The Cowpuncher (2 page)

The old man clucked sympathetically and tactfully changed the subject.

“What’d you take in college?”

“Mining engineering,” Huck replied. “Didn’t do more than get started, though.”

“Foller it up any since you left school?”

“Some—not as much as I wish I had. But you know how it is—range work sorta gets into a feller’s blood, particular if you happen to be brought up to it—and you let other things slide. It’s sorta contenting to have a good horse between your legs and a white moon up in the sky and the range rolling away toward the end of the world…”

The old man nodded. “Uh-huh, jest ‘nother form o’ the ‘open road.’ Takes you ‘way from the things sober-minded folks consider to be all what’s wuth-while.”

They reached the railroad yards as the blue dusk was rolling over the prairie city like the windblown smoke from a thousand campfires. The old man quickened the pace as he sighted a long freight train standing up on a make-up track. Its headlight was gleaming, the blower was thundering and black smoke was pouring from the engine’s stubby stack. The switchlight to the main lead glowed green.

“All ready to pull out,” the old man muttered. “That’s my train, son, we gotta hustle. C’mon, and I’ll show you where yore rattler is corralled. She won’t leave until after this westbound is outa the yards.”

As they loped along beside the train, a big, hardfaced man suddenly stepped from between the cars. He had a rat-trap mouth and beady sullen eyes. His square, bulky body blocked their progress.

“Where you ‘bo’s think you’re goin’?” he demanded in a voice that sounded like a sick bull’s bellow.

The old man answered soothingly:

“Jest takin’ a shortcut through the yards, officer. We—”

“Shortcut, hell!” the railroad detective snorted. He spat brown juice at their feet.

The old man started to speak again, but the bull lashed out with a vicious blow that caught him full in the mouth. The old man reeled back, clutching at the side of the boxcar for support.

“Get outa my yard, and stay out!” the bull roared. He drew back his fist a second time, and took a lumbering step forward.

With the smooth swiftness of a released spring, Huck Brannon went into action. He glided in front of the old man and blocked the railroad detective’s swinging blow before it had travelled six inches. His left hand, balled into knuckles like iron knobs, came clear up from his knee. They smacked against the angle of the bull’s jaw like a butcher’s cleaver on a side of beef.

To the old ‘bo, still dazed by the blow he had taken, it seemed as if the bull had suddenly sprouted wings. His feet left the ground and his blocky body rocketed through the air with all the grace of a cow gamboling with its calf. He hit the ground with a wallowing thud and his head snapped back against the projecting end of a crosstie. After a single twitching shudder he lay still, blood gushing from his lacerated scalp.

“G—good God, son, you’ve killed him!” the old man gasped.

“Reckon not,” Huck said quietly. “Not with him bleeding like that.”

He bent over the bull, thrust a sinewy hand under his coat and felt the solid thumping of a normally functioning heart.

“Can’t kill his kind with anything short of a shovel or a pick handle,” he growled, his gray eyes
narrowing slightly as his groping hand contacted cold metal. “We’d better be moving before he gets his senses back enough to go for that hogleg he’s wearing under his arm.”

The old man’s teeth chattered with apprehension. “They’ll be another one close,” he panted. “They allus work in pairs. We gotta get outa here ‘fore they ketch us. It’ll mean six months on the rock pile, if nothin’ wuss.”

His voice was suddenly drowned by the staccato notes of a whistle blowing two short ones, and the clangor of a locomotive’s bell. The string of cars beside them creaked and groaned, there was a clang-jangle of couplings, a rattle of brake rigging. Then, from the far side of the slowly moving train, somebody shouted questioningly.

“That’ll be his pardner,” the old man whispered hoarsely. “He’ll be comin’ over here lookin’ for him in a minute. C’mon, son, you gotta ketch this rattler with me. It ain’t goin’ the way you wanta head, but you’ll get to Texas a damn sight faster by way of Colorado than by way of the K.C. jailhouse!”

Up at the head end of the long train the locomotive’s stack belched black smoke and staccato thunder. The creaking of the wheels changed to a steady diapason of monotonous rumble. The boxcars swayed and rocked on their springs.

