Midnight Rider (Ralph Cotton Western Series)

by Ralph Cotton

  Finally, Rochenbach took a chance.

  “Not offense intended, Sergeant,” he said, “but if you’re rail guards, how did the robbers steal that train out from under you?”

  “You mean your accomplices?” The sergeant stared at him in the grainy moonlight. Rochenbach only gave a shrug.

  The sergeant said, “We were unprepared.”

  “Unprepared?” Rochenbach let the word hang.

  Goodrich let out a breath, as if confessing.

  “We were expecting the robbery Thursday night, not tonight—” He stopped short, catching himself. “But I’ll have no more talk of the robbery, not with one of the thieves who committed it.”

  Good enough. Rochenbach didn’t reply. He only nodded and gazed ahead into the night. He had no more questions. The Secret Service had done its job. So had he. All he had to do now was get off the case without getting himself shot.

  Chapter 20

  Along the trail away from the abandoned rail depot, Grolin had the Kane brothers stop the wagon twice, ten miles apart. At each stop, he pulled out a wallet stuffed with bills, paid his extra men their night’s pay and sent them away in different directions. After the second stop, when the last two new men had disappeared onto trails leading off toward different mining towns, he looked around at his regular men seated atop their horses around the loaded wagon.

  Dent Spiller, Frank Penta, Pres Casings and the Stillwater Giant looked at him from their saddles. The Kane brothers half turned toward Grolin as he stepped from his saddle over into the wagon bed.

  “Well, men,” Grolin said with satisfaction, “this is what it always comes down to in the end.” He picked up the opened crate of ingots and set it atop the rest of the load. “Just a few good men—close friends I can count on to get a job done.” He looked at each man in turn as he took the loose lid off the crate.

  “Speaking of good men,” Casings said, “what’s happened to Rock?”

  “Yeah,” said the Giant, “we heard the shot back there. What have you done to him?”

  “The shot you heard was from a pistol,” Grolin reminded the two. “Most likely it was Rochenbach’s Remington. I left Shaner there to put a bullet in his head.”

  The Giant stiffened in rage and started to step his big Belgium horse forward, but Spiller and Penta both closed their horses in front of him. Casings held a hand up to stop the Giant.

  “Easy, big fellow,” he whispered.

  Grolin continued. “But I’m guessing that as slick as Rochenbach is, he killed Shaner instead.” He shook his head in regret. “Poor Bryce. He couldn’t match wits with a man like Rochenbach—none of yas could. I saw it right off.”

  “Give me my share, Grolin,” the Giant said, barely managing to control his rage. “I’m going back to see about him. I better not find him harmed.”

  Grolin took his cigar from his mouth and let out a breath of exasperation.

  “Giant, Giant…,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at Casings. “What about you, Pres? Are you all broken up over me leaving Shaner behind to kill Avrial Rochenbach?”

  “It was a dirty deal, Grolin,” Casings said, “and you know it.”

  “Well, hell yes, it was a dirty deal, Pres,” Grolin chuffed. “Do you think every deal is supposed to be straight up and honest? This is an outlaw gang, not a Christian choir! I saw there was no way to control a man like Rochenbach. He was too shifty, too hard to deal with. He stayed three moves ahead of the game! He’d’ve had us all killing one another if I let him keep at it. He had to go!” Grolin’s words ended in an angry shout.

  Silence fell over the men for a moment. Finally Casings broke it.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, sizing the odds he saw standing against him and the Giant. “I don’t want to argue about it. You’re the boss.”

  “Yeah, so I am.…” Grolin looked surprised. “Does this mean no more foolishness about you and the Giant going into business with Rochenbach?”

  Casings just stared at him; so did the Giant. There was no way Grolin could have heard anything about it, unless Spiller had told him. Still, Grolin wanted to hear Casings admit it. But Casings wasn’t going to.

  “If I wanted to go into business on my own, I would have done it long ago. And I wouldn’t have done it with a man like Avrial Rochenbach—for all the reasons you just gave.” He sat relaxed, in spite of the tension he felt in his spine, seeing that Frank Penta, Dent Spiller and the crazy Kane brothers were ready to kill him at the slightest signal from Grolin.

