Dakota Kill and the Romantics Read online

“Jed, it’s gettin’ late. Go on home before Martha has to send a boy for ya.”

  Gibbon jerked up from his reverie, realizing a sappy grin had basted his face. He set his mug down on the table, ran his hand down his bristly cheeks, and yawned. “I reckon I better head over to the train station. The four-ten must be due.”

  “Go on home and quit feelin’ sorry for yourself,” Fisk scolded. All the other customers had left without Gibbon realizing, and Fisk was sweeping sawdust as he puffed a nickel cigar.

  Pulling his hot socks on, Gibbon said, “If it wasn’t for me, feelin’ sorry for myself, you’d go out of business. Give me a plug o’ that Spearhead’s for the road, and add it to my bill. I get paid next week.”

  When he’d stomped into his boots and pulled his gloves on, he tied his scarf over his hat, went out, and headed for the depot on the other end of town.

  It was early winter twilight, and the first stars were impossibly bright. The silhouettes of supply-laden sleighs slid past, their teams crunching the packed snow beneath them. Gibbon kept to the boardwalks, glancing through windows at the lantern-lit stores, and shuffled up the shoveled cobblestone platform on which the red-brick station house sat, smoke puffing from its chimney.

  He sat on a bench inside, close to the fire, exchanging platitudes with the agent-telegrapher, a half-breed who slept on a cot in the primitive office. The four-ten thundered in, twenty minutes late. Gibbon was walking out to greet it as a big-boned kid with red hair dumped the mail pouch in a battered leather buggy.

  “Afternoon, Sheriff.”

  “Afternoon, Teddy. How’s your pa?”

  “He’s gettin’ some feelin’ back in his hands, but Doc Hall doesn’t think he’ll ever be right in his head again.”

  “That’s too bad. Give him my best, will ya?”

  “Sure will. See ya Thursday.”

  Five minutes later, the conductor, shrouded in soot and steam, yelled, “All aboard!”—though no one seemed to be getting on—and the train thundered off in a cloud of hot steam, which bathed the sheriff and pleasantly sucked the cold breath from his lungs.

  When the train was gone, leaving only snakes of steam curling over the cobbles, Gibbon peered up the platform. It was empty. Apparently no one had gotten off, which was just fine with Gibbon. Not having to confront miscreants—usually drunk, jobless cowboys looking for a place to winter—made the sheriff’s job all the easier. He could go home now, eat a hot supper, and crawl into bed with Martha and his new Police Gazette.

  “Sure turned cold early this year.” It was the station agent, trying to drag a large crate stamped MERCANTILE across the snowy cobbles, and grunting with the effort.

  “For Pete’s sake, let me help you there, Henry,” Gibbon said, walking over, crouching down, and trying to get a good hold on the freight carton. “On three, let’s lift the son of a bitch. One, two…”

  “One of you amigos have a light?”

  The request came out of nowhere, in Spanish-accented English. It startled Gibbon and the station agent, who suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked up. Gibbon saw he’d been wrong about no one getting off the train. The man standing before him was certainly not from around here.

  He was a tall, slender man in a round-brimmed black hat. He wore a coat like none Gibbon had ever seen before. It appeared to be wolf fur. Shiny and gray-black, it had a high collar that nearly covered the man’s ears, and it boasted silver buttons big as ’dobe dollars.

  Squatting there at the man’s knees, Gibbon and the agent looked at each other, speechless. Finally, the agent straightened, brushing his hands on his trousers, and reached into his shirt pocket for a matchbox. He produced a lucifer and scraped it against the box. The man stuck a thin black cigar between his lips and leaned toward the flame, which the agent cupped, looking sheepish.

  When the man got a good draw, he tipped his head back in a cloud of smoke. “Gracias, señor.” The man’s voice was deep and resonant, indicating a well of self-assured power.

  Gibbon didn’t know what to make of the man. He was no cowboy, that was for sure. What was a dandy greaser doing in Dakota in the middle of a butt-ripping winter? Gibbon wanted to ask. But the man’s presence rendered the sheriff’s words stillborn on his tongue.

  “Now I have a question for you,” the man said. “Where can a weary traveler find himself a hot bath and some girls to go with it?” His emotionless blue eyes—out of place in the Hispanic face with its high, flat cheekbones and aquiline nose—slid between Gibbon and the station agent.

