Behind the Iron

by William W. Johnstone

  The engineer leaned close to Fallon and whispered, “Is he running for office?”

  He’s running for something, Fallon thought.

  “And you also,” the detective went on, “have just become part of American history. That robbery attempt, which left a longtime employee of the Hamilton Express Company and a loyal and immensely dedicated servant to the Hannibal-Saint Louis-Jefferson City Railroad Company dead—killed defending your lives and the property of decent, hardworking citizens in this fine state and elsewhere . . . this robbery was perpetrated by Linc Harper.”

  That did manage to silence some of the passengers.

  “All of the bandits are dead,” MacGregor said, and he reached over and put his left arm around Fallon’s shoulder. “And this brave lad, a criminal just like those who took part in the assault on this train, whom we are bringing to the prison in Jefferson City . . . he risked his life to save you good, kind folks. And he was seriously injured by a bullet from one of those two-bit assassins.”

  He turned away from the crowd to shake Fallon’s hand.

  “It hurts like hell,” Fallon said, “but I don’t think that bullet wound is serious.”

  “But this speech will make it more believable if you get paroled in three, four, five months.” With a wink, MacGregor turned back to face the throng.

  He’s more polished than his father, Fallon thought. That could make him more dangerous.

  “So,” MacGregor went on, “ladies and gentlemen, I beg of you, I plead with you, to wait here. On the siding. Out of harm’s way. It would not be out of the question that Linc Harper, deceitful, despicable, dastardly criminal that he is, has more men in the woods and waiting for the chance to rob this train again, perhaps on the Gasconade River, in an attempt to exact revenge on what I, our brave conductor, engineer, and fireman, this felon with a bullet in his body, and my trusted comrade with the American Detective Agency have done to his reputation and his pride.”

  The people fell silent again. Fallon shifted on his legs and grimaced. He didn’t do that for MacGregor’s sake or to help the crowd change its thinking. The wound in his calf throbbed, and he could still feel some blood leaking out. Likely, he needed a few stitches.

  “Colonel Schultz,” MacGregor said, “our esteemed and dedicated engineer, will get us to Jefferson City as quickly as possible. Then an H, SL, and JC engine will return here quickly, to bring you fine citizens to Jefferson City.” MacGregor wet his lips. “And I am absolutely certain that a number of Jefferson City reporters will be traveling with the peace officers, a doctor, and the train’s crew. Staying here,” MacGregor concluded, “will give you time to think about the robbery, your experiences, your bravery, before you face the members of the Missouri press.”

  He stopped, shook Schultz’s hand, and quickly turned again to the people. “Besides, surely the H, SL, and JC will refund you for your tickets, after all the hardships you’ve endured, and even give you a pass for a future trip on the fine Hannibal-Saint Louis-Jefferson City Railroad Company.”

  MacGregor shook Doolittle’s hand, clapped Holderman’s back, and put his arm around Fallon as he led him to the engine. “The rabble bought it,” MacGregor whispered.

  “You sold it,” Fallon said.

  “Unhook the coaches,” Schultz told the fireman. “We’re keeping the express car.” He shook his head. “Or what’s left of it.”

  * * *

  On the far side of the Gasconade, the much shorter train pulled to a creaking halt next to what might have passed for a depot. It was late afternoon, and the sun was almost ready to dip behind the tall trees on the rolling hilltops.

  “Stay here,” MacGregor ordered. “Get that stick out of Harper’s body and throw it into the river. I’ll find my pal Mickey, see what all this is going to cost me, and then we’ll get that body into the icehouse.”

  “You should hurry,” Schultz told the detective. “They will wonder what took us longer.”

  “They’ll have to wait,” MacGregor said and he crossed the tracks in front of the humble little railroad station and made his way down a narrow road toward an even shabbier little town.

  The biggest structure, closer to the river and against one of the hills, had to be the icehouse, Fallon thought. There was an inn, a corral, and livery, and a handful of scattered houses, more shacks than homes. The icehouse, though, looked substantial, made of rocks, which probably could hold in the cold like a deep cave. Another building stood next to the big warehouse of ice, which might have housed one of those contraptions being used to help make ice these days.

