“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Travis answered.
“What did you jump it for?”
“What?”
“Well, I mean, you boys don’t exactly have the looks of a rail bum.”
“We jumped it for the same reason as you did,” Frank said. “We needed to get somewhere, and we didn’t have no horses.”
Zeke laughed. “See, now that’s the difference between you two, ’n me ’n Mickey here. You said you need to get somewhere.”
Frank looked confused. “Yeah, so, what’s different? We’re on this train just like you are.”
“No, you ain’t. It ain’ nothin’ like Mickey ’n me,” Zeke said. “That’s the whole point. You said you are needin’ to get somewhere. Me and Mickey, we don’t need to get nowhere, on account of because we are already here.”
“What do you mean, you are already here?” Travis asked. “You are on a train, goin’ somewhere.”
“See, that’s where you don’ understand men like Mickey ’n me. We ain’t goin’ nowhere. We are already here,” Zeke said.
“We’ll ride this train for a while, then we’ll ride another train, and after that, why, we’ll hop on another train and ride it,” Mickey said. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere in particular, which means we are already here.”
“How do you eat?” Frank asked.
“Just like anyone else. With our mouths,” Zeke replied, laughing at his joke.
“No, I mean if you are on the train all the time, how do you get food? You don’t have any money,” Frank said. “What do you do? Beg people for food?”
“Who says we don’t have any money?” Zeke replied. “We may be gentlemen of the rails, but we aren’t beggars.”
“We just got through workin’ for a couple weeks makin’ bricks,” Mickey said. “We got enough money to feed us for a month or so. Then when we run out of money, why, we’ll find us some other place to work.”
“You don’t hardly never see nobody ridin’ the rails that ain’t got some money,” Zeke said. “So don’t go gettin’ on your high horse with us.”
“Well, just how much money do you have?” Frank asked.
“Seein’ as I’m just learnin’ you boys about the life, what with you just startin’ out an’ all, why, I ain’t goin’ take no offense to that question you just asked me. But the truth is, that ain’t a question you ever want to ask anyone. How much money a man has is his own business.”
“Yeah, I see,” Frank said. “Sorry I asked.”
“That’s all right. Like I told you, you two boys is new, and you don’t know no better, so I ain’t takin’ no offense.”
The train leveled out and slowed down. Zeke got up and walked over to stand in the open door of the freight for a moment, then he came back. “Gilman is comin’ up.”
“What’s in Gilman?” Frank asked.
“It’s a new town. It has a store, a stamping mill, a café.”
“Does it have a saloon?” Travis asked.
“I expect it does. I ain’t never been in it though. Most of the time when we want somethin’ to drink, we’ll just buy a bottle. Right, Mickey?”
“Yeah. We don’t go into saloons ’cause we ain’t exactly what you call, social.”
“Will you be gettin’ off here?”
“No, we ain’t got no reason to get off yet.” Zeke came back to the front of the car, then sat down against the wall. Frank got up and walked over to the open door to look outside. The train had slowed considerably.
“You ever jumped off a train while it was movin’?” Frank asked.
“Yes, but you wouldn’t want to do it if it was movin’ any faster ’n this,” Zeke said.
“How do you do it?”
“It’s easy. You just jump far enough out to make certain you don’t fall back under the wheels.”
“And when you jump, you’re goin’ to tumble some,” Mickey added. “So what you want to do is make sure you’re facin’ toward the front. Otherwise you could tumble backward and break your neck.”
“Come here, Travis, have a look,” Frank said.
Travis got up from his place by the front wall and walked to the door.
“How much money you think they got on ’em now?” Frank asked Travis, speaking just loudly enough for Travis to hear him.
“I don’t know. Twenty, thirty dollars maybe.”
“That’s good enough.” Pulling his pistol, Frank held it down by his side and slightly behind him as he walked back to the front of the car.
“So what did you boys decide?” Zeke asked. “You goin’ to jump out of the car?” He and Mickey laughed.
“After,” Frank said.
“After what?”
“After this.” Frank raised the pistol and fired twice at point blank range. He hit Zeke and Mickey in the forehead, killing them instantly. Travis came up behind him.
“Why did you do that? We coulda just held ’em up.”
“They knew who we were,” Frank replied. “This way, they aren’t likely to even be discovered for two or three days, if that. Hell, this car might wind up in San Francisco before anyone discovers them. By then we’ll be so far away there won’t be any way at all anyone can ever put together the fact that we was the ones who done it. You search Mickey. I’ll search Zeke.”
“Damn!” Travis held something up. “I bet there’s over a hunnert dollars here!”
“Yeah!” Frank said with equal excitement. “There’s at least that much here. Who would have thought that?”
“Come on,” Travis said. “We’d better get off now.”
Stepping into the open door of the freight car, the two men leaped clear of the roadbed. The jump caused them to tumble forward, in keeping with Mickey’s instructions. By the time they picked themselves up, the lighted caboose of the train was rocking past them. The two men watched the car grow smaller in the distance until all they could see was the glowing red lamp that was hanging from a hook on the end of the caboose.
“What do we do now?” Travis asked.
“We follow the tracks to town.”
“It’s the middle of the night. There ain’t goin’ to be nothin’ open in the middle of the night.”
“We don’t want anything to be open,” Frank said. “When you’re stealin’ horses, it’s best that ever’one be asleep.”
Travis laughed. “Yeah.”
With only moonlight to guide them, they walked along the track, following the softly gleaming rails for a mile until they reached the town. Gilman was perched on the side of a mountain, the private homes and commercial buildings clinging to the side like sprouting bushes. Taking advantage of what level land there was, two streets formed a V with the point pointing toward the east.
It was about two in the morning, so there was not one soul awake in the town, and the only sound that could be heard was the rustle of the wind through the limbs of the aspen trees. From the far end of town, they heard a dog barking, and Frank and Travis stopped in their tracks.
“I hope that dog is tied up,” Travis said.
“I expect he is.” Frank pointed. “Look over there. Do you see what I see?”
Travis looked in the direction indicated. “All I see is a lean-to.”
“With a couple horses,” Frank replied.
“I don’t see no—” Travis stopped in mid-sentence when he saw something move in the shadows of the lean-to. “Oh, wait, yeah, I see ’em.”
Moving silently through the night, the two brothers reached the lean-to where they found two horses tied to a rail, and two saddles conveniently stored on a shelf to one side. They saddled the horses, then led them out into the open, keeping a close eye on the nearby house. Travis started to mount.
“Not yet,” Frank said. “Let’s walk them all the way out of town first. It’s quieter that way.”
“Yeah,” Travis said. “Yeah, good idea.”
CHAPTER SIX
Sugarloaf Ranch