Butch Cassidy the Lost Years (17 page)

CHAPTER 28

I
lay stretched out beside a greasewood bush on top of the ridge, with the edge of the bank about four feet in front of me. The sun was high in the brassy sky above me, and even though the season hadn't turned to summer yet, that big blazing ball packed plenty of heat. I wouldn't have wanted to lay out here all day.

Luckily, I didn't have to. The train was coming. I could already hear its faint rumble in the distance.

In the two days just past, we had gone over the plan more than a dozen times, talking it through until everybody knew exactly where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. Enoch and Gabe were cool as they could be about the whole thing, making me more convinced than ever that they had done things like this before. I knew they were convinced that the same was true about me.

Santiago, Javier, and Fernando were pretty calm, too. I doubted if they had ever robbed a train before, but they might have driven some wet cattle across from Mexico. I hadn't asked Santiago how they had stocked their ranch, and he hadn't told me. For all I knew they had rustled some of Abner Tillotson's beeves, although I sort of doubted that.

That left Vince and Bert, and those two were nervous as cats but trying to control it. I was confident that once everything got started they would be all right, but there was no way of knowing that until the time came.

Randy was back at the Fishhook. If anybody showed up looking for me or any of the others, he would tell them that we were out on the range and that he didn't know exactly where to find us. Of course, if somebody wanted to search the whole spread they could do it, but I doubted if anybody would go to that much trouble. Besides, I wasn't expecting visitors.

The rails down in the cut began to hum. I could hear the sound even on top of the bank. The hum grew louder, and so did the rumble of the locomotive.

I kept my head down. I didn't think the engineer was likely to spot me on the other side of the greasewood bush, but I wore brown trousers and a tan shirt to help me blend into the ground. A low-crowned brown hat lay beside me.

The ground vibrated under me as the train entered the cut. It was easy to tell when the engine passed my position because of the terrible racket and the shaking. The clattering of the wheels on the rails was almost deafening.

I counted off a couple of beats before I lifted my head. The engine and the coal tender were past me. The first of a long string of boxcars rattled by. Behind the boxcars were three passenger cars, then the express car, and finally the caboose.

I came up on hands and knees, grabbed the hat, jammed it on my head, and tightened the chin strap. Then I pulled up the gray bandanna I wore so that it covered the lower half of my face and made sure the knot was tight on it, too.

There were still half a dozen boxcars to go when I surged to my feet. The blood pounding in my head sounded almost as loud as the train. It had been a long time since I'd done something like this. Too damned long, I told myself.

There are certain things in life that each man is cut out for, and they're different for everyone.

This was one of the things I'd been born to do.

Timing my jump, I waited for the next gap between cars to roll past below and in front of me. I took a deep breath as it did so, then launched into a short running jump that took me off the edge of the bank and sent me flying out over the cut. Once I was in midair, the top of the boxcar suddenly looked a lot narrower than it ought to. For a bad split-second I thought I had jumped too hard and was going to overshoot the car and fall into the deadly gap between it and the cutbank.

I didn't, of course. An instant later my feet hit smack-dab in the middle of the boxcar roof.

I twisted my body as I fell to my knees so that I would stay roughly in the center of the roof. I let myself go all the way to my belly and spread my arms. For a moment I just laid there stretched out on top of the boxcar, letting the rhythm of its rocking motion seep up into my body. When I climbed to my feet, I had adjusted to that motion and it didn't throw me off balance.

A quick slap of my hand against my right hip told me the Remington was still in its holster. The strap I'd rigged on it had kept the gun in place. I left the strap fastened for the moment since I still had some more jumping to do.

With their flatter roofs, boxcars were easier to move around on than passenger cars, although I'd done that, too, in the past. I trotted toward the front of this one and built up some speed so it wasn't too difficult to jump from it to the next car in line. When I landed on it I didn't go to my knees or even crouch, just kept moving instead.

They say that once you learn how to ride a bicycle, you never forget. I guess that robbing trains is something like that, because it all came back to me in a hurry. I didn't waste any time getting to the front of the train. On a long straight stretch like this, still well out of town, the brakies wouldn't have any reason to climb up where they could spot me, but you never knew when the engineer or fireman might take it into his head to look around.

The trickiest part was when I got to the coal tender and had to climb down the grab bars on the front of the first boxcar and swing over to the little ledge that ran along the outside of the tender. The engine and the boxcars were out of the cut by then, although the passenger cars, express car, and caboose were still rolling along between the banks.

I held my breath while I made the switch to the tender. The ledge was only about six inches wide, but that was enough. I reached up, grasped the top of the side wall, and started edging toward the front. I wanted to get to the engine cab before we passed the wash where the rest of the bunch was waiting, but I supposed if I didn't, it wouldn't matter too much. They could catch up to us.

When I reached the front of the tender, it was easy enough to swing around the corner and step into the cab. Just as I did that, the fireman was about to reach through the door with his shovel and dig it into the coal. Instead, when he saw me he reacted fast, not even stopping to gape at me for a second before he swung the shovel at my head.

I ducked and let it go over me. While I was crouched like that, I flicked the strap off the Remington with my thumb and drew the long-barreled revolver. The fireman was going to try for me again with the backswing, but he froze when he saw me angling the gun up toward him.

“Drop it!” I ordered, shouting over the noise of the engine. That was the first warning the engineer had that his cab had been invaded. His head jerked around toward me. I was far enough away from both of them that I could cover them at the same time.

Disgustedly, the fireman threw his shovel to the floor with a clatter and glared at me.

“You can't be robbing this train!” he said. “People don't rob trains anymore!”

I had to smile under the bandanna.

