Renegade Page 15

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “It’s not that I don’t trust you guys, but I’m not recruiting today. We’re short of guns and horses for the men we have. Behave yourselves and maybe I’ll leave you some coffee.”

  “They’re going to have our backs to the wall for letting you take this train, Captain Gringo!”

  “I doubt it. Not even the federales can shoot the whole railroad and, if our luck holds, you’ll be lost in the shuffle as they try to decide whose fault this is, starting with some overconfident Army officers. Just remember to yell ‘Viva Diaz’ a lot and you’ll get by.”

  He left them pondering their probable fates and led Rosalita up to the locomotive. He helped the girl up to the crowded cabin and they crawled up on the coal pile, where he found his disassembled Maxim. He killed the remaining time at the water stop by putting it on its tripod and adjusting it as the girl watched, hugging her knees with her back against the tender wall. Like everyone else on the train by now, Rosalita was filthy with soot, and her thin cotton pants were scorched here and there by flying cinders. The American knew he was grimed up, too. His eyes felt itchy and were as red-rimmed from lack of sleep as they were by wind and smoke. He tried not to think how long it had been since he’d slept. Rosalita had obviously been able to doze back in the cars, and kept squirming her little behind around on the coal as if she had worms, or wanted to screw.

  He muttered, “I’d feel better if you were in a safer place, kitten.”

  But she insisted, “My place is with my toro, and you can show me how to help with this big gun. It takes two to fire a machine gun, no?”

  “Not really. But I’ll show you how to feed me the belt if you’ll promise to keep your pretty head down when I tell you to. These steel walls should stop most bullets, but the coal is high and I’ll want you full length on your lovely belly as we roll into the next stop.”

  The professor had been listening from the gritty floor just ahead of them. He came to the tender opening and asked, “Is that the best place for the machine gun, Captain Gringo?”

  “No. I put it here because I’m stupid. The wall of the reefer to our rear protects my back. From up on this pile I have a field of fire out to either side and in a pinch I can fire over the boiler by standing with the gun. Where did you think I should be, the cow catcher?”

  “You’d be exposed in that position and we couldn’t communicate.”

  “You’re learning, Professor.”

  He stood up and leaned out to look back along the train. He saw that his men had attached a cable to the tower as he’d instructed and that the train crewmen were watching, morosely, from a safe distance. He yelled out, “All right! All aboard for Oaxaca!”

  Then he dropped down by the gun and added, “Let’s go, Professor.”

  “You shouted that as a ruse, eh? But where are we going, if not to Oaxaca?”

  “You just run the choo-choo out of here. I’ve got to study the railroad map we swiped a few stations back.”

  The old man nudged the guerrilla at the throttle and they slowly pulled away. Behind the last car, the water tower protested with a groan of twisted timbers and came down with a horrendous wet crash on the already blocked tracks.

  As they gathered speed, Captain Gringo unfolded the tattered map from his hip pocket, and faced to the rear to keep it from fluttering. After some thought he addressed the four men in the compartment. “We’ll be hitting Torreon in less than two hours and it looks like a real city on this map. I wish there was some way to bypass Torreon, but I guess there’d be no point in running tracks around a main stop. Jesus, I wish this was a bigger scale. I can see there’s a marshaling yard coming up. There has to be at least a full troop of Rurales stationed there. Can’t make out if there’s an Army post nearby. Also, we’re going to have to work out some hand signals. We can’t shout the length of the train, even if nobody’s shooting at us.”

  Robles, the man at the throttle, asked, “Do you expect much shooting up ahead in Torreon, Captain Gringo?”

  “I doubt they’ll offer us the keys to the city. There’s a chance we’ll have the advantage of surprise. But it’s a switchyard we have to pass through and they can screw us by merely shunting us to the wrong track.”

  “Ah, but with no signals from the north telling them to do this—”

  “The line’s still open to the capital and if I were running this railroad and half my lines were out I’d be stopping everything that rolled until I could figure out what was going on. I’m hoping they won’t be that smart, but Lee hoped Pickett could make it up Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, too. We’ve got to have some alternate plans.”

