Longarm did better than simply tell the lady about her husband’s request. When he was done with a truly excellent breakfast he personally carried a plate of pie, still warm from the oven, back to the neighborly man.
Chapter 4
The coach operated by the Wind River Express and Transit Company—to give it the full title painted in fading yellow over the windows and single side door—was a device of venerable age and experience. It was the standard Concord coach manufactured by Abbot and Downing in Concord, New Hampshire, in a style that had not significantly changed for at least a generation. As this particular vehicle might attest, since it had to be old enough to have carried its current passengers’ parents. And maybe their grandparents as well.
Once grand, the old Concord now was worn and sagging. Dry rot showed beneath the varnish along the lower edges of the side panels, and there probably was not a major part on it that had not been replaced time and time again since it first rolled out of the assembly barn. Where once there had been iron hinges on the door, there now were pads of thick leather held haphazardly in place with brass screws so that the door sagged, its latch no longer in proper alignment. To compensate for that, the door was held shut with a twist of wire.
Where once there would have been custom-fitted side curtains with see-through isinglass panels, now there were tattered squares of black canvas tacked over the windows, and rolled up, secured with bits of twine until someone decided to let them fall free. Cold as it was, and with dark clouds spreading across the horizon to the west, Longarm suspected they would not get much beyond the town limits of Bitter Creek before the side curtains were let down. Better to put up with the dark than the fierce cold.
The thick, buffalo hide thoroughbraces that served in place of springs no doubt had been replaced many times already as well. And soon would have to be replaced again.
The seats inside—enough to accommodate nine adults in some degree of comfort, or a dozen if they were all feeling real friendly—were worn and shabby. As in virtually all Concords, the middle bench was made to face the rear of the coach, as did the seat built against the driver’s box wall. Only the back seat faced forward, and for reasons Longarm never understood this seat was nearly always the one preferred by women passengers. Something to do with their delicate senses not having to ride backward, as it had been explained to him by more than one fair maiden. What he could not comprehend was why it never seemed to occur to any of them that this forward-facing seat was also the one that would fling them onto the laps of any gents riding on the middle bench whenever there was an especially vigorous lurch.
Or then again, he reflected, maybe the ladies did indeed recognize that possibility.
He noticed that the usual row of rooftop seats had been removed from this particular coach and a luggage rack installed instead so freight could be carried in its place. It was a sensible enough change considering the weather. No one who expected to complete a journey alive and unfrozen would want to ride atop a coach exposed to the winter elements, and the income from the extra freight would no doubt help compensate for the loss of outside passenger space.
Longarm had had to ride as a shotgun messenger himself more than once in the past, and could well imagine the sufferings of the jehu and the guard. He did not envy them their constant exposure to the cold, and knew that at this time of year a scheduled ten-minute relay stop would often—and justifiably—become a half hour stop instead while the coach driver and messenger gulped coffee and tried to thaw numb ears and noses.
He gave the Wind River coach a second look, and realized that while the equipment was old and tattered, the things that really counted were well attended. The wheels were solid and properly fitted, with none of the spokes cracked or loose, and the iron tires were all tight-set and in good order, The axles were heavily and freshly greased, and all the running gear appeared to be sound.
As for the items that counted above all others, the mules that would pull the coach seemed sound as well and in excellent health. Their harness was clean and in good repair, and the mules themselves were robust and, unlike a comparable six-up of horses, standing patient in their traces. They were all of good size, in fact rather large for mules, which generally tend to run on the light side. Longarm guessed this team would average nearly nine hundred pounds apiece. And a nine-hundred-pound mule can pull as stoutly as a twelve-hundred-pound horse and do it half again as long. And accomplish this on two thirds the amount of feed.
All in all, Longarm figured himself satisfied with the Wind River Line and its gear as he carried his carpetbag and much-used McClellan saddle out of the stage office and handed them up to the guard, who was helping secure the luggage on the freight rack.
“Careful with the Winchester,” Longarm warned when he handed the saddle, rifle scabbard still attached, up to the man. “It’s loaded.”
“Whyn’t you teach your grandma to suck eggs, mister. I was handlin’ loaded guns before you was born,” the messenger returned in a grumpy tone of voice. Rather than take offense, Longarm grinned at him.
“Wife have a headache this morning, did she?”
“Got no wife,” the messenger said in a slightly more friendly tone. “Got me a helluva hangover, though.”
“Think o’ the good side of it,” Longarm suggested. “The hangover you can get rid of.”
The shotgun messenger grinned. He started to laugh out loud, but ended up with a wince instead.
Longarm checked his watch. They had at least twenty minutes before they were supposed to pull out. “You want me to fetch you a cup o’ coffee from across the street?”
“You’d do that, mister?”
“Sure. I’d enjoy a cup myself before we leave. Be no trouble to make it two.”
“For a cup o’ coffee right now, mister, I’d write you inta my will. If I had anything worth leavin’, that is.”
“Let me get the coffee first. Then I’ll make sure you know how t’ spell my name right.”
The fellow laughed, not even wincing this time, and Longarm ambled back to the cafe for the coffee.
Twenty-five minutes later they were on the road, the messenger and the jehu bundled so deep in scarves and blanket-lined clothing that they looked more like cloth-covered hayricks than human beings. Predictably, the other passengers chose to ride in darkness rather than let in any more breeze than was strictly necessary. Longarm was one of seven passengers making the northbound run, two women and five men. The women were dressed modestly and kept their eyes demurely low, but smears of powder and rouge neglected behind their ears told the truth about their profession. Longarm had no interest in either of them anyway. They were both homely as a pair of mud hens. But then, the further out from polite society the uglier the whores. That seemed to be a law of nature.
Of the men, Longarm guessed one of them to be a salesman of some sort, two who obviously were traveling together he took to be lawyers, and the last was likely a laborer, probably a miner judging by his clothes and destination. Those four plus a United States deputy marshal.
They traveled mostly in silence for the first three-hour relay, and completely in silence for the second. It was miserably cold inside the coach—he could just imagine how bad it must be up top—and the constant jolting and lurching did nothing to relieve that discomfort. By the time they stopped for a late supper at midnight, at a rest station roughly halfway along the route, they were all exhausted and out of sorts. Longarm’s bladder was about to bust—at his age he should know better than to drink so much coffee before getting into a stagecoach—and his head was pounding from the effects of the rough ride and unrelenting fatigue.
Still, a good piss, a better cigar, and a steaming bowl of beef stew can do wonders to restore body and spirit alike. By the time they rolled out again he felt damn near human.