Bannerman the Enforcer 17

by Kirk Hamilton

  Johnny Cato’s hands and feet were still bound with rawhide, but now they were tied tightly together, hands behind his back, and he was in a far less comfortable place than Conchita’s bed.

  He lay on his side amongst rocks on a slope overlooking the twisting pass known as the Pegleg. The railroad tracks ran right through the center of the pass and there was tall timber growing to within a few yards of them, on either side. Jake Edge and his men were somewhere down there now with the wagon and the Gatling gun. Conchita and an outlaw named Glass, who had been brought along specially to guard Cato, sat a few feet away on rocks.

  “Hey, Conchita … How about a drink of water?” Cato called, making his voice rasp.

  She glanced at Glass who was holding his Colt in his lap. He shifted his watery eyes to Cato.

  “Any funny business, amigo, and I blow the gal apart,” Glass warned.

  “Hell! I’m only thirsty!” Cato told him.

  The girl picked up a canteen and took it across, lifting Cato’s head so she could hold the neck against his lips. He could still see the tips of the weals on her flesh left by the rawhide thongs from last night. Pretending to swallow, but letting the water trickle down his neck, Cato spoke quietly.

  “I gotta get outa here, querida. Edge is gonna kill me whichever way things turn out. I’ll need your help.”

  She said nothing, but held the canteen so that only a bare trickle of water came out. Cato swallowed as if he was getting a lot of liquid. It was her only sign that she had heard him or knew what he wanted. She stood up and returned to the rock near Glass, jamming the cork back into the canteen. The outlaw lowered his gun hammer but still kept the Colt in his lap, looking from Cato to the girl. Her fingers rubbed gently at the tips of the weals on her back where they were not covered by her peasant blouse.

  She looked at Cato from under dark lashes but her face told him nothing as he lay there, the circulation in his hands and feet slowly being choked off by his bonds ...

  Over in the Pegleg, Jake Edge and his men were working harder than they ever had in their lives before.

  They were working on a stretch of line that was just over a small rise, hardly noticeable to the train’s passengers, but it was sufficiently high for the engineer in his cab to be unable to see what lay beyond until he was on top of the hump. That was important to Edge’s plan. He didn’t want the engineer to have too much time to apply the brakes after he noticed the obstruction on the tracks. Fact was, he wanted the locomotive to have just enough speed to hit the logs and rocks his men were piling on the line and be derailed. It wouldn’t be travelling fast enough to pull all the other cars off and even if it did make the first two jump the tracks, it wouldn’t really matter. The express car was fourth back from the loco. The more panic amongst the passengers the better, Edge figured. That way everyone would be more ‘reasonable’ when he brought out the Gatling gun to back up his demands.

  If they weren’t ... He couldn’t help the crooked smile that twisted up one side of his face. He kind of hoped someone would be unreasonable, just enough to give him an excuse for cranking that handle and pouring a volley of bullets into the wooden cars and the steel-lined express van ...

  He looked critically at the heap of rubble his men were piling high on the tracks now and moved forward slowly, gauging its height.

  “Not too high, damn it!” he grated. “Don’t want any showin’ over that hump till the loco tops the rise and starts down this side.”

  The sweating men stepped back, panting, glad of the excuse to stop, wiping their faces and trying to spit cotton out of their parched mouths. Unused to hard work they were feeling the strain already and would quit at the first excuse. They were men who would wait three days for a stage or a miner to pass by if they thought either were carrying enough gold or money to make it worthwhile, but they wouldn’t do an hour’s honest work if they could help it. Edge figured there was enough rubble piled on the line now but he was feeling perverse today ... likely tension, he figured … and he ordered more logs and rocks dragged across.

  “But pile ’em around the base!” he grated. “Don’t make it any higher!”

  Grumbling, the outlaws went to work and Edge enjoyed sitting down on a log and smoking while they sweated and cursed.

  In another hour it was all ready and Edge’s men collapsed in the grass beside the tracks, breathing hard. Edge stood up and walked across.

  “Okay. No time for sittin’ around here,” he snapped. “Get on your horses and fan out through the timber.”

