He slid to a halt and brought the Winchester to his shoulder. As the sparks drew back, Stovepipe fired. The rifle cracked sharply, causing the cattle to stir and bawl. Someone cried out in pain.
Stovepipe saw the sparks still flying, but they were down close to the ground. He dashed forward, knowing he might be running straight into hell. Those sparks had come from the fuse attached to a stick of dynamite. Whoever had lit it had been about to throw the cylinder of explosive into the holding pens when Stovepipe shot and either hit him or at least startled him enough to make him drop the dynamite.
The rapid thud of running footsteps told Stovepipe the man hadn’t tried to retrieve the dynamite. He was getting out of there as fast as he could.
“Wilbur!” Stovepipe called. “Headin’ toward the depot!”
“I’ve got him, Stovepipe!” Wilbur replied as he veered in pursuit of the fleeing man. He hadn’t realized exactly what was going on. If he had, he would have tackled Stovepipe rather than let his old friend try to reach the dynamite before it went off.
Thoughts flashed through Stovepipe’s mind as he ran. If the explosive detonated where it was, it would blow down the corral fence, probably kill some of the cattle, and might even damage the railroad tracks. If Stovepipe could reach it before the blast, he could put out the fuse and prevent the destruction.
Problem was, he didn’t know how long that fuse was. The dynamite could go off and blow him to kingdom come just as he got there.
He didn’t slow down. He could still see the sparks from the fuse popping and flashing. As long as he could see them, he was all right.
When they stopped would be all the warning he had. That would be only a fraction of a second, not long enough to do anything except realize he was about to die.
His long legs carried him quickly over the ground. Close enough, he left his feet in a long dive and stretched out his right hand as far as it would go.
His aim was true as his hand closed around the burning end of the fuse. He felt its coal sear his palm, but there was no explosion. The fuse was out.
Shots roared over by the depot. Wilbur must have caught up to the would-be bomber, Stovepipe thought as he scrambled to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his burned hand, he scooped up the dynamite and stuck it in his pocket. The stuff was too dangerous to leave lying around.
As he loped toward the station, he heard the sharp crack of a rifle, probably Wilbur’s, interspersed with the heavier boom of a handgun. Stovepipe rounded the building’s rear corner and spotted the orange glare of a muzzle flash. Return fire came from a dark shape crouched behind some crates stacked next to the brick wall.
Stovepipe wheeled around and went the other way. He bounded up onto the platform, pounded across it, and jerked open the door into the station.
The lobby was deserted. Nobody was on duty except the night operator in the telegraph office. He was kneeling behind his window with just his head showing as he peered fearfully over the counter. His eyes widened at the sight of Stovepipe galloping across the dimly lit lobby.
Stovepipe figured the man who had taken cover behind the crates was Wilbur, which meant the hombre firing around the corner of the building was the dynamiter. Stovepipe’s plan was to get the dynamiter between himself and Wilbur. If they could capture him and force him to talk, it could go a long way toward clearing up several mysteries.
Stovepipe stepped out the front door of the station and immediately pressed his shoulder against the wall. He could make out the man crouched at the corner and drew a bead on him. “Drop your gun and elevate!” Stovepipe shouted at him.
The man twisted toward him and triggered a shot. The bullet whipped past Stovepipe’s ear. That was good shooting, considering the poor light and the fact that the man was hurrying.
Stovepipe didn’t want to kill the hombre, but he wasn’t going to stand there and let himself be ventilated. He cranked off three swift rounds from the Winchester, aiming low, intending to sweep the gunman’s legs out from under him.
The bullets missed and the man turned to run. Stovepipe blew out an exasperated breath as he tracked the figure with his rifle barrel. Shooting at night was tricky to start with, and shooting at a moving target . . . well, he’d have to have a lot of luck on his side, he thought as he pressed the trigger.
Fire ripped the night apart. A thunderous explosion shook the ground and buffeted Stovepipe, forcing him take a step back against the wall behind him. He wasn’t a man given to profanity, but he bit back a curse as he realized the man must have had at least one more stick of dynamite with him. Fate had sent Stovepipe’s bullet to the blasting cap attached to the end of it and that had set off the explosive.
