“So do it, you’re the one with the power.” Trying again vainly to move his feet or to reach the butt of his gun though he doubted a bullet would faze the apparition.
“I can’t stop him, the stupid boy is totally pure, he can’t see me, can’t hear me, he’s beyond my influence.”
Russell scowled.“I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
“I can’t change events. I can only influence the players—some of them. There has to be a respectable amount of evil in a man before I can reach him.”
“Hell, I’m not killing Cage Vickers, if that’s what you want. And I’d be a fool to try to warn his brothers or the Loves. Any one of them would fill me full of holes.”
The visitor waited.
“I gather this bargain wouldn’t take effect until after I’d done the deed. That your protection of my life wouldn’t begin until I’d already risked my neck for you.”
“That is so. However, if you don’t stop Cage Vickers, I’ll take great pleasure, when the time of your death arrives, in seeing you suffer, eternally, in ways you can’t yet imagine.”
Russell said nothing.
“With the bargain I offer, you will have a long, pain-free, and profitable life, any kind of life you choose—youth and wealth and beautiful women, enviable power and superb health.
“You have only to stop Cage Vickers, see that none of the brothers are apprehended, and not go to the law yourself.
“If you refuse my bargain, I have within my power many creative ways to annoy and harass you for the remainder of your miserable life, runaway horses, train conductors who are fast and accurate and lust for blood, women who, once you have made love to them, feel an overwhelming desire to maim youas you lie sleeping beside them. Little things, Russell, accomplished through the minds of others, but oh, so effective.”
Russell remembered stories of multiple calamities that beset some men over an entire lifetime, innocent men saddled with strings of disasters that defied all laws of probability.
“If you work with me,” the dark spirit said, “you will know no sickness, no wound or pain, no bullet will ever touch you, you will not die of any cause until you are an old, old man and still healthy and vigorous. Even then, your death will be peaceful, no pain and no fear.”
“And in exchange,” Russell said, “I stop Cage Vickers from getting the Loves and the Vickerses arrested, so they can go on robbing trains. That seems simple enough.”
“That is the bargain.”
Russell was a born gambler, that’s what robbing the trains was all about. But he’d never played for stakes like these. “Under what circumstances,” he said softly, “would you consider that I had bested you?”
“Under no circumstances. If you do as I say, that won’t happen.”
“If Cage’s plan fails, if neither family takes the train down successfully and no one of either family is arrested, I would be free of you?”
“You would.”
“And you would uphold your bargain.”
He nodded.
“Would you throw in that Cage and Tessa marry anyway, and live long and happy lives together, without the ire or retribution of either family?”
“Why would I do that? I told you that my powers are limited. I can only influence, I can’t twist fate.”
Russell looked back at him and kept his thoughts locked tight inside himself. He received so penetrating a look in return that he had to fight to keep from glancing away. He stared at the stranger until suddenly the figure vanished. The stair and alley lay empty.
Russell stood in the alley shivering. And slowly considering his options.
His question had not been answered. He had no real promise from the stranger. He thought about that a long time, then at last he turned and made his way back up the stairs, to his lady friend.
8
The train bucked and slowed, waking Lee as the conductor hurried through calling out,“Centralia. Five minutes.” Straightening up, he watched out the window as the mailbags were heaved off. Two passengers descended from the car ahead, hurrying inside the long, red-roofed brick building, then almost at once they were pulling out again, the white peak of Mount Saint Helens towering bright, to his left, against the heavy gray sky, bringing half a dozen passengers rushing to Lee’s side of the train to look. But soon Lee slept again, only vaguely aware of the frequent hollow rumbles as the train crossed the railroad bridges that spanned Washington’s swift rivers. When the sour smell of caged chickens filled the train, passing through Winlock, he looked out at the long, ugly rows of wooden chicken houses and, beyond them, a tractor and trailer spreading chicken manure on the vegetable fields. Not a job he’d want, not mired in that smell all day.
Soon, dozing, he woke again when they skirted the Columbia, the river’s giant rafts of logs moving below him, down toward Lake Vancouver headed for the sawmills. How would it be to settle down here along the shore somewhere in a little shack, get some sort of job, maybe taking care of someone’s horses, forget his grand plans for a hefty robbery and for that life-sustaining nest egg? Forget his urge to take on the feds one last time, to outsmart them once and for good? Along the green of the marsh, the train’s approach sent restless flocks of shorebirds exploding up into the sour mist, sweeping away beneath low, heavy clouds. There’d be a twenty-minute stop at Portland, where Lee thought to get off and stretch his aching legs. Sitting too long stove him up like a stall-bound cowpony that was never let out to run.
It was stormy coming into Portland, the afternoon sky darkening, the streets slick with rain. Ignoring the drizzle, he moved out into the train’s vestibule where he could get a good look. The streets were busy with fast, slick cars, so many of them, kicking up water along the gutters, streets lined with impressive new buildings sandwiched in between the comfortable old brick-and-stone structures from an earlier time. The train slowed approaching the three-story station, its peaked roof and the tall, handsome clock tower stark against the gray sky. But far ahead beyond the city, light streaked the sky where the storm looked to be clearing, to be moving on north passing over the train. The station lights glowed, the neon signs announcing, UNION STATION. GO BY TRAIN. Stepping back to his seat, he made sure his wrapped sandwiches were in plain sight on his two seats atop his neatly arranged newspapers, hoping to mark his occupancy.
Moving down the metal steps and into the station, he stood staring around the vast terminal, looking up at the high, domed ceiling towering above him, at its soaring structure of curved and interlaced crossbeams. The sound of other trains departing and arriving was only background to the loudspeaker’s harsh and metallic commands. People hurried past him talking quickly, hauling luggage, shouting to others ahead of them. When he didn’t move out of the way, they shouldered past him, scowling, busy travelers louder and more intense than a crowd of inmates, and way less disciplined. Women laughing, folks in little clusters talking frantically, kids running in and out between them not caring if they stepped on your feet. He wandered, pushing through, battered and pummeled. Maybe he should have stayed in his seat, quiet and away from people. Feeling in his pocket to be sure he had his ticket, he at last retreated into a small tobacco shop, a crowded little cubicle.
The smell of the rich tobacco was homey and welcoming though he’d never smoked or chewed, a heady scent that stirred something from the past he couldn’t place. A woman stood behind the little counter, one hand on the cash register. Young, skinny, red hair to her shoulders, freckles heavy across her nose and cheeks. A baby in a carriage behind the counter, tucked up in its blue blanket and, when he glanced down over the counter, a little girl sitting on the floor playing with a set of jacks. He felt embarrassed coming in here when he didn’t mean to buy anything.