The Predators

By Paul Lederer

Fired from the railroad, a pair of misfits looks for revenge

In 1873, the Winchester repeating rifle is the cutting edge of military technology. In order to steal a shipment of the priceless guns, two crooked railroad employees hire a half-dozen border cutthroats. But when it comes time for the heist, they discover something shocking: The rifles have already been stolen.

Meanwhile, laid off from jobs on the railroad for petty theft, Thad Folger has teamed up with the booze-addled Tombstone Jack to take revenge on their old bosses by lifting some merchandise from a westbound train. They thought they were stealing cloth, but instead they get three dozen Winchester ’73s. Chased by the army as well as railroad detectives and border thieves, Folger and Tombstone take flight across the prairie. They are not cut out to be bandits, but one thing is certain—if they get cornered, they will have the best guns in the West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: May 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480487765

Paul Lederer

Paul Lederer spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Texas. He worked for years in Asia and the Middle East for a military intelligence arm. Under his own name, he is best known for Tecumseh and the Indian Heritage Series, which focuses on American Indian life. He believes that the finest Westerns reflect ordinary people caught in unusual and dangerous circumstances, trying their best to act with honor.

Book preview

ONE

‘Predatory,’ Tombstone Jack said removing his hat to scratch at his thinly-thatched head. ‘I recognize the word, but I can’t seem to find a home for it.’

Thaddeus Folger crouched down beside Jack in the ribbon of shade cast by the railroad depot’s awning. Glancing up the long silver rails of track stretching to the prairie horizon, he explained, ‘It’s a matter of the railroad company paying us for what they’ve taken from us.’

‘They never took nothin’ from me,’ Jack replied, ‘Except once when the vice-president of the line was due to come through on an inspection, Garrett took my whiskey flask away.’

‘That’s what I mean!’ Thad Folger said loudly. He took Tombstone Jack by the lapels of his shabby tweed coat and drew him nearer. ‘They are downright predatory. They took what was yours, deprived you of your small comfort. They had no right to do that – anymore than they’ve had the right to take away your pride, to rob you of your proper position in life, to deny you your just desserts.’

‘You’re talking about them firing you, aren’t you?’ Jack said, removing Thad’s clutching fingers from his lapels.

‘Well … yes, that is one more example of their brazen disregard for their employees’ God-given rights.’

‘You were skunking away a crate of goods about every night that you were standing watch,’ Jack reminded Thad Folger. ‘Hardware, tinned food, dress fabric.…’

‘Only because they refused to pay me a living wage!’ Folger replied indignantly. ‘I was balancing the scales of injustice. A man has the right to lead a life of reasonable comfort.’

‘What you are really getting to – the long way around – is that you want me to help you rob the railroad,’ Jack said, cutting to the heart of the matter.

‘What I am saying,’ Thad Folger answered without abandoning his virtuous stance, ‘is that the railroad has put me in a position where I have no other choice but to seek redress. I was meanly treated. You, Jack, what have you left for your old age? I’ll tell you: nothing. Not even the memory of a well-spent and comfortably-rewarded life.’

‘That’s enough of this talk,’ Jack said, holding up a gnarled hand to fend off Folger’s cascade of words. ‘If you want me to help you hijack freight off the six-o’clock train, just say so!’

‘You have the right …!’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I could use the money,’ Jack replied, rubbing his bristly chin.

‘That’s it,’ Colin Babbit said. ‘They’re coming in on the six o’clock train for a certainty.’ Henry Crimson, still looking doubtful, took the yellow Western Union telegram Babbit had placed on the banker’s desk and studied it.

‘Are you sure you can trust this Pierce Avery?’

‘Absolutely. We rode a lot of trails together before he got himself thrown off his horse and broke his leg. I told you, he’s the yard boss at the freight office in Tamarind Springs. He knows everything that is loaded on the trains down to the last nail.’

Henry Crimson leaned back in his green leather office chair and scratched at the back of his head, barely disturbing his pomaded hair which was parted in the middle. The banker smiled – or Babbit thought it was an attempt at a smile and his small blue eyes brightened behind the rimless bifocals he wore.

‘There’s a lot of money to be made in rifles,’ the banker said thoughtfully, now studying the narrow face of his potential partner. Babbit wore a full reddish mustache and it twitched now as he agreed with the banker.

‘You bet there is.’

