“Julius is right,” the conductor said. “Give him all your money.”
Quickly the men and women began taking out their money and handing it to the porter, who stuffed it into his voluminous pockets.
“How are you going to know who the money belongs to?” another man asked.
“Mister, I reckon we just all got to be honest,” Julius said.
While all that was going on inside the passenger cars, outside the train the four robbers started shooting through the open door of the express car, even before all the smoke cleared. Then they rushed up to the car and while Dinkins and Harley stayed outside, Frank and Travis Slater climbed in to the car.
Two of the four kerosene lanterns had been extinguished by the blast, but two remained, though the thick billow of smoke made it impossible to see inside the car when they first entered. As the smoke drifted away, they saw Miller, the messenger, getting up on his hands and knees and shaking his head groggily.
“Open the safe,” Travis ordered.
“There’s not much in there,” Miller said.
“You let us be the judge of that. Open the safe.”
Miller got to his feet, then went over to the safe. “It looks damaged. I don’t know if I will be able to get it open.”
Travis pulled the hammer back on his pistol and the click as the sear engaged the cylinder was loud. “I think you will be able to open it.”
Miller turned the combination lock, then swung the door open.
“Ha!” Travis said. “I knew you could open it if you tried. Clean it out, Frank, while I keep him covered.”
Frank reached into the safe, and started pulling out the contents. He found a money bag and, with a big grin, opened it. The grin disappeared. “Travis, there ain’t nothin’ here.”
“What?”
“I mean there’s some here. Don’t look like it’s much over a hunnert dollars though.”
“Where’s the rest of the money?”
“I’m just the messenger,” Miller replied. “We don’t ever know what’s in these bags. This is what I was given when I came aboard this evening.”
Travis stepped over to the open door of the car. “Hey, Dinkins. Ain’t more’n a hunnert dollars here!”
“Are you sure?”
“You can come in and look for yourself,” Travis said. “But there ain’t no more than a hunnert dollars in the money pouch.”
“Damn,” Dinkins said. “All right, you and Frank stay with the messenger and the engineer. Wes and me will go through the train and see what we can take offen the passengers.”
Dinkins and Harley boarded the first car, which was a sleeper car. They were met by a black porter.
“You gentlemen got no right to be wakin’ up my passengers,” the porter said.
“What’s your name, darkie?”
“It ain’t darkie,” the porter bristled. “It’s Julius.”
“All right, Julius, I tell you what,” Dinkins replied. “You come along with us, and we’ll make this as easy as we can. You tell us which berths have women, and we won’t be disturbin’ them none.”
They stopped at the first set of berths.
“There is only ladies in these berths,” the porter said.
“All four of ’em? The two on each side?” Dinkins asked. “’Cause if I open one of these curtains you say has women, and I see a man, I won’t ask no questions. I’ll kill the man that’s in the berth.”
“These two has men,” Julius said quickly.
“Well now, that’s more like it.”
Dinkins jerked open the curtain. “Let me have all your money,” he said to the frightened man who was sleeping in the berth.
The man gave him eleven dollars.
“Eleven dollars? What did you do, hide the rest of it?”
“That’s all I have,” the man said.
“Hop down out of that berth,” Dinkins said. “I’m goin’ to look around and if I find so much as a nickel hid, I’m goin’ to shoot you. Now, you want to give me the rest of the money?”
“Eleven dollars is all I have,” the man repeated.
After the man hopped down, Dinkins searched under the mattress, but found nothing. “All right, you can get back in bed.”
He took money from nine other men in the sleeping car; in every case the amount was disappointingly low. He searched one more berth without success.
When they reached the end of the car, the porter stopped.
“What are you stoppin’ for?” Dinkins asked.
