Blue Kingdom (17 page)

Well assured of this, Petersen looked to the other side of the track through the opposite windows and saw that the railroad gate had closed there in the face of another pair of buckboards and a rider or two. When he had seen these things, the sheriff stood up from his seat, dragging his prisoner with him. With a motion of his arm, he gathered the posse about him.

“Now, boys,” he said, “I'm gonna tell you something that'll explain why I wanted so many of you along to help me guard Chelton here. I ain't in the
habit of needin' so damn' many to watch one man, but this here case was different. It wasn't Chelton that bothered me none, it was Tankerton and his gang.”

This announcement caused the posse to look solemnly at one another.

“We've got the news accurate and full,” said the sheriff. “We've got it from a inside man. They're gonna put one man aboard this here train at this here town, right in front of us. And it ain't gonna do us no good to search for him. Likely he'll be put aboard on the brake rods and climb up from them, or else he'll be blind baggage as we pull up into Running Hoss Gulch. There he'll stop the train, and, when he stops it, they's gonna be a swarm of crooks charge us out of the brush on each side of the road.” He paused. Then, having examined the faces of his hearers carefully, noting the degrees of resolution or of fear that they showed, he went on: “Some of 'em will probably split for the baggage car. The rest of 'em will come pilin' straight for us. They want money out of this job, but more than that they want Chelton. They'll come fast, and they'll come shootin', and maybe I don't have to tell you that Tankerton's men can shoot straight?”

He stopped again to examine the grim faces of his men before he continued: “They got a new man up there among the Tankertons, and he's gonna have the charge of this job. That new man is gonna try to win his spurs, as they say, and he'll fight like a wildcat, for one. Now, boys, I could've taken twenty men instead of six. But if I took twenty, probably the Tankertons would've heard about us, and they wouldn't make the charge. As it is, we'll have a chance to warm up our rifles.
Keep cool, and shoot to kill. You'll have the sides of the car to cover you. You'll have the windowsills to rest your rifles on. We're gonna give the Tankertons such a pepperin' that they'll wish they'd never been born to see this day. And when the smoke clears off, maybe we'll have a new cargo of dead men and men that are sick of bullets to take along with us. I ain't talkin' to you about the glory only, but they's a price on pretty near every head among the Tankertons.”

“What about them that go for the baggage car?” asked a voice.

A deep snore was heard at this moment. It came from the aged Pop, whose head was sunk upon his breast in the most profound slumber.

“The old reptile,” growled the sheriff, at this interruption. “Well, boys, them that goes for the baggage car ain't gonna feel so pert, neither. Inside of that car, they's a safe and a money shipment. But they's also locked up there a federal marshal and four of his men, loaded all down with repeatin' rifles, and such. If the Tankertons bust open that door, they're gonna feel like a dog that's stuck his nose down a rabbit's hole and has a wildcat come bustin' out at him, all teeth and claws.”

There was a grim chuckle in response.

“It looks like a pretty good plant!” said one.

“Don't it?” answered Petersen. “I tell you, it's a plant that can't help but work, if you boys will do your share. We've come in with one Tankerton. Give us a mite of luck, and we'll have a whole bag full of 'em, and your names'll all be remembered, besides the solid hard cash that you'll get out of it.” He waved his hand toward the exit platform.

The brakes were grinding as the train shuddered to a stop.

“Leave your guns here,” the sheriff added. “Go out there on the platform and take a turn up and down and steady yourselves with a good deep breath of fresh air, and then hook on when we pull out.”

One said: “You gonna stay here alone with Chelton?”

The sheriff grinned. “I reckon that I'll be all right, unless the old man and the kid come back and take him away from me.”

There was laughter at this, and the posse swarmed out of the train as it halted.

Voices sounded from the platform, then, as the laborers found their employers here and there, and, as soon as the train was halted, all currents of air roused by its motion ceased, and the still, blasting heat of the western sun poured through the windows and choked the passengers. “It's hot,” admitted the sheriff.

Chelton did not answer.

