Damnation Road

by Max McCoy

  “That’s the problem,” Dray said. “Sure, I know the payroll will be in the safe in the express car, but I can’t keep the train crew covered and open the express car all by myself. I need a partner.”

  “Or two,” Gamble said. “There’s going to be a lot happening at once. You not only have to worry about the engineer and fireman in the cab of the locomotive, but the conductor and the passengers as well. You have to get the express car door open, somehow.”

  “Dynamite says he has a technique for that.”

  “Okay, so you do have a partner. But then you have to persuade the express messenger to open up the safe, forthwith.”

  “What’s the best form of persuasion?”

  “A cocked and loaded pistol against the head,” Gamble said. “If he is still reluctant, then a ball in the kneecap would be the next argument.”

  “That’s the part I have trouble with.”

  “Shooting somebody?”

  “Don’t think I can do it.”

  “Then you’re in the wrong line of work,” Gamble said. “Why don’t you get Dynamite Dick to help you with that part?”

  “Afraid of him.”

  “Thought he was your friend.”

  “Keep thinking about him and me dividing the loot after,” he said. “Keep imagining myself dead on the plain and him riding away with all of it.”

  “That would prove difficult for him,” Gamble said, “if you had a partner who had some experience in killing.”

  The boy grinned.

  “This could be done with three people,” Gamble said. “One on board and two on the ground. My preference is to be the one on the train. From what you’ve told me, I’m sure this Dynamite Dick can handle shooting kneecaps. You would have to be sure to wear disguises.”

  “Sure,” Dray said. “But what about you? It would be a little suspicious to wear a bandanna over your face from the time you get on the train. And after the robbery, they’d have a pretty damn good description of you.”

  “No, they’d have a description of Lieutenant Dunbar,” Gamble said. “Frankly, I’m a little tired of the lieutenant—it’s about time to become myself again.”

  “But what about your rule about banks and trains?”

  “I’ll make an exception,” Gamble said, “for one last job. Then I retire to Mexico, or maybe farther south. Not even the Pinkertons could find me there.”

  “I like the way you think,” Dray said.

  “So, when were you planning to do this?” Gamble asked.

  The boy grinned.

  “Today is Friday, June ninth,” Dray said. “It has to be now, or we wait another month. I came to the switch to ask the agent about the schedule for today.”

  “We’ve only got three hours.”

  “That’s enough time,” Dray said. “Get on that southbound train and be ready to raise hell when it stops. I’ll have you a horse waiting.”

  Gamble leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees.

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because we’re pards,” the boy said. “Because we served time in jail together. Because I think you’re all out of luck and this is the very last chance you got.”

  They shook hands.

  “Now, get out of here before somebody takes notice of you,” Gamble said. He waited until he thought another twenty or thirty minutes had passed, then went inside the depot.

  “How much for a ticket south?”

  “What,” the agent asked, slurring his words. “You have a sudden urge to see Texas?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’ll have to take a coach at the end of the track to take you into Texas, but when you reach the tracks on the other side you can get another ticket that will take you to Amarillo.”

  “I understand. How much?”

  “Two dollars and fifty cents,” the agent said.

  Gamble dug into his pockets and came out with a handful of coins. He counted out the full amount, which left him with only thirty-five cents.

  The agent stamped and then handed him a ticket.

  “What about that letter?” the agent asked. “I should put it in the mail bag for the train to take back on its return to Liberal.”

  “Think I’m going to hold onto it for a spell,” Gamble said. “It’s one of those sensitive things—I’d better give it some more thought before I post it. Thanks all the same.”

  “Sounds like a waste of a ten-cent stamp to me.”

  FOURTEEN

  Jacob Gamble walked down the aisle, the haversack slung over his right shoulder. He had broken the shotgun down to board the train, and a few inches of barrel and the butt of the scarred walnut stock poked out of the haversack. The coach was empty except for an older man and a younger, auburn-headed woman sitting together near the middle, and Gamble touched the brim of his hat as he passed.

