by T. T. Flynn
They won free of the stampede. The man ahead galloped up a brushy draw. They followed him up the draw, over the rise, where it headed, and down the other slope, and Lannigan drew his rifle and fired as he rode.
The fourth shot brought the man out of the saddle. His horse stopped just beyond. He was floundering weakly on the ground when they rode up and dismounted.
Far off behind them the growing mutter of the stampede was dying away. Their spent horses were blowing heavily on the sudden quiet. Shorty staggered dizzily as he held his gun on the wounded man, who glared up at him.
"You got me. Go on an' shoot," he gasped.
Time enough for that," said Shorty harshly. "How come Orey Blake is rustlin' for Halliday?"
"Ask Orey, damn you!"
"Orey's dead," said Shorty. "He went down the stampede. He's deader'n that no-account boy of his'n I shot. How come you've been pullin' Halliday's chestnuts outta the fire?"
"Money, damn you. What else? We hit the ranch here one night, headin' into Lodeville, an' Orey got to talkin' to this man Halliday, an' took on a deal to help him. We needed the money, an' plenty of it was offered. Go on an' use that gun if you're goin' to."
"How bad is he wounded?" Shorty asked Lannigan.
"Not bad," said Lannigan a few moments later. "Got him in the side. Looks to me like it's tore up a couple of ribs an' come out the front. Nothin' at all."
Shorty stared back the way they had come. "Halliday's men have gone on with the stampede," he said. "Your sidekicks'll have a good chance to get away. Nothin' we can do now to stop 'em. Get this man's horse down there in the junipers an' tie him on. We got a good chance to get him to Lodeville dead or alive before Halliday's men can head us off."
"We oughta shoot him," grumbled Lannigan, but he went after the horse.
They rode through a quiet night with the prisoner riding between them. They crossed the trampled track of the stampede and no riders were visible. Beyond Dog Creek they were cloaked by the foothills until they came to the wire that was Halliday's line fence.
Lannigan cut the wire, and this time he left it down. They were back on the road not long after, riding their dead-beat horses at a walk, when they met the posse coming out. It was Pop Marcy's posse, sixteen strong. Pop Marcy was with the men, with his six-shooter and rifle.
"I was argued into thinkin', after Doc Cloud patched me up, that you men oughta be backed up. I rounded up some of my friends an' we cut the tracks an' come along. Who's this feller?"
"One of the Blake bunch," said Shorty. "Orey Blake is dead. I reckon his warrant is dead, too. It wasn't worth much, except for Orey Blake to carry it out. It was his no-account son who tried to colddeck me with a six-shooter when I wasn't lookin', an' Orey Blake swore he'd get me for it. Orey Blake an' his men rustled your cattle for Halliday. You got Halliday where you want him now ... an' here's one of the Blake men to give the lie to any alibi Halliday cooks up."
"Where's my cattle?" demanded Pop. "We'll go get 'em tonight!"
Shorty sagged in the saddle. "Your cattle have just about followed Dog Creek down to your land," he said. "They stampeded an' were hellin' for home the last we saw of them. You oughta find some of them waitin' at the fence. Doc Cloud is what we're needin', an' lots of him. I'll take my chance on Orey Blake's warrant in Lodeville now."
"I'll go back with you," Pop decided.
"You ain't needed. We can make it all right."
"I promised I'd get you back safe. Kathleen'd never forgive me if I lost you now. I'll take you in to her myself an' make sure. Any objections?"
Shorty grinned as he lifted the reins. "Yes," he said. "You're wastin' too much time. Let's get goin'. I'm in a hurry."
