Behind the Iron

by William W. Johnstone

  “Everybody!” Fallon shouted. “Everybody get down! Get down on the floor!”

  That’s why he had not chanced a shot at the second man with the duster and Coffeyville boots. A bullet might have blown the head off a spinster, a rabbi, a kid, or a couple of poker players. He thumbed back the hammer on the dead outlaw’s Colt.

  Another bullet clipped the top of the seat above Fallon’s head.

  A crazy thought flashed through his head:

  What are a kid, an old widow, and a rabbi doing in the smoking car of a train?

  He thumbed up the loading gate of the Colt and spun the cylinder on his arm. Another shot dug into the rug in the aisle.

  The dead outlaw had boarded the train prepared. He had filled every cylinder with a .45-caliber shell. Two of those had been fired. Four shots. That’s all Fallon had left, plus the two rounds in the derringer—if the little Remington were loaded. He heard gunfire from the front of the train.

  Somewhere, likely hiding on the floor, groveling, perhaps even soiling his britches, Aaron Holderman was inside this smoking car. Aaron Holderman also had a pistol, and maybe more than one. The big, fat slob could help.

  More gunfire. Curses. Fallon thought he heard horses whinnying loudly out on the northern side of the tracks, but he still couldn’t be sure because of the pealing in one of his ears.

  He knew that he would get no help from Aaron Holderman. Fallon adjusted the cylinder on the big. 45, snapped the loading gate shut, and pulled the Colt to full cock. He brought the pistol up, and, without raising his head to look, squeezed the trigger.

  It snapped on a spent cartridge.

  Swearing vilely, Fallon pulled back the hammer and pressed the trigger again. He got the same result. He couldn’t hear the loud click as the hammer again landed on a cartridge that had already been fired. His right hand had not bucked, and he had felt no heat, smelled no smoke.

  Fallon cursed again, and quickly eared the hammer back to full cock.

  Now he heard everything clearly. The man in the linen duster and fancy hat shouted, “You’re empty.” Boot steps then sounded on the aisle.

  Fallon dived, landing hard on the filthy carpet near the door, the .45 at about the level of the seat bottoms, and tilted upward. He squeezed the trigger, and this time, as Fallon knew, the hammer struck a live bullet.

  His hand was jerked upward, and he had already cocked the Colt and brought it down. Fallon held his fire. He was counting his shots. Three rounds left, and there was no need to put a bullet into a dead man.

  The bullet had smashed into the outlaw’s throat, and he lay in the center of the aisle, about six seats up from Fallon, blood spurting toward the ceiling as the man clawed desperately at the red spray. The old woman fainted in her seat. Fallon saw that the kid was limp, like a rag doll, and held by a man in a sack suit.

  The rabbi—indeed, he was a rabbi, or maybe a thespian dressed like one—bent over and picked up the revolver the gunman had dropped.

  Fallon looked behind him at the door, still open, and glanced out the windows on both sides as he hurried toward the bearded Jewish man and the dying—no, he was dead now—train robber.

  Fallon stopped by the rabbi, and extended his left hand.

  “I’ll take his gun, sir,” Fallon said.

  The old man looked up with dark, sad eyes. “It is empty, my son.”

  Fallon swore, but did not question the old rabbi. Instead, Fallon stepped over the dead man, and imagined he heard his boots making a squishing sound on the lake of blood soaking into the carpet. Once he was past the dead man and the Jewish man, Fallon stopped.

  He bellowed, “Holderman! Where the hell are you?”

  A hand appeared atop a seat, followed by another big, hairy hand with swollen knuckles. Aaron Holderman’s dark hair came up next, and finally those eyes widened as he saw Harry Fallon coming down the aisle, a smoking Colt in his right hand and a derringer—Fallon had pulled that from his coat pocket—in his left.

  Holderman’s appearance seemed to say that he thought Harry Fallon had come to the smoking car to kill him.

  Which, Fallon later conceded, would not have been that bad of a plan.

  “Get up,” Fallon snapped.

  “But . . .”

  Fallon was already past the big coward. “Up. Get your gun.”

  More gunfire sounded toward the front of the train. “Head toward the engine. MacGregor’s up that way, and he needs your help.”

