Most people who read the article did so with an interest that was generated only by their curiosity in the transaction, or by a bit of pride in the fact that cattle from Wyoming and Colorado were being shipped to Texas.
One of the readers was Red Coleman, and his reaction to the article was considerably different from that of all the other readers. The first thing he noticed was the name Smoke Jensen.
“Lookie here, McDill,” he said. “Looks to me like we might be able to square things with Smoke Jensen after all.”
“How?” McDill asked. The two men were having a beer at a saloon in the small town of Salcedo.
“It seems that Mr. Smoke Jensen is in the cow business. And not just the Longhorn cow business, but a special kind of cow that’s worth seventeen dollars a head. He is puttin’ them real valuable cows on four trains that’s going to be passing right through here, and we’re goin’ to steal them cows.”
“How we goin’ to take four trains?”
“We ain’t. We’ll only take the first train, and we’ll take it when it reaches Lajunta.”
“When will it be comin’ through?” McDill asked.
“According to the paper, they’ll be comin’ through tomorrow night.”
“How many cows will be on that train?” McDill asked.
“Well, if it is one of four trains, I figure that means that it breaks down to about six hundred and twenty-five,” Red replied. “And that’s about ten thousand dollars.”
“Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money all right, but it’s for sure and certain that we ain’t goin’ to be able to do this alone,” McDill said. “We’re goin’ to need some more folks.”
“You don’t worry about that. I’ve got a couple of men in mind,” Red said. “I’ll gather them up and we’ll meet back here this afternoon.”
Though it was still mid-afternoon, the saloon was already crowded and noisy with the sounds of idle men and painted women having fun. Near the piano, three men and a couple of women filled the air with their idea of a song, their discordant voices killed whatever melody there might have been, and their interpretation of the lyrics, complete with ribald phrases, would render the song unrecognizable by the composer.
At the moment McDill was standing at the bar, his foot propped up on the rail as he stared into the single beer he was nursing. Every time someone new would come in, he would look over to see if it was Red. After waiting for an hour, all the time nursing a single beer that had grown flat, he saw Red come in with two other men. One, a man named Woodward, McDill recognized. McDill and Woodward had been in jail together back in Denver. But he had no idea who the other man was.
The three men ordered beer at the counter, then started toward an empty table at the back of the place. McDill followed.
“All right,” Woodward said. “Now, what’s this job you were talkin’ about?”
Red told of the four trains that would be going from Denver to Dodge City, Kansas, each one filled with cattle.
“And these ain’t your ordinary kind of cows neither,” Red said. “They’re Black Angus, and Black Angus cows are worth a lot of money.”
“How are we going to take four trains?” Woodward asked.
“We ain’t,” McDill said, speaking up quickly to show that he and Red were the ones who came up with the idea. “We’re just goin’ to take the first one.”
“Still, there’s only goin’ to be the four of us,” Woodward said, keeping up the argument. “You think we can off-load a whole trainload of cows before the next train comes along?”
“We ain’t goin’ to be off-loadin’ ’em,” Red said. “We’re goin’ to leave ’em on the train.”
“Leave ’em on the train? Now, that don’t make no sense at all,” McDill complained. Even McDill had not been filled in on Red’s ultimate plan.
Smiling, Red looked around the table at the men he had recruited just for this job. “Burgess, I think it’s about time we tell these other two men what you used to do.”
“Until I got fired for bein’ drunk while workin’, I was a railroad engineer,” Burgess said.
“Really? You mean you used to drive the trains?” McDill asked, obviously impressed with Burgess’s résumé.
“That’s what I did, all right.”
“And he’s going to do it again,” Red said. “Burgess, tell them what we have in mind.”
“We’re goin’ to steal the train,” Burgess said. “When it gets to Lajunta, we will steal it, then we will leave the Santa Fe tracks,” Burgess said.
“What do you mean leave the tracks?” McDill asked. “That don’t make no sense a-tall. Hell, even I know you can’t drive a train unless it’s on tracks.”
“We won’t be leaving the tracks,” Burgess explained patiently. “There is a switch track at Lajunta. When I say we will leave Santa Fe tracks, that’s just what I mean. We are going to switch the train off those tracks, and onto the Denver and New Orleans tracks.”
“Oh,” McDill said, though it was clear that he still didn’t fully understand the operation.
“We are going to steal the train,” Red continued with the explanation. “Then Burgess is going to drive it. Like he said, we’ll leave the Santa Fe track and head south on the Denver and New Orleans. When the other three trains come through, they won’t have any idea that anything is wrong with the first train, and by the time they get it figured out, we’ll be sitting pretty somewhere with a whole trainload of cattle.”
“You make it sound pretty easy,” Woodward said. “So what are you not sayin’? What do we need to look out for?”
“I don’t figure we’ll have too much trouble taking the train,” Red said, “but Burgess has pointed out what might be a problem.”
“Yeah, I thought this was sounding too easy. What is the problem?” Woodward asked.
“On any railroad you’ve got trains goin’ all the time, using the same tracks,” Burgess said. “The only way they can keep them from ever runnin’ in to each other is by scheduling them so that they know where every train is at all time, and which way it’s going. As long as we are on the Santa Fe Tracks, we’re on their schedule so there’s no problem with other trains. But once we get on the Denver and New Orleans line, they won’t have us on their schedule.”
“So what you are saying is that another train could run in to us?” Woodward asked.
“Well, it shouldn’t be that much of a problem for us,” Burgess said. “All we have to do is get clear of the high iron, then we stop somewhere and unload the cattle. But, being as we’ll be leaving the train just sittin’ there, why, it could be a problem for the next train that comes along. Won’t be so bad if the next train to come along is just freight. But if it’s varnish, it could wind up killin’ a lot of folks.”
“Varnish?” McDill asked.
“That means a passenger train,” Burgess explained.
“Yeah, but if you think about it, that’s not really a problem either,” Red said. “If a bunch of folks gets killed and injured, then that will mean that ever’ one’s goin’ to be concentratin’ on the train wreck. Like as not, they’ll forget all about a few cows.”
“What will we do with the cows once we get ’em?” Woodward asked.
“Why, we’ll sell ’em of course,” Red said.
“To who?” Woodward wanted to know. “It ain’t like we can take them cows to market and sell ’em. Bein’ a special breed and all, soon as we take ’em, folks are goin’ to know about it. And if we show up at some market with the same number and same kind of cows as the ones that was stolen, we’ll wind up in prison. And I ain’t all that anxious to go back to prison.”