Butch Cassidy the Lost Years (23 page)

CHAPTER 38

W
hen we got back to the ranch, I sent Enoch to fetch Santiago and the Gallardo brothers.

“What's this all about?” the old gun-wolf wanted to know. “You got a mighty serious look on your face, Jim.”

“I'd rather just tell it once,” I said, casting a warning look at Vince and Bert to keep their mouths shut for the time being. Vince had told Bert all about what was in John Hamilton's letter, of course.

When Enoch got back with the vaqueros, I gathered everybody around me in the house while I stood there with Scar lying on the floor at my feet and read John Hamilton's letter out loud to them.

When I was finished, nobody said anything for a long moment. Then Santiago asked, “What are you trying to tell us, señor? That we should stop being outlaws because this man Hamilton knew our secret?”

“That ain't what he's sayin' at all,” Enoch spoke up before I could reply. “He's sayin' we ought to go after that shipment of gold bullion.”

“Actually I'm sort of sayin' both of those things,” I told them.

“Damn right I think we should go after that bullion, but once we've got our hands on it, that'll be the right time to retire as train robbers.”

Gabe said, “Sixty grand's a hell of a lot of money, all right.”

“We wouldn't get that much out of it,” I cautioned. “You can't just go into a store and spend a bar of gold. We'd have to sell it to somebody who can deal with it, and they won't give us the full value of what it's worth. But I figure we'll clear at least half, maybe more. We won't have to sell it all at once, either. We'll get more in the long run if we spread it out. But when all's said and done, it would still be a fine way to close out our train-robbin' career.”

“Do we get to vote again?” Randy asked.

“I've never tried to make you fellas do anything you didn't want to do. You may work for me as ranch hands, but we're all equal partners in this other business. So yeah, sure, we'll take a vote.”

“Then I vote yes,” Randy said decisively, surprising me. When he saw my reaction, he continued, “I want to get this over with. And I want to be part of it this time, instead of sitting here on the ranch. I hate being stuck here, not knowing if you're all going to get shot full of holes.”

“That ain't exactly what I'd call a vote of confidence,” I told him with a smile, “but I'll take it. How about the rest of you boys?”

It took only a few seconds for all of them to chime in with their agreement. Once again it was a unanimous vote.

Enoch asked, “What do you think about Hamilton's suggestion that we hit the train at the same place we did that first one?”

“It might work,” I said. “We've been ridin' pretty far and wide on these jobs. They might not expect us to circle back to where we started.”

“It's closer to town and the ranch,” Gabe pointed out.

“True. But if we take 'em by surprise, that shouldn't really matter.” I folded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and handed it to Vince. It belonged to him, even though Hamilton had sort of intended it for all of us. I went on, “We've got some time. I'll do some scoutin' and plannin'. That's been workin' out all right so far, so I don't see any reason to change.”

With that settled, Santiago and his cousins went back to their spread. Santiago told me to let them know when we were ready to make our move.

That was a Tuesday, so Friday was three days off. I spent all day Wednesday riding through the countryside around the place where we had pulled that first holdup. That confirmed what I already thought. There wasn't a better spot to board and stop the train.

But that didn't mean we'd do things exactly the same way this time, I thought as I rode back east through that series of ridges to a spot a couple of miles away where the terrain dropped off fairly steeply to a broad flat. I reined in and sat there for several minutes while a grin spread slowly over my face.

The next day we all gathered at the Fishhook again to go over the plan I'd hatched. We talked it all out, up one way and down the other, and if anybody had any objections there were plenty of chances for them to voice those complaints. Nobody did, but the discussion helped get the whole thing straight in everybody's mind. When the time came, we'd all know what to do.

It seemed to be Friday afternoon in the blink of an eye, and suddenly there I was again, stretched out on top of that ridge the same way I'd been several months earlier, waiting for the train to rumble past my location. Life had come around in a big ol' circle, I thought, the way it always seemed to with me.

This time would be different, I told myself. That circle of outlawry wouldn't just keep running around and around from now on. The difference was Daisy. She was going to break me out of the same pattern that had ruled my life up until then.

I had to push all that musing out of my mind. I couldn't afford to be thinking about the future beyond the next half hour or so. I had to concentrate on the job at hand.

Because I heard the train coming in the distance.

Time had seemed to fly past until this point, but now it slowed down to a crawl. I waited and waited for the train to get there, and it seemed that it never would. Finally, though, the rumble of the locomotive got louder until it drew even with my position and then passed me.

