Dead Time

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Separate the cars. When the train stops, the momentum will carry the rest of the train forward. Fallon would turn up a lantern and toss it against the kegs of gunpowder. Then he’d pray that he could figure out how to stay alive.

  That was what kept running through Fallon’s head as he moved toward the door. That was the last thing he remembered except for the whistle of the engine blaring one more time, the jarring sound of the brakes, and the floor rushing up to meet Fallon as he fell hard and the train began its screaming way to a sudden stop somewhere in the predawn hours and somewhere in the southern part of Texas.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The savage slap across his right cheek brought Fallon around. His eyes opened, but he saw nothing but colorful shapes. His face burned from the powerful hand. The back of his head hurt. Hell, his entire body ached.

  The hand came around, a backhand this time, and the knuckles dug into Fallon’s face, brushed past his nose.

  “Wake up, you dumb horse’s ass,” a voice Fallon recognized spoke, and Fallon felt the spittle from the man’s mouth showering his face.

  The hand lowered to the one gripping Fallon’s shirt, and both hands shook Fallon like a playful dog with a sock. “Wake up.” Fallon felt himself bouncing around, his neck snapping one way, then the other, before the earthquake ceased, and the right hand grabbed Fallon’s hair and pulled.

  “Are you going to wake up or do I cut your throat?”

  Fallon still couldn’t see clearly, but his voice was firm. “You lay another hand on me, Holderman, and you’ll be choking on your own blood.”

  Now Fallon saw Aaron Holderman, ex-convict, first-class lout, and operative for the American Detective Agency, drawing back his left hand as Fallon balled his own two fists.

  “That’s enough, Holderman,” another voice said. Fallon recognized it, as well. His head turned, and Aaron Holderman let go of his grip on Fallon’s hair.

  Fallon spit out blood. He could use a drink of water, but he knew better than to ask for that.

  The maniac of several Southern and Texas plantations, Colonel Josiah Jonathan Justice knelt in the express car, dressed in the resplendent uniform of a Confederate cavalry officer. Only if Fallon remembered the insignia right, this wasn’t a colonel but a general. And the uniform’s frock coat did not smell of mothballs, nor did it look thirty years old. It was made by a tailor, and quite recently. Justice wore a plumed hat, the purple ostrich feather stuck in the right side, which was pinned up with a large golden Texas star.

  “Where the hell is the money, Private Alexander?” Justice demanded.

  Fallon squinted, shook his head, pretending to be groggier than he really was, hoping to buy some time, stalling to come up with a decent answer. He had failed at his mission to blow the weapons up, but at least Justice didn’t have all that money.

  “Damn it, mister, what happened to the money?”

  Fallon rubbed his head.

  Footsteps sounded, and another pair of gray pants with yellow stripes came into Fallon’s view. A Texas drawl said, “No sign of Drexel, Gen’ral Justice. No sign of Ryker and Hansen, neither, suh.”

  Fallon’s head rose to stare up at the newcomer. “Well, suh,” the madman said, “if you’d taken care of Ryker in Austin as you were ordered, maybe I wouldn’t have had to use him.”

  It hurt to raise his head, but Fallon made himself get a look at the tall, lean man wearing the Confederate uniform of a major. He had a gray mustache and goatee and wore a big, black Texas sombrero, with a pair of Colts, butt forward, belted across his waist.

  “Yes, suh,” the man said, though those cold blue eyes burned with hatred.

  “See if you can get what I need to know from this silent fellow, Captain Bennett,” Justice said as he pushed himself to his feet. “It is not befitting that a general and a man of property like myself be reduced to such vile, low interrogations.”

  As the cotton king rose, the leathery Texan came down to his knees. His eyes were hard.

  “My name’s Fred Bennett,” he said, slowly drawing the Colt on his left hip. “I’ll ask you once. If you don’t answer, I’ll scatter your brains across this car. You savvy?”

