Border Fever

by Pronzini, Bill

  He finally convinced her to stay put and keep watch on Holmes. Then he and Meckleburg got their rifles and hurried downstairs. At the desk, M’Candliss told the fat, bespectacled clerk to fetch the druggist who had tended Vern Beasley. Holmes was going to need both the druggist’s medical knowledge and his supply of bottled medicine in order to regain his health.

  When the two Rangers arrived at the rail yard they found Sheriff Tucker deep in conversation with an elderly, round-featured man whose name turned out to be Frederickson. He was a retired engineer and keeper of the Adobe Junction roundhouse, and Tucker had conscripted him. From the looks of Frederickson’s eager face, he hadn’t had to twist the man’s arm to get him to agree to the task.

  Several other men were already in the yard, some of them talking in small groups, others coupling a single passenger car to an old, big-wheeled, big-boilered 4-4-0 locomotive. The boiler had been fired, and steam chuffed out of the engine’s straight stack. Her rhythm sounded unsteady to M’Candliss, but Frederickson assured him that she was sturdy and dependable. She had counterbalanced wheels, he said, to minimize “hammer-blow” on the tracks, and big sandboxes to provide assistance to track friction. She’d get them to Saddleback Gorge in thirteen hours or less if any locomotive could; Frederickson guaranteed it.

  M’Candliss took that guarantee with the grain of salt it merited, but he said nothing. He merely nodded and turned to help Tucker round up the assembled men and herd them into the passenger car. The last of the deputies arrived while they were doing that; when they had taken their places inside, M’Candliss counted a total of twenty-three men—hardly an army, but enough to hold their own against Gueterma and his band of renegades. He left Meckleburg and Tucker to handle things in the car and climbed up into the cab with Frederickson and a fireman.

  Minutes later, shortly before seven o’clock, the locomotive’s rods began to grind and they surged out of the yard under a full head of steam.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunset flamed in the west; the Galiuro peaks cast blue dusk shadows, and the tracks gleamed golden before the onrushing locomotive. Inside the cab, M’Candliss squinted as the sun fired the glass windscreen set on an angle outside the open side window. There was sweat on his bare back, mixed with soot; he had shed his shirt and was helping the fireman, a man whose name he never learned, shovel crumbly coal into the firebox. The heat in the cab was intense, much hotter than the desert sun had been during the long day’s ride.

  After they had crossed an expanse of desert northeast of Adobe Junction, the terrain had begun to roughen with jagged rock formations and the right-of-way had become narrower and more winding. Now thick brush on steep slopes hemmed in the speeding one-car train.

  Frederickson, at the throttle, puffed furiously on a stubby pipe and alternated between putting his head out through the window to check the tracks ahead and watching the steam pressure gauge. The fireman had his eye on the gauge too, and he seemed much less confident than Frederickson was.

  “I hope to Christ she don’t blow,” he said to M’Candliss. “This hog was retired years ago. Hell, she’s got more patches on her than I’ve got on my Levi’s.”

  Frederickson overheard that. “Bullshit,” he said. He tapped the pressure gauge; the black needle shimmied. “She can take plenty more than we’re giving her. Don’t worry.”

  “So you say,” the fireman grumbled. He tossed another shovelful into the firebox. “Damn coal is lousy too.”

  Frederickson scowled and pulled the whistle cord; a sharp blast echoed from the long tube atop the boiler hump. He tugged the cord again, and then a third time. M’Candliss thought that it was because he was remembering the highballing days of his youth and liked to hear the sound of the whistle. There was nothing on or around the tracks to get in their way.

  The locomotive sped on. Night shadows began to lengthen as they climbed higher and the westering sun dipped behind bluffs and ridges. The sunset colors faded out of the sky and the deep purple of twilight seeped in their place. It would be dark in another few minutes.

