Border Dogs

by Ralph Cotton

  “Never mind that now.” Zell drew the long rifle from his saddle scabbard. “You know what to do, Mr. Bowes.”

  “Right, sir.” Bowes kicked his horse forward to the front of the train. As he reined his horse down, the two gunmen had already acted on their own, the one inside shoving the engineer and the oiler out onto the ground, the one on the ground shoving them away from the train. The gunman in the engine turned and jammed the steel lever into reverse and opened the throttle. “Get it done,” Liam Bowes called to them.

  The engine hissed and groaned and began jarring backward, the couplings of each car jamming in turn until the whole line of cars rocked into motion. The gunman leaped down from the engine as two sharp cracks of pistol fire from the other gunman’s pistol sent the railroad men slumping onto the hot sand. At the flat car, old man Dirkson jumped into the wagon with one last crate of ammunition in his arms. In a second, the wagon rolled away from the train in a flurry of dust, the mules braying beneath the slap of the reins.

  Feeling the backward lurch of rail cars, Maria rose from the floor, steadying herself against the back of a seat. “Get ready, we’re getting off!”

  “Oh, Lord,” one of the miners groaned, all four of them struggling to their feet. “They’ve sent us all to hell, I reckon.”

  “Come with me.” Maria grabbed Prudence by her forearm and pulled her up. “You have to make a jump for it.”

  “For…for what?” Prudence Vanderman’s eyes were wide and terror-stricken.

  “For your life! Now come on.” Dragging Prudence with her as the train struggled to pick up speed, Maria looked at the four miners. “Jump out on this side and make for the rocks and brush.”

  “But they’ll shoot us,” one miner called out.

  “Come on…it’s your only chance.” Maria kicked open the door and shoved Prudence Vanderman away from the train. Prudence landed and rolled in a spray of dust, her pantaloons showing white and frilly as her dress spun upward. Her white lace handkerchief flew free of her hand and tossed and fluttered in the hot, dry air.

  “Lord-a-mercy!” The first miner hesitated in the open door. “I never seen a train speed up so fast.”

  “Go!” Maria placed a boot in his back and shot him forward, out into the hot air, the train picking up momentum. “It will only go faster, the longer you wait!” she yelled into the faces of the other miners. They understood and scurried one after the other, until looking back, Maria saw them scrambling through the dust and dried brush, scattered like a covey of running quail. But Prudence Vanderman sat slumped in the dirt with a hand to her forehead, looking dazed.

  There was nothing Maria could do for Prudence Vanderman at the moment. She swung out of the car door onto the steel rungs leading up the side of the car. Right now, Maria had a train to stop.

  Chapter 3

  Atop the train, Maria crouched down and moved forward, struggling to keep her balance in the hot wind. Beneath her, the cars rocked and swayed, gaining speed. Looking back over her shoulder, she’d caught a glimpse of the other train. It had stopped now, out from between the buttes and less than five hundred yards back. From a stock car, a loading plank fell to the ground with a puff of dust. Off to her left, the wagon sped away across the pitch of sandy earth, old man Dirkson’s straw sombrero flying off his head and spinning in the air behind him.

  “It’s a woman! Get her!” Payton Parker and his brother Leo had slowed down now, joining the others. Payton’s rifle went up to his shoulder, taking aim.

  Maria heard voices calling out on the ground as she leaped from one car to the next, heading for the engine. A shot rang out, and she heard the bullet thump against the side of the train. Then another shot fired, this time the bullet whistling past the back of her head. She hurried on, her rifle in hand.

  On the ground, Zell spun his horse around, raising a hand as the other riders moved in and formed up around him. “You two, go with the wagon.” His gloved finger pointed, and two riders turned and headed out between the wagon tracks. “Mr. Bowes, form an assault formation.”

  “Yes, sir!” Liam Bowes waved his arm, and the men gathered their horses in around him. He raised a hand and shoved Payton Parker’s rifle barrel away as Parker was about to shoot again toward Maria atop the train.

  “Damn it, Bowes! I had her!”