They wouldn’t be questioning the varmint after all, Stovepipe thought as the echoes of the blast rolled away across the plains around Wagontongue. The undertaker might not even be able to scoop up enough of him to bury.
And he had a stick of that unholy stuff in his own pocket, Stovepipe recalled. A little shudder went through him as he pulled it out and looked at it. He was tempted to dump the dynamite into the rain barrel under the end of the gutter that ran along the station’s eaves, but then he recalled getting wet just made the explosive even more unstable. He wasn’t sure what the best way was to get rid of it.
“Stovepipe!” Wilbur called. “Stovepipe, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Stovepipe replied. “Just wonderin’ what to do with a little chunk o’ hell I grabbed on to.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The shooting would have been enough to wake up most folks in Wagontongue, but the explosion had finished off the job. At least half of the town’s citizens flocked to the railroad station, many of the men carrying weapons of some sort.
“What’s goin’ on?” one bearded old-timer yelled as he brandished a single-shot rifle. “Have the damn Yankees started another war?”
“Damn Yankees, is it?” another elderly man responded. “It was you Johnny Rebs who started the whole thing by firin’ on Fort Sumter!”
“We were just defendin’ our sovereign territory from bein’ invaded by you blue bellies!”
“Shut up!” Sheriff Jerrico roared as he stalked through the crowd. “Everybody pipe down!”
People got out of the way of the angry lawman, especially since he was carrying a double-barreled shotgun. He came up to Stovepipe and Wilbur, who were standing next to a charred pit in the ground.
“You two again!” Jerrico said. “Stewart, how do you happen to be close by every time hell breaks loose?”
“Just lucky I guess, Sheriff.”
“Well, what happened this time?”
Stovepipe nodded toward the crater. “That used to be a fella who had the unfortunate habit of carryin’ around dynamite in his pocket.”
“Dynamite?”
“Yeah, like this.” Stovepipe slid the red paper-wrapped cylinder from his pocket and held it up. Several people were carrying lanterns, and in their light he saw that only about an inch and a half of fuse was left. A couple more seconds and he would have been a hole in the ground himself.
“What the hell! Stop waving that around and do something with it! Get rid of it!”
“I’d be happy to, Sheriff, but I ain’t quite sure of the best way to do that.”
A heavyset, middle-aged man in a nightshirt stepped forward from the crowd. “I can take it, Sheriff. I sell dynamite in my general store, so I’m used to handling the stuff.”
“Thanks, Mr. Bevens,” Jerrico said.
Stovepipe put the dynamite in the merchant’s outstretched hands, then asked, “Does that look like some you sold recently?”
“A stick of dynamite looks like any other stick of dynamite,” Bevens said, “but as a matter of fact, I haven’t sold any in several months, so I doubt if it came from my store. Dynamite’s not something you leave just sitting around. Most folks don’t buy it until they’re ready to use it.”
That made sense, Stovepipe thought.
As Bevens carried
off the explosive, the crowd parted to allow him a wide path.
Jerrico said, “All right. I want to know what happened here and how this fella came to get blown up. First, though”—he turned to the crowd and raised his voice—“everybody clear out! The excitement’s over! Go back to bed!”
Many of the bystanders were reluctant to leave, but they slowly did so, some of them muttering as they went. As the crowd cleared out, several figures were left standing there. Helton, the stationmaster, was one of them, along with the night telegraph operator. Keenan Malone was there, too, along with his daughter Rosaleen, who clutched a silk robe around her. Vance Brewster stood beside her.
“Before you go and try to run us off, Sheriff,” Malone said, “those are my men you’re questionin’. I got a right to be here.”
“I’d say so, too,” Stovepipe added, “considerin’ the trouble was directed at Three Rivers cows.”
“Spill it,” Jerrico said tautly.
Stovepipe efficiently explained how he and Wilbur had been on guard duty and how he had seen someone light the dynamite and try to throw it into the holding pens. “I figure once the first blast went off, he planned to pull out at least one more stick of dynamite and toss it in there, too. In all the commotion, nobody would’ve been able to stop him and probably wouldn’t have even seen him.”
