The safe door was scorched but otherwise undamaged. A section of the floor was buckled and tongues of flame leaped along the wall opposite the safe. Clifton tried the handle on the safe door, then stepped back and kicked it in frustration. After a moment, muttering to himself, he turned away. He hopped down beside Jennings.
“No soap,” he said glumly. “Hardly touched the damn thing.”
Jennings glared at him. “How the hell’d you ever get the name Dynamite Dick?”
“Never blowed a safe!” Clifton said sharply. “Just used it for express car doors.”
“Some sorry state of affairs, you ask me. Let’s get outta here before the town throws us a necktie party.”
The gang beat a hasty retreat across the tracks. The men cursed and grumbled as they ran toward the distant treeline. There, after swinging aboard their horses, their leader set a course for the Nations. Clifton brought up the rear as they thundered off into the night.
He told himself it was time to get far away from Al Jennings.
CHAPTER 42
The aborted robbery made headlines. Not as large and not as bold, but nonetheless a front-page story in the Guthrie Statesman. Though unsuccessful, in many ways laughable, the raid was still hot news. There had not been a train holdup in more than three months.
Tilghman and Thomas had returned from Lawson the night of the holdup. At first, when they met with Nagle, there was some speculation that Doolin had given fresh life to the Wild Bunch. But by early morning, details of the raid began filtering in over the telegraph. They were somewhat mystified by the reports.
The express car guard positively identified Dick Clifton. The Edmond station agent was equally positive in his identification of Dick West and Red Buck Waightman. Wanted posters on the three outlaws were plastered on the walls of train stations across the territory. Yet the witnesses were no less familiar with Bill Doolin, whose image still decorated wanted dodgers. None of them could place him at the scene of the holdup.
Their descriptions of the other gang members added still more confusion. Three of them were nondescript in appearance, the type of men who would blend in with a crowd. But the fourth man, according to witnesses, would be a standout in any crowd. He was described as short and slight of build, a bantam of a man with flaming red hair. The witnesses reported as well that he was the leader of the gang.
Thomas and Tilghman were of the same opinion. With the demise of the Wild Bunch, someone had stepped into the breach and forged a new gang. In the process, the man had somehow recruited Clifton, West, and Red Buck Waightman. Which meant that Clifton had joined the gang within days of his escape from jail. In turn, that meant Clifton had known all along where to contact West and Waightman.
Hard as it was to admit, the lawmen had to conclude that Clifton was a skilled liar. On the train from Texas, when they’d interrogated him throughout the night, he had convincingly denied any knowledge of West and Waightman. For Tilghman, the fact that he’d been fooled was of no great consequence. He was intrigued, instead, that Doolin was no part of the Edmond holdup, or the new gang. All of which seemed to bear out his original hunch. The key to Doolin was his wife and child.
Thomas was more intrigued by the new gangleader. Something about the man’s description bothered him, tickled his memory. He began rummaging through a stack of field reports from marshals around the territory. At last, he came across a report about a pint-sized bandit with bright red hair, who led a band of misfits in looting general stores. The man had been identified as Al Jennings, and the band he led included his brother Frank and the O’Malley brothers, Pat and Morris. They operated out of the Creek Nation.
When Thomas and Tilghman put their heads together, the conclusion was obvious. West and Waightman had apparently taken refuge in the Creek Nation, and somehow run across Al Jennings. Clifton, after his escape, had joined them and fallen in with the new gang. With Doolin out of the mix, the whole thing made perfect sense. Jennings had absorbed the dregs of the Wild Bunch into his own gang, and gone from looting stores to robbing trains. The question that remained was where Jennings and his men might be found.
A wire late that afternoon brought the answer. Federal Marshal George Bussy, who was stationed at Chickasha, had been contacted by one of his own informants. For the reward money involved, Clifton, West, and Waightman had been betrayed by a Creek tribesman. Al Jennings, along with his brother and the O’Malleys, had been betrayed as well. The gang was scattered throughout the Creek Nation, but their locations were known. Marshal Bussy requested instructions.
Patrick Nagle wired him that Tilghman and Thomas were on the way.
* * *
Deputy marshals George Bussy and Andy White tied their horses in a stand of trees. Armed with Winchesters, they moved forward through the timber and halted at the edge of a clearing. Their position overlooked a farmhouse.
The farm, according to Bussy’s informant, belonged to Wallis Brooks. A white man, Brooks had married a Creek woman and thus gained the right to property in Indian Territory. Located outside the town of Eufaula, the farm was a couple of miles north of the Canadian River. Dynamite Dick Clifton was reported to be staying with Brooks.
Bussy had met yesterday with Tilghman and Thomas, and several other federal marshals. There were ten lawmen in all, and Nagle had ordered that Tilghman and Thomas were to direct the operation. Three raiding parties were formed, with Tilghman and Thomas in one, and the largest party, with six marshals, under the command of Bud Ledbetter. Bussy and White were assigned to capture, or kill, Dick Clifton.
Their
