“Twenty-five hundred dollars?” Noble squinted, head cocked to one side. “Whadda we have to do?”
Tilghman pointed through the rear window. “Keep your eye on the Ellsworth house. Let us know when it looks like Edith Doolin’s headed on a trip.”
“That’s all, jest get word to you? Nothin’ else?”
“Tip us in time to catch Doolin and that’s the end of it. You get the money.”
Noble’s mouth curled in an ugly smile. He glanced at his brother. “What you think, Tom? The Dunn boys’re family of sorts. Wanna help ’em stay outta jail?”
The younger Noble grinned. “Hell, Charlie, you know me. Family always comes first.”
“Thought you’d think so,” Noble said, turning back to Tilghman. “We’ll keep an eye peeled, marshal. Anything happens, you’ll get the word.”
Tilghman explained where they could contact him, and how to get hold of Thomas. They shook hands on the deal, and the lawmen walked from the smithy. After they were mounted, they rode south on the wagon road. Thomas was silent for a long while, then he grunted.
“Bet those boys never saw twenty-five hundred all at once.”
“Let’s hope they get the chance this time.”
“Amen to that, Brother Tilghman. Amen.”
* * *
The men were hidden in tall weeds beside the tracks. Their horses were tied in a grove of trees fifty yards west of the Edmond depot. Across from them, outside the Santa Fe stationhouse, the agent waited with a mail sack for the midnight train. He paced the platform to warm himself against a brisk wind.
Dick Clifton kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his mackinaw. Beside him, stiff from squatting in the weeds, were Dick West and Red Buck Waightman. On his other side were Al and Frank Jennings, and beyond them, Pat and Morris O’Malley. They waited, watching the station agent, wondering if the train would be on time.
A week ago, after busting out of jail, Clifton had thought it would be like the old days. He knew where West and Waightman were hiding out in the Creek Nation, and he’d assumed Doolin would reform the gang. But shortly after crossing into the Nations, it became apparent that Doolin had other plans. With hardly more than a handshake, Doolin had left him at trailside and turned north into the Cherokee Nation. There was no invitation to come along, and no mention of future jobs for the Wild Bunch. Clifton knew then that he would never return.
A day later Clifton had rejoined West and Waightman. He found that they had long since given up hope of Doolin’s return. Instead, they had been recruited into a new gang, formed by Al Jennings. Short and wiry with a thatch of red hair, Jennings was a man with grandiose ideas. Over the past month, he’d led the gang in a series of holdups on backcountry general stores. The raids, according to him, were a training ground for their first big job, a train robbery. He meant for them to become the new Wild Bunch of Oklahoma Territory.
Clifton immediately pegged him as a penny-ante bandit. But West and Waightman, who were short on brains, had accepted him as their leader. To compound matters, Jennings was backed by his brother and the O’Malleys, who were none too bright themselves. With the odds stacked against him, Clifton saw no choice but to fall in line. A train holdup was already laid on at Edmond, which was some fifteen miles north of Oklahoma City. He planned to go along, collect his share of the loot, and then strike off on his own. He thought Al Jennings would sooner or later get them all killed.
But now, waiting in the weeds beside the tracks, Clifton was intent on the job at hand. He watched as the train approached from the north and ground to a stop before the depot. On signal from Jennings, the O’Malleys boarded the locomotive and covered the engineer. The rest of the gang followed Jennings around the front of the locomotive, rushing toward the stationhouse. The guard opened the door of the express car, leaning out to collect the mail bag, just as they scattered across the depot platform. West, Waightman and Frank Jennings, their guns drawn, spread out to cover the passenger coaches. Clifton and Al Jennings halted in front of the express car.
“Don’t try nothin’,” Jennings barked, waving his pistol back and forth between the station agent and the guard. “I’d as soon shoot you as not.”
Clifton vaulted into the express car. He disarmed the guard, motioning to the safe. “Get it open and be damn quick about it.”
“I can’t,” the guard said in a shaky voice. “They stopped givin’ us the combination back in July. Nobody can open it till we get to Oklahoma City.”
“You lyin’ sonovabitch! Open it or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“Honest to God, mister, I’m tellin’ you the truth. The Santa Fe wires the combination on ahead to the stations. Only Guthrie and Oklahoma City get it any more.”
Clifton suddenly realized that it had been three months since he’d pulled a holdup. He thought the guard’s story made sense, particularly from the Santa Fe’s standpoint. An express guard without the combination was of no use to train robbers.
“Climb down outside,” he ordered, waiting until the guard jumped from the car before he nodded to Jennings. “I’m gonna have to blow the safe.”
“Holy shit!” Jennings protested. “That’ll wake up the whole gawddamn town.”
“Told you a town wasn’t no place to rob a train. You should’ve listened.”
“Stop sayin’ I told you so and get it done. We’re not leavin’ empty-handed.”
Clifton pulled two sticks of dynamite from inside his mackinaw. He found twine inside the express car and used it to tie the dynamite to the safe door. Then he struck a match, held the flame to the fuse until it sputtered. He bolted from the door.
The explosion rocked the train. Debris and dust drifted through the open door as the conductor popped out of one of the coaches. The gang drove him back inside with a