“But you spotted him before he could put his plan into effect.”
Stovepipe shrugged. “I’ve got pretty good eyes. Been told I can see in the dark almost as good as a cat.”
“What did you do when you spotted him?”
“I let loose a shot at him. Don’t know if I hit him or not, but it made him drop the dynamite, and after that he took off as fast as he could run. I hurried over and put out the fuse. That was the stick I gave to the storekeeper.” He flexed his hand, which still stung a little from the burn.
“Good Lord!” Malone boomed. “It could have gone off while you were trying to do that.”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Stovepipe said. “I figured the risk was worth it to keep the pens from bein’ blowed up. Not to mention it might’ve tore up the railroad tracks, too.”
Jerrico said, “So how did he wind up being blown to smithereens?”
“I went after him while Stovepipe went after the dynamite.” Wilbur looked at his friend and added, “I didn’t know what you were doing, you crazy galoot. You might try explaining things now and then.”
“Wasn’t time for explanations,” Stovepipe said. “Anyway, that fella and Wilbur were tradin’ shots over by the depot, which I cut through, hopin’ I could get the drop on him from the other side.”
The telegraph operator said, “I can vouch for that. I saw this scarecrow run through the station lobby just a minute or two before the explosion.”
“I might take offense to that scarecrow remark. I ain’t quite that skinny.” Stovepipe chuckled. “Anyway, I called on the hombre to throw down his gun, and he commenced to shootin’ at me instead. He tried to make a run for it, and I aimed to wing him. It, uh, sorta didn’t work out that way.”
Jerrico snorted. “I reckon not. Is there any of him left?”
Stovepipe grimaced. “A few bits and pieces. Not enough to even come close to sayin’ who he was.”
“You think he was carrying more dynamite, and that’s what you hit?”
“Had to be. Fellas don’t just blow up when you shoot ’em, at least none that I’ve ever seen.”
Rosaleen shuddered. “This is terrible.”
Her father put his arm around her shoulders and said, “You shouldn’t even be here, honey. Go on back to the hotel. Brewster, you go with her.”
Looking almost as shaken as Rosaleen did, Vance nodded. “Sure, Mr. Malone.” He took Rosaleen’s arm and led her away from the station. For once, she didn’t argue or put on a display of stubborn pride.
Jerrico asked Stovepipe and Wilbur, “Did either of you happen to get a look at the man’s face while you were trying to catch him?”
“The light was too bad,” Wilbur said. “He was just a dark shape.”
“Same here,” Stovepipe said.
Jerrico grunted. “I guess we won’t ever know who he was, then, or why he tried to blow up those pens.”
“Of course we know,” Malone said. “He was one of Mort Cabot’s men! Cabot found out his little trick with the railroad didn’t work, so he sent that hombre in from the Rafter M to slaughter my cows!”
“What trick with the railroad?”
Malone explained how Cabot had reserved all the rolling stock to prevent the Three Rivers herd from being shipped out. He nodded toward the stationmaster. “Mr. Helton got the general manager to agree to sendin’ more cars here, though.”
Helton cleared his throat and said, “Actually, I, uh, I hadn’t gotten around to sending that wire to the home office yet, Mr. Malone. The telegram I got from the general manager surprised me as much as it did you.”
“What? How in blazes—”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Jerrico interrupted. “All I know is that I’m getting damned sick and tired of this feud between you and Cabot, Malone. It’s bad enough when your crews take potshots at each other out on the range and steal each other’s cattle—”
“By God, you can’t accuse me of rustlin’!” Malone said. “I never stole a cow in all my borned days, and neither did any of my men!”
“That’s a pretty far-fetched claim to make, considering you don’t know everything every one of your riders has ever done. But we’ll let it go for now. What I was saying is that the trouble’s bad enough out on the range, but when it spills over into town like this—again!—I start to lose my patience. I may just establish a deadline at the edge of town. No Three Rivers or Rafter M men allowed in Wagontongue!”
“You can’t do that! It ain’t legal!”
