Savage Country

by William W. Johnstone

  “All that was in the shed,” Brant replied. “We still have part of a case that we were using.”

  Brant’s accent told Frank that the man wasn’t a Westerner. He probably came from Ohio or Pennsylvania or some place like that. From the looks of him, and judging by the fact that he was ramrodding the construction of this spur line, he was an experienced railroad man. Even though their backgrounds were completely different, Frank felt an instinctive liking for him.

  “One of our boys saw him skulking around the shed,” Brant went on, “and raised a yell, but it was too late. The shed blew, and that gent jumped on a horse he had hidden in the brush and took off. I grabbed some of the men and came after him.”

  “Ever seen him before?” Frank asked.

  Brant cuffed his fedora back and hunkered on his heels at the edge of the roadbed to look down at the corpse. After a moment of intent study, the construction boss shook his head. “No, if I ever saw him, I don’t recall it. Looks like a bad sort, though, from what I can tell.”

  “That was my impression too,” Frank agreed. “Like you said, it would have been nice to be able to question him.”

  Brant straightened. “Well, we won’t have that chance, but it’s just a matter of time until some other spalpeen tries something. We’ll catch the next one and hold his feet to the fire.”

  “You mean that metaphorically, of course,” Conrad put in.

  Brant just grunted. He turned his attention to Rebel and took his hat off, holding it over his heart as he said, “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to be ignoring you until now. Sam Brant is the name, and I’m at your service.”

  “Uh, this is Miss Callahan,” Conrad said quickly. “She’s traveling with us.”

  “Escorting the lady to Ophir, eh? That’s gentlemanly of you lads.”

  Brant didn’t press for an explanation of who Rebel really was or why she was with Frank and Conrad, and they didn’t offer one. The members of the railroad construction crew who had given chase to the now-deceased intruder turned their horses around and started back to camp on Brant’s orders. “I’ll be along shortly, with Mr. Browning and his friends,” Brant told them.

  Then he turned back to Frank and the two young people and went on. “You are heading for our camp, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “Seems like the best place to start, since you’re obviously still having trouble.”

  “Aye, that’s for sure,” Brant agreed with a disgusted scowl. “This business today, blowing up the dynamite shed, I mean, is the first time anybody has tried anything in several days, but there have been problems off and on ever since the last time Mr. Browning was here. Why, it was only a week ago that somebody took potshots at one of my crews as they chopped wood for our cookstoves.”

  “Have you seen any sign of the Indians?” Conrad asked.

  Brant shook his head. “The savages themselves, no. But we’ve seen their handiwork.”

  The grim tone of the man’s voice told Frank what to expect, but he asked the question anyway. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean,” Brant said, “that three of our boys went out to hunt fresh meat a while back, and when they never came back to camp we sent out a big, well-armed search party. Found their bodies about a mile up a canyon, stuck full of arrows. Their scalps were gone too.”

  “We ran into Indian trouble too,” Conrad said.

  Brant balled one hand into a big fist and smacked it into the palm of the other hand. “I don’t know why the Army doesn’t come in here and clean out those red heathens!”

  “That’s easier said than done,” Frank pointed out. “Fifteen years ago, Victorio and his braves led the Army a merry chase through these very mountains. The soldiers never did catch him. He wound up being trapped and killed by the Mexican Army, down south of the border. In more recent times, it was Geronimo who had the soldier boys running around in circles, mostly over in Arizona Territory. But it’s not as simple as just sending in the Army.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Brant said. “Still, it’s their job to pacify the savages, and I don’t know why they’re not at least trying to do it.”

  Conrad said, “I’ve spoken to some of the politicians in Washington, Sam, and they promised me that troops will be dispatched to this region as soon as they’re available. Until that time comes, though . . .” Conrad shrugged. “We’re on our own.”

  “Not entirely.” Brant nodded toward Frank. “We’ve got Frank Morgan to help us now.”

  “I’ll try not to let you down,” Frank said wryly.

