Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series)

by Ralph Cotton

  “Shut up,” Casings said, cutting him off. “Pay attention here.” He turned and took the lantern down from the hook and held it ready.

  The three watched as an engineer backed the engine and its one car closer to the severed cars, slowing, judging as the three cars rolled forward at a snail’s crawl. By the time the sets of link pins met and touched against each other, the engine had actually braked and started forward just enough to make a smooth, easy connection.

  “Way to go, hoss,” the Giant said to the engineer under his breath. He jumped down from the platform on the ground beside the railcars and stepped between them close enough to line up the link and stick the pin down to hold the cars together.

  “All right!” Casings said with a gleam in his eyes. “Let’s get out of here and start robbing.” He held the lantern out sidelong and waved it up and down. From a rear door on the freight car, Grolin stepped out into the night, carrying a lantern of his own. In seconds the engine started pulling faster on the level terrain.

  “Where’s Rock?” the Giant asked Grolin as he swung up from the ground and joined the others on the rear of the freight car.

  “He’s close by, waiting safe and sound—itching to get to work as soon as we bring him this nice big Treasury car,” Grolin replied. Holding the lantern up and looking at Lionel Sharp, he said, “You’re Sharp, right?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Grolin, I’m Lionel Sharp,” the young gunman said proudly. He started to say more, but Grolin cut him off.

  Behind Grolin two riflemen rushed out of the freight car and stepped over onto the Treasury car platform.

  “Go with these men,” he said to Sharp. “The three of yas guard the rear door.”

  “Come on, hurry up,” said one of the riflemen, already headed up the iron rungs toward the catwalk on top of the car.

  Sharp hurriedly followed the riflemen.

  As the three moved out of sight, Grolin gave a shrug and smiled in the glow of lantern light.

  “These farm boys and guttersnipes are showing up younger all the time,” he said. “Crime is about the only thing that pays these days.” He looked at Casings and the Giant and said, “Did everything go as expected?”

  “Yes, it did,” Casings said. “But I need to tell you, there were guards or lawmen of some kind waiting to ambush us. We’ve got their horses in a freight car behind us.”

  “Well,” Grolin chuckled, “if we’ve got their horses, I fail to see them as a problem.”

  “Just thought you’d want to know,” said Casings.

  “You’re right. Good work,” said Grolin. “We’ll chase the horses away when we stop and unload the gold.”

  Behind Grolin, Frank Penta and Bryce Shaner appeared out of the freight car, their rifles at port arms. They followed Grolin over to the rear door of the Treasury car. Grolin looked around at Casings, the Giant and the other two gunmen. He smiled as he took a piece of paper from inside his coat and unfolded it in the light of the lantern.

  “I love this part,” he said, holding the paper up toward the car door.

  “Hello, you two guards inside the car,” he called out loudly enough to be heard through the thick closed door. “Hello? Hello?”

  When no one answered, he called out, “Don’t be bashful, now. Just answer right up when I call out your names.” He consulted the piece of paper, then called out confidently, “Peter Joseph Campbell. Husband of Barbara Mae Campbell, father of two sons and one daughter, whose names I can also give you…”

  Inside the car, the gunmen heard a rustle and the frightened whisper of lowered voices.

  Grolin grinned and continued, “Alvin Carter, husband of Lynn Ann Carter. Father of a—”

  “Hold on, mister!” a voice said through the door, cutting him off. “We’re coming out!”

  “Leave your guns on the floor,” Grolin called out. He pulled his bandanna up over his nose and stepped back, watching Penta’s and Shaner’s rifles cover the door as it opened slowly and two men stepped up, their hands raised in the air.

  “Here’s where you get off, fellows,” Grolin said, shoving them toward the iron step on the side of the platform. “Hurry up now, jump, before we gain any more speed.”

  The two men made their way down onto the step and leaped out, away from the moving train. They landed rolling alongside the track and came to their feet just before vanishing into the darkness.