  The man, who had a full head of white hair and a carefully manicured mustache to match, nodded and gave Gamble a warm smile, while the woman nodded. Her dress was deep blue, and snug, limning a figure that was worthy of Italian marble. Her lower face was covered by a fan, but her eyes widened as she looked at Gamble. Her gaze created an unpleasant yearning feeling deep in his stomach, as if he’d drank some rotgut whiskey but wanted more. Gamble went on and swung into an upholstered seat near the gangway that led to the next car following, the express car.

  The woman leaned over and spoke briefly to her companion, her face hidden by the quivering fan, which was black silk with a curious pattern of intertwined blue-green serpents and scarlet roses. Then the white-haired man turned in his seat to face Gamble.

  “Pardon me,” he said in an upper-class English accent. “This is a rather large coach, and rather lonely, and my niece was wondering if you would like to sit with us.”

  “Wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

  “No bother, really,” the man said. “On the contrary.”

  Gamble hesitated. If he insisted on staying by the doorway nearest the express car, it might look suspicious.

  “Sure,” Gamble said, picking up the haversack and the shotgun barrel and making his way back up the aisle. The seats were arranged so that passengers could face each other, and Gamble settled into the seat opposite the couple near the aisle. He slung the haversack on the empty seat beside him and tossed his slouch hat atop the sack. He left the dark glasses on and smoothed his hair with the palms of his hands.

  “Powerful hot today,” Gamble said.

  “That it is,” the man replied. “Forgive me, where are my manners? Introductions are in order. I am Lord Weathers.”

  “A lord, huh?”

  “Quite. And you are—?”

  “Jacob Dunbar.”

  “Pleased to meet you, lieutenant,” Weathers said, pronouncing it leftenant. “Allow me to introduce my niece, Anise.”

  Her name rhymed with Janus.

  “Anise Weathers, Lieutenant Dunbar.”

  The woman lowered the fan. Her chin and her lower cheeks were covered with a series of blue tattoos, imperfect lines radiating down her chin and across her cheeks, giving her face a somewhat skeletal appearance.

  “Charmed,” she said in an indeterminate accent, offering a gloved hand. She was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, Gamble judged, with auburn hair and hard blue eyes. She had high cheekbones, a clear broad forehead, and would have been considered a beauty by conventional standards, if not for the blue tattoos.

  “I couldn’t help but notice your uniform,” she continued, “and I confided to my uncle that I hoped you would sit and tell us a bit about your experiences in fighting the Spanish.”

  Gamble gave her hand a brief squeeze.

  “It would bore you, I’m sure.”

  “Come now,” Weathers said. “What was your outfit?”

  “The First U.S. Volunteers,” Gamble said. “Company L, Indian Territory.”

  “The Rough Riders,” Weathers said.

  “Yes, but the name is a misleading,” Gamble sa
id. “We did all of our fighting dismounted.”

  “How exciting,” Anise said. “We have seen the Vitagraphs brought back from Cuba. How strange to see moving pictures of an actual war. How do the images compare to what you actually saw?”

  “I’m sorry, but I did not see them.”

  “Any chance you’ll be called upon to go to the Philippines and fight the insurgents?” Weathers asked. “I hear they are having a hot time of it in Manila. You Americans free them from the Spanish yoke and now they are fighting annexation.”

  “My company has been mustered out,” Gamble said. “The fighting for me is over.”

  “Are you indeed a cowboy?”

  “No, miss,” Gamble said.

  “An outlaw, then,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “I understand that more than one Rough Rider had a dark past he was attempting to escape from. Did you escape yours, Lieutenant Dunbar?”

  “Anise,” Weathers said. “Don’t be so direct.”

  There was a lurch and the car began moving.

  “That’s all right,” Gamble said. “To answer your question, miss, I did not. My father still haunts me. He died in Missouri during the war.”

