Last Train from Perdition

Four.

Through the canvas entrance to the Palace came not Eric and a doctor, but Nealsen and a broad-shouldered, beer-bellied man in a beaver-fur coat and black derby hat. He had a florid, pock-marked face and a brown beard that reached to the silver eagle on his belt-buckle.

“What the hell’s goin’ on in here?” the man shouted in a voice that nearly shook the timbers. He looked down at Blue and her life’s-blood and made a face as if he’d bitten into a sour pickle. “Christ Almighty, what a mess! Somebody’s gonna pay to scrub this damned floor!”

“Mr. Cantrell, I assume,” said Lawson, his pistol still aimed between Mathias and Presco, as Rebinaux whined and clutched his mangled hand.

“And who the hell are you?” Cantrell almost thrust his face into Lawson’s, but seemed to decide it was not a wise move. His eyes were bloodshot with rage as they slid from Lawson to Ann and back again.

“Bounty hunters from New Orleans,” Lawson said, for he’d made up his mind what he had to do. “These three men are wanted dead or alive in the Dakota and the Wyoming territories. We’re taking them to the federal marshall in Cheyenne.”

“Ha!” said Mathias, with no trace of humor.

“You got papers?” Cantrell demanded.

Lawson produced his cowhide wallet with one hand and from it offered Cantrell a business card. Cantrell spent a few seconds studying the lines All Matters Handled and I Travel By Night.

He pushed the card away. “I don’t think you two are proper bounty hunters. This thing don’t smell right.”

“Aromatics aside,” said Lawson, “we’re taking these men to Cheyenne. As your bartender probably told you, the girl was shot by that one.” He nodded toward Johnny Rebinaux. “Helped in the endeavor by Mr. Mathias here. You see their guns on the floor. So…we regret the inconvenience to your profiteering, but we make no apologies for our intent.”

“Damn, you talk funny!” Cantrell said, but some of his anger had flown away. He scowled as he took stock of the dying girl and the three outlaws. “She was a good un’. Made me lots of money. And you boys…I oughta shoot you m’self, save the law from wastin’ time tyin’ nooses for your three worthless necks!”

“What Mr. Lawson fails to realize,” Mathias said in his calm and oily voice, “is that four nooses will have to be made ready in Cheyenne. Eric James rode with us for many months of his own free will. He’s not exactly an innocent. I imagine he’s realized that…and he knows he can’t ever go home again, so he’s likely gone straight to our cabin to break open my strongbox. Get himself enough money for the train and a new life in San Francisco, and to hell with the doctor and this wench.”

“What’s he talkin’ about?” Cantrell asked.

“Eric could’ve left here anytime he pleased,” Mathias went on, directing his comments to Lawson. “I wasn’t keeping him locked up.”

“Maybe not him locked up, but I think he probably had no way to get money for the trip unless he did break open your strongbox. And you were not going to let him or either of these two very far from your sight, were you? No trust or honor among thieves and killers, am I correct?”

Blue moaned. Ann was kneeling at her side. “She’s in a bad way,” Ann said. “Where’s that damn doctor?”

“He’s not coming,” said Mathias. “Eric’s gone for the money.”

“Bleedin’ all over my floor,” Cantell muttered. “New boards and all!”

The whistle blew again, maybe announcing an intention to pull out early. Lawson said, “Nealsen, I’ll pay you ten dollars to go to the station and hold that train for twenty minutes. Ann, would you get our bags packed and put aboard?”

“I will,” she said, and hurriedly left the Palace. Nealsen looked for permission from Cantrell, who said, “I wouldn’t mind earnin’ ten my own self, but go on. Tell Tabbers to do what you say because I’m sayin’ it.”

Nealsen left, also in a hurry.

“Mind if I have a drink while we wait for Eric James not to come back with the doctor?” Mathias asked.

“I do. Stand where you are.”

“Blood on my boots!” said Cantrell. “Sheeeeyit!”

