Jailbreak

by Giles Tippette

  “Oh, yes. He understands.” Lew looked back at him. “He is sulking, but he and I have had a talk and he understands the consequences if he gives trouble. I’ve promised to release him when we hit the Rio Grande.”

  “Does he believe you?”

  “Who knows?” Lew shrugged. “They are not used to people keeping their promises.”

  I looked at my watch. It was just coming one-thirty. I looked up the track. The train was due at that second. I sighed. I said, “I guess we’re in for another fight.” I was on the point of ordering the men inside to take up firing positions when Lew said, “Wait! Look!”

  Far off in the distance I could see what looked to be a puff of smoke. I watched. After a moment the smoke got more distinct and I thought I could see a solid something-or-other below it.

  “Is it the train?”

  Lew said, “It damn well better be.”

  We stood there switching our gaze between the rural police and the train. The train was traveling much faster. In another minute it had clearly materialized into a locomotive with cars behind it. I said, “Quick, everybody inside! Ben, you know to be near the door. You come out right behind me. Norris, have you explained to the rest what is to be done about the cattle and the horses?”

  “Yes,” he said. He said it evenly, with no sarcasm or malice.

  I looked at Lew. I said, “Okay, it’s your show.”

  He had the two flares in his hand. We all ran back into the shack. Lew walked out into the middle of the tracks and stabbed the two flares into a cross tie. He stood there, watching the train come on. I could see him out the door. Capitán Davilla was still leaning against the front of the shack. He was a haggard-looking wreck, and that untreated wrist was going to give him trouble the rest of his life. I reckoned he was going to have to beat prisoners with his off hand in future.

  The train was now no more than a mile away. It might have been planning to stop for water or it might not have. But Lew had figured there was no point in taking a chance. I agreed with him, especially with the rurales bearing down on us.

  Lew bent down and jerked the caps off the two flares. They immediately erupted like two Roman candles, sending up smoke and flame. Then Lew raced for the front of the shack, grabbed Davilla and went to stand by the tracks waving with both arms.

  I held my breath. For a second it seemed the train was just going to keep on barreling through. Then, just barely, it began to slow. I couldn’t reckon how fast it was going, but it was hitting a pretty good clip. I heard the slight squealing of steel against steel as the engineer began to apply the brakes. Then the sound grew louder as he increased the pressure. After that came the sound of the following cars taking up the slack in their couplings and whamming into each other. Lew had Davilla waving his arms also though he looked pretty reluctant about it.

  The train slowed and slowed and then stopped some ten yards short of the flares. Instantly Lew began to hustle Davilla toward the cab of the engine. Lew had his pistol drawn but out of sight behind his back. Davilla had an empty police holster. I could see the train clearly because the smoke from the flares was drifting the other way. There were six cattle cars and a caboose besides the coal tender. Through the slats of the cattle cars I could see the beef animals within. They weren’t the skinny cattle raised on Mexican rancheros. These were Texas cattle. They were bound for the big cities of Mexico like Mexico City and Vera Cruz and Tampico to be eaten by the big shots there. They might talk Mexico, but they ate Texan. I knew because we’d made a good profit over the years shipping our crossbred steers south of the border.

  As I saw Lew push Davilla up the steps to the cab of the locomotive, I broke from the door of the shack. I yelled behind me for Ben and for Norris and for the rest of them to get their jobs done. It was only about ten yards from the front of the shack to the locomotive, but just as I was about halfway there I heard two shots and saw Davilla suddenly come pitching backwards out of the cab. I stepped over him as I went up the steps. I had seen a rapidly increasing spot of crimson on his chest. I entered the cab with drawn pistol. Lew was covering a man with his arms upraised. Another was laying on the steel floor of the cab with a mortal wound.

  The engine was making the chuf-chuf sound a steam locomotive makes at rest. I said, “What the hell happened?”

  Without taking his eyes off the man with upraised arms Lew said, “Davilla decided to get brave. We got in and he went to yelling we were gringos escaping from the police. The engineer went for a pistol. I shot him and he shot Davilla. I think this here is the fireman.”

