At that moment the train started up.
“Oh, we’re getting underway. What . . . ?” John pointed at the two dead bodies, but it wasn’t necessary for him to complete the question.
“Don’t worry about them. I’ll put them in the baggage car, and we can take care of them when we reach the next stop.”
Chapter Fifteen
Though the other passengers eventually showed up for their breakfast, either in the dining car, or in the case of John and Mary Beth, in the private car, Matt did not. Instead, he chose to eat a biscuit and bacon sandwich with the engineer and fireman up in the cab of the engine. He had dropped in on them just before dawn, crawling across the tender and climbing down onto the platform.
Mike Kirkpatrick was the engineer at the throttle; his fireman was Billy Cooper. In the little mirror that hung on the front wall of the engine, Matt could see Mike’s face and the small chin whiskers that stuck forward, waving like a little flag as the engineer chewed his breakfast. Kirkpatrick’s arm was laid along the base of the window, showing the tattoo of an American eagle.
Cooper closed the fire door, then checked the gauge. It was holding at exactly 210 pounds of pressure per square inch. The fire was roaring, the steam was hissing, and the rolling wheels were pounding out a thunder of steel on steel.
“Is it true we got two dead men lyin’ back in the baggage car?” Cooper asked.
“Yes.”
“You shot ’em, did you?”
“I did.”
A broad smile spread across Cooper’s face. “I thought you did. I heard the shootin’, but I didn’t see it. Damn, it must be mighty fine to be so good with a gun.”
“It has its advantages and its drawbacks,” Matt said.
Cooper held his hand in the form of a pistol, then made a “rapid draw” from the imaginary holster at his side.
“If I was real good with a gun, I’d give up bein’ a fireman, ’n just go around the West shootin’ bad guys.”
“How would you make a livin’?” Kirkpatrick asked.
“Hell, that wouldn’t be no problem,” Cooper said. “I’d do the same thing Mr. Jensen is doin’. I’d sell my gun to people that needed it.”
“There’s a problem with that,” Matt said. “You don’t always know if someone is buying your gun for good or for evil. And the people who want to use your gun for evil purposes are always willing to pay a lot more than the people who want it for good reasons.”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that.” He laughed. “Only, it don’t make no nevermind, on account of I ain’t good with a gun in the first place.”
“How long before we get to Carson City?” Matt asked.
“Oh, I would say no more than half an hour or so.”
Matt returned to the private car where John was reading a newspaper, and Mary Beth was looking through the window.
“There you are,” she said. “You missed a wonderful breakfast.”
“I ate in the engine cab with Mr. Kirkpatrick and Mr. Cooper,” Matt replied. “We’ll be in Carson City in about another half hour.”
“I’m sure I won’t have time to connect the teleprinter, but I do need to send a telegram to Drew,” John said. “I hope we have time for me to step into the depot to send it.”
“I’m sure we will.”
Carson City, September 1, 8 a.m.
“Yes, sir, I will see that the two bodies are taken care of,” the stationmaster at Carson City said when Matt and John approached him. The two bodies had been discreetly removed from the train, and were now lying on a baggage cart under a tarpaulin. None of the passengers, either boarding or departing, had even noticed them.
“Here,” John said, handing the stationmaster fifty dollars. “I don’t want the undertaker to be out the cost of their burial.”
“Thank you, sir, he will appreciate that, as will the county.”
“Now I would like to send a telegram, if you think I have time,” John said.
The stationmaster pulled his watch from his pocket, opened the cover, and examined it.
“Yes, sir, you have exactly twenty-two minutes and forty seconds left before the train leaves,” he said, authoritatively. “Western Union is right inside the building and over to the left.”
“Good, thank you,” John replied, following the directions.
Once inside the depot, he stepped over to the Western Union office and wrote out the message to Drew Jessup.
ANOTHER ATTEMPT MADE ON MY LIFE STOP JENSEN HANDLED IT STOP WILL KEEP IN TOUCH FOR ENTIRE TRIP
After sending the telegram, John returned to the private car where Matt and Mary Beth were already waiting.
“I got it sent,” he said. “Matt, do you really think that someone else may try to kill me?”
“Yes, I do,” Matt replied. “Those men weren’t trying to kill you because of some personal reason. They were paid to kill you.”
“How do you know they were paid to kill me?”
Matt stuck his hand down in his pocket, then pulled out two fifty-dollar bills, then handed them to John.
“I found this money in their pockets. How likely do you think it would be these men would have fifty dollars apiece? And, in a single bill?”
John shook his head. “It doesn’t seem to me as if it would be all that likely,” he said.
“No, I wouldn’t think so either. The danger is not yet over, so, if you’ve no objection, I plan to keep a close watch on both of you until we reach Chicago.
“You’ll get no objection from me,” John said.
“And you certainly won’t get any objection from me,” Mary Beth added, flashing a flirtatious smile toward Matt. “What young woman wouldn’t appreciate the attention of a handsome man?”
“Mary Beth, for crying out loud,” John said. “What would your mother think?”
