A Rocky Mountain Christmas (13 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: A Rocky Mountain Christmas
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She wasn’t feeling childish infatuation for Luke. In fact, she didn’t think it was something she would even call infatuation, though she was certainly interested in him. What would have happened if he had come in to see her the night he visited the Social Club? Would she have felt the same interest? Or would she have put any such feeling aside as she did for all the other customers who had come to visit with her?
She shook her head a little. The best time to have met him would have been while she was still teaching school, before she got involved with the Social Club and before he got into trouble with the law. If she had met him then, they might have fallen in love and gotten married. She smiled.
Then suddenly, reality set in, and the smile left her face. What was she doing? She shook her head again. These thoughts were getting her nowhere. The best thing was to get such thoughts out of her mind. She settled back into her seat, let her head rest against the seat back, and drifted off to sleep.
C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN
In the car just ahead, Luke and Santelli were sharing a seat. Deputy Proxmire sat facing them so he could keep an eye on both at the same time. Luke sat closest to the window, looking outside. It had begun to snow again, the snow coming down in big, tumbling flakes, a swirl of white against the darkness.
“You know what I’m thinkin’?” Santelli said, his words interrupting Luke’s contemplation.
“I don’t really care what you were thinking,” Luke said.
“I think you are fallin’ for that whore.”
Luke didn’t answer.
“Yes, sir, that’s what I think. You seen yourself a pretty woman and you fall for her. But here’s the funny thing. You’re goin’ away to jail, and more ’n likely the girl is goin’ to wind up in another whorehouse somewhere.” Santelli laughed. “Tell me, how does that make you feel, knowin’ your girl will be layin’ with anyone who has the price?”
“You talk too much, Santelli,” Luke muttered.
“Yeah? Well, talk is cheap. And right now, talk is all I’ve got. So I reckon I’ll talk as much as I want.”
“If you don’t shut up talking about Jenny, I’ll shut you up.”
“Really? How are you going to do that?”
“I’ll do it the same way I did it before.”
“What do you—” Santelli stopped in mid-sentence, lifted his cuffed hands to touch his still-sore, black eye, and realized what had happened back in Pueblo. “Did you do this?”
Luke smiled, then turned to look back outside.
 
 
Parker, Kelly, Compton, and Morris were sitting across from each other in the front two facing seats, three rows ahead of the deputy and his prisoners.
“When do we make our move?” Kelly asked.
“Just before we reach the top of the pass,” Parker said. “The train will be going slow enough that it will be easy to get it stopped.”
“Who’s going to go up on top?” Compton asked. “’Cause I’m tellin’ you right now, you ain’t goin’ to get me on top of a movin’ train. Most especially in weather like this when it’s snowin’ and the tops of the cars is likely to be slippery and all.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll go. I’ve stole a lot of rides on freight trains, and I’ve run on top of a lot of cars in good weather and bad. It won’t bother me none a’ tall to run along the top of these cars.” Parker went over the plan once again. “I’ll get the engineer’s attention, and as soon as I get the train stopped, you three take care of the deputy. Once we have Santelli, we’ll cut the engine free, then go on down the other side of the mountain, and leave the rest of the train sitting up here on the track.”
“I know you said you’ve stole rides on a lot of trains before,” Morris said. “But are you sure you can drive this thing?”
“Drive it? Who said anything about drivin’ the train? I don’t have to drive it. All I have to do is stick a gun in the engineer’s gut and he’ll do all the drivin’. Yes, sir, he’ll be more than glad to take us anywhere we want to go.” Parker smiled. “At least, he’ll take us anywhere we want to go as long as there is track to run on.”
“I know Ward says Santelli has the money, but seein’ as we’re the ones that’s actually takin’ a risk here, I’m going to ask you again. What do you think? Do you really think he has the money to pay us?” Kelly asked.
“I wouldn’t be doin’ all this if I didn’t think there was some payoff in it,” Parker said. “I sure ain’t doin’ it ’cause me ’n Santelli is tight.”
 
