Hard Luck Money

by J. A. Johnstone

The Kid knew the young cowboy was his contact man from the Rangers.

  There was no time for them to say anything else. Beatrice came back into the kitchen carrying a bottle half filled with whiskey.

  “This is going to sting,” she warned as she took a clean cloth and soaked it with the liquor.

  “I’m tough,” Tyler told her. “I can stand it, ma’am. Especially if you’ll smile at me while you’re doin’ it.”

  She did smile as she began swabbing at the wound with the cloth.

  The bite of the whiskey on raw flesh made Tyler grimace, but he put a grin back on his rugged face. “Not bad at all.”

  “You should probably have a doctor take a look at this,” Beatrice said. “It might need a few stitches, and I can’t do that.”

  “Yes’m. I’ll go see Doc Steward over in the settlement as soon as I get a chance. I hear tell he’s a pretty good sawbones.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” she warned. “You don’t want it to fester.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Brattle came into the kitchen while Beatrice was wrapping a bandage around Tyler’s forearm and tying it into place. He was carrying Tyler’s Colt. He set the gun on the table and dropped five bullets beside it. “I unloaded this hogleg. Just so you don’t get tempted to use it again.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, mister,” Tyler said. “This trouble was all just a big misunderstandin’.”

  Brattle grunted. “Don’t misunderstand again. As soon as the lady’s done patchin’ you up, you need to haul your freight off this range.”

  Tyler nodded. “Yes, sir, that’s just what I intend to do. I never meant to stir up a ruckus.”

  “That should do it,” Beatrice said as she finished tying the bandage into place. “You take care of that wound, Mr. Tyler. Be sure and check the dressing.”

  “Yes’m, I will.” Tyler looked at Brattle. “What about my hat?”

  “It’s still out there on the ground where it fell. You can get it as you’re leavin’.”

  “Thanks.” Tyler got to his feet and smiled again at Beatrice. “And I’m obliged to you as well, ma’am, like I told you.” He glanced at The Kid. “Though I don’t believe I’ll thank you for shootin’ me, mister.”

  “You wouldn’t be welcome anyway,” The Kid replied with a sneer.

  Tyler looked back at Beatrice. “Ma’m, I don’t know if you’re partial to scenic views or not, but there’s a hill about half a mile west of here where you can see for a long way. Mighty pretty from up there. Since you’re new around here, I thought you might like to have a look at it sometime.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tyler, I’ll do that,” Beatrice said politely, but The Kid could tell she wasn’t really interested in some scenic view.

  He, on the other hand, was very interested in what Tyler had just said, even though he couldn’t show it. He knew the Ranger’s words had been meant for him. Tyler was conveying a message. That hill would be his vantage point for keeping an eye on the ranch ... and on The Kid.

  That didn’t help much, since the gang still had him on a tight rein, but maybe in the future it would.

  Brattle and Tyler left the kitchen.

  Remembering what Grey had told him, The Kid took the pistol from his waistband and set it on the table. “Alexander told me to give this to you when you were finished working on Tyler.”

  “He still doesn’t trust you?”

  “Evidently not. But he claims that’s going to change soon.”

  Beatrice hesitated, then said quietly, “Is anything else going to change soon, Waco?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see,” The Kid told her.

  She wasn’t aware that something had already changed, something very important.

  The Texas Rangers were on the job.

  That evening after supper, Grey told The Kid and Brattle, “Come into my office.”

  Grey had taken over one of the rooms downstairs and turned it into his office and library, unpacking the books he’d been able to salvage from the water-damaged volumes in the plantation house. A big rolltop desk left behind by the previous owner of the ranch took up the center of the room.

  The Kid and Brattle followed him into the room. Grey put his finger on the map spread out on a table. “This is our first job, gentlemen.”

  As The Kid leaned over to study the map, Grey traced his fingertip along a straight line marking the course of the railroad. “Fort Worth to the east, Weatherford to the west. And halfway between, a flag stop at a little settlement. That’s where you’ll be waiting for the train.”

