North To The Rails

by Louis L'Amour

  Then they discussed the price, and it was finally settled at twenty-two dollars per head—more than he had expected, much more than Sarah had hoped for. In round numbers it came to forty-five thousand dollars in gold.

  “You’ll have to come and get it,” Enright said, and added, “Once that gold is out of my hands it is your responsibility—and if I were you I’d have myself ready for trouble.”

  “We’ll be all right,” Earnshaw said. “I don’t expect any trouble.”

  Chantry walked out on the brass-railed observation platform. Bone McCarthy was loitering nearby and he strolled over.

  “You stay where you are, Bone,” Chantry said.

  “Keep an eye on things and don’t let anybody get behind you.”

  “All right.”

  Chantry went back inside. “Doris, keep the door of the car locked while we’re gone, but be prepared to open it quickly to get your father inside.”

  “Do you think they will try to steal the gold?”

  “You figured it out last night—remember? I think you were right.”

  They talked quietly, and of many things, but always his ears were alert for other sounds. Earnshaw came from the inner room and stood waiting.

  Chantry looked up. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “It might be safer to wait until daylight.”

  “They wouldn’t attempt a robbery right here in the middle of everything. I think we’re safe enough, Tom. Let’s go.”

  Reluctantly, Chantry got to his feet. He opened the door. “Excuse me,” he said, and stepped out first.

  All was quiet. On the street, perhaps sixty yards away, there were the usual sounds. Occasionally a wild cowboy yell would leap from the jumble of sound and hang in air for an instant.

  A dozen yards away was a pile of lumber, and beyond it, much further off, were several boxcars and tents. Tom went down the steps facing forward, and stepped off. There was no sign of Bone McCarthy, but he had expected none. Earnshaw came down the steps after him and together they walked back beside the track to Enright’s car.

  Inside it was just as ornate as the other. Two tough-looking eastern men loafed in the drawing room with a pair of shotguns across the table before them. They had been playing checkers.

  At a call from one of them, Enright came from the sleeping room, bringing a sack of gold. He returned for another, then made more trips until there were eight sacks in all.

  “That’s a fair load,” he said. “You’ll have to make more than one trip.”

  Chantry liked none of it. One trip, loaded down with gold, was bad enough, but several? With each step the odds piled up against them, and no matter what they carried each man must keep one hand free to use a gun.

  He glanced at the two guards. “You two want to help? We’ll pay you.”

  One man shook his head. “Mister, I’ve got a family back in St. Louis. I wouldn’t stick my head out of that door with a sack of gold for anything on earth.”

  “Nor me,” said the other. “Guarding inside of this car is one thing. The Colonel here, he’s got steel plates in the sides of this car. He’s ready for anything that happens. From in here we could stand off an army, but outside there in the dark? Mister, maybe I’m not very bright, but I’m not crazy, either.”

  “Besides,” he added, “we’ve heard all the talk. I’d like to help you, but I just can’t see my way clear to committing suicide.”

  Earnshaw stared at them, then he looked at Tom. For the first time he appeared to realize the gravity of the situation. “Is it that bad?” he asked.

  “Mr. Earnshaw,” Chantry said, “out there tonight in that cluster of shacks and tents are perhaps a hundred men who have committed every crime in the books. They come here to prey on the track-workers, but they’ll grab anything that’s loose. Aside from them, there are at least two groups who feel they should have this money. One of them has already killed men in the process of trying to steal the cattle. They are not in town just to have a little recreation.”

  “It’s only a few yards,” Earnshaw said. “We’ll move it now.”

  Chantry bent over and looked out of the car windows. All was dark and silent. There was a faint glow of light from the windows of the car they were in, and he could see light from the other private car further along the track. There might be any number of men hidden out there, and they could remain invisible until they opened fire.

  “We’ll cover you from the door,” one of the guards volunteered, “but that will help for only a few yards.”

