By Thursday night, the Gatling gun was fixed to the flatbed of a wagon, and as ready to go as it would ever be. Ammunition was stored all around the wagon’s sides, the boxes being held in place with leather straps. The bottom of the wagon had been reinforced with hardwood planks and the bolts through the tripod legs went clear through the bottom boards. The oscillating device was well-greased and set to maximum. The Accles drum was crammed to the top with cartridges and the crank operated as smoothly and as efficiently as Cato could make it. He had not shown Edge how the gun’s firepower could be almost doubled by attaching the crank directly to the protruding end of the drive shaft. That was a little information he was keeping to himself for now.
His only chance of finding out what Edge wanted the gun for was Conchita. Cato knew that. And she was afraid to speak, afraid it would get back to Edge. But this last night, before they were due to move out of Conchos, Cato pointed out to her that there was nothing to be gained by keeping it a secret any longer. After all, Edge had already told him that he would be taken along and kept close by the place of operations in case something went wrong with the gun.
But the girl was terrified of Edge and Cato had to summon up all his charm to put her at her ease after supper. He used every trick he knew to flatter her and, as a last resort, began some amorous advances. He was surprised at the way she responded and realized with something of a shock that this was why she had been hanging around the cabin after dark the last two nights. He had been so absorbed in his work on the Gatling gun that he hadn’t realized it. Well, he thought, there were worse ways of interrogation, and maybe an hour or so later he had the information he wanted.
The gold train out of Pecos on Friday morning ... “Listen, querida,” Cato said quietly, running a forefinger under the girl’s ear and feeling her shiver at his touch. “I’ve got to get out of here ...”
She sat up abruptly, eyes wide, head shaking.
“No, no! That you must not ask me!” she said, already sliding out of bed and reaching for her clothes. She started to dress hurriedly and he heard a couple of seams’ stitching go she was so hasty.
“It don’t matter if I can’t get right away,” Cato added urgently. “Just so I can slip out for a half hour ... twenty minutes would do. I just want to get to the gun ...”
She looked at him horrified, clapping both hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear!” she whispered, almost hissing in her fear. “Nothing! Nothing! He would kill me if he knew what I have already told you! I can do no more ...!”
She gasped and Cato jumped as the front door crashed open abruptly and Jake Edge walked in with Jethro Kidd behind him, carrying a handful of rawhide thongs. Edge’s eyes ran over the girl and Cato still in the bed. He sneered, snatched the handful of rawhide thongs from Kidd and swiped once, savagely, at Conchita. She screamed as the thongs, like a cat-o’-nine-Tails, seared across her bare shoulders, leaving welts.
She cowered and Cato started to come up off the bed angrily, but froze when Edge whipped out his Colt with the speed of a snake. Kidd was only a split-second behind with the Manstopper.
“Get over to the saloon,” Edge growled at the weeping girl and she pulled her blouse on and ran from the cabin. Again Edge’s hand holding the rawhide moved in a swift arc. Cato tried to pull back, but wasn’t quite fast enough. The tips of the thongs caught him across the face, laying open one cut, lifting crisscrossed red weals on the skin. He gasped with the hot pain and crashed back against the wall.
“Stretch out,” Edge ordered in his grating voice and Cato frowned, looking at him puzzledly. Edge swiped at him again with the rawhide but the small gunsmith dodged this time. “Stretch out, damn it!”
Cato slowly lay down on his back on the bed and Kidd moved forward, pulling his legs towards the corner posts at the foot and his hands towards the posts at the head. He and Edge worked swiftly, tying the rawhide tightly, the thongs biting into Cato’s flesh. His limbs were stretched to the limit as the outlaws made the rawhide tight around the bedposts. He was spread-eagled and naked, but he knew that even if he had been wearing his trousers, in this position he would have had no chance to get to his belt-buckle knife.
“Just so you don’t get any ideas about runnin’ off,” Edge told him. “Or maybe jammin’ up the gun. If that Gatling don’t work tomorrow, you’re gonna die a slow death, Cato.”
“Hell, I’ve kept my part of the bargain!” Cato complained. “The gun’s workin’ perfectly now.”
“It better keep workin’ that way!”
“What’s it get me if it does?”
Edge grinned crookedly. “Why, you’ll have earned yourself the reward of a quick, painless bullet! Now ain’t that somethin’!”
He guffawed and Kidd joined him. They started for the door and Kidd paused long enough to turn and pull at the bullet crescent scars on his ears.
“Jake forgot to mention that I get the pleasure of finishin’ you off, Colt ... One way or the other!”
