The Western Stage Company operated out of a small plank building between the bank and the hotel. There were three tiers of shelves for storing freight in back. with a narrow counter up front for selling tickets and conducting the freight business. Out back a small stable housed remounts and such employees as had no other place to bed.
When Rat stepped inside, he was greeted warmly by a slight-shouldered clerk in his late twenties.
“I’m Nate Parrott,” he said. “Can I sell you a ticket to Albany?”
“No, I brought you a note from Colonel Wyler,” Rat explained. The clerk accepted the crumpled paper and read it quickly. A smile appeared on his face.
“Glad to have you,” Parrott announced. “We been makin’ do with stray cowboys or nobody at all. I’ve been scared to trust any money to the coach, what with the trouble others have had along the river.”
“You the new guard then?” a heavy-set stranger called from the shelves.
“For a time anyhow,” Rat answered.
“Yer young,” the big man observed. “Used to work for the Morrises, I’m guessin’.”
“Yessir,” Rat said, searching his memory for the name that matched the face.
“You wouldn’t remember. I only came into the store ’round plantin’ time back then. Was farmin’.”
“Meet Hoyt Palmer,” Parrott told Rat. “Hoyt’s your driver. Hoyt, this is Erastus Hadley.”
“Erastus,” Palmer said, stepping closer and offering his meaty hand. “Most everybody calls me Pop. I got four youngsters at home, you see, and you cain’t be so much older’n the eldest.”
“They call me Rat,” Rat replied. “Not much recommendation, I know, but it’s easier.”
“You two’ll get better acquainted Tuesday,” Parrott declared. “Rat, you take the westbound to Albany, then bring the eastbound back here. Twice a week.”
“The colonel told me.”
“Meanwhile we can use your help in the storeroom. Be a full load we haul west this week. Everything from candles to a weddin’ dress.”
“More next time,” Palmer added. “Nobody’s trusted us with money lately, not ridin’ short on guard. Guess that’ll change.”
Rat nodded. He hoped not to disappoint them.
As things turned out, Rat had little difficulty settling into his new job as stagecoach guard. He sat atop the coach alongside Hoyt Palmer, cradling a long Winchester rifle and keeping his eyes on the countryside ahead, behind, and to each side. The first trip proved uneventful, and Rat yawned with weariness as the coach rumbled along the rough trail. Soon dust stirred by the horses clung to every inch of him, ate at his collar, near choked him.
“Think this is somethin’?” Palmer asked. “Ought to travel this country in July. Heat and dust close to drive a man mad!”
Rat could believe it. The boredom worked its own mischief. And the only distraction came from Hoyt Palmer’s wild yarns or his endless tales of one child or another.
“The boys’s somethin’, Rat,” he’d begin. “Tyler’s closin’ fast on fourteen now, and he has nigh every gal in the county chasin’ him. The younger ones, Hollis and Wade, they got the quickness I never come by. Take after my Varina, I guess. The jewel’s Velma, though. Twelve she is, and already bloomin’ like a rose. Be a stampede o’ boys comin’ to my door soon, I tell you.”
“A family’s a real comfort,” Rat observed.
“Oh, it can vex you, too. Like last week when Hollie went and put a horned toad down his sister’s back. And I caught the three boys swipin’ pie crusts off ole widow Morgan a month back. Switched ’em raw that time. But you know boys. They got the mischief in their blood, and it’s bound and certain to come out here and there.”
Rat didn’t answer. He recalled his own escapades at the river with Mitch, but all that seemed a lifetime away now. And as his eyes swept the distant trees or searched the boulder-littered hills, he found scant reason to grin.
For weeks Rat accompanied Hoyt Palmer on the trail from Thayerville to Albany. Each trip was less eventful than the one before. The biggest excitement came when Palmer surprised the Circle H cowboys in their midafternoon swim. Rat only fired his rifle once, and that was at a rampaging longhorn bull that blocked the trail. The Winchester persuaded the animal to yield his ground.
Autumn had painted the oaks scarlet, and there was a late October bite to the wind the day Rat detected riders shadowing the stage on its westward leg toward Albany. He counted three in plain view, and he supposed others might be elsewhere. One moved to cut the coach off on its approach toward a narrow gap between the rocky hills, and Rat readied his rifle for the confrontation.
