hunting a scrap," he said, "you've bought yourself a mean stack of chips! There are fifty men and horses on that train. It's due in here at daybreak tomorrow ... due to unload here." Fifty men!
"That sort of story goes all down the line," Flanagan said. "Everybody knows something is up. Any time fifty men and fifty horses with a wagon for supplies and ammunition is put aboard a train, we know there's going to be hell to pay."
"Who are they?"
"Ozark Mountain boys. Hillbillies from Missouri and Arkansas."
Fifty men ... fifty riflemen - dead shots, or they'd not have been chosen. They would pick us off like squirrels.
"Conn," D'Artaguette said, "what about that herd?" For a long moment I stood there, hesitating, and then I said, "Well have to trust it to Kate and the boys. We came out here to do a job, and we're going to do it."
"To fifty men?" D'Artaguette protested.
"That's only eight apiece," Rowdy said, "with two spares. Conn, you leave me one of them spares, will you?"
The saloon door opened. "You boys goin' to eat?" a voice called. "I got it on the table!"
It was full dark now, a soft prairie night, and the stars were out. Soon the coyotes would be calling.
Chapter 8
Flanagan joined us at the table, glad to have company. His was a lonely job, and it needed a man of a very special kind of courage. He sat at his telegraph key in the small station with a pistol only inches from his hand, a shotgun and a Sharps .50 buffalo gun close by.
Twice he had been completely isolated - once when Indians had torn down his wires to make copper ornaments of them, and again when buffalo, that used the posts to scratch themselves, pushed over several of them.
We had all kinds in the West. D'Artaguette and Meharry were college men; the former had been educated in Paris and Quebec, the latter in Dublin and London. All the education Rowdy Lynch ever got he picked up in the middle of a horse's back. I'd never even seen him read a newspaper. As for Battery Mason, he had been a tough kid in the slums of New York and had drifted west because that's where people were drifting, and he stayed on to become more western than the native-born westerner.
Gallardo was a special case. His family had come to New Mexico with the first settlers. They had schools and churches there before Captain John Smith landed in Virginia, and they had grown children before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Gallardo had attended a church school in Santa Fe for several years, when not punching cows on his father's ranch.
I looked around the table, and was glad it was these men I had with me.
"Flanagan," I said, "you know your railroad. I need a place back up the line where there's a grade steep enough to slow a train down, a place where we could board the train without stopping it."
"Sorry, but there's nothing like that within the distance you could ride in the time you have. Nothing I can recall, at least."
"Why not here?" Meharry suggested. "When they start to leave the train."
At such a time, there was confusion and it might be done, but there was risk. Undoubtedly some would be half asleep, but a few would be awake enough to resist; and once it started, the others would be quickly alerted. We could hurt them, but we could not win; and nobody needed to tell me how difficult it is to get out of a fight once one is involved ... that would be hardest of all.
I felt no certainty about what was best to do. Nobody felt like talking, and when supper was over, I walked outside.
It was very still. A few crickets talked from the grass at the side of the building. Near the station, a pile of ties was stacked, and strolling over, I hoisted myself up and sat down on them. Only a little time remained, and I hadn't an idea of what I was going to do.
If the men we had ridden here to stop managed to get past us and reach the town, then we must withdraw, our fight at an end. Even at this moment, back there at the town, our friends might be fighting a last-ditch
"That sort of story goes all down the line," Flanagan said. "Everybody knows something is up. Any time fifty men and fifty horses with a wagon for supplies and ammunition is put aboard a train, we know there's going to be hell to pay."
"Who are they?"
"Ozark Mountain boys. Hillbillies from Missouri and Arkansas."
Fifty men ... fifty riflemen - dead shots, or they'd not have been chosen. They would pick us off like squirrels.
"Conn," D'Artaguette said, "what about that herd?" For a long moment I stood there, hesitating, and then I said, "Well have to trust it to Kate and the boys. We came out here to do a job, and we're going to do it."
"To fifty men?" D'Artaguette protested.
"That's only eight apiece," Rowdy said, "with two spares. Conn, you leave me one of them spares, will you?"
The saloon door opened. "You boys goin' to eat?" a voice called. "I got it on the table!"
It was full dark now, a soft prairie night, and the stars were out. Soon the coyotes would be calling.
Chapter 8
Flanagan joined us at the table, glad to have company. His was a lonely job, and it needed a man of a very special kind of courage. He sat at his telegraph key in the small station with a pistol only inches from his hand, a shotgun and a Sharps .50 buffalo gun close by.
Twice he had been completely isolated - once when Indians had torn down his wires to make copper ornaments of them, and again when buffalo, that used the posts to scratch themselves, pushed over several of them.
We had all kinds in the West. D'Artaguette and Meharry were college men; the former had been educated in Paris and Quebec, the latter in Dublin and London. All the education Rowdy Lynch ever got he picked up in the middle of a horse's back. I'd never even seen him read a newspaper. As for Battery Mason, he had been a tough kid in the slums of New York and had drifted west because that's where people were drifting, and he stayed on to become more western than the native-born westerner.
Gallardo was a special case. His family had come to New Mexico with the first settlers. They had schools and churches there before Captain John Smith landed in Virginia, and they had grown children before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Gallardo had attended a church school in Santa Fe for several years, when not punching cows on his father's ranch.
I looked around the table, and was glad it was these men I had with me.
"Flanagan," I said, "you know your railroad. I need a place back up the line where there's a grade steep enough to slow a train down, a place where we could board the train without stopping it."
"Sorry, but there's nothing like that within the distance you could ride in the time you have. Nothing I can recall, at least."
"Why not here?" Meharry suggested. "When they start to leave the train."
At such a time, there was confusion and it might be done, but there was risk. Undoubtedly some would be half asleep, but a few would be awake enough to resist; and once it started, the others would be quickly alerted. We could hurt them, but we could not win; and nobody needed to tell me how difficult it is to get out of a fight once one is involved ... that would be hardest of all.
I felt no certainty about what was best to do. Nobody felt like talking, and when supper was over, I walked outside.
It was very still. A few crickets talked from the grass at the side of the building. Near the station, a pile of ties was stacked, and strolling over, I hoisted myself up and sat down on them. Only a little time remained, and I hadn't an idea of what I was going to do.
If the men we had ridden here to stop managed to get past us and reach the town, then we must withdraw, our fight at an end. Even at this moment, back there at the town, our friends might be fighting a last-ditch
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