Even as the first man was still falling, a second shape appeared. This one was terribly different—it was the shape of a man totally engulfed in flames! As J.D. watched, horrified, the shape staggered to the edge of the doorway, arms extended forward as if reaching blindly, desperately for relief from the agony it had to be suffering. A bloodcurdling scream escaped the flaming shape, filling J.D.'s ears along with the pounding rumble and whistle screech of the approaching locomotive.
J.D. took a step back, staring helplessly as the burning man toppled from the cattle car. He hit the ground, rolled, and then—amazingly—rose back to his feet and staggered forward again. J.D. looked on, stunned. The man emitted another long, agonizing scream.
It ran through J.D.'s mind to shoot the poor bastard. Put him out of his misery. But before he could act, the flaming shape stumbled blindly out onto the main tracks of the railroad line...straight into the path of the onrushing locomotive.
J.D. could only stand there, wild-eyed, shocked, as a splatter of sparks, blood, and bits of burnt flesh washed over him from the impact.
Chapter Ten
"What you are implying, sir, is outrageous and offensive!" The veins on the sides of Jeremiah Baker's neck bulged to near bursting and his face deepened in color to an almost impossible shade of purple.
"I ain't implyin' a damn thing," responded Curly Nesbitt just as hotly, but without the facial contortions. "I'm sayin' flat-out that those two men were part of the three who tried to get me to throw in with 'em to put a beating on Joshua Hope. When I told 'em to get lost, they went ahead with their plans anyway. Wearin' masks, they attacked Joshua in the stable at the Goldenhouse Hotel back in Cheyenne early this mornin', before the start of the race."
"If Mr. Hope's alleged attackers wore masks, how do you know it was the same three men?" asked Harlan Hudson, a tall, imposing figure with wavy, snow white hair combed straight back from a sharply pointed widow's peak.
"Since I suspected they were still gonna try something, with or without me, I followed 'em. I wanted to warn Joshua, but didn't know where to find him. Those three led me to him, only they'd already started in with their beating before I was able to interrupt."
"If Curly hadn't shown up when he did," confirmed Joshua Hope, "then the beating they were layin' on me would've been a whole lot worse than what I got away with."
"But you never saw your alleged assailants except with hoods covering their faces, isn't that a fact?" asked Hudson.
"I'll tell you what's a fact," responded Nesbitt, "and that's if you keep usin' that damn word 'alleged' you are gonna seriously piss me off!"
"Here now," said Edgar Grigg sharply. "Let's everybody keep level heads and conduct this proceeding like gentlemen or we're never going to get anywhere."
The proceeding in question was being held in the mess tent of the siding encampment. Over two hours had passed since the shooting and fire involving the cattle car that remained on the tracks nearby, a blackened, smoldering husk of what it once had been. Those engaged in the related discussion now taking place included: Edgar, Jonathan, and Estelle Grigg; Curly Nesbitt; Joshua Hope; Jeremiah Baker; Harlan Hudson (a backer, personal friend, and Baker family attorney accompanying Jeremiah from Kentucky); the engineer and conductor of the race train; three additional members of the race committee; Able Radcliffe, the veterinarian assigned to oversee the wellbeing of the horses during the course of the race; and J.D. and Kate Blaze. Everyone else (after pitching in to quell the fire and help prevent it from spreading to other cars or the prairie) had been asked to hold off and allow the time and space necessary for this inquiry into exactly what had taken place. For the most part, most were respecting this request. The newspaper reporters on hand to cover the race were, not surprisingly, the most persistent. But a couple burly members of the train's maintenance crew were doing a good job of keeping them at bay.
What had come to light so far was the revelation that the whole incident had started when Curly Nesbitt went to the cattle car looking to check on his horse. He was unaware that, after being stripped, rubbed down, watered, and examined by the vet, the race horses had been taken to a roped off area behind the tents to enjoy some natural graze before being moved to the cattle car stalls where they would spend the night. Six roomy stalls had been constructed inside each of the two stock cars, in anticipation of the twelve-horse limit that had been set for the race.
