Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  In the meantime, his strangled cry as he felt the stunning blow, made Jardine turn merely in time to meet the flying danger. It was only a grazing punch, but it flattened him as though it had been a cannon ball caroming from his skull. Before the echoes of the shooting had died away, before the voices from the hotel and from the street of El Ridal had had a chance to begin their alarm calls, Allan was in the thicket and at the side of none other than Jim Jones.

  “You squarehead!” was the unkind greeting of Jim, and then wasting no more breath, he turned upon his heel and they fled through the darkness as fast as they could.

  Halfway up the wall of the canon toward their camping place they paused and looked back toward El Ridal. They could hear the voices of the confusion plainly enough. They could see lights stirring as men ran from house to shed with lanterns. They could hear the crash and rattle of the hoofs of galloping horses. But wildly as the horsemen rode, they did not come in that direction. They fled out from El Ridal along horse trails, and not in directions where a man would have to climb by foot.

  “What’s beatin’ them is what near beat me,” said Jim Jones after looking on for a time. “You goin’ to El Ridal on foot. I claim that’s the dog-gonedest fool thing that was ever done — or else the smartest.”

  “How did you know—” began Allan.

  “There wasn’t nothin’ to that,” said Jim. “I woke up the minute you got up. I seen you stand up. Then I seen you start sneakin’ away as plumb soft and easy as a hoss walkin’ through gravel. So I decided to foller along. I got pretty scared when I seen you drivin’ for El Ridal. But I kep’ on. I didn’t want to be outdared. But, Al, what the deuce did you have to say to Frank that was worth runnin’ the risk of Jardine and Johnston?”

  There was no reply from Allan. But to his heart of hearts he was confiding a firm belief that it had been eminently worthwhile.

  19. THE HOLDUP STAGED

  WHERE THE RAILROAD track cleft through a sharp-backed hill the trap had finally been laid, and the bandits had been carefully arranged on both sides of the cut. They worked in units of two.

  “Any pair of fools might lick one dog-gone good fighter,” said the captain as he made his arrangements. “But two good fighters workin’ together and watchin’ the backs of one another could stand off twenty or thirty blockheads.”

  Each pair, then, was instructed with the most minute detail. For a whole day they had camped in a hollow near the chosen place. The twenty-four hours were used to send word to Gully, in order that the two assistants of the gang who were on the train at that place might know where to make their attempt; and the rest of the time was spent in the most assiduous rehearsal of the parts which they were to play. One unit was to master the engine and see that the fire box was flooded, so that the train could not at once speed on its way and so rush a signal of danger to the nearest station. Other units were to turn the passengers out of the long line of coaches. The chief fighting men and brains of the whole body, in the meantime, were to concentrate on the attack upon the car which held the safes in which the cash was protected. Here Harry Christopher would in person lead the attack to destroy the guards; Tom Morris would be expected to play his part from the inside when the crisis should have arrived; and after all, the problem of the safe itself would be solved by the dexterity and the “soup” of Lefty Bill. Such was the general plan. The part which Allan was to play was merely to help turn the passengers out of the cars and help in the work of going through their pockets for their personal effects. He was only delighted that he should not be called upon to share in any gun work.

  So all the preparations were made, and half an hour before the train was due to arrive, they were all in their hiding places, stowed back among the shrubbery on the slope of the cut, or else hidden high on the lip of the pass. The last cigarette was smoked. The last pipe was put out. All became quiet. For there had been a last announcement of all from Harry Christopher:

  “The gent that makes us lose this here game—”

  It was a threat which did not need to be completed, for the drawn, solemn faces of each man’s neighbors made a sufficient warning. He whose single fault should cause the scheme to fall through would be murdered on the spot. There was no doubt about that. The tension was too great among them all. For they knew the character of the men of Cranston County. They knew that even if the robbery were successfully carried through only a small portion of the danger had been overcome. They had been pondering for days upon the risks which they were advancing to face. The result was that the nerves of every man had been drawn to the breaking point. Jim Jones lay beside Allan and the latter watched his face curiously. The cheeks were pale; the lower jaw thrust out. He looked like a man who already faced a leveled gun.

  As for Allan himself, he felt that he was in the middle of a strange dream. It was a bright warm day, with hardly enough wind even in the height of the heavens to give the clouds motion. It was now mid-afternoon, and the air had grown hotter steadily since noon. Upon the unshaded back of Allan the sun, beating down, pressed through the coat and burned against his skin. Heat waves shimmered and danced over the edges of the hills. The lizard on the brown, flat stone not a yard from Allan did not move during all the time he lay there.

  Then the rails began to sing. Only in such a perfect silence could so small a sound have been heard. It grew louder and louder, a thin vibration which, as the engine swept around a nearer curve, increased to a sudden roaring. Here it was in sight, black, huge, with a plume of smoke cutting sharply back behind the smokestack. Allan could see the monster sway with its speed and its power as it took the curve into the cut and then — the grind of brake suddenly applied, a shudder down the great line of coaches, and the train slid to a halt just before them.

