The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [89]
Wait, thought Frank, and the clouds parted: Who was to say he couldn't work out the same arrangement now that he was nearly free again? Was he doomed to keep hitching his fate to some sage hen's apron strings the minute she salted her tail for him? No. He felt joy bubble up inside him like springwater. That was it: He would blaze a new trail for himself. No more box canyons. No more cow bunnies putting their brand on him.
As he ground out his cigarette, the tubby stationmaster came running up with the schedule of trains that had left Phoenix that morning: two freights, two passenger, one local mail run. Why they had let any train out of the yard under these circumstances was beyond Frank, but he'd long ago given up any hope he'd be put in charge of running the world. A small crowd of anxious volunteers gathered around him waiting for his response.
"You wire ahead to the next stop on all of these trains?" asked Frank.
The stationmaster screwed his face into a ball; he'd read a couple of Buckskin Frank books and felt plainly intimidated. "You think we should?"
"Well. Yes."
"But, but we searched through all the trains before we let them go."
"So?"
The station master grinned like he had a painfully full bladder, took the schedule back from Frank, and headed back to the terminal.
I'll give him ten before he breaks into a trot, thought Frank, watching the man go. It took eight.
Frank sighed heavily and scanned the crowd; nearly a month had passed since his last conjugal visit at the hoosegow. He wondered idly how complicated it would be to get his wick dipped before the manhunt moved on. He rolled another cigarette and walked away from the gawkers like he was searching for clues and they left him alone again.
Thirty paces later he found a puddle of blood in the dirt. He dipped in his finger: dry. At least two hours old. A trail of gouts led away and ended at an empty set of tracks; the stationmaster would know which train had been sitting on these rails.
"Mr. McQuethy?"
He turned: a group of five women, the ones he'd seen watching him from the platform, standing ten yards away. He tipped his hat.
"Ladies."
The one who'd spoken stepped forward; a big-boned strawberry blonde. Best looking one in the bunch, which said less than he might have hoped for. "If you'll forgive the intrusion: We read about your release in the paper this morning."
"Uh-huh."
The woman blushed. "And we, well, I guess we're just about your biggest fans here in Phoenix; we've read all your books and followed your career with a great deal of interest."
"Uh-huh."
"I think you knew a cousin of mine down in Tombstone a few years back, Sally Ann Reynolds? She was a waitress there at the Silver Dollar Saloon?" The blonde blushed red as an apple when Frank didn't immediately respond. "Anyway ..."
"How is Sally Ann?" he said with a smile, and not the slightest idea who she was talking about.
"Fine; she's married now, living in Tucson, has a couple of kids."
"You must be sure and give her my regards."
"I can't tell you how excited she'll be to know we've spoken."
There was that look in her eye: the flash of light in a cheap diamond. Frank felt simultaneously cornered and stimulated. Story of his life.
"We know you have a terribly busy time ahead of you, but we were wondering if it would be possible to invite you to lunch sometime while you're here in town."
Frank smiled again and, as was perpetually the case, every memory of every unhappiness ever visited on him by a woman vanished like tax money.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Her name was Mary Williams: Dante Scruggs found that out from two old biddies at the boarding house. She'd told them that she came from a small town in rural Minnesota, where she'd been a schoolteacher, and that she was hoping to find the same work in Chicago. They took her at her word. Dante told them he was from the school board and wanted to check her references: Better if you don't tell Miss Williams I stopped by, he said with