Saddle Dust

Part 2 Chapter 1

Late 1866

"Well, isn't that just peachy."
He hadn't meant it to sound sarcastic, but it did. It really was peachy after all. He stands up and looks out of the dust-crusted windows onto the main street of sleepy town Blair, Nebraska. It's a particularly hot spring in the middle of nowhere.
The majority of the wagon trains haven't yet begun their journeys. Even the earliest of birds are still wintering in the northeast. They would be damned fools to be this far west with snow still on the lower peaks.
"What is, sir?"
It's Quintin Thomas speaking now, but silence continues to drift in through the sunbeams coming from the window. Quintin didn't expect an answer, not from the boss at least. But the cleanly folded letter looked important. Official even. It was typed with a typewriter. And a nice one at that. Naturally, he was curious. He brought the boss the crisp letter along with one of the boss' favorite beers.
He's obsessed with them.
The boss is on his sixth bottle already and it's barely noon yet.
Hell, he's probably talking to the bottle right now. He does that sometimes. Talks to them when he thinks no one's listening. With some people, the beer talks for them. But in the boss' case, he talks—
Quintin has been staring down dog-eyed at the half full beer bottle left sweating on the desk and when he looks up he realizes that the boss, Chester Waterton, has been eyeing him suspiciously through the spectacles pinched precariously on the end of his large, hooked nose. The remaining strands of his greasy black hair are shining with sweat.
"You know, I never liked shrimpy, skinny people like you. They were always too, well, inquisitive, like you. It's just not good for business. Like you. But I must say, that typist in Missouri you recommended to me did a splendid job. He went so far as to research the names in the papers! Even a real government official wouldn't be able to tell it apart from their own work. It's foolproof!"
Quintin begins to empathize with the beer bottle on the table. Cold, under scrutiny, and sweaty. He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously in his thin neck under a layer of clean shaven skin.
"Y-yes sir, Mr. Waterton. Thank you sir. I'll leave you be now sir."
Quintin takes his black felt bowler in his hands and turns to leave, but the boss holds up a hand, his gaze softening as, well, as much as it ever does when Waterton is addressing a lesser.
"No, you stay right where you are. Since this is good news, I'll let you in on a little secret of mine."
Waterton brings out his two-notches-down-from-full-oil grease grin as he walks around his desk and pulls a wooden stool in the corner over to the victim side of his desk.
"Here, sit. I could use you for a minute."
Waterton pats the stool with one enormous square hand and Quintin sits down delicately, his long legs folding awkwardly on the low rungs. It's a common business tactic Waterton uses, especially when dealing with debtors. Make them feel little is what he always says to the few favorite and serious apprentices he allows in the office.
Quintin is not one of the favorite apprentices, so Waterton's seeming hospitality immediately makes him suspicious.
Waterton sits on his own side of the desk and takes up a pair of half-moon spectacles hanging from a gold chain around his large neck. He clears his throat, picks up a pearl-embossed pen, and dips it into the blue ink well. He then picks up a discarded piece of paper from the side of his desk, and places it diplomatically on his blue cow leather writing mat. He clears his throat again. He glances up at Quintin, a playful gleam now in his expression, and for a second, Quintin is certain he sees his own life flash before his eyes. A small puddle has formed around the base of the bottle on the desk. Its stain will undoubtedly leave a mark to match the growing collection of water stains already closing in on the cow-leather mat.
"What's the date today? The sixteenth? Seventeenth?"
Quintin starts slightly before realizing that the boss is talking to him again.
"Y-yes, the si-six-sixt-teenth. Sir."
Waterton looks down. Quintin feels a bead of sweat join the river already running down his back into the base of his too large tucked shirt. It will probably stain, he thinks before returning his attention to Waterton who has begun to write a collection of words at the top of the paper. He mutters to himself as he writes.
Sixteenth of May, 1882...Hmmm... no, try again... how about...May 16, 1882...no...ugh...Dear daughter...no! Absolutely not!
Waterton looks up at Quintin again. This time, it's the scrutiny of a hawk that seems to pierce Quintin's body.
"Boy, when your father writes you a letter, how does he write? You know, how does he address you? Give you the news, update you on life at home?"
Quintin is honored to be addressed by such a title. It is acknowledging of his humanity, and a refreshing change from the boss' usual refrain of "you" and "that apprentice" and on occasion: "no, I meant that son of a bitch. Not you."
Quintin replies slowly, thinking it over.
"Well, my pop usually doesn't date the letters. He's more one for the weather and seasons, less for calendars and such. You know, he's the out of doors sort."
"Hmm...go on, go on."
The pen drips onto the paper but Waterton is fixated on Quintin.
"Well, I suppose he writes a bit about what is going on, but not usually. And he never addresses me. He always says that if I'm the one receiving the letter, then I should know who's its for and such."
"Oh ho ho! So he likes to keep his letters short then, does he?"
"Y-yes. V-very short. Almost like he's writing a t-telegram or something. You know, like they do in the cities?"
Waterton looks down at his paper and scratches out the few words he has written. He seems to be warming up to something. Then he suddenly cries out, making Quintin jump.
"Yes I do, dear boy! I certainly do!"
Quintin sees his life flash before his eyes again. This time, he sees all of the possible, horrific deaths Waterton almost certainly has planned out for him. Why, the boss is almost giddy!
