Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“Understood,” Virgil said. “Jenny, these LeFlore brothers, they got no beef, no odds with each other? They get along with each other all right?”

Jenny nodded.

“I’ve known them my whole life; they’re close. Jimmy John is a bit of a renegade, but they both are hard workers and do their job.”

“Good,” Virgil said. “I want to craft a note. Contact Buck LeFlore to the south. You said he was in the Paris office, right?”

“He works out of the Paris office. He’s there sometimes. I can try to reach him.”

“Good,” Virgil said. “Try to wire Buck in the Paris office. Have him contact his brother north in Division City. We will let the communication be between them, all in Choctaw. That way there is no connection to this office and the LeFlore north, in Division City.”

“Splendid idea,” Hobbs said.

“Okay,” Jenny said.

“Good,” Virgil said.

The governor nodded, looking at Virgil with some resolve.

“Sam?” Virgil said.

He pointed to the mines on the map.

“Can the Ironhorse get us up to here by morning?”

“Before then, if we get you going.”

“Good,” Virgil said. “Gives us time to locate them. If we don’t get to LeFlore for some reason, we’ll look on our own. We don’t find them by mid-afternoon, we come back to the switch location and load the mule. Everett?”

“Sounds right,” I said. “That Ironhorse in good working order, Sam?”

“It is,” Sam said.

“What do we need to do to get going?” Virgil said.

Sam pointed up the track.

“Soon as Uncle Ted gets back from removing the last foul car,” Sam said, “just need to load the tender and get the stock car hooked up.”

“That it?” Virgil said.

“Is,” Sam said. “But we don’t have a regular fireman. Charlie and me help out Uncle Ted here in the yard. You’ll just need somebody to shovel coal on the trip is all. I suppose, push comes to shove, I can do the shovelin’ for you.”

As Uncle Ted and the Ironhorse got close to the Half Moon Junction depot, the engine blasted one long whistle. Smoke was billowing from its stack as it thumped back down the track pulling the coach Virgil and I had abandoned on the rise north of town.

The coach was the last foul car to be removed from the track. The next abandoned car north, with Whip, the undertaker, the grieving widow, the Apache woman, and the others, had been removed by the Standley Station section gang. The engine and first coach was in the process of being towed off by the Crystal Creek section gang, leaving the track open for travel.

The windows of the telegraph office rattled again as Uncle Ted, with his hairy arm hanging out the window of the Ironhorse, throttled the engine off the main track and rumbled to a stop in the switchyard behind the water tower.

“God help us,” the governor said.

A half-hour passed and there had been no response from Buck LeFlore. Jenny did receive a wire notifying us the Southbound Express was up and running again and on the move down the track en route to Paris. Sam told us she would have a better idea of where we would pass the Southbound Express once we were ready to leave, but she thought we would most likely have to use a pass track midway between Half Moon Junction and Standley Station somewhere around five and six o’clock.

In short order, Uncle Ted and Sam got the Ironhorse tender filled up with coal from the coal tower, Virgil retrieved the money from the crates in the freight car and transferred the loot to the stock coach, and I fetched the four horses from the jail.

It was half past noon when I walked the horses down to where Virgil was now standing with the governor and Hobbs in the switchyard with Sam and little Charlie. They were watching Uncle Ted maneuvering the Ironhorse.

Uncle Ted pulled the whistle cord, and three short loud blasts spooked the horses as the Ironhorse backed toward the stock coach.

I turned the horses away from the engine noise, circling them, getting their feet back solid under them, when I saw Berkeley walking toward me carrying a large carpet bag and wearing denim trousers and a barn coat.

“I’m your shoveler,” Berkeley said.

He reached out and took two of the horses’ leads.

“Packed us some rations, too.”

“Good of you,” I said.

“Least I can do.”

“Hard to know how this will play out.”

“One way or another, it will.”

“It will, indeed,” I said.

We crossed a dead-end set of rails just as the automatic coupler of the Ironhorse docked with the coupler on the stock car. Sam stepped up between the tender and the stock coach and connected the glad-hand coupler on the air line as we neared with the horses.

“Got us a fireman,” I said.

Everyone turned and looked at Berkeley.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Berkeley said. “Contrary to what makes perfect sense, I’m no stranger to hard work. Besides, you have a train station to manage, Sam.”

“Suit yourself,” Sam said.

She moved to the side of the stock car and uncleated the rope from the block-and-tackle system that lowered and raised the ramp.

“I don’t think Uncle Ted has bathed in six, maybe seven, years!” Sam said.

We lowered the ramp, and I got the two other horses familiar with getting up into the car and coming out of the car. The stud Cortez and the roan were knowledgeable train travelers and had no problem with the ramp, but the other two needed some encouraging. I loaded each horse a number of times and after a few smooth up and downs, making sure they felt comfortable, I removed their saddles and tack, set up the mangers with hay, and secured them in their stalls for the journey.

Uncle Ted got the Ironhorse and stock car onto the main track and let out three short whistles. He backed the tender under the water tank, where Sam and Charlie awaited. Sam swung out the spigot arm over the tender.

“Go ahead on, Charlie!” Sam said.

“Okay, Sam,” Charlie said.

Charlie jerked down on the chain and started filling the tender with water.

I entered the side door of the depot and crossed the corridor to the telegraph office where Virgil was standing with the governor and Hobbs next to Jenny’s desk. When I entered the office, Virgil looked to me and shook his head slightly.

“No word from LeFlore?” I said.

Jenny looked at me and shook her head.

“Nope,” Virgil said.

“Reckon we go at it on our own,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“That’s right,” he said.

“Just follow the line toward the camps,” I said.

“Yep,” Virgil said. “See where it leads us.”

The governor had his hands behind his back again and a troubled look on his face. He started shaking his head from side to side. I spoke up before he had a chance to say anything.

“Sir, if I may?”

The governor looked at me.

“Deputy.”

“Virgil and I have been doing law work together for over twenty years. There’s nobody better at law work than the man standing right there. Time and time again we have been in situations that have required every kind of can-do there is and we will do our very best to find your daughters and save them.”

The governor looked at Virgil and me for a long silent moment.

“I will, of course, be anxious and waiting. If the circumstances were different and my wife were not with me, I would of course go with you.”

“Me, too,” Hobbs said.

“Shut up, Chet,” the governor said.

The governor didn’t even look at Hobbs.

“Just...”

The governor stopped talking and looked to Virgil.

“I don’t know what else to say or do,” he said.