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Chapter 1
Joseph Carrigan saw the sign through the black murk of a smoke-stained passenger train window and the even blacker murk of waning sleep. It flitted through the corner of his vision as the train rolled past one more nameless town. His eyes opened wider, and he sat up quickly.
His brother Liam was slouched back on the benchlike seat, hat tilted down over his nose, arms folded across his chest, body trembling ever so slightly from the rumbling vibration of the train. He breathed evenly, his lips moving a little with every inhalation.
"Did you see it?" Joseph said.
Liam grunted softly.
"Liam! Did you see it?" Joseph rubbed his hand across his face and kicked his brother lightly with the scuffed toe of his boot.
Liam sat up, dropping his hat, and glared at Joseph. With four days of stubble on his face, hair too long uncut, and an expression at the moment quite fearsome, he would have been an intimidating sight to anyone but his own brother.
"Did you just kick me?" Liam demanded.
"Did you see that sign? Out the window?"
"I was asleep. I didn't see anything."
"Well, I saw it. 'Pat Carrigan.' It was written right there on a sign. Big red letters. I swear!"
Liam swiped his hand down his face and yawned. "Now, what? Say that again."
"We passed through a town, just a moment ago. I looked out the window and saw a sign with the name of Patrick Carrigan on it."
Liam yawned and scratched at his stubble and gave his head a fog-clearing shake. "I need coffee."
Joseph turned and raised his window, sticking his head out to look back toward the little town they'd passed through. But the train had moved too far and was rounding a gentle turn. He pulled his head back inside and closed the window.
"Good Lord, Joseph, you let all kinds of soot and smoke in when you open that window. Leave it shut!"
"I'm telling you, Liam, there was a sign back there."
"Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn't. We're past it now, so we can't tell. Now let me go back to sleep."
"Is that all you want to do? Sleep?"
"No. I like to drink and play cards and carouse with pretty women, too. Sleep's not even on the top of the list."
Joseph fidgeted. "We've got to go back. We've got to see about that sign."
"Dammit, Joseph, we're going to Montana. We're going to find Uncle Patrick. In Montana. Not here."
"We don't know for sure. I only know what I saw."
"You saw nothing. You dreamed it. Now go back to sleep and let me do the same!"
"Liam, I swear, I don't know sometimes why I even stay around you! You're so blasted cocky confident that you know everything, all the time! You apparently even can tell me what I did and didn't see!"
Liam swore and shifted his position, turning his left shoulder toward his brother and trying to find a comfortable resting posture on the hard seat. Joseph stared at him a minute or so, then looked back out the window again.
Liam began to snore softly.
"I know what I saw," Joseph said.
Liam opened his eyes, turned to glare at Joseph, then swore loudly. A woman passing on the aisle looked at him in horror.
"Pardon my brother, ma'am," Joseph said. "He's not a good man."
Liam swore again. The woman hurried on.
Liam's eyes were fiery, but his voice was quieter when he spoke. "You know, Joseph, sometimes it truly is hard to put up with you. You have a way of just draining the folks who are around you. All righteous and wanting to decide everything for everybody else all the time...just drains a soul away, being around you."
"Maybe when we get to Montana, you won't have to be around me anymore. Maybe I'll take up with Patrick and be a rancher, and you can move on and be a traveling gambler and womanizer."
"Sounds better than you know."
Joseph opened his mouth to retort but held himself back. He looked out the window and said nothing for nearly a minute. At last he did speak.
"I saw that sign, Liam. I think we need to go back and look at it."
"Shut up and give me some peace."
"Do you even want to find Uncle Patrick?"
"Why wouldn't I want to find him?"
"Because you believe, sometimes at least, that it's pointless. That the only reason we're trying to find him at all is that we can't seem to make a success of ourselves on our own."
"So you can read my mind now?"
"Am I wrong?"
"Of course you're wrong. You're always wrong."
"There's no point in talking to you about anything, I guess."
"You're right. There's not. So why don't you just shut up for a spell, and give me some peace?"
Ten minutes later, as Joseph was lost in thought, gazing out the dirty window, Liam abruptly sat up and spoke again. His manner was different now.
"Was it a sign on a building?" he asked.
Joseph was actually startled by the sudden intrusion of his brother's voice. "No. On the ground, but leaned up enough to read. There was rubbish around it...and a fire. Someone burning trash, I think. It's not a clear picture in my mind...mostly an impression. I was half-asleep when I saw it."
"Well, then, I'd say you dreamed it. We're heading to Montana to find Patrick Carrigan, you've got that on your mind, and so you dreamed you saw his name on a sign."
Joseph pondered the possibility. "No...I saw it, Liam. 'Pat Carrigan.' I'm sure."
Liam rubbed the sleep from his eyes and leaned back, staring at the ceiling of the rumbling passenger car. "Could it really be our Pat Carrigan?"
"Maybe."
Liam pulled the corpse of a half-smoked cigar from his vest pocket and set about resurrecting it. Straightening it, caressing it, shaping it gently, he fired a match and lit up, filling the cubicle with acrid smoke. He blew a smoke ring and watched it dissolve.
"So maybe we should get off the next stop and go back, like you said," he said. "What town was that?"
"I don't know. A small place. A few stores, and I saw a saloon."
"Ah! Indeed we should go back!"
"Why the change of heart?"
"You know me, Joseph. I always give in to your way in the end. It makes life easier in the long run and helps give you the notion that you actually do have good sense instead of being the fool you really are."
"You're very kind to me, brother."
"Don't mention it."
