The War Wagon

by Clair Huffaker

  Watching him, Taw realized Snyder was thoroughly, incredibly drunk, held up and pushed on only by the high tension and excitement in him, driven to clarity of thought by a hard core of intense purpose within him, where most men would have been in a helpless stupor.

  "You go through all the whisky in Pawnee Fork?" Jess asked him.

  "I had a drink or two for the road," Snyder said angrily, rolling slightly in the saddle. "It'll wear off soon." They didn't hear Iron Eyes until he was almost on them. Wes gasped in surprise as the great bulk loomed suddenly up beside him in the darkness.

  "Me," Iron Eyes grunted.

  They started toward Sawtooth Bridge, riding silently five abreast across the flatlands off to the side of the road. After half an hour the dim, silvery outline of the half-moon disappeared.

  Jess glanced at the dark sky. "Cloudy."

  A few minutes later Taw said, "Just felt a drop of rain."

  "Rain?" Snyder glared blindly at the darkness above him. "There can't be any rain! The weather is consistently dry this time of year!"

  "Well, you better speak to it, cause there is some rain."

  "Rain won't stop the dynamite." Wes said. "Long as I can keep her dry until I set 'er up in the bridge frame."

  "It's the log I'm worried about," Snyder said, almost to himself. "A long, hard rain would soften and break the paper. Maybe we should have used canvas, but Charley said canvas would fold up and might trip a horse."

  Jess said, "For Christ's sake, let's worry about that if it comes to that. A little rain sure as hell ain't going to stop Old Ironsides from coming through."

  After an hour's ride, Taw, moving slightly ahead with Jess and Snyder, raised his arm in a warning gesture and pulled his pinto to a stop. The other four halted and waited, wordless. Soon the sound of a horseman advancing on the road came to their ears. The rhythmic beat of four hoofs swinging in an unhurried lope broke into a staccato thumping as the horse was pulled to a trot. The unknown rider brought his mount to a walk as he passed, a faint whisp of movement, on the shadowy road to their left. When the ear had to strain through the night to hear the horse's fading walk, Wes's mule raised its head and bayed mournfully to the black void above. Taw spun and clapped a hand over the beast's nostrils, cutting the noise short.

  The sound of the lone horse ceased as the rider halted him briefly. Then there came the rapid, receding beat of hoofs in full gallop.

  "Who could it have been?" Jess muttered.

  Taw let go the mule's nose. "No matter. A solitary traveler. Scared at a mule's talk."

  "He's right." Snyder set himself firmly into the saddle and clucked to his horse. "Let's get on."

  "This old road," Jess grumbled, "is getting so all-fired crowded these days you can't take a deep breath on it."

  When they reached Stony Flat, Snyder pulled out his watch and struck a match to read the time by the flickering light. "A little after three. We're on schedule."

  Crossing the flat, Taw said, "Rain's coming again."

  By the time they were at Sawtooth Bridge a hard, fast rain was falling. They clattered across the wooden planks and pulled up at the far side.

  "Wes," Snyder said, "it's in your hands here. You want anything? Any help in setting it up?"

  Catlin bowed his head in thought, spilling a line of rain from his hat brim across the neck of his mule. "You might leave Taw with me for a while, if you won't be needing him up ahead right away."

  "All right." To Taw Snyder said, "Don't stay any longer than necessary."

  The others rode on ahead, their horses' hoofs beginning to scrunch down in the mud, and Wes slid off his mule. "I'll cap these sticks, first." He shrugged out of his jacket. "Want to hold my coat over the stuff so the rain won't get to it?"

  Taw swung down and they crouched together in the now driving rain, Taw holding the coat. Wes drew a stick of dynamite from inside his shirt and took a fuse from his pocket. Thrusting them under the coat and working by feel, he said, "The dynamite's sleeping easy now." His hands stopped moving. "There. The fuse is home. She's coming out of her dream and ready to wake up at any little thing." He stuck the fused dynamite quickly back in his shirt, then went to work with another fuse. "Taw," he asked, his hands steady and capable, " 'you scared?"

  "Some. I ain't as sure about the waking point of those overgrown firecrackers as you are."

  "No. I don't mean that. I mean about that battleship on wheels that's going to be coming across the bridge."

