The Loner: The Big Gundown

by J. A. Johnstone

  “I never had any trouble with holdups until Black arrived in Arizona and began gathering hard cases around him,” Sheffield said. “I realize that’s not enough proof for a court of law, but it’s enough for me.”

  “Enough for you to hire your own gunmen.”

  Sheffield smiled thinly. “Fighting fire with fire is a time-honored tactic.”

  Morgan couldn’t argue with that. “There’s been shooting during the holdups?”

  Sheffield nodded and said, “Yes, sad to say, several passengers and members of the train crews have been killed when they tried to fight back. Those outlaws are merciless, Morgan. That’s one more reason they have to be dealt with severely.”

  After seeing what had happened at the Williams ranch, Morgan didn’t have to be told how merciless the outlaws were. He had seen too much evidence of that with his own eyes, images that might haunt his brain forever.

  Sheffield didn’t mention anything about the gang having a cannon. Morgan supposed that might be a new development. If you were trying to stop a train, especially a heavily-guarded one, a big gun like that might come in really handy. A former military man like Colonel Black would know that, too.

  By the time the train was approaching the mountains, Sheffield had excused himself and left the parlor car. The maid brought Morgan a fresh cup of coffee, and she was followed a few minutes later by Glory Sheffield. Morgan wondered if she had been deliberately avoiding coming back there while her husband was with him.

  It appeared that was the case. Morgan had moved onto one of the divans, and as soon as Glory came into the car, she sat down beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth from her hip through their clothes. A disturbing thought forced itself into his mind. How far would Sheffield go to get what he wanted? Would he actually send his wife to seduce Morgan, just to get him to agree to go after Colonel Black?

  Or was it all Glory’s idea? She leaned even closer to him and smiled.

  “How are you enjoying the trip so far?”

  “This car is very comfortable, and the coffee is good,” Morgan said.

  “What about the company?”

  “Very pleasant.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “It could be even more pleasant, Mr. Morgan…or can I call you Kid? That’s what Edward says you’re known as—Kid Morgan. No offense, but it sounds like something out of a dime novel.” She was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek. “What’s your real first name?”

  Morgan was saved from having to answer by a sudden boom that was loud enough for him to hear over the rumble of the train’s wheels on the tracks. At the same time, a sharp jolt went through the car, sharp enough so that Glory was thrown right off the divan with a little scream as she landed on the floor. Morgan sprang to his feet and leaped to the window as the train slowed down and came to a lurching, screeching halt.

  It looked like Sheffield had been wrong about them having nothing to worry about on the trip up to Titusville. Unless Morgan’s hunch was wrong, the outlaws’ big gun had just spoken.

  And the big gundown had begun.

  Chapter 17

  Edward Sheffield rushed into the car and shouted, “My God, what’s happened?” Then he spotted his wife on the floor. “Good Lord, Gloriana! Are you all right?”

  Out of instinct, Morgan had drawn his gun as he peered through the window. He saw that the train had reached the gap where the spur line entered the mountains. Those bluffs Sheffield had mentioned loomed closely on both sides of the tracks.

  Atop the bluff to the right sat the cannon that had boomed a moment earlier. Men clustered around it, reloading it. Morgan saw a man run a wet swab on a long pole down the barrel with practiced efficiency, putting out any lingering sparks from the first shot before a second charge of powder was packed into the weapon.

  Other men armed with rifles clustered along the bluff, taking potshots at the train. Their intention was probably to make everyone in the cars keep their heads down until more outlaws could board the train and take it over.

  Morgan grimaced. He couldn’t do any good with a handgun. He needed his Winchester, which was in the car with the buckskin, his saddle, and the rest of his gear.

  “Stay here,” he told Sheffield and Glory. “Get behind one of the divans and keep your heads down.”

  “What are you going to do?” Sheffield asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Something.”

  “Does this mean you’re working for me?”

  Morgan suppressed the surge of impatience he felt. “It means I don’t like anybody shooting at me,” he snapped as he strode past them toward the door at the front of the car.

