Eagle Talons (The Iron Horse Chronicles: Book One)

by Robert Lee Murphy

  After General Dodge passed, Will trotted down the road, keeping a safe distance behind the buckboard. Dodge drove up to a passenger coach coupled to the rear of a train parked on a siding a short distance from the depot and reined in.

  Will slipped behind a pile of railroad ties, a few paces away from the siding, squatted down and peeked through gaps in the stack of wood.

  The two men stepped down from the buckboard. Dodge waved to a man standing on the rear platform of the passenger coach. “Morning, Mr. Johnson,” Dodge said. “Meet General Rawlins, General Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff.”

  “How do, Generals.” Johnson’s unbuttoned coat revealed a gold watch chain strung between the pockets of his vest. His pillbox hat bore the initials UP above its short bill.

  “General Rawlins,” Dodge said, “this is Hobart Johnson, conductor on our train today.”

  Rawlins covered his mouth with his handkerchief and coughed. “Forgive me, Mr. Johnson. This blasted consumption has just about gotten the better of me. General Grant thought it would be helpful if I came west to partake of the dry air. General Dodge has agreed to be my host.”

  “Welcome to Nebraska,” Johnson said. “The weather’ll get a lot dryer than this the farther west we go. I guarantee it.”

  Dodge moved to the rear of the buckboard and untied the black horse. “Mr. Johnson, this magnificent Morgan is Bucephalus. Coal black, except for the blaze star right in the center of his forehead. Just like Alexander the Great’s horse.”

  He ran his hand down the horse’s forehead. “We just call him Buck. General Rawlins will be riding Buck once we leave the railroad. See to getting him into the stable car, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Looks tall for a Morgan, sir.” Johnson stepped down from the car’s platform and took the reins from Dodge.

  “That he is . . . fifteen hands,” Dodge said. “Buck’s a bit feisty. If he gets away from you, I’ll let you in on a secret. Just whistle Morse code for the letter B. He’ll come.”

  Johnson whistled one long note, followed by three short ones. Buck reared his head, jerking the conductor’s hand upward. The three men laughed.

  “Works every time,” Dodge said.

  Dodge reached under the buckboard seat and brought out a briefcase. “Have someone transfer our luggage into the coach, Mr. Johnson. And see that this rig is returned to the livery stable.”

  “Certainly. Shall I take your briefcase, General?”

  “No. I never let these maps and surveys out of my sight.”

  Will watched Dodge mount the steps into the coach, swinging his briefcase. Judge Sampson’s custody transfer documents destined for his uncle might be in General Dodge’s briefcase, along with his maps and surveys.

  Dodge paused on the coach’s rear platform and looked down at the conductor. “As soon as you get Buck into the stable car, summon our guests on board and we’ll get underway.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Conductor Johnson led Buck to a boxcar coupled directly behind the engine and its tender, then up a ramp into what Will assumed to be the stable car. A few minutes later the conductor exited the car, shoved the ramp to the ground, and pushed on the heavy door. It closed only part way. “Humph!” he said. “Bloody maintenance people didn’t fix that door.”

  Johnson walked toward the rear of the train, flipped open the cover of his pocket watch, then clicked it closed. “Boarrrd!” he bellowed. A dozen men, dressed in suits, clambered off the nearby station’s platform and headed for the coach. The conductor motioned for them to mount the rear steps into the passenger car.

  The locomotive’s whistle sounded two quick blasts and the engine lurched forward with a loud “choof” of escaping steam. The engine’s driving wheels screeched on the iron rails—slipping, spinning, churning to gain traction. The connecting couplers banged one after the other as the locomotive pulled the string of cars into motion. With each “choof,” a blast of black smoke belched upward from the diamond-shaped smokestack.

  Will jumped out from behind the stack of ties, ran up the tracks alongside the slowly moving train, grabbed the half-open door of the stable car, and heaved himself aboard.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  Inside the boxcar, the Morgan stood between two other horses, each tied to a rope that stretched across the width of the rear half of the car. Opposite a center aisle, three other horses were tied to another rope extending across the front half. The three horses in front faced the three in rear across the walkway that separated them. As the train gained speed, the horses swayed like sailors heading out to sea.

