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A king’s ransom in gold had was stolen in a violent bank-raid right in the heart of San Francisco, and the President himself gave orders for Yancey Bannerman to retrieve it. That meant going up against a kill-crazy outlaw named Brad Stewart, and Stewart’s own personal bodyguard, a fellow-psychopath called Catlin, who claimed to be the toughest man in Texas.
With Yancey’s partner, Johnny Cato, on a mission up in Canada, Yancey would have to face the outlaws alone. But that was just fine with him … because the bank Stewart had robbed was owned by his father, C.B. And Stewart’s raid had left C.B. lung-shot and facing almost certain death, while his brother, Chuck, looked certain to face the rest of his days from a wheelchair.
For Bannerman the Enforcer it was just about as personal as it could get.
And he wouldn’t rest until he saw Stewart, Catlin and their entire cutthroat gang dead.
One – Gold for Congress
Two – The Singing Wire
Three – El Paso
Four – Caged
Five – Cellmates
Six – Bodyguard
Seven – Rendezvous
Eight – Catlin
Nine – Toughest Man In Texas
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About the Author
Bannerman Series
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One – Gold for Congress
San Francisco in the 1870s was a city that was growing in importance all the time. Outlet for a booming State and with go-ahead Californians now represented in Congress, it was clear that communications between the East and West Coasts should be speeded up. The railroads had linked up at Promontory Peak in 1869 and now spur tracks and other secondary lines were crawling across the country like writhing snakes, spreading a network of communication clear out to the Frontier ... and beyond.
Now, when a town was built at track’s end, it didn’t stay isolated for long. As soon as businesses were established, there was a cry for transport out into the new lands and if one railroad company wasn’t prepared to finance the extension, then another would. Men formed railroad companies overnight, rich and influential men who could buy right-of-way clear through a man’s range, even his home in some cases, and have Congress back him up. It was a booming business and companies competed boldly for passengers and freight.
There was no shortage of traffic. People were on the move and that meant their goods moved with them. Businesses shipped their products and there were raw materials needed on the new frontiers and worth far more than the riches being ripped from the land. Lumber, glass, machinery, ‘fashion’ clothing, ammunition and powder, even food in some cases was freighted by rail. Bullion and cash were freighted in special vans called ‘express’ cars, but sometimes a specially-armored train was used to carry nothing else but huge shipments of cash or gold.
Like the train that was known as the ‘Congress Special.’
It was designed to be pulled by twin Scott-Allison locomotives of the latest and fastest type to come out of Pittsburgh. There would be four armored express cars, steel-lined with heavy iron doors and sheet-iron under the wooden roof. There were no windows in these cars: air was circulated by special scoop-vents in the roof and walls. The floor was double-timbered within an iron framework and then laid-over with rolled sheet-iron and finally covered with a layer of tar and canvas. There were special gunports, T-shaped, that allowed a man inside to traverse his fire and command a wide field. Each field of view overlapped with its neighbor and there were scattergun ‘chutes’ along each lower edge of the car. If there was a heavy attack by determined raiders, the T-shaped gunports could be closed off with a sliding steel shutter and the defense would shift to the scattergun ports. These were iron chutes that went down through the floor of the van at regular intervals, four to the right, four to the left. They bent at right-angles and were directed to the outer lower edges of the van, ending in funnel-shaped openings. The idea was that one guard could watch the progress of the attackers through one of the normal gunports and, when raiders were within range, give the word to the other guards standing over the special chutes with shotguns.
They simply fired their charges down into the chutes and the right angle deflected the charge of buckshot under the cars and out through the funnel openings, where the spread of shot would cover the full length of the van and hit any raiders in range.
It was a deadly new defense that had been devised of necessity because of the many railroad hold-ups and loss of life caused by outlaws attacking the trains hauling express cars. There didn’t seem to be any way around this new defense and it was to be used for the first time to haul a load of specially-minted gold coins from San Francisco to Washington. There, Congress, by a special decree, would make these gold twenty-dollar coins available to the New York Stock Exchange for trading purposes, mainly with European countries where men willing to invest in the growing American giant were clamoring for trade concessions and monopolies.
