Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“I’ll get some rope,” I said.

In short order we snugged his hands behind his back, pigged them with a half-hitch strain to his feet, and left him curled up in the shed.

We made sure he was breathing good. Then Virgil and I moved up quick on the white house before Vince and the other bandit could grow curious. They were still singing and playing music as we commenced with our plan.

“I’ll come in the front door,” Virgil said. “Same time you come in from the back room into the parlor.”

We heard loud laughter followed by another tune being kicked up and sawed on a fiddle.

“Watch me,” Virgil said. “Once I’m up front, we count ten.”

“Okay.”

I stood next to the back porch and watched Virgil walk through the narrow opening between the white house and the building next door. When Virgil got to the front he looked back to me. He raised his arm and dropped it, signaling me.

I started counting to myself as I stepped over the railing and entered the back-room door. Thousand one... thousand two... thousand three... thousand four...

I stayed out of view of the half-open door leading into the front parlor... thousand five... thousand six... thousand seven... thousand eight... thousand nine... I pushed open the door and entered the parlor at the exact time Virgil came through the front.

“Nobody move!” Virgil shouted.

A big bald fellow sitting next to a whore at the piano got to his pistol kind of fast, and I shot him. The women screamed. He fumbled with his pistol like he was still trying to get a shot off, and I shot him two more times. He fell back onto the piano keys, making a dull thumping tune, and dropped to the floor between the bench and the piano pedals.

Vince was caught with his left arm around one whore and his right around the other. He jerked his right arm free and froze with his hand on the grip of his Colt.

“Don’t do it, Vince!” Virgil said.

Vince looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Quiet!” Virgil yelped to the ladies.

The women stopped whimpering.

“Far as I know, Vince, you’ve not killed anybody,” Virgil said.

Vince kept his hand on the handle of his pistol, looking back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Serve some time, live to an old age. Talk about the time you lost part of your ear on the rail north of Half Moon Junction, or you can end it right here, getting killed by me, or Everett, or both of us.”

Vince kept looking back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Rex is dead,” Virgil said. “The other hand is bundled up like a bale of alfalfa in the water shed.”

The bandage wrapped around Vince’s head was showing a spot of red.

“Be good to get you to the jailhouse,” Virgil said. “Lock you up. ’Course, it’s your call.”

Vince knew he was done up, and he did not like it. Not one bit. If there was betting going on, I would put money on him doing something stupid, but his cowardliness got the best of him. He removed his hand from his pistol and hung his arm back over the shoulder of the woman on his right. He let his bandaged head go back and rest on the top of the sofa. I moved to him and removed the Colt from his belt. I handed the pistol to Virgil and gathered Vince by the buttons of his long johns and jerked him to his feet.

We woke up Constable Berkeley. He came to the jailhouse with one of his deputies, J. B. Larson, a young fellow with a big wad of tobacco in his mouth, and they got the place opened up for us. The jailhouse was a two-room structure with an office on one side and two cells on the other. Thick double doors that remained wide open divided the office and cells. We got Vince and the smaller bandit locked up, each in his own cell.

I walked back in the front door from taking care of the horses, and Virgil was still sitting in a cane-back chair in front of Vince’s cell with the Henry rifle resting in his lap. He was doing the same thing he was doing when I had stepped out, questioning Vince. Deputy Larson was asleep in a corner chair, and Berkeley was yawning wide as he stirred a pot of boiling coffee.

I walked over behind the main desk and took a seat in what looked like a comfortable chair, but when I sat on the cushion I felt Bob’s parfleche pouch under my butt. I freed the long strap from my shoulder, put the pouch on the desk, and let my butt settle into the cushioned seat. I put my leg over the edge of the desk and seriously thought about sleep. Vince and Virgil were both visible from where I was sitting.

Vince was sitting on the bunk with his elbows resting on his knees, looking at the floor. I could tell he was tired of Virgil’s questioning. Before I had stepped out, Vince had told Virgil everything he knew about the Yankee, and what he said pretty much matched what Dean had told us.

“So why did the Yankee target you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were in Wichita Falls, playing Seven-Up at the Bluebell Pool Palace and the Yankee asked you to be a part of this robbery?”

“It came up I was a train hand. I told him I worked as a brakeman. I worked for a couple of different railways, Union Pacific being the main line, but got laid off after the air brakes took over.”

Virgil looked at me and back to Vince.

“George Westinghouse.”

“That’s right,” Vince said disgustingly with his Irish brogue. “The Yankee said he had a job and he needed somebody that was familiar with trains.”

“Why was it you set the Pullman on fire?”

“I didn’t.”

“Who did?”

“The other fellow.”

“Who?”

“I never met him before.”

“But you met him tonight?”

Vince nodded.

“He was?”

“Bob Brandice. He got on, boarded with the Yankee. Bob’s a mean son of a bitch.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Vince said. “He’s a mean son of a bitch. That is why.”

“Why’d he set the Pullman on fire?”

“He threw a damn lantern. The fire kicked off quick.”

“Why?”

Vince shook his head.

“He was mad I would not stop the coaches from rolling backward.”

“Why was he mad?”

“When I knew we had you and Everett to deal with, I was not about to go back looking for the Yankee who double-crossed us. But when it came out, when I said your name, when I said Virgil Cole, Bob got angry. He insisted we stop.”

“And you wouldn’t.”

“Hell, no, I wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“So I would not have to see you or Everett Hitch. Hell, it would be all right with me if I never saw the two of you ever again, including right now.”

Virgil looked at me and smiled.

Berkeley pulled the coffeepot from the stove. He poured cups and handed them around. The first cups he passed through the bars to Vince and the other prisoner. They both looked at the coffee like it might be poisoned.

“Just coffee, boys,” Berkeley said.

Berkeley poured more cups. He gave one to Virgil, then me. He kicked the chair where Larson was sleeping. Larson looked about, wondering what happened, and Berkeley handed him a cup.

“Nap’s over,” Berkeley said.

Virgil sipped on his coffee for a moment, then continued questioning Vince.

“So, Brandice wanted to stop, why?”

“He wanted to come after you.”

“He told you that?” Virgil said.

“Oh, yeah, he did,” Vince said. “He damn sure did. He said he had bloody plans for you. Not Hitch.”

Vince looked over to me and back to Virgil.

“Just you. He said he was going to cut you into pieces. He went into detail how he would go about it, too. He’s an animal, and judging from what I saw, he was not just whistling a waltz.”

Virgil looked at me and smiled a bit and looked back to Vince.