Butch Cassidy the Lost Years (21 page)

“What in the world just happened here?” Daisy asked.

Her father thought he had figured it out. He said, “Mr. Nelson changed his tune because he was afraid of Mr. Strickland.” He didn't sound like that was a particularly good thing.

I shook my head and said, “Hate to disagree with you, Reverend, but Nelson wasn't scared of me. He respected me, and that's what made the difference. I treated him with respect, too, and didn't rub it in his face that I'd whipped him. He'll be a friend from now on.”

“I'll never understand men,” Daisy said.

I often felt the same way about womenfolks, but I didn't see any point in saying that.

“I really can't allow you to pay the expenses for this church,” Hatfield said. “It's not fair to you.”

“They say the Lord works in mysterious ways, don't they, Reverend? Well, just consider me one of those mysterious ways.”

“But how can you afford such a thing?”

“Don't worry about the money,” I told him. “Any time I need money, I know more than one way to get it.”

CHAPTER 34

D
aisy wanted me to have supper with them and spend the night in Largo. I refused the offer as politely as I could, reminding her that I'd told Enoch and Vince I'd catch up with them after I helped her unload the Bibles and hymnals.

It was probably too late for me to do that, but if I didn't show up at the ranch until the next day, they and the rest of the crew would probably start to worry.

It was after dark before I reached Fishhook. Scar heard me coming and ran out to meet me, barking furiously. He hushed when I called to him and he recognized my voice.

Lamps were lit in the bunkhouse, so it didn't surprise me when the fellas heard Scar's carrying on and came out to see what the commotion was all about. Randy, Vince, and Bert were in the lead. Enoch and Gabe hung back a little, and they had their right hands resting on their gun butts. It was hard to break the habits of a lifetime, and they both knew that trouble often came to call after dark.

“Hello, the camp!” I called. That drew a chuckle from Enoch, as he was probably remembering a lot of cold camps on dark trails.

“Figured you wouldn't get in any hurry helpin' that gal with her Bibles and hymnals,” he said.

I swung down from the saddle and handed the reins to Randy.

“There was a little more to it than that,” I said.

“You ain't engaged, are you?”

“What? Of course not!” The thought of getting married to Daisy hadn't really crossed my mind. For one thing, I was too old for her, for another she was a preacher's daughter, and for yet another, I was a train robber. Those things seemed to make holy matrimony an unlikely prospect.

“Then what happened?” Vince asked. “I thought you said you'd be right behind us. Enoch told me not to worry, though.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with the sheriff, does it?” Randy wanted to know. He was still pretty jumpy when it came to the law and might always be that way.

“Come on in the house, all of you,” I told them. “I'll explain in there. We've got some things to talk about, but we might as well be comfortable.”

Once Randy had put up my horse and we were all inside and settled, I told them about the fracas with Nelson and the preacher's money troubles. Enoch was canny enough to know what was coming, but the others looked surprised when I concluded by saying, “So I think we ought to pitch in and help get that church built by holdin' up another train.”

The younger ones looked at each other. Bert was the one who finally spoke up.

“Putting those two things together sort of doesn't make sense, Mr. Strickland,” he said. “One of the Ten Commandments says ‘Thou shalt not steal.' ”

“Don't the Bible also say something about robbin' from the rich and givin' to the poor?” I asked.

“That's Robin Hood,” Randy said. “That's just something from a storybook.”

“Maybe so, but you got to admit, there's something to be said for the idea. We were already talkin' about hittin' another train—”

“You were talking about it, Mr. Strickland. Not us.”

Enoch said, “It sounds like a mighty good idea to me.”

“You just want an excuse to rob trains!” Randy accused.

“It sounds to me like we could do a lot of good,” Enoch countered. “There's bound to be plenty of folks besides the preacher who could use some help, too. If we gave most of the loot to people who really needed it, I don't see how El Señor Dios could be too upset with us.”

“I'm willin' to put it to a vote,” I said. “Santiago and his cousins ain't here, so we'll have to see how they feel about it later, but right now, who amongst us thinks it would be a good idea to hold up another train and use the money to pay for Reverend Hatfield's church?”

I lifted my hand. So did Enoch and Gabe. I'd been pretty sure I could count on them. I was a little surprised when Bert's hand went up as fast as it did, though. The boy must've decided he liked being a desperado. Vince looked at him, shrugged, and lifted his hand, too.

