The Scoundrel

“Is Daniel McCabe here?”

“Over here, boy.” Lazily, Daniel indicated the one remaining chair at his table. “Why don’t you sit a spell?”

The dancers murmured their agreement. The clerk gawked at them, at their impressive bosoms, then at the empty chair. A blush rose clear from his starched collar to his eyebrows.

“No, thank you, sir. I couldn’t.”

“Sure, you could. I have one lady more than I can handle, anyway.”

The dancers tittered. They leaned his way with joint protests. Another minute and he’d forget the boy was there at all. Resolutely, Daniel focused on the clerk.

“Well?”

“Well, uh… I came to bring you a message. You’ve got a delivery down at the railroad depot.”

“A delivery? I’m not expecting anything. Are you sure it’s for me? McCabe?”

“I’m sure. We haven’t been able to determine much else about it, but we know one thing for sure. It’s for you.”

“I’ll get it tomorrow.” Daniel raised his whiskey in the clerk’s direction. “You man enough for one of these? I’ll buy you a boost for your trouble in coming down here to find me.”

“Oh, no. You’ve got to come with me. Tonight.”

A portion of Daniel’s good cheer evaporated. “I’ve got plans for tonight. Believe me, they don’t include hightailing it to the train depot.”

Inconveniently, the boy held fast. He didn’t so much as glance at the proffered glass of Old Orchard.

Daniel held out a coin instead. “Here. If you’re not a drinking man, take this to the apothecary. Get yourself one of those medicinal soda waters they sell. Maybe it’ll grow some hair on your chest.”

The clerk’s blush deepened, but he straightened his spine doggedly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist you come with me.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. “You insist?”

The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Uhhh…yes, sir.”

Squinting against his cigarillo smoke, Daniel eyeballed the clerk. He was plain ruining his night—and his plans for Beatrice, the dancer to his right, too. There was something downright intriguing about that feather in her hair….

But if the boy had to “insist” one more time, he looked as if he might piss his britches. Daniel had that effect on men sometimes. He didn’t mean for it to happen. There was just something about his size, his strength…his reputation for bending steel.

He heaved a sigh, drained his whiskey, then stood. “All right. Stay here, ladies. I’ll be back before you can say ‘lickety-split.’”

He would not be back before “lickety-split.”

In fact, he’d be lucky to get back before his dancing girls pulled foot for San Francisco, Daniel realized. That much became clear the moment he stepped on the platform at the train depot and spotted the commotion there.

He surveyed the gathering crowd. At this time of night—when lanterns illuminated the platform and a dark breeze made the nearby ponderosa pines swish and creak—most people should have been abed, not at the depot. But there was a sizable crowd there, all the same. Ambling nearer in the clerk’s wake, Daniel cocked his head toward the mysterious thumps and muffled swear words he heard. Some kind of scuffling reached him next.

“C’mere, you little hooligan!” the stationmaster said, grabbing for something Daniel couldn’t see.

Whatever it was, it managed to duck away. Several women squealed. The whole group surged backward in a clatter of boot heels and ladies’ button-ups.

“All aboard!”

To Daniel’s right at the waiting train, the conductor issued his standard boarding call for the westbound 8:47 passage. Then, hardly waiting for any response, he jumped on the train and signaled the engineer. Smoke bellowed from the engines as the cars pulled out. The train looked, Daniel would have sworn, to be in a marked hurry.

Curious.

The clerk nudged him. “Looks like your delivery’s still here,” he observed, nodding to the crowd.

From within it came more scuffling. More swearing. More squealing. Apparently, Daniel’s “delivery” was a part of that mess.

At the realization, a sense of prickly unease rushed over him. Something was akilter here. Worse, he’d just been called into the thick of it.

Regretfully, Daniel let pass a moment’s mourning for the waltz lessons he’d doubtless be missing. Then he strode forward. He wasn’t a man to back down from a challenge, no matter how much cussing and fighting was involved. Or how much mystery.

At Daniel’s approach, the murmuring crowd parted. In its midst, he glimpsed the beleaguered-looking stationmaster, then someone about waist height. A child. Before he could do more than take note of the boy’s dirt-smudged face, big dark eyes and wild demeanor, the child glanced up. Recognition sparked in his expression.

“You’re here!”

An instant later, the boy hurled himself at Daniel’s midsection. The tinned beans, bread and ale he’d consumed for dinner were jostled mightily by the impact. Wincing, Daniel took the child by the shoulders and set him apart.

Or at least he tried to. The boy was uncommonly wiry and determined, to boot. When Daniel gently pulled, the child merely…stretched a little, his grimy fingers clenched fast on Daniel’s leather belt.

Confused, Daniel looked up. Although the crowd had not dispersed in the least, the stationmaster had already begun retreating to his usual post. The man brushed his palms together and waddled across the platform, shoulders sagging with relief. The clerk, too, scurried to the depot’s entrance.

They both moved, it occurred to Daniel, with the same haste the train conductor and engineer had employed.

“Hold, there!” Daniel bellowed.

At his shout, the boy started. His scrawny shoulders jerked. A mighty snuffle issued from the vicinity of Daniel’s shirtfront. Awkwardly, he lowered his voice.

“What about my delivery?” he demanded.

“You’re holdin’ it,” the stationmaster said.

The clerk nodded.

Daniel frowned.

The crowd watched avidly. Their expressions put him in mind of the sight that probably greeted a lion tamer when he looked out from inside the circus ring. What the hell was going on here? Had everyone gone daft?

“I was not expecting…a child.”

“We’ve heard that afore!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Titters followed.

“Yeah. Long about April, after a long winter’s rest.”