Bannerman the Enforcer 43

by Kirk Hamilton

  The Enforcer almost lost his guns but he managed to retain his grip on the Colt and rammed it into his holster as he rolled, clinging tightly to the Winchester. It was a modified version of the popular ’73 model in wide use throughout the West at that time. The lever had been enlarged to a circle through which he could pass his whole hand. Inside the inner arc of the trigger guard was a metal toggle that, when flipped out would trip the trigger. When in this position, he had only to keep working the oversized lever up and down and the gun would automatically keep shooting until the tubular magazine beneath the barrel was empty. Once again, it was a modification that had been made by Johnny Cato, although the idea had come from a representative of the Winchester Firearms Company named Huckabee.

  Now Yancey, still breathless, but his eyes raking the high wall of the draw and seeing a blurred movement up there against the sun, brought the rifle across his body, finger flicking out the toggle, lever working. He came up in a half-rolling motion to one knee and brought the rifle butt to his shoulder, the lever ring blurring up and down.

  Shot after shot hammered from his Winchester and he saw the line of spurting rock dust and stones clipped from the wall’s edge. The man up there lifted once in an attempt to get in a shot but threw his arms across his face to ward off kicking dust and reared back.

  Yancey was up, crouching and running, before the echoes of his volley had died away. He pounded across the draw, hit the loose scree at the foot of the killer’s wall, slipped, but righted himself and started clambering up the wall. It slanted back at a less acute angle after a few yards and he ran up there, dodging from rock to rock, rifle at the ready across his chest. The sun hammered down and dust rasped his nostrils. Breath burned his lungs and windpipe; tears squeezed from his eyes; blood oozed from his ear and face wounds.

  By the time he reached the top of the wall and threw himself breathlessly behind an egg-shaped boulder, he was shaking with exertion and doubted that he could hit the side of a freight car at ten paces his hands were trembling so much.

  He needn’t have worried.

  The assassin had taken to his heels. Yancey staggered upright, grabbing at the rock to steady himself a little, as he heard, through the blood pounding in his ears, the clatter of racing horse’s hoofs.

  He swore when, below, riding hell for leather across a saucer like depression, he saw a horseman. The bushwhacker still held his rifle in one hand and was flogging the animal with a quirt thonged to his other wrist. The horse was a piebald and long-stepping, eating up the distance.

  Yancey threw up his rifle and levered off his last two shots. They were wide and the man dropped out of sight over a ridge before he could reload.

  Waiting long enough to get his breath back and, dabbing at the bullet-clip in his ear with a kerchief, Yancey reloaded his rifle and then made his plodding way back down into the draw where his own mount waited, with hanging head, sides heaving.

  It sure seemed as if someone wanted him dead.

  And real bad, too, he told himself.

  He arrived in Dallas right on high noon a few days later and a check in the saloon as he downed an iced beer confirmed his calculations that this was the eighteenth.

  “Know if the Santa Fe train’s running to time?” Yancey asked.

  The barkeep shrugged. “Better check at the depot.”

  Yancey did and the railroad man looked at him steadily and then turned and gestured to the knots of folk standing around on the cinders of the siding, talking or lounging and smoking.

  “Them folks are all waitin’ for the Santa Fe to come on down the track, mister,” the man said. “They already been waitin’ over three hours. She was due at nine-oh-eight this mornin’.”

  Yancey felt a prickling on the back of the neck and it had nothing to do with the strange, curious look the railroad man flung him as he saw the bullet-clipped ear and the weal across the Enforcer’s left cheek.

  “Aw, shucks, three hours ain’t all that much to be worried about,” the man told Yancey. “If she arrives on the same day we’re happy. Same week and we’re satisfied.”

  “Not me. Where was the last check you had on the train?”

