The war wagon a gatling.., p.12
The War Wagon (A Gatling Western #5), page 12
Gatling hadn’t slept all night and wanted to eat a big breakfast, ham steak and eggs, then turn in for part of the day. “It’s too complicated,” he said. “If McNelly turned to crime, I think he’d rob banks. That’s the kind of man he is. Tough and reckless. I’ll bet he’s had plenty of chances to get rich.”
“But never a chance like this,” the colonel said, pleased with his detective work. “Many men who have been honest all their lives frequently turn crooked then they suddenly realize they face an old age without money.”
“I’ll think about it,” Gatling repeated.
Chapter Ten
IT WAS THE Day of the Great Launching, as the colonel called it.
One end of the huge raft was in the water, held in place by pilings driven deep into the river bottom. The other end was buried in the riverbank at an angle. The War Car would be driven down the slope onto the center of the raft, then have its wheels chocked to prevent it from crashing forward into the river if the balance wasn’t right. When the car was in place, and if old Skidmore’s calculations were correct, the pilings would be knocked away with sledgehammers and the raft would float free. And then thick ropes running over stout pulleys would ferry it to the other side.
All that hadn’t taken place yet; Gatling and the colonel were in the depot barn checking over a lengthy list of supplies of one kind or another. The colonel did the calling out, Gatling did the checking, marking off each item with a pencil. Ciudad Coahuila was a hundred miles south, and to get there they would have to travel over trails that called themselves roads; trails that were no better than mule tracks. In places there would be no roads or trails or tracks of any kind. McNelly’s Mexican spy had drawn them a map; it was as rough-looking as he was. But it would have to do.
They took only what they might need: extra socks and boots, two hats, skinning knives, probes and forceps for bullet wounds, iodine, laudanum for pain, two compasses, two quarts of whiskey, bridles and ropes for horse stealing, two pounds of foul shag tobacco for the colonel’s pipe. The rest was regulation trail gear and supplies: blankets for cold nights and for shelter if the car broke down, pots and frying pans, more canned goods than the colonel said he wanted to think about, and since they wouldn’t be making fires, two alcohol stoves for cooking. Most important of all: many gallons of drinking water.
Gatling swung the starting crank and climbed into the War Car, where the colonel was already at the controls. The car moved out of the barn and out into the town. No hangovers this morning; the colonel was in healthy high spirits.
“We’re off to the races,” he said, doffing his hat to the crowd that followed them down to the river, where an even bigger crowd was waiting.
“I say,” the colonel said heartily. “This is rather like the launching of the Northern Star, isn’t it?”
Gatling didn’t remind the colonel that the Star, once the pride of Cunard’s Atlantic steamship line, had disappeared off the Grand Banks and was never seen again.
Gatling was surprised not to see McNelly in the crowd that lined the dock and the riverbank. It wasn’t like him not to be there for such an occasion.
A brass band blared and the crowd cheered as the colonel took the War Car down the slope toward the raft. Skidmore and some of the crew were on the raft; the rest of them were on the far side of the river, waiting for the signal to pull the raft across. Loaded with shells, ammunition, gasoline and water tanks, and two men, the armored car weighed more than eight tons when it bumped onto the raft. Sitting behind the pom-pom gun, Gatling had to admit that the colonel handled the big iron bastard pretty damn good. The raft was a solid piece of work, but it creaked when the car inched down to the center and stopped. The end that was under the water went deeper in the water, and Skidmore and his men rushed to chock the wheels. They hammered the chocks in hard on both sides of the wheels because the car could slide either way. The colonel glanced quickly at Gatling and gave his wolfish grin. The watching crowd was silent as old Skidmore took one more look before he gave the signal to hammer out the pilings. The raft creaked louder as the first two pilings were knocked out. The third and last pilings were knocked out of the way and the huge raft slid down into the water. It floated perfectly, and the car didn’t move an inch. The colonel, mightily pleased with himself, began to hum a sea chanty. On the other side of the river, men started to pull on the rope.
“A lovely bit of work,” the colonel said, as if he had built the raft himself and engineered the entire operation. “I christen thee the Hiram B. Maxim.”
