Hell on Wheels (A Fargo Western #15)

by John Benteen

  But Fargo did not relax. He’d hurt Morrison and hurt him badly. Right now, Hawk would be trying to explain to his superiors this sudden rash of costly incidents. It would, Fargo guessed, take some explaining. Well, he’d give Hawk no rest. He’d make this game too expensive for Morrison to play. And when it finally dawned on C & W management what their attempt to get the Cayuse Mountain Line was costing, there was a chance the cards would be reshuffled and a whole new deal laid out.

  Bone weary, he rode in just before daybreak after dynamiting another cut far up in the Coeur d’Alenes. In the predawn murk, the great train shed was like a sleeping elephant down the slope. Fargo unsaddled the two mules, turned them into the corral between the house and rail yard. He was just slipping the corral bars into place when someone behind him said: “Fargo.” He turned, hand dropping to his gun, eased off when he recognized Will Whitmore.

  “Damn, Will. You shouldn’t come up behind a man that way.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you here. Couldn’t sleep ... and I wanted to talk to you. Neal …” He gestured. “You might as well forget it. It ain’t working. Nothing’s gonna work …”

  “The hell it won’t. Will, I told you, if you’ll just haul the ore—”

  “That’s the point.” Whitmore sighed. It was growing lighter now and Fargo could see his face. Whitmore seemed to have aged ten years overnight. “I can’t haul the ore no longer,” he went on, voice husky and thick with weariness. “I got nothin’ to haul it with. Both engines went out yesterday. Blown cylinders and a boiler leak on Number One and Number Two’s boiler’s shot to hell: it blew out completely on us. Neal, I got no engines left. There ain’t nothing I can do, no way I can fulfill my contract with the mine.”

  Fargo’s jaw tightened, but there was nothing he could find to say. Damn it, he thought, if those two hogs could just have held out a month longer ...

  Wearily, Whitmore rubbed his face. “Anyhow, I can’t rebuild ’em here. They got to go out to Cheyenne. No way to get ’em there, no way to bring in replacements. Neal, you done the best you could, but it’s all my fault. I shoulda hired somebody like you months ago, when I first figured out what was going on. I waited too long and—”

  “Maybe not,” Fargo said. “Maybe it’s time for me to head down to Junction Flats. Maybe it’s time for me to have it out with Morrison—”

  “No,” Will said. “It wouldn’t do no good. Besides, Morrison ain’t in Junction Flats. He’s on his way up here. I already sent him word. It’s over, finished. I wired him to come on up and we’d deal. He’ll be here—down there in my office—at ten o’clock this mornin’. Neal …” His voice shook. “I’m sorry. You’ve risked your life for this line. You’ll draw your money anyhow ...”

  “I told you,” Fargo said harshly. “I wouldn’t take it if I didn’t win.”

  “I’ll pay you anyhow. There’s no reason for you stickin’ around any longer. Let’s go in the house and settle up. Then it’ll probably be best if you clear out before Hawk gets here. I’ve had enough trouble and I don’t want any more. All I want to do is salvage what I can, for Ellen’s sake.”

  “Ellen. What does she think of this?”

  “She don’t like it. But in the long run, I’m president of the company and I have to decide, and I’ve decided.”

  Fargo stood motionless for a minute. “All right,” he said at last. “You’ve decided. Okay, that’s that. I’ll go pack my gear.”

  “Neal, I’ll pay … Soon as I get the money from the C & W.”

  “Skip it,” Fargo said bitterly. “Like I said, I only take the money if I win.” And he strode toward the house, leaving Whitmore standing there in the misty dawn.

  When he entered the kitchen, Ellen was there. “Neal, did Dad tell you?”

  “He told me,” Fargo said.

  “Isn’t there any way you can stop him?”

  Fargo said, “I’m not a railroader and I’m not the president of this line. I hired out to fight, not wet-nurse. If Will wants to roll over and play dead, that’s his business.”

  Ellen could not meet his gaze. “Well, he’s had too much. The strain of building this road, fighting, working, trying to make do with nothing ... I can’t blame him. Maybe in the long run, he’s right.”

  “Maybe,” Fargo said and went to his room. Ellen followed him, watched him while he packed. “Where will you go now?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fargo said. “Maybe Cheyenne. I owe somebody down there some money. I always pay my debts.” Carefully, he stowed the shotgun, locked the trunk. “I’ll send a hack up for this.”