"Now, do pray, go on. Oh! How does he sign the letter? Or does he not if he likes to keep it short? No! He must! Because then you wouldn't know who it was from!"
Quintin goes on.
"We-ell, he...he does sign. Usually pa. although when he's right mad at me, he signs it 'father' or something of the sort."
"Excellent! Excellent..."
Waterton is scratching at the paper like a starving hen suddenly placed in a field of worms, only taking his pen off of the paper to jab at the inkwell.The desk is becoming blotched with blue ink but Waterton just keeps on writing, crossing out ideas, words, phrases he doesn't like.
Nearly twenty minutes pass before he stops and sits back in his chair, gently blowing across his newest idea to let the ink settle. Waterton is smiling. It's a genuine, sly-fox grin. He picks up the paper and holds it out to Quintin.
"Here. Read this last bit. Picture your father writing to you. Make sure this is exactly what that would sound like."
Quintin nervously takes the paper from Waterton and reads. He reads slowly, taking his time on each word. Once he has finished, he reads it again, quickly, then re-reads it, slowing down again. Waterton glances at his pocket watch, and grows impatient.
"Well?"
"It's...it could be a letter my pa had sent me just this morning."
The fox grin begins to spread across Waterton's face again. He takes the paper back and then unfolds the official letter he received from the typist in Missouri. He smooths it out facedown on his cow leather writing mat, and dips a new pen into the blue inkwell.
"Blue's a cheaper color than black. If her father's really a rancher, he won't waste his good ink on his daughter. Well, probably his other ones, but not this daughter at least."
Waterton murmurs this and then chuckles as if it is a joke. Quintin feels like his presence has been replaced by the beer bottle once more. He doesn't mind. He's no longer in the hot seat at least.
Waterton stoops down, then flexes his shoulders back, adjusts his spectacles, clears his throat, and stoops down again.
"I've been waiting for sooo looongg for this. For juustt the right moment whennn..."
Waterton trails off as he begins to write. Quintin is surprised when the actual writing part takes less than ten seconds.
Waterton leans luxuriously back in his wolfskin chair, resting his pen in its holder, and carefully blows the ink past dry. Quintin thinks the boss has been blowing on the paper so long, it is in danger of turning into dust and fluttering out of the room.
Waterton then takes three minutes to carefully fold the letter back along its old creases, and gently places it into a new, expensive-looking envelope. He addresses it out to a saloon in what looks, from Quintin's upside down view, to be in Minnesota somewhere. He doesn't recognize the exact address though.
Waterton adds in some extra letters, box numbers, and what appears to be a code on the backside, all of which continue to baffle Quintin. However, it is the name at the top that hooks his eye as instantly recognizable. It is the name of an infamous outlaw who has been riding the trails of the west and frequenting its saloons as long as he can remember. It is the name that Waterton occasionally mentions (among a few other bastardized names) in cursing when speaking to his beer bottle. It's the name of Casey Long.
"Casey Long?"
Quintin whispers. He didn't intend to whisper, but he just did. Possibly he was beginning to talk to the beer as well. In any case, Waterton looks up, his falcon eyes serious now.
"Yes, also known as Casey Longabaugh. Adopted daughter of my rancher friend, but she's really the bastard-child of the Sundance Kid and one of his many lady friends."
Without elaborating, Waterton quickly jumps up from his desk and reaches into his desk drawer. Quintin is fairly certain the pleasant past half an hour is over, and now his boss is going to come up from the drawer with a revolver and shoot Quintin for having so much information into his 'little secret.' But when Waterton's hand emerges from the drawer, a flimsy-looking piece of paper is held in it.
Waterton looks at Quintin, then back at the paper, then at the beer, then back at Quintin. Quintin wonders, not for the first time, if Waterton almost started speaking to the bottle as if it were Quintin before realizing that there was another person in the room. Waterton solemnly hands Quintin the cheap paper, then takes a small, black ledger from the side of the desk and opens it to a tabbed page. He studies the page then carefully rips it out of the ledger. He hands Quintin the ripped ledger paper. It has writing on it, and looks longer than the one Waterton recently addressed.
"Here, copy these words down onto the paper I just gave you. Make sure the writing looks shaky, like it's from someone who doesn't make their living off of penmanship. Then, take the letter, and make it look like it has been in the sweaty back pocket of a cattle hand. Or in your own back pocket. In other words, make it look filthy."
Then Waterton, apparently coming back to himself and remembering the station of the apprentice in front of him, cracks yet another joke.
"Of course, that filthy part shouldn't be too hard for you. Your father owns a pig farm? Right?"
Waterton snickers. Quintin would be more offended by the joke, except that it means that the boss is back in the head and he won't try to kill Quintin. At least not today.
"Go! Go! Write the letter. And when it's done, bring it back to me, and I'll send it with the other one. If you have it done, and in the condition I want it to be in, I might consider taking you off mail duty. Be quick! But make sure it's how I want it."
Waterton watches Quintin scurry out of the office, and shuts the door before he can hear Quintin's almost silent remark.
"It's sheep, Mr. Waterton. My pa owns sheep."
The comment was for the beer anyways, thinks Quintin as he walks out of the mayor's office building and down the street to where his old donkey stands waiting for him to ride back to his family's farmhouse.
"My pa owns sheep!"