In 1876, Winchester introduced the new rifle at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The North-West Mounted Police bought scores of such rifles for their Mounties patrolling western Canada. That Eastern politician who dearly loved the West, Theodore Roosevelt, used it on several hunts. Texas Rangers were known to ride with them and shoot with deadly accuracy. When the Apache Indian Geronimo called it quits back in ’86 and surrendered at Skeleton Canyon, he was carrying a Winchester ’76.
There were just a few problems. The rifle couldn’t handle .45-70 loads, at least, not safely. In that regard, considering how popular .45-70 Government calibers were across the United States and its territories, the Centennial proved to be a failure. What’s more, Oliver Winchester really wanted to land a beefy contract with the U.S. War Department, and the Army didn’t like the Centennial.
Drop a ’76, and it might bust apart. The rear sight easily came loose, but shooting a rifle with that much power, sights needed to be secure. Besides, Winchesters just couldn’t handle the .45-70 Government, and that’s what the U.S. government wanted.
That was what brought the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to the doorstep of John Moses Browning.
Browning’s father had left Illinois with thousands of Mormons back in 1852, settling in Ogden, Utah, where John Moses entered the world three years later. By the time he was seven, he was working in his father’s gun shop. In the late 1870s, he was tinkering with new ideas, and developed a single-shot rifle that the Winchester Repeating Arms Company noticed. Winchester paid $8,000 for the design, and began producing its Low Wall and High Wall single shots that put the fear of God, or rather, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, into the minds of executives with Springfield and Remington companies known for their single-shot rifles.
Winchester knew whom to turn to when in need of an excellent repeating rifle.
Company executives asked Browning to come up with a repeating rifle that could handle .45-70 Government rounds—and maybe even more powerful cartridges. Browning did just that, got the patent, and took a train to New Haven, Connecticut, with his brother, Matt, but stopped first to visit Schoverling, Daly & Gales in New York City. Since 1865, if a man wanted to sell guns, buy a great weapon, or get an expert opinion on any rifle, shotgun or revolver, he dropped in at the shop on Broadway to see what Charles Daly, August Schoverling, and Joseph Gales thought.
Browning handed his rifle to Daly and held his breath.
Daly adjusted his spectacles, looked over the rifle, and returned it. “John Browning, I know I don’t have to tell you this, but what you are holding is the best rifle in the world.”
Standing behind the counter, Schoverling added, “Nein. He is holding da future of da Vinchester Arms Company.”
“A Big Fifty.” Jimmy shook his head. “In a Winchester.”
Borden pulled a cartridge from his jacket pocket. “This is what it shoots.” Into his brother’s hands, he dropped a chunk of lead a half-inch wide that weighed 450 grains.
Jimmy examined the rifle closely. Blasted out of a twenty-six-inch barrel by a hundred grains of powder, it had a twist rate of one turn per fifty-four inches, which was needed to fire a load that heavy. The weight of the octagon barrel was also necessary.
No pistol grip, just the standard stock. No shotgun or rubber butt-plate, either. James’s shoulder would surely hurt after feeling that standard crescent butt-plate practically tear off his shoulder. No engraving. No set triggers. No tang sights. It looked like an ordinary Winchester.
No, Jimmy corrected. It resembles a Howitzer on a Winchester frame. He rubbed his finger over the serial number. 70630.
“A wolfer ordered it,” Borden said. “Left the warehouse this past January.”
Jimmy looked up. “That’s a lot of rifle for a guy chasing wolves.”
“Because Nels Who Smells hated wolves,” Borden said.
Jimmy checked the action, working the lever. The rifle had been cleaned religiously. which did not make sense to him. Most wolfers he had run across were filthy, miserable men that were unfit for company unless you were a grayback.
“Why is Nels selling it?”
“He’s not. Town marshal is. To pay for Nels’s funeral. I told Mark—that’s our local lawman—that you were interested in a Winchester Model ’86. Mark told me. I wired you. Here you are.”
Looking around, Jimmy made sure nobody was staring out one of the hotel’s second-story windows before he sighted across the street at the façade. Great balance. Heavy, but it felt right, comfortable, the perfect rifle—even better than his ’73.
