The War Wagon

by Clair Huffaker

  "You're damn right! But what I meant was that ol' Alvin Snyder's got 'er figured so that it's likely nobody's gonna get killed. Naturally he's doin' it that way so's he won't get his own neck stretched. But that's a nice thing. I hate for folks to go around gettin' themselves killed."

  "Those guards are going to be thinking the same thing when Spotted Wolf and his braves come down off the butte after them."

  "Yeah. But they're mounted on some of the best horseflesh in the country. Those skinny Indian ponies won't have a chance to catch 'em. They'll be eatin' dust all the way."

  "Well, it'll be interesting to see just how it does work out. If the bridge didn't blow right, for example—"

  "Great God!" Charley cried. "Talk like that'll ruin my digestion. Course, if it comes to that, I'll be dead anyway, so there's no point in worryin' my digestion about it." He stood up and finished the liquor in his glass. "Help yourself, Taw. I'm gonna fix us some beans."

  After dark, Charley went out to hitch his mules to his wagon. When he came back, Taw said, "What about tracks? Will they be able to read trail between Rabbit Ear Pass and Arrow Rock Road?"

  "Nope. Gonna stash my wagon where it's near all rock and shale. They'd be able to follow the trail a ways, but it'll run out on 'em." He picked up a ball of twine near the paper in the corner. "I'll stick this in my pocket. Need it to lash the sticks together with."

  "Better leave me a little to tie the paper behind my saddle."

  Taw went for his pinto after Charley had pulled out. Back at the shack he tied the wrapping paper behind his saddle and gathered the long, flexible rods under one arm. He mounted carefully so as not to hit the pinto with the long sticks, and soon the yellow lights of the Fork were lost in the darkness behind him.

  He rode slowly, listening for others that might be on the road so he could avoid being seen, but he passed no one.

  Taw's arm was cramped and sore by the time his pinto clattered over Sawtooth Bridge. A few minutes later he recognized the dark, narrow pass where the log was to be placed. When he'd dropped the rods in the grass and pushed the paper back almost arm's length into the deep, foot-high ledge Snyder had described, he swung into saddle and started to retrace his steps.

  As the pinto walked toward the bridge on the way back, Taw heard a thump of rock on dirt in the creek bed underneath. The shadowy outline of a saddled mule was visible a few feet away. Reaching out to put a careful hand on his pinto's nostrils, Taw held the horse's head down and noiseless, and he listened keenly. The mule watched Taw briefly, without much interest, then dropped its head to search for something to graze on.

  Soon there was another sound, and Taw could see the dim figure of a man climbing from beneath the bridge. He pulled his gun and strained his eyes to see by the faint starlight who it was. Without noticing him, the man mounted the mule, and when his head was silhouetted against the clearer relief of the sky, Taw could see that the man was Wes Catlin.

  "It's Jack Tawlin, Wes," he called softly.

  Wes almost fell off the mule. Then, when he'd got his voice, he said tightly, "Good God! Another scare like that'll finish me."

  They fell in together and the mule made a bite at the pinto's neck. Wes reached forward and twisted a long ear to punish the animal and pull it away from the horse. It snorted with pain and brought its head into line.

  "We better do our riding off to the side," Taw suggested.

  When they'd swung to the right of the road a few hundred feet, Wes said in a whisper, "I brung out the galvanic battery and hid it down under the bridge. Snyder didn't want me carrying it with me out of town tomorrow night." He turned about in his saddle, trying hopelessly to see into the dark night shadows. "Don't think nobody saw me."

  "What about the dynamite?"

  "Oh, I couldn't leave that. Wet might get to it, or animals. They'll eat it sometimes. Nest of rats ate half a box of dynamite I left outside once in Omaha."

  "How about that stuff? Does it work pretty good?"

  "You bet." Wes lost his fear by degrees as he talked of the explosive. "That dynamite's dependable. More dependable than black powder. I always got along fine with black powder, but I admit she'll blow up in your face if you bat your eyelids together too hard. A stick of dynamite, though, will always do just what she ought to do."

  "That's good. Truth to tell, I ain't heard much about it."

