Five
Dillinger was amused by the idea that, for a change, he was being taken for a ride. In spite of all the coal he'd stolen from the Pennsylvania Railroad, he'd never traveled any distance on a train before. Just an hour out he'd had the crazy idea of getting into his convertible on the flatbed and staying in it for the rest of the train ride because a car was a natural place for him to be.
The train was fun. He was following the conductor along the narrow corridor of the Pullman car and had to brace himself every couple of steps as the train swayed and rocked. The attendant knocked on a compartment door, opened it, and moved inside.
There were two bunks, but Rivera had the place to himself. A small table had been pulled down from the wall, and the remains of a meal were on it.
"Come in, Jordan."
He obviously intended a master-and-servant relationship, and the dropping of the "senor" was merely the first step. Dillinger leaned against the door and took out a packet of Artistas. The Mexican poured cognac into a glass, held it up to the light, and sipped a little.
"So I'm Jordan again?" Dillinger said.
I should have thought that the sensible thing for everyone concerned," Rivera said. "Your true identity is of no consequence to anyone but me."
"Fallon knows."
"Fallon will do exactly as he is told."
"And that Chief of Police, Santos?"
Rivera smiled faintly. "He has the money. I have his silence."
"The money was mine," Dillinger said.
"And from whom did you appropriate it? Let us concentrate on the future, not the past," Rivera said. "I need a man to take charge of a rather difficult mining operation. A hard man to keep those Indians of mine in order. A man who is capable of using a gun if necessary. I should have thought you and your experience would fit the bill admirably."
"Has it occurred to you that I might have other plans?"
"Hermosa is twenty miles from the nearest railway, and there is a train only once a fortnight. The roads, I am afraid, are the worst in Mexico. However, we are linked to civilization by an excellent telegraph line, and Santos did assign you to my care. If you misbehave, Santos is prepared to fill the last part of our bargain."
"And what is that?"
"To turn you over to the American authorities at a border crossing-under your real name, of course."
Dillinger dropped his cigarette into Rivera's brandy glass.
Anger flared in Rivera's eyes. "Do your work, that's all I want from you. Do it well and we shall get along. Do it badly..."
Dillinger opened the door and went out. In a way, he'd won. In the end it had been the Mexican who had lost his temper.
The second-class coach was crowded, mostly peasant farmers going to market, and filled with great heat, heavy with the stench of unwashed bodies. This was not the way Dillinger liked to travel.
He spotted Fallon in a corner by the door, playing solitaire with a pack of greasy cards. Fallon looked up, his face wrinkling in disgust. "It's enough to turn your stomach in here, Mr. Dillinger."
"Which explains the second-class tickets," Dillinger said. "He wants us to know exactly where we stand." He pulled his two suitcases from under the table. "Let's get out of here.
There's plenty of room in the first-class end. Another thing, it's Jordan, not Dillinger. Remember that."
"I'll try," Fallon said.
They went into the first empty compartment they came to. Fallon produced two bottles of beer from his canvas grip, and sprawled in the corner by the window.
"This is more like it. What do we do if the conductor comes?"
"What do you think?"
Fallon opened one of the bottles and passed it across. "What did Rivera want?"
"Mainly to let me know who's boss."
"He must be the great original bastard of all time."
Dillinger tried the beer. It was warm and flat, but better than nothing. He put the bottle on the floor, lit a cigarette, and placed his feet on the opposite seat.
"How come Rivera survived the revolution? I thought men like him were marched straight to the nearest wall."
"I guess some did, some didn't. Some fish always escape the net."
Dillinger awakened with a start. The train had begun the cautious descent of a narrow canyon, the coaches lurching together as the engineer applied the brake. Dillinger's watch said 4 A.M. He got up quietly and went past the sleeping Fallon into the corridor.
He stood by the window and shivered slightly as the cold mountain air was sucked in. The sky was very clear, hard white stars scattering toward the horizon, and a faint luminosity was beginning to touch the great peaks that towered on either side. A moment later the canyon broadened, and he could see the lights of a station.
He heard Fallon behind him saying, "La Lina- only a whistlestop for mail and passengers. Another couple of hours to where we're going."
"I didn't even know we'd passed through Chihuahua."
"Didn't seem any point in waking you. We were only there for twenty minutes while they changed the engine."
La Lina swam toward them out of the darkness as the train coasted in and slowed to a halt. There was a small station house with a couple of shacks behind it and nothing more. The stationmaster came out carrying a lantern, and three mestizos in straw hats and blankets, who had been crouching against the wall, got to their feet and came forward.
Fallon and Dillinger jumped to the ground and walked toward the rear of the train. A couple of boxcars had been linked on behind the flatcar on which the Chevrolet had been roped into place. When the men paused to light cigarettes, they heard a low whinny and the muffled stamp of hooves.
