The Five Dollar Mail (Book 1: The Green & Book 2: Lynch's Boys)

26: William's Station

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. All graphics by yours truly. Picture of Wash is an ambrotype-look photo I made in Photoshop out of found images.

Saint's first conscious thought upon awakening was that it was light outside. It was light outside, and nobody had split his skull with a warclub during the night as he slept. Considering how exhausted he'd been the night before, he probably wouldn't have really minded the warclub so much, provided the Paiute wielding it had been quiet enough not to have awakened him.

He could hear Wash and Devereaux chatting softly, and he smelled bacon and coffee. He opened his eyes and focused on the smoke-darkened rafters above his head. He had slept like a corpse, evidently not moving all night. Clearly, he'd needed it.

Glancing around the cabin, he sat up stiffly, shuffling his foot around the dirt floor for his boots.

Wash, sitting at the makeshift table, looked up from his breakfast. " 'Morning, lad." He said around a mouthful of bacon. "How's things?"

"Good. Just needed some sleep." He deftly shook out his boots before putting them on. "Is it late?"

"Eh." Wash grunted. "Midmornin'. Figured we'd let ya sleep in a bit. I was afraid ye were about to keel over yesterday."

Saint hauled his boots onto his feet and stood up, tucking in his shirt and buttoning his jeans. "Nah." he strode over to the stove and grabbed a mug, filling it with lukewarm brew. "Takes more than a late night to do me in." He took a deep gulp and grimaced. "This coffee might do it."

"I notice your cribbin' about the quality of the coffee never seems to stop you drinkin' it." Wash snorted.

"If you complain over it first, it tastes better." He sat down on a crate as Devereaux passed him a plate with some furiously fried eggs and charred bacon. "Thanks, Dev." He crunched the bacon happily. "Any news?"

"None since last night." the grizzled stationkeeper said somberly.

Saint noted the lines of worry on Devereaux's face. "Well" he started uneasily, "...I guess that's good then, eh?"

"Boys," Devereaux was clearly troubled. "Ain't nobody came through here at all for days."

Wash and Saint exchanged glances. Devereaux went on. "Last boy came through here was Ras Egan. And yours is the first coach I seen all week. Ain't nothing traveling east."

"Egan made it to our place." Wash said. "Passed off the mochila to Storm then slept a couple hours before heading back to Salt Lake House."

'Thats about right." Devereaux agreed. "But eastbound? Nient." He sat silently brooding for a moment, then said suddenly, "Do me a favor, boys. Tell Peltier to keep his head down. Gonna be some bad Indian trouble. I can smell it. Might have to lay low myself. People lose their damn minds when they get scared."

"Well." Wash sighed heavily. "Ain't that a right kick in the bollocks. You think it's Paiutes holding up the line?"

"I know a posse was getting put together to head out there and take care of 'em. That sure as hell ain't gonna end well, either way. So they go traipsin' off looking for trouble with them, and next thing you know, there ain't no eastbound nothin' coming up the line. What do you think? Right now, I ain't wondering if anyone else is gonna die, I'm wondering who and how many."

Saint and Wash were both looking hard at each other. Saint could see that the older man was thinking the exact thing he was thinking. "So, Wash." He said softly. "What do we do? Do we keep going?"

A small muscle in Wash's jaw twitched. "I dunno, lad. We got this far without trouble."

"We did. Merda". Saint leaned back against the wall, slouching on the crate. "I can't see turning around like cowards."

"Nor can I."

"I say we go on."

Wash nodded grimly. "Aye. We only got to make it to Salt Lake House."

"Yeah." Saint agreed softly. "Dev..." he put his fork down. "Tell us what happened at William's."

Devereaux rubbed his messy beard and he swallowed hard. "Five or so men dead, I heard. Tortured, from the looks of things. Burned to char, maybe while they were alive. Paiutes don't kill people they're trying to punish quick-like. They take their time. The station was burned down to nothing and the stock all stolen. But I don't think it was just about them stealing the horses. This killing was meant to send some kind of message. They ain't done this for no reason, Paiutes ain't the types to go looking for trouble. They're smart enough to know this sort of thing will do nothing but attract attention they don't want. Something happened to push 'em over the edge, I just don't know what."

"They may have killed some folks in the surrounding territory," he went on, "but you know how stories get bigger the further they travel. I ain't sure I believe that part, but the part about them boys being cut up and set on fire, well, that news came down the line damn quick, before everyone else heard. That part I believe."

He got up and walked heavily to the washbasin with his plate. "You boys might be ridin' into a war for all I know."

Wash exhaled in a shaking sigh. "Jaysus." He mumbled, unnerved. "They don't pay us enough for this shite."

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