T. T. Flynn married Mary C. DeRene at St. Francis de-Sales Church in the District of Columbia on May 10, 1923. Mary, who Flynn always called Molly, had been born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 12, 1897. Flynn went to work for the railroad, first as a brakeman, and then got a job in a roundhouse. It was at this time that he first began to write fiction. When Flynn was fired from his job in the roundhouse for writing on company time, he decided no one could write part-time. It had to be a full-time vocation, or none at all. Living in Hyattsville, Maryland, with Molly, Flynn continued to work capably and quickly at stories with a variety of different settings, but predominant at this time are railroad backgrounds in much of the fiction published under his byline in Short Stories and Adventure. Molly suffered from tuberculosis and so Flynn took her to New Mexico because the climate was reputed to be good for those afflicted with lung disorders. She suffered ter ribly before she died in Santa Fe on August 11, 1929. The perceptive reader might deduce that Flynn had witnessed her passing since his descriptions ever after of death in his fiction could only have been written by a man with first-hand knowledge. There are no grimaces or grins on his corpses, only the frozen vacancy, the terrible silence, the pallor as the blood vanishes from the surface of the skin. Molly Flynn 's death certificate does not provide a description of her, but Walt Coburn, who had met her, did so in his short novel, "Son of the Wild Bunch," in 10 Story Western (10/36). In this story Pat Flynn, after the death of his wife, leaves their infant son, Jimmy, with Iron Hand and his wife to raise. Jimmy asks Iron Hand's wife what his mother was like, and she tells him: "The most beautiful woman she had ever seen, with blue-black hair and dark blue eyes. Pat Flynn had called her Molly. She had been young. The squaw had picked a wild rose, just out of bud, and had held it out to the boy. 'Like that,' she told Jim." "Shadow" is one of those early railroad stories, appearing in Adventure (7/23/26).
His mother named him George Washington Archibald Macgillicuddy. When Spreckles, the D&R road foreman of engineers between Rawlings and Mountain City, took a long chance and signed him on as a fireman, he gave his name as George Macgillicuddy. But the first time he shambled into the crew dispatcher's office, Kelly, fireman on the Hill and Plain Express, took one look at his long, gangling, incredibly thin form and dubbed him "Shadow." And Shadow Macgillicuddy he became the rest of his natural life.
Shadow was tall and lean and, when viewed from the side, he did look something like the thin edge of a shadow. His head was crowned with red hair, and great freckles splotched his face and neck and arms. His eyes, a washed-out blue, surveyed the world half timorously, half wistfully, and always cheerfully.
When the Macgillicuddys located in Rawlings, Shadow was the proud father of five bouncing, bawling, and exceedingly troublesome youngsters. Five years later, when he had graduated from the extra list and was firing local freight, he was the prouder father of nine.
In those five years Shadow had become part and parcel of the D&R. He was a born railroader, and every inch of his six feet two, every pound of his 153 were attached to the road with a fierce loyalty. He knew it was the best road in the country, had the fastest locomotives, the best officials, the greatest heritage of pride, and he was almost humbly glad to be granted the favor of working on it.
Confidently he wove his future with that of the road. The years stretched away, an ever-brightening path leading to an engineer's seat in a yard engine, a freight engine, and finally a fast passenger engine, with the prestige and fat paycheck that went with such glory. And at the end was the safe haven of a pension from the company and a final life of indolent ease, ending only in the grave. To Shadow's way of thinking, a man could wish for no more, and in his fifth year at his job he was well on the way to his desire.
Shadow's fifth year on the D&R was an off year and his household was not gladdened with an addition. But, early in his sixth year of service, Nature, apparently regretting her niggardliness of the year before, bestowed triplets upon the clan of Macgillicuddy.
It was an epic event. Shadow almost burst with pride when the news was brought to him by the harried midwife. After a palpitating inspection of the new arrivals and the assurance that the rest of his round dozen were being looked after by the neighbors, Shadow proceeded to get gloriously, thoroughly, and completely soused.
But even as the triplets bulked over the usual yearly arrival, so did Shadow's alcoholic celebration tower over former ones. Some of it may have been due to the vile concoctions he was obliged to accept for liquor, but there was no denying his enthusiasm. At that, things would have been all right if fate had not elected to play a hand.