  “Neal …” She came to him, tears in her eyes. She pressed against him, hard, and her mouth found his. He kissed her briefly, then pushed her away.

  She nodded, drew in breath. “All right. No regrets.”

  “No regrets,” Fargo said, and he went out.

  Chapter Eight

  It was three in the afternoon. Once again The Johnson Bar was crowded with C & W men, showing the effects of their ceaseless week-long vigil. They gave Fargo, sitting at a table in the corner, a wide berth. They knew now what kind of man he was. Besides, they no longer had a quarrel with him. The fight was over and they had won.

  Fargo drank, not lightly, and waited. Another half hour passed; he stirred restlessly. Sooner or later they would have to come. Everybody in Felspar knew he was here.

  Then the front door opened and they were there: Hawk Morrison, in a neat gray suit, and Rawhide Blaine, eyes circled with weariness, mouth thin and grim. Entering, they looked around the room, and then they saw Fargo and for a moment they halted. Blaine said something from the corner of his mouth, fiercely. Morrison shook his head. Blaine’s mouth twisted, and he turned and went to the bar. Hawk Morrison came slowly toward Fargo, hands slightly raised. “Hello, Fargo,” he said, halting at the table. “Incidentally, I’m not armed.”

  Fargo said, “I wouldn’t be fool enough to try to take you in a room full of your men.”

  “No, I didn’t think you would. Can I sit?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Morrison pulled out a chair, sat down, hands flat on the table. “Well, Fargo, it’s over. I just had a conference with the Whitmores. They’re selling out. Three days from now we’ll meet and close the deal in Junction Flats—them, me, and the president and treasurer of the C & W. So I win, you lose.”

  “Yeah,” said Fargo.

  “Will says he’s fired you.”

  “I quit.”

  “Whichever way ... I’ve seen what you can do. I don’t want you around Idaho any longer. And now you’ve got no reason for staying here. If you’re smart, you’ll pull out. Ellen said you might go to Cheyenne. You do, you’ll have free passage on the C & W—one way.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You’ve seen how I operate,” Morrison said. “I always get what I go after. You had me sucking wind for a little while, but I’m a railroader. I knew what kind of shape Will’s hogs had to be in. So I took it. I played a waiting game. But I don’t always play a waiting game. You’ve got three days to pick up your ticket and head out. If you don’t go that way, you’ll go feet first.”

  Fargo said, “I told you once, I won’t be rousted.”

  “I’m not rousting you. The game’s over, and you’d be a fool to hang around. Whatever you are, you’re not a fool.”

  “No,” said Fargo.

  “Anyhow,” Morrison said, “that’s the word.” He shoved back his chair, turned, and left The Johnson Bar. Fargo poured another drink.

  Rawhide Blaine waited only until the door had closed behind his boss. Then he shoved away from the bar, came to where Fargo sat. Towering over Fargo, he grinned. His hands swung by his holsters. “Well,” he said, “how does it feel to be a loser? The great Neal Fargo couldn’t cut it, huh? And, damn you, you’ve had my butt runnin’ all over these hills for a week.” The grin vanished, his eyes flared. “Hawk Morrison chewed my ass out to a fare-thee-well. And all because of you. Farg
o, we got unfinished business.”

  Neal Fargo, hands in plain view, leaned back in his chair, looked up at Blaine. “Me, I think so, too. But not here. You got too much hired help.”

  “You think I’m afraid to come at you alone, straight-up?”

  “You were the other night, when I fought Ridge.”

  “That was different. You screwed my plans. Mister Ugly, you just name your time and place.”

  Fargo reached in his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper. “I was hopin’ you’d say that, Rawhide. There. That time, that place. And unless you spread the word around, nobody will know where or when but me and you.” Blaine opened the paper, read, frowned. “There’ll be light enough to shoot by,” Fargo said. “I’ll be waiting and I’ll be alone.”

  Blaine stuck the paper in his pocket. “All right. Just the two of us. There. Then. Straight up.”

  “Straight up,” Fargo said and he finished his drink and went out. Returning to his hotel room, he went about the things he had to do …

  ~*~

  The pistol holster had been made by a blind master craftsman in Mexico who, working by touch, had mated gun to scabbard as husband fits wife. Fargo worked it with leather dressing, lightly lubricated its inside.

