Silverado, p.1
Silverado, page 1
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Silverado
Spectros, Book Two
Paul Lederer writing as Logan Winters
CHAPTER ONE
The train pushed on across the night-grayed Nebraska plains, the trail of twisting white smoke gushing from the stack; running back along the spine of the train and up against the cold blue of the sky. The yellow light from within flickered on the low grass, following the uneven contours of the land. The whistle bleated against the night, setting a tribe of buffalo to panicked running.
They ambled off heavily, the great bull shaking his massive head angrily at the churning, clanking behemoth which puffed out the stink of man. This clattering beast roared angrily for but a moment, its red eye glaring defiantly. Then it was gone and the buffalo, quivering, bedded down in a secure wallow behind the low rising knolls.
“It’s been daylight we would’ve shot us a few,” the conductor said. He nodded his blue-capped head and cupped a hand to his eyes, peering out the window.
The kid didn’t answer him, but sat watching him with cold blue eyes which revealed nothing.
“Guess you ain’t a hunter,” the conductor suggested, wiping his forehead with a red handkerchief. But something in the other man’s eyes said that he was a hunter, though not of game animals. “Evenin’,” the conductor nodded, passing by and moving to the rear of the car, rolling as he walked against the jerky motion.
He turned again for a moment to study the kid. He had straight blond hair, long over his ears, his black hat rested on a propped up knee. Silver conchos decorated it. On his hip was a slick-looking piece of ornamentation—courtesy of Samuel Colt.
The conductor shook his head and stepped out of this car and into the next. This car was unoccupied and he slumped on the hardwood bench, rolling a smoke. There was nothing about this trip he liked.
Will Colter had been a trainman all his life, first in Virginia. After the war he came west to fulfill his dream of crossing the naked, savage continent on iron wheels. He had seen massacres, holdups, trains stuck in twenty foot drifts on the plains, trestles washed from the rocky snags in the mountains, burning grasslands which threatened to devour the train whole. But this trip was different and plain no good. It was spooky.
“Will?” The door opened to the whoosh of the cool wind and Emory Slaughter came in, his cap pushed back. “Thought I’d find you here.”
Slaughter was about thirty-five, red-faced and genial. He unwrapped a sandwich from that saloon outside of Fort Kearney where they watered and Slaughter kept one of his rail girls, a tall woman always in red, with a flower in her hair. She probably went back to her soldier the minute the train pulled out. Slaughter chewed slowly, thoughtfully, as if worrying his cud.
“You find out anything yet?” Slaughter nodded toward the back of the train with his head. “About that, I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” Will said heavily, toeing out his cigarette. “No. Nobody is talking. Maybe they don’t know.”
“Not even Jeffers? Engineer’s supposed to know everything about the train, ain’t he?” Slaughter sniffed. He had never liked the arrogant Jeffers.
“All I know is what you know. The last car’s off limits, locked tight. I don’t think Jeffers knows. Maybe just the freight agent.”
“Never heard the like. Think it’s a payroll? Army payroll maybe?”
“You see any soldiers on board?”
“No.” Slaughter chewed on that for a while. “You’re right. Somethin’ almighty valuable though, Will.”
“And what about that gunhand up front?”
“Think he is?”
“Are you kidding? He’s got the stamp on him.”
“Name’s Featherskill—seen it on the bag he’s carrying. Ever hear of a gun named Featherskill?”
“I don’t think them boys always use their true names.”
“No, I guess not,” Slaughter acknowledged. “You know, we ought to have us a look, Will.” Slaughter’s eyes flickered to the door. Outside the plains, blue in the starlight, flashed by. The smell of night grass filled their nostrils.
“Jeffers’ll …”
“Jeffers won’t know.” Slaughter switched seats, scooting up beside Will Colter. “He’s sleepin’ up front.”
“No.”
“What would it hurt? No one would know.” He was looking into Will’s eyes, and they were wavering.
