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Teen and up Content warnings:Graphic violenceDeath of a major characterSubstance abuseBody horror
Big Medicine
Tintype Dream, Chapter Eight
Timeflinger
Now comes the part where… Donal makes breakfast. Herbert asks about the Concho Biscuit Eaters’ pitcher. Lynch is kinda lonely. Medicine Man makes a promise.
Breakfast at Rancho Piñon Springs was lively and festive.
The ladies cleaned and weighed the silver escudo coins, coming out to thirty-five pounds of high grade silver. Five pounds apiece, with Maddie absent.
Donal O’Donall kept the breakfast coming out steady.
Taking over Dolores’ kitchen allowed her time with her guests.
Roast beef, steak, eggs poached, scrambled, fried. Bacon piled high, sausage the same.
Hash browns, toast from sourdough, cornbread, biscuits, muffins. Pancakes and waffles. All of it drenched in butter, maple, honey and gravy.
“Donal, you’re killing me, son! Don’t know if I can fit this much,” Herbert complained unconvincingly, “Mildred’s gonna have my scalp if I don’t finish what I’m served at home!”
Mildred covered a smile, slapping Herbert’s wrist.
“Twenty-five miles of wagon road is not a thing to be done on an empty stomach, my friends!” proclaimed Donal, as he piled more bacon on the heap.
“Eat your fill before we roll! Dolores, what a fine kitchen you have. I only wish the one in my restaurant was so nice.”
“My husband spoiled me in such things,” said Dolores, “Only one reason I search for him so.”
Half an hour later, Donal had finished serving and cleaned the kitchen, stepping onto the porch for a smoke and coffee.
He made himself comfortable in the big rocking chair out there. The rest began to drift outside.
Lynch and Dolores sat together on the big bench outside, with Mildred in between.
Marilee sat on the front steps to the porch, watching the hens and the mousing kittens while the ranch hands worked the stock, making noise and dust behind the house.
A beautiful morning in the countryside.
Boss Hartley never said nothin’ about where they were headed. Hadn’t said too much at all since ridin’ outta Concho Valley.
They broke camp and rode from The Lake at first light.
Nobody talked.
Boss rode in front, eyepatch catchin’ gray dawn. He left his cigarillo unlit, because it flat pissed him off. And today he felt like stayin’ angry.
Outside Woodruff, The Crew took delivery of a herd at midday, Boss watchin’ every head come down the chute like a man countin’ his own teeth after a bar fight.
The seller was some rancher out of Sitgreaves Forest who didn’t ask questions and didn’t give answers. Boss didn’t give no answers, and didn’t ask no questions.
Money changed hands. Herd did too.
Everybody satisfied, both men touched their hat brims and rode away.
Bloodgrass Twice Life lay flat in a hide of cedar and broken rock a quarter mile away.
Close enough to count riders, far enough to be wind and shadow if any of The Crew bothered lookin. None did, though.
He watched Boss countin, Buck Roy sulking, money changin’ hands. Memorized the seller’s face. Never knew when that would matter.
Buck Roy sat his horse, off to the side. His hat was pulled low and his jaw still swollen from the fight with Lynch. He said not a thing, which suited everybody fine.
The seller rode off after countin’ his money twice.
Bloodgrass smiled grimly. That man knew Boss, alright.
“Painted Desert,” Boss said. “We push southeast, down to Red Rock Tank from a direction nobody’s watchin.”
Bloodgrass Twice Life withdrew and mounted up, knowing which track they were gonna take. He walked his tall Appaloosa gently into the trees and paused at the ridgeline before dropping into the valley below Woodruff.
He scanned the low country first, listening to The Crew cursing and rein-whippin’ the cattle to get ‘em bunched and moving, as they swung into the Painted Desert, where they would later ride a shallow draw, moving south without being seen.
Because his eye never stayed on anything for long, he let his gaze float. Over past The Crew’s drifting dust, along the rim of another mesa.
Where the light did somethin’ strange around a shape most men woulda read as “rock formation.”
But it wasn’t rock. A buckboard sat up there, tucked into a fold of stone. That rock shouldn’t hide nothin’ that size.
Two figures sat there. Watching the same herd Bloodgrass was watchin, from an angle he hadn’t found.
A man in a flat-crowned hat with the unhurried feel of somebody who’d stopped being impressed by shooting, and a woman with a rifle laid loose across her knees.
That told him plenty about both people that was worth remembering.
He eased back off the ridge, and left the buckboard to its business.
Bloodgrass followed the ridgeline, staying in the trees. He mosied east, until he couldn’t be seen, then down into the valley and rode, heading to his next waiting spot.
“So, Donal. What about this big-time pitcher you’ve got,” prompted Herbert as he sipped his coffee. “Pretty famous this year.”
Donal O’Donall drew a pleasant puff of smoke from a fine cigar and stood a little taller, shoulders moving back, straightening to tell the tale.
He moved his coat back and put his hand in his pocket, smiling in satisfaction.