  Chantry picked up two of the sacks and slung them over his left shoulder. In his right hand he carried his gun. Earnshaw took two sacks and they stepped out of the door.

  Chantry went down the car’s steps and dropped off to the dirt. This was, he felt, the crucial moment. Nothing happened.

  He moved out, gun ready, and waited until Earnshaw reached the ground. With Earnshaw close behind him, he started for the other car.

  ****

  THREE HOURS earlier, and a few hundred yards from town on the bank of the Arkansas, three big men got down from their horses, tied them to brush, and descended a steep path to the door of a dugout in the river’s bank.

  The door of the dugout was above the water-level and some distance back from the river’s edge, but the dugout had been the work of some optimist who was ignorant of western rivers. The Arkansas in flood was far from being the placid stream that now flowed along not far from the door. In flood it was another story; at the first high water the dugout would be flooded, washed out and away. At the moment, four people sat inside awaiting the arrival of the three big men.

  A table, two benches, and four bunks were in the small room. Hank Talrim was sprawled on one of the bunks, chewing on a straw. Bud was at the end of the table, watching Sarah, who was playing solitaire.

  The fourth person was a tall, slim man playing an oddly twisted look to his face. He was sallow and unshaven, and his mustache was stained with tobacco. There was an expression about him of ingrown bitterness and distaste.

  The door opened and all of them looked up. The man who entered first was huge, with broad shoulders and big hands; his once red hair was freely sprinkled with gray.

  “Howdy.” He glanced once at Sarah, then at the sallow-faced man. “Hello, Harvey. You seen Sparrow?”

  “Sparrow? Is he here?”

  “Uh-huh. What you reckon that means?”

  Harvey shrugged. Ruff always irritated him.

  It was the man’s size. They had worked together a dozen times over the years, but Harvey never failed to be angered by Ruff’s very presence. And now to make things worse, there were the two boys as well, huge men too.

  “Maybe he’s here same as us. If Chantry’s boy is huntin’ us he surely ain’t goin’ to have to look far.”

  “Stay away from him!” Sarah said curtly. “He’ll get his when we get the gold. Leave it at that, and stay out of sight.”

  “I still say the best time is when they are transferring the gold from one car to the other,” Harvey said.

  “And that’s why you’ve got nothing,” replied Sarah sharply. “They will be keyed up, ready for trouble. Chantry will have some men around, some we don’t expect to be there. Let them move the gold. We’ll take it when they’re off guard and think they can relax.”

  “What d’you think?” Frank Ruff looked at Bud Talrim.

  “I like her thinkin’, What she says, goes.”

  Ruff sat down, and the two boys, Mort and Charlie, squatted on their heels. “I don’t like it, Sparrow bein’ here. He’s always been sore over that shootin’.”

  “Forget him! Harvey said. “He never amounted to nothin’.”

  “Have you seen him lately?” Charlie Ruff spoke mildly. “He’s mighty high-toned now, got him a big ranch down Texas way, and another in New Mexico.

  He runs fifteen, twenty thousand head of cattle.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Harvey said.

  “Believe whatever
you’re of a mind to,” Charlie said. “That’s a fact, what I said.”

  “Some of those cattle Williams and Chantry were drivin’ were his,” Mort Ruff commented. “Sparrow’s in this somehow.”

  “Maybe if we wait,” Frank Ruff said, “he’ll do our killin’ for us.”

  For a few moments there was only the sound of the shuffling of the cards.

  Then Sarah spoke. “Those cattle,” she said, “will bring nearly fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I never seen that much money,” Hank Talrim said. “Somehow it don’t make no picture.”

  Bud gave him a disgusted glance. “You can make a picture out of a dollar, can’t you? Well, anything you can buy with a dollar, you can buy fifty thousand times as much.”

  “Whoo-ee!” Hank exclaimed. “I don’t know what I’d do with it all.”