The coins were to be minted in the new San Francisco Government Mint with its special mint-mark of an ‘F’ entwined with an ‘S’. Some said that this was the forerunner of the ‘dollar’ sign but it actually had its origins long before, when the old Spanish treasure galleons carried millions in ‘pieces of eight’ or eight reales, and the bookkeepers used a monogram of a figure ‘8’ and a ‘P’ which over the years was abbreviated to an ‘s’ with a stroke through it, the internationally known dollar sign. But this mint-mark of the ’Frisco mint was to be employed on the special gold twenty dollar pieces for the first time and would make them distinct from any others then in circulation. There were to be fifty thousand of these gold coins minted, one million dollars, and twelve thousand, five hundred pieces would be carried in each of the four specially-armored cars. The only other two cars on the train would hold a troop of soldiers and their mounts, in case anyone was loco enough to try to hold-up the train as it moved across the country.
In ’Frisco, the coins were to be stored at four separate banks: the Bannerman First National, the biggest, strongest and most secure: the California National, the Federal Reserve, and the West Coast Trust. The coins would be picked up by specially armored wagons with army escorts front and rear, and taken to the train to be loaded on board.
The whole deal was to be kept as secret as possible. But there were always leaks when elaborate arrangements were involved, and this time was no exception. Even so, the people in charge of security were confident that no bandit would be crazy enough to attempt to steal the coins at any stage, even if he knew the exact times of movement. There was no weakness in the set-up that outlaws could take advantage of, it was thought.
But there was one.
And this was detected by a man named Brad Stewart who ran with another man named Catlin, a gunfighter the Texas Rangers had dubbed, ‘Toughest man in Texas’.
~*~
Curtis Bannerman, head of the Bannerman financial empire, came striding into the dining room of his mansion on Nob Hill, San Francisco’s ‘classiest’ district, known far and wide by the derisive as ‘Snob Hill’. Not that that bothered Curtis Bannerman, ‘C.B.’ to most people who moved in his circle. What folk thought of him or where he lived made no nevermind to him. What mattered to C.B. was money: the making of it and the keeping of it. He had fingers in many pies: stocks and shares, banking, land, cattle, lumber, riverboat trade in far off Louisiana. He had interests in Europe, too, and had been instrumental in urging the government to make the special gold coins available for foreign trade. C.B. lived in a world of figures and profits and losses. He had spent little time with his family over the years: he had put all his energies into building the Bannerman Empire and found tha
t he had little in common with his family when that was done. Charles, his eldest son, known as ‘Chuck’, was his field agent, roaming the country, buying and selling land. Chuck was successful at that, but he had a weakness for gambling and fast women and he was more often in trouble than out of it. Matilda, his daughter, called ‘Mattie’ by everyone except C.B., had restricted her life so much that she had become simply the Bannerman housekeeper, running the mansion on Nob Hill with an efficiency that C.B. regarded as being only right and proper. She had sacrificed her own chances at marriage to be hostess at her father’s business dinners, accompanying him to functions he considered important for business. But she was far more intelligent than C.B. realized and managed to make some sort of life of her own, though it had to be clandestine to avoid an open clash with the possessive C.B. For Mattie loved her father in spite of his faults and was, in actual fact, a steadying influence at times when he raged against his younger son, Yancey.
Yancey was the rebel of the Bannerman family, the one who had openly defied his father’s wishes and chosen to go his own way, live his own life, even though he had battled through a law course to please C.B. and was a qualified attorney. But Yancey was an adventurer, a man who loved the open spaces in preference to the staleness of an office, the boredom of endless briefs and court orders. He was a man who loved people, a man who loved action and reveled in a good fight. He had inherited a nature just as stubborn as C.B.’s. It was inevitable that they would clash, from the day Yancey was born and his mother died giving birth to him. C.B. had always held that against his younger son and aimed to make him sweat it out as an employee of the Bannerman empire.
But Yancey had rebelled, buckled on a six-gun and ridden out. He was now Special Enforcer for Lester Dukes, Governor of Texas ...