Not fifteen seconds later the canvas was whipped aside and in came a slender wisp of a man, about fifty years of age, with sad eyes and a sallow complexion. He wore spectacles and a stained brown overcoat and carried a doctor’s bag. Snowflakes clung to his gray hair and powdered the shoulders of his coat. Behind him came Eric Cavanaugh, the sight of which brought forth a dry chuckle and a shake of the head from Deuce Mathias.

“Swore you weren’t coming back, Eric,” said Mathias. “I wouldn’t have been so stupid.”

The doctor at once knelt down beside Blue. The joints of his knees popped. It took him hardly a moment before he said, with what Lawson thought was a Scandinavian accent, “It’s bad. Let’s get her up on the bar, ya?”

“And smear blood all over my bartop?” Cantrell’s temper flared again. “Hell no, Fossie, leave her where she is!”

“Up on the bar,” the doctor repeated, with admirable grace under pressure. “Now,” he insisted.

“You two.” Lawson motioned at Mathias and Presco with the Colt’s business end. “Do it, quick.”

“I don’t think we will,” came the half-jeering reply. “You won’t—”

The vampire slapped Mathias across the face so hard with his free hand that the man’s eyes almost burst from his head. It was just a fraction of Lawson’s strength, and he was hardpressed to hold back so as not to rip the melon from its stalk. At full tilt, when he had to, Lawson could likely knock down a horse or kick a stagecoach onto its side, thus even the small matter of shaking a man’s hand was a challenge.

A thread of blood drooled from Mathias’s lower lip. He was going to have a black bruise in the shape of a hand on his right cheek and his right eye would be swelling shut. The smell of this new blood did nothing for Lawson’s disposition. He grabbed a handful of Mathias’s hair, jerked the head back and nearly shoved the Colt’s barrel up a nostril. Pure terror put a gleam of phantom light in the man’s eyes.

“Yes sir, movin’,” said Keene Presco. The rusty sawblade voice skreeched and scratched. “Movin’, sir.” He was already bending down to get Blue’s legs.

Lawson put his face right in Mathias’s. He let the man get a close glimpse of the vampire, as if releasing that most vile part of himself for just an instant. He knew the crimson cat-shine at the center of his eyes and the briefest impression of a lower jaw thrusting forward to unhinge itself would be enough. He added, in a nearly inaudible whisper, “There are worse thingsssss than death.”

The next sound was that of liquid spattering onto Mathias’s boots. Lawson could smell the beer in it.

The man shuddered. Tears surfaced in his eyes. For some reason Lawson doubted this man had cried since he was six years old. Lawson released him, and Mathias made a whimpering sound and scurried over to help Presco.

When Blue was up on the bar the doctor went to work, opening his bag and bringing out wads of cotton and a pair of wicked-looking forceps. The wound was visible above the gown’s neckline, which was gore-soaked and no longer anywhere near blue. The doctor checked her heartbeat with a stethoscope. Blue began to moan again, and her body trembled and shivered. Her hands came up to claw at the bullet-hole.

“Keep her hands down, please,” said Fossie, whose real name Lawson figured was a Nordic jawbreaker. Without being asked Mathias and Presco did the job.

“What about me?” Johnny Rebinaux called from his slumped posture on the floor. His accent was grits-and-cornbread Southern. South Georgia, Lawson figured. “I’m bleedin’ to death over here, ain’t nobody gonna hep’ me?”

“Someone pour me a big glass of whiskey. Strongest you’ve got, ya?” said the doctor, Cantrell went behind the bar and obliged, pouring a glass from a fresh bottle labelled Black Lightning. Fossie soaked a wad of cotton in the dark caramel-colored potion and cleaned the wound as much as he could. Blue was thankfully out once more and made no sound. Then Fossie put the forceps in the whiskey.

“This pain may cause her to come around. I’m going to probe for the bullet. It’s so near her heart…yet her heartbeat is still strong, for the moment. Hold her, please.”

