She froze as she saw his leering, crookedly grinning face. She didn’t know him but the look was unmistakable. The man was a mite crazy and his eyes were fixed on her in such a way that she felt a sudden chill. She forgot the gun and backed off, instinctively.
“Don’t go runnin’ off now, Miss Dukes,” Hallam said. He chuckled then burst out in a gust of uncontrollable laughter. “By hell, if this don’t beat all. Kate Dukes. The Governor’s daughter. Now that sure is a real bonus.”
Kate paled. There was something that told her that being recognized wasn’t going to do her much good.
Then two more of Hallam’s men came bursting into the car, but lowered their guns when they saw the outlaw leader had everything under control.
“The train’s ours, boss,” grated the first man in. “And the dynamite’s on the bridge ready to go if you say so.”
Hallam laughed again. His eyes glittered with pleasure. He took a sudden step forward and Kate gasped as he reached out and grabbed her arm with rough fingers. He pulled her in against him and she was revolted by his smell.
“We ain’t gonna need that dynamite,” he said to his men, his eyes devouring the girl’s terrified face. “We got us somethin’ way more powerful right here.”
He shook her and sent her stumbling towards the door leading to the express car. Kate grabbed at the back of a seat to steady herself and half fell. When she straightened, Hallam was beside her, pushing her again towards the door.
“Get it open,” he growled.
Kate fumbled the door open and Hallam jerked his head for her to step out onto the platform. She saw no sign of the other passengers but heard their animated chatter on the cinders beside the rail and further along.
They were hidden from her by the bulk of the express car.
Hearing a noise above her, Kate snapped her head up and saw two masked men standing on the roof overhang, rifles in hand.
Hallam grabbed her arm again, his men crowding onto the platform behind him. The outlaw leader dragged Kate up to the iron-sheathed door of the express car. He saw someone move away from the loophole and then rapped hard on the metal covering with the butt of his gun.
“Hey! You in there,” he bawled, hammering again with the gun butt. “You better open up or there’s gonna be a helluva lot on your conscience. If you live.”
Hallam laughed again and continued hammering.
“Get away from that door or we start blastin’,” a voice called from inside.
“Blast away,” Hallam invited. “Poke your guns out the loopholes and start shootin’. But I’m tellin’ you now that the first one you hit will be Governor Dukes’ daughter. I got her right in front of me and she makes a right pretty shield. Be a pity to spoil that beautiful body with a bullet. And I sure wouldn’t want to be the man who fired it when the Governor finds out.”
There was silence from inside the express car.
“’Course there’s another reason you ought to open up, too,” Hallam continued after a spell. “It’s the way we originally planned it. We got dynamite planted out on that trestle bridge. In case you don’t already know, the loco and tender and half the first car is out on that bridge. We blow that dynamite, and they’ll go topplin’ down into the wash—and they’ll drag most of the train with ’em, includin’ the car. We’ll have all the time we want then to break it open—if it don’t split open like an egg when it hits the bottom of the wash. But you fellers won’t know nothin’ about that by that stage, anyways. You listenin’?”
Hallam turned to his men and winked, grinning crookedly. Kate struggled but his grip was tight. She didn’t try to plead with Hallam. Although she didn’t know who he was, she saw by his face that he was crazy and she instinctively knew that there would be no reasoning with the man.
“You got about ten more seconds to palaver,” Hallam yelled through the door. “Take a look for yourself. You’ll see I got the gal—Or maybe you already know that.”
“Who are you, ma’am?” a voice called through the loophole.
The outlaw brought up his gun swiftly and tightened his grip on her arm as he placed the Colt’s muzzle against her head.
“Answer the man,” he gritted.
Kate ran a tongue across suddenly dry lips. She swallowed what felt like cotton in her mouth. When she spoke, her voice sounded dry and thin, not at all like her normal tone.
“I—I’m Kate—Dukes. The—Governor’s daughter.”
