The Man From Lordsburg

by Peter McCurtin

  Lassiter went on. “On the other hand, Jack meant to get that money. He knew the kind of contacts you had. So you told him the one man could do it was this feller Lassiter. He could get through the guns and guards and take the train. Another useful thing about this Lassiter—he wouldn’t just take the money and run. No, sir, this feller Lassiter would stay around for the split. The rest is easy. Lassiter and his bunch ride into a trap, get themselves killed, and the money disappears. The law couldn’t know how many men robbed that train, so any one of them could ride off with the money, leaving you and Jack in the clear. Nod your head, Cassie.”

  She did what she was told.

  “Just one thing bothers me,” Lassiter said. “If Jack is rich as folks say he is, why steal the cattle money? Why that when he can steal legal?”

  “Jack put all his cattle money into business back east,” Cassie said, “and lost it. Jack is next to flat broke.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Lassiter said. “’Course you’re forgetting that sack of money. Where’s he keeping it, sis? Lie to me and I’ll know it.”

  “Why not?” Cassie said, the fight going out of her. “It’s in the parlor car, in the safe. Jack figured nobody would think of looking there for it.”

  “Smart feller, Jack,” Lassiter said. “Now you talk, honey, and keep it simple.”

  “You’re going after that money again?”

  “It’s a thought.”

  Cassie started up again. “I was crazy to cross you, Lassiter,” she said quickly. “Crazy—scared too. You don’t know how mean Jack can be. Look, I’m telling you everything I know. If Jack knew he’d do something awful to me.”

  “He’ll have to take his turn,” Lassiter said. “Keep talking, Cassie, and maybe—just maybe—you’ll come out of this in one piece.”

  Cassie saw hope and grabbed it. “You can still get that money. Jack’s got himself a new locomotive. He’s making a big fuss about taking the dead cattle buyer back to his family in Kansas City. Says it’s the least he can do to show respect for a friend. They’re supposed to load the coffin on the parlor car sometime today, soon as it’s cleaned up and boards put over the window. Traveling with the dead man, Jack gets the money out of Abilene and makes himself look good.” Cassie paused. “I’m supposed to go along for the ride.”

  A knock sounded on the door. With the knife at Cassie’s throat, Lassiter told her to ask who it was.

  “Dixon Quirly,” a man’s voice said through the wood.

  Lassiter looked around quickly. There was a small dressing room screened by curtains. “Wait a minute, then open it,” he said. “Make a move, say anything—and I’ll drop you. Understand?”

  Cassie nodded.

  Dixon Quirly came in, sour-faced as ever. Texas Jack’s top gun didn’t look like a man who’d come into big money. Gun in hand, Lassiter watched from behind the curtain. Cassie asked Quirly what he wanted.

  “Ain’t you ready yet?” he asked. “What’s the matter? You look kind of nervous to me.”

  “Don’t you worry about me,” Cassie said. “Now get the hell out of here and let me pack. I don’t want you in my room.”

  Quirly looked mournful. “I came up the back way,” he said. “I asked you what’s to be nervous about? Getting rattled at a time like this could be bad. Would be a shame to have you spoil things, getting rattled.”

  “Get out, Quirly,” Cassie ordered him.

  The gunman came closer. Behind the curtain, Lassiter had to make up his mind about something. He knew Quirly was going to kill her. He could stop him and forget about the money. He thought about the old days in El Paso. They didn’t mean anything, not any more.

  Cassie backed away from the killer. “I said get out. Now you do it. If Jack knew...”

  The ghost of a smile appeared on the gunman’s face. “It was Jack sent me,” he said. Faster than a striking rattler, a knife dropped into Quirly’s hand from his sleeve. The thin blade plunged through Cassie’s heart. Her eyes opened wide and stayed out. Quirly lowered her body to the floor and wiped the blade carefully on her dress. When he left, he locked the door from the outside.

  Lassiter came out and looked at the dead woman for a while. He didn’t feel sorry for her. He would have killed her the same way. Still it was sort of a shame. Cassie had been one hell of a woman in her day.

  It was getting dark outside. He poured himself a drink and sat down to wait. There was hardly any blood from the hole in Cassie’s heart. The room smelled of perfume and whisky. When it was dark enough he left the room and went down the back way.