  The railroad man frowned at the big Enforcer, saw the grim determination on his face and the low-slung Colt, then, muttering, turned away into his shack. He rummaged through some forms on a message clip beside the telegraph key, squinting over his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Lessee now—took on water at Mineral Wells, wood at Fort Worth, and she’d need to fill the boilers again halfway up the Ironstone Ridge at Arrowhead Tanks …”

  “When was the last confirmed sighting?” Yancey snapped.

  “Fort Worth, I guess. She has to be somewhere between there and here. Ought to be over Ironstone by now but it’s a bitch of a pull and she’s draggin’ twenty miles of track for the spur line they’re runnin’ out to Liberation. Might’ve struck some trouble gettin’ over that grade.”

  “Before or after the water tanks?”

  “Aw—likely before. But, mister, ain’t no use you ridin’ all the way out there. She’ll be here come sundown, trouble or no. Take my word for it. I been workin’ this depot for nigh on nine years now and I know what’s goin’ on ...”

  “That’s my trouble. I don’t. But I got a hunch it’s not all well.” Yancey swung away, aware that some of the other waiting people were staring at him apprehensively. He swung into the saddle and put his mount across the cinders to the trail beyond the sign that indicated ‘Fort Worth’.

  He wondered if he were letting his hunches get the better of him? But Yancey had always followed his hunches and that blind faith in his instincts had kept him alive on more than one occasion. He had a strong feeling now that all was not well with his father and Mattie.

  And, strangely enough, there was a vague theory forming in his mind that the attempts on his own life had something to do with his father’s arrival, rather than anything in connection with his job as one of Dukes’ Enforcers.

  Four – Powder Smoke Welcome

  The twenty miles of railroad track loaded onto the Santa Fe to Dallas train weighed many tons and, as the old depot hand in Dallas had predicted, caused plenty of headaches for the engineer when they started up the grade of Ironstone Ridge. The weight was fine for stability on the flats and had allowed him to work up to some impressive speeds over a long distance, but even the slightest grade dragged the train back and had the fireman sweating and staggering as he threw on fuel logs to keep the steam pressure up.

  The Ironstones were notorious for slowing down most freight trains and this knowledge had been put to good use by many a gang of hopeful train-robbers. When there had been something worth going after, gangs of masked men had at times appeared riding alongside the slow-moving train as it labored up the Ironstone Ridge. They would swing aboard and almost leisurely go about their business of robbing the express car or the passengers.

  But, on this run down to Dallas, the train from Santa Fe carried nothing of real value in the express car and, in fact, didn’t even have an armed guard in this vehicle. The railroad man in the caboose dozed over a yellowed dime novel as the train lurched and steamed and panted and slipped its way up the grade.

  The engineer dropped pounds of sand on the rails so that the wheels might grip better but they still spun and the loco crept up the grade at a snail’s pace. He was glad when they reached Arrowhead Tank, for the water-level glass showed only a few cupfuls remaining and this turned to steam even as he braked the train with the loco beneath the canvas hose.

  The fireman coupled up and gallons of water plummeted into the thirsty boilers. The engineer looked out his window back down the long line of cars, and wagons and flatbeds, to check that all was well. His jaw dropped open and he blinked when he saw three masked men ride out of the brush and put their mounts alongside the stationary train. He stared incredulously, his shocked mind instinctively running over the freight list and knowing damn well that there was nothing on board that could be of real value
to bandits.

  Why, even the passengers were an ordinary lot ... He stopped right there.

  Just in front of the caboose was the private car. It had been hitched on way back in ’Frisco, so he had been told. Some banker and his daughter on their way out to Texas, travelling in comfort and style in their own private car.

  “Great God!” he whispered, as he saw the bandits clambering back over the stacked rails towards the glistening red and white and green paint with the gold scrollwork of the Bannerman private car. “They’re after the banker!”

  He reached for the whistle cord and yanked, hard, several times. Air screeched out of the brass whistle and almost blew the startled fireman down from his perch. The man cussed savagely but subsided when he saw what the engineer was pointing at.

  “Hell almighty, Zeke! What we gonna do?”