Chuckling, pleased with himself, Kidd followed the outlaw chief out into the night. The lock rattled as they padlocked the chain on the outside.
Cato lay there, straining at the bonds but biting back the gasps of pain as the rawhide knots drew tighter, causing his flesh to bulge. They had tied him that way deliberately. Any way he looked at it right now, he was a loser.
What worried him more than that, though, was just how many other people he had set up to die by assembling that Gatling gun for Edge.
There was no spur line to the army post at Horsehead Crossing, so Red Dog had to travel to Pecos to board the train on the Friday morning.
Yancey knew this was a dangerous time and he had Grant provide an escort for Red Dog and his daughter, consisting of a troop riding in tight formation around the chief and his daughter, who were astride their own pintos. Red Dog’s warriors moved along slowly in the background and to the side, watching, patient, alert. Yancey knew that at the first hint of trouble, they would swoop in, slaughter every white in sight and make off with their chief and the girl. He hoped Carswell and his pards wouldn’t be loco enough to try anything that might spark off a war. But he figured that it was the only way left to them now. They would know he had failed to arrange any kind of compromise over the valley land and, rather than see Red Dog reach Austin and have the treaty become law, they might well try to kill the chief there and then. Once another Indian war started it would swiftly become a full-scale one and there would be no treaties then. But the Kiowas would be driven out of the Pecos Valley by force of arms and, when the war was over, they would never be able to return for, by that time, the white ranchers would have moved in. And government was always reluctant to kick people off land where they had put down roots ... It had happened, but it was unlikely in this case.
So Yancey rode tensed and alert and Grant sent scouts ahead in plain range clothes, to make sure the trail into town was clear.
It was a tense hour and the girl watched Yancey closely. Once she put her pinto up alongside, holding her head erect and looking levelly at him.
“I hope your arrangements are adequate, Mr. Bannerman.”
“So do I, ma’am. The captain’s ranks are a mite thinned out because he had to provide men for escorting the gold too.”
Her heavy lips curled slightly. “Of course ... Gold would be more closely guarded than a man’s life. Particularly if he is only a red man!”
“Now, look, Little Flower,” Yancey said testily, “that isn’t the view I take at all. I work with what’s available to me. Captain Grant’s cooperating all the way. If he was able to, he’d empty the post of his men to form a living wall around you and your father.”
She held his gaze for a long minute, then silently dropped back alongside her father again. Yancey heard the chief speak and guessed he was asking her what she had been talking about.
They reached Pecos without trouble and turned down towards the railroad depot where the locomotive was panting hollowly, taking on water and firewood. Crowds of silent men watched as the cavalcade neared the depot. Yancey stood in the stirrups, eyes scanning the buildings and the crowds, trying to do both things simultaneously. He caught sight of Chuck standing by the train and his brother came hurrying forward, looking pale and tense. He waved frantically in an effort to catch Yancey’s attention. A soldier moved his mount directly into Chuck’s path, blocking him. Chuck tried to step around but the soldier expertly held him away.
Yancey took one more look around and then called to the soldier to let Chuck through. The man saluted briefly and Chuck hurried up to Yancey, grabbing his stirrup, but his eyes were roving appreciatively over the buckskin-clad form of Little Flower.
“What is it, Chuck?” Yancey demanded.
“Carswell,” Chuck breathed, still reluctant to take his gaze off the handsome Indian girl. “Couldn’t get word to you before or he’d have killed me ... They’re going to try to—”
The shot drowned Chuck’s words and Yancey cursed as he saw the eagle feather in Red Dog’s head-dress cut in two, the colored tip fluttering to the ground.
His Colt was in his hand instantly and he rammed his mount into Red Dog’s, snatching the rawhide reins from the chief, running through the milling escort, making for the depot wall. The assassin’s gun cracked three more times, swiftly, and a soldier yelled, going down. A horse reared, squealing. Dust roiled. Chuck leapt up and pulled the startled Indian girl from her saddle, carrying her bodily towards the depot building and ticket office. Bullets kicked dust around his feet and the girl’s struggles almost upset him, but he was able to stagger through the office doorway, and he flung himself across her slim body, slightly surprised at what he had done ...
Yancey had Red Dog safely around the corner of the depot building and he turned him over to four soldiers from the gold escort who had come running up. Guns were roaring on the Pecos streets as soldiers and townsfolk exchanged shots. The Indian warriors at the edge of town had gathered, ready to ride in, but hesitating, not sure of what was happening when they saw the fight appeared to be between the whites ...
Yancey dived through a window into the ticket office and rolled across the floor, startling Chuck who half rose from the Indian girl. She squirmed out swiftly, angry and flushed. Yancey grabbed her arm.