  “And you were hoping to exorcise his ghost by your own martial adventure?” Weathers asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Where are you headed, if we may inquire?”

  “Amarillo,” Gamble said. “Looking for work. Whatever is available.”

  “So, you are a man of the world,” Weathers said. “No regular job or family to tie you down?”

  Gamble smiled.

  “All of my kin are dead, long ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Anise said.

  Gamble looked out at the panhandle rolling by.

  “Don’t be,” he said. “It won’t change things.”

  “My closest relatives are dead as well,” she said quickly. “They were killed when I—”

  “Anise,” Weathers said.

  “No, Uncle, it is quite all right,” she said, holding up her hand. “We have pressed Lieutenant Dunbar for far more information than we had any right to, and he has been a perfect gentleman in not staring or blurting out those horrible questions we’ve heard so often.”

  “No need, miss,” Gamble said. “I spent some time in Arizona Territory nearly twenty years back, and I recognize Mohave tribal tattoos when I see them. There is no shame in having been a captive.”

  “Your opinion is among the minority,” Anise said. “Despite their fascination, both men and women seem to despise me because I lived through my ordeal. There is a general assumption that I was contaminated in some way by my captivity and that I would have been better off dead than being returned to white society. When I was rescued, in fact, I was afraid one of the white cavalry officers, an old Indian fighter, was going to put a bullet in my head for that very reason—said it would be best for all involved that I never be reunited with my family.”

  “What year was that?”

  “Nearly thirteen years have passed,” Anise said. “I was freed when General Crook accepted Geronimo’s surrender at Skeleton Canyon in 1886.”

  “How did you wind up with the Apaches?”

  “They took me as a slave the year before,” she said. “My sister and I were captured by the Mohaves after the slaughter of our parents near the Rio Colorado. We were children—Olivia was the younger, by two years. We were treated in the most horrid fashion. We were made to fetch water, carry wood, and fight the camp dogs for scraps of food. The tattoos branded us as slaves, for quick identification in the event we attempted an escape—which we did, many times, for which we were beaten. Then we were sold to the Apaches, and were taken far into Mexico, and were treated no better. We were property, really, but not considered valuable property. I’m sure you can imagine the rest. Olivia did not survive the captivity—died of pneumonia shortly before my rescue—but sometimes I think death was the kinder outcome.”

  “You have that luxury,” Gamble said. “You lived.”

  “Of course. What a practical man you are, Lieutenant Dunbar. Well, life did go on for me, of sorts,” Anise said. “Then, when Geronimo was waging his last campaign against the whites, I was brought up to Skeleton Canyon in Arizona Territory, where a trooper noticed my blue eyes. Another child who had been captured, a boy named Jimmy McKinn, or Santiago as we called him, was also freed.”

  “I read about it,” Gamble said.

  “My dear uncle, my closest relative, was cabled and came all the way from London,” Anise said. “I have lived with him since. This is my first trip back to the American Southwest since being saved thirteen years ago.”

  “And you have lived in London since.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “When I am in the city I usually wear a veil over the lower half of my face, to thwart stares and wagging tongues,” Anise said. “But it is too hot on the train for that, so I rely on the fan. Frankly, I am relieved to be away from the constraints of civilized society for at least a little while. Civilization can be so cruel, don’t you think?”

  Gamble did not trust the chronology that Anise gave, but did not question it; he never expected to see her or Lord Weathers again, so he had simply nodded occasionally as Anise talked.

  “You must think it odd to return Anise to the scene of such painful memories,” Weathers said. “But I believe it will prove therapeutic.”

  “If you’re bound for where she was captured, then you’ve taken the wrong train,” Gamble said. “The Santa Fe would have taken you damned near to the Colorado River.”

  “Oh, we’re not going there,” Anise said. “We’re bound for the New Mexico territory.”

  “That’s enough, Anise,” Weathers said in a firm voice. “Don’t burden the lieutenant with the details of our itinerary. We should maintain some decorum, you know.”

