The Bold Frontier (12 page)

“Everybody, and I mean everybody, knows about them papers,” one of the men reported. “ ’Course, with Job Thompson dead, there ain’t much said against him. But the others are getting laid low. The small ranchers didn’t have any idea those three and Gashlin was sinking their chances of shipping beef by rail.”

The voices rose, became angrier. The news carried back to the dim, lonely boxcar where Rome waited.

“Gashlin’s about five hundred percent more unpopular than before. People don’t like being shoved around because of him … they’re starting to cuss the stink—and him.”

Rome felt small satisfaction. Maybe the rails would stretch out. Maybe the Kansas & Western would roll. But Job Thompson’s killing remained bloody on his hands.

Three mornings after Hamilton took the papers into Warknife, more riders came to the camp. After they left, Hamilton didn’t appear so Rome made his way to the office car. Hamilton was busy at the desk when he entered.

“Dammit, Mark, you’re not supposed to be roaming around. Somebody might ride in here any time and spot you—”

“I just wanted to find out what those men were doing here.”

Hamilton grinned. “The whole town’s busted wide open. Drew and McMaster gave back the money Gashlin paid them and tore up the papers. Cathy Thompson plans to do the same. It appears she didn’t have any idea that old Job was part of a deal involving bribery.”

“That means something—”

“You’re right it means something. Gashlin’s sore as hell.” Hamilton fingered the green metal cash box on top of the desk. “But I bought the right-of-way through all three spreads. Public opinion just got too strong. I heard those three families were almost social outcasts. Like they had leprosy or something. We’re going through, starting now.”

That made Rome feel better. The wheels were turning again. New life was being pumped into the Kansas & Western. He glanced out the window and saw it. Men bustled about busily. Track foremen were assembling their crews; flatcars were being loaded.

“I think maybe we’ve got this thing licked,” Hamilton said at last.

“I wouldn’t count on it a hundred percent.”

“Why not?”

“Gashlin will still try to stop us. And this time it won’t be with paper deals. He’ll use guns and dirty tactics. We ought to expect it and get ready.”

Hamilton studied him. “We will. Maybe it’ll be a good thing. In one way it scares the hell out of me— we’re cutting our time pretty thin as it is. But maybe we can draw Gashlin into the open and get rid of him once and for all.” He paused. “The situation’s backwards now. Gashlin’s out, we’re in. He’ll fight for sure. But we’re in.”

“All except me,” Rome said quietly. “I swear to you, Ben—somehow I’ll get that Thompson thing cleared up.”

“Your chance’ll come.”

Rome nodded. “Right now I want to work.”

“All right. We’re going to hit this thing hard. Day and night. I’ll put you on nights.”

“I want to be out on the track. I want to help put those rails down myself, Ben.”

“Good enough. Only don’t expect to do that all the time. We may need extras in everything, foremen, engineers. We’ll be working on a rough schedule.”

“Suits me.”

Hamilton slapped him on the shoulder. “Get back to your damned boxcar and wait till dark. Then you can get busy.”

Rome thought of Gashlin all afternoon, wondering how and when the strike would come. When he got hold of him … well … He thought about that a lot. The bitterness feeding in him, gnawing at his mind, changed him. All he wanted was Gashlin before him and a gun in his hand. Rome wondered if he would be strong enough to keep from murdering the man the first time he laid eyes on him, the first time he was unprotected.

Noise filled the camp. Whistles shrilled and flatcars began to move up the line about a quarter of a mile, pulled by the small switch engines. Hoarse shouting echoed everywhere. Smoke wisped in the sky, and soon from the west came the clang of hammers.

At four o’clock a storm came smashing down from bloated gray clouds. At six, in the rain, Rome was swinging a hammer, driving in spikes. Behind him the switch engine bored a yellow tunnel of light through the downpour, wreathing the working men in a ghostly aura.

The rain kept coming down, soaking into the parched ground. Hamilton drove the men, working them twenty-four hours a day. Rome’s muscles ached almost unendurably when the’ dawn came, but he went back to his duties after a two-hour rest. His clothes didn’t dry out. His head swam, and when he slept again, he swung a hammer in his dreams. He knew he was getting sick, but he didn’t care.