  "No point in worrying about a thing before you're facing it. Might be dead before it comes. And the fact is, if you don't quit shoving those fused sticks under your shirt so hard, I'm likely to have a stroke right now."

  "Do you think I'm a coward, Taw?"

  "Hell, no. Not the way you handle explosives."

  Wes took his coat from Taw and stood up. He began transferring the dynamite back from his shirt to the coat, using the coat as a blanket. When the bundle was wrapped, he handed it to Taw. "Follow me, will you? And give me the stuff as I ask for it?"

  On the bridge he sprawled down over the edge on his stomach. One hand groped up through the darkness and he whispered, "Give me two sticks."

  A few seconds later he scrambled back up. "She'll stay nice and dry in that niche." He headed for another spot on the bridge. "The thing is, I ain't too stupid, Taw. I know I'm pretty yellow. Scared of almost everything. Sickness, tough men, my wife. They all bother me. And I kind of try to make up for it by doing work most men are scared of." He planted two more sticks down under the bridge and got back up, wiping water from his neck. "And yet to tell you the truth, I like explosives. The way I handle them, I ain't never going to get hurt by them. Killed maybe, but not hurt. Not like no lumberman who maybe gets a hand cut off in a circular saw. The stuff'll either leave me be, or it'll send me right out of this life. And maybe death isn't so bad. Nobody knows."

  "You'd probably feel easier if you turned your thinking toward the gold, and that big house in St. Louis."

  "Maybe." Wes fixed the third and fourth dynamite caches and put his jacket back on before speaking again.

  "Thing is, I guess everybody wants to be brave. To be a real strong man in every direction. To be like you, Taw."

  Uncomfortable, Taw grinned and said, "Yeah. I'm a holy terror. Anything more I can do, Wes?"

  "Yes. Just a minute." Catlin went to his mule and came back with a thick handful of thin, looped wires. He disappeared in the darkness of the bridge and after a few minutes came back. "I got the stuff wired. When I get down below, I'd like you to drop the wires to me, slow and gentle." He mounted his mule and rode away in the night to the southwest. After a time he'd swung into the deep gulley where it shallowed and returned to a point under the bridge. He called up, "Lower the wire closest to your right."

  Taw found the coiled wire and let it down slowly. After doing the same at the other three dynamite caches, he said, "You all set, now?"

  "Yes." Wes's voice came up from the dark below. 'Taw?"

  "Yeah?"

  "This is the first time in my life I ever took a chance on anything besides dynamite, powder and such. First time I ever stuck my neck out." He was silent for the time to take a breath. "Kind of—just wanted you to know it."

  Taw said, "Good luck." Then he added softly, "You'll do fine, Wes."

  His pinto was huddled neck down and rump to the rising wind when Taw reached him and stepped up in the stirrup. He headed along the road and soon entered the narrow canyon. Toward the end of it a happy voice called down, "That you, Taw?"

  "Yeah, Charley."

  "This God-damned rain is enough to make a man give up stage-robbin', ain't it?"

  Taw circled the rock to his left and could see Charley's figure seated above him. "You make up that paper log yet?"

  "Yep. Got here 'fore sunset. But the idea's been changed some." The old man jumped down and put his hand on the pommel of Taw's saddle. "Git down and let's take a walk, boy."

  They climbed together at an angle up
the mountain, slipping and sliding on the wet ground, before Charley limped to a halt at a dark opening before them. "I put the damned thing in this here cave to keep her dry. Trouble is, this rain'd ruin it if we left it out. So when the coach starts across Stony Flat you got to get it out, haul it down and set it up. They won't be able to see you from the flat."

  They climbed back down to the road and Charley said, "How 'bout a ride back to where those other fellows are?"

  "Climb aboard."

  Long before they got to the abutment they could hear through the worsening rain the slicing thump of axes at work.

  "Sounds like the boys're earnin' their wages," Charley chuckled in Taw's ear.

  "What are you having such a good time for?" Taw grinned narrowly. "You ain't got that gold in your pockets yet."

  "I'm gettin' a bang outa just thinkin' of it. I'd get myself down and do a little dance if it wasn't for this miserable cloudburst."

