Longarm and the Train Robbers (2 page)

Eli's face turned
bitter.  "Damned sonsabitchin' plow horses!"

The other man
introduced himself.  "My name is Edward Ashmore and I'm the
president of the Bank of Wyoming with headquarters in Cheyenne. 
We're opening a second branch in Laramie and I'm constantly
traveling back and forth between those places.  Fifty miles
doesn't seem like a long journey by rail, except that it's all up
and then down a mountain.  It's a tedious and even dangerous
roadbed."

"I know that,"
Longarm said.  "There are a lot of switchbacks, and I've been
over this stretch in winter when the trains had a terrible time
crossing."

"I'm hoping that,
it only being November, we won't get the kind of snowstorm we
might get a month or two from now."

"I hope you're
right," Longarm said, looking out the window and seeing that the
snow was thick now and visibility was just forty or fifty
yards.

"I for one,"
Ashmore said, "understand that there are such men as your
prisoner.  I've never witnessed a killing or been to war.  But
I've lived in Wyoming more than ten years now and I know that
there are desperate and ruthless outlaws.  Men perfectly capable
of murder.  Deputy Long, you're to be congratulated for taking
every precaution against allowing this man to escape and attempt
to murder one of us."

"I appreciate your
support," Longarm said, loud enough so that Miss Noble could not
possibly fail to hear.  "A lawman never seems to get much
respect, and we damn sure don't get much pay either.  But someone
has to track down fugitives of the law and bring them to
justice."

"Tell me, have you
ever considered some other occupation?"

"Such
as?"

The banker
shrugged.  "The Bank of Wyoming could use an ex-lawman to guard
shipments between Cheyenne and Laramie.  I like your no-nonsense
style. You strike me as a true professional, sir."

Longarm warmed to
the praise.  "I sincerely appreciate your kind and flattering
words.  But the fact of the matter is that I like my work.  Oh, I
grumble about the hours and the bad pay.  I sometimes even envy a
sheriff or town marshal who can go home to a wife and children. 
I'm constantly being sent hither and yon after escaped
fugitives.  But I'm good at it, and in fact I think there are few
better."

The banker
smiled.  "Yes, yes, I'm sure that's true.  You're exactly the
kind of a man that we could use to protect our interests. 
There's a bright future in Wyoming banking for a steady man who
can handle himself.  I'm sure that we could offer you a salary
that would make you give up that badge."

"Thanks, but I'm
just not interested."

Ashmore looked
genuinely surprised.  "I'm not used to being turned down when I
offer a man an exceptionally well-paying job.  Is there...  is
there something personal you have against me, sir?"

"Oh, no!  I just
like my work and right now I'm trying to keep my mind on my
prisoner.  Maybe the next time I come through Cheyenne I can look
you up and we can talk."

"By then the
position might be filled."

"That's a chance
I'll just have to take," Longarm said, trying but failing to
sound concerned because he doubted that he'd have any real
interest in being a bank guard no matter how good the
pay.

"I'm going to
raise hell with our conductor for letting this coach get so
frigid," the banker said, rubbing his hands briskly together. 
"It's outrageous!"

Longarm glanced
around.  "I haven't seen him for quite some time."

"I'll go look for
him," the banker said, loud enough for everyone to hear.  "I'm
not about to let these good people, many of whom are undoubtedly
faithful depositors at the Bank of Wyoming, suffer because of a
dereliction of duty."

"Good idea,"
Longarm said, noting how the storm and the train had finally met
so that visibility outside was reduced to nothing.

Eli stared at the
window, the muscles of his jaw distended.  In a quiet voice he
said, "I'm not going to hang."

"That's not my
business," Longarm said.  "All I'm sworn to do is bring you to
trial."

"Yeah, but you
don't know what happened back there at that
homestead."

Longarm's voice
dropped to a hard whisper.  "Oh, yes I do!  I can read signs and
I know you slaughtered that entire family."

"They weren't
neighborly to me," Eli said between clenched teeth.  "The
sodbuster, he wouldn't give me a fair trade for two lame horses. 
All I wanted was a fair trade!"

"So you blew his
face off?  Tell it to the judge after I tell him about the wife
and the sons."

"They were mean to
me!" Eli hissed.  "Didn't even ask me in for supper after I said
I was hungry."

"That's no reason
to kill them."

"They asked for
it!"

"Shut up," Longarm
breathed.  "If I wasn't a deputy of the federal court in Denver,
I'd have gut-shot you up in the Unitas and been done with it. 
You deserve to die hard, Eli.  A bullet in your brain would be
too kind."

Eli glanced
sideways at Longarm.  "You're no different than me," he said.
"You just hide behind a badge so you can do your killing
legal."

