“Far enough,” he whispered.
Jimmy John and I stopped. Virgil and Berkeley crossed the road to where Jimmy John and I had stopped.
Virgil pulled his watch. “Let’s see what we got.”
I opened my watch and so did Berkeley, and we held them next to Virgil’s watch. We all leaned in looking at them, comparing the time, and sure enough, they were all still showing the exact same minute after the hour.
“On the money,” Berkeley said.
“Good,” Virgil said. “We move in at exactly half past the hour. Everett, that gives you and Jimmy John a full forty minutes to go up and around to the other side and get back to the road.”
I looked at Jimmy John, and he nodded.
“You ready to get this going, Everett?” Virgil said.
“I was going before I was gone,” I said.
Virgil nodded. “Let’s get on, then,” he said. “Be seeing you boys subsequently.”
Jimmy John and I split with Virgil and Berkeley. We left them on the road and made our way up into the woods. We walked uphill for about one hundred yards or so and started working our way back to the west. We navigated through the foggy forest until we got to the overhead telegraph drop that we knew went to the third camp. We continued west a ways and started making our way back downhill. We stopped before we got to the road and waited for a moment. After we made sure there was no one near, we edged out of the trees and onto the road. I looked at my watch. We had exactly sixteen minutes before we were to close in on the mining office but we needed to get ourselves closer, within immediate striking distance. We started moving back east toward the office. We stayed to the trees and moved very slowly, very quietly, taking one careful step at a time. It took us a while and before we had the structure in sight, we heard voices.
We kept inching slowly and within a moment we saw the building and someone sitting outside of it on a bench that faced the road. I pulled my watch from my pocket, opened the face, and looked at the time. I held up five fingers to Jimmy John, and he nodded. We could not see the man on the bench too clearly until he moved some, adjusting his body, and we could see him very well. It was one of the hands, no doubt. It was clear he wore Mexican spurs with oversized rowels. He was talking to someone as he cleaned mud off his boot with a stick, but we could not see whom he was talking with or hear clearly what was being said. The hand laughed, said something, making whoever he was talking with also laugh. The hand stood up and started walking across the road toward the bunk quarters. His spurs were noisy as he moved off at a leisurely pace. We lost sight of him in the trees and after a moment we heard a door shut.
“He’s in the shitter,” I said quietly as I pulled out my watch again and opened it.
“Almost time?” Jimmy John asked in a whisper.
I nodded and held up two fingers. “Two minutes,” I said.
Jimmy John nodded.
“I’ll go this way to the office and deal with whoever we can’t see and you deal with the hand in the shitter.”
Jimmy John nodded.
I pulled my knife from its sheath.
“Think you can deal with the hand on the pot?”
Jimmy John pulled his knife.
“Yes,” Jimmy John said.
“Okay then,” I said.
I held the pocket watch up for both of us to see clearly. We watched the minute hand as it moved around the face of my timepiece. When it hit the get-go time, Jimmy John and I looked at each other and moved off swiftly, silently into the fog.
98
I THOUGHT ABOUT Emma and Abigail and what they had been through as I moved slowly toward the building. It seemed like a very long time since I had last laid eyes on them. I thought about Emma looking into my eyes, and me looking into her eyes. I thought about holding her hand and her holding mine. My heart pumped harder as I got closer to the building, wondering if she had been hurt, or raped, or if she was even alive. Sure, like Virgil said, we go at this every step of the way with the contention they most assuredly are alive. But what if they were not, what then? When I saw her on the train I felt like I had known her from before. Even though I never met her or seen her previous, I felt as though we had a history together, maybe from another life. Or maybe in this life, the mysterious powers of the universe had us a predestined union designed beyond our imagination or understanding.
Jimmy John slipped off into the trees toward the privy on my right, and I continued on, moving slowly up to the building.
