THE BRANCH LINE ran down from Fort Davis in a curving loop that went down alongside the river to Ojinaga. After that it curled back to the northeast and rejoined the main railroad at Sanderson. The splinter of single track that went through Nazce split off thirty miles west of Ojinaga.
With Villa raiding across the border and nationalist feelings in Mexico getting hot about American penetrations, the border was closely guarded. There were five US troopers posted to the tiny Nazce halt. They carried rifles and looked bored.
Beyond the water stop the tracks ran for a quarter mile through broken country, then hit the bridge. A hundred yards in from the river there was a shack and a few huts and three Mexican soldiers along with five customs officials.
On both sides of the river the border posts were linked by land-lines to their command stations: the American side to Fort Davis, the Mexican to Santa Rosaria. That was the real problem. Onslow had to take the train and get it across the border before any alarm could be got out. Blowing the bridge—and the political situation—would slow pursuit from the US side. But the Mexicans might still have time to warn Montoya.
The Kid could wire up the bridge without getting spotted. At least he said he could and Onslow had to trust him—did, so long as he wasn’t drugged. Which left Villa to handle the Mexican side of the border: to cut the lines and guarantee the unloading of the train. That was the part Onslow didn’t like.
But he didn’t have much choice.
The train was due at three o’clock.
At two, Onslow walked up onto the sidewalk of the Nazce water halt. He wore his hat tipped down over his face and Strong, sided by McCloud, marched up behind him with their rifles at port.
‘Sir!’ The corporal in charge snapped to attention.
‘Come to relieve you.’ Onslow saluted. ‘Call your men out.’
‘The papers, sir?’ The corporal wondered why he hadn’t heard anything on the wire. ‘May I see your orders, please?’
‘Sure,’ said Onslow. ‘Here.’
He stepped closer to the soldier as he fumbled inside his tunic, then let his hand slide down to the Colt automatic on his hip and dragged the big gun clear of the holster. ‘I got it right here.’
He shoved the pistol up against the corporal’s stomach and smiled. The corporal opened his mouth and made a faint gargling noise. His eyes were wide and frightened and he couldn’t stop them from looking down at the gun.
‘Don’t say anything,’ whispered Onslow. ‘Just come to attention and make like you’re reading papers.’
The corporal swallowed hard and propped his rifle against the side of the shack.
‘Call your men out,’ said Onslow.
The corporal called them out.
Strong dropped his rifle and swung the sawn-off Browning from under his right arm. McCloud levered the action of his Winchester, letting the couplings make more noise than usual. The troopers gaped and looked confused.
‘Drop ’em!’ Strong made his voice gravelly and menacing. ‘Now!’
Four weapons clattered onto the boardwalk.
Strong and McCloud kicked the rifles inside the hut. Then they lifted the sidearms from the holsters and tossed them after the rifles.
‘When the train comes in,’ Onslow ordered, ‘I want you to act normal. You let it in and watch it take water. You don’t say anything because if you do, you’re dead. Understand?’
The corporal nodded. He was twenty-three years old and had never fired a gun in action. He was scared. His knees were trembling and it took all his attention to prevent himself from shaking and wetting himself: no one had ever thrust a pistol up against his stomach and threatened to kill him. He hoped it would never happen again.
‘You supervise the water?’ Onslow asked. ‘Or the engineers?’
‘The engineers.’ The corporal’s voice went back six or seven years and forgot it was broken. His reply came out squeaky and high. ‘We mostly watch. About three of us.’
‘Good,’ said Onslow. Turned to Strong and shouted: ‘Tie them up.’
The Negro eased the troopers back inside the shack with McCloud riding flank. They lashed the soldiers’ ankles together and then tied their wrists, fastening a length of cord between wrists and ankles so that movement was impossible. They had no cloth for gags, but it was unlikely the voices would carry outside the shack. Especially not after Strong delivered his final warnings.
‘Anyone makes a noise,’ he said, ‘and I come back to the door. I’ll just fire through. Stay quiet an’ you stay alive.’
He closed the door and locked it.
‘You think they’ll go along with that?’ said McCloud. ‘Suppose they holler?’
Strong grinned. ‘Only thing a trooper fears more’n his sergeant is getting shot. They’ll stay quiet.’
The train came in two minutes off schedule.
