Forty Lashes Less One

by Elmore Leonard

  This is how you stop a train, Virgil told him. These are prisoners that escaped off the train that come through the day before yesterday.

  Nobody escaped, the S. P. man said.

  Virgil nodded up and down. Yes, they did, mister, and I'm the deputy sheriff of Maricopa County who's going to put them back on the train for Florence.

  If you're a deputy of this county, the S. P. man said, then you're a new one.

  All right, Virgil said, I'm a new one.

  If you're one at all.

  Virgil pulled a .44 revolver from inside his coat and pointed it in the S. P. man's face. He said, All you got to do is telegraph the Yuma depot at exactly six A. M. with a message for the prison superintendent, Mr. Everett Manly. You're going to say three escaped convicts are being held here at Sentinel and you request the train to stop and take them aboard. You also request an immediate answer and, mister, Virgil said, I don't want you to send it one word different than I tell it to you. You understand?

  The S. P. man nodded. I understand, but it ain't going to work. If three were missing at the head-count when they got to Florence, they would have already told Yuma about it.

  That's a fact, Virgil said. That's why we had somebody wire the prison from Phoenix Wednesday night and report three missing. Virgil looked around then and said, Howard?

  The one named Howard Crowder had a silver dollar in his hand. He began tapping the coin rapidly on the wooden bench next to him in sharp longs and shorts that were loud in the closed room. Virgil watched the expression on the S. P. man's face, the mouth come open a little.

  You understand that too? Virgil asked him.

  The S. P. man nodded.

  What did he say?

  He said, 'Send correct message or you are a dead man.'

  I'm happy you understand it, Virgil said.

  The S. P. man watched the one named Dancey pry open a wooden case that was marked High Explosives Dangerous and take out a paraffin-coated packet of dynamite sticks. He watched Dancey get out a coil of copper wire and detonator caps and work the wire gently into the open end of the cap and then crimp the end closed with his teeth. The Mexican-looking one was taking a box plunger out of a canvas bag. The S. P. man said to himself, My God, somebody is going to get killed and I am going to see it.

  At six A. M. he sent the message to the depot at Yuma, where they would then be loading the convicts onto the train.

  The Southern Pacific equipment that left Yuma that Friday morning was made up of a 4-4-0 locomotive, a baggage car, two day coaches for regular passengers (though only eleven people were aboard), another baggage car, and an old wooden coach from the Cannanea-Rio Yaqui-El Pacifico line. The last twenty-seven convicts to leave the prison were locked inside this coach along with Bob Fisher and three armed guards. Behind, bringing up the rear, was a caboose that carried Mr. Manly and three more guards.

  Bob Fisher had personally made up the list of prisoners for this last run to Florence: only twenty-seven, including Frank Shelby and his bunch. Most of the others were short-term prisoners and trusties who wouldn't be expected to make trouble. A small, semi-harmless group which, Bob Fisher believed, would make it easy for him to keep an eye on Shelby. Also aboard were the TB convicts, the two women and Harold Jackson and Raymond San Carlos.

  Harold and Raymond were near the rear of the coach. The only ones behind them were Bob Fisher and the guards. Ahead of them were the TB convicts, then two rows of empty seats, then the rest of the prisoners scattered along both sides of the aisle in the back-to-back straw seats. The two women were in the front of the coach. The doors at both ends were padlocked. The windows were glass, but they were not made to open.

  Before the train was five minutes out of Yuma every convict in the coach knew they were going to stop in Sentinel to pick up three men who had escaped on Wednesday and had been recaptured the next day. There was a lot of talk about who the three were.

  Bob Fisher didn't say a word. He sat patiently waiting for the train to reach Sentinel, thinking about the message they had received Wednesday evening: Three convicts missing on arrival Phoenix. Local and county authorities alerted. Signed, Sheriff, Maricopa County. What bothered Fisher, there had been no information sent from Florence, nothing from Mr. Rynning, no further word from anybody until the wire was received at the depot this morning. Mr. Manly had wired back they would stop for the prisoners and Bob Fisher had not said a word to anybody since. Something wasn't right and he had to think it through.