  Then deftly, thoroughly, he stripped the Colt, cleaned and oiled it, making sure no speck of dust or grit remained. Carefully he checked every hollow-pointed round he reloaded in it. Belting on the holster, thonging it around his thigh, he stood, hand loose, and drew.

  No watcher could have seen the draw. One instant the gun was in the holster, the next, in his hand, aimed and cocked, as if, by magic, it had grown there. Still, he was not satisfied. Unthonging the holster, he lowered it a fraction of an inch, retied it. This time it was right; two more practice draws proved that. Carefully he washed his hands, wiped all oil, grease and sweat away, cleaned the gun-butt once more. Yes. The best he could do.

  After that, there was nothing to do but wait.

  ~*~

  The train barn had been designed so that repair work could go on by night as well as day. Once all its kerosene lamps were lit, the visibility inside was perfect. Fargo, at ten minutes until twelve, had finished lighting all the lamps and stood there beside the center track, waiting. Number One, still dismantled, was like a stranded whale nearby. No work had been done on it since Whitmore had given up. And so there was no one in the train barn this night but Fargo.

  Five minutes passed. His cigar produced two inches of fine ash. He took it from his mouth, held it out and studied it. The ash clung: his hand was rock-steady. Then he tensed. Footsteps crunched on the cinders outside, and Rawhide Blaine was there, in the doorway.

  “Fargo,” he said. “You alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “So am I.” Blaine came into the barn. He was coatless, hands swinging by his holstered sixguns. He stopped just inside the light, thirty yards from Fargo. Fargo tossed the cigar away.

  “You were right,” Blaine said. “It’s a good place. They’ll find you here come morning.”

  “Maybe,” Fargo said. His hand hung by his side. “Okay, let’s get it over with.”

  “Yeah,” Blaine said and he came closer. Fifteen yards away, point blank range for men like them, he halted. Fargo waited, standing easy. Yet within, he was wholly and completely alive, as always at such a time. He watched Blaine’s eyes, unshaded by the derby’s narrow brim.

  Then they changed.

  Fargo drew.

  He put all his skill and instinct into that draw, and it was perhaps the fastest he had ever made. It had to be, because Blaine was fast, too, like chain lightning. Even so, Blaine’s hands had barely touched his gun-butts when Fargo yelled, “Freeze, Blaine, or die!”

  Rawhide Blaine stared unbelievingly at the Colt centered on his chest. Body crouched, hands still on guns, he seemed to turn to stone. Then his face was tallow-white in the lantern light, and his jaw dropped. His moment, he knew, had come to die. Neal Fargo’s incredible draw had caught him cold.

  “You got two choices, Blaine.” Fargo’s voice boomed in the cavernous building. “Finish that draw—or stay alive.”

  “You ain’t gonna kill me?” Even Blaine’s whisper was magnified by the space inside the barn. And, as he spoke, his hands slowly came away from his guns.

  “We’ll see,” said Fargo. “Now, over against the wall, back to me, hands high.”

  Blaine hesitated. “Move!” Fargo snapped.

  Then Blaine complied, almost staggering with reaction. “I don’t understand it,” he whispered as he pressed his hands against the wall. “Nobody’s that fast.”

  “You’ve forgot how fast a man can be. Not enough practice, Blaine.” Fargo’s voice was dry. “Too many people scared of you around here; you never get a chance to use your guns. Me, where I’ve been, people don’t scare that easy. Keeps a feller on his toes.” He fished Blaine’s guns from holsters, threw them away. Frisking the man, he found a snub-nosed .38 which followed the Colts. Then he was sure Blaine was clean. “Turn around. But keep hands high and tight against the wall.”

  Blaine did that, as Fargo backed away a pace. “Fargo,” Blaine whispered, “don’t shoot me.”

  “I don’t aim to shoot you,” Fargo said. “Just your hands.”

  Blaine’s eyes bulged.

  “I don’t want to face a murder rap. Besides, I need you alive. Now, there are some things you’re gonna tell me, or I’ll put a hollow point through the center of each hand.”

