Longarm and the Train Robbers (4 page)

Martha was silent
a long time.  "I hope to God that there are other train coaches
like this that people have managed to reach.  That one destroyed
coach we passed looked like a pile of chopped firewood.  I can't
imagine what-"

"Don't think about
it," Longarm said.  "That doesn't help.  We have to just worry
about saving ourselves now.  We have to hope that, when this
train didn't arrive in Cheyenne, help was dispatched right
away."

"In a storm like
this?"  Martha looked up at him in the dim glow of the
firelight.  "I doubt that they would send anyone out in this
weather.  Would you?"

"No," Longarm
admitted.  "I'd wait until the worst of this storm
passed."

Martha thought
about that for a few minutes before she said, "If some of these
people don't get to a doctor soon, they'll die."

Longarm knew
that.  He also knew that it was pointless to worry about what was
beyond their control.  Each and every passenger had been attended
to as well as possible given the extreme deprivations they were
all trying to endure and survive.

"Wyoming storms
this early in the year often pass quickly," Longarm said. "I
think those among us that survive until morning will crawl out
into sunlight."

"I want to believe
that," Martha whispered as she held Longarm and her body heat
drove away his chills.

When Longarm
awoke, he knew that his greatest wish had been granted.  The wind
had stopped and, looking outside through a window that was still
intact, he could see the morning sun melting the snow.  Longarm
kissed Martha awake, and then he joined those who were able to
crawl out into the brilliant sunlight.  For a few moments, they
were all a little dazed and confused, like wild animals emerging
from hibernation.

The train was
segmented like a broken logger's chain, pieces of it scattered
all up and down the mountainside.  The locomotive had tumbled
hundreds of feet farther down into the gorge, and lay with its
huge driving wheels reaching for the sky.  The coal car was
nearby.  Another coach now rested several hundred yards above
both and was wrapped around an immense pine tree.

It took only a few
minutes for Longarm to realize that there were no other survivors
from the train.  Every coach except two had been ripped apart,
with bodies and baggage now buried under a thick blanket of
glistening snowfall.

"Where are you
going?" Martha asked.

"To the mail car,
or what's left of it."

Martha followed
Longarm about fifty yards up the slope.  The mail car was a pile
of kindling, and it took Longarm several minutes to dig his way
through the rubble in order to reach what had been a large safe. 
The safe would have survived the destruction had it not been
dynamited.  Now its massive door hung from only one hinge.  The
safe itself had been emptied.  Even the mail sacks had been
rifled and their contents scattered everywhere.

"The safe was
dynamited," Longarm announced when he crawled back out and
rejoined Martha.

She stared at him,
struck by the implications of his words.  "Then this whole thing
was a deliberate act by Eli Wheat's gang."

"It could have
been another bunch.  Eli's friends don't have a corner on train
robberies.  Still, I think that they probably wanted to see if
they could free one of their own and at the same time make a good
haul."

"So what
now?"

Longarm looked up
at the sky, and then removed and studied his pocket watch.  "It's
only eight-fifteen," he said, repocketing the Ingersoll.  "My
guess is that a rescue party ought to be here before nine
o'clock."

"With a
doctor?"

"I would think
so," Longarm said.  "The Union Pacific officials might believe
that this train just mired down in a snowbank, but they'll know
that there will be passengers who are suffering from the cold and
possibly even frostbite.  I'm sure that they'll bring along at
least one doctor."

"When we reach
Cheyenne, what will you do?" Martha asked.

Longarm turned to
survey the destruction below.  How many frozen bodies were buried
in those coaches and lying hidden by the white death?

"I'll telegraph
Denver and report what happened and my findings.  Then I'll go
after Eli and his gang."

"By
yourself."

"Yes," Longarm
said.  "But even if I fail, there will be plenty of others
hunting that gang.  Even Pinkertons.  But I mean to find them
first and have the pleasure of killing or capturing Eli and his
friends.  I want them very bad, Martha.  And though you might
disapprove, I'll smile when they prance like puppets at the end
of a hangman's noose."

"I don't
disapprove," she said.  "In fact, I rather hope you'll send me an
invitation to that party."

Longarm had not
realized the depth of change that this young woman had undergone
in less than twenty-four hours.  No longer was she blind to the
evil that lurked in men like Eli Wheat.  It was, on the one hand,
sad to see her lose her innocence.  But on the other hand, if
Martha Noble hoped to survive as a rare female Wyoming attorney,
she was long overdue for a massive dose of frontier
reality.

CHAPTER
3

True to Longarm's
prediction, a relief and supply train with a massive snowplow
mounted to its locomotive's cowcatcher came puffing up from
Cheyenne at about nine o'clock.  No doubt those arriving had
expected to find a train stranded in deep drifts.  Whatever their
expectations, they could not have anticipated the devastation
that lay scattered across the mountainside.

Longarm and
Martha, standing side by side and arm in arm, witnessed their
shock.  Longarm saw the Union Pacific's relief road crew gape at
the carnage and then slowly step off the rescue train and plod
forward.

"What in God's
name happened?" a tall man in a green flannel shirt cried,
yanking off his railroad cap and wringing it in his big fists. 
"Dear Lord, the telegraph lines between Cheyenne and Laramie went
down yesterday afternoon.  We just figured that maybe this train
had returned to Laramie."

"Obviously not,"
Longarm said as more men came up.  "Did you bring a
doctor?"

"Why,
no!"

"You should have,"
Longarm said quickly.  "We've got some badly injured passengers
and more dead ones than I care to think about."

"But
what..."

