All Honest Men

by Claude Stanush

  TOOOOOOOT! TOOOOOOOOOT!

  The couplings started rattling. The cars begun to shake. The train started hissing steam and puffing out clouds of smoke.

  Before long, we was moving outa the station. The train rattled along pretty slow for a while, ’til it got outa the downtown part of Chicago. Then, when the tracks lined up straight as rulers, it started speeding up. I was used to riding trains on the blinds. Still, it was rough going.

  The cars went bumpety-bump, clackety-clack over the joints of the track, and when them cars went bumpety-bump, so did me and Jess.

  We held on best we could.

  Before long, we’d hit the country, and it was pitch-black. Dark as the devil. There wasn’t no lights on the coal tender in the front of us. There wasn’t no lights on the car in the back of us. We couldn’t see a thing. But in my mind, I was seeing things. I was going over and over what we was gonna do, and how we was gonna do it.

  I didn’t see how nothing could go wrong.

  Joe, and Dock, and Glasscock was gonna be waiting for the train at the Buckley Road Crossing, out of sight. It’d be dark as pitch there.

  They was gonna have driven there in two Cadillacs. We knowed we was gonna need big cars to load all them the mail bags in, and so one day we went up and down a bunch of streets in a rich section of Chicago ’til we found the Cadillacs. We hooked chains to ’em and towed ’em off to where we had rented some garages.

  The boys was gonna park the cars about a hundred yards from the tracks.

  When me and Jess got the train stopped, Joe and Glasscock’d be on the left side, ready to help me get in the main mail car. Dock’d be on the far side, making sure nobody come out a door. Later, when we was taking bags off the trains, Dock was supposed to go get the Cadillacs and bring ’em up to where the train was stopped.

  My brothers was gonna be armed with pistols, like all of us was. But they was also gonna be carrying what we was gonna need to deal with them seventeen armed clerks—gas masks and quart bottles of a poison gas called formaldehyde. All that stink’d get them clerks outa that mail car easy as snap. And just in case it didn’t, my brothers was gonna have a little bottle of nitro to blow off the damn door.

  About forty minutes after me and Jess last seen the lights of Chicago, the train’s whistle blowed—loud and clear and pretty. It was the signal we was coming up on Rondout, that little town a coupla miles before the Buckley Road Crossing.

  Me and Jess give each other looks.

  Both of us hooked our hands onto the bars of the coal car. We was a-rattling and a-shaking as hard as that train, but we took it a inch at a time, and we cooned our way up—one inch, one inch, one inch—onto the top of the tender.

  It was ever’thing we could do to keep our balance. Damn, that train was fast! Once we got on top, we crouched down on our hands and knees, on all that bumpy black coal, and crawled like tomcats. Our hind-ends was sticking up in the air, and they was a-shaking and a-swaying.

  We couldn’t see much of nothing around us, in front of us, behind us, but black.

  Down below, the wheels was going clackety-clack, clackety-clack.

  When we come closer to the engine I give Jess a signal to duck down, and I peeped over the rim into the cab. And there they was, calm as they could be, not a care in the world! The engineer was setting in his chair, his long legs stuck out in front, watching the track. One hand on the throttle. One hand eating a apple. The fireman was shoveling coal into the firebox, slow and easy, stopping ever’ so often to look at it. I could see them coals a-glowing in that fire-box, red, red, red.

  I looked at Jess. He looked back at me.

  I give him a nod.

  When you’re blowing a bank, the thing that sets it off is when you put the match to the string. This time, what set ever’thing off was that nod. It was a one-inch nod, I’d say. My chin went down one inch, it come up one inch, and that was it. That was it. Just a little nod. But that little nod’s what set off the biggest train robbery in the whole history of the United States of America!

  Me and Jess hopped down into the engine.

  “Okay, men! It’s a stickup!”

  We hollered it at the same tme.

  Both their heads come spinning around, the engineer’s and the fireman’s. And their eyes throwed right into the muzzle of our .45s. The fireman let out a yelp and dropped his shovel and throwed up his hands. And the engineer throwed up his hands too and started a-hollering: “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  “Get back on that throttle!” I told the engineer.

