= Red-Handed
  by Scott Morrison

The Eighty-Eight Keys was an actual wooden frame building rather than a tent. That automatically made it the least disreputable of the half-dozen or so saloons that had opened in the wake of the Houston and Texas Central's arrival in Denison. Soon after construction of the train roundhouse commenced, the tiny community just north of Dallas had ballooned into a canvas metropolis, populated by burly railroaders and a host of entrepreneurs anxious to profit from them.

The saloon was named for the sorry-looking piano in the corner. The piano was out of tune and short of a few strings, and it was never played, since its mere presence raised the Eighty-Eight Keys above the competition. Still, it might have been nice to have a piano player tonight, just for the evening. This was St. Patrick's Day, and the hard-drinking micks who labored for the H&TC would've liked music with their whiskey.

Pete Bellamy was pouring a shot for Eli Palmer, a part-time handyman at several of the local ranches. He nodded to Mike Segretto, the Lone Star Express Company's new messenger on the Denison to Galveston run, who sauntered in with itinerant carpenter Dave Calloway.

"Set up a round for the house on me, Pete," said Segretto. "And we'll drink a toast to the Auld Sod."

"Thought you was Eye-talian," said Bellamy.

"Texan," Segretto corrected. "Born and raised on the Matagorda Peninsula. My daddy was from Italy, though. On the other hand, my ma's from County Cork, which makes this stove-up cowboy Irish enough to buy a round of drinks."

"Obliged," said Palmer, saluting Segretto with a raised glass.

"Think I'll join that poker game," said Calloway, walking toward one of the tables. "Anyone else interested?"

"Not me," said Segretto. "I lose money enough when I'm sober. Drunk I'd just be giving it away. And tonight I mean to get drunk. It's my last chance for a few days."

"You got a run, tomorrow?" asked Bellamy.

Segretto nodded.

"Anything special?"

"One's pretty much like another, Pete. I get paid the same whether it's a million in gold double eagles or ten cents worth of dimes."

"That gang of train bandits ain't likely to go after no ten cents worth of dimes. Seems to me you're a lot more likely to get robbed when you're carrying something worth robbing."

"Not if no one knows," said Segretto pointedly.

"Hard to keep a secret in a place like this," answered Bellamy, "depending on the railroad business like it does. And with that gang causing such a ruckus, the whole town's in an uproar. Hell, the whole state. Folks weren't this upset when Garfield got shot last July. Sure wouldn't want your job, Mike."

"It's sobering," agreed Segretto. "Which is why I'm here," he added, setting down his empty glass.

As Bellamy filled it he asked, "Is it true they burned the last messenger alive."

"Threatened to when he tried to hold 'em off with a gun. He decided dying wasn't worth it."

"There's supposed to be eight or nine men in that gang, Mike," said Bellamy. He pointed at Segretto's pearl-handled, silver-plated Peacemaker. "That fancy Colt you're packing won't shoot but six times. What'll you do against odds like that?"

"Figure some way to even 'em up."

* * *

The next night, despite the vestiges of the hangover he'd earned the previous evening, Segretto was on the night train to Galveston.

The motion of the train, the smell of the burning coal from the steam engine, the clattering sound as the express car rolled along the tracks, all combined to make the inside of Segretto's head feel three sizes too large for the outside. It wouldn't've been so bad if he'd actually had a good time the night before, but he'd only gotten drunk in the line of duty, so to speak.

To top off his miseries, the damned postal clerk couldn't seem to stop talking.

The US Post Office and the Lone Star Express shared the same car, their respective sections separated only by a small partition which, to Segretto's irritation, provided no barrier to conversation. With his head in its current state, that would have been bad enough, even if the talk'd been stimulating and intelligent. But the clerk's topics seemed to be limited to two subjects, the weather and bittersweet recollections of the girl who'd suddenly jilted him only days before the wedding to marry his best friend.

"Yep," the clerk was saying, "up and married him. And the two of us set to tie the knot in just a few days. That's why I came west. How about you? What brought you out here?"

"Birth."

"Oh. You married?"

"Nope."

The clerk was silent for a few moments, just long enough to raise Segretto's hopes that he'd run out of chatter, then said, "Cold tonight."

Hell, thought Segretto, he's back on the weather.

