Shootout of the Mountain Man (3 page)

“It don’t make no never-mind where we come from.”

“What’s goin’ on here?” the engineer called down from the cab. He stuck his head out through the window, but when he saw to two armed riders, he jerked back inside.

“Huh-uh, Mr. Engineer,” Conklin called up to him. “If you don’t want the fireman kilt, you better stick your head and arms back out the window and keep ‘em there where we can see you.”

The engineer complied.

While that was going on, Dodd and Stillwater approached the express car. With Bobby Lee remaining slightly behind the other two, Dodd banged on the door with the butt of his pistol.

“You boys in there got two choices!” he shouted. “You can either open the door and not get hurt, or keep the door closed and more’n likely get kilt when I blow up the car with dynamite! ”

“Oh, they are going to open the door all right,” Bobby Lee said aloud, though saying the words too quietly to be heard. He chuckled at the thought of Dodd being surprised when the sheriff and his deputy made their sudden, and unexpected, appearance.

But it wasn’t Dodd who was surprised. It was Bobby Lee. When the door to the express car opened, there was nobody there but one frightened express agent. Where was Sheriff Wallace?

It took very little persuasion for the express agent to pass down two large cloth bags. Dodd opened them and looked down inside, then let out a shout of joy.

“Yahoo! Boys, these is all twenty-dollar bills! There’s gotta be a couple thousand dollars or more! Come on! Let’s get out of here!”

Conklin and Wayland came back from the engine, and the robbers made ready to ride away. Before they left, though, Dodd turned back toward the train and shot the express agent, who grabbed his chest, then fell to the ground from the car.

“Why did you do that?” Bobby Lee yelled in shock and anger. “You didn’t have any call to shoot him.”

“He seen our faces,” Dodd replied. “Come on, let’s go!”

Bobby Lee started to ride away with the other four, but he stopped, then turned and rode back to the train. Dismounting, he hurried over to the still form of the express man. He put his hand on the express man’s neck to feel for a pulse, but there was none. The man was dead.

Damnit! He thought. This didn’t have to happen. Where was the sheriff? Where were his deputies?

By now, some of the passengers had stepped down from the train, and three of the men, holding pistols in their hands, approached Bobby Lee.

“Mister, shooting him was dumb enough,” one of the armed passengers said. “But coming back here to gloat over what you done is ‘bout the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Bobby Lee stood up. “Is the sheriff on board this train?” he asked.

“Don’t need no sheriff. I reckon we can handle you till we get you to town,” the passenger said.

“No, you don’t understand. My name is Bobby Lee Cabot, I’m with the Western Capital Security Agency. I told Sheriff Wallace about this robbery. This was supposed to be a set up to capture the robbers.”

“Well, if you and the sheriff are such good friends, then I reckon you two can get it all worked out when we get to town. Get his gun, Joe.”

The passenger named Joe pulled Bobby Lee’s pistol from his holster. Bobby Lee offered no resistance. There was no sense in it. The man holding the gun on him was right. It would be all worked out once he and Sheriff Wallace got together.

“What are we going to do with him?” one of the men asked.

“I say we hang him,” another suggested.

“Look here!” Bobby Lee said, suddenly frightened over the possibility that he might be lynched right here, before he could clear himself. “I told you, I wasn’t with them!”

“Mister, do you take us for fools? We saw you with them.”

“Yes, I was with them, but I was setting a trap for them. I thought the sheriff would be on this train and he could arrest them.”

“A likely story.”

“I say let’s hang him.”

“No,” another passenger said. By now, several other passengers had come down from the train. The passenger who called out was a tall, silver-haired, dignified-looking man. “I saw it too, and this man isn’t the one who did the shooting.”

“What difference does it make who did the shooting? He was with them, that’s all that matters as far as I’m concerned.”

“If you men hang him, you are going to have to shoot me as well. And you’ll be doing it in front of every other passenger on this train. Do you want a double murder on your hands?”

“What? No, what are you talking about? Hanging this fella wouldn’t be murder. It would be justice.”

