by Ray Tassin
"Fired on your recommendation," Wainright flared, chin coming up. "He claimed you fired him because he saw you stealing from the company. And I certainly had no reason to trust you more than him—still don't have, for that matter."
Danner dismissed the subject with an impatient gesture and moved over to the window to stare sightlessly across the tracks, his thoughts racing. That train certainly didn't get through Junction City and there were only five spur lines joining the main line between Spaulding and Junction City. Swiftly he checked them off— Casey, Wolf, Gerty and Goose Creek, each a small community with a telegraph key in the town marshal's office—and the fifth was the line to the old abandoned Strom elevator. The latter was it, Danner knew instantly.
But to be certain, he tapped out messages to the four town marshals, asking if the tracks to their communities had been used at any time since the wheat special disappeared. The Gerty and Wolf marshals replied quickly, both with negatives. The marshal at Goose Creek reported the track to his community had been used every other night for about half an hour by a westbound freight clearing the track for the late passenger train. No answer came from Casey. The marshal had business elsewhere at the moment, apparently. Five minutes went by before Danner repeated the message to Casey, with the same lack of results.
The waiting grated on his nerves and Danner quit the chair to move restlessly about the room. The others grew impatient also, shifting around, but hardly ever taking their eyes off him. Only Ma knew what he was up to; Melinda and Wainright could only guess, and not very accurately, for they didn't understand the coded messages. But Wainright appeared thoughtful now, as if he might be considering the possibility of Danner's being right. But Wainright would take a lot of convincing—a locomotive and thirty boxcars worth of convincing.
A quarter-hour after his first message, Danner tried the key again. This time he got an immediate response. Two empty boxcars brought to Casey eleven days before had been loaded with wheat, then picked up by a regular freight train three days before. Otherwise, the spur line hadn't been used since the wheat train had vanished.
With his hand still on the key, Danner considered the remaining possibilities. Only one made any sense now. The train had to be at the old Strom elevator, a natural place for such a scheme. There could be no other answer. Danner turned to Ma Grim.
"Get a message off to Sheriff Brant," he told her. "Tell him the missing train is at the old Strom elevator and he should get a posse there as soon as possible. I'll go on ahead and look it over, but I'll try to avoid contact with anyone until he gets there."
"Are you sure it's there?" Ma bellowed.
"It has to be," Danner nodded. Then he faced Wainright. "You and Melinda wait here until—"
"No, no." Wainright shook his head. "I'm going all the way on this."
"And so am I," Melinda said, breaking a long silence. Throughout all the arguments of the morning she'd remained silent. Even now she was sparing with words, but the determination on her face was unmistakable. Danner lifted the Colts from his holster and slipped a shell into the normally empty chamber under the hammer.
"I'm a professional at this sort of thing. You're not. You'll only be a handicap to me."
"You can't stop us," Wainright insisted.
"Perhaps not," Danner said. "But has it ever occurred to you that Miss Richfield could get hurt, and that in trying to protect her we might get ourselves in a tight spot?"
The implied indication that he didn't mind Wainright coming along had its desired effect.
"Perhaps she should stay here," Wainright conceded.
"I'm going," Melinda replied with a steely softness.
Danner shrugged in resignation. She was just too much like the Colonel.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Danner dismounted at the switch which shuttled trains to the Strom trackage and inspected the curved rails carefully. Signs of usage were evident, but that meant nothing because freights sometimes used the old tracks as a siding to permit passenger trains to pass. He walked along the tracks leading his horse, for perhaps three hundred yards. Here the shiny tracks ended.
From here on south the rails were covered with rust, obviously unused for many seasons.
Stunned, Danner stared at the rust-covered rails. He heard the scuff of feet on cinders as Wainright and Melinda came up. Wainright hunkered down and scraped the top of the rail with his thumbnail.
"Well, Mr. Danner," he looked up without rising, "you may not believe this, but all the way here from Spaulding I'd been hoping that you were right—that we'd find that train at the end of this spur. I'm as disappointed as you must be."
