The Great Train Massacre

by William W. Johnstone

  “Here it is, 202!” Shardeen said out loud.

  “Shh! We don’t want to wake no one up,” McNair cautioned.

  It was too late. Matt heard Shardeen say the number, which happened to be his room number. He also heard the response.

  Matt had taken off only his boots when he climbed into bed earlier tonight. Now he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stuffed the pillow under the bedcovers, and hearing the key being put into the lock, pulled on his boots, snaked the pistol from its holster, then stepped through the window. Because his room was on the front of the hotel, facing the street, Matt was able to climb out onto the portico roof, and he waited there to see who was coming into his room. Because of the pale moonlight, which fell in through the open window, the room was slightly brighter than the hallway. The two men could see the bed and Matt’s hat and pistol belt hanging from the brass bedpost. What neither one of them noticed was that the holster was empty.

  “This is goin’ to be the easiest money we ever made,” McNair said with a smile as he aimed at the lump in the bed.

  McNair fired, and his shot was followed almost immediately by Shardeen’s and, for a moment, both guns were firing, lighting up the darkness with white flashes and filling the room with thunder.

  “Hold it! Quit shootin’,” McNair shouted. “The whole town is likely to be in here in a minute. We got to get out of here! Check and make sure the son of a bitch is dead!”

  Shardeen walked over to the bed and felt around, then gasped in surprise.

  “McNair! He ain’t here!” he shouted.

  “What? Where is he?”

  “I’m right here,” Matt said from just outside his window.

  With shouts of frustrated rage and fear, McNair and Shardeen turned their guns toward Matt and began firing. Bullets crashed through the window, sending large shards of glass out onto the roof. Matt had jumped to one side of the window as soon as he spoke, which meant that the bullets flew by without finding their mark. Matt leaned around and fired into the room. He hit one of the men and saw him go down. The other one bolted through the door.

  Matt started to climb back in through the window but changed his mind. He was certain that the one who ran from the room would be leaving the hotel, so he decided to just wait until he came through the door and ran out onto the street. There, the would-be assassin would be in the open, and there would be less likelihood of an innocent bystander being hurt.

  Matt jumped down into the space between the hotel and the building next door, then waited in the shadows, keeping his eyes on the front door of the hotel. As he expected, the door burst open a moment later, and a man ran out, the gun still in his hand. Matt stepped out into the street to brace him.

  “Hold it right there!” he called out.

  Matt heard a policeman’s whistle and looking down the street saw a policeman running toward them. The policeman appeared to be armed only with his whistle and a billy club.

  “Get down!” Matt shouted at the policeman. “Get down!”

  For just a second Matt’s adversary seemed indecisive, trying to make up his mind whether to shoot at the policeman or at Matt.

  “Drop your gun!” Matt shouted.

  That seemed to make up the shooter’s mind for him, because he swung his pistol back toward Matt and fired. The bullet whizzed by Matt’s ear, much closer than was comfortable, and Matt returned fire. He heard a grunt of pain, and the man fell.

  Matt hurried over to him, his pistol at the ready, and he stood there, looking down at the man he had just shot as the policeman, still blowing his whistle, came running up to him.

  “Drop that gun, mister,” the policeman said when he approached.

  Matt, seeing that his first appraisal had been correct, that the policeman was unarmed, laughed.

  “I’ll give you this, officer,” he said. “You are either one of the bravest men I’ve ever seen or one of the dumbest. What do you mean running up on two armed men, carrying nothing but that stick?”

  The policeman stopped, looked at the stick he was holding, then smiled sheepishly.

  “Offhand,” he said in a voice that was amazingly calm considering the circumstances, “I’d say I might be the dumbest.”

  Matt laughed again and lowered his gun so that the barrel was pointing toward the street.

  “You want to tell me what this was all about?” the officer asked.

  “These two men tried to kill me,” Matt said.

  “Two? Where is the other one?”

  Matt pointed to the open window on the second floor of the hotel. “He is up there in my room.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “That was my intention when I shot him,” Matt said.

  Matt went back into the hotel where some of the hotel guests, awakened, frightened, and curious by the gunfire, were standing in the lobby, most barefoot, many in robes, some still in their sleeping gowns.

  “What happened?” the night clerk asked, seeing Matt and the policeman heading toward the stairs. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s all over now, and everything is under control,” the policeman said. Then, turning toward the assembled onlookers he added, “Please, all of you, go back to your rooms.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Do you think that attempt on your life might have had something to do with me?” Gillespie asked over breakfast the next morning.

  “It could have, I suppose,” Matt said. “But I doubt it. The kind of life I’ve led has caused me to make a lot of enemies. I’ve had people try and kill me long before I ever agreed to come to work for you.”

  Matt could have told Gillespie about the attempts on his life just within the past four weeks but decided not to. There was no need to increase the man’s worry.

  “Drew has about gotten all the arrangements for the trip completed,” Gillespie said. “And I’m looking forward to it, not only because of the trip itself, but because I think that, once we are on the train, there will be a decreased likelihood that anyone will try and kill me again.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Matt said.