Winchester had paid John Moses Browning $50,000 for the design. Ask Deputy Marshal Jimmy Mann, however, and he’d tell you how Browning should have held out for more.
Still, Jimmy had reservations. His nephew was sixteen. Millard would hound him something fierce for sending a .50-100-450 to that kid. And the next time he visited them in Texas, Jimmy’s sister-in-law would make him rue the day he had even answered Borden’s telegraph and ridden up to Parsons.
He looked at his brother. “What do you think?”
“You?” Borden chuckled. “You’re asking me? For my advice?”
“You are my oldest brother,” Jimmy said. Who looks ridiculous—like some pale-skinned Mexican Rurale—in that outfit the express company makes you wear.
“You won’t find a better price. Funerals are cheap here in Parsons.”
The Labette County seat twenty-something miles from the Cherokee Nation, Parsons had been founded in 1870 with the arrival of the Katy. The railroad was still pretty much the only thing of any substance to the wind-blown town. Everything—food, rooms, beer, women, lives—came cheap, but Parsons wasn’t as wild as Baxter Springs to the southeast had been years ago. And it didn’t have a bunch of dead Daltons to brag about as Coffeyville had to the southwest.
A bad thought struck Jimmy. “How did Nels die?”
“He didn’t blow his head off with his own rifle, if that’s what you mean.”
“It isn’t,” Jimmy said, though it was.
“You know wolfers,” Borden explained. “He came in, got his bounty from the county sheriff. No hotel would take him, of course. Don’t want any travelers on the Katy to complain about getting infested with bugs. He paid for a stall in the livery, paid for rotgut from some whiskey runner heading into your jurisdiction. Got drunk. Passed out. Vomited in his sleep. And choked to death.”
“Bad ending.” Jimmy shook his head.
“Good riddance.” Borden waited for Jimmy to stare at him, and then smiled.
“How does it shoot?”
The train whistle blew. Jimmy knew that he would have to make a decision soon.
“Mark—again, that’s our local lawman. He cleaned it up, took it north of town, said he bagged an antelope at four hundred yards without hardly aiming. I know what you’re thinking, Jimmy, but Mark’s not prone to brag.”
“So why doesn’t Mark want to keep this rifle for himself?”
“Because tigers and lions and even bears aren’t common in Parsons, Kansas, little brother.”
“I haven’t seen many in McAdam, Texas, either.”
“Mark’s gunshot tore up a lot of good meat on that antelope. It’s like I said, Jimmy, that’s a big gun for a kid.”
“He’ll be seventeen in April. I remember our pa saying the same thing when you got your ’66.”
Borden smiled. “And when you got your ’73.”
Porters began helping women and children onto the train, while the conductor seemed to be giving Borden and Jimmy the evil eye. Steam hissed, and the locomotive grunted.
Typically, Jimmy Mann made his choices quickly. Working mostly in the Indian Nations, he had to. Yet he didn’t want to disappoint the boy Millard had named after the black sheep of the Mann family. On the other hand, luck had eluded Jimmy as he searched for an ’86 Winchester in Fort Smith . . . in Tahlequah . . . McAlester . . . Van Buren. Few .45-70s could be found, and when one came available, the own
er had priced the rifle as though it were a “One of a Thousand.”
“Five dollars, Jimmy. But I need to know right now.” Borden wasn’t kidding around.
The conductor yelled, “All aboard.”
Borden took the Winchester from Jimmy’s hands and made his way to the open door of the express car. Jimmy’s boots didn’t move. At least, not at first. Then he started running, catching up right after Borden climbed into the car and two black men working for the Katy were about to close the door.
“Can you get it to James?” Jimmy yelled up.
Borden held up a hand, and the men stopped the door.
“You bet. I can get it to Fort Worth. With ammunition to boot. Got a box all ready to ship it. And I can telegraph a fellow I know with the Fort Worth and Denver City to take it the rest of the way.” He smiled. “Won’t be long now until our nephew is proud to be a Mann.”
“Yeah. And his ma and pa will be out for my hair.”
“You want to ride along with me?” Borden asked.
“Can’t.” Jimmy’s head shook. “I’m supposed to meet up with some Indian policemen in Lightning Creek in two days. They think Danny Waco’s been in those parts.”
