Just like Virgil said he would, Bob stepped out quick. He managed to get a shot off, but Virgil shot him, twice. Bob dropped his rifle in the aisle and staggered back to the platform rail. He leaned on the rail like he was bellying up to the bar.
“You fuck,” Bob said. “Aww . . .”
“Slow us down, Everett,” Virgil said.
The wind was moving through the coach, and we were rolling pretty fast now. I thought about what Whip had said, about going too fast. I stepped out onto the downhill platform and turned the brake wheel. The brakes engaged, making a screeching, grinding sound, and sparks shot out from the undercoach. I let up some, maintaining a pressure that was firm but not too hard. The last thing we needed was for the chain to break. I looked back through the coach. Virgil was standing square in the aisle, facing Bob. Bob was still standing next to the platform rail. After a moment, the coach started to slow.
Virgil took a few steps toward Bob and stopped.
“What are you doing on this train?” Virgil said.
“I ain’t on the train. Fact is, I’m in a goddamn coach with two holes in me ’cause you just shot me.”
“You shot first.”
“I did at that.”
“You had a choice.”
“I did at that,” Bob said, “and a goddamn good choice I made. If I knowed for a fact it was you, you lilac son of a bitch, and Hitch I was shootin’ at, I would’a took better aim! Fucking do-gooders, the both of ya.”
We were now traveling slowly, but the wind was whipping through the coach. I stepped into the coach just behind Virgil.
“Hell, fuck,” Bob said quietly. “Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.”
Bob turned slightly, facing directly toward us. It looked as though he was shot high in the chest and high in the side. Which was consistent with Virgil’s style and pattern, tight and high. Virgil always shot high on the body. As long as I had been with Virgil, I never saw him put a bullet in a man’s gut.
Bob leaned over and spit. “Shit.”
He was holding his side with his left hand just under his armpit. His other hand held on to the platform rail, and his body moved ever so slightly with the rhythmic side-to-side motion of the coach as we continued rolling.
“Y’all,” Bob said, “are most likely teetotalers, too, I ’magine.”
Bob moaned and leaned back on the rail. A blast of wind whipped through the coach, and the door between Bob and us slammed shut, and the remaining glass in the door shattered. In an instant Bob was no longer standing there. Virgil and I moved quickly up the aisle with guns ready. We opened the door and stepped onto the platform, but Bob was gone.
“Stop us, Everett,” Virgil said. “Get us stopped.”
We were still rolling pretty fast. I turned the brake wheel some more, and we started to slow again, but I had to take it easy.
“What the hell was he doing?” I said. “Don’t make good sense, don’t seem practical, Bob coming up this track, Virgil.”
“Good sense ’n practical don’t have nothing to do with Bloody Bob Brandice.”
Virgil did not want to take any chances with Bloody Bob being on the loose. Since it was, in fact, Bloody Bob we’d encountered, Virgil didn’t want to leave him to do more of what Virgil knew firsthand Bob was capable of doing.
“I guess the fact we’d been identified as being on this train and the fact there was a lone coach drifting down the track was good enough for Bob to start shooting,” I said.
“That’s right,” Virgil said. “And if it just happened to be nuns or children he shot, so be it. Makes no difference to Bloody Bob who he shoots. If he didn’t get me and he killed somebody else, he’d just put ’em on a spit and have ’em for late supper.”
38
VIRGIL WANTED BOB done. It seemed with the two high holes in his upper body Bob would not survive, but Virgil knew Bob was a tough man. Bob had survived more than a few deadly skirmishes, including a previous one with Virgil. Eleven years earlier outside of Amarillo, Virgil shot Bob in the neck.
“You think he was just coming after you, and that’s that?”
Virgil shook his head.
“Bob’s bloodthirsty,” Virgil said. “Like a mountain lion. He knew what was south was of no interest to him. North proposed promise, proposed possibilities.”
“Killing you being one of those posed possibilities.”