He sat rigidly, his eyes fixed before him, his lips set, and plainly his mind was far forward in Running Horse Gulch, among the shadowy forms of his fellows who would be waiting there. Of this the sheriff took note, but not with pity. Not that he was a hard-hearted man, but he lacked imagination and could not get out of his own skin and into the lives of others.

Here Pop Cumberland wakened with a start and rose.

The boy clawed after him. “This ain't our station,” he said.

“Hey?” answered Pop, in his peculiar screeching voice, and he continued down the aisle toward the
sheriff and the prisoner, fumbling his way along from one seat to another.

The boy rose and went in pursuit.

“Old man,” said the sheriff, “this ain't the way out of the car, if you want to get out.”

“Hey?” said Pop, and he leaned above the sheriff for an answer.

“I say,” began the sheriff, “that this ain't the. . . .”

He got no further. Pop Cumberland darted a ponderous right hand to the jaw of the worthy sheriff, and Petersen lurched senseless against the shoulder of the prisoner.

“Keep your hat on,” said the quiet voice of Dunmore to Chelton. “We'll soon have you out of this.” With accurate fingers he dipped into the vest pocket of the sheriff and took out a key, and with a turn of that key he made Chelton, for at least that moment, a free man. The manacle that fell from the arm of Chelton he next clasped over the iron side arm of the seat, and tossed the key out the window.

Then they started.

As for Chelton, he had not said a word, but a great tremor ran over him, and he made a single gasping sound, like a man who has risen to the surface after being underwater for a long dive. Then he grasped one of the rifles that had been put aside by the posse. Young Jimmy Larren, escort of the aged Pop, had taken another, and Dunmore a third. They bolted for the platform, but Dunmore, going last, paused long enough to see the sheriff open his eyes and look around without comprehension—then close them again.

From the platform, they descended on the side opposite
to the station, and then hurried down the track toward the railroad gate beyond which the two buckboards and the riders waited. Dunmore gave quiet directions, as Chelton suggested that they bolt for it as fast as possible.

“The minute you start running, you'll start trouble,” said Dunmore. “Take it easy, Chelton. When we get past the gate, cover that right hand gent on the cream-colored hoss. That hoss looked as if it could step. I'll take the bay on the left, if I can. It don't look so fast, but it's pretty sure to have enough power to carry my pounds. We'll slice the near hoss out of that team of buckskins and dump Jimmy on it. He can ride anything that steps.”

A wild yell arose from the smoking car behind them. A gun clanged like the closing of a metal door, and a shower of cinders kicked against the calf of Chelton's leg.

“Time's up,” said Dunmore, as they reached the gate. “Charge 'em, boys!” And he dived over the bar of the gate with a yell.

That yell began and ended the battle for the possession of the horses. Here were half a dozen peaceable citizens who suddenly found a pair of ruffians, to say nothing of a savage-looking boy with a rifle, rushing at them without provocation, while other armed men rushed out of the smoking car of the train and plunged toward them.

The good citizens tumbled out of their saddles as the rifles covered them. Ground never had felt so good as it did now beneath their feet. They bolted for the fences, hopped over them, and kept on running.

“Drop a few shots around that posse . . . you don't
have to shoot to kill!” called Dunmore to Chelton, as for his own part he slashed the chosen horse out of the buckboard team.

The posse, bewildered by the sudden alarm that had called them to this side of the train, their ears stunned by the yells, the orders, and the imprecations of the manacled sheriff, had nevertheless tried to acquit themselves as brave men should do and had lunged straight for the railroad gate behind which the fugitives were securing mounts. They were a few steps away when Chelton opened fire.

He had been told not to shoot to kill, but the nearness of the men of the law drove him mad. The nearness of his own death was still a taste in his mouth as of ashes and lye. Therefore, he put a .38-caliber bullet through the thigh of the leading posse man, and, as the fellow tumbled with a cry, he slashed the shoulder of a second with another shot. Standing before the gate, his rifle resting upon the top bar of it, he made himself at ease, and his deadly work took the heart out of the posse with wonderful suddenness.