  “Oh…?” said Grolin in a more even tone. “Maybe I was misinformed.” He slid a sidelong glance to Dent Spiller and blew out a stream of cigar smoke.

  Now Casings knew Spiller had told him something, but how much?

  “Yeah,” said Casings, “maybe you were.” He stared at Grolin, knowing the others had their eyes on him and the Giant.

  Grolin laid a hand on the opened crate of ingots.

  “Giant wants me to pay him off, let him go check on his pal, Rock,” he said cynically. “What about you, Pres? You want to ride back with him?”

  “If you stopped us here to split up our shares anyway,” Casings said, “yeah, I’ll take mine and ride with the Giant—like always.”

  Grolin looked at the Kane brothers, then at Penta, then Spiller and back to Casings. He took his hand off the crate and slipped it inside his coat to his lapel pocket.

  “Sure thing,” he said. He jerked the thick wallet from his coat, pulled out a handful of large bills and started riffling though them, counting to himself.

  Casings and the Giant looked at each other, then at the stone faces on the other four.

  “Come on, Grolin,” Casings said quietly, almost sounding like his feelings were hurt. “This is us, the Giant and me. We’re not some extra help pulled in to watch horses and load wagons. We take our cut in gold.”

  “Used to be, Pres,” Grolin said sharply. “Not this time.” He held a stack of money out in one hand. His other hand lay on the butt of a Colt holstered on his hip. “Take it and go. Split it up between the two of you.”

  “I don’t like this,” said Casings, turning leery of Grolin and the men around him. “Giant has always done right by you. So have I.”

  “Giant maybe,” Grolin said, “but not you.” He glanced at Spiller and said, “Tell him, Dent. Tell him what you told me.”

  Spiller said to Casings, “I told him everything, Pres—how you and your pal Rochenbach offered to cut me in as a partner when you start your own gang.”

  Casings sat staring at Spiller, feeling the world tighten in around him.

  “Keep talking, Dent,” Grolin said with a thin, cruel smile.

  “I told him about the Hercules Mining money. When we saw how much was there, you and Rochenbach offered me a cut of it to keep my mouth shut, say it was only a couple thousand dollars. But I turned you both down.”

  “You lying son of a bitch!” shouted Casings, unable to take it any longer.

  Seeing Casings swing his rifle up into play, the Giant did the same, just as Spiller, Frank Penta and the Kane brothers started firing.

  A bullet from Lambert Kane sliced through Casings’ side; another shot from Spiller grazed the side of his head. Seeing Casings in trouble, the Giant let out a loud bellow and slapped his rifle barrel to the rump of Casings’ horse. The animal bolted sidelong and cried out just as a bullet from Penta’s gun hit its neck. The wounded animal spun and raced back along the trail, Casings, badly wounded himself, barely hanging in his saddle.

  The Giant charged forward into the gunmen, still bellowing, drawing a big saddle Colt and firing it as he kept swinging his rifle barrel like a club. Bullets struck his shoulder, his chest and sides like angry hornets. Grolin leaped from the wagon to keep from getting his head bashed in.

  “Somebody kill him!” he shouted.

  Another shot hit the Giant as he rolled from his saddle onto the wagon bed. His rifle flew from his hand. Bobby Kane reached out to shoot him, but a backhanded
slap from the Giant’s big, powerful hand sent him flying high into the air and left him lying limp in the trail.

  Lambert Kane fired three wild shots at the Giant from less than ten feet, but none of the bullets hit him. From horseback, at close range, Spiller and Penta both fired repeatedly. But only one bullet hit the Giant; the rest sliced past his head and whistled away into the night.

  Without Bobby Kane at the reins, the wagon started rolling forward, the spooked horses wanting out of there.

  “Somebody, please kill him!” Grolin shouted, his voice turning shrill, seeing the wagon start to pick up speed.

  Another hard, open-handed slap sent Lambert Kane flying from the wagon. He slammed backward against a large pine and hung there, ten feet off the ground. A stub from a broken branch stuck from the center of Lambert’s bloody chest. He bucked and coughed and convulsed, then turned limp and silent.