“I don't care that much about the church,” he said, “but I've got no reason to love the railroad.”

“What about the promise you made to your ma?” I asked him.

“I wouldn't want you to go against that and then be sorry about it later.”

A smile tugged at his mouth as he said, “I promised her I'd never again do what I did yesterday. So you can't have me holding the horses again, Mr. Strickland.”

I had to chuckle at that.

“You were usin' your head there, son,” I told him. That just left Randy. I looked at him.

He sighed and said, “You've already got a majority, Mr. Strickland. I suppose I might as well go ahead and make it unanimous.” He raised his hand but shook his head as if to say he wasn't sure it was a good idea.

“I don't think you'll regret it, Randy,” I told him. “We'll need to leave somebody here, like we planned to before, and you can have that job. Only you'll really stay this time, because I think we'll be gone for a few days and I don't want to leave the place unattended for that long.”

“Plan on goin' out of Sheriff Lester's bailiwick for the next job, are you?” asked Enoch.

I nodded and said, “I think it would be a good idea. We don't want anybody to track us down, so I figure we'll spread the jobs out far and wide.”

“Jobs?” Vince repeated.

“This'll be just the start, boys,” I said. “Why, in the old days Sundance and me, along with the rest of the bunch, ranged all over. That's the way to do it. Never let the law pin you down. That's the way it was in the Hole in the Wall days.”

Saying that brought back bitter memories of how the law—or rather, the Bolivian army, which was the same thing down there—had pinned us down. Maybe we'd gotten careless. We'd gotten away with so much for so long, Harry and me, it was understandable how we might start feeling that the law couldn't ever touch us.

Or maybe our luck had just run out at last. It happens, and sometimes there's not a blasted thing in the world you can do about it.

But that wasn't going to happen here, I told myself as I shoved those memories away. This was a new century, a new era, a new Wild Bunch.

And our ride into legend was just beginning.

CHAPTER 35

A
couple of weeks later, I was waiting on horseback behind some massive boulders about fifty yards north of the railroad tracks. On the other side of the tracks rose a steep cliff, and as I took off my hat and edged my head around the big slab of rock so I could peer up at the top of that cliff, I spotted Bert standing there looking down at the boulders. I waved my hat at him, and he waved his to let me know that everything was all right up there.

I pulled back behind the boulders, put my hat on, and checked my pocket watch. If the train was on schedule, right about now it would be starting the long climb up a slope to the east of our position. It would have to slow down to make that climb, and that was vital to our plan. If the train had been highballing along, it might not have been able to stop in time.

We were more than a hundred miles west of our usual stomping grounds around Fishhook. Once we were committed to the idea of robbing another train—an idea that Santiago and the Gallardo boys had gone along with quite happily, by the way—I had done quite a bit of scouting before settling on this location. It was far enough away from the ranch that it wouldn't draw suspicion on us right away, and it was a place where we could stop the train without wrecking it.

Earlier that day Santiago and I had gone up on the cliff with Bert and Vince and showed them where to plant the dynamite. A lot of train robbers could have been mining engineers if they'd turned their efforts in that direction. It sure helped to know quite a bit about blasting.

The two youngsters had the job of setting off the explosion that would dump twenty tons of rock on the tracks and force the train to stop. Also, from that vantage point they could pitch in with some rifle fire if we got in trouble and needed somebody to cover our retreat once the job was finished.

I heard the train in the distance. It was right on schedule, or close enough for government work, anyway. Not that what we were doing was government work. When it came to large-scale thievery, a hundred Wild Bunches couldn't match even a fraction of the larceny that the politicians in Washington pull off on a daily basis.

“Better get ready, fellas,” I told the five men with me. We all pulled our bandannas up over our faces. Santiago, Javier, and Fernando were all wearing regular cowboy clothes and Stetsons today, as well as long tan dusters, instead of their vaquero garb and sombreros. That might help deflect suspicion from them later, I thought.

The noise of the locomotive grew louder as the train continued its steady approach. The boulders concealed us well enough that the engineer and fireman wouldn't be able to see us.

