The Living, the Dying, and the Dead

by George G. Gilman

  The half-breed had replied with, “Thanks. Sure.”

  Neither man was happy about the delay and their disgruntlement was shared by everyone else anxious for the boxcar train to leave. The engineer, fireman and brakeman. A sergeant and five constables assigned by Chief Sorrel to guard against another attempt on Martin’s crate while it was still within Denver city limits. And a bunch of ten hobos who had made some kind of deal with the brakeman to come aboard the train.

  The crewmen kept to themselves on the locomotive footplate, warmed by the heat from the firebox.

  The police officers were in the bitterly cold open, on the ground or rooftops, strategically positioned to watch for the return of the surviving Japanese and to spring a trap if they appeared. But as the afternoon wore into evening they spent more and more time directing hostile stares toward the boxcar guarded by Edge. Whether their disgust was aimed at the halfbreed or the crate over which he stood sentry, it was impossible to tell—only that they needed to blame somebody or something for the long and boring duty they had drawn.

  It was not so difficult for the half-breed to reach a decision about the hobos, who had gathered in the shack with the shattered window and kept the stove alight against the*bite of the intense cold. For he had watched them enter the frame building in ones and twos, and not seen Clyde and the old-timer come out. The only person to emerge was the brakeman, after spending a few minutes inside, presumably taking up a collection which would render him temporarily blind as the train pulled out of the depot. Following this visit, the door of the shack remained firmly closed but at various times a series of heads showed at the smashed window—heads studded with embittered eyes in filthy and unshaven faces—aiming hate-filled stares at the open door of the boxcar or the man who casually patrolled the track beside it.

  The half-breed saw and noted everything of consequence without appearing to show interest in any of it. Which was the same impression of indifference he gave when two enclosed wagons rolled into the depot, each manned by four uniformed soldiers. The depot manager, looking more harassed than ever, superintended the transfer of more than sixty small wooden crates from the wagons to the two boxcars immediately in back of the one containing the corpse of Mrs. Silas Martin.

  Then, as soon as the transfer of freight was completed, the manager signaled the locomotive crew through the gathering murk of the Denver evening and the engineer gave a long blast of his steam whistle.

  Edge thrust his Winchester into the car and hauled himself aboard.

  Martin hurried out of the main building and made fast time in his waddling run to come around the rear of the caboose and along the side of the train. The spinning wheels of the locomotive had gained a grip on the track by then and the train was moving. So that the half-breed had to reach down and help the elderly, plump, red-faced man aboard.

  The brakeman had used some pretext to get the depot manager on the other side of the moving train.

  While the crewmen on the footplate peered ahead, eager to set their locomotive racing downhill toward the midwestem plains country.

  So that only Edge and a half-dozen Denver police officers saw the bunch of hobos break from the shack and advance on the train. Six of diem making fast time while four straggled—two of them injured and the other two helping the casualties.

  The lawmen cared nothing, merely grateful that the stint of boring and uncomfortable duty at the Union Pacific depot was over.

  The half-breed remained at the open door of the boxcar for long enough to see all the unauthorized passengers get aboard, Clyde and the old-timer screaming their pain against the hiss of steam and clatter of wheels over switchgear as they were jerked roughly up off the ties and bundled into the boxcar. The third one back from where Edge banged the door closed and slid down it, sitting on his saddle.

  “Any of Sorrel’s men aboard?” Martin asked from where he sat on the floor of the car, leaning his back against the crate.

  “You lost confidence in me already, feller?” the half-breed asked through the near-complete darkness.

  “No, certainly not. But I’ve been thinking. I’ve hired some help. So could Hitoshi. Unless die Denver police arrest him and Zenko first”

  “The two Japanese who rode out of the depot?”

  “Yes. The one you killed was Toru. I presume you would like to hear about them? And why they are prepared to risk their lives to steal the body of my wife?” “Why not? It’s a long way to New York, feller. And you’re the kind that has to talk about something.”