Nesbitt not only wasn't aware that the horses weren't in the cars yet but, since this was the first of the overnight stops, he also wasn't sure which one his mount was scheduled to be kept in. By chance, it happened that the first car he looked in was where he ran smack into two of the men who'd attacked Joshua Hope. An argument ensued, fisticuffs quickly followed, and then guns were drawn and bullets started flying. Nesbitt took cover in the stalls at one end of the car, the two troublemakers at the opposite end. None of the shots during that exchange scored a hit...not until the lantern caught an errant round, resulting in the fire that brought everything to its horrific conclusion.
While the two scoundrels were attempting their ill-fated escape out the south side of the car, after being driven back by Kate on the north, Nesbitt had shown the sense to throw down his gun and surrender to Kate. Afterward, it had been the vet Radcliffe who finally was able to identify the first man J.D. had shot as a fellow named Watson, whom he knew to be a groom in the employ of Jeremiah Baker. When summoned, Baker (accompanied by Hudson) had concurred; this meant, according to the two men, the unrecognizable remains of the second man had to be someone named Peasley. According to Baker, and backed up by Hudson, Watson and Peasley—and a third, named Dell—had only recently been hired in preparation for the race. Dell had had some kind of falling out with the other two before leaving Cheyenne and so only Watson and Peasley had left with the race train. As far as the claims by Nesbitt and Joshua about a beating and the threats warning Joshua against faring well in the race, Baker and Hudson not only vehemently denied any knowledge of such a thing but seemed to be not-so-subtly attempting to cast doubt on the validity of the accusations at all.
"I repeat," Edgar Grigg was saying now, "that everyone here needs to keep a level head and a civil tone so that we can conclude this ghastly matter both expeditiously and satisfactorily."
"An expeditious conclusion should certainly be simplified," Hudson remarked, "by the fact that two of the individuals involved are now dead—one of them ground to mincemeat by a train whose engineer barely had the decency to stop and wipe the remains off the front of his locomotive."
"That's uncalled for," spoke up Hector Tobin, the engineer of the race train. "I know Tom Philmont, who was at the throttle of that other train. He's a damned decent man and he was physically sick over what happened. What good would it have done for him to stick around any longer than he did? There was nothing more he could do, and he had a schedule to try and make up. He'll notify the proper authorities when he gets to North Platte and detectives for the railroad will be sent out. They'll examine the scene and get around to talking to each and every one of us, you can bet on that. Nobody's more thorough than those boys."
"That's very comforting, I'm sure," said Hudson in an unmistakably condescending tone. "In the meantime, we have only the testimony of these two men—Nesbit and Hope—as to the motive of the unfortunate dead and thereby the exoneration of Mr. Nesbitt's actions."
"I'd say we've got more than that," responded Kate. "Nesbitt threw down his gun and came out of that train car peaceably. Those other two 'unfortunates' tried to blast their way out, first on my side and then on my husband's. That doesn't strike me as the actions of men who have nothing to hide."
"It's very easy to slander the names and reputations of men who are in no position to defend themselves, isn't it, Mrs. Blaze?"
"You'd best keep in mind that civil tone you were warned about, especially when speaking to my wife," J.D. said through clenched teeth.
"Or what? You'll shoot me too?" said Hudson brazenly. "Is that your answ
er to everything?"
"Been known to settle a lot of agruments."
"J.D.," Jonathan Grigg admonished. "Please. Go easy."
"On the other hand," J.D. said, ignoring him but taking the edge off his voice and continuing in a slow, easy drawl, "another way to solve an argument is to flat out talk down the fool on the other end who ain't got nothing but hot air to try and beat you with."
J.D. hitched forward a bit in his chair, reached leisurely behind himself with one hand, and from the hip pocket of his pants withdrew a piece of cloth. The latter he tossed forward onto the mess hall table in the midst of the others who were seated there. The piece of cloth unfolded as it landed and revealed itself to be the hacked-off end of a common flour sack with two round eyeholes and a horizontal mouth slash cut in it.