Hallam cocked an ear and he could hear low murmuring inside. Then he jerked Kate to one side and reversed his Colt and hammered savagely on the iron sheathing with the butt.
“Hurry up, goddamn it. We ain’t got all day. You want me to start shootin’ this gal apart a little at a time? ’Cause that’s what I aim to do—I’ll start by putting a bullet through her hands. Then I’ll rip up her face with the gunsight and start on her feet and her legs …”
Kate didn’t know how her legs managed to keep her upright. Then she stiffened, as did the outlaws.
There was a clatter of metal and the thud, muffled by the sheathing, as the bolts on the inside of the door slid back one by one.
A few moments later, it slowly swung inwards.
~*~
Even before they had reached the water tank at Apache Crossing, Yancey knew they had picked the wrong place.
The tower was visible from far out on the plains and there was no sign of the train. Or the outlaws. But, turning to the right and looking along the silver spear of the railroad tracks, they could just faintly discern a gray smudge.
They reined down and stared at it. It seemed to get a little heavier closer to the horizon but with the heat waves dancing on the plains, it was hard to be sure.
“Looks to me like the train’s already gone through,” Yancey told Cato and Huckabee.
“Seems like it,” Cato allowed, hipping in the saddle to look towards the water tower. “Guess we better check it out but I reckon we’re too late.’
“We lost too much time getting out of the hills,” Huckabee said. He squinted and pointed to the tower. “If there’s anyone up there, we’ve been spotted this past ten minutes.”
“There’s no one there,” Yancey said flatly. “We’ve missed the train and we guessed wrong. Hallam’s pulling the hold-up at the bridge by Monument Mesa by now.” He sighed. “But, like Johnny says, we got to check out that water tank anyway. More lost time.”
“I’ll do it,” Cato volunteered. “You two ride on licketty-split down the tracks. If there’s anything, I’ll fire a shot—which’ll tell you how confident I am about not findin’ anythin’. Now we better mosey.”
He wheeled and galloped his mount towards the water tower. Yancey and Huckabee turned their mounts along the railroad tracks and jammed in their heels ...
Cato caught up with them half an hour later.
Yancey and the Winchester man looked at him quizzically but he shook his head.
“Nary a sign. No one’s been there settin’ up anythin’. Like you said, Yance, we picked it wrong, and it’ll be all over by the time we get to Monument Mesa.”
Yancey’s mouth was grim as he nodded. He cursed himself for making the wrong choice. They had talked it over and examined all the possibilities and methods that Hallam would be likely to use and they had unanimously decided that the most likely place was the water tank.
The Enforcer only hoped there hadn’t been a bloody slaughter at the bridge. For he wouldn’t put it past Brett Hallam to dynamite the bridge and blow the train into the dry wash, just so he could get to the express car with little or no opposition.
The fact that he might kill a few dozen people in the process wouldn’t make Hallam lose any sleep.
The golden rifle had become secondary, of course, and had been for some time, though Yancey hadn’t really admitted it to himself. It had become a chase to get Hallam, an outlaw who had been loose too long. The rifle was only the excuse. Not that he really needed one, but the damn’ gun kept getting in the way.
But a debt was a debt and it had to be paid. Recovering that rifle would pay off Lang Huckabee.
The train was still at the bridge over the dry wash as they rode in, coming out from behind the mesa. They had taken a short cut across the plains, leaving the railroad tracks and making in a straight line for the rearing bulk of Monument Mesa rising out of the flat landscape.
The mesa’s hump had hidden the train and the bridge at first and Yancey had wondered if they were merely going to find a pile of wreckage at the bottom of the wash. It was quite a relief to see the train still on the tracks and the bridge intact.
There were men working in front of the locomotive, removing the pile of rocks and debris. The Enforcers and Huckabee pushed their weary mounts to the limit for a last run in and within minutes of arriving, they learnt what had happened from the still-shaken fireman.