“Try me and see,” Jerrico said. “For now”—he turned, looked at the crater in the ground, and shook his head—“I guess I’ll send for the undertaker. He’ll sure as hell have his work cut out for him. He may have to just bury a bucket of bloody sand!”
* * *
Malone posted extra guards around the holding pens, but Stovepipe and Wilbur weren’t among them. “Go on back to the hotel and get some rest,” he told them. “I reckon you’ve done enough for the Three Rivers tonight, and you must be a mite shaken up after nearly gettin’ blowed to pieces.”
“It ain’t my favorite thing I’ve ever done,” Stovepipe said. “I’d just as soon not have to mess with dynamite again any time soon.”
As they walked up the street toward the hotel, Wilbur asked, “What do you think, Stovepipe? Was that a Rafter M man who got blasted into a million pieces?”
“Could’ve been,” Stovepipe said. “Might have been somebody else, too. I’ve got a hunch Mort Cabot ain’t the only enemy the Three Rivers has.”
“I’m feeling sort of the same way. You think it could have anything to do with that telegram you got?”
Stovepipe tugged at his earlobe. “Don’t see how it could have, but right now, we can’t rule out anything. We’ve got some more pokin’ around to do.”
Wilbur sighed. “That usually works out like poking a bear or a beehive.”
“Yeah, but if you do it right, things start to pop.”
“Not tonight, I hope. I could use some sleep.”
Wilbur got his wish. The rest of the night passed peacefully.
* * *
In the morning, Andy Callahan and most of the other members of the Three Rivers crew headed back to the ranch, not too happy because they hadn’t gotten a chance to pay a visit to the any of the saloons. Keenan Malone and Rosaleen remained in Wagontongue, as did Stovepipe, Wilbur, Vance, and four other cowboys. They would help the railroad men load the steers when those cattle cars rolled in later in the day.
Workmen had brought in dirt, filled the crater left by the explosion, and smoothed it out, but the memory of what had happened wasn’t as easily erased. Men, women, a
nd children gathered around to stare at the place in morbid fascination.
Standing with Stovepipe and Wilbur near the pens, Vance said, “I suppose you can’t blame people for being interested. A fella doesn’t blow up every day. But I sort of wish they’d go away and stop staring.”
“How’s Miss Rosaleen doin’ this mornin’?” Stovepipe asked.
“She’s better. It was a terrible thing for her to see. For anybody to see, I guess. She’ll be going back to the ranch this afternoon with her father, once these cows are loaded.”
Wilbur said, “Are you gonna ride on the wagon with her again?”
“I suppose I’ll have to. I didn’t bring a saddle horse with me.”
“Tough job, keeping a pretty girl company.”
“I’m up to it,” Vance said with a smile.
Wilbur looked like he wanted to say something else, but a stern gaze from Stovepipe shut him up.
A short time later, a locomotive’s shrill whistle sounded east of town as a train approached.
After the cattle cars rolled in, everybody was too busy to worry about anything else—like getting the steers out of the pens, up the loading chutes, and into the cattle cars. It was bawling, dusty chaos, as well as a lot of hard work. Stovepipe and Wilbur had performed such tasks many times, but Vance only watched. He wanted to help, but his bad arm kept him from getting in the middle of the effort.
After a while, Rosaleen drove up in the wagon and stopped it where she could sit and watch the cattle being loaded, as well. She beckoned to Vance, who climbed onto the seat beside her.
Wilbur saw that, took off his hat to sleeve sweat from his face, and said to Stovepipe, “Some fellas just have the knack for winding up next to a good-looking gal, don’t they?”
Stovepipe grinned. “We ain’t ever had to worry about that.”
“Speak for yourself! I’d trade places with that youngster . . . even though I guess I’m too old for Rosaleen . . . just like you are.”
About to make some rejoinder, Stovepipe looked past the train station and up the street. Half a dozen riders were coming toward the depot. He stiffened and nodded toward them. “Company comin’, Wilbur. And that gent in the lead looks like he’s mad enough to start chewin’ nails. Unless I miss my guess, he’s Mort Cabot . . . and he’s got some of his gun-wolves with him!”
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