“If you want to stop a slaughter, you get out there and tell those warriors to ride back to their camp!” he snapped. “You hear? They’re ready to ride in and if they do, you’ll have a full-scale war on your hands. It may be to your liking, but it sure isn’t what Red Dog wants!”
Briefly, she looked startled at his words. Then her face hardened into its usual unsmiling sober lines. “You are a fool if you believe that I want war!” she snapped and, before he could say any more, she rolled through the doorway out onto the depot platform.
By the time Yancey got to the door she was gone. He glanced briefly at Chuck. “Keep your head down!”
He charged out, gun in hand, seeing the skirmishing was dwindling away. The townsfolk didn’t want to fight the soldiers who had been protecting them these past years, no more than the soldiers wanted to shoot it out with men they had shared drinks and brawls with.
But there was someone who wouldn’t give up so easily, and he knew that was the man who had fired that first shot at Red Dog. He had intended that shot to kill. It had only been luck that he had missed.
Yancey saw him then. Hemp Carswell! He was at a second floor window of the Cowman’s Palace Saloon, shooting down into the crowd, sending bullets smashing into the rail depot office. Probably he was the one who had fired the initial shot, Yancey figured. He couldn’t get a clear shot at Carswell from where he was so he ran across the street, dodging between soldiers who were now trying to round up the townsmen and disarm them. He kicked in the rear door of the saloon and ran through the kitchen, and started for the stairs leading to the second floor.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and almost died in his tracks. Carswell was at the top, and his bullet was close enough to take Yancey’s hat off and actually tug at his hair.
Yancey dropped to one knee, his Colt tilting up even as Carswell lifted his rifle for a second shot. They fired together and Yancey wrenched his face back, stung by flying splinters. He rolled aside as Carswell came tumbling down the stairs, end over end, rifle clattering. The big cattleman crashed in an inert heap at the bottom, only a foot from Yancey’s face. Yancey put the muzzle of his Colt against the man’s head instantly, but even as he did so, he saw death glazing over the wide eyes, heard the rattle start in Carswell’s throat.
He got slowly to his feet, picking up his hat and reloading the empty chamber in the Peacemaker. By that time, Hemp Carswell was dead. Yancey went back onto the street where the soldiers had a dozen or so townsmen lined up against the saloon wall, hands raised. He glanced down the street and saw Little Flower walking back towards him. Behind her, the Kiowa warriors bunched and waited silently, arms at the ready.
Then Yancey snapped his head around as there was a call from the depot. Red-Dog stepped out, hands raised, and spoke briefly, strongly, to the warriors. He looked towards Yancey and then said a few final words and the Kiowas raised their hands, chorused a resounding ‘Ho!’ and turned and rode back across the plains. Captain Grant, standing near Yancey, let the breath he had been holding hiss out between his teeth. Red Dog stood there defiantly, facing the town that hated him, arms folded. Grant ran forward and, with four troopers, coaxed the chief back into the protection of the depot building. Yancey turned and saw the Indian girl only a few feet away now. She was looking at him.
“What did your father say?” he asked.
“He told his warriors that he did not need their protection now that he was in your hands. He has full confidence in you, Yancey Bannerman.”
“That’s fine. But he’s shoving a hell of a lot of responsibility onto me!”
“Governor Dukes has already done that, surely, by entrusting you to negotiate the treaty.”
He smiled a little crookedly. “We’d better get aboard. We’re pulling out right away.”
She pulled back momentarily when he took her arm and then he dropped it swiftly. “Sorry,” he muttered.
She walked alongside him, saying quietly, “Your brother acted swiftly in getting me inside the building. Unfortunately, he is careless with his hands. Even under gunfire.”
Yancey stiffened and looked at her sharply. But she was gazing straight ahead to where her father was boarding the train with armed soldiers gathered around him.
Yancey swore silently. Damn Chuck! It was possible that the biggest danger to blowing the treaty apart might yet come from within, after all.
Johnny Cato’s hands and feet were still bound with rawhide, but now they were tied tightly together, hands behind his back, and he was in a far less comfortable place than Conchita’s bed.
He lay on his side amongst rocks on a slope overlooking the twisting pass known as the Pegleg. The railroad tracks ran right through the center of the pass and there was tall timber growing to within a few yards of them, on either side. Jake Edge and his men were somewhere down there now with the wagon and the Gatling gun. Conchita and an outlaw named Glass, who had been brought along specially to guard Cato, sat a few feet away on rocks.
“Hey, Conchita … How about a drink of water?” Cato called, making his voice rasp.
