A Big Sky Christmas (8 page)

Hector Gilworth led Jamie to a rundown hotel on one of the side streets. “I know the place has seen better days, but I reckon it's all Jess can afford right now.”

“There's no shame in a man being poor,” Jamie said. “There's been plenty of times in my life when I didn't have two pennies to rub together.” He didn't mention that these days he had more than two pennies to his name . . . a lot more. This was one of many situations in which he'd found himself where how rich he was didn't matter one blasted bit.

They went up stairs that sagged a little under their weight and down a dusty hallway to the door of Jess Neville's room. Hector banged a fist against the panel and called, “Jess? You awake in there? It's me, Hector.”

Jamie heard shuffling footsteps on the other side of the door. It swung open, and a man slightly below medium height peered out at them with bleary, confused eyes. He had thinning brown hair, a couple day's worth of beard stubble, and looked thoroughly unimpressive.

Jamie didn't smell liquor, though, so he was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt and figure that his bleary eyes came from being sleepy, not hungover.

“What time is it, Hector?” the man asked as he dragged fingers through his hair.

“Sun's been up a couple hours,” Hector replied.

“Well, the sun may have been up, but I ain't.” The man frowned at Jamie. “Who's this big old galoot?”

“Jamie Ian MacCallister,” Jamie introduced himself.

Vague recognition stirred in Jess Neville's eyes. “I think I heard of you, mister. Can't rightly recollect what it was that I heard, though.”

“He's the new wagon master for that bunch of immigrants I signed on with,” Hector explained.

“What happened to that fella Ralston?” Neville asked.

Hector pointed at Jamie with a thumb and grinned. “Mr. MacCallister—I mean, Jamie—happened to him. Ralston started a ruckus with him in the Bella Royale, and he wound up with a broken leg.”

“Ralston did?”

“Yep. You don't see Mr. MacCallister hobblin' around with a broken leg, do you?”

Neville shook his head. “This early in the mornin', I don't trust my eyes not to be playin' tricks on me, so it don't matter what I see. What is it you want?”

“The other two fellas who were supposed to be scouts up and quit because of what happened to Ralston. I thought maybe you'd be interested in one of the jobs.”

Neville hadn't invited them into the room, but that was all right with Jamie. He could look past the man's shoulder and see that the room was sparsely furnished with a chair, a rickety table, and a bed with grimy sheets that were so tangled they resembled a rat's nest.

Neville put a hand on the door like he was about to shut it and said, “Dadgum it, Hector. You know I just quit that bullwhackin' job a few days ago. I ain't ready to go back to work yet.”

“You mean you ain't completely out of money yet.”

“Same thing, ain't it?” Neville tried to swing the door closed.

Hector wedged a big, booted foot between the door and the jamb. “Here's the thing, Jess. We're in sort of a bind. We need a couple scouts, and like I told Jamie, you know the country.”

Neville frowned. “Where is it those pilgrims are goin' again?”

“Montana Territory. A place called Eagle Valley.”

Neville scratched at his patchy beard as his forehead furrowed in thought. “I think I've heard of it. Wouldn't rightly know how to find it, though.”

“Cap'n Hendricks has a map. He's the fella the rest of the immigrants elected to be in charge.”

“I know where it is,” Jamie said. “I can get the wagons there. It'd be a lot easier with some good help to scout out the trail, though.”

“Well, you could get an argument about whether or not I fall into that category, mister.” Neville squinted up at him. “Did this big ol' grizzly of a Gilworth tell you that I'm just about the laziest human bein' on the face of the earth.”

Jamie glanced at Hector and said dryly, “No, I don't reckon he mentioned that.”

“Well, he should have. It ain't that I don't do my work. I do, and you can ask anybody I ever drew wages from about that. But when I ain't workin', I'm not of a mind to do much of anything except take it easy. That seems to rub most people the wrong way.”

“You do your job and I don't care how much you sleep,” Jamie declared. “That's not any of my business.”

“Now, see, that's a reasonable attitude. Most folks I work for, they just ain't reasonable.”

“I'm not most folks,” Jamie said flatly.

Neville glanced up and down Jamie's tall, rugged frame. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“You want the job or not?” Hector asked.