Eric moved in to help. Which was good, because in the next few seconds as the forceps entered the wound Blue began to buck and fight with extraordinary strength. It took all of Mathias, Presco and Eric to keep her down. Though Blue’s eyes were still closed the trauma of pain wracked her face, causing the muscles to jump in her cheeks and jaw. Fossie worked with a careful and patient hand, silent in his concentration.

“Can you find it?” Eric asked, but Fossie didn’t reply.

At last the bloody forceps was withdrawn from the wound. It was empty.

Blue stopped fighting. She lay still, but she yet drew her breath in shallow whispers.

“The bullet,” said Fossie, “is lodged beside the right atrium. I can’t get hold of it without causing further damage.”

“But you can remove it in your surgery, can’t you?” Lawson asked.

“My surgery?” Fossie gave him a crooked and rather sad smile. “My barn, would be a better description. My efforts are limited by my circumstances and surroundings, sir. Not only does she need a surgical specialist, she needs a transfusion of blood. I don’t have the instruments or facilities for such procedures.”

“What are you saying? You’re giving up on her?”

Fossie pushed his spectacles up on his nose with a bloody finger. “Sir, it’s a wonder she’s still alive. Although…I would give her only a few hours before her heart…as a layman would say…gives out.”

“Then do something! The best you can!”

“My best,” the doctor replied, “would be to pack the wound, go to the telegraph office and inform the hospital at Helena that a female gunshot victim is on the way. They would have a medical wagon ready at the station.”

“The station?” Lawson was usually as sharp as a new razor, but all this perfume of gore in the air had him dazed.

“Of course. The road from here to Helena would be impassible.”

“All right. You’ll take her?”

“I cannot. There’s nothing more I can do for her except keep her sleeping. And to leave here…what if I’m needed by someone I can actually help? No, I’m sorry. I can’t take her.”

“But we can, Mr. Lawson,” said Eric. “The train’s going to Helena. They can meet us with the wagon as soon as we get there.”

Lawson had already considered this. It was the right thing to do, but the blood smell…it taunted him, it stirred the restless and horrifying currents within him, it made him want to drink, made him want to…

As LaRouge had told him, in the half-flooded mansion in Nocturne…learn to be a god.

Lawson lowered his face. He feared that his desires were showing, and also his struggle.

“If she’s going to live until morning,” Fossie said, “she’ll have to get to that hospital.”

“What about me?” Rebinaux squalled. “My hand ain’t worth a Yankee’s promise!”

“Stop whining,” the doctor told him. “There’s nothing wrong with you a bonesaw won’t cure.”

“We’ve got to get her where she needs to go,” said Eric, speaking to his savior. “Forget these three. We can’t let her die!”

Lawson looked up from the blood and the sawdust, because it was time for a decision. “You’re right. But forget these three? No. Doctor, will you send the telegraph message?”

“I will. First…” He turned his attention to Eric. “Jacob’s closed his store by now. Go get him. Tell him we need two blankets and something to carry her on. He might have a stretcher, I don’t know. Tell him to put it on my bill.”

“Yes sir,” said Eric, and he was off again.

“I’ll pack her wound and then I’ll see to you,” Fossie told Rebinaux. “Make any more noise and I may have to cut off a few fingers.”

“Take off your gunbelts,” Lawson said to Mathias and Presco. “Drop them easy. Then sit down at that table and be still.” He pointed with his Colt where he wanted them to settle, and they obeyed him as if indeed he already had reached godhood, or something nearly like it. Deuce Mathias kept staring at the floor and running his hands over his face as if trying to wake himself up from a bad dream.

By the time Fossie had finished what he could do for Blue and bound Rebinaux’s mangled hand with bandages, Eric was back with the blankets and a short ladder. Under Lawson’s command, the two desperadoes set Blue on the ladder, the doctor folded a blanket behind her head and smoothed the other one over her, Rebinaux hauled himself up from the floor cursing all the way and they were ready to go.

“Here,” Fossie set before they started out. He brought a small brown bottle from his bag and offered it to Lawson. “She shouldn’t wake before you reach Helena, but if she does and she fights to get at that wound, put some of this down her throat. It’s morphine and straight rotgut whiskey, enough to drop a mule.” Then the doctor’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. “You are also ill, Mr. Lawson?”