  “That’s how easy it is,” Grolin said, “when you have the right information at your fingertips.” He laughed aloud and said joyously, “Bless you, Inman Walker!”

  “Who?” said Casings.

  Grolin had made a slip of the tongue; he caught his mistake quickly and said, “Nothing, forget it!” He turned and called out toward the woods at the two fleeing men, “If we see you come out of there, you’re both dead!”

  But the Giant and Casings had clearly heard the name, and they weren’t about to forget it. They looked at each other guardedly, on into a dark stand of timber and through the purple darkness as the train continued on.

  Rochenbach sat with the other men inside the dusty, abandoned depot. They had arrived in the night after forcing the engineer to drop the rest of his train midrun and bring them and their freight car to the old trade settlement. On their train ride across a stretch of rolling plains, Penta and Shaner had kept watch on him, seeing to it that Dent Spiller left him alone.

  But when they’d meet Grolin at the depot, and Penta and Shaner had both left with him on the engine to go meet the stolen Treasury car, Rock saw the gunman stand and start walking toward him with a dark look on his face.

  But before he’d taken three steps, Doyle Hughes and another man stood up facing Spiller, their rifles at port arms.

  “Put it out of your mind, Spiller,” Hughes said firmly.

  “To hell with it,” Spiller said, turning away from Rochenbach, going instead to the depot door and looking out through the dirty broken glass. “I’m just restless, tired of waiting. I need something to do.”

  “You can go sit in the woods with the Kane brothers, help them tend to the wagon,” Hughes said.

  “Yeah, and you can go to hell,” Spiller said over his shoulder. “I steer clear of the Kanes.” He looked back out the dirty glass window.

  Hughes lowered his rifle and leaned back against the wall.

  “Here they come!” Spiller said, seeing the first glimmer of headlight show brokenly through the trees.

  The men stood up, moved to the depot door, opened it and filed out.

  “Everybody get their horses and get ready,” Hughes said. “I’ll signal the Kanes to bring the wagon up to the loading platform.” He looked at Rochenbach and said quietly, “Rock, you come with me.”

  “Best watch him close, Doyle, in case he tries anything,” Spiller warned.

  “Jesus…” Hughes shook his head. “He’s not going to try anything.” He looked at Rochenbach and gestured him toward the open door. “He wants to get paid just like the rest of us, right, Rock?” As he spoke, he picked up a glowing lantern sitting on the dusty floor.

  “You know it,” Rochenbach said, walking out into the chilled night air.

  Hughes raised the lantern and swung it back and forth toward the pines. In a moment, the Kane brothers rolled out of the woods in the freight wagon and came rolling up onto the loading platforms.

  The four other men who’d waited inside the depot gathered around the empty wagon and stared toward the headlight breaking through the dark woodlands toward them.

  The engineer slowed the engine and led the four-car train—the Treasury car, the car carrying the soldiers’ horses, the mail car and an empty caboose—to a soft stop, sidling along the freight platform.

  Grolin stepped down from the engine with his bandanna still hiding his face, his right hand clasped on the engineer’s shoulder. He gave the engineer a shove.

  “You did good. Now get out of here,” he said. “You can tell your grandkids you were robbed by the James Gang.”

  “I—
I can go?” the engineer asked in disbelief.

  “That’s right,” said Grolin, “but if I look up and see you again before you get to those pines, I’ll put a rifle slug through your backbone.”

  Without another word, the man turned and ran. Leaping down off the loading platform, he raced wildly toward the woods until the darkness engulfed him.

  Grolin turned to Hughes and Rochenbach. Casings and the Stillwater Giant stepped down from the short train and walked toward them.

  “Get started, Rock,” Grolin demanded, waving Rochenbach toward the Treasury car with his rifle barrel. “It looks like whoever you tried to tip off didn’t get your message.”

  “I wasn’t tipping anybody off, Grolin,” Rochenbach lied. “The message I sent had nothing to do with this job. If I tipped somebody off, where are they?” He gestured all around.

  Grolin chuckled and said, “It doesn’t matter now. If they do show up, it will be Thursday night. We’ll be long gone away from here.”

