Jailbreak (23 page)

When he was beside me, sitting on the roof of the caboose, I said, “I want you to make your way up to the cab of the locomotive. Well, not really the locomotive. I want you to stand in the middle of the coal tender where I can see you and where you can see me. When I wave at you I want you to count ten and then yell at Lew to cut the power on the train. Slow her down.”

He gave me a blank look. “Lew?”

“Yeah. He’s running the train.”

“Lew?”

I said, “Look, I ain’t got time to explain. Just go and do what I tell you. I’m going to be at the end of this caboose, on one of them little ladders. I’ll be looking back at you. You see me wave, you count ten to give me time to do my business and then you tell Lew to shut down the throttle. He might also put on a little brake. Now go on. And hurry up about it.”

He said, “What is this all about, Justa?”

I said, “If I felt like explaining I would have already done it. Now go on and do like you’re told. And be careful making your way up to the locomotive. The tops of these cars ain’t exactly as steady as a hay wagon.”

He crawled off, on hands and knees, going reluctantly, but going nevertheless. I made my own way back to the end of the caboose and let myself down until I was standing over the coupling. It was the same as the rest. After I’d given it a good study I climbed back up the ladder and took a look down the tracks toward the border. If my figuring had been correct it wasn’t going to be no hell of a long time before that express came in sight.

Like I’d said, the terrain had fallen off and it was pretty much downhill toward the Rio Grande. I was counting on that. I was counting on that a good deal.

I ducked my head down to stay out of the wind and lit a cigarillo. I’d had my hat jammed down so hard on my head to keep it from blowing off that I was starting to get a headache. I loosened it, lifting it up to where it generally sat. Then I raised back up to take a peer down the tracks. A gust of wind hit me with sudden force and my hat went sailing off. For a minute I swore some mighty oaths, words I wouldn’t have wanted my mother to hear me say. I looked back, thinking it might have caught somewhere on the train, but it was gone. A damn good fifty-dollar hat, gone with the wind. I added it, mentally, to Norris’s debt.

Then when I looked again down the tracks I thought I could see a little bit of smoke in the air. I looked back. I could see Ben standing up in the coal tender. It was going to call for a nice bit of timing.

When I came back to the direction we were heading I could see the smoke more distinctly. I reckoned it to be some seven or eight miles away. We were closing at a pretty good clip. It wasn’t going to be long. When I judged the distance to be no more than four miles I turned around on the little ladder and gave Ben a wave. Then I climbed down to the coupling. I took a deep breath and took hold of the rod I hoped would sever the tie between the cars. I waited. The instant I felt us slowing I pulled on the rod and the caboose separated from the next car. I could hear the slight squeal as Lew applied the brakes. I looked north. The caboose, aided by the helpful downslope, was leaving us like a redheaded stepchild. I watched it go, just hoping the engineer of the express would see it in time to apply his brakes and begin backing to avoid a collision. I estimated we were about twelve miles outside of Nuevo Laredo.

I watched. I could clearly see the express beyond the caboose that was bearing down on them. I saw the smoke from his exhaust suddenly change from white to black as the engineer reversed power and direction. He’d seen his trouble, all right. I climbed back up the ladder and signaled to Ben for Lew to pour on the power. Then I went up the ladder of the cattle car and went on hands and knees down to the couplings between the next two cars. I had him backing up and I didn’t intend to give him any rest.

I waited, watching, to see what he would do. The engineer was retreating from that caboose like it was a wave of scalding water. I figured to give him a little more to think about. I got up on the ladder of the car behind me and waved to Ben. Then I descended and pulled out the connecting rod and sent that express engineer a load of high-priced crossbred Texas cattle. It went careening away, going even faster than the caboose because the slope was even further down. After that I worked my way back to the next car.

Each time I would release a car Lew would slow the train, giving the car momentum to leave us. Then he’d pour back on the steam. That express was backing up as fast as it could. I knew it was a passenger train and I reckoned the engineer didn’t want to kill his passengers, much less ruin all that rolling stock of the Mexican railroads. I’d figured jobs weren’t that easy to come by in Mexico and that the job of an engineer was too important to risk.

I kept backing him up, releasing cars one at a time, until I could see the houses and buildings of Nuevo Laredo. I let Lew go on a couple of miles further and then I signaled him, through Ben, to stop. I had damn near backed that express all the way back to where he’d come from, but I didn’t want him to get into the station where he could put out an alarm for the soldiers or the police.

