The Railroad War

by Wesley Ellis

  “It’ll take an army to get them out of there, Jessie,” the Captain said. “The saloon’s got its own well, and I’d bet a plug of tobacco to a double eagle they’ve got all the food they need.”

  “You’ve got the authority to raise an army if you want to, Captain,” Jessie said. “Governor Kinkead’s made you a colonel in the territorial militia.”

  “That was a nice thing for John to do,” Tinker said. “But I don’t see that it’s going to help us much, except to make us legal.”

  While they’d talked, the room had gradually grown brighter. The lamplight was paling as gray dawn light crept through the windows, heralding the sunrise.

  Ki said, “Those buildings must have a vulnerable spot somewhere, Jessie. I’ve only seen them from inside, but I’d like to go scout around down there before the light gets better.”

  “I don’t know that it’ll do any good,” the Captain said. “I guess if you’re going, I’ll go along. I’d like to talk to Blaine and see if anything’s happened during the night.”

  They saw Blaine Abel standing in front of the courthouse, and Captain Tinker pulled up the wagon. Abel came over to them, and Ki and Jed dismounted to join him at the buggy.

  “It’s been quiet,” Abel said, anticipating their questions. “A couple of the boys and I scouted up close to the buildings last night, but we didn’t find out much. We saw gun muzzles poking out the windows all around the rooming house, and they’ve cut rifle ports in the fences between it and the saloon. There were so many men around the saloon, we couldn’t get very close to it, but from the looks of things, they mean business.”

  “There was never any doubt of that,” Jessie said. “Even if we told them that the man who’s the real boss of this railroad scheme is dead now, and the railroad is too, they’d think we were just trying to trick them, and wouldn’t believe us.”

  “Is that right, Captain?” Abel asked.

  “If Jessie says it is, you can take it for gospel, Blaine,” Tinker replied. “And I’ll put in with what she just got through saying, too. Prosser doesn’t know yet what’s happened, and he won’t believe anything we try to tell him. He’ll think we’re just spinning a tall yarn, trying to talk him into giving up.”

  “I don’t see how we can get him and that bunch of toughs out of that place without a lot of men getting hurt, then,” Abel said. “It would take a cannon to roust them out.”

  Discouragement in his voice, the Captain said, “The only way we could get a cannon is to call in the army, and that’d take a month. There’s not a fort left in the territory now.”

  Jessie had been listening, her keen mind weighing possibilities, and discarding each one as it occurred to her. She shifted her position on the hard seat of the buggy and stretched, throwing back her head to ease the muscles that were aching after her long night in the saddle. The sun was rising now, its low golden rays bathing the courthouse square. She blinked, and turned to the two discouraged men.

  “We don’t have to ask the army for a cannon,” she told them quietly. “We’ve got one right here. All we have to do is figure out how to use it.”

  All of them turned to follow Jessie’s pointing finger. They saw the small brass Fremont cannon standing on it low pedestal in front of the courthouse, a pyramid of cannonballs embedded in mortar beside it. In the morning sun, the cannon’s brass barrel showed a dark brown from lack of polishing.

  “You mean that little thing?” Captain Tinker snorted. “It hasn’t been fired since we quit having Fourth of July blow-outs when the War started, and all we shot in it then was wadding.”

  “It would still shoot, wouldn’t it?” Jessie asked. “Those cannonballs fit it, don’t they? And there should be plenty of gunpowder at the stores.”

  “Oh, it’ll fire,” the Captain said. “There’s nothing about that kind of cannon to go wrong. Ream out the touchhole and put in the powder and ball, and it’ll shoot, all right.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” she asked.

  Getting the cannon ready took most of the morning. There were a lot of small jobs to be done: cleaning the bore, reaming the touchhole, making a ramrod, putting powder in bags, tearing up old rags for wadding, scraping the cannonballs clean of the mortar in which they’d been embedded, improvising a carriage from scraps of timber. The individual jobs were small, though, and there was no lack of volunteers. News of Jethro Garvey’s murder had spread, and the Hidden Valley men were boiling with anger.

  Blaine Abel posted guards out of rifle range around the saloon and the rooming house, to keep the hired guns confined to the buildings. The gunmen fired a warning shot or two at the sentries, but made no real effort to break out.