  “I’m sure it is. I think that Drew and Mr. Emerson are worried over nothing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to come with us. I think Mary Beth and I will enjoy your company, and to be honest, I guess I would feel a little better knowing you are there. If not for me, then certainly for Mary Beth.”

  “I think you are doing the smart thing to take a bodyguard with you,” Matt replied. “You know the old saying, ‘Better safe than sorry.’”

  “Yes, indeed,” John said. “Better safe than sorry.”

  When Lucas Conroy learned that morning that McNair and Shardeen had failed, he was surprised. He had given them a key to the room; how hard would it have been to sneak into Jensen’s room and kill him while he was sleeping? They not only didn’t kill him, they got themselves killed.

  “Mr. Conroy?” Beebe said, stepping into Conroy’s office. “I have Frank Posey here to see you.”

  “Thank you, Michael. Show him in.”

  Frank Posey was at one time a deputy U.S. Marshal. Unlike McNair and Shardeen, who Conroy considered to be no more than saddle bums, Posey, Beebe had assured him, was a man of resourcefulness and intelligence.

  “Beebe said you had a job for me,” Posey said when he came into the room. Posey was a tall man with broad shoulders and a sweeping moustache. He lost his job as a deputy U.S. Marshal when he stole fifteen hundred dollars he was supposed to be guarding. This resulted in two years in prison, which changed him forever.

  “I want you to leave tomorrow, and go to Reno, Nevada. Wait there until the first of September. On that day, a train will leave for Cheyenne at six thirty in the morning. If that train has a private car attached, I want you to board it, and when you do, show this to the conductor.”

  Posey was given an ace of spades playing card.

  “What for?”

  “Just show it to him. He will tell you when it is clear for you to go into the private
car.”

  “What do I do when I get to the private car?”

  “You will find a man and a woman there. I want you to kill them. Both of them.”

  “You said if the train has a private car attached. What if there is no private car?”

  “If the car isn’t attached, you won’t be needed. You can continue on or take the next train back, as you choose.”

  “Will I still get paid?”

  “If the car isn’t attached, that will mean that someone else has already done the job, and I won’t need you.”

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean, someone else will have done the job? Am I supposed to do all this, just on the chance of a job?”

  “Yes, but I will pay you one hundred dollars now, and you may keep that money even if you won’t be needed.”

  “Why are you hiring someone else, if you are also hiring me?”

  “I am a man who likes to plan for every contingency.”

  “All right, I understand that. I don’t like it, but I understand it.”

  “And you understand the arrangement? One hundred dollars now and four hundred more after the job is done. Look at it this way, Mr. Posey. The very worst that can happen to you is that you will get one hundred dollars for doing nothing at all.”

  Posey thought for a moment, then he smiled and stuck out his hand. “Yes, that’s right, isn’t it? All right, give me the one hundred dollars,” he said. “You’ve just hired yourself an assassin.”

  “By the way, I notice you aren’t wearing a gun.”

  Posey pulled a bowie knife from the scabbard on his belt and held it up. “I’ve learned that I don’t really need a gun,” he said.

  On the night before they were due to depart, Drew Jessup invited Matt, John, and Mary Beth over to his house for a going-away dinner.

  “I have to say that I’m more than a little concerned about your safety during this trip,” Drew said. “And, Mr. Jensen, I’m glad that you have agreed to accompany them.” Drew put his hand on John’s shoulder. “We’ve been close friends since we were classmates back at the University of Pennsylvania.”

  “Not always that close, Drew. I do seem to remember that you once put a snake in my boot.”

  “Well, it was just a black snake. It couldn’t have hurt you.”

  “It did scare the bejeezus out of me, though.”

  Drew laughed. “You have to admit that it was funny, the way you yelled and jumped around.”

  “Funny for you, perhaps. But I jumped so that I strained my ankle and had to hobble around for nearly a month.”

  “Yeah, well, it did help me beat you in the steeplechase,” Drew said.

  “That was the only way you could win. As I recall you were so slow that sometimes the meet was over and everyone had gone home before you even crossed the finish line,” John said, laughing.

  “Shall we go into the library?” Drew invited. “I’ve got a fine bottle of brandy I’ve been holding back for a special occasion.”

  The four went into the library, where Drew removed a bottle of brandy, then held it up for the others to see. “This bottle comes from a brandy that was distilled especially for Napoleon Bonaparte.”

  Drew set the bottle on the windowsill.

  “Now, where is that corkscrew?” he asked, as he returned to the liquor cabinet.

  Suddenly there was a crash of glass as a bullet came through the window. The bullet struck the bottle, sending up a little fountain of brandy.

  “Oh!” Mary Beth cried out in alarm.

  “Everyone get down!” Matt shouted.

  Two more bullets came crashing through the window.

  “Get over there, behind the sofa,” Matt said, and drawing his pistol, he started toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Drew asked. “Don’t go out there, you’ll be shot! What are you doing?”

  “I’m doing my job,” Matt said.