"See you got the kindling and firewood in your stove all set to light," the clerk went on.

"Yep."

"You going to light it anytime soon?"

"Nope."

"Well, it's kind of cold tonight."

"Yep."

"Fire'd warm the place up a bit."

"Jacket's plenty warm."

"I just thought --"

"What you see in the stove's all the firewood I've got. It's a long way to Galveston, and it'll get colder as it gets later. I'm saving it 'til I need it."

The postal clerk got a hurt expression on his face. Segretto looked away and rolled his eyes.

"Didn't mean to snap at you," he said. "Celebrated St. Paddy's Day a little too much last night and I'm still feeling it. No offense meant."

"None taken," said the clerk. Mercifully, he was pretty quiet from then on.

Truth to tell, the hangover wasn't the only thing making Segretto feel tense. He was charged with safely delivering cash packages totaling more than twenty thousand dollars, and he was betting that the gang would hit tonight. In fact, he was counting on it.

The Agency had assigned a score of operatives to the area in a fruitless effort to get a lead on the outlaws who'd been plaguing the railroad. Segretto, one of the Pinkertons' most effective undercover specialists, had decided it was easier for the gang to find him than the other way around, so he'd arranged to get himself hired as an express messenger.

This was by far the most valuable run he'd made and, as Bellamy'd observed, a wide-open boom town like Denison wasn't the kind of place where secret information stayed that way for long. The gang knew about the twenty thousand. Of that Segretto felt certain.

At ten o'clock the train pulled into Hutchins, several miles south of Dallas. The clerk picked up the mail sack and started to open the door to throw it out, but suddenly slammed it shut.

"Robbers on the platform!" he shouted to Segretto.

Segretto grabbed a Winchester rifle from a rack over his desk, blew out the oil lamp, and stepped over to the window. He saw a half-dozen men on foot, and one on horseback, all masked by flour sacks worn over their heads. They were already holding the station agent and porter hostage, and were forcing the train's engineer and fireman to step down to the platform. He drew a bead on one of the bandits and started to squeeze the trigger.

"Don't shoot!" the station agent screamed. "You'll hit one of us!"

Segretto held his fire, moved away from the window, and started barricading the door.

"Get behind cover," he said to the clerk.

From the platform a voice ordered Segretto to open the door.

"Go to hell!" answered Segretto.

A volley of shots pierced the walls of the car. Segretto crouched behind some thick boxes of freight. The firing subsided for a few moments, then Segretto heard footsteps on the roof of the car. A moment later, more shots came flying through the ventilator.

Segretto levered and triggered his Winchester four times at the sounds on the roof. A shriek of pain and the sound of a body landing on the platform indicated that at least one of Segretto's shots had found its mark.

Again a pause, then more shots came through the right side of the door, alternating with a loud banging noise as though someone was hammering against it. A few moments later an ax head chopped through the left side of the door, while bullets continued to enter through the right side, providing cover to whoever was wielding the ax. Segretto emptied the Winchester at the hole that had been chopped, then snatched the blue-steeled Smith and Wesson Frontier Model from the holster on his gunbelt and sent three more rounds in the same direction. The chopping and shooting both stopped.

After a few moments, there were sounds from beneath the car, and an oily smell began to rise from the floor.

"This is your last chance," came a voice from the platform. "Open up or we'll fire the car."

"For God's sake," said the mail clerk, "open the door! You can't let them burn us alive!"

"Stay where you are!" Segretto snarled.

The air began to heat, and black smoke began to rise copiously from the cracks between the floor boards. Segretto'd arranged for the conductor and brakeman to slip away and get help should the gang strike during a depot stop. He'd hoped to stand the outlaws off 'til reinforcements arrived, but there was no way of telling whether or not they would get here in time ... if they came at all.

"Please!" the clerk gasped. "We'll die if you don't, and they'll have the loot anyway."

Segretto nodded, holstered his weapon, and yelled out to the platform, "Hold your fire. I'm opening the door."

He pulled down the barricades, swung the door open, and threw out his gunbelt and rifle. One of the outlaws, a tall, lean man with a jagged scar along his right wrist, entered, gun in hand.

Keeping Segretto covered, he said, "How much on board?"