As far as I could tell, I made it to the structure without being seen. I placed my back to the west-end wall next to the door and crouched down low. I edged my eye around the corner, and just as I did, I saw blood. Berkeley was right, he had no problem killing. Just like he slit the throat of the big dun horse, he just slit the throat of one of the getaway riders. Berkeley had his huge hand around the man’s mouth, and his knife had opened a straight line across the man’s throat, and his blood was gushing. I stepped around the corner and saw Virgil. He was just behind Berkeley. He pointed me to the door on my end of the building and pointed to himself and Berkeley and to the other door. Virgil held up his hand and showed five fingers, twice. A ten-second count.
I nodded and started counting. I sheathed my knife, pulled my Colt, and moved back around next to the west-end door.
One thousand one . . . one thousand two . . . one thousand three—I pulled my second Colt—one thousand four . . . one thousand five—I stepped back to kick the door—one thousand six, one thousand seven, one thousand eight, one thousand nine.
This was it. This was the moment.
I kicked the door hard just as two shots rang out from inside. The door busted from its hinges, crashing flat into the room and landing at the feet of a tall man.
“Don’t shoot!” he cried out, and instantly raised his arms above his head.
With his one good arm, and his wood arm high above his head, I knew right away this fellow was the masquerading conductor, John Bishop Wellington, and the man who had escaped from prison with Bloody Bob. Wellington was healed with a backward side rig. The butt of a Smith & Wesson was sticking out facing me, but his arms were up and I had both my Colts pointing at him.
“Don’t shoot!” Wellington pleaded again as he backed away from me. “Please!”
Behind him, the door separating the office from the bunkroom was open. I saw Virgil with his Colt standing in the smoke-filled office. To my left there was a low bunk, but no women.
“Take that S ’n W out, slow,” I said, “and pitch it over to the bunk.”
Wellington did what I told him and kept both arms up.
“Don’t see the women,” I called out. “You?”
“No!” Virgil replied. “Two dead hands. No Lassiter. No women.”
“Where are they?” I said to Wellington.
“Please, don’t hurt me.”
I raised one Colt with an eye-level bead between Wellington’s eyes. “Where are they?”
Before Wellington could open his mouth I heard two distinct clicks behind me, and metal pressing into my back.
99
DISTINCT CLICKS I’D heard before. Many times before. And a voice: “Release the hammers on those pistols and drop them to the floor, Deputy,” the voice said. “You too, Marshal,” the voice called out louder, “or one shot of this eight-gauge blows a hole through your deputy’s back and the other will be for you. Your call.”
I recognized the voice, but I could not place it until he spoke again.
“Like I told you before, I have killed before, and I’m not afraid to do it again. I will give you three seconds!”
It was Captain Lowell Cavanaugh, the dandy from the first coach. The son of a bitch had my eight-gauge. The dandy was in on it.
“No need, Mr. Cavanaugh,” I said.
I was looking directly at Virgil standing in the office.
“Now!” Cavanaugh shouted.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
I released the hammers and dropped m
y Colts.
“Just take it easy.”
“I will tell you how to take it, Deputy,” Cavanaugh said. “From here on, I do all the telling!”
I was watching Virgil closely, wondering what he could do.
Virgil did not have a shot. Cavanaugh was small and standing directly behind me.
“There are three of us,” Virgil said. “You only got two shots.”
“Shut up!” Cavanaugh shouted as he jabbed the barrels of the eight-gauge hard into my back. “You don’t have the upper hand here, Marshal!” Cavanaugh continued with a seething snarl. His jabbing got harder, punctuating each of his words as he talked. “If you value this man’s life, you will do exactly as I say!”
“So, you’re the one behind this?” I said, trying to keep him talking, thinking. “This was all your doing?”
“Shoot him!” Wellington said to Cavanaugh. “Goddamn it, just shoot him!”
“Don’t move an inch, Mr. Wellington, not an inch,” Cavanaugh said. “This is a perfect symmetry, you see. With the deputy demilitarized, his marshal has no recourse but . . .”