"It has to be at Strom," Danner said flatly.
"Over those rails?" Wainright cried, jumping up.
Danner looked down the tracks and saw nothing but the dull glint of rusty rails. Then he moved to the side of the roadbed and hunkered down, trying to figure it out. Sunlight reflected against a shiny surface, and Danner stared along the rails without seeing the reflection again. Then he moved his head from one side to the other, finally catching the glint again, about twenty feet down the tracks. Wind from the morning dust storm had removed some of the sand drift from the side of the rail. The sun was being reflected from the head of a spike. Swiftly Danner strode to the spot and began pushing sand away from the rail.
None of the spikes showed signs of weathering. All of them were new. Wainright and Melinda stared intently at the area he had cleared away, their faces mirroring their lack of comprehension.
"Here's the answer," Danner pointed at the bare spot he had cleared away. "When you mentioned the theft of rails, you also said some kegs of spikes were stolen. But you said nothing about crossties."
"That's right," Wainright said. "Only rails and spikes were stolen."
"Here's why. Probably working at night so they wouldn't be seen by passing train crews, they substituted new rails here, ran the train over them, then replaced the old rails. They had to use new spikes, so they covered up the exposed heads with sand. Except for that dust storm this morning, they might have gotten away with it."
Wainright dropped to his knees for a closer look. "You are right," he exclaimed. "These spikes are new."
Danner mounted, his gaze sweeping the area to the south. "About seven hundred feet ahead we should find tracks with the rust ground off, because that's all the new rails they took. And there," he pointed at a long and narrow mound of dirt paralleling the tracks, "is where they hid the new rails after they removed them and returned the old trackage."
Danner trotted his horse over to the mound and leaped to the ground, scooping loose soil away. Underneath, he found two shiny new rails side by side. Then he climbed back into the saddle and spurred southward. As he had predicted, the tracks at a point some seven hundred feet south showed signs of recent usage. Grunting with satisfaction, he stood back and nodded down when Wainright and Melinda arrived. Excitement brushed each of them as they jogged on ahead.
Soon the terrain lost its flatness, giving away to rocks and scrub trees which made the soil unfit for cultivation. The sun had neared its noon high when they reached the Richfield River. They rested their horses briefly while Danner looked up at the not-too-sturdy bridge spanning the wide but shallow river. It had supported the train once—he hoped it would again, provided he got a chance to bring the train over it. Some of the supports showed signs of decay, which meant the bridge would have to be crossed at a slow rate of speed.
They forded the river and pushed on to more flatland, country with the wildness of once-cultivated land long-abandoned by man. Here the soil was thinner than the land around Richfield, and long since worn out by overusage. A mixture of native grasses, weeds and wheat stood shoulder-high to Danner's mount, crowding in on the tracks. Burned brown and dry by summer wind and sun, the vegetation rustled softly now in a gentle breeze. Some of the weeds had grown up between the crossties only to be knocked down by the recent passage of the train. Through this passageway they moved at a trot
until the vegetation thinned out to nothing more than knee-high prairie grass.
When they started up an incline Danner left the roadbed, for he knew the old Strom granary lay just ahead. By the time he reached the crest he was in a grove of trees. Here he dismounted, his senses alert. A lookout could be posted in this grove. But he weaved through the trees until he had a full view of the granary without encountering anyone. Wainright and Melinda pressed in on each side of him, watching silently, all three of them hunkered down.
A slight tremble touched Danner as he stared at the missing wheat train below.
The ridge they were on formed almost a complete circle around a slightly depressed area resembling a huge and shallow bowl. The old Strom granary occupied most of the distant half of the bowl, its front facing north. The train rested on tracks running along the near side of the building. Apparently it had been backed in from the main line, for the locomotive pointed north in the direction from which it had come. Wainright broke the stillness.
"It just now occurred to me," Wainright whispered, suspicion pinching his face, "that you found this place mighty easy. It could be that you already knew it was here and all that evidence was just a cover-up."
"It could be," Danner nodded.