  “Where are you going?” Holderman was coming right behind Fallon. They passed more frightened men: gamblers, drummers, and businessmen. Fallon kicked open the door. He stared across the platform. A baggage car. There could be outlaws inside. Fallon and MacGregor had not considered that possibility when they had counted the number of cutthroats Linc Harper had with him.

  No. No, had there been men back here, they would have come inside the smoking car by now. More gunfire appeared to confirm that thought.

  Fallon moved to the side of the platform. Carefully, he peered around the corner, but only for a split second. He came back, breathed in deeply, and turned quickly to the brute beside him.

  “That way!” Fallon motioned with the pistol’s barrel. “Looks like everybody’s outside right now.”

  “What do I do?” Holderman stammered.

  “What you’re paid to do!” Fallon snapped.

  He stepped over the railing, switched the Colt to his left hand, and gripped the metal bars that made a ladder to the roof. “You take the ground. I’m coming across the top.”

  Holderman nodded, though his face showed ashen with fear, and moved through the gate and jumped onto the embankment on the south side of the tracks. He fell onto his side, rolled down the small slope, but came up heaving and weaving, and at the pace of a sloth, started past the smoking car and toward the three passenger coaches, the express car, the tender, and the locomotive.

  Gripping the bars above his head with his right hand, Fallon pulled himself over the railing. His left hand hung down, still holding the warm Colt, and his boots managed to find a hold on lower rails.

  Thick smoke still clouded the sky, and more shots and loud curses came toward the express car—or what was left of the express car after Linc Harper had used dynamite to blow open the door and blow the express agent to hell and gone.

  Fallon braced the Colt against the railing for some measure of support, and started to raise his free hand toward the railing above his head.

  Then a bullet burned his right forearm, and Fallon swore, lost his hold, and crashed against the rocks alongside the graded track.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fallon landed hard, but somehow could still breathe. He could also hear.

  “Charley!” a voice screamed from the southern side of the tracks. “He’s on yer side! Kill him. I’ll get that fat chuck o’ lard headin’ toward the engine.”

  Fallon rolled over. He saw a man in brown pants, brown coat, brown boots—not Coffeyville boots, either, and brown hat—pulling a string of horses alongside the caboose.

  Of course, Fallon thought. The horse holders!

  He expected those horses to be closer to the express car by now. The man let go of the lead rope and clawed for the old Navy Colt stuck in his waistband. Realizing that he still held the Colt, Fallon brought the barrel up, cocked the .45, and punched the trigger.

  He missed, but the gunshot had frightened the horses. Two buckskins at the head of the pack, squealed, reared, and jerked the rope from the stunned horse-holder’s gloved left hand. He turned toward the horses, which now tumbled into a heap. The robber realized his error and turned back toward Fallon. The bandit cursed. He pulled the trigger again, and the bullet ricocheted off one of the smoking car’s heavy iron wheels, sending sparks flying onto the stones and grass as Fallon rolled underneath the car.

  “Son of a gun!” Fallon heard. “The horses. Linc, Linc! The kid has lost the horses!”

  Fallon rolled over the crossties and stone, over the iron rail, and do
wn the embankment on the southern side of the tracks.

  The man who had shot at Fallon, the other one of Harper’s gang left in charge of the horses, stopped running after Aaron Holderman. He must have heard shouts and the gunshots. Now, seeing Fallon lying on his back in the grass, the man cursed, and began sprinting back toward Fallon.

  Holderman kept running.

  Fallon brought the pistol up and started to squeeze the trigger.

  The running man pulled a trigger. Fallon saw that the slim man in farm duds and a straw hat carried a repeating rifle. Fallon held his fire.

  Let him come, Fallon told himself. Another bullet made a whanging sound as it hit the rail above Fallon’s head. He felt the sparks land on his hair and face and heard the deadly ricochet of the bullet. The horse holder on the northern side of the tracks cursed again.

  For the time being, Fallon ignored that outlaw. The one coming at him on this side of the railroad line worked the lever as he ran. He brought the rifle up again, fired from his hip, sending the bullet well down the tracks—not even close to Fallon.

  Still, Fallon told himself, not yet. Not yet.