  Sarah’s face was still. Only her eyes seemed to move, and they missed nothing. Secretly she felt only contempt for these men, but they were useful to her. And she did not underrate them. The Talrims seemed willing to do what she said, but they would turn on her and kill her as quickly as a cat. The others, she was sure, would not kill a woman.

  As she played she studied them, considering which one she would need the most. Once the money was in their possession, she must get rid of the Talrims. Harvey was as treacherous as the Talrims, and Frank Ruff was too suspicious. Charlie was the smartest of the lot, the best-natured, the only one around whom she felt safe, but at the same time she believed he would be less easy to fool.

  Mort was the one. Somehow she would have to work on Mort … she had caught him stealing glances at her. And somehow she must trigger trouble between Harvey and the Talrims … after they had the gold.

  Once Paul was gone, she had moved at once to use the Talrims. She had crossed their trail a few times, knew where they were likely to be, and she had approached them, demanding their help. She was still not sure why they had gone along, nor did she dare approach either one separately. Each one seemed aware of what the other was thinking, and she was intelligent enough to perceive that there was no separating them.

  They had told her about Rugger. He was a cow thief, and worse. So she had waited for him one night on night guard around the herd. She kept out of sight until he appeared, led him off to one side, and suggested stealing the herd. The others had come in as a matter of course.

  When the theft failed she saw at once that the death of French Williams was no longer important. They were too close to the railhead, and the thing to do was get the money after the herd had been sold. She intended to have that money and to go to England or France with it and live her years out in style.

  She was sure that at least one and probably two of the men helping her would be killed. And a fight between Harvey and the Talrims would not be difficult to start … eliminating one or two.

  She had no clear plan, but she had a driving desire and the ability to move quickly when the moment came. She was ready.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  TOM CHANTRY sat on the car steps, staring into the night. The gold—all of it—had been carried from one car to the other without trouble.

  Earnshaw was pleased, and mildly triumphant. “See? I knew nothing would happen. We’re perfectly safe.”

  Chantry glanced at him, then looked away. Doris had been silent, but presently she said, “Well, I was wrong, too. I was sure that girl would get them to try to steal the gold when it was being moved.”

  “Maybe they’re not so bad as we think,” Earnshaw said mildly. “Tom, I’m afraid you frightened us all needlessly.”

  “I don’t think so,” Chantry said stubbornly. “They’ve just made other plans.”

  After that he had gone outside and sat down.

  Doris was going to bed, Earnshaw was shaving. Suddenly Bone McCarthy came out of the darkness, and a moment later, Mobile Callahan.

  “What happened?” Bone wondered.

  “They’re not around town,” Callahan said.

  “I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open. None of them’s around, and none of them’s been seen. By morning, if they’re still here I’ll know where they are. I’ve got the kids looking for them.”

  “Kids? Here?”

  “Sure. There’s a couple dozen of them in camp. I got some of them together and promised I’d buy them some rock candy if they locate that crowd, and if they’re here those kids will find them.”

  They talked for a while, discussing possibilities. Neither McCarthy nor Callahan believed that Sarah and the Talrims would give up. Finally Tom went inside and went to sleep on the sofa in the car’s drawing room, with the door locked and a chair under the knob, his pistol beside him.

  For three days events moved without a hitch.

  Colonel Enright had the herd loaded and shipped. McCarthy and Chantry, riding wide over the country, located a small herd bound east for Dodge and arranged for purchase at the railhead. On the fourth day they found another herd after learning it was being held on a range north of the river for fattening.

  Mobile remained in town. He gambled a little, talked a little, listened a lot. Twice he glimpsed Harvey on the street, and Sarah moved into the frame hotel and began making herself known around the area.

  She was polite, reserved, well-behaved. To Mobile, who had learned much during his lifetime, it was obvious what she was doing. She was establishing a reputation for being a lady, a well-behaved lady interested in finding a brother who had disappeared somewhere in Colorado.

  Under the circumstances she was free to talk to anyone, in search of information, and if she was seen in conversation with the Talrims she could simply explain that she had heard they had information about her brother.