"Stop it," Melinda demanded. "Both of you."
Danner glanced at her, wondering what thoughts lay behind her lovely countenance. Then he returned his attention to the granary. He'd seen no one yet. Only the front door of the long, rectangular building was visible from the grove. Just above the top of the train the tops of loading doors could be seen the length of the structure.
"Let's go get that train," Wainright said eagerly, making a clumsy effort to thumb back the twin hammers of the shotgun. Half expecting fear from Wainright, Danner wasn't prepared for the zeal shining from his face. He wanted to fight, Danner thought. But he shook his head.
"Not yet. Not until we know what's down there."
"You're supposed to be the man of action," Wainright retorted, with thinly veiled sarcasm.
"I'm not a damn fool. We'll wait, unless you wish to go it alone."
Raw desire thinned the lips of Wainright, but he remained silent. Danner settled down to wait. When the hunger for tobacco grew strong he fished out his pipe, then decided against the risk. Twenty minutes later he pulled out the pipe again, then shoved it back into his shirt pocket. Waiting was the toughest part of any job.
Despite the shade of the trees, heat from the early afternoon sun brought a drowsiness to Danner. Moving back from the edge of the grove, he worked his way to the horses. But when he reached for his canteen, he heard a low warning cry from Wainright. Branches clutched at Danner as he hurried back.
"Over there." Wainright pointed at a buggy and horseman coming from the west.
As the buggy started down the gentle slope of the bowl, Danner grunted softly. There could be no mistaking the four-hundred-pound bulk of Alec Browder in the buggy. And the black-clad horseman with the oversized shoulders tapering up from stunted legs had to be Tuso. Danner could hear the creaking of the buggy now. Apparently someone inside the granary heard it also. The big double door at the front of the building opened to spill out five men. Danner leaned forward with narrowed eyes, trying to distinguish the men. Big ears sticking out from a narrow head identified the front man as Ears Dooley. The second man spat into the dust, a gesture characteristic of Garr Green. The tall and thin pair in the back would be the Grell brothers. But Danner couldn't make out the dudish one in a light tan suit. When the individual darted a furtive look about him, Danner knew he was Lou Carp. That would make it a clean sweep, if Brant could get here with a posse before they pulled out.
A low oath came from Wainright and he uncoiled to his feet. "Let's go get them," he spat out.
"Help yourself," Danner replied.
Wainright checked himself, indecision and eagerness conflicting within him.
"We know what's there now. Why wait?"
"As long as they remain there, our smartest move is not to move. Brant will be here with a posse before the day is over."
Reluctantly, Wainright hunkered down again, laying the muzzle of the twelve-gauge across his thigh.
Browder halted his buggy in front of the open door. Without getting down, he issued a series of orders, gesturing toward the train. The Grells faded into the building and reappeared herding three other men.
"Three more!" Wainright exclaimed.
"No," Danner shook his head. "The three in front of the Grells are the train crewmen—engineer, fireman and brakeman. Something has stirred up Browder, perhaps my talk with him yesterday. They seem to be planning to move the train."
"Then let's go stop them," Wainright hissed, once again jumping to his feet.
"There's no hurry." Danner almost smiled at Wainright's boyish zeal. The Grells started toward the locomotive, herding the three crewmen ahead of them. Danner figured he had about half an hour before the boiler would be hot enough to move the train. Then he felt the weight of Wainright's animosity thrusting against him.
"I won't wait much longer," Wainright warned. "Whether you go or not."
"You'll get your fill of fighting soon enough," Danner answered. He watched the crewmen climb into the cab of the locomotive, followed by the Grells. Then Danner felt Melinda's hand on his arm.
"Couldn't we keep the train here by going back up the track and removing a section of rail?" Danner shook his head, bringing a frown to her face. That'd be quite a trick, he thought, the three of them pulling spikes without tools and lifting a twenty-eight-foot rail off the roadbed. And even if it could be done, it would only stop the train. The men would scatter like a covey of quail. He wanted those men—and a pin-fire pistol—more than he wanted the train. He felt a desire to explain all this to Melinda, who still frowned at him. But he didn't.