"About twenty thousand. Enough to ruin my company!"

"Open it," the bandit demanded, waving his pistol in the direction of the safe.

"Open it yourself."

The robber fired a shot at the floor by Segretto's feet, and shouted, "Open that safe or I'll put the next one in your head!"

Segretto knelt down, unlocked the small steel vault, and pulled the door open.

The robber threw down an empty sack. "Put the money in there," he ordered.

Segretto dropped a canvas coin pouch in first, noting the bandit's eyes glistening behind his mask at the chinking sound. Some fifteen wax-sealed envelopes with the amounts of currency written on the front were tossed in next.

The bandit picked up the bag of loot, then waved his gun again. "Outside," he said.

The outlaw covered Segretto and the clerk as they exited the car, marched them over to the other prisoners, and tossed the bag of loot to the one still on horseback.

"On your horses," ordered the mounted outlaw, apparently the leader.

The scarred outlaw who'd entered the car indicated Segretto and said, "What about him? He killed Rafferty, didn't he?"

"No one told Rafferty to go climbing onto that roof," said the horseman. "He got himself killed."

"I say he killed Rafferty, and I say he dies."

"Then kill him and get mounted. We've been here too long."

Segretto's personal weapon, the pearl-handled Colt's.45, was concealed under his coat in a Wes Hardin-style shoulder holster. He wasn't much of a fast gun, particularly when executing a cross-draw from under his arm, but he had no choice. If he was going to die in the next few seconds, he meant to take a few outlaws with him.

Gunfire from the street leading to the center of town diverted the outlaws' attention. Segretto's arrangement with the conductor and brakeman had paid off.

As the robbers exchanged shots with the makeshift posse, Segretto and the other prisoners ran to the tracks and ducked under the platform. Segretto reached under his jacket and jerked his piece out. His first two shots dropped one of the bandits. He aimed his third at the tall outlaw with the scarred wrist, but it went wide and, before Segretto could readjust his aim, the bandit returned fire, grazing the side of Segretto's face and coming dangerously close to his left eye. Ignoring the pain, Segretto put his next two shots square in his adversary's chest.

Four more bandits fell, succumbing to shotgun and rifle fire from the townsmen. The last one started for his horse, but took a ball in the leg. Grabbing the leader's saddle pommel, he pleaded, "Don't leave me! Take me with you! Don't leave me!"

Unable to shake off his wounded colleague, the leader cocked his pistol, coolly put a bullet through his partner's neck, and galloped away.

Segretto climbed back onto the platform and ran over to the bandit who'd been shot by his comrade. Miraculously, the man was still alive, still conscious, desperately clutching his throat with both hands in a futile attempt to stop the profuse bleeding. Segretto knelt down and cradled his head in his arms.

"Who's the leader?" he demanded.

The bandit, his larynx shattered, was unable to make a sound.

"Give me something," Segretto said. "He shot you and left you here to die. Make sure he pays."

The bandit shook his head in despair, though whether it was over his impending death or his inability to avenge it was unclear. As if knowing he had only seconds, he reached toward Segretto, desperately trying to make some final human contact before passing over, and, in a final effort, pressed his blood-drenched hand against Segretto's shirt before falling back dead.

* * *

The two riders made their unhurried way along the fenceline of a ranch a few miles outside of Denison.

"And the others are all dead?" asked Captain Julius Pike. He commanded the Special Detachment of Texas Rangers that had been organized in the wake of the train robberies.

Segretto, running his finger lightly along his bandaged wound, nodded. "I got three. Townspeople did for four others. The leader gunned the last one himself. Nothing but fodder as far as he was concerned. Cold-blooded as hell. So much for honor among thieves."

"How much did he get away with?"

Segretto smiled broadly. "About ninety silver dollars."

"I heard you were carrying close to twenty thousand."

"And so I was. Twenty-two thousand five hundred in federal currency and bonds, to be exact. I just didn't have it in the vault. Didn't strike me as a very safe place to keep it with damned near the whole town knowing how much I was carrying on that run."

"So where'd you put it?"

"In the stove."

"What made you think of putting it in a place like that?"

"Remember the Reno gang?"

"Course I remember the Reno gang. We've got newspapers in Texas."

