Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series)

by Ralph Cotton

  “Me too,” said Rochenbach, letting up a little now that he saw Shaner was only acting tough. “I heard you playing big dog, little dog. I thought I better make sure I showed up at the right party.”

  “He’s right, Bryce,” said Casings. “You come up acting like a turd—”

  “I was joking, damn it,” Shaner insisted, cutting him off.

  “Good enough,” said Casings, ready to turn his horse away and dismiss the matter. “Settle this to suit yourself. Rest of us have a job to do.”

  “Jesus, all right! Okay!” said Shaner. “I was being a little testy. I’ve had lots on my mind lately. Can any of yas understand that?” He looked at each stone face in turn, seeing nothing in their eyes in the shadowy purple moonlight.

  “Does this mean the bet’s off?” Rochenbach said coolly.

  “Yes, it’s off! Damn it, it’s off—hell, it never was on!” said Shaner, sounding even more shaken than before. “I was only kidding. I want all of you to know that.” He looked all around.

  “Look at me, Shaner,” Rock said quietly.

  “Huh…?” Shaner said, turning back to Rochenbach.

  “So was I,” Rochenbach said with a thin trace of a smile, turning the matter loose now that he’d established himself with another of Grolin’s men.

  A low ripple of laughter stirred among the other gunmen. Casings chuckled, but he let out a sigh of relief as he did so.

  “He got you good, Shaner,” he said.

  Shaner was too baffled and browbeaten to do anything but let out a tense breath and try to collect himself. He shook his head.

  “Damn it to hell…,” he growled, amid the chuffing and stifled laughter of the men. He knew he’d been made to look like a fool, but he was also aware he’d set it up himself, then walked into it blindly. He jerked his horse away from Rochenbach and stared upward along the windy mining trail. “Some folks you can’t fun with,” he mumbled, trying to save face at least with himself.

  As Shaner rode a few yards away, Casings shook his head and adjusted his hat atop his head.

  “Don’t go scaring our dynamite man away,” he said quietly to Rochenbach.

  “Dynamite man?” said Rock, looking back and forth between Casings and Penta. “What are we doing with dynamite? I thought Grolin wanted to see you men waltz cheek to cheek with this safe.”

  “He does,” Penta cut in. “But Shaner and I are going to blow it afterward, just to keep folks from knowing there’s a big-time safe opener in these parts.” He looked Rochenbach up and down. “Sound good to you?” he asked, appearing amiable enough.

  “Sounds like good planning to me,” Rochenbach replied. He turned his horse with Penta and Casings. The riders spread out single file and rode on, upward into the night.

  Stay calm and collected, Rochenbach reminded himself, riding along the steep uphill trail. It’s all coming around. He didn’t like playing this tough, desperado role all the time. But it was what the job called for. It was what these men understood. Calling Shaner down in front of the others was risky, but it had to be done. He could never allow Grolin’s men to talk down to him in any way. That wasn’t the way to play this game—likely it would get him killed one day.

  Had Bryce Shaner stood up to him and chosen to fight, Rochenbach knew without a doubt that he would have killed the man. But he had decided on the spot that Shaner was only trying to buffalo him—acting tough to impress both Rock and the others.

  It was clear that Shaner was scared, Rochenbach had decided, basing his judgment on experience, having faced down the same kind of men under the same set of circumstances countless times before. It was risky doing it, he had to admit, but he knew of no other way to play this game of life and death except to play tough and play to win.

  Luckily he’d been right—again, he reminded himself, riding along in the chilled night air. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Call it luck, call it skill, call it experience. Whatever it was, he thought, he wouldn’t question it. He was still in the game.…

  At midnight the men pulled their horses off the trail, to the rear entrance of Hercules Mining. Dismounting, they led their horses quietly through a cluttered alley strewn with ore buckets, iron storage bins and broken hand tools. Across the rear yard from a dim-lit shack, they tied their horses to an iron hitch. While Bonham stayed with the horses, the others crept nearer to the shack and stopped behind a broken-down freight wagon.

