by Ralph Cotton
“I said, let’s go, damn it!” said Spiller. He started to grab Rochenbach by his arm, but the look Rochenbach gave him stopped him cold.
Above them, Grolin watched with a slight grin, seeing how expertly Rochenbach managed to take Spiller’s temper to the boiling point, then defuse it as he saw fit.
You’re good, Rock. That’s for sure, Grolin told himself, watching Rochenbach turn from the bar and walk over to the staircase.
Rochenbach and the two riflemen stopped until Casings and the Giant stepped off the bottom stair and walked toward the bar. In passing, Rochenbach’s eyes met Casings’ for only a second. But in that second he saw Casings reassuring him that everything was all right. Grolin had no problem with them trying to retrieve the money—he had bigger plans in the making, Rochenbach decided.
Climbing the stairs behind Spiller, Rochenbach stared up at Grolin. When the three men topped the stairs and Spiller started toward the office door, Rochenbach stopped cold and looked at Grolin.
“Tell me, Grolin,” he said, as Spiller turned around facing him, “am I working for you, or am I a prisoner here?”
“What a thing to ask, Rock,” Grolin said cagily. “Of course you’re working for me.”
“Then why am I walking between these idiots?” Rock asked. “I know my way around.”
Spiller and Hughes started to flare up, but Grolin stopped them both with a raised hand.
“All right, Dent, you and Hughes go back to the bar. We’re good here.”
Spiller stared coldly at Rochenbach, but he turned and gave Hughes a nod. Rochenbach and Grolin watched the two walk back down the stairs.
Grolin chuckled and said, “One word from me, Rock, Spiller would love to gut you.” He turned, stepped over and opened his office door. “Why do you keep him so stoked up?”
“I don’t know,” said Rock. “I suppose because it’s so easy to do.”
Rochenbach followed Grolin inside the office. He took off his hat and stood at the front of his desk as Grolin walked around behind it. Grolin gestured toward a chair. Rochenbach seated himself as the outlaw leader sat down behind his wide oak desk.
“I’ve got no questions for you about the Hercules Mining money,” Grolin said. “I figure anything Casings and the Giant didn’t tell me, you won’t tell me either. Anyway, it was a fluke, that much money being in the safe.”
“Fluke money still spends,” Rock said.
“Forget it,” said Grolin. “The job was a practice run to see if you could open a Diebold safe.”
Rochenbach only stared at him, confident.
“From what everybody tells me, you’re the best,” Grolin said.
“Obliged,” said Rock. “But practice run or not, I hate losing that much money.”
“So do I,” said Grolin, “but it’s over and done. I can’t let it distract me from something bigger.” He stuck his cigar in his mouth and stared knowingly at Rochenbach.
“So we’re all set?” Rochenbach asked.
“Yep, Thursday night—four days from now, we ride,” said Grolin. “There’s a big shipment coming out. We’re going to be waiting for it.”
“All right,” said Rochenbach, perking up in the chair. “Tell me all about it.”
“Nothing to tell,” Grolin said. He grinned and puffed on his cigar. “I’ve got everything covered. Now get out of here. Take a few days, rest, relax, enjoy everything the Lucky Nut has to offer. Come Thursday, be ready to ride out and make us both rich.”
“It will be my pleasure,” Rochenbach said, standing, putting his hat on and turning toward the door.
On the landing, Rock looked down at the bar but saw that all of Grolin’s men were gone. All right…, he told himself, heading down the stairs. He would find Casings and the Giant later. Right now he needed to report to his field superior, let him know that Thursday was set for the robbery. Other details he’d have to pass along as they came to him—if they came to him, he thought. If not, he was on his own. But that was all right. He was used to working alone.
Chapter 15
Leaving the Lucky Nut, Rochenbach walked his dun to the livery barn. He slung the horse’s saddle over a rack and hung its bridle on a wall peg. He grained and watered the hungry animal and wiped it down with a handful of clean straw. He walked the dun into a clean stall and pitched a fresh pile of hay at its hooves. Patting its muzzle, he turned and left, his Spencer rifle in hand.
