Wheeler's Choice

by Jerry Buck

  The engineer touched two fingers to the bill of his striped cap. “Damned if y’ain’t doin’ a good job of it!” he said. “I seed you send them two varmints to glory!”

  The engine cab was hot and noisy and had a sulfurous smell to it. Tiny fingers of flame licked at the grate of the firebox.

  “You better throw on some more wood,” I said. “Don’t stop this train for nothing. I’m going back to the express car to see what I can do about the others.”

  I put a hand on Dusty’s shoulders. “This is Dusty Morgan,” I said. “He took care of that second desperado. Dusty’s going to stay up here and see that nobody else tries to stop the train.”

  I climbed back onto the wood tender. “Keep ’er moving, no matter what!”

  The fireman said, “ Y’gonna go back there to save their money? You must be gettin’ a nice reward.”

  I said, “Money’s got nothing to do with it. This is strictly personal!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I was too late as I ran across the top of the baggage car.

  The express car had been cut loose and was drifting away, inch by inch. Smoot’s men had uncoupled it, and on the uphill grade gravity was starting to exert its pull.

  The two cars were too far apart for me to leap to the roof.

  But if I acted fast I might be able to reach the platform railing.

  The iron railing did not extend all the way around the platform. It had openings for passengers to board on each side and an opening at the front for passengers to go from one car to another. But there was still plenty enough to grab on.

  I gave one final shove with my foot. The momentum carried me out into the open space between the two cars.

  I was flying toward the express car, which was still rolling forward. Yet I felt suspended in midair. Would I make the connection, or was fate awaiting me beneath the wheels?

  My fingers were only inches from the top of the platform railing.

  It seemed an eternity before I closed the distance.

  My fingers clamped tightly over the iron bar.

  My feet swung down and would have hit the roadbed if I hadn’t pulled them up. I hit the front of the platform with a force that nearly took my breath away.

  I struggled to pull myself up.

  It was then that I saw the bandit.

  His hands were on the big brake wheel on the other side of the platform. He was tightening the brakes to halt the express car and caboose.

  He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He gaped at me for the longest time, his hands still on the brake.

  Before he recovered his senses, I was nearly onto the platform.

  “What th’ hell!” he gasped. The last thing he expected to see was somebody from the departing train come flying through the air.

  He lunged at me and tried to pry my fingers off the railing.

  I had one leg hooked over the coupling and the other on the platform. I kicked at him desperately. My booted toe caught him just below the knee. He cried out in pain and stumbled back.

  It was time enough for me to drag myself onto the platform at the walk-through.

  I grabbed the train robber by one boot and jerked hard. He lost his footing and fell.

  As I charged him, he kicked me in the face and I tasted blood in my mouth. He kicked again, and I ducked. His boot scraped along the side of my head. It hit my ear so hard I thought it had been tom off. It hurt like hell, then began to feel numb.

  I grabbed his boot with both hands and twisted with all my strength. He rolled onto his stomach or I would have broken his ankle. He wouldn’t walk on that foot for a while without remembering me.

  I got my knees under me, then partially raised myself up. Bracing myself with one hand on the railing, I put a foot against him and shoved him toward one side of the platform. I was going to push him through the passenger entryway.

  I’d nearly gotten him off, but suddenly he grabbed a railing post and held on for dear life. His knees were on the steps.

  I smashed his hand with my boot, gave him another kick, and he fell off the car.

  He tumbled several times in the dust, then lay still.

  The express car, with the caboose still attached to the rear, gradually came to a halt.

  I loosened the brake. Gravity exerted its pull once again, and the cars slowly began to roll backward down the grade.

  That ought to give Smoot pause.

  I banged on the door to the express car with the butt of my gun, then stood aside.

  A rifle slug plowed through the thick wooden door. It sent a plug of wood flying.

  “I ain’t openin’ up,” the guard inside yelled.

  “Special deputy from Marshal Earp!” I said.