I wasn't alone this time. I looked over at Santiago and nodded. We would do this together.

As I came up on my feet, Santiago did likewise. He had never done anything like this before, so he had to be nervous about jumping onto a moving train. I'll give him credit, though. He didn't hesitate even for a second. He sailed off the top of that cutbank right along with me.

I landed on top of one freight car, and he landed on the car right behind it. I grabbed hold and steadied myself, turning my head as I did so to make sure he had landed safely. He was spread-eagled in the center of the next freight car's roof, holding on for dear life, but after a moment he lifted his head and gave me a nod to let me know he was all right.

I waved at him and got to my hands and knees and then climbed to my feet, keeping my legs wide apart to brace myself. It was a shame Santiago hadn't been able to practice this part ahead of time, but I had told him everything I could about it, based on my own experience. I looked over my shoulder and saw that he had made it to his feet, too. We started toward our respective destinations, me going toward the engine while he headed for the caboose.

I wanted to turn around and watch Santiago, but I couldn't afford to take my eyes off what I was doing. It took me only a couple of minutes to reach the coal tender and start working my way along the ledge on the side of it. I was making better time now than I had during the previous holdup. The locomotive was just emerging from the cut when I swung around into the cab and covered the engineer and fireman with my Remington.

“Hands up, boys!” I called. “You're makin' an unscheduled stop!”

Funny thing, they didn't seem particularly surprised by my sudden appearance, and that was the first thing that set off warning bells in my head. But there was no turning back now, so I gestured with the revolver and told the engineer, “Stop the train now!”

He reached for the brake lever without arguing. The brakes squealed and the train began to slow.

It came to a stop about fifty yards short of the wash where the rest of the boys had waited last time. They weren't there today. That was the first difference in the plan.

I kept the engineer and fireman covered as I leaned back to look along the right side of the train toward the caboose. I spotted Santiago standing beside the express car. He snatched off his hat and waved it at me to let me know that his part of the plan had been completed successfully.

The fireman chose that moment, when I was sort of distracted, to make a move. He jumped at me, even though the engineer yelled, “Zeke, no! You're not supposed to—”

He didn't have time to say more. I could have blasted a hole through the fireman, but I still didn't want to kill anybody. I twisted aside from his rush and walloped him on the back of the head with my gun. He pitched out of the cab and landed sprawling on the edge of the roadbed, rolling over a couple of times before he came to a stop.

I pointed the Remington at the engineer's face and told him, “Reverse! Now!”

I knew something was wrong, but the plan was underway and all we could do was keep following it and try to cope with whatever happened.

The engineer gaped at me. I drew back the Remington's hammer, mostly for effect, and repeated in a quieter and more dangerous tone, “Reverse.”

The engine still had enough steam up for what I had in mind. With the muzzle of that Remington only a few inches from his nose, the engineer had no choice but to do what I told him. He started backing the train along the tracks. It gradually built up speed.

The line ran pretty straight through the ridges. The train was going only about half as fast in reverse as it had been going forward, but that was fast enough for our purposes. I kept one eye on the landmarks sliding past, and when I knew we were in the right spot, I yelled, “Stop!”

Instinctively, the engineer hauled back on the brake lever. With a violent lurch the train began to slow again. Since it wasn't going as fast it didn't take as long for it to stop this time.

“Turn around,” I told the engineer.

“Please, m-mister,” he said, his voice shaking with fear, “don't kill me! I got a wife and kids!”

“I will kill you if you don't turn around,” I warned him. With his hands in the air and a terrified expression on his face, he swung around so his back was to me.

I reversed the Remington and tapped him on the back of the head with the butt, hard enough to knock him out for a few minutes without doing any real damage. Then I leaped down from the cab as the drumming of hoofbeats echoed against the ridges.

Enoch loomed up, coming in from the west leading my horse. I swung into the saddle like an old Pony Express rider. My mount never even slowed to a complete stop before I was on its back, finding the other stirrup and leaning forward over the horse's neck.

Along the tracks to the east, I could see the express car and caboose still rolling freely on the steel rails. Santiago had uncoupled them from the rest of the train after taking over the caboose and knocking out the conductor. Those two cars had been pushed along with the rest of the train while the locomotive was backing up, but once the locomotive stopped, they kept going. The cars were almost at the top of the slope, and as Enoch and I galloped after them, I saw them speed up even more as gravity caught them and started pulling them down the hill.

