Warpath of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  Guthrie shook his head. “That’s not necessary, Sheriff. Those bastards killed my men, an’ my commanding officer. I intend to track ’em until either they’re all dead an’ buried, or I am.”

  Sheriff Pepper nodded. “Vengeance is a powerful motivator, Sergeant. Just be sure it don’t cloud your mind enough to cause you to make fatal mistakes.”

  “Those bandidos made the mistake, Sheriff, when they killed my friends. I ain’t gonna rest till they’re made to pay for what they done.”

  * * *

  As they headed out of Rifle, Ozark Jack Berlin sent a half-breed Indian named Spotted Dog ahead to check out the trail. Spotted Dog had been a scout for the Army, until the day he’d raped and killed a ten-year-old girl who’d wandered off the Army base.

  Luckily for Spotted Dog, he’d managed to get away from the post before he was caught. Otherwise, he’d never have lived long enough to be sentenced to hang. The escape from the territorial prison had come one month to the day before he was due to be executed.

  Spotted Dog was an excellent tracker, and headed out ahead of the gang, staying off the trail so he wouldn’t be seen by anyone who might be waiting for them.

  * * *

  The gang was just rounding a turn in the trail when Spotted Dog came galloping toward them.

  Berlin held up his hand, halting his men, and sat waiting for Spotted Dog to arrive.

  “Ozark,” he yelled as he reined his sweating horse to a halt in front of Berlin.

  “Yeah, what’d you see, Dog?” Berlin asked, bending into the wind to light a cigar.

  “There are several men ahead, waiting in ambush in rocks that look down on the trail.”

  “How many you talkin’ ’bout?”

  “I see four, but may be more in bushes,” Spotted Dog answered, accepting a small bottle of whiskey Blue Owl offered and taking a long drink.

  “They must’ve gotten word we was comin’ somehow,” Berlin said, almost as if to himself.

  “You think it could’a been that sergeant that officer told us about in Rifle?” Blue Owl asked.

  Berlin shrugged. “Don’t really matter who or how; fact is, we got to change our plans now,” he said. “If they got men on the trail out here, then the town’s bound to be ready for us too.”

  Berlin sat there in his saddle, thinking and smoking for a few minutes. Finally, his gaze lit on the railroad tracks off to the left of the trail, and he nodded.

  “I know what we’re gonna do.”

  He jerked his horse’s head around and began to ride out cross-country, having to go slow through the snow.

  Blue Owl rode next to him, the gang following along behind.

  “Where the hell you goin’, Boss?” Blue Owl hollered, trying to be heard over the wind.

  “We’re goin’ to catch a train, Blue Owl,” Berlin answered.

  13

  Ozark Jack Berlin led his gang cross-country, keeping the small buildings of Crested Butte, Colorado, in view off to their left. He stopped occasionally to consult the map he’d taken from the general store in Lode, checking to make sure they were headed in the general direction the train tracks took when they left the town.

  A little over four hours after leaving the trail, they crossed the tracks several miles from the southern limits of Crested Butte.

  Berlin followed the tracks until they made a wide turn around a small hillock. He reined his horse to a stop.

  “Blue Owl, take a couple of sticks of dynamite and blow that big maple tree down over there,” he said, pointing to a large tree next to the tracks.

  “All right,” Blue Owl said, reaching into his saddlebags.

  After the tree had been felled and was lying across the tracks, Berlin led his men back into a strand of trees and out of sight.

  “When is the train due?” Wiley Gottlieb asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Berlin answered.

  “Well, should we make a fire and cook some coffee?” Gottlieb asked. “I’m ’bout near frozen through.”

  “Sure,” Berlin answered, “but try an’ use old wood so it won’t smoke so much. We don’t want them to see the smoke over in Crested Butte.”

  * * *

  The men managed to get their fill of hot coffee, laced with whiskey, before the mournful whistle of the oncoming train sounded about an hour later.

  “Mount up, men,” Berlin shouted. “We got us a train to catch.”