  “Giant, get over there with your dirt sock and do your stuff,” Casings whispered to the Stillwater Giant. Turning to Rochenbach he said, “You’re going to like this, Rock.”

  The Giant walked boldly but quietly toward the rear door of the shack, a long sock filled with dirt and gravel hanging from his large right hand.

  Without being told, Penta and Shaner slipped away across the yard in different directions. In a crouch they both circled wide of the shack and took positions, watching the trail from the edge of the dusty front yard. Spiller and Turley Batts stayed back, rifles in hand, while Casings moved forward and watched the Giant knock on the rear door.

  “Sheriff’s deputy,” he called out in his powerful voice as he banged with urgency on the door. “Open up, we know you’re in there!”

  “Keep your shirt on, Deputy. I’m coming,” a startled voice called from inside. “Is that you, Decker?”

  The Giant stood sidelong to the door, the sock full of dirt drawn back and ready.

  The iron bolt slid from its keeper with a squeaking sound and the big door swung open. The night guard stood in the open door, a lantern raised in one hand, a shotgun in the other.

  “If I’d known you was coming by, Decker,” he said, “I would’ve had you bring me something to eat—” His voice stopped short as the Giant swung the loaded sock into his face with enough force to send him crashing backward across the length of the shack and land upside down against the front door.

  “I have to laugh every time I see this,” Casings said, chuckling beside Rochenbach.

  Rochenbach started to pull his bandanna up over his face.

  “Come on,” said Casings, an empty pair of saddlebags over his shoulder, “you won’t need a mask. This fool will be knocked out cold the rest of the night.”

  Inside the shack, the Giant had slipped the sock into his coat pocket. He’d hurried over and picked the lantern the night guard had been holding up off the floor and righted it before it had time to go out. When Rock and Casings came through the rear door, the Giant peeled the unconscious guard down off the front door. They watched him scoop the guard into his arms, carry him over to the cot and drop him on it.

  “Sweet dreams,” the Giant said down to the man.

  Rochenbach stepped quickly across the room into a large office where a huge, ornate Diebold Bahmann safe stood against the wall. Casings followed at his elbow.

  Rochenbach pulled a leather case from his coat pocket and took three pieces of his Cammann stethoscope from it. Casings watched intently as Rock assembled the scope and hung it around his neck.

  When Rochenbach stepped over to the big modern safe and rubbed a hand on it near the large combination dial, Casings stood even closer, watching every move he made. This wouldn’t do, Rock told himself. He didn’t come here to teach an outlaw how to open safes.

  “I hear it won’t be long before everybody will be using these dial safes,” Casings said as if in awe of some large, iron monster.

  Rock ignored him. Putting the earpieces into his ears, he raised the bell end of the listening device against the flat steel door of the safe. He listened for a moment as he turned the steel dial slowly, then frowned and tapped the bell against the palm of his hand.

  “What’s wrong?” Casings asked in a hushed tone.

  “It’s not going to work,” Rock said. He tapped the bell against his palm again, placed it on the steel door. He turned the dial again. Then he frowned and shook his head. “It’s no use; there’s too much noise,” he said. He took the earpieces out of his ears.

&nbs
p; Casings looked all around the cluttered office, puzzled.

  “Too much noise?” he said wrinkling his brow. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “That’s because you’re not wearing this,” Rock said, gesturing at the stethoscope dangling down his chest.

  “Damn it, what can we do?” said Casings. “I don’t want to go back empty-handed, even if this is a practice run.”

  “There’s a clock ticking somewhere,” Rock said, looking through the open door into the rest of the shack. “Go find it and stop it. I’ll be listening through this.” He picked the earpieces up from his shoulders and put them back into his ears.

  “A clock ticking?” Casings said. “I never heard of anything as—”

  “Are we going to open this baby or not?” Rock asked, cutting him off. “If we are, I need you to stop that clock for me.” He leaned close to the steel door and held the bell back against it.