  He stepped onto the platform as a bullet banged off of the brass fittings on the car. He quickly dropped down to the roadbed through the space between the two private cars. Morgan stretched out and wriggled on to his back underneath the train. Then he reached up, grasped the rods that ran under the cars, and began pulling himself along. He was well-hidden from the outlaws up on the bluffs as he tried to reach the car where his horse was.

  Since Sheffield’s private cars were the last two of the train he had to make his way under the living quarters car and then the caboose. The converted baggage car where he had left the buckskin and his gear was right in front of the caboose. It wasn’t that difficult pulling himself along the roadbed, but he lost his hat and the gravel ripped and tore at the back of his coat, gouging his flesh in places, as well.

  It took him a few minutes to reach the front of the caboose. During that time, he heard shots continue to ring out from the bluffs. A few shots came from the train as well, as passengers and crew tried to mount a defense, but from the sound of it, the resistance was rather feeble.

  He couldn’t get into the car from the end, so he would have to expose himself to the outlaws’ fire. He pulled himself along to what he judged was the middle of the converted baggage car, as close as he could get to the sliding door on its side. Then he rolled out from underneath it and sprang to his feet, moving as fast as he could in the hope that he could get inside before any of the riflemen on the bluff noticed him.

  That was a futile hope. Bullets burned through the air as he reached up and grasped the edge of the door, which had been left open a few inches to let in some light and air for his horse. Slugs thudded into the side of the car. Morgan thrust the door back, grabbed hold, and vaulted inside. He felt the hot kiss of a bullet against his neck as he rolled away from the opening. He wasn’t sure the lead had even touched him, but it had been mighty close.

  Surging to his feet, Morgan ran over to the stall where the buckskin tossed his head in eagerness to get out. The horse had never minded the sound of shots or the smell of powdersmoke. Sometimes Morgan thought the buckskin thrived on those things.

  “You’re better off right where you are, big fella,” Morgan told the horse as he pulled his Winchester from the sheath which lay next to his saddle. “You couldn’t do any good out there. There are too many of them.”

  The car had doors on both sides. The one on the side of the bluff where the cannon had been set up was closed. Morgan eased it open a couple of inches. Not enough for the outlaws to notice, he hoped, but enough to let him take a look at the situation.

  From there he could see the cannon and the men around it. They all wore bandannas tied around the lower half of their faces, and their hats were pulled down partially obscuring the upper half. Morgan couldn’t recognize any of them and didn’t spot anyone wearing the distinctive outfit Colonel Black had sported that day at the Williams ranch. Most of the men wore long dusters, though, that concealed their clothing, so Black could be up there.

  If he was, Morgan suspected he would be somewhere near that big gun. Slipping the barrel of the Winchester through the narrow gap, Morgan drew a bead on one of the outlaws standing beside the cannon.

  The rifle cracked sharply and kicked against his shoulder when he squeezed the trigger. The
man he had targeted jerked back, then stumbled forward and plunged off the edge of the bluff with a scream. While the wounded outlaw was falling, Morgan worked the Winchester’s lever and shifted his aim as fast as he could to another member of the gang. He wanted to bring down as many of them as he could before they realized where the deadly fire was coming from.

  His second shot drove into the chest of another outlaw near the cannon and knocked that man out of sight. Morgan cranked off two more rounds and hit a third man before the rest of the owlhoot artillery crew sprang into action. Morgan’s eyes widened as he saw the cannon’s muzzle swing around and point toward the boxcar.

  “Son of a—” he muttered before he leaped away from the door and threw himself into the stall with the buckskin.

  The cannon’s boom was like a particularly loud clap of thunder. The cannonball smashed through the boxcar door, shattering it into kindling. The ball continued on at a downward angle, hitting the boxcar floor and blasting a hole in it as well. Luckily, the devastating shot missed Morgan and the buckskin by ten or twelve feet, but Morgan still covered his head with his arms to protect himself from flying debris. The buckskin whinnied shrilly as a splinter of wood nicked him.