It was a pretty sight, because it meant my plan was working. I didn't have time to feel too pleased about it, though. At that instant, as we started to ride past the passenger cars, the glass in the windows exploded outward and I heard the soul-numbing chatter of a Gatling gun.

CHAPTER 39

O
f course it was a trap. I'd suspected that possibility all along. Vince had been convinced that John Hamilton was trustworthy, though, and I had felt the same way about the man.

So either someone had gotten to Hamilton and convinced him to write that letter on his deathbed—or forced him to write it—or else it was a forgery good enough to fool Vince.

Either way we were in the same amount of trouble, so it didn't really matter. As bullets smashed the windows in the passenger car and clawed through the air at me and Enoch, I yelled, “Stay down!”

I was practically laying down on my horse's neck. I felt the heat of several rounds passing close to my head. Then the horse lurched and went down.

I kicked my feet free of the stirrups so that I sailed through the air in front of the mortally wounded animal as it collapsed. When I slammed to the ground it knocked the breath out of me and seemed to paralyze all my muscles.

Enoch leaned down from the saddle and extended a hand toward me. I forced my arm to work and lifted it. His hand slapped against mine and we clasped wrists. I yelled in pain as it felt like my arm was jerked right out of its socket. I came off the ground, Enoch hauling me upward with all the strength in his leathery frame.

I kicked my leg upward and got my foot over the back of the horse. Hooking it against the far side of the saddle, I pulled myself up even more and settled down on the horse's back behind Enoch. For the last few seconds I'd been so concerned with not falling and getting trampled, I hadn't had a chance to notice we'd made it past the car where the Gatling gun was set up.

That didn't mean we were out of the woods, though. The deafening roar of pistols and rifles pounded against our ears, and slugs whipped through the air all around us.

You might think it was impossible for us to gallop through such a fusillade without being killed, but really, it's mighty hard to hit a fast-moving target, even up close. And the old saying about a miss being as good as a mile, well, it's even more true when you're being shot at. They can't hurt you if they don't hit you.

We were stretching our luck mighty thin, though, and abruptly it ran out. I felt a bullet slice across my upper right arm at an angle. The impact jolted a grunt from me.

“You hit?” Enoch yelled over his shoulder.

“Just keep goin'!” I told him.

He did, making that horse flash along the train. Even though the animal was carrying double, Enoch got every possible ounce of speed out of him.

The bullet wound numbed my arm at first, but that lasted only a few seconds before it started burning like hell. I gritted my teeth against the pain and hung on. The passenger cars were behind us now. I halfway expected the doors of the freight cars to roll back and reveal a danged army hiding in them, but nothing of the sort happened. I guess the fella who set up this trap figured a Gatling gun and a couple of passenger cars full of armed guards would be enough to settle our hash. He was wrong about that. Luck and quick reactions had saved us . . . so far.

The train sat there on the tracks behind us. I glanced back and saw riflemen jumping out of the cars. As soon as they landed, they started firing at us again. Enoch juked that horse back and forth, though, and the slugs whistled around us but didn't find their targets.

We reached the top of the slope and plunged over it. That risked the horse falling as we began to descend at breakneck speed toward the flats below, but thankfully the critter was sure-footed and stayed upright, even though he slid a little every now and then.

The express car and the caboose still rolled across the flats, although they were beginning to slow down now that they were back on level ground. I spotted Santiago leaning out from the platform at the rear of the caboose. Off to the left, dust boiled up as the rest of the boys galloped to intercept the two cars. One of the Gallardo brothers led Santiago's horse.

Unfortunately, that meant we were one horse shy since mine had gone down. And I wasn't sure Enoch's mount could keep up with the others carrying both of us.

I was willing to bet that the express car held more armed men and no gold bullion. As soon as it stopped rolling across the plains, the door would pop open and those boys would come out shooting. I shouted in Enoch's ear, “Wave off the others! Let 'em know it's a trap!”

Enoch nodded grimly. He pulled his Colt from its holster and fired three times in the air to get the others' attention. Then he pouched the iron and jerked his hat off. He started waving it, motioning for them to stay away from the train.

We had gone over what to do in case of trouble, so the boys seemed to understand the signal. They immediately split up and veered sharply away from the railroad tracks, scattering in different directions so pursuers would have a harder time tracking them.

Except for Javier or Fernando, whichever brother it was who was leading Santiago's horse. He kept going. He wasn't going to abandon his cousin.

