Chapter 30: Tales from the Past
The train shook and squealed, shrieking as it rode down the rails, following along the Wagons' Run trail. Boone sat smashed against the window, staring out at the bowl of sand that stretch beyond the horizon in every direction.
"I'm hungry." Rynan grumbled, looking around the caboose; the internal was painted an eye-straining red with yellow trim around the seats and overhead storages. " Do you see anywhere to get a bite?"
"You're fault. You should've came for breakfast when I told ya."
Rynan stomach turned and rumbled. He patted his stomach, "I had other matters to attend to."
"And what's that? Reading what's written on the back of your eye." Boone shoved the boy. "Can you give me some room! You've got me so shoved up against the wall I can hardly breathe."
Rynan scooted more into the aisle, which did little to ease the restraint Boone felt.
"You boys are as feisty as my two boars; Rupen and Boot." Grotknot guffawed. "I sure do miss them two."
Jercobish and Jostice stared from two rows up, both looking at the short man without unkind eyes; the three of them, and the stable boy Tigress, caught up to them at the train station. Boone was glad to see Pappy but he wondered how Ma Jean was doing.
"We'll speak on her behalf soon," Jerocobish told him.
Grotknot snorted with laughter. "I've got a tale to tell the pair of ya." The large man combed through his whiskers."Last time I was in Sundown City I made this bet see—"
"This story isn't a confession, is it?" Leslie asked, kicked up in a pair of seats across from him, wearing her white brimmed hat, blue trousers, and
a white button shirt that was as white as her smile. Her hair sat wavy on this day, red as the morning sun, draping down across her shoulder while thick bangs draped across her face. She laughed "Wouldn't wanna haveta arrest you."
Grotknot eyes twinkled at her threat. He guffawed, "My dear Sheriff, I've got nothing to hide other than the bottle of gut rut I ain't looking to share." He turn back towards the boys. "Now as I was saying…I was at this bar last time I was out there. Well, it wasn't really a bar, but a gambling hall."
"Gambling hall?" Leslie asked.
"Will you shut it woman, I'm trying to hear myself think." He waved a hand and led the group in a long, loud fit of laughter. "Where was I? Oh yes, the gambling hall. So I was with me Lads, other Borksmen like meself, and we were doing what's called a Saloon Sweep."
"Saloon sweep?" Rynan asked, scratching his messy red hair. "What's that?"
"You Turnbuckles ever just shut your traps and listen? The minor details ain't what's important, but what is, is what happened."
Boone looked beyond the bill of his father's hat and nudged Rynan. "A Saloon Sweep is where worthless men go drinking from bar-to-bar trying to see if they can make it the whole night...A bit of a pointless outing if you'd ask me."
"I'd say," Jerocobish grumbled.
"Don't you Riggers start with your nonsense too. As I was saying, I was at this gambling hall drunker than skunked when this scaly faced man came walking up to me." He guffawed. "Thought he had blackstraw at first, and for a good minute thought I had it meself." He chuckled. "That beer sure does a number on ones head."
Jerocobish said. "Even sober you're never much too smart."
"Sober?" The man puffed out his chest, offended. "I haven't been sober since I was a boy of three. And even then I was drunk off the liquor in the milk of my mama's teet." He guffawed and everybody stared at him silently. "Was that a bit too much truth for the likes of you, Lads? Wimps, I tell ya." Grotknot squinted an eye. "So I looked at this scaly faced maggot and said "what it is you want? Can I offer you a drink?" And the man shook his head, "no" he says. "I want ta kindly ask you and your friends to leave."
"You're not talking about old scaleface is you?" Jostice puffed on a cigarette, glaring. "Because it's never good to cross a man filled with poison."
Boone watched the man feeling himself tremble in his boots. As much as he tried he couldn't keep his eyes off of him. "He's just an old friend," his Pappy told him, but something of the man was familiar; the long brown trench coat and tall brown brimmed out; even the angry expression in his eyes felt familiar.
"No matter there, Lad." Grotknot guffawed. "I've consumed enough poison that I'd be immuned." He took coughed and spat then looked at the boys. "So I told this man, "Listen Green-eye, if y'all can out drink me and the Lads then we'll leave your establishment…but if ya can't then our tab will be taken care of by the likes of you."
Boone found himself drawn into the story. Imagining being there and watching the events unfold.
"So the man takes of his white-tailed jacket, rolls up his sleeves, tilts his top hat and says, "Done." He then snapped his fingers and a group of large men came up around us; at least twice our size—" He brought his hand to his check, "—looking much like a toad if ya asked me. And together we drank until we were on the floor and all the barrels in the Saloon were empty." He guffawed, shaking his head.
"Then what happened?" Rynan asked, his eyes round as moons.
"I woke up the next morning to the scalyman yelling at the top of his lungs: I looked around the Saloon and it'd been turned upside down. Chairs, tables, glassware all over the place." His eyes dropped. "And one of the scaly bastards poor brothers puked and drowned in his sleep; that was a damn shame, but at least we didn't have to pay our tabs." He lifted his chin and bellowed with laughter. "My point to the tale is—what is the point to the story—awe yes, I remember now. My point is, Laddies. Don't make a wager if you're uncertain if you can win."
"That's the thing with old Scaleface." Jostice Admitted. "He can't say no to a bet—and it's cost him for it—more than I can count."
Leslie rubbed her chin. "I heard about that from some of the deputies who were on patrol that night. They said it was a victory without the expense of lives; and that brother scaleface was one of the most ruthless outlaws in Sundown City before his passing."
"That was before we knew him," Jerocobish said, "before we'd befriended him if you can call it that...but just remember, Grotknot, bad blood stays in the veins until those veins are slit or the hands that they belong to do the slitting."
Grotknot nodded. "That's another lesson for you Lads. You can't run from your past…" He looked over at Jostice. "Sometimes you haveta stand up and face'em."
Boone watched Jostice take another drag of his cigarette then stand to his feet, "I'm going for a walk."
Rynan fought to his feet. "And I am gonna use the loo." He looked around, "y'all know which direction it is? Thank you, Sis. I'll be back."
Boone mumbled, "He's probably going to look for a snack."
Jercobish waited for them to clear the room and then stood up, dressed in a top hat, black trousers and a long-tailed coat; the white button shirt he wore matched all but the hairs that'd been stained by smoke attached to his face and head. He grunted as he sat.
"You hurt, Pappy?"
The man hesitated, "not from a pain that you're aware of...I need to speak to ya, son."
Boone sat up straight. "I'm all ears, Pappy. What is it that you need to tell me?"
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