After a meal of elk steak, beans and biscuits at Turk’s Restaurant, he drank a cup of hot coffee, paid for his meal and left. As he walked along the dark street back to his room at to the Great Westerner, he thought about how he hadn’t run into any of Grolin’s men—which was good, he reminded himself, entering the hotel lobby. Next door at the Lucky Nut, banjo and twangy piano music spilled out into the chilled night air as he closed the hotel door behind him.
Instead of going up the stairs to his room, Rochenbach slipped quietly through the hotel’s main hallway and out the back door into a long alleyway that would take him to the rear of the telegraph office unseen.
At the back door of the darkened building, Rochenbach looked all around, covered in the darker shadow of the doorway. Seeing nothing in the empty alleyway, he turned and deftly picked the door lock.
When he’d slipped inside and closed the door behind him, he looked around at the empty office and walked straight to the operator’s desk. Thursday…, he told himself, wishing he had more information to pass along. All right, it wasn’t much. But it’s a start, he reminded himself again. He leaned his rifle against the wall.
Instead of sitting down, he bowed over the telegraph operator’s desk and clicked on the switch standing atop a brass-trimmed, oak battery case. He made three quick taps on the operator’s key to ensure that both the key and the sounder were working properly. Then he clicked in the private identification code of his field supervisor.
Satisfied that the identification code was on its way, he quickly followed up, tapping out a six-word message in Morse code: Train ride… Thursday night… all aboard. He waited in the silence of the dark office for five minutes, then retapped the message. He stared intently at the sounder, waiting for a reply of any sort.
When no reply came, he tapped out the same message for a third time, hearing nothing in the silent office but the click of the telegraph key and the steady tick of a large clock hanging on the far wall.
Now what? he asked himself. Had the message gone through, gotten relayed on to its proper receiver? If so, why had his field office or even the supervisor himself not acknowledged him by now?
All right, send it again.
He began tapping out the message again—the same six words, once, twice, threes times. Then he straightened up from the desk and stared at the sounder, waiting. Still nothing. Too bad, he told himself. It was time to go.
He picked up his Spencer rifle from against the wall and started to reach out and tap in his own identification code, signaling that he had ended his message. But just as his fingers started to touch the key, the sounder suddenly came to life, tapping out a short unidentified message, meaning it could have come from anyone anywhere within range on the open wires.
Leaning back over the desk, Rochenbach listened closely, so as not to miss the message when it repeated itself. As soon as the tapping started again, he began translating the Morse code into words. But before he could get the first word spelled out, he heard something close behind him and he swung around, his rifle in hand.
“Quick, but not quick enough!” said Doyle Hughes, watching as Denton Spiller slammed the butt of his rifle full force into the side of Rochenbach’s head.
Staring down at Rochenbach as he lay sprawled and unconscious across the operator’s desk, Spiller grinned and lowered his rifle to his side. Next to Rochenbach, the telegraph key sat in silence, tipped over on its side, a wire having been pulled loose from the sounder.
“You can’t believe how good that felt,” he said to Hughes over his shoulder.
&nb
sp; “You seemed to enjoy it really well,” Hughes replied in the darkness, stooping down, picking up Rochenbach’s rifle from the floor. He chuckled. “I don’t ever want you carrying a mad-on like that at me.”
“This bastard had it coming,” said Spiller. He reached out and turned off the battery switch. “The only reason he’s alive is that Grolin needs him. Soon as he’s finished with him, he’s all mine.”
Hughes stepped in closer and looked at a trickle of blood running down the side of Rochenbach’s face.
“Let’s hope you haven’t knocked his brain plumb out of his ears,” he said.
“He’s all right,” said Spiller. “What did you hear him saying on this thing?” He nodded down at the telegraph key.
“He was spreading the word to somebody,” said Hughes, “telling them our big job is all set for Thursday, the way I figure.”
“Are you sure?” Spiller said.