  M’Candliss laid his shovel down and stood at the side bulkhead to take some of the hot cindered breeze. As he did so, he considered the geography. The Galiuros extended from below the Mexican border up in a north-northwesterly line into the middle of Arizona Territory; the Dos Cabezas were to the northeast of them. Two major rail lines crossed into the southern half of Arizona from New Mexico and the State of Texas; the main line branched at Lordsburg in New Mexico, one going to Phoenix and the other to Tucson. There was a connecting line between Tucson and the Phoenix branch, and this was the spur on which they were traveling. It linked in just east of Spanner, on the San Pedro River, and some miles beyond the switch were the Dos Cabezas and Saddleback Gorge.

  The bandito fortress was located in the southern section of the Galiuros; Gueterma and his raiders would have traveled almost due north from there. This train was faster than their wagons and horses, but the raiders had had a day’s head start and a more or less direct path. M’Candliss put his head out of the side window and counted the telegraph poles strung along this section of right-of-way, checking his stem-winder as he did so. It was a little over two minutes each between the poles, which meant that the train was making just over thirty miles an hour.

  Not fast enough, M’Candliss thought. Unless they could pick up more speed, particularly on the downgrades, it seemed likely that Gueterma’s raiders would reach Saddleback Gorge and have time to deploy before M’Candliss and the posse arrived.

  The engineer, Frederickson, hooked the reverse bar up another notch and widened the throttle full open. The whir of the drivers, the beat of the trucks, the bark of the exhaust created a thunderous sound in M’Candliss’ ears. The air was clogged with cinders and smoke as the locomotive, her side rods flashing, her wheel flanges screaming on the curves, roared on through the gathering darkness.

  M’Candliss picked up his shovel and went to the tender for more coal. Night closed around them; Frederickson switched on the locomotive’s headlamp. The air outside cooled, and that lessened the heat somewhat in the cab. But M’Candliss kept right on sweating, and his muscles ached with strain and fatigue. He had been two days without sleep; he knew he was going to have to quit soon and get some rest. Otherwise, neither his mind nor his reflexes would be functioning worth a damn when the train reached Saddleback Gorge.

  The tracks began to wind across a long, narrow Galiuro valley, between high ridges furred with trees. The headlamp made shiny ribbons of the rails ahead, cast light into the brush-laden gullies and stretches of sloping rock walls that flanked the right-of-way. M’Candliss’ stem-winder said the time was getting on toward ten o’clock.

  His mind felt sluggish, his arms as if lead weights were tied to them. He said finally to the fireman, “Can you handle the box alone? I’m about, all in.”

  “Hell, yes, he can handle it,” Frederickson said before the fireman could answer for himself. “Get yourself some rest, Captain.”

  The fireman nodded agreement. “Go ahead. No problem.”

  “Thanks,” M’Candliss said. “I’ll be back before dawn. I want to be here in the cab when we reach the gorge.”

  ‘M’Candliss laid his shovel down again, scrambled across the coal in the tender, and let himself down on the small platform behind it. There was little room and the train rolled and pitched at the speed it was traveling. The passenger car ground against the pin-coupler and swayed erratically in a back lashing motion. M’Candliss held onto the brake wheel on the tender and judged the leap.

  He sprang as the car and the locomotive tilted the same way. His boots hit the plank duck-board walkway, and his hand tightened around an iron rung of the ladder leading to the roof. He firmed his hold, then opened the door and stepped inside the car.

  The interior was warm with humanity, yet very quiet. The wall lamps had been lit, and the pitching motion cast dancing patterns of light and shadow over the faces of the score of men sitting or standin
g. Their features were all hard-set, fired with determination.

  M’Candliss felt a sense of satisfaction as he looked them over. They weren’t his highly trained Rangers, and they had no real experience at the kind of battle they were rushing toward; they were just plain everyday folk, the average citizens of his Territory, men who had gladly broken out of the mold of routine living to defend their homes in this crisis. And that made them plenty good enough when push came to shove. These were the men who had built Arizona into a unified territory and who would one day make it a state—men who didn’t need the notoriety of outlawry to make them part of history, who in just living had greater courage and faced more danger and hardship than the killers and thieves whom M’Candliss fought.

