The Only Chance
Ike skidded to a halt, circled the limp body with his arms and heaved. Finding that the man weighed too much to pick up, he began dragging the dead weight along behind the pile of rails until he reached a spot where a twist rolled the body under a car and between the tracks. Ike wasted no time flopping down to hide himself.
“You ought to—”
Ike clamped his hand over the man’s mouth to silence him. He pointed. Not ten feet away, the railroad bulls paced back and forth, arguing where their quarry had run.
“We plugged one of ’em, Kinch,” declared a detective pacing closer to where Ike peered out fearfully.
“The son of a bitch that got away’s who we have to stop. You sure he ran this way?”
“I saw him, Kinch. Really, I did. I’m sure I hit him, so he can’t get too far.”
“It’s on your head if you’re wrong. The boss doesn’t take failure easy.”
“I can’t forget what he did to Thomas. I never seen a man beheaded like that before.” He said in a smaller voice, “I never seen a man beheaded at all.”
The one named Kinch laughed. “The poor fool kept up for almost a hundred yards before the wire sliced off his head.”
“Imagine pacing a train like that for so long.”
“He would have caught up with the caboose if the boss hadn’t signaled the engineer to highball it,” said Kinch. “Good thing Thomas was far enough back that he didn’t splatter blood all over us.”
A loud cry off from across the rail yard caught the two bulls’ attention. They lit out at a dead run, leaving Ike trembling. He chanced a peek to see if the coast was clear.
“Come on, get to your feet. This’ll be our only chance when they find we’re not halfway across the yard.” When he got no reply, he shook the man’s shoulder. His hand came away sticky with blood. He wiped it on the man’s tattered coat. He swallowed hard when he didn’t get the protest he expected.
The man was dead.
Copyright © 2022 by The Estate of Ralph Compton
THE IMMORTAL COWBOY
This is respectfully dedicated to the “American Cowboy.” His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.
True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.
In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?
It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes—Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.
It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.
—Ralph Compton
CHAPTER ONE
Isaac Scott jerked around at the unexpected noise. He might have been imagining it. Hearing anything over the clackety-clack of the railroad wheels as they raced along the open stretch of track between Houston and San Antonio was unlikely. Rolling over onto his side, he braced his feet against a crate, gripped the edge of the door and pulled with all his might. The heavy boxcar door slid open a few inches.
The gust of hot, humid summer Texas air made him flinch and look away. It had been crazy thinking a horse matched the speed of the train, though that was what the sound reminded him of more than anything else. Ike rubbed his ears in a vain attempt to erase the constant ringing. Riding the rails was dangerous, but he had no other choice if he wanted to stay alive to see another sunrise. Too often down on his luck and a nasty galoot named Penrose itching to collect money that wasn’t there made running like a scared rabbit his best option.
There had been choices. The steamer heading around Cape Horn for San Francisco had beckoned to him, in spite of his never having stepped onto a boat larger than a dugout before. Being a sailor was hard and dangerous, but he’d chosen that rather than face the furious Clement Penrose.
But, as if the man read his mind, Penrose had gotten between him and the harbor. Two bullet-riddled bodies proved that. Seeing the dead sailors tossed into the harbor caused Ike shakes that only now died down, almost a dozen hours later. Both men had looked enough like him to be mistaken in the dark. Penrose hadn’t cared. He wanted blood—Ike’s blood. If he made a mistake or two along the way trying to collect the money he’d loaned out, it didn’t matter.
Ike had hightailed it in the only other way sure to get him out of Houston fast. The rail yard overflowed with engines and empty cars waiting for cargo from the docks.
Less than ten minutes after sneaking into the yard, he found the South Texas Central train building steam as it prepared to roll out. With more luck than skill, he had opened the freight car door far enough to slide into the dank, smelly interior just as the whistle blew and the locomotive spewed a huge column of black smoke. The train jerked and started moving, ponderously at first, then gathering speed faster than Ike could run. He had shimmied up and inside and lay there panting.
Penrose would never find him, not unless he was dumb enough to ever return to Houston. A lot of things could be said about Isaac Scott, but being that stupid wasn’t among them. Texas was big and wide, and any other town was better than Houston.
Safer, if not better.
He’d heard good things about San Antonio, which seemed to be the straining locomotive’s destination, if the crates in the freight car were properly marked.
But the sound that teased the fringes of his hearing returned. A horse? He looked outside once more. The empty land extended as far south as he could see. He even imagined he saw the beaches at Corpus Christi, but that was unlikely. More likely it was a mirage or some other trick of vision. The Gulf of Mexico lay behind him, not southerly. Still . . .
“Maybe it’s the surf I’m hearing?” he wondered out loud.
He pulled himself to his feet and braced against the rolling motion of the boxcar. He swiveled about, listening attentively. He finally homed in on the direction. The sounds came from the roof. Ike started to poke his head outside the freight car to see who—or what—was foolish enough to conduct a square dance on the roof of a rapidly moving train.
He let out a yelp when strong hands grabbed his arm and yanked him back into the car. He spun around, crashed into a wood box and flopped into the narrow space between it and the door. Shaken, he rubbed his eyes to clear them.