  Oh, Fallon savvied, all right. This was the Texas Ranger he had read about, the hero who had tried, according to that Dallas newspaper, to prevent the cold-blooded murder of Texas Attorney General Malcolm Maxwell. He was the man who had killed two of the assassins and must have recognized the third, Josh Ryker. It made sense now. What were the chances that a Texas Ranger would recognize a two-bit thief and thug like Ryker? Or would happen to be outside Humphreys’s Hotel in Austin when the murder took place? Bennett had been there for another reason. It often played out this way, Fallon figured. The first rule to pull off an assassination is to kill the assassins. Ryker had foiled the play by escaping—and forced Justice to use him in the train robbery. Ryker would probably have been killed had he lived through the holdup, but Fallon had foiled that plan by killing Ryker himself.

  Bennett’s presence also meant something else. The late Malcolm Maxwell had been right. This conspiracy went all the way to at least one of the Texas Rangers. The attorney general had been wise in bringing in an outside detective agency, and not the Texas Rangers.

  “Drexel . . .” Fallon began, still shaking his head. “Ryker.” He lifted one hand to his head as if trying to clear his addled brain. “Double cross.”

  Colonel—make that General—Justice knelt back down.

  “What?” the magnate exclaimed.

  “We got the safe open,” Fallon said, nodding at the wreckage. “I remember seeing the door open. Ryker came in. Then Drexel—he was right behind me—I saw a movement, the flash of gunmetal.” He sighed and gently touched the knot on his head. “That was it. The lights went out.”

  “And Major Hansen?” Justice asked.

  “I don’t know, sir. Never saw him.”

  “Why didn’t they kill ya?” the Texas Ranger asked.

  Fallon turned and glared. “Feel the size of this knot, Bennett. Drexel damn sure tried.”

  It was Aaron Holderman who stepped behind Fallon, grabbed Fallon’s wrist, and flung it away from the back of Fallon’s skull. Then Holderman put his own meaty fingers over the bloody, sticky, swollen lump. Fallon cringed, ground his teeth, and somehow managed to stifle a curse. Holderman’s fingers felt like brass knuckles.

  “It’s legit,” Holderman said. “But he might could have done it hisself. You know. When the train stops, he grabs that timber yonder, or uses his own gun, knocks hisself out. So we don’t hang him as a traitor?”

  “Knocks himself out?” Fred Bennett rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.” The former Ranger looked again at Fallon. “So what do you think, buster?”

  Fallon didn’t bother trying out a theory. What a man like Fred Bennett was looking for was to get Fallon to trip himself up, but Fallon wouldn’t take that bait.

  “Mister . . .” he started.

  “It’s Capt’n, buster,” Bennett corrected. “Capt’n Bennett. Don’t forget that.” He waved the long barrel under Fallon’s nose.

  “Captain,” Fallon said, though no trace of respect could be found in the tone. “I told you all I know. The safe was open. I started pulling money out. I saw Ryker . . .”

  “And how did you know Ryker?”

  “We were in The Walls together.”

  Bennett glanced at Holderman. “They was there,” the big detective said. “Didn’t like each other.”

  The Ranger stared again at Fallon. “Then what?”

  “Then Drexel tried to stove in my head,” Fallon said bitterly.

  “And you didn’t think something was up when Ryker come in from the car where he was supposed to be getting the guns ready?”

  “I didn’t know a damn thing about what was in the other car. I still don’t know. That’s not how we were trained. And besides, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think anything. I saw Ryker. Drexel. I caught a glimpse of a pistol. And that�
�s all.”

  Josiah Jonathan Justice’s secretive—or nontrusting—way of training suddenly made sense to Fallon. If the outlaws hijacking the engine knew about a fortune in gold, silver, and currency in the express car, greed might enter their minds. Same with the car filled with a fortune in weapons and ammunition. Justice ruled not as a compassionate general like Robert E. Lee. He had the mind of a thief and outlaw, like Jesse James or Bob Dalton.

  “When did they get off with the money?” Justice demanded.

  Fallon let out a faint chuckle that lacked any humor. “I wouldn’t know, but my guess is it happened right after they knocked me out. As soon as they could. Toss the sacks out, then leap. Before . . . where the hell are we?”

  The turncoat Ranger and the insane leader stared at each other. Neither bothered to answer Fallon’s question.

  “That bridge we blew is forty-two miles from here,” Bennett said.