"Just think, Liam...what if Uncle Patrick himself is back there? Maybe he lives in that town. Maybe he has a store, or ran for mayor. Maybe that was him burning the rubbish."
Liam sent out another toxic cloud of smoke, then settled the cigar in the corner of his mouth.
"You're surmising a mighty lot from one glimpse of a sign, my brother. I still think you may have dreamed it."
"I don't think so."
"We'll go back, then. We'll get off at the next stop, get the horses out of the stable car, and go back to see. While we're there, we may as well visit that saloon."
"Is that a life goal of yours, Liam? To visit every saloon west of the Mississippi?"
"I could think of lesser ambitions."
Liam lay back again, the stinking cigar clamped between his teeth. He puffed it a few times, but as he began to doze off again, let it go cold. Joseph watched him sleep for a while, then leaned over and began to nap himself.
Sometime later, the train jolted violently. Joseph opened his eyes wide and saw Liam flung from his seat, thrown into the air like a doll stuffed with straw. Joseph himself followed less than a moment later, slamming his head hard against the ceiling, everything going brilliant white, then black. He fell back on the seat with his body twisted to one side and his left hand beneath him, taking the brunt of his weight on three fingers.
Then he tumbled. He caught a glimpse of Liam's form moving past him, in the air. The cigar was still clamped in Liam's mouth, and Joseph would forever after wonder why such a small detail would stand out to him in the midst of a train crash.
Joseph landed on the same hand as before. Pain stabbed through his fingers, and he blacked out again, still in motion.
"This one's alive," said the man who loomed above Joseph. "Just stunned, I think. Hey, there, friend, is your hand hurting?"
"Yes," Joseph said. His left hand was lying across his belly. When he touched it with his right hand, it made him wince.
"I don't think you've broke no bones. Your fingers ain't crooked or nothing. The doc will get to you eventually. Just be patient, and you'll be a patient." He paused, then laughed. "You hear that? I made kind of a joke or such there, and wasn't even trying. Just be patient, and you'll be a patient! Ha!"
"My brother...is he all right?"
"I don't know him, sir. Was he on this train?"
"Yes."
"We ain't detected no one killed, and the injuries seem fairly light, considering how bad it could have been. So I'd say he's fine."
"We derailed?"
"You sure did. Bad stretch of track. A whole section of rail worked so loose it might as well not have been there at all. Got to go, friend. Got to look at some other folks." The man's looming form moved away, leaving Joseph staring up at the sky.
He lay still about a minute, then decided to rise. Joseph pushed up with his good hand and looked around. Most of the train was off the track, lying jumbled up like a child's tossed-away toy. Heavy steam and hissing noises emanated from the overturned locomotive; railroad men moved around the great and injured beast of iron with earnest expressions.
Everything looked hellish. The locomotive lay on its side, smoking. Railroad cars were twisted and splintered; cargo was strewn on the ground. The air was heavy with a stench of reeking smoke.
People were all about, both former passengers of the train and residents of the nearby town. Boys and dogs weaved through the mix, having a fine time in all the excitement as dogs and boys always do. The air was rich with a babble of voices, some talking quietly, some loudly, some weeping and others laughing, the railroad men barking official-sounding orders at one another. A burly man with a homemade pewter badge on his shirt lumbered by, bushy brows lowered into a burning scowl, and scolded one of the playful boys. "You there, Jimmy! Get that dog out of here! We got hurt folks!"
Joseph looked for Liam and spotted him almost immediately, to his relief. Liam was kneeling beside a crying young woman, giving her comfort and gentle words. She was quite pretty; Joseph had noticed her when they boarded the train. Her strawberry blond hair, which had been piled into a most impressive and gravity-defying coif, was now a ruined mess about her shoulders. Liam's expression as he dealt with her was as earnest as that of a priest at a parishioner's deathbed. His hand tenderly patting the young woman's shoulder. Liam glanced up. His eye caught Joseph's, and he gave a quick wink and grin.
Joseph stood slowly, checking himself out for injury as he did so. So far he seemed fine other than his hand, which throbbed with pain.
Liam appeared at his side. Joseph looked at him wryly. "Liam, it's a comfort and blessing to have a brother who shows such dedication to his kin. I'm lying senseless on the ground, could be dead for all you know, and you're over there talking up some weeping little wilted flower with a pretty face."
"Hey, don't scold me. I knew you were all right. I talked to you about it. Don't you remember?"
"You never talked to me."
"I did indeed! You sounded addled, but you told me you were fine, except for your fingers, and I told you that a doctor was coming around and would fix you up. You remember, surely."
"I don't."
"Then I guess you were more addled than I thought. I made sure you were fine, then went over to do my duty as a good Christian Irishman for that lovely young woman. Jennifer Jacques. Pretty name, huh? Kind of like poetry. The poor thing took quite a knock on the forehead, but I think she'll be fine, if she receives enough good manly comfort. She's traveling alone. And don't she look good with her hair all messed up that way! Women always look better that way, but you try to tell them that and they never believe you."
"I'm curious, Liam. If this is all pure-hearted charity on your part, why didn't you help out that poor old gray-haired grandmother over yonder? She looks worse off than poor little Jennifer."
"Hey, I can't bear all the responsibilities around here alone, can I? That one's yours to help."
"My hand hurts, Liam."
"You probably need it splinted."
"Then help me find something to splint it with."
"Keep your shirt on. That man kneeling over that fellow there is a doctor. He'll do a better job of splinting than I ever could. Excuse me now. I need to get back to Jennifer."
Copyright © 2003 by Cameron Judd
