Longarm and the Train Robbers

by Tabor Evans

  "And executed any guards that might have survived," Martha said bitterly.

  "Of course."

  "What a fool I was to upbraid you earlier today!"

  "Don't let it bother you for a minute," Longarm told the young attorney. "Just... well, just chalk this UP to experience. Eli has that hangdog look that makes everyone think he's a victim rather than the victimizer. I think that's why the man is so dangerous."

  Martha was silent a long time. "I hope to God that there are other train coaches like this that people have managed to reach. That one destroyed coach we passed looked like a pile of chopped firewood. I can't imagine what-"

  "Don't think about it," Longarm said. "That doesn't help. We have to just worry about saving ourselves now. We have to hope that, when this train didn't arrive in Cheyenne, help was dispatched right away."

  "In a storm like this?" Martha looked up at him in the dim glow of the firelight. "I doubt that they would send anyone out in this weather. Would you?"

  "No," Longarm admitted. "I'd wait until the worst of this storm passed."

  Martha thought about that for a few minutes before she said, "If some of these people don't get to a doctor soon, they'll die."

  Longarm knew that. He also knew that it was pointless to worry about what was beyond their control. Each and every passenger had been attended to as well as possible given the extreme deprivations they were all trying to endure and survive.

  "Wyoming storms this early in the year often pass quickly," Longarm said. "I think those among us that survive until morning will crawl out into sunlight."

  "I want to believe that," Martha whispered as she held Longarm and her body heat drove away his chills.

  When Longarm awoke, he knew that his greatest wish had been granted. The wind had stopped and, looking outside through a window that was still intact, he could see the morning sun melting the snow. Longarm kissed Martha awake, and then he joined those who were able to crawl out into the brilliant sunlight. For a few moments, they were all a little dazed and confused, like wild animals emerging from hibernation.

  The train was segmented like a broken logger's chain, pieces of it scattered all up and down the mountainside. The locomotive had tumbled hundreds of feet farther down into the gorge, and lay with its huge driving wheels reaching for the sky. The coal car was nearby. Another coach now rested several hundred yards above both and was wrapped around an immense pine tree.

  It took only a few minutes for Longarm to realize that there were no other survivors from the train. Every coach except two had been ripped apart, with bodies and baggage now buried under a thick blanket of glistening snowfall.

  "Where are you going?" Martha asked.

  "To the mail car, or what's left of it."

  Martha followed Longarm about fifty yards up the slope. The mail car was a pile of kindling, and it took Longarm several minutes to dig his way through the rubble in order to reach what had been a large safe. The safe would have survived the destruction had it not been dynamited. Now its massive door hung from only one hinge. The safe itself had been emptied. Even the mail sacks had been rifled and their contents scattered everywhere.

  "The safe was dynamited," Longarm announced when he crawled back out and rejoined Martha.

  She stared at him, struck by the implications of his words. "Then this whole thing was a deliberate act by Eli Wheat's gang."

  "It could have been another bunch. Eli's friends don't have a corner on train robberies. Still, I think that they probably wanted to see if they could free one of their own and at the same time make a good haul."

  "So what now?"

  Longarm looked up at the sky, and then removed and studied his pocket watch. "It's only eight-fifteen," he said, repocketing the Ingersoll. "My guess is that a rescue party ought to be here before nine o'clock."

  "With a doctor?"

  "I would think so," Longarm said. "The Union Pacific officials might believe that this train just mired down in a snowbank, but they'll know that there will be passengers who are suffering from the cold and possibly even frostbite. I'm sure that they'll bring along at least one doctor."

  "When we reach Cheyenne, what will you do?" Martha asked.

  Longarm turned to survey the destruction below. How many frozen bodies were buried in those coaches and lying hidden by the white death?

  "I'll telegraph Denver and report what happened and my findings. Then I'll go after Eli and his gang."

  "By yourself."