When Lew finally got the train stopped I figured we were about a mile from the Rio Grande. I jumped down and ran back to the only cattle car that was left, throwed open the door and began urging everyone to hurry. Hays and Norris and Ben and the
vaqueros
of Señor Elizandro got the horses off and got them cinched up and ready to ride.

I said, “We ain’t got a minute to spare. We got to move!”

Everyone got mounted and then Miguel’s two men helped him into the saddle. I went up beside his horse. I said, “Señor, you have to hold on for a little while. Then you will be all right. Can you do it?”

He was white-faced and sweating, swaying in the saddle. “Yes,” he said. “I will do it.”

I said, “We will have to go fast to cross the border before they can intercept us.”

He said, “Go as fast as you have to. I will be with you.”

I looked at his two men. I said, “Hold him in the saddle.”

They didn’t understand a word I said, but they nodded.

I swung aboard my own tired horse. We started due north at a lope. I was not going to be caught now. Lew caught up with me after a half a mile. He said, “That was one hell of a trick. That one with the railroad cars. Where’d you learn that?”

I said, grimly, “By trying to make a wedding on time.”

We splashed across the river in good style, all nine of us. Señor Elizandro was wobbling a little in his saddle but, with the help of his two men, he kept up. We hit Texas soil, finally, and I swear there come a sigh of relief out of all of us you could have heard to Oklahoma. We’d made a hard run since we’d left the train so I stopped in the shade of some willow trees along the riverbank to give the horses a bit of a blow. Ben came up and said, “Boy, it is going to be good to get home. Reckon what time that next train is?”

I said, “Hate to disappoint you but we still got a little work left to do.”

He gave me a startled look. He said, “What work?”

I said, “You’ll find out.”

We rode on into Laredo. I badly wanted a bath, a drink and a bed, in no particular order, but I had to get Jack Cole and Miguel Elizandro seen to. We rode straight to the little infirmary they had there. The surgeon that was on duty took one look at Miguel and had him rushed back to a bed. He examined Jack but wasn’t that concerned. He said, “Whoever put these drainage rags in here has either had a hell of a lot of experience or got lucky.”

I said, “I just got lucky.”

He gave me a thin smile. “Never seen a gunshot wound before?”

I said, “Not me. I’m just a simple cattleman.”

He kept Jack, too. But since Jack lived in Laredo it wasn’t no big deal.

The surgeon was going to operate on Miguel Johnny Quick so I walked back to bid him adieu. I figured he didn’t have any money, him just coming out of jail, so I leafed off about a hundred dollars in pesos, that being the bulk of the money I had, Mexican money, and laid it beside his pillow. He was looking mighty thin and drawn but he put up a hand to shake mine. He said, “I have plenty of money. All I have to do is wire Mexico City.”

I said, “Well, pay me back when you can. Half-Moon Ranch, Blessing, Texas. Come on down if you ever get the chance.”

He said, “I owe you a great deal.”

I shook my head. “Naw. You paid me back when you faced Benito down. I helped break you out of jail; you saved several killings. I figure we’re even.”

He said, “But you still have my thanks. I will see you as soon as I can get rid of this business.” He nodded his head toward his left shoulder.

I said, “They got stuff here they can give you that will kill the pain. Laudanum and such. I’m just sorry I couldn’t have helped you more on the trail. I know it must have been a hell of a hard time for you.”

He said, “Someday you may need a friend in Mexico. You know who that will be.”

“Get well,” I said. I wasn’t much for them parting kind of talks. “Come on up to Blessing and we’ll cut a watermelon.”

We headed for the Hamilton Hotel. The boy outside took our horses around to the stables in the back. I had left Elizandro’s two men with him at the infirmary, but just looking at Lew and Hays and Ben and Norris, I had some idea of how I must have looked and none of them had been shoveling coal. We went trooping into the lobby, going past curious stares like they’d never seen a bunch of cattlemen who’d just outrun the Mexican police. The desk clerk on duty didn’t recognize me. I told him I wanted two big suites and everyone of us wanted to book a bath and to make it damn fast. I also said we wanted five steak dinners sent up with several bottles of their best whiskey.

He cleared his throat. I’d been staying at that hotel longer than I wanted to remember. The clerk was one of them starched, high-collared individuals I never cared for. Or maybe I was just feeling giddy after all the trouble we’d had. I said, “Ben, put one right between his eyes. He ain’t moving fast enough to suit me. Shoot him and maybe the manager will send one out here that will be a little more cooperative.”