  After what seemed several seconds, Gibbon cleared his throat, but it was the agent who spoke. “Well … I reckon you can probably find both up to the Powder Horn, on the west end of town … wouldn’t you say, Jed?”

  Gibbon nodded, finding his tongue. “The Powder Horn—that’s right, up the street, west end of town.” He squinted at the man and took a breath, at last finding the question he wanted to ask. But before he could get it out, the man nodded graciously, spread his waxed mustache in a thin smile, and said, “Much obliged, señores.” Then he hefted his baggage and sauntered down the platform, head cocked to one side, puffing smoke.

  Watching him, Gibbon noticed he carried a silver-mounted saddle on his shoulder, balanced there as though it were no burden at all. There was a war bag looped over the horn. In the man’s other hand he carried a scabbard containing a rifle. From its size and length, Gibbon concluded it was no squirrel gun.

  “Well, what in the hell do you make of that?” the agent said, still looking after the man.

  Gibbon said nothing. He watched the man disappear around the corner of the station house, recalling the man’s extraordinary face. He’d seen it before … somewhere. He knew he had. You don’t forget a face like that.

  But where?

  “I don’t know what to make of it,” Gibbon mumbled, running a gloved hand along his chin. “I’ll see ya, Henry,” he added absently.

  Forgetting he’d been about to help the agent with the crate, he opened the depot building’s doors and walked through the waiting area and out the other side. He cast his gaze up the street. It was getting too dark to see much, but he could make out the silver glint of the Mexican saddle as the man carried it up the boardwalk.

  Gibbon considered catching up with the man and asking him point-blank where he’d seen him before, but decided against it. There was something in the stranger’s demeanor that told Gibbon you didn’t pry—unless you were Wyatt Earp or Bill Tilghman, that is, and were faster on the draw than Jedediah Gibbon.

  Getting an idea, Gibbon walked over to the jail, which sat next to the livery barn and across the street from the Sundowner. It was so cold in the place that Gibbon’s cup of coffee, abandoned this morning when he was called out to the Rinski place, had frozen solid.

  But Gibbon didn’t light a fire. He didn’t plan to be here long. Martha was no doubt waiting supper for him.

  He lit a hurricane lamp and set it on his desk before rummaging around in a drawer and tossing a bundle of old, yellowed wanted dodgers on his scarred desktop. He sat down and thumbed through the posters, carefully considering the rough sketch on each. Five minutes after he’d started, one caught his eye.

  The likeness was so poor it was hard to be sure, but the description of the man cinched it: tall, slender Mexican with blue eyes and handlebar mustache. The man’s name was José Luis del Toro, wanted for multiple murders in Texas and New Mexico. He was described as a cold-blooded gun for hire, and extremely deadly.

  Gibbon stared at the picture for several minutes, feeling a chill in his loins. So Verlyn Thornberg had been right. Something was going on. One of the ranchers in the area had hired a gunman.

  Gibbon scowled at the sketch of José Luis del Toro, whose very name sounded like death. It made Gibbon feel like the inadequate old coward everyone thought he was.

  “Shit,” he said with a grunt.

  If the man who’d gotten off the train really was Del Toro, the Old Trouble was back with a v
engeance. And it was Gibbon’s job to do something about it.

  He sat back in his chair and felt the old, lonely fear wash over him once again.

  CHAPTER 5

  GLOWING CINDERS FLEW back from the smokestack as the train chugged eastward into the dawn. A rolling, snow-covered prairie lifted gently under a lavender-salmon sky, relieved now and then with craggy-topped buttes and peppered occasionally with sparse buffalo herds.

  A grizzled pioneer in a torn coat and scraggly beard waited at a crossing with a wagon load of hay, the yellow dog on the seat beside him cocking its head at the clattering wheels.

  It was Mark Talbot’s fourth and last day on the train. He’d been staring out the window nearly every waking moment. Although his back ached from the stab wound, he was able to appreciate the view, which was growing more and more spectacular. Isolated clusters of cottonwoods, frozen sloughs spiked with cattails, tidy gray cabins nestled in hollows and flanked with windmills and hitch-and-rail corrals.