  Tom Chantry was puzzled. Over dinner in the private car with Earnshaw, Whitman, and Doris he confessed: “I’m worried. I know they haven’t given up.”

  “Tom, you’re obsessed with this woman, whatever her name is, and with those men. If they had intended to do anything they would have done it when we moved the gold. We were vulnerable then.”

  “Yes, I know. And the fact that we’re in a settlement wouldn’t stop the Talrims. I am sure they have some other plan.”

  “I’ve seen the young lady about town,” Whitman said, “and certainly I’d never suspect her of wrongdoing. From what I hear, she is searching for news of her brother.”

  “Her brother was killed by the Kiowas. She knows that, and knows when it happened.”

  “Does that seem likely? What would she be doing here, then? A young woman like her would have no reason to spend her time in a place like this.”

  “Unless she planned on picking up a good bit of gold.”

  Whitman shook his head doubtfully and changed the subject. Tom could see that even Doris was becoming somewhat impatient with him, and he said no more, but he did a lot of thinking.

  When they bought the two herds, amounting to fifteen hundred head, the amount of gold they had aboard the train would be seriously depleted. Did Sarah know of their plans, he wondered.

  Mobile Callahan strolled up to him as he stood on the street. “Mr. Chantry,” he said, “the kids got ‘em spotted.”

  “Where?”

  “In a dugout down on the river. The whole crowd is there, and give ‘em a few more days and they’ll probably be mean enough to kill off each other.”

  “No sign of French?”

  “Not a sign.”

  “I haven’t seen Mr. Sparrow.”

  Mobile Callahan made no reply for a moment, and then he said, “He’s around.” He added, “I don’t quite see what he’s up to. My job was to keep trouble off your back … why? What’s his interest in you?”

  “I don’t know.” Suddenly Tom was not thinking of Sparrow. “Mobile, I’m going to see Sarah.”

  “You’re what?” Mobile stared at him. And without waiting for a reply, he said, “Take a tip from me and stay away from her. That woman’s trouble.”

  “Nevertheless—There she is now.”
r />   She was looking every inch the lady, her skirts gathered daintily in one hand as she crossed the street. Men stepped aside for her and tipped their hats.

  “Tom”—it was the first time Mobile had ever used his first name—“these folks would hang you to the highest tree if you so much as said a word against her. And don’t think she hasn’t planned it that way.”

  They could hear her heels on the boardwalk, and then she stopped behind them. “Mr. Chantry? It is Mr. Chantry, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “I understand you sold your cattle, you and Mr. Williams?”

  “I sold them. French Williams no longer has any share in them, Miss–?”

  “Millier. Are you going back east now?”

  “No.” Suddenly he realized there could be only one reason why she would want to stop and speak to him. She wanted information. Coolly, he gave it to her. “We’re buying more cattle. Prices have gone down somewhat, so we’re going to reinvest.”

  For just an instant he saw the stunned apprehension in her eyes, an expression quickly gone. “Do you think that is wise? You seem to have done very well with the first cattle you bought, but why buy cattle when the price is down?”

  “That’s the time to buy. Back east the market is good. The problem is getting cars right here. Buying cattle means holding them for some time. However, we are in a position to get the necessary cars.”

  He shifted ground quickly. “I understand you are looking for your lost brother. He was killed by the Kiowas, as you know.”

  Several people were within listening distance, and at least one man turned sharply around to hear better.

  “I know nothing of the kind!” she replied, and walked away.

  Mobile looked after her, and said softly, “What are you trying to do, Chantry? Start something?”

  What was he trying to do? But he knew … he wanted to force them to move. He wanted it over with, ended once and for all. He was tired of watching, tired of waiting. Now they knew the gold they wanted would soon be gone, spent on cattle. If anything would bring matters to a head, this was it.

  “I’d like to be listening in when she gets that word to them,” he told Callahan grimly.