  Casings and the Giant walked up in time to hear the end of the conversation.

  “What’s he talking about, Rock?” the Giant asked.

  “Your pal, Rock here, got caught trying to tell some friends of his about this job, Giant,” Grolin said. “Tell him, Hughes.”

  “It’s true,” said Hughes. “Spiller and me caught him sending a message. I know Morse code.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you know the emperor of China,” said the Giant. “I’ll rip your head off and roll it like a—”

  “Hold it, Giant,” said Rock, looking around and seeing the men level their rifles toward the Giant as if Grolin had given them direction to do so. “This is no place for us to start fighting among ourselves. I came here to open a safe.” He turned quickly to Grolin. “Am I going to do it, or not?”

  “You can bet you are,” Grolin said, lowering his rifle. He jerked a nod toward the Treasury car. “Go on, we’re right behind you.”

  Chapter 18

  Inside the Treasury car, in a glow of lantern light, Grolin and the men stood back and watched in awe as Rochenbach held the end of his stethoscope to the steel safe door. Grolin held a rifle in his left hand; in his right, he held Rock’s big black-handled Remington.

  Rochenbach knew he’d gone past the point of turning back on this job. He had no idea what the reply to his telegraph message had been. Spiller’s rifle butt had cut his communication short. But at least he’d heard enough to know that his message had gotten through. Everything beyond that was pure speculation. Since he didn’t close the message with his identification code, he wasn’t sure what action would be taken.

  At this point, he supposed it didn’t mater. He couldn’t put off opening the safe. The best outcome would be to find the big safe empty, meaning someone had stopped the shipping of any more bullion until the risk of robbery had been removed. Was that too much to hope for? he asked himself, adjusting the earpieces of the stethoscope in his ears.

  Only one way to find out.…

  He turned the dial slowly, listening intently through the stethoscope to the sameness of metal tapping metal until he heard a gap, followed by a slightly harder bump as one piece of the polished steel puzzle fell into place. All right.…

  He stopped suddenly, let out a breath and took a short pencil from inside his coat pocket. He wrote down the number on the dial of the safe door, then started turning the dial backward to the left, listening again.

  Outside the car on the loading platform, the Kane brothers sat waiting in the empty freight wagon.

  “What the hell is taking so long in there?” Lambert shouted toward the open car door.

  Inside the car, Rochenbach turned a disturbed look to Grolin as he scribbled the second number on the door of the safe.

  Grolin shot the same expression to Spiller, standing beside him.

  “Go shut that damned lunatic up!” he said in a hushed growl.

  Spiller slipped quietly out of the car. Rochenbach turned back to the safe, pencil stub and stethoscope in hand, and turned the dial slowly to his right.

  Grolin grinned and let out a breath of relief when he watched Rock write a third number on the door near the dial and straighten up and pull the stethoscope from his ears.

  “Is that it?” he said in a hushed tone, stepping forward.

  “Yep,” said Rochenbach. “It’s all yours. He took the big iron handle with both hands and swung the big steel door open.

  “Holy Moses!” Grolin shouted. He turned to Lionel Sharp, who stood holding the lantern, and said, “Here, give me that!”

  In his excitement, he shoved Rochenbach’s big Remington down into Sharp’s coat pocket and snatched the lantern from his hand. “Everybody stay behind me!” he said, hurrying forward, seeing the light of the lantern spill into the dark safe, revealing shelf upon shelf of small wooden crates.

  Looking back at the men crowded behind him, Grolin spotted the Stillwater Giant and waved him forward.

  “Open one of these, Giant. Let’s take a look,” he said in an excited voice.

  The Giant stepped inside the huge safe, picked up the nearest ingot crate and slammed it to the floor. The lid of the crate split and came ajar. The Giant stooped down, ripped the lid the rest of the way off and threw it aside.

