Part 12 (1/2)

”I've got money,” he said, digging into his pocket. He dropped a handful of coins on the table. Silver dollars, mostly, but a twenty-dollar gold piece wheeled unsteadily toward the edge.

I caught the double eagle before it rolled off.

”All right, Jim,” I said, closing my hand around the gold coin. ”But if I help you contact your sister, you have to promise me something.”

”Anything.”

”That you'll wire your people in Ohio, straightaway.”

”But they'll want me to come home.”

”You don't have to go home,” I said. ”But you can't keep them in the dark, wondering if they've lost another child. You must have driven them crazy with worry.”

”But I'm a ranger,” he said. ”A rounder. A lone wolf from-”

”You're a kid from Ohio who is on his way to drinking himself to death.”

”Sometimes I don't remember the things I do when I'm drunk,” he said. ”I get my dander up pretty d.a.m.ned quick, as Marshal Deger and Old Man Ba.s.sett can tell you. Sometimes I do things I'm not proud of.”

”Look, Jim,” I said. ”Do we have a deal?”

He nodded.

”Here's how it works,” I said. ”Go find a piece of paper and a pencil and write down everything it is that you want to tell your sister, just like you were writing her a letter. Take some time, because you want to make sure that you get it all down, because we might only have one chance to make contact with her.”

He looked puzzled.

”But at the opera house, you said you couldn't contact General Custer because he had been dead for less than a year. How is this going to work for Katie, considering she's only been gone a few months?”

”Oh, that,” I said. ”I made that up so I wouldn't embarra.s.s that young soldier in front of everybody. Truth is, the general didn't want to talk to a corporal.”

”Ah,” Jim said.

”Come back here with your paper, along about dark, and we'll see in what shape the ether is in. If things look good, we'll arrange a session-a seance.”

”Is that double eagle going to cover it?”

”Let me have the silver and paper money, too,” I said.

Diamond Jim looked shocked.

”I don't want you getting skunked before you write that letter,” I said, picking his money up off the table as he emptied his pockets. ”Come back at dark, like I said.”

As Jim Murdock was walking out of the Saratoga, the bounty hunter Jack Calder was coming in. He declined a cigar and gave Diamond Jim a short lecture about the sanct.i.ty of private property.

”Professor,” Calder said as he approached the table. He was wearing another blue s.h.i.+rt under the black vest. The s.h.i.+rt matched his eyes. Unlike the other men in Dodge, I had never seen him wear a hat.

”Do you mind?”

”Not at all,” I said, as cool as I could manage. The memory of his rudeness at our first meeting still stung, and I loathed myself for it. ”What can I do for the firm of Frazier and Hunnicutt?”

”Not sure,” he said. ”I feel a little foolish.”

Secretly, I was pleased.

”Don't,” I said. ”Tell me what's on your mind.”

”Saw your act last night,” he said. ”I feel foolish because you had me believing for a spell. You were right entertaining, I have to admit. But let's face it, n.o.body can talk to the dead.”

I smiled. ”Do you go to church, Mister Calder?”

”Not regular.”

”But you have.”

”When I was a boy,” he said. ”Methodist. Bell County, Texas.”

”But not now.”

”I've been to a wedding or two at the Union Church, up on Gospel Ridge,” he said. As he spoke, he seldom looked directly at me. He seemed, instead, to be looking at a spot just over my left shoulder. ”But we don't have a steady preacher. Sometimes the congregations up in Emporia or Topeka will send somebody down the railroad track our way, to wave the Good Book at us for a Sunday or two. What's your point?”

”That you sometimes go to church, and presumably you pray to something you can't see or touch. Now, how is that different than what I do? You can't prove any more than I can that what you're talking to when you pray is really there. Just maybe I'm talking to the real thing, too.”

”Horse apples.”

”All right,” I said. ”Let's a.s.sume for a moment that I am, as you say, full of horse apples. How does it do any more harm than gathering in that church up on Gospel Ridge and saying some words over a body you're about to plant in the ground? It doesn't do any more harm, I say, and might even do some good.”

”What you have is a business, not a religion.”

”Compared to the other establishments in this town, I'd say I'm performing a civic duty,” I said. ”I don't encourage the drinking of alcohol, and n.o.body is losing a season's wages at the faro table. When people leave my show, they're happy.”

”I didn't say I wanted to close you down.”

”Not yet,” I said. ”In my experience, that usually comes just before somebody like you asks for protection money. What do you want, ten percent? Twenty?”

”I don't do that.”

”Then what do you want?”

”To tell you I'll be watching,” he said. ”Ever since we met, I've had this queer feeling in my gut, like I ate something bad. You dress strange and you talk funny, and everybody in town knows about your pet raven and your conversations with the dead. If I thought you believe in this stuff, then I might feel a little easier. But I can tell you, Miss Wylde, that in my line of work, I meet a lot of liars. Hands down, you are the best.”

”I'm sorry you feel that way,” I said, and meant it. ”I wish I could convince you otherwise. What would it take?”

He rubbed his jaw. ”Do you know about this dead girl they found on the Hundredth Meridian marker? Throat cut, n.o.body knows her name, buried up on Boot Hill. The one the paper says is haunting the Santa Fe right-of-way.”

”I heard something about it.”