  “Just that?” Martin sounded surprised. “It doesn’t intrigue you, what has happened? How do you know it is not me rather than the Japanese who is the wrong doer? Or don’t you care?”

  Edge sighed. “If I cared I know the Denver law is on our side. Even though we aren’t exactly Sorrel’s favorite people.”

  “Of course. I now know you are the kind of man who does not need to hear the obvious stated.”

  “But I figure I will,” the half-breed drawled. “Seeing as how you’re the kind of man who likes to talk. And that kind gets to repeat himself a lot of the time.”

  The locomotive had strained to a steady speed and was now maintaining it easily, the wheels of the cars rolling smoothly over rails that curved gently to the left and then the right on a down grade. The lights of Denver were hidden on the high ground receding by the moment behind the caboose and full night had clamped down over the Colorado mountain country. But a near full moon hung against the star-pricked blackness of the northern sky, its light augmented by reflection off the white snow that blanketed the rugged terrain to either side of the meandering track.

  Some of this light trickled into the boxcar through the cracks surrounding the sliding doors on both sides. So Edge was able now to see the dark bulk of the crate containing the casket, and the moving form of the short, elderly Silas Martin as the man rose and began to prowl the car. Bitterly cold, frosty air also entered through the cracks and both men turned up their collars and hunched deeper into their coats.

  “I may not look it, Mr. Edge, but I come from a wealthy family. The Martins of Syracuse in western New York State.”

  “Lots of people don’t look what they are.”

  “That’s right. But I am not myself a man of means. I’m what is known as the black sheep of my family. I wasn’t until late middle age. To the age of fifty-six I was a dutiful son, undertaking my appointed role as a vice-president in the Martin chain of shoe stores. You may have heard of us. We have stores in most of the large eastern cities?”

  “Only time I was in the east I wasn’t doing any shopping, feller. There was a war on.”

  Martin pumped his head up and down vigorously. “Of course. I understand. Anyway, at age fifty-six I was bitten by the wonderlust bug. No reason for it, except years and years of boredom. Even the war never touched me. Or perhaps it did, although not physically. Perhaps I was affected by the upheaval it caused. Anyway, I simply decided to leave, and leave I did. Traveled across country by train and boarded a China dipper in San Francisco. Landed on a small island called Miyake off the east coast of Honshu. I don’t suppose you know the area?”

  “You don’t suppose right,” Edge supplied.

  “Sorry, I’m boring you?”

  “If it gets too bad, I’ll just go to sleep, feller.”

  Martin believed this, and began to speak faster. “Anyway it was only supposed to have been a stopover for me. But I ended up living on Miyake for more than eleven years. Raising rice, would you believe? Me, a glorified shoe clerk.” Now he shook his head. “And I married. A beautiful girl young enough to be my granddaughter, called Mai Lin. It was an idyllic life, Mr. Edge. A beautiful island with a beautiful climate and shared with a beautiful young girl.

  “But there was disease there and Mai Lin was struck down. A terrible disease because it is incurable. But mercifully the time between infection and death is short. One day Mai Lin was alive and healthy. Forty-eight hours later she was dead.”

&n
bsp; Although there was no joy in the old man’s tone, it was obvious that he relished telling this part of his story as much as he did talking about any other subject. He continued to pace up and down the smoothly rolling car, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his heavy, ankle-length topcoat, like a schoolmaster lecturing on a topic dear to his heart.

  Edge blew warm breath into hands cupped around his mouth.

  “Because I knew the end was inevitable, I used those forty-eight hours to consider what I should do,” Martin went on, his own breath turning white vapor the moment it was expelled from his lips. “And I decided that I would bring the remains of Mai Lin home. To be interred in the Martin family vault at Syracuse.

  “But it was easier thought about than done, Mr. Edge. For Mai Lin was no ordinary Miyake girl. She was royalty. A kind of princess. And out there in the Pacific Islands people of her bloodline are virtually religious beings.”