"When did they join us?" Dillinger said.
"Chihuahua. The guard told me they were thoroughbreds going up to Juarez for the races next week."
When they turned to retrace their steps, the three mestizos were standing patiently beside the train, hands in the air, while the stationmaster and guard searched them thoroughly.
"What's all that about?" Dillinger said.
"They say that the train's been robbed three times in the last four months," Fallon told him. "Bandits get on at way stations, dressed like dirt farmers. Last year in Sonora they shot the engineer of the night express and left it to freewheel down a gradient. Ran off the track after five miles."
They boarded the train again, and the guard closed the door. He turned and said in English, "I notice, senors, that you have moved into a first-class compartment."
Dillinger replied, "It's too crowded in the other coach."
"It is also cheaper, senor. You are prepared to pay the necessary addition?"
"Now there you put me in a delicate position," Dillinger told him.
The guard shrugged and replied with perfect politeness, "Then I'm afraid I must ask you to resume your former seats. I have my duty-you understand?"
"I knew it was too good to last," Fallon said.
They got their cases from the compartment and moved back into the second-class coach, where most of the occupants were sleeping. They sat down in their original seats in the corner by the door that led to the luggage van.
Fallon laid his head on his arms. Dillinger tilted his hat forward and saw a young Indian girl in a red skirt, a large cloth bundle on the floor between them. She stared past him into the wall, blindly, as if in a trance.
He finished his cigarette and closed his eyes. A few moments later he was aware of the girl moving. He glanced up and saw that she was looking back along the coach at the three mestizos who had boarded the train at La Lina. One of them nodded briefly.
The mestizo removed his blanket and stood up. He was of medium height, with broad shoulders bulging beneath the faded khaki shirt, and the Indian blood showed in the high cheekbones and broad nose.
The girl went forward without a word, placed her bundle on the table, and untied it. The three men immediately reached inside and took out revolvers. Dillinger nudged Fallon with
his elbow.
"Hey, this is terrific. We've got company."
Fallon sat up and cursed softly. "Well, I'll be damned. Juan Villa."
"You know him?"
"Used to be one of Rivera's peons. Stuck his knife into a foreman a couple of years back. A real firebrand. You ever hear of Pancho Villa?"
"Sure."
"Juan claims to be his nephew. That's bullshit, but it goes down big with the peasants."
On seeing Fallon, Villa's face was illuminated by a smile of great natural charm. He raised a hand warningly as his two companions went toward opposite ends of the coach.
"You would be wise to place your guns on the table, old friend," he said in halting English. "It would desolate me to have to kill you.
"We aren't armed," Fallon told him.
"Then stay where you are, and don't try to interfere."
Villa raised his revolver and fired once through the roof. The effect was astonishing: a sudden eruption of sleeping passengers, a stifled scream, then frightened silence.
"We will now pass around the hat," Juan Villa said. "You would do well to contribute generously."
Dillinger thought banks were a helluva lot better than trains. Less risk, more loot. Maybe Mexico didn't have enough banks.
The door beside Dillinger opened and the conductor stepped in. He hesitated for no more than a second before turning to run-too late. The bandit who had been standing at that end of the coach shot him in the back.
Now that's not sporting, Dillinger thought.
A child screamed, and its mother placed a hand over its mouth. In the passage between the coach and the baggage car the conductor was moaning. Dillinger started to his feet.
These guys are doing it all wrong.
Immediately the barrel of Villa's revolver swung toward him, and Fallon cried out frantically, "No, Juan, no!"
Villa hesitated and then shrugged. "I owe you a favor. This cancels it." He turned to the bandit who had shot the conductor. "Lock them in the baggage car and come back."
Fallon gave Dillinger a shove. "Get moving!"
The conductor had stopped groaning. Fallon and Dillinger stepped over his body. The bandit bent down to pick up the bunch of keys the man still clutched in his right hand, then followed them into the baggage car.
"Stinking gringos," the bandit said. "A bullet in the head is better, I think." He threw down the keys and thumbed back the hammer of his pistol.
"Villa won't like that," Fallon cried in a panic.
"So I tell him you tried to jump me."
The bandit pushed the barrel of his revolver into Dillinger's back. Dillinger had practiced the maneuver a hundred times. He had anticipated a policeman's gun in his back, marching him somewhere he didn't want to go. Dillinger raised his hands, pivoting on his left foot, his left arm coming down on the man's gun arm as Dillinger's right hand, now formed into a fist, continued the movement by smashing into the side of the man's face. With his left arm tight around the bandit's gun hand, Dillinger raised his left arm up sharply, hearing the crack of bone. The man dropped the revolver and collapsed with a groan.
