Longarm and the Train Robbers

by Tabor Evans

  "No," Longarm corrected, "I offered him my hand in friendship and cooperation and he looked at me like some kind of bug. He didn't ask me to come with him, he ordered me. Men like your boss never seem to learn that you get along better in life when you treat people as equals. Wouldn't you agree, Deputy Dudley?"

  Ron blushed and dipped his pointy chin.

  "I'll report back," Longarm said. "And if there is a bank robbery or murder, you've only to ask and I'll assist you in any way that I can."

  "Thank you very much," Dudley said with an embarrassed grin. "I ain't been on this job more than a few weeks. I don't even know if I'm cut out for it, but I just got married and I needed work. My wife is scared to death that I'm going to get beat up or shot."

  "It goes with the territory," Longarm said. "My advice to you is to treat people with respect and not follow Denton's bad example. He might be big and strong enough to bully people, but you aren't."

  "I know that, sir."

  Longarm paused. "I can't advise you on what to do, but I will say this. The old adage says that it is not the size of the dog but the size of the dog's fight that counts. I've known some deputies that didn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, and they commanded all the authority and respect they needed or ever wanted. And I've known big, tough men like Denton who bullied men and then got waylaid or ambushed and sent to Boot Hill."

  Longarm heard the sound of the train whistle announcing its imminent departure. "Ron, you go ahead and talk softly, but learn how to use both a gun and a rifle better than any man in this town. If you do that, and people see that you're serious about your job, they'll treat you right and there won't be a problem that you cannot handle."

  "Yes, sir!"

  Longarm barely made it to the train. It was slowly rolling west toward the steep Sierra foothills when Longarm swung on board the caboose. Gasping and wheezing in the cold, thin air, he staggered into the mail car and collapsed on a bench with the heavy Winchester still clenched in his hand.

  A railroad signalman with ruddy cheeks and an Irish smile said, "Welcome back aboard, Marshal Long! Thought you'd left us for good. Glad to see you again."

  "Thanks. You wouldn't happen to have a little whiskey hidden about somewhere, would you?"

  "Are there shamrocks in Ireland?"

  Longarm laughed. "I do believe there are."

  "Then," the man said with a twinkle in his eyes, "there is Irish whiskey to be found in this car!"

  There was actually quite a bit of Irish whiskey stuffed into hidden places on board. And as the train struggled mightily up a steep grade built along the rushing Truckee River, Longarm and signalman Liam O'Neil enjoyed it to the fullest.

  "How far are you goin'?" Liam asked as he passed the bottle to Longarm.

  "To the wreck at Donner Pass."

  "Oh," Liam said, with a solemn shake of his head. "Now that was an awful thing! A terrible thing!"

  "I was on the train that was blown off the tracks at Laramie Summit," Longarm said. "So I know how bad it is."

  "Oh, I hope you catch 'em! It would be a fine day for this railroad and we'd celebrate."

  "I'll catch them," Longarm vowed, looking out the window at the rugged mountains that they were trying to crest.

  He thought of the gang member he'd shot at the Laramie blacksmith shop, of Blake Huntington's dead and glass-cut body lying in an alley behind the Outpost Hotel, of the fella he'd killed in the shootout at the ranch house, and finally of Fergus in the mail car.

  "Liam, I take no satisfaction in saying this, but I've already killed four men that were part of that train-robbing bunch. I'll never know exactly what role each played, but they were all somehow connected."

  "And were they also a part of the gang that did the evil work at Donner Pass?"

  "I think so." Longarm took a pull on the bottle of Irish whiskey. "Do you live in Reno?"

  "I do!"

  "Then do you know the name of an important state senator that made a fortune on the Comstock Lode, but then lost it again on mining stocks?"

  "That sounds like Senator George Howard. He's up for reelection and it's almost sure that we'll vote the bastard out of office."

  "He's incompetent?"

  "He's a crook!" Liam's voice turned hard. "He's got his hands into every dirty game in western Nevada. More is the wonder that he hasn't been hanged by the vigilantes before now."

  "Where does he live?"