  “They’re waiting for dark,” Captain Tinker said during one of the pauses during the job of putting the cannon in shape. “They might be able to break out, too, if we don’t stop them first.”

  “We’ll be ready in another two hours, Captain,” Ki said. “But ever since Jessie got this idea, I’ve been wondering where we’re going to find a cannoneer.”

  “You’re looking at him, Ki,” Tinker replied. “I was a right fair ship’s gunner’s mate before I got my master mariner’s certificate. It’s been many a year, but I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything.”

  News of what was happening had spread quickly through the valley, and the square was crowded when the willing volunteers rolled the little brass cannon into the position the Captain had chosen. The sun was noontime high. The polished barrel of the cannon tossed back its rays as Captain Tinker propped himself up on his cane and leaned over to sight the target.

  If the cartel’s hired gunmen had noticed the activity in the street beyond the saloon, they had not tried to interfere. When he was sure that his elevation was correct, the captain pushed himself erect and nodded to Blaine Abel.

  “We’ll give them one chance to throw out their guns and come out and surrender,” he told Abel. “If they don‘t, you scoot back out of range, and I’ll touch her off.”

  “Be sure to tell Prosser that his boss is dead,” Jessie reminded Abel. “He won’t believe you, but tell him anyhow.”

  Abel nodded. He took a fresh white handkerchief from his pocket and began waving it as he walked toward the saloon. Karl Prosser came out on the veranda, followed by a half-dozen of the gunmen. They carried rifles, and held them ready as they bunched up behind him.

  Abel stopped and called out, “Prosser, we’re giving you and your men one chance to surrender. Your boss in Virginia City is dead. The railroad’s dead too. Cut your losses and give up!”

  “Talk’s cheap, Abel!” Prosser replied. “You think I’m fool enough to swallow your lying bullshit, but you’re wrong! If you want us out, come and get us!”

  “One chance is all you get, Prosser!” Abel warned.

  “I’ll tell you again,” Prosser retorted. “Come in and get us, if you’ve got the guts!”

  For a full minute, a minute that seemed an hour, the two stared at one another. Jessie and Ki, standing beside Captain Tinker at the cannon, exchanged looks as Abel finally turned away and began walking back down the sunbathed street.

  Jessie said, “That’s about what we expected, Captain. We gave them their chance. It’s up to you and the cannon, now.”

  The Captain nodded. “I’m ready, Jessie. Soon as Blaine’s out of rifle range, I’ll touch it off.”

  When the cannon was finally fired, its report was dis appointingly flat. It sounded like a big firecracker, but the ball it lofted to the gunmen’s refuge landed true. It crashed into the front of the saloon just above the awning, and even in the square, the noise of wood cracking and splintering was impressive.

  A ragged volley of rifle shots from the rooming house rang out from the men holed up there, but the cannon was well beyond rifle range. The rifle slugs raised dust from the street, but had no other effect.

  “You’re aiming for the rooming house now?” Jessie asked as Ki and Jed rushed up to shift the cannon in line with Captain
Tinker’s leveled cane.

  “I’ll put a ball into it dead amidships,” the old man answered, bending to adjust the gun’s leveling screw.

  If the effects of the first cannonball had been impressive, those of the second were even more so. The shot tore into the center of the tall building, and almost at once the roof began to sag. Another ball into the saloon brought the gunmen pouring out like ants, their hands raised. Blaine Abel and his deputies, their rifles leveled, went to meet them.

  “I don’t think you’ll need to fire again, Captain,” Jessie said as they watched the Hidden Valley men disarming the cartel thugs and binding their wrists.

  “I guess it’s just as well, Jessie,” the Captain replied. “Look here.” He pointed to the cannon’s breech. A wide crack ran along the top of the barrel from the touchhole almost to the muzzle. “Looks like Fremont’s cannon’s let off its last ball.”

  “It won the railroad war for us, though,” Jessie said. She smiled as she turned to Ki. “And we can depend on the Captain to do whatever else is needed. Ki, as long as we’re so close to the stagecoach station, why don’t we walk down there and find out when we can take the next stage that will get us started back to the Circle Star?”

  Watch for

  LONE STAR

  AND THE

  MEXICAN STANDOFF

  fifteenth novel in the hot new

  LONE STAR series from Jove

  coming in October!