CHAPTER 7
At the touch of a hand on his shoulder, Frank Colbert instantly came fully awake. His eyes opened, he saw the shadowy figure above him, and his reaction was lightning fast.
He grabbed the figure by the neck with his left hand and rolled to the left as his right hand snatched the knife from the little table close beside the bed.
Colbert pinned the person who had awakened him to the pillow while the tip of the blade rested just under that unwise individual’s jawline, ready to plunge in and rip across the throat in a killing stroke.
Selena Charlton gurgled and sputtered but couldn’t form any coherent words with Colbert’s fingers locked painfully around her throat, cutting off her air and threatening to crush her windpipe.
Her green eyes were huge with surprise and fear, though. Those emotions were quite obvious.
So were her breasts, since the silk dressing gown she wore had come open when Colbert flung her down on the bed.
In the murky light that came through a gap in the curtains over the window in the room on the second floor of the First and Last Chance Saloon, Colbert gradually became aware of the red curls in disarray on the pillow, the soft flesh of her throat in his grip, and the abundant milky flesh on display. His breathing slowed, and his pulse didn’t hammer quite as hard inside his head.
He took the knife away from her throat, let go of her, and said, “For God’s sake, Selena, I could have killed you.”
She had to gasp for air, hauling in deep, ragged breaths for several seconds before she was able to say, “What the hell . . . is wrong with you?”
“You don’t come up on a sleeping man who got out of prison only a few days earlier and touch him,” Colbert rasped as he tossed the knife back onto the bedside table and stood up. He stretched and shook his head as if trying to dislodge the cobwebs of sleep from it.
He wore only the bottom half of a pair of long underwear. His bare torso was fish-belly white but covered with slabs of hard muscle.
Colbert went on, “You should have known better. Anybody who sneaks up on you in prison probably wants to stick a shiv between your ribs, or cut your throat with it.”
Selena sat up, sniffed haughtily, and pulled her dressing gown closed. “For your information, I tried to wake you up without touching you, Frank. I said your name a couple of times. But you were sleeping like a dead man.” She smirked. “I guess I wore you out good and proper last night.”
“I would have said it was the other way around,” he snapped, unwilling to let her get the better of him.
“Anyway, when you didn’t wake up, I figured I ought to try harder, because I knew you’d want to see this.”
She reached into the gown’s pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.
Colbert recognized it as a yellow telegraph flimsy and leaned forward to snatch it from her fingers. He scanned the block-printed words.
JUST ARRIVED RENO STOP PROFITABLE WORK HERE STOP ALL FRIENDS SAY HELLO STOP LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU BEFORE CHRISTMAS STOP DM
“Is that what you’ve been waiting for?” Selena asked.
“Reno,” Colbert said instead of answering directly. “The train goes there, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Is there one this morning?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Colbert ripped the curtain aside to let in gray light. “What time is it?”
“Around ten o’clock. Awfully early for somebody in my line of work, that’s for sure. But one of the bartenders came up and said there was a wire for you, and I knew how anxious you’d been for it, so I had him bring it up to me.” She paused. “Did I do the right thing, Frank?”
“Yeah. You did.”
She massaged her throat where he had grabbed her. “And in return you tried to choke me to death or cut my throat.” She smiled coyly. “I think you should come over here and give me a proper thank you.”
Colbert turned to the wardrobe and jerked it open. “No time for that. I need to get to the depot and see if I can catch a train.”
He knew the telegram was from Deke Mahoney, at last. The whole gang was in Reno waiting for him, and “profitable work” could mean only one thing.
Deke had a big job lined up, one that would net them a lot of loot. And whatever it was, it had to be pulled off by Christmas.
This was going to be a holiday worth celebrating after all, Colbert thought as he hurriedly began getting dressed and ignored the redheaded whore who sat pouting at him.
* * *
Jerome Kellerman strode into the railroad station carrying a carpetbag in his left hand and a smaller, flatter case made of fine leather in his right hand. A stocky, middle-aged, well-dressed man with white hair under his black bowler hat, he walked directly to the nearest ticket window and asked the clerk, “When is the next eastbound train leaving?”
“You’re in luck, mister. It was supposed to pull out twenty minutes ago, but there was a problem with the engine and it’s a little behind schedule. Should be ready to go in just a few minutes, though. You need a ticket?”
“Would I have asked if I didn’t?” Kellerman said, not bothering to conceal the impatience he felt.
The clerk sniffed a little and asked, “How far?”
“All the way through to Chicago.”
That ought to be far enough, Kellerman thought. And Chicago was a big city, big enough to get lost in so that no one would ever find him.
If he changed his mind later, he could always travel on to Philadelphia or New York or Boston. He could afford to go anywhere he wanted now.
