Less Than Human (31 page)

Matt turned away from the grisly offering, and when he looked back he saw the Indian now had no features at all. While he stood there, the face of the stranger began taking shape. Turning into dust. The wind started to build, blowing the dust away. Revealing what was beneath. And as the face continued to emerge, the figure walked toward him with its arms open wide, as if it meant to embrace him. When they were almost near enough to touch, blood began welling from the corner of its dusty eyes and started rolling down the cheeks… like tears.

Matt wheeled around to run, but something held him to the spot. A quick look over his shoulder and, to his horror, he saw the face begin changing, becoming, one after another, people Matt had known in his life. All of them dead now. They called out to him, with familiar voices. He saw his wife, his son, old Lame Bear, who he had loved like a father.

Then the face steadied, became one that he was all too familiar with—his own bloodstained features stared back at him.

The figure smiled and beckoned. Matt redoubled his efforts to escape, but now they were only inches apart. The face began to melt, bubbling up like wax from a hot candle, revealing the skull beneath, revealing empty black eye sockets that watched him hungrily.

Matt fell to his knees in mindless terror. The figure stood over him, and an instant before the skeletal fingers closed around his arm

Matt awoke to the familiar but deafening din of railroad construction: men yelling, harness creaking, pickaxes and sledges pounding loud enough to raise the dead. That was an apt description of how he felt when he sat up. Fragmented, murky images from the nightmare chased across his mind, then remembering, he looked down to see his leg bandaged, splinted, and that he was lying on a cot in the track boss's car. Throwing back the blanket, he gingerly swung his legs around and sat them on the floor. Darkness obscured his vision as he fought to remain upright. After a bit, his head cleared and he looked down at the purple discolorations that stood out around his ribs. They didn't feel busted. But his leg was a different story, throbbing like a bad tooth as he balanced himself and began hopping toward the door.

He peered out, wincing at the heat that slammed into him. His eyes fastened onto the track boss, a beefy Irishman with receding red hair by the name of Charlie McAllister.

Matt tried to call out, but all that came from his throat were croaks.

They were enough.

"Well, it's about time you got your lazy ass out of bed," Charlie said, relief plainly written on his face as he walked over with a canteen. "We was about to give you up for dead. What the hell happened? Your horse fall on you?"

"No," Matt laughed, lowering the canteen, "I ran out of cartridges and I had to throw the last one by hand."

After Matt finished relating what had happened, Charlie said, "You're a lucky man. Sounds like you damn near met your match out there. If that old bull had got hold of you, there wouldn't have been enough left for a good Christian burial. Not that," he concluded with a grin, "anybody ever mistook you for a good Christian."

Matt rubbed a hand across his bristly face and looked down, trying to hide his unease. "Did Doc say anything about my leg?"

Charlie didn't answer right away, and when he did, he wouldn't meet Matt's eyes. "I got to get back to work. I'll send the doc over and he can tell you all about it. You need anything?"

"Yeah, ask old Corky if he could send over some grub."

After a while, one of the mess boys brought over something that vaguely resembled beans. Matt took one look. "Shit, ain't these the same beans we had day before yesterday?"

"Yep, the same. Corky says he ain't cooking nothing else till they're all gone."

"You try feeding them to the dogs?"

"They won't touch 'em neither."

Matt had almost choked down the last of his beans when Dr. Marigold Fraser appeared, quiet and dark as a rain cloud on an autumn day. The mournful doctor was something of a mystery around these parts. A lot of folks in camp had their own ideas why the small, portly man had come west. Some said, back east, the doe had killed a man in a duel over a rich dowager and was fleeing the rope, some said he'd sobered up enough to get a good look at her and had decided he didn't need the money that bad. Still others claimed a few too many snorts of peach brandy before an amputation had led to some slight misunderstanding about which of a patient's legs was supposed to come off.

It was a source of endless speculation. What the truth was, nobody knew.

Doc didn't say anything at first, just slapped some dust off a black suit that had more shine to it than a newly minted silver dollar. He eased his bulk into a chair that groaned in protest.