The Kansas & Western was going through. …

They drove the rails across Drew’s spread, then McMaster’s, then through Warknife. Rome stayed completely hidden the night they laid track through the town. The next day they were beyond the eastern outskirts and he was eager to work again. He argued with Hamilton and finally won, working through the day, too, stopping only about seven hours for sleep when he got too feverish.

They cut timber and built the trestle over the cut on Thompson’s spread. Once at night, working under the eye of the locomotive behind them, Rome saw Cathy Thompson watching on horseback, Hamilton beside her. He kept his head down as he slammed another spike home. She didn’t matter. Even Gashlin had been wiped from his mind. The world consisted of the rails and the ties, the spikes and the watching yellow eye marking progress through the rainy darkness.

Men began to drop. The ones remaining worked harder than ever. The dispensary in the rear of the office car never closed, and the supplies of medicine dwindled. The men were sick, but a restless energy drove them on. Hamilton was often among them, swinging a hammer, cursing, as wet and as sick and as tired as they were. But, like them, he was proud of what they were doing, and it showed. It kept them going.

Nine days after they started work they were back on schedule and almost to the far boundary of Job Thompson’s ranch. Rome went back to the main camp east of the recently constructed trestle, trying to find some warmer clothes. The air had grown cooler, turning the wet ground into thick mud.

Rome was in the mess tent, downing a cup of hot, acidic coffee when one of the foremen came in and spotted him. “Hey, Mark—they’re short of iron up ahead. We’re loading a couple of flatcars. Can you take them up?”

Rome nodded and finished his coffee. He tramped through the drizzle toward the snorting switch engine. “Steam’s up,” the foreman called as Rome climbed into the cab.

He edged the throttle back, his hands moving with skill over the controls. The railroad man’s sense of precision, his sensitivity to the massive iron locomotive born of instinct as well as practice, took hold. Smiling, Rome leaned out and watched the track ahead.

The wheels turned, hissing, clacking, rattling off their song of triumph. They weren’t beaten. They were rolling west again. They were going through. He felt elated, even with the residue of fever and sickness to dull his senses.

He wasn’t making over eight miles an hour. But that was all right. The trestle would be coming up soon, and he hadn’t far to go after that. Just being in the cab, feeling the engine under his hands, made him feel immeasurably better. He thought suddenly of Cathy and wished that she were with him.

The seemingly endless rain slanted down through the headlight, cold and dreary. Rome didn’t care about the rain anymore. He jerked the cord, listened to the whistle scream its cry of conquest. He wiped his forehead and smiled again.

Á quarter of a mile east of the trestle, Gashlin struck.

The riders came out of the murk, half a dozen of them. They followed the train at a fast gallop. Rome whirled, jerking out his gun. He could make out the figure of Gashlin, leading the riders.

The locomotive rolled past a small gang of workers who dodged to avoid the oncoming horses. One of the riders shot at the railroadmen; Rome saw two of them go down. Then the locomotive swung around a bend. Rome hoped fervently that the men would summon help.

The train was rolling through the uncleared timber, the trestle coming up soon. Rome crouched in the cab with the pistons making a thundering sound beneath him. The wheels clacked as the riders swung onto the last flatcar one by one. Their guns were out as they advanced toward the cab through the rain. Gashlin carried a large dark parcel.

“Stop the engine,” he shouted to Rome over the roar. “Stop it on the trestle!” Rome triggered a shot and the attackers ducked. Rome spied a couple of rough, unfamiliar faces in the gloom. Gashlin had evidently added a few professional guns to his force. By the hellish glow of the firebox, Rome could see that Gashlin’s face was anxious. His back was to the wall. …

Rome debated the situation for an instant. They were not firing now but stalking cautiously because they wanted the locomotive halted on the trestle. Rome guessed what the parcel contained. Dynamite.

It would be a crippling loss; a valuable switch engine, and, more important, a key trestle that would take time to rebuild. They might never finish on time, and Gashlin would keep his business. …

“
Stop this thing!
” Gashlin roared, his voice ragged with desperation.

Carefully, Rome took aim and began firing. He slipped along the side of the tender, triggering his shots over the top. He had to time it carefully now, very carefully. Gashlin must be realizing that he couldn’t stop the train; he shouted orders to his men and they began firing from the flatcar nearest the tender.

