Coming in to Flintrock

As the final whistle sounded, a man raced down the platform, flung his saddle forwards, made a heroic leap, grabbed the railing at the back of the carriage, and hauled himself onto the departing train.

Heyes gathered himself together. His hands tried ineffectually to brush off the dirt, but ultimately surrendered to its overwhelming nature. Sighing, he opened the door and walked into the solid form of the conductor. That burly man examined him from head to toe. "Ticket?" His tone conveyed his disbelief the derelict form before him would have a ticket.

Heyes smiled placatingly. "Didn't get a chance to stop at the station. Almost missed my train. How much is it to Flintrock?"

The Conductor sniffed and again examined him from head to toe. He rolled his eyes and held out his hand, proclaiming, "Two dollars and fifty cents for the ticket. Another dollar penalty for not purchasing one in advance."

Heyes eyes narrowed, and his smile disappeared as he locked eyes with the official.

"Three fifty or I throw you off."

Biting back a retort, Heyes dug into his pocket and slowly counted out the coins. He glared as he handed them to the man. Grudgingly, the conductor stood aside, leaning back so as to avoid contact with Heyes. The ex-outlaw pushed past and into the compartment.

The elderly couple seated opposite looked at each other in dismay as he hefted his bags and saddle into the overhead rack and collapsed onto the hard wooden seat. They hastily gathered their belongings, and moved down the railcar before splitting up to take seats as far from him as possible. His dark eyes followed them then looked around and noticed the stares of his fellow passengers, their faces reflecting fear, dismay, and disdain.

Resolutely he closed his eyes and attempted to relax. Since he and the Kid had parted ways ten days earlier in order to shake a persistent posse, he had had little rest. The entire posse had followed him, but finally he had lost them and had ventured into Garden City where the two were to meet. He had surrendered his horse to the livery, selling the spent beast for a few pitiful coins, and headed to the hotel.

Heyes opened his eyes, still too wound up to sleep, and extracted the crumpled cable the desk clerk had handed him. Rubbing his hand across the two weeks' growth of beard, he read it again. Change of plans. Stop. Come to Flintrock. Stop. Train every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30. Stop. Don't forget the asterisks. Stop. TJ