  The “choofing” of the accelerating locomotive settled into a steady, rapid rhythm, accompanied by the “clickity-clack” of the wheels bumping over track joiners. The train rocked back and forth, wending its way along snaking rails that were neither straight nor level.

  Will stepped in front of the big, black horse and ran his hand across the star on his forehead. “Byoo-seff-ah-lus.” He stumbled over the pronunciation. “Funny name for a horse. I agree, Buck’s a lot better.”

  He returned to the half-open door, and sat with his legs dangling outside. “Wow, Buck! I’ll bet we’re doing forty miles an hour. Can you run this fast?”

  The Morgan whinnied in reply to Will’s question.

  When they passed through a sweeping, concave curve, Will could see the length of the train, from the engine to the coach. Four flat cars, stacked with wooden cross ties and iron rails, trailed the stable car. The single passenger car brought up the rear.

  The UP’s tracks paralleled the north bank of the Platte River. Will had heard old-timers describe the Platte as “too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” The river’s shallow, slow flowing water, had a well-known reputation for creating treacherous quicksand, waiting to trap the unsuspecting.

  A bald eagle soared above the river, its white head and large golden beak swinging to and fro, its yellow eyes searching for prey. Long legs, stretched full length beneath the tail, ending in yellow toes tipped with black talons.

  Cedar and cottonwood trees, and an occasional willow, lined the river’s muddy banks. In places, cleared fields extended along the tracks where farmers struggled to carve out homesteads. Blocks of sod piled against a dugout bank served as crude houses. Will laughed at a cow grazing on the grass growing on the roof of one.

  Near the noon hour, the stable car glided past a station building with Columbus painted on its side. The engine wheezed and sighed as the engineer braked the train to a stop, positioning the tender opposite a water tank.

  Will slipped in beside Buck and knelt down. “Sh, Buck. Don’t give me away.”

  “Half hour for the noon meal, gentlemen.” Conductor Johnson’s voice advised the chattering passengers Will could hear hurrying from the coach to the station.

  Will watched the stable car door slide open from beneath the horse’s legs. Conductor Johnson looked right at him. “What’s this? Come out of there this minute.”

  Will rose and rubbed a hand along the Morgan’s withers. “You tried, Buck. Wasn’t your fault.” He stepped out into the center aisle.

  “What’s going on here, Mr. Johnson?” General Dodge appeared beside the conductor. General Rawlins joined them.

  “Stowaway, General,” Johnson said.

  Dodge leaned into the doorway beside the conductor. “Why, you’re the young fellow I ran into on the steps of the bank. And the one who tried to steal my horse!”

  “No, I didn’t, sir.”

  Will clasped his hands in front of him. He was glad he’d left his shirttail out to cover his pistol. Otherwise, General Dodge might perceive him a threat.

  “Mr. Rogers saw you running out of the burning stable with Buck last night.”

  “I know, sir. But I wasn’t stealing him. I was just trying to save him from the fire.”

  “You’d better explain yourself,” Dodge said.

  Will described how he’d confronted the Irish horse thief who’d been the cause of the fire.


  “Interesting story,” Dodge said. “You describe Paddy O’Hannigan, a troublemaker we fired a while back for stealing railroad property. Wonder why he was trying to steal Buck?”

  Dodge looked at the conductor. “What do you think, Mr. Johnson?”

  “Sounds reasonable. I saw a fellow matching this O’Hannigan’s description boarding this morning’s regular train bound for Julesburg. Hard to miss that scar running down the side of his face . . . and he was wearing a bowler hat.”

  Dodge turned back to Will. “Would be hard to fabricate all those details, I guess. What’s your name, son?”

  “Will. Will Braddock.”

  “Why are you on my train, Will?”

  “I’m looking for you, General.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, sir. I was hoping you’d know where I could find my uncle. He works for you.”

  “Works for me? Who’s your uncle?”

  “Sean Corcoran.”

  “Sean Corcoran, the surveyor? Of course I know him. He’s worked for me a long time. Served with me during the war. Why are you looking for him?”