  Brant grasped the reins of his horse. “Well, come on, folks. I’ll take you on up to the camp.”

  They mounted and rode along the ledge. Conrad asked, “Will you be able to go ahead with construction without your supply of dynamite?”

  “Well, like I said, we’ve got part of a case left, so we can carry on for a little while. We’ve rigged a temporary telegraph line between the camp and Lordsburg, so I’ll wire down there and have several more cases of the stuff put on the next work train that comes up the line. It’ll be here in a few days. So blowing up the shed shouldn’t slow us down much. It’ll just cost you some extra money to replace that lost dynamite, Mr. Browning.”

  “I don’t care about that,” Conrad said. “I can stand some added expenses, as long as construction carries on.”

  “It’ll do that,” Brant vowed. “If you plan to stay around for a few days, you’ll see for yourself.”

  “I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do. I thought I might go on to Ophir and leave Frank at the camp to investigate.” Conrad paused. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help at work like that.”

  Frank said, “Whatever you think is best.” He had thought that Conrad might want to remain at the camp, but it didn’t surprise him that the young man was leaning toward going on to Ophir. Even though the settlement was a mining boomtown, it would offer more in the way of comfort and civilized amenities than a railroad construction camp.

  The roadbed continued its long curve around the side of the mountain, reaching a peak and then gradually sloping down until it finally reached a valley that was several miles wide. The tracks had crossed part of the valley, stopping at a wide gorge where a foaming, fast-flowing river brawled along at the bottom. The little creek that paralleled the tracks flowed into that stream just west of a partially completed trestle.

  “We were blasting out some holes for the support pillars,” Brant explained as the group rode toward the sprawling cluster of tents that marked the location of the construction camp. There were also several freight and passenger cars parked along the tracks, as well as flatcars piled high with wooden cross-ties and steel rails. Building a railroad took a lot of men, equipment, and material.

  Frank looked at the spidery framework of the trestle, which spanned about three fourths of the width of the gorge. It always amazed him that such fragile-looking structures could support the enormous weight of a locomotive and a whole train of cars.

  “You’ll want to spend the night here at least before you start on to Ophir,” Brant said to Conrad as they all dismounted. “There’s room for you in one of the cars where the foremen and I sleep. As for the lady . . .”

  “Anywhere’s fine with me,” Rebel said, “as long as I’ve got room to spread my bedroll.”

  “Uh, I was about to say we can fix up a private compartment for you, ma’am,” Brant went on.

  “I don’t want you going to any trouble, Mr. Brant.”

  “No trouble at all, ma’am.”

  Frank could tell that Rebel didn’t cotton much to being called ma’am, but she didn’t say anything except to thank the construction boss graciously for his hospitality. It occurred to Frank to wonder: If Conrad did go on to Ophir, would Rebel stay here at the camp . . . or would she go with him?

  That question could wait. For now, Frank had a job of his own to do. He was going to find out who was behind these attacks on the New Mexico, Rio Grande, and Orien
tal, and put a stop to them so that the rails could go on safely through the mountains. With any luck, maybe nobody else would have to die to make that dream a reality.

  Chapter 14

  The men who had returned to the camp ahead of Frank and the others had already reported that the saboteur was dead. They had also spread the word that Frank Morgan, the famous gunfighter known as The Drifter, would be riding into camp soon, so quite a few of the workers were on hand to greet the little group and to stare curiously at Frank. He was used to being gawked at, and while he didn’t like it very much, he didn’t allow it to bother him either.

  Brant introduced Frank to his assistants, the men who served as foremen of the various work gangs, and to Nathan Buckhalter, a surveyor and topographical engineer. Buckhalter had been in charge of the initial survey carried out long before construction even began, and he was the one who had determined the best route for the line to follow. If unforeseen difficulties forced any deviation from that route, Buckhalter was on hand to determine which way the railroad should go.