“Ah. Ye ask for the Timeflinger, then.”
“The very one sir,” nodded Herbert.
Marilee turned, interested at the mention.
Donal took a small flask of whiskey and poured some in his coffee. Put the flask in his vest pocket.
“Train conductor. Aristotle Magnus Svensen, a Swede, worked the line before it stalled at Canyon Diablo. It was his train that moved Hell on Wheels, keepin’ the workmen’s town alongside the railhead.”
Lynch stepped down from the porch to help Medicine Man get Jericho and Nineveh hitched into the traces.
“Man had a fine watch. Conductor’s watch,” continued Donal. “Black Forest’s finest, from Germany. Supposed to keep only the finest of time, which it done. Without fail.”
Donal paused to light his cigar, puffing it up, then kept on.
“Svensen had the best run train on the route, you see.
‘Twas first upon the rail. And so, always on time, no matter when it showed up. Railroad finally got as far west, as Canyon Diablo. Brand new locomotive there, men awaitin, bridge showed up in crates. Boxed up proper, ready and more to tame the mighty Diablo.”
He savored his cigar, examining it carefully.
“So. They knocked together this… marvel of know-how. Prefab. Order the length, give the math you see, weight, torsion, blah de blah. Finally, they got the main platform bolted and welded.”
“Newspapers there too, from back East. And government photographers.” Med interjected.
“Indeed. As well as a brassy bloody band. They swung that big bridge out there. Just hangin’ in space. Biggest crane you ever seen. Your whole entire life.”
Donal paused for effect. A swig of Irish coffee, smack of his lips. “That moment. Disaster struck. But really, it struck months before, and only just showed now. Bridge was two and a half feet short, you see. Ordered another bridge. Took over 18 months. Now it’s finally on the rails, heading this way.”
Med nodded agreement, adding, “Rival railroad companies racin’ on that cross country route. His employer was losin’ time. While competitors were movin.”
Donal picked it up. “He was a man who was always on schedule. This delay enraged Aristotle Svensen.”
“Whatta ya do with that?” asked Lynch
“He stood out there, on that swaying bridge. Hangin’ above the canyon, on a stormlit night beneath the Great Whiskey Moon. Wound up tight he did, and he rared back. Held for a moment. Solid thing. Weighed like a brick. Then he flat out flung that watch.”
Donal shoved his hand straight out, like the watch was flying.
“Sidearm throw, just as severe as he could do it. Hurt ‘im to throw it. Painfully. Just flung it hard. Sailed clean out there. Over the gap.”
“Did it work?” asked Mildred, meeting Dolores’ eyes.
“Depends upon the point o’view, I’ll say.”
Donal glanced over his shoulder, eyes catchin’ a little sun under the derby’s brim.
“If ye mean, did it land over there? No, madam. It did not. Like the bridge itself, Svensen’s bloody watch didna cross the mysterious canyon.”
Lynch considered the story. Half legend, half confession, not knowing which half he was hearing.
“This story got a point, or is it just weather?”
“Every story’s got a point, sir. Seems he loosened a shoulder injury, from college you see, by the mighty fling. Such was the power in that throw.”
He laughed, low and genuine, a flash of white teeth past his moustache as he clenched his cigar.
“But more. He now found himself in possession of a wicked slider. Couldn’t be hit. Not that pitch. Word got out, and I, Donal O’Donall, hired him plain, for our Biscuit Eaters. That slider put us in the pennant, friend. Svensen’s Slider. Unhittable. Highest paid man in the leagues now.”
Yuma Slim shifted in the saddle, wincing hard where Franz Grimm’s red hot tongs had found Lynch’s bullet.
Boss and The Crew were out in the wilderness, with a stolen herd and a wounded grudge.
“Turn ‘em. Headin’ south here,” growled Boss.
Two Gun Handshake, now upright, but quiet in a new way nodded once, and looked at the herd instead of Boss.
The Crew turned ‘em south. Dust rose, driftin’ gold across the forest.
Boss led on. Behind him the herd moved through purple sage, calves bawling like they knew somethin’ wasn’t right.
They pushed from the edge of Hash Knife country, going south and east towards Concho.
Bloodgrass Twice Life followed at a distance, ridin’ twixt the lines, sticking to the trees.
The Crew was easy to follow. What worried him was the sign underneath. Hoofprints doubled back on ‘emselves, warning of lookout riders.
North along the established road, Traveller rolled easy in the cooling afternoon, Jericho and Nineveh keeping the easy pace they always kept.
“Svensen,” Med said out of the blue, the way most of his good stuff went.
“Aristotle Magnus Svensen. Man liked his name about as much as his watch, which is to say, considerably.”
Lynch had learned not to ask why Med was telling him this.
“Thought you said you’d heard the story different ways.”
“I have. Names shift some, tellin’ to tellin.”
Med glanced back, gray eyes catching the low sun. “Point is… man had a gift, before the rage got hold of ‘im. Some men can read a room. Svensen could read a moment. Knew exactly how long a thing would take.”