  “Forget her, Parker.” Liam Bowes’s eyes caught Parker’s for just a second, but long enough for Parker to see the question there. Why had Payton waited so long before giving his signal, or before firing the warning shot, Bowes thought. Payton turned from him and joined the others.

  Back at the other train, soldiers led their horses down the loading plank, dust stirring beneath the horses’ hooves as the soldiers mounted and formed abreast on the ground. The runaway train moved backward toward them, gaining speed. Maria looked down into Zell’s face as the train rumbled past him. She slid down into the wood box and scrambled across cord upon cord of dried firewood, and on toward the engine.

  “Blast it,” Zell said under his breath. But he had no time to waste on her. He turned to Bowes and the others. The men had hastily formed into an assault position, waiting for him to lead the charge. “All right, you know what to do, men! We hit as the trains collide!” His voice rose above the roar of the train and the clacking of the rails.

  At the troop train, a barrel-chested sergeant moved quickly among the forming men, shoving them, cursing and shouting orders at the top of his lungs. He kept one eye on the other train coming ever faster toward them. “Move your arses, men! Lively now!” A young private came down the plank, leading two horses, and the sergeant snatched the reins to one horse from his hands. “Fall in on the lieutenant! Quickly, men! Let’s go, let’s go!” He looked up into the stock car, seeing the jam of men and horses forcing their way out through the door. “Get those men and horses out of there! For God-sakes!”

  Maria, sliding down into the cab of the engine now, glanced around at the controls. Now what? She had no idea what it took to stop a train. Pitching her rifle to the side, she pulled the first handle she came to, hoping it was the throttle. The loud roar of the engine spun down. She had guessed right, but the momentum of the train only lessened slightly, the thrust of the other cars pulling it on.

  Overhead, she grabbed a long drooping chain and yanked it. But—Santa Madre!—it had nothing to do with the brake!

  A long, deep steam whistle screamed out. Still holding on to the chain, she grabbed the long steel rod sticking up from the floor and pulled back on it with all her strength. A loud screech of steel against steel sounded beneath her. Thank God! She held fast, feeling the train rack and bump as car after car stretched against their coupling.

  Outside, Zell drew his long saber, racing forward, leading his men toward the forming soldiers. Ahead, the young soldiers saw the advancing attack and prepared to meet it headlong. The helpless troop train idled beside them. The stock car still rumbled with the sound of frightened men and horses struggling to get out of it.

  Zell saw the runaway train beside him grinding down, long trails of sparks swirling up from the locked steel wheels of the engine. Inside the engine, Maria held fast, not knowing how to lock the brake. She’d turned the overhead chain loose and now lay back against the brake lever with both hands wrapped around it, feeling the train slow down, but knowing it wasn’t enough. Any second this train would plunge into the train behind it. Then what?

  She braced and whispered a prayer under her breath, the steel wheels screaming beneath her, the sound of gunfire starting to explode along the track. Through the smoky window of the engine, she caught sight of Prudence Vanderman alongside the rails, Prudence staggering in place with a hand to her head, her dress torn down one side, a strand of blond hair dangling down her face.

  In the fraction of a second before the collision, Maria thought how ridiculous Prudence looked out there, wandering around amid all this madness. Then the world tilted back and forth as the caboose peeled away in a spray of splinters and strips of
steel, plowing into the engine of the train behind it.

  “Holy Joseph, Mary, and George,” the cavalry sergeant whispered, turning his horse. The soldiers’ horses shied away from the spectacle as their riders struggled to keep them under control.

  Except for three young soldiers and their horses, all the troopers had managed to scramble down out of the stock car. Now these three remaining unfortunates were hurled forward in a tangle of hooves and limbs. The sergeant could only wince and turn away. “Stand fast, men! Prepare to engage the enemy!”

  Even as he spoke, the sergeant watched the military bearing of the riders coming at him. Sombreros? Vaquero clothing? Who were these men trying to fool? These were not Mexican bandits. They rode abreast like a well-trained fighting unit, yet the sergeant could tell by their pace that they would soon break into an assault wedge. He’d bet that the point of that wedge would drive through his troops and force their line open. He’d seen this a hundred times. Mexican bandits didn’t fight this way.

