I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

40 Dapper Jack

 Merritt’s men stood together, discussing what to do with the men from the train. The smoke bombs had made it easy for seven men to overpower seventy, but it had still taken a considerable amount of time to search them all. There was a definite carmine glow on the horizon now and the Drover had followed the Bullock down in the east. The Angiers Liberation Army was itching to be somewhere else, but no one was quite easy leaving Baccarat’s men unconscious and unprotected on the frosty ground. They had found only the one detective from the Quinlan Agency.

“We can march them back to the nearest station,” one of the men suggested.

Merritt shook his head. “That will take too long. We’ll have to wait for them to wake, and that will still be several hours.” He looked around the group and Jack followed his gaze. Except for Andin, who had recovered his equilibrium, the unshaved stubble on the men’s faces showed that it had been too long since they rested. There were dark circles beneath their eyes. “Let’s get them all into the train again.” Merritt turned to a man whose chin length hair showed that he had spent time enough among the Pels to cut it. “Brody can get the engine running and we’ll send them on their way.”

Jack picked up a man under his armpits while one of Merritt’s men took his legs. Others hefted the still bodies and began to carry Baccarat’s men back into the train. They had piled half of the men into the last car when there was a sound of hoofbeats approaching. Jack’s partner dropped the man they were carrying and crouched down beside the train in a defensive position. Three riders were approaching from the south.

Merritt’s other men took up similar attitudes, waiting to see who the newcomers were. The growing light from the southwest painted them in golden hues. The horses moved quickly over the landscape at a canter; the fringes on the riders’ striped ponchos streamed in the wind they made. Jack pulled the knife from his belt but his companion suddenly relaxed and stood up. “It’s Arvin,” he said, “coming down from the hills with Farrell and Roarke.”

The riders came closer and Jack recognized the gray haired man who was Merritt’s explosives expert. The newcomers helped to load the rest of the limp bodies into the train car, where they had been stacked closely.

“They won’t be cold now,” Rance said. “They’ll be as snug as prairie dogs in a burrow.”

Brody lifted his poncho with one hand and flapped it to send cool air over his body. “I hope they appreciate it. I’m plenty warm hauling them around.”

Jack let them grumble and went back to the sumptuous car where Baccarat’s body still lay beneath the tablecloth. Baccarat had made sure to travel in comfort. In the cabinets he found the makings for chicory coffee, as well as bread and cheese and the usual Pelagoan assortment of smoked and tinned fish. The fish he left alone, but there was a rack of ribs as well, the meat salted and dried on the bones. Baccarat had spent enough time on the Plains to develop a taste for mutton. Jack used his knife to slice off several ribs and tucked them into his satchel.

As he jumped down from the car, Brody and another man were heading towards the engine. Jack went instead to the horses, who had been hobbled and stood together, lipping at the long-bleached remainders of the spring foliage, to one side of the train tracks. The sun was over the horizon now, and there was a line of light sweeping over the three-fingered butte. Jack found the horse he had ridden and knelt down to untie the rope hobble from the animal’s fetlocks.

“You’re leaving?”

Danick stood next to him when Jack straightened.

“Mister Primrose will want to know how it ended.”

“He’ll read about it in the papers. Stay with us. Join the Army; they’ll make you a captain straight away, if not a colonel.”

Jack coiled the cotton rope around his forearm with a few quick movements, made it fast, and stuffed it into one of the saddle bags. “I have to go back to Delta Mouth,” he said. “I have unfinished business there.”

His cousin raised one eyebrow. “Is there a woman?”

Jack smiled at his cousin while the image of the Ibai girl’s frightened eyes as he pressed her back against the alley wall pushed into his mind. “You’re only asking that because you’ve been too long in this men’s army. When was the last time you had a woman?” He had the satisfaction of seeing Danick blush and glance away. “If you think that I can be done with Jimmy Primrose because we’ve done with Baccarat, then you’d best think again.”

“Merritt will speak for you,” Danick said. “Any of us will. There will be a place for you in the Federation. There will always be a place for a Plainsman on the Plain.” He held out a hand and when Jack clasped it, Danick embraced him roughly.

“Thank you,” Jack said when they parted. He gathered the reins in his hands. “Is there a place I should leave the horse near the station? I presume there is no man to spare to lead him back.”

“At the dry goods store,” Danick said. “We’ll send someone for him later.”

Jack nodded and lifted himself into the saddle. The horse pranced a little, enjoying the freedom of his feet without the hobble. Jack turned his head toward the west and leaned forward. The horse leapt forward. He had rested while Jack and the other men were carrying out their midnight plan and he was eager to head toward town. Probably he would get a feedbag of grain at the dry goods store.

Jack rode in a half doze while the sun climbed behind him. He looked back once, to see that the train was crawling away to the north, carrying the past and the future of the Plain with it. After an hour or so of riding, he came back to full awareness and remembered that he had taken food from the train. The mutton was cold and salty, and he was soon thirsty. He drank half of the water remaining in his canteen and nibbled the cheese instead.

From the little station, he would catch a train back to the Mouth. Back to Jimmy, who would still be ensconced on the Princess Carylla, waiting for news of Baccarat’s death. The salon would be full of Pels jockeying for position, watching to see which way the wind was blowing. They would all be as eager as Jimmy to Baccarat’s head, but Jack was not looking forward to walking through that crowd. He reached into his pocket where the railman’s wallet and papers lay and pulled out the papers. Baxter Atchison.

The first letter was a report from the manager of the mine that had been cut off by Jimmy’s first collaboration with the Angiers Liberation Army. That was old news, and Jack did not care how many leagues of track had been destroyed, how many men had run into the hills and not returned. He turned to the second paper and read through the list he had scanned earlier. There was the expected assortment of businesses in Delta Mouth, clustered near the new rail station on the Ornette. Below them was a tally of saloons and brothels in the smaller towns along the rail line. No doubt Baccarat would have been pleased to acquire the similar interests that Jimmy controlled along the waterfront. And Jimmy would be pleased to extend his own empire south into the Plain.

The only thing in his way would be the bureaucratic structure left behind by Baccarat, and the proposed Federation. The former was likely to collapse on its own through in-fighting; the latter… He could almost let himself hope that the latter would succeed.

He reached the tiny town near noon. At the dry goods store, he left the horse with its expected bag of oats. For himself, he bought a bottle of soda. He had just enough time to drink it before a midday train chugged into the station from the north. He returned the bottle to the storeclerk and trotted to the station.

The train was only half full. Dapper Jack watched the conductor carefully, but the man took his ticket with no comment. The railroad continued functioning, like the body of a chicken which does not yet realize the head has been separated. Jack leaned back into the well worn upholstery of the seat and slipped into a light doze.

The train lurched through the stations. Jack was half-conscious of the buildings growing taller and more numerous outside the window. The landscape darkened as they approached Delta Mouth and its ever present haze of mist and clouds. Finally the sky disappeared altogether as the train pulled into the Ornette station and the high ceilings closed over it. Jack slung his satchel over his shoulder and disembarked, trying not to yawn. Instead he rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He’d need to clean up before he went back to the Princess Carylla, but he couldn’t delay too long, either.

By the time he pushed out through the station’s glass doors, he had decided to find Howser. He needed someone at his side when he went back to make his final report to Jimmy.