She glanced at Glass who was holding his Colt in his lap. He shifted his watery eyes to Cato.
“Any funny business, amigo, and I blow the gal apart,” Glass warned.
“Hell! I’m only thirsty!” Cato told him.
The girl picked up a canteen and took it across, lifting Cato’s head so she could hold the neck against his lips. He could still see the tips of the weals on her flesh left by the rawhide thongs from last night. Pretending to swallow, but letting the water trickle down his neck, Cato spoke quietly.
“I gotta get outa here, querida. Edge is gonna kill me whichever way things turn out. I’ll need your help.”
She said nothing, but held the canteen so that only a bare trickle of water came out. Cato swallowed as if he was getting a lot of liquid. It was her only sign that she had heard him or knew what he wanted. She stood up and returned to the rock near Glass, jamming the cork back into the canteen. The outlaw lowered his gun hammer but still kept the Colt in his lap, looking from Cato to the girl. Her fingers rubbed gently at the tips of the weals on her back where they were not covered by her peasant blouse.
She looked at Cato from under dark lashes but her face told him nothing as he lay there, the circulation in his hands and feet slowly being choked off by his bonds ...
Over in the Pegleg, Jake Edge and his men were working harder than they ever had in their lives before.
They were working on a stretch of line that was just over a small rise, hardly noticeable to the train’s passengers, but it was sufficiently high for the engineer in his cab to be unable to see what lay beyond until he was on top of the hump. That was important to Edge’s plan. He didn’t want the engineer to have too much time to apply the brakes after he noticed the obstruction on the tracks. Fact was, he wanted the locomotive to have just enough speed to hit the logs and rocks his men were piling on the line and be derailed. It wouldn’t be travelling fast enough to pull all the other cars off and even if it did make the first two jump the tracks, it wouldn’t really matter. The express car was fourth back from the loco. The more panic amongst the passengers the better, Edge figured. That way everyone would be more ‘reasonable’ when he brought out the Gatling gun to back up his demands.
If they weren’t ... He couldn’t help the crooked smile that twisted up one side of his face. He kind of hoped someone would be unreasonable, just enough to give him an excuse for cranking that handle and pouring a volley of bullets into the wooden cars and the steel-lined express van ...
He looked critically at the heap of rubble his men were piling high on the tracks now and moved forward slowly, gauging its height.
“Not too high, damn it!” he grated. “Don’t want any showin’ over that hump till the loco tops the rise and starts down this side.”
The sweating men stepped back, panting, glad of the excuse to stop, wiping their faces and trying to spit cotton out of their parched mouths. Unused to hard work they were feeling the strain already and would quit at the first excuse. They were men who would wait three days for a stage or a miner to pass by if they thought either were carrying enough gold or money to make it worthwhile, but they wouldn’t do an hour’s honest work if they could help it. Edge figured there was enough rubble piled on the line now but he was feeling perverse today ... likely tension, he figured … and he ordered more logs and rocks dragged across.
“But pile ’em around the base!” he grated. “Don’t make it any higher!”
Grumbling, the outlaws went to work and Edge enjoyed sitting down on a log and smoking while they sweated and cursed.
In another hour it was all ready and Edge’s men collapsed in the grass beside the tracks, breathing hard. Edge stood up and walked across.
“Okay. No time for sittin’ around here,” he snapped. “Get on your horses and fan out through the timber.”
“Hell almighty, Jake!” growled Jethro Kidd. “Train won’t be along for hours yet.”
Edge took out his battered pocket watch and looked at it. He grunted and put it away again. “Get into position,” he ordered and the weary men climbed slowly to their feet and, grumbling, walked to where their horses were tethered in the trees. Edge watched them go, smiling to himself, then moved back to where he had the wagon and Gatling gun tethered behind a boulder-studded humpback ridge. He figured the more uncomfortable his men were, the more alert they would be. And he would make regular rounds until train time to make sure none of them was dozing off ...
On the slope, Cato strained at his bonds, knowing he had no chance of breaking loose. He glanced towards Conchita. She was his only hope of getting free. But she wasn’t even looking in his direction.
She was talking quietly with Glass, sitting close beside him on the log, smiling at him, running a taut finger around his dirty neck above the worn collar of his shirt. At first he showed signs of irritability and then he backed off a little and looked at her, running his eyes over her figure, fixing his gaze on her moist, parted lips.
Slowly, he put the Colt he held back in its holster. He glanced at Cato and then grabbed the girl’s hand and stood up. He led her out of Cato’s sight into the brush and the gunsmith heard her laugh. He clamped his lips together. She hadn’t once glanced in his direction.