  “That’s what you say!” the guard answered. “I still ain’t gonna open the door!”

  “I want you to keep the door locked!” I said. “I just want you to know I’m here!”

  “Earp said he was puttin’ a special deputy on the train! Mebbe it’s you and mebbe it ain’t. But I doan aim to open up to find out!”

  I said, “You stay locked inside! I’ll take care of things out here!”

  The two cars picked up speed as they rolled back down the grade. We were going down faster than the locomotive had pulled us up.

  I climbed up the ladder and peered over the top of the express car roof.

  Someone was standing on the roof by the smokestack. His back was to me, but he was too small to be Smoot. Dusty and I had already taken care of three of his men. It had to be just this man and Smoot.

  I made my way onto the roof. He hadn’t seen me yet. I had my gun in my hand.

  He struck a match on the stack and turned to shield the flame with his body and cupped hand. Something in his hand sparked to life.

  He had a stick of dynamite in his right hand, and he was about to drop it down the smokestack into the express car below.

  That’s when he saw me.

  He didn’t have time to go for his gun. Instead, he tossed the dynamite to me.

  It had a very short fuse, and it was burning rapidly.

  I fired and he dropped like a rock onto the roof.

  The dynamite stick arched toward me and landed at my feet.

  I caught it with the side of my boot and kicked it over the side of the car.

  It exploded harmlessly along the roadbed.

  At the far end of the express car, an arm swooped up, then disappeared.

  Another lighted stick of dynamite sailed toward me.

  It landed too far away for me to reach it in time.

  I aimed my gun at the dynamite and fired. The stick leaped into the air as bits of dynamite and paper flew everywhere.

  The stick landed on the edge of the roof, then rolled off.

  A thunderous roar rocked the express car and knocked me off my feet.

  I clung to the catwalk to keep from falling off the car. My gun scudded across the rooftop.

  I saw the next stick coming. It landed a few feet from my face. All I could see was that burning fuse.

  I didn’t know where my gun was. There was no time to get the other gun from my waistband. I stared at the malevolent object. The fuse hissed and popped. It was only an inch from the detonator.

  The car still reverberated from the last blast. As the fuse burned toward the end, the car lurched and sent the stick rolling down the slope of the roof.

  It dropped from sight.

  The blast seemed to lift the express car right off the tracks.

  It was so close and so loud I thought my eardrums would burst.

  Broken pieces of wood flew up in all directions. The blast had taken a bite out of the side and roof of the car.

  I was so stunned I wondered if I could hold on. I wondered, too, if the car would stay on the track. I was pelted with pieces of debris. Splinters of wood littered the roof.

  Dust from the blast had gotten into my eyes. I blinked several times to clear them. When I opened them again, I saw Bill Smo
ot walking toward me. His gun was aimed at my head. Dust and tiny pieces of wood from the blast flecked his beard.

  I didn’t know where my gun was. The blast surely had blown it off the roof. I could feel the other gun, Kid Bayliss’s gun, pressing against my abdomen. But how could I get it out?

  “Y’sure caused me a peck a trouble,” said Smoot.

  “Nothing like the grief you caused me,” I said.

  Smoot laughed wickedly. “I mind th’ time y’caused me no lack a grief down near Colchester.”

  “It wasn’t too friendly of you to rob the bank,” I said.

  “Man’s gotta earn a livin’, ain’t he?”

  “You shoulda been a storekeeper.”

  Smoot shook his head and pursed his lips. “I wasn’t cut out fer no indoor work. ’Sides, I had a trade.”

  I said, “I guess your trade was robbing banks and mine was chasing after you.”

  “You shouldna killed Montana,” he said suddenly, his voice turning mean.

  “Had to,” I said. “You killed my wife in that bank holdup.”

  “Twern’t me,” he said. “It was that damn fool kid. You done settled it with him.”

  “Now I’m gonna settle it with you, Bill. You planned the robbery. You brought the kid there.”

  “You killed Montana. Him and me was like brothers. Closer, maybe.”

