stringer by a good deal. When Red Fagan moved about to shove its rump from the rear, Stringer warned, “Don’t do that. It’s a good way to get kicked over the moon. I’d say a ramp was indicated a lot more than our attempting to manhandle this brute aboard. The three of us are out of sight between all these cars, anyway.”
“They don’t know what kind of brute ye may have ridden in on, anyway. Why don’t ye just stay put in there? I’ll run yer horse into the corral down by the roundhouse. Sure, he’ll attract no attention there, with all the other stock and all and all.”
Stringer dropped back down beside her. “I’d better unsaddle him first. Nobody corrals a pony wearing a saddle.”
It only took him a moment or two. He tossed the saddle up into the boxcar, possibles and all. “That’s better. Do you know how to take off his bridle, once you have him in with the others?”
She said she did, and that she’d make sure the paint got some water as well. So he climbed back up inside and let her slide the door almost shut after him.
He figured it was safe to strike a match if he didn’t overdo it. He saw he was indeed in an empty car, paved with straw and only a few burro turds. Having gotten his bearings, Stringer moved to the bulkhead at the cleaner end, fluffed up loose straw to lounge upon, and placed his six-gun handy. This did not seem the time or place to roll a smoke. If he really got thirsty, there was the canteen water tied to his nearby saddle. He’d forgotten to tell the redhead to bring his bridle back. He hoped she knew he’d play hell riding on, in a little while, without it.
She did. It felt like over an hour but couldn’t have been that long when the door slid open again and she called out to him before he could blow her head off.
“I’m over here,” he said. “How did it go?”
She climbed in, slid the door shut after her, and he could smell her rosewater coming before she bumped his knee with a big breast, flinched, and rolled into a seated position beside him. “Good and bad. I peeked over a fence at me cottage after I put your darling horse with the others. The horse is doing fine. Gintlemen with sawed-off shotguns would seem to be interested in me property.”
Stringer glanced at the pinstripe of dim light the loosely slid car door left them. “Well, the moon rises twenty minutes later every night. But that still means it will be after midnight before it’s up. Your best bet would be to wait for full moonlight before you approach openly and alone, singing ‘The Boys Of Wexford.’ I don’t think they’d want to gun a lady either.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of meself. For sure, I’ve had plenty of practice since me mother died of the faver and me father had a freight train roll over him. It’s you we have to get out of Rimrock alive. If they have both me front and back gates covered, they’re sure to be set up along the few trails leading out of this steep valley, MacKail.”
“I just hate sore losers,” he said. “Let’s talk some more about that train you’ll be in charge of when it makes its run for more civilized parts. What time were you figuring on leaving, Red?”
“Four-thirty, A.M., and I know what you’d be after thinking. But ye can’t. It’s one thing for me to say I thrust ye. The others on the crew would be certain to peach on me to the company, and ye’ve no idea how hard it is for a gorl to get a job as a brakeman, even in desperate thimes.”
“I thought it was sort of unusual, no offense. How did you wind up in command of a train crew, Red?”
“I grew to womanhood next to the Chicago railyards where me father and two uncles worked,” she said, “and they indulged me in me tomboy ways. For the yard boss didn’t mind them letting me help, as long as the railroad didn’t have to pay for me free labor. But,
of course, once I applied for thim sort of jobs, it was another sort of story indeed. It was suggested, not at all politely, that woman’s place was in the home, or at best, in the kitchen of a railroad camp. I came west peeling spuds for the darling Union Pacific. Then I hord how this company line was having trouble keeping brakemen, between the low wages and the habit they had of getting shot. So I applied for the position, and after they got done laughing, they tested me skills and the rest ye know.”
“Not by half,” he said. “How often do brakemen get shot in this neck of the woods, Red?”
She shrugged against him. “No more than once every two or three months. The ore train has yet to be robbed with me on the brakes. But they tried about six weeks ago, and since all thim strangers has been lurking about just to the south, the company is on double alert. So ye see how it is.”
He did. He didn’t answer as he did some mental arithmetic. Boarding his paint around midnight, once the moon was up, meant he’d be say ten to fifteen miles along his merry way, assuming he didn’t get killed about the time old Red and her Shay pulled out of here, to pass him in less than an hour.
She took his silence for brooding, and said, “Sure and I’d like to help ye, but there’s no way I could be hiding ye and the horse from the rest of the crew.”
“Let’s see if we can eat this apple a bite at a time, Red,” he replied. “Before we worry about the crew, just how long a combination are we talking about?”
“The Shay and it’s tender, the one ore car, and some empty supply reefers going back to the main line. Then there’s me caboose, of course. Why?”
“That’s a mighty short train.”
“Well of course it is. Did ye think a gold mine ships mile-long specials? There’ll be more than enough in that one ore car to timpt many a Wild Bunch, MacKail. For a saddle bag of semirefined is worth, well… its weight in gold, save for impurities our mountain smelter may leave. And the stuff is divilish hard to trace. That’s what makes the divels hit us so often. What’s all this got to do with getting ye out of town in one piece? I just told ye we can’t take ye out along with the gold.”
