Starbuck immediately tagged him as the gang leader. He looked to be of medium height, powerfully built, and he was dressed in the nondescript
workclothes worn by the other men. A slouch hat covered his head, and a wide bandanna, pulled up over his nose, effectively masked his features. Yet, upon closer observation, Starbuck spotted something that couldn't be hidden. A thatch of red hair, brilliant orangey-red, spilled out from beneath the slouch hat. Bright as a sunset, it was a head of hair that would stand out in any crowd.
From start to finish, the holdup took less than five minutes. The robbers inside the express car emerged with mail sacks stuffed full of cash and quickly mounted their horses. On signal from their leader, the gang opened fire and raked the length of the train with a barrage of lead. The shots were purposely placed high, but windows shattered and wall panels splintered and the angry snarl of bullets ripped through the coaches. Everyone dove for the floor and prudently stayed there. A moment later the gunfire ceased and the thud of hoofbeats drummed the earth.
Starbuck peeked over the windowsill just as the gang disappeared into the woods. He jumped to his feet, hopping over the drummer, and moved through the door. Outside, he went down the coach steps and sprinted toward the rear of the train. Not ten seconds elapsed from the last gunshot to the time he pulled up in front of the boxcar. He hammered on the door with his fist.
“Noonan! Hank Noonan! Open up!”
“Who's there?”
“Joe Dobbs! C'mon, get the lead out! It's life or death!”
“Hold on, Joe!” The door flew open and Noonan gaped down at him with a look of fright. “Lord God A'mighty, they didn't shoot you, didâ”
Starbuck showed him a cocked sixgun. “Hank, I want you to listen real close and do exactly what I say. Savvy?”
Noonan bobbed his head, eyes popped out like a pair of fried eggs. Following Starbuck's instructions, he muscled the loading ramp to the door and dropped it into place. Starbuck climbed inside, noting out of the corner of his eye that a crowd of men had gathered around the express car. He ordered Noonan to saddle the mare. The Texan suddenly pulled up, his features twisted in a mulish frown.
“No sir!” he muttered hotly. “You ain't gonna stealâ”
Starbuck wagged the snout of the sixgun. “Don't play hero,
compadre.
Just get it doneâ
muy pronto!”
Grumbling under his breath, Noonan went to work. He saddled the mare, afterward fitting the bit into her mouth and slipping the bridle over her head. Then he backed her out of the stall and walked her to the door. With an unpleasant grunt, he tossed the reins to Starbuck.
“I dunno your game, but you shore picked the wrong horse. Old man Crocker's gonna hang your ass a mile high.”
“Obliged for the warning, Hank. Now step aside and don't make any sudden moves.”
Starbuck holstered his gun and looped the reins around the mare's neck. He stepped into the saddle,
tugged at the brim of his hat, and gave Noonan a sardonic smile. Then he feathered the mare in the ribs and reined her down the loading ramp. Once clear of the track bed, he gigged her hard and rode off at a gallop.
A moment later he vanished into the trees.
The chase lasted almost three hours.
From the outset, it was apparent to Starbuck that he'd underestimated the gang leader. He had expected a furious dash, speed rather than deception. That view had been reinforced when the job was pulled scarcely five miles south of Los Altos. An hour's hard ride, on a direct beeline to the hideout, was how he had visualized it upon taking the trail. He'd never been more wrong.
Instead of a beeline, the robbers zigzagged all over the countryside. A mile or so north of the holdup scene, they suddenly changed course and circled west of Los Altos. In the process, they crisscrossed several creeks, and at one point held their horses to mid-stream for something more than a halfmile. Then they switched directions and again turned due north. Their path, however, was meandering and uncannily deceptive.
At all times, the gang warily avoided open
ground. While they never doubled back, they stuck to redwood forests and scrub-choked hills wherever possible. Upon encountering lowlands, they veered off into rocky defiles latticed with brushy undergrowth. Their general direction was always north, but the winding route followed a network of harsh and seemingly predetermined obstacles. Quite clearly, they knew the terrain and had developed evasive stratagems to throw off pursuit. To all but a skilled tracker, their trail would have been lost within a few miles.
Starbuck's years as a manhunter served him well. Early on in his career, he had worked solely as a range detective. His principal targets were cattle rustlers and horse thieves, men schooled in plains lore and the artful dodges of hiding a trail. By necessity, he had become a tracker of surpassing skill, able to read signs practically invisible to the naked eye. Today, those skills permitted him to follow a crazyquilt path that would have defeated ordinary lawmen. Several times he lost sight of the gang, but he never lost their trail. He stuck to their tracks like a born Apache.
An hour into the chase Starbuck realized he had committed another error. Having underestimated the gang leader, he had thoughtlessly compounded the problem by choosing the wrong mount. The thoroughbred mare was built for speed, not endurance. Unlike common saddle horses, she had no bottom, no staying power over the long haul. North of Los Altos she began to play out, and he had no choice
but to conserve her stamina. His pace was slowed even further, and with each passing mile, he found himself falling farther behind. Once again, his ability to read sign and track on hard ground kept him in the race.