  “All right,” Casings said, shaking his head. He left the office and walked through the shack, looking all around.

  “What’s going on?” the Giant asked, looking up from tying up the unconscious guard with a length of rope. He’d pulled a bandanna from his pocket and tied it around the guard’s eyes.

  “I’m looking for a clock,” Casings said. “Help me find it.”

  “A clock?” said the Giant. “You wondering what time it is?”

  “Help me find the clock,” Casings said. “It’s keeping Rock from hearing inside the safe door.”

  “Dang,” the Giant said in his deep voice, greatly impressed, “this must be some awfully scientific stuff we’re fooling with.”

  Chapter 9

  Rochenbach had begun listening through the stethoscope as Casings turned to leave the office. Working as fast as possible, he managed to hear the fall of the first two numbers on the four-number safe by the time Casings and the Giant finished searching the shack and walked back into the office almost on tiptoes.

  “Rock, we can’t find a clock,” Casings whispered, without daring to go any closer to the safe until Rochenbach turned and took the earpieces down from his ears with a frown.

  “What?” Rock asked, turning from the safe, looking upset.

  “I said, we didn’t find a clock,” Casings repeated, the Stillwater Giant standing behind him staring over his shoulder at the big safe.

  Casings and the Giant started to walk closer, but Rochenbach raised a hand, stopping them. He had just found the third number. All that remained was to drift the large dial slowly to his right and listen, and feel the last tumbler fall into place.

  “There it is again,” Rock said, looking all around, then turning back to the safe. “I just about had the numbers in place, and then the clock ticking started again.” Without turning to face Casings and the Stillwater Giant, he asked, “Is one of you wearing a watch?”

  “I am,” Casings said. His hand went into his coat pocket and pulled out a gold pocket watch on the end of a horsehair watch fob.

  “That explains it,” said Rochenbach. “Get rid of the watch. Get it out of here! Hurry up, I need it to be quiet in here.”

  “Jesus…!” said Casings, turning, starting out of the room and toward the front door of the shack.

  “Wait, hold it,” said Rochenbach. “I’ve got it! Come on in.” He looked over his shoulder, gestured them forward and stepped to the side as he pulled the heavy steel door open.

  “Holy cats!” said the Giant.

  Casings’ jaw dropped open in delight and surprise as he stared at the stacks of money on a shelf inside the big safe.

  “Yeah, holy cats,” he said, echoing the Giant. He chuffed a laugh as he and the Giant looked at each other.

  “Well, my part of the job is done,” Rock said, plucking the earpieces out and taking the stethoscope down from his neck.

  The Giant and Casings stepped across the office floor side by side. Casings took the saddlebags down from his shoulder and opened the flaps as he stared at the money inside the safe.

  “I say there’s ten thousand, maybe more here,” he said to no one in particular as he started taking handfuls of money and shoving it down into the saddlebags.

  What was so much cash doing on hand in an operation like this? Rochenbach asked himself. It made no sense.

  “You done real good, Rock,” said the Giant with a grin. He clasped a big hand down on Rochenbach’s shoulder. “Grolin is going to want to keep you around from now on, is my guess.”

  “That’s great to hear, Giant,” said Rochenbach, taking the stethoscope apart and putting the pieces away inside his coat. “But the fact is, I’m just doing this because I need a stake. I work better when I’m working for myself.” He smiled. “After the big job, I’ll be heading out on my own.”

  Casings looked around from stuffing money into the saddlebags. He looked Rochenbach up and down. Then he looked at the Stillwater Giant.

  “Giant, go get Batts and Bonham. Tell them to get in here and take this money. We’re ready to cut out of here.”

  “Whoa,” said Rochenbach. “Why are Bonham and Batts taking the money?” Rochenbach knew that at some point it was his duty to see to it the money found its way back to its owners. He didn’t want the saddlebags to get out of his sight.

  The Giant hesitated. Casings gave him a nod toward the rear door.

  “Go on, Giant,” said Casings.

