Shootout of the Mountain Man Page 19

  “A boiler explosion? That don’t make sense. What would they have steam up at this time of night for?” the man called back, though by the time the man finished his comment, his voice was behind them, because both Smoke and Bobby Lee had reached the ravine and were now bent low over their horses, riding hard.

  Janet, who had been flirting with three men who were sharing a table, had joined the others in a toast to Andy. Minnie and Nabors had done the same thing, as had Doc Baker, who had playing chess. The piano player was turned around on the bench, with his back to the keyboard, when the explosion rolled through the saloon.

  “Oh!” Janet shouted, startled so that she dropped her glass and put her hands over her ears.

  “You think maybe it was the roundhouse?” someone asked.

  Minnie and Nabors exchanged broad smiles, but said nothing. Looking toward Doc Baker, Minnie saw him glance back at her with the silent question in his eyes. She nodded, and he allowed only the barest suggestion of a smile to cross his lips, before returning to the game.

  “Your move,” he said.

  “Damn, Doc, didn’t you hear that?” Bryan Hughes asked. “Aren’t you a little concerned as to what that was? ”

  “I’m more concerned about the fate of my bishop,” Doc said. “I’m sure someone will tell us soon enough. Like I said, it’s your move.”

  The pharmacist smiled, and captured Doc’s bishop. “You had a right to be concerned,” he said.

  “Damn, I should of kept my mouth shut. You didn’t even see that move until I called it to your attention.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bryan said, chuckling, as he held up the small chess piece. “I have your bishop now.”

  Sheriff Wallace was a single man, and he kept a room at Mrs. Kramer’s Boarding House. He had just fallen asleep when the sound of the explosion awakened him. He lay in his bed for a few minutes, listening to the startled reaction of the town and trying to figure out what it might have been, when there was a loud knock at his door.

  “Who is it?” he called, reaching over to pull his pistol from the holster.

  “It’s me, Sheriff. Deputy Jackson,” a voice called from the other side of the door.

  “Jackson, what are you doing here?” Wallace scolded. “You know better than to leave your post. I told you, anyone who has the night duty is not to leave the jail as long as we have a prisoner.”

  “Yes, sir, well that’s just it, Sheriff,” Jackson called back.

  “What’s just it?”

  “We don’t have us no prisoner,” Jackson said. “Bobby Lee Cabot got away.”

  Getting out of bed, Wallace padded quickly barefooted over to the door to jerk it open.

  “How did he get away?” Wallace asked angrily.

  “Maybe you heard that loud boom a while ago,” Jackson suggested.

  “I heard it. What about it?”

  “It seems like somebody blow’d a hole in the back wall of the jail.”

  “It seems like somebody blew a hole in the back wall? Or somebody did blow a hole in the back wall. Try and make sense when you talk to me.”

  “Yes, sir, well, I say it seems like somebody did ‘cause somebody actual did blow a hole in the back wall,” Jackson said, his convoluted explanation not much clearer than his original comment.

  “Go get Harley,” Wallace ordered. “Then get our horses saddled. We’re goin’ after him.”

  “Tonight? In the dark?” Jackson replied, surprised by the pronouncement.

  “Yes, tonight in the dark. He escaped in the dark, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir. But which way will we go? How are going to catch him in the dark?”

  “Will you get Harley and get our horses saddled like I told you to?” Wallace said in exasperation as he began to pull on his pants.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll get Harley.”

  “Did you hear? The prisoner escaped! Bobby Lee Cabot got away! “ someone yelled as they ran into the saloon, hitting the batwing doors so hard that they slapped back against the walls of the saloon.

  “How did he get away?” one of saloon customers asked.

  “Somebody set dynamite to the back wall and blew it plumb out!”

  “Who done it?”

  “Damn if I know,” the bearer of the news replied. Turning, he left the saloon and started running down the boardwalk, the sounds of his footfalls receding in the distance.

