Wolpert and Eddie ducked into the hallway where Chuck and his other two partners were lying as all hell broke loose behind them. The next room filled with noise. Shots were fired, men screamed, metal clanged against metal, knuckles cracked against faces, everything pretty much knocked against everything else. Near Wolpert’s feet, Chuck lifted his head and groggily tried to speak.
Rather than stop to listen to the guard, Wolpert told him, “If you got any weapons stashed in this place, you’d best get to ’em. Seems like you’ve got a bit of a ruckus on your hands.” While the guard figured the situation out, Wolpert dashed for the side door that the other two guards had used when they’d discovered him standing over Chuck earlier that night.
Cold air washed over his entire body and snow crunched under his boots. Those things were all as welcome as if he’d been locked in that cage himself for a number of years. His unsteady steps were even more welcome so long as they carried him away from that place. Eddie was several paces ahead of him, scrambling on his hands and knees after taking a spill on a patch of frozen mud. Wolpert reached down to pull him to his feet without breaking his stride.
“That was your plan?” Eddie shouted. “You let all of those men go!”
“I got the men I needed,” Wolpert said. “The rest will just keep Davis and his boys occupied.”
Both of them ran around the back of the building toward the shapes that had grouped together in the shadows. Tom, Cade, Juan and the other two prisoners they’d freed sat in their saddles. Wolpert picked out his gelding from the pack and quickened his pace to get there.
“What happened in there?” Cade asked. “Sounds like Armageddon.”
“Just about,” Eddie replied. “All the prisoners are loose.”
While the three outlaws seemed surprised by that, the other two looked ready to jump out of their skins. “How did that happen?” one of the freed prisoners asked.
Wolpert pulled that man from his saddle since he happened to be on his gelding. “I set them loose. It was either that or test our luck with those lawmen.” As soon as the prisoner’s boots hit the ground, he hopped around as if he’d been tossed straight into the proverbial frying pan. Wolpert helped him climb back up and sit behind him.
The other prisoner allowed Eddie to climb up with him as he said, “There’s real killers in that bunch. Setting ’em loose ain’t the best idea. Lord only knows what they’ll do when they get out.”
“Ran afoul of some bad men, did you?” Tom said. “Maybe they’ll be grateful Zeke set ’em free.”
“I hardly set anyone free,” Wolpert explained. “I opened a single door as a bunch of armed lawmen were charging straight in at them. No matter how desperate a man is, he’ll think twice before testing his luck against those odds.”
Smirking at the growing level of noise coming from the jail, Tom pointed out, “Sounds like plenty of ’em didn’t need to think twice.”
“And they’re either gonna get themselves recaptured or killed,” Wolpert told him. “If that many armed men can’t defend against a bunch of wild dogs charging through a bottleneck as tight as that one back there, they shouldn’t be carrying a gun in the first place. And if any man is crazy or desperate enough to run into that much hellfire, he was gonna get himself killed sooner rather than later anyhow.”
As if to prove his point, the noise from within the jail died down. A few shots rang out, but the rumble of voices gave the impression that there were still plenty of men trading harsh words instead of bullets. In Wolpert’s experience, death was much quieter than that.
It had been only a few seconds, but all of the men were taut as bowstrings. Looking at them in turn, Wolpert said, “Cade, you’re still hurt, so you take Eddie to the spot we agreed upon. You recall where that was?”
“Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t knocked in the head that hard,” Cade grunted as he pointed his horse’s nose away from the jail and snapped his reins. Eddie didn’t need any incentive to follow along behind the outlaw.
“Tom, go with them. Juan and I will make sure these lawmen don’t find you.”
The big man got his horse facing the right direction, but paused before making another move. “Sure you don’t need any more help? Sounds like you stirred up a mighty big hornet’s nest.”
“Just get out of here, will you!”
“Mind giving me and Cade a fighting chance in case we need to defend ourselves?”
