05 Ironhorse (16 page)

We moved up near the clothesline behind the whorehouse, where the horses had been picketed. We found a secure place and kept watch on the backside of the whorehouse.

“Don’t see anybody,” I said.

“Front parlor is where they are.”

“Maybe they’re putting the pieces together,” I said. “Just moving slow.”

“Might be. The undergarment fellow was firmly liquored up. No doubt they’re all a flush lot.”

“They can’t see where the horses were picketed from where they are in the house there,” I said.

“No, they can’t.”

“Dumb of them.”

“It was,” Virgil said.

“Pussy will do that to a man.”

“It will.”

“Make a man do dumb things.”

“It does.”

“Like what they have done here tonight.”

“Yep,” Virgil said.

“Mix it with sour mash and whatever smidgen of smarts they had left, slips sideways, right out of the saddle.”

“Lookie here?” Virgil pointed.

A door opened from the front parlor. There was now light spilling into the back room. We could hear the music from the parlor and could see someone moving inside.

“Sounds like they’re still at it,” I said.

“Does.”

“They didn’t hear the shots.”

“Don’t seem so,” Virgil said.

“They got no idea.”

“Nope.”

“Unless it’s a trap.”

Virgil shook his head.

“No,” Virgil said. “They got no seesaw for that.”

The back door opened.

“Here we go,” Virgil said.

A strong-looking, smaller man stepped out onto the porch.

54

HE STAGGERED AS
he fumbled with the buttons below the buckle of his gun-belt then positioned himself next to the porch rail and relieved himself. Like the other young man I shot dead in the street, he was wearing his underwear, hat, boots and hip rig. He swayed a bit as he went about his business off the side of the porch. He looked down, watching himself, then jerked his head up, looked about at nothing in particular, and hollered.

“Rex! You fuck!”

He looked back down for a moment. Then he turned a bit, looking about, and took an unsteady step. He stabilized and continued to empty himself.

“. . . the fuck you go, boy?”

He looked down again, watching himself some more. Then looked up again, looking about.

“Rex!”

He finished relieving himself and put his instrument away. He swayed and leaned on the rail with both of his arms. He looked to his left.

“Rex! The fuck!”

He looked right.

“Boy! Where the fuck you go?”

He took a step back and a step over. He walked down the steps of the porch. He pulled up on his leather rig, snugging it up, and took a few wobbly steps away from the white house and stopped. He turned and turned again.

“Hey! You drunk fucker! Where’d you go!”

He looked toward the watershed.

“He’s gonna come,” Virgil said.

He did just that. He started walking toward the shed. We waited, and after a moment we heard him laugh as he got closer.

“Boy?”

He walked around the shed. I let him get a step past me, and I snatched him. I gathered him up quick and got his arms behind his back. Virgil took his pistol. He tried to resist. Virgil told him to settle, but he didn’t. Virgil slapped him hard a few times, and he went slack in my arms. I pulled him over, propped him up on the back wall of the shed. Virgil lodged his handkerchief into his mouth.

“I’ll get some rope,” I said.

In short order we snugged his hands behind his back, pigged them with a half-hitch strain to his feet, and left him curled up in the shed.

We made sure he was breathing good. Then Virgil and I moved up quick on the white house before Vince and the other bandit could grow curious. They were still singing and playing music as we commenced with our plan.

“I’ll come in the front door,” Virgil said. “Same time you come in from the back room into the parlor.”

We heard loud laughter followed by another tune being kicked up and sawed on a fiddle.

“Watch me,” Virgil said. “Once I’m up front, we count ten.”

“Okay.”

I stood next to the back porch and watched Virgil walk through the narrow opening between the white house and the building next door. When Virgil got to the front he looked back to me. He raised his arm and dropped it, signaling me.

I started counting to myself as I stepped over the railing and entered the back-room door. Thousand one . . . thousand two . . . thousand three . . . thousand four . . .

I stayed out of view of the half-open door leading into the front parlor . . . thousand five . . . thousand six . . . thousand seven . . . thousand eight . . . thousand nine . . . I pushed open the door and entered the parlor at the exact time Virgil came through the front.