When the clerk named the price, Kellerman pulled out a pocketbook made of expensive leather, like the case, and paid for the ticket. He was vaguely aware of someone standing behind him but didn’t pay attention until the man said, “Hurry it up. I’ve got to get to Reno.”
“So do I, my good man,” Kellerman said as he put away his pocketbook and reached down to pick up the carpetbag he had set momentarily on the floor. “So do—”
He fell silent at his first sight of the man glaring at him.
The man was tall, with dark hair and a mustache, and as Kellerman looked at him, he was reminded instantly of a wolf or a panther or some other sort of predator. The man was dressed in a cheap suit and was the sort of individual Kellerman would have kept a close eye on, if he had ever walked into the bank where Kellerman worked.
Where Kellerman had worked. He would never set foot in the place again. Those days were over forever.
Now there were nothing but better days ahead of him.
As he stepped aside and the dark-faced, menacing-looking man moved up to the ticket window, Kellerman smiled and nodded to the woman who was also standing in line to pay for her fare. She was blond and reasonably attractive, though a little time and care worn. He briefly considered approaching her on the train. She might be pleasant company.
But then he discarded the idea. For one thing, he could afford to do better now, and for another, she wore a wedding ring. He knew that such vows of fidelity meant very little to some women, but the woman being married might well be an obstacle to overcome and she wasn’t that good looking.
Without looking back, he walked across the cavernous, high-ceilinged lobby toward the platform where the train that would carry him to a new life was waiting.
* * *
Smoke, Denny, and Louis had a private compartment on the train. The two young people sat on a padded bench and watched their father pace back and forth as best he could in the cramped quarters.
“Really, Father, it’s just a minor delay,” Louis said. “Nothing to worry about. The conductor assured us that the train would be ready to roll any time now.”
“I know.” Smoke stopped his pacing and looked out the compartment’s single window, but he couldn’t see anything from there except part of the depot. “Earlier, though, he told me it was snowing up in Donner Pass. You two haven’t spent enough time out here to know what it can mean when a bad snowstorm blows in, up there in the high country.”
“Donner Pass,” Louis repeated with a slight frown. “Why do I know that name?”
A bark of laughter came from Smoke. “You’re bound to have heard of the Donner Party. That’s how the pass got its name. Before that, it was called Stephens Pass, after one of the fellas who first explored it, but once the story got out, nobody ever thought of it as anything except Donner Pass.”
“What story?” Denny asked with a note of impatience in her voice.
“Back in forty-six, there was an immigrant trail that ran through the Sierra Nevadas over that route. The California Trail, folks called it. Thousands of settlers traveled over it safely, but that year one group of them, led by a man named Donner, got too late a start. The approach to the pass isn’t too bad on this side, but on the east it’s a real ripsnorter, with lots of cliffs and very rugged country, so it was slow going. The Donner Party didn’t make it through the pass in time. A blizzard dumped so much snow in it that the trail was blocked until the spring thaw. Donner decided that he and his people would camp there on the eastern slope and wait it out.”
“I take it that was a bad decision,” Louis said.
“There were more than eighty people in the group. Come spring, not much more than half of them made it out alive. The ones who died had frozen or starved to death.” Smoke shrugged. “But if it hadn’t been for them, even more of the settlers wouldn’t have survived.”
“Why not?” Denny asked.
“Because once some of them started to die, the others didn’t starve as fast.”
Denny and Louis both stared at Smoke in confusion for a second; then expressions of horror and loathing began to creep over their faces.
“You don’t mean . . .” Denny said.
“Surely they wouldn’t . . .” Louis said.
Smoke nodded solemnly. “Yep. That’s what they did, all right. It was that or certain death.”
“I would have died first!” Denny said.
“As would I,” Louis added.
“It’s easy to say that,” Smoke told them. “Fact of the matter is, though, most folks never know what they’re capable of until they have a life-or-death situation staring them in the face. When they do, some of them rise to the occasion. That’s why there’s the old saying about how heroes are made, not born.” Smoke shrugged. “And sometimes, when the chips are down, people fail. It’s not always a reason to be ashamed. You can’t really blame folks for wanting to save their lives.”
“You can blame them for crossing a line like that,” Denny said. “You’re talking about people, not animals. When you get right down to it, there’s such a thing as right and wrong, good and evil. You do believe there are evil people in the world, don’t you?”
“I’ve traded lead with enough of ’em,” Smoke said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
“Damn right,” Denny muttered. “And some of them deserve to be shot.”
“I can’t say as I disagree with you.”
Smoke lifted his head as he heard a clanking noise and felt vibration shiver through the floor under his feet.
“I reckon we’re about to get moving at last,” he said. “And not a moment too soon to suit me.”
Louis was frowning in thought. He said, “You don’t think . . . in this day and age . . . if this train was to get stuck in the mountains people would resort to such drastic measures?”
“Let’s hope we never find out,” Smoke said.