Wolpert had nearly forgotten about all the pistols stuffed under his belt. Plucking two guns from his collection and tossing them through the air one at a time, Wolpert turned away from Tom and flicked his reins. This time, the bigger man was more than willing to ride away.
“We’re splitting up to circle around this place from opposite sides,” Wolpert told Juan as he tossed a gun to him. “Get some of them to follow, take a few shots if you must, but don’t kill any lawmen. You do that, even on accident, and I’ll see to it that you die here at this jail. I don’t give a damn what your friends or Burt Sampil thinks about it.”
The instant his gun was in his hand, Juan flipped open the cylinder to get a look at the rounds inside and then snapped it shut. “After all the sitting I’ve been doing, I’m ready for a good ride.”
“All right, then. I’ll race ya. First man to draw some deputies in the wrong direction wins a cigar.”
Both men snapped their reins and rode in opposite directions. Wolpert circled around the side of the jail to pass by the spot where the horses had been tethered beneath a little shelter. His gelding wove between the shelter and the jail with ease, but the prisoner in the saddle behind Wolpert hung on and squealed as if he were hanging from the back of a runaway stagecoach.
“Almost forgot about you,” Wolpert said over his shoulder.
The prisoner screeched something, but his words were lost amid the rumble of hooves and the sharply raised voices of the lawmen pouring out through the jail’s front door. He didn’t spot Marshal Davis among those men, but Wolpert wasn’t taking a whole lot of time to look. Juan charged around the other side of the jailhouse, firing once into the air while shouting, “Any men who want their freedom follow me!”
There didn’t seem to be any takers, but the lawmen didn’t appreciate the offer very much. They fired back and rushed for the horses that were tied to the post at the front of the building. Before they could get into their saddles, Wolpert rode close enough to knock one of them in the shoulder with a well-placed boot. The kick thumped hard against his back and sent him staggering toward his partners. More shots crackled through the air, some of which hissed dangerously close to Wolpert’s head. The prisoner behind him let out a pained grunt and clamped on to Wolpert’s shoulder like a vise.
“You hit?” he asked.
The prisoner squirmed behind him before replying, “Caught me in the leg. Hurts!”
“We’ll see to it later. Just keep your head down.”
The only thing deadlier than a well-timed surprise was a surprise that was stretched out for too long. For the latter, the ones springing the surprise were in danger and Wolpert knew it wouldn’t take long for this one to shift out of his favor. The deputies weren’t firing wild any longer. They were getting their wits about them and figuring out the quickest way to end the fight. Before any of the lawmen steadied their aim or traded their pistols for something with longer range, Wolpert fired another burst of covering fire and then tapped his heels against the gelding’s sides. The horse dug its hooves into the dirt to start building a head of steam.
Before too long, Juan was riding beside him and Dog Creek Jail was at their backs. Davis shouted at his men before they just raced off into the darkness without a plan. It was sound reasoning, but it also gave their quarry another minute or two to move along. Wolpert had organized enough posses to know that it never paid to just tear out after an escaping outlaw. The odds of stumbling into a world of hurt only got better when stumbling at night. Surely, Marshal Davis was using his knowledge of the terrain, the men he was after and the
direction they’d gone to piece together a logical guess as to where they were headed.
All Wolpert had to do was use all of that against him. He led Juan to the main road so their tracks blended with those left behind by everyone else and then found a spot to lie low. Once the lawmen surged past them and charged into the night, they spent several cold hours praying they wouldn’t double back.
Chapter 22
Kansas terrain was similar to Nebraska terrain, except flatter. Under normal circumstances, it would have been close to impossible for a man to find a hiding spot in the middle of all that flatness unless he’d scouted one out in advance. But Wolpert and his men weren’t escaping under normal circumstances. In fact, the conditions surrounding their escape from Dog Creek were about as far from normal as they could want. The darkness was thicker than smoke. The cold was more unforgiving than steel. Without much of anything to break it up, the wind swept across it all like a massive, flailing set of arms intent on knocking down whoever defied it by staying upright.