  Alfredo Ortiz had been wrong, very wrong, when he said that the anglos had become soft. The men in this car, M’Candliss thought, were hardier and more resilient and unflinching than any other set of men in the history of the nation. He would have been proud to have any one of them in his band of Rangers, and to call any one of them his friend.

  He squeezed through the packed car to where Meckleburg and Sheriff Tucker were sitting on a bench next to a cold pot-bellied stove. “Everything all right in the cab, Cap?” Meckleburg asked, making room for him.

  “So far. We’re running wide open.”

  “Figured we were.”

  Tucker extracted a large silver Elgin International from his vest pocket as M’Candliss sat down. “After ten,” he said. “Reckon we still got twelve hours or so left to go.”

  M’Candliss nodded. “I figure we’ll get to Saddleback Gorge sometime between eight and nine.”

  “Should be plenty enough light by then for accurate shootin’,” Tucker observed.

  “If we’re lucky, Gueterma and his bunch won’t be there yet. Then we’ll be able to stop the delegates’ train on the other side of the trestle.”

  The sheriff jerked his chin toward the other men. “They’d be disappointed, if it came to that,” he said. “They’re spoilin’ to settle a few accounts.”

  “They’ll get their chance, like as not,” M’Candliss said. “Sooner-or later.”

  Meckleburg was studying him in the unsteady lamplight. “You look plumb tuckered, Cap. Maybe you’d best get yourself some sleep.”

  “Yeah. Might be a good idea if everyone else did the same. The more alert everybody is come morning, the better our chances.”

  “You’re right about that,” Tucker agreed. He stood up and called for attention, and when he had it he passed along what M’Candliss had said.

  There were murmurs from the men, and one complained, “How the hell can a body sleep in a damned old rattler like this?” But they settled down on the wooden seats and benches, while Tucker went around extinguishing all of the lamps. Within minutes the steady roar of steel on steel was punctuated by thickened breathing and an occasional snore.

  It took M’Candliss longer than the rest to get to sleep, despite his fatigue. Thoughts kept tumbling through his mind—of the delegates in the Prescott train, of Gueterma and his banditos, of what awaited him and the posse at Saddleback Gorge. And, strangely, of Isabella Ortiz. It had been a long while since a woman had gotten under his skin—not since the death of his wife. But there was no denying that Isabella had. Nothing could ever come of it, of course; she was pledged to help her people in - their struggle for freedom and a better life, and he was pledged to help Governor Shannon build Arizona into the great state it would someday be. Yet that didn’t stop a man from dreaming...

  M’Candliss slept fitfully, but when a whistle blast from the cab woke him just before dawn, he felt rested and alert. His joints were stiff from the cramped position he had been in; he walked around some to work out the stiffness. Some of the other men were awake as well, including Tucker and Meckleburg.

  “I’m hungry enough to eat a horse,” Meckleburg said, “saddle and all. We should’ve thought to bring some grub, Cap.”

  “You’ll fight better on an empty stomach,” M’Candliss told him. “And you’ll appreciate your next meal even more.”

  M’Candliss returned to the locomotive just as Frederickson cut loose with three short blasts and one long one on the whistle. They were approaching the junction of the main line between Lordsburg and Phoenix, the old engineer explained. The whistle blasts were to let the signalman at the switching point know they were coming and to split the switch.

  “Don’t have to stop, that way,” Frederickson said. “We’ll cannonball straight on through.”

  “What if there’s another train coming from Lordsburg?” M’Candliss asked.

  “Next one scheduled through is at four this afternoon. If we get flagged onto a siding, it’ll be because of the delegates’ special coming through early; then we’d know they got over the trestle safe and sound.”

  The switch was split when they reached the junction. Frederickson waved at the signalman as the one-car train rocketed onto the main line, heading east. They passed the siding used to shunt one train onto so another could pass by. The delegates’ train hadn’t cleared the trestle yet; the race against time was still on.

  M’Candliss relieved the tired and soot-blackened fireman as dawn broke. They were into the Dos Cabezas now, climbing; a deep coppery color spread through the sky. M’Candliss could hear the valves popping and cracking, and the old cylinders and drivers were laboring on the grade. He watched Frederickson shut down the steam a little to relieve some of the boiler pressure, heard the popping diminish almost instantly.