Ben didn’t actually pull his revolver, but the clerk looked like he was near to fainting. About that time the manager, whom I’d known for some time, came out. He said, “Well, Mr. Williams, looks like you’ve been on the trail for some time. Jenkins taking care of you all right?”

I said, “We were about to shoot him, but I reckon that won’t be necessary now.”

Well, you never saw a desk clerk get so busy in all your life. It was “Yessir!” every time he opened his mouth. When he’d cleared his throat I’d figured he was going to tell us he didn’t have any rooms left or that we would have to pay in advance. But all that suddenly got changed. He didn’t even ask me to sign the register.

There was a big clock on the wall behind the desk. It read going on for five o’clock. I asked this Jenkins, this desk clerk, “What’s the date? The date of the month?”

He said, “Why, Mr. Williams, it’s the ninth. The ninth of June.”

I just stood there. There wasn’t another damn thing I could say. Finally I turned away from the desk and started up the stairs to my suite on the second floor. The saddlebags I was carrying over my shoulder seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. It was my wedding day. I was supposed to have been married that afternoon at four o’clock. I was fifty minutes late and two hundred miles away.

As we started to head up the stairs I turned around to Ben. I said, “Go buy me some clothes. Shirts and jeans and some socks.”

He turned around without a word and went back down the stairs. Ben could buy clothes for me because he was an exact size smaller than me. He didn’t say anything because he knew what June 9 was. He knew it was my wedding day and he also knew how Nora was going to feel about me not being there.

Norris passed me without a word. Wasn’t much he could say. I said, “Hays, you room in with me. Lew and Ben and Norris will take the other place.”

They brought my bath pretty pronto. I peeled off the clothes that I’d seemed to have been wearing since I was born. I gave them to the two boys that were handling the bath and told them to burn them or sell them or give them away. The only thing I kept was my belt. I give them two dollars and they kept bringing up hot water until I was nearly back to normal. I couldn’t have sworn to it, but it seemed like my body just sucked up the water out of that tub.

After I felt like I was good and clean I got up and shaved. The boys were right there with hot water. Hays just sat and watched me. He said, “What are you going to do, boss?”

I said, “First I’m going to kill Norris. Then I’m going to try and get Nora to understand and forgive me.”

“Reckon she will?”

I washed my razor off in the basin of hot water and gave him a look. “After all the times I’ve let her down? Would
you
forgive me?”

“Well,” he said, “reckon if I knowed all the facts I might.”

“But you ain’t a woman.”

He said, “Yes, that do make a difference.”

I said, “Hays, just shut up. You ain’t doing me one damn bit of good.”

Ben arrived about then carrying my new clothes. I got dressed. I said, “Y’all just sit steady until I get back. I don’t want this bunch getting scattered. And pass the word next door.”

I left the hotel and walked about three blocks to the telegraph office at the railroad station. It took me quite a while to figure out the wording, but I finally wrote:

I sent it and then I walked back to the hotel hoping. She’d have it within the half hour. If she understood and was willing to forgive me I’d have an answer within two or three hours. Of course I knew she’d have to sit down and think about it and discuss it with her mother. I also knew all about those guests, some of whom would have come a hundred miles for the wedding. I reckoned she was angry and I didn’t blame her. And I reckoned she was embarrassed in the bargain. June 9 at four o’clock had come and gone and there’d been no bridegroom there. I reckoned she was mad and angry and embarrassed and on the warpath for my scalp.

The steaks came up not long after I got back to the room. There was no dining table but I reckoned by then the desk clerk had figured out who we were and had one sent along. He also sent two waiters to stand behind us and take our orders like we was real gentry. Hays just ate it up like it was pie, but I kept warning him not to get used to such treatment.

Everybody had bathed and put on fresh clothes, some store-bought new, some clean out of their saddlebags. Even Norris had somehow managed to find himself a seersucker suit from some shop in town. It did, however, not quite fit him after the poor feeding he’d got in the Mexican jail and then on our run across the desert. But I was in no mood to josh with him. As far as I was concerned he might have lost me Nora, and if that was the case, he was in more trouble than he’d ever been in in his life.

Ben took a big drink of iced water and said, with some satisfaction, “I was beginning to believe that this was something I’d just dreamed up. I never thought of ever having it again.”

