“Remember, now, when we reach the river we will make our crossing below Pyramid Canyon; and once on the other side we will cut the ferryboat adrift and let it go on down the river. But I believe we will have lost any pursuit long before that time.”
“Sounds too good to be true,” Jenks said admiringly. “I never did know a job planned so thorough.”
“You ride with me,” Gant replied shortly, “and they will all be planned that way.”
He walked out of the tiny hollow in which they waited, to look again at the track. The barricade of logs and boulders would force the train to stop, and they could board easily.
Again he went over every step in his mind, trying to find a loophole he might have overlooked. There was none.
Jenks, Indian Charlie, Gyp Wells, and Ike Fillmore had all worked with him before. Only Lund was a new man, but he had more experience than any of the others. There was nothing to worry about there. So, then—why was he worried? Zeb Rawlings.
The man was bad luck, the worst kind of bad luck; for every time their paths crossed, things turned sour. If for no other reason than that Rawlings was becoming an obsession, he must be killed.
But first his wife and children. Rawlings must see them die, knowing he could do nothing about it. Thoughtfully, Gant considered the men with him. Only Lund and Indian Charlie would be apt to go along with him on that. He spat bitterly. It angered him to think of how shocked he had been at the station when he had turned and seen Zeb Rawlings. He had had no idea Rawlings was even in Arizona, for after the fight at Boggy Depot Gant had left Indian Territory and gone north, and for several months he had lived quietly, holding down a railroad job in Dakota.
Gant had been in Jimtown, a small place on the Northern Pacific, when Lund came to him with the story of the gold shipments. Jenks was waiting for him in Deadwood, and they had picked up Fillmore in Cheyenne on the way south. Carefully, they had avoided all their old haunts, coming into Arizona from California, after arranging the rendezvous at a small ranch owned by the Indian. Nobody had seen them, nobody knew who they were; and then they had to run into Rawlings, of all people.
Gant lifted his eyes from the barricade and studied the bleak desert mountains opposite. It was through those mountains they would soon be riding, for half a mile down the tracks they would cross over and head into the hills. Rawlings! Gant would never forget that day at Boggy Depot when Rawlings had stood there so calmly, shooting as if on a target range. Gant would have sworn that nobody—nobody at all—could outshoot his brother. Not Hardin, Hickok, Allison, or any of them.
He glanced at his watch now. It was time.
He walked back to the campfire. “Dowse that fire and mount up.” There was no need to discuss the holdup itself, for they had been through all of that. He turned on Fillmore. “Don’t forget now, Frenchy, nail that caboose. If the brakeman gives you any lip, kill him!”
Far off, the train whistled.
They stepped into their saddles, checked their gear. Charlie Gant led the way down to the point where the barricade waited.
The cut was narrow, and they had built the barricade carefully to make it look like a slide off the side of the cut. Inspecting it again, Gant doubted if any casual glance would arouse suspicion.
He felt jumpy, but there was no occasion for worry. He had planned this better than any time before, and his jobs had a way of working out. Even Floyd had admitted nobody could plan a job better.
Floyd…
Why think of him now? Suppose Charlie had stayed and shot it out with Rawlings then? Could he have saved Floyd if he had opened fire? He would never know. Just the same, he wished Floyd was here now. He was the solid one, the stayer.
Floyd was one man he could always count on.
But could Floyd count on you?
The question came to his mind unbidden, and he swore and jerked on the reins so that his horse reared. He quieted it down, but his mood remained savage. He drew his pistol and checked the action and the loads. He looked back at the others. “Ready?” he asked.
Their replies came back to him. “Ready!” … “Sure!” … “I’ll say!”
They were good men. Just the same, he wished Floyd was here. The train whistled again, and he could hear that far-off rush of wheels that reminded him so much of the wind in the pines of a great forest. It was coming up the valley now, almost to the mountains.
It might have been better had he been further from a town; but still, they must clear the track before they could go on, and that would take time. And this position gave them a straight run across the valley. A hard run but a good one, and safe enough if they made it as he had planned. He would bring this off, disappear for a few weeks, and then he would pay a visit to that ranch Rawlings was headed for. The thought gave him a savage pleasure.
At that moment the train whistled again.
He started his horse walking foreward, and the rest followed.
Only three or four minutes now…
Chapter 24
It was very still in the express car, and very hot. Zeb Rawlings stood his rifle between his knees and wiped his palms on his trousers. Waiting was hell. It always made a man jumpy.
He could feel it coming now, the dry mouth, the sick, empty feeling in the belly. This time it would be for keeps. One of them would die. Charlie Gant was like a mad dog that would bite and tear at anything in his lust to destroy. Take a brave man every time, Zeb thought—I’d fear a brave man less than a coward. The coward has no scruples.
Floyd Gant … there was a good man. An outlaw, but a good man with it all, a solid man. You knew where you stood with Floyd Gant. They had fought Indians together, hunted from the same stand, slept under the same buffalo robe. You took what shelter you could get when those Panhandle winds were blowing.
Without Charlie to talk him into it, Floyd might never have become an outlaw, and with him it probably started as a lark more than anything serious. In those days a good many cowhands had rustled a few head to buy drinks or to see them through a hard winter.
Out on the buffalo range Zeb had shared a fire with Floyd Gant many a time, never friendly, exactly, yet not enemies, either. There had always been that unspoken rivalry that comes between two men of almost equal ability at anything; and out on the hunt Floyd was the best hunter, except for himself. There was no telling about that, either, when you came to think of it. There was too much luck involved. Your aim might be perfect, you might have judged the wind right—and then the buffalo might lift his head, kick at a fly, or even shift his weight. A mere shifting of the weight from one fore-leg to the other could mean the difference sometimes between a shot through the heart or lungs and a bullet glancing off a shoulder bone or breaking a leg. And a bull with a broken leg might easily excite the herd so that you’d get no more shots. If you kept the wind in your face or blowing from them toward you, and if you took your time, you could shoot buffalo from a stand … and shoot for hours, sometimes. They had never learned to fear a gun, and the booming sound meant nothing to them. But the smell of blood would make them restless and they would move off. Or a wounded buffalo threshing around would start them sometimes. Zeb looked at the others. “Hot in here,” he said.
Clay nodded. “Sure is. We have to keep her locked up.”
“Where do you think?” Ramsey asked suddenly.
“This side of Kingman, I feel pretty sure.”
“You think they’ll run for the Hualapais?”
“No.”
“Indian Charlie was with them—he’s part Hualapai.” “No, I don’t think so. Gant will do something different. He’s too smart to do the usual.”
The train whistled.
“There’s a cut right ahead,” Ramsey said thoughtfully. “And Boulder Spring is right back in the rocks, only a few miles off.” Clay got up and went to the front of the car. The train was veering around a slight curve that gave him a view of the track up ahead. “Barricade!” he called. “There’s a barricade up ahead!”