"Before everybody started swarmin' around once the shooting stopped," J.D. explained, "I pulled the body of the man I drilled back farther away from the fire. I noticed something hanging part way out of one of his jacket pockets. It was that. I didn't know exactly what it meant at the time...But I figure it's clear enough now. And, for my money, that also makes it clear that everything Nesbitt and Joshua have been tellin' us is the truth."
Jeremiah Baker looked down at the hood mask with revulsion. Harlan Hudson glared at it with hate in his eyes; his lips trembled and squirmed as if to say something, but no words came out.
"Well," said Edgar Grigg. "Do you have anything more to add, Hudson...or perhaps amend?"
Although the question was directed at Hudson, it was Baker who responded with indignation flaring in his eyes. "What do you mean 'amend'? Are you implying once again that we had any prior knowledge of this filthy thing and the loathsome acts associated with it?"
"I'm merely trying to put this nasty business to rest, at least for the time being."
"Neither Jeremiah nor I have anything more to add at this time," Hudson said in a somewhat strained voice. "We obviously misjudged the character of Watson and Peasley. For that we naturally express our regrets. But surely no one can hold us responsible for any measures the pair took upon themselves...The only question now is: Will the race continue as scheduled in the morning?"
The Grigg brothers exchanged looks and then swept their gazes over the somber faces of the other race officials who were present. At some unspoken consensus, Edgar then said, "The whole country...the world...is focused on this historic race. I see nothing to be gained—and much to be lost—by halting at this juncture...Yes, the race will continue as planned."
Chapter Eleven
"You conniving old bastard, you knew, didn't you? You were in on it with them, weren't you?" Jeremiah Baker's face was once again purpled with anger. He was speaking in a low, harsh voice, fighting to control the volume so as not to be heard outside the sleeping compartment that he and Harlan Hudson shared in one of the race train's luxury cars. His hands were balled into trembling fists and wrapped around the lapels of the older man's frock coat as he held him pinned to the wall of the compartment.
"I suggest," Hudson said in a totally relaxed voice as he frowned down at the shorter youth who was threatening him, "that you calm yourself, Jeremiah."
"You go to hell, you damn shyster! I'm through listening to you."
With speed and strength that belied his angular frame and advanced years, Hudson swept his hands up and outward in a motion that knocked loose Jeremiah's grip and sent him staggering backward. Hudson immediately closed the gap that had briefly been created between them and now it was he who grabbed Jeremiah by his lapels, leaning over him and bending him back awkwardly, painfully.
"No, you are not through listening to me, you impertinent little pipsqueak! Not if you know what's good for you," Hudson hissed. "You've been listening to the advice and guidance of others all your pampered excuse for a life—because you're too jelly-spined and weak-willed to decide anything for yourself. And now that you're finally on the brink of doing something that at least has the appearance of acting like a man, you're not going to piss it down your leg by taking the moral high ground on me."
Jeremiah made a strained sound. "Harlan...Please, you're breaking my back."
"I'll do more than that if you ever try to threaten me or lay your hands on me again!"
"Okay...Enough."
Hudson jerked Jeremiah upright again and then pushed him away. Puffing somewhat from the exertion, he said, "What the hell were you thinking, anyway? You ought to know that anything I did was only for your own good."
Jeremiah looked completely bewildered. "I just never...I don't understand."
Hudson straightened his clothes, ran his hands back over his head, smoothing the mass of wavy hair. "I regret the harsh words, Jeremiah. But you know there was truth in them. Though not completely your fault alone, you have led a very soft, pampered life. You never gave a damn about or attempted or accomplished anything of note in your whole life...except for the God-given skill you have with horses. The way you can gentle them, ride them, race them. It's like nothing I ever saw. It's as if, in a saddle, you suddenly possess all the confidence and strength and drive you lack under any other circumstance."
Jeremiah arched a brow skeptically. "I'm not sure if you're running me down or paying me a compliment, Harlan."