  Chapter Eleven

  Pretty soon, Lassiter knew, they’d be looking for a funny looking gent that said he was Cassie McCord’s brother from Apple Valley, Alabama. The hotel clerk might not remember the part about the apples. He’d remember enough to start them looking. If what Cassie said was true, there wasn’t much time to take one last crack at that money before Texas Jack and his funeral train took off for Kansas City.

  Lassiter went back to where his animal was tied in front of the saloon. He rode the animal into the alley between the saloon and the building next door, and quickly shucked the hat, coat, and shirt. Then he turned the animal loose. There was no use trying to take the Winchester along.

  With his own hat pulled low over his eyes, he started down Texas Street in the direction of the railroad yards. There wasn’t time to be cagey about it. He still had one big edge—they wouldn’t figure him to be in Abilene.

  There was a crowd gathered in front of the Drover’s Hotel. “What time they bringing out the body?” he heard one man ask another. The other man said he didn’t know—when Texas Jack was ready, he guessed. He passed the undertakers. The shades were down but there was light inside and the sound of a saw biting into wood. The undertaker was working late, trying to keep up with the brisk demand for coffins. At least one man in town was happy besides Texas Jack. Lassiter supposed Texas Jack would have a fine funeral when the time came.

  Texas Street ended and beyond that was the depot, what was left of it, and beyond that the railroad yards and loading pens spread out in all directions. Lassiter went into the darkness between the depot and the last house on the street. After that he went around a loading pen full of restless cows. Five minutes later, coming in from the other side, he could see the back of Texas Jack’s parlor car. There was only one guard he could see. All Lassiter could see was the man’s legs walking up and down in front of the car. There could be other men inside the car, inside the caboose too. He didn’t think so. Texas Jack was too smart to post a lot of guards over a train that was supposed to be empty and robbed.

  Lassiter tried to remember what the inside of the parlor car looked like. It was divided into at least two compartments. There could be more. He hadn’t been all that interested the night before. The guard kept walking up and down, humming as if he hated that tune. Getting rid of the guard could make some problems when Texas Jack found him missing. Lassiter was counting that Jack would be too anxious about other things to fret over it. Anyway, there was no other way to get aboard that train.

  Lassiter picked his way through the darkness, thankful for the churned-up mud and cow-shit the stampede had left behind. Once, his boot squelched in the mess and the guard turned his head. Lassiter stayed where he was, one foot raised. He put it down easy when the guard started humming again. Finally, he was right behind the parlor car.

  There was light inside but no sound that he could hear. He put his ear to the side of the car and listened. Unless they were sitting dead still, there was nobody inside the car.

  The guard, one of Quirly’s riders by the looks of him, had taken off his hat and was scratching his head. He hummed some more, then he said, “Shit.” The hat back in place, he started walking up and down again.

  Crouched low, Lassiter went under the car. The guard heard him coming out and tried to turn around. Lassiter’s gun barrel cracked him across the back of the neck, and he sagged into Lassiter’s arms without a sound. Las
siter hit him again, harder this time, to make sure he really went to sleep. He propped the guard’s rifle against one of the wheels of the car, to make it look as if the man had just got sick of the job and walked away. Next he dragged the unconscious guard far back behind the parlor car and dropped him behind a pile of wooden ties.

  Sightseers had been coming and going all day, so the doors of the car were unlocked. Pulling his gun, Lassiter went inside. Nothing moved and nothing happened. The big Salamander safe, the biggest and toughest there was outside of a bank, sat gray and heavy against the wall. There was no point thinking about moving it. Nothing short of a block and tackle could move that safe. Even if it hadn’t been bolted to the floor.

  There was less time than before. Lassiter found that he’d remembered right about most of the layout. There was a kind of parlor section that took up most of the car. Past that, through an archway with looped-back brocade curtains, was Texas Jack’s sleeping quarters, with a canopied double bed bolted to the floor. There was even an indoor privy. Lassiter didn’t think he could hide there and he didn’t want to. What he was looking for was the compartment where they stored the trunks. A show-off like Jack would be sure to have a place like that.