The locomotive halted alongside the water tower and two men in dirty blue denims climbed down and began to haul the funnel out on its sling over the engine. There were three flat-beds behind the coal car, each one covered in tarpaulin. Two soldiers were hunkered down at either end of the flatbeds. Then there was a brake-car with a machine-gun mounted on the platform behind.
Jonas Strong was already stationed by the points lever that would cut the train off into Mexico. He cut the wires binding the lever shut and eased the arm over. Onslow heard the dry clacking of the ratchet and hoped it was only his nerves that made it so loud.
Strong sauntered back up the rails.
The funnel dropped into the boiler.
McCloud ambled slowly down the train to the brake-car. He saluted a soldier jumping off to fill water bottles and stationed himself a yard from the rear, making a play of watching the backtrail.
The railroad men swung the funnel clear and tied it down.
Strong walked into the station house and cut the wires out from the Morse keys.
Onslow watched the engineers stoke up the train. He turned the corporal around and walked him back to the shack. He opened the door and shoved the man inside. Then drew his Colt and slammed the butt against the man’s neck. The corporal went down like a pole-axed steer.
Onslow kicked the door shut and ran back to the drive-cab of the locomotive.
The two men in the cab stared at him with their mouths hanging open.
Onslow cocked the Colt and shoved it out to point between them.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Christ Jesus! We been taken over, Merle.’
‘Damn’ right,’ snarled Onslow. ‘Now move it.’
The driver took a deep breath and decided that handling a stolen train was better than dying. ‘Start stoking,’ he said to his fireman. And the fireman stoked.
Jonas Strong swung on board as the locomotive sighed out to Nazce.
‘Six men. Rifles. They look green.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Onslow.
Yates McCloud waited until the train was moving before he made a move to catch it.
Then he had to run along nine yards of shale before one of the soldiers mounted on the brake-car offered him a hand and dragged him on board.
McCloud climbed up with the Winchester in his right hand, As the soldier hauled him clear of the tracks onto the platform he squeezed the trigger. The bullet came out of the Winchester’s muzzle while it was only three inches clear of the trooper’s belly. It picked him up and shoved him back against the machine-gun. Blood frothed over his companions. The bullet went out through his spine and spun him, kicking, against the others.
McCloud grinned and dropped the rifle.
He drew his Colt.
He fired twice.
The Lightning made that flat, sharp crack characteristic of the .38.
Each detonation was punctuated by a scream.
McCloud fired twice more and kicked the bodies clear of the platform. The soldiers rolled away, bouncing like ragdolls down the rails. They tossed over and tumbled like spent men into the dust.
McCloud turned to the door, kicking it open.
The brakeman was inside. He was up against the far wall trying to open the door to the next car.
McCloud shot him, aiming carefully so that the bullet killed the man when it hit.
It blew his brains out of the front of his skull and spread them over the door he was trying to open. McCloud chuckled as he dragged the body clear and set it off to one side of the car. Then he hauled the machine-gun back from the rear and set it up inside the wagon. He was chuckling to himself as he opened the doors and settled back behind the gun and opened fire.
He fired down both sides of the swaying train, killing the man on the rear car in the first burst. Three more heads showed and got shot away.
Then there was nothing but rifle fire spanging back and no more targets.
Onslow heard the rattle of the machine-gun and told Strong to take charge of the engine. He climbed back over the tender and jumped across the couplings to the flatbed.
There was a soldier crouched down with a rifle to his shoulder, firing back along the swaying line of the cars. He turned as Onslow approached him.
‘There’s some kinda crazy man back there, sir! He’s got the machine-gun turned round an’ he killed the others. Thank God you come.’
‘Yeah,’ said Onslow.
And clubbed the man. He rammed the butt of his Colt against his neck and when the soldier was finished writhing, Onslow pitched him off of the train.
Then he climbed up on top of the baggage and shouted for McCloud to cease fire.
The machine-gun stopped. Onslow scrabbled over the tarpaulins, fighting the swaying movement of the train. He looked down into the face of the last guard.
He was a young man, about nineteen to judge by the clear-cut features and the thin stubble of down covering his cheeks. His eyes were blue and nervous. His teeth chattered, vibrating the flesh of his cheeks in a semaphore of fear. He held a rifle pointed up at Onslow’s face.