  “Get back in the cab!” the engineer snapped and the fireman expertly threw off the water hose couplings and jumped down into the cab. Before his feet touched the iron footplate, the engineer spun wheels and opened valves and slammed the throttle hard forward.

  The train jerked, couplings clashing.

  Almost at once, he tripped the lever and yanked the throttle all the way back into reverse.

  Sparks showered from under the wheels as they spun on the rails, ringing and screeching. The train jerked and almost snapped the couplings in two.

  There was a scream and the fireman looked out, white-faced, in time to see a masked man’s body hurtling off the roof of the private car.

  At the same time, he saw three more riders crashing through the brush and making for the train. Even as he grabbed the engineer’s arm and pointed, the man put the throttle into ‘forward’ again and the train began to move more smoothly. Guns started banging and bullets whined off the loco’s cabin. The fireman dropped to his hands and knees, wild-eyed.

  The engineer notched the throttle lever forward, locked it and ducked, just as a masked bandit with a Colt in each hand appeared atop the pile of logs in the firewood tender. His guns hammered and the engineer caught two slugs in the chest. His body hit the handrail above the steps, twisted around it like a corkscrew and then toppled out of the moving train, soundlessly.

  The fireman, horrified, looked up in time to see the smoking gun barrels turn in his direction. He opened his mouth to scream but the masked man shot him through the middle of the face and he fell back, hanging half in and half out of the loco cabin.

  The man holstered his guns, climbed down, kicked the fireman’s body overboard and then turned to the train’s controls. He slipped the throttle lever back a notch or so, adjusted the steam pressure valve and slowed the train. He didn’t stop it. He kept it going at an even pace away from the water tank, heading for the downgrade run that would eventually take it to Dallas.

  He pulled down his bandanna and rolled a cigarette, leaning back against the step rail, whistling softly to himself, knowing his friends were getting on with their part of the job ...

  Curtis Bannerman had been thrown into a heap in what he liked to call the ‘parlor’ section of his plush private car. It was padded inside with quilted leather and velvet and had overstuffed chairs on swivels, screwed-down tables and oversized bunk beds along the walls with their own curtains for privacy.

  The windows also had heavy drapes and C.B. dragged himself to one of these windows and pulled the drape back as the train began to roll forward. At the same time he heard what sounded like distant gunfire and Mattie came hurrying in from the front section of the car, her face white and taut.

  She was in her thirties, a little plump now, and beginning to lose some of the fine-lined beauty she had managed to retain until a year or so ago. Now the strain of being hostess for her demanding father was beginning to tell.

  “Pa! Masked and armed men are climbing aboard and heading for this car!”

  Bannerman stiffened, staring. “You must be imagining things!”

  “Don’t be silly! I saw them! They’re climbing over those wagons of rail tracks. There’s no doubt this car is their target! Oh, why wouldn’t you listen to me and let me hire a bodyguard after that fire at the mansion?”

  He was looking out the window now, straining to see. “By Godfrey, I believe you’re right, Mattie! Lock and bar the door!”

  “I already have, and I’ve dropped the shutters over the front windows.”

  “The bars on these ought to hold them for a spell,” Bannerman murmured, looking a little doubtfully at the thin iron rods screwed on the outside of the window frame.

  “It won’t keep them from smashing the glass and poking a gun through!” Mattie said tensely, opening a cupboard and taking out a double-action Smith and Wesson revolver in .36 caliber. She took a heavier version, in .44 caliber, and handed it to her father, together with a carton of cartridges. She looked him steadily in the eyes. “This car’s their target, as I said. Whatever they want, we’re going to be in the way. My theory is they’re coming to kill us.”

  “They’ll damn well have to if they want my money!” he snapped, taking the Smith and Wesson, swiftly checking the cylinder by breaking the gun open: it was the latest top-break model with the spring-loaded ejector that made reloading simple and fast. He went to the window, leaned out as far as the bars would allow and fired two shots at a shadow moving along the edge of the roof. A gun roared in reply and glass showered down on old Bannerman as he jerked back inside.