He sorted through the papers he had pulled from his pocket until he found the train schedule. Glancing through the tattered pages, Heyes found the schedule for the train, with stops at Rimstone, Flintrock, Siler's Creek, and points west, before arriving in Denver. He examined it again. Right there it said the train left Garden City at 7:30 p.m. He pulled out his watch – 7:10. The brown eyes peered closely at the torn sheet then rolled as he realized the fly speck was actually an asterisk. He traced it to the bottom of the page. Sure enough, the train left Garden City every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., except, according to the asterisk, on the second Tuesday of the month when it left at 6:42 p.m.

~~~oOo~~~

Heyes stared out the window absently until his attention was drawn by several young voices.

"I'll trade you for that aggie."

"Yeah, what've you got?"

"Well, a penny whistle and …"

Heyes grinned as the boys in the aisle interrupted their game of marbles to disclose pocket collections and negotiate the trade. He leaned back against the seat and stretched out his legs, closing his eyes…

"Why'd you trade your blue, Han? That was your favorite marble."

"Nah. I still got my lucky aggie. 'Sides look at what I got for it."

The two boys stopped on their slow journey home from school to the chores awaiting them. Han handed the cherubic blond a woven straw tube. Blue eyes examined it then queried his friend's dark ones.

"What's it do?"

"It's a finger catch."

"A what?"

"Just put your fingers in the ends. Yeah, like that. Now, pull them out."

"I can't! Get it off me!" The blue eyes frowned. "Stop laughin'!"

"Okay, okay. Look stop trying to pull your fingers out. Now, push them together. Yeah, like that. See now you can get your fingers out. Hand it over."

The blond shivered. "I don't like the way that caught my hands so I couldn't use them." He looked speculatively at his friend. "So, what are you gonna do with it?"

"Don't know, but I figure the next time we play sheriffs and outlaws at school, I'll be sheriff 'cuz I can lock folks up with this. Sheriff's better than outlaw any day."

"So long as we know how to get out of the locks, I guess that'd be fun. Can I be the deputy?"

"Course, ain't we partners?"

His rumbling stomach woke him. Glancing at his watch, he groaned as he realized he still had hours before reaching Flintrock. The Kid better be there. His stomach echoed the thought. He looked around the railcar and his mouth watered as he watched his fellow passengers consume the meals they had brought with them. Heyes thought back and realized that he hadn't had anything since the apple he had snacked on that morning once he realized he'd lost the posse. He'd been in such a hurry to get to Garden City, and the Kid wasn't even there. Stomach protesting the enforced abstinence, he resolutely shut his eyes.

"Okay, you keep a lookout while I open the lockbox."

"You think you can do it?"

"Sure, piece of cake."

"Don't say cake when we're this hungry."

"Won't be hungry for long. Once we get this money, we can head out of here and buy some food, next town."

"Next town!" The gangly youth stared at his friend in disbelief. "I won't last that long."

"Will you be quiet? I'm trying to work,"

Jed snorted but quieted down. He wandered to the front of the store to peer around the curtain. Looking down he saw a row of boots for sale. He glanced at his own cracked footwear, sat down, and exchanged them for a new pair. Leaving his old ones behind, he selected a pair that might fit the dark-haired teen picking the lock and headed back to the counter.

"Look, new boots."

"We can't afford them," Heyes replied absently, focused on the lockbox before him.

"Uh, you do know we're robbin' the place, right?"

Heyes looked up sheepishly. "Oh, right. Look, I'm almost done; why don't you go find us something to eat until we can get to another town?" He bent back down to work. "And, Jed, thanks for the boots."

Jed hummed happily as he searched for portable food in the store.

Heyes awoke from his doze with a start as the conductor moved down the car lighting the lamps, then into the next car. The sun had set, hiding the passing terrain in the dark night. As Heyes shifted, his shirt, crusted as it was with two weeks' worth of sweat, mud, and dust, crinkled and crackled against his skin. He glanced around the car. A trickle of sweat ran down his back. He thought he'd seen a specter in the far corner of the car against the window - hollow-eyes, gaunt cheeks behind an unkempt beard. He blinked and looked around again, but the vision was gone.

Standing and stretching, Heyes glanced again, saw nothing unusual. He swayed down the aisle to the front of the car. As he walked he looked for the man he'd seen, but the car was filled with families, couples, and groups all content and chatting quietly. Passing them, he could feel their eyes watching him, their bodies drawing away to avoid all contact with him. He shook his head and searched through the pile of old papers kept at the end of the car to be twisted into spills for lighting the lamps. Grasping a largely-intact copy of Scientific American, he returned to his seat.

~~~oOo~~~

Feeling eyes on him, Heyes looked up from the article he was reading on the latest improvements in blasting caps. Two young women sitting a few seats away, across the aisle, quickly averted their eyes. A grin illuminated his face, but was quickly extinguished as he saw the specter again, grimacing at him over the shoulders of the young women. He closed his eyes and looked again; it was gone. Frowning, he examined all the passengers but could find none resembling his vision.

Heyes sighed. He was exhausted; now, he was seeing things. He closed his eyes.

Curry looked at the trestle crossing the gorge then looked down at the water rushing past one hundred feet below before turning to his partner. "You want us to do what?"

"You and the boys just need to climb out there and place the charges then come right back. Piece of cake."

"Uh, huh. And why exactly can't you do this yourself?"

Heyes smiled, his dimples beaming at his companion as he put his arm around Curry's shoulders. "I have to watch from here, make sure you all place them right. It's important they get placed just right. I couldn't trust anyone but you for such an important job, you know."

Blue eyes examined him from head to toe, their owner shrugging off the arm around his shoulder. "Uh, huh." He looked again at the trestle, then down at the river, and back to his partner. "You're sure this will work?"