  When the train rounded the bend in the tracks, the engineer saw the tree blocking the rails and hit the brakes, causing the wheels to lock and send up bright red and orange sparks as the train slowed.

  Berlin shouted, “Let’s ride!” and led the way out of the trees and down the slight slope toward the train before it had stopped completely.

  The engineer held up his hands and stepped to the doorway of the engine when he saw the gang of outlaws riding toward him with guns drawn.

  He stood there until Berlin reined to a halt next to the engine.

  “You gents are outta luck,” the engineer said, a worried frown on his face. “We ain’t carryin’ no money nor gold on this trip.”

  Berlin grinned. “You got us wrong, mister,” he said. “We ain’t gonna rob you . . . we just want a ride.”

  While some of the gang tied ropes to the tree and pulled it off the tracks, others went car to car, confiscating weapons and what small amounts of money and jewelry the passengers had.

  Once they had everyone covered, they went to the baggage cars, threw the suitcases and valises out onto the ground, placed ramps up to the cars, and led their horses onto the train.

  While they were loading the horses, Berlin had Spotted Dog climb up the telegraph pole near the track and cut the wires to keep anyone in Crested Butte from warning the towns down the line that they were on their way.

  While Spotted Dog was cutting the wires, Berlin took four sticks of dynamite and stuffed them under the tracks behind the train. When the dynamite exploded, the rails were left bent and curled, with twenty feet of track destroyed.

  “Now, won’t have to worry ’bout nobody comin’ after us on this track,” Berlin muttered to himself as he surveyed the damage.

  When they had everything loaded, Berlin sent Billy Bartlett up to the engine to tell the engineer to start the train.

  As it began to slowly move forward, Berlin put all the passengers into one car with a couple of men left to keep them covered, and told the rest of his men to spread out and get some sleep.

  “Where we goin’?” Jack McGraw asked.

  “I’d like to put a few hundred miles ’tween us an’ the Army,” Berlin said, glancing again at his map. “I figure we can ride this train down near Pueblo an’ get off there. That ought’a be far enough to throw ’em off our trail.”

  * * *

  Sergeant Bob Guthrie was having breakfast the next morning with Sheriff Waldo Pepper at the boardinghouse where he was staying while in Crested Butte.

  Pepper finished his eggs and bacon, sopped up some gravy on his biscuit, and stuffed it in his mouth. As he chewed, he pulled out his pocket watch.

  “It looks like your bandits ain’t gonna be coming this way after all, Sergeant,” he said in his husky voice. “Maybe the Army men you sent after ’em from Glenwood Springs got ’em after all.”

  Guthrie shook his head. “Maybe, Sheriff, but it just don’t figure.”

  “Well, they’ve had plenty of time to get here by now if they was coming,” the sheriff said, leaning back in his chair and sipping his coffee.

  “You’re right about that,” Guthrie said. “Maybe we oughta take a ride out to the men you’ve got stationed north of town and see if they’ve seen or heard anything.”

  Pepper shrugged. “If you say so, Sergeant, but I’m beginning to think this is a waste of time.”

  They saddled up their horses and rode northward out of town, toward the sentries Pepper had placed there.

  They hadn’t traveled more than a few miles before Guthrie slowed his horse a
nd shaded his eyes against bright sunlight.

  “What’s that you see?” Pepper asked, following the sergeant’s gaze.

  “Smoke,” Guthrie answered shortly. “The damn fools you’ve got on sentry duty have a fire goin’.”

  Pepper shrugged. “So what? It’s damn cold out here.”

  Guthrie gave him a look, his eyes flat. “If we can see the smoke, Sheriff, the outlaws can too. You think they’re dumb enough to ride into an ambush?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” the sheriff replied.

  “Come on,” Guthrie said, spurring his horse forward.

  * * *

  When they got to the small rise where the sentries were keeping watch, they found them sitting around a large fire, holding their hands out to keep them warm.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” one of the men called. “We ain’t seen hide nor hair of anybody all morning.”

  Guthrie just shook his head, muttering to himself as he turned his horse’s head northward and rode up the trail toward Rifle, followed by Sheriff Pepper.