  He was sweating profusely. Maybe even more than Holderman had back in Chicago, what seemed like an eternity ago.

  The man jacked the hammer. This time he stopped and brought the rifle to his shoulder. Fallon had no choice.

  He squeezed the trigger. The Colt roared, and the punk spun onto his side, pitching the rifle to the ground near the front of the smoking car. Fallon came up, cocked the Colt. If his math was right, he had one shot left. He started for the Winchester the wounded robber had dropped. Then a bullet creased his left calf, and Fallon felt himself stumbling. The Colt fell from his grip, hit the wet grass in front of him, bounced up, and was lost in the grass.

  Fallon dropped hard into the thick grass, knew blood had begun leaking from his leg, felt the fire of pain. He gritted his teeth.

  “I got him, Forrest!” called the horse holder, the one called Charley, from the other side of the tracks, the one who had lost the string of horses. “Finish him, Forrest! Finish him!”

  Forrest could not answer. He was too busy trying to keep the blood from pumping out of the hole in his middle.

  Forgetting the horses, the outlaw named Charley was scrambling. A sharp glance underneath the car showed the man’s boots disappearing as he pulled himself onto the platform between the smoking car and the baggage car. Fallon also glimpsed the pounding hooves of the horses as they bolted for the trees about a hundred yards north of the tracks. A few outlaws appeared to be running after their mounts.

  He didn’t have time to check on Forrest, whom Fallon figured, or at least prayed, was mortally wounded. Nor could Fallon try to grab the Winchester rifle Forrest had dropped. Fallon reached inside his jacket and hurriedly pulled the Remington .41-caliber derringer out. He brought it up in his left hand and tossed it to his right. He wished he hadn’t lost that big. 45. Even with only one round left, Fallon felt more comfortable with a long-barreled pistol of a heavy caliber than a two-shot derringer with minimal range.

  Charley came over the platform in a hurry, a move that Fallon had not expected. The gunman fired a shot that scattered rocks in an explosion of sand and pebbles that stung Fallon’s cheek near the splinters he had received inside the smoking car.

  Fallon swung the derringer up. Charley came up to his knees. His Navy popped. The outlaw cursed. He was using an old relic from even before the Civil War, a weapon many poor gunfighters still used, but most of those had converted those weapons so that they could take modern cartridges. Charley’s gun still used percussion caps and leaden balls.

  “Darn it!” Charley snapped. He pulled back the hammer and aimed again.

  The over-and-under derringer popped in Fallon’s hand.

  Fallon saw a red dot appear on Charley’s left forearm.

  “Darn it,” Charley said again and spun to his left, but only briefly. The Navy Colt spoke this time, but the ball hit the wood near the smoking car’s flooring. Fallon pulled the trigger again as Charley straightened and cocked the Navy one more time.

  This time, Fallon’s slug tore off Charley’s right ear, and Charley spun to his right, touching off a round that dug up the grass just a few yards in front of the bloodied robber.

  Yet Charley was far from finished, and Fallon knew he was out of bullets, and out of luck.

  Still, as Charley somehow managed to bring back the Navy’s hammer to full cock, Fallon threw the derringer at the gunman. Charley just tilted his head and the little Remington sailed past the man’s bloodied head and was lost in the brambles behind the robber.

  The hammer dropped. The pistol snapped.

  Not a misfire. No, Fallon knew that Charley’s. 36-caliber relic was empty.

  Charley swore harder than his usual “Darn it.” He rose, started to charge Fallon and brain him with the butt of the revolver, but stopped after no more than three or four steps. The man straightened, lowered the pistol, and laughed.

  Feeling the shadow behind him, Fallon turned, and dived toward the train tracks. He rolled over, and saw Forrest, bleeding from his stomach, but standing now, his face pale, both of his hands holding the Colt .45. The lucky bastard had somehow found the handgun in the grass.

  Behind Fallon, Charley laughed.

  Fallon dived to his right. He heard the roar of the. 45 and felt something crease his neck. Not a bullet. His ears were ringing again, but he seemed to recognize a new sound. Fallon came up, blinked, spit out dust, and saw the outlaw named Forrest holding both hands to his face. Blood poured between the fingers—or, rather, the remnants of fingers on his left hand—and out of the man’s ears. His stomach was also bleeding from the bullet hole Fallon had put there.