Daniel Weegan, austere president of the whole D&R system, was making an inspection of the entire road. Jim Ryan, the heavy-set, iron-jawed superintendent of the Mountain Division, was conducting Weegan and his party over the division. For weeks preparations had been made for the visit. The roadbed was clean and orderly, buildings were newly painted, all scrap collected, old ties burned, the yards cleaned up, and at Rawlings the roundhouse, the back shop, and their attendant buildings were gone over as with a fine-toothed comb.
Ryan and Blanton, the Rawlings master mechanic, met the inspection party when they came on the Mountain Division at Rawlings and conducted them over the Rawlings property. All went well until they entered the roundhouse. Halfway through it they stopped by the side of a great mountain freight engine and listened while Blanton pridefully told them what a fine, upstanding bunch of men were on the Rawlings payroll.
"As fine a lot of fellows as you'll find on the whole road, Mister Weegan," he said enthusiastically. "There's not a man among them who is not a sober, steady worker, who wouldn't go to the last ditch for the D and R."
Daniel Weegan stroked his beard and nodded approvingly.
Spreckles, the road foreman of engineers, who was with Ryan and Blanton, added his bit. "It's true," he said feelingly. "We have reason to be proud of every one of them."
"I like that," Weegan said heartily. "Our road is built on men, gentlemen. We can lay down the best steel, purchase the finest rolling stock, and furnish the best equipment on the market. But if we haven't the men, we won't have a road worthy of the name. Keep at it, weed out the unfit, treat the fit well, and we'll go far."
Ryan nodded. "There's none but fit on the Mountain Division," he averred. "To the last man they are a credit to the road."
Weegan nodded again, and, when Ryan saw it, he lifted the corner of his mouth at Blanton. There was little doubt that the Mountain Division was making a noble impression upon Weegan and the high officials who accompanied him.
Weegan turned to Ryan and spoke, but his words were overwhelmed as the bell of the freight hog beside them suddenly broke into wild clamor. Weegan halted his remarks and frowned.
Ryan's face grew red, and Blanton, with a muttered curse, made for the cab of the engine. Before he reached the cab steps, the whistle of the freight hog cut loose in a blast, and then the lanky form of Shadow Macgillicuddy leaned out the window. He was wildly drunk and clutched a pint bottle, half full, in his right hand. He waved the bottle at Blanton and at the group and broke into song.
Weegan looked at Ryan. Ryan purpled under the glance and said to Spreckles thickly: "That man ... who is he?"
Spreckles shifted uncomfortably, but it was no time to be saving other men's shirts. His own was in danger, for a road foreman doesn't bulk very large in the eyes of the superintendent. "I think it's a fireman, a man named Macgillicuddy."
"Think?" asked Ryan savagely. "Are you paid to think who the men under you are?"
"Well, I know," said Spreckles.
"Ha!" snorted Ryan, and looked at Blanton.
The master mechanic had stopped beneath the cab window and was glaring up at Shadow Macgillicuddy.
"You're fired!" he roared savagely.
Shadow leered at him. "Fired!" he whooped. "Me fired! Wh'd I care. Tr'pl'ts!" He pulled on the whistle cord again, and then waved the bottle at the party of officials. "Drink!" he urged hospitably. "Drink t' tr'pl'ts!"
Weegan, a noted dry, swelled with indignation. Ryan, seeing the careful plans of weeks being destroyed, gritted his teeth in suppressed fury.
Shadow broke into discordant song again, but before he had a chance to sing more than several bars, thunder, in the shape of Blanton, struck him. The master mechanic, driven by a fury equal to Ryan's, had scaled the cab steps, stepped behind Shadow, reached forth a long arm, plucked him bodily from the cab seat, and jerked him back into the cab.
"You're fired!" Blanton cried, shaking the lanky form of Shadow until the faded blue eyes almost popped from their sockets.
The small matter of being fired or hired was of little import to Shadow Macgillicuddy at that moment. He giggled hugely and again essayed to sing.
Blanton, seeing that drastic action was necessary, hauled him down from the cab on the side away from the party and, hustling him away from the immediate vicinity, turned him over to a couple of machinists with rapid instructions to throw him off the property and keep him off.
