Before Adam knew what was happening, he found himself washed, dressed in a cleaned suit, and sitting bareheaded in a Pullman car in Union Station. Mr. Thurgood sat nervously across from him, his valise on his lap. Adam Liche was taking it all in stride. It was a singular end to what had become a singular stretch of luck. He needed a drink. He needed a big drink.
“There is one last piece of business that I have to attend to...” Mr Thurgood opened his valise and dug out an envelope. “This is the first of many, but I am only supposed to give you this one now.” He handed Adam the envelope. Adam's name was written on the front along with today's date.
“I have to say, we at Strother, McLaglen & Elem are rather excited to hear what it has to say. This whole affair has been quite stimulating for us. Things are usually quite dulcet at the office. Probate. That sort of thing. And then here I am catching midnight trains to all parts foreign, foiling bank robberies and handing out mysterious correspondences from beyond the grave. It's been quite an experience for me...”
Adam fixed Mr. Thurgood with a stare, and Mr. Thurgood coughed nervously and rose from his seat.
“Yes, well... I can see my work is done here. Good day, Mr Liche, and good luck. I will be seeing you again in a few weeks. Please don't disembark from the train before End Of The Line. The Constable behind you has orders to shoot you should you try.” And with that, Mr. Thurgood put on his hat and stepped off the train.
Adam pulled the flap of the envelope back with his finger, and pulled out a few sheets of heavy, yellowed paper. As the train whistle blew, and the car shunted forward, he unfolding the letter and began to read:
I, Henry Archibald Liche, financier, attorney-at-law, twenty third degree Freemason, knowing full well the fact of my impending death, here put pen to paper in hopes of explaining a little of the past few days to my long lost son. A son who's life, more or less, I have just ruined. Yes, perhaps it is a strange sort of introduction for an absentee father, who's only former contribution to his son's life was in the conception; but hopefully I can in these pages fully explain my actions, and fashion some semblance of a kinship, even from the grave.
You see my boy, I have sold my soul to the devil. I mean that quite literally. As you read this I burn in the fires of perdition, as sure as the sun will rise. Shed no tear for me. I am sanguine about my fate. I entered into my bargain quite knowingly. I sold my soul for riches. And riches I have been bestowed.
When I was roughly your age I consulted a mystic on a matter of business. I wouldn't have called myself a believer, but trance mediumship being all the rage in social circles at the time, I felt I had little to loose, and many connections to gain. To my fortune the medium turned out to give sage advice, and I began to consult her more and more as the years went by. Soon I was depending heavily on her advice. It was at that point, and only then, that medium reviled to me the foul source of her inspiration. The spirit that guided her wished to guide me too. I was faced with a choice: Acceptance or Ruin. For the price of my soul, I acquiesced.
I was granted foresight. I useful commodity in the business of finance. Knowing which stock will rise, and which would fall just from mention of a company's name. I had access to wealth beyond my imagination. I could no longer be tricked or betrayed. I knew all men's actions. I could see into their very souls, if you will, while revealing nothing of my own.
But as I aged my vision saw farther and farther into the future. I began to see things that shocked and terrified me. I was not the only man of consequence that the devil had made his bargain with. Politicians, Generals, Captains of Industry. I saw the future of our nation. I could see the devil tightening his grip around the throat of our great union. Our greed his most powerful weapon. Our freedom his pound of flesh.
It knew it was too late for me. I would burn in hell for what my greed had let me become. But age and idle living haven't bested me yet. I made plans to have the last laugh on Old Ned. Foresight he had given me, and foresight I could use against him. I was not yet beyond the planning of a good hostile takeover. If executed just right, the devil's own designs could be used against him. The Union could be saved. Saved from itself. But I knew I would not live long enough to see my plans come to realization.
So, my son, it comes to you. I foresaw your adventure with the First Saint Louis. I foresaw your death at the hands of your compatriots over the distribution of the stolen funds. I intervened. Redirected the river of fate. Much of the blame must fall on my shoulders, anyway, for not being a father to you. I pursued fortune instead of family. You had unknowingly followed in my footsteps. Greed had consumed you and the devil had marked you for his own. I intervened in your plans to save your life, my boy, but also to save your soul. Now saved it is up to you to save us all. To carry out my plan.
I will not detail what I have foreseen yet. For if you knew too much of the future, you might be apt to change things for the ill. You are not that long from the devil's grasp. I have provided more letters to the good fellows at Strother, McLaglen & Elem, who will deliver them to you at intervals that proceed or follow a particularity large bump in the road to come. Do not bother them for an advanced viewing. Strother, McLaglen & Elem are known for their meticulous attention to detail, and will not deviate from my prescribed schedule. Besides, they won't get paid if they do, and with lawyers it always come down to money. Just know, at this juncture, it is imperative that you make great haste to the town of End Of The Line in the Montana Territory and take possession of a Saloon I own there called the Singing Hinny. It is under the care of a man named Gully. He will be of great help to you. Use him.
End Of The Line will be the center of it all. That is where it will begin. You must be ready for what is about to come. Know that nothing less that the soul of our great nation is at stake. Be strong, do what you think is right, and you will prevail.
But above all, my boy: Act, don't wait.