Wolpert and Juan stayed still for several minutes after the lawmen had passed. The prisoner was happy enough to be sitting still for a spell and barely made a sound. Even after his eyes had acclimated to the shadows, Wolpert could hardly make out where the horizon ended and the sky began. A sparse bank of clouds marred the field of stars overhead as they slid from west to east, smearing everything into a dark gray mass. The three men sat for a little while longer and then walked their horses in the opposite direction that the lawmen had chosen.
The cold soaked into Wolpert’s bones until every joint creaked when he moved. It wasn’t just a sound that filled the inside of his head, but something he could feel like icy nails scraping along his aching tendons and the underside of his kneecaps. The more he rode, the less he moved his legs. By the time he and Juan arrived at the old cabin six miles away from the jail, Wolpert’s body was numb from the waist down. The prisoner hung on to his back like a clump of leaves that had been stuck there by a splash of frozen water.
When he arrived, Wolpert could see a light flickering within the cabin. It was too old to be remembered by most folks in Lester and too stubborn to have fallen over in any storm. The horses were nowhere to be found, which didn’t set well with the sheriff. Climbing down from his saddle, he drew his pistol and flipped his reins up to the prisoner who remained perched on the gelding’s rump like so much baggage.
“Isn’t this where we’re supposed to meet the others?” Juan asked.
“Yeah, but there should be horses tied to one of those posts. Whistle if you see anyone trying to skin out the back.”
Since he knew the piece of unkempt land so well, Wolpert was able to sneak up to the side of the cabin without making a sound. He stepped over pits in the ground left behind by rocks he’d pulled up himself and navigated patches he knew would be covered with dead grass or leaves. Avoiding the front door and larger window completely, he leaned against the wall next to a square side window that was only slightly larger than his head. Wolpert held his breath so as not to steam the glass as he got a look at who was inside.
The first thing to catch his eye was the fire. It wasn’t burning in a stove or even a hearth, but in the middle of the floor where a portion of the boards had been pulled up to reveal packed dirt. Smoke rose from the flames and drifted straight up through a hole in the roof where a chimney had possibly been at one time or another. The horses were clustered at the edge of the room, but were such a sight that they caught Wolpert’s attention before the men in there with them. He glanced at the faces of the men huddled near the fire and walked around to the back door. Knowing the latch didn’t work properly, he pulled it open and stepped inside.
Both of the guns he’d divvied out earlier were pointed at him as the conversation around the campfire was brought to a sudden halt. Wolpert raised his hands and walked inside and across the room.
“Lord above, you gave us a fright,” Cade said. “That’s a real good way to get yourself shot.”
“So is creating a nice, bright fire. The only way to draw more attention would be if you stumbled upon a lighthouse in the middle of this field.”
“You picked the spot, Sheriff. Isn’t it safe?”
Both of the prisoners straightened up, but one of them climbed to his feet and said, “Hold up, now. He’s a sheriff?”
“Relax,” Tom said. “He’s a crooked sheriff and a friend of Burt’s.”
Wolpert wanted to hide the contempt he felt for being recognized that way, but did a bad job of it when he snarled, “And who the hell are you?”
“Oh, you can call me Malone,” the prisoner replied cheerfully. “This here’s Ben.”
Ben was a skinny fellow who was easily the tallest man in the cabin. He had both gangly arms wrapped tightly around himself and nodded while scooting closer to the fire.
“Burt must be planning one hell of a big job, because he’s gone through a lot of trouble to spring the best thieves there are from that jail,” Malone proudly declared.
“It’d better be worth all that trouble,” Tom grunted.
“Don’t worry. It will be.”
“So where are we headed anyway?” Eddie asked.
Wolpert, Cade, Tom and Juan all looked at him as though they didn’t know whether they should laugh or shoot him through the head and be done with it.
“Where are we headed?” Wolpert snapped. “Aren’t you the one that’s supposed to tell us that?”