  A few miles later they reached the top of the grade and started along the rim of a canyon. On their left, the slope was steep and heavily bouldered. On their right, the canyon face was less steep, more like a tilted slope than a wall.

  “Coming on the gorge,” Frederickson yelled over the engine noise. “Won’t be long now—another few minutes.”

  M’Candliss checked his stem-winder. The time was seven-forty. Laying his shovel down, he stood tensed and waiting for the long, spidery trestle bridging the canyon to come into view.

  Ahead the tracks made a long curve. Frederickson kicked the brakes on lightly as they started into it, kicked them off again. All around them was desolate beauty, a soaring chain of giant peaks and naked rock that glistened against the deepening blue of the morning sky.

  The slopes steepened on both sides as the train cut the segments. Then, swiftly, the terrain leveled out into a small plateau—a ledge that projected over the now dizzying depths of the canyon.

  Saddleback Gorge.

  Directly ahead the trestle loomed, a spindly cross-hatch of wooden beams that looked like a thin spider web linking the two sides of the chasm. The trestle curved slightly to give its length more rigidity against the heavy winter winds and snows. It looked more fragile than it was.

  “Over a hundred yards long,” Frederickson said. “First three they tried to build didn’t last a season—”

  Whatever else the engineer was going to say was lost. He cried out suddenly, wheeled and fell away from the throttle; M’Candliss caught him, saw blood appear on his shoulder, and at the same time heard the faint echoing crack of a rifle above the pounding of the trucks. Then there were more cracks; bullets slapped against the engine and tender, pinging off the iron, thudding into wooden surfaces.

  “Down!” M’Candliss yelled to the fireman.

  The other man threw his shovel aside and hit the deck of the cab. M’Candliss crouched over the fallen Frederickson, pistol out and gripped tight in his hand. They had won the race against time in the sense that they had reached Saddleback Gorge ahead of the delegates’ train; but they had lost what might be the most important part of the race, just as he had been afraid they would.

  Gueterma and his banditos had already arrived and were hidden in the rocks above, raining lead down on the speeding train.

  Chapter Thirteen

  M’Candliss made an instant decision, based on instinct and on what he had seen at the banditos’ mountain fortress. He
levered up and leaped to the controls; the train was almost to the trestle now, and there wasn’t a moment to spare.

  He slammed the throttle shut, twisted the brake handle, and wiped the gauges clean. The brake shoes ground against the wheels, making the locomotive, tender, and passenger car buck and reel crazily. The drivers screamed and locked tight, sliding along the rails.

  Frederickson had managed to raise up on one hip; the wound in his shoulder wasn’t crippling. “What the blazes are you doing?” he yelled at M’Candliss.’

  “Stopping this hog!”

  “Hell’s fire—why?” the fireman snapped. He clambered to his feet and started for M’Candliss. “Are you crazy? They’re shooting at us out there! Once we get across the trestle we’ll be safe!”

  “The hell we will! There’s dynamite on that trestle! They won’t let us get across; they’ll blow us up!”

  He flung the reverse bar over and opened the throttle. The fireman’s horrified cry of “My God!” was lost in the sudden thunder of the drivers locking, spinning backward. Outside, the raiders’ bullets whizzed all around the train; the men in the passenger car were returning fire now, unaware of the sure death that lay ahead of them if M’Candliss failed to stop the locomotive in time.

  The laboring engine was within a few yards of the trestle before the brake shoes locked fully. The scream of metal on metal lessened; the old 4-4-0 shimmied, seemed to want to stand on its nose. They ground to a shuddering halt. Steam hissed mightily from the ancient boiler, and patched steel groaned in protest against the strain.

  M’Candliss left the controls and dropped to the deck near the right-side gangway. He could see partway up into the rocks where the banditos were; their cover was good and the angle made shooting difficult from down here. But their angle, shooting downward, was much better. Their bullets spanged off the steel-plated sides of the locomotive, ricocheted with echoing howls through the mountain vastness.