The silver-haired man shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t be justice, it would be lynching. The only way I’m going to let you do that is if you shoot me first. And I think that even you would admit that shooting me would be murder.”

“Maybe the old geezer is right,” one of the original three men said. “I ain’t no murderer.”

“Me neither,” the second of the three said.

The spokesman of the group acquiesced. “All right,” he said. “All right. Let’s get some rope and tie the son of a bitch up. We’ll turn him over to the sheriff as soon as we get to Cloverdale.”

“Thanks, mister,” Bobby Lee said to the man who had stopped the lynching.

“Don’t thank me, mister,” the man replied. “I hope you do hang. The only thing is, I want to see you legally hanged—I don’t want to see these good men get into trouble because of you.”

Bobby Lee offered no resistance when the armed train passengers bound and gagged him like a trussed-up calf, then threw him bodily and painfully onto the floor of the express car. More gently, they lifted the messenger into the car with him. Then one of the armed passengers climbed into the car to keep an eye on their prisoner.

With two short blasts on the engine’s whistle, followed by a series of jolts and jerks, the train got under way again.

“Mister, you picked the wrong train to rob,” his guard said, his glaring eyes gleaming in the glow of the car lamp. “Yes, sir, there was some of us on board who won’t put up with nothin’ like that.”

Bobby Lee wanted to explain to him about his plan to set up a trap for Frank Dodd, to prove to him that he was indeed an employee of the Western Capital Security Agency, but the gag prevented him from talking. There was nothing he could do now but lean back against the side of the car and make himself as comfortable as possible for the remainder of the ride.

Bobby Lee Cabot was twenty-four years old. He was a slender man, with more strength than his appearance suggested. His hair was sun bleached, and his eyes were a cross between gun-metal gray and sky blue. Women found him rather appealing, and men weren’t intimidated by him. That sort of low-key combination worked well for him in his profession as a private detective, because it enabled him to blend easily with his surroundings.

The first part of it had worked well. He had been accepted into Frank Dodd’s gang. Perhaps it had worked too well, because he had not only convinced Dodd and his men that he was one of them, but now the train passengers were equally as convinced.

It was late at night, and there would be another two hours before they reached Cloverdale. As a result, Bobby Lee’s guard fell asleep. Bobby Lee worked himself out of the ropes, and removed the gag. Then, quietly and carefully, he took the gun from the sleeping guard’s hand. Having freed himself, he returned to his position against the side of the car.

It was just after dawn as the train began braking for its approach into Cloverdale. The guard, awakened by the change of sound and motion, stretched and yawned, then suddenly realized where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

“What the hell? “ he shouted in alarm when he saw that Bobby Lee was sitting against the side of the car, holding the pistol. The would-be guard threw his arms up. “No, mister, don’t shoot! I’ve got a wife and kids! Don’t shoot!”

“Relax,” Bobby Lee said. “I’m not going to shoot you. I told you, I’m not one of outlaws. I want to see the sheriff. I plan to get this all straightened out.” He handed the pistol back to the guard. “I believe this belongs to you.”

Cloverdale was awakening on the new day when the train arrived. The stagecoach was waiting for any passengers who might need a connection to the nearby towns that weren’t served by the railroad. Freight wagons were already beginning their morning runs, stores were opening, and citizens were moving about. Word that the train had been robbed was quickly spread through the town so that soon, a rather substantial crowd had gathered around the depot to watch, sadly, as the messenger’s body was taken down.

“Who done it?” someone asked.

“Frank Dodd, who else?”

When Bobby Lee was taken from the train, tied and watched over by at least two armed men, a gasp of surprise passed through the crowd.

“Ain’t that Bobby Lee Cabot?”

“What’s he doin’ all tied up like that?”

“Someone said he was ridin’ with Dodd.”

“You don’t say.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“What do you mean you don’t believe it? They caught him red-handed is what they done.”

Sheriff Wallace arrived then, pushing his way importantly through the crowd. “Open up here, let me through, make way,” he called repeatedly. Anyone looking down from an elevated position would have seen the crowd parting, then closing in behind him as he made his way to the platform alongside the express car where the two armed passengers were holding Bobby Lee prisoner.

