The Cassidy Posse

by D. N. Bedeker

  Walter and Binky had halted their pursuit at the bottom of the stairs. They stood there perplexed, waiting for further instructions. Karl waved for them to go up the steps. He jumped off the milk wagon before it had come to a complete stop and bounded up the stairs three at a time catching Walter and Binky before they reached the top. He grabbed them both and pushed them ahead of him towards the train that McGhan and his party had just boarded. They seemed to have no enthusiasm for tangling with Mike McGhan. Walter kept ahead but Binky tried to drop back. Running full tilt, Karl picked him up by his belt like he were a piece of luggage and jumped on the back of the train as it pulled out of the station.

  CHAPTER 43

  END OF THE LINE

  Mike found a pair of empty seats towards the middle of the brand new electric rail car. Luckily there were only about two dozen passengers on board. The springtime seemed to encourage more people to walk. He pushed Sean into the first bench while Bockleman and Kevin O’Day filled in the seats behind them. The handcuffs pulling across the newly varnished wood made the first scratch in the oak trim. Most of the freshly painted green interior of the car was already covered with advertisements.

  “All aboard,” shouted the tall conductor in a crisp new uniform as he made his way down the aisle collecting money and making change. When he got to Mike and Bockleman, they flashed their badges at the conductor, and he just smiled and nodded. The unlocking of Sean Daugherty’s handcuffs did not escape his notice. Mike rotated his hand on his thick wrist to get the blood flowing again.

  “We heard about this new elevated train in Joliet, but I never thought I would have the opportunity to ride on it so soon,” said Kevin O’Day enthusiastically. “It seems so clean and uncluttered next to the conventional trolleys. How come it doesn’t have that tangle of electric wires on top?”

  “We’re already about thirty feet above the street,” said Bockleman. “I guess stringing wires this high around all these building didn’t seem like a good idea. They use what is called a ‘third rail’ that runs parallel to the tracks this car is sitting on. You can’t see it from our seats here, but see that arm-like gadget?” Henry pointed to a long metal arm that extended off the side of the railcar to an electrically charged steel rail concealed beneath a wooden cover.

  “Oh, yes,” said Kevin. “I see it.”

  “It makes contact with the third rail and supplies the power to run the car.”

  “Ingenious,” declared Kevin.

  “Just so it get’s us across duh river,” said Sean drearily.

  “Dun’t be frettin’,” said Mike. “It will get yuh to a nice, safe cell. Anybody tryin’ tuh waylay us won’t have expected us tuh get on this contraption.”

  Henry Bockleman shifted in his seat and cleared his throat loudly. He realized it was little use waiting for Mike to give him credit for the idea.

  The tall, gangly conductor made his way to the end of the car and, satisfied that everyone had boarded, turned and faced the passengers with a broad toothy smile. He reached up and pulled a cord twice, which signaled the motorman that he was clear to go. They had barely picked up speed when the congenial conductor heard a disturbance from the back of the train.

  As Mike turned towards the rear of the car, he saw the conductor reeling backwards towards him. Bockleman, who was sitting in the inside seat next to the window, pushed Kevin O’Day out of his way and into the aisle. Kevin tried to move forward to avoid the off-balance conductor but was unsuccessful. The taller man tumbled over the top of the crouching Kevin and change spilled everywhere. The chaos was complete when the younger passengers scrabbled into the aisle to recover the coins. With the conductor no longer blocking his vision, Mike could see he had been pushed backwards by two men: a little man who seemed to be suspended in air and a taller, distinguished looking man. Mike recognizes them as two harmless street grifters known as Walter and Binky.

  Harmless except the taller one had a gun in his hand. Mike saw that Bockleman had already drawn his big .45 caliber Schofield. Mike was reaching for his service revolver when a gigantic fist came from behind the two con men and smashed Bockleman in the jaw. The force sent Henry careening into Mike, preventing him from getting off a clean shot at the taller grifter with the gun. He fired off-balance and the bullet struck Walter in the shoulder. Screaming in pain, he dropped to the floor. Mike froze for a second in amazement. There was the giant from Wyoming. He had been propping Walter and Binky up as a human shield.