  About 7:30 A. M., halfway to Sentinel, Fisher said to the guard sitting next to him, Put your gun on Frank Shelby and don't move it till we get to Florence.

  Harold Jackson, next to the window, looked out at the flat desert country that stretched to distant dark mounds, mountains that would take a day to reach on foot, maybe half a day if a man was to run. But a mountain was nothing to run to. There was nothing out there but sky and rocks and desert growth that looked as if it would never die, but offered a man no hope of life. It was the same land he had looked at a few months before, going in the other direction, sitting in the same upright straw seat handcuffed to a sheriff's man. The Indian sitting next to him now nudged his arm and Harold looked up.

  The Davis woman was coming down the aisle from the front of the coach. She passed them and a moment later Harold heard the door to the toilet open and close. Looking out the window again, Harold said, What's out there, that way?

  Mexico, Raymond answered. Across the desert and the mountain, and if you can find water, Mexico. You know where the water is?

  First twenty-five, thirty miles there isn't any. What about after that?

  I know some places.

  You could find them?

  I'm not going through the window if that's what you're thinking about.

  The train's going to stop in Sentinel.

  They open the door to put people on, Raymond said. They ain't letting anybody off.

  We don't know what they going to do, Harold said, till we get there. He heard the woman come out of the toilet compartment and waited for her to walk past.

  She didn't appear. Harold turned to look out the window across the aisle. Over his shoulder he could see the Davis woman standing by Bob Fisher's seat. She was saying something but keeping her voice down and he couldn't make out the words. He heard Fisher though.

  Fisher said, Is that right? The woman said something else and Fisher said, If you don't know where what's the good of telling me? How are you helping? Anybody could say what you're saying and if it turns out right try to get credit. But you haven't told me nothing yet.

  All right, Norma Davis said. It's going to be at Sentinel.

  You could be guessing, for all I know.

  Take my word, the woman said.

  Bob Fisher didn't say anything for a while. The train swayed and clicked along the tracks and there was no sound behind Harold Jackson. He glanced over his shoulder. Fisher was getting up, handing his revolver to the guard sitting across the aisle. Then he was past Harold, walking up the aisle and holding the woman by the arm to move her along ahead of him.

  Frank Shelby looked up as they stopped at his seat. He was sitting with Junior; Soonzy and Joe Dean were facing them.

  This lady says you're going to try to escape, Fisher said to Shelby. What do you think about that?

  Shelby's shoulders and head swayed slightly with the motion of the train. He looked up at Fisher and Norma, looking from one to the other before he said, If I haven't told her any such thing, how would she know?

  She says you're getting off at Sentinel.

  Well, if she tells me how I'm going to do it and it sounds good, I might try it. Shelby grinned a little. Do you believe her?

  I believe she might be telling a story, Fisher said, but I also believe it might be true. That's why I've got a gun pointed at your head till we get to Florence. Do you understand me?

  I sure do. Shelby nodded, looking straight up at Bob Fisher. He said then, Do you mind if I have a talk with Norm
a? I'd like to know why she's making up stories.

  She's all yours, Fisher said.

  Harold nudged Raymond. They watched Fisher coming back down the aisle. Beyond him they saw Junior get up to give the Davis woman his seat. Tacha was turned around watching. She moved over close to the window as Junior approached her and sat down.

  Behind Harold and Raymond one of the guards said, You letting the woman sit with the men?

  They're all the same as far as I can see, Fisher answered. All convicts.

  Virgil Shelby, holding a shotgun across his arm, was out on the platform when the train came into sight. He heard it and saw its smoke first, then spotted the locomotive way down the tracks. This was the worst part, right now, seeing the train getting bigger and bigger and seeing the steam blowing out with the screeching sound of the brakes. The locomotive was rolling slowly as it came past the coaling shed and the water tower, easing into the station, rolling past the platform now hissing steam, the engine and the baggage cars and the two coaches with the half-dozen faces in the windows looking out at him. He could feel those people staring at him, wondering who he was. Virgil didn't look back at them. He kept his eyes on the last coach and caboose and saw them jerk to a stop before reaching the platform out on open ground just this side of the water tower.