“No point to us makin’ a fight o’ it,” Palmer argued. “We only got some dry goods aboard. Only passenger’s that gambler Horton and the Reilly twins.”
“Drive, Pop!” Rat shouted as he fired a warning shot at the horsemen.
“Lord, help us!” Palmer cried as he lashed the horses into a gallop.
It didn’t take a genius to recognize a tight spot. As the stage raced ahead, Rat detected two men riding hard in its wake. The three he’d seen before assembled up ahead and pulled flour sacks down over their heads to mask their faces. Fierce eyes seemed to bore through narrow slits in the masks, and a bullet nicked the brake. Another tore a slice from the right hand door.
“Get down low!” Rat yelled as one of the Reilly youngsters poked a shaggy head out of the open window. The gambler fired off his pistol. Rat crawled up among the freight boxes on top of the coach and steadied his aim. He fired twice, and the pursuing horsemen faltered. The lead rider’s horse collapsed with a bullet through its neck, and the second man nursed a shattered arm.
“You got ’em, boy!” the gambler cheered, and the Reilly boys added their own howls.
Up ahead the danger remained, for several bullets now slammed into the coach. Rat’s well-laid fire scattered the attackers, though, and the coach roared past the cursing outlaws.
“We made it!” Palmer yelled as he glanced back at the frustrated bandits.
“This time,” Rat observed. For after all, the raiders had split their forces, and they tipped their hand early. But then they probably hadn’t expected a guard—at least not Rat Hadley!
When the westbound pulled into Albany, the Reilly twins wasted no time in spreading an exaggerated tale of the raid.
“Was ten o’ them at least!” one twin shouted. “Mr. Hadley kilt three o’ them and chased th’ others clear. He’s a regular hero, I tell you.”
The gambler was less sure of the death toll, but he was equally generous with his praise.
“Did a fine job, young man,” the gambler said when he passed Rat a twenty-dollar gold piece. “You didn’t know I had a season’s winnin’s with me, I’ll bet. Two thousand dollars!”
“So that’s what set ’em on our trail,” Palmer noted. “Wondered ’bout that.”
“Likely the bunch I took at the card tables,” the gambler supposed. “Didn’t press things like real road agents.”
“They was real enough,” Palmer said, pointing to the bullet holes peppering the coach. “And if they knew you, it’s certain they’d kilt the all o’ us.”
“Lord bless you, Mr. Hadley,” Opal Reilly called.
“You enjoy yer blessin’,” Palmer said. “For a real thank you, Jet’s hop on over to the White Horn Saloon. You got a drink comin’.”
“I don’t take much hard liquor,” Rat argued as he helped a pair of freight handlers unload the Albany-bound crates.
“I’d say you earned a bit this time,” Palmer replied. “And ’bout the time it sinks into yer head what you done, I’m sure o’ it.”
“Go on,” a growing crowd urged. “Here’s to Deadeye Hadley!”
“Calls himself Rat,” someone objected. “Rat Hadley.”
“Well, let’s share a drink with the rat then,” a voice called. “Eh?” And so Rat was swept across the street by a gang of thirty townsfolk, and he ended up sipping three fiery thimbles of whiskey before he slumped dizzily in a chair.
“Fine shot, but he sure ain’t used to spirits,” Palmer noted. “Give me some room, boys. Best I carry him along to the stable to sleep it off.”
For a hero to suffer as much as Rat Hadley did that eve and the following morn seemed patently unfair. No sooner had Pop Palmer carried him to the Western Company’s stable than Rat was heaving up his insides. To make matters worse, his head felt as if someone had taken a twenty-pound sledge to it.
“Guess you ain’t had no chance to accustom yerself to Brazos tater wine,” Palmer said, laughing as Rat rolled his eyes. “Best stick to beer till yer gullet grows taller.”
“If it has a chance,” Rat grumbled.
“It will,” the big driver assured him. “Anyhow, get some rest, Rat. We take the eastbound home tomorrow.”
Rat only sighed and collapsed in the hay, hoping sleep might offer escape from the whiskey’s aftermath. In truth, it did. The next dawn found Rat’s head ringing, and his eyes red as tomatoes.
“Get ’em cleared up fast,” Palmer urged. “We’re off in half a hour.”