Yet, for all his skill, he barely avoided disaster in the end. Shortly after midday, he was tracking through a low range of mountains. His eyes were on broken twigs and crushed vegetation, and the sign indicated he was perhaps twenty minutes behind the gang. He topped a ridge, and spread out before him the mountains dropped off to a rolling plain. At the bottom of the ridge was a creek, bordered by trees, and on the far side was a farmhouse and a small barn. For a moment, looking down with surprise, nothing registered. Then he saw the corral, and the horses. And gathered outside the farmhouse, a group of men.
Suddenly it dawned on him that he was skylined. Wondering if he'd been seen, he sawed at the reins and whipped the mare back over the ridge. A short distance north, he dismounted and left the mare tied in a grove of trees. He walked quickly to the ridge, removing his hat, and went belly down. Below, not a hundred yards away, he had a commanding view of the farmhouse. The men were still bunched near the front door, and there was no apparent sign of alarm. He thought it was his lucky day. Goddamned lucky!
A closer look confirmed that the chase had indeed ended. He spotted the red-haired gang leader, clearly
a standout even at a distance. The men were gathered around a water pump, taking turns sluicing off the grime of a long and dusty ride. Apparently in good humor, their leader was gesturing and talking in a loud voice. The sound of laughter carried distinctly to the ridge top.
Starbuck's attention was abruptly drawn to the corral. He saw a man, dressed in bib overalls, forking hay to the horses. A quick count verified that he was not one of the original seven who had robbed the train. Upon closer inspection; Starbuck realized there was more to the farm than he'd seen at first glance. Beyond the house, several acres were fenced and planted with a variety of vegetables. Off in the distance, a herd of some twenty dairy cows grazed placidly in the noonday sun. No hardscrabble operation, the farm had a look of substance and prosperity. The abundance of produce, and the presence of milk cows, meant only one thing. There was a marketplace nearby, probably no more than a few hours' ride away.
A woman suddenly stepped through the doorway of the house and called to the men. She wore a checkered apron, and from her scolding manner, Starbuck sensed she was summoning the men to a hot meal. For the first time, he noticed the mail sacks piled beside the door. As the gang trooped inside, the burly redhead and another man each hefted one of the sacks. From all appearances, more than a hot meal would be divvied up over the dinner table.
Something bothered Starbuck about the setup. A
dairy farmer and his wife seemed unlikely accomplices for a band of train robbers. Nor was the farm itself the hideout he'd expected to find. One somehow didn't dovetail with the other.
The thought prompted another question. He wondered where the hell he was. He had some general idea, for he knew the chase had carried him far north of Los Altos. But he had no notion of where it had ended, or exactly how far north.
He pulled the map from his inside coat pocket and spread it on the ground. Turning, he studied the mountain range, noting rises in elevation and dominant peaks. With one eye on the terrain, he slowly scanned the map. Suddenly he blinked and his finger jabbed at a spot that marked the flatland below. The farm was on the western slope of the San Bruno Mountains, roughly in the center of the peninsula. The hairpin bend in the creek pinpointed his precise location.
He was less than ten miles south of San Francisco.
The sheer audacity of it was stunning. No one would believe a gang of train robbers would operate that close to a major city. Nor would anyone suspect that a tranquil dairy farm was an outlaw hideout. It took the cake for nerve, and it proved that there was always an exception to any rule. The red-haired gang leader not only had a big set of balls; he had brains, as well. The whole operation had been planned with a sort of tactical genius.
On impulse, Starbuck was struck by another of his hunches. The farmhouse was a rendezvous, not
a hideout. A meeting place and a way station for the horses. A stopover for the gang before they rode on to somewhere else.
He smiled, nodding to himself, and returned the map to his coat pocket. Then he settled down to wait.
Â
A short time later Starbuck got still another surprise. The train robbers, followed by the farmer, emerged from the house. Yet they were now an altogether different group of men. Their workclothes had been exchanged for city suits and bowler hats; the transformation was startling. No longer was there any resemblance to the gang that had stopped the morning train.
The barn doors were opened and two carriages were rolled outside. A team of bays and a team of chestnuts were then led from the barn and hitched to the carriages. Four men climbed aboard the first carriage and took off along a wagon trail that snaked westward. The gang leader and the others waited, talking quietly amongst themselves, until some ten minutes had passed. Then they stepped into the second carriage, waving to the farmer, and drove off in the same direction. To all appearances, they might have been businessmen or land speculators, or even a crew of Bible salesmen canvassing the countryside. By no stretch of the imagination would anyone connect them to the train holdup.
Starbuck quickly checked his map. He located the wagon trail and saw that it intersected a main road, running north-south along the peninsula. The only
other road, some miles to the west, skirted the coastline. There were fishing villages along the ocean, and a few small settlements dotted the bay side of the peninsula; all the land in between appeared to be sparsely populated, mainly farms. The relative isolation of the area merely enhanced his respect for the gang. Their rendezvous point, though close to San Francisco, was nonetheless remote. The concept was masterful and the execution flawless. The work of a man who knew his business, a professional.