One by one, Rome shot them down, all except Gashlin. It was a new sensation, feeling the power of the weapon in his hand. He took his time with four, only wounding them. The fifth clutched his stomach and screamed, his body arching backward and pitching from the flatcar, lost in the darkness and the rain.

Gashlin remained. He was crawling down the opposite side of the tender, hidden from view. Rome edged his way back into the cab, his nerves strained. Fear gnawed the pit of his stomach. He pulled the throttle all the way out and felt the locomotive shiver. Imperceptibly, it picked up speed.

He waited.

Gashlin appeared at the far corner of the tender and hurled the package toward the boiler opening. Rome stepped out of the shadows, grabbing for it. His fingers strained for it, and he wanted to scream with rage when he missed it; he felt the thing brush past his fingertips as the locomotive rocketed onto the trestle.

Gashlin was struggling to get a pistol out of his coat. The dynamite went spiraling into the maw of the firebox. Acting more by instinct than from thought, Rome ran forward, smashing into Gashlin and pushing him backward off the train. Rome tumbled with him for seemingly endless seconds, down and down, through rain and blackness.

Rome thought, My God, we may be falling into the cut, we may …

He hit the ground and felt his body vibrate with the jarring pain. The locomotive rolled a thousand feet beyond the trestle, the last flatcar careening wildly, before it blew to pieces.

Rome flattened himself on the sodden ground, hiding his face. Heat and steam and tiny shards of metal stung his back. He lay there, his heart thumping rapidly while the reverberations died away. Then he staggered to his feet and surveyed the situation.

The trestle remained intact with only a few lengths of rail ruined. The switch engine had disintegrated. The flatcars lay on their sides, rails and ties spilled onto the shoulders of the roadbed. Rome peered at them in the murk and then he thought of Gashlin.

Gashlin lay half a dozen yards away, face up, unconscious. Rome knelt near him, taking a match from his pants pocket. Then he realized that he still held his gun in his left hand. He shifted it to the right, then stuck it in his belt, laughing at his own clumsiness. He finally got the match lit and cupped his hands around it, shielding it from the rain.

He stared at Gashlin. The man’s face was bearded and weary-looking. The strain must have worn him to nothing. His business sliding out from under him, making this one attempt to save it …

Suddenly Rome thought of Job Thompson. Anger flooding over him, he pulled his gun. Standing up, he pointed the barrel at Gashlin’s head, his finger tightening on the trigger.

He stood that way for a long moment, the rain whispering down through the timber surrounding him. Then he scowled. Slowly he pushed the gun back into his belt. Bending down, he hoisted Gashlin’s unconscious form onto his shoulder and began to trudge westward.

Ten minutes later he met a handcar coming toward him from the end-of-track. Thankfully he dumped Gashlin’s body onto the car and huddled down beside it. One of the railroadmen pumped the car back west while the other workers trudged to look over the wreckage.

In the lighted work area, where men labored in the flaring glow of lanterns hung on poles beside the track, Rome met a tired Ben Hamilton. Quickly he explained what had happened. As he was finishing the story, the sheriff rode in.

“This here’s Mark Rome,” Hamilton said.

The sheriff reached for his gun. Rome, faster, already had him under his sights.

“Easy, sheriff,” Rome said. “I want to get this cleared up as much as you do. That’s Bruce Gashlin on the ground. He just blew up one of our switch engines and tried to dynamite our trestle on top of it. He killed Job Thompson—that is, Cole Yancey did, on his orders.”

“I don’t figure it,” the sheriff said. “Not any of it.”

“Wait till he wakes up,” Rome said. “Things’ll straighten out then.”

At least he hoped they would. He was counting on Gashlin being the opportunist in any situation.

In the rain, Rome shivered. A ring of men had gathered, watching intently. Hamilton ordered them back to work and they tramped away through the mud. Slowly, Gashlin stirred on the ground, opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Rome’s gun.

Next his gaze fastened on the sheriff. He tried to get to his feet, slipped in the mud, and sank to one knee.

“Get up, Gashlin,” Rome said.

He tried again, swaying until he made it.

Rome weighed his words with care, hoping he had judged the man correctly. “We’ve got you dead to rights for dynamiting the engine and for having Job Thompson killed. You can take your chances and keep quiet, or you can spill the whole thing and maybe you’ll get off easier. Prison’s better than a rope.”