  “Jailbreak!” he was shouting into the night. “Bobby Lee Cabot broke out of jail!”

  Nabors looked across the table to Minnie.

  “Did you know that he was going to blow up the jail?”

  “I was confident that he was going to get Bobby Lee out of jail. I didn’t know exactly how he would do it.”

  Nabors chuckled. “You have to say this about him. When he sets out to help someone, he doesn’t mess around, does he?”

  “Who are you talking about?” Paul, the bartender, asked, coming over to join them then, not having heard the initial exchange between the two of them.

  “The sheriff is goin’ to come around asking a lot questions,” Nabors said. “You are probably better off if you don’t have any answers.”

  “Do you have answers?” Paul asked.

  “I don’t have any answers,” Nabors said. “I have lots of ideas, but I don’t have any answers.”

  Doc Baker came over to join them then.

  “I thought you were playing chess,” Nabors said.

  “I was, but Bryan cheats.” Doc Baker didn’t mean the charge seriously, and nobody took it so.

  “I don’t need to cheat to beat you,” Bryan called back in good-natured banter.

  “Did I hear that fella say a moment ago that the back wall of the jail had been blown out?”

  “That’s right,” Nabors said.

  “Do you think it might have been—”

  “That’s right,” Nabors said again, interrupting him with a broad smiled. “There’s no doubt in my mind who it was.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Riding hard through the night, Smoke and Bobby Lee reached Lost Creek in the Sinkarata Valley at about four o’clock in the morning. They slept lightly through the rest of the night, then awakened just before dawn. Now, in the east, Smoke could see the long slab of the Shoshone Mountains outlined against the red-gold sky of sunrise. The De Satoya mountain range lay to the west.

  They had made their camp under on a bench of rock overhanging the narrow stream, under a stand of great pines. Grasshoppers flitted about, and several yellow butterflies hovered over the water. A pair of eagles circled high overhead, while, somewhat lower, a much more active peregrine falcon snatched a fleeing grouse.

  Smoke walked over to the edge of the creek, then lay on his stomach on a flat rock. Reaching down into the clear water and using his cupped hands, he scooped the water up, then splashed it on his face, finding the cold water invigorating.

  “I want to thank you for answering my telegram,” Bobby Lee said.

  “You asked for help, Bobby Lee. Did you think I was going to ignore you?”

  “Well, with Nicole being dead and all, I wasn’t sure.”

  “Whether Nicole is dead or alive, you’re still family. ”

  Bobby Lee smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Smoke asked.

  “I’m going to do what I started out to do,” Bobby Lee said. “I’m going to hunt down and bring in Frank Dodd. I figure that’s the only way I can clear my name.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Smoke said. “Do you have any idea where we start?”

  “Where we start? Smoke, I appreciate you coming to get me out of jail, but I can’t ask you to get involved.”

  “I broke you out of jail, Bobby Lee. Don’t you think that makes me involved?”

  Bobby Lee smiled again, and nodded. “I guess you are right,” he said. “If you are sure you want to do this, I’ll be more than glad to have you along.”


  “Tell me about Frank Dodd.”

  “He is as mean as they come,” Bobby Lee said. “He led a group of raiders during the war, and he learned a lot about military operations. Now he runs his gang exactly like a military operation.”

  “Which side was he on during the war?”

  “Ha!” Bobby Lee said. “He was on his own side. If it helped him to ride under the Confederate flag, he did. If it helped him to ride under the Federal flag, he did that as well. Mostly, what he was after was the plunder, and he didn’t care which side he robbed from.”

  “Sounds like a real trustworthy man,” Smoke said in a sardonic tone of voice.

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “What about Sheriff Wallace?”

  Bobby Lee ran his hand through his long, unruly, dark hair. “I should never have trusted the son of a bitch,” he said. “I don’t know why he didn’t show up, or why he lied about our arrangement. Unless …”

  “Unless he was in cahoots with Dodd,” Smoke said, completing the sentence for him.