  Morgan knew he couldn’t stay there. The outlaws would continue to use the cannon to blast away at the boxcar, since they knew the deadliest shot on the train was in there.

  He had no idea how fast a real artillery crew could reload and fire a cannon like that, but he hoped the outlaws wouldn’t be as efficient. He grabbed a blanket and saddle and threw them on the buckskin, who was moving around nervously. The horse might be accustomed to gunplay, but not an artillery barrage.

  Morgan was all too aware of the seconds flying past. He was in a race against time, a race to get out of the boxcar with the buckskin before another cannonball came crashing through the wall. He drew the cinches tight, slung the sheaths that held the Winchester and the Sharps onto the saddle, and then threw open the gate across the stall entrance. He slid the door on the far side of the car all the way back. Shots began to fly through the opening. Morgan ducked into the stall, grabbed the buckskin’s reins, and swung up into the saddle.

  His boot heels dug into the horse’s flanks as he yelled and sent the buckskin leaping forward. He had to give the buckskin credit for not even hesitating as the open door loomed in front of them. The horse leaped through it, sailing high into the air as bullets shrilled around them.

  At that same instant, the cannon thundered again, and the ball crashed into the boxcar behind them, smashing right through the stall. Morgan glanced back and knew that he and the buckskin had avoided death by only shavings of a second.

  The horse landed gracefully, running full blast. They were just outside the gap formed by the bluffs. Morgan whirled his mount and sent the buckskin racing alongside the train, close enough to the bluff so that the outlaws on the near side couldn’t hit them from that angle, and the railroad cars shielded them from the riflemen on the far side of the gap.

  Morgan saw steam puffing from the diamond-shaped stack on the Baldwin locomotive. The engine didn’t seem to be damaged, at least not that he could tell. He rode past the cab and reached the front of the locomotive. The cowcatcher was a tangled, twisted mass of metal. Morgan figured that was where the first round from the cannon had struck. But the rest of the engine appeared to be all right, and the tracks themselves looked undamaged. The engineer must have brought the train to a halt because he thought the tracks were torn up in front of it and he feared a derailment.

  Morgan thought the train could still move, so he whirled the horse around and raced back to the cab. The engine still had steam up. The engineer just needed to hit the throttle.

  “Move the train! Move the train!” he shouted to a man he saw in the cab who was crouched behind the meager protection of the cab’s walls.

  “The engineer’s dead!” the man called back to him.

  Morgan grimaced and reach over to grasp an iron grab bar on the wall of the cab. He swung himself from the buckskin’s back into the cab, taking the Winchester with him.

  “You know how to run this thing?” he asked as he ducked down behind the other wall, next to the bloody body of the engineer, who had been shot through the head.

  “Yeah, but those sons o’ bitches up on the bluff will pick me off if I try to work the controls!”

  “No, they won’t, because I’ll cover you,” Morgan said. “Now grab that throttle!”

  The man, who had to be the fireman, hesitated, but the fierce look on Morgan’s face convinced him he would be in even more danger if he didn’t do what he was told. As Morgan rose up at the side of the cab and started blazing away at the men on the bluff as fast as he could work the Winchester’s lever, the trainman lunged to the engine’s controls and shoved the throttle forward. With a burst of steam and a screeching of metal on metal as the drivers engaged, the locomotive lurched forward.

  Bullets whined and popped and danced around inside the cab. The train began to pick up speed. Morgan saw the barrel of the cannon moving in an attempt to line up a shot at the engine. He sprayed lead around the big gun and forced the men working it to leap for cover. That gave the locomotive and the coal tender time to clear the gap. The nearly sheer walls on both sides of the tracks fell away.

  The outlaws continued shooting at the cars that rolled past, but they couldn’t stop the train with rifle fire. The fireman looked back and yelled triumphantly, “We’re gonna make it!”