  Come on out, Virgil said to the station house.

  Howard Crowder and Dancey and Billy Santos came out into the sunlight through the open door. Their hands were behind their backs, as though they might have been tied. Virgil moved them out of the doorway, down to the end of the platform and stood them against the wall of the building: three convicts waiting to be put aboard a prison train, tired-looking, beaten, their hat brims pulled down against the bright morning glare.

  Virgil watched Bob Fisher, followed by another guard with a rifle come down the step-rungs at the far end of the prison coach. Two more guards with rifles were coming along the side of the caboose and somebody else was in the caboose window: a man wearing glasses who was sticking his head out and saying something to the two guards who had come out of the prison coach.

  Bob Fisher didn't look around at Mr. Manly in the caboose window. He kept his gaze on the three convicts and the man with the shotgun. He called out, What're the names of those men you got?

  I'm just delivering these people, Virgil called back. I wasn't introduced to them.

  Bob Fisher and the guard with him and the two guards from the caboose came on past the prison coach but stopped before they reached the platform.

  You the only one guarding them? Fisher asked.

  Yes, sir, I'm the one found them, I'm the one brought them in.

  I've seen you some place, Fisher said.

  Sure, delivering a prisoner. About a year ago. Where's the station man at?

  He's inside.

  Call him out.

  I reckon he heard you. Virgil looked over his shoulder as the S. P. man appeared in the doorway. There he is. Hey, listen, you want these three boys or don't you? I been watching them all night, I'm tired.

  I want to know who they are, Fisher said. If you're not going to tell me, I want them to call out their names.

  There was silence. Virgil knew the time had come and he had to put the shotgun on Fisher and fill up the silence and get this thing done right now, or else drop the gun and forget the whole thing. No more than eight seconds passed in the silence, though it seemed like eight minutes to Virgil. Bob Fisher's hand went inside his coat and Virgil didn't have to think about it any more. He heard glass shatter as somebody kicked through a window in the prison coach. Bob Fisher drew a revolver, half turning toward the prison coach at the same time, but not turning quickly enough as Virgil put the shotgun on him and gave him a load point-blank in the side of the chest. And as the guards saw Fisher go down and were raising their rifles the three men in convict clothes brought their revolvers from behind their backs and fired as fast as they could swing their guns from one gray suit to another. All three guards were dropped where they stood, though one of them, on his knees, shot Billy Santos through the head before Virgil could get his shotgun on the man and finish him with the second load.

  A rifle came out the caboose window and a barrel smashed the glass of a window in the prison coach, but it was too late. Virgil was pressed close to the side of the baggage car, out of the line of fire, and the two men in prison clothes had the S. P. man and were using him for a shield as they backed into the station house.

  Virgil could look directly across the platform to the open doorway. He took time to reload the shotgun. He looked up and down the length of the train, then over at the doorway again.

  Hey, Dancey, Virgil called over, send that train man out with the dynamite.

  He had to wait a little bit before the S. P. man appeared in the doorway, straining to hold the fifty-pound case in his arms, having trouble with the dead weight, or else terrified of what he was holding.

  Walk down to the end of the platform with it, Virgil told him, so they can see what you got. When you come back, walk up by that first passenger coach. Where everybody's looking out the window.

  Jesus, the man could hardly take a step he was so scared of dropping the case. When he was down at the end of the platform, the copper wire trailing behind him and leading into the station. Virgil stepped away from the baggage car and called out, Hey, you guards! You hear me? Throw out your guns and come out with your hands in the air, or we're going to put dynamite under a passenger coach and blow everybody clear to hell. You hear me?

  They heard him.