Cavanaugh stopped talking.
“But?” Wellington said. “Goddamn it, but what?”
I felt the barrels of the eight-gauge slip from my back and heard them hit the floor with a thud. Wellington looked down, saw the eight-gauge was no longer on my back, and he went for his pistol on the bunk, but he was too slow and too late. I snatched the back of Wellington’s neck and jerked him away from the bunk. Virgil and Berkeley came in quick. Berkeley grabbed Wellington and slammed him into a loop of barbed wire hanging from the south wall and put a forearm stiff to his throat. Lowell Cavanaugh was still standing in the doorway. Both of his arms were at his side. The eight-gauge was in his right hand, but the barrels were planted firmly on the floor. He was staring straight ahead with a blank look on his face, and I saw why. Sticking through the left breast pocket of his dandy suit coat was a razor-sharp arrowhead.
100
CAVANAUGH WAS DEAD on his feet with the eight-gauge propping him up but his hand released, the gun dropped, and he fell forward flat on his face with the arrow sticking out of his back. Berkeley had Wellington tight against the wall.
“Where are they?” I said.
Berkeley let up on Wellington, but Wellington gasped, trying to get some breath, so Berkeley—in his own way—helped him. Berkeley slapped him hard.
“You heard him!” Berkeley said.
Wellington just sucked air.
Berkeley slapped him again, harder.
“Berkeley,” I said.
Berkeley let up on Wellington, but all Wellington could do was bend over coughing, trying to get his breath.
Berkeley lifted him up to face us.
“Where!” Berkeley said. “Where are they, goddamn it!”
Wellington’s coughing got worse and his face got redder than it already was as he continued gasping for air.
Jimmy John came hurrying up to the door.
“Got one running,” Jimmy John said pointing to the north. “That way!”
“Get on him!” Virgil said.
Virgil moved quick out the door, following Jimmy John on the run.
“Go,” Berkeley said to me. “If there is anything to get out of this son of a bitch, I’ll get it. Go!”
I picked up my eight-gauge and moved out the door, following after Virgil and Jimmy John.
They were running next to a coal track that traveled from the road toward the mines. Virgil and Jimmy John were ahead of me by about twenty-five yards. As I was on the run, I heard a horse to my left, and I saw movement in the trees. I heard galloping. I stopped next to a small watershed. Riding out of the trees, running directly toward me, came a rider. He was looking back over his shoulder toward Virgil and Jimmy John—they had run past him—and the rider had no idea he was riding directly at me. When he turned in the saddle to look forward, he saw me. It was Lassiter. He was too late to rein the mount away from me as I swung my eight-gauge and hit him square in the face with the heavy barrels. Lassiter flipped backward out of the saddle and hit the ground like a shot buffalo.
“Got him here, Virgil!” I called out, “I got him back here! It’s Lassiter!”
Berkeley came running up.
“The mine shaft!” Berkeley shouted out as he came running, pointing. “He said they were stowed in the mine shaft!”
“They alive?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Berkeley said, out of breath. “He went limp. I wrapped him in barbed wire.” Berkeley looked at Lassiter on his back, spitting up blood and teeth. “Keep going! I got this bastard, and the other! Go!” Berkeley grabbed Lassiter and started dragging him back toward the office like a rag doll.
I moved off as Virgil and Jimmy John came up. “Mine shaft!” I said.
Virgil, Jimmy John, and I ran down the coal rail into the fog. My mind was racing again, thinking about Emma, and I was feeling scared. Hell, all the gun hands we’d faced through the years, I was never scared. Not of anything, ever, but I was now. Guess I didn’t care about myself, or anyone else, enough to ever be scared. It never mattered really if I lived or if I died, but for some reason I felt different. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. We followed the rail as it curved around a tall outcropping and turned between low-growing evergreens before we saw the mine. Even though the shaft was within sight, it seemed like it was a mile away. A cluster of crows picked up out of dry hackberry trees surrounding the entrance to the mine as we got close. There were thick oak doors covering the entrance that were chained and locked.