  “Uncle,” she said. “This is the West. We’re not in one of your stuffy drawing rooms and we’re not even in the States anymore. People are frank out here, and they speak frankly. Isn’t that right, lieutenant?”

  “Not only frank, but downright rough.”

  Gamble glanced out the window. The train was moving at a steady pace, possibly forty or forty-five miles an hour, and the coach was gently rocking, and sand and scrub were whispering by.

  Then there were three quick reports ahead.

  “What in thunder was that?” Weathers asked, rising halfway to get a better look out the window. Then Weathers was thrown back against his seat as the air brakes engaged and the train shuddered and slowed.

  Before the train had stopped, Gamble had taken the shotgun from the haversack and was fitting the barrel and tube magazine assembly onto the receiver. Once mounted, he turned the lock pin at the end of the magazine, then began stuffing shells into the bottom of the receiver.

  “Do you expect trouble?” Weathers asked.

  Gamble racked a shell into the chamber.

  “Stay down,” he said.

  “But what—”

  “Stay put,” Gamble said firmly. “Stay away from the windows. Do not move until somebody tells you it is safe. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, of course,” Weathers said.

  “That goes for you, too,” Gamble told Anise.

  “I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “Good Lord,” Weathers said, peering out the window. “There’s a man trackside with a white hood over his head and a rather large sidearm. It looks like pictures I’ve seen of the Ku Klux Klan!”

  “Keep gawking,” Gamble said, “And you’ll likely get your head blown off.”

  “Get down, Uncle,” Anise said, pulling the old man to the floor with her. “Go on, Lieutenant Dunbar. I’ll keep watch over my uncle.”

  Gamble slung the haversack over his shoulder. He walked quickly to the end of the car, through the gangway, and dropped down the metal steps to the ground.

  At the express car door was a figure wearing a white cone-shaped hat
with a broad flap sewn to the front that hid the face, but with two ragged eye holes. Across its chest was a white apron with rows of pockets, most of which were stuffed with fused sticks of dynamite. In its right hand was a .44 Russian revolver.

  “Hello, fiddler.”

  The voice was low and rough and not Mickey Dray’s.

  “Shut up,” Gamble said. “Don’t call me anything. What the hell kind of getup do you have on?”

  “A hood’s a hood,” Dynamite Dick said.

  “And the bomb strapped across your chest?”

  “You know they call me Dynamite Dick, right?”

  “You’re insane. Where’s the horse thief?”

  Dan pointed to the roof of the express car. Mickey Dray, wearing a hood that matched the Dick’s, was kneeling on the roof of the express car. Dick took a stick of dynamite from the apron and tossed it up to Dray, who caught it and stuffed it beneath the top edge of the big sliding door.

  “You haven’t done this before, have you?”

  “No, but I’ve blown a lot of other shit up,” Dick said, jamming a stick of dynamite beneath the bottom of the door. “How hard could this be? You just go along and take care of the train crew.” Dan took a cigar from a pocket and lifted the hood, to stick it in his mouth. Then he began searching the apron for matches. “We can handle it back here just fine.”

  Gamble shook his head. He turned and began running to the front of the train. He had nearly reached the tender when the locomotive groaned and the drive wheels churned with a terrible scraping sound that made Gamble’s ears ache. There was a low rumble as the locomotive separated from the rest of the train and began to chug away, the fireman scrambling back over the tender to the shelter of the cab.

  “Good,” Gamble said. “Cowardice is a virtue in others.”

  He turned and began trotting back to the express car at the end of the train. Then there was a terrific explosion and the big sliding door was flung out, sailed a hundred yards from the train, then knifed downward and hit the prairie with a hollow sound. Gamble put a forearm over his face as bits of wood and metal sprinkled down. When the heavy stuff was done, he lowered his arm and saw a plume of white confetti drifting overhead, spread by the afternoon breeze.