  “Yeah,” Bobby Lee said. “At my trial, they suggested that I was supplying Dodd with the information as to what train would be carrying money shipments. And of course, that has always been the big question. How did Dodd know? The suggestion was that I was providing him with information that I got from my association with the Western Capital Security Agency.”

  “Does the WCSA have that kind of information?”

  “Yes, we are generally informed. Sometimes, we even provide additional guards, though most of the time the shippers just rely on one messenger.”

  “Would that information be available to anyone else?” Smoke asked.

  Bobby Lee shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “They are pretty close with it, only the people who need to know, like the WCSA and—” Bobby Lee paused in mid-sentence.

  “And the sheriff?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby Lee said. “And the sheriff. I’ll be damned. That’s why he wasn’t in the express car with them. He was in cahoots with them.”

  “When I was coming down here, Dodd tried to hold up the train I was on,” Smoke said.

  “Really? Where?”

  Smoke told him about the attempted holdup, including in his narrative the fact that Phillips and Garrison had been identified, while a third robber who had also been killed had not been identified.

  “Hmm, Phillips and Garrison must have been new,” he said. “I don’t believe I ever met them. What did the other man look like?”

  “He wasn’t a very big man, had a pockmarked face, thin, sort of light brown hair.”

  “Had to be Wayland Morris,” Bobby Lee said. “If you killed him, it was good riddance. He once killed a farmer, then raped his wife and daughter before killing both of them.”

  “Too bad I killed him,” Smoke said.

  “What?” Bobby Lee asked, surprised by the reply. “Why would you say that?”

  “Shooting is too good for someone like that. That’s the kind of person that the public needs to see hang.”

  Bobby Lee ran his finger around the collar of his shirt. “After seeing my gallows built, hanging isn’t something I care to think about right now,” he said.

  Smoke laughed. “I don’t blame you, but look at it this way. We did manage to spoil your hanging party, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby Lee said. “Thanks to you, we did.”

  * * *

  Eddie Murtaugh had been with the Western Capital Security Agency for three years. During that time he had often been partnered with Bobby Lee Cabot, in fact had learned everything he knew about the business from Bobby Lee. He considered Bobby Lee his best friend.

  “He didn’t do it,” Murtaugh told Captain Bivens.

  “I know how you feel, Eddie,” Captain Bivens said. “I feel the same way. I’ve known Bobby Lee longer than you have. But the evidence is just too convincing. Frank Dodd has been terrorizing trains and stagecoaches all through Nevada. He always knows when they are carrying money. Last month, Frank Dodd held up a Nevada Central train and got five thousand dollars. Everyone had been wondering how Dodd was getting his information on which trains were carrying the money, and now it seems pretty obvious that he was getting it from Bobby Lee. And don’t forget, Bobby Lee was with Dodd when he hit that train.”

  “Yes, but I believe Bobby Lee had worked his way into the gang in order to catch them,” Murtaugh insisted.

  Captain Bivens shook his head. “Eddie, you’ve been with us long enough to know that we don’t operate that way. ”

  “Maybe he didn’t see any other way of stopping them,” Murtaugh suggested.

  “Why didn’t he let us know ahead of time what he was doing?” Captain Bivens asked.

  “You wouldn’t have approved,” Murtaugh said.

  “No, I wouldn’t have,” Bivens agreed. “Our rules are very specific, Eddie, you know that. There is never any reason for joining with the criminal element. When you do so, you risk not only your own life, but you could wind up risking the lives of others as well, to say nothing of bending the very laws we are trying to protect. It could also jeopardize an ongoing investigation.”

  “There you go then. That’s the reason Bobby Lee didn’t tell you about it.”

  “There’s one more reason we don’t want our agents associating with the criminal elements,” Bivens said. “Sometimes the pressures, and the temptations, can be overwhelming—so much so that a man might forget what side he is on.”

