'I don't know anything!' Ned pleaded, sweat starting to bead across his forehead.
'You're a liar, soon to be a eunuch.'
'What the hell is that?'
'You know what a gelding is?'
'Sure, but...'
Longarm cocked back the hammer of his six-gun. 'Figure it out for yourself, Ned.'
The man's eyes bugged with terror. 'Oh, please!'
'Names, dammit! I need names.'
'I didn't do it! I wasn't there and neither was Fergus!'
'Maybe not,' Longarm gritted. 'But you were helping them somehow. You were in on the train wreck.'
Ned licked his lips. 'All I did was to shoe some of their horses and... and sell 'em some fresh mounts. I didn't know that they were going to send the damn train rolling down a mountainside!'
'I don't believe you,' Longarm said. 'Say good-bye to women, Ned!'
'All right!' Ned screamed. 'I helped them set it up! But neither me nor Fergus ever rode with them. I swear it!'
Longarm had been getting the truth out of men long enough to know when they were too afraid to lie, and Ned was finally telling the truth.
'Names!'
Ned gulped. 'Blake Huntington was the brains behind it and you killed him.'
'What about his rich Uncle Clarence?'
'The old man didn't know a damn thing about any of it. I'm sure of that much. In secret, Blake hated his uncle. Called him a damned fool and worse.'
'More names.'
'Big Tom Canyon and a fella they just called Hawk. They was in on it. They're the ones that I helped. The others I saw were just faces. That's all they were, I swear it.'
'I've heard of Big Tom Canyon. Who else?'
'There was someone important in Reno. I never heard his name but Blake spoke about him. He has money and he was the one that seemed to be calling the shots.'
'What the hell does that mean? Be specific, damn you!'
'He's a politician. They said he was a state senator and that he made his money on the Comstock Lode, but lost most of it a couple years back on mining stocks. All I know is that he was the one that they were counting on to handle things if they went wrong.'
'What about Eli Wheat?'
'They talked about helping him escape if he wasn't killed. That's all I know.'
Longarm stepped back. There was a train that he still might be able to catch if he was willing to brave this damned storm and ride southwest until he intercepted the Union Pacific. But he'd have to hurry and he'd have to take this pair with him and keep them under arrest until he could find a jail along the rail line. The next one that he knew about wouldn't be until he reached Rock Springs.
'All right,' Longarm said, 'let's get ready to ride.'
'In this weather?' Ned cried. 'It's storming out there and the rain will probably turn to snow.'
'How far is it to the next Union Pacific depot?'
'Hell, that's clear over at Lookout! It's a good twenty miles or more!'
'Then we'd best stop talking and get to riding,' Longarm said, walking over and throwing open the front door. 'Help Fergus stand up and let's move!'
As they stepped out into the cold rain drenching the Wyoming prairie, Longarm realized that this was going to be one hell of a tough night.
CHAPTER 11
Longarm barely remembered the little combination depot and coal and water station at Lookout. If he was in luck, he would find a competent telegraph operator who could relay a message back to Billy Vail about the vital information he'd just gained from his captives.
Longarm had to prod his prisoners hard to get their horses ready to leave the ranch. The wounded man named Fergus was especially difficult and argumentative.
'I'll probably bleed to death in the saddle before we reach that train!' he wailed.
'You'll bleed to death for sure if you don't climb into that saddle and quit talking,' Longarm warned. 'Because I'll shoot you again.'
Ned Rowe was more cooperative. He decided that Longarm had bought his story, and now was trying hard to be cooperative. Longarm saw little reason to change the man's false impression of things and risk turning cooperation into desperation.
'Damn, it's cold!' Ned exclaimed, tightening his cinch.
