Jess had been a conductor on this line since its start in 1870 and he was a fixture. Long past normal retirement age, the old gent was extremely popular both among the passengers and the other railroad employees.
But right now, he was confused. “Why, sure, but … well, what am I supposed to call you?”
“Mr. Long. Not Marshal, or Longarm, or even Custis, because that would be too informal if I’m supposed to be a prominent businessman.”
“All right,” Jess said, “but everyone else on this train is going to be callin’ out ‘Longarm’ or ‘Deputy,’ and I don’t hardly see how you can stop ‘em.”
“Maybe it isn’t even necessary until I get on the Union Pacific,” Longarm said. “But let’s just start pretending right now. Okay?”
“Why sure, Cust … Mr. Long.”
“Good.” Longarm gave the man his firstclass ticket. “I’ll expect the best of your service, just like everyone else in first class.”
The conductor stared at the ticket. “Is this costing us taxpayers?” he asked with a frown.
“I’m afraid so, although it’s only an additional forty-three dollars over the second-class fare between Cheyenne and Reno,” Longarm said, understanding the old man’s disapproval. “And I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
Jess’s pale and watery blue eyes widened and he grinned. “What is it?”
“I’m going to recover a bunch of stolen taxpayers’ money and that’s why I have to spend a little extra on this firstclass ticket.”
“How much are you going to recover?”
“I can’t tell you that, Jess. But at least a hundred times what it’s costing the taxpayers to send me to Reno.”
“That’s where you’re going?”
Longarm nodded.
“Then you must be after that ten thousand dollars that was stolen off the Union Pacific Railroad a couple of months ago up near Donner Pass!”
“Shhh!” Longarm put his finger to his lips. “Dammit, Jess, I don’t want any of this leaking out. Do you understand me?”
“Well, sure!” Jess vowed, looking slightly offended. “I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
“I know that,” Longarm said, wanting to mollify the conductor. “Now just keep all of this under your cap and we’ll both be a lot better off.”
“I’ll do it, and I’ll tell your firstclass porter and the dining room staff not to call out your name.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Longarm said with relief. “I’m sure that a few of my fellow firstclass passengers will also transfer at Cheyenne and proceed on to Reno. When I get to Nevada, I hope to go about my investigation without anyone knowing who I am.”
“It’d help if you shaved off that mustache and got a haircut.”
“I got a haircut just yesterday.”
“A real short haircut, Marsh … I mean, Mr. Long. The fellas with money have their hair cut a whole lot shorter than you.”
“So do prison convicts,” Longarm said. He removed his new black-felt Stetson. “Fine hat, isn’t it?”
“It sure is, but it looks just like your old one, only it’s new. You should have bought a derby.”
“I hate derbies and bowlers,” Longarm said with considerable passion. “They look like soup bowls turned upside down on a fella’s head. The little bitty brim is worthless for keeping the sun out of a man’s eyes, and it’ll allow the back of a horseman’s neck to get burned to a crisp.”
“Yeah, only people with money don’t much ride horses, Custis. They ride carriages.”
The old man had a good point, which Longarm chose to ignore. “You’re to call me Mr. Long, remember?”
“SorrY.”
“Never mind. Just give me a good berth and tell my porter that he’d better address me as Mr. Long and give me as good a service as if I’d paid for this firstclass ticket out of my own pocket.”
“I will, but I sure hate to see the taxpayers pay for that ticket. You gonna pay ‘em back if you don’t recover the money?”
Longarm was getting irritated. “No,” he said shortly. “This conversation is over, Jess.”
“Sure,” the conductor said. “I got other firstclass passengers coming. And all of them have paid for their own firstclass tickets.”
“Well, good for them!”
“And one of ‘em is a duchess or a princess or some such thing.”
“You don’t say.”
Jess nodded vigorously. “She’s from England and of royal blue blood.”
“Have you seen her?”
“Yep,” Jess said.
Longarm had never met royalty before and he thought it would be interesting. “What’s she like?”
“She’s beautiful, just like you’d expect of an English princess.”
Longarm became even more interested. “About how old is the woman?”
“I’d judge her to be in her mid-twenties.”
“Traveling with a prince, I suppose?”
“Nope, traveling alone except for some old biddy who is bossy as hell. Mrs. Addie is her name, and I can already see that she’s going to give us all fits. She wants everything perfect for the princess. We had to do a lot of shuffling around to give them adjoining berths, the two largest and nicest on the train. The ones we use when the president of this line travels to and from Cheyenne.”
“How about that,” Longarm said, very impressed. “I hope I get a chance to meet this princess. Any idea why she is traveling to Cheyenne?”
“She’s bound for San Francisco.”
“Good,” Longarm said, “then I’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted with her.”
“I doubt that Mrs. Addie will even let you near the princess,” Jess said. “You might be wearing new clothes, but she’ll see that six-shooter strapped to your waist and she’ll know that you’re not a gentleman.”
“Well,” Longarm said, “perhaps I’ll leave my sidearm locked in my sleeping compartment.”
“You’d do that given all the enemies you’ve made as a United States marshal?”
“Will anyone else in the firstclass coach be wearing a six-gun?”
“No, but … well, you are a deputy United States marshal, and I’m sure there are plenty of folks who’d like to put a slug through your gizzard.”
“I didn’t say that I’d be completely disarmed.”
The conductor looked relieved. “Glad to hear that,” he said. “I was worried for a minute.”
Longarm patted the kindly old gent on the shoulder. “You just worry about Mrs. Addie. I’ll take care of myself, and it will help a lot if you warn the other staff about the fact that I’m traveling incognito.”
“Means in disguise, right?”
“Right.” Longarm grinned. “Jess, which compartment have they reserved for me?”
Jess consulted a clipboard with a roster of compartment assignments. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“You got the small one.”
“The small one?”
“Yes, it used to be used by the porter who took care of our firstclass passengers. But the railroad wanted to squeeze a few more pennies of profit so they converted it to a private firstclass compartment.”
“Humph,” Longarm snorted, not liking the sound of this.
“I wouldn’t be too upset,” Jess said. “After all, you’ll only have to put up with it for today. Since you’ve only got it up to Cheyenne, you’ll probably want to just stay in the parlor car.”
Longarm was not pleased. “Well, for crying out loud,” he complained. “I would have thought that, for the price of a firstclass ticket, I wouldn’t have to put up with that sort of inconvenience.”
“Well,” Jess said, “that compartment has a sizeable discount. In fact, it doesn’t cost the government a cent more than a second-class compartment.”
Longarm realized that Billy Vail had snookered him one more time. “Show me the way.”
Jess hailed a porter who was not all that much younger than himself. “Hello, Arnold.”
“Hi, Longarm.” Arnold eyed him up and down, and then he clucked his tongue and said, “Boy, you sure are gussied up!”