  Will told him about his mother’s death and explained that his uncle was his only living relative.

  “Interesting,” Dodge said. “A few days ago I received a package of documents from Judge Clyde Sampson of Burlington to deliver to your uncle. Do you know the judge?”

  Will nodded. The judge’s guardianship transfer papers had reached General Dodge.

  “You have any idea what the package contains?”

  “Telling my uncle about my mother’s death? I’d be glad to deliver them to my uncle for you.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but the judge is an old friend of mine and asked me to deliver the package personally. Now . . . just how do you plan to find your uncle, anyway?”

  Will shrugged. “I was hoping you’d help me, sir. I don’t know who else to turn to.”

  “Your uncle heads up my special survey inspection team. He’s out in the Rocky Mountains someplace. We’ve got tracks laid as far as the corner of Colorado. He’ll be well beyond there. The survey crews stake the route out a hundred miles or more ahead of the construction crews. Might be hard to find him right away. How’d you plan to get there?”

  “The money I had saved to buy a train ticket burned up in the stable fire. I couldn’t think of anything else other than jumping on your train, when I saw the chance.”

  Dodge looked at Johnson again, then shrugged a shoulder. “Mr. Johnson, put him to work helping you water and feed the horses. He can ride with us as far as Hell on Wheels.”

  “All right, sir.”

  Generals Dodge and Rawlins walked toward Columbus’s station.

  Conductor Johnson motioned toward a water barrel and a bucket sitting in the center aisle of the stable car. “You heard the general. Take that bucket, water the horses, then refill the barrel from the station’s water tank. You’ll find hay and grain in a shed behind the station.”

  Will hurried to do the chores. When he’d finished, he sat in the open doorway of the car.

  Mr. Johnson walked up from the rear of the train. “Done?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re lucky General Dodge didn’t throw you off right here. Guess giving you a free pass to Hell on Wheels is your reward for saving that horse.”

  “What’s Hell on Wheels, Mr. Johnson?”

  “A ramshackle, portable town full of gamblers, drunkards, gunfighters, loose women, and other no-accounts . . . all out to take the railroad workers’ hard-earned pay. Hell on Wheels picks up and moves west every now and then, keeping up with our construction effort. The buildings, if you can call them that, are false-fronted tents for the most part. Right now, Hell on Wheels is in Julesburg, Colorado . . . and that’s where we’re headed.”

  Conductor Johnson held his hand up to the bill of his hat and looked down the tracks that stretched ahead of the locomotive. “West of here we stand a good chance of running into Indian trouble.”

  “Indians?”

  “Savage Indians . . . Sioux and Cheyenne, even Arapahoe. They don’t like us building a railroad across their hunting grounds. This town of Columbus was originally a Pawnee village. Unlike other Indians, the Pawnees are friendly to whites. You’ve heard about the Pawnee Scouts?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You will. The Army organized a bunch of them into a battalion of scouts. The Sioux and the Cheyenne fear them more than the regular soldiers. The scouts help protect the railroad. But we have to look out for ourselves, too. General Dodge’s private coach is an arsenal. We’ve got enough guns and ammunition to fend off any attackers . . . and we may have to.”

  Johnson looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes is up. That’s all we allow for a meal stop.” He snapped the watch closed. “Boarrrrd!”

  The passengers scrambled out of the café and hurried for the coach.

  “You got anything to eat?” Johnson asked.

  Will shook his head.

  The conductor reached into his coat pocket, then held out his hand. “Here.” He turned and strode toward the rear of the train.

  Will held a chunk of jerky and a piece of hardtack. The unleavened cracker had been the soldier’s mainstay during the Civil War. His father had told him it’d last forever if it didn’t get wet. He tapped the hardtack on the doorsill. He’d have to soak it in the horses’ water barrel to keep from breaking a tooth on it.

  Will had read about Indian attacks in dime novels, but he hadn’t imagined he might face an attack himself. He should’ve asked Mr. Johnson for ammunition for his revolver.

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  Paddy stepped down from the train at Ogallala, the last fueling stop before Julesburg. He waited until the train departed, then entered the depot.