Mary Beth laughed. “Why, I’m sure she would also think Matt is handsome.”
John shook his head. “I apologize, Matt. She is impossible.”
As Matt, John, and Mary Beth waited in the Gillespie car for the train to get underway again, one of the others who had been on the train sent a cryptic telegraph message to Lucas Conroy:
JOB IS STILL OPEN STOP ARE THERE OTHER APPLICANTS
The sender of the telegram waited for the answer.
MORE JOB APPLICANTS ARE IN THE QUEUE
Reno, Nevada
It was eight thirty in the morning, and Frank Posey, who had already bought his ticket to Cheyenne, was waiting in the Reno depot. He had spent the night in the depot, because he didn’t want to take a chance on missing the train. Conroy had told Posey that if the private car was not attached, that would mean the job had already been done, and his services wouldn’t be needed.
He did have the one hundred dollars Conroy had given him, so he decided he would go on to Cheyenne whether the private car was attached to the train or not.
Posey was standing on the platform waiting as the train came rolling into the station. The sun danced from the deep green color of the engine and glistened off the brass trim.
“Whoowee, ain’t that a pretty engine?” someone asked, and several others agreed with him.
“Look at that! It’s pullin’ a private car!” another said. “There must be some awful important person ridin’ on this train.”
Posey smiled. Whoever Conroy selected to do the job before him hadn’t done it. That meant the money was his for the taking.
And he did intend to take it.
The train came to a stop, and after a moment, a few of the passengers stepped down. The conductor waited until the last passenger had detrained, then he pulled out his watch and examined it.
“All aboard!” he shouted, and Posey and the others waiting on the depot platform boarded. Shortly after he took a seat in one of the two day cars the train got underway, and soon after that, the conductor came through collecting the tickets. When he reached Posey’s seat, Posey gave him his ticket and showed him the ace of spades.
�
��Does this mean anything to you?” he asked.
“Yes,” the conductor said quietly.
“What does it mean?”
The conductor looked around the car, took the card, and slipped it into his pocket.
“Wait until I contact you,” he said, speaking just as quietly as before.
Matt was in the private car with John and Mary Beth, and at the moment, he was peeling an orange.
“Have you ever tasted an orange ripe from the tree?” Mary Beth asked.
“Isn’t this orange ripe?” Matt replied, holding it out.
Mary Beth shook her head. “No. You can eat an orange at almost any stage of its development, but when you take one ripe, straight from the tree, they are delicious.”
“Well, why don’t they wait until they are ripe before they ship them out to be sold?”
“Because they would go bad too quickly.”
“Hmm. Well, I’d like to taste one ripe from the tree someday.”
“Go down into Southern California,” Mary Beth suggested.
Matt finished his orange, then stood up.
“I think I’ll take a walk through the train,” he said. “If there is more to this threat than these men, then it is likely that there is someone else on the train now.”
“How will you know?” John asked.
“I’m not sure that I will know,” Matt replied. “But I often have sort of a feeling about things like this. Anyway, I think I’ll check it out.”
“I won’t question you, Matt. One of the things I learned a long time ago is to hire people who are experts in fields where I am lacking and then depend on them. “So, I am depending, absolutely, on you.”
“You will be back for lunch, though, won’t you?” Mary Beth asked.
Matt smiled. “I’m never late for lunch,” he said.
Letting himself out of the private car, he walked through the baggage car, the Pullman car, and then the dining car. Between the dining car and the two day cars, he stopped in the vestibule and looked out over the countryside. They were running through wide-open space now and going very fast. A couple of times he had gauged their speed using his “counting-the-joint-clicks” method, and for a while they were going faster than fifty miles per hour.
He went into the day car and walked down the aisle, looking at everyone, and making eye contact with several, then he went into the last car.
In the day car Matt had just left, the conductor stepped up to Posey’s seat.
“Come with me,” he said, quietly.
Posey got up and followed the conductor through the diner and into the Pullman car.
“There are two more cars,” the conductor said. “Go on through the baggage car. The private car is between the baggage car and the tender.”
“How many are in the private car?”
“Now, only Gillespie and his daughter. Wait until I am no longer in this car, then move quickly. Once you have completed your task, then return to where you were, and take your regular seat. Get off at the next town, which will be twenty-two minutes from now.”
“All right.”
Posey waited until the conductor left, then he walked through the baggage car. Not until then did he pull his knife.
Chapter Sixteen
Maybe John Gillespie had been right. It could be that there were no more threats against them. Matt had passed through the entire train and nobody triggered any suspicion. There was one man, in the first day car, who almost caused him to take a second look. But there was nothing concrete about it.
Matt smiled. He couldn’t suspect someone just on a hunch. He would give the man a closer look when he passed back through the car.
But the man wasn’t there. Matt took a quick look into the gentlemen’s restroom, but it was also empty.
It could be that the man had gone to the dining car, but that didn’t seem very likely. Matt knew that the car was not serving now. It was too late for breakfast, and it was too early for lunch.
