But before he’d taken three steps, Doyle Hughes and another man stood up facing Spiller, their rifles at port arms.
“Put it out of your mind, Spiller,” Hughes said firmly.
“To hell with it,” Spiller said, turning away from Rochenbach, going instead to the depot door and looking out through the dirty broken glass. “I’m just restless, tired of waiting. I need something to do.”
“You can go sit in the woods with the Kane brothers, help them tend to the wagon,” Hughes said.
“Yeah, and you can go to hell,” Spiller said over his shoulder. “I steer clear of the Kanes.” He looked back out the dirty glass window.
Hughes lowered his rifle and leaned back against the wall.
“Here they come!” Spiller said, seeing the first glimmer of headlight show brokenly through the trees.
The men stood up, moved to the depot door, opened it and filed out.
“Everybody get their horses and get ready,” Hughes said. “I’ll signal the Kanes to bring the wagon up to the loading platform.” He looked at Rochenbach and said quietly, “Rock, you come with me.”
“Best watch him close, Doyle, in case he tries anything,” Spiller warned.
“Jesus…” Hughes shook his head. “He’s not going to try anything.” He looked at Rochenbach and gestured him toward the open door. “He wants to get paid just like the rest of us, right, Rock?” As he spoke, he picked up a glowing lantern sitting on the dusty floor.
“You know it,” Rochenbach said, walking out into the chilled night air.
Hughes raised the lantern and swung it back and forth toward the pines. In a moment, the Kane brothers rolled out of the woods in the freight wagon and came rolling up onto the loading platforms.
The four other men who’d waited inside the depot gathered around the empty wagon and stared toward the headlight breaking through the dark woodlands toward them.
The engineer slowed the engine and led the four-car train—the Treasury car, the car carrying the soldiers’ horses, the mail car and an empty caboose—to a soft stop, sidling along the freight platform.
Grolin stepped down from the engine with his bandanna still hiding his face, his right hand clasped on the engineer’s shoulder. He gave the engineer a shove.
“You did good. Now get out of here,” he said. “You can tell your grandkids you were robbed by the James Gang.”
“I—I can go?” the engineer asked in disbelief.
“That’s right,” said Grolin, “but if I look up and see you again before you get to those pines, I’ll put a rifle slug through your backbone.”
Without another word, the man turned and ran. Leaping down off the loading platform, he raced wildly toward the woods until the darkness engulfed him.
Grolin turned to Hughes and Rochenbach. Casings and the Stillwater Giant stepped down from the short train and walked toward them.
“Get started, Rock,” Grolin demanded, waving Rochenbach toward the Treasury car with his rifle barrel. “It looks like whoever you tried to tip off didn’t get your message.”
“I wasn’t tipping anybody off, Grolin,” Rochenbach lied. “The message I sent had nothing to do with this job. If I tipped somebody off, where are they?” He gestured all around.
Grolin chuckled and said, “It doesn’t matter now. If they do show up, it will be Thursday night. We’ll be long gone away from here.”
Casings and the Giant walked up in time to hear the end of the conversation.
“What’s he talking about, Rock?” the Giant asked.
“Your pal, Rock here, got caught trying to tell some friends of his about this job, Giant,” Grolin said. “Tell him, Hughes.”
“It’s true,” said Hughes. “Spiller and me caught him sending a message. I know Morse code.”
“I don’t give a damn if you know the emperor of China,” said the Giant. “I’ll rip your head off and roll it like a—”
“Hold it, Giant,” said Rock, looking around and seeing the men level their rifles toward the Giant as if Grolin had given them direction to do so. “This is no place for us to start fighting among ourselves. I came here to open a safe.” He turned quickly to Grolin. “Am I going to do it, or not?”
“You can bet you are,” Grolin said, lowering his rifle. He jerked a nod toward the Treasury car. “Go on, we’re right behind you.”
Chapter 18
Inside the Treasury car, in a glow of lantern light, Grolin and the men stood back and watched in awe as Rochenbach held the end of his stethoscope to the steel safe door. Grolin held a rifle in his left hand; in his right, he held Rock’s big black-handled Remington.
Rochenbach knew he’d gone past the point of turning back on this job. He had no idea what the reply to his telegraph message had been. Spiller’s rifle butt had cut his communication short. But at least he’d heard enough to know that his message had gotten through. Everything beyond that was pure speculation. Since he didn’t close the message with his identification code, he wasn’t sure what action would be taken.
At this point, he supposed it didn’t mater. He couldn’t put off opening the safe. The best outcome would be to find the big safe empty, meaning someone had stopped the shipping of any more bullion until the risk of robbery had been removed. Was that too much to hope for? he asked himself, adjusting the earpieces of the stethoscope in his ears.
Only one way to find out.…
He turned the dial slowly, listening intently through the stethoscope to the sameness of metal tapping metal until he heard a gap, followed by a slightly harder bump as one piece of the polished steel puzzle fell into place. All right.…
He stopped suddenly, let out a breath and took a short pencil from inside his coat pocket. He wrote down the number on the dial of the safe door, then started turning the dial backward to the left, listening again.
Outside the car on the loading platform, the Kane brothers sat waiting in the empty freight wagon.
“What the hell is taking so long in there?” Lambert shouted toward the open car door.
Inside the car, Rochenbach turned a disturbed look to Grolin as he scribbled the second number on the door of the safe.
Grolin shot the same expression to Spiller, standing beside him.
“Go shut that damned lunatic up!” he said in a hushed growl.
Spiller slipped quietly out of the car. Rochenbach turned back to the safe, pencil stub and stethoscope in hand, and turned the dial slowly to his right.
Grolin grinned and let out a breath of relief when he watched Rock write a third number on the door near the dial and straighten up and pull the stethoscope from his ears.
“Is that it?” he said in a hushed tone, stepping forward.
“Yep,” said Rochenbach. “It’s all yours. He took the big iron handle with both hands and swung the big steel door open.
“Holy Moses!” Grolin shouted. He turned to Lionel Sharp, who stood holding the lantern, and said, “Here, give me that!”
In his excitement, he shoved Rochenbach’s big Remington down into Sharp’s coat pocket and snatched the lantern from his hand. “Everybody stay behind me!” he said, hurrying forward, seeing the light of the lantern spill into the dark safe, revealing shelf upon shelf of small wooden crates.
Looking back at the men crowded behind him, Grolin spotted the Stillwater Giant and waved him forward.