  “Can he run the damn train?”

  Lew stuck the barrel of his pistol in the frightened man’s face and asked him in Spanish the question I’d posed in English. The man babbled something. Lew said, “Yeah, he can run it. But somebody has got to shovel the coal. Make steam.”

  I put my gun away. I said, “I reckon that’s going to be us.”

  Lew said, “I ain’t shoveling no coal.”

  “Sure you ain’t,” I said. I turned around and looked out the door of the cab to see how the other business was proceeding. Down at the end of the train I could see Ben herding two men into the caboose, their hands raised. But what was more rewarding was seeing Norris organizing the process of jumping the cattle out of the first car and getting the ramp down and getting our men and horses in it. Elizandro’s two men were helping him. Behind came Hays with a load of provisions and water.

  I said, “Tell that son of a bitch to throw this thing where it will run backwards and get ready to go.”

  The fireman gave Lew a blank look and said something in Spanish. Lew answered him back. The fireman said something else. Lew stuck his gun in the man’s face again. The fireman shrugged and went to playing with dials and levers and throttles and such.

  I looked out the door again. Ben had disappeared into the rear caboose with his charges. The last of the horses were being loaded. As I watched. Hays and another man pulled up the ramp. Hays leaned out the opening and signaled.

  I said, “Tell him to get it going. Toward Nuevo Laredo.”

  I looked out the cab window. Still off in the distance were the rural police, but they seemed to be coming faster. I said, “Tell him to hurry. But I’m going to want to stop in two miles. Ben has got to cut the telegraph line again.”

  We moved with agonizing slowness for the first half mile. Then the train started to speed up as the cars caught up on their couplings. I tell you, it was a thrill to watch that barren, killing desert speed by. I only knew I was glad I was on a train and not crossing it horseback. On the trip down I hadn’t paid it much attention. It was like a real ugly woman—you had to see it up close to realize how bad it could be.

  After what I deemed was a couple of miles I signaled Lew to have the engineer stop. It took longer than I could have expected. It sure as hell wasn’t like pulling up a good horse. When we finally drug to a stop I got down and looked toward the caboose. After a moment Ben got out and waved at me. We weren’t that far apart, it being a fairly short train. I could see he had his rifle in his hand. After a second he stepped back to take a steady rest against the side of the car. I heard him fire. Then there was a pause as he jacked another shell into the chamber. I couldn’t see the wire. He fired again. I waited and then he waved and got back into the caboose. I said to Lew, “Tell the son of a bitch let’s get the hell out of here. The line is cut. Ain’t no way they can get word ahead.”

  The train agonized its way out of its tracks and then slowly, once again, began to pick up speed. I hung out the window, enjoying the breeze. After a time I turned back into the cab. The fireman was at the controls. Lew was right behind him, pistol drawn. He looked uncomfortable. I said, “What the hell’s the matter?”

  He looked away.

  “Lew, what the hell is the matter?”

  He sighed. “Something I reckon I ought to have told you.”

  “What?”

  “They is a train coming out of Nuevo Laredo in about two hou
rs.”

  “So what?”

  “It’s on this track. We’re backing into it. It’s an express.”

  11

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. The roar of the steam engine tended to blot out every word. On top of that the cab of the engine was hot as the door of hell. In front of us was the firebox where the coal burned to heat the water to make the steam that drove the engine. Sweat was pouring all off of me. My shirt was soaked and I could feel runlets of sweat working their way down the inside of my thighs.

  I yelled, “What? What’s that you say?”

  Lew yelled. in my ear. He said, “I told you they is an express out of Laredo due along in two hours.”

  I hadn’t been able to hear him when he’d first said it because of the unaccustomed engine noise. But now there was no mistaking his words. I drew my head back and stared at him. I said, “What was that you said about a siding?”

  He yelled, “I said they wasn’t one.”

