Chapter 43

“I’M SORRY TO BE DOING THIS TO YOU,” COLE SAID. “IT’S just gotta be done.”

The roan just whinnied disgustedly and shook his neck. Cole had been riding him hard, with five minutes of galloping alternating with ten minutes at a walk. The heat of the day was upon them, and the roan was quite fed up with this urgent routine.

“It won’t be long now,” Cole assured him, not knowing himself how soon Cibola would come into their view.

Bladen Cole had ridden out of Santa Fe three hours before, armed with a written authorization on Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe letterhead to remove Ezra Waldron from the train, signed by Joseph Ames. If there should be any doubt, he also carried a note signed by Sheriff Reuben Sandoval, which deputized him to bring the fugitive finance man back to Santa Fe.

“How much do you want as a fee?”

When Ames had opened negotiations for this bounty hunt, several figures had entered Cole’s mind, but in light of the circumstances, he said that it was on the house.

Rarely had the bounty hunter engaged in a manhunt that was as time-critical as this one. He was anxious to reach Cibola as soon as possible, not because of Joseph Ames’s concern about the railroad’s schedule, but out of knowing that Waldron would grow suspicious if the train was stopped for no apparent reason. Cole didn’t imagine there was much that Waldron could do out here in the middle of nowhere, but he did not want to take any chances.

Reluctantly, he kicked the roan into a gallop once again, and with even greater reluctance, the loyal horse began to run.

Coming over a low rise, Cole looked out into the distance and saw a small cluster of clapboard buildings. Because they had all been constructed of wood, rather than adobe, Cole knew immediately that they were railroad company buildings. This was confirmed by the line of telegraph poles stretching into infinity in ether direction from the buildings. As he came closer, he could see the rails, paralleling the telegraph poles into those two infinities.

What Cole did not see was the morning train—nor indeed a train of any kind. Nor could he hear the chugging or whistling of a train in the distance.

Having decided that he must have made a wrong turn, he hoped that there would be someone at the buildings who could point out the direction to Cibola.

It was not until he read that place name on a sign at the end of one of the buildings that Cole knew that this was the place where the train was supposed to have been stopped.

“Howdy,” he shouted to a man who emerged from the building to watch his approach.

The man waved back, acknowledging his arrival.

“Reckon this must be the Cibola Station,” Cole said as he dismounted.

He was thankful for a hitchrail with a watering trough that was positioned in the shade.

The roan was ecstatic.

“Yep,” the man confirmed. “If you was to be a-lookin’ for Cibola, then I’d be telling you that you had found us.”

“I was wondering about the train,” Cole said.

“Then you’d be about twenty minutes early,” the man said. “But I hate to tell you that you’d be about twenty minutes out of luck.”

“How does that work?”

“On the morning train, we’d be a flag stop,” he explained. “We put up a flag and she’ll stop for ya. Afternoon train’s a through train. Don’t stop for hell nor high water . . . not that there’s ever gonna be much in the way of high water in these parts.”

“I take it that the morning train’s already passed through?” Cole asked, fearing the inevitable.

“You missed that one by near three hours,” the man said. “But you don’t have to worry none.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because there’s another one coming through tomorrow,” the man said with a broad smile. “You’re welcome to camp overnight right here.”

“I had been told that the office in Santa Fe was going to telegraph you to stop the morning train here in Cibola,” Cole said, finally getting around to finding out what had happened with Joseph Ames’s promise of holding up the train.

“How come?”

“Some big problem.”

“Didn’t get no such telegram,” the man said. “There’s no telegrams today.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you know that storm that came through last night?”

“Yeah.”

“We lost the lines sometime in that. The country’s so flat in places that the lightning likes to jump onto the telegraph wires. The lightning burns ’em clean though. I’ve seen it happen. There’d be a big pop and a lot of sparks.”

“How long does it take to fix?”

“Depends. It depends on where it happened and how long it takes to find. Also depends on whether it got broke in more than one place. There’s two hundred miles of telegraph along this railroad in New Mexico Territory . . . and the break might’ve happened up in Colorado.”

“I understand,” Cole said with a nod.

“You’re welcome to go ahead and wait for the train tomorrow,” the man said, ending the conversation to go back inside the station.

“Much obliged,” Cole said, studying the timetable as he followed the man inside. “Looks here like these two trains get into La Junta, Colorado, at the same time. Is that right?”

“Five minutes apart,” the man nodded. “Like I said, the afternoon train out of Lamy is a through train. They both have scheduled stops in Las Vegas and up at Raton, but the morning train makes more flag stops and whistle-stops so it takes longer. The afternoon train has pretty well caught up with the morning trail by La Junta. It’s at La Junta that they become the same train. Both sets of cars are pulled by the same motive power across the rest of Colorado and Kansas because there’s no more mountains. It’s as flat as the palm of your hand all the way to Kansas City.”