“Now, don't rush me, don't rush me. That's another problem folks have these days. They're in too much of an all-fired hurry all the time. It don't hurt to just slow down and ponder things for awhile 'fore you make up your mind.”

“The wagon train's leaving at first light tomorrow,” Jamie said. “We don't have any time to waste. If you're not coming with us, Neville, we'll need to find somebody else.”

“Well, if you're gonna put it that way . . . I promised my aunt Sadie, his mama—Neville nodded at his cousin—that I'd look after ol' Hector here. He's big as an ox, but he ain't much more'n a babe in the woods, you know what I mean?”

“Blast it,” Hector said. “I been around. You make it sound like I'm some sort of tenderfoot, Jess.”

Neville ignored that outburst and went on. “I reckon I can come along. Can't stay here in Kansas City, that's for sure. If I did, I might have to take a job clerkin' in a store or something else that's inside. I can't hardly abide havin' walls and a roof around me all the time.”

“You won't find many walls and roofs on the prairie between here and Montana Territory,” Jamie said.

Neville grinned. “No, that's sure enough true.” He put out his hand. “Count me in, I reckon, Mr. MacCallister.”

“Call me Jamie.” As they shook hands, Jamie went on. “I don't suppose you know somebody else we can hire as a scout.”

“I surely don't. Sorry.”

Hector said, “Get your possibles together and come on over to the wagon camp today. You can stay there tonight. Might as well save the cost of this hotel room, and that way there's no chance you'll sleep too late.”

“Leavin' at first light, you said?” Neville winced a little. “I sure do hate to hear that, but I'll be there. And my word is good.”

As they were headed back downstairs, Jamie asked Hector, “Is he telling the truth about his word being good?”

“Yeah. Jess has got his faults, no doubt about that, but he's honest as the day is long. If he tells you he'll do something, you can count on it.” With a note of worry in his voice, Hector asked, “What are we gonna do about findin' another scout?”

“We'll just have to look around, maybe check in some of the saloons and hash houses. If we don't find anybody”—Jamie's brawny shoulders rose and fell—“I reckon we'll start out with three scouts, counting me, instead of four. Maybe somebody who's already part of the wagon train would take the job. Some youngster, eighteen or so, who's traveling with his folks.”

“Scoutin' on the plains is pretty dangerous for somebody who's inexperienced.”

“Setting out for Montana at this time of year is pretty dangerous for everybody involved,” Jamie pointed out. “They all seem bound and determined to do it, though.”

They left the hotel and turned back toward the main business district. Jamie figured they would have a look in the Bella Royale first. It was early in the day, but there might be somebody already in there who'd be interested in a scouting job.

As they passed the variety theater, he glanced at two young men who were looking at the posters for the show that was starting that night. They were dressed like cowboys, which meant they probably had experience with long days in the saddle, and he thought about asking them if they'd like to sign on with the wagon train.

They turned away before he could say anything, though, and he didn't go after them. There was bound to be somebody else in Kansas City who wanted to go to Montana.

Now that the gang was in Kansas City, Bodie thought Edwin Swint would go ahead and divide up the loot from the train robbery, as he had said he would. But Swint seemed to be in no hurry to do so.

The money, in the form of twenty dollar gold pieces, had been packed in a chest in the express car. He had split the loot between five sets of saddlebags so it could be carried away. All those saddlebags were safely cached in Swint's hotel room, and a couple men guarded them around the clock, everybody in the gang taking a turn at that duty.

The night before, Swint had kicked the guards out of the room when he came back to the hotel from the Bella Royale with one of the soiled doves who worked there. He'd told the guards to stay right outside in the hall, just to make sure nobody bothered him and his lady friend . . . and the money.

Bodie heard about that from his friend Three-Finger Jake Lucas, who'd heard the story from one of the guards Swint had booted out of the room. The two young men were sitting at a table in a nearby café over a late breakfast.

Jake sipped his coffee. “I'm startin' to wonder if the boss plans to double-cross us and just keep all that loot for himself. Otherwise why don't he go ahead and divvy it up like he promised he would?”

“I guess he's got his reasons,” Bodie said.