  The professor asked, “I agree, but what are these plans of yours?”

  “Let’s get some signals down pat. We don’t know what’s coming up. So we’re going to have to decide the details as we go.”

  The yard boss at Torreon was sweating and swearing as he stared down through the smoke-grimed windows of the switch tower at the utter chaos below. The tower smelled of wasps’ nests and sunbaked corrugated iron, and the yard boss wished he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. Something weird was going on up the line to the north and they kept sending him conflicting orders. He was doing his best to keep the main lines clear, but trains kept piling up down there and it was hard to see with all that smoke and steam rising from the stalled through trains and the puffing switchers trying to make some sense out of things in the cluttered yards.

  A switch-engine crewman climbed up to the little office and called out, “Hey, that troop-train commander just made a very unpleasant remark about your mother. He demands we clear him to run north to … to whatever in hell is going on up there.”

  The yard boss shrugged and said, “His mother sucks off little boys. I can’t release that troop train until I get the block signal cleared from the next division.”

  “But boss, there’s something wrong with the wires. We’re not getting the green light from up the line!”

  “Jesus, tell me something I don’t know! You want for me to have two locomotives face to face out there in the desert? Tell that troop-train commander I have my orders, too. Nothing rolls out of here for the North until someone shows me a clear track to the North. If he wants to go south, it’s no problem.”

  “But boss, he says there’s fighting in the North!”

  “There is always fighting in the North. If it’s not Yaqui or bandits it’s those crazy Texans stealing our cattle. They didn’t give me this job to wreck trains. My job is to keep them from bumping into one another. How many northbounds do we have stuck down there, now?”

  “Five. Three are freights. Aside from the troop train we have that passenger special for Laredo, and they are pestering us, too. Some rich Texas gringo has a private car attached and he’s being very tiresome about his importance. He says he is a friend of El Presidente and makes threats about your behind if we delay him further.”

  “Fuck all Texans, rich or poor. I’m doing the fool a favor by holding him on that siding until we know what’s going on up the line. If it is bandit trouble it’s his ass he should be considering. That expensive varnish he’s riding in would tempt any bandit and … Oh, oh, what have we here, up there at the far end of the yards?”

  Both men stared at the oncoming smoke plume of a locomotive southbound from the mysterious North as it chuffed slowly down the main line. The yard boss reached for the bank of levers in front of him and said, “It looks like someone got through, whatever it is. I’ll put him in the slot between the troop train and the special to clear the main line. Then we’ll see what he can tell us. Hmm, No. 443. What’s that freight doing this far south?”

  “I see soldiers waving at us from atop the tender, boss. It looks like they’re expecting to go through.”

  “I don’t care what they intend. I’m switching them to that siding until somebody makes some sense around here!”

  “They don’t look like they want to stop.”

  “They have to sto
p. Siding No. 7 is a dead end to the south and … Ah, they see this and they’re slowing down. Go down and tell the engineer I wish to speak with him.”

  But before the other could leave, the yard boss gasped, “What the hell?” as the sound of gunfire filled the yards below!

  As the guerrillas pumped shot after shot into the stalled troop train just to their left, Captain Gringo opened up with the machine gun and raked the packed cars from engine to caboose! Caught flat-footed, the federales died still wondering what was going on as lead slugs slammed through flimsy wooden walls and screaming flesh. Some few soldiers tried shooting back. A greater number dove out the far side of the shot-up train and ran for cover as the renegade freight slowed to a stop, still spitting death from along its entire length.

  The yard boss saw cotton-clad guerrillas leaping from the stalled freight to the roofs of the passenger special on their other side as a tall man in an Army uniform rose to his feet in the tender, with the machine gun cradled in his arms. The yard boss gasped, “Oh, no you don’t!” and reached for his bank of switch levers. Then the tower glass dissolved in a flying cloud of shards as machine-gun fire raked the tower and threw him away from the switches with his half-severed head hanging by a bloody shred!