  "Yes," Longarm said. "But even if I fail, there will be plenty of others hunting that gang. Even Pinkertons. But I mean to find them first and have the pleasure of killing or capturing Eli and his friends. I want them very bad, Martha. And though you might disapprove, I'll smile when they prance like puppets at the end of a hangman's noose."

  "I don't disapprove," she said. "In fact, I rather hope you'll send me an invitation to that party."

  Longarm had not realized the depth of change that this young woman had undergone in less than twenty-four hours. No longer was she blind to the evil that lurked in men like Eli Wheat. It was, on the one hand, sad to see her lose her innocence. But on the other hand, if Martha Noble hoped to survive as a rare female Wyoming attorney, she was long overdue for a massive dose of frontier reality.

  CHAPTER 3

  True to Longarm's prediction, a relief and supply train with a massive snowplow mounted to its locomotive's cowcatcher came puffing up from Cheyenne at about nine o'clock. No doubt those arriving had expected to find a train stranded in deep drifts. Whatever their expectations, they could not have anticipated the devastation that lay scattered across the mountainside.

  Longarm and Martha, standing side by side and arm in arm, witnessed their shock. Longarm saw the Union Pacific's relief road crew gape at the carnage and then slowly step off the rescue train and plod forward.

  "What in God's name happened?" a tall man in a green flannel shirt cried, yanking off his railroad cap and wringing it in his big fists. "Dear Lord, the telegraph lines between Cheyenne and Laramie went down yesterday afternoon. We just figured that maybe this train had returned to Laramie."

  "Obviously not," Longarm said as more men came up. "Did you bring a doctor?"

  "Why, no!"

  "You should have," Longarm said quickly. "We've got some badly injured passengers and more dead ones than I care to think about."

  "But what..."

  "It was sabotage," Longarm said, flashing his federal badge. "Dynamite. They struck the line during the blizzard and we were all over the mountainside before we knew what hit us. I'm afraid that the death toll is very high."

  "What about Art Becker, the locomotive engineer? And Scotty Macintosh, the fireman?"

  Longarm pointed toward the overturned locomotive at the bottom of the gulch far below. "They never had a chance."

  The man choked with rage and sorrow. "Who did this?"

  "We can't say for sure," Longarm hedged. "I haven't had the time to do much investigating. Mostly, we're just trying to keep the worst of the injured alive. Mister, that should also be your most immediate concern."

  The tall man visibly reined in his emotions. "You're right! We'll get everyone on board and off to Cheyenne, where there's at least three good doctors."

  Longarm and Martha joined the others to help the injured. Men with rifles were posted to watch over the train wreck, and it was decided that a second train would need to be sent up for the bodies.

  "We'll be digging them out for a day or two and hunting for others scattered along this mountain," the tall man, whose name was Jim Allen, said. "I've seen a few train wrecks before, but nothing like this."

  "Me neither," Longarm said wearily as he helped the last of the survivors on board the relief train.

  It was a silent ride down the eastern slopes of the Laramie Mountains into the railhead town of Cheyenne. To their credit, when news of the train disaster spread across the city, hundreds of people rushed forward to offer aid, food, and shelter to the sur
vivors. Newspaper reporters flocked around the injured, bedeviling them with questions that they could not answer.

  "Deputy Long!" a newspaper man shouted, running up to join Longarm and Martha. "Were you on that ill-fated train?"

  "I was," Longarm said, not wanting to talk to the man as he led Martha away from the train depot and yards.

  "Can you explain what happened?" the newsman cried. "Nobody seems sure!"

  "I'm not sure either."

  "But you do agree that the train was robbed?"

  "Yeah," Longarm said. "The train was robbed. The safe was blown from its hinges."

  "Then it was probably the same gang that has been doing that for several years now, right?"

  "That would be my guess."

  The reporter's pencil scratched rapidly across his notebook. "And I understand that you were bringing Eli Wheat back to face the hangman."

