She merely looked at him.
“If they have not already discovered that they do not have the gold, they will discover it very soon. They will also suspect what has happened, and when they do I would imagine they would be looking for you. “Of course, your plans were to be on the train going east by now, and so safely away. But you are not going east, and neither are they.” He paused. “So I shall lock you up until we return.” She looked her contempt. “Will you shackle me to the hitching-rail as you did those others?”
He shook his head. “No, Mrs. Carpenter. Holstrum has a storeroom where we can leave you until we return, which will not be long.” In the distance, a train whistled. “Greenwood, would you lock her up? And stay here, if you will. Vince Patterson and his boys should be riding in today and they will want some drinks. Get hold of Vince and tell him what has happened. Tell him everything.”
They walked to the station. The train whistled again, still far off. Josh reached into his pocket. “By the way, this letter was in your box at the hotel. I seen it there after we checked the clerk’s body … You know, Dandy Drako? I figured you’d be wantin’ it.”
Shanaghy glanced at it. He recognized the handwriting. The letter was from John Morrissey. But there was no time to read it now. That could wait for a more leisurely time. He put the letter in his shirt pocket. For the first time he took a look at himself. His shirt was badly torn. His face felt stiff and sore from several punches he had taken. He did not even remember them. You never did, at times like that, except maybe the very hard ones. The train was coming down the track and the agent came out to the platform. He looked at them, stopped and started to go back inside. “Don’t do it,” Shanaghy said in a conversational tone of voice. The agent looked at him. His tongue touched his lips. He was trying to make up his mind, and Tom Shanaghy was remembering that the man had a gun … probably back inside.
“He means it, Burt,” Josh Lundy said. “If I were you 1 wouldn’t try.”
“What’s wrong? I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You just come with us. You’ll learn.”
“Come with you? Leave my post, here? I can’t do that, and you can’t make me. I-“ “You won’t be gone long, not this time.” Shanaghy smiled “Someday we will have to sit down and you can tell me about your sister. She’s an interesting lady.” “Helen? You mean Mrs. Carpenter?”
“I do.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Marshal. Look, I’ve got to go in there and clear some messages and also let them know this train’s gone through.” “Later. Right now we’re just going down the track a little ways to meet some of your friends. If they haven’t discovered the double-cross you two have pulled off, they’ll be wanting to load those boxes off the pack animals they have. If they have discovered the cross, they’ll be hunting you and your sister.” Burt’s face had taken on a sickly expression. “Marshal, 1 don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do know.” Shanaghy watched the train pull in. “Search him and take him aboard,” he told Josh. “I’ll just walk along and check the engineer.” The engineer was a different man from before, a burly fellov* with white hair and a florid face.
“My name is Shanaghy,” Tom said, “and I’m marshal here There’s been a little trouble and some of us are going to rid’ down the track with you. About thirty miles down the track there will be some men waiting at that little way station, some men and probably one woman. Stop the train and then get down on the floor. There may be a little lead flying.”
Once seated on the train, Shanaghy looked over at Josh. “Tell me what you see as we come up to the station,” he suggested. “I want to have a little talk with Burt, here.” Tom glanced over at Judge McBane. “Judge? Would you like to join me? Maybe if we can ask this man the right questions we can keep him alive.” “Keep me alive?” Burt started up and Shanaghy pushed him back down into his seat. “What do you mean?”
Shanaghy smiled. “Now, see here! You and your sister double-crossed your partners. You don’t expect them to like it, do you? You’ve been playing with some pretty rough company, Burt, and now that the bottom has fallen out of your plans, they are going to think it was you … they will know it was you. “They will be waiting at the station right ahead of us, but if you talk fast and give us everything you know we may be able to save you.” “I don’t need to be saved!” Burt protested. “I’ve nothing to-“ “Then you won’t mind getting off at the next station to meet George and Pin? They’ll be there, you know.”
“The train’s not stopping,” Burt protested. “You can’t pull that on me. I sent the orders.”
“Of course, you did. I just changed them. I know that you and your sister expected to be on this train, and you expected it to fly right by, leaving your old friends standing on the platform. That was the idea, wasn’t it? You’d have the gold and they would just have several small but heavy boxes. “Well, that isn’t the way it’s going to happen. We are going to stop there, but just long enough to put you off.”
Burt was sweating, his brow was beaded with it. His face had taken on an even more sickly look, and his eyes seemed unusually large. “Marshal, you can’t do that! You can’t put me off! Why, that would be murder!” “Like what your sister Helen did to her husband, you mean? Like what your associates have done with Holstrum?”
“Holstrum? He’s dead?”
“Well, we don’t know, but he left with them and with that woman he was sweet on, but I’m betting they decided once they had the loot that they didn’t need him anymore. I hope I’m wrong. But you know how it is. They’ll be thinking just like your sister and you … who wanted it all.”
“Where is she?”
“We have her … “ Shanaghy took out his big silver watch. “Well, it won’t be long now. Josh, you see anything yet?”
“Too soon.”
Shanaghy got up. “Judge, talk to this man, will you? We’ve got maybe twenty miles to go, and if he doesn’t tell us anything by the time we get there I’m going to just drop him off at the next station. You talk some sense into him if you can while I go along up to the baggage car.” Only three passengers rode in the only other passenger car and Shanaghy walked through, opening the door into the baggage car. The expressman looked startled when Shanaghy walked in, then relieved when he glimpsed the badge. “Something I can do for you, Officer?” Shanaghy glanced around, unsure of what to look for beyond an approximate capacity. “Your heaviest shipment,” he said, “I’d like to see that.” “Heaviest?” the expressman looked thoughtful. “We have several heavy ones. Right there”-he indicated several solidly built boxes-“those are the heaviest ones.” “Where were they loaded?”
He shrugged. “They were here when I took over from the other man,” he said. He glanced at the labels tied on the boxes. “Kansas City,” he said, “to H. R. Carpenter. It’s stenciled on the boxes, too.”
“It’s a stolen shipment,” Shanaghy said. “If you check your records you will see that such a shipment was directed to Greenwood, Holstrum & Carpenter yesterday. The weights will be the same.”
“You taking this one?”
“We are, in the name of the above parties. I will sign for it. Judge McBane is with me.”
“I don’t know whether I can do that, Marshal. Maybe we-“
“Leave it to us. And one more thing, when the train stops don’t open your doors under any circumstances. If I were you I’d lie down on the floor behind those boxes and stay there until we pull out of the station.” “There’ll be shooting?”
“Unless I miss my guess there will be some, but we will be doing our share.”
The train was slowing. Swiftly, Shanaghy ran back through the cars. Josh was at the door with a Winchester. There was another man beside him. “This here’s Joel Strong. He was on the train, and when he found out what was happening he wanted a piece of the action.”
“I remember him. He was speaking to the judge here on my first morning in town.
All right, consider yourself a deputy.”
He walked over to McBane. “Well, Burt,” he said, “have you anything to say?”