“Here he is, Sheriff,” one of the two armed passengers said. “We caught this fella red-handed, right after the train was robbed and the messenger was kilt.”

“I want to thank you men for bringing him in,” Sheriff Wallace said. “This will save me the trouble, and the county the expense of having to go after him.”

Sheriff Wallace was a very big man, six feet six inches tall. He had a round, bald head that sat on his shoulders with very little visible neck. His ears were so small that they seemed mismatched for his head. He wasn’t just tall, he was big, weighing right at three hundred pounds.

“What do you mean, save you the trouble of going after me? What’s this about, Sheriff?” Bobby Lee asked, surprised by the sheriff’s reaction.

“This is about bringin’ you to trial, findin’ you guilty, and hangin’ you,” Sheriff Wallace said. “That’s what it’s about.”

“Sheriff, uh, maybe I ought to tell you something,” the man who had been watching over Bobby Lee said.

“What?”

The passenger cleared his throat and looked at the others. “Well, sir, I fell asleep while we was comin’ in this mornin', and when I come to, this here fella was free, and holdin’ my gun.”

“You should have been more careful,” Wallace said.

“Yes, sir, but my point is, he could have got away, only he didn’t. He give my gun back to me. It sort of makes you think, don’t it?”

“Think about what?” Sheriff Wallace said.

“Well, it makes you think about whether or not he’s guilty. I mean, if he was guilty, wouldn’t he have maybe kilt me, then got away?”

“Maybe,” the sheriff agreed. “Or maybe he just figured it would make him look innocent.”

The expression on the passenger’s face changed, from one of concern to one of anger over being used.

“Yeah,” he said, glaring at Bobby Lee. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t it.”

“Come along, Cabot,” Wallace said. “I’ve got a jail cell waitin’ for you.”

Bobby Lee was about to say something else, but he held his tongue when he decided that perhaps the sheriff was merely trying to protect his undercover status. He remained quiet until the sheriff took him down to his office.

“I have to confess that you had me worried there for a moment,” Bobby Lee said. “But I understand now what you are doing.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. You are protecting my identity. You are going to wait until they leave town before you let me out.”

“What do you mean I’m protecting your identity? You are Bobby Lee Cabot, and soon as we start the trial, the whole world is going to know who you are. And what makes you think I’m going to let you out?”

Again, Bobby Lee was surprised, and this time he was also worried. There was no one present but the two of them, so the sheriff had no reason to talk like this. “I expect you to let me out because of the arrangement we had.”

“What arrangement? What are you talking about?” Sheriff Wallace asked.

“Sheriff Wallace, you are beginning to make me uncomfortable. You know damn well what arrangement we had. We not only talked about it in some detail, I also sent you a letter, telling you about the robbery. I asked you to be in the car with deputies. If you had done what I asked, we could have stopped this,” Bobby Lee explained. “That messenger would still be alive, and you would have Frank Dodd and his entire gang in jail.”

“We never had any such conversation, and I did not receive a letter from you.”

“Of course you received it. You have to have received it. I sent it to you in plenty of time.”

“I don’t know what kind of trick you are trying to pull, Cabot, but you aren’t going to get away with it,” Sheriff Wallace said.

In the parlor of the house Smoke had built for his wife at Sugarloaf, on the wall opposite the windows, there was a picture that Smoke particularly liked. Sally found it rather jarring, but tolerated it because of her love of Smoke. The picture, cut from a calendar, was a full-color Currier and Ives print of two night trains, racing out of Washington, D.C., sparks flying from the stacks and with every window in every car shining brightly. It was a dramatic, if unrealistic, representation. Just below the calendar was the stove, cool now as there was no need for it, but with the faint aroma of smoke from last year’s use still clinging to the black iron. Next to the stove was a large mahogany, coiled spring-driven, disc-operated music box. It was playing now, and the music it produced was full throated and vibrant, resonating throughout the room.

Sally was doing some crochet, while Smoke was looking at a new stack of stereopticon photographs. At the moment, he was looking at a picture of London’s Big Ben. They were equally involved in their pursuits when Pearlie knocked on the front door.