Wicked rage burned through Danner as he strode swiftly to his horse, mounted, and jogged eastward along the main street. He finally had all he could take of Richfield and vicinity and all of the block-headed citizens of both. He was getting out and Lona could stay here or come with him as she saw fit. He'd long ago learned to live with few friends and even fewer social contacts. But now he knew if he was subjected to much more of the charges and suspicions of men like Olie, he was likely to break some heads. As for the train, well, Browder wouldn't be foolish enough to wreck it because he couldn't possibly get away with the load. The wheat could be salvaged, even if the train was wrecked.
Leaving his horse in the stable, Danner hurried back toward the depot. It had been more than a year since he was offered a special agent's job with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, but maybe the job was still open. He'd know soon enough.
Before dawn of the second morning after leaving Richfield, Danner arrived in Topeka, rump-numbed and soot-covered. He found an all-night barbershop near the depot and awaited daylight in a hot bath. A sleepy Negro porter brushed off Danner's wrinkled clothes and polished his boots. A shave lifted the rest of his depression and he left the shop somewhat more mellowed than he had been in several days. He reached the depot again with the morning sun and strode around to the track side. To his left sprawled a long two-storied frame structure alive with people leaving and entering.
The World's First Harvey House, a sign above the door said. Entering, Danner sat down at a table near the front and placed his order for steak and eggs. Then he gazed out the open doorway at the rail terminal gradually awakening to a new day. An army of railroaders moved about the workshops across the rows of tracks. Danner counted twenty-three handcars loaded with section crews leaving the shops before his breakfast arrived. Half the patrons of the Harvey House wore the rough garb of railroaders and their talk centered on various aspects of their profession. Danner only half-listened to their discussions until a burly trackman at the next table mentioned Richfield.
'—made off with the entire train,' the trackman finished.
'Aw, come off it, Barney,' a second trackman scoffed. 'A locomotive and thirty boxcars loaded with wheat couldn't just vanish.'
'That's what the telegrapher said,' Barney insisted. 'The way I got it, this here train left Richfield about dark and was supposed to pass a substation called Spaulding in about two hours, only it never got there. They've searched all the track between the two points and found nothing. Now they're trying to locate a soured-up ex- employee of the railroad who they think engineered the job—a man named Danner.'
Danner threw his tab and a silver dollar on the counter and hurried out of the Harvey House. In the depot, he learned that he would have to wait over an hour for the next train west. Impatience prodded him. Savagely he jammed his hands into his pockets and paced about the loading platform.
Countless questions tortured his mind, adding fuel to his restlessness. The trackman had been right about one thing. A train couldn't just vanish.
Then he realized what a perfect frame this made for him. 'YOU ARE TOO GOOD A PATSY.' That was what Tuso had meant a few days before in the stable when he had said Danner was too good a patsy for what Browder had planned. And Danner had helped things along by leaving Richfield just before the wheat train.
A numb agony gripped Danner now and he groaned softly. He should have stayed with the shipment until it was sold. Too late, he realized he had committed the cardinal sin of all fighting men—he had underestimated his opponent.
It seemed an eternity before he boarded the westbound and the trip through the day dragged endlessly. Soon after dark he quit the AT&SF where the line joined the main line of the Great Plains Central. In the depot, he learned there wouldn't be another passenger train south until morning. But a few minutes later he spotted a freight train moving out to the south. He loped alongside, pulled himself into an open boxcar and settled down for the long journey to Junction City far to the southwest.
Danner didn't know when he fell asleep, but darkness still blanketed the car when he awoke.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and moved over to the open doorway. According to the looks of the sky, morning wasn't far off. The locomotive whistle sounded, drawing his attention forward. In the distance he made out a town, and soon he recognized Junction City. Hunkering down, he considered his next step. Too many people in Junction City knew him, especially around the railroad yards, for that had been the eastern end of the Colonel's railroad. He'd just have to chance it, however, for he had to reach Richfield quickly. The train began to slow as it passed the first scattered shacks. Danner tensed, waiting, and when the depot was a couple of hundred yards away he leaped, hit the ground running, tripped but regained his balance and came to a halt by a workshed, breathing heavily. Here he waited until the freight moved on south toward Cimarron Valley. From the roundhouse then came the early morning westbound for Richfield. It chugged along the south side of the depot and stopped in position for loading passengers, all but the last coach hidden from Danner's sight now by the depot. Moving over to the street paralleling the north-south tracks, Danner walked on to the north side of the depot and peered inside. The waiting room held quite a few people, but all were crowding out the door on the far side. The only telegrapher-clerk on duty was a stranger to Danner. When the waiting room was completely emptied, Danner went inside. At the desk he ordered a ticket to Richfield.
'That's the train out there loading now,' the clerk muttered. 'It leaves in about ten minutes.'
Danner paid for the ticket and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Outside, the waiting platform held some two dozen passengers waiting to board the train, but none faced the waiting room. He turned back to the clerk, a youngster tired from the long night shift about ended.
'Anything new on that missing train?'
'Nothing,' the youngster shook his head, 'except one of those farmers died last night.'
'Farmers?' A chill hit Danner then, and he thought of McDaniel.
'One of the two they found alongside the tracks a few miles from Richfield. He had a bullet in his throat. The other one was shot in the chest, but I guess he's still alive.'
McDaniel and Gustafson, Danner thought. But which one was dead?
All the passengers were aboard now and the locomotive whistled a warning. Danner stepped outside and moved unhurriedly to the far end of the last coach. As the final whistle sounded he went up the steps and inside the car, dropping into the first seat at the rear of the half-filled coach. The nearest passenger, a drummer, sat six seats up and facing forward. Danner stuck his ticket in his hatband, slumped down and covered his face with the hat. Joe Bearden was the conductor on this train and he'd easily recognize Danner if he caught a glimpse of his face. But Joe wouldn't pay any attention to a sleeping passenger, especially one in rumpled clothes so much like many other passengers. Soon after the train jerked into motion Joe did just that—took the ticket from Danner's hatband, punched and replaced it with a grunt, then was gone.
Tilting his hat slightly, Danner watched the prairie race by. The finding of Gustafson and McDaniel only a few miles from Richfield indicated the train had been taken over at that point, yet it never reached Spaulding, and there were only two sidings between the two stations where the train could be hidden. But the two sidings would undoubtedly have been checked by now. It didn't make sense; a feeling of frustration touched Danner. Then he wondered if it had been Gustafson or McDaniel who had died. It didn't make much difference, probably, because the survivor had a chest wound and likely wouldn't last long.
The monotonous click of the wheels lulled Danner into a half-sleep through much of the morning. But he shook himself awake when the train began to slow for the stop at Spaulding. The engine moved on past the yellow frame station building and stopped at the wooden water tower, leaving the rear coach about a hundred feet from the station. The station, woodshed and water tower provided a minimum of relief from an otherwise barren area. Only the need for fuel and water before trains reached Richfield kept the station in existence. Few passengers ever boarded the train here and seldom did anyone ship from Spaulding. A movement caught Danner's attention and he pressed his face against the grimy window of the coach.
The Spaulding agent, Ma Grim, stepped out onto the platform in front of the station, her arms folded across a massive bosom and her blocky shape blending with the nondescript surroundings.
If the missing train had gone past Spaulding, Ma Grim would have reported it, Danner thought. Her devotion