  "in Reno. Somewhere over in the fancy part of town." Liam raised his eyebrows. "And why would you be askin'?"

  "I've got my reasons."

  "Is he in cahoots with this gang?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't need to, Marshal. I can see the hunter's lust gleaming in your eyes. You're like an Irish setter hunting pheasants in the field. You've the nose for blood and the heart for the hunt."

  Longarm shrugged and took another drink. "What do you know about this fella named Bruce Pettibone?"

  "Oh," Liam said, eyebrows lifting, "there's a good man!"

  Longarm was surprised. It was his experience that most railroad detectives and administrators were long on corporate politics and short on good sense. "For a fact?"

  "Sure! Mr. Pettibone is a fine man and a brave one too! He's tracked down and shot outlaws who tried to rob the Union Pacific. He has!"

  "Well," Longarm said, "in that case, I'm looking forward to meeting Mr. Bruce Pettibone."

  CHAPTER 16

  The trip up to Donner Lake was slow but picturesque. The lower, sage-covered hills gave way to Douglas fir and ponderosa pine and the air became even colder. From the sheltered comfort of a coach, Longarm watched freighters using oxen, mules, and horses as they struggled up the winding and muddy road toward Lake Tahoe.

  The train passed through immense wooden snowsheds that jutted out from the mountainside to shunt off avalanches and keep the tracks open after the worst of the winter storms. A good thousand feet below Donner Summit snow blanketed the ground, and Longarm knew that it was going to be almost impossible to find any evidence around the wreck of the train. He knew that most of whatever new information he would learn would have to come from Bruce Pettibone.

  The train passed above Donner Lake, frozen and glazed with fresh snow. When they arrived at the depot, Longarm was the only passenger to disembark. The train did take on two freezing passengers, and then waited to load some cargo before pulling out of the depot for Sacramento.

  "Good luck to you!" Liam shouted. "You catch and hang them bloody train-wreckin' bastards!"

  "I'll do my best," Longarm called, watching as Liam went to help another train employee load some heavy wooden crates into the mail car.

  The train depot at Donner Pass wasn't much. In the summertime, there was a heavy influx of people seeking the cool relief of the mountains. There were a few log cabins nearby, but most of those were down near the lake. Longarm entered the depot and headed for the ticket cage.

  "Good afternoon," he said. "I'm looking for Mr. Bruce Pettibone. Is he around?"

  "Yep. But you'd better hurry outside because he's about to board that train for Sacramento."

  "He can't do that!"

  The ticket man shrugged. "There are very few men that can tell Mr. Pettibone what to do. But it's a free country and you're welcome to try. You can see him through that window. Short, handsome fella in the red woolen mackinaw."

  Pettibone was a round bundle of energy and motion. Barely five and a half feet tall, he was uncommonly wide-shouldered. Longarm's first impression was of a beer barrel with arms and legs. He was baby-faced, but obviously not young because his hair was shot with silver.

  "Mr. Pettibone!" Longarm called, hurrying after the man.

  Pettibone turned. "Yes?"

  Longarm fumbled for his badge. "I'm a federal deputy marshal from Denver and I believe that the Laramie Summit derailment was committed by the same people that also derailed the train at Donner Pass."

  "What makes you think so?"


  "It's a long story."

  "I'm sorry, Deputy, but I've got to return to Sacramento."

  The man started to walk past, but Longarm blocked his path. "I need your help. The people who wrecked your train are the same ones that sent the train I was riding in over the edge of a mountain just east of Laramie Summit."

  "My investigation tells me that is entirely possible. However, I'm working alone on this case."

  "Do you have any suspects?"

  "No, not really, but-"

  "I've killed four of the men that belong to the same gang that you are hunting." Longarm looked Pettibone square in the eyes. "And I have names."

  Pettibone blinked. "You have names?"

  "That's right."

  Pettibone glanced at the men as they finished loading the crates. The train blasted its steam whistle, and he and Longarm could hear the couplings strain as the big drivers that had pulled the train up the mountain began to roll forward.

  "Give them to me!"