  “Hell almighty, Jake!” growled Jethro Kidd. “Train won’t be along for hours yet.”

  Edge took out his battered pocket watch and looked at it. He grunted and put it away again. “Get into position,” he ordered and the weary men climbed slowly to their feet and, grumbling, walked to where their horses were tethered in the trees. Edge watched them go, smiling to himself, then moved back to where he had the wagon and Gatling gun tethered behind a boulder-studded humpback ridge. He figured the more uncomfortable his men were, the more alert they would be. And he would make regular rounds until train time to make sure none of them was dozing off ...

  On the slope, Cato strained at his bonds, knowing he had no chance of breaking loose. He glanced towards Conchita. She was his only hope of getting free. But she wasn’t even looking in his direction.

  She was talking quietly with Glass, sitting close beside him on the log, smiling at him, running a taut finger around his dirty neck above the worn collar of his shirt. At first he showed signs of irritability and then he backed off a little and looked at her, running his eyes over her figure, fixing his gaze on her moist, parted lips.

  Slowly, he put the Colt he held back in its holster. He glanced at Cato and then grabbed the girl’s hand and stood up. He led her out of Cato’s sight into the brush and the gunsmith heard her laugh. He clamped his lips together. She hadn’t once glanced in his direction.

  Eight – The Pegleg

  The locomotive belched a huge, swirling column of black-brown smoke, tinged here and there with white. Sparks flew in showers from the funnel-shaped smokestack and steam leaked from worn joints in the copper and brass tubing around the boiler. There was skin and hair and blood on the cowcatcher, a legacy from a young buffalo which had stood its ground and challenged the iron horse soon after they had crossed the trestle bridge over the Pecos.

  The line of cars behind the loco swayed and rocked and clattered over the tracks. There were three passenger cars, a horse van, the express car and the caboose, a fairly long train for those times and in that area. But many people came down from New Mexico to link up with the Texas and Western line so as to get to Austin or deep into the rich cattle country of the Panhandle and the Big Bend. Other folks simply wanted to get out of the southwest, not figuring on staying around to see the outcome of this bid for a treaty with the Kiowas. In short, they had had enough of battling the weather and renegade whites and Indian raids. They wanted to settle someplace else where there was a little law and order and a man could ride out to work his range all day and not have to worry about coming home to find his wife and children scalped or mutilated or raped ... It was the very kind of exodus that Dukes wanted to prevent. He wanted settlers to pour into that part of the state, not leave it.

  But it was good business for Nevada Jim Butcher, the railroad owner. This way, he sent out trains loaded with freight and stores and they came back packed with people. When the treaty went through and the southwest was thrown open to settlers, he figured he would make a fortune in both freight and passengers all over again. So many people stood to gain by the treaty going through, not least of all, the Kiowas ...

  Yancey thought about this as he moved slowly through the train, walking the length of the passenger cars, pushing through the crowds, one hand on his gun butt. He wanted to make sure that there were no potential troublemakers mixed in with the genuine people leaving the area. He couldn’t spot anyone that he recalled seeing with the cattlemen back in
Pecos, but that didn’t mean there were none. But as far as he could make out, it seemed all clear, and he turned back and started down the cars again to the rear of the last passenger car that had been reserved for Red Dog. A wall had been fitted across, making a compartment separate from the rest of the train, and a soldier stood guard at the door, leaning against the swaying wall, smoking. He nodded casually to Yancey as the tall man went back into the compartment.

  Yancey frowned. Because of the riot and trouble back in Pecos, Captain Grant had not been able to spare the six-man guard he had promised to help ensure that Red Dog arrived safely in Austin. Now, there was only the soldier on the door and four men in the express car with the two Wells Fargo guards watching the gold. Yancey looked at Red Dog sitting at the window, looking out at the countryside, enjoying his first ride on the white man’s iron horse. Some of his warriors had ridden alongside for the first few miles, making the passengers nervous, but they had only wanted to see their chief safely on his way.

