Gunsmoke Talk: A Walt Slade Western. Bradford Scott

we were going rather slow,” said the hogger. “If we’d been highballing, it would have been different. As it was, we just got flung about in the cab and not pinned under anything. Come on, Tim,” he said to the fireman. “Let’s beat out those coals before the cab catches fire.”

      The injured passengers were really more frightened than hurt, and the more composed were looking after the others.

      “Yes, a blessing we were just ambling along,” the conductor said. “And feller, the chance you took, jumping right out in front of their guns!” he added admiringly to Slade.

      “Was the safest thing to do,” the Ranger explained. “Resistance was the last thing they expected, and it threw them off balance.”

      “Oh, sure, plumb safe and easy!” snorted the con. “I got another name for it. What do you think, Sheriff?” he asked, glancing at Serby’s badge.

      “Oh, I don’t pay it no mind,” returned the sheriff. “I’m so used to him doing things like that they don’t faze me any more.”

      Slade deftly changed the subject. “Got a telegraph instrument aboard?” he asked the conductor.

      “Yep, there’s one in the caboose,” that worthy replied. “This combination always packs one.”

      “Then we’ll cut in on the wire and notify El Paso,” Slade said. “They can summon the wreck train and run a couple of coaches down here to pick up the passengers. Let’s go, I want to make sure my horse is all right. With a dozen freight cars absorbing the shock, I imagine he only got shook up a mite, but I want to make sure. Besides, I’ll have to unload him and ride the rest of the way to town. You’ve got your flags out, of course? Don’t want another train smashing into this mess.”

      “Both shacks, front and rear, are on the job,” replied the conductor. “They weren’t hurt and highballed into position as soon as they got their brains unscrambled.”

      Confident that the front and rear brakemen would properly care for their chores, Slade led the way to the rear on the train. Shadow’s stall car was the last of the cars behind the passenger coaches and next to the caboose. His disgusted snort relieved Slade’s fears for him. A swift examination discovered no injury.

      “Take care of you in a minute,” Slade promised. He descended from the car to find the conductor with the telegraph instrument and its trailing wires in his hands and dubiously eyeing the tall pole that supported the overhead wires.

      “Think you can make it up?” he asked. “I sure couldn’t.”

      “I’ll make it,” Slade answered. “Can you operate the key?” If you can’t, I can.”

      “I can click out enough to tell them what to do,” replied the conductor.

      Slade fastened the wires to his belt and went up the pole hand over hand, the conductor watching and shaking his head in admiration.

      “Just like a squirrel,” he remarked to a couple of passengers who had tagged along after them. “Wonder if there’s anything he can’t do just right? And I wonder who the devil and what the devil he is? Took charge of things right off; even the sheriff did just what he told him to do.”

      One of the passengers, a slab-mouthed individual with a leer in his eye, looked knowing. “There are folks who’ll tell you he’s an outlaw,” he said. “That’s El Halcon, that folks say is just too smart to get caught. Got killings to his credit. Will get his comeuppance some day.”

      The conductor glared and tightened his grip on the instrument. “If I didn’t need this thing bad right now, I’d bust it over your blankety-blank head, you blankety-blank gossipspreadin’ old woman!” he roared.

      “Hey, I didn’t mean anything,” protested the alarmed passenger, backing away. “I was just telling you what folks say. I don’t know whether it’s true or not.”

      “Then keep your blankety-blank trap shut till you know what you’re talking about,” growled the conductor. “Get outa my way, I got work to do. Killings to his credit, eh? Uh-huh, just the sort as he got to his credit today. Get out of my way, I said.”

      Perched on the crossarm atop the pole, Slade deftly secured the wires to cut in on the line.

      “All set to go,” he called to the conductor, who at once began to operate the sending key, rather raggedly.

      “Okay,” he called back, closing the key. “I got through and made ’em understand. They’ll get things rolling in a hurry.”

      Slade cast off the wires and slid down the pole.

      “Now I’ll unload my horse,” he said.

      The conductor and two passengers assisting, the loading plank was lowered, down which Shadow stalked sedately.

      “Sure some critter,” the conductor observed admiringly. “Betcha he could get you to town faster than this old rattler.”

      “Wouldn’t come far from it, I imagine, if he was in a hurry,” Slade conceded as he cinched the rig into place. “Now let’s get back to the head end. I want to have a word with the express messenger.”

      When they arrived at the scene of the wreck, Slade and Sheriff Serby climbed through the shattered express car door to find the messenger sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette and profanely expressing his opinion of things in general.

      “Son,” the sheriff asked, “just what were they after?”

      The messenger hesitated, glanced inquiringly at Slade.

      “Go ahead,” urged the sheriff. “If it wasn’t for him, the chances are right now you’d either be dead or pistol-whipped within an inch of your life; they’d have made you open that safe.”

      “Not supposed to talk about it,” said the messenger, lowering his voice. “Supposed to be a closely guarded secret, as they say. They figured nobody would suspect it being sent by this jerkwater. Better’n fifty thousand pesos in that old box. Closely guarded secret, my foot!”

      Slade nodded thoughtfully. He’d had experience with “closely guarded” secrets of a similar nature. Looked like the Starlight Riders had sources of information not accorded to the general public.

      “Feeling all right?” he asked.

      “Sure,” the messenger replied. “Lucky for me I was back away from the door when they flung that stick of dynamite against it. Thought for a minute the sky had caved in.”

      “Now for a look at those bodies,” Slade said as they descended from the car.

      Serby had allowed no one to approach the bodies. The masks were stripped off, revealing hard-case countenances contorted in the agony of death swift and sharp, with nothing particularly outstanding about them.

      “The sort that’s been passing through town all the time ever since the railroad came and the big boom started,” said Serby. “No, I don’t rec’lect seeing any of them. Chances are I wouldn’t have noticed them if I did—just like a hundred others.”

      “Suppose we let the passengers have a look,” Slade suggested. “One of them might remember something.”

      But as man after man filed past, peered at the faces and shook their heads, it appeared that nobody could recall seeing the unsavory quartet before. Or if they did, they wouldn’t admit it.

      “Same old story,” growled the sheriff. “You can’t get anybody to talk.”

      And then, unexpectedly, they hit paydirt. The slab-mouthed passenger who had identified Slade as El Halcon paused, peering close by at the dead faces. He looked up, and his eyes met Slade’s squarely.

      “Feller,” he said, “I reckon I made a mistake by sounding off like I did back there by the caboose—seems I’m always talking out of turn—and I’m sorry. And I rec’lect seeing two of those skunks, the little