  Fallon saw a few mules, two horses, a donkey, and a dog. Nobody came out of the homes or businesses to see why a train had stopped today.

  “You’re helping me,” Holderman said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah,” Fallon answered dryly, and he turned and headed for the ruins of the express car.

  As a young deputy marshal in the Creek Nation, Fallon had pulled an arrow out of another deputy. Eli Walking Horse had gotten drunk, robbed a Methodist missionary and busted the sky pilot’s jaw, and then announced he was returning to the old ways. He was going to fight a one-man war against the white eyes. The war didn’t last long. He shot a quiver of arrows at the marshals assigned to bring him in to Fort Smith, but quickly sobered up when a few Winchester bullets struck the cabin in which he had holed up. One of those arrows, though, had sliced into Deputy Marshal Johnny Powell’s shoulder, and Harry Fallon was given the job of doctoring the deputy. He had to push the arrow through, then cut off the barbed point with his knife, and then, after laying Johnny Powell on his back, he had braced his right foot on the lawman’s arm, gripped the shaft of the arrow with both hands, and pulled as hard as he could while Powell had screamed his head off before passing out.

  Getting a chunk of two-by-four pine out of Linc Harper’s body was a bit more difficult.

  Fallon held the stiffened corpse under both shoulders and locked his wrists together while Aaron Holderman jerked and twisted and finally heaved the piece of wood out. Holderman fell against the wall, and almost went through it, as he pitched the bloody pine onto the body of one of the other killers.

  Both men spit onto the floor and took the body of the bandit to the hole in the wall. Fallon returned to pick up the wood that had killed Harper and brought it back, handing it to Holderman.

  “Do what the man says,” Fallon said. “Drop it into the river.”

  The big oaf frowned, but took the wood, stepped out of the car, and headed down the railroad tracks to the bridge that spanned the Gasconade. By the time he had returned, Fallon had retightened the makeshift bandage around his calf. Ten minutes later, while Holderman chewed tobacco and Fallon rested in the shade of the express car, Dan MacGregor returned. The smile on his face told him that everything was in order.

  “Mickey’s at the icehouse, getting the door opened. Let’s hurry.”

  They brought the body—Holderman and Fallon—walking behind MacGregor down the path, through the woods so fewer citizens might see what they were doing and quickly moved into the cold, dark icehouse. Mickey, the owner, had laid a tarp down on the ground. This they used to wrap the dead outlaw’s body, and then again, Fallon and Holderman lifted the corpse and took it into the deepest reaches of the cavernous building, moving from blocks of ice to buckets of ice, and finally laying the covered body atop a mountain of ice.

  “He should keep,” Mickey joked.

  “I always thought Hell was hot.” MacGregor handed some bills to his friend, and they returned to the train, where they climbed inside the engine’s cab.

  Without speaking, the engineer and fireman went to work, and the train pulled away from Mount Van Zandt. MacGregor seemed happy. Holderman just looked like Holderman.

  As the train began picking up speed, Fallon leaned over closer to the engineer and called out over the noise and rattle and pounding of the steam engine.

  “How long before we reach Jefferson City?” he asked.


  Mr. Schultz answered.

  Nodding, Fallon came back to the back of the cab.

  “You in a hurry?” MacGregor grinned and offered Fallon a cigar, which he politely declined. “Not many men I know are in a hurry to go to prison. Especially behind the iron of where you’re going.”

  He and Holderman chuckled.

  A wry grin stretched across Fallon’s face.

  “Prison,” he said, “can’t be any worse than what I’ve just been through.”

  But from all his experiences in Joliet and Yuma, Harry Fallon knew that would not be the case. Not by a damned sight.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Werner Schultz slowed the engine as it approached the bridge that spanned the Missouri River. Jefferson City lay across the Big Muddy. The city was green with trees, unlike Yuma down in Arizona Territory. Jeff City wasn’t what you might call hilly, but it was far from the flats and bleakness of Yuma. Yuma was a raw, frontier town in the middle of the desert in a territory that looked more like Mexico than the United States. In fact, most of the residents in the town spoke Spanish.

