Golden Spike

by Robert Lee Murphy

  Jack and Dan Casement held the contract with the Union Pacific for laying the tracks. Jack had taken a few weeks off during the winter downtime to return to his home back east for a vacation with his family. He’d left his younger brother, who was the company bookkeeper, in charge of looking after their warehouse and construction train, presently idled in Echo City.

  The back door of the café banged open, and Will glanced up when the chilling blast of air reached his face. He dropped his spoon into the bowl of stew, and his mouth fell open. Staring back at him from across the room was Paddy O’Hannigan.

  CHAPTER 2

  Will pushed away from the table. The back legs of his chair caught in a crack in the crude, wooden floor, and he toppled over backward. He reached down to lift the flap on the Army holster he wore buckled on his right hip over his buckskin jacket. From where he lay sprawled on his back, he kept his eyes locked on Paddy, who raised the tail of the woolen coat he wore, reaching for his own pistol.

  Paddy sneered, exposing a mouthful of rotten, broken teeth. He spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the café floor. The skinny Irishman’s smirk caused the scar running down the left side of his face to twitch visibly.

  Will’s holster flap resisted lifting. The freezing weather had stiffened the leather. He reached across his body with his left hand to hold the flap up so he could grasp the butt of the Colt .44-caliber revolver with his right.

  Paddy beat him to the draw. He pointed his pistol at Will’s uncle, double-cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger. The explosion filled the room with a boom. Smoke rose from the end of the barrel.

  Will’s uncle groaned and slumped forward in his chair.

  “Sure, and I told ye Major Corcoran,” Paddy said, “I’d get ye for killing my pa.”

  Paddy double-clicked the hammer again and aimed at Homer.

  Will still struggled to free his revolver from its holster.

  “And, sure it is, nigger, I’m going to kill you, too.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Will could see that Homer seemed to be paralyzed.

  Paddy pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped against the percussion cap with a metallic clunk. No explosion followed. Paddy looked at the gun.

  Will knew any number of things could have caused the revolver to misfire. Maybe the cylinder was empty, perhaps the percussion cap had fallen off the chamber’s nipple, or the wet weather had dampened the powder charge.

  Will freed his revolver from the holster, double-cocking the hammer as he raised the Colt.

  Paddy turned and bolted out the back door.

  Will got to his feet and kicked the chair out of the way. He leaned toward his uncle, who sat up at that moment holding his left shoulder. “Uncle Sean? Where’re you hit?”

  “In the shoulder. Think it broke my collarbone.”

  “Homer,” Will said, “take Uncle Sean over to the railroad doctor. I’m going after Paddy.”

  He headed across the dining area toward the rear door, which Paddy had left open.

  “What are you doing?” his uncle demanded.

  “Going after him.” Will paused in the doorway and looked back at his uncle and Homer. “I thought he was dead. I’m going to finish this.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” his uncle said. “You’re not using your head, Will.”

  “This won’t take long, Uncle Sean.” Will stepped into the alley, pulling the door closed behind him. The sleet blew into his face, making it difficult to see. He’d left the café without his poncho or hat, and he felt the cold settle through his thick hair and cling to his scalp.

  A shot exploded, and a bullet smashed into the wood of the doorframe beside him. Will ducked behind several barrels lined up along the back wall of the café. A second shot, fired from a little farther away, smacked into one of the barrels. Pickle brine sprayed out the hole.

  Will peered around the side of the barrel and spotted a figure running toward the far end of Hell on Wheels. The runner’s bowler hat confirmed he had Paddy in sight. Will rose and raced down the alley after his nemesis.

  He hadn’t seen Paddy since last summer in Wyoming, when they had their gun battle atop the freight train as it rolled across the bridge over Green River. Will shot Paddy twice then, hitting one or perhaps both of the Irishman’s legs. Paddy jumped into the river before Will could finish him. The act had surprised Will, because he’d known from a previous experience that Paddy couldn’t swim. When Will searched the riverbank the next day, he found no evidence Paddy had lived.