  “Which was how you got to be such a good rice farmer, I guess?” Edge put in wryly.

  “What?” The old man seemed to resent the interruption to his flow.

  “You didn’t just get one of the best women? She came complete with a piece of the best land.”

  “No, that is not so!” came the fast response, the words hot with anger. “There was no dowry. In life, Mai Lin’s royal status was negligible. Women in the islands are very much second-class citizens. Little more than servants and child-bearers. And their ancestry makes no difference to this.”

  “Can see why you stayed, feller.”

  Martin had to pace the whole length of the car before he recovered from the resentment and was able to pick up the thread of his story.

  ‘It is only when a woman related to the emperor dies that her lineage becomes important. Because local lore dictates she has to be buried in the royal mausoleum. And I found that disgusting, Mr. Edge. That the local people treated Mai Lin like so much dirt while she was alive and then were ready to go down on their knees and worship her when she was dead. And the best way I could think to show my feelings was to bring her body to this country. Which is what I did, with the help of another American who lives on Miyake. He had a small sailboat and he took me and the body to Honshu where I had the corpse embalmed and a lead-lined casket made and crated. Then I shipped it back to the United States aboard a clipper bound for Portland, Oregon. I would have preferred San Francisco but I knew I was being followed by Samurai warriors and took passage on the first ship to leave Yokohama.”

  “Who’s Sam Urai?” Edge asked.

  Silas Martin shook his head as he ceased his pacing and levered himself up to sit on the crate. He was not contemptuous of the half-breed’s ignorance.

  “Not who. What. Samurai are a Japanese fighting force. Torn was such a soldier. As are Hitoshi and Zenko. In the service of the emperor. Charged with retrieving the body of Mai Lin and returning it to be interred on the island of Miyake.” He sighed. “I knew such men would be sent after me but I hadn’t realized they were so close until I saw them at the railroad depot.”

  He peered through the near-darkness at Edge. The meager-moonlight shone on his silvery side-whiskers but did not illuminate the expression on his fleshy features. His tone betrayed weariness. “I hired the Denver security men as a matter of course while we were snowed in. I’m afraid they did not believe my story and told the police. I was ordered to reveal the contents of the casket. And I’ll do so again if you insist, Mr. Edge. Although I would prefer not to. Several months have passed since poor Mai Lin was embalmed and . . .”

  “She smells worse than your story,” the half-breed cut in.

  “Then you do not believe me?” the tired old man responded, anxiety giving vigor to his tone.

  “It sounds like bullshit and bullshit stinks, feller,” Edge said evenly.

  “And so?”

  “And so I didn’t question you. You gave me answers which I don’t have to like. We got a lot of miles to travel but I’ve already taken my pick. I don’t want to open the box. I’ll just have the money.”

  “Now?”

  “On delivery.”

  “That seems fair, but I’d feel better if you accepted my word.”

  The half-breed made no answer and a vocal silence settled inside the cold, dimly moonlit boxcar. The sounds of the train’s progress down from the mountains continued to be regular, the click of wheels over expansion joints in the rails, the clatter of the bogies and the creaks of timber as the cars leaned toward the outside of the curves.

  After a while, the noise began to have a soporific effect on the troubled mind of Silas Martin. His head dropped slowly forward so that his chin rested on his chest. He actually went to sleep sitting up for a few moments on a short stretch of straightaway. Then was jolted awake as the train took another curve and he started to topple.

  “Do you mind if I bed down?” he asked.

  “No sweat.”

  His baggage had been aboard the car before the crate was loaded. It consisted of a large sea trunk and a carpetbag stacked in one comer. From the trunk he took three blankets and arranged them on top of the crate—one to lay on, one to cover himself and one which he rolled up as a pillow. He took off only his black derby before he slipped between the blankets and allowed the motion and sound of the train to lull him back into sleep.