Virgil stepped off to the side, put his Colt close to the lock, and pulled the trigger. The lock jumped but did not open. He shot it a second time, and the lock opened.
I unwrapped the chain looped between the two big doors’ iron handles, and we pulled the heavy doors open. The first thing I saw made my heart drop.
101
EMMA WAS LOOKING up at me, shielding her eyes. She was cowering some, covering her sister’s eyes from the light coming through the open doors. Though the late afternoon was covered with a hazy wet fog and the light was dim, the daylight was still a harsh contrast to the previous darkness of the mineshaft. When Emma’s eyes focused, seeing it was me who was standing in front of her, she started shaking and burst into tears. I moved to her. She rose up and lunged for me, putting her arms around me. I felt her lips on the side of my face, close to my ear. One of her hands was at the back of my belt, pulling my waist to her, and the other held the back of my head. She was not clutching me tight. She was holding me gently. She was trembling, and I could feel her warm breath in my ear.
“It’s you. . . .” she said. “You are here, you came for us. You came for me . . .”
She stopped talking and kissed my face softly. She kissed me again, and again, and again.
Abigail was still shielding her eyes from the light. Next to her was Ernest C., a pretty woman with wispy, wheat-colored hair. Ernest C. saw Jimmy John behind me, and she looked at him as if she was looking at a ghost.
“Jimmy John?”
“It’s me.”
Ernest C. charged Jimmy John and was off the ground into his arms in an instant. Jimmy John held her tight. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and buried her face into his neck, sobbing, “Oh! Oh my God! Oh my God! Jimmy! Oh my God! Thank God!”
“It’s okay,” Jimmy John said. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
The women were dirty and scratched up. Their dresses were soiled and ripped up. Their hands and faces were smudged with black coal, but they were alive.
Virgil kneeled down, looking at Abigail. He held out his arms toward her as if he were encouraging a baby to take her first step, but she recoiled, moving back a little, shaking her head slowly.
“You’re safe now, Abigail.”
Abigail looked unsure of Virgil. It was clear she was in shock. She just gazed at Virgil with her big eyes and continued to shake her head slowly back and forth.
“It’s
all over,” Virgil said.
Emma looked to her sister. “Abby, honey, it’s Marshal Cole and Deputy Marshal Hitch.”
Abigail frowned at Emma as if she did not understand.
“They are here to help us.”
Abigail turned her attention back to Virgil.
Virgil nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “What your sister is saying is right.”
Abigail looked at Virgil and nodded very slowly.
“You’re gonna be okay now.”
She lifted up some, looking at Virgil with a hopeful expression on her face.
“That’s good,” Virgil said.
She started rising, reaching out toward him. Virgil moved closer and just as she got fully to her feet, her body went limp and she fainted, falling into Virgil’s arms.
Virgil gathered her up, holding her. He situated her head resting on his left shoulder and her legs draping over his right arm.
“Let’s go,” Virgil said.
102
THE TRIP BACK down to Half Moon Junction was without incident. After loading the horses and tying Lassiter and Wellington inside the stock car, we bid Jimmy John and Ernest C. farewell, climbed aboard the Ironhorse and left Crystal Creek. The farewell was just a tip of the sombrero from Jimmy John. No real good-bye was exchanged as he rode off to Tall Water Falls with Ernest C. sharing the saddle with him. Jimmy John left us sort of like when he arrived, simply and quietly.
Jimmy John wanted none of the outlaw horses we had gathered after the ruckus, so we traveled them down the rail and left them with Gobble Greene. Gobble was sad to hear about his dun horse but was more than grateful for the gift of the other animals. Berkeley’s black horse was still completely unstable. The horse had improved a little but remained in bad shape, so Berkeley told Gobble he should keep the black horse, too. If he recovers, Berkeley told Gobble, do with him as you see fit.
Ironhorse Page 22
