Black Cat Weekly #15

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1The combination immigrant train of the Kansas, Texas and Southern labored its way through the blinding spring rain in a valiant effort to reach Dexter Springs before the whole uncertain roadbed should be washed from under its spinning wheels.

On both sides of the right-of-way the broken bluffs above the raging river were the only sign of solid ground. All the rest of the wind-lashed landscape had vanished beneath the surging course of the swirling flood waters, and the small, bell-stacked locomotive sprayed waves from its wooden cowcatcher as it forged forward, in constant danger that its firebox would drown out.

Inside the rattling coaches it was almost as damp. The train was already eight hours late and the wood for the heating stoves had long since been dissipated. The immigrant women huddled their crying children and themselves in shawls, hungry and cold and hopeless, already thoroughly disillusioned with this new bleak and barren land.

Joel Zeeman, the conductor, checking nervously through the train, halted beside Bruce Powell’s seat, feeling the need to talk to someone he knew and someone who would understand the gravity of their situation.

“I tell you, Major,” the little conductor removed his uniform cap and wiped his high forehead, “I never saw it so wet. The whole state is going to wash away if it doesn’t stop raining. It’s been pouring steadily since we left the Kaw, and it will be a miracle if we ever pull into the Springs.”

Bruce Powell laughed. He was a man who laughed easily, although there had been little to provoke laughter in his life. He had worn a uniform at thirteen, and he had seen a beaten army surrender before he was twenty-one. The raw impulsiveness of his youth had been veneered by years of careful discipline and training, yet through it all he had managed to keep his balance and his perspective.

Even the hopeless drudgery of war and the empty bitterness of defeat had not marked him too deeply. He still had a full-bodied zest for life, although he schooled it better than did his elder brother, and this schooling made men misjudge him at times, thinking that he was more serious than he really was.

He was calm now, and his laugh was friendly. “Cheer up, Joel,” he said. “This is not the first time it’s rained in Kansas, and let’s hope that it will not be the last. Your train’s crowded tonight. How many women you got aboard?”

The conductor returned his cap to his head. “Near a hundred and twenty,” he muttered darkly, “and there’s twice as many hungry younguns. I swear, Major, seems everyone heading west has more children than livestock. The Lord knows how they’ll manage to feed them. They’ll wind up eating sandburs and brush if you ask me. It’s those darned land agents’ fault, lying and stealing, telling people they kin get rich overnight.”

“Don’t forget your railroad,” Powell reminded him. “It’s your cheap excursion rates that are filling up these trains and dumping a lot of hungry people into Kansas.”

The conductor nodded unhappily. “These settlers don’t know what they’re up against. Them that don’t drown out will dust out come summer. This land was made for cattle. It ain’t never going to be any good for farming.”

Powell’s laugh was a little wry. “You sound like my brother Henry, but maybe you’re both wrong. Maybe we’ll live to see the day…”

He never completed the sentence, for the train jerked suddenly and then slid to a soggy stop. Zeeman swore under his breath. “Firebox. Water in the firebox. Now we’re in a hell of a mess.” He turned and ran down the aisle and disappeared through the car door.

Powell hesitated, peering through the rain-streaked window. Then he rose and started to follow. But as he stepped into the aisle his eyes met those of the woman in the opposite section.

He had remarked her when she entered the car at Dodge. In a train crowded with settlers her clothes were very noticeable, for they had been purchased in some city and she wore them with a certain dignity and ease.

But there was a nervousness in her manner. At first he assumed that she was unused to traveling, but after observing her for a few miles he changed his mind. He decided instead that she was frightened of something which she had left behind her in Dodge. As long as the train stood in the station yards she peered from the window, at the same time restraining the small boy who shared the seat with her. And even after they pulled westward she started up each time the car door opened.

She was, thought Powell, running from something. He had seen people who were running before. But what could this handsome gray-eyed girl be running from, and where was she running to? She must, he thought, be headed for Dexter Springs. There was nothing further west save the raw railroad work camps, overrun with their construction crews. Certainly she was not the type of woman to be going there.

As he stepped into the aisle the small boy was trying to crawl across the girl’s knees. The child looked to be about four and there was a decided resemblance between him and the girl. Unconsciously Powell glanced at her ungloved hand and almost as unconsciously he noted that there was no wedding ring on her third finger. Then he realized with a start that she was speaking to him and the boy at the same time.

“No, Bobby,” she said pulling the child back, then meeting Powell’s eyes. “There’s no serious danger, is there?”

Powell smiled. He was almost as dark as an Indian, and his teeth showed white against the black sunburn of his lean face. “I don’t think so. The roadbed’s solid and should hold, even if we’re delayed for awhile. I’m going forward to find out.”

He moved on down the aisle, thinking more about the girl than about the stalled train. He had just grasped the knob, preparing to pull the car door inward, when it was thrust open in his face.

He stepped back to avoid its swing and the doorway was filled by the bulk of the entering man.

The man was short and squat, entirely sheathed by a dripping black slicker, and his soggy hat was pulled down so that it shaded his eyes. But it wasn’t the hat which held Powell’s attention. It was the handkerchief tied across the lower part of the man’s face and the heavy gun in the man’s hand.

Powell’s own weapon was in his valise, but had he been wearing a gun belt he would have had no chance to draw. The man was almost on top of him.

“Steady.” The man’s voice was partly muffled by the handkerchief, but it was still a roar. “Back up into that seat.”

For a moment Powell hesitated. Then he eased into a seat space already occupied by an immigrant woman and two small children.

A second masked man had appeared in the doorway behind his companion, and the bulky gunman passed Powell, shouting in his bull-like voice, “Everybody stay where you are and you won’t get hurt. This is a holdup.”

Powell twisted to watch the man’s progress down the car, and tensed as the bandit paused beside the gray-eyed girl. She started to stand up, her face blank with alarm. He pushed her roughly back into the seat and, reaching across, seized the small boy, lifting him bodily by the collar of his jacket.

The girl grabbed at the man’s arm. He put an elbow into her face, shoving her away roughly. Powell forgot the gunman in the car door. He plunged into the aisle, jumping instinctively toward the gunman who was backing along the car, the struggling boy under his free arm.

But the bandit behind Powell was quicker. He charged after the major, one of his heavy forty-fours coming up in a swing. Then he crashed the six-inch barrel down across the flat crown of Powell’s wide hat.

Bruce Powell dropped to his knees. He caught the arm of the seat at his side and tried to drag himself erect. The heavy gun struck again and then again. Powell collapsed, first back to his knees and then forward onto his face. He lay there unmoving, his cheek pressed against the mud of the dirty floor. The bandit stepped across his inert body and carried the boy from the car, his departure covered by his companion.