Mattie, only the night before, had left the latest letter from Yancey where her father would find it and be able to read it in private. The letter detailed Yancey’s latest exploits far up the Sabine River in Texas, where he had helped recover some old cannons and sunken Spanish treasure for the Texas Governor. i He had made a reference—light-heartedly—to the effect that it was the kind of deal his father would have liked to have been involved in, easy money and a chance of getting in on the new riverboat cattle trade that was a side-effect of the search for the lost cannon. It was a remark that C.B. would be willing to take from almost anyone and even smilingly agree with them. But, coming from Yancey, he figured it was some kind of a sly dig at his greed for power and wealth, and it left him in a savage mood that robbed him of sleep. So he was in a black mood when he came down to breakfast and found Chuck’s chair empty.
“Mattie!” he bellowed, and his daughter hurried in. “Where the devil’s Chuck?”
“Still sleeping, I imagine, Papa,” Mattie told him coolly. “After all, he only returned yesterday from a long trip to Oregon on those new lumber contracts.”
“That was yesterday,” C.B. growled, waving the maid away irritably and gesturing for Mattie to pour his coffee. “I have a new job for him today, damn it!”
Mattie sighed. “I’ll go and wake him up, Papa.”
C.B. pulled out his gold watch and squinted at the mother-of-pearl face. “Tell him I want him dressed and down here at this table in fifteen minutes, shaved, presentable and ready to accompany me to the bank.”
Mattie, her hand on the ornate door handle, frowned, and turned back to face her father. “You never go to the bank this early, Papa. Is today something special?”
“It is,” C.B. said curtly, buttering toast. “We are taking in our portion of the specially-minted gold eagles this morning and I think it only fitting that Chuck and I are on hand to supervise the transfer from the wagons to our vaults. Tomorrow night, I intend that both of us will supervise the loading on board the special train, and that will discharge our responsibilities.”
“But Chuck is very tired, Papa and he did work hard on the Oregon assignment. Do you really need him right now?”
C.B.’s eyes flashed as he looked up at his daughter. “I do!” He added: “Chuck was not too tired to play cards at the Barbary Queen until the early hours of this morning! He apparently could not wait to get back to his gambling. Now, for once, he can comply with my wishes. And I wish him to accompany me to the bank!”
Mattie held her father’s gaze a moment longer, then nodded and went out. C.B. cut the top off the first of his boiled eggs with a gold gadget imported from France and started to call his daughter back to complain about the consistency of the egg yolk, but changed his mind. It was more important that Chuck come down in answer to his summons. He would see that the kitchen staff learned of his displeasure at a later date.
~*~
Chuck Bannerman stood in the bright Californian sunshine on the steps outside the Bannerman First National Bank, at the Union Street entrance. The special armored gold-wagon lumbered down the street towards the bank in the early morning, the iron-shod wheels rattling over the cobblestones. Four troopers rode in front of the wagon, rifles out and butts resting on thighs. Two more flanked either side and six brought up the rear.
Chuck yawned, then suddenly came alert as he saw his father coming out of the bank, giving one of his rare smiles to two matronly ladies and telling them the bank would open a half-hour late today because of the transfer of the boxes of gold coin. The ladies were welcome to go in and sit down in the lobby and wait if they liked. But the ladies, with little to brighten their existence these days, decided to stand outside and watch the transfer—and the rippling muscles on all those young soldiers riding down Union Street with the iron-clad wagon.
“C.B.!” Chuck called, signaling his father to come across. The older Bannerman bowed slightly to the matrons and walked across to where Chuck stood.
“What is it?” C.B. snapped. “You know who those women are? Two of our largest depositors!”
Chuck merely pointed to the wagon and the troopers as they drew into the curb at the Union Street entrance. “We seem to be short more than half a troop of cavalrymen, Pa.”
C.B. frowned, and hurried across to the sergeant in charge. “Where are the rest of your men, Sergeant?”
“Had to leave ’em at the West Coast Trust, sir,” the grizzled cavalryman told the banker. “They ain’t got anywheres near the security your bank has, and the captain said it’d be best to have more men on guard, while you’ve got vaults even a cannon couldn’t break open, so you’ll be needin’ less men to stand guard duty.”