Borden’s head bobbed grimly, and the two black men finished closing the door. The train lurched forward, starting its journey south toward the Indian Nations. Relief swept through Jimmy as he watched the train rumble, hissing, belching, squeaking, squealing. He smiled, picturing his nephew’s face.
Then he remembered something.
He ran alongside the train, catching up to the express car, pounding on that heavy door with his fist. “Borden! Hey, Borden! I owe you five dollars. Plus the freight charges.” He had to stop, to keep from falling off the depot’s platform.
Yet Borden’s words carried over the grating of iron as the train pulled out of the station. “You don’t owe me a thing, Jimmy.”
CHAPTER SIX
Spavina Creek Crossing, Cherokee Nation
There were different ways to rob a train.
You could derail it, but Danny Waco found that method to be quite destructive, messy, and, above all, needlessly noisy. Besides, send the engine crashing off the tracks and the boiler might explode, spraying chunks of wood and iron like grapeshot into the bodies of greedy outlaws.
You could board the train at a station, just get on like a regular passenger, and wait for a good moment and likely place and start the ball. Waco didn’t care much for that way, either. You had to leave some of your gang and horses at the place you’d designated to stop the train. He didn’t like splitting up his men. What would happen if some passenger recognized the bandits and started shooting? Besides, at least one person had to climb atop a car, and make his way on the rooftops to the engine, where he would force the crew to pull the brake lever. Plenty risky. For Waco, however, the biggest drawback was that you actually had to buy a ticket to board the train.
Or you could find a remote location, pile debris atop the tracks, and make the train stop. He had tried that once. Seeing the blockade, the wily engineer opened up the throttle, and simply ran right through the ties and logs, leaving Waco red-faced and the butt of jokes for two or three weeks.
To Danny Waco, it seemed the best way was to pound on the door to the pump house. “Open the door, old man! The bridge is washed out, and the Number Four’s comin’ this way!” He slammed his rifle butt against the door again, stepped back, and smiled at himself.
Inside the pump house, feet shuffled across the floor, a man sniffed his nose, then blew it, cursed, and fumbled with the latch. The door opened, and a ridiculous-looking old-timer in his nightshirt and sleeping hat poked his head through the opening.
“What you talkin’ ’bout? I jus’ checked that bridge an hour ago.”
“Washed out, I tell you.”
“It ain’t rained since August.”
“Up country, I guess, got a gulley-washer. Mister, that Number Four is just up the tracks.”
“The Four ain’t due for three more hours. Must be the Flyer.”
“Well, I don’t want the Flyer’s crew to get killed, neither,” Waco said. “But thank-you, kindly.” He smashed the old man’s face with the Winchester’s stock, and the man fell backward into the pump house with a cry and a crash.
“You ain’t gonna kill him, are you, Waco?”
Waco grunted, tossed the rifle to The Tonk, and pushed open the door. “No, Ted Dunegan, I ain’t. I ain’t gonna kill him. I ain’t gonna tell him that Ted Dunegan, who has blond hair and a big mouth, looks to be about twenty years old, and who married that squaw at Bluejacket, was with me. And I sure ain’t gonna use nobody’s name.”
The Tonk grinned.
Muttering a curse and shaking his head, Waco went inside the pump house, taking the rope Gil Millican tossed him, and knelt by the moaning bridge watcher’s body. “Strike a match, Ted Dunegan,” he whispered. “I can’t see a thing in here.”
Mounted on his horse a few rods from the hut, Dunegan, of course, couldn’t even hear Waco’s command. Millican fished a Lucifer from his vest pocket, and used his thumbnail to light the match. He knelt, cupping a hand, giving Danny Waco enough light to tie the watchman’s hands behind his back.
“You rest, old-timer.” Waco patted the man’s bald head. He grabbed the nightcap, and stuffed it inside the gent’s mouth, then used the tails of the plaid nightshirt to wipe the blood off his hands. “We’ll take care of the Number Four, me and Ted Dunegan and the boys.”
He rose, and after Millican lighted another match, saw what he needed. Stepping to the table, Waco found a bonus. He picked up the bottle, sniffed it, shook it to make sure there was enough left, and grabbed the cork. Once the cork was back on tight, he tossed the Old Crow to Millican.