  "Fellow in Europe first made it, only about ten years ago. Name of Nobel. Hear he blew up half his relatives trying to come up with the right mixture, but he finally made it in one piece. I been using it for four or five years now. Was one of the first men in this territory to handle it."

  "How much you using for the bridge? Eight sticks, was it?"

  "Yes. That'll do a handy job. Two sticks at each of the four major supports. Main thing's putting the dynamite in some kind of hole, so she'll have something to blow against when she goes."

  Taw felt in his shirt pocket. One of the curly black cheroots was still left. "Care for half a cheroot?"

  "No. No thanks. Don't use 'em."

  Taw cupped a match in his hand and his lean features glowed momentarily in the night. He blew the match out, broke it in his hand and threw it away. "How good timing can you get with that battery?"

  "To the absolute second. Sam Colt—fellow who figured out how to make that gun you're wearing—he was the one, I think, who first figured out how to set off explosives with a galvanic battery. The minute I touch two wires together it sets off sparks in the detonators. The sparks set off little dabs of fulminate of mercury and potassium chloride that's in the detonators and then that sets off the main explosion, the dynamite. Happens faster than the speed of a bullet."

  Taw inhaled slowly on his cheroot. "What if some of the guards hit the bridge before Old Ironsides gets clear of it?"

  "It ain't probable, but I've thought of that. So has Snyder. I'll let the coach get over and touch it off. Only thing to do. Those fellows wouldn't know what happened. Wouldn't feel a thing. It'd be a nice, clean way to die."

  They could see the lights of the Fork when Taw held his pinto back. "You go on, Wes. I'll circle and ride in from the north."

  Catlin said, "Next time I see you I'll have eight sticks of dynamite shoved inside the front of my belt."

  "Well, if anybody tells a joke then, try not to laugh too hard at it."

  The powder man's voice became small and worried. "Josephine'll be mad at me for staying out so late. She's been sick abed, and she frets a lot since I took my time at the Green Mountain Mine."

  "Why'd you quit your job?"

  "Cause one of the miners come down with the cat fever. Didn't want to chance catching it. Since then I been staying home most of the time. You know, Taw, when I get me that gold I'm going to buy Josephine a big home in St. Louis with a great big, fine bedroom and a big, soft bed with stacks of new magazines all around. And then I'll be able to leave her alone and she won't worry herself so much about where I've been and what I've been doing every minute." He pulled his mule around toward town. "I'll go on home now."

  "So long, Wes."

  Taw rode into town and let his pinto out into the pasture. At Christine's house Jess was sitting in the kitchen alone. He looked up and smiled as though it hurt him when Taw came in. "It go all right?"

  "No trouble." Taw poured some coffee. "What's eating you?"

  "God-damned woman. She had a fit because Iron Eyes came over to see me and he put his arm around her in a friendly way."

  Taw's chest tightened and he took a sip of the coffee. "Maybe she don't want to be first-rate friends with him. What did he want?"

  Jess shrugged. "Just a drink, and to say he was sorry he hit you last night, is all. Taw, do you think Christine's got an idea we're going to take on Old Ironsides?"

  "She's got no way of knowing, has she?"

  "Guess not. All I've got to say, anyhow, is for a dance-hall girl she's damned uppity. Scratchin' Iron Eyes' face that way just 'cause he hugged her."

  Taw grinn
ed. "Cut him up?"

  "Clawed him like a wildcat. She sure is hell on wheels."

  Taw put his cup down. "Think I'll turn in."

  Jess put his hand on Taw's shoulder and walked him upstairs. "You can't count on women to do the fitting thing, or stick by you in a pinch—not a woman like her, nohow. Glad I got you here with me, Taw. I know I can trust you."

  Taw frowned. "Does a thing that plain have to be put in words?"

  "No." Jess dropped his hand and chuckled. "No, I guess not."

  The next morning Taw was up before anyone else. He left the house and had an unhurried breakfast at a window table in a restaurant across the street from Snyder's General Store. He was almost done with eating when he saw Snyder moving around in his apartment above the store. He was talking to two men who passed the window briefly, their backs to it.

  By a cuckoo clock on the restaurant wall, Taw could see that it was pushing seven-thirty when he finished his coffee. He paid his bill and walked along the now busy streets toward the house set far out on Lincoln.