Longarm's eyes
shifted to the man, then past him to the window.  Even over the
pounding of the iron wheels he could hear the sound of the wind
howling off the Laramie Mountains.  This storm was coming all the
way down from Canada.  Longarm could only imagine what kind of a
white, frozen hell the locomotive engineer must be fighting as he
peered vainly ahead into the freezing maelstrom, trying to gauge
where each of the many switchbacks would be and hoping that the
snow did not stick on the ground to block the rails. "I never
liked snow until now," Eli said with a smirk.  "I always said
that I was going to California.  That's where I was headed when
you caught me.  I'd never have killed again."

"That's a lie.
 You've killed so often that it means nothing to you anymore. 
That woman whose throat you cut in Denver was-"

"Was just another
tired-out old whore!" Eli choked out.  "She tried to get me drunk
so that her boyfriend could steal the money from my pants.  But I
was wise to 'em!  If he hadn't jumped out of that hotel window,
I'd have killed him too."

Longarm didn't
know if Miss Martha Noble had overheard this confession, but he
suspected that she had and was probably starting to realize that
she'd made a fool of herself defending such a cold-blooded
killer.

A few minutes
later, the conductor and the banker returned.  The banker looked
angry and the conductor began to pitch wood into the small stove
at the rear of the car.

"I'd never hire
him," the banker said loudly.  "A man like that wouldn't last a
day at our Bank of Wyoming but he'll last forever on this
railroad.  I tell you, the Union Pacific will hire
anyone!"

Longarm smiled to
himself.  The banker was putting on a show of authority for the
other passengers and was making sure that everyone knew about his
bank.  Loud, boastful people were imitating to Longarm, who
preferred to go about his work with a quiet efficiency.  He never
bragged or told stories of the men he tracked down and brought to
justice.

Longarm and other
passengers seemed to hold their breath as the train inched its
way up the summit.  Time lost all meaning.  It was as if they
were traveling in a tunnel of ice.  There was nothing to see
outside and the storm kept screeching like a tormented witch. 
But finally, the train seemed to level out and pause, then
slightly pick up speed.

"We've done it,"
Longarm declared loudly.  "We've crested the summit!"

"Are you sure?"
Miss Noble asked.

"He's right," the
banker said, beaming.  "I've been over this stretch a hundred
times.  There is no question about it.  We've crested and are now
on the downhill run."

"But isn't that
just as dangerous?" another passenger asked.  "I mean, what if we
were to lose our brakes?"

"There is no
chance of that," an older man wearing bib overalls and work boots
declared.  "I worked on a railroad for twenty years back in
Ohio.  Our brakes aren't going to fail."

Everyone except
Eli Wheat seemed much relieved.  Studying his wedge-shaped face
with his hooked nose and deep-set eyes, Longarm said, "Looks like
we're going to make Cheyenne after all.  Another two hours at the
most."

Eli turned and
stared right through him.  "Don't bet your life on it,
Deputy."

"What is that
supposed to mean?"

Eli smiled.  "It
means that a lot can happen in two hours and this blizzard is
getting worse, not better."

Longarm stared at
the whipping snow curtain.  He could hear the intensity of the
storm grow and he knew that Eli was right.  The ride down from
this high summit was risky even under the best of circumstances,
and these were the worst of circumstances.

Miss Noble turned
around and favored Longarm with what he judged to be an
embarrassed smile.  "I... I couldn't help but overhear your
conversation about those two people that your prisoner attacked
in Denver."

"Then you know
that he killed the woman."

"Yes," she said in
a sad voice.  "I heard that.  And I guess that I do owe you an
apology."

"Apology
accepted," Longarm said.  "And I probably shouldn't have grabbed
Eli by the throat and tried to throttle him into
silence."

"Damn right you
shouldn't have!" Eli spat out.

"Shut up," Longarm
ordered.

Martha Noble
sighed.  "I will be oh so glad when we reach
Cheyenne."

"I suppose that
you have family waiting for you there?"

"No.  I'm not
married.  I was once but, well... it didn't work out."

"i'm
sorry."

"I'm not.  My
husband was not a nice man.  He wasn't a murderer or anything,
but he had no character."

Longarm nodded as
if to say he understood.

"Marshal, will you
be staying long in Cheyenne?"

"Only as long as
necessary.  I'll put Eli up in the sheriff's jail, wait for the
first train south, then we'll be on our way to
Denver."

"I see," Miss
Noble said.  "And if-"

Martha Noble never
finished her sentence for, in the next moment, their coach
lurched violently to the side and lifted.  Martha screamed and
Longarm grabbed the arm of his seat as the entire train
tilted.

Eli raised his
handcuffs and tried to claw out Longarm's eyes.  But the coach
tottered and before Eli could reach Longarm, it began a sickening
roll.

The sound of Miss
Noble screaming in Longarm's ace did not drown out an explosion
somewhere up ahead.  Was it perhaps an avalanche?

Longarm reached to
grab Miss Noble as she left her feet, but then he was flying too
as the coach began to tumble down the mountainside.  He lost
consciousness as the sound of tearing metal and splintering wood
filled his ears like a roar of a killer Kansas
tornado.