"Looks like both of the big ones got clear," Wainright fumed. Danner nodded, wondering if he should get his horse and try to follow Browder or stay here and clean up the mess.
Tuso's lead was enough to get him out of the territory, but Browder would have to have several fresh horses to make it. He glanced around the building, his gaze stopping on the east side of the main entrance. Here stood what had once been the office of the granary. Wearily, Danner stepped inside the ten by sixteen room and glanced about. Half a dozen bunks had been nailed along the outside wall, and five now contained bedrolls. Under each was a railroad-type footlocker. When Wainright came in, Danner nodded toward the far end.
"You start there," he said, "and I'll work in from this end. Check each footlocker."
"For what?" Wainright demanded.
"A pin-fire pistol."
Wainright stared at him, his eyes narrowed with speculation. But he moved to the far bunk without further questioning. In the first footlocker Danner found an assortment of city clothes which identified the possessions of Carp. As he opened the second locker he heard an exclamation from Wainright.
"Is this it?"
Wainright held up an odd-looking pistol. In two strides Danner reached him and grabbed the weapon. Stamped on the barrel was the legend: LeFaucheaux, 12mm.
Jubilance swelled Danner's chest.
"What's it all about?" Wainright demanded. But Danner hardly heard him. He dumped the contents of the footlocker onto the bunk and rummaged through the pile—a leather vest, well-worn set of saddle bags now empty, a set of spurs, some shirts big enough to fit Tuso, and a package of old newspaper clippings about the Civil War. He pawed through some other odds and ends but found nothing that definitely identified the gear as the property of Tuso. Dooley could do that, if he still lived. Wainright broke into his thoughts.
"I demand to know the significance of this find."
Danner moved out of the room with quick strides. Melinda was just coming in the big outer doorway, but Danner brushed by her. When he reached Ears Dooley, he knew a moment of panic. Dooley's eyes were closed. Danner grasped him by the shoulder and the eyes flickered open. Then Danner held the pin-fire gun inches away from Dooley's face.
"Can you see this gun?" Danner watched slow assent mount in the eyes. "This is the gun that killed your three brothers after the Spaulding robbery. I found it in one of the footlockers. Now will you give me the man's name?"
A puzzled look washed across the thin face and Dooley remained silent for so long that Danner thought he wasn't going to answer. "The gun—is Tuso's," he gasped, pain again twisting his thin face.
Danner nodded with satisfaction and started to stand up, but Dooley stopped him with his next words.
"Tuso—wasn't the fourth man. How—" He twisted once, the sight fading from his eyes as he died.
Stunned, Danner saw the life ebb away and could do nothing to stop it. Tuso had to be the fourth man, he told himself. Browder sure as the devil couldn't have ridden a horse that far, and the fourth man certainly had used a saddle horse.
Danner noticed Wainright and Melinda staring at the gun with fascination and he looked at it himself. Then shock gripped his stomach muscles and he exhaled raggedly. The weapon looked like it hadn't been fired in years. He stuck his finger in the end of the barrel, twisted it, and brought it out covered with dust and a trace of rust. Still unbelieving, he aimed the gun skyward and pulled the trigger. The muffled report of aged powder confirmed his fears even before he removed the empty shell case and examined it. The pin went into the side of the shell case at a perfect ninety-degree angle, not sixty degrees like the pins in the shells he had found by the bodies of the Dooleys.
Complete defeat washed over him, stunning and bitter dejection that left him weak and uncaring. Another piece to fit the puzzle, he thought, and nowhere to get more pieces. The fourth man had known of Tuso and his ancient pin-fire pistol. He'd somehow secured a duplicate weapon, committed three murders and left three shell cases behind, deliberately, to point out Tuso as the killer. By keeping quiet about the shells, Danner had merely transferred the suspicion from Tuso to himself. Wainright took the pistol from his limp grip and inspected it carefully before handing it back to him.
"Well," he snapped. "Was Tuso the fourth man or not?"
Danner hesitated, then shook his head. "No," he admitted.
Surprise touched Wainright's features, and the face of Melinda softened with something like pity. She wanted to believe in him, Danner thought, but it didn't seem to matter now. Wainright moved closer to him, his mouth thinned back.
"Is that all you've got to say?"
"What do you want," Danner grated harshly, "a signed confession?"
Melinda stepped in between them without looking at either. "Let's get away from this appalling place."
Danner walked tiredly to the locomotive and asked when the train would be ready to roll.
"Not long," the engineer answered, shifting a chew of tobacco in his mouth. "Another five minutes, maybe."
Danner nodded, then stiffened, listening. A crackling sound reached him and he glanced about, finding no cause for the sound. Then he looked at the sky above the edge of the shallow depression holding the granary. Black clouds filled the air, much like storm clouds; but elsewhere the sky was clear, the sun shining. Then the smell of smoke reached him and he started running up the slope of the bowl. At the top he stopped to look southwestward. From half a mile away a wall of flames twenty feet high and more than a mile wide swept toward the bowl. Tuso or Browder—most likely Tuso—had fired the prairie in an attempt to forever hide the fate of the missing train.
Danner plunged down the slope, waving at Melinda and Wainright. "Prairie fire," he shouted. "Get aboard the train!" Both of them scrambled up into the cab and Danner leaped in behind them without touching the ladder.
"The boiler ain't quite hot enough yet," the engineer growled, testing the throttle.
"It'll get a lot hotter in a couple of minutes if you don't get us out of here," Danner warned.
"Well," the engineer said doubtfully, "it'll move slowly, I guess." With a weak hissing of steam the locomotive inched forward. Creaks and pops worked along the string of cars. Danner scanned the sky above the southwest rim. He could hear the roar of the blaze now as the black smoke rolled upward in great gusts. Finally the entire train rolled forward slowly. Danner nodded to Wainright.
"We better move to the back of the train. Some of the cars might catch fire and well need to cut them loose."
Wainright nodded assent and laid his shotgun on the floor of the cab. Danner scrambled over the ricks of wood that filled the tender. Then he leaped to the top of the lead boxcar and started rearward.
The locomotive strained against the thirty boxcars of wheat, barely moving them. Only half of the cars had moved away from the side of the granary when a solid sheet of flames cleared the rim of the bowl and raced toward the ancient building. Danner jumped to the next car, increasing his speed.
Now the flames enveloped the granary, spreading through the dried out timbers of the structure almost faster than the eye could follow. The train lurched and Danner sprawled face down on the top of a boxcar about halfway back. Only a last second grab of the catwalk kept him from falling over the side. Wainright caught up with him then.
"This train will never outrun that fire!" Wainright shouted.
"It'll have to as far as the river. The fire will burn itself out there."
Only five cars remained alongside the granary now. The locomotive cleared the crest of the bowl and picked up speed heading downhill. Danner resumed his sprint to the back of the train, anxiously watching the progress of the cars away from the blazing building. Heat blistered his face and hands now and he slowed his pace, moving rearward but getting no closer to the building.