‘Drop it, son.’ Onslow levelled the Colt with reflex precision even as he said it. ‘Jump off.’
‘No, I can’t.’
He fired the rifle.
His hands were shaking with fear and shock. The bullet flew wide of Onslow’s head. Onslow ducked down and fired. It was involuntary, a reaction born of training and instinct. The same reflexes aimed his hand and drove the bullet through the youngster’s face. It hit on an angle, sloping down between his eyes, an inch above. It came out between his shoulder blades with most of his brains and skull in company. He jerked back and fell clear of the flatbed in a long welter of pluming blood and loose body.
Onslow clambered back to where McCloud was reloading the machine-gun.
Jamie Durham got the last charge in place and shinned down the trestles of the bridge. The train was due through in less than thirty minutes. That gave him fifteen to get clear and hook the lines into the detonators.
He moved fast.
The linkages running from the dynamite lashed under the trestle needed to be plugged into the plunger on the far side of the river. That meant a slow scramble up the southern edge of the ravine with five lines tugging back over his shoulders. Jamie liked to do things properly. Even if that meant extra work.
Or maybe he was just trying to prove himself.
Either way, he wanted to blow the bridge like Onslow asked him to.
He got up over the far bank and handed the cables to a Villista. Then he hauled himself over and dragged them back to the detonator box. He wired them in and primed the thing by hauling the plunger up to its full height.
After that all he could do was wait.
Pancho Villa sent three men off to cut the wires leading down to Santa Rosaria. When he was sure they were cut he took twenty more down the line and attacked the border post. He killed the federales and two of the customs guards. Five villagers tried to fight him off, so they got killed too.
After that Pancho Villa waited like Jamie Durham and the others.
In Fort Davis the telegraph operator spent ten minutes wondering why the munitions train had failed to make its customary declaration: word usually came in from Nazce on arrival.
In Santa Rosaria a sleepy operator began to click the keys, wondering why they had gone dead.
Both men reported to their immediate superiors. After that it took some time to alert Colonel Slade in Fort Davis because he was dining with Senator Grosvenor. It took longer to wake Colonel Montoya because he was drunk and wrapped up in the capacious arms of a whore called Rosita.
Jamie Durham’s charges were sited at either end of the bridge. The bridge itself was built out on long vees of timber that stuck out on both sides of the gulley, linked to the central span by limbs of timber built up from the bed of the river on stone pilings. The main weight of the span rested on the end piles, where they came up to join the vees along the flanks of the cliffs that fell down sheer into the water.
The Kid had set dynamite under the arches at both ends, where they fitted into the main span. He had set them against the upper roadwork and then halfway down where the bridging curved back against the rock. As an extra precaution he had set a third charge midway along the central span.
The first charge, on the eastern end, was timed to go off ten minutes after he pressed the plunger down. That was enough to see the train across and safely away. The second charge, on the Mexican side, was primed to detonate four minutes after the first; which allowed for the crossing and the entry into Mexican territory. The third charge—the center one—was linked to a separate detonator: Jamie Durham liked to see a good explosion.
He hadn’t told Onslow about that last one. It was his own special toy. One that he could use—or forget—as the mood took him. He just wanted Onslow and the others to know what he could do. Even on the needle.
The Kid pulled the lever up clear of the box. The lever made a satisfying click as it came out. He stroked his damaged face as he watched the empty rails.
It felt good to be back in action, doing what he was best at.
The oil rigs had been fine—at least they afforded him enough money to support his need for morphine—but they weren’t the same. Blowing out a bore hole or clearing a ridge was work: this was excitement. He took, and admitted it without shame, a pleasure in seeing things blow up; if there were men or machines around the explosion, so much the better. Better, too, was the tension induced by danger, by the knowledge that the whole plan could go wrong. That feeling was almost as good as the euphoria produced by the morphine. The strange thing was that he hadn’t used the needle in several days. Hadn’t felt any need.
He grinned to himself and squinted up at the sky. It was clear, very blue with only a few wispy clouds drifting away to the west. From across the river a whistle sounded. It echoed once, then again. Jamie got up on his knees, hands steady on the plunger as he stared towards the bridge.
Colonel Slade listened to his adjutant with barely concealed irritation. He didn’t like to have his meal interrupted and couldn’t understand why the man was getting so excited over a fault in communications with a very minor border post.
It took some moments for the full impact to sink in.