The guns in question were the brand new Winchester ’73s being freighted to nearby Fort Thomas to replace the outdated .45-70 Springfields the army had been using for years. The breechloaders were slow to load and had long been obsolete. The War Department, it seemed, had belatedly come to recognize that, and was now prepared to arm their cavalry soldiers in the Western lands with modern weapons. This was the first shipment of the new rifles.

‘Will you need help?’ Henry Crimson asked.

‘Of course I will. Those rifle crates will be heavy. I’ll need a few strong men, a wagon to haul them away. Maybe a place to stash them until the heat is off.’ Colin Babbit was leaning on the banker’s desk now, his face intent. He desperately needed money. He was not much younger than Pierce Avery had been when he had shattered his leg in three places and found he would no longer be able to hit the trail. That he had found a job working for the railroad had been a boon for Pierce, but it didn’t pay much, and certainly the sedentary life of an office worker did not appeal to Colin Babbit. He needed to make his score, and now.

He had suggested the idea to Crimson one night in the Starshine Saloon. Both men were heavy drinkers, and Babbit had merely been looking for sympathy, maybe a suggestion. He had not known that Henry Crimson had been chipping away at the bank’s money for years and lived in constant fear of the territorial bank examiner finding out about it. It meant prison for sure unless he could find a way to replace the stolen funds.

Crimson had built a fine frame house for his chubby bride and indulged her beyond his salary. It wasn’t so much his own humiliation that would trouble him if he were arrested for embezzlement, but what Lena would have to endure, since the town’s ladies would surely ostracize her if Crimson were ever found out, and Lena took great pride in her position as one of the town’s leading matrons. One reason she had married the banker in the first place.

‘You know reliable men you can hire for the job?’ Henry Crimson asked.

‘I think so. Of course we’ll have to give them something in advance.’

‘Give me a price, Babbit. I’ll take care of that end of things.’ After all, what did a few dollars more matter now? He had already dug himself a hole too deep to crawl out of, and this promised to be a redemption – if Colin Babbit could pull it off.

‘I was thinking that we should hit the train when it stopped at Comanche Wells for water. We sure can’t rob the train right here in Westfield, not with the whole town looking. We’d be sure to be seen and there would likely be a gunfight.’

‘No, that’s no good,’ the banker agreed hastily. ‘Not in town, of course not. If you think Comanche Wells is the place.…’

‘It is. There’s flat land for miles around. The only people living there are the station master and a few jackrabbits,’ Colin said, trying for some humor to ease the tension which had been growing in the room. Now that the plan had been agreed to and established, both men knew that they were in too deep to pull out. If they failed they would have the law and the US Army as pursuers. It was a desperate plan, but Babbit could find no flaw in it. Out on the open plains, the train stopped for water for its boiler, would be an easy target. Babbit had already checked with Pierce Avery – there would be no passenger cars attached, so they didn’t have to concern themselves with some unexpectedly bold traveler taking a hand.

‘Find some men,’ Henry Crimson said, rising. The banker was taller than he seemed seated behind his desk. Arrow-thin, he and his somewhat pudgy wife were quite a sight when they went out walking and more than a few jokes had been made behind their backs. ‘And,’ Crimson added, readjusting his spectacles, ‘make sure they’re tough enough for the job. When you’ve done that and located a wagon, come back here and tell me how much money you’ll need to carry matters through.’

Babbit left without having shaken hands, and from his office window, Crimson could see the old trailsman striding down the main street toward the nearest saloon. He wished that things had not come this far, to the point where he was actually soliciting a criminal enterprise, but then again he had done it to himself. Not out of greed, he told himself, but out of love. His explanation did not stand up to self-examination in the brilliant light the desert sun beamed through his window. Sighing heavily he seated himself again. A few local ranchers had applied for loans lately, and he was going to have to turn them down. Not because he didn’t trust them, but only because he had frittered away a good portion of the bank’s money.

Babbit’s scheme had to work.

‘What do you figure,’ Tombstone Jack was asking Thad Folger.

‘It’s nearly dusk at six o’clock, this time of the year. The train will be stopping for about an hour to let the crew step down and grab some supper. There shouldn’t be anyone around – a few idlers and kids who like to watch the trains come and go, but outside of that, no one.

‘We pull a railroad freight truck up on the opposite side of the train and take what we can find and move quickly. Last week I got a shipment of ready-made town suits,’ Folger said, his voice lowering to a cunning whisper.