  The Colt was gone. The barrel must have been packed with mud and sand, and the .45 had blown up in the robber’s hand. Fallon didn’t care about that. He saw the Winchester, the weapon the dying Forrest probably wished he had picked up instead of the dirt-clogged Colt.

  Fallon slid through the grass, gripped the stock of the Winchester, and brought it up. He could not recall if Forrest had chambered a fresh round after firing a shot, so Fallon hurriedly worked the lever. A casing flew up and over Fallon’s shoulder, but Fallon didn’t notice if he had ejected a spent brass cartridge or a good one. It didn’t matter. He had a Winchester and Charley was coming at him with a knife.

  Another noise sounded, a loud screeching of metal against metal, and the rattling of chains.

  “Stop!” Fallon yelled at Charley.

  Charley, running with the knife, did not obey Fallon’s order.

  So Fallon stopped him.

  The Winchester roared, a bigger hole appeared in the center of Charley’s face, and backward he flew about six feet before he crashed on the ground and rolled down the embankment. He was dead. They were both dead.

  Fallon felt pretty certain of that.

  He sucked in a deep breath and spun around, looking through the opening between two of the railroad cars. He tried to spot the rest of Linc Harper’s men. Then he wasn’t looking at the running horses or the patch of woods a hundred yards on the other side of the track. He was looking at the smoking car, its windows, not a glimpse of any passenger—they were likely still huddled on the floor.

  Fallon swallowed. Another opening gave him a quick glimpse of the woods and landscape, only to be replaced by the red-painted wood and the yellow gold yellowing:

  Hannibal – Saint Louis – Jefferson City

  RAILROAD COMPANY

  Missouri’s Most Trusted Line

  Since 1888

  “Damn,” Fallon said and followed that curse with: “What the hell.”

  The train. The damned train was moving. Backing up. Heading toward St. Louis.

  Still holding the smoking rifle, Fallon ran down the tracks toward the platform between the third passenger coach and the smoking car. He gritted his teeth against the pain all over. His lips tasted blood. Sweat stung his eyes. His cal
f hurt like hell from the crease a bullet had made, and he could tell that wound still bled. It felt like it was bleeding a lot. He could even feel blood in his boots, damping his socks.

  He needed attention. But first he needed to get back on that train.

  Fallon came up the embankment. Briefly, he considered pitching the rifle, but that was the only weapon he had. He shifted it to his right hand, raised his left. He swiped at the iron railing. Missed. Tried again. He stumbled but righted himself and pushed his legs harder. Once he caught up to the platform, he ran a little past it. The train was picking up steam and speed. Fallon grabbed the railing with his left hand. His fingers clenched tightly, and he threw the Winchester over the top rail. The barrel hit the flooring; the long gun bounced up and landed near the open doorway. With his right hand free now, Fallon grabbed a firm hold on the iron bars. His feet started dragging along the gravel near the bed. The wheels screeched. He remembered those times as a kid, and once as an adult, when he had seen the remains of men and a couple of kids who had gotten caught beneath a train’s iron wheels.

  Fallon pulled himself up, bent his legs, and climbed.

  His left hand slipped free, came up immediately, and found a higher spot to hold. With a grunt that matched his effort, Fallon pulled himself up, and over onto the platform. He landed, rolled over, and tried to catch his breath. The train kept moving, faster, faster, faster.

  Fallon looked at his boots, saw the ripped leather that revealed his socks. Indeed, one was stained red with fresh blood.

  But he was on the train. He was still alive.

  Then a man appeared galloping on a sorrel mare alongside the tracks. The man seemed shocked as much by Fallon’s appearance as Fallon was by his. But the man had the reins in his teeth, and Remington. 44s in both of his hands.

  The dark revolver in the man’s right hand pointed at Fallon.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The gun in the man’s right hand exploded as Fallon dived toward the Winchester. The blast clipped Fallon’s hair and whined off a metal rail. Fallon landed on his knees but did not stop. His right hand grabbed the rifle’s barrel and he kept his momentum carrying him forward as the horseman’s second shot tugged at Fallon’s jacket.