For a brief moment more Huck hesitated. All the things he would put behind him if he followed the oldtimer came crowding into his brain. The Bar X ranch, the laughing Chinaman, Ah Sing, his horse Smoke, Sue’s last good-bye. His memory stuck on the last like a burr. He might be
saying goodbye to all of them for a long, long time—perhaps forever. Why, maybe he’d never get back there—maybe he’d never see the old sights, the familiar faces—never see Sue again. That thought hurt like an old pain.

“Come on!” the old man croaked, shambling in unsteady steps beside the moving train. Huck was at his heels.

An instant later he gripped a grabiron with his bony hands and swung his foot onto the stirrup. He vanished between the cars and Huck followed him, his sinewy body taking the leap with dynamic agility.

And at that instant a bulky figure floundered over a drawbar a couple of cars further back and thudded solidly to the ground. There was an instant of tingling suspense as Huck scrambled to reach the end-sill of the forward boxcar. Then—

Bang! bang! bang!

Huck ducked as the bullets whined past, smacking against the side boards, showering him with splinters. His right hand instinctively dropped to his thigh with effortless ease. He stifled a curse of dismay as his fingers encountered no gun. He peered quickly back along the train, and saw the bulky figure swing onto a grabiron with deceptive agility and come storming up the side of the car. A second later it vanished over the upper edge.

“He’ll be on top of us in a minute,” the cowboy muttered, “and that’ll be the finish!”

Instantly Huck went into action, his brain working swiftly. “Outa here!” he barked, shuffling along the sill. “Outa here and up the embankment!”

“We won’t have a chanct!” wailed the oldster. “That hellion up there’ll see us go and if he don’t plug us fust, he’ll run us down.”

“He’ll get us for sure if we stay!” Huck shouted back. “C’mon, I tell you!”

He dropped from the slowly-moving train and the old man, still shrilling protests, followed him. Across the web of tracks Huck darted, reached the embankment and started clambering up it.

From the moving train sounded a yell of command. Spurts of flame lanced the darkness with orange streaks. The crackling of the gunshots sounded above the rumble of the train. Bullets fell like hail around them, churning through the cinders.

Huck heard the old man grunt, thought he might have been hit, and called out anxiously.

“Jest slipped on a rock,” panted the oldtimer.

In another instant they were over the lip of the embankment. They dived into scrub which fringed the crest, burrowing deep behind the protecting brush. In one last backward glance, Huck had seen the railroad detective clambering down the carside. Lights were bobbing about in the yard; questioning shouts came faintly to their ears.

“We can’t get away, son,” panted the old man. “They’ll get dogs and run us down in the morning, even if they don’t grab us t’night.”

The cowboy was intent on watching the converging lights. He heard the bull shout instructions, caught a glimpse of his bulky form lumbering across the tracks.

“All right,” he told the old man quietly, “straight
ahead—keep back outa sight. Straight ahead until we’re ‘round the bulge of the curve.”

The old man, dominated by Huck’s vigor and self-assurance, stifled his pessimistic plaints and followed Huck as he cut lithely through the growth. Before the detective had reached the lip of the embankment, the fugitives were around the bend. Below, they could see the boxcars filing heavily past as the long train gathered speed. For the moment they were out of sight of the pursuit.

Without a second’s hesitation, Huck went sliding down the embankment toward the tracks. The old man, understanding his purpose at last, grunted approval. He followed close behind Huck and they reached the moving train together.

“Look!” he exclaimed. “Here comes a empty—door half open! Think we can make it?”

“Easy,” replied Huck coolly, running along beside the rocking boxcars.

Along came the empty, its wheels drumming hollowly. With one hand Huck caught the door jamb, and rested his other lightly on the sill. With a leap and a scramble, he was inside the car. Turning swiftly he reached down a hand to his companion. The old man gripped it and the big cowboy lifted him into the car with no apparent effort.

Together they crouched on the rough boards, peering through the opening, listening for sounds of pursuit. On the embankment they could see lanterns winking about like angry fireflies, vanishing one by one as the pursuers beat their way deeper into the brush.

“Godfrey, feller, but you’re smart!” exclaimed
the old man, “making them hellions think we was cuttin’ ‘crost country and then doublin’ back onto the train again. All we got to do now is watch the big yards over to Washoe on the chanct that they telegraph ahead to search the train for us there, which I don’t figger they’ll do. Yeah, we’re settin’ purty now.”