  It occurred briefly to Edge that the old man had elected to sleep on the crate for a particular reason—to prevent his new employee from reneging on what he had said and taking a look inside.

  But the narrow-eyed, thin-lipped man sitting easily on his saddle against the door felt no desire to check out Martin’s story. All he cared about was that he was on the move again and that his journey had a purpose.

  Snowbound Denver had been easy to take for awhile, as he rested up after the long cattle drive north and the period of self-doubt in Wyoming and during the ride south. But then the urge to hit the open trail had begun to irk him. Which was why he had hired out to help shovel snow from the Union Pacific depot, reasoning that the railroad would open for traffic ahead of the roads.

  He had not needed the money he was paid, just as he did not need the job Silas Martin offered him for financial reward. For the cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Laramie had provided him with a good stake. What he did require was an aim Increasingly of late he had discovered this. Money for food, liquor, tobacco and the other essentials of his kind of life was no longer enough.

  And the initially strange events in the Wind River Range—which later turned out to be mundane—had driven home this fact The fact that, having accepted he would never be allowed to fulfill his own selfish desires, the reason for his existence was to aid others whose destinies were ruled by a less cruel fate.

  As his mind ranged over fresh memories of coincidental happenings in the Wyoming snow of Christmas, he absently drew the razor from the neck pouch and turned it slightly this way and that, so that its blade caught stray shafts of moonlight and glinted.

  For once in the many years since he had taken the razor off a man in a Washington saloon during the bloody days of war, it had been put to a use that was good. When, in the hands of a doctor, it had made a cut which gave life to a newborn baby.

  The baby was not Jesus Christ come again and for this the mother and father were probably still giving thanks to God. Others had died—for nothing. But that was the way the breaks fell.

  Edge could only follow his instincts, siding—for reward or not—with the faction that offered him the better chance of survival. And if his instincts steered him wrong? He could try to make amends. Like killing quickly a priest and a whore before they suffered too much on the brutal nails of crucifixion.

  Who had been fulfilled then?

  He grimaced through the darkness and pushed the razor back into the pouch. He was thinking the same brand of bullshit as Silas Martin had been talking. He was alive, with money in his pocket and he was on the move. That was all he gave a damn about. And he was allied with the old man because the old man was the
one who had offered him a job. If the Samurai had been the first to put up money, he would probably been with them, figuring out a way to steal the crated corpse.

  He got to his feet, the familiar impassiveness taking over the lines of his lean face. His intention was simply to stretch his legs and flex the numbness of cold and inactivity out of his muscles. But a subdued thud on the roof of the car caused him to forego exercise simply for the sake of it. He stopped, slid the Winchester out of the saddleboot, and reached the side of the crate in two strides.

  As he did this, three other thuds sounded through the more strident noise of the train’s progress. He leaned down so that his face was only two inches above that of Silas Martin, and clamped a brown-skinned hand over the old man’s slightly parted lips. The sleeping man was jerked into terrified waking, his eyes snapping open, bulging to such an extent that they seemed in danger of popping out of their sockets.

  “Easy,” the half-breed whispered. “We’ve got company.”

  The enlarged eyes traveled to their limit on either side. Then stared up at the roof as Edge made a gesture with his head and lifted his gagging hand.

  “Best you get over in the comer behind your trunk, feller.”

  Martin nodded his understanding. “Zenko and Hito-shi?” he rasped as he slid out from under the blanket and began to unfasten his coat buttons.

  “Four,” Edge replied, head cocked to listen for more sounds of movement on the roof of the car. “And I figure they’re more interested in the living than the dead.”

  The old man delved a hand into his topcoat and under the lapel of his suit jacket. He pulled out a small, seven-inch My Friend revolver with a ring grip.

  “I bought it on Larimer Street three weeks ago,” he said when Edge glanced at the .32 caliber, five-shot gun. “I’ve had some practice with it.”