  Little Flower sat beside her father while Chuck sat opposite her, occasionally drinking brandy from a silver hipflask. He was trying to charm the girl into conversation but she ignored him and Yancey could see the slow anger beginning to burn in his brother’s eyes. Chuck had always been a womanizer, but surely even he would have enough sense not to make any foolish play for the Indian girl ... But, with Chuck, you could never be sure, especially when he had been drinking. He was a likeable enough young man, but he had a lot of weaknesses and drinking, gambling and women were the main ones.

  There was no gambling on the train to amuse him right now, Yancey knew, but he had liquor and a beautiful woman was sitting so close he had only to lean forward to touch her. Yancey sighed and bit back a silent curse. He had enough troubles without Chuck complicating things further ...

  He strode forward and sat down on the seat beside his brother, glancing at the Indian girl, reading her displeasure in her dark eyes. As Chuck lifted the flask of brandy towards his lips again, Yancey reached out and pushed his arm down.

  “Ease up on that stuff,” he said curtly.

  Chuck’s mouth was already a little slack and Yancey knew he had about emptied the flask. He could see by his brother’s eyes that he was just reaching the proddy stage of drunkenness.

  “You got your way of passing the time, little brother, and I’ve got mine.”

  Chuck started to lift the flask towards his mouth again and Yancey once more forced his arm down.

  “Next time I throw the flask out the window,” Yancey told him flatly. “I’ve got enough troubles now without you adding to them.”

  Chuck’s eyes blazed at his brother but he studied Yancey’s face closely and saw the determination there. He forced a grin but it didn’t touch his eyes.

  “All right, little brother,” he said, flicking his gaze to the Indian girl, while screwing the silver cap back on the flask. “I guess I can wait a spell. I’m bound to get thirsty again before we reach Austin.”

  “Try water,” Yancey growled. He looked at the girl and the impassive chief. “Everything’s okay.”

  Little Flower tightened her lips and looked from Yancey to Chuck; obviously she wasn’t so sure.

  Chuck put the flask away, folded his arms and sat half slumped in his seat, eyes boring into the Indian girl. Red Dog stared at him for a while, then shifted his gaze to Yancey and, finally, looked out the window again. Yancey couldn’t tell what was going through the red man’s mind.

  He wished to hell he could. For he was pretty sure of what was going through Chuck’s mind and he wondered just how Red Dog would react if he tried anything.

  Jake Edge climbed aboard his horse where he had it tethered to the rear of the flatbed wagon that held the Gatling gun, and glanced at the man he had brought along as driver, a massive, brutish fellow with a heavy beard and thick mats of hair covering his body. Everyone simply called him Grizzly. He was slow-moving and too heavy for most horses, so he had long been driving wagons and buckboards and was an expert in this field. He carried no firearms, only a big, broad-bladed Bowie knife, fourteen inches from hilt to blade tip. The story was that he had killed eleven men in his time, all with his bare hands, breaking their necks or backs or crushing their ribs. It was easy to believe, Edge thought.

  “Be back soon, Grizzly,” he said, and the big man slowly turned his massive head and nodded. He looked as if he could pick up the two hundred and fifty pound Gatling gun without even drawing a fast breath. The side of the wagon seat where he sat was crushed almost to the floor under his weight.

  Edge rode out from behind the humpbacked ridge and put his mount across to the tall timber that side of the tracks. He wanted to keep his men on their toes, make sure they were alert and ready for when the train was sighted. It shouldn’t be long now and he was feeling the tension starting to build in him.

  Jethro Kidd, Arnie and Hack were on this side and they were sitting their mounts just inside the screening timber when Edge rode in. They were checking their guns and Kidd was making sure he knew how to handle Cato’s Manstopper.

  “Damn train’s late, ain’t it, Jake?” Kidd said, his edginess plain in his voice. “Should’ve been here long ago. You don’t figure—?”

  “It’s not late,” Edge cut in. “Should be just drawin’ in to the Pegleg now. We ought to see the smoke in another fifteen minutes ...”

  “Seems a long time,” Kidd said.

  Arnie and Hack stirred uneasily, too, and Edge knew the tension was getting to them all.