He leaped to his feet and ducked as a voice suddenly spoke over his shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s the idea, brother Come back where it’s comf’t’ble, and set!”

Huck took a long step, hugging the inner wall of the car. The voice sounded friendly enough, but he was taking no chances.

“Just who are you, feller?” he asked, and instantly shifted his position again.

A single chuckle sounded in the dark, followed by a pair of others.

“Jest three titled gents,” replied the voice, “lords of leisure—knights of the road. We heard the shindig and cal’lated somebody’s got in bad with the yard dicks. Glad to see you outsmarted the lousy loafers. Wait a minute—till we’re clear of the yards—and I’ll make a light. We got a lantern here and there’s plenty of straw in this end of the car. Keep outa t’other end—there’s firebrick loaded there. Reckon that’s how this door didn’t happen to be sealed—nobody’s gonna carry off firebrick. Figger it’s bound for the Colorado smelters or stamp mills, mebbe.”

Silence followed for a space. Then a match scratched and a tiny flame flickered. It was succeeded by the warm, steady glow of a lantern in whose light Huck could distinguish three grinning faces crowned by unbelievably tattered hats. A scrub of beard covered each face; but the eyes of all were unanimously good-humored and friendly.

One man was wondrously obese, the other two as magnificently scrawny. The fat man waved a hand to the straw heaps.

“Draw up, brothers, and set,” he invited them.

Grinning, Huck and the old man obeyed, settling themselves comfortably in the straw. The click of the wheels over the rail joints was quickening its tempo, the car was beginning to lurch and sway.

“Name’s Mason—Lank Mason,” the fat man offered. “This here scantlin’ on my right is Fatty Bromes; one on the left is Bad-eye Wilson: they’re headin’ for Californy. Colorado’s my stop—Apishapa River country in Las Animas County.”

Huck saw his friend give a slight start and bend shrewd eyes on Mason. But he said nothing beyond announcing his own name.

“Gaylord,” he said, “Tom Gaylord. Most folks call me Old Tom, which is short and easy and saves wear and tear on the tongue.”

The others nodded and Huck introduced himself.

“Now everybody knows everybody else, we jest might as well take it easy,” said Mason. “Stretch out and be comf’table, only watch out for the lantern. Don’t wanta start a fire in this straw. Car of blastin’ powder right ahead of us and that stuff goes off mighty sudden and mighty hard if you fetch a light to it. So be keerful of yore smokes, too.”

He began tamping a blackened pipe with stubby paws. Huck noticed how powerful the fingers were that manipulated the tobacco. “Thought you said you were a gent of leisure?” he remarked, offhand.

The fat man chuckled. “How do you know I ain’t?” he countered.

Huck gestured at the roughened, calloused fingers. “Your hands never got that way from settin’ on ‘em,” he replied.

The other nodded. “You got sharp eyes, son, the kind what don’t miss much. Nope, I don’t do overmuch loafin’, even though I am takin’ it easy right now. Fact is, the reason I’m on this rattler is ‘cause I’m headin’ for what oughta be a new job, and money comes too hard to spend on railroad tickets when you can be jest as comf’table in a side-door Pullman for free. I’m headin’ for the new Esmeralda gold diggin’s. I’m a hard-rock man mostly, but I know somethin’ ‘bout hydraulic minin’, and that’s what they’re usin’ over there. They’re knockin’ down a hull mountainside of gravel and doin’ purty well at it, I hear tell. Payin’ good wages, anyhow.”

Again Huck saw old Tom Gaylord’s eyes gleam with interest, but again the oldster held his tongue. Huck wondered exactly what cards the old man was playing so close to his skinny chest.

All night long the freight roared across the plains of Kansas. Lulled by the steadily clicking wheels and the monotonous rumble of the cars, Huck Brannon slept the profound sleep of untroubled youth. But still it was a catlike sleep. Each time the train slowed to a stop at lonely pumping stations for water or fuel, the cowboy drifted awake to the changing tempo of sound and movement. He’d never law-dodged before, and it made him jumpy.