“Surely you men gotta have some notion of where we’re goin’. Otherwise, you could just be tricking me into—”
“It’s too cold to muck around with secret passwords and all that nonsense,” Cade said while drawing his pistol and aiming it at him. “Here’s your password. If it’s not good enough for ya, I can give you another one that you’re bound to like even less.”
“We know we’re headed into Texas,” Wolpert said. “But that doesn’t tell us what we truly need to know.”
“All right,” Eddie said in a voice that was calm, but not calm enough to keep from wavering a bit. “It’s always a good idea to be safe. Surely you understand.”
“We’re a long ways past being safe,” Wolpert told him. “Start talking so we can figure out the rest and get some sleep.”
“The strongbox is headed into Dallas, but we need to catch it before it gets there. It’s gonna be heavily guarded and impossible to just take with us. A friend of mine that works with the stagecoach company being contracted by Wells Fargo told me that the box will actually be bolted into the floor of the coach. If we just try to steal the coach, the Wells Fargo gunmen will be ready to burn us off of it if necessary. The strongbox is sturdy enough to be the only thing left standing even if that coach is blown to bits. The only way to get the strongbox is to get it out of that coach, and the only way to do that in a short amount of time is to unlock the brackets that’ll be holding it in place. I ain’t heard of a good way to do that, so that’s on Burt’s shoulders.”
“How about getting the keys to unlock them?” Wolpert asked. “Think that would do?”
“He’s got both keys?” When Wolpert nodded, Eddie grinned brightly enough to illuminate the sections of the cabin that remained untouched by the fire’s glow. “Then all he needs are men tough enough to hold off the Wells Fargo boys and skilled enough to get out with the cargo intact.”
“I can vouch for the first group,” Tom said. “And before they spout off again, I figure they’ll vouch for the second.”
“I can vouch for them as well,” Eddie said. “They can climb along the side of a moving train like a pair of monkeys and still keep their fingers moving deftly enough to pick a lock.”
“If we’re all friends now, maybe we should plan tomorrow’s ride.” Since Ben hadn’t said much of anything since their introduction, everyone looked at him. A couple of the men seemed surprised that he could speak at all. Apparently used to that sort of reaction, Ben said, “The best spot to hit that Wells Fargo caravan is when it crosses the Red Riv
er.”
“You know that for certain, do ya?” Tom asked.
“Yes, sir. That’s why Eddie was certain I come along.” Looking over to Eddie, he added, “I’m guessing it’s time to lay our cards on the table now, right?”
“Yep,” Eddie replied.
“I got a set of ears inside Wells Fargo. They’re attached to the same man who told Burt about this deal to begin with. Sent word along when he struck out for Omaha with some horses.”
Wolpert couldn’t help smiling at the sound of that. There were plenty of times while he was in uniform when nothing he was ordered to do seemed to make any sense. For the most part, and especially when he was a soldier, Wolpert didn’t get the pleasure of seeing how his piece of the puzzle fit in with all the others. Therefore, when he did get to see a few pieces come together, he made a point to enjoy it.
“The Wells Fargo men are starting somewhere up north of Texas,” Ben continued. “I don’t know where. What I do know is that they’ve already set out but shouldn’t reach the Red River for at least another week. I think maybe they stopped somewhere along the way to get the coach properly outfitted and to pick up their cargo.”
“So, what the hell is this cargo?” Cade asked. “We already got more lawmen on our tails than we know what to do with. Maybe this job ain’t worth us stretching our necks out any further.”
Since Juan and Tom looked as if they were getting ready to agree with their partner, Ben said, “Keys.”
“Keys?” Tom grunted. “We know about the keys already.”
“No. That’s what’s in the strongbox.”
“So, what you’re telling us is that there are more keys in that strongbox?” Tom asked.
“Yeah.”
After twitching his eyes back and forth between all the other men, Cade felt frustration growing inside him like steam building within a piston. “Why are we gonna risk gettin’ shot or hung for a bunch of keys?”
Ralph Compton Rusted Tin Page 21