  Longarm sighed. "It seems that you already know about as much as I can tell you. Will you excuse us now? The lady is very tired."

  "Miss Noble," the reporter said, turning to Martha. "I'm glad that you were not counted among the missing or dead."

  "Yes, Herb. I'm very, very fortunate. It was a terrible ordeal and without our deputy marshal, I doubt half as many would have survived."

  "Is that a fact?"

  "No," Longarm said, "it is not. Everyone did all that they could to help those who were unable to help themselves. The survivors were those of us lucky enough not to be killed outright during the wreck."

  Pencil scratching furiously, the reporter began to follow Longarm as he led Martha away. "Deputy, if Eli Wheat escaped-"

  "I don't know that for certain," Longarm said. "He might be lying on that mountainside or even down in the gulch, covered with rocks, snow, and wreckage."

  "But you don't think so, do you?"

  It wasn't a question, and Longarm had no compelling reason to answer in any event. However, if Eli could read a newspaper, Longarm wanted the man to know that he was going to be pursued to the very ends of the earth if necessary.

  "No," Longarm said, "I don't think Eli is dead. And my hunch is that his escape did have something to do with the choice of this particular train to be dynamited. But since I can't be sure, I'll have to return to the wreck and do a thorough investigation."

  "I see," the reporter said, flipping his notebook to a fresh page. "And I suppose that, if Eli is alive, you'll go after him?"

  "You can bet your life on it!" Longarm took Martha's arm. "No more questions."

  "My father's house is just up this street," Martha said. "He bought it a few years after I was married. When he died, he left it in my name."

  "And now you'll live here and start that law practice?"

  "That's my plan," Martha said without a great deal of enthusiasm. "I'm sure that my father left me a complete law library down at his offices. I've everything that I need to begin a practice except experience."

  "Isn't there some kind of test or formal requirement?"

  "There is, and I qualified before my marriage. It was my father's fondest dream that I should join his practice. He never cared that I wasn't a man. He said that I'd make a terrific attorney."

  "I'm sure he was right," Longarm said as they approached a very stately two-story frame house. It was a beautiful home, though clearly it needed a little attention.

  "Your father must have been very successful to buy such a nice house," Longarm said, lifting the gate and following Martha up to the front porch.

  "He was." Martha sighed. "My father was a lawyer for the Union Pacific Railroad. He handled all litigation filed against them, and he saved the railroad thousands of dollars."

  "You don't sound very impressed."

  "There were some personal accident and injury cases where the railroad was clearly negligent and there should have been awards to some very desperate and deserving people."

  "I see."

  She studied him. "Yes, I imagine you do. I was an idealist then, and you saw a hint of that in me when we first met on the train yesterday. I was very critical of my father. Too critical. I went off to law school determined to balance the scales of justice in favor of the individual. I even kept the names of some of the plaintiffs that my father prevented from receiving fair awards."

  "Do you still intend to right the wrongs of the past?"

  "Absolutely. But this ordeal has shaken me and now, standing here on my father's porch, I feel as if I might somehow sully his name if I dig up the bones of the past."

  "You should follow your conscience," Longarm advised. "If you have names of people who were robbed of fair compensation, you should right the wrong."

  "Even if it might tarnish my father's name and reputation?"

  "Your father is gone now. It's your reputation that you must establish, and I think you're going to do one hell of a good job of that."

  Martha smiled. When she smiled, it was as if the sun peeked through a blanket of dark clouds and warmed a man's soul. "My father always hid a key on the porch," she said. "I doubt it will be hard to find."

  It wasn't hard at all to find. In less than a minute, they had the key and were opening the door. At its threshold, Martha Noble hesitated.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I don't know. I just wish that my father and I had not quarreled so much. I wish that we hadn't fought the last time we were together."

  "Put that behind you and look to your future. Obviously you've had some troubles with a bad marriage, and your father might not have been quite the knight in shining armor that a daughter would have hoped for. No matter. He worked for the railroad and he owed his allegiance to his employer."

