Ralph Cotton - Midnight Rider

“He did nothing compared to what I’m going to do if you don’t sit down and shut up.”

The sound of a rifle cocking came out of the darkness from Penta’s direction. The men all stepped back, making a wider circle.

“Whoa, now!” said Hughes, stepping quickly out of the way.

Spiller raised his hands chest high, his trousers halfway unbuttoned.

“All right, Frank, I’m down,” he said, dropping onto his nail keg, his hands still up. “See? I’m seated here, just looking after the prisoner like I was told.”

“Get your fly buttoned and see to it you keep it that way,” Penta said. Under his breath, he said to Shaner, who sat silent in the dark beside him, “This crude, ignorant son of a bitch.…”

Spiller half stood and buttoned his fly. As he sat back down, he dealt Rochenbach a hard kick in his side.

Penta heard the kick, and the sound of Rochenbach’s breath exploding from his chest.

“Damn it to hell,” Penta said, rising, stepping forward into the circle of lantern light, Shaner right beside him.

“That was an accident!” said Spiller, looking up at Penta and Shaner. “They all saw it!” He gestured a hand toward the rest of the men gathered around the outside circle of light.

“Do we have to treat you like a damn kid, Spiller?” Penta said. “Move away… go sit at the other end of the car.”

Spiller saw the look in both Shaner’s and Penta’s eyes and realized he was in no position to argue.

“Okay, all right!” he said, standing, his hands raised chest high. He backed away and started to turn. But then he stopped suddenly, turned back around and took a step toward them. Both of their rifles swung up pointed at him and cocked.

“My gun?” he asked, a hand already out, reaching down for his Winchester lying where he’d left it on the floor.

Penta’s boot clamped the rifle to the floor while Spiller stood frozen.

“Have you ever had smallpox, Spiller?” Penta said in a low, menacing tone.

“Smallpox? No,” Spiller said, looking confused by the question.

“Then right now must be the closest you’ve ever been to dying,” Penta said quietly.

Beneath their feet, the rumbling of the railcar only intensified the tense silence that fell over the men.

Finally, Doyle Hughes ventured into the silence in a hushed tone.

“Get it later, Dent,” he said. “Now’s a bad time to reach for it.”

Spiller wiped his cold, sweaty palms on his trousers and backed away slowly.

“All right, Frank,” he said warily. “Grolin put you in charge of him. I respect that.”

Penta and Shaner stood in silence until Spiller backed out of the light and sank into the darkness.

On the floor, Rochenbach coughed and groaned.

Looking down at him, Penta said to Hughes, “Doyle, give Rock some water.”

As Hughes stooped down and held a canteen to Rochenbach’s parched lips, Penta uncocked his rifle and sat down on the nail keg. He laid his rifle across his lap. Shaner stood beside him, swaying slightly with the rhythm of the rolling train.

When Hughes had finished giving Rochenbach a long drink, he watched as Rock wiped a coat sleeve across his lips.

“Obliged,” Rochenbach said in a raspy voice.

Hughes only nodded; he stood up and stepped back, capping his canteen.

Penta and Shaner observed Rochenbach closely. As Hughes backed away, Penta raised an ill-rolled cigarette to his lips, struck a match, lit it and shook out the match.

“I don’t get you, Rochenbach,” he said, dropping the burnt match and crushing it beneath his boot. “You come up here with skill that most long riders would sell their mother for. Grolin puts you into a job that’ll pay more than most thieves make in their life.…”

He let the conversation hang while he took a long draw on the cigarette and blew it out.

“Instead of coming in and being one of us, what do you do? You start right off agitating, getting men like Spiller and Shaner here wanting to kill you.”

“You’re wanting… to kill me, Shaner?” Rochenbach said, turning his swollen head, looking up at Shaner through a purple half-closed eye.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Shaner said matter-of-factly.

“You need to do it now,” Rochenbach said. “This is the only way… you’d ever be able to get—”

“See? There you go again,” Penta said with a chuff, cutting him off. He held Shaner back with the side of his arm. “I’m starting to think you’re one of them hardheaded sumbitches can’t leave well enough alone. Got to always pick at somebody.”

“That’s me all over,” Rock said. He noted the rifle on the floor, but knew it would do him no good, not now, not against this many guns. Besides, this game wasn’t over. He needed to find out what these men knew, so he could plan his next move.

“We all know how good you are at what you do,” Penta said. “Why couldn’t you just take your cut like everybody else? Why’d you tip off your pards, try to bring them in and steal this job from Grolin?”

“Is that what you think I was doing?” Rock asked, feeling better.

“Hughes knows Morse code,” said Penta. “He heard your message.”

Rochenbach looked at Hughes.

“ Train ride… Thursday night… all aboard ?” said Hughes. “Sorry, Rock, I heard what I heard.”

Rock looked at Penta and said, “What if I said he was mistaken?”

Penta blew out a stream of smoke.

“You’d be lying,” he said flatly, “and Doyle here would get his feelings hurt.”

Rock settled back on the floor of the railcar and closed his eyes.

“Where are we going, Penta?” he asked civilly.

“We’re going to meet Grolin,” said Penta. “You’re still going to open that safe.”

“Tonight?” said Rochenbach, opening his eyes. “He told me Thursday.”

“He lied.” Penta gave him a short grin.

“Whose train is this one?” Rock asked, gesturing a hand around the swaying railcar.

“It’s ours now,” Penta said. “So is the engineer, until we let him go.”

“I see…,” Rochenbach said. He closed his eyes again and relaxed as the train rumbled on through the night.

PART 3

Chapter 16

The Stillwater Giant stepped down from the seat of a buckboard wagon on the edge of a cutbank cliff, peering at the long uphill rail grade in the pale moonlight. Beside the wagon, Casings sat atop his horse, holding the reins to a large Belgium draft breed besidehim.

He handed the Giant the big Belgium’s reins as the wagon turned a wide circle and rolled away along the trail bordering the cliff.

“Try not to wear him out first thing,” Casings said to the Giant.

“I won’t,” the Giant said. He took the powerful horse’s reins, but did not step up into the saddle. He had ridden there in the wagon to save the horse’s strength, knowing the toll his enormous size and weight could take on an animal in a short period of time.

After a moment of silence, Casings turned in his saddle and looked at him beside him, almost at eye level, even with the Giant standing on the ground.

“You’re worried, ain’t you?” Casings said.

“Not about this job,” the Giant said. “But yeah, I’m worried some.”

They both looked off up the grade toward a thick stand of trees, where they knew Grolin and his men were waiting in the darkness.

“He’s all right,” Casings reassured him. “You know Grolin’s not about to harm him so long as he needs him to open the safe.”