Rat passed the return journey in a cloud. Each jolt of the coach set his head to pounding, and his stomach refused to tolerate food. Fortunately the raiders were also recovering, and the trip passed peacefully.
The coach’s arrival in Thayerville was another matter. No sooner had the wheels rolled to a halt than people rushed out of shops and saloons to cheer their homegrown hero.
“All I done was throw a few shots at ’em,” Rat complained.
“Saved two children from certain death, as I heard it,” Varina Palmer proclaimed. “And brought my man back to the bosom of his family.”
Rat had to grin at the sight of a petite Varina Palmer hugging her giant of a husband. A smallish, plain-faced girl joined them, as did three bony-legged boys. It was hard to believe the children were the same ones Pop had described in his numerous tales. But young Tyler wrapped an eager arm around Rat and thanked him for saving his father, and Varina provided a generous invitation to supper that night.
“From now on there’ll be no stable sleepin’, either,” the woman insisted. “Ty’s made you up a rope bed in the boys’ room, and you’ll pass your nights in Thayerville with us.”
Rat started to argue, but the Palmers wouldn’t have it. And once he tasted Varina’s pork chops, he had no urge to object. He clearly saw how Hoyt Palmer had increased his girth, and if the children were plain and a bit ragged, they were nevertheless full of pepper and noise. They howled with delight at every tale Rat spun of his years on the range. In contrast to the silence of the stable, Pop Palmer’s crowded farmhouse was a home.
Nate Parrott provided a few rewards of his own.
“Colonel Wyler sent you his congratulations, Rat,” the stationmaster explained the next day. “You got yourself five dollars a week more money, and the colonel says to pick out the best pair o’ handguns you can spot. They’re on him.”
“I never handled nothin’ fancy,” Rat explained. “Just this ole Colt give to me on the cattle drive north.”
“I’ll help you choose ’em,” Parrott pledged. “I already spoke to Mary Morris at the mercantile ’bout some new clothes, too. Colonel wired we got to outfit you proper.”
“I don’t understand,” Rat complained. “All I did was what you hired me for. I just shot a horse and drove off some fellows who likely weren’t but broke cowboys tryin’ to get their poker money back.”
“Not how others see it, Rat. You already brung us business. From here on out there’ll be lots o’ money travelin’ to Albany and back, I wager.”
“Won’t make my job any easier, will it?”
“Sure won’t. Honey draws flies, you know. Now run along to the mercantile. I got work for you after.”
Rat nodded, then started out the door. As he walked, he couldn’t help shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. Any minute he expected to wake up in the stable having dreamed the whole business.
Vesty Plank was tending the counter when Rat appeared.
“Always knew you hadn’t any sense,” the boy declared. “Takin’ on Pa the way you did back when. Took my lickin’ that time, Rat. And now … “
“I’m supposed to pick out some clothes,” Rat explained.
“Miz Morris got ’em ready for you, all ’cept the size. Rat, you got to be careful here on out.”
“What?”
“Ef rides with some folks out past Albany,” Vesty explained. “I hear things sometimes. You watch out, hear?”
“Thanks, Vesty,” Rat said, giving the frail young man a shake of the shoulders. “I know those words didn’t come easy.”
“No, but I owed you,” he said, gazing intently into Rat’s eyes. “I seen Pa shot, too. Bullets make big holes in people, Rat. And it don’t matter if a man acts brave or not.”
Rat nodded his agreement as Mary Morris arrived. With a shout, she rushed over and hugged Rat tightly.
“Lord be praised!” she shouted. “My boy’s been delivered from peril. You should quit that stage company, Rat Hadley. It’s not God’s work, shooting men.”
“Maybe not, ma’am, but it’s work just the same,” he answered. “I had no rush o’ other offers. Seems to me, ma’am, like the Lord sends a man on his way. I see the path, and I take my steps along it. All I know to do.”
“Nothing good ever came of violence,” she argued.
“Seems to me people look me in the eye now. That’s a middlin’ good, don’t you think? I ain’t much, Miz Morris, but nobody ought to step on me like they used to. They don’t try it now. And they won’t long as I keep ridin’ the stage.”
“And when someone shoots you dead?”
He tried to manage a smile. He wanted to tell her how the pain would end. Instead he kept mum and let her show him the clothes she’d picked out.