  As the Giant turned and left, Casings turned to Rochenbach.

  “It’s the way the boss set it up,” he said. “He said for us to split up afterwards. He wants you as far from this stolen money as you can get, in case the law happens onto us on our way home.”

  Good thinking…, Rock told himself. He seemed to consider it, then said, “Are you and the Giant riding back with me?”

  “Yes,” said Casings. “Bonham and Batts carry the money. We give them a head start. The three of us ride a safe ways back from them. Spiller, Penta and Shaner ride home together on a different trail.” He looked Rochenbach up and down. “Does that sound about right to you?”

  “Sure,” Rochenbach said. He hiked his coat collar up and leveled his hat brim. “Let’s get outside. I don’t like talking about anything with the guard so close, even if he is unconscious.”

  They walked past the knocked-out guard. Looking down at him on their way to the open rear door, Casings chuckled again.

  “Don’t worry abut him,” said Casings. “The poor bastard’s got lots of explaining to do come morning.” He stopped again outside the rear door and looked back at the guard. He said to Rochenbach in a lowered voice, “Did you mean what you said to the Giant in there?”

  “What’s that?” Rock asked.

  “You said you were doing this big job to get a stake and go out on your own,” Casings said.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Rock said. “Only thing keeps me from doing it is I don’t have the connections that a man like Andrew Grolin has. It’s one thing to know how to open a safe. It’s another thing to know which one to open, and when. That’s the kind of information a man like Grolin has. It doesn’t come easy.”

  “What if I got you that kind of information?” Casings asked. “Would you go on your own, maybe take a partner or two with you?”

  Rochenbach stared at him as they heard the Giant and Bonham and Batts hurrying back toward the shack.

  “I would,” Rock said. “Can you get us that kind of information?”

  “I can,” Casings said.

  Rochenbach only nodded.

  “Are these some of those partners you’re talking about?” he asked, nodding at the men approaching.

  “They just might be,” Casings said, “once they see how well this went.”

  “It’s worth talking about,” Rock said. Then he shut up as the three men arrived.

  “Man!” said Bonham, seeing Casings swing the stuffed saddlebags from his shoulder. “That wasn’t just fast, that was lightning fast!”

  “This man knows his business,” Casings said, poking a thumb toward Rochenba
ch. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Batts stepped in, took the saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder. He looked at Rochenbach closely.

  “Do you always work this smooth and quick?” he said.

  “I try to,” Rock said.

  “Talk about it later, Batts,” Casings said to them both. “You and Bonham get out of here.”

  “You heard him, Bonham,” said Batts. “Let’s ride.”

  As the two outlaws turned and walked away toward the horses, the Giant stepped over and looked inside the shack where the watchman had begun to come to.

  “What about this one, Rock?” the Giant asked. “Want me to snap his neck before we go?”

  “No, Giant,” said Rochenbach, “I want you to carry him out of here and prop him against the wall before they blow the safe.”

  The Giant gave him a confused look.

  “We came up here to make ourselves some money, Giant,” said Rock, “not to get the law dogging us for murder.”

  The Giant shrugged and said, “I just thought I ought to ask. That’s what Grolin would want me to do.”

  Casings and Rochenbach looked at each other. Then Casings turned to the Stillwater Giant.

  “We might be doing things a little different from now on, Giant,” he said.

  A half hour later, from the bottom of the trail leading back into town, Lonnie Bonham and Turley Batts stopped and turned in their saddles. They stared up at the sudden clap of thunder that resounded from the hilltop behind them.

  “It sounds like our boys just finished taking care of business,” said Batts, talking about Spiller, Penta and Shaner, the ones left behind to blow open the door of the big safe.

  “Yeah,” said Lon Bonham, “and a damn good piece of business it was.” He rode with the saddlebags lying over his lap, prepared to quickly throw the money over the side of the trail and get rid of evidence should a party of lawmen come riding up the trail. But the probability of anyone investigating the blast was slim, especially with so many mines working throughout the night.