Trouble Shooter. Ernest Haycox
Watching Campeaux, she observed his face grow heavy. The hatred between the two was something that couldn't be hidden. Yet it was equally clear to her that Campeaux held a deep respect for Peace. For he said later:
"He's got four years of the rebellion behind him, a year of Indian fighting, and a year of this job. You get hard fast in this country. Or you don't stay."
"I suppose so. Though it is not pleasant to remember."
Campeaux permitted himself a thin smile. "You'll hear him referred to as the man who tamed Julesburg."
"What was that?"
"Just a story."
She still had her eyes on Peace, watching that black head roll to the motion of the car. He was relaxed, and he had forgotten her, but there was a scowling line across his forehead and he had his eyes on the yellow message. The Irishmen in the aisle were beginning to boil again, dragging their belongings from beneath the seats.
Carnpeaux spoke. "Practically to Cheyenne—and seven o'clock."
"The Magic City of the Plains," murmured Nan.
Campeaux bent forward. "You'll like the country."
"I expect to."
He rolled his big body back against the seat. "It's for gamblers. You're a gambler."
"In my own way—yes."
Campeaux had a trick of lifting his heavy lids when he was interested—as he did now. Considering the round, cold inexpressiveness of that glance, Nan Normandy felt her guard go up. But a moment later Campeaux's attitude became indifferent. His hands, thick and soft, lay idle across his legs.
He said: "I want to help you."
Nan Normandy's shoulders lifted. But she didn't speak.
Paddy Miles yelled down the aisle: "Cheyenne!"
All the Irishmen were crowding toward the car doors and an enormous confusion began to rack the narrow space. They were laughing, and the long hours on the train had dammed up a wildness that was about to burst through. In a quick half glance she saw Frank Peace gather up his plunder and join this crush. He had not looked at her again—he had forgotten her entirely, she thought one man wheeled to say something to Peace and she noted his swift grin return. The train stopped. Beyond the fogged window she saw the lights of Cheyenne shining down a strange, raw street.
Campeaux said, "Mitch," without turning his head, and a great creature rose from the seat behind Campeaux. Nan hadn't noticed him before. He had a mustache shaped thinly like a crescent across his flat lips and a pair of muddy eyes set up a little flash under the brim of his hat. He came around and stood obediently in the aisle. His face was very dark, his features blunt to the point of brutality. "Take those things, Mitch," added Campeaux, and rose.
The aisle was emptied and Nan preceded Campeaux along it to the platform. A harsh wind struck her in the face. Lanterns flashed along the station runway and many men roved the adjoining mud calling out other men's names. In all those voices was something eager and high-pitched and gay. Coming down the steps uncertainly she stopped to wait for Campeaux.
Frank Peace's voice said, behind her: "Any way I can help you?"
It turned her around. He stood there in the frosty glitter of the weaving lantern lights. His head bent toward her. She observed then the pale scar running across his left temple. There were two other men in the background, obviously waiting for him.
Somewhere a man's leather lungs kept yelling at the disembarked Irishmen. "Come over to the Club saloon, you faro sports, and give us a bet! Come over—come over!"
A near-by gun was being fired unevenly into the turbulent night, its reports stretched thin by the gusty, bitter wind. The other girl on the train slipped down the steps and for a moment her white face tipped to Peace. It was something Nan could not help seeing—that strained, somber expression. Then she vanished in the churning confusion.
Nan said: "You have been nice—and thank you. Mr. Campeaux has offered to help me."
The change of his eyes astonished her. They darkened immeasurably and showed disbelief. It was as though he had stepped through a gate and closed it between them. She did not know why, and the moment hurt her. Campeaux came on, speaking bluntly at Peace.
"There's a few things, friend Frank, you ought to stay out of."
Peace said briefly, "I suppose so." He turned on his heel and joined the other two men waiting there. All of them shouldered through the crowd. Something had definitely happened here, oddly depressing her. Campeaux's man, Mitch, got his abnormally long arms around all the luggage and stood patiently by.
"You will want to have a bite to eat," said Campeaux. "The proper place is the Rollins House. Go on, Mitch, go on." He gave his arm to Nan and they drifted slowly with the crowd. There was a man standing by the line of cars, looking on—a short man with very wide shoulders and a gray head. Something amused him and he turned around, impelled to talk. There was only a stranger from the train at hand—another Irishman with an emerald greenness of the isle still thick about him. But the short one laughed with a long amusement.
"You see that? That bully boy with the high-coupled hips—that was Frank Peace, the man who wrecked Julesburg. And him a-talkin' to the girl when Big Sid Campeaux steps up to take her away. Now that was a thing. What's your name?"
"Callahan—and where do I shleep?"
"Ah," said the small man scornfully, "why should you be wantin' to sleep? Listen to me, Callahan. I'm Collie Moynihan. Campeaux took the girl from under Frank's nose—a rare sight and one you'll nawt be likely to see repeated, When you buy a drink or dance with the girls or try your luck at monte it is likely Campeaux's pocket you'll be linin', It was so in Julesburg where Campeaux and his gamblin' devils thought to dispute the word of the railroad's marshal there. And so Peace drops back with a few of us chosen ones, Callahan—a few of us railroad boys. We kill and we cure and we leave fifteen of those bad ones to christen a new graveyard, which Julesburg was a-needin', And here now Campeaux takes this girl from bucko Frank. A rare sight."
"And why," said Callahan, very prompt in his answer, "did we not shtep up there and show this Campeaux the evil of his way?"
Collie Moynihan slid one finger along his nose and laughed—a long, cheerful laugh.
"If you're ableatin' at me—" suggested Callahan softly.
"There is plenty of time, me green one, for fightin'. Indade there is. An' you'll nawt be a much oulder man when it comes to you. Come with me to the commissary shack."
II
The three of them—Leach Overmile, Phil Morgan and Peace—shouldered into the crowd, skirting the fresh pine-boarded buildings of the railroad offices, turning around the vast piles of steel and ties and boxed supplies waiting here to be thrown forward to the end of track. Engines were backing down the sidings, rattling up the long strings of cars. Men were working near by on a new shed, with a huge bonfire to guide their hammers and their saws. A recent rain had turned Cheyenne's main street to a churned and beaten and knee-deep river of mud along which, even at this late hour, the toiling freight wagons were moving hub to hub in formless confusion.
Across the gulf of mud Peace saw the glitter of Cheyenne's saloons and dance halls and business houses stretching away into the windy night. Tent or log framed or pine-boarded, all of them were booming with the traffic and trade of the newly opened construction year. Over on the corner of Eddy the vast shape of Campeaux's Club saloon, a circus tent fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long, emitted its solid gush of light, and a band in there made an enormous clatter through which the hoarse spiel of the barker at the door rose and fell.
"Not a building here last July—and now look at it," observed Peace.
"Nine