by Jack Sheriff
‘It’s the business he wants you involved in that gives you your answer,’ Jake Cree said, poking thoughtfully at the fire. ‘Hell, Daniel, the man’s organized the murder of your wife to suck you into pullin’ off a train robbery.’
‘No,’ Sagger said, ‘I truly believe he was not behind that.’
From his position against the trees, Will said, ‘He knew the calibre of the men he was sending after you. Amos Skillin was lacking in morals. In the end it was Cajun Pride’s responsibility.’
‘Son, the man’s dying of the cancer. You think that leaves him in his right mind, with clear thinking?’
‘Yeah, I do. He knows he wants to go out in a blaze of glory, and he wants to take you down with him.’
‘So what you do,’ Slim Gillo said, ‘is you ride away from this, we go back to Ten Mile Halt, you tell Cliff McClure what you know and he’ll get on the telegraph to Union Pacific.’
‘I’ve heard nothing except a heap of cash waitin’ to be picked up, so Union Pacific’s just a guess. But even if I’m right, if I ride away from here the outlaws’ll fade into the hills, put off the robbery until the coast’s clear – and in the meantime, Cajun won’t let up, he’ll send another crazy killer to Circle C.’
‘Becky’ll come to no harm.’ Gillo said. ‘This time you’ll be prepared – we’ll be prepared.’
Sagger smiled cynically. ‘Maybe you’re right. But what if I ride away, and the Utah Kid goes ahead without me.’
‘You care about those fellers?’ Will’s tone was caustic.
‘Him. Not them.’ Sagger looked over at his son. ‘Yes, I care.’
‘Enough to go along with him?’
He watched his pa ponder that question, brow furrowed, both hands clasping the tin cup, his eyes fixed on the flickering flames. Jake Cree had moved away from the heat of the fire and, hat off, was mopping his brow with a bandanna. Slim Gillo had also walked away, and was prowling up the hill to cast his eyes towards the distant notch.
The air was electric.
‘I care enough,’ Daniel Sagger said at last, ‘to go back there and try my damnedest to persuade Cajun to give up this crazy idea, move out of Hole In The Wall to a pleasant town somewhere and spend his last few months with peace of mind.’
‘Can’t be done,’ Cree said, replacing his hat and rounding on his friend. ‘The man’s fixated. All he can see is him with his old pard alongside him, that mighty train clanking down the tracks, the flash of pistols in the night and the newspaper headlines with his name up there in bold type.’
‘I must try, Jake.’
‘Where does that leave me?’ Slim Gillo had come back down the slope and was standing with hands on hips, the badge glinting on his vest, a stubborn jut to his jaw. ‘I’m in possession of information about the possible theft of large amounts of cash from the Union Pacific Railroad Company.’ He let that thought and its implications sink in, then said quietly, ‘One of the men likely to be involved in that robbery is settin’ right here in front of me.’
Daniel Sagger sighed. ‘You’d take me in?’
‘As a lawman, do I have a choice?’
‘Yeah. Keep your mouth shut, and wait.’
Gillo’s face darkened. The hand that was resting on his right hip drifted free, brushed his holster. It seemed that they were an instant away from an ugly incident that could end in another violent death – and then Jake Cree cut in quickly, ‘Daniel put that badly, Slim. What he’s saying is he’ll make his try to change the Kid’s mind, but if he can’t do it then he’ll come out of the Hole and ride with you to Ten Mile.’
And now a thin smile flickered across Daniel Sagger’s face as he looked at Slim Gillo. ‘And I guess with choices limited for both of us, we’ll have to settle for that.’
Watching them, Will saw Jake Cree’s diplomatic interruption defuse the situation. Slim Gillo had visibly relaxed, but his eyes were thoughtful. Will’s pa was also thoughtful, but Will knew he was waiting to see which way Gillo would swing, and planning accordingly.
‘Fair enough.’ Gillo nodded, and hunkered down in the grass. ‘But in case something happens and you don’t make it out of there, Daniel, let me have some names to give McClure.’
‘Cajun Pride you know,’ Sagger said. ‘There’s Fergel O’Brien and Karl Weiss, two more whose names I didn’t catch, and a feller called Harry Tracy.’