  Conrad took Rebel into the car that provided living quarters for Brant, Buckhalter, and the other bosses of the project. The workers slept in the scores of tents pitched around the railhead.

  Once Frank had met everyone, Brant led him over to a blackened pit in the ground a couple of hundred yards from the camp. A few wisps of smoke still drifted up from the ugly crater.

  “That used to be our dynamite shed,” Brant explained. “You can see for yourself what happened when all the explosives stored there went up.”

  Frank looked at the distance between the camp and the place where the dynamite had been stored. “Good idea keeping the stuff this far away.”

  “Yeah, that’s just common sense around a construction area,” Brant said with a nod. “And it’s lucky we are that none of the men were close enough to get caught in the blast. Nobody was killed or even hurt.”

  “How was the explosion set off?”

  Brant took off his fedora and ran his fingers through his bristly reddish hair. “You know, in all the confusion I never did find out the details. Let’s go talk to Hank Willard. He’s the one who first saw that skunk who wound up falling off the ledge.”

  Willard was a short man with unusually muscular arms and shoulders. They had gotten that way from spending hours every day swinging the heavy maul that drove in the spikes fastening the rails to the cross-ties. He shook hands with Frank when Brant introduced them and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Morgan, but I’ve read a plenty o’ them dime novels about you. Never thought I’d actually get to meet anybody so famous.”

  “Well, you have to remember that all those stories are just made up,” Frank said with a smile.

  “You don’t say! You mean you never met the Steam Man of the Prairie or tangled with Count Marzeppi or shot it out with five hundred badmen at once?”

  Frank had to laugh. “I don’t reckon I’d still be here if any of that was true.”

  “Well, they was good stories anyway.”

  “Tell Mr. Morgan about what happened earlier, Hank,” Sam Brant prompted.

  “It was like this,” the spiker said. “I been helpin’ out with the trestle, since we ain’t actually layin’ any track right now, and one o’ the bosses sent me back to the tool car to fetch a saw blade to replace one that busted. But when I got there I seen somebody skulkin’ around the dynamite shed, and I knew he hadn’t ought to been there because we already had a case o’ the stuff down in the gorge. I seen him go in, and I waited until he come out again, and when I got a better look at the way he was dressed, I knew he weren’t no railroad man. Looked more like a cowboy.” The word dripped scorn, and Willard added hastily, “No offense, Mr. Morgan.”

  “None taken,” Frank assured him. “What did you do then?”

  “Well, I figured I better see what the fella was up to, so I started over toward the shed. He saw me comin’ and acted spooked, so I yelled at him to stay where he was. He didn’t do it, though. He run off into the bushes. So I run after him.”

  “And he had a horse hidden in the brush?”

  “That’s right. He jumped on the horse and took off, and I was a-yellin’ at him, and about that time I noticed some sparks and seen a fuse leadin’ into the shed, a-burnin’ to beat the band. I thought for a second I could run over there and stomp it out, and I even started in that direction, but then I seen the sparks goin’ right into the shed and knew I had best put some distance ’tween me and it. Good thing I did too, because a couple o’ seconds later the whole shebang went up. Knocked me right off my feet, it did. When I got up, I seen Mr. Brant and some o’ the boys runnin’ to find out what had happened, so I yelled to ’em about the fella who got away, and they took off after him.” Willard paused and rasped his fingers over his beard-stubbled jaw. “I hear the gent’s dead.”

  Frank nodded. “Yes, he is.”

  “I ain’t sorry to hear it. I come near to gettin’ blowed up, and it ain’t a feelin’ that I like.”

  “You just saw the one man?”

  Willard nodded solemnly. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was alone.”

  Frank turned to Brant. “There wasn’t a guard on the dynamite shed?”

  “There will be from now on, once we get a new one built,” Brant said grimly. “But before this . . . no, we didn’t have one. Didn’t think it was necessary. Nobody figured one of the bastards would sneak up so close to camp like that to carry out his deviltry.”