  I just stared at him. I said, “You mean to tell me that a fast train is going to come roaring up the tracks and we are going to back straight into the front end of it?”

  He didn’t look happy. He said, “That’s about the size of it.”

  I commenced to swear. I said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  He said, “Didn’t know. Not for sure.”

  “But you told me they had a timetable posted on the wall in that shack. Didn’t you take note of that?”

  “Well, hell, Justa, you know these Mexican railroads. Besides”—he pointed at this gauge that showed how fast we were going—“I thought we could do better than twenty miles an hour. I figured we’d be in Nuevo Laredo before that other train come along. Some of these trains can make forty mile an hour.”

  I stared at him, incredulous. “Going backwards?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I never give that no thought,” he said. Then he flashed back at me. We might have been responsible for getting Lew elected sheriff but he was still his own man. He said, “What? Would you druther have shot it out with them damn rurales? Or tried to make a run on worn-out horses? Goddammit, Justa, don’t you git in my face!”

  He had a point. We hadn’t had no whole bunch of selection. I guess I was more disappointed than angry. Once we’d stopped the train and got us and our horses loaded I’d figured we were home free, that a short run would put us near the waters of the Rio Grande and we’d go splashing across and our troubles would be over.

  And now here was this new difficulty, and it was one, frankly, that I hadn’t had no training about and hadn’t the slightest idea how to handle.

  About then the fireman, the man that was running the engine, tapped some kind of gauge and said something to Lew. Lew said, “He says we are running out of steam pressure.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means we got to pour on the coal.”

  “How does that happen?”

  Lew said, “Well, it means one of us has got to open that firebox door and then one of us has got to take that scoop shovel laying right there in the mouth of that coal tender and start slinging coal in the firebox.”

  The fireman tapped another gauge. I could see it was the indicator of how fast we were going. It had dropped down to fifteen miles an hour. I reckon he was just as anxious to beat that express into Nuevo Laredo as we were. After all, we might have the guns but we were still on the same train together.

  One thing was bothering me. The engineer that Lew had shot was still laying on the floor of the cab, hanging half in and half out of the cab door. I said, “Would you mind shoving him on out? Then we’ll talk about this coal shoveling.”

  It took only a moment for Lew to use his boot to ease the engineer overboard. I hated to do it but I was so damn sick of all the killing I couldn’t stand the sight of the dead body.

  Lew said, “I reckon we better get to shoveling. Steam pressure is falling off mighty fast.”

  “I take it that means you want me to do it.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I can’t hardly shovel with this gun in my hand. And I am guarding this man.”

  It looked like there was a first time for everything. I’d ridden on plenty of trains; now it looked like I was going to pay my passage by making one go. There was a thick mitt laying on a little iron shelf just over the firebox. I put it on and used it to open the firebox. Lordy, talk about hot! The blast of heat nearly knocked me down. But I turned away from it and grabbed up the shovel and began throwing loads of coal in the firebox. Every few shovelfuls I’d look over at the fireman with a questioning look on my face. He’d just flutter his hand and say, “Más, más.” More, more.

  Hell, the damn engine ate coal like it was penny candy. I shoveled until I was covered with sweat and coal dust and choking on the vile stuff. When the fireman finally indicated I’d thrown in enough to carry us a little further I fell back against the cab wall and gasped for breath. Lew looked me over carefully. He said, “Boy, you are a sight. I don’t believe you could hold that job steady.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “I can hold that gun on that man just as good as you can. Your turn is coming next.”

  He looked alarmed. “Now hold on!” he said. “Ain’t no point in both of us looking like pickaninnies.”

  I said, “Gawd, what I wouldn’t give for a drink of whiskey right now. Or a cup of coffee. Or even some water.”

  “They got water,” Lew said. He kicked out at an earthen jug. “Take all you want. Might hand me a dipperful also.”

  When we’d drunk we watched the speed gauge carefully. It crept up from fifteen to twenty and finally come steady at twenty-four. I said, “Ask him if he’s got that throttle all the way open.”

