Heart of the Country by Greg Matthews

Author:Greg Matthews [Matthews Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504034883
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

There were no stacks of buffalo remains by the depot. Joe was not surprised. Driving into town he had noted the settled look of the surrounding country, guessed this town had been here twenty years at least, practically an ancient civilisation by Kansas standards; the bones would long ago have been cleared for the plough. He left his team in some shade, climbed on to the platform and went to the station-master’s office. The door was open, but Joe knocked for propriety’s sake. A man emerged from the gloom within, his cap identifying him as the stationmaster. Joe submitted to the usual openmouthed scrutiny with the imperturbability acquired through years of exposure to insensitive persons.

“Morning,” he said with a smile. “Anyone around here in the market for buffalo bones?”

“Buffalo bones?” repeated the stationmaster, his eyes skittering over Joe, trying to take in as much of this carnival monstrosity as possible. “Bones?” he said again, in order to prolong his inspection. “No, I don’t believe so. Used to be bones around here, but not for a good long while now.

“I’ve got a wagonload. How about if I unload them down the track a little way, and the next time a bone freight comes through from Dodge they could be slung aboard? You could collect the money for me if I’m not around, or you could give me, say, four dollars, and own them outright.”

“I wouldn’t want the responsibility, but you go right ahead and unload them. No one around here’s going to steal four dollars’ worth of bones.”

Joe drove his wagon past the end of the platform and began unloading. The task required little time or effort. Dry bones weigh less than new bones, in fact many unscrupulous bone gatherers would wet their bones before selling them in order to make them weigh more. Joe had never done this. The stationmaster strolled from his office and stood with hands on hips to watch Joe crown the pile with a skull.

“Been in this line of work long?” he enquired.

“A couple of years. I used to be a hunter.”

“First you knock them down, now you pick them up, eh?”

Joe laughed politely.

“Didn’t catch your name,” said the stationmaster.

“Cobden. Joe Cobden.”

The stationmaster was smiling for some reason. Joe assumed he smiled in an attempt to conceal the insult of his constant staring.

“Joe Cobden, eh?”

The stationmaster could feel a delicious tingling in his body, the like of which he had not felt since that distant day when he delivered the lightning rod, too late to save the white church. Everyone in Valley Forge had become familiar with the name Joe Cobden, wondering who this person was that Puckett chose to blame for his loss; a humpback, so the story ran, a humpback arsonist and invisible man. It had generally been agreed no such person existed, but as soon as the stationmaster saw this ugly creature standing all humped over in his doorway he had known, as if confirmation was whispered in his ear by spirits, that this was the very one Puckett had hunted for in vain.

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