  The name Weatherford rang a bell in The Kid’s mind. He thought back to when he was still Conrad Browning and the conversations he’d had with his father, before the tragedy that had given birth to Kid Morgan.

  Frank Morgan, The Drifter, had been born and raised in that part of Texas, he recalled. Frank had spent quite a bit of time in and around the town of Weatherford, including a visit a few years earlier when he’d met up with an old flame who was married to a judge.

  The Kid didn’t recall the woman’s name, and Frank had been sort of close-mouthed about the whole business, but at the time Conrad Browning had gotten the feeling Frank suspected the woman’s daughter might be his child.

  It was odd to think he might have a blood relative—a half sister—so close by.

  Another memory worked its way into The Kid’s head. Frank had come back to the area to attend the young woman’s wedding. She had gotten married to a Texas Ranger, The Kid suddenly recalled.

  That Ranger’s name abruptly sprang into his mind.

  Tyler Beaumont.

  “Waco? Something wrong?”

  Grey’s voice broke into The Kid’s stunned thoughts. Trying not to show what he was thinking and feeling, he shook his head. “No, go ahead with what you were sayin’, boss. I’m listenin’.”

  “This is no time for wool-gathering,” Grey said with a frown. “This is important.”

  “I know that. Sorry. You were sayin’ that we’d stop the train there at that little place called ...” —the Kid leaned closer to the map—“Aledo?” “That’s right. It’s ranching country all around there, so no one will think twice about a bunch of cowboys riding into the settlement. There’s a little depot, which you’ll take over so you can raise the flag and stop the train. Once you have it stopped, two men will deal with the engineer and fireman while the rest of you empty out the express car.” “What’ll it be carrying, boss?” Brattle asked.

  “A shipment of cash bound for banks in Midland, Odessa, and El Paso. There’ll be a couple deputy U.S. marshals guarding it, but that’s all. The railroad doesn’t want to draw attention to the shipment. It totals sixty thousand dollars.”

  Brattle let out an awed whistle. “That’s a damn fortune! We won’t have to pull another job for a year.”

  Grey shook his head. “Maybe we won’t have to, but that won’t stop us,” he insisted. “This is just the beginning. We’ll all be very rich men by the time we’re finished, thanks to Waco here.”

  “Looks to me like you’ve already got this planned out,” The Kid commented. “I’m glad you busted me out of prison, mind you, but I don’t see why you even need me.”

  “Because of your expertise in robbing trains, of course. We’re going to go over every detail of the plan so you can tell us whether you think it will work. If there’s anything you want to change, you can let us know and we’ll figure out some other way of going about it.”

  The Kid frowned, encountering another tricky aspect of the role he was playing. He’d never robbed a train in his life. He had been a passenger on a couple that had been held up, but that was completely different.

  Still, as a businessman he had developed a pretty good head for strategy and tactics, and since adopting the life of a fighting man he had refined that ability. Mostly knowing what to do was just a matter of common sense.

  “First thing is, what’s the law situation down there? Is there a local star packer we�
�re gonna have to deal with?”

  Grey smiled. “See, you’re already proving valuable. I don’t know for sure. I expect there’ll be a town constable or maybe a deputy sheriff who has an office there, but we’ll have to find out, won’t we?” He looked at Brattle. “You’ll need to send a couple boys over there to do some scouting. We have five days before that money shipment goes through.”

  Brattle nodded. “I’ll take care of it, boss. What else?”

  “That’s a good question,” Grey said. “What about it, Waco? What else will we need to know?”

  The Kid leaned over and rested his hands on the table as he studied the map again. “We’ll need to figure out the best getaway. And for that you’re going to need a better map. I want one with as much detail as you can find on the surrounding countryside. Better yet, I want to take a look at the country myself.”

  A dubious expression came over Grey’s lean face, as if he didn’t like the idea of The Kid leaving the ranch. He didn’t want anybody spotting Waco Keene and identifying him.