  At the same time, there came a hammering on the door, a violent sound, that told Mattie the man out there was using his gun butt.

  “Open up or we just uncouple you and take our time and blow the door in with dynamite!” bawled a loud, harsh voice.

  Mattie raised the small caliber revolver in both hands and squeezed off three swift shots. Glass shattered in the small barred panel and splinters flew from the thick wood.

  There was a curse. A large Colt in a gloved hand appeared in the shattered window opening and two thunderous shots deafened her as she dropped flat to the floor.

  Her father looked up as there came the sounds of running footsteps on the roof. He brought up his pistol and the barrel travelled with the sound for a short distance before he pulled the trigger twice. Being double-action, there was no need to cock the hammer between shots and the two bullets thudded through the roof almost simultaneously. There came a yell and a moment later a body dropped past one of the side windows.

  Curtis Bannerman bared his teeth in a tight grin, fired his last two shots up through the roof and then broke open the smoking gun. He pushed in the spring-loaded rod and the ejector pushed out all six used shell cases at once. He swiftly thumbed in fresh loads and snapped the revolver closed again, looking for more invaders.

  Mattie had crawled to the door with the broken window and she stood carefully and looked out, swiftly jerking her head back and turning her pale face towards her father.

  “They’re trying to uncouple the car! And there seem to be more men arriving. Another man just swung onto one of those rail-track cars from his horse and ...”

  She ducked, wincing, as there came a rattle of gunfire, but no bullets thudded into the car’s walls or raked its length. A man screamed in mortal agony and, startled, she looked out in time to see a masked man slip between the private car’s platform and the coupling, disappearing beneath the wheels. Heart thudding, she raised her eyes and saw a man clinging to the pile of rails on the very outside of the flatbed wagon, holding with one hand, a blazing Colt in the other.

  Even as the shock of recognition jolted her, a body crashed down off the roof of the private car, hit the platform rail and bounced off into the brush slipping past the moving train.

  “Yancey!” she breathed, unable to keep the elation out of her voice as she turned her laughing face towards the startled C.B. “It’s Yancey, Pa!”

  He joined her at the window and saw his son haul himself on top of the pile of cold, slippery rails. A bullet spanged off the steel only inches from his face, leaving a silver score in t
he metal. Yancey’s Colt came around, the barrel angled upwards. Flame spurted and there was a thud on the roof of the car, then a cry, and a pair of wildly kicking legs dangled suddenly beside one of the side windows.

  Curtis Bannerman drew bead on those legs and fired twice. His bullets kicked one of the legs high and a moment later the man screamed shrilly and his body dropped past the window.

  Yancey got unsteadily to his feet on top of the rails, spotted a masked man swinging along the side of the car and fired at him. The man fired back and then dropped off into the brush, hiding there. The Enforcer turned his back on the private car, made his way precariously along the stack of rails, almost slipping and wrenching a gasp from Mattie who was watching, wide-eyed.

  He dragged himself up and a man appeared on top of one of the passenger cars above Yancey. The Enforcer spotted him, rolled onto his back, clinging with one hand as he fired across his body. The man jerked to his toes, his own gun blasting off to one side. He staggered and toppled forward to crash across the stacked ties and hung there, unmoving.

  Yancey stepped over him, jumped onto the swaying car platform and clambered up the ladder on the side. He pulled himself onto the roof and ran along the plank walk, crouching, the wind whipping at him, gun in hand. He couldn’t see any more of the bandits, but when he approached the locomotive cabin, he heard something buzz past his ear and knew it was a bullet.

  The man in the loco cabin had clambered onto the logs in the tender and was beading Yancey again. The Enforcer hurled himself forward bodily even as the man fired, twisted as he landed and brought both boots around and across the man’s head. The bandit fell back onto the cabin footplate, unconscious and Yancey clambered down, grabbed the throttle and pulled it free of the locking notch, at the same time winding the heavy brake wheel.