Carrying two lanterns, Waco followed Millican outside, closing the door behind him.
“The Flyer comes by first,” Waco told the boys. “Ted Dunegan, you let that one go on ahead. That’s not the one we want.”
“How do I do that . . . ?” Dunegan lived up the tracks and had just learned not to use a gang member’s name during the course of a train robbery.
Waco tossed him a lantern. “Light it, wave it. You’ll be standing on the side of the tracks. Don’t worry. You won’t get hurt.”
“What if it stops anyway?”
Waco glared. That was the trouble these days. He couldn’t find smart outlaws, just kids and drunkards and punks with big mouths.
“You’ll be waving the white lantern,” Waco said through clenched teeth. “That means all’s fine. The Flyer will zip on by. After that, we wait.”
Lifting the second lantern he had taken from the pump house, Waco continued. “When we hear the second train coming, three hours or so from now, you’ll stand on the tracks and raise and wave this one. It has red glass. That will signal the engineer to stop, that the bridge or tracks are damaged.”
“I stand on the tracks?”
“There’s plenty of time for the train to stop.” Waco’s head shook, and he set the red-glassed lantern on the bench beside the pump house. He had found three other men—if you could call them men—to help pull off this robbery. He didn’t know if they were as stupid as Ted Dunegan, but at least they were quiet, and didn’t ask fool questions. Or call Waco by his name.
“Now, loosen the cinches on your saddles and hobble your horses in the woods yonder. Then sit down, have a smoke, enjoy yourselves. No drinkin’, though. Just water from the pump house. We’ll do our celebratin’ at Lightnin’ Creek tomorrow. All except you, Ted Dunegan. Once you get your share, I’d advise you to light a shuck for parts unknown. I don’t think that watchman will forget your name. Or mine, neither. Mine I don’t rightly care about. I’m already a well-known hombre. But come tomorrow, Ted Dunegan, the law will be chasin’ you down for the loud-mouthed fool you are.”
The first train went through forty-five minutes later. Waco checked his watch, nodding with satisfaction, and telling Millican, “That temperance lecture I
gave the boys? It don’t apply to us veterans.”
Grinning, Millican withdrew the bottle of Old Crow from the back pocket of his trousers, uncorked the bourbon, and took a swig before tossing the bottle to Waco. The Tonk did not imbibe—a good thing, considering how little the bridge watchman had left for his visitors.
Two hours later, Waco felt pretty good. Just enough bourbon to make him forget all about that idiot Ted Dunegan and think about spending all that money Mr. Percy Frick, clerk for the Katy down in Texas, told him would be aboard tonight’s southbound No. 4.
An hour later, that feeling was gone.
Two hours after that, Waco paced the tracks back and forth, cursing, swearing that he would ride to Texas to kill that gutless wonder they’d met in Denison, Mr. Percy Frick.
“Boss,” Millican said, “something happened to the train is all. Remember, the bridge watcher said the Number Four would be coming this way.”
That stopped the pacing. Waco chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then strode straight to the pump house, kicking open the door. Kneeling in the darkness, he rolled the old man onto his back, then jerked out the gag he had fashioned from the nightcap. “You said the Number Four was coming through.”
Weeping, the man moved his head back and forth.
That prompted Waco to slap the frightened man twice. “I can’t see. It’s a new moon, you fool.” He swore, turned and shouted, “One of you boys bring me the lantern. The clear one. Not the red one.”
A short while later, The Tonk held the white lantern in the doorway.
“The Number Four?” Waco repeated.
“Supposed to be here around twelve-fifteen,” the man said.
Waco fished his daddy’s watch out of his vest pocket, let it dangle from the gold chain. “It’s three-oh-seven. I think you and that Katy clerk tried to pull the wool over my eyes—and that’s not something people live to brag about.”
The bald head jerked toward the table. “Sch-sched-ule . . . it’s . . . on . . . th-th-the t-t-table.”
The Tonk stepped toward the table, lowered the lantern, and picked up a sheet. His eyes moved back and forth, up and down, and he was about to say something, but stopped.
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