Night at the western railroad

The room by now felt like home. I had overcome this time during which I had used complicated word formations like ‘the room I rent’ or ‘the room I live in’ and now not just called this room a home, but felt like it really was. The room had a certain smell of wood and clean sheets, which would forever be connected to this room for me by now.

This was my home. And I had to protect it. To stand up against whoever threatened it.

I looked outside the window into the night. The moon shone through my window. Tomorrow would be new moon. A perfect night to travel unseen. I slid open the window and leaned out of it. I breathed in the chilly air of the night and remembered the days that had passed since I arrived here.

A window opened on the other side of the street and a blonde woman peeked outside. It was Casey, Archie’s younger sister. She leaned out of the window and looked into the distance at first. After a short moment she realized that I had watched her solitary moment and turned towards me. Her face lit up and she waved at me. I greeted back.

Casey seemed to think for a moment and then gave me a sign with her hand to meet her on the street. Originally, I had intended to go to sleep but I felt it would be impolite to decline her offer.

So I closed the window and left the house. She arrived two minutes later, a thin scarf wrapped around her shoulders against the cold. She wore a rather flashy looking orange-ish dress that made her stand out everywhere but especially in such a backwater town.

“Good evening, Sheriff Shota!”, she started with a playful tone in her voice.

“Good evening. What’s the matter? Problems to find sleep?”, I asked her courteously.

She looked at me for a short moment and then gazed towards the sky. The starts were shining in a way I had thought impossible back in my world. The constant lights of the cities made such a view impossible. And actually I felt like it had robbed humanity off one of the most beautiful views it had.

"They are beautiful, aren't they?", she finally said.

I looked up to the sky as if I had to make sure that we were talking about the same thing.

"They sure are.", I responded.

She looked down again.

"Would you mind joining me on a nightly walk? Walking alone is a risky thing these days."

I looked around for a moment. Everything was calm, most people were sleeping and the other ones were getting drunk in the saloon.

I shrugged.

"Why not. Doesn't seem like there will be a fight anytime soon.", I said pointing at the saloon.

She confidently held out her arm and waited. For a moment I didn’t understand what she was waiting for, until realization settled in. I hooked my arm into hers, a gesture feeling like we were more familiar with each other than we actually were to my mind, and strolled off.

“So where exactly are we heading?”, I asked after we had left the town.

“To a place where we will have an even better view.”, she proudly declared.

There was probably no use to try to make her turn around. The night sky was fully illuminated with stars. Overall shone the moon. If the sky would be as clear tomorrow, the fact that there would be new moon, wouldn’t help too much. The moon was only a small sickle in the sky and yet one could easily walk and see everything in the dim starlight.

“May I ask you a question?”, she asked after we silently walked for a while.

“You already did.”, I replied and immediately cursed myself for having used such an old joke.

“Quite the joker, aren’t we?”

“Just a hobby of mine.”

It was obvious she tried to fight with it, but eventually she started to smile a little.

“About that question.”, she tried to get the conversation back on track.

“Ask everything. I will consider responding.”, I said with a smirk.

“I heard we will have some trouble with a certain gang of bandits soon, is that true?”, she asked.

I looked at her. By now I had deemed that the whole Troef situation was common knowledge. On the other hand, Casey almost never attended the social gatherings that happened at the saloon almost every evening. As far as I could tell she was more of the quiet sort, who preferred self-chosen solitude over forced company. So if somebody didn’t know what was happening, then it might have been her.

She looked at me, her eyes showing concern. I nodded silently before starting to speak, choosing my words carefully.

“Actually, yes. Or to put it more accurate, you could say, we believe that there will be trouble. By acting first we want to give ourselves an advantage by deciding the time and place of where the fight will happen. If we just wait, they will come to us.”, I replied.

“I'd prefer to assure you that they will never set a foot into our town, but that, I’m afraid, would be a lie.”

She nodded while processing the spoken words.

“Let’s not speak of such terrifying matters then for now. We arrived.”, she said and guided me to a small hill next to the road.

She increased her speed a little until the point, I was actually struggling to keep up with her without having to run.

“Look!”, she almost shouted, as she reached the top.

The stars seemed to shine especially bright up here and illuminated the nightly landscape around us. Actually there wasn’t much to see. The landscape around here didn’t offer many different views or points of interest, but this came with it’s own charm.

Nearby there were different tents and simple houses next to different piles of working material.

“When I came here our town was still a frontier town. Now the railroad arrives. Things have changed a lot, haven’t they?”, she started.

“Things have always changed and will always change. The question is only if we can adapt to it or not.”

“I am looking forward to it. Just getting on a train and being at the other end of the country within a few hours. Imagine the possibilities! What will be next?”

“Probably flying.”, I said without thinking about it too much.

“Flying? Like a bird? Don’t be ridiculous!”, she laughed.

“Well, why not? We conquered the land and the sea. Next would be the sky.”, I replied.

Of course I couldn’t tell her that where I came from it was more than normal to see giant machines flying through the air like it was nothing. She wouldn’t believe it and in worst case declare me crazy. I couldn’t risk losing my reputation to stories of my old world.

She seemed to think about my words for a moment.

“But how?”, she asked.

“Well, like the birds do it. Some wings and enough force to move them.”, I explained.

“You think this is possible?”, she asked now hooked to the thought.

“One day for sure!”, I replied.

She sat down and looked at the sky.

“I would like to visit the stars for once.”

“This might take some more time.”

She thought about this for some time.

“Because of the cold?”, she eventually asked.

I looked at her. She sat on the ground, her legs stretched out in front of her, gazing into the sky.

“What do you mean?”, I asked her.

She looked at me and thought for a moment. Apparently, we both didn’t quite understand what the other person was talking about.

“When I was younger, before my family came to this place, I used to have some longer walks with my father. He never wanted to call it hiking, but in the end, we walked way too far to still call it a comfortable stroll. It wasn’t rare that we got lost in the woods or walk up tracks so steep that you almost had to climb them using your hands and feet. So, I sometimes started to take warmer clothes with me, because the higher we climbed, the colder it got. As a conclusion it must be colder the higher you fly.”, she explained.

To be honest, I hadn’t expected her to conclude like this. Not because I had thought that she wasn’t smart enough for it, but rather because it required an amount of analytical thinking to come to a conclusion like this within such a short time, which I wouldn’t have expected in this backwater town.

“Very cold, if you think about it like this. The tips of some of the higher mountains I have seen are covered in snow all year long.”, I answered.