  “My God! No, Giant, don’t!” Grolin yelled. But he was too late to stop the Giant, who stood up and turned the crate upside down at chest level. The men stared wide-eyed as sawdust packing spilled out of the crate, followed by a downpour of gold ingots that clunked and rang and bounced and slid away all over the floor of the safe.

  “Put it all back in the crate!” yelled Grolin to the men as they feverishly scrambled and snatched up the spilled ingots. “We don’t split it up until we’re away from here!”

  “Want me to open some more?” the Giant asked.

  Grolin just gave him a burning stare.

  Rock slid one of the ingots to the side and stood with his boot covering it until the men moved forward to put the ingots back into the crate. Then he stooped down, picked up the ingot, dropped it down his boot well and stood up quickly.

  As the men gathered close together, dropping ingots back into the crate, Rock reached out unseen, lifted his Remington from Sharp’s coat pocket and slid it into the belly holster beneath his coat. In the young man’s excitement over the gold, the missing weight of the big gun went unnoticed.

  “Everybody back away!” Grolin shouted, waving his rifle across the front of the men, forcing them out of the huge safe. “We’re going to get these crates out of here and loaded on the wagon! Everybody’s going to get what’s coming to them! But not until we’ve cleared the hell out of here.”

  Rochenbach sat back out of the way atop a stack of empty cooperage barrels. In the glow of a lantern, he watched the men hurry back and forth across the loading platform carrying the small but heavy crates of gold ingots. On one trip back from the wagon, Casings swung over to him in spite of Grolin, Spiller and Frank Penta standing watching near the Treasury car door.

  “Are you going to be all right once we’re done here, Rock?” Casings asked.

  “I’ll make out,” Rock replied.

  “There’s a posse riding the train we stole the car from,” he said. “So watch your step.”

  “A posse?” said Rock. “How do you know that?”

  “They had six horses saddled and ready in the freight car,” he said, nodding toward the car sitting behind the Treasury car. “They’re still there. Grolin told a new man to scatter them before we leave here with the gold.”

  Rochenbach stared toward the freight car and ran the information through his mind. Was this something the Denver field office might have done, sent extra guards out with the shipments, even before the Thursday date he’d given them?

  “I still meant what I said, about us working together, the three of us,” said Casings, cutting into his thoughts. “Don’t think this big job changes anything between us.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Ro
ck. “Make sure you and the Giant both get through this thing. We’ll get back together down the trail.”

  “Good,” said Casings. His voice lowered a notch. “I got the name of Grolin’s contact at the mint.” He passed a guarded glance over his shoulder toward Grolin and the others.

  “You did?” Rochenbach was surprised. “How’d you get it?”

  “Grolin let it slip,” Casings said. “But it makes sense that he’s the man who gives Grolin his information. It’s Inman Walker. He’s secretary to the mint superintendent. He knows everything that’s about to happen there.”

  Rock made a mental note of the name. Information received…, he told himself. Not enough to act on, but a start. Now he needed to verify it.

  “After I thought about it, I remembered seeing Walker’s picture in the Denver News,” Casings said. “I recalled seeing a man with a beard leaving Grolin’s office one night. Without the beard, it was Secretary Walker. I’m certain. Come to think of it, his beard didn’t look completely natural. It could have been a disguise of some sort.”

  “Good work, Pres,” Rock said. “Now get going. Grolin’s looking over here, about to bust a gut.”

  Casings only nodded, turned and went back to the Treasury car.

  Rochenbach leaned back on the cooperage barrels and stared across the platform at Grolin and the others.

  As the men finished stacking the gold crates onto the wagon and tying the load down, Shaner stood beside Grolin, cradling his rifle, the hammer cocked, his finger over the trigger.

  “I’m thinking this brazen bastard won’t try to make a run for it, boss,” he said to Grolin. “Do you think he figures he’s still got something coming, after Hughes catching him tipping somebody off?”

  “I don’t know,” said Grolin, staring across the platform at Rochenbach. “If I was him, I’d be cutting out of here something fast.”

  “Yeah,” said Spiller, “he has to know that one of us is going to kill him, now that he’s done what we needed him to do.”