  “Damn it! Get the wagon!” shouted Grolin, seeing the load of gold start to bounce and fishtail on the rocky trail.

  Spiller and Penta gave chase as the Giant lost his footing and fell from the back of the wagon. He tumbled along the trail, finally coming to a stop, and lay there limp and silent. Grolin ran to where his horse stood watching nervously. He swung up into his saddle and raced along the dark trail in the stir of dust and looming gun smoke.

  Galloping ferociously, he heard the sound of horses crying out in terror as wagon, horses and all swung out over the trail and tumbled down the steep hillside. At a clearing along the edge of the trail, he saw the black silhouettes of Penta and Spiller and their horses against the purple sky.

  “What a lousy damn mess,” Spiller said as Grolin slid his horse to a halt and jumped down from his saddle beside him.

  They watched as the two wagon horses came climbing up, broken rigging, wagon tongue and the front boards of the wagon hanging between them. They snorted and whinnied low, still shaken from their ordeal.

  “Grab your saddlebags!” Grolin said to Penta and Spiller. “We’re not leaving here without this damn gold!”

  At the depot, Sergeant Goodrich and Rochenbach stepped down from their horses beside Captain Boone, Corporal Rourke and the other three soldiers.

  The captain struck a match and checked the time on a gold pocket watch.

  “I have to admit, we made much better time following this trail of yours than we would have following the rails,” he said to Rochenbach. He looked Rock up and down curiously. Turning to Goodrich, he said, “Sergeant, take the men and reconnoiter these rail cars. I’ll guard Mr. Smith.”

  “Yes, sir, Captain,” said the sergeant. He turned to the corporal and the troopers and said, “You heard the captain. Secure your mounts and follow me.”

  When the soldiers were out of hearing range, Captain Boone turned back to Rock.

  “I can’t help wondering, what exactly is your game, Mr. Smith?”

  “My game?” said Rochenbach. “My game was not wanting to get a bullet in my head, remember?”

  The captain smiled and looked around at the Treasury car, the freight car and the mail car sitting behind the stolen engine. Goodrich and two soldiers stepped up into the engine. Corporal Rourke and the other two walked into the empty Treasury car.

  “Yes, but I have a nagging feeling there is more to you than that,” he said. “There’s something out of the ordinary about you.”

  “I suppose I could say the same about you and your men, Captain,” Rochenbach replied. “Soldiers out of uniform, guarding a rail shipment that ordinarily has two civilian guards, at the most?”

  Boone ignored his words. “I find it entirely too fortuitous that you should come along at just the right moment, leading a string of horses that you obviously know are stolen.” He studied Rock’s eyes closely. “And you lead them right down off the safe trail you were on and onto the rails, knowing full well my men and I would be walking those rails in pursuit.”

  “So… what is it you’re getting at, Captain?” Rochenbach asked, playing dumb.

  The captain lowered his voice and said, “When I received a dispatch on this mission, I was told there may be a government operative secreted among these perpetrators. I believe you are that government operative, Mr. Smith.”

  Rochenbach stalled for a moment, knowing that once his cover was blown, it was blown forever. All the work and time he’d put into establishing himself in the world of the lawless would be washed away.

  “And if I am that man?” he asked warily.

  “If you were that man, then of course you would be free to go. I would thank you for your help in bringing us our horses and let you ride away.”

  Rochenbach weighed his answer. What outlaw would turn down an opportunity to walk away?

  “All right,” he said as if letting go of a tightly held secret, “you found me out, Captain. I am that man.”

  “I knew it,” said Captain Boone.

  “So,” said Rochenbach, half turning toward his horse, “if we’re all through here, I’ll just get out of your way and—”

  “Hold it, Mr. Smith!” said Boone. His right hand rested on the butt of a holstered Army Colt. “I was also told that this operative would give me a four-number identification code that only he would know.”

  Rochenbach stared at him, his hand on his saddle horn, ready to swing up onto his horse.

  “I—I forgot the numbers,” he said. “But I’ll have them sent to you as soon as—”

  “As you were!” said Boone, cutting him off. His Colt streaked up from the holster behind his riding duster, pointed and cocked at Rochenbach. “Take your hand away from that saddle horn, Smith, before I put a bullet through it.”