The line to Nazce had gone dead at the same time the train was due to arrive there. Normally, the munitions would have been routed straight along the main track, but with Senator Grosvenor’s train coming up from the Texas coast the main line had been cleared. The munitions train was running close to the Mexican border. And it was breaking standard communication procedure.
Colonel Slade excused himself and hurried to his office. He studied the map mounted on the wall behind his desk and began to snap questions at his adjutant.
When was the last contact with Nazce? At noon. Nothing since? No. The outpost was due to report the train’s departure, which should have been just after three. But there was no word? No, no word at all.
Slade looked at his watch: three-thirty.
And now the line was dead? Absolutely.
‘Then for Chrissakes get some men down there,’ snarled the colonel. ‘If the goddam train’s missing I’ll look a damn’ fool. I want to know where the train is and I want to know the guns are safe. If anything’s happened to them I want the men responsible.’
He straightened his uniform and fixed a casual smile on his face before rejoining the senator. When asked what was wrong, he brushed over the question and diverted the conversation back to its original course: the likelihood of his obtaining a posting in Washington.
The adjutant checked with the telegraph operator. The next post up the line reported no sighting, even though the train was now almost one hour overdue. There was no word from Nazce, but the guards at Tulos had thought they heard gunfire. The adjutant called out a platoon of cavalry and sent them at full gallop for Nazce with orders to locate the train and bring it back. At the same time he sent a squad of engineers and infantry by rail to the water halt.
He did all the right things. He just did them too late.
Onslow watched the bridge coming up and began to wonder if the Kid had got his charges in place. There was no sign of movement on the far bank and when the locomotive rattled out onto the trestle he found himself peering down in an attempt to spot the explosives. There was nothing to be seen and the whole length of the train went over without trouble.
There were three men in federale uniforms watching the big engine pull into a halt on the Mexican side. Onslow put a hand on his gun, hoping they were Villa’s men. Hoping it had all gone according to plan.
Then there was a sound like thunder wrapped up in a wooden barrel.
Onslow looked back and saw smoke lifting from the river in high columns that were dotted with chunks of wood and pieces of twisted metal. On the American side, the bridge seemed to jerk up and twist on its side, flame and black smoke gouting from the rim of the gulley. Then that view was obscured by a second explosion that sent a wave of heat roaring back against his face and hid the entire span behind a wall of smoke. The force of the detonation blew the smoke away and when it cleared he saw that the bridge was shattered at both ends. On the American side it no longer existed for a space of twenty feet. Not anything. There were no supports, no rails, no trestle-work. On the Mexican end the rails still stood. They were twisted up in a shallow arc that spanned ten feet of emptiness where the supports and the main woodwork were gone.
There was another explosion. It sounded like a firecracker in comparison, but it blew away the center of the bridge, shattering about fifteen feet of timber so that there was a gaping hole in the middle.
Then there was a scream like a wounded animal and the central span, no longer supported, toppled sideways. Its momentum dragged down what remained of the supporting piles and tumbled them piecemeal into the river. There was a seething, as though heated metal was dropped into water. More smoke.
The bridge existed no longer, only a few jagged fragments of timber sticking up from the river and a few wrecked piles showing where it had been.
Onslow smiled and climbed down from the cab.
‘Sorry, gents.’ He grinned up at the driver and fireman. ‘I guess you’ll have to walk home.’
They climbed down, looking confused.
‘You ain’t gonna kill us?’ It was the driver who spoke.
‘No,’ said Onslow. ‘Why should we? I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’
The man shook his head, wondering what to do. Then turned as a Mexican walked out from the shack.
Onslow swung round, recognizing Villa. He hauled the Colt automatic from the holster and shouted: ‘Get the hell back inside! Get back or I’ll kill you!’
Villa’s mouth gaped open, then he grinned—corrected the expression to a look of hangdog anxiety—and shambled back into the shade.
‘Sorry, señor. Forgive me.’
‘Hey! That looked like Pancho Villa,’ said the engineer. ‘I saw a picture of him once.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ grunted Onslow. ‘They all look the same to me.’
‘Jesus, Bob! Let’s leave it.’ The driver turned to Onslow. ‘How do we get back?’
‘Walk, I guess.’
They began to walk.
Onslow waited until they were out of sight, fumbling their way along the ravine looking for a likely crossing place, then walked over to Villa.