"How's business?" Matt inquired, to be polite. He knew

Doc had few patients. The fact that he owned a half interest in a funeral parlor might have had something to do with it.

"Been pretty good, lately," Doc said, cleaning his glasses, "we buried three last week."

Matt glanced up from his plate to see if his visitor was kidding. Doc's face never changed expression and Matt was glad he didn't play poker with the good doctor.

"I got good news and I got bad news," Doc continued, putting his glasses back on. "Which one you want first?"

"The bad."

"That leg of yours is busted in three places," the dour man replied. "I set it as best I could, but with a break that bad and your age being what it is, I can't make no guarantees. You should be able to walk, but you can count on having a bad limp."

"What's the good news?"

"You'll always know when it's going to rain." Doc smiled—and the smile vanished quicker than a rabbit down a hole, so quick Matt wasn't sure he'd even seen it.

Matt gave up on the beans and pushed them aside. "How soon before I can travel?"

"Like I said, a lot depends on how fast you mend." Doc pushed up his glasses. In the blink of an eye, they returned to their former position on the tip of his nose. "Let's just say you'll know when you feel up to moving around." With that he got up, slapped some more dust off his suit before advising Matt to keep his wounds clean.

As Doc left, Matt pulled out his pipe, letting his thoughts turn inward, back to the days when he had lived among the Oglala, back to the days before everything had gotten fouled up between the red man and the white man. Sometimes he longed to go back, but he knew there would be no welcome for him now. Of late he had begun thinking a lot about old places, old times, and old friends.

And dying.

When his eyes closed, his sleep was without dreams.

T
he days passed and every time Doc stopped by he assured Matt that he was healing up good for a man his age. Matt spent most of the time whittling himself a walking stick. To his surprise, he discovered the head of it was shaped like a snake, a feathered snake. He was sitting in an almost nonexistent patch of shade working on it when Charlie McAllister came over.

"I talked to Mr. Simpson this morning and he says you can stay on till you're fit enough to go back to work." Charlie waited for Matt's response, eager as a puppy that had just spied his first rabbit.

"Well, Charlie, you tell Mr. Simpson I appreciate his offer. But soon as I'm able, I'm going into business for myself—the hide business," Matt added. He folded up his knife and put it away. "Way I figure, one good season and I can retire."

Charlie shook his head sadly and looked at Matt as though the older man had gone simple. His voice was dead earnest. "You'll get yourself kilt for sure. There's a war on, in case you ain't heard. Your hair'll end up decoratin' the lodge pole of some young buck."

"I got the answer to that," Matt said. "I'm going to take you with me, Charlie, 'cause it's for damn sure no self-respecting Indian would ever be caught with your scalp."

Red faced, Charlie ran a hand across his head, smoothing down the few strands of hair that still sprouted there. "I can see it ain't no use trying to talk sense to you, Matt. When you set your mind, you have got to be the most stubborn, mule-headed son of a—"

"I hate to interrupt," Matt laughed, "'specially before you get to the interesting parts. It ain't often I get a good Irish cussin', but I think I'm going to need a partner."

"You serious?" Charlie asked. "You with a partner?"

Matt nodded. "I'm slowing down. I need some help. You know anybody might be interested?"

"Yeah, I might know of someone. He's a new man, name of Steven Adler. Don't know much about him except he's been making a lot of noise about quitting. Says the work's too hard for the money. Been complaining about the cooking, too." Charlie looked more perplexed than usual. "I don't know what he's hollering about. We only work twelve hours a day, all you can eat, and thirty-five dollars a month—just like clockwork."

"Some people just don't know when they got it good," Matt agreed. He had to look down at his walking stick to keep from laughing. A moment later he was serious as he thought how he sure could use an extra pair of legs. "Would you send him over when you get a chance?"

T
he shadows were stretching toward evening, and Matt was cleaning his Sharps when he heard footsteps approaching. He gave no sign that he noticed. When his visitor's shadow fell across his legs, he looked up. Neither said anything as they regarded each other intently.