“I’ve been better,” said the vampire. “I will be again.”

The doctor nodded, though Lawson was certainly sure Fossie had no idea what illness he was looking at. Lawson ordered Mathias and Presco to carry the girl between them. Johnny Rebinaux staggered along. Eric and the doctor followed them out and through the throng that had gathered outside in the falling snow, while Cantrell stayed behind to make sure his Palace wasn’t looted.

Under the single siding at the small train depot, the 4-4-0 locomotive hissed and seethed as if angered at the delay. The engine would be pulling the same load down from Perdition as it had pulled up: a coal tender, a passenger car and four freight cars. The train’s crew of engineer, fireman and conductor had been here since the late afternoon run, likely having their dinner at one of Perdition’s two cafes after turning the train southward again on the oval track that circled the town. Nealsen and Ann were waiting on the platform, along with the engineer who Lawson figured was the man Cantrell had referred to as “Tabbers”. The gent appeared to be a true Viking, standing about six-foot-three with a flame-red beard and a face that could scare a gargoyle. The fireman, a young black man, was at his station in the cab. Alongside Tabbers stood the conductor, who Lawson and Ann had already seen on the way up; he was a short bulldog of a man about sixty years of age, wearing a dark blue coat and cap, with long white hair flowing about his shoulders and the battered look of a boxer who had gone a few rounds too many.

Fossie went directly into the telegraph office to send the message. “Get her aboard!” the conductor said in nearly a growl when he saw the two men carrying the wounded girl, and he hooked a thumb toward the passenger car. “Everybody else who ain’t got a ticket for Helena, get one now and be quick about it!”

Ann had already secured the tickets and put their bags aboard. Lawson paid the bartender the ten dollars he’d promised. Tabbers was climbing up into the engine and the conductor went up the metal steps into the passenger car, which was lit within by oil lamps set in gimbals on the walls. It was time to get started.

But Lawson staggered; he had been holding himself tight against the smell of all this blood, and now he lost himself for an instant. In that terrible span of time the evil desires of the vampire rose up from the place he’d been forcing it down. Not only did the muscles of his face jump and twitch as his mouth seemed to want to open involuntarily, but he saw in the redseared eye of his mind himself slaughtering everyone on this platform—Ann included—and feasting as was his power and right as a god of the night upon these pathetic creatures. Such weaklings as they were did not deserve to live in the world that was to come, and indeed would eventually fall to the fangs of the Dark Society. Why not now? Why not take them all, right this moment? It would be a blessing for them to be released from their hopeless shells, really; he could turn Ann if he pleased. He could set her right with her sister and her father, and she would know what it was like to be chosen…to be fearless…to be a power that no human could resist…

“Are you all right?” Ann asked him, and Lawson saw that he was the center of attention because he had fallen against the wooden wall of the telegraph office and seemed to be hanging there on the verge of toppling to the boards.

He put a hand to his forehead. Usually he was so cold, but tonight he felt feverish.

“Get everyone on the train,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“What’s the—”

“Just do it. Please.”

She nodded. Her face was grim, her lips tight. She well aware that something was going on with him that perhaps she didn’t wish to know. Quickly, she turned away and with her gun drawn she oversaw the carrying of Blue into the passenger car. Rebinaux went in, and behind him went Eric. Ann started to speak again to Lawson but when she looked back she saw him stagger into a narrow alley between the telegraph office and the small structure where the tickets were sold. She decided that for the moment there was nothing she could do for him; he would come when he was ready. She went into the passenger car and closed the door behind her.

In the alley, as the snowflakes whirled down and the bitter wind sang, the vampire sought his bottle of cattle blood. He was shamed to his soul for the images and thoughts that had assailed him. But even so, some deep and dark part of him kept whispering Why not? Why not?