  “Tell me something useful, Capt’n,” General Justice belted back. “I know the distance to the gorge, an’ I know that it’s useless—for now—to do anything but get our arms to safety. Other Rangers, men with integrity, will be heading this way quickly.”

  “We cut the telegraph lines,” Aaron Holderman said. “Blew the bridge.”

  Justice turned to the detective. “I do not recall asking you to join this conversation, Private.”

  Stepping back, Holderman dropped his head.

  “What about the money, suh?” Bennett asked.

  “Hang the money. Ryker, Drexel, and Hansen will learn that their mistake of double-crossing me was a fatal, and a painfully fatal, mistake. But for the moment, we must take what victory we can. The law will hang us if we tarry, suh. Get the guns—especially the Gatlings—and everything we can salvage onto the wagons. Pronto.”

  “And what about him?” Fred Bennett still held one of his .45 caliber Colt revolvers.

  General Justice slowly climbed to his feet. He studied Fallon for a long time.

  “Put him to work in the other car. We need every capable hand. But if he is not capable . . .” The mad fool grinned. “Muster him out of the New Confederate Army for Justice.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The New Confederate Army for Justice. It certainly fit, Fallon thought, because this war was not for justice, it was all for Josiah Jonathan Justice, cotton magnate, Confederate soldier, thief, murderer, and madman.

  Fallon walked ahead of Holderman, onto the platform, into the car with the Gatling guns and other weapons. Too bad, Fallon thought, that he hadn’t had time to blow this cargo to kingdom come, but as long as he remained alive, he’d get another chance.

  “Get to work,” Holderman said, shoving Fallon toward the stacks of crates filled with Winchester repeating rifles.

  “Don’t just watch, Fatty!” the Ranger growled from behind. “You help him.”

  Fred Bennett raised his voice. “All of you. Quit yer damned lollygaggin’. If the Rangers or the army catches us, we’ll all be jerked to Jesus by a hangman’s rope.”

  Fallon took one end of a crate, and Holderman, scowling but with brains enough to keep his mouth shut, took the other. Fallon backed toward the open side, the double doors slid wide, and a heavy farm wagon backed up to the tracks. Only a handful of crates had been unloaded, and other wagons were waiting to back up. That told Fallon that he hadn’t been unconscious for too long. This ragtag army was just getting started to the business at hand. The business was robbery.

  What Fallon noticed was that none of the bandits—the privates in Justice’s army—wore any kind of uniform. He saw worn-out hats of various colors, faded denim jeans or striped woolen britches, some chaps, high-heeled boots, ratty bandannas, and a wide range of leather and iron. In fact, Fallon saw no gray uniforms, not even butternut, and no one had unfurled a Confederate national flag, not even a battle jack.

  Fallon laid his end of the wooden box atop another, and once Holderman had placed his side down, they slid the heavy crate until it butted against the pine box next to it and against the front of the wagon’s box. Both men turned and stopped to let two other enlisted men in the New Confederate Army for Justice step out of the box car with their load. Fallon glanced up at the car, saw just a few initials and smaller writing that told him nothing, but then glanced toward the engine and tender. The tender, black and greasy, had writing in cursive gold letters.

  Houston–Victoria–Laredo Rail Road

  ESTABLISHED 1885

  Well, they weren’t near Houston. Fallon knew that much. The terrain was drier, and the trees had all but quit growing. Fallon had never been to Victoria, but he didn’t think they were near that South Texas burg, either. He had thought, given Major Rufus K. Conley’s apparent hand in this treasonous affair, that they would have departed by ship from Indianola. But Fallon knew they were nowhere near the Gulf of Mexico and the Texas coast. No salt on the air. No seagulls. Not the way the sky was supposed to shine when you got near the coast.

  Laredo.

  Laredo made more sense. The land was flat and dry, and the wind was dry. The humidity that had weighed on them like heavy bricks had all but vanished. After that first camp and training period, they had moved, two hundred—Fallon could only guess—miles, south and west. Spent some more training there, then moved a hard day’s trip southwest, and finally another twenty miles or so to the railroad tracks where they waited for the train to stop at the water station.

  So . . . maybe three hundred miles, if that . . . where would that take them?