The younger man tipped his hat back and broke the silence first. "Name's Steven Adler and I hear you're looking for a man to go partners with you."

Matt looked at him evenly, trying not to grin. The man Charlie had sent him was a kid and not much over twenty-one by the look of him. Medium height. Blond. Slender. He looked more like a gambler than a railroad hand.

"No need to stand on formality here. The name's Matt. Why don't you sit down, Steven, cause I'm getting a crick in my neck staring up at you."

"Thanks," the young man said, tucking himself into a piece of the shade, "laying track is hard work in this heat." Matt agreed it was.

They chewed the fat for a few minutes, listening to sounds of the camp settling in for the meal.

"If you don't mind me asking," Matt said, "where abouts you hail from, son?"

"I don't mind you asking. Lots of places. New York, originally, now anyplace they play billiards."

"Billiards," Matt said, puzzled. "That's a game with balls, ain't it, played on a table. You use a stick."

"That's right." Steven was impressed in spite of himself. He hadn't met many people in Kansas who had even heard of the game.

"I seen a couple fellows in San Francisco playing the game a few years back." Matt moved his busted leg into a more comfortable position. "I don't think it's going to catch on. What's a billiards player doing out here in Kansas? Ain't no billiard tables around these parts."

"I don't intend to stay. I just came out here to make myself a stake."

"A stake for what?"

"So I can go back east and play billiards for money."

"You mean people bet money on a couple of grown men knocking a bunch of little balls around a table?" Matt couldn't hide his look of skepticism.

"They bet a lot of money and I'm going to be the man to win some of it."

A flash of intuition hit Matt and he spoke before he meant to. "You got cleaned out, didn't you? You bet all your money on a game of billiards and you lost." He knew his words were on the mark because a slow flush crept up Steven Adler's face.

"I had me a little run of bad luck in St. Louis," the younger man said evenly, "but I aim to get back in the game just as soon as I make myself a stake."

"You got any family, Steven?"

Steven pulled off his hat and wiped the sweatband, looking as though he didn't want to answer that particular question. "No, not since I was thirteen."

Matt figured he'd better see if he could turn the talk in a different direction. "I reckon Charlie told you what I'm fixing to do. I need a man who can handle himself. The country where I'm headed can get pretty rough."

There was a definite glint in Steven's eyes when he shot back, "And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I can't carry my weight. That I'm too young. Well, you're wrong, mister. I been making my own way eight years now, and I can handle anything that comes along."

"Is that a fact?" Matt said, unperturbed by the outburst. "Well, soon as this here thing comes off"—he tapped the splint on his leg—"I'll be leaving for the Cimarron. I'm telling you, right up front; it ain't a safe place for a white man. If we get into a tight spot, we ain't going to have time to sit ourselves down and take a vote on what to do." He stopped and fixed Steven with a dead level stare. "You got any complaints about taking my orders?"

Steven flinched but didn't drop his gaze. "No sir, I can take your orders. Anybody as old as you has got to have learned a few things about staying alive." He draped an arm over his leg and studied Matt with unabashed curiosity. "To hear Charlie tell it, you done killed more buffalo than Buffalo Bill his own self." His gaze dropped to the splint on Matt's leg. "Though old Bill didn't never have one fall on top of him. I got a theory about how that happened. You care to hear it?"

"I'm listening," Matt said evenly.

"I figure you got caught with your pants down."

Matt pulled his revolver out of his belt, began spinning the cylinder nonchalantly. "How do you figure that?"

"Charlie said you had grass stains all over your ass."

"It was those damned beans I been eating all week. I was taking care of some business."

"And that's when the old bull caught you, wasn't it? Right when you had your pants down."

"That's right," Matt answered, growing defensive, looking around to see if anyone was in earshot. "I was having a little trouble. Beans always bind me up."

"When you saw that buffalo coming at you, I bet you didn't have any trouble."

They studied each other, dead serious.

And then Steven smiled. An easygoing smile that made him look more like a kid than ever.

In spite of himself, Matt smiled back. He couldn't help it. There was something about the kid's spunk that appealed to him. Steven Adler didn't scare.