“Nobody move!” Virgil shouted.

A big bald fellow sitting next to a whore at the piano got to his pistol kind of fast, and I shot him. The women screamed. He fumbled with his pistol like he was still trying to get a shot off, and I shot him two more times. He fell back onto the piano keys, making a dull thumping tune, and dropped to the floor between the bench and the piano pedals.

Vince was caught with his left arm around one whore and his right around the other. He jerked his right arm free and froze with his hand on the grip of his Colt.

“Don’t do it, Vince!” Virgil said.

Vince looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Quiet!” Virgil yelped to the ladies.

The women stopped whimpering.

“Far as I know, Vince, you’ve not killed anybody,” Virgil said.

Vince kept his hand on the handle of his pistol, looking back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Serve some time, live to an old age. Talk about the time you lost part of your ear on the rail north of Half Moon Junction, or you can end it right here, getting killed by me, or Everett, or both of us.”

Vince kept looking back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Rex is dead,” Virgil said. “The other hand is bundled up like a bale of alfalfa in the water shed.”

The bandage wrapped around Vince’s head was showing a spot of red.

“Be good to get you to the jailhouse,” Virgil said. “Lock you up. ’Course, it’s your call.”

Vince knew he was done up, and he did not like it. Not one bit. If there was betting going on, I would put money on him doing something stupid, but his cowardliness got the best of him. He removed his hand from his pistol and hung his arm back over the shoulder of the woman on his right. He let his bandaged head go back and rest on the top of the sofa. I moved to him and removed the Colt from his belt. I handed the pistol to Virgil and gathered Vince by the buttons of his long johns and jerked him to his feet.

55

WE WOKE UP
Constable Berkeley. He came to the jailhouse with one of his deputies, J. B. Larson, a young fellow with a big wad of tobacco in his mouth, and they got the place opened up for us. The jailhouse was a two-room structure with an office on one side and two cells on the other. Thick double doors that remained wide open divided the office and cells. We got Vince and the smaller bandit locked up, each in his own cell.

I walked back in the front door from taking care of the horses, and Virgil was still sitting in a cane-back chair in front of Vince’s cell with the Henry rifle resting in his lap. He was doing the same thing he was doing when I had stepped out, questioning Vince. Deputy Larson was asleep in a corner chair, and Berkeley was yawning wide as he stirred a pot of boiling coffee.

I walked over behind the main desk and took a seat in what looked like a comfortable chair, but when I sat on the cushion I felt Bob’s parfleche pouch under my butt. I freed the long strap from my shoulder, put the pouch on the desk, and let my butt settle into the cushioned seat. I put my leg over the edge of the desk and seriously thought about sleep. Vince and Virgil were both visible from where I was sitting.

Vince was sitting on the bunk with his elbows resting on his knees, looking at the floor. I could tell he was tired of Virgil’s questioning. Before I had stepped out, Vince had told Virgil everything he knew about the Yankee, and what he said pretty much matched what Dean had told us.

“So why did the Yankee target you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were in Wichita Falls, playing Seven-Up at the Bluebell Pool Palace and the Yankee asked you to be a part of this robbery?”

“It came up I was a train hand. I told him I worked as a brakeman. I worked for a couple of different railways, Union Pacific being the main line, but got laid off after the air brakes took over.”

Virgil looked at me and back to Vince.

“George Westinghouse.”

“That’s right,” Vince said disgustingly with his Irish brogue. “The Yankee said he had a job and he needed somebody that was familiar with trains.”

“Why was it you set the Pullman on fire?”

“I didn’t.”

“Who did?”

“The other fellow.”

“Who?”

“I never met him before.”

“But you met him tonight?”

Vince nodded.

“He was?”

“Bob Brandice. He got on, boarded with the Yankee. Bob’s a mean son of a bitch.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Vince said. “He’s a mean son of a bitch. That is why.”

“Why’d he set the Pullman on fire?”

“He threw a damn lantern. The fire kicked off quick.”

“Why?”

Vince shook his head.

“He was mad I would not stop the coaches from rolling backward.”

“Why was he mad?”