 
One hour after they left Buena Vista depot, Matt could feel by the angle of the car that they were starting up the long grade taking them to the top of the pass. The train also began to slow, going from a rapid twenty miles per hour down to no faster than a brisk walk.
The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad first laid tracks through Trout Creek Pass in 1879, and Matt had traversed the pass many times since then. He knew it well. The pass climbed to 9,300 feet at its highest elevation, and he knew they were coming very close to the top of the pass because he felt the train slow down even more.
Looking out through the window and into the darkness, he could see whirling white flakes and knew the snow had intensified since leaving Buena Vista. He shook his head, thinking the engineer and conductor were probably having second thoughts. If the track was closed ahead, they would have to back all the way down to Buena Vista, and backing at night, in a heavy snowstorm, down a steep grade, couldn’t be a very good thing.
And still the snow came down.
 
 
In the engine of the train, Beans Evans was scooping up coal from the tender, then throwing it into the open door of the firebox. Inside the box, the flames leaped and curled around the added fuel, and even above the noise of the engine, Beans could hear the fire roaring. He closed the door and stood up. “That ought to keep us goin’ till we reach the other side of the pass. Then we can damn near coast into Big Rock.”
“Why don’t you take a breather, Beans?” Don said. “You’ve got enough fire to keep the pressure up for quite a while.
“Yes, sir, I think I will.” Beans pulled a big red bandanna from the chest pocket of his overalls and wiped the sweat from his face. “You wouldn’t think a body could get hot enough to sweat on a cold night like this.”
“Why not?” Don answered. “We’ve got a fire going, and you’ve been working hard.”
Beans chuckled. “I have to confess that I like standin’ by the firebox a heap more in the wintertime than I do in the summertime.”
“I agree,” Don said. “Trouble is, I’ve got to keep my face in this window lookin’ ahead all the time, and that lets the cold wind on me.”
“It’s funny, ain’t it? I mean, what with both of us no more ’n five feet apart and here you are near ’bout freezin’ to death, and I’m burnin’ up, I’m so hot.”
“Yeah,” Don agreed. “Tell me, Beans, what did you get the missus for Christmas?”
“I bought her a cookstove.”
“A cookstove?” Don laughed. “A cookstove? That’s what you bought her for Christmas?”
“Yeah. She keeps tellin’ me she don’t have the right kind of stove to bake a cake, so I bought her one.”
“Come on, Beans, what were you thinking? Women don’t like things like that as Christmas presents. I mean, yeah, buy her a stove if you want, but women like pretty things.”
“Oh, it’s pretty all right. You should see it, Don. That stove is just real pretty.”
Don laughed. “I don’t think that’s the kind of pretty women think of, when they think pretty.”
“What about your kids?” Beans asked. “Are they excited about Christmas?”
“Oh, yes. They’re wanting to see what Santa Claus will bring them.” Don chuckled. “I know one thing he better not bring them. Not if I want to stay on the good side of Doreen.”
“What’s that?”
“Donnie wants a drum. Ha! Can you see him running around the house, banging on a drum? Well, it wouldn’t bother me none. I mean when you stand here all day listenin’ to all the noise this makes. But it would more ’n like drive Doreen crazy. Now Little Suzie, all she wants is a doll. Girls are a lot easier than boys. They don’t seem to get into as much trouble. When you and your missus start havin’ children, try ’n make ’em all girls.”
“Ha!” Beans said. “Like you can choose.”
“I know a witch that’ll put a spell on your wife to make her have girls or boys. It only cost ten dollars.”
“And it works?”
“Sure it works. Anyhow, you can’t lose no money ’cause if she puts the hex on and it don’t work, then she don’t charge you nothin’.”
“Ha. Sounds to me like she’s got a real game goin’ there.”
“What do you mean? What kind of game?”
“If her hex works, she gets paid. If it doesn’t work, she doesn’t get paid. Is that what you said?”
“Yeah. So you can’t go wrong, that way.”
“Well, think about it, Don. All she’s doin’ is bettin’ that you’re goin’ to have a boy or a girl. Only she ain’t exactly bettin’, ’cause she don’t put up no money. She’s just collectin’ if she wins.”
Don stroked his jaw for a second as he considered what Beans said. “I’ll be damned.” He smiled as he suddenly realized the truth of it. “You’re right.”
 