"It was sabotage,"
Longarm said, flashing his federal badge.  "Dynamite. They struck
the line during the blizzard and we were all over the
mountainside before we knew what hit us.  I'm afraid that the
death toll is very high."

"What about Art
Becker, the locomotive engineer?  And Scotty Macintosh, the
fireman?"

Longarm pointed
toward the overturned locomotive at the bottom of the gulch far
below.  "They never had a chance."

The man choked
with rage and sorrow.  "Who did this?"

"We can't say for
sure," Longarm hedged.  "I haven't had the time to do much
investigating.  Mostly, we're just trying to keep the worst of
the injured alive.  Mister, that should also be your most
immediate concern."

The tall man
visibly reined in his emotions.  "You're right!  We'll get
everyone on board and off to Cheyenne, where there's at least
three good doctors."

Longarm and Martha
joined the others to help the injured.  Men with rifles were
posted to watch over the train wreck, and it was decided that a
second train would need to be sent up for the bodies.

"We'll be digging
them out for a day or two and hunting for others scattered along
this mountain," the tall man, whose name was Jim Allen, said.
"I've seen a few train wrecks before, but nothing like
this."

"Me neither,"
Longarm said wearily as he helped the last of the survivors on
board the relief train.

It was a silent
ride down the eastern slopes of the Laramie Mountains into the
railhead town of Cheyenne.  To their credit, when news of the
train disaster spread across the city, hundreds of people rushed
forward to offer aid, food, and shelter to the survivors. 
Newspaper reporters flocked around the injured, bedeviling them
with questions that they could not answer.

"Deputy Long!" a
newspaper man shouted, running up to join Longarm and Martha. 
"Were you on that ill-fated train?"

"I was," Longarm
said, not wanting to talk to the man as he led Martha away from
the train depot and yards.

"Can you explain
what happened?" the newsman cried.  "Nobody seems
sure!"

"I'm not sure
either."

"But you do agree
that the train was robbed?"

"Yeah," Longarm
said.  "The train was robbed.  The safe was blown from its
hinges."

"Then it was
probably the same gang that has been doing that for several years
now, right?"

"That would be my
guess."

The reporter's
pencil scratched rapidly across his notebook.  "And I understand
that you were bringing Eli Wheat back to face the
hangman."

Longarm sighed. 
"It seems that you already know about as much as I can tell you. 
Will you excuse us now?  The lady is very tired."

"Miss Noble," the
reporter said, turning to Martha.  "I'm glad that you were not
counted among the missing or dead."

"Yes, Herb.  I'm
very, very fortunate.  It was a terrible ordeal and without our
deputy marshal, I doubt half as many would have
survived."

"Is that a
fact?"

"No," Longarm
said, "it is not.  Everyone did all that they could to help those
who were unable to help themselves.  The survivors were those of
us lucky enough not to be killed outright during the
wreck."

Pencil scratching
furiously, the reporter began to follow Longarm as he led Martha
away.  "Deputy, if Eli Wheat escaped-"

"I don't know that
for certain," Longarm said.  "He might be lying on that
mountainside or even down in the gulch, covered with rocks, snow,
and wreckage."

"But you don't
think so, do you?"

It wasn't a
question, and Longarm had no compelling reason to answer in any
event.  However, if Eli could read a newspaper, Longarm wanted
the man to know that he was going to be pursued to the very ends
of the earth if necessary.

"No," Longarm
said, "I don't think Eli is dead.  And my hunch is that his
escape did have something to do with the choice of this
particular train to be dynamited.  But since I can't be sure,
I'll have to return to the wreck and do a thorough
investigation."

"I see," the
reporter said, flipping his notebook to a fresh page.  "And I
suppose that, if Eli is alive, you'll go after him?"

"You can bet your
life on it!"  Longarm took Martha's arm.  "No more
questions."

"My father's house
is just up this street," Martha said.  "He bought it a few years
after I was married.  When he died, he left it in my
name."

"And now you'll
live here and start that law practice?"

"That's my plan,"
Martha said without a great deal of enthusiasm.  "I'm sure that
my father left me a complete law library down at his offices. 
I've everything that I need to begin a practice except
experience."

"Isn't there some
kind of test or formal requirement?"

"There is, and I
qualified before my marriage.  It was my father's fondest dream
that I should join his practice.  He never cared that I wasn't a
man.  He said that I'd make a terrific attorney."

"I'm sure he was
right," Longarm said as they approached a very stately two-story
frame house.  It was a beautiful home, though clearly it needed a
little attention.

"Your father must
have been very successful to buy such a nice house," Longarm
said, lifting the gate and following Martha up to the front
porch.

"He was."  Martha
sighed.  "My father was a lawyer for the Union Pacific Railroad. 
He handled all litigation filed against them, and he saved the
railroad thousands of dollars."

"You don't sound
very impressed."

"There were some
personal accident and injury cases where the railroad was clearly
negligent and there should have been awards to some very
desperate and deserving people."

"I
see."

She studied him. 
"Yes, I imagine you do.  I was an idealist then, and you saw a
hint of that in me when we first met on the train yesterday.  I
was very critical of my father.  Too critical.  I went off to law
school determined to balance the scales of justice in favor of
the individual.  I even kept the names of some of the plaintiffs
that my father prevented from receiving fair awards."

"Do you still
intend to right the wrongs of the past?"

"Absolutely.  But
this ordeal has shaken me and now, standing here on my father's
porch, I feel as if I might somehow sully his name if I dig up
the bones of the past."

"You should follow
your conscience," Longarm advised.  "If you have names of people
who were robbed of fair compensation, you should right the
wrong."