  The engine of the second train withstood the impact of the caboose, the cattle catcher plow splitting the car from one end to the other in a high spray of shattered wood and metal, until the heavy steel coupling of the next car raised the engine enough to let the thrust of the entire colliding train get beneath it.

  As broken pieces of board and metal showered down from the hot air above, the big engine rode up ten feet in the air, scooting backward, the cars behind it racking and pitching sidelong off the rails. Blinding sheets of sand leaped upward from beneath skidding rail cars. The line of troops broke away from the crash. Like some large wounded creature making its death cry in battle, the risen engine gave off a last billowing blast of steam and crashed onto its side as Zell and his men veered around it into the scattering soldiers.

  “Hold fast, men! Give them a fight!” the young lieutenant shouted, jockeying his horse in front of the nervous troops. “Hold this line and push them back! We shan’t let this border trash have their way with us.”

  Holy, merciful…! The sergeant righted his horse and gigged it toward the lieutenant. Couldn’t this fool see what was coming at them? “Lieutenant Howell, sir,” he bellowed, “let them through our line…form a gauntlet of fire! Give them chase! Don’t try fighting them at a standstill—” His words fell short beneath a volley of gunfire.

  Lieutenant Howell heard the sergeant, but he would have none of it. He glanced at the line of worried troops as they shied to one side at the sound of the sergeant’s voice. “As you were, men! Steady as they come!” Lieutenant Howell raised his drawn saber toward the coming riders. “Prepare to fire…!”

  “My God, Sergeant Baines, what’s he doing?” a young corporal shouted as the sergeant slid his horse in beside him, breaking into the line. “He’ll get us killed!”

  “No, he won’t!” The sergeant grabbed the corporal’s horse by its reins. He glanced around and saw the advancing riders already starting to break into a wedge, ready to sweep through them. “Take this half of the line forward ten yards. Catch the head of that wedge and fall alongside it…flank it! Break it up!” Now the thunder of oncoming hooves shook the ground beneath them.

  The corporal shot a dark glance toward the lieutenant. “Damn his pompous—”

  “Get it done, Corporal!” The sergeant shoved his horse away. Shots came in from the advancing riders beneath a loud war cry. Clumps of dirt exploded up at the hooves of the frightened army horses.

  The corporal spun his horse, widening a break in the line. “You men, spread apart. Advance ten yards, fall into a flanking position!”

  The sergeant broke his horse into a run toward the lieutenant as the corporal moved the men forward.

  “What’s the corporal doing, Sergeant?” The lieutenant craned upward in his stirrups, seeing half the line bolt forward and move away to one side. A shot whistled past his head.

  “Sir! Be careful, sir!” The sergeant ducked slightly, ignoring the lieutenant’s question.

  “Sergeant, he’s moved half of our line away! What in God’s name is he doing?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir! But we can’t sit out here at half strength. Let me take these troops to the side, or they’ll be cut to pieces!”

  “Very well, Sergeant.” The lieutenant jerked his frightened horse sideways, giving the sergeant room. “Someone will answer for this!”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant answered quickly, then called out to the troops. “All right, men, move out along their left flank. Fire at will! Break them up!”

  The wedge of Zell’s riders rushed forward in their own raised dust, their serapes and sombreros flapping in the scorching wind. At the center of the wedge, Zell saw the cavalry troops before him break away into two lines, one line forward of the other, staggered into a flanking pattern that would give off more rifle fire than they would have to take. Young lieutenants were seldom this battle savvy.

  Zell had planned to break through them in his assault wedge, taking out half their ranks on his way. It would have crushed them and left them stunned. But that wasn’t going to happen now, he saw. They formed into two lines that would cover his men from both sides, staggered just enough to keep the cavalry troops from firing on one another. Blast it! Now this was going to cost him men, good men that he couldn’t afford to lose. Who was that lieutenant? Smart, whoever he was…

  The sound of rifle fire lifted into a relentless swell above the surge of dust and powder smoke. Behind Zell and Bowes, horses screamed, tumbling end over end, their riders thrown into the sand like broken dolls. The assault pushed on. Troopers fell from their rearing horses, man and animal locked in a death waltz. A mist of blood permeated the hot, dusty air. The troops held their flanking lines; and as the assault force charged through them, both lines closed around behind it, giving it chase now, Zell’s men being put upon by heavy fire behind them.