  He was so boogered he couldn’t move. He was froze stiff, hands in the air.

  “You hear me?” I hollered. “Get your hands on the trottle! I want you to stop this thing on the two-mile crossing.”

  “Don’t hurt me! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” His hands was still in the air.

  Crazy engineer! I pushed my gun in my pocket and grabbed his hands and I pulled ’em down and set ’em on the throttle.

  “Get it stopped, mister! I want the first express car right on the crossing.”

  His hands was on the throttle now, but they was still froze. Not moving. And I could see through the window the headlights of the train cutting into the dark. And now they was hitting the crossbars of the Buckley Road Crossing.

  “Jerk it!” I yelled.

  Finally, he come unfroze. He shoved the throttle in and throwed the air brake under it. There come a great blast of steam and a grinding of wheels and a banging of couplings. The train lunged and jerked and jolted. But shit! When it finally come to a dead stop, we’d went way too far. We was at least three car lengths past the Crossing.

  “Goddammit! Back her up!”

  “A train ain’t easy to stop, mister.” He pulled on the throttle to back up. There was a crashing of couplings down the cars and the train lunged backwards. It jerked and it lurched, and it stopped and started, about five times over before it made it to the right spot.

  I turned to Jess. He still had his gun on the fireman. Both of ’em looked scared, the fireman and Jess. The fireman was shaking and telling Jess, “Mister, don’t point that gun right at me. I’m scared to death!” And Jess was saying back, “Byyyyyy God, you ain’t scared no worse’n I am!”

  It was hard to believe it, after all the jobs I’d pulled with Jess, that he’d be boogered like he was. But he was. I kept my gun on the engineer but I throwed my other arm around Jess’ shoulder.

  “Tell ’em a couple of windies. Gimme ten minutes. Then bring ’em down.”

  “Got ’em covered.” His voice was trembly.

  With that, I turned around and climbed down the metal ladder that went eight feet down to the ground. I hopped the last three feet and headed down the line. It was so dark I couldn’t see yet whether the other boys was there or not.

  It wasn’t ’til the next day, when I read it in the papers, that I learned what was happening in the armored mail car when the train jolted to a stop. All the clerks was puzzled. Why was the train stopping in the middle of nowhere? Only a hour outa Chicago?

  “Something’s wrong,” the chief clerk said. “Maybe we hit a cow.” About the last thing on his mind was a holdup. Who’d be crazy enough to try to hold up No. 57?

  “You want us to get out the guns?” one of the other clerks asked him.

  The chief clerk laughed. “Not unless you wanta shoot a dead cow.” Then, when the train started backing up, he quit his laughing. “Holy Jesus. We really musta hit something.”

  I was heading quick down the line to find the boys. I hoped like hell they was there and doing their job. It was too dark for me to see much, so I still hadn’t seen none of ’em, or the Cadillacs either.

  I kept on and before long I seen a dark shadow crouching up close to the second mail car. I knowed it had to be one of us. I was walking as light on my feet as I could, but the shadow heard my boots on that rocky roadbed.

  It spun around, gun out. It was Joe. When he seen that the noise was me, he motioned me on.<
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  In a few seconds, Glasscock showed up from behind. He’d come from the other side, between two cars.

  My mind was so much on one thing I didn’t give him a second look. If I had, I mighta seen he was looking strange. I shoulda heard it in his voice. I shoulda knowed that something was wrong. Only I didn’t. My mind was so much on one thing.

  “Where’s Dock?”

  “Other side, I guess. He knows what to do.”

  “So far so good.” I whispered loud enough so both Joe and Glasscock could hear me. “Now we gotta get the bags. Glasscock, cover me. Joe, punch them windows in.”

  Joe went up to the armored car and hit the windows with the barrel of his shotgun. Smashed ’em right in. Glass went flying ever’where. I crawled up right below the broke window and shouted to ’em inside: “This is a holdup! I got twenty-five men with guns out here, all around this train! You ain’t got a chance! Come on out! Hands up!”

  Nobody answered.

  I hollered again. “Come on out with your hands up! You don’t do what I say, we’re gonna blow you all to hell!”