  Jefferson City? Well, this was different. It was the Missouri capital and had been since the 1820s, although every once in a while, folks from St. Charles or Sedalia might try to stir up some support to claim the capital. Fallon could make out the dome to the state Capitol building. The city was spread out, with buildings crammed along the central business district and at least a dozen steamboats docked along the levees. It wasn’t Chicago, but it was a whole lot different from Fort Smith. As the train neared the city, Fallon looked to his left and saw the one thing Yuma, Arizona Territory, had in common with Jefferson City, Missouri.

  The prison stood on a hill that rose above the Missouri River. The stone walls looked haunting. Yuma Territorial Prison was called “The Hellhole,” and Fallon had firsthand experience to know that nickname was well deserved. A lot of folks called the Missouri State Penitentiary “The Walls,” because of those towering, foreboding blocks that had been quarried by some of the first prisoners housed there. Yet the prison had another name, too.

  The bloodiest forty-seven acres in the United States of America.

  As the train eased toward the depot, Fallon spotted at least two cameras on tripods, with the photographers ready to hold up their flash and try to record a historic moment in the annals of Missouri law enforcement. Several newspaper reporters huddled about, maybe two dozen police officers, soldiers from the Army, and Fallon figured that among the masses had to be officials from the state pen.

  “Hell,” Dan MacGregor breathed.

  “What did you expect?” the engineer said as he eased down on the throttle.

  “I know,” MacGregor relented, and he twisted in the sweltering cab of the Baldwin locomotive to face Aaron Holderman.

  “Take the reporters to the express car. But don’t tell them anything. Just let them see the bodies and tell them that I will answer all questions but only after I have delivered a prisoner to the warden.”

  He wiped sweat from his brow and looked at the engineer and firemen. “They’ll want to hear from you. Tell them the truth. Up to where Fallon joined us in the cab and we stopped the train. You can tell them about your brave conductor. But anything about Linc Harper—and don’t mention him at all.” He tilted his head toward Fallon. “You don’t even know his name.”

  MacGregor twisted some more to stare at Fallon. “And you’re mute till we get to see the warden. And you don’t tell him a damned thing about the train robbery.”

  Fallon said nothing.

  The train screeched, hissed, and vented as it lurched to a stop. One of the cameras flashed, sending a cloud of smoke toward the blue sky, and men in sack suits with pencils and pads of paper stampeded toward the engine.

  “Remember what I told you,” MacGregor said. “All of you. Don’t slip, or you’ll catch hell.” He nudged Fallon’s shoulder.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  But no one could go too far. Fallon and MacGregor were surrounded by a mass of men who shouted questions that no one could understand. MacGregor kept both hands on Fallon’s shoulders, trying to use him to push through the horde, but that wall remained as solid as those a few blocks away that kept thousands of prisoners penned away from society.

  “Gentlemen . . . gentlemen . . . gentlemen . . .” MacGregor begged.

  The reporters tried to crush them more. Another camera flashed, filling the platform with the scent of sulfur.

  “Is this one of the robbers?” . . . “What happened to Linc Harper?” . . . “Is the money safe?” . . . “How many bandits?” . . . “How did you manage to stop them?” . . . “How many passengers and crew were wounded or killed?” . . . “Who are you?” . . . “What’s your name?”

  Fallon’s ears began to hurt again, this time from the shouting reporters. He could smell the stench of cigar and cigarette smoke on their breath, and some were so close he could breathe in their sweat and feel the saliva as it sprayed across his neck, cheeks, and clothes as they shouted their questions.

  Eventually, Dan MacGregor stopped trying to get through the barricade of bodies.

  He stood behind Fallon, his hands still gripping Fallon’s shoulders, and waited, not answering the questions, probably not even looking at any of the reporters. Another camera flashed. Fallon wondered if Aaron Holderman, Mr. Schultz, and Doolittle, the fireman, were fending off another herd of news-crazed inkslingers.