“I see,” Cole said thoughtfully.

Cole walked around to the other side of the station, where there was a short platform and a small bench for waiting passengers.

He stepped to the track and looked in both directions as the parallel steel rails converged far in both distances.

He pondered.

He thought.

He decided that he had come too far to turn back.

Returning to his horse, he removed the saddle and carried it into the station.

“I was wondering if I might stash my saddle in your baggage room for a couple of days?” Cole asked the station attendant, dropping several coins on the counter of the ticket booth.

“Sure,” the man said. “You’re welcome to board your horse out it the corral yonder too.”

“Much obliged,” Cole said sincerely, placing a gold eagle on the counter. “I’ll pay in advance.”

“You reckon to be back in two days?”

“Round about,” Cole said. “No more than four, I reckon.”

“Okeydokey,” the man said, reaching into a drawer. “Lemme get you set up with a ticket on tomorrow morning’s train.”

“Actually, I’m planning on bein’ on today’s train,” Cole said.

“Like I was saying before,” the man explained, saying the words slowly, as though he were talking to someone who forgot things as soon as they were told. “The train’s already been through here three hours back.”

“I’m not talkin’ abound that train,” Cole replied. “I’m talkin’ about the one comin’ in round about ten minutes.”

“But, mister, I done ’splained that the afternoon train don’t stop in Cibola. Can’t flag it down.”

“I’m betting another eagle that you can make it slow down, though,” Cole said, rolling another gold coin around between his fingers.

* * *

COLE CROUCHED NEAR AN ESPECIALLY LARGE BUSH OF MESQUITE, WHICH SCREENED HIM FROM THE VIEW OF ANY train approaching from the west. Some distance away, the station man was reluctantly burning brush, and glancing at him periodically.

The air was still, and the smoke rose mainly straight up, but from time to time, a little whiff of wind, a harbinger of the unsettled air that moved in with the afternoon cumulus clouds, would stir the black column and a bit of it drifted briefly over the tracks.

The bounty hunter shifted his eyes to the western distance.

The sound began as a barely perceptible hum in the steel rail ten feet from his right ear.

Next, there was a smudge of smoky grayness in the western distance, perched above the vanishing point of the converging rails like a dot on a letter “i.”

He heard the distant clatter of pistons and push rods grow steadily louder as the smoke from the locomotive’s firebox grew more prominent.

The shriek of the locomotive’s whistle spoke of an engineer who had seen another source of wood smoke. The rapid chugging became slower. There was the hiss of air brakes and the squeal of metal on metal as the locomotive slowed.

A wave from the station man was answered by toots from the whistle.

The rumble of the train grew to thunder as the locomotive closed in.

Suddenly, it was right there.

It moved much more slowly than it had been traveling, but its speed was still considerable when judged by a man crouching still.

Cole watched a passenger car slip by, and then another.

Realizing that he was out of his mind, he rose and began to run as fast as he could along the gravel ballast next to the track.

He cursed at having weighted himself down with his rifle scabbard strapped across his back.

A baggage car, really just a glorified boxcar, came next.

It seemed studded with handles, but Cole’s attempts to grab one failed.

He ran closer, so close that he could smell the grease and grit on the second baggage car.

He reached out, grabbed, and caught the metal in his hands.

The speed of the car, slightly greater than that of a man on a dead run, jerked suddenly. He felt as though his arm had been pulled out of its socket, but it had not.

Cole lunged upward, grabbing the next higher handle.

He felt his boots bounce on the gravel, then lift into open air.

Kicking and scrambling, he found a lower rung with his feet and hung on for dear life.

Now firmly attached, he finally exhaled and took a deep breath. Despite the smoke, this sigh of relief felt exhilarating. It also felt good to know that he had survived, and the nightmare scenario of being sucked beneath the car and sliced in half by the wheels had not transpired.

He could now take stock of his situation.

He was aboard and whole. Had he not tethered his hat with a chin strap, it would have been gone. He had not dropped the rifle scabbard strapped over his shoulder and was now glad to have it.

Meanwhile, the train was picking up speed again.

He looked down at the ground rushing past at a mile a minute. He had never experienced anything quite like this. Looking at the ground started to make him sick, so he turned, looked up, and began to ascend toward the roof.

This climb, while being buffeted by the continuous blast of air, seemed to take forever, but at last he was on top of the car. From here, he was able to climb back down between the cars, where he was out of the wind and could sit down and rest.

Ezra Waldron had not been stopped at Cibola, and he was better than three hours ahead, but at least the bounty hunter now knew that he was following him in a vehicle that was traveling at the same rate of speed, and slowly gaining on him as his conveyance stopped more often. Tomorrow in La Junta, Cole would be only five minutes behind Waldron.