  Nothing.

  I tried the door to the car and it was locked tight. Locked from the inside.

  “Gimme the formaldehyde,” I whispered to the boys. “Get your masks on.”

  We all quick put on our gas masks. They was from the World War. We’d bought ’em at a army surplus store. They made us look like some kinda animal with big round snouts. Joe handed me the bottles of formaldehyde and I throwed the first one, hard as I could, through the broke window. Then another, and another.

  The car door flied open. Out come the clerks. Gasping. Choking. Struggling for breath. All pushing and shoving.

  Their hands was up high in the air. All seventeen of ’em.

  I trained my pistol on ’em. So did Joe and Glasscock.

  “Which one of you’s the chief clerk?” I asked.

  A tall, skinny guy raised his hand, kinda slow-like.

  I motioned to Joe, “Give him your mask.” Joe pulled it off and give it to the clerk. I hopped up on the car. “Put it on,” I said to the skinny old boy, “and get up here.”

  I kept a bead on him while he put on Joe’s mask, and climbed on up. I was still wearing my mask. Inside, even with them masks, we could smell that gas stink. God, what a awful stink! But I didn’t care because there they was!

  Dozens and dozens of pretty, pretty mail skins!

  “Alright,” I said to the clerk. “All I want is the registered. But I want ever’ damn sack of it. I know what’s on here. You miss one … even one … I don’t want to even think about it.”

  The fella begun digging through ’em, and tossing ’em in a pile. One by one, I checked the labels, and one by one, I throwed ’em out the door. One by one, THUD. A pretty, pretty THUD!

  Soon there was a big pile of ’em. More’n sixty sacks. Ever’thing we wanted. “Good job.” I stuck my pistol into the chief clerk’s back. “Let’s go.” He hopped outa the car, I followed him, and we went up to where them other clerks was standing. Their hands was still up, and you never seen such looks. They had them round eyes and tight lips and some of ’em seemed like they wasn’t even breathing. Yeah, most of ’em was scared to death. Like all they wanted was for us to take them sacks and blow away. Like they’d be completely happy if only they was left with their lives.

  “All right,” I barked at ’em, “each one of you pick up two or three of them sacks.”

  Each one did.

  “Now, march that-a-way.” I waved with my pistol toward the road.

  They marched in single file, each one carrying sacks. Joe was on one side carrying a sack. Glasscock was on the other side. I brung up the rear. It was a sight you can’t hardly imagine unless you was there—a long line of mail clerks, carrying dozens of sacks of loot, for a short line of robbers.

  I watched the backs of all them clerks, with them flapping sacks, and all I could think was:

  How many millions? How many millions!

  That’s when things begun to go wrong.

  When we got to the road, there wasn’t no Cadillacs waiting. My stomach hopped back into my throat again. “Goddammit, where’s Dock? He was gonna get the cars right here, this spot. Joe, you seen Dock?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “Hey, Dock,” he called up the far side of the train. “You there, Dock?”

  Wasn’t no answer.

  “Goddamn crazy Dock!” I couldn’t believe he’d screw this one up. I knowed Dock didn’t have good judgment, but I’d give him the easiest job in the whole deal. How hard was it to bring the cars to the road?

  “Go find him, Joe!”

  I watched Joe run down towards the end of the train and disappear around the caboose. I could hear him hollering on the other side, “Dock! Where the hell ’r you?”

  I didn’t hear no answer back.

  “Dock! Where the hell ’r you?”

  Nothing.

  I seen the clerks looking at each other. Me and Glasscock kept our bead on ’em tight.

  In the middle of all this, Jess had brung the engineer and the fireman up to where the clerks was.

  Then I heard it. Somebody way off, a-hollering: “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  Ten seconds later, Joe’s shadow come whipping from around the caboose and running, helty-skelty. He was racing so fast and panting so hard I couldn’t hardly make out what he was saying.

  “It’s Dock! It’s Dock!”

  In them two seconds, a thousand pictures run through my head … then Joe was up on me.

  “He’s shot! Dock’s shot!”

  “How the hell.…?”

  “He’s hurt bad, Willis!”