Watching the far shore, Gatling said, “You mean the raft or the car?”
“The raft, of course,” the colonel said. “The car is already named after its inventor. Won’t you have a drink of brandy to celebrate this auspicious occasion?”
“I brought a few bottles of beer on board,” Gatling said. Gatling and the colonel toasted each other in brandy and beer in the middle of the Rio Grande.
The far shore was flat and dun-colored, much like the Del Rio side, except that hills began to rise no more than a mile from the river. Behind the hills jagged mountains stuck up, one row behind the other. Thick brush grew right down to the water’s edge, and Skidmore’s crew had cleared a path and paved a short road so the car could climb up on solid ground.
It was seven o’clock in the morning and the sun wasn’t too hot yet. They had the side flaps winched down to get as much air flow as they could. Just the same, very soon it would be very hot in the heavy steel car. The colonel said Mr. Maxim was working on a way to cool down the inside of the car, but so far had only succeeded in efficiently cooling the motor. Gatling wasn’t looking forward to the time when they might have to travel long distances with the side flaps winched up. If that happened, in the Mexican sun the car would be like an oven, and that, as the colonel would say, was not just a figure of speech.
They picked up the old Spanish military road marked on the map. Now it was no more than a crumbling, brush-choked trail that went up to some mountain pass many miles ahead. Only once or twice was it necessary to climb down and lever big rocks that blocked their way. Most of the time the big steel-cleated tractor wheels crunched a way through. When they couldn’t find a way through, they had to go around. The car shuddered and the motor whined in the rough places.
They were about five miles from the river, crossing a stretch of flat rock and shale, when the colonel said, “What in blazes is that up ahead?”
Gatling, who had been cleaning his binoculars, raised them to his eyes and saw a man about a mile ahead waving a white flag. Then when the flag cleared the man’s face, he saw it was McNelly. The colonel beat his hands on the steering controls in sudden anger.
“The dirty sneaky swine,” he raged. “Give him a couple with the one-pounder. Didn’t I tell you, Gatling! Wasn’t I right?”
Gatling wasn’t about to shell a man with a white flag on the colonel’s say-so. He didn’t see there was any way McNelly or a dozen men like him could hold up an armored car. For some reason, probably because McNelly had been riding him so hard, the colonel had become convinced that the Ranger captain was one of the great bad men. But seeing him here in the foothills of Border Coahuila did look kind of strange.
“Take it easy, Colonel,” Gatling said. “Let’s see what he wants.”
“He wants to dynamite us, that’s what the scoundrel wants. Open fire, you fool!”
Gatling put a hard edge in his voice. “Take it easy, I said. We’ll go ahead a bit and let him come to us. Just move along nice and slow while I winch up the side plates. He’s got binoculars. He’ll know when you stop.”
The War Car moved ahead slowly while Gatling secured the side plates. There was nobody behind them that he could see, no dust cloud that meant horsemen. Gatling got back behind the pom-pom and told the colonel to keep going. The colonel didn’t like to be told to do anything, but he didn’t stop the War Car and he didn’t try to get at one of the mounted Maxims. The car and the men inside it were covered with alkali dust, and the only sound was the grinding of the huge, wide wheels.
“That’s far enough,” Gatling said when they had gone half a mile. The colonel switched off the motor and they sat there with the pitiless Mexican sun beating on their heads. Gatling used the binoculars and saw McNelly coming forward at a steady but unhurried pace, moving like a man who knows how to conserve energy in a hot country. “He’s coming. I don’t know what he wants—at least I’m not sure—but let’s hear him out. He has no jurisdiction here, so he can’t do anything about turning us back. But he’s the biggest Ranger of them all, so we can’t just kill him or any Ranger or we’ll have the whole force after us. They’ll follow you all the way back to India if they feel like it.”
“I heard you,” the colonel said grimly. “We won’t kill him unless we have to, and then we’ll bury him where he’ll never be found.”
That’s what Gatling was thinking, but he hadn’t said it. Nothing else was said until McNelly got close to the car. Gatling stood up and looked down at him, showing just his head.