  Talbot reflected that most travelers, unacquainted with the Northern Plains, would no doubt find the starkness disconcerting. Born and raised here, Talbot found it restful. While growing up, he couldn’t wait to see the world and fight in a war or two, search for gold in legendary Mexico. Seven years of warring and wandering behind him now, he couldn’t wait to be home, on the open plains, where the scalloped sky took your breath away and the prairie went on forever.

  Of course all the blood had something to do with it. You couldn’t see that much, spill that much, and not pine for home. You couldn’t see friends like Max Schultz or Louis Margolies or Sergeant Maloney butchered on the burning, rocky wastes of the Arizona desert or hacked to death in their sleep in the White Mountains, the creeks in the morning flowing red with the blood of Mescaleros and soldiers alike—you couldn’t see a lovely Mexican girl’s slender, ruined throat—and not long for a quiet cabin on Crow Creek in western Dakota, windows ablaze with the setting sun, the quartering breeze spiced with chokecherry blossoms and sage.

  The thought was interrupted by a tap on Talbot’s shoulder.

  He turned. A young woman and a man stood in the aisle. The woman was a dark-haired beauty in a fur coat and hat. Painted lips set off the lush brown eyes, which regarded Talbot boldly. Her hands were warmed by a rabbit muffler.

  The man next to her was older but dressed with similar elegance, out of place amidst the raucous snores, stiff upholstered seats, and sooty windows of the tourist car. The man’s slender frame was cloaked by a shiny bear coat and beaver hat, and his thin lips were smugly pursed. His small, silver-rimmed pipe filled the air with an aroma akin to balsam and sage.

  “Yes?” Talbot asked.

  The man spoke in a melodic tenor, enunciating his words very carefully. “Pardon us, sir, but the lady couldn’t help noticing that you appear to be injured.”

  “Pardon?”

  “There’s blood on the back of your coat,” the young woman said, pulling a hand from her muffler to point.

  Talbot reached behind his back with his left hand, probing his vest with his fingers. Sure enough, the blood had leaked through. The movement sharpened the pain, and he winced. “It’s nothing,” he said, not wanting to make a spectacle. “Just backed up against a loading fork back on the Frisco docks. Probably looks worse than it is.”

  “Oh, my,” the girl said. “That must have hurt.”

  “It’s really nothing.”

  With small, lightless eyes, the man said, “Why don’t you join us in our suite, and I’ll tend it for you?”

  “He’s a doctor,” the girl explained.

  Talbot studied them, wary. Why were these two well-dressed strangers so concerned for his health? You didn’t survive the Mescalero Apaches and Old Mexico during the gold boom without a healthy dose of xenophobia.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be fine.” Talbot turned back to the window.

  “As you wish, sir,” the girl said. “Come along, Harry.”

  Talbot turned back to see the two moving off down the aisle, between sparse rows of rustic western travelers—cowboys, drummers, and gamblers who were either playing cards or curled uncomfortably on the hard seats. The girl’s long chocolate curls cascaded down her slender back, bouncing lightly as she walked.

  Talbot sucked his cheek, watching her. She was lovely, and she had simply offered help to a stranger. Suddenly her motivation didn’t seem to matter.

  “Hold up,” he said, rising with his bag. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I could use a fresh dressing, I reckon.”

  The girl’s eyes brightened as she turned to regard him. She gestured to the door at the end of the car, and the man called Harrison stepped aside to let the rough-hewn stranger pass.

  Two cars back was a Hotel Pullman decked out with Turkish rugs, inlaid woodwork, two red-velvet daybeds, and a potbellied stove flanked by a stack of cordwood logs split so precisely they looked surreal. Peering at himself in the gilded mirror over the sofa, Talbot gave a complimentary whistle.

  “Daddy won’t let me travel in anything but luxury,” the girl said, tossing aside her coat and muffler. Carefully she lifted the hat from her head, removing pins and brushing loose hair from her impossibly smooth cheeks.

  Talbot furtively filled his lungs with her fresh, rosy smell, not so subtly feasting his eyes. American women.

  “And on long trips, he makes me take a physician—thus Harrison here,” she said. “He’s a friend I met at the theater.”