  “All right, lads!” Sergeant Baines yelled above the clamor of the melee. “Ride them down.”

  At the head of the assault wedge, Zell veered off to the right, leading his men toward the low rocky hills. He wasn’t going to let this turn into a rout. His men needed cover now, a place to regroup, out of the heavy rifle fire. Once in the rock cover, he would split his forces and leave half of his men firing from behind the rocks while he moved the rest of them higher up the hillside. There they would take position and cover for the others as they moved up. His men were good—they could work in this kind of fighting pattern for a long time.

  The young lieutenant would have to see this as a costly proposition. Would this cause him to pull his troops back? Zell hoped so. If not, they were in for a long, bloody battle. Behind him, his men saw what he had in mind. They swung hard right with him, giving themselves more of a sidelong firing position now instead of defending their rear. Immediately, the cavalry troops had to draw back a bit and lessen the heat of the chase.

  “Fall back, men,” Sergeant Baines bellowed, racing to the front of the chase. “Stay at their rear. Don’t give them targets!” The troops who heard him swung wide, staying behind Zell’s men. The ones who couldn’t hear the sergeant soon got the message, seeing others swerve out of the line of fire while they themselves still felt the brunt of it.

  “What in the name of God are you doing, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Howell yelled in a rage, reining his horse up beside Sergeant Baines as Baines turned his horse toward his troops. “We had them on the run! Stay on them, man!”

  “No, sir! I knew you would see they’ve taken to the rocks. You’d have wanted me to pull the men back, right, sir? If not, our boys will be sitting ducks…out in the open on the sand flats below them!”

  The lieutenant looked around, confused for a second, but then getting the picture. “Yes, right then. Carry on!”

  Back at the crash site, where a heavy blanket of steam and wood smoke blanketed the earth, Payton Parker and his brother Leo had managed to duck away, up the side of the hill into the cover of scrub juniper as Zell and Bowes formed the men and made the charge. Now,
with the fighting over five hundred yards away and moving upward into the rocks, Payton ventured down to where the two women lay coughing beside the rails.

  “Well, look here,” Parker said. “The little woman who caused all the trouble.” He walked into the smoke, holding his bandanna up over his nose and mouth. On the ground, Maria lay stunned but conscious, hovering over Prudence Vanderman as if protecting her. Payton Parker reached out with the toe of his boot and pushed her aside. He laughed, then called out through the smoke. “Get over here, Leo, look what we’ve got.” Blood trickled from the large knot on Maria’s forehead. She reeled in the dirt, unable to make sense of anything.

  Leo’s voice called back to him. “There’s four old men slipping up into the rocks.”

  “Forget them. Here’s the woman who slowed the train down and screwed everything up. She’s going with us.”

  Leo stepped in, fanning a hand back and forth, and looked down at the two women. “I don’t know, Payton…maybe we oughta leave them be. We’ve got enough problems.” In the distance the battle raged.

  “Are you crazy? She caused our problems. Hadn’t been for her slowing the train down there’d be dead soldiers packed inside that troop car right now.” He reached down, grabbed Maria’s arm, and yanked her up. “She’s going with us…they both are. Get the other one. We’ll go high, circle around, and meet Zell on the other side, after the shooting stops.” He grinned.

  “This ain’t a good idea.” Even as Leo spoke, he stooped and gathered Prudence Vanderman in his arms. “I think we best get away from here while we can. Bowes acted pretty steamed about us not doing our job. He’ll really be hot when he sees we didn’t make the charge—”

  “Shut up, Leo! We’re not going anywhere until we get our hands on that Mexican gold. We take these gals to Zell, tell him we couldn’t make the charge because we found these two. What was we supposed to do, leave them there, after this one messed everything up?” He turned and yanked Maria along behind him.