"How about a bit of both?" Hudson said. "Whatever it takes to help you get hold of yourself, you young fool, and see this thing the rest of the way through with the right perspective."
"The perspective of winning at all costs, you mean?"
"I'm not talking about winning! In the eyes of those who care about you and love you—your father, your sister, and, I dare say, even me—you have already scored a victory merely by stepping forward and showing the initiative to leave your comfort zone and enter into this grueling affair."
"You don't think I have a chance of actually winning, do you?"
"You may, you may not. It doesn't really matter." Hudson made a catch-all gesture with his hands. "We know that Blueblood is a fine, strong horse and, as already stated, you are an excellent rider. But neither of you have ever faced anything like the rugged conditions of this course, whereas many of the other riders and mounts have. For you to simply finish, to place, as they say, would be a proud accomplishment...with one proviso."
"And that is?"
"It must be ahead of Joshua Hope. Don't you understand? You know how your father feels about the South and the outcome of the late war, how he loathes the so-called 'freedom' of the colored man and the notion that we are now supposed treat them as equals and allow them to mingle at all levels with whites. He is an old and frail man—the surge of pride I saw in him when you announced you were entering this race uplifted him more than all the medicine they've pumped in him over the past year. But now...now if it should occur that you place in this damned contest behind a colored man—who, by all reports, is very competent at this sort of thing...I fear it would be a devastating blow to your father."
Jeremiah's expression was a mix of horror and disbelief. "And that's what this is all about? Two men are dead—one in the most horrible way imaginable—because you wanted to ensure that a Negro did not best me in this race?"
"Naturally I didn't mean for anyone to die."
"Unless maybe it was Joshua Hope. That wouldn't have bothered you a bit, would it?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"You're the one who's ridiculous, Harlan. And I also think you're speaking more for yourself when you talk about being devastated if Hope comes out ahead of me in this race. My father surely has his prejudices and may still be clinging to the old ways, but never to the extent you suggest."
"You don't know him like I do."
"We'll see about that. I intend to finish every inch of this race and where I place will be earned honestly. For the sake of my family's name and your long association to it, I'll not expose you for what you are, what you've done. Not now...But, when we get back home, I'll reveal everything to my father and demand he terminates your services at once!"
Hudson's bottom lip curled viciously. "You try to undermine my standing with your father and see where it gets you. He'll cut you out of his life before he does me."
"Like I said, we'll see. In the meantime, for the duration of this undertaking, I suppose we'll have to continue the charade of our business relationship. But if you try any more chicanery and I find out about it, all bets will be off!"
* * *
J.D. and Kate did not make love that night. The tradition of always doing so after they'd been involved in gunplay was soured this time by the gruesome way in which the man named Peasley had met his end. Neither of them put it into words, but that nevertheless was how it was. Instead, once back in their tent, they just lay in each other's arms and talked.
"You don't believe for a second that young Baker and his lawyer had no idea of what the men who tried to intimidate Joshua Hope were up to, do you?" Kate asked.
"Not completely, no," replied J.D. "Hudson, for sure, was in on it. You don't have to spend much time around him before you can tell he's so crooked it's a wonder he can fit through a doorway. I'm not so sure about the kid, though...He's so pampered and gullible, it just might be that he didn't have any awareness of what was going on."
"Well, either way, I'd say the water has been pretty effectively shut off on any more trouble flowing from them. They'll be under too much scrutiny and suspicion from here on out."
"Reckon so."
"But that doesn't mean there aren't angles left for others to try and play. Meaning we still need to stay on sharp lookout as far as carrying out the job we were hired to do."
"True enough. We've got a long way to go, in both time and distance. There's still lots more that could happen."
They lay quiet for a time in the darkness. Until Kate said, "But what's happened so far—this business tonight—is troubling you greatly, isn't it?"
J.D. didn't answer right away. When he did, he said, "Gotta admit that it is, yeah."
Blaze! Ride Hard, Shoot Fast Page 6