  But Longarm shook his head. "I'll be damned if I'm going to help you or your railroad if you won't cooperate in this investigation."

  Pettibone's face darkened with anger. The train began to move slowly. "If you have suspects, I can work from Sacramento while you operate out of Reno. We can use the telegraph and probably be more effective than if we worked together."

  "We work together here or not at all," Longarm said bluntly. "And unless your career depends on you getting on board that train, I suggest you miss it and take me out to the wreck. I want to see it and hear everything that you know."

  "Is that right?" Pettibone exclaimed with exasperation. "Well, when in tarnation would I get to hear the names of your supposed suspects?"

  "Right afterward."

  Pettibone was a man torn between exasperation, curiosity, and desire. Very likely he considered that Longarm could not deliver the promised goods or that the names he had were worthless. Very likely he also had someone waiting at the Sacramento depot for him who would be very disappointed if he did not show up.

  "Give me just one of your suspects' names!"

  Longarm balanced his Winchester across his chest. "All right," he agreed, "let's start at the top of the dung heap. The mastermind who planned and probably financed the derailment of both trains is no less than State Senator George Howard."

  Pettibone gaped with astonishment. He seemed to have trouble finding words. Finally he stammered, "It's taken me thousands of hours of investigation to reach that same conclusion! How did you-"

  "Your Sacramento train is leaving," Longarm said. "the question I have is, are you going or are you staying with me until we break this case?"

  Pettibone took a deep breath. "I'm staying," he decided. "Let's go back inside where we can talk in my office."

  On the way in, Pettibone called to the ticket man to locate the depot's telegraph operator. "Tell him to wire the Sacramento depot where my wife and two sons will be expecting me in about three hours. Tell him to say that I have been delayed and will come home as soon as possible."

  "Yes, sir!"

  "This way," Pettibone growled as he strolled across the depot lobby and used a key to unlock an unmarked door.

  Pettibone's office was in a clutter, which was a credit to the man as far as Longarm was concerned. Show Longarm a neat lawman or detective and he'd show you a man that did not have enough to do.

  "Sit down," Pettibone ordered.

  "No," Longarm said, dropping his bags and leaning his Winchester up against a scarred file case. "I want to inspect the site of the derailment and then hear what you know before I tell you anymore."

  "I'm in charge here!"

  Longarm shook his head. "You know, that's exactly the same attitude that got Marshal Denton all banged up and admitted to the hospital."

  "Denton is in the hospital?"

  "Yep." Longarm massaged his bruised and skinned knuckles, and the meaning was very clear.

  Pettibone's scowl melted and he even grinned. "Well, I'll be damned! I thought that I was the one that was finally going to have to take that big bastard down a peg or two."

  Longarm said nothing.

  "Listen," Pettibone continued, "any man that can whip Denton is a man that I can respect. Do you have any proof about Senator Howard?"

  "Not yet."

  Pettibone frowned. "All right," he said. "Have you ever worn snowshoes?"

  "Once."

  "Good! We'll strap on a couple pairs and go for a walk in the woods. It's just up the tracks about a mile, but you won't be able to reach the wrecked cars. They tumbled far down in a frozen gorge."

  "That's what also happened at Laramie Summit," Longarm said. "These boys that are derailing the trains aren't delicate or fair-minded, are they?"

  "No," Pettibone said, "they damn sure aren't."

  It took the better part of an hour to reach the site of the train wreck, and there really wasn't a lot to see once they arrived, but then Longarm did not need to see much.

  "The method of derailment is the same," Longarm announced. "They dynamited the track just as the locomotive passed over it."

  "Not dynamite," Pettibone corrected. "They used nitroglycerine."

  "at?"

  "It's banned because of its instability and power. The Central Pacific had to resort to its use when they were building the Sierra summit tunnels. Nitroglycerine has so much power that it once leveled an entire city block over in San Francisco. The stuff is extremely unstable but very, very powerful. It would take several cases of dynamite to lift a locomotive off the tracks, but just a jar of liquid nitroglycerine."

  "All right," Longarm said, "I'll go along with that. But so what?"

