by Clyde Barker
There was nothing for it but to do as he had been bid and try to restore this child to her family. It was damned nuisance, but there it was. For all that he saw himself as a man free from superstition and with no fear of any man, O’Shea’s early raising had left an indelible mark upon his character. He might, indeed did, break all the commandments, but he knew that there were commandments and that there was usually a reckoning in the long run for disregarding them.
Never once did it cross his mind simply to ignore what the old priest had said and carry on as he had been planning to do for some months. His only hope of starting a new life back in old Ireland and being at peace was to undertake this wretched commission that had been laid upon him. Why, if he just cut and ran now, he wouldn’t even be able to attend church with his mammy when he got home to Donegal.
The first step would be to see if anybody knew where Yanez and his gang were presently situated. O’Shea recalled that the young fellow to whom he had earlier been talking in the saloon was said to smuggle goods across the Rio Grande to evade duty. A good first move might be to consult with him.
The Girl of the Period was much more lively than it had been when O’Shea had gone off to make his confession. They generally did good business between midday and about two or three o’clock. Jack Flynn, the fellow he wished to speak to, was standing in the middle of a group of his cronies. He and O’Shea had undertaken one job together a matter of six months previously. It had paid well enough, but by God, Flynn was a mad one! Several people had died needlessly in the raid that they had launched and he had sworn never again to work with the younger man.
O’Shea went over to Flynn and asked if he would favour him with a few words, away from the others. There was little privacy to be found in the crowded saloon, so O’Shea simply lowered his voice and said:
‘Tell me now, you know where that Mexican fellow Yanez is to be found?’
‘Yanez? Man alive! You’re not wanting to be gettin’ yourself mixed up with that one. Why are you askin’?’
‘That don’t signify. You know where he is?’
‘Well, I guess it’s your funeral. Hey, not an hour since you were telling me as you were bound for over the sea and far away. You change your plans or something?’
‘Anybody ever tell you that you’re a wordy bastard, Flynn?’
Jack Flynn laughed good-naturedly.
‘Now you mention it, the suggestion has been made once or twice. Seriously, I’d keep clear of Yanez. Listen. Me and a few others have somethin’ in mind, away over, up by the Reds. You want in?’
‘Will you just hush up and tell me where he’s to be found? It’s important.’
‘Sure. He operates out of a spot just over the river. Village called Cuchuverachi. Yanez has got family over that way. He’s built himself a walled compound near the village, place like a little fort. He crosses over, raids somewhere and then hops back over the Rio Grande, where he can’t be touched. Even the Mexican army steers clear of some bits of the border over that way. Stand on this bank, nigh to the ferry, an’ you can just make out Chuchuverachi, away over on the other side.’
O’Shea rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
‘That all sounds as I thought it might be,’ he said. ‘How many men does Yanez’s band of cut-throats run to, would you say?’
Flynn shrugged. ‘Couldn’t rightly say. Varies somewhat. Seven or eight, maybe?’
‘Thanks,’ said O’Shea; then, as he turned to go, ‘You been a great help.’ Moving off, he brushed against a table, knocking something off it. He looked down to see a clay pipe fall to the sawdust-strewn floor, where it shattered.
‘Hey, you clumsy son of a bitch!’ somebody growled. ‘You done broke my best pipe.’
At that time it was not uncommon for those seeking to make a little money for drink to balance an old clay pipe, worth a dime at most, near the back of some likely-looking stranger standing in a bar. Sooner or later he would move and knock it to the ground, whereupon the aggrieved owner would sweep the shattered fragments from the floor, thrust them into his pocket and claim that it had been his favourite meerschaum or something of the sort.
Rick O’Shea turned to the fellow with a savage and unholy joy bubbling up within his breast. He had been feeling mightily ticked off at having that padre railroad him into this enterprise, but he could hardly beat up on a priest. This man, though, was simply begging to be taught a lesson. O’Shea had just twisted round to confront him when he realiz ed with a sickening dread that it would not do at all. Suppose the man pulled a gun on him – or even just a knife? He recollected vividly what he had been told: that if he died other than in the course of rescuing the child, then he was damned for all eternity.