  Two miles from the sentry post, they came upon a collection of horse tracks still evident in the snow on the trail. The tracks showed where the gang had stopped and milled around for a while. Then the tracks led off the trail cross-country to the southwest.

  Guthrie leaned over his horse’s head, his arms crossed on his saddle horn. “Looks like the outlaws saw your sentries an’ decided to take out cross-country, Sheriff.”

  “Damn!” Sheriff Pepper growled. “There ain’t nothing out there for a hundred miles, ’cept mountains. If they try and cross those on horseback in this weather, they’re gonna freeze to death ’fore too long.”

  Guthrie shook his head. It just didn’t make sense. The outlaws weren’t that stupid, he thought to himself.

  He walked his horse off the trail, following the outlaws’ tracks. After twenty yards, he came to the railroad tracks.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, slapping his thigh.

  “What is it?” Pepper asked, coming up next to him.

  “Which way does the railroad go when it leaves Crested Butte?” he asked.

  “Why, it curves off to the southwest ’bout a mile or two out of town,” Pepper answered.

  Guthrie jerked his horse’s head around. “Come on, Sheriff. I think the outlaws plan to stop the train after it leaves town and use it to get out of the area.”

  “Damn!” Pepper said. “I hope we’re not too late. We had a train go through town yesterday.”

  * * *

  When they got back to Crested Butte, a man ran out into the street, waving his arms at them.

  “Who’s that?” Guthrie asked as they slowed their horses.

  “It’s Sam Wright, the telegraph operator.”

  “Sheriff,” Wright said when they stopped in front of him. “The telegraph line is down south of town. I ain’t gettin’ no signal at all.”

  Pepper looked over at Guthrie. “Looks like you was right, Sergeant.”

  “You better get some men together an’ let’s go see if we can fix the wire,” Guthrie said. “And tell the stationmaster to hold the next train when it gets to town. He’s gonna have another passenger.”

  * * *

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Pepper said two hours later when they came upon the destroyed track.

  Guthrie sighed. “How long will it take you to get the track repaired?” he asked.

  Pepper shrugged. “At least a couple of days in this weather.”

  “Maybe we can fix the wire an’ send a message on down the tracks,” Wright said hopefully.

  Guthrie shook his head. “The outlaws are too smart for that,” he said. “They’ll probably stop the train every few hours an’ cut the wire in a different place. I think our only chance is to work fast to get this track repaired and go after them by train, at least until I can get to a town that has a workin’ telegraph.”

  Pepper nodded. “I’ll get every man in town working on fixing the rails. Maybe we can cut the time down to one day.”

  Guthrie nodded. “I’ll contact the stationmaster in town and see if we can get an engine down here that might be able to catch them ’fore they get too far. If we cut all the cars loose, I can make faster time than they can.”

  Pepper’s gaze followed the tracks as they disappeared in the distance. “I wonder what they’re gonna do with all the passengers on that train they stopped.”

  Guthrie stared at him, his eyes haunted. “You probably don’t want to know, Sheriff.”

  14

  The train carrying the outlaws sped through mountain passes, stopping only to take on water when the boiler got low. There was plenty of food, so on the few occasions when they came to small towns, Berlin had the engineer keep the train at full speed through the stations.

  Once his men were rested up from their long journey on horseback from Rifle to Crested Butte, Berlin decided to do something about the passengers.

  He had the engineer stop the train on one of the mountain passes, high among the peaks of the Rockies.

  He pulled his pistol from its holster and walked back to the passenger car where the civilian prisoners were being kept under watch by his men.

  “All right,” he called from the front of the car. “All you men, get your belongings together and get off the train.”

  One of the men, a drummer selling the latest in mining tools, stood up, terror in his eyes. “You aren’t going to shoot us, are you, mister?” he asked, his hands trembling as they held his bowler hat in front of him.

  Berlin grinned. “Nope, I’m just gonna put you off the train so’s my men won’t have to spend all their time watchin’ you.”