  He found it—another folding door opening into space beside the privy. There were two trunks in there, and room for three. Lassiter climbed in there and pulled the hinged doors shut. It was about the smallest space he’d been in since that punishment box at Yuma Prison. He didn’t know how long he could stand it with his legs bent under him like that.

  Before, there hadn’t been enough time. Now there was too much. Thinking of the girls in Betsy Shannock’s sporting house in El Paso helped a little. Betsy liked to think she ran the best cathouse in the whole Southwest, and he guessed she did Cassie had worked for Betsy for a while in the old days, before she took up with Jimmy Voss, and he’d killed Jimmy, and …

  Lassiter heard them coming. There was rumbling, like a wagon. He guessed it was the hearse with the dead cattle buyer’s body. Then there was a lot of talking, then feet sounding heavy on the iron steps. A voice he didn’t know came in first, saying, “That’s it, boys. Treat ’er gentle.” That would be the undertaker directing his men.

  Lassiter recognized the next voice as Dixon Quirly’s. “The son of a bitch must of took off,” it said.

  Texas Jack Chandler told him to shut up.

  After that silver dollars clinked. Texas Jack was saying to the coffin-toters, “Thank you, boys, and may God bless you, one and all. You got Jack Chandler’s thanks, men, and don’t you forget it.”

  The feet went down the iron steps and Texas Jack said, “Lock the door, Quirly. Then fix me a man-sized drink.”

  Fixing the drink in the galley at the end of the parlor area, Dixon Quirly said, “I still don’t know what happened to Stackpole. You said only one man, so I sent Stackpole. I’d of swore that boy was my best man.”

  A bottle rattled against a glass. “I said a man-sized drink, you sad-faced son of a bitch,” Texas Jack said. “Where you from anyways, Quirly?”

  Quirly’s voice said something Lassiter couldn’t quite make out. It sounded like “Massachusetts.”

  “Any trouble with Cassie?” Texas Jack asked next.

  “Not a bit,” Quirly said.

  “They’re backing in the locomotive,” Texas Jack said, sucking loudly on his drink.

  Lassiter stiffened when he heard a woman’s voice. It was dainty and Southern and it said, “Mr. Quirly’s forgot me in the drink department, Mr. Chandler.”

  Texas Jack let out a bark of laughter, then brought it down to a chuckle. “Mr. Dear Departed Woodruff getting you down, honey?” he asked.

  The voice was cool. “Just a little bit, Mr. Chandler. But I would like a teensy old drink.”

  “Well, I think that can be arranged, don’t you Quirly, old shit-face?”

  Lassiter figured Jack had taken on quite a load before he boarded with the dead fat man. He cursed the yard men for being so slow hooking up the locomotive. It was too quiet to start crawling out of that trunk space. There just had to be shooting and he’d just as soon the town of Abilene, all those still-irate citizens, didn’t know about it. He stayed still where he was, cursing the stiffness in his legs.

  “Hey, Quirly, you think one Texas drink going to last me all night?” Texas Jack complained to his black-clad man of all work.

  Lassiter could hear them backing in the locomotive. A muscle in his leg started to twitch. A Comanche had put an arrow in there some years back. The arrowhead had broken when it hit the bone. There were still a few pieces in there and they hurt like hell when it rained too much, or in places like the punishment hole at Yuma, or in this place.

  The parlor car shook as the backed-in locomotive made contact.

  “Do the honors again, will you, Quirly,” the woman said.

  Quirly was getting tired of playing man-servant. Lassiter grinned when he heard the killer say, “There’s the bottle, miss. Get it yourself.”

  Texas Jack started to laugh. Remembering the dear he departed, he said, “That ain’t no way, Quirly. Not for the future Mrs. Jack Chandler it ain’t.”

  Lassiter heard Quirly getting up to get the drink.

  “You really mean it, Mr. Chandler?” the woman said. She sounded more like a girl than a woman. After she squealed, she apologized. “You really mean it, Mr. Chandler? Truly mean it, I mean?”

  There was the sound of couplings being dropped into place, and tested.

  “We’re off,” Texas Jack said in great good humor. “Massa Linkin’s funeral train’s on its way.”