  Now, in the dimming light of the evening and the haze created by the slanting sleet, Will barely kept Paddy in sight fifty yards ahead of him. Opposite the canvas warehouse of the Casement brothers, Paddy stopped and snapped another shot in Will’s direction. The whiz of the bullet sounded loud as it whipped past Will’s ear. Either Paddy had become a better shot since Will had last confronted him, or maybe it was the luck of the Irish.

  Will raised his Colt and aimed at Paddy’s back. He paused. If he had the Yellow Boy Winchester he’d left at the stable, the shot would have been guaranteed. He lowered his pistol. No matter what weapon he used, he refused to be labeled a back shooter. Once last year, while leading Count von Schroeder’s hunting party in Wyoming, Will had a chance to shoot Paddy in the back with the Winchester rifle, but he’d held off.

  The double doors of the canvas warehouse swung open, and Dan Casement emerged. “What’s going on out here?” he shouted.

  Will trotted up to Casement and stopped. “Paddy O’Hannigan’s trying to kill me, again.” Will pointed to the figure disappearing down the slope, heading toward the bank of the Weber River.

  “O’Hannigan, eh.” Casement at five feet tall had to look up at Will who towered over him. “We fired that rascal a couple of years back for stealing railroad property, you know. What’s he still doing around here?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s a henchman for Mort Kavanagh.”

  “Wonder why that doesn’t surprise me. Kavanagh’s giving your uncle fits over property right now, and he’s always creating trouble for me by enticing my workers to get drunk and not show up the next day.”

  “I’m tired of having to fight Paddy,” Will said. “I’m going after him. But where can he run tonight, in this storm? He can’t cross the river.”

  “Some Irish workers are holding a wake down that way. One of the gandy dancers was crushed to death under a load of iron rails today.”

  “I’ll check out the wake, sir. See you later.” Will stepped off the trail to follow in the direction he’d seen Paddy heading.

  “You be careful, Will,” Casement called after him. “The Irish are usually rip-roaring drunk at one of those wakes. Hard to tell what they might do when they’re all liquored up.”

  “I’ll be fine, sir. What could they do to me?”

  CHAPTER 3

  Paddy stumbled as he made his way down the slope toward the Weber River, away from the Casements’ warehouse tent, which was located on the outskirts of Echo City. He paid careful attention to where he stepped. He didn’t want to slip on the icy bank. The bullet wounds Will Braddock had inflicted on him last year in his left leg caused him to limp, making it awkward to balance on the slippery surface. He paused to look back up the slope and saw that Braddock had stopped to talk with Dan Casement.

  “Humph,” he grunted. “Sure, and I’d be better off without either of ye two!”

  Will stopping at the warehouse gave Paddy the needed time to increase the distance between himself and the strapping youth who continued to interfere with his plans. What a time for his revolver to misfire. All three of his enemies had been right in front of him in the Chinaman’s café. He knew he’d put a slug into Corcoran. He’d seen him slump over from the impact. If the percussion cap hadn’t been missing from the next cylinder, he could’ve killed all three of them before they would’ve been able to raise a gun in response. Paddy didn’t really care for guns, and he seldom drew his Colt .36-caliber revolver. Because of his dislike
of firearms, he’d failed to check the piece to ensure it was in proper working order. He needed to be more careful about that in the future.

  The angle of the bank steepened. Paddy turned sideways to reach down with the strength of his right leg to take the force of his weight. He used his gimpy left leg on the upper side to steady himself. He stomped down hard with the instep of his right boot, breaking through the icy covering to ensure a solid footing before he took the next step. Even taking these extra precautions, he moved downward rapidly.

  With the increased angle of descent, he’d dropped out of sight of the Hell on Wheels town. That meant Will couldn’t see him, either. That was a good thing.

  Paddy sidestepped down twenty or thirty yards until the ground leveled out close to the water’s edge. He paused to take a deeper breath. The exertion from maintaining his balance caused his thigh muscles to tremble. He took another breath, then struck off downstream toward where he could see the glow from a bonfire and hear drunken singing at the Irish wake.

