guards were dropped where they stood, though one of them, on his knees, shot Billy Santos through the head before Virgil could get his shotgun on the man and finish him with the second load.
A rifle came out the caboose window and a barrel smashed the glass of a window in the prison coach, but it was too late. Virgil was pressed close to the side of the baggage car, out of the line of fire, and the two men in prison clothes had the S.P. man and were using him for a shield as they backed into the station house.
Virgil could look directly across the platform to the open doorway. He took time to reload the shotgun. He looked up and down the length of the train, then over at the doorway again.
“Hey, Dancey,” Virgil called over, “send that train man out with the dynamite.”
He had to wait a little bit before the S.P. man appeared in the doorway, straining to hold the fifty-pound case in his arms, having trouble with the dead weight, or else terrified of what he was holding.
“Walk down to the end of the platform with it,” Virgil told him, “so they can see what you got. When you come back, walk up by that first passenger coach. Where everybody’s looking out the window.”
Jesus, the man could hardly take a step he was so scared of dropping the case. When he was down at the end of the platform, the copper wire trailing behind him and leading into the station. Virgil stepped away from the baggage car and called out, “Hey, you guards! You hear me? Throw out your guns and come out with your hands in the air, or we’re going to put dynamite under a passenger coach and blow everybody clear to hell. You hear me?”
They heard him.
Mr. Manly and the three guards who were left came out to stand by the caboose. The prisoners began to yell and break the windows on both sides of the coach, but they quieted down when Frank Shelby and his three boys walked off the train and wouldn’t let anybody else follow.
They are going to shoot us, Mr. Manly said to himself. He saw Frank Shelby looking toward them. Then Frank was looking at the dead guards and at Bob Fisher in particular. “I wish you hadn’t of killed him,” he heard Shelby say.
“I had to,” the man with the shotgun said.
And then Shelby said, “I wanted to do it.”
Junior said that if he hadn’t kicked out the window they might still be in there. That was all they said for a while that Mr. Manly heard. Shelby and his three convict friends went into the station house. They came out a few minutes later wearing work clothes and might have been ranch hands for all anybody would know to look at them.
Mr. Manly didn’t see who it was that placed the case of dynamite at the front end of the train, under the cow-catcher, but saw one of them playing out the wire back along the platform and around the off side of the station house. Standing on the platform, Frank Shelby and the one with the shotgun seemed to be in a serious conversation. Then Frank said something to Junior, who boarded the train again and brought out Norma Davis. Mr. Manly could see she was frightened, as if afraid they were going to shoot her or do something to her. Junior and Joe Dean took her into the station house. Frank Shelby came over then. Mr. Manly expected him to draw a gun.
“Four of us are leaving,” Shelby said. “You can have the rest.”
“What about the woman?”
“I mean five of us. Norma’s going along.”
“You’re not going to harm her, are you?” Shelby kept staring at him, and Mr. Manly couldn’t think straight. All he could say was, “I hope you know that what you’re doing is wrong, an offense against Almighty God as well as your fellowman.”
“Jesus Christ,” Shelby said, and walked away.
Lord, help me, Mr. Manly said, and called out, “Frank, listen to me.”
But Shelby didn’t look back. The platform was deserted now except for the Mexican-looking man who lay dead with his arm hanging over the edge. They were mounting horses on the other side of the station. Mr. Manly could hear the horses. Then, from where he stood, he could see several of the horses past the corner of the building. He saw Junior stand in his stirrups to reach the telegraph wire at the edge of the roof and cut it with a knife. Another man was on the ground, stooped over a wooden box. Shelby nodded to him and kicked his horse, heading out into the open desert, away from the station. As the rest of them followed, raising a thin dust cloud, the man on the ground pushed down on the box.
The dynamite charge raised the front end of the locomotive off the track, derailed the first baggage car and sent the coaches slamming back against each other, twisting the couplings and tearing loose the end car, rolling it a hundred feet down the track. Mr. Manly dropped flat with the awful, ear-splitting sound of the explosion. He wasn’t sure if he threw himself down or was knocked down by the concussion. When he opened his eyes there was dirt in his mouth, his head throbbed as if he had been hit with a hammer, and for a minute or so he could see nothing but smoke or dust or steam from the engine, a cloud that enveloped the station and lay heavily over the platform.
He heard men’s voices. He was aware of one of the guards lying close to him and looked to see if the man was hurt. The guard was pushing himself up, shaking his head. Mr. Manly got quickly to his feet and looked around. The caboose was no longer behind him; it was down the track and the prison coach was only a few feet away where the convicts were coming out, coughing and waving at the smoke with their hands. Mr. Manly called out, “Is anybody hurt?”
No one answered him directly. The convicts were standing around; they seemed dazed. No one was attempting to run away. He saw one of the guards with a rifle now on the platform, holding the gun on the prisoners, who were paying no attention to him. At the other end of the platform there were a few people from the passenger coach. They stood looking at the locomotive that was shooting white steam and stood leaning awkwardly toward the platform, as if it might fall over any minute.
He wanted to be doing something. He had to be doing something. Five prisoners gone, four guards dead, a train blown up, telegraph line cut, no idea when help would come or where to go from here. He could hear Mr. Rynning saying, “You let them do all that? Man, this is your responsibility and you’ll answer for it.”
“Captain, you want us to follow them?”
Mr. Manly turned, not recognizing the voice at first. Harold Jackson, the Zulu, was standing next to him.
“What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, you want us to follow them? Me and Raymond.”
Mr. Manly perked up. “There are horses here?”
“No-suh, man say the nearest horses are at Gila. That’s most of a day’s ride.”
“Then how would you expect to follow them?”
“We run, captain.”
“There are eight of them—on horses.”
“We don’t mean to fight them, captain. We mean maybe we can follow them and see which way they go. Then when you get some help, you know, maybe we can tell this help where they went.”
“They’ll be thirty miles away before dark.”
“So will we, captain.”
“Follow them on foot—”
“Yes-suh, only we would have to go right now. Captain, they going to run those horses at first to get some distance and we would have to run the first five, six miles, no stopping, to keep their dust in sight. Raymond say it’s all flat and open, no water. Just some little bushes. We don’t have to follow them all day. We see where they going and get back here at dark.”
Mr. Manly was frowning, looking around because, Lord, there was too much to think about at one time. He said, “I can’t send convicts to chase after convicts. My God.”
“They do it in Florida, captain. Trusties handle the dogs. I seen it.”
“I have to get the telegraph wire fixed, that’s the main thing.”
“I hear the train man say they busted his key, he don’t know if he can fix it,” Harold Jackson said. “You going to sit here till tonight before anybody come—while Frank Shelby and them are making distance. But if me and the Apache follow them we can leave signs.”
Mr. Manly noticed Raymond San Carlos now behind Harold. Raymond was nodding. “Sure,” he said, “we can leave pieces of our clothes for them to follow if you give us something else to wear. Maybe you should give us some guns too, in case we get close to them, or for firing signals.”
“I can’t do that,” Mr. Manly said. “No, I can’t give you guns.”