  “That did not happen to Bobby Lee. I know you have known him longer, Captain, but he and I have put our lives on the line together many times. I don’t think anyone knows him better than I do, and I am telling you, he was not involved with Frank Dodd. He may have violated a WCSA rule, but if he did, I’m sure he thought that it was the only way he could bring Dodd in. I’ll never believe he has gone bad.”

  “Your loyalty is commendable,” Captain Bivens said. “But I have the integrity of the WCSA to think of. That’s why I have offered a reward of five thousand dollars for him.”

  “Dead or alive,” Murtaugh said.

  “You understand the way it is out here,” Captain Bivens said. “If we are to have any chance of bringing him to justice, we have to make the offer dead or alive.”

  “You are condemning him to death,” Murtaugh said bitterly. “That takes on the role of judge and jury.”

  “He has already been condemned. He was found guilty of murdering the express agent and sentenced to be executed. He escaped, which makes him fair game for such a reward. I have assumed no role that is inconsistent with existing circumstances. ”

  Murtaugh lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “I know you are upset and concerned about your friend,” Captain Bivens added. “But he made his own bed and now he must sleep in it. In the meantime, we go on. Are you willing to take on a new assignment?”

  Murtaugh nodded.

  “Good. I am putting you in charge. I want you to take two men with you. You will board the Virginia and Truckee Railroad at Carson City, and ride with it all the way to Columbus.”

  “You are sending three of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “There must be quite a bit of money involved if you are going to use three of us.”

  “One hundred thousand dollars,” Captain Bivens said.

  Murtaugh whistled. “One hundred thousand dollars? That is a lot of money. Wouldn’t it be safer to just keep the shipment secret?”

  “Hard to keep it secret when you have something like this going out all over the state,” Captain Bivens said, he voice registering his disgust. He picked up a newspaper from his desk.

  “What is that?” Murtaugh asked.

  “Read it,” Bivens said, unable to hide the disgust he felt over the article.

  Record Money Shipment

  On Tuesday, the 4th of September, the

  Bank of Carson City is transferring one hundred thousand dollars to the bank in Columbus, by way of the Virginia and Truckee
Railroad, such funds representing a record for the most money ever transported by that railroad. Mr. Matthews, owner of the Bank of Carson City, explained that the bank in Columbus, being newly charted, required the funds to ensure its solvency.

  The train to be utilized, the Mountain View Special, will depart Carson City at 8 p.m. on Monday, September 3rd, and arrive at Columbus at 6 a.m. before the opening of business hours on Tuesday. Depositors in the Carson City Bank need not worry for the safety of their money for, as Mr. Matthews explained, this is but a loan from which interest will accrue.

  Mr. Dempster, proprietor of the Bank of Columbus, has expressed his deepest gratitude for the loan, explaining that it will help bring business and prosperity to the community.

  Murtaugh looked up from the newspaper article. “That’s only four days from now,” he said.

  “Yes. Can you have your men selected and be ready by then?” Captain Bivens asked.

  Murtaugh nodded. “I can.”

  “Then the assignment is yours.”

  “Thanks,” Murtaugh said, turning away from the desk and starting toward the door.

  “Mr. Murtaugh?” Captain Bivens called toward him.

  Murtaugh turned back in response to the call.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I am sorry about your friend. But please don’t let friendship get in the way of your performance of duty.”

  “I don’t understand, sir,” Murtaugh replied. “How could my friendship with Bobby Lee affect this assignment?”

  “If you are right about him, it won’t affect it in anyway,” Captain Bivens said. “But, if I am right about him …” He let the sentence trail off.

  “You think he might try and hold up the train?”

  “There is that possibility, yes.”

  “If he does, he will no longer be my friend,” Murtaugh said. “He will just be another train robber, and that is exactly the way I will treat him.”

  “You are a good man, Eddie Murtaugh,” Captain Bivens said.

  “Thank you, sir. But so is Bobby Lee Cabot. I’m not worried about my obligation, because he won’t be the one robbing the train.”