  One of these days he’d finish what he’d sworn to do five years ago when he’d held his dying father in his arms on that dock in New York City. Sean Corcoran, who’d been a major in the Army then, had stabbed his father to death with a saber. Paddy reached up and rubbed his left cheek, massaging the scar running from his ear to his lip. Corcoran’s saber had sliced across Paddy’s face on its journey into his father’s chest when Paddy had stepped in to intervene. The trouble had happened because his father and his Irish crew of dockworkers had tried to hang that no-account former slave, Homer Garcon. The free blacks had been taking the jobs the Irish wanted to keep for themselves, and the Irish immigrants were determined to do whatever it took to frighten any competition away from their waterfront employment.

  The singing grew louder as Paddy approached the wake. He spotted a wagon and team parked not far from the circle of mourners clustered around the bonfire. In the bed of the wagon a swath of canvas covered a hump that was undoubtedly the body of the man they planned to bury.

  It was two years ago, when Paddy had tried to steal General Dodge’s prized Morgan horse from a stable in Omaha, that he’d made his first contact with Will Braddock. Braddock had managed to thwart that attempt, and had also foiled a second attempt when Paddy later arranged an Indian raid on Dodge’s train. Twice Braddock had caused Paddy to fail to steal the horse, and that had not set well with Paddy’s boss and godfather, Mort Kavanagh. Kavanagh had wanted to give the horse as a bribe to a Cheyenne chief to entice the Indians to raid the railroad and slow down construction so he could sell the tracklayers more whiskey.

  He smiled to himself when he recalled the third, successful attempt at taking the Morgan away from Braddock. Paddy and Black Wolf’s band of Cheyenne Indians had waylaid Braddock during a horse race a year ago celebrating the founding of the new town of Cheyenne. Paddy wanted to kill Braddock then, but that half-breed Lone Eagle, a member of Black Wolf’s band at the time, had stepped in and prevented it. At least, Paddy had finally been successful in stealing the black horse.

  Paddy wasn’t worried about eventually fulfilling his vendetta. Sooner or later the odds would turn in his favor, and he would kill all three of his enemies. For now he had to get away from Braddock. He knew he wouldn’t do well in a fair fight against Braddock, who’d earned a spot on the railroad as a hunter because of his marksmanship. Paddy preferred knife fighting—a preference that extended to approaching his opponent stealthily from the back. He could feel the rub of his Bowie knife sheath against his right ankle, where he kept it tucked inside his boot.

  He needed to find Collin Sullivan, the gang leader who’d organized this wake. Paddy had worked for Sullivan two years ago, before General Jack had fired him. Stepping into the light reflected from the roaring bonfire, Paddy searched the faces of the dozen Irishmen seated on railroad ties around the blaze. Directly opposite, he spotted Sullivan. Paddy eased around the back of the encircled tracklayers, who sounded more like carousers than mourners.

  “Collin,” Paddy said. “Sure, and I be needing yer help.”

  The burly, redheaded Sullivan looked back over his shoulder at Paddy. “And just what do ye mean by that, laddie?” He raised his bottle of Irish whiskey and chugged a swig.

  “Well, now, sure, and ye know ye would’ve paid twice the price for that case of whiskey if I hadn’t arranged a deal for ye and the boys.” Paddy had convinced Kavanagh to let the Irishmen buy a case of poor quality whiskey at half-price, pointing out to his boss that after the wake the drunks would stagger back to the Lucky Dollar and spend more at the saloon’s inflated prices.

  “Aye, and we thank ye for that. What is it ye be wanting?”

  “Sure, and there be a young lad following me who wants to kill me. He’ll be showing himself here in a few minutes. All I’m asking ye to do is to delay him a mite, so’s I can get away.”

  “Delay him?”