  Then he grunted in pain as a slug ripped through his body. He slumped against the brake lever, and once again the train began squealing and skidding to a halt. Morgan whirled away from the side of the cab and grabbed the wounded fireman, jerking him away from the brake. He released it and slammed the throttle forward again.

  The train hadn’t come to a complete stop, making it easier to regain some speed. Chuffing loudly, the engine kept going, climbing a long slope.

  Morgan leaned out to look ahead. The tracks ran in a straight line for a mile or more. He risked abandoning the controls to climb onto the pile of coal in the tender. From there he could see the outlaws on the bluffs, as well as their cannon. The cannon’s crew had swiveled the weapon even more, and Morgan knew they were lining up a shot. If they could blow a hole in the locomotive’s boiler, they could still stop the train.

  The cannon boomed before Morgan could do anything about it. Maybe he imagined it, but he thought he could hear the high-pitched whistle of the cannonball as it flew toward the train.

  Chapter 18

  There was nothing Morgan could do to stop the cannonball. He threw himself backward, onto the floor of the cab, as the shot fell short and hit the tender instead of the locomotive, smashing into the mound of coal and sending pieces flying everywhere. Some of the chunks pelted the cab like black rain.

  But the train kept moving. Morgan scrambled to his feet and checked the tracks ahead. No obstructions, no sharp turns that would require the train to slow down. He shoved the throttle forward as far as it would go.

  He didn’t want to blow the boiler, but right now his main concern was getting the train out of range of that cannon. The big gun could throw a ball more than a mile, but its accuracy diminished with every yard between the train and the cannon. Morgan thought they were already far enough away so that it would be luck more than anything else if the next shot found its target.

  He heard the cannon blast and jerked his head around in time to see the puff of smoke from its muzzle. Then with a crash of rending wood, the cannonball slammed into the last car in the train.

  The car where he had left Edward and Glory Sheffield.

  Morgan’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace as he saw pieces of debris fly high in the air from the impact. He heard a groan and looked down to see the fireman struggling to get to his feet again. The man’s left arm hung limp and his shoulder was covered with blood, but at least he was conscious again.

  Morgan reached down and grasped the man’s right a
rm to haul him upright. “Can you handle the controls?” he demanded.

  The wounded fireman was pale and shaken, but he managed to nod. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Good. I’ve got to go back and check on the Sheffields.”

  A narrow ledge ran along the side of the tender. Morgan made his way down it carefully. When he reached the first passenger car, he climbed to the top, figuring it would be quicker going that way than trying to get through what was bound to be a lot of chaos and confusion from the frightened passengers inside the car.

  Aware that he was making himself a target, he ran toward the rear of the train, leaping from car to car. It was dangerous, especially because the high speed was causing the train to sway a little on the tracks, but he wanted to reach the last car as quickly as he could.

  Atop the distant bluff, the cannon boomed again, and Morgan gritted his teeth as he paused to see where the ball would land. It plowed up dirt and threw a cloud of dust in the air to the right of the train. The gunners were losing the range. Morgan started moving again. When he reached the caboose, he climbed down using the grab irons on the side of the car.

  As his booted feet landed on the platform at the front of the caboose, the door opened and Edward Sheffield rushed out, nearly running into Morgan.

  Sheffield grabbed Morgan’s arm. “There you are! My God, did you see what happened? They shelled the train with a cannon!”

  Morgan didn’t like being grabbed, but at the moment, he was more concerned with what might have happened to Glory. A jolt of relief went through him as he saw her come up behind her husband. He didn’t particularly like her, but he had liked the idea of her being splattered all over that train car by a cannonball even less.

  He pulled his arm loose from Sheffield’s grip and said, “I thought the two of you were still in that last car.” He gestured through the open door at the destruction. The cannonball had come through the roof of the car, leaving a gaping hole, and slammed into one of the divans, demolishing it. There was a hole in the floor, too, where the cannonball had gone on through. They were lucky it hadn’t hit the wheels and derailed the car.