But we couldn't see the train, either, and that made me a little nervous. A lot was riding on Bert and Vince carrying out their part of the job right on time. We had gone over and over the plan, but when you're using dynamite, there's really no way to practice. You get one shot, and that's it.

I had measured off the distances as best I could. A quarter of a mile up the track, I had gathered some rocks and stacked them into a small cairn that would be visible through binoculars from the ridge. Vince's job was to watch that cairn, and as soon as the locomotive's cowcatcher passed it, he was to signal Bert, who would push down the plunger attached to the dynamite. I estimated that the train would have time to stop before it crashed into the resulting avalanche, but not by much. We had to cut it that close so the engineer couldn't stop the train and then try to reverse before we closed in on the cab.

Without being able to see, I didn't know if Vince was watching the cairn or how close the train was or whether Vince had already given the signal and the dynamite hadn't gone off like it was supposed to . . .

I didn't know anything.

But then the world shook as the peaceful afternoon was shattered by an explosion, and then a rumble swept across the West Texas landscape that dwarfed the sound of the locomotive and drowned it out completely.

I let out a whoop and shouted, “Come on!” I kicked my horse into a run and we broke out from behind the boulders.

It didn't matter if anybody on the train saw us now. Events had been set in motion, and there was no way on earth to stop them.

As we left the shelter of the rocks I saw a huge cloud of dust and smoke boiling up from the top of the cliff. Great chunks of rock and dirt had broken off and were sliding down the slope toward the tracks. More dust rose as the small-scale avalanche crashed down and swept across the steel rails, covering them completely.

I glanced at the cliff top again. I couldn't see Vince and Bert because of all the dust. At least, I hoped that was the reason. I had tried to position them well away from the blast site, but dynamite is tricky stuff. Right now I could only hope that we hadn't used too much and blown them to kingdom come, too. I would never forgive myself if that had happened.

There was no point in worrying about that until later, though, when I could actually check on them. For now we had to concentrate on the job at hand, which meant galloping toward the tracks and the onrushing train. I knew the engineer had seen the rock slide blocking the tracks, because I could hear the unholy screech of the brakes clamping down on the rails. It sounded like the howling of all the demons in hell.

We split up the same way we did on the first job, Gabe and me heading for the engine while Santiago and his cousins took over the passenger cars and Enoch dealt with the conductor in the caboose. The cowcatcher was just shuddering to a halt about twenty feet short of the first slabs of rock across the tracks as we swung down from our saddles.

The fireman yelled a curse and started to lift his shovel threateningly. I sent a bullet over his head.

“Drop it!” I ordered as I pointed the Remington at him. “Climb down from there, both of you!”

With Gabe and me covering them, the engineer and fireman didn't have any choice. Gabe herded them away from the engine and said to me over his shoulder, “I got 'em. You can go on about your business.”

I hurried along the train. I was just passing the first of the passenger cars when a pair of shots blasted inside it. I scrambled up onto the platform and burst through the door. Men were yelling and women were screaming inside. The smell of powdersmoke hung in the air.

Santiago stood at the head of the aisle running between the bench seats. A man in the blue uniform of a conductor sat on the floor about halfway down the aisle. His cap had fallen off. He clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. I saw the bright red flash of blood between his fingers.

“You all right?” I asked Santiago as I motioned for quiet with my revolver.

“Yeah,” he said. “He pulled a gun and opened fire on me. I had to stop him.”

“I'm glad you didn't have to kill him. You've got this under control?”

“I don't think anyone else will cause any trouble,” he said with a note of tense humor in his voice.

I clapped a hand on his shoulder for a second and went back out. It wasn't too surprising that he'd encountered the conductor in one of the passenger cars. Conductors had a habit of moving around their trains. The outcome could have been a lot worse, I told myself.

Enoch was already waiting for me outside the express car. He said, “The conductor wasn't in the caboose.”

“I know. One of our boys ran into him in the first passenger car.”

“Anybody hurt?” Enoch asked worriedly. “I thought I heard some shots.”

“The conductor's got a bullet hole in his shoulder, but he'll be all right.”

Enoch nodded and said, “That's good. I'd just as soon nobody died.”

I felt the same way. The express messenger didn't need to know that, though. I hammered on the door and yelled, “Open up, or it'll go mighty hard for you when we get in there!”