  “Just stay alert,” he grated. “We’ll be seein’ some action in about another half hour. You all got your parts straight?”

  They nodded, Hack licking his hare-lip. Edge raked them with his cold eyes.

  “Remember, no quarter if they don’t do what we want. Men, women or kids. The whole lot. We got to show ’em we mean business.”

  He waited for them to acknowledge his words and then he turned his mount and let it pick its way back across the tracks to where his other men were waiting within the line of trees.

  No quarter ... and he sure wasn’t bluffing.

  Cato had rolled over to a jagged rock and tried to rub the rawhide thongs around his wrists against the thin edge but all he had succeeded in doing so far was to rub the skin off his hands. Conchita and Glass had been gone the best part of an hour but it had taken him most of that time to work around and find a rock with a jagged edge. Now it looked as if the rawhide wasn’t going to part anyway.

  He snapped his head up as he heard someone coming through the brush. It was Conchita and she looked pale and drawn and there was a little blood at the corner of her mouth. There were splashes of blood on the front of her blouse but Cato didn’t think they’d come from her mouth. The cut didn’t look to be big enough for that.

  She was trembling as she looked around for him in the area where he had been when she had left, with Glass. Then she saw where he had squirmed to and hurried across. She knelt beside him and started to fumble at the rawhide.

  “Where’s Glass?” Cato asked.

  “I—I hit him, Johneee,” she said huskily. “He was—animal. He beat me ... I hit him harder than I meant to ... With a rock. I think he is dead—”

  “Good! You need a knife. My belt buckle’s got a blade on it.”

  He rolled onto his back and told her how to slide the hidden blade out of the belt which acted as a sheath. The blade was brazed onto the heavy square buckle and was four inches long, sliding into the double leather of the belt, a stud on it going through a hole in the leather to hold it in place. When this stud was pushed back through the hole, the blade was able to be drawn out, the buckle itself being used as a handle. Yancey had one fitted to his belt, too, and it had actually saved his live a few months ago when they had been in Indian Territory and prisoners of a bunch of killers.

  The girl struggled to force the stud through the stiff leather and tugged hard before she was able to get the blade free. The pocket made for it in the belt had been sti
tched around with copper wire so that the blade could be kept sharp without fear of it cutting through cotton stitching. Conchita admired the simplicity and deadliness of the weapon for a moment then slashed the rawhide around his wrists. While he rubbed the circulation back into his hands, she cut his legs free and he stomped hard on the ground to get some feeling back into his feet.

  He could feel his fingers again now and took the buckle knife from the girl and fumbled to fit it back into the belt sheath. Conchita worked on his ankles, rubbing them briskly through the soft leather of his boots.

  She snapped her head up and started to turn and Cato paused with the knife blade halfway into the sheath as the brush crackled and Glass staggered back into the camp. His face was streaked with blood and dirt and he was hatless. But he held his Colt in his hand and it was cocked. The girl screamed as she started to get up to run. Glass, swaying, eyes glazed, spun towards the sound and triggered. The bullet caught her under the left shoulder blade and she gave a choked-off scream as she was driven forward into the rocks.

  Cato swore, yanking the knife blade free of the leather and starting to get up. But his ankles gave way under him and likely saved his life. Glass fired again and the bullet would have caught Cato in the chest if he had been standing. He drove his boots against a rock, launching himself bodily at Glass. He hit the man just above the belt and they went over backwards. Cato bared his teeth, took a knee in the side, caught the man’s gun hand and smashed it down onto a rock. Glass grunted in pain and the smoking gun fell from his grasp.

  Cato drove the knife blade home to the buckle hilt, squarely under the man’s breastbone. Glass convulsed and his mouth opened in a soundless scream, eyes wide and bulging. Then he collapsed and the life rattled out of him.

  Panting, Cato got to his feet, holding the bloody knife in one hand, the other scooping up Glass’ gun. He stumbled back across the campsite to where Conchita lay. He turned her onto her back but saw at once she was already dead. The bullet had taken her cleanly through the heart ...