  "I've been checking on every chemist in California and Nevada. One of them has to be mixing and handling that stuff. I'm expecting a telegram any day that will link Senator Howard to a criminal who also happens to be a skilled chemist."

  "Why don't we just keep an eye on the senator?"

  "Because he is too smart to ever get personally involved in this. He'll use intermediaries. The only way we nail him is to catch someone who deals with him and is willing to testify against the senator in court."

  "So where do you suggest we start?"

  "We start with your list of names. Are you ready to give them to me now?"

  Longarm supposed he was. One by one, he reeled off the names that Fergus had given him, and as he did so, Pettibone's grin widened.

  "You like what you've heard?"

  "Damn right I do! Big Tom Canyon, Two-Fingered Earl, Shorty Hamilton, and most all the others are living in a cabin not twenty miles from here. They're at the north shore of Lake Tahoe."

  it was Longarm's turn to grin. "You don't say!"

  "I do say. But we'll never get them arrested without evidence."

  Longarm patted his six-gun. "Evidence is usually found at the source. I'm going to that cabin and find it."

  "Whoa!" Pettibone cried. "You can't just..."

  "Just what?"

  "Go busting in there!"

  "Watch me," Longarm said. Pettibone was better on snowshoes than Longarm and managed to get in front of him. "You don't even know which cabin they're at."

  "I'll find it. You said it's the north shore of Lake Tahoe. Now kindly step out of my path."

  Pettibone shook his head. "Tell me, Deputy Long, have you always been so headstrong and impetuous?"

  "I'm not one for planning and jawin' a whole hell of a lot, if that's what you mean."

  "That's exactly what I mean."

  "Are you coming or not?"

  "I'm coming," Pettibone said, "though I'm half afraid that you're bound to make my wife a widow."

  "You can stay if you want," Longarm told the man. "I'll not hold it against you."

  "That's mighty kind, but I wouldn't miss this roundup for anything."

  "How can we get there the quickest?"

  "By not taking off these snowshoes."

  Longarm nodded. "I've got a rifle back at your depot and i
f you have a shotgun or something, that might help."

  "I do have one."

  "Are you any good in a gunfight?"

  Pettibone expelled a deep, frosty breath. "I honestly do not know. I'm pretty good with my fists."

  "You'll do," Longarm decided, working on intuition and professional judgment. "Now let's find that cabin!"

  CHAPTER 17

  Longarm had never spent such a miserable afternoon as he did that day trying to keep up with Bruce Pettibone on snowshoes. The railroad detective was inexhaustible, and seemed intent on driving Longarm until he dropped. Fortunately, the air was crisp and the trail already broken and mostly leading downhill. They skirted Bald and Lookout Mountains to the southwest and crossed any number of frozen creeks as they hurried through the heavy pine forests.

  When the sun began to slide behind the mountains and Longarm still could not see Lake Tahoe, he shouted, "Hold up there, dammit!"

  "What's wrong?" Pettibone asked, his breath coming in short, frosty bursts.

  "What's wrong is that you're about to kill me!"

  "But this is all downhill!"

  "Uphill or downhill, I'm bushed!" Longarm adjusted his Winchester, which he had rigged on a sling and thrown over his shoulder. "I don't figure I want to go much farther today. Pettibone, what do you say we make a camp and get an early start in the morning?"

  "You mean sleep in this damned snow?" Pettibone looked appalled.

  "We can make a dry camp if we start preparing it before dark. Maybe cut some pine boughs and-"

  "Listen," Pettibone said. "Storms up here come fast and frequent in the winter. Now, even if I had enough blankets--which I don't--I wouldn't even consider spending the night out here."

  "Then what can we consider, being as how I'm about to collapse from fatigue?"

  Pettibone looked up at the dying sun. "I say we have just another three miles to the lake. Their cabin is at Agate Bay and we could be there soon after dark."

  "Yeah, but what is the damned hurry?"

  Pettibone looked disgusted. "It's just that, since you decided we should do this, I'd like to get it done."

  "There's no sense in charging into all those men half-cocked," Longarm said. "In any case, I'm too damned cold and tired to be any good in a fight."