“They killed Howie, the engineer,” he said in a trembling voice. “Just ’cause he stumbled and put out a hand to steady himself on the shovel.”
“Anyone else killed?” Yancey broke in harshly, wanting to jar the man out of his single-mindedness about the engineer’s death.
“Uh? Oh—yeah. Couple Rangers and one of the express car guards.”
Yancey frowned: “Rangers and guards? Were they s’posed to be looking after the express car, too?”
“The Rangers?” The fireman shook his head. “Hell, no, they was there for protection of the Governor’s daughter.”
Yancey felt the blood drain from his face as a chill gripped his guts in a twisting, wrenching motion. Cato stiffened, too, glancing swiftly at his pard. Huckabee listened and watched.
“Governor Dukes’ daughter?” Yancey asked, hoarsely wanting to get it right.
“Sure. Kate Dukes.”
Yancey wiped a hand across his forehead.
“What the blazes was she doing on this train? She should’ve been back in Austin days ago.”
The fireman, sensing some personal involvement, told the Enforcers about the landslide and the series of events that had led Kate to the train. When he had finished, Yancey swore and looked at Cato who nodded: “Yeah—Hallam owes Dukes plenty.”
Yancey snapped his gaze back to the fireman.
“What happened to Miss Dukes?”
“Hallam took her with him. Left a message. For the Governor. Nothin’ in writin’, just told it to a few of us. He said he wasn’t gonna blow up the bridge and hold up the train any longer. That we were free to start pushin’ the rocks and debris out of the way and to unwire the dynamite. He wanted the train to get back to Waco so’s we could send a message to Dukes ... ”
“Get on with it, damn you,” Yancey snarled. “What about Miss Dukes?”
The fireman licked his lips.
“Well—he said to make sure the Governor knew he had the gal. An’ to tell Dukes that he wanted nothin’ from him. No money, no ransom of any kind. That he was quite happy to have the gal and that—that he’d send her back when he was through with her—” He paused and tried to look at Yancey but swiftly swiveled his gaze away from the Enforcer’s bleak features. “A piece at a time.”
Yancey’s face didn’t change. He drilled his eyes into the fireman and seemed to be looking right through him.
The Enforcer could visualize the woman he loved in the crazy, vengeful hands of Brett Hallam. And he knew that the outlaw was quite capable of sending Kate back ‘a piece at a time’ as he had threatened. He was an animal and would think absolutely nothing of severing one of her fingers or ears or—worse.
“Which way they go?” Yancey gritted.
The fireman gestured to the left of the bridge. “Out along the wash and then down a trail into it, ’bout half a mile that way. Then they just rode on up the wash.”
Yancey nodded and turned to Cato.
“Let’s go, Johnny.”
Cato nodded. There was no argument: the horses were weary and they were tired themselves but there was no question—they had to get after the outlaws. And fast.
As they turned their mounts, Yancey stopped in mid-motion and frowned at Huckabee.
“Where the hell you think you’re going?”
“With you. Where else.”
“Like hell. You stay here and lend a hand. Ride the train back into Waco and get a wire off to the Governor and tell him what’s happened. Say I recommend that he break out every Ranger who ever took the oath-of-office. There’s no point in pussy-footing on this one. Hallam wants revenge and he’s using the girl to get it. We need all stops out if we’re going to prevent him killing her.”
“There’re plenty of folk on the train who can do that for you,” Huckabee said, gesturing towards the fireman. “Him for one—You won’t even have to repeat it because he just heard it all. No I’m riding along, Bannerman.”
“You’ll get in the way,” Cato said coldly. “You foul things up whatever you do and it’ll be the same this time. You stay.”
Huckabee shook his head stubbornly and put his mount forward.
“We’re wasting time,” he said and spurred forward.
Faces grim, Yancey and Cato rode swiftly after him. They caught up and galloped out along the wash, looking for the trail down.