  In the lamplight, his smile was not a pleasant thing to see. “You know what a hollow point will do to your hands, Blaine? You’ll never use either hand again. And you know what life is like for a gunfighter with crippled hands? You won’t be the cock of the walk any longer. Any man who wants to can spit on you and get away with it. And, of course, sooner or later somebody with a grudge against you will settle it, and there won’t be a thing you can do about it but run and hide, or stand there and take it.”

  “Fargo, you wouldn’t—”

  “Yes, I would,” said Neal Fargo. “Unless you do exactly what I tell you.”

  Blaine licked his lips. His nerve would not have broken at the thought of sudden death—but the living death Fargo threatened cracked it. “I’ll do anything,” he said, and there was a whimper in his voice. “Anything. Only, for God’s sake, Fargo, don’t ruin my hands!”

  Chapter Nine

  The big chestnut gelding had traveled hard and far that night, and it was spattered with dried lather when Fargo pulled it up before The End of Track in Junction Flats at nine in the morning. Unstrapping the saddle bags from behind the cantle, he threw them over his left shoulder and with the slung shotgun riding on his right, entered the saloon.

  It stayed open twenty-four hours a day, but at this time of morning there was no one here but the swamper and Tom Whitlow, the big, scarred owner, leaning on the bar reading a newspaper. As Fargo entered, he looked up, eyes widening.

  “Well, I be damned. Heard you were leaving the country.”

  “You heard wrong,” Fargo said. “Got any coffee?”

  “Sure. Wait a minute.” Whitlow went into the back room and came back with two steaming mugs. Fargo drank greedily.

  “Word’s got around,” Tom said. “Hawk left you on a sidetrack with all the steam out of your boiler. He’s meetin’ with the Whitmores right now. Fargo, in a way, I kind of hate that.” He lowered his voice. “I was hopin’ you’d be the one to finish him. Like you did Bly and Brady. They’re both still in the hospital.”

  “Good,” said Fargo. “The bigwigs from the railroad come in yet?”

  “Oh, yeah, they pulled up in their private train this mornin’. They’re down there at Division Headquarters, too.” His face darkened. “Another hour, I reckon, and Will’ll be just another boomer lookin’ for a job and Hawk’ll be a first vice-president of the railroad.”

  Fargo drained his cup. “Maybe. Thanks for the coffee, Tom.” And he went out and mounted up.

  Bred and ra
ised in a railroad town, the big horse was used to locomotives, and paid no attention to the snorting and chuffing of the yard hogs outside of Division Headquarters. Fargo tied it to the hitch rack, swung down and took a moment to eye the private train parked on a sidetrack a few yards away: A locomotive, tender and a single passenger car, smoke curling from the engine stack, steam up, Fargo guessed, ready to go the moment the C & W executives gave the word. Its crew, including a white-coated steward, lounged beside it on the right-of-way. They stared at the tall, travel-stained man with all the hardware with unabashed curiosity.

  Fargo entered the squat, brick building. The sharp faced woman at the telephone switchboard looked up. “Morrison,” Fargo said. “Don’t bother to ring. I’m goin’ straight in.” Disregarding her startled squawk, he pushed through the swinging gate, strode across the bullpen full of clerks and into the corridor. When he reached the door of Morrison’s office, he entered without knocking.

  The five people around the desk looked up, surprised. Hawk Morrison, behind the desk, half stood up, yellow eyes narrowed. “Fargo,” he rasped.

  “Hello, Hawk,” said Fargo. “Will, Ellen.” He faced two sleek, gray-haired men in expensive gray suits. They could almost have been twin brothers, their faces indoor-pale, their eyes like cold chips of stone. They stared at Fargo speechless. “And I reckon you gentlemen would be the stud ducks with the C & W. I’m Neal Fargo.”

  Hawk Morrison was wholly on his feet. “Fargo. Out.”

  “Sorry,” Fargo said. “I got to sit in on this deal.”

  “You sit in on nothing. You have no connection with the Cayuse Mountain Line. None at all.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Fargo said easily. “I made a verbal contract with ’em. Heard one time that a witnessed verbal contract will even stand up in a court of law. I agreed to do my best to save their railroad, and they agreed to pay me twenty thousand if I did. They still owe me fifteen, so I’m still workin’ for ’em.”

  “Neal, for God’s sake,” Whitmore began desperately, but Ellen, lovely in a fawn dress and modish hat, cut him off. “Will. Wait.”