“The other, getting to the kingpin, staying on the trail of the one-armed preacher, the conductor culprit who most likely left him. But Bob’s a killer of the first order. He didn’t know it was me in this coach, too dark to determine that for sure, but he didn’t care.”
Virgil picked up the rifle Bob had dropped on the floor.
“He didn’t have a pistol. He’d have come at me with it if he did,” Virgil said. “He just had this Henry rifle he dropped. This Henry and a big-size bone-handled knife. He’s got his knife for sure.”
It started raining again, not hard rain, but it was coming down. By the time I got the coach stopped, we were at least a quarter of a mile away from where Bob had dropped over the rail. I secured the brake wheel with the foot latch, and we stepped off the platform and into the falling rain.
“You go up that side of the track, I’ll go up this side,” Virgil said. “And Everett? I don’t have to tell you, but I will anyway. With or without the Henry rifle, Bloody Bob Brandice is a slippery snake.”
The rain started to pick up some as Virgil and I took off, walking up the track. It was sure enough dark out, but Virgil and I had plenty of experience in the dark, and we both had good night vision. The peripheral vision being the key, looking at everything as opposed to looking at something, was the best method for getting around in the dark.
Virgil moved up on the west, and I was on the east. We stayed to the woods as we worked our way up the easement.
After about a hundred or so furlongs I could hear the Kiamichi to my right. It was a swift section of the river, and the moving water got louder as I kept walking. After a couple of hundred feet farther, a piece of the rapid river became visible and the water was crashing loud. I walked a bit farther and felt I was about to the place where Bob dropped off the coach platform.
I did not see any sign of Bob on or near the track. I kept walking, and the land I was walking on leveled out with the tracks. Still there was no sign of Bob. I figured by now I would see faint movement, ever so slight movement, and find Bob sprawled out on the track, dying.
I was sure I’d see that kind of movement I’d seen many times in the dark; movement with a little life left but waning, dying, like a wounded deer or Indian, or street gunman. On one hand, here in this life, but on the other, his life was slipping away, almost gone.
But Bob was nowhere to be seen. It started to rain hard again. The sound of the rushing river mixing with the rain made it hard for me to hear my footsteps. I stopped and turned around and turned around again, thinking I might see Bob, but saw nothing other than dark rain. I walked up and stepped over the east side rail and kept walking north. The railroad ties were slippery with the fresh rain on the oily timbers. I continued walking up the track. I looked over to see if I would see Virgil but saw nothing.
I kept walking, thinking I had to be past the spot where I would find Bob, when I stepped on something.
I stepped back quickly, not sure what I had stepped on. I looked down and could not see clearly, but I could tell it was Bob’s beaded buckskin satchel, the parfleche pouch Emma had mentioned, but there was no sign of Bob.
I picked up the pouch, and when I did I saw movement out of the corner of my right eye, toward the river. I stepped over the rail and moved toward the woods, toward the direction of the movement. I looked back to the west side, looking for Virgil, but I did not see him. I walked toward the tree line next to the river, and the sound of the white water got louder as I got closer. The trees were thick. I thought I saw movement again but was not sure. Knowing Bob still had his knife, it most assuredly would not be a smart move o
n my part to walk into the trees. I backed up toward the track, and within a moment I heard.
“Everett.”
I turned. It was Virgil coming down the track from the north. I walked toward him in the steady rain. He had his coat collar up and his hat snugged down low. Water was pouring off the brim.
“You see anything?” he said.
“I think he’s in those woods there by the creek, but I don’t know for sure. I found this.”
I handed Virgil the parfleche pouch.
“Not much inside. I felt some cartridges, a whetstone, I think some jerky.”
“As much as that goulash we ate in the Hungarian café at Dallas depot has worn off, I wouldn’t eat that jerky,” Virgil said. “Could be backstrap off his kinfolk.”
I was not able to make out the expression on Virgil’s face, but it was clear by his body language that he was not satisfied with the situation.