Gillo grunted. ‘Tracy’s wanted for murder up in Utah. The others you can’t name could be his partner, Dave Lant, and a feller called Swede Johnson.’
‘I’ll listen for those names,’ Sagger said. ‘But I want you to leave timing and judgement to me. I’ve got no details. This robbery’s going to happen, but it could be as far away as next month, as close as this week. So no matter what you see or hear, stay back. This is my play. If it comes off. . . .’
He waited for Gillo’s reluctant nod, stood up, then waited as the deputy also came to his feet.
‘Railroad timetables are something I know about,’ he said. ‘McClure’s always got one pinned to the board in the office—’
‘That’s right,’ Will cut in, remembering. ‘Ma went to him a year back when she needed some times for a trip she was making. . . .’
‘Yeah, well,’ Gillo said, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘what I’m gettin’ at is there ain’t all that many runs for me to get too easily confused—’
‘For God’s sake, get on with it, Slim!’ Jake Cree said.
‘The point is,’ Gillo said, ‘I’m pretty damn certain from what I know that if your old pard’s after the Union Pacific’s Overland Flyer, then he’ll do it tonight.’
‘Explain,’ Cree said.
‘I don’t know where he’ll hit it,’ Gillo said, ‘but that train comes through tonight and the Utah Kid’s forced to move fast. That train’s always been Butch Cassidy’s favourite target, and there’s a rumour—’
‘Rumour?’
Gillo glared at Cree. ‘One of those fellers out of Hole In The Wall who came to Ten Mile after Daniel stopped off at the saloon, Red Keegan heard him talking. About how Cassidy and Kid Curry were plannin’ another such raid. But if that’s within spittin’ distance of the truth. . . .’
Daniel Sagger nodded slowly. Then, wiping his palms on the side of his pants, he came away from the fire and reached across to shake hands with the deputy. ‘Thanks, Slim, that gives me something to work on.’ He winked cheerfully at Jake Cree and walked over to Will.
‘This won’t take long,’ he said. ‘I’ll say it again: you’ve got my thanks for the manly way you handled yourself, arranged for Becky’s care – the way you passed the running of the ranch over to Dave Lee Nelson so you could make this ride.’
‘Pa—’
‘No, you listen: no matter what I said, I reckon Cajun’s planning on a fast move’ – he looked across at Gillo and nodded as he said that – ‘so it’ll be over, one way or another, before you know it – and then we’ll ride home and pick up the pieces; maybe start afresh.’
‘No need. The best years of my life have been those since you rode into Circle C’s yard and stayed home for good,’ Will Sagger said, and with a lump in his throat he reached out to meet his father’s strong hand-clasp. ‘When this is over, I’ll be happy to have things run like that – exactly the way they were.’
Jumbled words that made no sense were tussling with each other in Daniel Sagger’s head as he rode back across the rock-strewn, fissured grassland. Arguments strong enough to get through to a stubborn and ailing outlaw were composed, then discarded, and always in front of him there was the pale face of Cajun Pride, the Utah Kid, the burning light in his eyes as he spoke passionately of one last ride with his old partner.
What monumental task had he set himself?
How do you change the mind of a man who is dying, a man for whom life and death have lost their meaning? How do you tell him that waiting for death in a rocking chair on some sunlit veranda is preferable to the heady exhilaration of a meticulously planned train robbe
ry; that the blaze of glory will come and go with all the fierceness and transience of summer lightning?
The answers to those questions were as elusive as ever when Sagger rattled into the narrow defile with the awareness of having outstayed his time and, even as he pushed his horse through the infamous notch and caught sight once again of the barren outlaw valley, he knew he was in trouble.
The man called Smithy was back, he had O’Brien’s field-glasses looped over his shoulder, and one look at his face told Sagger the man had seen too much.
‘Friends of yours?’
Confident. Sitting easy in the saddle, half turned so that his hand could reach his six-gun. On his face a look of contempt.
‘Who?’
The outlaw turned his head sideways, spat – and went for his gun.