“You're wrong about that, old son,” I told him. “That's exactly what I'm doin'.” I nodded to the engineer and went on, “Go ahead and stop the train.”

“I won't do it!” he said. In fact, he lunged for the throttle to make it go faster.

I fired from the hip, sending the bullet between them. It smashed one of the gauges. That was a lucky break, because I'd intended to bust up all the gauges anyway before we rode off. That was one I wouldn't have to break with my gun butt.

The shot made the engineer jerk his hand away from the throttle. I said, “I think you were reachin' for the brake.”

He sighed. I could see the reaction, even though I couldn't hear it. He took hold of the brake and hauled back on it.

With a shriek of metal against metal, the train began to slow. I could see the wash now, coming up fast. The train shuddered and lurched and came to a halt less than a hundred yards past it.

The rest of the boys had already started running out of the wash. I heard the sharp crack of a shot from somewhere back along the train. Conductors were usually armed. I figured the one belonging to this train had spotted the fellas and realized what was going on.

Return fire came from the tall scarecrow I knew was Enoch. I hoped he was aiming high or low, so the promise I'd made to Vince about nobody being killed wouldn't be broken. But I couldn't blame Enoch for defending his own life and the lives of his friends.

“This is crazy!” the engineer said. “We're not carrying anything special.”

“That's all right,” I told him. “Bound to be something worthwhile in the express car.”

But what if there wasn't, I suddenly asked myself. What if we'd risked our lives for nothing?

It was too late to call it off now. I motioned with the Remington's barrel and said, “Both of you get down on the floor. Move!”

They did what I told them, stretching out face down with their arms over their heads. They couldn't move very fast from that position.

The shooting from the rear of the train had stopped. I leaned out from the cab and glanced in that direction. Gabe was hurrying toward me, huffing and blowing. I hoped his ticker wouldn't give out on him.

I couldn't see Enoch or any of the vaqueros. They were probably inside the train already.

Gabe climbed into the cab and stood there for a second, bent over with his hands braced on his thighs. I asked him, “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” he said between puffs. “Just been a while . . . since I done anything like this.”

I waited until he had caught his breath and drawn his gun. Then I nodded to him and swung down from the cab.

Enoch had the conductor and a couple of brakemen out of the caboose and was prodding them forward along the tracks. He stopped next to the express car and waited for me to join them. When I got there I saw that the conductor had his bloody right hand cradled against the chest of his blue uniform jacket. Looked like Enoch had blown a hole through it.

“Before you say anything,” Enoch spoke up, “he ventilated his own hand. Reckon he ain't used to handlin' a gun.”

“Well, why would I be?” the conductor asked in an aggravated tone. “Nobody robs trains these days. This isn't the Wild West anymore!”

“That's where you're wrong, amigo,” I told him. “The Wild West never dies. It just goes to sleep for a while.”

He glared at me and didn't make any reply to that. I went to the door of the express car and hammered on it with the butt of my gun.

“Open up in there!” I yelled. “We got the conductor and the brakemen out here, and if you don't open that door I'll start shootin' 'em in about a minute!”

I didn't really plan to shoot anybody, but sometimes that threat worked. Sometimes you had to tell the express messenger you were fixing to blow the door off the car with dynamite. I've also threatened to run the car off the tracks into a ravine so that it'll bust open with the messenger still inside it. One time I actually had to dynamite the door. It made a mess, though, and I didn't want to do that again. Besides, I didn't have any dynamite.

The conductor sighed and shouted, “Open up, Carl! Looks like the Wild Bunch rides again!”

That made me give him a sharp look, but he didn't seem to mean anything by it. He was just disgusted and mad and hurting from that wounded hand. He probably thought he was being a little sarcastic.

From inside the express car, a muffled voice said, “But Mr. Newby—”

“Just do what I told you,” the conductor said. “I'll take the responsibility for it.”

A few more seconds went by, and then I heard the door being unfastened inside. It rolled back, revealing a young man awkwardly holding a rifle. I didn't give him a chance to figure out where to point it. I reached up, grabbed the barrel, and hauled the rifle out of the car, bringing the messenger with it. He let out a startled cry on his way to thudding down on the gravel at the edge of the tracks.

“Son, you're lucky I'm not in a killin' mood today,” I told him as I handed the rifle to Enoch, who took it with his left hand while keeping everybody covered with the gun in his right.

The messenger was almost crying as he lay there on the ground. He said, “You don't understand. I'll lose my job over this!”

“Settle down,” the conductor chided him. “There's nothing all that valuable in there.”

Some instinct told me he was wrong. I hunkered on my heels next to the messenger and let the Remington's muzzle rest against his cheek.

“I've got a hunch Mr. Newby here doesn't know what he's talking about, Carl,” I said. “Is there somethin' in the safe he don't know about?”

Before the young man could answer, Newby puffed up and glowered and said, “There damned well better not be. Nobody ships anything on my train without telling me!”

“Carl.” I tapped his cheek with the gun barrel. “What's in there?”

He burst out, “The payroll for one of the mines across the border down in Mexico! It's more'n eight thousand dollars!”

Newby started cussing a blue streak. I grinned, took the gun away, and patted Carl's cheek with my left hand instead.

“That's a good boy,” I said. “Now climb back in there and open the safe.”

“I . . . I . . .”

“Don't bother tellin' me you can't. I know you can.”

He didn't have it in him to be stubborn, not with that gun so close to his face. He got to his feet, and we climbed into the express car.

Banks, mining companies, rich ranchers, anybody who has to ship a lot of money, they tried all sort of things to get the loot safely to where it was going. Sometimes they put on a bunch of extra guards. Sometimes they used decoy shipments. Sometimes they tried to slip it in and out without anybody knowing except a small handful of people.