“We’re not going in those woods,” Virgil said.
Virgil stood and looked east toward the woods. He called out into the dark, rainy night.
“Bob Brandice! If you do not die in those woods, rest assured I will kill you!”
39
WHEN WE GOT back to the coach it was still raining hard, maybe even harder since we had left the place where we’d been looking for Bob. I was starting to feel the wet cold in my bones, and I know Virgil was feeling it, too. We had been waterlogged for hours, and I was hungry. I know Virgil was as hungry, too, but he would not say so. If food were an option or if dry and comfortable were an option, he’d cover the option, but there was no need to ponder the possibility of food or staying very dry. Thankfully, though, after we’d traveled for twenty minutes or so the rain started letting up, and we could see a piece of the moon.
“Looks like we might be leaving this rain behind.”
“Does,” Virgil said.
“Won’t bother me none.”
“That’s good,” Virgil said.
We coasted for a bit longer and came to a tight canopy of trees that sheltered us from the sprinkling rain. When we cleared the tunnel of trees we were rolling pretty fast and were clearly on a wide sweep to the west.
“This has got to be the turn Whip was talking about,” I said.
“Hold us up, Everett.”
“What?”
“Slow her up.”
I did as Virgil asked and turned the brake wheel, which made a low grinding noise as we slowed.
Virgil looked at me, cocked his head a bit.
“Smell that?”
I had not caught a whiff, but in the next second, I did.
“Smoke,” I said.
“Let’s stop.”
I stopped the coach, and Virgil stepped off the platform. He walked down the dark track a ways, then stopped and stood still.
“Been plenty of lightning,” I said. “Might be the woods struck up.”
“Might be.”
“Could be a homestead,” I said. “Or Indians.”
The rails in front of us turned and disappeared behind a wall of thick woods.
“Let me walk a bit,” Virgil said. “Just follow me.”
Virgil started walking down the track. I turned the brake wheel, freeing the coach, and very slowly began to roll. After maybe a hundred yards we entered into a tall rocky hillside that had been dynamited for the rails. Virgil was hard to see clearly in the darkness. He was walking about seventy-five feet in front of the coach, and when he got to the edge of the rocky hillside, he held up his arms, motioning for me to stop. I turned the wheel, and the coach started slowing. Virgil remained standing on the track, looking downhill as the coach came to a stop square in the middle of the dynamited hillside. I foot-latched the brake, stepped off the platform, and started down the track toward Virgil. As I got closer, I saw what he saw.
A quarter of a mile down the track was the fire. It was hard to tell exactly what was burning, but whatever it was, rain or no rain, it was burning and the flames were high. In the distance behind the fire and off toward the west a ways, there was a faint glow.
“Half Moon Junction,” I said.
Virgil turned and looked back at me as I walked up.
“Maybe you can tell me for certain,” Virgil said, “but this dead hand here is Woodfin, ain’t it? One of Bragg’s top gun hands. We had a run-in or two with him, did we not?”
I was fixed on the fire and the sight of the town, and I had not noticed the man lying directly in front of Virgil, between the rails.
I looked at the big bearded man with the white shirt covered in blood, and he was for certain who Virgil thought he was.
“That’s him. That’s Woodfin. Vince and him were Bragg’s two backup bulls,” I said. “Lying between the rails like this, he’s obviously not one we shot.”
“No, he ain’t,” Virgil said.
I leaned down a little closer, and when I did I could see under Woodfin’s beard his throat was sliced open across his jawline, from ear to ear.
“Throat cut,” I said.
“Handiwork of Bloody Bob, no doubt,” Virgil said.
“Good of him to do some stall mucking.”
“Is,” Virgil said. “Reckon him and Woodfin had a misunderstanding.”
“Wonder what the outcome of an argument would have been?”
I looked back to Virgil. His attention was now on the distant flames ahead of us.
“That the coaches on fire, you think?” I said.