Movement in front of the building caught Danner's attention. Browder turned his buggy and drove inside the granary, the others following. That was the break Danner had been waiting —but not hoping—for.
"It's time to go," he snapped. Looking at Melinda, he said, "You stay here." To Wainright, he gestured toward the train. "The Grells will be busy watching the crew in the cab. We can walk up the track unseen, I hope. When we get to the engine, we split. I'll move around the side next to the building. If we are lucky we can get both Grells and use their guns to arm the three crewmen. That'll make the odds even against that bunch inside the granary. Any questions?"
Wainright shook his head, his eyes once again shining with anticipation. Danner cast a glance at the abbreviated twelve-gauge Wainright clutched.
"Be careful with that spray gun," Danner warned. "With those barrels cut that short, the buckshot will cut a path six feet wide by the time the shot gets only a few feet from the muzzle. I don't want the train crewmen killed."
"Let's go," Wainright demanded.
Nodding, Danner moved out of the grove and down the slope at a trot. He reached the tracks and headed toward the engine, drawing his pistol. As he had expected, no one looked out the cab windows. But he was fifty yards short of his destination when he heard a slug whistle by his head at the same instant he heard the crack of a six-gun.
Ears Dooley crouched in front of the granary door, thumbing off another shot. Without slowing, Danner snapped a shot at Ears, heard the slug careen off the front of the granary and fired again. Ears folded slowly, holding his stomach. Danner reached the locomotive just as one of the Grells stuck his head out of the cab. Danner's shot caught him in the temple, spilling him to the ground with the top of his head blown off.
Then the blast of Wainright's cannon ripped the air, hurling the remaining Grell out of the cab to land face down by his brother, his backbone severed by buckshot.
Danner scrambled up the ladder of the cab, then whirled to face the open door of the granary, breathing heavily. Wainright crouched at his side, aiming his shotgun at the doorway thirty yards away as if a shot would be effective at that range.
Dan
ner glanced over his shoulder at the three train crewmen. "Get the boiler hot enough to move out," Danner said.
Wainright whirled on Danner viciously, snarling. "Great Plains Central owns this train and it isn't leaving here until we get the rest of them."
"It's good to know we agree on something," Danner said with a trace of irony.
"Just so—" The drum of hoofbeats interrupted him. Two riderless horses galloped from the granary, followed by three others bearing riders bent low over their saddles. Danner thumbed three quick shots at the nearest rider and saw Garr Green spill to the ground. Then he sighted on the thick body of Tuso, but before he could fire, Wainright's shotgun blasted not two feet from the side of Danner's face. Concussion and heat from the muzzle jarred his vision. When he focused his eyes again, Carp and two horses lay sprawled on the ground. Tuso raced away to the west, well out of pistol range, and in a moment vanished over the edge of the bowl.
Bitterly, Danner cursed the spot where he had last seen Tuso and he cursed himself for wasting his first shots on Green. When he reloaded he found all six chambers empty. He couldn't have stopped Tuso even if he had pulled the trigger. That type of carelessness could get him killed. Jumping to the ground, Danner approached the sprawled forms. The buckshot had made a mess of the slightly built Carp, even at thirty yards, and two of Danner's slugs had pierced the chest of Green. But Ears Dooley moved slightly, moaning and holding his stomach while his life's blood spilled out between his fingers to the ground.
Dooley opened his eyes and when he saw Danner, recognition brought shining hate to the twisted face.
"Damn you, Danner," Dooley spat out. "Damn you, damn you." His voice rose to a scream of mixed hatred and pain. "Damn you to hell."
Wainright pointed his shotgun at the twisting figure, but Danner shouldered him aside. "He'll be dead in a few minutes. Don't make it any easier for him."
Without pity, Danner watched the last of the five Dooleys who had played so big a part in the hell he had known starting with the Spaulding robbery. Then Danner hunkered down close to Ears.