But the damage was done. Weegan's visit to the Mountain Division, the visit that was to have been one triumphant, smooth tour, was flatter and cooler than a cold fried egg. When the presidential party passed over into the next division, it left behind a dank chill cloud of gloom and a violent antipathy in the breasts of Spreckles, of Blanton, and of Ryan toward all who bore the name of Macgillicuddy. Which wouldn't have been so bad had there only been Shadow to consider. But there was Mrs. Macgillicuddy and twelve hungry youngsters in the offing.
By the next morning Shadow was sober, and he didn't remember that he had been fired. Blessed forgetfulness had wiped the painful scene from his mind, and, secure in the tradition of former years, he reported for work.
Shadow got clear into the crew dispatcher's office without being acquainted with the fact that he had no job. He was gay in spirit, considering the hangover that he had awakened with that morning, and he breezed through the door of the dispatcher's office, whistling a little ditty, and nodded to the men who were standing around inside.
"Howdy, men," he said gaily. "I suppose you've all heard of me good luck."
A silence fell over the room when the men saw who it was. To a man, they knew of the happening the day before and the black trouble that had descended upon the house of Macgillicuddy. They shuffled their feet uneasily, and none had the courage to answer Shadow.
He blinked and looked at them wonderingly. "And have none of you heard I have triplets at me house?" he asked after a moment.
Not a man spoke.
Finally Henderson, the engineer who been assigned to the Hill and Plain Express after Pop Hand retired, spoke up gruffly: "Aye, Shadow," he said gruffly. "There's not many could do it. An' it had to happen to a starved-lookin' galoot like you."
Shadow chuckled and the tension was broken. "Results is what counts," he reminded them. He straightened his long lean form, thrust out his flat chest, and swaggered over to the rail before the crew dispatcher's desk. "Here I am, Joe," he said cheerfully. "Mark me up, will you? I have need for much work, what with the increase and all."
Joe, the crew dispatcher, hesitated, and then passed the buck. "I ... I think Spreckles wants to see you," he told Shadow.
"Spreckles?" Shadow wrinkled his brow thoughtfully, looked at Joe, and then around at the boys. "Now what could Spreckles be wantin' me for?"
No one said a word.
Shadow looked at them and grinned. "Maybe he's going to praise me for the triplets bringing distinction to the Mountain Division," he suggested. "They's none o' you has come
to the front with such a contribution."
He favored them with a cheerful grin, and left the room jauntily. For what could Spreckles want save to extend congratulations or impart good news?
Spreckles was in his office, his nose buried in a report, when Shadow entered. He did not see who it was until he looked up and stared fully into Shadow's grin.
Shadow spoke first. "Howdy, boss."
Spreckles's face grew red and he swelled visibly. "Well?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"Joe said you wanted to see me," Shadow explained, and he twirled his shabby work hat on the end of his finger as he spoke.
"Want to see you?" Spreckles spoke as though the suggestion were anathema. "No," he gritted, "I don't want to see you ... ever!"
Shadow stopped the gyrations of his hat and looked at Spreckles in astonishment. He sensed that there was something decidedly wrong in Spreckles's attitude. "Well, Joe said so," he finally replied uncertainly.
"What are you doing here anyway?" asked Spreckles irritably. "What were you talking to Joe for?"
Shadow stared at him, puzzled. "I came to work. I went in Joe's office to get him to mark me up."
"Mark you up?"
Shadow nodded.
A thought came to Spreckles. "While you are here, I'll fix you up," he said.
He reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled forth a pad of slips. While Shadow waited, his hat swinging uneasily on the end of his finger, Spreckles wrote. With a final jab of his pen he finished, blotted the paper, and tore off the sheet on which he had written.
"There!" he said, tossing it across the desk. "There's the order for your time. Get it and beat it off the property quick. I don't want to see you."
Shadow gaped at him with his mouth open. His hat slid off the finger, dropped to the floor, and lay unnoticed.