  “The shed being set off by itself made it a little easier for him,” Frank mused. “And I suppose that during the day there wouldn’t be that many people around who might spot him. Everybody was working.”

  “That’s right,” Willard said. “’Twas just luck I was in the right place at the right time to see him sneakin’ off after he’d laid that fuse.”

  Frank walked back over to the smoking crater that was all that was left of the shed. A look at the ground told him there wouldn’t be any point in trying to backtrack the saboteur and find out where he had come from. The ground was too stony for his horse to have left prints. And the fact that he had fled along the already completed part of the line didn’t mean anything. The man had just been trying to get away from his pursuers and probably hadn’t paid that much attention to where he was going; otherwise, he wouldn’t have chosen such a perilous path.

  “Any ideas?” Brant asked hopefully.

  Frank hated to let the construction boss down, but he shook his head. “This sabotage today is a dead end. I’ll figure out a schedule of guard duty for the camp so it’ll make it more difficult for anybody who doesn’t belong here to come around, and I’ll be scouting the area for any signs of the gang that’s doing this. Also, I think you should send out some men to bring in that body, and Conrad can take it with him to Ophir and try to find out if anybody there knows the man.”

  Brant frowned. “Reckon we should have brought him back with us while we were out there.”

  “Probably, but I didn’t think of it at the time.”

  “And I was so damned mad, I was happy to leave him for the buzzards,” Brant said. “But I’ll tend to having him fetched in, Mr. Morgan.”

  “That’s another thing,” Frank said. “If we’re going to be working together, you might as well call me Frank.”

  “All right,” Brant agreed with a grin, “and I’m Sam.”

  They shook on it, and then Brant said, “Let’s get on back. Supper will be ready soon, and our cooks turn out a pretty good venison stew.”

  As they walked away from the crater, Frank glanced back at the spot where the dynamite shed had stood. A thought had occurred to him, and he wondered how long that saboteur had been at work before Willard spotted him.

  Specifically, he wondered if the man might have stolen a case or two of the explosives before setting his fuse and blowing up the rest of the supply. The man hadn’t had any dynamite with him when he took that fatal tumble off the ledge, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have cached i
t somewhere before setting the fuse.

  Frank hoped that wasn’t the case. The thought of a couple of cases of dynamite in the hands of men who wanted to stop the railroad put a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  * * *

  In the car that served as living quarters, Conrad supervised as a couple of the men rigged blankets across one end of the car to close it off and give Rebel some privacy. She protested, saying, “There’s no need to go to so much trouble just for me.”

  “Nonsense,” Conrad said briskly. “A lady needs her privacy.”

  Rebel laughed. “That’s something nobody’s accused me of very often. Being a lady, I mean.”

  “Well, we’re going to see to it that you’re properly taken care of, so you might as well get used to it.”

  “I reckon I might as well,” Rebel agreed with a shrug. “Anyway, it might be nice to have folks fussing over me for a change. Lord knows my brothers never did. They just thought of me as another one of the boys.” She added, “Just don’t get in the habit of trying to spoil me, Conrad. Wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I pull my weight.”

  “Fine. And speaking of that . . . what are you going to do now? Are you going on to Ophir with me, or staying here at the camp with Frank?”

  She looked at him and said bluntly, “I figured on going with you. Frank can take care of himself.”

  Conrad felt his face reddening. “Are you implying that I need someone to take care of me?”

  “Well, you are a greenhorn out here . . .”

  “I’ll have you know I shot a man once,” he declared stiffly.

  She looked surprised by that. “Really? Did you kill him?”

  “Well . . . no. But he was wounded rather severely.”

  Conrad didn’t like to think about that incident, since he had gotten sick after taking part in the flurry of violence that had seen him use a gun against another man for the first time in his life. But even though he had reacted strongly afterward, he thought he had handled himself well enough during the fight itself. That was the way he remembered it, at least. He certainly didn’t need a girl, even a frontier girl like Rebel, to protect him from badmen.