“Lost your horse, have you, McNelly?” Gatling said. McNelly wore his Sheriff’s Colt and carried a .44-40 Winchester. He had a single canteen slung over his shoulder. “Or maybe you were waiting for us to come rumbling along?”
“I decided to come with you to Coahuila,” McNelly said. “I thought it over and decided I would. That all right with you?”
“Could be. What made you change your mind?”
“I just did. I told you I liked the wild life. Soon I’ll be facing forty-five, and after that the chances get slim. Next question is, why didn’t I sign on back at Del Rio? Answer is, I’d still like to have my Ranger job if and when we get back. People saw me in this tin can, word would get back to the Governor and he’d drop me like a hot tamale. You got anything else you want to ask?”
“Ask him where he’s supposed to be,” the colonel whispered.
Gatling asked him.
“Taking time off to visit my baby sister that lives up in Oklahoma,” McNelly said. “Now listen here, Gatling. You can tell me to stay or go, but it has to be quick. If it’s no, then I’ll just walk on back. I took no horse.”
Gatling pushed down on the long metal handle that unbolted the door on his side. “Come on up. I got a beer left, you want it.”
“Be nice, a beer.” McNelly climbed up into the stifling-hot car. “How do, Colonel,” he said. “You look kind of mean this nice day. Heat getting to you?”
The colonel turned a bleak eye on him. “You’re full of surprises, McNelly. Just don’t try one too many.”
McNelly grinned at him. “You call me McNelly and I’ll call you Pritchett. What do you mean, surprises?”
The colonel refused to bend. “What I mean is, you seem to veer this way and that. You broke your word to Gatling, and therefore to me. Once a man breaks his word, he can never again be trusted completely.”
McNelly swigged some of Gatling’s beer. “Nothing like a beer on a hot day. Colonel, my word is pretty good when I mean it.”
“Very convenient for you.”
Gatling said, “Let’s get moving or we’ll fry here in the sun.”
When they were moving again McNelly said, “I watched you coming a long way off. This iron horse moves pretty good. Mighty impressive, the way it took some of the bad places. A mule would do it better, but you can’t carry all this stuff on a mule and it isn’t bulletproof. Watched your send-off too, from far back on the far side of the river. Town did you proud.”
Without looking at McNelly the colonel asked, “Did you see anything else that might interest us? Cortinas’ bandits, for example?”
“Not a bandit in sight, Colonel. You think I’d be afoot if I thought bandits were close by? Gatling, when’re you going to teach me how to fire one of these machine guns?”
“Soon,” Gatling said. “There’s not a lot to it if you know guns to begin with.”
“Oh, I know guns, all right. Been using them all my life.” McNelly yawned and went to sleep with his head against the hot metal side of the car. Once he woke up to take a drink of water from his canteen. Then he closed his eyes and started snoring again.
Gatling winched down the side plates and it wasn’t so bad after that. If McNelly was up to anything, it was hard to say what it was. He lay sprawled in sleep, his hands clasped behind his head. The War Car rumbled on all through the hot afternoon, and they were climbing into the mountains by nightfall. McNelly woke up and looked up at the sky.
“You’re not going to get over the mountains in the dark, are you? A lot of bad places up there in the pass. One place there’s a drop five hundred feet down. Best we camp for the night and go on in the morning.”
This was too much for the colonel. “Once you told me I wasn’t a colonel in Texas. Well, sir, you are not a captain here. In point of fact, you have no rank of any kind. I am the colonel here.”
McNelly grinned at Gatling. “What’re you son? What rank do you hold?”
Gatling didn’t want to get into a dustup between McNelly and the colonel. He didn’t like either of them a whole lot. But he knew the colonel longer than he knew McNelly.
“I hold the rank of being hungry,” he said.