“Damn it, man, I’m aware of that!” snapped C.B. “But what about the transfer from the wagon into the vaults? That’s the most vulnerable part of the whole operation and it’s exactly why I demanded a full troop of men to stand guard while it was taking place!”
“Sorry, sir, I only follow orders ... Captain said the matter was discussed earlier.”
“And I vetoed it!” C.B. snapped.
The sergeant shrugged and shifted his chaw of tobacco from the left side of his mouth to his right as he dismounted. “I got my orders, sir. Captain said you’d be able to provide some of your bank guards to help out.”
C.B.’s eyes bulged and his face reddened with rage at what he considered the captain’s temerity. “By Godfrey, I’ll have that captain reduced to the ranks for this!”
“I can get Parva and Ridge out here with their shotguns, C.B.,” Chuck spoke up, worried about the wagonload of gold coins standing out in the street. “It’d be a back-up for the soldiers.”
“Be a good idea, sir,” the sergeant said and turned to bawl a ‘dismount!’ order to his men. Then he looked back at the still angry C.B. “I’ll have four of my men unload the wagon, sir. The rest can stand on the steps at strategic points with your guards. We’ll be all through in twenty minutes.”
“Get moving then,” growled C.B. tightly, folding his arms and glaring as the sergeant saluted and turned to issue his orders. “Get Parva and Ridge out here, Chuck!”
Chuck ran back through the big bronze-sheathed double doors, calling
the guards’ names. Soldiers took up their positions and the man inside the rear of the wagon unlocked the internal bolts at C.B.’s coded signal. Four soldiers stripped down to undershirts and breeches and the matrons tittered behind their hands as the young, hard-muscled men began to wrestle out the first wooden, iron-bound box.
They had it out of the rear of the wagon and Chuck was putting the two shotgun guards into position when all heads looked up at the clatter of hoofs.
Coming down the street were ten mounted men in army uniform, racing their mounts, rifles out and the butts resting on their thighs. The man in the lead, big and broad-shouldered with fiery red hair, waved at the men around the wagon and on the bank steps.
“Looks like your captain finally came to his senses and sent some more men to help with the transfer, sergeant!” growled C.B. a hint of satisfaction in his voice.
“Damned if I recognize that red-haired trooper,” the sergeant said slowly and then reached for the holstered Remington at his hip, thrusting C.B. aside roughly as he did so. “Look out! It’s a raid!”
As he drew his gun the red-haired man fired his rifle and the sergeant spun wildly, lead smashing into him. C.B. staggered to keep his balance and then his lean frame jerked as a bullet slammed into his body. Chuck yelled his father’s name and ran across the steps towards the falling body. Guns were blazing all around him and the matronly women screamed, lifted their skirts and started to run. Chuck saw the woman in the lead lift off the steps and fall like a bundle of dirty washing, rolling down to the street. He leapt, trying to reach his toppling father, but something smashed his legs from under him and his head struck the edge of a stone step and then he was rolling and tumbling, limbs flailing, down to the street. He lay still beside the bleeding body of his father.
Soldiers were shot down mercilessly, the four lugging the chest of gold being the first to go. The guards got a blast off with their shotguns and one raider was blown from the saddle. Then they, too, were cut down by concentrated gunfire and their bodies sprawled across the bank steps, twitching. Passersby ran for cover, screaming. The raiders rode up onto the steps and two of them slammed shut the big bronze-sheathed doors, which locked automatically, sealing the other guards inside the bank building. Cavalrymen were riding in with drawn swords now but the raiders seemed to have been trained to turn all their guns on the one target. Four rifles blasted the soldiers from their saddles. The wagon driver and the guard inside tried to close the doors, but the body of one of the men who had been carrying the chest was blocking it. The driver made to whip up his team but the red-haired leader simply rode up to the two front horses and put a bullet in the head of the offside one. The animal whickered wildly and went down threshing, effectively crippling the wagon. The driver, behind his wood and iron shield, reached for the sawn-off shotgun clipped to the side of his seat but the redhead poked his rifle barrel through the shield’s eye slit and the muzzle was right up against the driver’s skull when he pulled the trigger.
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