They split to either side and rushed back for the shelter of the train, while Chelton, his cruel heart eased, kicked up the cinders behind them with accurate malice.

One man, he who had been wounded in the thigh, lay groaning and cursing, waiting for his finish. But all of the rest of the armed men who were on the train, along with those in the baggage car, never got out of the car, bewildered by what they had heard, but convinced that it was their duty to wait for trouble to come to them. The cowpunchers and farmers stood by in disinterested
fashion while the three fugitives swung onto their stolen horses and galloped down the road.

There was no pursuit. The dust rose behind the three. When that dust dissolved, they were out of sight among the hills.

There was only one place in the camp of Tankerton where privacy was fully assured and that was the little cabin where Beatrice Kirk lived alone. As for the bunkhouses, someone or other was sure to be loitering about in them, and for that reason the councils of Tankerton usually took place in the cabin of the girl.

On this night there were assembled here Tankerton himself, Legges, and Tucker, while Beatrice Kirk poured coffee for them from the pot that simmered on a crane over her open fire. Otherwise, she loitered in the room, listened to the talk, interrupted it when she chose, or lounged on the couch that Tankerton, at huge expense, had brought up from the lowlands for her comfort. She was in all respects like a spoiled child, and like a petted favorite she was treated by the others.

They were discussing, on this occasion, the plight of Chelton, Dunmore, and little Jimmy Larren, who had escaped from the train, but apparently had been cut off from their flight to the upper mountains and the refuge there.

“They'll never break through,” said Legges. “The last word is that between Griswold and Channing Station there are five hundred men strung out.”

“Any man of brains can break a string,” Beatrice said.

“A string of Winchesters, my dear?” asked the doctor.

“A man like Dunmore?” she countered.

“She's lost her heart to Dunmore,” Legges commented softly. “I thought that would happen.”

“Sure,” said Lynn Tucker, grinning sourly. “He's the newest man, and she ain't had a chance to get tired of his line.”

“He doesn't waste his time chattering,” said Beatrice. “Have some more coffee, Lynn, and thaw that mean look out of your face, will you?”

He held out his tin cup with a grimmer expression than ever. Of all who had succumbed to the beauty of Beatrice, none had been more thoroughly overcome than Lynn Tucker.

“You sure make the whole camp at home,” he said.

“How is that?” Legges asked.

“Because she gives the woman's touch to the whole bunch,” said Lynn Tucker, glad to explain. “She's got claws enough to go all around.”

“I keep you healthy, though,” she retorted.

“Are you a tonic, dear?” asked Legges.

“I keep the fat off your brains,” Beatrice answered, and, turning her back on them, she threw herself on the couch and picked up a magazine, which she pretended to read, but every now and then her head raised, and her dark eyes fixed upon them.

“Dunmore's a resourceful fellow,” said Tankerton,
“and by himself he might break through. But he has the other two with him. Chelton will still be half sick with the prison shakes. And little Jimmy's only a boy.”

“There's more man in Jimmy than in the whole rest of the camp,” threw in Beatrice.

Lynn Tucker flung an ugly glance at her. “For my part,” he declared, “I don't give a hoot what happens to Dunmore. . . .”

“If you want to be disagreeable,” said the girl, “go out where the horses are. I won't have you talking like that in here.”

“It doesn't matter about the rest of us,” put in Legges with his smile, “but she doesn't like to have you talk like that of Dunmore.”

“Dunmore! Dunmore!” shouted Lynn Tucker furiously. “If he's such a man, why didn't he live up to the plan and keep goin' on until the train was in Runnin' Hoss Gulch? Then we'd've bagged something more than Chelton. We'd've had some money for our troubles. But he had to make his break before . . . he had to play his lone hand and act up all by himself. . . .”

A galloping horse drew up at the door, and a hand beat upon it.

Beatrice herself ran and opened it, and a panting voice said: “Is the chief here?”

“Yes.”

She turned to Tankerton. “It's Biff Laurie,” she said in introduction. “He's boiling over with something.”