Captain Wallis’s face went ashen as the deafening echoes eventually faded from Devil’s Pass. The seasoned officer had stopped his men when the first crescendo of explosions began echoing off the canyon walls.
He sat silently as Sergeant Hanks moved his sweating mount next to the tall charger.
‘Reckon that’s got anything to do with ya orders, sir?’ Hanks asked as he steadied his nervous horse and thought about the secret papers he had been allowed to read hours earlier. Papers that ordered them to investigate the goings-on within the Indian Territory.
Wallis looked across at the brooding trooper. Hanks’ face reflected the same concern that was etched on the eighty other cavalrymen.
‘That sounded as if it came from the territories to me,’ the captain said. ‘What do you think, Hanks?’
Hanks nodded. ‘Reckon ya right.’
The captain’s attention was drawn to Billy Bodine, who had reached their ranks hours earlier with his tall story about Apaches waiting to ambush them. Wallis had thought then that the young trooper had simply had too much sun the previous day and then allowed his vivid imagination to run unchecked. Now with the violent explosions still ringing in his ears, he was not so sure that Bodine was imagining things.
He was simply misinterpreting them.
‘Come here, Billy,’ Wallis called out.
Bodine spurred his quarter horse to the side of the captain and Hanks.
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘How far are we from the narrow side-canyon that you said had two sets of horse tracks?’ Wallis asked.
Bodine smiled. At last the man was starting to believe him.
‘It’s hard to tell in daylight, but as best as I can figure, it can only be another mile or so.’
Hanks looked at the thoughtful officer.
‘You don’t believe the garbage that young Billy here was spouting earlier, do ya?’
Wallis looked at the shimmering trail ahead of them. They were now right in the heart of Devil’s Pass.
‘I never doubted that Billy saw tracks, but I got me an idea that he just didn’t know what they meant.’
Billy leaned forward in his saddle.
‘What is our mission, Captain?’
Wallis glanced at Hanks and then returned his attention to the youthful trooper.
‘I’ll tell you, Billy,’ he began. ‘There are rumors that the Indian Territory has been taken over by outlaws. That’s why we’ve been getting news at Fort Dixon of various bands of Indians roaming around outside their designated land.’
Hanks looked at the younger rider.
‘Our mission is to go into the Indian land and see for ourselves what’s happening.’
Bodine swallowed hard.
‘Ride into Indian land?’
Wallis smiled. ‘That’s about it. Lead the way to that canyon you found the tracks in, Billy.’
Reluctantly, the trooper spurred his chestnut mount on. The captain waved his arm and the platoon started on after the quarter horse.
Hanks scratched his side-whiskers.
‘Do ya think this is a real smart thing for us to be doing, sir?’
‘Orders don’t have to be smart,’ the captain answered, ‘they have to be obeyed.’
Hanks sighed heavily. ‘Which do ya reckon is worse, sir, outlaws or Indians?’
Wallis looked at Hanks.
‘I was just wondering that myself.’
‘That don’t settle me down none.’
Wallis allowed his charger to gather pace behind Bodine.
‘But ask yourself something, old friend. Do you think that Indians would or could have created that explosion we heard a while back?’
Sergeant Hanks allowed his horse to keep pace with his superior’s mount and thought about the question.
Hanks had no answer for it.
Blood ran down the steep incline towards the river which continued to flow swiftly beneath what was left of the bridge. The bullet-ridden bodies were littered over the high embankment and rail tracks next to the carriages behind the huge locomotive, which had come to an abrupt halt just before the destroyed bridge. Those who had managed to survive the bullets had been hacked to death.
The train had arrived at Honcho Wells on schedule. It had taken less than ten minutes for Big Jack Brady’s hired killers to storm its meager defenses and kill every man who tried vainly to protect its valuable cargo.
They were good at their job.
Their lethal gun-skills had been honed by anger and impatience while waiting in the blazing sun for hours. Yet the true fury was born long before in minds that saw nothing wrong with slaughtering anyone who defied them.
It was a madness that made them valuable to people like Big Jack Brady.
Brady had watched from the safe distance he had put between himself and the men who he knew would kill for the price of a bottle of whiskey, let alone an equal share of the profits with which he had tempted them.
His massive bulk shook with excitement as he listened to every unheeded scream.
The slaughter had gone on for far longer than it would have taken just to kill those who were hired to protect the army gold. The big man knew that once his handpicked team of murderers tasted the blood of their victims, they would not stop until every single living creature on the train had also been brutally killed.
It was a knowledge that he had kept from the dynamite man.
Harve Calhoon had said nothing as he watched and listened in horror from beside the wagon with Black Roy Hart and the excited Brady as the carnage was carried out above them.
The outlaw felt his stomach turn over when his ears picked up the unmistakable sound of women and children screaming in the carriages of the helpless train.
The gunshots ended all the pitiful pleas for mercy that drifted on the warm air towards them.
Every one of his misgivings about working for Brady had been realized. The outlaw felt sick, yet he knew that it would be suicidal to voice his objections. He had already done his job and was now expendable.
‘They done it, Harve,’ Brady said, gleefully clapping his hands together. ‘I told ya that them boys are the best there is in all of the badlands. They know how to kill.’
Calhoon had robbed many banks in his time but he had never been involved in anything like this.
It was like a nightmare.
‘I told ya that my boys are the best,’ Brady repeatedly boomed as his huge hand pointed at his men who were now throwing large metal strongboxes down into the valley.
Calhoon stood and rubbed the sweat off his mouth. His eyes saw Black Roy’s face. It bore the same fevered expression as was etched on that of Big Jack.
The grin seemed to go from ear to ear.
‘We had better take the wagon to the bottom of the slope, boys, and collect all them strongboxes,’ Big Jack Brady gushed eagerly. ‘I want that gold on the flatbed.’
Calhoon said nothing as he gathered up his reins and watched the huge man climbing up on to the driver’s seat of the wagon, next to Black Roy.
The smaller man lashed the long reins down hard on the backs of the four-horse team. He guided the wagon along the riverbank to where the strongboxes were piling up.
Harve Calhoon mounted and sat in his saddle, watching in disbelief. He wanted to ride away from this blood bath but knew he would not reach safety before a bullet found his back.
He teased his horse after the wagon and wondered if he would survive once Brady had realized that he no longer needed him.