Trigger Gospel (4 page)

It didn't take Luther long to find his brother.

“So there you are, eh?” old Tas called out banteringly as the two rode up. “You sure gave quite an account of yourself, Bill.”

“Yeh, I was sure shootin' at them there for a minute,” the red-haired one grinned sheepishly. “I told him he couldn't have my horse and I kept my word. I wasn't takin' no chance of havin' him show up tomorrow with a story that the geldin' had been shot out from under him or that the Sontags had lifted him. I'd likely never have seen Six-gun again. Beaudry would give me an order against the county for fifty dollars, and I could like it or leave it.”

“Nobody is sayin' you didn't have your way, you little fightin' runt,” Maverick Williams remarked. “Now all you got to do is pay for it.”

“I don't mind payin' for value received,” said Little Bill, “but I ain't givin' myself up until I know what the charge is.”

“Then you agree you shouldn't go into Bowie tomorrow?” Tascosa asked with frank surprise.

“I admit I shouldn't, but I'm goin' just the same.”

“Why be a fool, Bill?” the old man demanded heatedly.

“I can't help it; I got to go. I've been countin' on it for weeks. I'll ride in early in the mornin' and stay just a few minutes. With any luck at all I'll be on my way before Beaudry gets back.”

“Where'll you go then?” asked Luther.

“I'll head for the Panhandle. You'll be down next month. I'll meet up with you all right.”

“Be a lot better if you started back right now,” Tascosa insisted. “I could get the lay of things for you and send word down by somebody. But I ain't goin' to argue,” he added as Little Bill would have interrupted. “I know there's no chance of changin' your mind. You're as stubborn as your old man. I could see him in everythin' you did tonight. The old fightin' fool—” Tascosa shook his head at some ancient memory of Waco Stillings and himself. “When his joints got so full of rheumatiz he couldn't fork a horse no more he gits himself a job as a express messenger so he can keep on packin' a gun on his hip! You aimin' to see your father tomorrow, Bill?”

“I will if he's in from his run. He may not be on tonight.”

“I'm hopin' he ain't,” Luther remarked moodily.

“Why do you say that?” his brother asked.

“Just a hunch maybe.” Luther tossed away his cigarette and watched it die out in the grass. “That bunch on the Skull, movin' east, and Beaudry's talk about goin' as far as the railroad sounds to me like the Rock Island's night express might run into some trouble.”

“Pop knows how to take care of himself,” Little Bill declared.

“That's just the trouble; he won't give up as long as he can raise a gun. He thinks he's as good as ever. We know better. It ain't no trick to fade him now.”

For some reason, Little Bill's mood was as sombre as his brother's. The others felt it.

“Aw shucks,” Link chided them, “why borrow trouble ? There's ten banks hoisted to every train that's stuck up.”

“And jest because it's ten times as easy,” Tascosa declared with a chuckle. “I didn't figger when I mentioned Waco's name that it would bring on anything like this. I was afraid he might go gunnin' for the sheriff when he heard about tonight.” He got to his feet and stretched preparatory to rolling up in his blanket. “I'll see him tomorrow, Bill, and tell him what's what. You better roll in now.”

Little Bill looked after his horse before he turned in. By the time he had washed out the crease Beaudry's bullet had made and smeared it with axle-grease, the camp was asleep. He got his bedroll then and stretched out beside the wagon. The train of thought Luther had started was still with him and he could not throw it off. He recalled Tascosa's words about a claybank being unlucky.

“Can't be anythin' to that,” he brooded. “Pop's never even seen the horse.”

When sleep came finally it brought dreams of a train rushing through the night; of the ghostly shrieking of a locomotive's whistle; of an old, spindle-shanked man dozing in his chair in an express-car.

T
HE
heavy, combination mail-and-express car began to roll and lurch on its trucks as the train gathered speed. Number Nine was running eighteen minutes late tonight. Coming out of Medora, Quinlan, the engineer, began to open her up in earnest. He had fifty-five miles of nearly straight track ahead, with only a stop for water at Skull Creek and the bare possibility of being flagged at Wetona between him and the end of his run at Bowie. He expected to pick up at least twelve of those eighteen minutes.

The glow from the open fire-box played redly over big Ike Bonura, his fireman, and the sweat that dripped from Ike's streaming brow as he toiled with his shovel fell like drops of blood. He had been building steam for half-an-hour. As he continued to pile it on, the cinders fell in an angry shower on the roof of the mail and express car next the tender.

Dick Ferris, the railway mail clerk, braced himself as he distributed the stuff that had come aboard at Medora. He was a colorless, thin-faced man; the green eye-shade that he wore cast a sickly tinge over his countenance.

“This rattler seems to be going places, Waco!” he exclaimed, addressing the old, hatchet-faced man, three times his age, who rode express with him. “They must have been doing some work on the roadbed along here. We seem to be kicking up a lot of dust.” He cast an eye at the ventilators in the roof of the car. “I hope we don't hit a loose rail.”

“Say, you're right cheerful tonight, ain't yuh?” Waco returned. He was sprawled out comfortably in an old side-arm chair. Without removing his thin shanks from the steel express box on which they were propped he half-turned to send an inquiring glance at Ferris. “What seems to be eatin' yuh? Yuh been carryin' on that-a-way all evenin'.”