He got his back against the timbers and fumbled for a few seconds with getting the bottle uncorked. His hands, usually so strong, had become as white-fleshed jelly. He was losing control of himself in all ways…physically, mentally, spiritually. The road of no return beckoned him…a horrible road, but one of great beauty too…no, no…not beautiful…a torment, a death-in-life…but what is your life now, Lawson?

He drank from the Japanese bottle. Drained it dry. Still he burned, and still he yearned.

Something scuttled in the alley.

It took him two seconds to focus upon the gray rat that was feasting upon a scattering of garbage in the snow. What was in that pile of refuse was difficult to say, but even to one of vampiric nature it was repulsive.

Blood flowed within the rodent. That was all Lawson needed to know.

He was on the rat in a blur of motion. It was picked up before it realized it was in danger. The desperate creature who gripped it opened his mouth to tear the rat’s head off and drink the fluids in a fountain of gore from the ragged neck.

“Mr. Lawson?”

Someone behind him, in the alley.

He froze, standing in the falling snow with the squirming rat right at his mouth, the small claws struggling for purchase, the red eye a bloody cup of terror.

“Mr. Lawson? Sir?”

It was the doctor. Lawson would’ve sensed him there, but all his powers and energies had been aimed toward feeding this ungodly hunger.

He dropped his hand. The rat gave him a little nip on the index finger as it jumped free. No ichor rose; the rodent’s teeth had not gone deep enough. The little scratch would be healed in a few minutes. The rat scrabbled into a tangle of broken crates and was gone.

He turned toward Fossie, who stood about ten feet away at the alley’s entrance. If the doctor had seen what he was about to do, what of it?

Take him, the vampire thought. Do it quickly…

Fossie cleared his throat. Snowflakes were stuck on the lenses of his spectacles. “I…have sent the message. The train’s moving out. You should be on it, ya?”

They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds.

Then Lawson nodded.

“Yes, I should be,” he answered, and when he approached Fossie the doctor drew back. Maybe he’d seen nothing, maybe he’d seen everything; at the moment Lawson cared not.

The train’s whistle gave a shriek and the bell clanged. The wheels were moving…slowly at first, grinding across the rails. White steam hissed from beneath the engine and coal smoke and cinders were beginning to plume from the flared bonnet stack. The big whale-oil headlamp was burning in its protective red tin box mounted just in front of the stack, and leading the engine was a badly-dented cowcatcher that looked as if it had already dispatched a few buffalo to their happy grazing grounds. In the cab the engineer stood at his controls and the black fireman was shovelling coal into the engine’s burning maw like he himself was a well-oiled machine.

As Lawson reached for the handrail to pull himself up the steps to the passenger car’s front platform, Fossie called out over the increasing noise of the moving wheels and song of steam. He said, “Whatever your illness is…good luck to you.”

Lawson did not answer nor look again at the doctor. He went into the passenger car, closed the door at his back, and set eyes first upon the thin, rigid figure of Eli Easterly seated to his left. The man wore a Bible-black suit with a white shirt and a black string-tie. His face and hair were nearly the same shade of gray. Beside him on the slatted wooden seat was a brown leather suitcase, worn by years of wanderings. Their eyes met, but very quickly Easterly shifted his expressionless gaze to watch the last lamps of Perdition slide past.

Lawson wondered what Easterly would think if he knew the vampire’s Eye—the flaming orb that entered a human mind and revealed all—had shown him on the train trip up from Helena that this individual had killed at least ten men, had fallen upon the salvation of whiskey and God in equal doses, had become a travelling preacher for years to atone for his sins of wife-beating, whoremongering, and murder in the name of bounty hunting, and had been in Perdition to visit the grave of his only son, shot in the back two months ago and laid to rest in a muddy field along with all the other sons and daughters.

It was a terrible dark justice that claimed the innocent, Lawson thought, because the Eye had shown him that nearly all of those men Easterly had killed were shot in the back.

The whistle blew again, a mournful sound. Snow whirled past the windows. Lawson smelled the rich perfume of Blue’s blood, and he wondered how in the name of Christ he was going to make these thirty long miles.