  Christine was seated in the dining room, her hands held in an unconsciously prayerful position, elbows resting on the table before her. She looked up as he entered and said, "Coward."

  "I didn't want to be here to listen to any fighting you two didn't finish last night."

  "I'm not fighting with him any more. It's just a matter of packing my things and leaving. It's easy and simple now that I'm decided. I haven't felt so relaxed and happy for a year. Had breakfast?"

  "Yes." Taw sat down. "I may be a coward, as you say, but I hear you're not. Hear you carved a brand on Iron Eyes yesterday."

  "Damn him!" Christine inspected her hand. "I broke a fingernail."

  "When you pick up and leave, where are you going?"

  "Does it matter? I mean does it matter to you?"

  "I'd like to know."

  "Probably back to Dodge. I was told there would always be a job for me at the Long Branch there." An edge of defeat had crept into her voice, and she tried to cover it by adding gaily, "I'll give the old Parkins luck another whirl as the belle of the cattle towns."

  "You got enough money to make the move?"

  "I've got a few hundred dollars left. And I can sell the house."

  "If you've got some of that Parkins de luxe coffee on the stove, I'll go get it for us."

  Christine jumped up lightly. "I'll get it." She whisked through the door and came back with a steaming pot. Pouring for them, she said, "What about you, Taw?"

  "What about me?"

  "Where will you go when you leave the Fork? What would make you happy?"

  "My first idea was to head west, out to the land the Sioux call Absoraka. Wyoming. I think a man could do well out there by starting a little ranch with a few good head. Breed them careful and feed them well. The days of the longhorn and the big cattle drives are on their way out, with the railroads pushing all over the country. You could beef up your cattle right and not lose weight on the trail. It'd be a good kind of a life to take a try at."

  "You've thought a lot about it."

  "That was before I came to Pawnee Fork. Plans have been changed considerable since then."

  "Do you remember," she said, her eyes suddenly grave, "when I told you that you were marked a gunslinger and you could never change that?"

  Taw nodded.

  "Well, maybe—maybe it could be changed if you went far enough away, where no one knew you. It would be a help if you could get a good wife to love you, to work with you. It would give you a whole new outlook on life." She blushed quickly. "I'm not meaning to put myself up for the job." She stopped and frowned at her own thoughts. "Or maybe I am, without fully realizing it. Anyway, if you paid good wages to your coffee cook, I'd be glad to try for that job on your ranch."

  Taw tried to keep it on a funning basis, but his voice betrayed him. "I'd pay you double wages, if I was hiring."

  There was a knock at the front door and Christine went to answer it. After a moment Taw could hear voices from the parlor. He got up and paced the room until he heard the parlor door open once more. The dining-room door was ajar and he saw a young cavalry lieutenant, hat in hand, walking out with Christine. Soon she was back.

  "One of the officers I met on a trip to Fort Meade this spring with the Ladies' Aid," she explained. "He dropped by to pay his and his wife's respects." She stopped talking and stared unhappily at him. At last she went on, "I wish you rated my cooking better. I'd work for almost nothing to prove myself."

  "I can't hire you. You know the reasons."

  She nodded, her eyes damp. "Because Jess is your brother. Because you don't think you'll ever live down the name of gunfighter." She caught his face in her hands in a quick movement and stretched up to kiss him gently on the cheek. Then she hurried out of the room....

  Taw went to Pawnee Street and bought a handful of cheroots from a white-haired old man clerking at Snyder's store, then continued up the walk. Jess's express office was a hundred feet away from him when he saw the two men come out of it. Their backs were to him and they walked away. To judge from their clothes they were the same men he'd seen earlier in Snyder's apartment. They turned down a side street and disappeared.

  Going into the express office, Taw found Jess there alone, working intently over his desk. "Like to arrange for a large gold shipment," Taw said. "Will it be safe on this line?"

  "My God!" Jess almost broke his neck looking around the office to see if anyone else was there. "Don't talk like that, Taw!"

  "Getting jumpy?"

  Jess blew a long breath of air out. "Guess I am, now that it's getting so close. What you doing here?"