Jake grunted skeptically. “Yeah, like bein' a dang crook. Think about who you're talkin' about, Bodie. A man like Eldon Swint can't be trusted.” Jake's eyes narrowed in thought. “If a man was smart, he might try to get his hands on those double eagles himself and not wait for somebody to just hand him his share.”

Bodie frowned and put down his coffee cup. “You'd better not be thinking what it sounds like, Jake. Swint would kill anybody who tried that. We've talked about things like this before.”

“Yeah, and I haven't changed my way of thinkin' about it, either.” An easy grin flashed across Jake's face. “But shoot, don't worry about it. I'm just talkin', is all. I'd never go against a pard.” He paused. “The thing of it is, Eldon ain't really a pard. He's the boss.”

Bodie changed the subject. “Are you going to that show tonight?”

“To see some singin' and dancin' girls? You bet I am! We've been out on the trail long enough I'm ready for some entertainment.”

They had stopped by the theater on their way to the café. The place was closed, but Bodie and Jake had stood on the boardwalk in front of the building, looking at the posters tacked up next to the ticket window. The posters had drawings of the members of the troupe on them, and Bodie had been particularly intrigued by one of them, a young woman with a mass of dark, curly hair.

Miss Savannah McCoy, her name was, according to the poster.

He didn't know which parts she played in the show, but he was looking forward to finding out. Thinking about her and the performance they were going to watch that night made him forget all about the fortune in double eagles for the time being.

 

 

Even though she had been a member of the troupe for more than a year, Savannah still got nervous before each performance. The butterflies, as Cyrus called them, weren't as bad as they had been starting out, but they were still potent enough to force her to stand backstage with one hand pressed to her stomach while she made herself take deep breaths. She closed her eyes and imagined how the night's performance would go, letting it all play out inside her head.

Perfectly, of course.

After awhile, the routine began to calm her. She was ready.

When Dollie bustled past and smiled at her, Savannah was able to return that smile and mean it.

“I just snuck a glance at the crowd,” Dollie said. “Looks like we're going to have a full house.”

“That's good,” Savannah said.

“You bet it is. We need to do well here.”

Savannah thought she heard a trace of worry in the older woman's voice. The troupe hadn't been doing as well financially in recent months. Quite a few of the performances in various cities hadn't sold out, and it seemed like the expenses of traveling and staying on the road just kept going up. She didn't think the troupe was in any real danger of folding, but that unwelcome possibility lurked in the back of her head, anyway. If that ever happened, she didn't know what she would do.

She had a little money saved up; she could always return to her home in Georgia. But if she did that, it would mean admitting defeat. Worse, there was the chance that her father wouldn't
allow
her to come home. For all she knew, William Thorpe might have disowned her. She hadn't had any contact with him in more than a year.

With a little shake of her head, Savannah put all that out of her thoughts. Concentrate on the thing that was at hand, she told herself, and that was tonight's show. That was the only thing she could do anything about at the moment.

A minute later, Cyrus parted the curtain and walked out on stage to loud applause, dressed in his Shakespearean costume. He swept his plumed hat off his head and gave the audience his usual welcoming spiel, then launched into Hamlet's famous “To be or not to be” speech.

The crowd listened politely, but as she waited behind the curtain Savannah could hear them growing slightly restless toward the end. She knew that some of the men in the audience had come mostly for the singing and dancing, and to look at her and the other female members of the troupe.

Cyrus concluded the famous passage and said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, a beautiful rendition of one of your favorite melodies by our lovely songbird of the South, Miss Savannah McCoy!”

Savannah stepped through the curtains and out onto the stage. She smiled as she walked forward, letting her eyes sweep over the audience. As she began to sing Stephen Foster's “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” her gaze settled on a man about four rows back, in the middle of the theater.

She had learned that her performances were always better when she pretended to be singing directly
to
a member of the audience. It was largely a matter of luck who that person happened to be. As long as they were in a good place, that was all Savannah cared about.

The person on the receiving end of her song happened to be a young man who looked a few years older than her, with dark hair and a hard-planed face. He was dressed like a cowboy, as was the young man who sat beside him. The other man was more handsome, but there was something compelling about the man Savannah had selected.

Singing to him was no trouble at all.