  The other crewman hugged the floorboards, whimpering, as glass and bloody tatters of shattered flesh and splintered wood cascaded over him. When the savage gunfire faded away he stayed there for a time, wondering if he was still alive. Then he staggered to his feet and risked a cautious glance through the shattered windows.

  The slot between the stalled freight and the next freight over was empty. The passenger train was no longer there. The federales, recovered a bit from their surprise, were under the troop train, pumping lead into the mysterious freight as they lay on their bellies between the wheels. They didn’t seem to grasp the fact that the freight was no longer filled with guerrillas, though they were making hash out of screaming, abandoned ponies.

  The survivor tottered to a rear window and peered out. He saw the engine of the captured passenger train moving swiftly away, backward, in a cloud of dust and smoke. Too late, he thought of the switch his friend had tried to throw. The train varnish was past the last switch and out on the main line, now and, though running in reverse, moving like the powerful express it was!

  “Crazy!” he gasped, running to the ladder and moving down it fast. At the bottom he met a wounded federale officer with one shattered hand tucked inside a bloody tunic and the other gripping a .45. The officer shouted, “Quickly! The telegraph office!”

  “Great minds run in the same channels, Lieutenant. That’s just where I was headed!”

  Together they ran for the telegraph shack, where they found an excited man taking down a message from the madly clicking wire. He glanced up to snap, “They’ve bypassed the knocked-out wire to the north. It’s a message from General Obregon in Chihuahua. He says rebels have seized a train and are headed for Oaxaca!”

  The railroader gasped. “That’s insane! They’ll never make it to Oaxaca!”

  The officer snapped, “Who cares about their mental condition? What’s the next switchyard they have to pass through between here and Oaxaca?”

  “Aguascalientes, about three hundred kilometers or a full day’s run from here. Wait, there’s a switchpoint at San Alto, halfway.”

  “Good. Let’s get it on the wire. If we can stall them up here on the meseta … Never mind. This is what I want you to send.”

  The telegrapher jiggled his key with a morose look and sighed, “I don’t think I can send anything, Lieutenant.”

  “What do you mean you can’t? I order you, damn it!”

  “You can order me to fly and I won’t be able to do that, either. The line is dead to the south, this time. They must have stopped just south of town to cut the wires. There’s no way to tell Aguascalientes what’s headed their way!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Captain Gringo waited until they’d run backward onto a side route, reversed the engine, and were pulling out due east on the cross-country line before he climbed up to the shining-brass rear platform of the private varnish attached to the rear of the new train. Up ahead, his followers were making themselves comfortable on the plush seats after throwing all the passengers off at the last stop. They were somewhat consoled for the loss of their abandoned ponies by the luggage they were looting happily. The people in the private car had been making blustering remarks about fighting to the death and had locked themselves in. So the tall American had left them to whatever they thought they were up to in there as he attended to more important matters. Now that they had the wires down and the train running the right way, it was time he had a talk with them.

  He rapped on the cut-glass rear door and called out in English, “Hey, open up. We have to discuss your future.”

  A surly male voice replied in English, “Get away from that door or I’ll let you have it!”

  “Don’t be stupid. You shoot me and these Mexicans will have no reason at all for keeping you alive.”

  “Are you an American? What’s an American doing with Mexican bandits?”

  “It’s a long story. Open up and we’ll talk about it.”

  “You’re trying to trick me. But I’ve got a gun.”

  “So have I. So what? If I wanted to hurt you I’d just uncouple this car on a long uphill grade and let you enjoy some sudden scenery until you left the tracks on a turn.”

  There was a murmured discussion on the other side of the door. The man’s voice insisted, “Damn it, it’s some kind of trick, I tell you!”

  Then the door opened and a statuesque blonde in a silk slip and open black-lace kimono said, “All right, mister. It’s your show. What do you want … money, or my fair white body?”