  Another man, dressed in dungarees and a heavy buckskin coat, leaned over to glance out the window. “They won’t have to shoot us, drummer,” he said, pulling his coat tight around him as he straightened up. “Chances are, we’re gonna freeze to death soon as the sun goes down.”

  “You can’t do this to us,” a woman traveling with a daughter in her teens cried. “We’ll all die out here in the wilderness without food or water.”

  Berlin shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry, miss,” he said, his voice husky. “I ain’t throwin’ you women off the train, just the men.”

  The cowboy in the buckskin coat shook his head, took a leather valise down from the rack over the seats, and walked toward the door to the car, mumbling, “You’d be better off with us, lady.”

  * * *

  Once the male passengers were all off the car, standing in a group next to the tracks, Berlin told one of his men to have the engineer start the train.

  As the whistle blew and steam poured from the engine and the wheels began to roll slowly down the track, he put his pistol back in his holster and walked over to stand before the girl in her teens sitting next to her mother.

  “You,” he said, grabbing the girl by her wrist, “come with me. I got something to show you up in my car.”

  “Let her go!” the mother screamed, reaching for his arm.

  Wiley Gottlieb stepped over and pulled her back. “Take it easy, Mama. You’re gonna be busy enough back here with us so’s you won’t have to worry none ’bout your little girl.”

  The rest of the men laughed and moved forward, grabbing the other women on the train, even the seventy-year-old grandmother in the front seat.

  * * *

  The work crew from Crested Butte, working well into the night, managed to get the tracks repaired in sixteen hours.

  After Sheriff Pepper stopped the next train through the town, Guthrie had the conductor disconnect all the passenger cars, leaving only the engine and coal car attached.

  Guthrie stepped onto the engine platform, leaned down, and shook Sheriff Pepper’s hand. “Thanks, Sheriff, for all you and your men done.”

  “You sure you don’t want some of us to ride along with you?” the sheriff asked.

  Guthrie shook his head. “It ain’t your problem now, Sheriff, but you could do something else for me.�
�

  “What’s that?”

  “Have your telegraph operator wire some of the towns to the north, where the wires ain’t been cut. Then, they can try to wire other towns in a circle around us until they get word to Pueblo to be on the lookout for the stolen train.”

  “Damn, that’s a good idea,” Sheriff Pepper said.

  Guthrie shrugged. “It’s worth a try, though with these winter storms, some of the other lines might be down too. If they manage to get through, tell the sheriff in Pueblo to try an’ get the Army to send some men to help. It’s too big a job for one or two men to handle alone.”

  “You got it, Sergeant.”

  “Adios, Sheriff Pepper. Try not to freeze your balls off this winter.”

  Pepper grinned and tipped his hat as the train pulled out of the station. “I’ll sure do my best, Sergeant,” he called.

  * * *

  The next morning, after twelve straight hours riding the engine through the mountains, Guthrie came upon the group of men Berlin had kicked off his train.

  He had the engineer stop the train when he saw the group huddled around a fire next to the tracks. Two bodies lay nearby, covered with pine tree branches.

  “Thank God!” the drummer hollered, running for the engine.

  Soon, the men had filled Guthrie in on what Berlin had done, and how he’d kept the women on board.

  “Come on up,” Guthrie said. “It’s gonna be crowded with all of you in the engine, so leave the dead ones where they are. We’ll send someone back for ’em from the next town.”

  As the cowboy in the buckskin coat swung on board, he looked at Guthrie. “You goin’ after those bastards all by yourself?”

  Guthrie nodded.

  The cowboy grinned. “If you don’t mind, I might just ride along with you for a spell.”

  “This ain’t your fight, cowboy,” Guthrie said, his eyes narrow.

  “It is now!” the cowboy growled. “Back in Texas, where I hail from, we don’t let men treat womenfolk that way and get away with it.”

  “These are pretty dangerous men, Texas,” Guthrie said evenly, letting his eyes fall to the empty holster on the cowboy’s belt, noting it was tied down low on his hip.