  "And not to justice?"

  "Never mind that," Longarm said, gently pushing the young woman into the house and closing the door behind them.

  Martha pirouetted around in a complete circle, her eyes missing nothing. "This house still smells like him," she finally said. "He smoked an unusually aromatic blend of Turkish pipe tobacco. You could follow it through the house and locate him with your eyes closed."

  "It's a fine house and nicely furnished," Longarm said, admiring the expensive decor. "Your father had expensive tastes."

  "Yes, he did."

  Martha passed through the parlor and showed Longarm the library, kitchen, and other downstairs rooms that were primarily filled with French and Italian furniture and antiques. The ceramic floor tiles themselves were works of art, and the walls were covered with original artwork.

  "I can't believe that no one has lived here since your father passed away."

  "Didn't I mention that he only died two weeks ago?"

  "No."

  "Well, he did." Martha took Longarm's hand and led him to a beautiful staircase of polished walnut. "The bedrooms are upstairs. Would you like to see them?"

  "I would," Longarm said, unable to hide his enthusiasm.

  "Then come along."

  She led him up the staircase and they entered the first bedroom, which had belonged to her father. Martha studied the room for a long time in silence, then backed out. When Longarm looked at her closely, he saw that her eyes were misted with tears.

  "And this," she said, trying to put some lilt in her voice, "was my bedroom. He told me he kept it exactly the way it was when I left."

  It was decorated in white and lavender. There were lace curtains and a bedspread to match. The furniture was heavy and very expensive.

  "Nice bed," he offered.

  "It's very comfortable." Martha walked over and sat down on her bed. When Longarm remained poised beside the door, she studied him for a moment, and then raised a finger and crooked it for him to come join her.

  Longarm needed no further urging. Martha Noble was not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen or desired. She was pretty, but not classically beautiful. Her nose was a little too large, her lower jaw slightly undershot, and her figure less than perfect. But, after just twenty-four hours, he felt as if he had known her forever. She'd gone from being critical a
nd naive to being sympathetic and understanding. Martha was not the same woman who had left Laramie on her way to confront the ghosts of her childhood in Cheyenne.

  "Take me," she pleaded, clutching him tightly. "Smother me and make love to me as hard and as long as you can! Help me forget about last night."

  "I can't do that," he said as he began to undress her. "Not really, But I can sweep away your doubts and fears for a while and take your mind off the bad things of the past. I can fill you with love."

  "Then please do it. Only hurry!"

  Longarm did not profess to understand women. He never had and he never would. Men who swore they understood the workings of the female mind were either fools or liars. All that Longarm was certain of was his ability to make love to a woman so that, when he had to leave her, she was happy and satisfied.

  Martha practically tore her own clothes off, and as soon as Longarm had his boots and pants off she was wild with desire. "Hurry!" she begged, reaching for his manhood. "I want you in me now!"

  He pulled her silken-haired thighs wide apart, and when he reached down to guide his throbbing manhood into her honeypot, Martha was wet and ready. He felt her fingernails dig into his muscular buttocks as he plunged his rod into her with a series of hard, quick thrusts.

  "Yes!" she cried, throwing her head back and then rolling it from side to side. "Oh, Custis, what would I have done without you up on that mountain?"

  "You'd have survived," he grunted as their bodies pounded at each other like waves crashing against rocks. "You'd have survived!"

  She found his mouth. Her tongue pushed between his teeth, and he could feel her body surging powerfully against his own. Spurred by her extraordinary passion, Longarm pinned her to the bed as his own body matched her intensity.

  On and on they went, each lifting higher and higher. Finally, Martha threw back her head. A thin bead of perspiration covered her upper lip and her eyelids fluttered as she screamed, "Oh... oh!"

  Longarm understood. He felt his own control crumble like a dam in a flood as his manhood spewed its torrent into her eager body. And for a few moments, he too forgot about the train wreck, the death, and the carnage.