  Laredo. Fallon had no map to look at, but it made as much sense as anyplace else. Laredo was right on the Texas border. All Justice had to do was get his cargo across the Rio Grande.

  Fallon went back inside, Holderman right behind him, and they let another pair of workers carry a box of rifles to the wagon. Outside, the voice of General Justice rattled the planks of the railroad’s rolling stock.

  “The Gatling guns, men! The Gatlings should be our first priority.”

  It took more men to get the four boxes of Gatlings into the wagon. After that, they went back to bringing Sharpses, Remingtons, and Colts out.

  The sun rose. They sweated. Splinters dug into their palms and fingers, while Justice, Bennett, and the woman-knifing Merle barked orders from underneath the shade of their canvas-covered wagon.

  “The money?” Fallon heard Aaron whisper.

  They had found a new, faster way of unloading the car of its plunder. Fallon and Holderman stayed in the wagon, and others brought the boxes of weapons, gunpowder, and ammunition to them. Fallon grabbed a box of .45-70 cartridges, likely for the Sharpses. He moved past the big detective without answering, then had to help Holderman find a solid place to put a smaller box that likely carried Smith & Wesson revolvers.

  “Ryker wouldn’t have double-crossed that fathead.” Holderman, sounding like he had a brain, nodded toward the General. “Drexel, maybe, but Ryker loved the Southern cause more than whiskey or God. I didn’t know Hansen.”

  Fallon studied the brute. Holderman had betrayed Fallon at every opportunity, and Holderman had been Fallon’s enemy since long before Fallon had been freed from Joliet. Freed? Not hardly. Paroled, but paroled into the hands of a vindictive bastard named Sean MacGregor.

  “I gave you that derringer, Fal—” Holderman stopped himself from using Fallon’s real name.

  Fallon nodded at the boxcar. “A crate of something heavy’s waiting for us.”

  They pulled the Marlins into the wagon and set the box down nearby, then two more rifle boxes, after which Fallon waved his hand and said, “This one’s full. Bring us another.”

  “How many more?” Justice yelled.

  Fallon looked at one of the sweat-soaked workers in the car. The man looked at a bigger man, and he gave Fallon an estimate.

  “This should be the last load, General!” Fallon shouted back, hating to call a raving madman any rank. He moved to the canteen hooked on a handhold at the side of the car. After drinking, he passed the container
to Holderman while a driver brought around another heavy farm wagon.

  Holderman drank.

  “Save some for the boys in that furnace,” Fallon told him, and nodded at the open door.

  “The money,” Holderman whispered.

  “I think this is our biggest concern,” Fallon said, and tilted his hat toward the approaching wagon.

  “If they find that money—or the bodies of them three you killed—you’re dead, I’m dead, and this operation is dead.”

  “How do you know they’re dead?” Fallon reached up, took the canteen, and brushed past Holderman toward the open doorway.

  “Because you ain’t,” Holderman answered.

  Fallon handed the canteen to the smallest of the men inside the car. He turned around and guided the wagon back until it almost touched the car. He looked up at the bone-tired men up in the car.

  “Two of y’all want to switch?” Fallon asked.

  To his surprise, the men shook their heads to a man.

  “We got this handled,” one of them said in a Scottish brogue. “And you two are good at loading that wagon.”

  Fallon shook his head in amazement. “If you say so,” he said, and wearily climbed into the back of the wagon.

  “Get inside and help them, Ace!” Justice yelled at the driver, who immediately obeyed. The driver had been at that stagecoach station when Merle and the others had murdered the crew—and one of Justice’s volunteers who had opened his big mouth.

  Fallon and Holderman took the first two boxes, hardly even looking at each other. But Fallon kept thinking that Holderman had a point. This cargo could still be destroyed. Maybe Holderman wanted the money for the reward the express office would put up. Maybe he wanted it for himself. But he was right about one thing. At some point, either railroad officials, Texas Rangers, random passersby, or some of Justice’s mercenaries would discover the awful remains of Hansen, Drexel, and Ryker—and the money Fallon had pitched off the side. Once word of that reached the leader of the New Confederate Army for Justice, Fallon’s life would be over.