Instantly, Fallon grabbed the gun up from the floor.
"You stay here," Dillinger said. "I'll work my way back to the Pullman car. See if we can catch them between two fires."
Dillinger opened the door, and the cold air sucked it outward, sending it crashing back against the side of the coach. The train was moving at no more than twenty miles an hour, and he stepped out on the footboard, reached for the edge of the roof, and pulled himself up.
There was a catwalk running along the center, and he worked his way to the end of the baggage car and sprang across to the roof of the second-class coach. The stars were pale, and in the east the dark peaks were already tipped with fire, as he jumped to the roof of the Pullman and lowered himself down through the open window to the door.
When he reached Rivera's compartment, he knocked softly. It opened almost immediately. Dillinger pushed Rivera back in and stepped inside.
Rivera had obviously just awakened. "What is it?"
"Bandits got on at La Lina. We're having a little trouble back there. Have you got a gun?"
Rivera looked at him suspiciously, then pulled a suitcase from under his bunk, opened it, and produced a revolver. "How many bandits?"
"There were three, but Fallon's looking after one of them in the luggage van. The leader's a man called Villa. Fallon said he used to work for you."
"Juan Villa?" Rivera's face hardened. "That man is a murderer!"
He brushed past Dillinger and moved along the corridor quickly. The noise of the train effectively cloaked any disturbance that was taking place inside the second-class coach as the two men passed through the empty first-class compartments. Rivera paused at the door to listen for a moment, then opened it.
Juan Villa was halfway along the coach, his hat held out to a group of people at a table. The third man stood a couple of feet away with his back to the door. Rivera took a quick step forward and placed the barrel of the gun against his neck. The man's whole body seemed to go rigid. Rivera plucked the revolver from his hand and passed it to Dillinger.
Rivera moved forward and said, "Villa!"
Villa looked up sharply. For a moment his face was washed clean of all expression and then he smiled. "Eh, patron. We meet again."
"Put down the gun," Rivera said.
As the bandit hesitated, Dillinger shouted to Fallon. A moment later, the first bandit lurched in from the luggage van holding his head, Fallon behind him.
Villa shrugged and dropped his gun on the table.
"Take them to my compartment," Rivera said.
Fallon pulled the young Indian girl up from the end table and pushed her after the others. "She was in it, too."
"What about the conductor?" Dillinger said.
"Dead."
As they reached Rivera's compartment, the engineer sounded the steam whistle three times-the emergency signal-and braked sharply.
The train slowed to a halt, and Dillinger looked out of the window. A bunch of steers were milling across the track, a dozen or fifteen peons on horseback vainly trying to urge them on. Suddenly the peons turned and galloped forward with shrill cries, drawing revolvers and firing as they came. When they reached the train, they dismounted.
Dillinger ducked back inside and turned to Villa. "Friends of yours?"
The bandit grinned. "I don't think they're going to like the way you've been treating me, amigo."
There was an outburst of firing from the rear of the train. A mounted trooper galloped past the window and then another. Rivera pushed Villa forward. "Three times they've made this trip to Juarez, my friend. They were beginning to lose faith in you."
Dillinger looked out and saw mounted troopers of the Federal cavalry emerging one by one from the boxcars at the end of the train. Most of the bandits were still trying to remount when they were surrounded. They tried firing back, but it was no use. They were outmaneuvered and outnumbered. It was all over.
Rivera pulled on his jacket and turned to Fallon. "You stay here with Villa. If he makes the slightest move to escape, shoot him." He nodded to Dillinger. "Bring the others outside."
As he jumped to the ground, the young officer in command of the troop walked forward and saluted. "Lieutenant Cordonna. They informed me in Chihuahua that you were traveling on the train, Don Jose. It would seem we have been completely successful."
"Not quite," Rivera said. "They murdered the conductor."
"Which one is Villa?"
"He is at present under guard in my compartment. He, of course, must be held for public trial in Chihuahua, but the others..."
Cordonna shouted to his sergeant. "Bonilla, how many have you?"
"Fifteen, Lieutenant."
Cordonna looked at the two bandits from the train. "These also?" Rivera nodded and pushed them forward. "What about the girl?"
Dillinger swung around quickly. "She's onl
y a kid."
"Like all Americans you are a sentimentalist," Rivera said. "I would remind you that it was the girl who carried the arms on board, relying on the fact that she wouldn't be searched. She is directly responsible for the conductor's death."
Cordonna grinned. "What a pity. I could find a better use for her." He sent her staggering toward Bonilla. "Six at a time. Detail ten men."
Jack Higgins - Dillinger Page 6