“Train ride, Thursday night, all aboard,” Hughes said, repeating Rock’s message. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Tickles the hell out of me,” Spiller said, glaring down at Rochenbach. “Let’s get this bastard up between us, drag him out of here. See what Grolin wants to do with him now.”
“Man!” said Hughes. “I hope this ain’t going to change our plans any.”
“I can just about promise you it won’t,” said Spiller, reaching down, grabbing Rochenbach by the shoulder of his wool coat. “Grolin might walk away from that Hercules money, but he’s not going to pass up a chance at the kind of money we’re fixing to make.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Hughes. Seeing Rochenbach’s hat lying on the floor, he started to bend down and pick it up. But Spiller stopped him.
“Leave it,” he said. “He’s not going to need a hat, not for long anyways.” He reached his boot out and kicked Rochenbach’s slouch hat away.
Rochenbach awoke flat on his face in the dark, the sound of a large parade drum pounding inside his swollen head with each beat of his heart. He felt the vibration, the rumble and clack of steel rails racing along beneath him. Turning his face enough to look up, he saw the flare of a match followed by a glow of circling lantern light.
“Well, now, looks like our tough guy is finally waking up,” said Spiller, seated on an empty nail keg near Rochenbach’s throbbing head. “Can I get you something for the pain, hoss?” he asked, feigning concern. “I know how it feels getting smacked with a rifle butt, remember?” He patted the Winchester rifle lying across his lap.
The circle of lantern light clearly revealed Spiller’s cruel grin. The shadowy faces of the other men stood in a half circle behind him. At the far end of the car, he saw the black shadowy outline of horses.
“Water—” Rochenbach said in a broken voice.
“What’s that? You want some water?” said Spiller. He said to the others around him, “Hear that, fellows? Any of yas got some water for an ol’ ex-Pinkerton man? A dirty, rotten rat?”
Silence loomed for a moment beneath the rumble of the train. At floor level, Rochenbach saw stars and hill lines streak past the open doors on a blanket of purple darkness.
“Sorry, Rock, ol’ hoss,” said Spiller in a mocking tone. “Looks like no takers on your water request.”
Rochenbach tried to push himself up off the floor on both palms.
“Obliged, all the same…,” he said in a pained voice.
“Huh-uh,” said Spiller, slamming him back down beneath his boot. “You lie right there. The floor looks good on you.”
Rochenbach groaned and rolled half over onto his side.
“Christ. I’ve got some water in my canteen he can have,” said Doyle Hughes.
“He gets no water, Hughes,” Spiller said firmly.
“It’s not right, a man needing water and being denied it—”
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Spiller said, cutting him off. He laid his rifle on the floor, stood up and said to Rochenbach, “You want water, I’ll water you.” He started unbuttoning the fly of his trousers.
“Cut it out, Dent,” said Frank Penta, sitting back in the darkness against the wall of the rail car, staring out across the passing night. “I was told to deliver him in good condition, with a clear mind.”
“Come on, Frank,” said Spiller, a little upset. “I’m having some fun here. To hell with his clear mind and condition. You saw what this sumbitch done to me. I deserve my pound of flesh.”
“He did nothing compared to what I’m going to do if you don’t sit down and shut up.”
The sound of a rifle cocking came out of the darkness from Penta’s direction. The men all stepped back, making a wider circle.
“Whoa, now!” said Hughes, stepping quickly out of the way.
Spiller raised his hands chest high, his trousers halfway unbuttoned.
“All right, Frank, I’m down,” he said, dropping onto his nail keg, his hands still up. “See? I’m seated here, just looking after the prisoner like I was told.”
“Get your fly buttoned and see to it you keep it that way,” Penta said. Under his breath, he said to Shaner, who sat silent in the dark beside him, “This crude, ignorant son of a bitch.…”
Spiller half stood and buttoned his fly. As he sat back down, he dealt Rochenbach a hard kick in his side.
Penta heard the kick, and the sound of Rochenbach’s breath exploding from his chest.
“Damn it to hell,” Penta said, rising, stepping forward into the circle of lantern light, Shaner right beside him.
