there was a scattering of obviously excited people on the street: all of them heading in the same direction as Edge. But when he halted outside the wide double door entrance of the livery, everyone else continued to converge on the depot where the westbound freight train would shortly arrive. If the engineer was able to coax enough power from a noisily failing locomotive that sounded less likely to haul its burden of boxcars and flatbeds into the town the closer it came to Eternity.
Dan Paine had a bright eyed, strong looking chestnut gelding for sale and Edge had been considering buying the animal ever since he realised he would need to spend more than a few days in this town. Because being without a saddle horse was a situation he had promised himself never to be in again: a vow he made after he was forced to do a considerable amount of walking in the vicinity of an Arizona town called Dalton Springs. But Paine was one of the local businessmen who had not yet opened up his premises. So Edge moved on down the street and became a part of the loose-knit group of townspeople gathering at the depot that consisted of a long, yellow brick building divided into various sections behind a low platform of warped and sun bleached planks. Some faces he recognised and he tacitly acknowledged those men and women who greeted him. Others eyed him surreptitiously while they tried to conceal their interest in a man who was a relative stranger to their community: and an unlikely looking one to have acquired a haberdashery-become-a-tailoring establishment in their town. 33
He reached the depot just as the train began to struggle alongside the platform, the shuddering locomotive angrily hissing steam out from more valves than it obviously should do if it was running at its best. For stretched seconds he felt strangely disconcerted and then was able to pin down the reason for this uncomfortable feeling when he recognised that most people at the depot were merchants. Which made him one with them: the owner of a store in this small mid-western town a long way from anywhere else who had come to meet a train. The arrival of which, although it was a regular event at least once every day, was arguably one of the few interesting experiences to be had in a place like Eternity. Joel Gannon asked: ‘Are you expecting a shipment of tailoring supplies, Mr Edge?’
‘Not me, feller, but maybe Quinn ordered some new stock in trade for the store.’
The tall and overweight, twinkling eyed undertaker nodded sagely. ‘As the new owner of that place after the untimely passing of the last one, I guess you’re still finding your feet, so to speak.’
‘I guess maybe I am,’ Edge agreed.
‘I don’t suppose Roy Sims is too much interested in his old place since he sold out?
Not that he was very much before in the recent past. The way his head’s gotten to be so full of all those pious imaginings of his.’
Edge confined his response to a slight shrug as the failing locomotive vented a forceful hiss of steam. Then its brakes squealed and a final blast of the whistle sounded as it shuddered to a halt at the head of a line of ten clanking flatbeds and boxcars and a caboose.
The worried looking engineer clambered hurriedly down and crouched to peer beneath the rasping, wheezing, steam leaking engine. Travis Hicks, the depot manager, emerged from the telegraph office and frowned as he scuttled to join the hunkered down man. While most of the group of townspeople converged on an enclosed car near the middle of the train and waited impatiently for the elderly brakeman to swing down from the caboose and amble along the platform to join them.
The marshal had followed Hicks out of the office and explained to Edge: ‘That’s our boxcar. Anything for Eternity is always shipped in that one.’
‘Not everything every time, Ward,’ a woman contradicted excitedly as she came out of the depot building through a doorway marked LADY PASSENGERS ONLY. She was tall
Dan Paine had a bright eyed, strong looking chestnut gelding for sale and Edge had been considering buying the animal ever since he realised he would need to spend more than a few days in this town. Because being without a saddle horse was a situation he had promised himself never to be in again: a vow he made after he was forced to do a considerable amount of walking in the vicinity of an Arizona town called Dalton Springs. But Paine was one of the local businessmen who had not yet opened up his premises. So Edge moved on down the street and became a part of the loose-knit group of townspeople gathering at the depot that consisted of a long, yellow brick building divided into various sections behind a low platform of warped and sun bleached planks. Some faces he recognised and he tacitly acknowledged those men and women who greeted him. Others eyed him surreptitiously while they tried to conceal their interest in a man who was a relative stranger to their community: and an unlikely looking one to have acquired a haberdashery-become-a-tailoring establishment in their town. 33
He reached the depot just as the train began to struggle alongside the platform, the shuddering locomotive angrily hissing steam out from more valves than it obviously should do if it was running at its best. For stretched seconds he felt strangely disconcerted and then was able to pin down the reason for this uncomfortable feeling when he recognised that most people at the depot were merchants. Which made him one with them: the owner of a store in this small mid-western town a long way from anywhere else who had come to meet a train. The arrival of which, although it was a regular event at least once every day, was arguably one of the few interesting experiences to be had in a place like Eternity. Joel Gannon asked: ‘Are you expecting a shipment of tailoring supplies, Mr Edge?’
‘Not me, feller, but maybe Quinn ordered some new stock in trade for the store.’
The tall and overweight, twinkling eyed undertaker nodded sagely. ‘As the new owner of that place after the untimely passing of the last one, I guess you’re still finding your feet, so to speak.’
‘I guess maybe I am,’ Edge agreed.
‘I don’t suppose Roy Sims is too much interested in his old place since he sold out?
Not that he was very much before in the recent past. The way his head’s gotten to be so full of all those pious imaginings of his.’
Edge confined his response to a slight shrug as the failing locomotive vented a forceful hiss of steam. Then its brakes squealed and a final blast of the whistle sounded as it shuddered to a halt at the head of a line of ten clanking flatbeds and boxcars and a caboose.
The worried looking engineer clambered hurriedly down and crouched to peer beneath the rasping, wheezing, steam leaking engine. Travis Hicks, the depot manager, emerged from the telegraph office and frowned as he scuttled to join the hunkered down man. While most of the group of townspeople converged on an enclosed car near the middle of the train and waited impatiently for the elderly brakeman to swing down from the caboose and amble along the platform to join them.
The marshal had followed Hicks out of the office and explained to Edge: ‘That’s our boxcar. Anything for Eternity is always shipped in that one.’
‘Not everything every time, Ward,’ a woman contradicted excitedly as she came out of the depot building through a doorway marked LADY PASSENGERS ONLY. She was tall
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