  “Where ’r the cars?”

  “Up the road.”

  “Get ’em!”

  I felt sick all over. There shouldna been no shooting. None a’tall! I left Glasscock to guard the clerks and me and Jess run back to where Dock was laying.

  About mid-way up the line I seen a dark shape a-lying on the ground.

  I run up to it.

  “Aymmmmm..…sho-ooooo………awwwwwm……hur-rrrr.…” He was moaning, moaning.

  Godamight! Blood was spilling outa his mouth like a river. There was blood all over his face. Blood all over one of his shoulders. Blood all over his right hand.

  Me and Jess crouched down.

  I don’t know how we done it, the two of us, Dock was so big, but we picked him up and carried him to the road. Blood was still spilling outa his mouth. There was near as much blood on me and Jess as on Dock.

  We laid Dock on the ground by the side of the road. He was still moaning, moaning. I turned to the clerks. I was mad like I never been before in my life. I asked if any of ’em had shot Dock.

  Nobody said a word.

  “One more time! I’m gonna ask you all one more goddamn time! Who shot this man?”

  Finally the chief clerk spoke up. “It weren’t none of us. We all thought we heard something. Shots. Or something. Other side of the car. Only the train was backing up. Couldn’t tell if that’s what it was, ’r what.”

  By this time Joe come up with one of the Cadillacs. We started throwing in as many sacks as we could. We pushed some of ’em down and around so they could be a soft bed for Dock; so we could lay him on ’em. While we was doing that, I seen how nervous Glasscock was. How he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Lemme see your gun.”

  “What d’ya doing?” he said.

  I grabbed it out of his hand. I opened the chamber. The stink went up my nose.

  “You fire this thing?”

  “So what?” he said. “Shot a Hoosier, coming at me with a gun.”

  “That wasn’t no Hoosier, you goddamn, fool son-of-a-bitch!”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  That’s when come the slide. That’s what I call it, the slide.

  It wasn’t a slow slide. It wasn’t a fast slide. It was both of ’em, fast and slow, both at the same time.

  Ever’thing th
at happened after Dock got shot went by so fast and so slow, both, that when I think back on it, ever’thing’s a blur, and ever’thing’s burned in my mind, ever’ detail. It’s hard to tell it exact, how things can happen strange like that, but that’s the way they was.

  Right then, what was going fast in my head was what I was seeing, and what was going slow was what was in my ears. Godamight, the noises coming outa Dock, a-laying. Moaning, awful moaning. But the worst of it was how he was breathing. I never heard sounds like that before, other’n when I was hunting, and I’d shot something, and the animal didn’t die right off.

  Gasps and gurgles, gasps and gurgles. Horrible, horrible sounds.

  Me and Joe and Jess picked him up, careful, like he was a fresh baby, and we laid him in the back of one of them Cadillacs, where we’d made that soft bed outa some of the mail sacks.

  His blood was dripping down onto the leather.

  We jumped in the cars and peeled out. Glasscock was driving the car with Dock, with me in the front seat and Joe in the back, taking care of Dock. Jess was driving the second car, behind us.

  It was back country we was flying through, with a back-country road: dirt, ruts, humps, bumps. Our headlights was slicing into the black, but all you could see was more black, and dust. We hit a rut. Dock moaned. We hit a bump. Dock moaned louder. A little dark shadow was up ahead. It got bigger. Two eyes was glittering like diamonds. Coon. We was on it. Ker-plunk! We hit it. Dock cried out. One of the bags on one of the piles slid off onto the road.

  We kept going.

  It was damn odd, how ever’thing that happened right then was a blur in my head, and yet I can recollect ever’ detail. Things was going fast, and things was going slow, both at the same time. Now Dock’s breathing was getting weird. Like it was getting stuck in his throat.

  I reached over to him and run my fingers over his forehead.

  “It ain’t your time, Dock. Hang in there, old boy.”

  When I done that, his mouth fell open. Blood come glumping out.

  That’s when I seen that the bullet in his jaw had near sliced his tongue in half.

  Goddammit! I’d planned the robbery foolproof. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried, there wasn’t no way of getting rid of foolishness.