  All the while we had been talking, I had been slowly getting to my feet. But I was still low enough for one hand to reach out behind me and grasp a broken board blown up by the explosion.

  “I doan care ’bout the Arkie,” Smoot said. “He warn’t nothin’ but trouble anyway. An’ you can plug ol’ Jasper fer all I care, too. Bastard even tried to cheat on me at cards!”

  He raised up the gun.

  “But y’killed Montana. You gonna pay!”

  I threw myself forward. At the same time I brought the board up and swung it at his gun. I didn’t know if I could get close enough to connect.

  The tip of the board hit the tip of the barrel.

  He fired at the same time.

  I could hear the bullet as it whined past my ear. It was so close I could feel the heat.

  I was nearly off balance from swinging the board, but I managed to bring it back up and hit him again. He staggered back a step.

  I dropped the piece of wood, and my hand closed over the gun in my belt. In an instant it was out and my other hand fanned the hammer.

  I put three bullets into Smoot. He didn’t get off another shot.

  Smoot slumped to his knees. His hands tried to stem the flow of blood staining his shirt. His eyes clouded over.

  He looked up at me and said, “Never shoulda tied in with that damn fool kid!”

  He pitched forward and said no more.

  That left only Jasper Rollins. I knew I would find him on the river after I delivered the money to Leavenworth.

  Chapter Thirty

  St. Louis set my mind reeling back nearly twenty years and evoked memories of my arrival in Louisville.

  Maybe all river towns looked alike, as did all cow towns. St. Louis had that same endless sprawl of houses and businesses tumbling down to the wide ribbon of dark water.

  It had that same panorama of immaculate white steamboats hugging the riverbank like beetles and thrusting up black chimneys like a forest of smoking antennas.

  I felt the same pang of hunger I had experienced the evening I fortuitously met Robby O’Bannion in front of that waterfront beanery. Even though my stomach had been satisfied by a repast at St. Louis’s most elegant restaurant.

  I felt the same sense of desperation I had felt on the Louisville waterfront when I had fruitlessly sought passage to Texas before meeting Robby O’Bannion.

  Yet, my mission was nearly over, not just beginning as it was then. Montana Smith: dead. Kid Bayliss: dead. Bill Smoot: dead. Irene Managan was in the hands of the marshal in Kansas City, and Dodge City’s fifty thousand dollars was safe in the bank at Leavenworth.

  I had only to find Jasper Rollins to complete the vow I had made to avenge Abby.

  Find Rollins. I might as well try to guess the number of stars in the sky.

  Jasper Rollins was a slippery rascal with a remarkable sense of self-preservation. He had not the pride to stand and fight, nor the courage to face a man down. Jasper Rollins was more dangerous than that.

  He was a cornered rat.

  By my fourth day in St. Louis, with Dusty in tow, I began to feel I knew the waterfront as well as Pa’s bottomland farm back in Virginia. Or my own spread in San Miguel. I had been to every saloon. Several times, in fact. Every cafe, hotel, and backroom gambling joint.

  The barkeep chewed on a wad of tobacco that puffed out one cheek. At the same time, he had a matchstick in his mouth. It bobbed up and down whenever he talked.

  He made another desultory swipe at the bar with his dirty rag. He spit into a stone jar he kept behind the bar.

  “Who’s this gent y’lookin’ fer again?”

  “Jasper Rollins. A gambler, with a red beard—”

  “Never hear’d a ’im.”

  “A red beard, y’say?”

  “That’s right. Works the riverboats.”

  The ferret-faced dealer ran a finger around his dirty starched collar and craned his neck.

  “Sure you doan wanna play a little keno?” he asked, putting his hand on the pivoting goose that spun around to mix the numbered balls used in the game.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “How ’bout yer young frien’?” he asked, dipping his head toward Dusty.

  “He ain’t interested, either. How about it? Jasper Rollins?”

  “I dunno. Them riverboat gamblers doan stop here much. Pickin’s too ripe on the river.”

