The lieutenant collected his stake and left the table, moving toward the front of the car. Father Murphy stood as he departed. “I think the lieutenant has the right of it. We should all take advantage of this stop to stretch our legs. Shall we adjourn until the train is moving again?”
The priest scooped his stake and whiskey into his carpetbag. The other players pushed their chairs back from the table. Corey stood with them, carefully stretching the bruised muscles of his ribs, shoulders, and neck.
“Can’t say as I’d mind a chance to walk about,” Perkins admitted. He followed Father Murphy toward the exit in the front of the car.
Corey took a step toward Miss Parson.
“Oh, Mr. Callaghan,” Miss Davis asked. “Would you help me with this bag? I just don’t know what to do with it if I’m to get off this train and get some air.” She came around the table past Miss Parson and touched Corey’s arm.
“Well I...” Corey wasn’t sure how to respond to this request but quickly realized that whatever he should have done, he had chosen wrong when Miss Parson whirled about and stalked from the car.
Patrick chuckled with delight. “That’s the way, Corey me lad. Just keep up the smooth patter, and I’ll have you ready to train again in no time.”
Miss Davis looked from Corey to Patrick and back again as if she couldn’t quite understand what the old man was saying.
“Don’t let him worry you,” Corey reassured her. “The old fool’s just down and determined to make certain I regret my efforts to pull him out of trouble in Cheyenne.”
Patrick continued to laugh.
When Corey got back on the train, following Miss Davis with her bag, he found most of the players had preceded them. Patrick, Miss Parson, Lieutenant Ridgewood, and Father Murphy were already in their seats. Miss Parson would not meet Corey’s eyes as he dutifully helped Miss Davis into her chair. Annoyed, he ignored her in return and began to round the table to recover his seat.
He stopped.
The noisy old woman with the Bible had relocated herself during the station stop and now occupied Corey’s place. Her mousy-looking son and daughter filled the rest of the bench beside her.
Corey took a moment to consider the situation. It was awkward, to say the least. He had no doubt that nothing shy of physical force would move the woman now that she was sitting where she wanted to be. The smug expression on her hard face was proof of that. And whatever the perceived provocation, Corey could never lay hands on her to claim his place. Her mousy son, however, was another matter entirely. He was a few years older than Corey but seemed to shrink in on himself as he suffered the boxer’s gaze. He could be moved without a problem.
“Aye,” Father Murphy observed. The three intruders were sitting directly behind him, which couldn’t be making him happy. “I’m sure that you could force him up if you wanted to, lad. You could probably throw him off the train and no one would care a whit. But before you do, you might ask yourself if you really want to earn a place sitting beside the Devil’s handmaid.”
It took a moment for the insult to penetrate the woman’s aura of smug victory, but when it did, her expression of triumph froze unnaturally upon her face. Then the grin cracked and transformed into an angry, disbelieving scowl. “Devil’s handmaid?” Her voice at first lacked force, as if she couldn’t quite believe what the priest had called her. But then she recovered herself, and her growing fury added volume to her words. “Devil’s handmaid? You despicable, drunken heathen—”
Father Murphy appeared not to recognize that he had crossed a line of propriety with his comment. Undeterred by the woman’s anger, he offered another observation. “Sure enough, how else do you explain your crushing need to sit closer to me? And me being a man of the cloth?”
The woman stood and pointed a shaking finger at the priest and the table behind him. “A pox on all of you sinners!” she cursed. Then, white faced with fury, she gathered up her skirts and stormed off down the aisle to sit farther back in the railcar. The train gave a lurch as she found her seat, and began to roll forward. The woman’s son and daughter looked at each other as if silently asking what they should do. Then they rose in unison and, heads bowed, hurried to rejoin their mother.
Father Murphy sighed. “Now then, Mr. Callaghan, why don’t you take your seat so I won’t have that harpy breathing down my neck again.” He appeared to notice for the first time the shocked expressions of the other players. “I’m sorry gentlemen, ladies, that was unpardonably rude of me, but I can only think of two reasons a woman like that would want to sit behind me in a poker game, and that is either to mess with my spirits,” he lifted Jack to his lips and drank, “or to spoil my game. I just couldn’t play with her sitting behind me.”
“I think that you can add a third reason in the future,” Perkins said. He had evidently arrived to stand behind Corey during the altercation between the priest and the lady. Now he took his seat at the table.
“And that would be?” Father Murphy asked.
“To push a knife into your back,” Perkins laughed.
The twinkle returned to Father Murphy’s eyes. “And deserving it I would be,” he agreed.
A sergeant in blue cavalry uniform approached Lieutenant Ridgewood a few minutes later and bent to whisper in his ear. Corey could not make out the man’s words, but the lieutenant’s face immediately grew grave with concern. When the sergeant finished speaking, the lieutenant got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I have to attend to this.” Without waiting for their response, he departed the table toward the front of the train.
A brief silence followed his departure, which was only broken when Perkins began shuffling the deck. “I guess we can play a few hands without the military,” he suggested.
“Just where did he run off to?” Patrick asked. “I couldn’t hear what the soldier boy had to say. Could you hear, Miss Parson?”
Miss Parson frowned at Patrick’s suggestion. Clearly if she had eavesdropped she was not about to admit to it in public.
Miss Davis had no such inhibitions. “Why, he said that two of the lieutenant’s men didn’t get back on the train at the stop in Laramie. Don’t they call that desertion?”
“I would be doubting it’s desertion, lass,” Father Murphy corrected her. “It’s far more likely that for some reason they just couldn’t get back on the train. They’re probably back in Laramie right now worrying about how they will explain this to the lieutenant when they catch up to him.”
“Father Murphy is right,” Perkins agreed. “When we arrive in Rawlings there will be a telegram waiting for the lieutenant telling him his men will be on the next train.”
“Wonder why the soldiers aren’t in this car with the lieutenant,” Patrick asked.
“I expect that they are guarding something,” Father Murphy answered. “If the lieutenant had gone toward the back of the train, I’d say they were with the horses. But he went toward the front so it’s my guess they’re in the baggage car.”
“I didn’t know people could ride in the baggage car,” Miss Davis said.
“They can when they’re soldiers with something to guard,” Father Murphy replied.
Patrick rubbed his hands together with glee. “Must be something valuable. Maybe an army payroll. There could be a fortune in that car up ahead of us.”
“It can’t be much more than you’ve already won, Mr. o’sullivan,” Miss Parson exaggerated. “Mr. Perkins, why don’t you deal the cards and give us a chance to win some of our money back?”
When Lieutenant Ridgewood returned, Miss Parson had just won her first hand of the day. It was a modest change in a weeklong run of abysmal luck, so she was pleased but not excited by her play.