"Yeah. I read about it in Scientific American. If we place these three charges just right, we can bring down the whole bridge."

"And the train that goes plungin' off the tracks?"

"That's the beauty of my scheme, Kid. That's why we do it now. If we do it right, the whole thing'll collapse and it'll take months to rebuild. There's no train due for three days, so no one'll get hurt."

"No one except us when we fall off that thing."

"I have faith in you."

"Well that takes a load off my mind."

"Honestly, Kid, I don't know what you're complaining about. I had to do all the work to figure out just the right places for the dynamite. All you have to do is put it there."

"All I have to do! All I have to…" Curry stopped and shook his head. "And just why do we want to stop trains goin' this way?"

"Because you know there's no good stopping place on this route. With the bridge out the trains'll have to divert through Crazy Critter Canyon and we can stop them there."

Curry took a last, pained look over the rim, shouldered his pack, and headed over to the gang. "Come on, Kyle, Hank, let's get this over with. Just be careful."

Kyle and Hank looked at him, looked at Heyes, and backed away from the edge of the gorge, making no effort to pick up their bundles. Steely eyed, the Kid held up the packs. The two shuffled their feet, ducked their heads, stole glances at each other, and reluctantly moved forward to take the packs.

The Kid smiled. "Don't worry, boys. As soon as we get done blowin' up the bridge, we're headin' to town and Heyes is buyin' us each a bottle." Raising his voice, he added, "the good stuff, not some old cheap rotgut, either."

The blast of the whistle awoke Heyes. It sure had been satisfying to watch as that trestle slowly collapsed after the dynamite blasts, worth the cost of the whiskey. They'd all stayed rooted to the spot, watching until the bridge was nothing more than toothpicks and tangled metal in the water below.

The whistle sounded again as the conductor walked down the aisle. "Flintrock, coming in to Flintrock." He looked contemptuously at Heyes. "So you'll be leaving us here." The conductor continued his stroll, muttering, "At least we'll get rid of the garbage."

Heyes glared after the man then started as he once again caught a glimpse of the haunted face. He quickly stood and searched around the compartment but, again, saw no sign of the visage's owner.

Shrugging, he reached up and gathered his belongings. When he next looked around they were pulling into the station. Through the window he saw his partner leaning against a wall, watching the train as it arrived.

As Heyes exited the compartment, the Kid hurried over to help him with his belongings. They moved to the back of the platform out of the bustle of the new arrivals.

"See you got my cable. I've been meetin' the train for the past week. You couldn't send a reply and let me know you were on this one?"

"Didn't get a chance." Heyes grinned. "Those asterisks almost got me."

Curry chuckled.

"So why not Garden City?"

The Kid examined Heyes, his brows drawing together as he got a full appreciation of Heyes' state. "Tough trip, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Well, sorry about the extra. Sheriff in Garden City knew me. I was pretty sure he didn't know you, or I'd've waited outside town to grab you. Instead, I hightailed it to here. Anyways, I got us a job. You'll like this one. I'll tell you all about it over a drink." He sniffed lightly and stepped back from Heyes. "Well, maybe you might want to clean up a bit first."

Heyes grimaced and ran a hand across his face. "Right now, all I want is sleep, a drink, some food, clean clothes, a bath, and a shave. Not necessarily in that order."

The Kid grinned. He started to put an arm around Heyes' shoulder, stopped, and picked up his saddle instead. "Tell you what, how about I get us some food and a bottle of whiskey while you clean up, then I'll tell you about the job."

Heyes nodded and lifted his saddlebags. "Sounds like a plan, but that better be a bottle of the good stuff, not some old cheap rotgut." He took one last look back at the train, searching the windows of the compartment, but he couldn't see the face he was searching for. All he saw were their own reflections, smiling as the two headed out of the station.

Scientific American was first published in 1845 and continues to this day. It is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States (Harper's is the second oldest, having begun in 1850). Poetic license as to the contents of the stories covered back then.