His resemblance to his sons was marked. He was taller than Little Bill, but their faces had been carved from the same mold. There was a quizzical expression in their eyes that was identical.

“Nothing eating me,” Ferris answered, “but I'll be glad when we roll into Bowie.”

“What yuh kickin' about then?” Waco demanded. “We're certainly rollin'.”

“Yeah—but a lot can happen in fifty miles. You're not fooling me by pretending not to have anything on your mind. I know you've got something in the safe. You didn't have your hand off your gun as we stood in Medora.”

“Well, it's a purty rough, tough sort of a town,” Waco laughed.

“Yeah—so tough you couldn't get the door locked quick enough.”

Waco scratched his head reflectively. His closely cropped red hair was still as thick as his sons'.

“I didn't know you was so observin', Dick,” he mused aloud. “I don't mind admittin' we got a little stuff aboard tonight. I reckon it's safe enough now; we ain't openin' up for nothin' this side of Bowie.”

“I hope you're right,” Ferris murmured nervously. “I'm still carrying one of the slugs in my leg that I got over at Waukomis last spring. I don't want any more of that.”

He began to make up the pouch for Bowie. A mournful blast of the whistle split the night air. It sucked in through the ventilators with a blood-chilling whine. Ferris' head went up with a jerk.

“Jest blowin' for the Santee bridge,” Waco explained hurriedly. He was surprised to find his own throat dry.

They roared across the bridge a moment later with unabated speed. Ferris went on with his work. Waco had nothing to occupy him but his thoughts.

As a rule, they kept up a running fire of conversation. Tonight, however, they found less and less to say to each other as Number Nine rolled up the miles. In some peculiar way the air had become charged with an electric tension.

Ferris accepted it with pathetic resignation. His pale face was pasty-looking, his hair damp across his forehead. Waco tried to throw it off. His nerves had never bothered him, and he told himself there was no reason for them to snarl tonight. And yet, when he felt the train lose speed and an almost imperceptible tightening of the air hose as the engineer prepared to slap on the brakes, he felt a cold chill race down his spine.

The two men found themselves staring at each other and saying nothing. It was only a moment before the pressure was removed from the airline. The wheels began to click faster again.

Waco grinned a little foolishly at Ferris. Both now realized that the momentary loss of speed meant that they were rushing past Ardusa, their flag stop. Quinlan had only slowed down to see if the light was against him.

It was Ferris' turn to laugh off key now.

“What's the matter, Waco?” he prodded. “What pulled you out of your chair?”

“Nothin' but your damn nonsense!” the old man snapped. “You got me seein' things too! You get the board out and we'll play a hand or two of seven-up. Anythin' would be better than sittin' around like this, waitin' for somethin' to happen.”

After the first hand or two the game became just a perfunctory business of shuffling and laying down pieces of pasteboard, for their minds were not on what they were doing. Both were listening, tense and alert, to every sound and movement of the train. Thirty minutes of it was all they could stand. Ferris had just caught himself dealing poker instead of seven-up.

“That's more than enough,” he scolded. He glanced at his watch. “10:52, Waco.”

“Yeh. Ought to be slowin' down for the Skull Creek tank directly.”

“Damned lonely spot.”

“Yeh—” Waco answered laconically.

Presently Quinlan began to use the air. The sharp clicking of the wheels died away to a dull rattle. Panting lustily, Number Nine's big iron horse slid up to the Skull Creek tank.

The sharp hiss of steam from the exhaust valves and the whine of escaping air reached Waco and Ferris. The night was still, save for the droning of the cicadas. They heard the fireman climb over the coal; the lowering of the spout; the rush of water into the tender.

These were all familiar, reassuring sounds. Ferris mopped his face in relief.

“Guess it's all right,” he grinned. “If we get by here—”

His words were lost in the sharp, staccato crash of half-a-dozen guns, the slugs pinging off the steel tender or plowing into the walls of the wooden express car.

Hoarse cries followed. Men could be heard running alongside the train. Up ahead there was another burst of gunfire.

Waco and Ferris had leaped to their feet.

“They're here!” Ferris gasped. “I knew it! I felt it in my bones tonight!”

“Jest keep your pants on,” Waco ground out harshly. “There's a bunch of 'em out there!”

A wire grille separated the railway post-office from the rest of the car. Ferris drew his gun as he retreated behind it.

“Better put that gun out of sight,” Waco advised. “It'll be just like committin' suicide if they catch you with it.”

“You mean you're going to let them in?” Ferris cried.

“I may have to do that. I don't intend to be foolish about this …. Follow my lead and you'll be all right.”

“If they come at me, I'm shooting!” Ferris said stubbornly.

“Have it your way,” Waco muttered. “If you use that shootin'-iron you better shoot to kill. But it ain't you they're after. There's been a leak somehow; they know I got twenty thousand in currency in the safe. Well, they ain't got it yet, I can tell 'em!”

Almost immediately there came a loud banging on the door.

“Come on, open up in there!” a hoarse voice bellowed. “I've got dynamite enough here to blow this car to hell if you don't move lively.”

Waco took his gun from the holster and tossed it on his desk. His nerves were not troubling him now. An old, lean gray wolf stalking its prey could not have been cooler or more deliberate than he as he dropped to his knees and spun the combination dial of the safe.