  The agent looked up from behind the ticket counter. “You O’Hannigan?”

  “Aye.” Paddy withdrew a twelve-inch Bowie knife from a scabbard sewn inside the top of his boot. The agent’s eyes widened. Paddy chuckled. It always pleased him to see the fear in people’s eyes when he drew the knife. He sliced a sliver from a twist of tobacco and scraped the chaw off the blade with his teeth.

  “I got Langley’s telegram saying you’d be on this train,” the agent said. “There’s a horse in the barn behind the station.”

  “Thanks.” Paddy pointed his knife at the agent and went out the back door.

  Clarence Langley, the Union Pacific’s telegrapher in Omaha, was secretly in the pay of Mortimer Kavanagh, the self-styled mayor of Hell on Wheels. Langley kept Kavanagh apprised of goings on at Union Pacific’s headquarters through the use of a secret code he’d learned in the telegraph corps during the war.

  After Paddy had failed to steal the Morgan from the banker’s stable, he’d gone to Langley’s office where they’d telegraphed Kavanagh. He’d hated to inform his godfather that he’d failed, but he had to find out what Kavanagh expected him to do. Coded instructions came back over the wire directing Paddy to rendezvous with a band of Cheyenne Indians to make another attempt at stealing the horse.

  An hour’s horseback ride west of Ogallala brought Paddy to the designated rendezvous point with six Cheyenne warriors.

  Black paint obscured the Cheyenne leader’s face from beneath his eyes to below his chin. He tapped his thumb against his bare chest. “Me Black Wolf.” The flanks of his white pony bore painted imprints of wolf paws.

  Paddy shifted in his saddle to reveal the Colt revolver in his holster. He wanted the half dozen Indians to know he was armed, though he seldom drew the pistol. He carried the Colt Navy .36-caliber model, because its kick was less than the larger .44-caliber Army model.

  Paddy leaned over and spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground in front of Black Wolf’s pony. “Ye speak English?”

  Black Wolf shook his head and motioned for one of his band to join him.

  A younger man eased his pony forward. He rode with the erect, confident bearing of an Indian. A s
trip of red cloth tied to his head held braided black hair in place. He sat bare-chested, bare-legged, wearing a breechclout and moccasins, like his companions—but his skin was pale.

  “Ye speak English?” Paddy asked.

  “Yes.” Stripes of vermillion and yellow paint highlighted the Indian’s cheekbones. On each pectoral muscle a two-inch scar stood out between similar paint streaks. He’s been through the Sun Dance ceremony recently, Paddy thought. That’d make him about the same age as Paddy—around fifteen or so. That’s when an Indian youth submitted himself to the torture of the Sun Dance. Those livid wounds weren’t fully healed. That must’ve hurt.

  “Got a name?” Paddy asked.

  “Lone Eagle.”

  Paddy counted eight eagle talons strung on a rawhide thong that encircled the Indian’s neck. A talisman related to his name, no doubt.

  “I be Paddy O’Hannigan. What do ye know of this job?”

  “Chief Tall Bear sent us to steal horses. Kavanagh promised whiskey.”

  “Aye, that’s the deal. There be six horses coming on the next train. I only want one . . . a black Morgan. Ye braves can keep the other five. Who’s the best horseman?”

  “Me,” Lone Eagle replied.

  “Well now, ye’ll ride the Morgan to Julesburg. Hide it in the big clump of bushes on the riverbank below the town, do ye see? I’ll fetch it from there.”

  Lone Eagle nodded.

  “Ye’re not full-blooded, are ye?” Paddy watched Lone Eagle’s eyes narrow. “Ye’re a half-breed.”

  “My mother was Cheyenne.” Lone Eagle hissed through gritted teeth. “I’m Cheyenne.”

  “All right, ye’re Cheyenne. What do I care?” Paddy spat another stream of tobacco juice.

  Paddy and Lone Eagle glared at each other. Black Wolf broke the silence and spoke to Lone Eagle.

  “Black Wolf wants to know your plan, Irishman,” Lone Eagle said. “If you have one.”