  Captain Gringo holstered his revolver and stepped inside, saying, “Let’s see what both of ’em look like. My name is Walker and I’m wanted in the States for murder, so let’s not get cute. These people call me Captain Gringo because I think I may be in tactical command of … whatever it is.”

  The blonde said, “I’m Flo Swensen. The colored boy hiding from you behind the bar is named Calvin. This gent is Morgan Sinclair and he’s usually able to buy anyone he wants, so why don’t you start naming your price?”

  Captain Gringo smiled crookedly at the florid stout man in striped pajamas standing nearby with a British Webley aimed at his feet and said, “Put that thing away. Are you the same Sinclair who owns all those banks in Texas?”

  The man placed the gun on a rosewood table near the curtained window and nodded, saying, “I assume you’ve kidnapped me for ransom. Very well. How much do you want me to send for?”

  “Sinclair, I had no idea who was aboard this train when we took it over. We’re rebel guerrillas, not bandits. I’d keep quiet about having too much money, though. Some of my followers are a bit flexible about liberating Mexico.”

  Sinclair looked somewhat relieved as he took a seat and called out, “Calvin. Let’s have some service back here.” Then he smiled thinly at Captain Gringo and added, “There’s no such thing as too much money. I’m in a hurry to get back to the States. So let’s say I’m contributing to your cause, eh? You look like a sensible man, Walker. I see no need to spar around about what this is going to cost me.”

  As the blonde sat across from them, alone on a plush seat, Captain Gringo hooked a rump over an armrest and said, “It’s not that simple. If we get through to Tampico you’ll all be free to go on your merry ways. If we don’t, it’s likely to take you longer.”

  “Tampico?” the banker blustered. “Why in Hell are we going to Tampico?”

  “Because the federales think we’re going to Oaxaca and because it’s closer and good guerrilla country. My friends don’t have a chance up here in the mesas and deserts of central Mexico. The banana jungles down along the coast offer a better chance to play hide-and-seek. Naturally, we won’t roll right into downtown Tampico, but we’ll abandon this train close enough. If you beh
ave yourselves, this’ll all be over in a few more days. If you don’t, we’ll have to kill you. You look like a smart man, too. So I don’t think we’ll have any trouble.”

  The servant brought a tray of drinks and served Sinclair first. The younger American man noticed they were getting bourbon and branch water whether they asked for it or not. Morgan Sinclair was a man used to having his own way, apparently. But the drink was cooling and the blonde wasn’t bad, either. It must be nice to own banks.

  As Calvin went back to stand at attention behind the bar, Captain Gringo glanced over the lush carved-mahogany interior of the car and asked, “Do you have any other servants? How many compartments to this thing?”

  The blonde said, “Calvin’s the only help. There’s a room for him up forward, with a toilet. Then there’s a master bedroom and a larger privy. There’s a pantry, and that bar. You can see the rest of it from where you are. Do you want me to show you around?”

  “I’ll take your word for it, right now. I assume you can both see it would be suicidal to play games and, as I said, you have my word we won’t even scratch the furniture in here if you just sit tight and enjoy the ride.”

  Sinclair, sipping his drink and recovering his poise a bit by now, said, “See here, I have to be in Texas before the stock market opens Monday morning. I stand to make a real killing if I can get to my New York broker before certain news goes out on the tickers.”

  “Oh? You weren’t down in Mexico City just to buy El Presidente a cigar?”

  “All right, I’ve been scouting a really big deal. Something that could make a lot of people rich. I’d be willing to cut you in on the chance of a lifetime if you could see I reached the border pronto.”

  “Where would they send the money? Care of the nearest hangman?”

  “Hey, look, so you got in a little scrape up in the States. So what? Don’t you think I could take care of it for you?”

  Captain Gringo glanced at the blonde, who seemed to be very interested in her own fingernails. Then he took another sip and asked, “You mean, what’s a little murder between friends?”