They stopped for the night in a wide place in a semicircle of big rocks. It was at the edge of a drop and wouldn’t be so easy to get at. The War Car had carbide headlamps, but they weren’t going to use them unless they had to. The carbide lamps threw brilliant white beams that would be seen for miles. It was cooler where they were and there wasn’t so much dust in the wind. They got out of the car to stretch their legs, taking care to stay close to it when they went for a piss. They waited for the car to cool off before they got back into it to cook supper on the alcohol lamps. There was too much wind to use the lamps outside. McNelly offered to cook supper, saying he’d been batching it for years. Certainly not, the colonel said. “I have one of the finest kitchens in New York and am well known as a fine amateur chef.”
Gatling said, “I don’t give a damn who cooks the goddam supper just as long as it gets cooked.”
Gatling ended up cooking it. “You set a fine table,” McNelly said after he got through digging into Gatling’s fried bacon and beans, canned peaches for dessert.
The colonel hadn’t said a word all through the meal. Now he gave McNelly a very sour look. “Tell me something, will you? Why are you so jocose all of a sudden? Usually you go about menacing people. You’ve certainly threatened me and my company. Is there any special reason for this abrupt change of manner?”
McNelly drained peach juice from his can. “I had to be tough with a tough old bird like you. Would you have listened to me if I hadn’t been tough?”
The colonel gave McNelly one of his wintry smiles. “Probably not. But now that you don’t have to play the tough flatfoot, you can be a good fellow, is that it?”
“I guess so.”
Gatling said, “McNelly wants us to believe he wants one last fling at the wild life before they carry him off to the old folks’ home. The real reason he’s here is he thinks we’d be lost without him. We’re his last chance to get at Cheno. Or the War Car is.”
McNelly tossed the empty can into a clump of brush. “You’re not so dumb,” he said to Gatling.
“Did you think I was?”
“I think everybody but me is a little bit dumb. Or maybe a lot dumb. One of my troubles, I guess.”
“Let’s not get confessional, old boy,” the colonel sneered. “There are no clergymen here. Is what Gatling said your only reason for joining us? Let’s have some straight answers, if you don’t mind. You’re this and you’re that and you’re everything. What are you really? ’Fess up, as you Americans say.”
McNelly said, “Gatling got it right end up. I can’t let you gents get killed and this danker destroyed. If I don’t get Cortinas this time I never will. Sorry if I sold you boys short, but like I said, I know this country and you don’t. I can show you things you can’t know. You want to be the colonel and me the drummer boy, that’s okay with me. What say we try to be some kind of friends? Just as long as we get Cortinas. Finish him once and for all?”
The colonel took time to get his pipe going. Then he said to Gatling, “Do you believe this fellow?”
“I hear what he’s saying. I guess I do.”
“Until he says something else, you mean?”
“On a stack of bibles,” McNelly said. “Whatever you may or may not believe about me, you can believe this. I wouldn’t mind dying the minute after Cortinas is dead. You can talk it over if you want to. I’m going to get some sleep. Call me when it’s time to stand my watch.” McNelly took his blankets into the rocks, far enough away so he couldn’t hear them talking.
Gatling said to the colonel, sitting with his back against a rock, his blanket draped over his shoulders, “You still think he’s a crook?”
The colonel’s pipe glowed in the dark. “No,” he said, drawing out the word. “He may be some sort of righteous villain, but I don’t think he’s a crook. In a way, he’s rather frightening, for all his fake rural talk. That last part was what convinced me. There was such hatred in his voice.”
“I caught that too,” Gatling agreed. “Then we don’t have to go over this again.”
“No.” Again the colonel dragged out the word. “I’m glad to have him along.”
They got across the pass by the afternoon of the next day. The War Car behaved like a thoroughbred all through the long climb and descent to the brown plain below. Buzzards banked and soared into the stainless Mexican sky. Far across the plain there were more mountains. At that time of the day the mountains looked blue, but the color of the mountains never stayed the same. The mountain peaks stood one behind the other, a barrier that seemed impossible to cross. Since picking up McNelly near Del Rio, they hadn’t seen another human being.
“Doesn’t anybody live in this godforsaken country?” the colonel asked McNelly, who was driving the War Car because the plain was so flat and there was nothing to cause trouble and the vehicle was so simple to operate. Gatling was learning too.
