Ellen gasped. “Good heavens, she has ever so many Confederate bonds back at our boardinghouse!”
He chuckled and said, “There’s no way even the Union could afford to redeem all that rebel paper. They had to issue a heap of it to get any real money in return. But it might be possible to redeem old Credit Mobilier of America stock. The parent company, the Union Pacific, is still in business and doing grand under new management. If we can’t find anything here, I can wire this railroading slicker I know. Old Jay Gould ain’t connected with Union Pacific, but he’d know if any railroad paper was worth a plugged nickel, and I did him a favor one time.”
She said she’d noticed even mean-tempered folks tended to remember favors. That gave him the opening to say, “Us mean folks don’t get as many favors as some. I came here with the intention of asking for one. You got me all side-tracked, worried about slick-talking hardware men and upstairs rooms papered with stocks and bonds.” Ellen said she was only worried about a poor young widow, and asked him what she might be able to do for him. She could sure smile dirty for such a big-eyed little thing. He said, “I don’t want to catch the evening southbound. I don’t want to have anyone shooting up our boardinghouse again either. So I have a plan, But I need a little help. I ain’t asking anyone to risk hide or property on my account, you understand. I only want to scout around the railroad stop to see if I can spot anybody acting sneaky when the southbound combination steams in and out. Then, if I can’t catch any sneaks laying for me near the tracks, I mean to see who’s most surprised I’m still in town after the train rolls on without me.”
She smiled up at him like a fond teacher warning the class clown not to write like that on the blackboard, and asked what he wanted her to do come sundown. He said, “I want you safely hunkered in your quarters at the boardinghouse before my time on the streets of Pawnee Junction runs out. I just said I didn’t aim to risk anyone else’s hide. But if I could borrow a key to this library, and have your permission to hide out here later on, I’d be in position to catch a few safe winks and mayhaps surprise some villains come morning. I’d have never proven Porky Shaw was a Minute Man if I hadn’t shown up bright-eyed and bushytailed where he never expected to see me.” The bookish brunette laughed like a mean little kid and said, “I have an extra key at home. Is there anything you want me to sneak back from the house after supper?”
He started to say no. Then he had to admit some bedding might be nice. Ellen laughed again and took him by one hand, saying, “Come with me, you sneaky thing!” He didn’t think it would be polite to tell a pretty gal he just didn’t have time to come with her. So he let her lead him through the stacks to what looked like the door to a broom closet.
But when she opened it he saw a flight of stairs leading down to a cellar he hadn’t considered. He followed her down, and she struck a match to reveal a vast space of crates and loosely stacked books by the foot of the stairs. Further in, a space had been carved out for a lamp table and an army cot, made up with female notions of bedding.
Pointing at the frilly pillows and patchwork quilt as her match went out, Ellen said, “I use this private nest for reading and relaxation when things are slow. Just don’t go upstairs when anyone knocks on the front door and they’ll never guess you’re down here, see?”
He laughed and said, “I was wondering where you were the first time I came by. This here’s a swell hideout, Miss Ellen. But can we have more light on the subject to get out of here now?”
She asked him what the hurry was. She seemed to be standing closer of a sudden. He wanted to grab her so bad he could taste it. But he told her, “I’d rather stay. But I have to get over to the water tower and hide out on top of it before anyone else might expect me to. If I let them get there ahead of me, it might not matter whether I wanted to board that train or not.”
Chapter 13
Like most such installations on the western plains, the water tower at Pawnee Junction was fed by its own sunflower windmill pump. The steel maintenance ladder ran skyward between the timber platforms of the windmill and water tower. Longarm glanced casually around to make sure nobody was taking pictures of him, and then he climbed slow and sure, as if he had every good reason in the world to up and have him a look at whatever.
Grab-rails led from the top of the ladder across the slanted roof of the tower to where a sort of trash-can lid covered the inspection manhole at the peak. Longarm crawled up to it, asshole puckered just a mite, and took off his hat so his head would be just a dot against the darkening sky to anybody likely to closely examine a landmark they were used to passing.
He had a grand view in all directions as the sun sank lower in the west, gilding the grassy crests of the rolling swells all around the dinky town. He noticed the town had grown some since Remington Ramsay had mapped it for his local history, but Longarm had to allow the sort of stuck-up hardware man had mapped the place tolerably well. He could make out the courthouse square and municipal corral where Ramsay had drawn them on paper. So that pinpoint of light yonder was coming from that front room he’d hired at the MacUlric house. Old Ramsay would be needing early lamplight if he’d already started on those repairs, and with any luck, the sneaks who’d scouted the boardinghouse for Porky Shaw and that other cuss would report that there was somebody else up yonder this evening. The barn-like county courthouse was shut down for the night. The windows of the library a block away were naturally as dark. Longarm grinned as he thought about that hidey-hole in the library cellar. Then he heard somebody coming loudly along the tracks from behind him, and craned his head to peer over his own shoulder at an awkward angle.
But it turned out to be just a couple of colored boys in their teens, teasing and laughing as they tried to move along the rails like tightrope walkers. One of them was carrying a fishing pole. They’d likely gone looking for catfish up in that impoundment to the north of town.
The colored boys stopped right under Longarm. He was hoping they only needed to take a piss. Then one called out, “I dares you to climb up to the top of that old windmill in the dark, Nero.”
Longarm wanted to shake old Nero’s hand when he heard another voice reply in a lofty tone, “I been to the top of that old tower. They ain’t nothing up there worth the climb and we is already late for supper, you fool.”
So they walked on, sparing both themselves and Longarm any unpleasant surprises. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, once they were out of sight amid the tin-roofed shanties over on the east side of the tracks. Longarm hadn’t noticed any colored folks in Pawnee Junction before. That was doubtless why they were quartered on the far side of the tracks. The boys’ folks likely worked for the railroad.
A tedious time later the sun was setting, turning the spire of the nearby First Calvinist Church to a black accusing finger edged in gold as bats commenced to swarm out of it like bees. He had a clear view of the wagon trace those two cowhands would have been following down the far side. The wide yard little Timmy Sears would have been crossing lay between the church, a weed-grown vacant lot, and the tracks. He’d ask the boy when he talked to him what he’d been doing around the railroad stop. From up here on its water tower, there didn’t seem to be anything much to tempt small boys.
Then, staring down at the open platform and empty cattle pens in the gathering dusk, Longarm sighed and said, “You’re getting old if you can’t remember laying double-head nails and pennies on railroad tracks, old son. Don’t you remember how the train wheels squashed you all them bitty swords and shields you’d need for your army of really little folks—if you could ever manage to capture and domesticate them?”