I said, “Little brother, them was some fine shots you made at those telegraph lines. I don’t know anybody else could have done it.”

He said, “Oh, yeah? Why don’t you tell that to Buttercup when we get home. And speaking of that, when are we going home?”

I looked directly at Norris. I said, “Why, I reckon when we’ve got the business tended to we came down here to get tended to.”

Norris just looked down at his plate and didn’t say anything.

But, naturally, Ray Hays had to pop off. He said, sounding just as innocent as you please, “But hell, boss, I thought the main part of our bid’ness was to get Norris out of jail. Hell, we done done that.”

I was looking at Norris, who still wouldn’t look back at me, but I said, “Shut up, Ray.”

It was kind of a dreary supper, nobody saying much. This wasn’t one of them kind of situations where anybody come out the winner. The initial effort had just been one of trying to hold on to something that already belonged to us. And we’d spent a lot of time and money doing that and I couldn’t say for sure, even at that point, that I had it in my back pocket.

So there was nobody exactly suggesting we go out dancing. Besides, I had Nora on my mind. I kept waiting for a knock on the door with an answer to my telegram but it didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen.

Then Hays decided he would lighten the mood by telling us of one of his boyhood experiences. He done that from time to time whether we wanted him to or not. He started off by saying, “I ever tell y’all about my days on my daddy’s ranch up in the panhandle? One we couldn’t run but about one head of cattle to the hundred acre the land was so poor?”

Ben said, sourly, “Yeah, you told us.”

We were all still pretty dried-up and disgusted from that trip across the desert.

But you couldn’t head Hays off once he felt a story coming on. He said, “Y’all knowed that if any of us boys ever let the sun come up and find us not working, ol’ Dad would take a strop to our backs.”

Ben said, “Goddammit, Hays, we know. You’ve told us about twenty different versions of how hard you had it.”

Hays would not be stopped. “But did I ever tell you that I was so used to goin’ to work before the sun got up that the first time I tried to saddle a horse in the daylight I couldn’t do it. I had to shut my eyes.”

Ben said, “Oh, what a liar. ”

Hays kept insisting. He said, “Truth be told, it’s a fact. I was goin’ to my uncle Art’s funeral and I was seventeen years old at the time and I’d never saddled a horse where I could see, you know, not after the sun got up.”

Ben said, “Hays, you keep this up I’m going to throw you out that window over yonder.”

I said, with a little more edge in my voice than I meant, “You both shut up. I got to figure out about tomorrow.”

Lew said, “What’s tomorrow?”

“Job of work,” I said.

I was moody and blue about Nora, but I was also determined to finish the job that had brought me to the border in the first place. I said, making damn sure Norris could hear me, “We got to run them squatters off that big, important five thousand acres that all this bullshit was about.”

Well, that fetched him. He got his chin up and said, “You’ve got the paper now, the title you flaunted in my face. I assume that you’ll do something lawful for a change. All you have to do is take it to the sheriff. After that it’s his affair.”

I said, as sarcastically as I could, “Well, by God, now he knows all about how to handle this business. Reckon why that couldn’t have been so ten days ago. Maybe you’re a slow learner, huh Norris?”

He started getting red in the face, but Ben said, “C’mon Justa, we all know how you feel, but that ain’t going to do a damn bit of good.”

Norris suddenly got up without a word, not even bothering to pick up his hat, and walked out of the room. Ben said, “See what I mean? I know he’s got plenty coming and he was in the wrong, but he ain’t exactly had no easy time of it. Justa, he’s family. You got to give him a little breathing room. You don’t know you’ve lost Nora yet. Wait until we get home.”

I didn’t bother to even answer him. I just finished my steak, had a drink of whiskey and went down to the lobby to inquire at the desk if a telegram had come for me. The now oh-so-eager Mr. Jenkins said it hadn’t come but as soon as it did they’d get it to me if they had to look all over town.

Well, I still had hope. Only a couple of hours had passed since she would have gotten mine and I knew there would have to be a certain amount of delay while she decided how much punishment I ought to have.

It was just coming dark as I walked out on the street and set out to find a little diversion. I walked along the boardwalk. The town was full of folks, most of them, naturally, being of Spanish extraction. Now and again I got jostled or bumped and I found my temper rising unreasonably. I am normally a pretty steady fellow, but I felt raw and on edge and it was all I could do to keep from turning around and knocking hell out of some poor little man who’d accidentally brushed up against me.