  “Shut the hell up!” MacGregor’s words came at the split second of silence when every reporter seemed to be sucking in a breath before firing off another question. It almost deafened Fallon, but it managed to leave the reporters speechless for a moment.

  MacGregor took advantage of what had to pass for silence on the noisy platform of the railroad station.

  “Gentlemen of the press,” MacGregor said—and, to Fallon’s surprise, no one interrupted. “I will be glad to answer as many of your questions as I can. But right now, people, I have to get this man to the state penitentiary.”

  “Is he one of Linc Harper’s owlhoots?” someone cried out.

  Before MacGregor could answer, about a half dozen more questions were hurled in the faces of Fallon and the detective.

  MacGregor waited until there was another pause.

  “No. This man has already been sentenced and I and another employee of the American Detective Agency were transporting him to prison to serve his sentence.”

  “Who is he?” someone shouted.

  “What’s his name?”

  “He looks beaten all to hell. Mister, did Linc Harper do all of that to you?”

  “What’s he in for?”

  “His name,” MacGregor answered, “is not important. My name is Daniel J. MacGregor.” He spelled out his name. “I am vice president and chief of detectives for the American Detective Agency out of Chicago, Illinois.”

  “You’re a Pinkerton man?” someone in the back sang out.

  Fallon had to hide his grin over that question.

  “The American Detective Agency,” MacGregor said through tight lips. And he deliberately spelled out those words as well.

  A million other questions fired out. MacGregor managed to catch his breath and lift his hands off Fallon’s shoulders to wave down the excited band of newspapermen.

  “Gentlemen,” MacGregor said. “Please. Just give me time to take this man to where he belongs, and then I shall return and give you as much information as I can that will not jeopardize our search for the wounded Linc Harper.”

  “Harper’s still alive?” . . . “Did he get away with any money?” . . . “How many men did he kill?” . . . “Was it Harper who beat up your prisoner?” . . . “Was Harper wounded?” . . . “Did you see Linc Harper in person?” . . . “How did Harper stop the train?” . . . “How many men were riding with Harper?” . . . “Did you Pinkerton men set up a trap to lure Harper to this robbery?”

  “We are not Pinkertons,” MacGregor seethed.

  “What about you?
” A bearded reporter with a toothpick moving around his teeth nudged closer to Fallon. “You sure you weren’t part of Harper’s gang? Or are you a stoolie for the Pinkertons? Is that why Linc Harper beat you all to hell?”

  Fallon wet his lips. He said, “You know, boys, there are about ten dead outlaws in the express car back yonder. Harper’s men blew the hell out of that car, too.”

  “Criminy!” . . . “I’ll be damned.” . . . “Hell, that’s something I can get a good glass-plate negative of.” . . . “Dead outlaws!” . . . “Holy hell!” . . . “Gawd a’mighty, I bet that Harper’s Weekly contributor is already over yonder.” . . . “Let me through, boys! Let me through.”

  Most of the crowd parted. MacGregor’s hands returned to Fallon’s shoulders, and both men managed to suck in air that did not stink of scribblers of newspaper articles or damned lies.

  A couple of men, and one woman, remained.

  One started to open his mouth, but MacGregor said, “If you say the word Pinkerton I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.”

  The woman, a handsome blonde in a plain brown dress, laughed. “American Detective Agency,” she said, and spelled out Dan MacGregor’s name perfectly.

  “Meet me here, ma’am. In thirty minutes. That’s all I should need to get my prisoner delivered. You gents can meet me here, too.”

  “Maybe,” the woman said, “we can accompany you to see the warden.”

  “No,” MacGregor said firmly. “Back here. In thirty minutes. You fill your time taking in the sights of the express car and talking to the engineer and the fireman.”

  “What about the conductor?” the thinner of the two male reporters asked.

  “He’s dead.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Ask the engineer.”

  “How much dynamite did they use?” said the potbellied newspaperman with a bushy graying mustache and goatee.

  “Enough to blow the express agent to pieces.”