"Mr. William Pinkerton once told me about how he finally caught up with Frank Reno and two of his boys in Council Bluffs, Iowa. This was four or five days after they'd robbed a bank in Magnolia of fourteen thousand. After Pinkerton and his men arrested the bandits, they commenced to search the house. Turned out the stolen money was hidden in the kitchen stove."

"Still and all, they found the money."

"Mr. Pinkerton knew the Reno boys had hidden it, and he could afford to take his time finding it. The robbers didn't know and couldn't take the time if they did. I just put cut-up newspapers into some decoy packages in the safe and they never thought to look anywhere else."

"Well, whatever the Lone Star Express is paying your Agency, they got their money's worth."

"They will when we've got the last robber behind bars."

"And you're sure it's Eli Palmer?"

"I'm sure."

"Enough to say so in a court of law?"

Segretto nodded.

"Even so, you'll have a hard time convincing a judge and twelve jurymen that you recognized a masked man from a pretty fair distance on a dark night."

"My testimony isn't all we have. And, with luck, Palmer'll say or do something that'll give himself away."

"This here's the first time you've mentioned having more evidence than just you on that witness stand. I'd be pleased if you let me in on it, 'cause I'd bet against Palmer giving himself away. He's always been a cagy one. Doubt he'll admit anything."

"Doesn't have to be a signed confession. Just something he says or does that indicates guilt. If we press him just right, he'll hang himself one way or another."

A few minutes later they came on Palmer twisting together some broken ends of barbed wire. He stopped working and looked up at the riders.

"Howdy, Julius. Mike. What brings you out here?"

In a single, fluid motion, Segretto dismounted, drew his Colt, cocked it, and covered Palmer. Pike hesitated a moment, then followed suit.

"You're arrested for robbery and murder," Segretto said.

"An express company messenger's got no authority to arrest me."

"I've got the authority," said Pike. "And Segretto's not just an express messenger. He's an undercover Pinkerton man, and he's been commissioned as a Special Ranger since he's been on this assignment."

"That gives you no call to be pulling guns. I heard about the train robbery, but it was none of my doing."

"I saw you," said Segretto.

"Wasn't me you saw. 'Sides, I heard them boys was masked. Even if I did do it, how would you recognize me?"

"A man has a way of carrying himself, a way he gestures, a way of walking and talking that no one else has. Things a mask can't hide. The man I saw was you, and that's what I'll swear to in court. But my testimony won't be the only evidence. You should've made sure your partner was dead, Palmer."

"Partner?"

"That's right. He lived long enough to name you as his killer. Captain Pike here's been in this business longer'n I have. He'll tell you there's nothing stronger'n deathbed evidence. Isn't that right, Captain?"

"Sure is."

Palmer started to flex the fingers of his right hand, hovering over his pistol.

"Don't try it, Palmer," said Segretto. "There're two of us and we've got the drop. Besides, if you die on the gallows after a proper trial, you're worth a few dollars to some hard-working hangman. If we have to shoot you here, you're not even worth what was in one of those envelopes you stole last night."

Palmer's eyes blazed, anger overcoming his caution. His hand snatched at his holster. Segretto and Pike fired simultaneously as Palmer's weapon cleared leather.

"Appears you were right," said Pike. "He did give himself away."

"Good thing for you I didn't take that bet."

"First time you mentioned anything about a dying accusation. Just how'd that bandit say anything with a bullet in his throat?"

"Just before he passed, he pressed his hand against my shirt leaving a bloody print. He knew he was dying and had just moments to give me some kind of sign, using what was available. His own blood for ink. The palm of his hand to name his killer. Palmer."

"Now that's right clever, but it's not likely a judge would've counted it as a deathbed statement."

"Well, I suppose judges down here have to be persnickety about such things," said Segretto, "but it won't matter much to the Judge he's facing now."

SCOTT MORRISON is the pseudonym that Midwestern cop Jim Doherty has adopted for what he hopes will be the first in a series about frontier PI Michael Segretto. Asked why he's using a pen name for the Segretto stories, Jim, who writes police procedurals and true crime articles under his own name, explained, "The Segretto stories are very different from anything I've written before. I thought it would be fun to create a different writing persona for a different kind of writing."

Copyrights (c) 2002 Scott Morrison

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