  “Did you really mean it?” the girl asked again. “I never dreamt...”

  “You ain’t crippled, Quirly, I don’t suppose,” Texas Jack called out. “In case you forget, mister, you working for a drinking man. A Texas drinking man, that is, and they don’t come no drinkiner than that.”

  The girl thought that was about the funniest thing she’d ever heard. The trunk under him creaked as Lassiter reached back to massage his painy leg. The girl sounded like such a goddamned fool he didn’t know if he wanted to kill her. He would if he had to.

  A blast of steam sounded as the driving wheels began to turn. Lassiter promised himself to stay away from trains after this. He didn’t know when he’d had so much to do with trains. In the end, there was nothing like a nice clean bank job. You walked in with a gun and took the money and rode out. Or you didn’t. Either way it was simple. Lassiter blamed his bad humor on the pain in his leg. It was getting pretty bad and he didn’t know how worse it would be by the time he crawled out of there.

  The locomotive didn’t pick up speed for a while—out of respect for the dead, Lassiter figured. Out past the yards he felt the throb as the engineer let loose the power. The clacking of the rail separations came faster together. Pretty soon, Lassiter thought. He didn’t want to jump off too close to Abilene and he didn’t want to go all the way to Kansas City or even to the Kansas line. Topeka would be just about right, maybe a little before Topeka. It was a shame he couldn’t take all the money in Jack’s safe. He couldn’t. There was too much of it. No matter how tight you packed it, there still was too much bulk for a man to carry and get away unnoticed.

  The girl giggled. “Oh, Mr. Chandler,” she said. There was more giggling. Lassiter thought of the dead cattle buyer in his box. The girl said again, “You are a caution—you know that, Mr. Chandler?”

  Lassiter couldn’t see a thing, but he could picture the scene in his head—Texas Jack laying his big paws on the girl, who giggled every time he did it, and Dixon Quirly sour-faced as ever, trying not to look.

  Texas Jack was laughing fit to die. “Well, we engaged, ain’t we, honey?”

  The girl said something Lassiter couldn’t hear. He knew what it was.

  “Aw, Quirly don’t count,” Texas Jack said. “That old boy’s more like a monk than a man. Got iron by his side but none betwixt his legs. Ain’t that right, Quirly. Well, answer the question, Q
uirly.”

  The girl said something Lassiter couldn’t make out. When she was trying to wheedle a man she dropped her voice. But they all did that, this one more than most. Lassiter figured this one was new with Jack, a replacement for Cassie. She had to be just picked. Otherwise, Jack wouldn’t be treating her so gentle.

  Jack was out to please her all right. “Listen, my dear, me and Quirly’s just fooling. Old Dix Quirly don’t mind a bit, ’cause he knows I’m looking out for his welfare every minute.”

  The girl giggled again.

  “Ain’t that right, Quirly?” Texas Jack wanted to know.

  “Anything you say, Jack,” the gunman said.

  Lassiter figured Quirly must be getting paid pretty good to take that kind of talk from Jack. Quirly could shoot the eyes out of Jack’s head, but then the money would stop.

  “Set ’em up again, Quirly, old pard,” Jack was saying now. “Don’t stint the booze this time. Me and the missy here got some heavy plowing to do. We ain’t going to be able to stop and drink once we gets going good. Me and the missy going to plow a furrow all the way to Kansas City. ’Course the missy just going to help. I’ll be the one doing most of the heavy work.”

  Jack roared like a fool. No matter how much noise the train made Lassiter could always hear Jack. “What do you say, sweet lips?” Jack inquired.

  The train drowned out the girl’s reply. Lassiter knew it would be yes. With Jack, it had to be yes.

  Having Jack bed down with a woman right on the train was something he hadn’t figured on. As the train picked up more and more speed, he inched open the door of the rat-hole where he was, and began to crawl out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Even with the noise of the train, it took some doing to get out of there. If Texas Jack hadn’t been busting a gut with edgy laughing, it wouldn’t have been possible at all without being heard. The hinged doors opened easy enough but the trunk under him squeaked. It squeaked no matter how slow and easy he moved. He stayed still for a bit. It still squeaked when he moved again. He let it squeak.