“Looks like it,” Virgil said. “Hard to say for certain.”
“Figure we’ll know soon enough,” I said.
“Figure we will.”
“And Half Moon, just there.”
“That it is,” Virgil said.
40
WE LEFT THE coach where it had stopped and walked on down the track toward the fire. With the recently slain bandits, Virgil and me had plenty of weaponry choices. I carried my Colt and two other long-barreled Colts. Virgil had the .44 Henry rifle Bob dropped in the aisle and a second Colt in his belt.
“Least with Bob shot up, gone, hopefully dead,” I said, “and Woodfin cut like that, we have two less gunmen to deal with.”
“We do,” Virgil said.
“Vince is shot up, too,” I said. “No telling how bad, how deep. Might be he’s dead.”
“Might well be,” Virgil said.
“Ear shots are damn sure painful.”
“They are.”
“Hard to stop the bleeding,” I said, “and the pressure on the brain.”
“Don’t know he’s even got one.”
“Well, if he don’t bleed to death,” I said, “he’ll most likely go crazier than he already is.”
We continued walking, following the track toward the fire ahead and the halo of light from Half Moon Junction just beyond. There was no more rain now, and the moon was showing full in the sky as we made our way closer to the fire.
“That’s the coaches burning for sure,” I said.
“It is,” Virgil said.
As we got closer we could see the fire was a single coach engulfed in flames, but the wood was nearly consumed and the flames were getting lower.
“The governor’s car,” I said. “The Pullman.”
“Is,” Virgil said.
“Let’s hope him and his wife are not inside,” I said.
“Yep,” Virgil said. “Let’s.”
As we got closer we could see the other cars were safe.
“The Pullman’s separated from the cars behind,” Virgil said.
The other coaches were disconnected from the burning Pullman and were sitting fifty or so feet farther down the rail.
“Must have been disconnected on the move,” I said.
Avoiding any possibility of being spotted by anyone, we skirted off the tracks, moved into the trees, and continued on closer to the burning Pullman and back section of the train. As we neared the coaches we could see there were lamps burning in the fifth and sixth car and the caboose, but there was no one moving abou
t. We stopped, staying out of sight in the woods when we were parallel with the coaches. Even though the windows were fogged over, there was no movement inside the fifth and six coaches.
“Don’t see nobody,” I said.
“Ramp’s out.”
The stock car door was open and its boarding ramp was extended.
“Made off with our horses,” I said.
“They did.”
“Half Moon looks to be not but a quarter a mile there.”
Virgil and I moved on a ways past the coaches, stepped out of the woods, and walked toward the caboose.
“Look here,” I said.
There was a line of muddy footprints where passengers departed the coaches. The tracks tapered off to the south, toward Half Moon Junction.
The back door of the caboose was wide open. I looked in; there was nobody inside. We moved on, looked inside the stock car, and as figured, all the horses, including Virgil’s stud and my lazy roan, were gone. We walked through the sixth coach to see if there was anything significant to reckon with, but it was eerily empty; even the bodies of the first two that got killed, Redbeard and the fellow with the two Schofields, had disappeared. Virgil’s cigar was still in the ashtray where he had left it when this whole rhubarb went down. He picked it up and flicked the ashes off with his finger. I produced a match from the matchbox the undertaker had placed in my coat and handed it to Virgil. Virgil dragged the tip of the match across the back of the seat and lit his cigar. After he got it going good he waved the match in the air and flicked it away with his middle finger.
“That was a good horse,” Virgil said. “Good saddle, too.”
“It was,” I said.
41
VIRGIL TOOK A few deliberate puffs on his cigar and we moved on. Like the sixth coach, the fifth was empty, too. We walked back up the track a ways and looked closely at the remainder of the burning Pullman. The heat was intense and the light was bright. Virgil stayed back as I walked closer, looking into the fire of the fancy coach. I walked slowly around the coach, looking into the dancing flames.
Ironhorse Page 9