  Matt hurried out of the library and started toward the front door, then he stopped. Whoever was out there would probably be looking for someone to come through the front door. Instead, he hurried over to the side of the parlor, raised the window, then climbed out onto the side of the house.

  The night was dark and foggy, but the lights shining through the windows of the house enabled Matt to find a long hedgerow. Sticking close to the hedgerow, he followed it to the side of the estate from where the shots would have had to come.

  Another shot was fired, and Matt was able to locate the shooter by the light of the muzzle flash. He moved toward the sound of the gun. Then, he saw a man, kneeling on one knee, pointing his rifle toward the house.

  “Drop it!” Matt called.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” the man asked.

  “Never mind that. Just drop the rifle.”

  Instead of dropping the rifle, the man swung it toward Matt. Matt shot before the man was able to get off a round, and the rifle shooter went down.

  Matt hurried over to him.

  “Who hired you?” Matt asked.

  “It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” the man said, gasping the words out.

  “Who hired you?” Matt asked again, but the shooter breathed his last before he could answer Matt’s question.

  When Matt turned back toward the house, he saw what an ideal target they had been. Despite the darkness and the fog, the gaslit interior caused the house to be brightly lit.

  “Is he gone?” John asked when Matt returned.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Jessup gasped. “You mean you killed him?”

  “He was about to shoot me, and it seemed to be the thing to do,” Matt replied.

  “Yes, of course it would be. I meant no criticism.”

  “None taken. You should probably send for the police. I don’t imagine you would want his body lying out there all night.”

  “No, I don’t. Yes, I’ll send one of the servants for the police. Did he say anything?”

  “Yes, he said something just before he died, but it didn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?” Mary Beth asked. “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’ Like I say, it doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Maybe he meant he didn’t expect to be killed,” John suggested.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s it,” Matt said.

  “Drew, here we’ve been worrying about me, but it is obvious, now, that you are a target as well.”

  “Yes,” Drew replied. “It would seem so, wouldn’t it? You know what that tells me?”

  “What?”

  “It tells me that it isn’t just you they are after. It’s the company. Somehow, we have done something as a company that has angered someone.”

  “I told Jeff Emerson that I thought it might be a disgruntled employee somewhere. Or perhaps some business competitor,” John said. “But now, I think it is more than that.”

  “I think you’re right. If it was just a disgruntled employee, I think it would have ended with the carriage accident.”

  “Do me a favor, will you, Drew? Come with me tomorrow to see Mr. Emerson. I don’t want to make this trip, all the while worrying about your safety.”

  “All right,” Drew said. “This was a little too close for comfort. And”—he added with a smile—“it destroyed a very expensive bottle of brandy.”

  “I think, after this close call, that a drink is in order,” John said. “And it doesn’t have to be expensive.”

  Drew laughed. “Come back into the library, I have just the thing.”

  In another part of town, Conroy was just finishing a meeting with someone.

  “You will be on the train for the entire trip?” Conroy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You do understand, don’t you, that I am not asking you to actually do anything. All I shall require from you is your cooperation and your . . . let us say, facilitating the actions of those men I have hired.”

  “How will I kn
ow who those men are?”

  Conroy showed his visitor a playing card, the ace of spades.

  “This is how they will identify themselves to you,” he said.

  Chapter Twelve

  In another part of the city, Jonas Butrum sat at a table in the Waterfront Café, nursing a cup of coffee. He would rather be eating, but he had only enough money for coffee.

  “Darlin’, I want you to know that that was one fine supper,” a man said, stepping up to the counter to pay for his meal.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it, sir,” an attractive young woman replied.

  “Oh, yes ma’am, I did.” The man pulled out a fat roll of bills, then peeled one off the top.

  When the man left the café, Butrum followed him. The streetlamps had been lit, but the light they produced was so weakened by the evening mist that the familiar yellow patches beneath each lamppost were missing. Then the man turned up a side street that had no lights at all, and it was even darker. Within a moment, the man Butrum was following was swallowed up by the night and the fog. Butrum moved back into the paralleling alley and ran several yards ahead, then slipped into the gap between two buildings. He returned to the main street, then waited for his mark to appear.

  Butrum looked back up in the same direction from which he had just come, but it was much too dark for him to be able to see anything. He could, however, hear the hollow footsteps echoing in the night. He waited until the man was actually close enough to be seen, then he stepped out in front of him.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” the man gasped, startled by the sudden appearance.

  Butrum didn’t answer. Instead, without a word, he stuck the barrel of his pistol into the man’s stomach and pulled the trigger.

  The gunshot seemed exceptionally loud in the still of the night, and from the residential section, a little farther up the street, a dog barked.

  “Who’s there?” a frightened voice called.

  “That sounded like a gunshot!” another shouted.

  In the distance, Butrum could hear the bleat of a policeman’s whistle, but he knew he was protected by the darkness, and the whistle was far enough away that he didn’t feel at all rushed. He searched the man’s pockets until he found the roll of money. Then, going back through the gap between the buildings, he used the alley to make his escape.