  "Trouble with you, you old reprobate, you're too damned thickheaded to be properly worked up. Man's at his best when he's nicely on edge."

  "On edge!" Charley yelped. "I'm so excited that if Old Ironsides don't cave through that plankin' up ahead, I'll run up and turn 'er over with my bare hands!"

  Snyder was waiting at the abutment. A touch of lead-gray daylight was coming into the east as he stepped up from the cliff edge of the road and crossed briskly through the mud toward them. "Charley show you where the log is?"

  "Yes."

  Charley hopped down from behind the saddle and Snyder took his watch out with shaking hands. "Time for Iron Eyes to be on his way to Spotted Wolf." He walked back to the edge of the road and called down. One of the axes became silent and soon the big breed climbed over the abutment. "Go on down and take over with that ax, Charley." Snyder gestured nervously. "Jess will show you where and how deep to cut."

  "Time to visit Spotted Wolf?" Iron Eyes demanded.

  "That's right." Snyder snapped his fingers three or four times without being aware of it. "You've got it all straight? Tell them to stay behind the bluff at the side of Stony Flat so they'll be able to surprise the coach. Pretend you're not sure if the man they want is riding guard until the stage is halfway across the flat. Then point out one of the men flanking the coach, so they'll head straight for it. Warn them that the men on the coach itself make powerful medicine, so that the explosion of the bridge will have a built-in explanation."

  "Iron Eyes know everything," the Indian said without emotion. He lowered himself down over the abutment.

  Taw stepped to the edge of the road and leaned over until he could see Jess and Charley swinging their axes. Iron Eyes climbed down to where they were, then continued on down the steep slope to the horses at the foot of the valley. Taw could see the outlines of mules nosing the muddy ground for food not far from the horses. Iron Eyes mounted his sorrel and was soon out of sight in the bleak, gray rain.

  "How's the rest of it goin'?" Jess called up.

  "Just like it should." Taw straightened around to speak to Snyder. "They ain't cutting too deep, I hope."

  "No, they're not!" Snyder said angrily. "Do you think I've spent months planning all this only to have the abutment cave in if a couple of riders go over it, or under its own weight?"

  "Just wondered."

  Snyder stared far up the road, searching for anything that might be traveling on it. "I've marked the supports." He unconsciously began snapping his fingers again. His nerves were raw; the effects of the liquor seemed to have left him. "The abutment will hold about four tons when we're done with it. The coach weighs better than seven."

  "Maybe we should have rigged this up with dynamite, too."

  "Damn you, Tawlin!" Snyder's eyes fired with insane fury and he stepped forward so belligerently that Taw thought the man was going to swing at him. "I've planned every detail of this a thousand times! I've weighed every possibility, every conceivable contingency! Certainly with so many human elements involved no one can be sure of the outcome, but nothing as simple as what you mention has been ignored!" He stepped back and breathed deeply, trying to bring himself under control. "Dynamite can have any effect at all on the bridge, and it won't matter as long as the bridge can't be crossed after the coach has passed. But," he pointed a trembling finger at the far side of the abutment, "the stage must not get beyond that point. If we set off an explosion while the coach was crossing this abutment, there would be one chance in a thousand that the force of the blast would lift the coach and drop it back on the edge of the road. And if we had to climb up and down this cliff to get the gold, it would take much too long. Timing is the most essential part of my plan!"

  "Sorry," Taw said dryly. "Didn't mean to be insulting."

  "Damn, damn this rain!" Snyder growled.

  "Maybe I ought to spell one of the boys with an ax."

  "No." Snyder clutched at his watch chain and pulled the timepiece out. "Wait. Let me figure this. About now the coach will be stopping to pick up a fresh team at the relay station north of Pawnee. All right. Give your brother a chance to rest. He's been at it quite a while. I'll keep watch on the road. First, though, take your horse up the trail a few yards beyond the abutment to the summit of the mountain. I'll want you up there later to watch for the stage."

  Taw led the pinto up the incline beyond the abutment and left him tied to a clump of scrub oak under an overhanging rock that gave him some protection from the beating rain.

  At the abutment he lowered himself over the edge and climbed down the framework until he was standing on the sloping ground below. "Who's tiredest?"