  “That’s all. Don’t kill him. I plan to do that meself by and by.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Will reached the bottom of the slope and stopped where the ground leveled off near the edge of the river. He heard the roar of the mountain stream rushing past, but he couldn’t see the surface of the water. The waning crescent of the moon would not appear until hours after midnight, and if the snow didn’t stop it wouldn’t provide any illumination even then. Darkness engulfed everything around him. In the distance, a faint, flickering light revealed the location of a fire. That must be the Irish wake Dan Casement had mentioned. It would make sense for an Irish thug like O’Hannigan to seek solace among his cronies.

  With limited visibility to reveal his footing, Will relied on his hearing to keep him a safe distance from the rapidly flowing waters of the Weber. He knew the course of the stream meandered through a narrow plain as it descended northward on its journey to the Great Salt Lake, and he found himself swinging away from the fire for a time. It would be shorter to cut straight across toward the light from the flames, but he wasn’t sure what surface he might encounter. He decided it best to following the curving river.

  Drawing nearer the fire, he first heard the thumping of a small drum, then the screeching of a fiddle, and the twittering of an Irish whistle. The clapping of the participants almost drowned out the sound of their voices singing, or rather shouting, a familiar tune.

  In Dublin’s fair city where the girls are so pretty

  I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

  As she wheels her wheelbarrow

  Through the streets broad and narrow

  Crying,“Cockles and Mussels alive alive O!

  Alive alive O! Alive alive O!”

  Crying,“Cockles and Mussels alive alive O!”

  He counted a dozen men clustered around a bonfire of railroad ties. If the Casements knew the Irishmen were burning their precious ties, heads would roll.

  Will approached the gathering without anyone seeming to notice his presence. A few paces from the backs of the men sitting closest to him, he realized he still held his revolver in his hand. Probably not a good idea to step into the light with a weapon. The tracklayers might take exception and blaze back at him with their own firearms. He returned the pistol to his holster.

  When he stepped into the view of the men sitting on the opposite side of the fire, he extended his hands away from his body with his palms up. A burly man holding a whiskey bottle in one hand, raised his other, and the musicians ceased playing. The singers turned together to look at him.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Will said.

  “Evening, son,” the burly fellow answered. “And what is it we can be doing for ye?”

  “I’m looking for a skinny Irishman, named Paddy O’Hannigan. I believe he came this way.”

  “Oh, do ye now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And who be asking?”

  “Will Braddock. I work for the Union Pacific. Same as you.”

  “And what is it ye do for the grand ole railroad?”

  �
�I work for my uncle, Sean Corcoran. You probably know him. The leader of the survey inspection team.”

  “Aye, that we do.”

  “And what is your name, sir?” Will asked.

  “I be Collin Sullivan, foreman of this lot.”

  A loud pop from within the bonfire, created by an exploding knot in a tie, caused several of the men to shift on their seats, revealing axe handles that seemed to be within reach of each of them.

  Will cleared his throat and raised his hands higher to show he hadn’t reached for his gun.

  Sullivan laughed. “Well, we all seem to be a bit jumpy, now. Why don’t ye join us while we conclude our wake for our dear friend Fagan who departed us unexpected-like earlier today?”

  The foreman waved a hand in the direction of a wagon parked on the other side of the bonfire from Will. In the bed of the wagon, Will could see what must be a body draped with a canvas tarp.

  “Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. But I really must be on my way. I have to find O’Hannigan.”

  The tracklayers rose one by one from their seats, each picking up his axe handle as he did so. Will surveyed the men as they stepped away from the fire toward him. He decided his best course of action was to run. He turned to head back the way he’d come, but felt the blow of an axe handle that’d been thrown at his back. His knees buckled and he toppled forward.

  “Don’t kill him, boys.” Will heard Sullivan’s voice through the ringing in his ears. “Ye heard what Paddy said. He reserves that right for himself.”

  Will tried to push himself up from the ground, but another blow thumped him in the back of the skull. His vision blurred, he gasped, and collapsed.

  Will shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Where was he? Why was he bouncing up and down and back and forth on a hard surface? How long had he been here?

  “Drive closer to the river, Higgins!” Will recognized Sullivan’s shouting voice.