One or two of the men standing near by watched the developing scene with interest and pleasurable anticipation. Rick O’Shea was known to some of those there as a man who would take no nonsense from anybody and was well able to handle himself in a rough-house. They were destined to be disappointed. O’Shea was not about to jeopardize his immortal soul for the sake of some trifling quarrel that could be satisfied by the expenditure of a small sum of money. The bully who was baiting O’Shea sensed the fire going out of him and exulted in the realization that he was about to skin another rube for the price of a few drinks.
‘That pipe cost me five dollars,’ he said.
Without saying a word O’Shea took out a ten-dollar piece and spun it towards the man with his thumb. The gratified and surprised look on the wretch’s face was comical. Less amusing were the contemptuous looks on the faces of some of the spectators to this little comedy; men who plainly thought that Rick O’Shea must be going soft. He gritted his teeth, turned on his heel and left the Girl of the Period to go back to the hotel where he had been staying. The sooner he embarked upon this fool’s errand and got it out of the way, the better.
Chapter 2
It was a glorious day to be out in the wild country. The land was parched and faded after the long, hot summer, but it was still a joy to be riding along with the sun on his face and the wind behind him. The intense irritation that Rick O’Shea had felt towards the priest yesterday had abated somewhat and given way to a reluctant admiration at the sheer nerve of the man. He really must have seen O’Shea’s turning up that day as the answer to his prayers and, you had to hand it to him, he had taken full advantage of the situation. Seldom had a hand been better played.
There was another factor which caused O’Shea not to feel overly downhearted at the turn of events, which was that the account in the newspaper of the little girl’s plight had actually touched his heart and aroused his pity. Somebody ought to do something about such a vile deed as snatching a child from her family. Since the law didn’t seem minded to act, well, then there was some sense in an individual such as he tackling the problem. He was certainly better equipped to do so than the average fellow.
Yes, if anybody could undertake such a ticklish job as this, then Rick O’Shea was the boy to do it. So it was that, as he rode along, O’Shea began to hum a merry tune. With a little good fortune he would be able to deal with this affair in a week or so and still be on board a ship in New York within a fortnight. After all his thieving it was a novel experience to be riding on the side of right for a change.
Shimmering on the horizon ahead of O’Shea was the mighty chain of rugged peaks known as the ‘Reds’, on account of their colour. This range of mountains, rising in places to 5,000 feet or more, stretched for over a hundred and fifty miles, blocking off that part of the Rio Grande for which he was heading. Fortunately there was a pass, just one, which cut right through the middle of the mountains and would bring him out twenty miles or so from the town for which he was aiming.
At some time in the distant past the earth had shifted slightly and opened up a gap between two towering crags. This had created a miniature valley which had been used over the years as a way to reach the river. When the railroad arrived the pass had been greatly widened with the help of explosives,
until now both a railroad line and a passable road ran through the gap in the Reds. Another couple of hours should bring him into view of what was universally known as Grey John Gap. Why it bore this sobriquet nobody seemed to know.
It was an hour or two past noon when Rick O’Shea eventually approached Grey John Gap and realized that things might be about to turn a little complicated. A mile or so from the beginning of the pass he could see a group of men milling around by the railroad line. As he drew nearer O’Shea’s heart sank. He had lived by dishonesty for so many years that he had a sixth sense when he encountered men about to steal something or harm others. The furtive-looking manoeuvres around the railroad line at which he was currently looking bore all the hallmarks of a half-dozen men up to no good. So it proved, for when he rode on to the pass the first man he saw turned out to be Jack Flynn. Flynn greeted him amiably enough.
‘O’Shea!’ he cried. ‘Hope you ain’t minded to muscle in on this little enterprise of ours. I offered you in yesterday, if you recall, and you turned me down flat.’