  "I am," Jess said. "Charley's so damned cheerful he couldn't get tired."

  Taw took the ax and began cutting at the log pillar Jess had been working on, the edge of the tool slashing deep into the wood at each husky swing.

  "Never figured to get rich cutting wood." Jess wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  "Quit bellyachin'," Charley grunted happily. "You been livin' like a king down under here outa the rain."

  "I'd almost wish a couple of them didn't jump when they got to the log in the road," Jess grinned. "Hate to do all this work just to catch an empty stagecoach with no people in it to enjoy the ride down."

  Taw rested his ax briefly. "That ain't the funniest joke you ever made."

  Jess shrugged. "You got one of them smokes left?" He reached under Taw's buckskin jacket and took one from the shirt pocket.

  Taw went back to chopping and Jess flipped his thumbnail across a match, cupping the flame against the wind to light the cigar. "Hell," he complained, drawing on the cheroot, "I don't see why you're so holier-than-thou about life, Taw. A top gunhand shouldn't be mad at the idea of some fellow dropping a few hundred feet in a stagecoach."

  "Boy," Charley Hill panted between blows, "sometimes I wonder about you. What happens will happen. But it ain't right to go wishin' death on folks."

  Snyder leaned down from above and called, "Taw, come on up! Time's getting short."

  "Ax work is about done anyhow," Jess said. "Thanks for the hand, Taw."

  Snyder was pacing the abutment, kicking like a distraught child in puddles of rain gathering on the boards. "I want to go down there and make certain they cut just the right depth, so I can't stand watch any more.

  "From the top of the mountain, you'll be able to see everything that goes on. If anything comes you can warn us by whistling down. As soon as you see Old Ironsides, ride to the cave Charley showed you and carry the log down to the road. You know where to put it—right where the pass is narrowest. Then get back up to your horse. You'll be above here while we're loading the gold onto Charley's mules. If any of the guards should somehow get into a position to threaten us in any way, it will be up to you to stop them."

  Taw climbed up the mountain to where he'd left the pinto. A few minutes later he was at the rounded pinnacle of the mountain. Even in the rain, he could see the empty road stretching far away to the north, beyond Stony Flat. Leaving his horse in a small cut, he leane
d against a chest-high rock and waited watchfully. Turning to the south, he could see the thin road winding several miles. A deer that looked like a small ant crossed the south road slowly and disappeared into the underbrush. He turned his attention to the north once more.

  Squinting, he could see no sign of Wes Catlin beneath the bridge, but the gully was too deep for him to see the bottom of it from his position.

  Suddenly, the Sioux war party swept over a hill far away and to his left, riding at a full gallop, and descending the hillside like a mob of angry, swarming bees. The party was larger than Taw had expected, with nearly a hundred warriors in it.

  Taw's lips tightened as the braves rode straight on by the butte where they were supposed to hide. They came to a stop in the middle of Stony Flat, and Taw recognized Iron Eyes by his clothes and horse, riding near the war-bonneted chief, waving an arm frantically. Finally the Indians rode slowly back to the butte, all but a few of them becoming invisible to Taw.

  After a few minutes a lone warrior rode slowly out onto the flat. He crossed it and studied the land on the far side. Then he walked his horse toward the deep gully, searching the far side of it through the drizzling rain. He rode to within a hundred feet of the gully, then swung at an angle to head toward the bridge. Taw hurried back from the concealing rock and ran down to his pinto. He pulled his Winchester from his saddle holster and got back to the rock in time to see the Indian, now fifty feet from the bridge and riding slowly closer.

  Taw centered his sights on the Sioux and raised the rifle barrel to allow for the distance. Then he lowered the gun. It was no good. If the scout saw Catlin, Wes would be a dead man. And if Taw dropped the Sioux, Wes would still be dead. He could never outrun the party on his mule.

  The scout stopped twenty feet from the bridge, still staring intently at the land across the gully. Then he reined his pony about and rode at a lope back toward the butte.

  Long, slow minutes crept by, until Taw's eyes were smarting from searching the road. He figured the coach was due any second when he saw the covered wagon. Pulled by two unhurried oxen, it inched into sight beyond Stony Flat. For a creeping eternity it lurched gently through the rain, moving at last onto the flat itself.