He darted forward, walking very quickly through the train.
“Mr. Jensen, can I help you?” the conductor asked, stepping in front of him.
“No, thanks.”
Matt tried to move around him, but the conductor moved again, putting himself in the way, almost as if purposely impeding Matt’s progress.
“Please, excuse me,” Matt said, pushing the conductor to one side so he could resume his rapid walk to the front of the train.
Matt hurried through the empty dining car, moved even more quickly through the Pullman car, then literally ran through the baggage car. Exiting the front end of the baggage car, he stepped through the vestibule, then jerked open the door to the Gillespie car. He wasn’t surprised by what he saw. John and Mary Beth were standing to one side of the car, their faces reflecting their fear, their only protection being the table that was between them and the man who had aroused Matt’s suspicion. The man was holding a knife, and his mouth was stretched into a sneering smile.
“John, you didn’t tell me you had invited a guest for lunch,” Matt said.
The fear on John’s face was replaced with a relieved smile.
“You might say that he dropped in unexpectedly,” John replied.
Shocked by Matt’s entry, Posey looked toward him for a second, then turned and ran out the other end of the car. Matt pulled his gun, then handed it to John.
“Do you know how to use this?”
“I’m not very proficient, I’m afraid.”
“You and Mary Beth get into your bedroom compartment and close the door. I want both of you to get into the same room, and shoot anybody but me who might come in. You don’t have to be good, that compartment is so small, whoever is after you will be so close that all you’ll have to do is point and shoot.”
“All right,” John agreed.
Matt was shouting the last as he was heading toward the front door. Opening it, he looked around, then up, and saw the heel of the assailant’s boot, just as he reached the top of the car.
Matt followed him up, climbing onto the top just as the would-be assassin leaped across to the baggage car. Matt followed him, leaping from car to car until both wound up on top of the first of the two day cars.
“You’re going to run out of train soon, and what are you going to do then?” Matt yelled at him.
Posey stopped, then turned to face Matt. He was in a crouched position, and the knife was in his right hand, low, with the blade turned sideways.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to gut you like a fish.”
Matt reached for where his pistol should be, but the holster was empty, and he remembered that he had given the gun to John.
“Ha, you ain’t got your gun, have you?” Posey challenged. “You ain’t got a gun, so what are you going to do now?
“I don’t have a gun, but I do have this,” Matt said, pulling a knife from its sheath.
“I’ll just bet you’ve never fought anyone with that knife,” Posey challenged. He held his knife up. “I’m goin’ to spill your innards onto the top of this car, sonny boy.”
“You mean you’re going to try,” Matt said.
“Oh, I’m goin’ to do it all right,” Posey replied as he turned to face down his adversary. He began advancing toward Matt.
The train went around the curve and Matt had to adjust his feet to maintain his balance.
From below, the passengers saw the shadows of the two men cast beside the train, moving along the ground at fifty miles per hour.
“Oh, my God!” one woman passenger shouted. “Look! Look out there!”
At first nobody quite realized what they were seeing . . . other than the shadows of two men, standing erect on top of the car. Then someone saw the arm of one of the shadows make a move toward the other, and when he drew back, she realized that that there was a knife in his hand. She screamed.
“They’re trying to kill each other!”
“They won’t have to try,” another passenger
said. “The way them two fools is standin’ on top of the car like that, goin’ this fast, they’ll both more’n likely fall off ’n kill themselves!”
Back on top of the train Matt and Posey were either unaware, or unconcerned, that they were, by their shadows, providing a show for the passengers down inside.
“I once cut out a man’s liver while I was in prison,” Posey said in a sibilant hiss. And like the head of a snake, he moved the knife blade from side to side. “I cut it out ’n I ate it, just like I’m plannin’ on eatin’ yours.” Posey concluded his comment with a demonic chuckle.
Posey made yet another wide slashing motion with his knife, but as he had done before, Matt bent forward and pulled his stomach back so that the knife just missed him. Matt replied with a counterthrust, and Posey pivoted to one side, so that Matt’s riposte missed as well.
“Ha! You can’t stick me if I’m not there now, can you?” Posey challenged.
Matt jumped back, and for another moment the two men were poised atop the speeding train, knives held low.
“As long as we’re having this little conversation,” Matt said, “suppose you tell me why you want to kill Mr. Gillespie and his daughter?”
“I’m getting paid to do it. I didn’t know the girl would be so good lookin’ though. It’ll be a shame to kill her. Maybe I won’t kill her till after.”
Another slash of Posey’s knife left a slicing wound in Matt’s left arm. Blood began flowing down from the cut.
“Oh, now I bet that hurt, didn’t it?” Posey mocked.
“Who’s paying you?”
“You don’t need to know that. Besides, what good will that information be to a dead man?” Posey asked. Stepping in quickly, he made another wide, arcing, slashing motion, but missed.
Matt counterthrust, and catching Posey’s left hand, sliced off his ring and little fingers. Blood began to gush from the two wounds.
“You son of a bitch!”
The Great Train Massacre Page 11