‘I don’t want any part of this,’ said O’Shea, hastily. He was aware that Flynn’s companions were eyeing him with disfavour, like he was going to cheat them out of something. ‘What are you boys about here, anyways?’
‘It’s all right,’ called Jack Flynn to the men who had stopped what they were doing in order to stare suspiciously at O’Shea, ‘he’s one of us.’ He addressed himself directly to O’Shea again:
‘What it is, man, is this. You know the line here turns west once it passes through the gap? There’s a spur as goes on to the goldfield at Jackson’s Landing. Train brings the stuff through here once a week. We’s goin’ to stop it and kind o’ take all the gold they’s got.’
‘It’s not to be thought of!’ exclaimed O’Shea without thinking. ‘You’ll have the whole area crawling with lawmen in next to no time.’
‘Who’re you to say what’s not to be thought of?’ growled one of the men standing near by. ‘You ain’t the law, I s’pose?’
‘Not a bit of it, but I have important business. I don’t want you fellows queering my pitch. You rob that train and I head south from here, folk’re apt to think as I had a hand in it.’
‘We don’t got time for this,’ said another of the men. ‘Time’s pressing. You move on, mister. It’s nothing to do with you.’
This was just the sort of foolishness that O’Shea could do without right now. He could see clearly how, with a little bit of ill fortune, he would wind up under suspicion for a crime with which he had no connection at all. There had been several robberies of this sort lately in and around Pecos County; a posse would be sworn in at once if anything similar were to happen here. It would be just his luck to be caught up in this; particularly where he had been seen by everybody talking with Jack Flynn in the Girl of the Period not forty-eight hours previously. Playing for time, he asked casually:
‘How you going to stop this train?’
Flynn laughed. ‘Why, we’s goin’ to dynamite the tracks. Lookee here.’ He went over to one of his companions and came back with three cartridges of dynamite, which were lashed together with wire. ‘Going for to blow up the track, so’s the driver sees it. He’ll stop and then we move in. Nobody need get hurt if they do as they’re told.’
‘When’s it due?’ asked O’Shea, wondering if he had time to ride hard and be clear of the place before the lightning fell. A second later there came a shout from a ledge up above them which presumably gave a good vantage point for a view of the way ahead.
‘She’s a-comin’,’ hollered the man. ‘Best get that fuse lit.’
At which point Rick O’Shea found himself being wholly disregarded by Jack Flynn and the others. Flynn ran to the railroad tracks and bent down, placing his deadly package against one of the rails. O’Shea heard the mournful note of the locomotive’s whistle in the distance. He watched helplessly as Flynn struck a lucifer, ignited the fuse, then jumped up and began sprinting for the cover of some nearby boulders where the rest of the party had already taken shelter.
‘You better run for it, man,’ Flynn shouted.
Spurring on the mare, O’Shea cantered towards the rocks where the others were sheltering; he got there just as the dynamite went off like a clap of thunder. Looking back, he saw a column of dust and smoke rising from the tracks. At that same moment the railroad train hove into view. Seeing the aftermath of the explosion, and most likely having heard it as well, the driver applied the brakes with a screeching of steel on steel. The mighty locomotive ground slowly to a halt.
As it did so Rick O’Shea reflected grimly that this was just precisely why he had only ridden with Flynn the once. The fellow’s jobs were always chaotic and disorganized. How he had so far avoided being killed or imprisoned was something of a mystery to O’Shea.
Up until this point O’Shea had figured that he might somehow be able to slip away unremarked by anybody on the train, then just ride on to the Rio Grande to embark upon his quest. His past experience of working with Flynn, though, suggested that this was unlikely and that whatever resulted from this latest, hare-brained exploit of his would throw O’Shea’s own plans into disarray.
So it proved. Once the train had come to a halt and Flynn and his fellow robbers had mounted up with a view to riding down on the train and robbing it, a most unexpected thing occurred. A ramp crashed down from a freight wagon at the rear of the train and a party of riders trotted sedately down it as though they had all the time in the world and were about to go for a pleasant ride in the countryside.