  Karl Van Dersel was in one of his uncontrollable rages. As his alias, Mr. Simms, he always disciplined himself to be restrained and logical. Surviving on the Transvaal had taught him these lessons well. Now was one of those occasions where all that left him. He was three hundred pounds of anger pushing everything out of his way like a runaway locomotive. Karl was on him so quickly, Mike was not able to get a second shot off.

  Grabbing him in a bear hug, Karl lifted Mike into the air and smashed his head into the shallower ceiling above the seating area. Only Mike’s thick, sturdy neck and hard Irish head allowed him to still remain conscious. Not wishing to have his head used as a battering ram, Mike kneed Karl in the groin before he could repeat the procedure. The giant dropped McGhan and gripped his throbbing testicles. Mike then hit the big man in the face with as much strength as he could muster. Blood squirted forth from his nose and he screamed in rage. He swung at Mike with a roundhouse right that the detective was able to block with his muscular forearm, but the force of the blow still knocked him into a seat on top of two screaming middle-aged women. As Mike was attempting to untangle himself from the matrons, Karl grabbed him and was about to repeat the bear hug procedure. Just as he was lifting Mike towards the ceiling again, the motorman responded to the ruckus by slamming on the brakes. The sudden stop pitched Karl forward with Mike still firmly in his grasp. They both went out the front of the rail car and over the handrail of the boarding platform.

  “Sonavabitch,”groaned Mike as he lay on the course aggregate rocks along the side of the tracks. He propped himself up on his elbows and saw the giant stretched limp and motionless over one of the rails.

  “I hope thet big bastard is dead,” muttered Mike. He rolled over in the rocks and reached up to the wood platform he had landed beside. As the battered detective attempted to rise, pain racked his whole body. Slowly he pulled himself up on the wooden walkway. He was dazed, down on his hands and knees, looking at the many curious faces staring out the windows of the train car at him. As his vision cleared, he saw two more bodies lying by the tracks about fifty yards behind the train.

  After Walter was shot, Karl could not hold his dead weight up and he became an impediment. He had tossed Binky aside and went for Mike. Binky was able to get to his childhood friend, Walter, through the chaos that followed in Karl’s wake and get him to the back of the train. Not knowing the motorman was about to stop, Binky panicked and jumped off the train with Walter before the rail car built up any more speed. To the acrobatic Binky, jumping off a train at ten miles an hour was not a challenge. He faked falls many times in their con schemes. He skillfully dropped and rolled. Walter, however, dropped off the back of the train in a semi-conscious state, and his head hit the steel rail breaking his neck. His lifeless body rolled over towards the third rail that powers the trains. Binky quickly bounced up and was by his friend’s side. He looked in horror at Walter’s head twisted at a ghastly angle so that it appeared to be lying on his shoulder. The terrified Binky looked down at his pants as a wet circle began to spread from his own crotch.

  “Oh, my God, I’m pissin’ in me pants.”

  He intuitively pulled down his drawers and a bright yellow stream shot out and splashed next to the uncovered side of the live third rail. A massive voltage of electricity was conducted up Binky’s stream of urine and exploded his penis like a firecracker. The jolt knocked his lifeless body backwards ten feet.

  Mike had missed all this in his groggy state. He was just praying the two bodies by the track were not Henry Bo
ckleman’s and Kevin O’Day’s. He could never forgive himself if anything happened to either. He had dragged each of them into this fiasco. Mike had a chilling picture of himself standing in front of Clara Bockleman, her child at her side, as he told them of Henry’s death. An involuntary shiver passed through his body. It was the jolt he needed to get him up and moving. Just as he stood upright, someone shouted something from the train, but he couldn’t make it out.

