Maybe Julie wasn’t thinking of Padgett as a politician at all, but rather as a rival racehorse owner. That could explain her interest.
Plenty of questions but no real answers yet … Longarm was used to that, maddening though it could be at times. He was just going to have to wait and see what happened.
In the meantime, something that Leon Mercer had said earlier still interested him. Longarm made his way back through the train, heading for the baggage cars. He wanted to see if Mercer had been right about the jockeys.
“Three beautiful little ladies, boys,” Cy was saying as Longarm opened the door to the baggage car. “That means the pot’s mine again.” He leaned forward to rake in the bills and coins piled in the center of the blanket that had been spread out on the floor of the car.
There was an open space in the center of the car with a narrow aisle leading to it. The rest of the room was taken up by the bags of the passengers. A dozen men were crowded around the blanket, but only half of them were playing cards; the others were just watching. Like Cy, all the other men were short and slender. The biggest of them would only make about two thirds of Longarm.
That made him feel rather large and gawky as he came up to them and nodded pleasantly. “Howdy, fellas,” he said. “I heard there was a game back here.”
“No room for any outsiders,” Cy said curtly. He took a flask from inside his coat, uncorked it, and swallowed a healthy swig of whatever was inside. After wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he glared up at Longarm and went on. “You big galoots think you can just bull your way in anywhere, don’t you?”
“No call to get riled,” Longarm told him, making an effort to keep his own tone mild. He could tell that Cy was drunk. “I ain’t one to push in where I ain’t wanted.”
“It’s not that we don’t want you to play, Marshal,” said one of the other jockeys. “There’s just not room.”
“And if there’s not enough room for us short-growed little runts,” added Cy, “there’s sure as hell no place for a big bastard like you.”
Longarm’s jaw clenched a little. Surrounded by his fellow jockeys, with a few slugs of Who-Hit-John inside him, Cy was completely different from the way he had been at the racetrack. Longarm could see it plainly on Cy’s young face: The jockey was feeling that while he might have to put up with his employer’s bullying, he didn’t have to take shit from anybody else.
Longarm held up his hands, palm out. “Didn’t mean to cause a ruckus. I’ll just back on out of here, boys-“
“Boys!” Cy came to his feet as he angrily repeated Longarm’s word. “We’re not boys! We’re grown men, no matter how little you think we are.”
“You’re looking for trouble where there ain’t none, Cy,” Longarm told him. “I already said that if you fellas don’t want me here, I’ll go on about my business.”
Truth to tell, the other jockeys didn’t seem that disturbed by Longarm’s presence. Cy was the only one so far in his cups, though. He came toward Longarm, the constant motion of the train making him stumble slightly. With an easy, athletic grace that seemed unaffected by the liquor he had drunk, he caught his balance.
“I’m mighty damned tired of you gents who think you’re better’n me just because you’re taller and weigh more. What do you think of that, Mr. High-and-Mighty Marshal?” Cy was close enough now to prod Longarm in the chest with a finger.
Longarm had been accosted by drunks before, often enough to know that such hombres were usually more annoying than dangerous. A percentage of the time, however, it was unwise to ignore their potential threat, and that percentage was large enough to make Longarm alert. As far as he could tell, Cy wasn’t armed; none of the jockeys seemed to be, unless they had hideout guns or knives. Nor was Longarm worried about Cy taking a swing at him. But if all twelve of the jockeys jumped him, that fracas could get a mite tricky.
Luckily, most of the men didn’t seem inclined to share Cy’s belligerence. In fact, only a couple of them had tensed and leaned forward, as if they intended to jump into the fight if one broke out. Longarm muttered, “The hell with this. I ain’t got time for it.” He turned, intending to leave the baggage car and make his way back to Senator Padgett’s compartment.
Behind him, Cy let out a whoop. The jockey leaped on Longarm’s back, wrapping his legs around the lawman’s waist. He circled Longarm’s neck with his left arm and began pounding his right fist against the side of Longarm’s head. “I’ll show you!” Cy shouted. “I’m not scared of you just because you’re bigger!”
Longarm felt a wave of disgust that the situation had gotten out of hand, along with a pain in his ear where Cy had clouted him. All he had wanted to accomplish by coming back here was to see if Leon Mercer had been right about Cy. It appeared that Mercer had been, in spades.
Reaching behind him, Longarm got hold of Cy’s coat. He bent at the waist and heaved at the same time, and Cy flew over his head with a startled yelp. The jockey sailed through the air for a few feet, then crashed into a pile of baggage.
“Get him!” yelled someone from behind Longarm.
He turned quickly and saw one of the other jockeys launching a punch at him. Longarm reached out, put his hand on the fella’s head, and shoved him away, holding him at arm’s length. The man flailed punches at him, none of them reaching their intended target. “Stop it!” Longarm snapped. “I don’t want to fight you!”
Something hit the back of his knees, and his legs folded up. As he twisted around, he saw it was Cy who had tackled him. Cy had recovered from being thrown into the pile of baggage quicker than Longarm had expected him to. A hard punch connected with Longarm’s jaw, and a second later a kick caught him in the side.
These jockeys might be small, but they were strong and tough. Just as he had expected, he had his hands full with Cy and the other two. Luckily, the rest of the group was hanging back, watching the scuffle with keen interest but showing no signs of joining in. Longarm drove an elbow into the belly of one man, then backhanded another as he came up onto his knees. Lurching to his feet, Longarm set himself just as Cy drove in again. Longarm met him with a straight right that sent him spinning off his feet. When he checked on the other two, he saw that the fight had gone out of them.
Cy was stunned, but as he blinked up at Longarm, his eyes cleared a little and he said spitefully, “Makes you feel good, don’t it, beating up on somebody smaller than you?”
Longarm spat on the floor. “Shit! You want it both ways, don’t you? You act like a jackass and start a fight, then figure I ought to feel guilty for winning just because I’m bigger’n you!” He picked up his hat, pushed the crown back into its normal shape, and clapped it on his head. “I’m done here.”
One of the other jockeys chuckled. “Maybe you ought to pick your fights better, Cy. This one doesn’t seem to have worked out very well.”
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Cy as he sat up and rubbed his aching jaw. Longarm cast a hard look in his direction and turned to walk out of the baggage car.
This time nobody jumped him.
His blood had stopped pumping so hard and his anger had died down a little by the time he reached the platform where he and Julie had had their passionate interlude a while earlier. He was still a little sore at Cy, though, so he paused to take a couple of deep breaths and think about what he had learned. He put both hands on the railing and leaned forward.
The train had come down from the pass and was approaching the high trestle that spanned the canyon of the Rio Grande. The tracks would cross over to the eastern side of the river and stay there until they reached El Paso.