Sagger had heard of time standing still, of a man watching the whole of his life flash before his eyes in his dying moments. Now he was experiencing it, but instead of seeing flashes of his past life he was watching the present fall apart. Even as his hand stabbed for the butt of his Smith & Wesson and he knew – with the confidence of a man who has been there many times before – that he would beat the other man’s draw, he was anticipating the sound of the shot echoing across the valley, dreading the repercussions.
Then his mind cleared. He saw Smithy’s lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl of triumph, saw the man’s pistol come up halfway; saw his hand suddenly caught and its upward swing halted by the thong holding the field-glasses. And, as panic flared in the outlaw’s eyes, Daniel Sagger shot him through the heart and watched him go backwards out of the saddle with the light in his eyes fading, his gun-hand still hopelessly tangled.
The shot seemed to resound like the report of a cannon. Moving fast, Sagger leaped from the saddle, left his horse’s reins trailing and ran to the fallen outlaw. Even as he sprang across the intervening distance, his mind was tormented by visions of what his friends might do. Hold back, he thought, for Christ’s sake, Slim, when you hear that shot, hold off. Then, the prayer echoing and re-echoing in his brain, he bent to the dead outlaw and heaved and wrestled him up off the ground and across his saddle. The outlaw’s wrists and ankles he lashed together under the horse’s belly with a rawide thong dug hastily from his saddle-bag. The field-glasses he slung over his own shoulder. Then, breathless, sweat dripping from his chin, he mounted up and set off down the slope at a trot leading the outlaw’s horse.
And all the way down from the notch and along the winding creek to the cabin where Cajun Pride and his band of outlaws waited he was searching for the words that would convincingly explain his actions – and he could find not a single one.
Chapter Fourteen
Harry Tracy was to the forefront of those awaiting him as Daniel Sagger urged the two horses up the slope and across the stony ground fronting the cabin with the dead outlaw flopping loose and heavy across the saddle. Flanking Tracy, but a step or so back from the cold-eyed outlaw’s broad shoulders, were the two men Sagger now assumed to be Dave Lant and the Swede, Johnson.
Behind them and the other men, in the doorway of the cabin with his hands braced against the frame, Cajun Pride was a fragile figure who yet managed to dominate the scene as, with burning gaze, he watched the outlaws gather for Sagger’s approach.
Sagger swung down. The man he took to be Lant went over to the outlaw hanging belly down over the horse, took a quick look, glanced back at Tracy.
‘Plugged tru der heart, I tink.’
Weird accent. Swedish, so Johnson not Lant.
‘And I think your lookout went loco,’ Sagger said easily. Without looking at the man he brushed close to Tracy, went on by and approached Pride. ‘I thought I saw something, the flash of sunlight on metal, rode out through the notch and down a ways. I was mistaken. But when I came back in, Smithy was there and would have shot me dead if I hadn’t got him first.’ He looked straight into Pride’s eyes. ‘Went loco, or was following orders,’ he said. ‘Which is it, Cajun?’
‘Smithy never came near me,’ Pride said, and his gaze drifted over Sagger’s shoulder. ‘I slept a while, he stayed outside drinking coffee with the others.’ His eyes came back to Sagger, and when he spoke again his voice was pitched louder, carrying clearly. ‘But you know damn well if I want anybody along with me when we take that train—’
‘Nobody said nothing to Smithy.’ This was Harry Tracy, walking over to the cabin. ‘We smoked, drank java, cracked some jokes. Smithy was glad of the break, when his time was up he went back to relieve Sagger.’ His cold blue eyes turned to Sagger. ‘This feller’s feedin’ you a load of horse shit, and I don’t want him with us.’
‘You don’t want?’ Pride came out of the doorway and stepped sideways to look past Sagger. ‘You’re here at my invitation, Tracy. You don’t like what you see, ride on a ways and talk to Cassidy and Logan, see if they like the way you shape up.’
Tracy grunted. ‘You know we don’t hit it off—’
‘So stay. And welcome. But lay off my partner.’