  Of course, The Kid looked nothing like the real Waco Keene, so nobody was going to mistake him for the bank robber. But Grey and the others didn’t know that, and The Kid’s life was riding on the gang’s ignorance of that fact.

  “I suppose it can be arranged,” Grey finally said, “but you’ll have to be very careful.”

  The Kid nodded. “Sure. I don’t want to do anything to mess this up.” At least not until he had enough evidence to put Alexander Grey and the rest of the outlaws behind bars for a long time. For that, he would have to cooperate until after they had pulled at least one robbery.

  But after that, maybe he could signal the Rangers to move in ... and maybe find out if the stocky young lawman called Tyler was really his brother-in-law!

  Chapter 24

  The Kid spent the next few days riding through the countryside between the ranch and the settlement where the train robbery would take place, which was about fifteen miles south of the gang’s current headquarters.

  Brattle and at least one other man were with him at all times.

  The Kid didn’t see any point in arguing about being guarded. He wanted the robbery to go off without any hitches. It was the last piece in the puzzle. He also wanted no one getting hurt. He figured the loot could be recovered later.

  He wasn’t going to lead a posse straight toward the ranch, so his getaway plan was to start off in the opposite direction, south, before swinging west and then cutting north again. The terrain in all directions was hilly but not particularly rugged, so some hard riding would be needed to put distance between themselves and any pursuit.

  The hope was, of course, that the gang would have an insurmountable lead before any posse could be formed to give chase.

  In the evenings, Grey, Brattle and The Kid discussed the plan. If the train was on schedule, it would pass through the settlement at five minutes after three in the afternoon. The depot was just a little one-room affair, set off to the side of a block of businesses facing the track.

  “Only one freight clerk works there, so he shouldn’t present much of a challenge,” The Kid pointed out. “Two men could take him, while the others wait nearby for the train to pull in.”

  He didn’t want the townspeople noticing anything unusual was going on, so it was his suggestion the gang not move on the depot until about a quarter to three.

  Somewhere Grey had gotten his hands on a topographical map, and in the evenings The Kid went over it with him and Brattle, marking the course he thought they should take and pointing out things that might slow them down.

  Grey was impressed by the way The Kid anticipated problems. “I knew it was a good idea to get you to join us, Waco. You’re going to be worth your weight in gold.”

  Or in bounty money, The Kid thought wryly.

  The day of the holdup dawned bright, hot, and still. When it was time to go, Brattle squinted at the brassy sky. “I don’t like it, boss. Feels to me like there’s a storm comin’.”

  “Nonsense,” Grey claimed. “It’s a beautiful day. There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  “Right now there ain’t. Thunderstorms can blow up mighty quick-like this time of year.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t have any effect on what you’re doing, “ Grey insisted. “If anything, a little rain will just make it harder for anyone to follow you.”

  He was right about that, The Kid thought. A hard rain would wash away the prints their horses left.

  As they mounted up, Beatrice came to the door of the house and watched them. She had a worried look on her face. It was the first time since the gang broke The Kid out of prison—and the first time since Beatrice had been reunited with her brother—that they were riding off to commit a crime ... if she had been telling The Kid the truth. Her gaze lingered especially long on him.

  He hoped Grey wouldn’t notice that.

  When the men were all in their saddles, Grey addressed them. “Good luck to all of you, although I’m sure you won’t need it with Brattle and Waco leading the way. And speaking of Waco ...” He held up a gunbelt and holstered Colt and handed it to The Kid.

  “I was wonderin’ if I was going to have to do this unarmed,” The Kid said as he buckled on the weapon. He drew the revolver from its holster and opened the cylinder, only to look up in surprise. “It’s unloaded.”

  “That’s right,” Grey said. “Here’s the way things work in this organization, Waco. You don’t carry a loaded gun yet, and you don’t wear a mask. The other men do. You’re already a wanted man, so you don’t have to worry about concealing your features, but none of them have posters out on them and I’d like to keep it that way. I’m sure they would, too.”