‘You damn’ near gave it all away,’ he said. ‘The whole idea was that you wouldn’t be connected.’
Villa shrugged and grinned, parodying an elaborate bow. ‘Forgive me, General. I am only a poor peon.’
Jamie Durham came running up in a cloud of dust. His face was smeared with dirt and his hair was dusty; he was grinning.
‘Christ! Ain’t that the best bang you ever had? Was it right, or was it not?’
‘It was good,’ said Onslow. ‘You did it real good.’
He turned back to face Strong’s impassive gaze, then waited for McCloud to join them.
‘Why’d you kill them like that?’
‘Jesus!’ said McCloud. ‘Why not?’
‘No need,’ said Onslow, remembering the face. ‘We could’ve shoved them off. They might still be alive. They were only doing their work.’
McCloud sneered. ‘They didn’t do it so well, though. Damn’ stupid dough-feet.’
‘They were just kids,’ said Onslow slowly, controlling his anger. ‘We could’ve taken them without killing.’
‘Hell!’ McCloud shrugged. ‘I didn’t know you was so particular. It didn’t look that way back at the canyon when we were killing Mexicans.’
Something cold and bitter seemed to coil inside Onslow’s gut. ‘That was different,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t avoid that.’
He stared at McCloud, trying hard to miss Strong’s gaze. There was a difference—had to be, or he was just like McCloud. Worse.
‘They were Americans.’ This softer as he remembered the face exploding before him. ‘They were our people.’
‘Mister,’ grunted McCloud, ‘you don’t have people any more. You gave up your citizenship when you quit the Army? You gave it up back in El Paso. You signed your own declaration of independence when you took that train. The only people you got now is us.’
The bitterness reached up out of Onslow’s gut and took hold on his mind. He looked at McCloud’s grinning face and reacted without thinking. His hand jumped instinctively to his gun. McCloud’s sneer faded fast, replaced by open-mouthed amazement.
The Colt was lifting up from the holster when a big black hand settled like a clamp around Onslow’s wrist. At the same time, Strong swung his left arm round Onslow’s chest. Onslow was tall, and well-muscled, but Strong still hauled him off his feet and held him while he struggled.
‘Quiet down, Major.’ The Negro’s voice was calm, like a father talking to a child. ‘We got a train to deliver.’
Onslow tried to fight free, but it was impossible and in a while he gave it up.
‘All right. Set me down. I’m all right now.’
Strong let him go. Onslow took a deep breath. ‘Yeah,’ he said, mostly to himself, ‘you’re the only people I got now? God help me.’
It was a sour pill to swallow, but what McCloud had said was right. He was no longer Major Cade Onslow, US Army, a respected officer with a solid career behind him and a bright future ahead. There was no longer any career. No longer any future except revenge and what he could make for himself. The past was as dead as the ashes of the Hoyos ranch. As dead as the woman buried in the shell-pocked garden. Whatever lay ahead would be something he had to cobble together himself, a whole new life that would be as good or as bad as he made it. ‘Yates,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
But McCloud turned away, pretending not to hear him. Pancho Villa joined them. ‘When you have done with your squabbling maybe we can go fight my war. Montoya might know the line has been cut by now, there could even be a patrol coming. Let’s get the guns back and I’ll pay you.’ Onslow nodded, turning to the flatbeds.
Villa’s men were already hauling the crates clear of the wagons and loading them onto a variety of transport. The rebels had got hold of buckboards and farm carts, there was even a phaeton, its springs sagging under the weight of four crates marked US Army, Browning Rifle Co. Handle with care. They worked fast, manhandling the bulky cargo clear of the train as lookouts scanned the horizon for sign of federales.
It seemed to take an awful long time, but they got the wagons loaded and turned them off into the open country, heading towards the canyon hideout.
Villa cast a lingering stare at the locomotive. ‘A pity to leave it. I should like to have my own train.’
Onslow followed his gaze, then looked at the rails.
‘Where do they go from here?’
‘Into Santa Rosaria,’ said Villa. ‘Why?’
‘I got an idea,’ Onslow replied. Then: ‘Jamie, you got any dynamite left?’
‘A few sticks. Five. Got a mine, too. Why?’
‘Let’s take another train ride,’ said Onslow. ‘A one-way ticket.’