Santiago leaped down from the platform and ran to meet the rider. He stumbled and I thought for a second he was hit, but he righted himself and started running again, just as fast as before. If he was wounded, it wasn't bad. After a few more steps he slowed, half-turned, and threw some shots back at the express car, just to discourage any guards who might be in there, I figured.

The Gallardo brother reached him, and Santiago leaped into the saddle. They turned and galloped away.

By now Enoch and I were almost to the bottom of the slope. He angled his horse away from the tracks, too. There was no rendezvous point this time. In the event of trouble we were all supposed to ride far and wide, away from each other, and eventually make our way back to the Fishhook.

Instinct made me look behind us again. I bit back a curse as I saw a cloud of dust rising in the air from the place where the train was stopped. That meant a lot of riders.

“There's already a posse on our trail,” I called to Enoch.

“How can that be?”

“They probably had horses hidden in the boxcars. Lawdogs have pulled that trick on me before!”

I sensed a brain smarter than that of Sheriff Emil Lester behind this. Lester was canny enough, but he was a plodder. He would follow a lawbreaker to the ends of the earth before he'd think to set a trap for one. That told me the railroad had brought in someone else to go after the gang, more than likely the Pinkertons.

I tapped Enoch on the left shoulder and pointed.

“Head for those rocks over there!”

“We're gonna make a stand?” he asked.

“Not you! I am!”

“The hell with that!” he responded without any hesitation. “We'll get away together or we'll die together!”

“This horse can't outrun a posse carryin' both of us. Damn it, Enoch—”

“You got a gal to go back to,” he interrupted me. “I don't.”

“You've got friends—”

“It ain't the same thing, and you know it. You take the horse, and I'll fort up in the rocks and slow the bastards down!”

We were almost there. Arguing was just going to waste time. But I would have done it anyway, if I hadn't seen movement behind the boulders. For a second I thought it was another trap, until a rider spurred out into the open and I recognized Randy.

“Damn it!” I shouted at him as Enoch reined in. “You were supposed to get out of here! It was all a trick, and now there's a posse after us!”

“We figured that out,” Randy said. He seemed to be pretty calm, although his eyes were big. “I saw the two of you riding double and knew you must have lost your horse, Mr. Strickland. That's why I came back. You can have mine.”

“No way in hell I'm leavin' you here,” I said. “Either of you.”

“You don't have to,” Randy said. “I weigh quite a bit less than you, Mr. Strickland. Enoch's horse can carry him and me.”

The youngster might have a point there, I realized. He was pretty skinny, and so was Enoch. I've always been a little chunky. It might work, I told myself, especially with one more little wrinkle thrown in.

“All right,” I said as I dismounted. “Let's swap, and we'll all get out of here.”

Enoch didn't object. He gave me a narrow-eyed look, though, like he thought I might be up to something.

I was, of course, but I wasn't going to take the time to explain it to them. Instead I swung up on Randy's horse, ignoring the pain from my bullet-creased arm. Blood had soaked a good-size patch on my shirt sleeve, but I couldn't afford to worry about that now.

“Go!” I called to them. “I'll be right behind you!”

Enoch heeled his horse into a gallop again. I was counting on the thunder of its hoofbeats to keep them from realizing what I was doing until it was too late to stop me.

I burst out from behind the rocks and raced back
toward
the posse, which was now riding down the hill in the direction of the flats.

They were still several hundred yards away from me, so to be sure they didn't fail to see me, I pulled Randy's rifle from the saddleboot and cranked off several rounds in the posse's general direction. I wasn't deliberately trying to hit any of them, but if one of the bullets happened to find a target, I didn't figure I'd lose any sleep over it. Those hombres were all professionals, hired guns whose job was to kill me and my friends.

Having a Gatling gun open up on me had put me in sort of a bad mood, you see. Getting winged hadn't helped, either.

After firing those shots I swung due east, galloping parallel to the railroad tracks. A look over my shoulder told me that Randy and Enoch were nowhere in sight. Once Enoch had realized what I was doing, it would have been too late to stop me, and for them to turn back would just waste whatever sacrifice I made. I knew Enoch was enough of a hardheaded realist not to do that. I was counting on it, in fact.

Nothing was in front of me for several miles except open plains. No place to hide or give the slip to my pursuers. My life depended on staying ahead of them, and I had to hope that Randy's horse was capable of that. It seemed like a long shot. If the posse's horses had been riding in the boxcars as I suspected, they would be fresher than my mount.

But when there's nothing else you can do, you lower your head and keep going. Keep moving and hope for the best.

It was hours until nightfall.