  A single voice raised a sharp cry. That was Harry Christopher. Then his whole pack of wolves raised the answering yell as they swarmed down to their prey. Allan saw the engineer and the fireman climb down out of the cab with their hands stuck high above their heads and a squat little fellow with a masked face following them, his revolver poised and glittering in the sunlight. He himself, scrambling to his feet behind Jim Jones, pulled down over his head the mask which he had cut from the black lining of his coat. He drew his revolver; he was part of the active little crowd which was rushing at the train.

  Jim Jones raced in the lead. “Stay out here. Stick ’em up as they come out!” called Jim, and leaped up the steps into the first coach.

  A woman screamed somewhere in the train, a wild, long cry that kept working among the nerves of Allan long after it had stopped. It stayed in his brain for days. He saw many faces appear at windows, flattening against them, and then quickly drawn back as though they felt that the gun he held was leveled at each square of glass. Such is the omnipotent power of a gun that if it is leveled on a hundred it seems meant particularly for every individual in the throng.

  Now the passengers came tumbling out down the steps, some cringing women wringing their hands even while they held them above their heads, some frightened men, others nervously careless. From the front of the train there was a thundering fusillade of gunfire. It was over in a moment; then the wild voice of Harry Christopher:

  “Good work, old boy I Brain the”

  They had won the treasure car, then! In the meantime, he dared not look to see what had happened. He had his part to play, carefully outlined, carefully rehearsed, and as the passengers came out, he barked at them: “Turn your faces to the car! Line up. Not too close. Keep your hands away from your pockets. Steady now. My job is to keep you quiet. I have bullets to do that job if words aren’t enough. You there in the gray hat, get those hands higher — above your head!”

  How like sheep they were, obeying, though there was enough man power in the passenger list of that single coach to have ground the entire band of Christopher to pulp! There was a savage pleasure in being one of the controlling minds in such a time as this had come to be. They watched him from the corners of their eyes. Th
e whole line cringed when he made a gesture with his weapon.

  This car was emptied. From other cars the same procession was pouring forth. Jim Jones came, fairly dancing with gay excitement.

  “Good work, old-timer!” he called to Allan. “Keep ’em stiff as cardboard. I’ll go through ’em. Empty your pockets, gents. Turn them pockets inside out!”

  He went up the line with a sack under one arm. The other hand deftly went through the clothes of those who were too slow in fumbling for their possessions. The sack swelled larger and larger and fatter and fatter with the stolen treasure. Now and then came a whimpering cry from some woman who saw her rings stripped from her fingers by that rude, strong hand. Sometimes a man groaned as the fat wallet was brought forth. There was not money and jewelry only, but also more than one weapon came to light. Out of even the car in which Jim had first entered, five revolvers — no fewer — were taken. But all of these armed men, courageous enough under circumstances when they were prepared to face danger, had been unnerved and made helpless by the very audacity with which a single man dared to enter the car and turn them all out as though he carried a machine gun and not a six-shot revolver in his hands. They were like sheep indeed! Just such a sheep had Allan himself been, and he wondered if, in the time to come, he would not return to the fold once again and wonder at those reckless days as though they were things in which his ghost alone participated.

  Now the work neared completion. The sacked passengers were herded meekly back into the coaches. They had hardly disappeared within them when there was a hollow deeply-muffled report from the front of the train, followed by nervous shrieks from a dozen women through the cars. But even the untutored mind of Allan knew what had happened. Lefty Bill had proved his skill, and the door had been blown from the safe; the treasure was at the mercy of the bandits, and Harry Christopher had at last brought his scheme to consummation.

  It seemed as though the explosion had roused endless echoes down the cut. The hollow roaring continued. Instead of dying away, it grew steadily, and then the explanation came suddenly. The rear guard who stood lookout on the upper lip of the cut while all of this work was being executed, galloped along the crest shouting.

  “Another train! Quick, boys!”

  Here it came, speeding and crashing down the track. It came prepared for mischief, too. One could see men standing on the lowest steps of the two coaches which composed the train, and in their hands was the terrible glitter of sunlight slipping up and down rifle barrels. In some way an alarm had been given at the town of Gully after the first train left, and perhaps this train load of protectors or avengers, as the case might be, had been despatched in all haste.

  Half a dozen men with sacks of some size under their arms or thrown over their backs were rushing from the treasure car with Harry Christopher standing behind them, guarding their retreat, bellowing orders at the rest of his men. Those orders commanded every man into the saddle with all speed, and the whole little brigade streamed up the slope, scrambling as fast as it could.

  The passengers began to issue. News that the second train was approaching had spread like wildfire. There were even two guns which had not been taken in the plunder, and with these the passengers opened a hasty fire. There was too much venom in their minds and too little steady care in their hands, however, to make that fire effective. It only served to spur on the flight of the plunderers.

  A far greater threat had now developed, however. With screaming brakes jammed on, the second train came to a rattling stop. From the steps leaped the citizen posse, and the metallic clangor of rifles began. They advanced like soldiers attacking a fortress, pausing to put in a shot and then running forward again at full speed. They fired at anything, everything, but the bandits were over the edge of the cut without injury and the rifle fire must perforce cease until the posse had climbed up to the ridge. Before they gained it the entire party was in the saddle and scooting for shelter as fast as spurs could drive the tortured horses. The dipping hills did the rest. There was a long-range scattering of shots as the last of the fugitives galloped out of sight, but presently the whole band drew down to a canter and the leader gathered them together for a brisk examination of damages sustained.