  "Just passing by. Who were those two fellows who went out of here a minute ago?"

  "Couple of friends of mine from Deadwood."

  Taw leaned on the counter and shoved his hat back. "They had a kind of a spooky look. Fighters?"

  "Two of the best. Things got too warm for them up to Deadwood. They gunned somebody who had relatives to complain. They come on down here for a few days to wait till it cools off." He laughed. "And if you think they look spooky from the back, you oughtta see 'em from the front. They got the meanest two faces you ever saw outside of a Magic Lantern show."

  Taw shook his head in disapproval. "Hate to see you hanging out with disreputable types like that. They'll likely lead you into bad ways."

  "Ain't it the truth?"

  "Jess." Taw straightened up and hooked his thumbs in his belt. "Why did you marry Christine?"

  "I must have been outa my head. Why? She been crying on your shoulder?"

  "I was just curious. I like the girl."

  "She claims I married her for the money she'd saved, so's she'd set me up in a nice house and let me buy me that blooded black stallion. She claims I lost interest as soon as her money started running short. But the truth is I just made a mistake in judgment. Like I figure you're making about her right now." Jess slapped his brother on the back. "For Christ's sake, let's don't let her rub us the wrong way. That'd tickle that clever woman no end. She's just making a play for your sympathy, trying to turn you against me!"

  Jess calmed down a little and grinned. "Hell, the reason I wrote you to come up here first thing outa the hoosegow was so you'd get to be rich and happy, boy. Now go on out and have a few while I catch up on this book work for old Holiday. It's the least I can do for him, since I'm going to take off a couple of hours in the morning to rob his gold coach."

  Taw drank sparingly at the President, then wandered back to Christine's house in midafternoon. He could hear her in the parlor, talking to a woman with an unpleasant voice about a drive for a school fund of some sort. He went up to his room and stretched out on his bed. He might as well get a little sleep. It might come in handy.

  Loud voices below awakened him. It was nearly dusk. Jerking on his boots and fastening his gunbelt, he went downstairs.

  Christine met him at the foot of the stairs. "Please don't do anything with Jess," she cried.
>
  "Fool woman!" Jess was a step behind her. He was wearing a gun. "She was tryin' to keep me outa my own house!"

  "No point in yelling about it," Taw said. "You're both too excited for clear thinking. Calm down."

  "Taw," Christine murmured, "please don't go with Jess and his friends tonight, whatever it is." Her voice was set at a tense, desperate pitch. "I've been thinking. Why should they bring a man like you to Pawnee—a badman with a reputation through the whole territory? Because you'd be suspected of any crime immediately. You're marked as the man to put the blame on!"

  "God damn you, woman!" Jess slammed his hand on the stair banister. "You've gone too far. It ain't funny no more! I'm rid of you right now. You ain't no wife of mine!" He turned to Taw and shook his head wearily. "Hell, Taw, you been my brother longer'n she's been callin' herself my wife, and now she's made it so I gotta leave. Damn it, I've had enough."

  Taw hesitated, and Jess forgot his anger. He grinned and stepped past the weeping girl toward his brother. "Well, are you with me?"

  Taw said, "Yes," and they walked out.

  Chapter Seven

  WES CATLIN was waiting at Painted Rock, quietly sitting his mule deep in the shadow cast by the half-moon hanging low in the dark sky, as Taw and Jess rode up.

  Jess called, "That you, Catlin?"

  "Don't talk like that," Wes said in a thin whisper. "Don't use my name. Somebody might be going by and hear it."

  Taw reined his pinto over closer to the powder man. "How you been?"

  "Not too good. Been eating poorly."

  "Got that dynamite shoved in your belt?"

  "You bet I got her there." Reminded of this, Wes perked up and his voice relaxed. "All eight sticks, and detonators in my side pocket. Enough to blow me into pieces the size of a toenail."

  "Someone's coming!" Jess whispered.

  It was Alvin Snyder. He rode slanting and weaving in the saddle, but his back was straight as a rifle barrel. Joining them in the dark at the foot of the rock he said, "Iron Eyes isn't here yet?" His voice was sharp, a pitch higher than usual.