I heard the latch being unfastened on the other side of the door and nodded to Enoch. We stepped back, moving in different directions so we flanked the doorway, just in case the messenger tried to come out shooting.

Far from it. Instead he tossed out a shotgun, followed by a small-caliber revolver. He called, “There's nothing in here worth dying over. Don't shoot, all right?”

“Climb down out of there, son,” I told him. “We'll hold our fire as long as you don't try anything foolish.”

“No chance of that,” he said as he lowered himself to the ground. He was young, not much more than twenty, and looked more scared than angry.

I glanced toward the engine. Gabe had the engineer and the fireman turned around so that their backs were to us and they couldn't see what was going on, and we were far enough away that they probably couldn't hear the conversation, either.

“Keep him covered,” I told Enoch. Then I holstered my gun and picked up the shotgun. The express messenger started to look more nervous. He licked his lips and watched me with wide eyes.

I pointed the shotgun into the air, angling it away from the train, and fired off both barrels, first one, then the other. The twin explosions made the messenger jump a little each time.

As I tossed the empty weapon back on the ground, I said, “There you go. When your bosses ask you about what happened, tell 'em you put up a valiant fight. Both barrels of that Greener are empty to prove it. But after that the outlaws overpowered you. Got it?”

He looked confused now, but he nodded.

“Yeah, I guess so. But why would you worry about what my bosses think of me?”

“Because there wasn't anything else you could have done here except die, and like you said, there's nothin' in there worth dyin' for. A man doesn't deserve to lose his job just because he's bein' sensible.”

“Well . . . all right,” he said, still uncertain. “I appreciate it, I guess.”

“Tell you what we'll do,” I went on. “We'll even blow open the safe so you won't have to open it for us. I saved a stick of dynamite for that.”

“Thanks,” he said. He was warming up to the idea now. “Can I say that I threatened you and told you that you won't get away with this?”

I grinned and said, “Why, sure, son. Tell 'em whatever you want. Hell, there won't be anybody around to contradict you, will there?”

Enoch kept the youngster covered, just in case, while I climbed into the express car and blew the door off the safe. I had performed that little chore often enough in the past that I knew how to do it so the contents weren't destroyed.

There was no big money shipment this time, but I found some assorted packets of bills and stuffed them in the inside pockets of my duster. I left the mail pouch alone. Individuals sent money through the mail; companies shipped it in the safe. They could force the railroad or Wells Fargo to make good on the loss. Of course, you could argue that that hurt the folks who were stockholders in the railroad, but it was such a big business I doubted if anybody would ever notice.

With that taken care of, I hopped out of the car and nodded to Enoch.

“We'll be leavin' now,” I told the messenger. “Pleasure doin' business with you.”

“Thanks again, mister,” he said. “I hope if a train I'm on is ever robbed again, it's you who does the holding up.”

I laughed and said, “Another testimonial from a satisfied customer.” I gestured with the Remington in my hand. “You stay right there, hear?”

“I won't budge from this spot,” the youngster promised solemnly.

I let out a rebel yell as Enoch and I hurried to our horses. That was the signal for Gabe and the three vaqueros to light a shuck, too. We all leaped into our saddles and got out of there as quick as we could. Up on the cliff, Bert and Vince were watching us go, I hoped, and would meet up with us later at the rendezvous point, a rugged hill five miles north.

I worried about those two until I saw them come trotting up an hour or so later. They'd had to circle around to get down from the cliff and avoid the scene of the robbery, so their route had been longer than ours. It was sure good to see them, and I told them so as there was hand shaking and back slapping all around.

“Everything went just perfect, Mr. Strickland,” Bert said. “Just like you told us it would.”

“I've been doin' this for a while,” I said with a nod. “Robbin' trains is like anything else: you've got to practice to do it right.”

“How much did we get?” Vince asked.

I had already counted the loot, so I had the answer ready when he asked the inevitable question.

“A whole $1,708!” I told them. That was less than $200 per man, but in those days even that sum represented several months' wages for a cowboy. Anyway, it didn't matter, because we'd all agreed that most of it would go to Reverend Hatfield for the church in Largo. Santiago and his cousins would have preferred if it had been a Catholic church instead of Methodist, but they'd gone along with the rest of us.

Satisfied that we'd done a good day's work—and that the law wasn't after us at the moment—we turned our horses toward home.