  In the entire party there was only one wound and that was a scratch across the left shoulder of Lefty Bill where a rifle bullet had nipped him. It was bandaged on the spot, and while the bandaging took place the leader issued his orders.

  A band of such a size could not hope to cross Cranston County without running into the law. Consequently they were ordered to split into two divisions. Nine men, with Lefty Bill in charge, were to make for the mountains through one pass. The remainder under the direct command of the chief were to head for another opening into the higher lands where they could hope to dodge pursuit. In two minutes the affairs were detailed and the points of rendezvous were appointed. Then the two divisions, with waved hats and shouts of farewell, separated. Lefty Bill with his contingent headed south and east. Harry Christopher with the others drove toward the north and east. Both directions were obliquely aimed at the mountains.

  With Christopher rode Allan and Jim Jones. And Allan rejoiced that at least his lot had fallen in with that of his friend. Moreover, he had no doubt that they would now break through to safety. Counting the leader, they were ten in all, well mounted, well armed, and if they were pursued, the chances were great that they could outride their pursuers except so few that their numbers would avail to crush the men of the law as fast as they came up.

  On the whole, Allan felt only relief. But the big weight upon his conscience was that one man had died in the attack on the train. He was one of the guards who took charge of the treasure car. He had been treacherously murdered from behind by Tom Morris, and at this attack from within, the other two guards had thrown down their arms. That was the secret of the easy fashion in which the treasure car had been mastered.

  20. PURSUIT

  THEY RODE STEADILY until dusk. Then they halted for coffee and crackers and bacon, which was eaten in raw slices sandwiched between the crackers. It was dark when they started on again, and yet it was not dark enough, for a rising moon began to ride above the eastern mountain-tops and an unkind flood of white light painted the faces of these buccaneers in silver and black. They pressed ahead without speech, with only the squeaking of leather against leather, the faint jingling of spurs, the snort and the trampling of the horses.

  They had the consolation of being already among the foothills, however, and the chances were bright that they would be among the upper mountains by the dawn, if all went well. Harry Christopher, therefore, decided to abandon caution for a time and pressed straight on along the main highway, abandoning the wearisome and slow cross-cuts over the countryside which were sure to leave them deep in the heart of Cranston County when the morning came. They took the highway and had jogged a full two miles along it, with their spirits rising every moment, before they encountered a traveler in the opposite direction.

  He was a good-natured chap who wished to pause for gossip.

  “I got no time for talk,” said Hank Geer, cutting him brutally short. “We been out chasin’ the gang of crooks that held up the train. I’m tired. So’re the rest of the boys. Might as well of chased a lot of shadows. They’ll never be caught.”

  “Ay,” said the countryman. “That was Harry Christopher’s work. He was recognized by the hoss he was ridin’. They ain’t catchin’ Christopher until a blue moon comes along, I guess. Well, so long, boys. Sorry you had bad luck.”

  He disappeared down the road, waving his hand to them. But his horse was no sooner around the next corner than they heard it break into a furious gallop. Harry Christopher instantly drew rein and the others paused likewise.

  “You hear that gent ridin’?” said Christopher. “Well, he smelled a rat. He smelled a rat, you can depend on that!”

  “Lemme go back and tag him,” said Hank Geer grimly, pulling his long rifle from its holster. “They’s moo
n enough shinin’ for me to see a yaller hound by!”

  “You stay put,” said Christopher coldly. “Killin’ is your line of trade. Money-makin’ is mine. We got to use our hosses more than our guns this night. Which I say, ride like the devil, boys. Trouble sure comin’ behind us!”

  Straight up the highway they galloped at a round pace. Not racing, for considering the distance which they had to travel, it would have been folly to trust to the speed of their horses at a sprinting gait which would soon wear them out. A full half hour was passed in this fashion. Allan watched the others busily at work. They were shifting the weights of their packs. More than one deliberately threw his blankets away. Others changed the saddlebags. All were making grimly ready for a hot pursuit and Allan did his best to follow their example.

  “What’ll happen?” he ventured to ask Jim.

  But even Jim had no words. He merely turned a grim face upon his companion. Speech was to no purpose at a time such as this when no man could tell what might come in the next five minutes.

  When the half hour ended, however, they had the first indication of danger hurrying up in their rear. Hank Geer, whose ears were prophetically sensitive and sure, checked his horse suddenly and raised a hand. The whole party followed suit, and the instant their horses had stopped moving they could hear far back down the road, a sound like the beating of a rain storm.

  “Hosses!” said Hank Geer calmly. “This here night we’re goin’ to ride.”

  There was a short, earnest consultation. The general vote was for heading straight on down the road, and though Harry Christopher voted to take to the cross-country trails at once, he allowed himself to be persuaded. Their horses were still in good condition. They might be able to distance the pursuit which, perhaps, was burning up horseflesh by a too frequent use of the spurs.