Henry Archibald Liche
Adam refolded the letter, returned it to its envelope, and slipped it into his breast pocket. Saint Louis was moving by the window at an increasing speed, and he knew he's never see it again. He lay his head against window, and quickly fell fast asleep.
It took over a week to reach End Of The Line. Changing trains in Minneapolis required a three day wait in a holding cell the Saint Louis Officer was able to arrange. Track trouble outside Fargo stranded them for half a day. Passenger service stopped in Billings, and Adam and his bodyguard had to ride with the cargo that last few hundred miles until the train ran out of tracks. End Of The Line was aptly named. Since the Union Pacific had gone into receivership, construction of transatlantic railroad had stopped deep in the Rockies. Gold and silver strikes in the surrounding mountains had followed the end of construction, and kept the trains running along the line; but with new discoveries in the Black Hills around Deadwood, End Of The Line's boomtown days were long over. Cattle ranchers on the far side of the Big Sue Pass kept beef coming down the line to Minneapolis and Chicago; but other than miners pulling up stakes for gold fields of Deadwood, very little came in or out of End Of The Line.
It was evening when the cattle train arrived in End Of The Line. Adam's bodyguard handed over Adam's unloaded Colt Navy, and pushed him out of the door. Adam half fell from the rail car onto the the makeshift planking that passed for a platform. He took a deep breath and the coldness struck him. He suddenly remembered his derby floating down the Mississippi river...
The rail tracks came to an end but the town of End Of The Line continued on as if the tracks did. The main street was obviously cleared for the tracks, but rails were never laid down. Buildings on either side of the road boarded onto heavily pined forest that shot quickly up the hillsides to the left and right. At the end of the road, a white clapboard church stood at the highest cleared spot. Someday the church would be right on the tracks of the continental railroad, but for now it simply acted as an imposing focal point for the town.
Chinese men busied themselves unloading the train as Adam stood there look up at the town. In fact, Chinese men was the only activity Adam could see besides cattle mooing softly in pens by the tracks. The main street was empty as the sun set behind the church. No horses, no men, no nothing. What the hell was he doing here? This was going to be the center of it all?
Adam shook himself, suddenly realizing he was believing the insanity written in his father's letter. A week on a train with a tight lipped policeman had given Adam plenty of time to think. His father, whatever else he had been, had obviously been a lunatic. The letter had been little more than the ramblings of a messianic madman. But here he was six hundred miles from home at the behest of a madman. Freezing, bareheaded, in the autumn evening of derelict boomtown. It was better than a jail cell or hangman's noose. He could count his blessing for that.
Adam began the trek up the main street. It felt good to move and Adam could feel the hours of sitting on a grain sack working out through his feet. Soon, however, the biting cold of the onsetting autumn evening began to set in on him and he felt the need to be indoors. The first sign of activity came from a building near the top of the street. A saloon with a crudely painted sign of a mule hagging over the door. This must be the Singing Hinny he was looking for. This was insane.
“Hey Dude.” A voice said from behind Adam. He turned to see a redheaded boy dressed in overalls and a dirty top hat.
“I ain't no dude.” Adam replied wearily, and turned towards the bar.
“Dress like a dude.” The boy said falling into lockstep.” Walk like a dude. And only a dude would be outside of an evening without a hat...”
“Sure enough kid, you got me. I must be a dude.”
“I knew it. Second I saw you step off the four thirty, I says to myself. I says: That there is one class A dude.”
“Sure enough.”
“Ain't seen a Dude as big as you since the railroad done shin out. And you without luggage or nothing. Just that there Colt hog leg. Yes sir, quite a fine sight to see.”
“Ain't you got no parents to go home to?”
“Nope. Never seen the need. So I'm figuring to myself: That Dude must be here to kill someone or something with that there gun?”
“Or Something.” Adam climbed the steps up to the boardwalk in front of the saloon. He paused at the swinging doors. “You coming in here?” The boy screwed up his face into something in between indifference and pain.
“Nah, Gully don't let me in there...”
“Good.” Adam stepped through the swinging doors, but the boy grabbed him by the wrist.
“Hey, Dude. You don't want to go in there. The Gaffa drinking in there.”
“Good to know. I'll take my arm back, if you please.”
“But Dude! If you're here to shoot The Gaffa, I'd think again!” The boy pulled hard on Adam's arm, and the both stepped back out into the evening.
“Leave me be!” Adam said as he detached the boy from his arm. “And what, by Dutch, is a gaffa?”
“That there is The Gaffa.” The boy said, pointing through the saloon window at a large man standing at the bar with his back to them. “Don't know his real name. All the cowboys call him Gaffa. He's foreman for the Squire's spread out other end of the the Big Sue. He's one quick hand with a gun, and doesn't cotton to strange folk getting off the train in his town. I figure you'd be best just turning around and heading on back to Dudetown. You'll live a might longer.”
Adam looked into the warmth of the saloon and suddenly felt very tired. He'd come a long way and was far to sober to let any cow puncher get between him and a whiskey bottle. Besides, if any part of his father's letter was true, that was his bar. Adam could drink to he fell down without a penny in his pocket. That was too inviting a prospect to pass up.
“Thanks kid, but I ain't welcome back in Dudetown. This is the only place I got left to go.”
“Then I hope you're good with gun.”
“Kid, it ain't even loaded.”