It was the grunting and stirring of fat Lank Mason which fully and finally aroused him in the gray dawn. He sat up, brushing the straw from his rumpled black hair, and grinned sleepily at the fat man. Lank grinned back, shook himself like a big dog coming out of the water, and began burrowing under the straw heaped along the wall. He drew forth a gunny sack that clanked as he shook it. From the sack he took an array of tin cans that had not yet known the ravaging touch of a can opener.

“Breakfast in the dining car—right here—in fifteen minutes,” Lank observed, hauling out a flat slab of sheet iron from beneath another straw heap.

He laid the slab of tin near the partly open car door, cupped up the edges and criss-crossed some splinters of wood on its surface. Then he went after the cans with a huge jacknife, ripping them open, flattening some of them after pouring out the contents, which he carefully heaped on the flattened sheets when they were ready. Then he struck a match to the splinters of wood, which burned with a brisk and almost smokeless flame.

“Allus pick yore wood for fire and no smoke,” he observed to the interested cowboy.

Over the flame and glowing embers he whisked the homemade “skillets,” deftly turning the contents with the blade of the jackknife.

In almost no time at all smoking hot sausages, savory strips of fried bacon and slabs of steaming corned beef were ready for eating.

One of the hoboes came lugging a can of water
from a corner of the car. More wood was placed on the glowing sheet iron and coffee brewed swiftly in the can.

“I’ve seen some mighty smart cooking out on the range,” Huck observed, “but this beats anything I ever ran into.”

After they’d eaten all their belts could hold comfortably, they lit up pipes and cigarettes and smoked in dreamy comfort, staring out of the open door at the corn and wheat fields, the stretches of rolling grassland that flew past in endless panorama of sun-drenched peace.

“We’ll hit the Washoe yards in a hour or so now,” Old Tom observed.

“Yeah,” nodded Lank. “Hafta unload then. There’s an alley ‘longside the yard lead, jest ‘fóre they stop to change engines. We’ll duck inter that and lie low until she’s ready to pull out again. Think they’ll be lookin’ for you two fellers?”

“Don’t think so,” Gaylord replied. “Got a notion this quick-thinkin’ young hellion fooled ‘em proper. Chances are they’re still beatin’ up the brush or combin’ the town for us.”

“Sounds reasonable,” admitted Lank. “I got a notion it’ll work out jest as you figger.”

It did. They passed the Washoe yards without incident, leaving the train in case of an inspection by the bulls, lying in the long grass of the alley until the wheels began to turn again and then making a quick dash for the open car.

All day the train boomed across endless plains, the grade climbing steadily; and as the dusk began to turn the hollows into mystic blue lakes of
shadow, the skyline changed. Ahead were vast, nebulous shapes rising into the sun-washed vault. Shadowy and unreal at first, they swiftly took on solidity and form.

“Mountains,” Old Tom grunted. “We’re in Colorado, now, shootin’ through Baco County. Las Animas next, and my stop.”

“Mine, too,” Lank Mason remarked, “over near the Huerfano line.”

The train roared into a cut, crashed through between steeply restraining walls, and then thundered along in the deepening shadow of towering cliffs.

Huck leaned against the jamb of the boxcar door and rested his eyes wonderingly on the wild grandeur of the mountain scenery looming against the angry red of a stormy sunset sky. It was Huck who—even before the engineer of the manifest—first saw the avalanche of earth and stone roaring down toward the track over which the train would have to pass.

Under the beat of winter hail and summer rain, that gaunt cliff had stood throughout the ages—had staunchly resisted the onslaught of the elements. But the patient, never resting, never despairing fingers of frost and water probed deeper and deeper, prying strata from strata, cracking with quiet, persistent strength the heart of eternal rock itself.

And now, the air waves disturbed by the pounding exhaust of the giant locomotive provided the final kinetic push necessary to disturb the delicate balance of the hesitating granite.

Outward and downward, slowly, majestically at
first, as if reluctant to leave its bed of the eons, the mighty mass answered the resistless pull of gravity. With appalling swiftness it gathered speed, rolling, tumbling, with individual segments the size of a house leaping high into the air and hurtling through space for hundreds of yards.

Like the raised lip of an angry dog, the grinding flood upreared at the edge of the towering battlement that flanked the right-of-way. It seemed to poise for a moment, straining for greater height in its upward sweep; then the curling lip broke raggedly and hurtled downward toward the slim wisps of the tracks half a thousand feet below.