  When what felt like a freight train hit him, he realized it had been a warning. Karl was knocked unconscious by the fall, but came to in time to catch Mike slightly dazed, standing on the wooden walkway. He hurtled his huge body through the air and drove his head right between McGhan’s shoulder blades. The force drove Mike towards the three-foot high guardrail that kept passengers from falling thirty feet to Dearborn Street below. He tried to move but Karl was all over him.

  Kevin O’Day had been forced down the aisle where he slid underneath a seat to avoid being trampled. There, with his head on the floor, he was staring directly into the .45 caliber muzzle of Henry Bockleman’s oversized revolver. Why it was lying on the floor only inches from his nose, Kevin had no idea. When he came out from his shelter, the motorman applied the brakes and he saw the giant, holding Mike in a bear hug, go hurtling towards the front of the rail car and out the door. He knew he must recover the big handgun. Mike was in serious trouble and he had to get the gun back to Bockleman to save him. When he reached under the seat for it, the gun was gone. He looked forward in the rail compartment. The stop must have caused it to slide forward. A ten-year-old boy reached down and pulled it up to examine it three seats in front of Kevin.

  “Give that to me,” he yelled above the noise of screaming passengers. He scurried forward and snatched the gun out of the hands of the curious child. Kevin now had to find Henry Bockleman. He moved back towards the middle of the train where they had originally been seated and found Henry stretched unconscious over two seats. Kevin knew he had to do something. Precious minutes had already been lost. He pushed his way forward again through the milling passengers to the loading platform at the front of the train. When he got outside, he saw Mike trying to stand up on the wooden walkway unaware the mad giant was hurtling at him like a football tackler.

  He had never feared for Mike McGhan in a fight except once when they were teenagers. Three grown men had insulted Mike’s sister and he was standing up to them all. Sensing Mike was overmatched, Kevin had borrowed a cane from an old man and was prepared to use it on the three hooligans in Mike’s defense. Then something happened that had haunted his memory ever since. When coming face-to-face with one of Mike’s attacker’s, he froze. He just stood there unable to swing at the leering face. The drunken street tough, who had been about to leave the fight, wrenched the cane out of Kevin’s hand and, armed with a weapon, renewed his attack on Mike. It did him little good. When he swung the cane, Mike ducked beneath it and threw him over his shoulder into a wagon wheel. The incident had gone unnoticed to everyone except Kevin. And now Mike faced a new and similar danger.

  “Mike, look out,” yelled Kevin, but it was too late. The giant was upon him and trying to throw him over the guardrail to the brick street below. Kevin sprang off the train holding the big Schofield in both hands. When he reached the wood platform, the enraged giant had jammed his arm between McGhan’s legs and threw him upside down over the guardrail. Mike had managed to hook his left arm around the top rail and was hanging precariously above the street. Karl stood there a moment savoring his victory as he looked at McGhan dangling helplessly over the busy street. He had traveled a thousand miles and back to kill the meddlesome detective.

  “Who in the hell are you?” Mike demanded of the madman who was about to end his life.

  “You’ll never know,” said the giant, “but Chief Barnes sends his regards.” As he paused to let Mike anguish a moment before he finished him, he was unaware that Kevin O’Day was standing three feet behind him with Bockleman’s powerful handgun aimed right at the back of his head. Kevin tried to pull the trigger, but the necessary force would not come to his twitching forefinger. Sweat popped out in large beads on his forehead, but he still could not pull the trigger and end another human’s life.

  Shouts of encouragement coming from the train alerted Karl to the situation. He turned and backhanded Kevin like some annoying fly. Then he delivered the deathblow to McGhan, driving his fist into the bicep of the arm that clung to the guardrail. Mike winced in pain but did not let go. Karl laughed and reached down to pry the arm loose when a furious Kevin renewed his attack. Using the large, long-barrel revolver as a club, he smashed it into the side of Karl’s head. The blow, which would have killed most men, only stunned the thick-skulled giant. He reeled backwards for a moment and then headed for Kevin.

