Ironhorse

42

Half moon junction was painted in Gothic-style lettering on the north side of the water tank. The south side, the side I’d seen when we were passing through, traveling north, simply bore the symbol of its namesake, a painted half-moon. Virgil and I walked down the tracks, around the water tank, and crossed over the planks of the depot’s wide loading dock. We stepped over another set of rails that tapered off to the west and made our way up the wet caliche road toward the streetlights of Half Moon.

The first sign of life was at an encampment on the east side of town at the edge of a small brook. There were several tents pitched around an open-sided teepee with a fire burning beneath it. A few miners were having a spirited game of blackjack in their underwear; their trousers and shirts were hanging near the fire to dry. Across from the brook was another encampment with rows of single tents, and somewhere within we could hear a man and a woman arguing about something. A short ways on, there was a lean-to shack set back off the road surrounded by a corral with a few scrawny goats and a donkey. There was a wagon-wide bridge over the brook, and on the other side was the start of the proper buildings of Half Moon Junction. We crossed over the bridge, and a young barefoot fellow wearing a China hat approached carrying a laundry sack. He looked to be part Chinese and maybe part Indian.

“Young fellow,” Virgil said, stopping the young man’s forward momentum.

“Yes,” the young man said.

“You speak English?”

“Yes.”

“Where would we find an officer of the law, sheriff, marshal, police?”

The young man nodded, smiling.

“Yes.”

“Yes,” Virgil said.

“Yes,” the young man said, then hurried on over the bridge and into the tent encampment.

Virgil looked at me, smiled a bit, and said, “Yes.”

We walked on. The rails that were running westerly from the depot had a section of track that switched off into a big miners’ yard with a covered loading facility on our right. Just past the miners’ yard, there was a livery stable. The door was open, lamps were on. There were a number of horses standing in a lot next to the barn. Virgil walked next to the rail, looking at the horses in the lot, and when he got to the barn door, he looked inside. There were two young Indian men at the back of the barn, mucking stables. Virgil took a few steps inside and looked around. The Indians watched him for a moment and went back to work. Virgil walked down the center of the barn, looking at the horses in the stalls. When he got to the end he turned around and walked back to the door. As he figured, there was no sign of his chestnut or my lazy roan, but he was taking a look anyway, if for no other reason than just to provide himself an understanding of some sort.

We walked on up the street, and the next building we came to was a small church on the south side nestled between two big tents. A large woman opened the door as we walked by and threw out a basin of water. She turned to go back inside but stopped when she saw Virgil and me.

“Well, hey there, boys. How ’bout getting a piece of Heaven with Betty Jean?”

Virgil looked up to the steeple. He glanced at me and looked back to Betty Jean. Betty Jean was no church lady, and obviously this church was no church. It had been converted into a brothel, and Betty Jean was most likely a member of the congregation.

“Come on in,” Betty Jean said. “You can ring the bell.”

Betty Jean’s face was thick with face paint. She looked kind of like a harlequin queen on a deck of French playing cards, with wide, dark eyebrows and red lipstick that exceeded the borders of her lips. We could smell her strong perfume from where we were standing. If it were not for her behemoth breasts that were nearly falling out of the low-cut dress she was wearing, I would have thought she was a man.

“What kind of law is in this town, Betty Jean?” Virgil said.

She leaned on the doorjamb sort of manly-like and smiled, showing her big teeth smudged with lipstick.

“You’re looking at it,” Betty Jean said.

Another whore poked her head out the door from behind Betty Jean. She was a skinny woman with a large nose.

“Y’all with them others that come off that train that got all busted ’n burnt up?” She looked at Betty Jean. “Are they?”

“We got some whiskey,” Betty Jean said. “Why don’t y’all come on in and let me and Laskowski here take good care of you.”

“Where are the others that came off the busted train you’re talking about,” I said.

“A couple of ’em come in for service, but they done left,” Laskowski, the skinny whore, said. “So why don’t y’all come on in and confess with me and Betty Jean here.”

Virgil tipped his hat and was already walking away when he said, “Evenin’.”

I tipped my hat.

“Some other time, ladies,” I said, and followed Virgil.

“Won’t find no better,” Betty Jean said as we moved on.

I caught up, getting in step with Virgil.

“There is something wrong there,” I said.

“There is.”

“Not being a religious person, but that just does not seem right.”

“No,” Virgil said. “It does not.”

“If there is a trap door to hell,” I said. “I reckon that might be it.”

“No need to find out.”

“I’m not sure I could even do it under those conditions.”

“Not sure any conditions you’d even ever want to do it.”