“There was two men put on that cargo—whatever it is—I didn’t like their look. Cold. The thin one was all scarred and the fat man, he had eyes that’d burn you.”
“What do you think, they’re riding back there?” Slaughter laughed contemptuously. “They’d have to be locked in with no food, no water. Since Omaha? Come on.”
“Well, I guess no one would be there.”
“Course not. Let’s have us a peek.”
“I could lose my pension, Will.”
“Hell—we’ll tell ’em we smelled smoke.”
They had no business doing it—Will Colter kept telling himself—but curiosity was gnawing at him. Slaughter already had a pry bar in his hand, working on the heavy padlock. The wind rushing between the two cars was cold, heavy with the smell of cinders.
“Got it!”
Will looked down at the broken hasp in Slaughter’s hand, still not liking it. But there was something wrong about this run. It was more than curiosity driving him, he decided. It was a sort of fear. Slaughter slipped the latch and they stepped into the last car.
“What was that!” Slaughter stopped dead.
“What?”
“Something scutting away—get a light.”
“Probably a rat,” Will said unconvincingly.
“Going up to the roof? Look—crawlway’s open.”
Starlight flickered in the opening. Will held a match to the lantern.
“No one here,” he said with relief. His mouth was dry, and his knees a bit rubbery. The car was nearly empty. Nearly, but not quite. There was a table. And on it two tin plates.
“Look.”
Will nodded. Slaughter took the lantern and crept forward, the glare of yellow light painting the corners and crevices grotesquely, bringing flat, wooden surfaces to life for a terrifying instant.
“It’s empty. Let’s get out.” Will’s hand was locked on Slaughter’s elbow. Slaughter shook away.
“Here’s what it is.”
“What?”
Slaughter held the lantern over a dark, low form. A box. No, by God, a casket. Will stepped back quickly, involuntarily. “Okay, let’s go.” He had suddenly become superstitious. The darkness can have that effect on a man’s mind. Slaughter would not be dissuaded. There was a rough cloth over the casket and he reached out to turn it back.
“Leave it alone.” Will pleaded, clamping Slaughter’s hand with his own. “It’s a coffin, that’s all. Someone shipping a loved one home.”
“Someone was in here.”
“All right!” Will lowered his voice quickly. “All right. They were traveling with it. Bereaved, they didn’t want to be disturbed. Let it be.”
“You’re a woman,” Slaughter snapped. He turned back the covering cloth. “Oh God!”
“What is it?”
“Look, Will—a young girl. Pretty. And the casket. All made of glass or something.”
Will got up his courage and peered over Slaughter’s shoulder. It was a woman of twenty or so, no more. Utterly beautiful with raven hair, pale flesh dressed in a white dress which revealed the beginnings of a magnificent figure.
“Will.” Slaughter’s face was suddenly white, his eyes bulging. The lantern trembled in his hand. “She’s—alive!”
Ray Featherskill was awake. The constant humming of the wheels, the sense of floating across seas of grass, however, had lulled him into lethargy. Lights flickered, the shadows outside slid past, holding their shapes for only brief seconds before giving way to the next image.
A small, tortured sound reached Featherskill from the vast distances. A dragging brake, perhaps. A steam jet releasing unexpectedly. He listened again, but there was nothing. Then after a while there was a short, hard jerk. He looked around. None of the other passengers seemed to have noticed it. Probably nothing of importance.
Outside the lantern show continued: light against shadow, reality striving against the phantom world of lights and shadows. In the morning, there would be hard yellow prairie out there, stunted, windswept grass. Morning would be soon enough.…
The telegram had reached Ray Featherskill at St. Louis. From New Orleans. He knew that Dan Hollister had finally picked up a lead. Blackschuster and Wango were reported heading west once more, returning to the silver mines. Dan hadn’t been able to find the doctor. Spectros had stayed in Colorado with Montak who had been cut up pretty badly in the Denver shoot-out. Ray Featherskill and the dark man, Inkada, had spread out, trying to cut Blackschuster’s trail.
And Ray had found it.
“Featherskill?”