For a long, tense few seconds it seemed that Tracy was not going to let his suspicions lie – was not going to take orders from a frail man who looked incapable of pulling a six-gun. Then, with a shrug, he turned away. The others were already lifting the dead man down from the horse. Pride called out, ‘Take him out back, bury him.’ Then he turned to Sagger, jerked his head and went back into the cabin.
The sun sinking in the west turned the interior of the cabin into an abattoir, its low rays cutting through the small window to splash the walls with lurid colour. That ghastly, blood-red light was reflected on to the faces of the two men who sat talking, the mood it created one of grim foreboding. Cajun Pride was moving that night – no, within the hour – and so far, despite racking his brain, an increasingly desperate Daniel Sagger had not come up with one argument likely to disrupt those plans, to change the mind of a dying man intent on writing his name into the history books.
Now, with time running out, he knew that the only recourse left to him was the truth – and he didn’t think his old partner was in any mood to listen.
‘You think I was square with you when I rode up?’
‘I don’t care one way or the other, Daniel. You’re riding with me, that’s all that counts.’
This was Pride’s cabin, he had banished the other outlaws from it so that he could prepare without their intrusive presence, and he was moving around the confined space like a man familiar with his surroundings – even, Sagger thought, like a man who was at home and comfortable. And he knew that could easily be true. A person who has been a long time ill will pine for his home, will settle there like a sick dog in its basket, will show a growing reluctance to move outside that dwelling – however humble.
Now, with his Colt six-gun cleaned and oiled and the gunbelt laid out ready to be strapped around his lean waist, he was sitting on the edge of the cabin’s only cot and slipping his feet into handsome leather boots.
‘Did you ever consider I might have been trailed here?’
‘First thing I thought of.’
‘And what now?’
Pride looked up, one boot on, his greying hair flopping over his forehead.
‘They’re out there, whoever they are, you saw them – and Smithy knew it and that’s why you killed him.’
‘That was in your mind when you let me relieve him.’
‘Sure it was. But I figured it’d be two or three men, not a posse, you couldn’t risk bringing them into the Hole to come up against the men I’ve got, those other shootists in the cabin up the hill, listening. . . .’
He lapsed into silence, grunting occasionally as he finished donning his boots, once pausing for some time and taking a draught of laudanum from the flask he carried in his black vest and closing his eyes until the drug sent pain into the background.
At the table, bathed in the light of sunset, watching the men outside saddling up, tightening cinches – the one, the dangerous one, sending brooding glances tow
ards the cabin – Sagger digested what he had been told and wondered where it left him. And at long last he knew it made no difference.
‘Give it up, Cajun.’
‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘Die in peace, my friend. In your own bed.’
‘This is my bed.’ Pride slammed a hand down on the cot, drew a cloud of dust from the thin blankets. ‘Would you choose to die here?’
‘Then ride with me to Circle C, eat well, en—’
‘No!’
Pride reached for his gunbelt, held the holster flat in his left hand, slid the six-gun out and shoved it back hard with a decisive thwack and looked up with a half smile.
‘You haven’t listened to one word since you rode in here, Daniel—’
‘And now you’re making the same foolish mistake.’
‘Oh, I’d listen,’ Pride said, standing somewhat unsteadily and pulling the gunbelt around his waist. ‘I’d listen, but nothing you’re saying beats anything I’ve got planned. I’m stopping the Union Pacific close to Casper. I’m doing it tonight, because those fellers up the slope have got the same idea and I intend to get there first. You’re riding with me. Those friends of yours can try to stop me. They’ll die. I won’t be stopped – but if I am stopped, it’ll be at a time and place of my choosing, and it’ll be with my boots on.’
And punctuating the words with a gesture of finality, he pushed the tongue of the gunbelt through the buckle and snapped it tight.
Chapter Fifteen
‘I guess I should have spoken up,’ Will Sagger said, ‘but seeing Pa like that, after what happened back at the ranch. . . .’
‘We’re all in this,’ Jake Cree said. ‘We heard him say it could be next month, next week – yet nary a one of us thought twice about what that meant, how long we were supposed to sit out here.’
‘I’ve got my opinions, voiced some of them when Daniel was here,’ Slim Gillo said, ‘but it wasn’t the time to go one step further, or decide if my thinking’s right or miles off target.’