“Besides,” Huckabee called to them, the wind tending to whip the words out of his mouth. “You’ll need me when you catch up with them.”
“I’d say you’re the one thing we don’t need,” Yancey called. “You damn well do exactly what I say when we see them, Huckabee, or I’ll put a knife through your ribs. I swear it.”
Huckabee merely smiled crookedly.
“You’ll change your tune,” he said confidently and then they rode in silence until they came to the narrow trail that led into the wash.
They made it safely down and rode in the direction the fireman had pointed, not bothering to look for tracks in the loose sand. The wash continued for almost two miles and then it petered out into flat country that stretched for another five miles before becoming lost in the foothills of a mountain range.
“By God, it’s going in a complete circle,” Yancey said, reining down as he looked towards the hills. “Hallam’s headed back into the hills outside of Waco. And if he gets deep in there, we’re gonna lose him.”
“But we got pretty close,” Cato pointed out, “And that pass where Huckabee here cut loose must lead back to it. I reckon we’ll nail him this time, Yance.”
The Enforcer looked grim.
“As long as we do it before he harms Kate.”
Then he spurred his mount forward out onto the plains and Cato and Huckabee followed.
There was a smudge of dust in the very beginnings of the foothills, visible as they rode in, and Yancey’s heartbeat quickened. It looked as though they weren’t all that far behind. The outlaws had lost considerable time while they had robbed the train and got the gold box out of the express car. The very weight of the gold would be slowing them down some, too, and probably Kate was using every trick she knew to delay them. He hoped she would not do anything too obvious that would set Hallam off, or he might start his abuse of her on the trail—
It was the closest they had come to the Hallam bunch and there was a good chance they could catch up with them by sundown. But they would be only two—three if they counted Huckabee, and Yancey reluctantly decided that he would have to count the Winchester man in—for there were at least six outlaws. And there could be others who had been left at the hole-in-the-wall.
There was one nagging worry that edged through all of Yancey’s other worries: if they could see the outlaws’ dust, then Hallam surely could see theirs as they rode in across the plains.
And if Hallam thought he was being followed, he would either post rear guards—or maybe leave a
warning not to follow any further. And Yancey didn’t like to think just what form that warning might take.
~*~
Yancey rose silently out of the darkness by the base of the rock and threw an arm around the guard’s neck. His free hand grabbed for the man’s gun and wrenched it away as he tightened his muscles and crushed the man’s throat.
The outlaw started to kick and thrash and Yancey lifted him bodily off the ground and strained to hold him clear while the life threshed out of him. As the man died, Yancey lowered him to the ground soundlessly then gave a low sound like a night bird calling.
Cato and Huckabee materialized out of the dark in a few seconds. They glanced briefly at the dead guard then Yancey gestured into the draw where there was the faint glow of the outlaws’ campfire.
They had reached the foothills apparently without being seen and then, halfway across the face of the first mountain foothill, the sun had gone down and night had begun to slide across the hills. By now they were hard on Hallam’s trail. It seemed that the outlaw leader was so confident he wouldn’t be followed—because he had the Governor’s daughter for a hostage—that he had hardly bothered about his back trail. Yancey, knowing the way the man thought, figured he was already busy with plans of how he was going to make Kate suffer and, through her suffering, exact his vengeance on Dukes.
It was only by pure luck that they had spotted the guard. They had been coming up the slope on foot, wanting to look for hidden draws before they risked riding up, and the man had decided to light a cigarette. The flare of the match and, later, the glow of the cigarette, had pinpointed his position.
Around the campfire they counted six outlaws. Kate was trussed-up like a turkey on one side, just within the flickering circle of light. The others were eating but she had been given no food.
“Now you need me,” Huckabee whispered, and there was a rasp of cloth and the slight metallic clank of tools.
“What the hell’re you doin’?” breathed Cato.
Bannerman the Enforcer 9 Page 10