Waiting until the carriage was out of sight, Starbuck mounted the mare and rode north. He forded the stream a mile or so above the farmhouse, then turned due west. Presently he crested a rise of ground and spotted the main road. He walked the mare to a grove of trees, staying hidden in the shadows, and rolled himself a smoke. Before he had time to finish his cigarette, the carriage appeared from the south. The gang's destination, much as he'd suspected, was San Francisco. Allowing them a fiveminute lead, he left the trees and reined the mare toward the road.
He easily kept the carriage in sight.
Â
Once inside the city limits, Starbuck was able to close the gap. By then it was late afternoon, and he was just another horseman on streets clogged with traffic. He had no fixed plan in mind, but he'd set himself a task that was essential to any further action. Before the night was out, he meant to establish the gang leader's identity.
The carriage led him across town, to the intersection of Jackson and Sansome. There, the team and carriage were dropped off at a livery stable. He dismounted, hitching the mare outside a saloon on the opposite corner. The four men in the first carriage were nowhere in evidence, but that gave him no reason for concern. After a robbery, very likely wearing money belts stuffed with cash, it figured they would scatter. Shortly, the thought was confirmed when the burly redhead talked with the two men a moment, then waved and walked off. He turned north on Sansome.
Starbuck followed, strolling casually along the opposite side of the street. The sidewalks were thronged with passersby, and he readily blended into the crowd. Having spent three days in San Francisco, he'd gotten his bearings, and the direction of the surveillance came as no great surprise. The gang leader was moving at a brisk pace toward the Barbary Coast.
A hellhole, infamous throughout the world, the Barbary Coast was not for those of faint heart. On the bay side, it was bounded by the waterfront and Telegraph Hill, and extended several blocks inland along Pacific and Broadway streets. A wild carnival of depravity and crime, the area was devoted to dancehalls and brothels, gambling casinos and groggeries, and sinister crimping joints where sailors were drugged and shanghaied for brutal voyages at sea. Vice and debauchery were the district's stock-in-trade-.
Local legend attributed the name to the African coastline of earlier notoriety. Whatever its ancestory, the Barbary Coast transformed the dreams of sailors and landlubbers alike into wicked, and sometimes deadly, reality. On average, there were several murders a night, with seamen the most common victims. After voyages lasting two to four years, the sailors were ripe for women, alcohol, and some of the gamier pursuits known to man. The Opera Comique, a dive billing carnal entertainment, presented live shows involving feats of copulation that ranged from acrobatic couples to onstage orgies. Not to be outdone, the Boar's Head staged a show-stopper in which the buxom star was mated on alternate nights to a Shetland pony and bull mastiff. No man, however low his tastes, failed to get his money's worth on the Barbary Coast.
Starbuck trailed the gang leader to the Bella Union. A somewhat higher-class establishment, it was located at an intersection humorously dubbed Murder Corner. Offering all things to all men, it provided women, gaming tables, and risqué stage shows. A billboard out front ballyhooed the attractions inside:
PLAIN TALK AND BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!
Lovely Tresses! Lovely Lips! Buxom Forms!
At the
BELLA UNION.
And Such Fun!
If You Don't Want to Risk Both Optics
SHUT ONE EYE.
The batwing doors opened onto a large barroom and gaming parlor. Beyond the bar was a spacious theater, with an orchestra pit and a stage ablaze with footlights. The floor was jammed with tables, and a horseshoe balcony was partitioned into ornate, curtained boxes. Songs and dances were performed, pandering to the profane nature of the clientele, and the atmosphere fell somewhere between licentious and obscene. After their acts, the girls mingled with the customers in a crush of jiggling breasts and fruity buttocks. The sofas in the boxes were reserved for private entertainment, and along with the mandatory bottle of champagne, added greatly to the income of all concerned. A pretty little
danseuse
from the show went for a ten spot, and chilled bubbly doubled the tab. The girl kept half the charge for her services and the balance went to the house.
Sunset was still an hour away, but the Bella Union was already jam-packed. Starbuck shouldered a place at the bar, wedging himself in between a bowlegged sailor and a whiskery miner. He ordered rye and kept one eye on the red-haired robber, who had taken a position at the end of the bar. A close-up look revealed that the man was ugly as a toad, with pockmarked features, nut-brown eyes, and freckles almost the exact color of his hair. Starbuck committed his face to memory.
So far the gang leader had spoken to no one but the bartender. He stood with his elbows hooked over the counter and watched the show with a vacant expression. Onstage, a screeching troupe of dancers
was romping through a version of the French
can
-
can
. Their frilly drawers and black mesh stockings exploded into view as they went into the finale and flung themselves rump first to the floor in
la split
. Then, screaming and tossing their skirts, they leaped to their feet and raced offstage as the curtain dropped. The spectators rewarded them with thunderous applause, which prompted a caterwauling curtain call. Then, awaiting the next act, everyone went back to drinking.