  The desk clerk gave me a disdainful look through his pince-nez glasses and said, “A gambler? My good man, this is a high-class establishment. I’m afraid we don’t cater to the riffraff.”

  I met every incoming packet boat. I saw every departing one off, which was no easy task in so busy a port.

  The steam whistle gave a melancholy blast, and the boat, its lanterns ablaze, backed out into the river to begin its journey to New Orleans.

  It was nearly midnight. I had been watching its passengers straggle aboard since nine o’clock. I had questioned the purser. Still, I had no way of knowing whether Rollins was aboard or not.

  Dusty had fallen asleep on a stack of grain sacks piled up on the wharf. I gently shook him awake.

  “Is it gone?” he asked between yawns.

  “You can see it out in the river,” I said.

  He was too sleepy to look. “Kin we go back to the hotel now?” he asked.

  Down the esplanade I saw the yellowish light of a cafe beckoning. I suggested some coffee and a piece of pie. Dusty nodded sleepily.

  How I wished Angus was here to share a cup of coffee. I missed the old Scotsman and his wise counsel. I knew what he would advise. I could hear his voice now: “Lad, give it up before it consumes you! You got the man who killed Abby. And you got the leader. Isn’t your anger satisfied? Hasn’t enough blood been spilled? It’s not right to put Dusty in any more danger.”

  I was sorely tempted to take Angus’s advice, even if it was in spirit only. My search for Jasper Rollins was frustrating and disheartening. I was going in circles.

  The night was dark and the esplanade was deserted. Huge crates and sacks of grain awaiting shipment were stacked along the broad walkway.

  I should have had my mind on what I was doing, not pining for Angus.

  Three footpads fell upon us from behind a pile of crates.

  One grabbed my arms from behind. Another swung at me with a lead-weighted sap and hit me above the eye.

  The third tangled with Dusty, who suddenly became very much awake.

  “You ask too many questions!” said the man with the sap. He wore a billed seaman’s cap, and he had a jagged scar running from one eye to his chin. This man had been in a few fights before.


  He drew back the sap.

  I tugged on the man pinning my arms and pulled him around. The sap landed on his shoulder and he loosened his grip. I tore free from his injured arm. I grabbed his coat collar and his belt and swung him around like a sack of grain. He collided heavily with the man with the sap. They both went down.

  I turned my attention to the man pummeling Dusty. The man was wearing brass knuckles. Dusty was bleeding from the nose and mouth.

  I kicked the man hard behind the knee. That got his attention. As he stumbled around, I kicked him with all my might in the groin. He screamed so loud I’m sure they could hear it on the Illinois side of the river. These men fought the way I had learned to fight on the river with Robby O’Bannion. Gouge, kick, bite, play dirty, and no quarter asked or given.

  “Behind ya!” Dusty said, spitting blood.

  I saw the flash of the knife in the hand of one of the other two as he got to his feet. He grinned as he rushed at me.

  “No more questions!” he said. “Jasper sent us to shet yore mouf!”

  He slashed at me with the knife. I leaped back.

  The man with the sap fell on me like a bear on honey. I couldn’t get to my gun. The shiny blade was poised to gut me.

  Whoooooosh! A black lacquered stick arched through the air and landed on the fist holding the knife. The man cried out in pain, and the knife flew away.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a fourth man, and he was wielding a blackthorn walking stick like Robby O’Bannion with a shillelagh.

  Whooooooosh! He cracked the skull of the footpad.

  I broke free of the man holding me and drove my fists into his stomach. He doubled over, and I swung my right from the ground and connected with an uppercut that lifted him off his feet. I knew my fist would ache for a week—if it wasn’t broken.

  The third footpad, still clutching his groin, stumbled to his feet. My unknown friend whacked him across the backside and sent him scurrying into the dark.

  I had my gun out and snapped back the hammer.

  “No need for that,” said the man with the walking stick. “These ruffians shan’t bother anyone else this night.”