“Yes?” Ray looked up to meet the worried gaze of the engineer.
“I’m Jeffers,” the trainman said nervously, his voice low. The other passengers were asleep a nd Ray noticed for the first time that the train seemed to be slowing down.
“I remember,” Ray said.
“I don’t know …” Jeffers took a deep breath, studying the lean blond man.
“Are we stopping?”
“Yes,” Jeffers nodded. “You wanted to look in the back car. I’m sorry now I didn’t let you. I didn’t—you’d better come with me.”
Ray nodded, tugged on his hat, and followed the engineer forward. By the time they reached the engine, the train had stopped, blowing steam as the brakes locked. Jeffers said nothing but stepped to the earth, waving a lantern in front of him. They walked to the rear of the train. Gone!
“I felt something,” Ray said.
“Yes. The car. It’s been released. Lost.”
Ray could only stare up the long tracks. The last car, the car he suspected Blackschuster and Wango to have been using, was gone. Vainly he looked for it. There was only the twin silver rail, the black, night shrouded plains, and a stiff wind rising. And one other thing. Ray grimaced and pointed it out to the engineer.
“It’s Will Colter. I think it is. It must be. And—my God!—Slaughter too.” The lantern dropped down. Ray took it from him and lifted it to examine the two trainmen. They had been murdered brutally and efficiently then hung like beeves from the roof.
“I’ll cut them down,” Ray said, handing the lantern back.
After he had done that he examined the bodies. Each had been stabbed twice. In the neck and in the back—Wango’s trademark. The butcher had been there, then. And Blackschuster. And Kirstina.
“Where’s the nearest place I can find a horse?” Ray demanded.
“Six miles. Badger Peak crossing. There’s a hostler who lives there. Or was. There’s been some Arapaho trouble. But you can’t be going off alone, not tonight.”
“Tonight,” Ray said. He lit a short cigar and the match flames illuminated his sharp features. They were set, determined. “They can’t travel fast or far without horses. I’ve got to find them before they get them.”
“Then you know them?”
“I know them,” Ray said, his voice bitter.
“Who are they? Who could do such a thing as this? Who?”
Ray just shook his head, snatching up his bag and rifle. “You wouldn’t want to know,” he said.
Not only wouldn’t he want to know, he would never believe it. No one ever did, and there was little point in retelling the story just to have it wondered at or scoffed at.
Ray swung his bag across his shoulder and began moving southward. The night was still, the grass underfoot dry and soft. His first inclination was to go back up the tracks and find the missing car, but Blackshuster would not stick with it long. It was necessary first to find a horse. Ray wanted to reach Badger Peak. If Blackschuster were to arrive there first no horses would be left. Possibly there would be nothing left. The man was not known for compassion.
Ray stopped on a low hummock shy of Badger Creek. Two miles or so off he could make out a dim light, probably the inn and stable at the crossing. Just beyond that the low blue hills began to rise toward the still far-off Great Divide. Colorado was an invisible line somewhere five miles or so off which wrinkled into a knotted series of foothills and bunched up, finally thrusting toward the great plateaus and broken mesas before becoming the Rockies. Ray tugged his hat back on. Hefting his satchel again he moved in long, easy strides down the broad valley toward the way station.
He had not gone far before something in the air worried him. Wood smoke and another undefined, gut-wrenching odor. He moved more quickly now, but more cautiously as well, keeping off the skyline, using the low arroyos and stream beds. The smell grew stronger as he went, and he had no doubt what it was.
From the top of the surrounding hils he saw the station burned to the ground, smoke curling up against the purple sky. Nothing moved. A lone pony lat flat against the earth, dead.
Ray levered a cartridge into his Winchester and half crawled, half slid down the long rocky slope, his eyes digging at the darkness, stopping for every waving shadow, each cloud of wind-stirred dust.
He was near to the building now, near enough to see a figure, sprawled and mutilated in the doorway where burned rafters pinned it to the earth. The place stank of death.