Rick O’Shea had not survived as an outlaw for so many years without having developed an uncanny, almost supernatural, ability to spot trouble when it was still a quarter-mile off. This instance was no exception, for the last horse and rider had not left that freight truck before O’Shea had worked out precisely what was about to happen.
There had been three attacks on trains within a radius of perhaps fifty or sixty miles in the last few months. Judging by the casual way that Jack Flynn had been juggling that dynamite around, it was probably a fair guess that he had been at the back of them all. Knowing Flynn, having succeeded once at that game he was likely to carry on until either he blew himself up or was caught and then either jailed or hanged.
It was scarcely surprising that the local law would have been getting tired of this and would now be determined to put a stop to it. No doubt a bunch of temporary deputies had been sworn in and a few decoy trains laid on to see if the bandits might be flushed out. It also struck O’Shea that rumours of some huge shipment of gold would perhaps have been circulated as well, to lure these fools into the trap.
All this flashed through Rick O’Shea’s mind in no more than the few seconds it took the riders to leave the train and assemble by the side of the tracks. Almost at the same time, he realized that flight was his only hope here. His being seen sitting on his horse near Flynn and his boys would lead anybody to jump at once to the wholly erroneous conclusion that he himself was a part of this set-up.
As he reached this point in his reasoning the party of horsemen turned their mounts and began trotting towards O’Shea and the others in a leisurely fashion. As they did so they spread out slightly and O’Shea was able to see that there were eight of them in total. There was no other choice for him than to run for it, but perhaps it would be best to wait first for some diversion. If he cut and ran at this moment he could be sure that all eyes would be upon him and at least one of those men would most likely be after him like a shot.
The diversion for which O’Shea was hoping came in the most unforeseen manner; although, knowing Jack Flynn as he did, perhaps he should not have been taken aback by any mad action taken by that individual. Crazy as he was, Flynn’s wits were probably as sharp as the next man’s when it came to the immediate matter of self-preservation.While O’Shea had been mulling over his possible course of action, Flynn had been taking steps to deal with the sudden reversal that he had encountered. Going by what happened n
ext, he must have had another stick or two of dynamite about his person and have unobtrusively struck a light. All that O’Shea saw was a brief glimpse from the corner of his eye of something flying through the air in the general direction of the other riders; who were still 200 yards away. Then there was a terrific crash, followed by a cloud of dust and smoke which obscured the posse from view. Small stones began falling like hail around O’Shea.
As the echo died down, Jack Flynn gave an unearthly, banshee-like battle cry and, against all reason, led his men in a charge straight at the lawmen. O’Shea could hardly believe his luck. He rode at once to the other side of the tracks and began cantering alongside them towards the train. It was his intention to ride past what promised to be a bloody confrontation in the hope that everybody would be too engrossed in their own affairs to pay him any heed. The gap was closing between the two bodies of armed men to his right and, as long as the riders from the train didn’t choose to see him as some kind of flanker who was going to ride fast round behind them and attack from the rear, everything should go just fine.
The plan went like clockwork with just one slight hitch, although it didn’t really seem at the time as though it much signified. The snag was that one of the men in the posse knew, and was known to, O’Shea. Presumably Sheriff Seth Jackson was in overall command of the operation to catch the train bandits. He and O’Shea had clashed in the past, although nothing serious had come of their crossing swords with each other.
Now, as O’Shea glanced to his right, there was Seth Jackson, riding on towards the men who had blown up the railroad track. They were separated by a distance of no more than fifty yards. Just at that moment Jackson turned his head and gazed into O’Shea’s eyes. Then there came sounds of a few pistol shots. The sheriff’s attention was drawn back to the task in which he was presently engaged, but Rick O’Shea knew then that his presence at the scene of this particular crime had been noted. He could only hope that the mischance would not come back to haunt him.