  Mr. Manly and the three guards who were left came out to stand by the caboose. The prisoners began to yell and break the windows on both sides of the coach, but they quieted down when Frank Shelby and his three boys walked off the train and wouldn't let anybody else follow.

  They are going to shoot us, Mr. Manly said to himself. He saw Frank Shelby looking toward them. Then Frank was looking at the dead guards and at Bob Fisher in particular. I wish you hadn't of killed him, he heard Shelby say.

  I had to, the man with the shotgun said.

  And then Shelby said, I wanted to do it.

  Junior said that if he hadn't kicked out the window they might still be in there. That was all they said for a while that Mr. Manly heard. Shelby and his three convict friends went into the station house. They came out a few minutes later wearing work clothes and might have been ranch hands for all anybody would know to look at them.

  Mr. Manly didn't see who it was that placed the case of dynamite at the front end of the train, under the cowcatcher, but saw one of them playing out the wire back along the platform and around the off side of the station house. Standing on the platform, Frank Shelby and the one with the shotgun seemed to be in a serious conversation. Then Frank said something to Junior, who boarded the train again and brought out Norma Davis. Mr. Manly could see she was frightened, as if afraid they were going to shoot her or do something to her. Junior and Joe Dean took her into the station house. Frank Shelby came over then. Mr. Manly expected him to draw a gun.

  Four of us are leaving, Shelby said. You can have the rest.

  What about the woman?

  I mean five of us. Norma's going along.

  You're not going to harm her, are you? Shelby kept staring at him, and Mr. Manly couldn't think straight. All he could say was, I hope you know that what you're doing is wrong, an offense against Almighty God as well as your fellowman.

  Jesus Christ, Shelby said, and walked away.

  Lord, help me, Mr. Manly said, and called out, Frank, listen to me.

  But Shelby didn't look back. The platform was deserted now except for the Mexican-looking man who lay dead with his arm hanging over the edge. They were mounting horses on the other side of the station. Mr. Manly could hear the horses. Then, from where he stood, he could see several of the horses past the corner of the building. He saw Junior stand in his stirrups to reach the telegraph wire at the edge of the roof and cut it with a knife. Another man was on the
ground, stooped over a wooden box. Shelby nodded to him and kicked his horse, heading out into the open desert, away from the station. As the rest of them followed, raising a thin dust cloud, the man on the ground pushed down on the box.

  The dynamite charge raised the front end of the locomotive off the track, derailed the first baggage car and sent the coaches slamming back against each other, twisting the couplings and tearing loose the end car, rolling it a hundred feet down the track. Mr. Manly dropped flat with the awful, ear-splitting sound of the explosion. He wasn't sure if he threw himself down or was knocked down by the concussion. When he opened his eyes there was dirt in his mouth, his head throbbed as if he had been hit with a hammer, and for a minute or so he could see nothing but smoke or dust or steam from the engine, a cloud that enveloped the station and lay heavily over the platform.

  He heard men's voices. He was aware of one of the guards lying close to him and looked to see if the man was hurt. The guard was pushing himself up, shaking his head. Mr. Manly got quickly to his feet and looked around. The caboose was no longer behind him; it was down the track and the prison coach was only a few feet away where the convicts were coming out, coughing and waving at the smoke with their hands. Mr. Manly called out, Is anybody hurt?

  No one answered him directly. The convicts were standing around; they seemed dazed. No one was attempting to run away. He saw one of the guards with a rifle now on the platform, holding the gun on the prisoners, who were paying no attention to him. At the other end of the platform there were a few people from the passenger coach. They stood looking at the locomotive that was shooting white steam and stood leaning awkwardly toward the platform, as if it might fall over any minute.

  He wanted to be doing something. He had to be doing something. Five prisoners gone, four guards dead, a train blown up, telegraph line cut, no idea when help would come or where to go from here. He could hear Mr. Rynning saying, You let them do all that? Man, this is your responsibility and you'll answer for it.

  Captain, you want us to follow them?