  “Don’t have to,” Lew said. “I can see he does. We don’t have to prompt this boy. I’ve already explained to him what is at stake if he don’t get us to Nuevo Laredo in time.”

  I took another look at the gauge and my heart suddenly sank. At the bottom it said, in bold letters, KPH. I knew enough about Mexico to know what that meant. It might have been sixty miles to the border by my map, but we were on a train that was running kilometers per hour. And a kilometer was only six tenths of a mile. In reality we were only going about eighteen miles an hour. At that rate we’d meet the express a good forty-five minutes to an hour out of Nuevo Laredo. In a kind of low voice I told Lew the news.

  He looked at the gauge and then he looked at me. Then he said something to the fireman. The fireman said something in Spanish and nodded. I didn’t understand the Spanish but I understood the nod. I said, “Ask him how fast that express will be running in kilometers per hour.”

  Lew did and then he said to me, with a kind of sick expression on his face, “About twice as fast as we’re going. Maybe more. This hombre says it depends on the engineer and how he’s feeling that day. But one thing for sure—we ain’t going to beat him to Nuevo Laredo, not unless he is mighty late getting out.”

  So then the question became, How close could we get before we had to abandon the train and take to horse? Would it be fifteen miles? Would it be ten? I didn’t know if the horses could even make ten miles in one stretch. And there would be just as many rural police in that last stretch as we’d encountered all the way along the trail. I had to figure some way to get us closer.

  I looked at my watch. We had been traveling for about forty minutes. I just leaned back and thought. I got interrupted once to shovel more coal, but that was no longer a hardship, not with this new problem to figure out.

  The only thing I could think of was that I had to figure a way to make that express back up. And he wasn’t going to do that with the first glimpse of us. By the time he realized he wasn’t just overtaking us, that we were actually coming right at him, it would be too late to stop and we’d have one hell of a collision. My only other choice was to keep careful watch for him, stop in time to unload the horses and then try to make it the rest of the way on horseflesh. But that wasn’t a good plan at all. I had to figu
re out a way to warn the express in advance, get him stopped and somehow get him going the other way. I figured if I could get him stopped he’d see us bearing down on him and throw her into back-up gear and stay the hell out of our way.

  But how to do it?

  After about a half an hour of thinking an idea came to me. There wasn’t a hell of a lot of time left. I said to Lew, “Get him to show you how to make this thing go and how to stop it.”

  “Why?”

  “Do what I’m telling you.”

  It wasn’t all that hard. The throttle that made the thing go was just a lever you pushed to the right to make it go faster. When you wanted to stop, you drawed it all the way back to your left and then pulled on two big levers that were mounted on the iron floor, pulled them all the way back. Lew said you was supposed to take it gradual on the brakes until you got her slowed down or the brakes would wear out on you.

  I said, “All right. Have you got it straight?”

  “Got what straight?”

  “How to run this train.”

  He gave me a look. “Why the hell should I have to know how to run this train?” He tapped the fireman on the back of the head with the barrel of his revolver and said, “That’s what we got Pancho here for.”

  I said, “I’m going to try something and I ain’t going to have time for a lot of delays to interpret and all that. It’s going to have to go quick. Tell that man to jump.”

  “Do what?” He squinted at me.

  I said, “Tell him to jump. Tell him we don’t need him anymore. Tell him to get the hell off the train. That plain enough for you?”

  He stared at me a long time and then he shrugged. “I reckon you know what you’re doing. But I don’t think he’s going to jump, not at this speed. I know I damn sure wouldn’t.”

  Then he holstered his pistol and, with one swift move, jerked the little Mexican up by his armpits and flung him out the door. For a second he leaned out, watching, I figured, how the fireman had fared. I said, “Well?”

  Lew turned back into the cab. He said, “Don’t seem to be hurt too bad. He bounced a couple of times, but when he come to rest he kind of sat up. I do kind of hate to leave him afoot out in this damn desert, though.”