“When I knew we had you and Everett to deal with, I was not about to go back looking for the Yankee who double-crossed us. But when it came out, when I said your name, when I said Virgil Cole, Bob got angry. He insisted we stop.”

“And you wouldn’t.”

“Hell, no, I wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“So I would not have to see you or Everett Hitch. Hell, it would be all right with me if I never saw the two of you ever again, including right now.”

Virgil looked at me and smiled.

56

BERKELEY PULLED THE
coffeepot from the stove. He poured cups and handed them around. The first cups he passed through the bars to Vince and the other prisoner. They both looked at the coffee like it might be poisoned.

“Just coffee, boys,” Berkeley said.

Berkeley poured more cups. He gave one to Virgil, then me. He kicked the chair where Larson was sleeping. Larson looked about, wondering what happened, and Berkeley handed him a cup.

“Nap’s over,” Berkeley said.

Virgil sipped on his coffee for a moment, then continued questioning Vince.

“So, Brandice wanted to stop, why?”

“He wanted to come after you.”

“He told you that?” Virgil said.

“Oh, yeah, he did,” Vince said. “He damn sure did. He said he had bloody plans for you. Not Hitch.”

Vince looked over to me and back to Virgil.

“Just you. He said he was going to cut you into pieces. He went into detail how he would go about it, too. He’s an animal, and judging from what I saw, he was not just whistling a waltz.”

Virgil looked at me and smiled a bit and looked back to Vince.

Vince continued, “He told me to brake the cars from rolling backward or else. I said, or else what? And he came at me like a bit dog. He cocked his rifle, but big Woodfin was fast. He grabbed the rifle and hit him so hard he went down in a clump.”

I was looking at Virgil. He looked to me, then back to Vince.

Vince was looking at the floor.

“And Woodfin?”

Vince stayed looking at the floor for a moment before lifting his eyes back to Virgil.

“I told Woodfin to keep an eye on him. I had Rex, big Butch, and Eddie here”—Vince pointed to the smaller fellow in the cell next to him—“working the brakes in the other cars. We was rolling for a good long while, and after some time I came back to the Pullman. Woodfin had Bob at gunpoint, by the uphill door. When I came back in through the door, Woodfin looked to me, and when he did, Bob, real fast-like, spun around on Woodfin and in a second had a knife to Woodfin’s throat. I went for my Colt, but Bob said he’d cut Woodfin if I touched the Colt. Woodfin still had Bob’s Henry rifle in his hands. Bob told Woodfin to let go of the rifle. But instead of letting go of the rifle, Woodfin just slung the rifle out the door, and when he did Bob cut Woodfin’s throat,” Vince paused looking at Virgil. “He just cut Woodfin’s throat. I never seen anything like that, just cut his goddamn throat and flipped him off the rail. I went for my Colt, and when I did Bob slung the conductor’s lantern at me. I shot, but I don’t think I hit him. Next thing I knew, he was off and the Pullman was on fire. He’s a mean son of a bitch.”

“Then what?”

“I told the governor to get his wife and get into the back car. That is exactly what happened, and within a short time the cars started to go real slow. I disconnected the Pullman, and after a few moments we were stopped, just stopped.”

“Then what?”

“I told the governor, all the people, to stay put in the cars. Give us time to get going, and then they could do what they needed to do.”

Virgil looked at Vince, who was now looking at Virgil, nodding.

“I’m telling the truth.”

Virgil stood up to close the heavy doors between the cell and the office.

“Ask the governor, he’ll tell you.”

I figured Vince was telling the truth, and so did Virgil, but for whatever reason Vince felt his routine was deserving of some sympathy or acknowledgment, but Virgil was not about to oblige Vince in any way. Virgil just closed the doors.

“That’s the truth!” Vince said as the doors closed with a thud.

57

VIRGIL SET THE
stock of the Henry rifle on the floor and leaned the barrel on the edge of the desk.

“That sounds right,” Berkeley said. “What he was saying is pretty much what the governor said. At least in respect to how the fire started, anyway.”

“Might well be,” Virgil said. “Hard to say what is what with boys like Vince. With a lifetime of lying, they don’t know when they’re even doing it.”