  The Kid frowned. “Nobody told me anything about this,” he snapped. In reality, those developments came as no surprise, knowing what he did about the holdups in which Quint Lupo had participated.

  “You’ve known all along that we have our own way of doing things,” Grey said, his voice hardening. “You also know I’m in charge here.”

  “Sure. It just seems like if there’s any shooting, I’m liable to be in a mighty bad spot with an unloaded gun.”

  “Consider that an incentive to make certain there aren’t any problems involving gunplay. We’re in this to make money, not to shoot up the place.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” The Kid said with obvious reluctance. “I don’t much like the idea of paradin’ my face around, either. I may be wanted for breakin’ out of prison, but if I get tagged with new train robbery charges, every bounty hunter in the state will be looking for me.”

  “That’s something you’ll just have to get used to. You are a fugitive, after all. None of us are.”

  Still playing the part of Waco Keene, The Kid glanced around at the other men. He tried to look worried, angry, and desperate. They gave him flat, hard stares in return.

  He let resignation take over with a sigh. “Fine. As long as I get my share.”

  “Don’t worry, you will,” Grey assured him.

  The Kid lifted his reins. “Let’s ride, then.” He didn’t look back, but could feel Beatrice watching him as he and the other men rode south. Without being too obvious about it, he glanced toward the hill to the west Tyler had mentioned.

  If the stocky Ranger was up there, keeping an eye on the ranch through high-powered field glasses, he was bound to see them riding away and could probably guess they were headed out to pull a robbery.

  The Kid wondered if he should make some sort of unobtrusive sign, then decided against it. They were probably too far away for the Ranger to even see anything like that.

  He was on his own.

  A line of ominous, dark blue clouds had moved up on the southwestern horizon by the time the gang neared their destination. Brattle eyed those clouds suspiciously. “Told you it was gonna storm.”

  “It’ll be all right,” The Kid said. “That won’t stop us from doing what we need to do.”

  A range of low hills overlooked the
settlement. As the riders headed down the slopes toward the block-long row of buildings making up practically the entire town, The Kid’s eyes followed the railroad tracks running straight as a string east toward Fort Worth and west toward Weatherford.

  Everything was quiet and peaceful at the moment ... but it wouldn’t stay that way, The Kid knew.

  There were only a few residences in the settlement, just enough to provide homes for the people who ran the half-dozen businesses, which included a couple mercantiles, a drugstore, a restaurant, a saddle shop, and a ladies’ dress shop.

  Those establishments depended on the cattle spreads surrounding the settlement for their existence. The families who owned the ranches and the cowboys who worked for those outfits furnished customers for the businesses. In the middle of the week, Aledo was a pretty sleepy place. A couple horses were tied up at the hitch rack in front of the restaurant, and a wagon was parked in front of one of the general stores.

  That was encouraging. The fewer people around when the gang stopped and boarded the train, the less likely anybody would try to interfere.

  One of the gunmen licked his lips and asked, “Is there a saloon in this backwater?”

  “No, there’s no saloon,” Brattle replied. “We’re in a dry county here.”

  “No booze in the whole blasted county?” The outlaw sounded horrified, as if he couldn’t believe such a thing.

  “You don’t need to get drunk anyway,” Brattle told him. “We’re here to rob a damned train, not to fill our guts with whiskey.”

  They appeared to be nothing more threatening than half a dozen cowhands as they rode around the block of buildings to the front.

  The Kid looked at the depot, which was a small, redbrick building about fifty yards from the eastern end of the block. The road they had been following crossed the railroad tracks next to the depot and continued on south.

  Alexander Grey had given The Kid a turnip watch and assured him it kept perfect time. The Kid took the watch out of his pocket, flipped it open, and saw that the hour was 2:35. A half hour until the train was due. Ten minutes or so before he and Brattle would enter the depot and take the freight clerk prisoner.