  The man in the bear coat lifted the curled ends of his waxed mustache in a wry smile. “I’m Harrison Long. That’s Suzanne.” There was an ironic tone in the doctor’s voice and expression, as though he envisioned himself a cultural prodigy among savages.

  Talbot tore his eyes from the girl to stroll around the car, taking in the ornate hangings and plush green drapes. “So this is how the privileged live,” he said. “If information about this gets out to the tourist cars, you’re liable to have a riot on your hands.”

  Harrison chuffed. “Such rustics as I saw up there could not appreciate this kind of luxury.”

  “Oh, I bet they could,” Talbot countered good-naturedly. “They’d have some party back here.” He caught the girl smiling at him, and returned the smile.

  “How long have you two been riding the rails?” he asked.

  “Since August,” Suzanne said. “I tend to get owly during the fall and winter on the Plains, and Daddy sends me traveling.”

  Talbot cocked an eyebrow. “Who’s your daddy—Jay Gould?”

  “King Magnusson.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “That’s not surprising,” she said with a laugh.

  Talbot wasn’t sure whom she’d just insulted, him or her father. As he feasted his eyes on the girl’s lovely lips parted to reveal a delicious set of pearly whites, on her long, slender neck and ripe bosom pushing at the low-cut shirtwaist, he didn’t care. He’d been at sea a long time.

  “We’ve told you our names,” the girl said. “What’s yours?”

  “Mark Talbot’s my handle, ma’am.”

  Smiling brightly, with the understated vigor of the well-bred, the girl took two strides forward and held out her long, pale hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mark Talbot.”

  “Likewise, ma’am,” Talbot said, his gaze held by hers. Her hand was thin and fine-boned, but her shake was firm. Talbot held it, enjoying the feel of her warm, soft flesh.

  Dr. Long gave a warning cough. “Let’s take a look there, shall we?” he said, taking a step toward the visitor and indicating Talbot’s back.

  “Where?” Talbot asked.

  “Right here is fine,” the doctor said, holding out his hands to accept Talbot’s vest.

  Talbot made no move to take it off. “No offense, ma’am, but … with her here?”

  “Oh, I won’t peek!” Suzanne exclaimed playfully. “I’ll ring the porter for some rags and a bowl of water. Would you care for some coffee? It’s French.”

  Ten minutes later, Tal
bot was lying facedown on the sofa, crossed ankles draped over an arm, hands folded beneath his chin. Sitting on a footstool beside him, Dr. Long was sponging the wound and puffing his pipe.

  Long frowned. “This was no mere hook you backed into, was it, Mr. Talbot?”

  “Looks nasty,” Suzanne said. She stood over the doctor, coffee cup clutched to her breast in both hands, and observed the doctor’s work with an arched brow.

  “Just a scratch,” Talbot said.

  The doctor squeezed blood and water from the sponge and dabbed at the dried blood and pus around the slit. “It looks nastier than it is, but it’s no scratch. It is, I believe, a knife wound. You’ve outdone yourself this time, Suzanne.”

  “A knife wound!” she enthused. “Really, Mr. Talbot?”

  Before Talbot could answer, Long said, “I think you should know, Mr. Talbot—if that’s your real name—I am armed with a Smith & Wesson .35 caliber pocket pistol, and I know how to use it.”

  “Oh, Harrison, don’t be melodramatic!” Suzanne laughed. “Besides … it might be fun.”

  “Suzanne!”

  Talbot craned his head to look at the doctor. “What do you mean, she’s outdone herself?”

  “Suzanne has a habit—it’s a game, really—of picking up interesting strangers and becoming acquainted. She spied you on a stroll through your car earlier. I agreed you did look interesting, but the blood on your vest put me off.”

  Suzanne shrugged. “I thought it was a good excuse to introduce ourselves, Harrison being a doctor and all.” Visibly excited, Suzanne wheeled around, skirt flying, and landed in a chair. She crossed her legs and leaned forward, placing her coffee cup on her knees. Her smile was radiant.

  Talbot watched her as the doctor continued to clean the wound. He couldn’t help being smitten by the effervescent girl. He guessed she was no more than nineteen or twenty, and despite her means of travel and dress he sensed she was more than just a spoiled coquette. She was an educated, well-built, spoiled coquette.

  “Come now, Mr. Talbot,” she begged, “how did you come to be stabbed?”