Now he had bought it. Alone on the plains, without a horse, at the mercy of those who had them. At least, he thought, I can bury them. It was then that he heard the hammer being cocked not far behind his right ear. He dropped his gun without being asked to, and raised his hands high.
“Mind if I turn around?” Ray asked. He got no answer. One comfort—it wasn’t Wango behind him. Had it been, his throat would have been cut by now.
“Turn around. But slowly.”
Ray nodded and turned to face a frightened mouse of a girl with eyes as big as Kansas moons and a Sharps .50 caliber rifle that looked like an artillery piece.
“I’m deathly afraid I’m gonna have to shoot you, mister,” she said.
CHAPTER TWO
At Julesberg the tall man peered into the glitter of yellow dawn, waiting. The whistle pealed down through the valley and Inkada’s dark eyes picked up the thin trail of far off smoke.
“You waitin’ for a ticket?” a little man in spectacles asked, but he only asked once. The tall stranger paid no heed whatsoever to the inquiry. “What do you suppose he is?” the ticket man asked.
“Too tall for most Injuns,” the porter responded in a low voice. “The nose ain’t right, neither.” He shrugged.
“Mebbe one of those kind from India. You know, the other kinda Indian.”
“Couldn’t say,” the porter replied, spitting with satisfaction on the wooden platform before rolling his quid to the opposite cheek. “But I don’t think he’s one to trifle with.”
The train lumbered into the station. There were three or four people, two of them older ladies, waiting for it. They stepped back, hoisting their skirts as the locomotive coughed out a final issue of white steam.
Before the train had fully stopped the engineer was already to the platform, waving his hand.
“Where’s that telegrapher? Somebody run for the marshal!”
“Marshal’s off to Sadie Springs—won’t be back for a week. What’s up, Jeffers?”
“What’s up? Two cars missing. Two good men murdered.” The engineer was suddenly aware of the tall shadow being cast over him. He turned suddenly and jerked his head back at the sight of the tall stranger.
“Someone disconnected a car from the train?” Inkada demanded.
“Yes. But I don’t know who. There were two fellas hired the whole car—must’ve been them. Course they cut the caboose loose too. And killed two of my crew—Will Colter and Slaughter.”
Inkada watched the train from the corner of his eyes. Only one man had debarked, an elderly gentleman with red whiskers.
“Was there a man named Featherskill on board?” Inkada asked.
“Sure was,” Jeffers told him. “He taken off after them others. Said he knowed ’em.”
“Where was this?”
“Twenty miles out—near to Badger Peak crossing. Was he a friend of yourn?”
“Featherskill. Yes.” Inkada glanced around. “Where can I hire a horse? Or two.”
“Tyler’s. Or Sunday Stable,” the porter volunteered. “But I wouldn’t go on the plains just now, mister, was I you. Arapaho’s are kickin’ up fairly fierce. They got ’em a new shaman—at least them Badger Peak Arapahos do. Man called War Echo. And he’s seen him a vision of a hatchet talkin’ blood to the whites. He’s dancin’ up a war out there, friend.”
“Please, where is the stable? I also must send a telegram if the telegrapher can be found.”
“Take a left at the bank,” the engineer told him, “can’t miss the Sunday Stable. As for Bert, I know where he is. Sending cipher at the Double Eagle saloon. I’ll drag him out of there quick like.”
“Mister,” the porter asked of Inkada, “you’re gonna go out there anyway? You’re liable to lose your scalp too. Why?”
Inkada turned on his heel and walked quickly toward the stable without answering.
“He didn’t even answer,” the porter said, spitting.
“Why should he? He told you why he was going. That man’s his friend.”
Inkada awakened the graybeard who ran the stable from his chair in the morning sun and selected two horses—a gangly, young Buckskin and a stumpy roan about five years old. Then he rode to the telegraph office where the red-eyed Bert was pecking out his Morse. When the engineer had finished his message, Inkada penciled out his own telegram and handed it to the telegrapher along with a pair of silver dollars.