Medicine Man paused to light a big O’Donall stogie.
“Railroad loved him for it. Wife loved him for it too. At first. Then she took up with a street huckster whenever the tall Swede was running the train. She would get them a ride goin’ West from Winslow, or south from Flagstaff, because her husband was a conductor. Lived with no restraints, her and the huckster. Places like Jerome, Wickenburg. Then rode the train home.”
Lynch turned back to the road. “Hell of a thing to hand a man without no warnin.”
“Most useful things are.” Med said, but there was something under it. “You want the warnin’ now, or you wanna keep pretendin’ you didn’t already work half this out.”
Lynch didn’t answer that directly. He rode a while longer, boot humming quiet against his calf, the courthouse page keeping its own private counsel same as always.
“I don’t remember bein’ married,” he said finally, related to nothing.
“I don’t remember my own name, ain’t felt it right, in my own mouth, before somebody else said it back to me. There’s papers. Got my name. But not the one I can’t remember.”
He looked over at Med. “You got a story fragment for that too, or is that just mine to carry plain?”
Med didn’t answer right away, which was its own kind of answer.
“Some things I know and won’t say yet,” he said finally.
“Not because I’m cruel. Because sayin’ it wrong, sayin’ it before you’re ready, does more damage than not knowin.”
He clucked at the team. “You’ll get it, son. But in the order it’ll do you the least damage. That’s the best I can promise.”
Lynch let it go. He’d learned that, too. When Med meant a door was closed, pushing ²only wasted time.
Inside Traveller, somewhere between Piñon Springs and Burnham, the ladies claimed the bench seats along the wall, Med’s curiosities rattling soft in their cases with every rut in the road.
Marilee set her needlework down. “He carried the whole of Herbert’s hat boxes yesterday without breakin’ a sweat. I timed it.”
“You timed it,” Mildred said flatly, not looking up.
“I’ve got a ranch to run and the eyes God gave me, Mildred. Both work fine.” She glanced over at Dolores, who’d gotten very interested in the stitching in her lap.“Dolly, honey, you’ve had that same thread knotted ten minutes now.”
“I’m listening,” said Dolores, not listening.
“Six months,” Mildred said, gentle but pointed, setting her own work down. “Six months you’ve had that book, Dolores. Opened on every table in the territory, askin’ after your husband. And here you sit, red as a barn door, over some stranger who isn’t him.”
“I know who he isn’t, Mildred.”
“Do you?” Mildred’s needle stilled. “Because from where I sit, you’ve been lookin’ at that man’s shoulders like they owe you money. Ever since Concho.”
Marilee laughed despite herself.
Dolores didn’t.
“It isn’t him,” Dolores said quietly, and something in her voice made even Marilee stop teasing. “I would know. I would know.”
“Grief plays tricks, sugar,” Marilee said, taking her hand. “Don’t mean you’re wrong to feel somethin. Just means you oughta let yourself feel it, instead of punishing yourself.”
Mildred said nothing more. She only reached over and covered both their hands with hers, the three of them rocking easy together as Traveller journeyed on.
Medicine Wagon rolled down the route without thinking, which mostly was because Jericho and Nineveh had the road memorized. Didn’t need steering.
Jeb just kept along with ‘em.
Lynch rode absently beside the wagon, scanning terrain with his boot hummin’ away. It really wasn’t the same hum now. It had been urgent, a live wire against his calf. Now it was quieter, like the courthouse page knew where they were going.
Maybe it just traveled well. Maybe his instinct was right and it was an index key. If its purpose was locating things, that would make sense.
The road unspooled ahead, through cedar and red dirt, easy country. He scanned without thinking for a while. Burnham came out of the afternoon dust, looking like a road and farm piece of country. Orderly rows of orchards and fence lines divided the valley, a town that kept its business tidy.
Bunting was put up with care, harvest colors instead of festival reds, and the streets were filled with wagons coming in from every ranch and settlement within reach.
Fiddle tuning drifted from the town hall. Somebody was frying something that smelled like it was worth standing in line for.
Lynch felt the pull before he understood it. The courthouse page, quieter than usual but something else, a low draw toward the north edge of town he couldn’t put a name to.
“Biscuit Eaters are playin’ the Traders Sunday,” one farmer said to another, passing close enough for Lynch to catch it.
“Concho boys think they got it this year.”
“Concho boys thought that last year too.”
“Traders took the pennant last year.”
“That’s what I said.”
Both men laughed like it was an old joke wore smooth from handling. Lynch found himself smiling, despite the strange pull, still tugging quiet at the edge of him.
Traveller rolled to her spot near the trading post and began to unfold, in no hurry.
East of Snowflake, the herd kept moving toward Red Rock Tank. Up above it, unseen by any of them, the buckboard kept pace along a ridge road that didn’t appear on any map.
Off to the west, cresting a low rise where the cedar broke enough to give a clear sightline, Bloodgrass Twice Life sat his horse and watched The Crew’s dust settle into a livery yard on the far side of the riverbank.
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