  This was all the time Mike needed to get back on the safe side of the guardrail. Seeing that Mike was righting himself, Karl chose to ignore Kevin again and lunged at McGhan. Mike ducked underneath the larger man and with all the power in his legs and back, drove upwards lifting the huge man into the air. Karl’s momentum did the rest and he tumbled over the guardrail to the busy street below. As soon as Karl Van Dersel, alias Mr. Simms, hit the bricks below, a speeding four-horse wagon ran over his broken body. His massive size caused the wagon to turn over when the steel-rimmed wheels passed over him. The contents, a load of pigs, spilled out onto the street. As the wagon lay on it’s side, the pigs that were not injured wandered back and curiously nosed the mangled corpse.

  CHAPTER 44

  MEETING THE FAMILY

  Mike McGhan was the last one off the trolley that delivered family and friends to the Polk Street depot. They were all there to welcome home his nephew Patrick. It had been a month since his arm was broken when a horse fell on him in Wyoming. Patrick’s mother, Mike’s sister Molly, had somehow implied it was Mike’s fault, but that was to be expected. The unexpected was that Mary Cassidy was accompanying Patrick home. The telegram said she was coming to Chicago to visit the new University of Chicago.

  The thought of meeting Mary again put Mike’s emotions in an uncomfortable jumble; he was happy, but he was also vaguely apprehensive. Part of him wanted to sprint ahead of everyone and be the first to welcome her as she got off the train. Still another part of him wanted to hang back to see how she was received by his mother and sister. He did not know why he felt uneasy about their meeting Mary. It’s not like she is coming to see me, thought Mike. She was Patrick’s guest.

  Patrick’s letter that arrived last week had more details: old Doc Fellers had died suddenly and in his will he had given his modest estate to Mary Cassidy if she attended a recognized school of medicine. There was no mention of her coming to Chicago at that time. Patrick had already been working on her to come to the World’s Fair when they left, but she would be too early for that. The fair to celebrate Columbus’s landing was running behind schedule and would not open for another year. He must have given her a pitch for the University of Chicago after he sent the letter.

  There was a light rain falling and they all hurried to get under the expansive metal canopy that covered the corner entrance of the red brick station. Bockleman and his wife Clara had come along as well as Kevin O’Day. Kevin had been up to see the McGhan family and the old neighborhood twice since the incident on the “el.” Mike’s mother and sister had always found him a delight with his polite manners and lofty social position. President Benjamin Harrison had officially appointed him a federal judge.

  Even a Republican president could no longer overlook him after his part in what was being called the “Sean Daugherty affair.” He not only helped bring the culprits to justice, he was the key witness testifying that Mr. Simms had implicated Chief of Police Humphrey Barnes just before the huge assassin plunged to his death. Barnes took the fall like a true politician and resigned in disgrace without linking himself to Theodore Carver. In return, Carver’s people made sure the case against Barnes was derailed with a myriad of technicalities,
and he would never serve any time. The gubernatorial hopeful was going to go for a clean slate by still prosecuting Sean Daugherty for his wife’s murder, but a little blue note surfaced that changed his mind.

  Mike’s encounter with the giant Mr. Simms seemed to have jogged his memory. He recalled the blue note Nell Quinn had nervously handed out the door shortly before she died. Mike remembered that among her many talents, Nell had been an accomplished forger of checks and other documents. After he and Kevin O’Day went to Carver’s daughter, Sarah, and presented her with the note she had allegedly written to Sean Daugherty, Theodore decided to end his bid for the governor’s office. When the investigation widened to implicate him in an affair with Nell Quinn, he decided to leave the country.

  The newspaper speculation had been rampant. The common element they had all been able to piece together was that Theodore Carver probably had his wife killed because she knew of the affair and was going to expose him before the election. Mike was beseeched with requests for interviews, but he knew he had better give his exclusive story to his nephew Patrick when he returned.

  From his new home in Buenos Aires, Carver offered no opposition to his daughter marrying Sean Daugherty. It was a quiet Catholic ceremony, and they honeymooned at the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming. The desk clerk there was quite surprised to see Sean again.