“That was an accident!” said Spiller, looking up at Penta and Shaner. “They all saw it!” He gestured a hand toward the rest of the men gathered around the outside circle of light.
“Do we have to treat you like a damn kid, Spiller?” Penta said. “Move away… go sit at the other end of the car.”
Spiller saw the look in both Shaner’s and Penta’s eyes and realized he was in no position to argue.
“Okay, all right!” he said, standing, his hands raised chest high. He backed away and started to turn. But then he stopped suddenly, turned back around and took a step toward them. Both of their rifles swung up pointed at him and cocked.
“My gun?” he asked, a hand already out, reaching down for his Winchester lying where he’d left it on the floor.
Penta’s boot clamped the rifle to the floor while Spiller stood frozen.
“Have you ever had smallpox, Spiller?” Penta said in a low, menacing tone.
“Smallpox? No,” Spiller said, looking confused by the question.
“Then right now must be the closest you’ve ever been to dying,” Penta said quietly.
Beneath their feet, the rumbling of the railcar only intensified the tense silence that fell over the men.
Finally, Doyle Hughes ventured into the silence in a hushed tone.
“Get it later, Dent,” he said. “Now’s a bad time to reach for it.”
Spiller wiped his cold, sweaty palms on his trousers and backed away slowly.
“All right, Frank,” he said warily. “Grolin put you in charge of him. I respect that.”
Penta and Shaner stood in silence until Spiller backed out of the light and sank into the darkness.
On the floor, Rochenbach coughed and groaned.
Looking down at him, Penta said to Hughes, “Doyle, give Rock some water.”
As Hughes stooped down and held a canteen to Rochenbach’s parched lips, Penta uncocked his rifle and sat down on the nail keg. He laid his rifle across his lap. Shaner stood beside him, swaying slightly with the rhythm of the rolling train.
When Hughes had finished giving Rochenbach a long drink, he watched as Rock wiped a coat sleeve across his lips.
“Obliged,” Rochenbach said in a raspy voice.
Hughes only nodded; he stood up and stepped back, capping his canteen.
Penta and Shaner observed Rochenbach closely. As Hughes backed away, Penta raised an ill-rolled cigarette to his lips, struck a match, lit it and shook out the match.
“I don’t get you, Rochenbach,” he said, dropping the burnt match and crushing it beneath his boot. “You come up here with skill that most long riders would sell their mother for. Grolin puts you into a job that’ll pay more than most thieves make in their life.…”
He let the conversation hang while he took a long draw on the cigarette and blew it out.
“Instead of coming in and being one of us, what do you do? You start right off agitating, getting men like Spiller and Shaner here wanting to kill you.”
“You’re wanting… to kill me, Shaner?” Rochenbach said, turning his swollen head, looking up at Shaner through a purple half-closed eye.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Shaner said matter-of-factly.
“You need to do it now,” Rochenbach said. “This is the only way… you’d ever be able to get—”
“See? There you go again,” Penta said with a chuff, cutting him off. He held Shaner back with the side of his arm. “I’m starting to think you’re one of them hardheaded sumbitches can’t leave well enough alone. Got to always pick at somebody.”
“That’s me all over,” Rock said. He noted the rifle on the floor, but knew it would do him no good, not now, not against this many guns. Besides, this game wasn’t over. He needed to find out what these men knew, so he could plan his next move.
“We all know how good you are at what you do,” Penta said. “Why couldn’t you just take your cut like everybody else? Why’d you tip off your pards, try to bring them in and steal this job from Grolin?”
“Is that what you think I was doing?” Rock asked, feeling better.
“Hughes knows Morse code,” said Penta. “He heard your message.”
Rochenbach looked at Hughes.
“Train ride… Thursday night… all aboard?” said Hughes. “Sorry, Rock, I heard what I heard.”
Rock looked at Penta and said, “What if I said he was mistaken?”
Penta blew out a stream of smoke.
“You’d be lying,” he said flatly, “and Doyle here would get his feelings hurt.”
Rock settled back on the floor of the railcar and closed his eyes.