  Rochenbach drew his hand away slowly and held both hands chest high.

  “You made the offer, Captain,” he said. “Can’t blame a man for trying.”

  “Indeed…,” said the captain, still studying him, now with a curious and puzzled look on his face. “I’m not sure if what you just did was meant to persuade me that you are that man, or to convince me that you’re not.”

  Rock stared at him.

  “That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself, Captain,” he said. “Whoever you decide I am. For now it’s safe to say we’re both on the same trail.”

  Boone stared at him for a moment, then nodded his head as if in agreement. He holstered his Colt and let his riding duster fall closed.

  “Do not try me again, Smith,” he said with resolve.

  Chapter 21

  Dawn wreathed the eastern horizon as the Stillwater Giant awoke cheek-down in a wide pool of thickening blood. He pulled himself hand over hand from the blood and up the side of a large rock standing beside the trail—the rock he had landed against headfirst when he fell from the runaway wagon. His huge head pounded like a bass drum.

  Dang.…

  He batted his eyes and cleared them enough to look down the front of himself. Dirt and dark blood had caked thick over the bullet holes in his chest, his shoulders, his leg. The thick black paste had slowed his loss of blood almost to a stop. He considered the fact that he was still alive in amazement, and scratched his bloody, swollen head.

  Where’s Pres…? he asked himself dreamily. Where’s Rock…?

  Ahead of him where the wagon had gone off the trail, he heard the sounds of Grolin, Spiller and Penta gathering gold ingots on the rocky hillside. Broken crates and pieces of busted wagon frame lay everywhere. At the edge of the trail above them, Bobby Kane leaned back against a rock, still looking dazed and half conscious from the hard backhanded slap the Giant had planted on the side of his head.

  Steadying himself with both hands against the rock, the Giant collected his addled senses and staggered from rock to rock along the edge of the trail, back in the direction of the depot—the same direction Casings had ridden off in. Fifteen yards down the trail, he looked up and came to a sudden startled halt, seeing Lambert Kane hanging impaled on a thick branch of the tall pine.

  The stub of the broken tree limb stuck fr
om Lambert’s chest covered with black blood and ripped pieces of the outlaw’s heart. Lambert wore a wide-eyed look of shock on his pale blue face. His bloody mouth formed a large O.

  “Sorry, Lamb…,” the Giant murmured to Kane’s grisly corpse.

  Summoning his waned strength, the Giant staggered on along the trail until the sound of the gold gatherers fell away behind him. As silver morning light rose slowly in his wake, he half walked, half stumbled his way for another two hundred yards, until he couldn’t go on any longer. He stopped and leaned against another large rock to collect his strength.

  Fresh blood had begun to trickle from his wounds. The Giant had no idea how much blood had been inside his monstrous body to begin with, but judging from the thick pool he’d awakened in, he was certain he’d lost a large portion of it. He bowed his head, feeling spent and weak, when he heard Casings’ voice from a few feet farther along the trail.

  “Giant… help me,” Casings called out in a shallow voice.

  “Huh…?” The Giant snapped his head up and stared toward the sound of Casings’ voice. “Pres…? Is that you?”

  “It’s me… Pres,” Casings managed to say. “Over here.”

  The Giant saw Casings lying across the trail, a leg pinned beneath his dead horse.

  “Dang! Hang on, Pres… I’m coming,” said the Giant, pushing himself upright. His strength began to surge as he saw Casings in need of help.

  “Garth Oliver… Stillwater Giant…,” Casings murmured weakly. He managed a thin smile of relief and laid his face back on the cold, bloody ground.

  “You’re… damn right it’s me,” the Giant said, stooping down, lifting the dead horse up enough to free Casings’ leg from beneath it. “You just take it easy now. Don’t worry about nothing. I’ve got… you covered, Pres,” he said. He did his best to hide his own pain and weakened condition.

  Dragging Casings a few feet, he propped him up against a boulder and limped back to the dead horse, reached for a canteen and limped back with it. More fresh red blood seeped from beneath the layer of dirt and black blood covering him. He uncapped the canteen and shook the water around.