 
In the next to the last car of the train, Parker and the other three men were finalizing their plans.
“Remember”—Parker gave instructions once more—“make your move as soon as I get the train stopped.”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “More ’n likely, Proxmire and ever’one else on the train will be tryin’ to figure out why we’re stopped.”
“You can get the train stopped, can’t you?” Morris asked.
“Yeah, don’t you worry about that. I’ll get the train stopped all right.”
“All right,” Compton said. “We’re all ready, so let’s do it.”
With a final nod, Parker got up and left the car, passing through the front door and onto the vestibule. Crossing the vestibule, he went into the next car and then the next, proceeding through the cars until he walked through the dining car and started out the front door.
One of the dining car porters came up to him. “You can’t go no farther, Mister. There ain’t nothin’ up there but the baggage and express car, and there ain’t no passengers that’s allowed in it.”
Without a word in reply, Parker pulled his pistol and brought it down hard on the train crewman’s head. The porter collapsed to the floor. Nobody else in the dining car saw it, and Parker went on without any more interference.
From the front vestibule of the dining car, he climbed up onto the top of the express car, ran across it, then jumped down onto the tender and moved toward the engine. He saw the engineer with his hand on the throttle and the fireman standing alongside, leaning on his shovel. Neither of them saw him because they were engaged in conversation.
“Hey! Engineer! Stop this train!” Parker shouted, but there was too much noise for him to be heard.
“Hey! Engineer!” Parker shouted again.
When neither the engineer nor the fireman heard him, Parker fired two shots into the air, which caught the attention of both the engineer and the fireman, and they looked around in surprise.
“I want you to—”
A deep and very loud roar interrupted what he’d intended to say.
Looking up, Parker saw an avalanche of snow cascading down the side of the mountain, set in motion by the sound of his gunshots. He barely had time to open his mouth in a scream before tons of snow swept him from the top of the tender, burying him, the engine, the tender, and most of the baggage car under hundreds of feet of snow.
The train to come to an immediate and jarring stop, causing many of the sleeping passengers to tumble out of their seats. A few shouted out in alarm.
“All right, boys, he’s got it stopped. This is it!” Kelly shouted, and he and the other three advanced toward the rear of the car. Proxmire’s back was to them as they approach, and he was sitting next to the window, trying to figure out what had caused their sudden stop.
“Hello, Santelli,” Kelly said.
“Do not speak to the prisoners.” Proxmire turned away from the window and was shocked to see a gun pointed directly at him.
“What are—”
Kelly pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Proxmire between the eyes, forming a fan-like spray of blood on the window behind him.
The other passengers in the car were either trying to recover from the sudden stop or staring out the window when they heard the shot fired. In alarm, they all looked around and saw Proxmire’s bloody head leaning against the window. A woman screamed.
“Shut up!” Morris shouted, turning his pistol toward the other passengers. “I’ll shoot the next person who makes a sound!”
Cowed by the threat, the others in the car grew quiet as they watched through wide, frightened eyes. A little girl started crying.
“Shut that brat up!” Morris shouted.
The father clamped his hand over the child’s mouth.
Santelli held his hands up, showing his cuffed wrists. “The deputy has the keys in his jacket pocket.”
Morris dug out the keys and opened Santelli’s cuffs.
“What about him?” Morris indicated Luke Shardeen. “Should we take off his handcuffs?”
“No,” Santelli said as he rubbed his wrists. “Just shoot him and be done with it. Better yet, give me a gun and let
me
shoot him.”
Acting quickly, so quickly it caught the others by surprise, Luke stood up from his seat and shoved Santelli back into Morris, causing both men to struggle to maintain their balance. With them distracted, he dashed out the back door, then leaped off the vestibule into a pile of snow nearly as high as the railcar itself. He disappeared at once.
The three armed men rushed out the back of the car and onto the vestibule. Kelly fired into the snowbank where Luke had jumped. They heard a rumble up above the pass, and more snow came sliding down.

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