Chicago Chase

     At eight o’clock sharp a carriage pulled up to the hotel and an exquisitely dressed Joanne emerged wearing an elegant black gown that was simple in design but very high in style. Her only jewelry were sparkling cut crystal earrings that didn’t pretend to be anything but what they were. Merle smiled and escorted her back to the carriage. Hawk and Pike climbed into the seat opposite them. They were dropped off a half block from their ultimate destination.
     Merle helped her down from the cab, he’d already handed her two bills which she tucked away in her handbag. As he paid the carriage driver and he drove off Joanne pointed down the street at a trio walking toward them.
     “Oh, look. There’s Shirley and Margaret now.” She squinted and said, “Say, isn’t that…”
     Merle was looking at the man with his arms around the two ladies. One of the girls waved at Joanne and the man looked up. When he spotted Merle he dropped his hands from the girls and turned sideways staring the thirty or so feet at Merle. He suddenly dropped back behind one of the women where Merle couldn’t see him and was gone.
     Merle ran up a set of steps to get a better view and caught Pearson rounding the corner. He looked back the other way for Hawk and Pike who blended into the shadows. Hoping they could see him up on the steps he stuck his thumb and forefinger up to his lips and let out a shrill whistle and waved his arms toward him. He bounded down the steps and started running after Pearson.
     As he rushed past a startled Joanne on her way up the steps she said, “Good bye, cowboy. I hope you get your man.”
     The other two ladies rushed up to her saying, “Goodness. What was that all about?”
     She sighed and said, “Grown men playing tag.”
     Margaret said, “My, Jo, you are dressed to kill tonight. Going hunting?”
     They all laughed and went inside.
     Merle turned the corner and raced down the short block. He reached the corner in time to see Pike go blasting by riding a carriage horse still in its harness. A block down the road a carriage driver was standing in the street with his fist raised shouting at the rapidly receding stolen carriage Pike was chasing.
     Merle stood there panting watching Pike do his best to hold on to the unsaddled and rather wide carriage horse while trying to chase down the fleeing Pearson. He heard slowing heavy boot steps behind him and knew it was Hawk. He could hear him gasping for breath.
     “This city life will kill you,” he wheezed. “What we got?”
     “Pike on a carriage horse chasing after Pearson in a stolen carriage.”
     Hawk looked at him as if to say, “Of course.”
     Merle looked down the street in the direction from which Pike came and gave his sharp whistle again while waving his hand. A half minute or so later a carriage came trotting up to them. They climbed in and said, “We want to follow that man riding the carriage horse.”
     The driver replied, “It’ll be my pleasure, sir.”
     Halfway down the block they had him stop and they called out for the owner of the carriage that was stolen. A big fellah about Hawk’s size only broader with a pug nose as if he was a pugilist came forward. They said they were after the fellah that stole his carriage, the fellah riding the stolen carriage horse was one of them. Now their driver was thoroughly confused.
     The owner of the stolen carriage, who was a former heavy weight boxer, asked in a thick accent if they were the police. No. But you’re after the guy that stole the carriage. Yes. That was good enough for him.
     About four blocks down they saw the tail end of Pike flying by on the carriage horse so they backed up and took off down that street. They chased him for another six blocks until the street ended in an alleyway between two buildings. There they stopped while Merle went one way and Hawk went the other for a block listening for whatever they could hear.
Nothing.
     Complete silence except for the horses breathing.
They heard the clippity-clop of horses hooves about two blocks to the right and the harnessed carriage horse Pike was riding came slowly around the corner sans rider, still huffing from the hard ride. Hawk jogged down toward the riderless horse while Merle ran back to the carriage and jumped onto its side.
     In the near distance they could hear railcars rattling and the chuffing of switch engines. They went that direction. Behind a long warehouse they spotted what could only be Pike running along the top of parked boxcars, his silhouette black against a grey sky and the occasional glimmer of light from the rail yard. His attention seemed focused on the slowly moving freight on the furthest of the multiple tracks.
     By the time they picked their way over the low wire fence and around the tools, cars, and debris of the massive rail yard toward where they last saw Pike he was no longer visible atop the boxcars. Following the sound of voices raised to be heard over the various sounds of the working rail yard they saw Pike talking to a big man in striped overalls and a railroad workman’s cap wiping grease on an oily rag and pointing in the direction the freight was traveling.
     “What,” huff, puff, “where…” gasped Hawk.
     Pike took off his hat and wiped the sweat from inside and his forehead with a bandanna, placed his hat back on his head and spit. “Seen him jump that freight but I couldn’t get to it. This here fellah says it goes on down to the south end of town before it stops.”
     “Pretty much the south end of the city. Mostly warehouses and such for dry goods,” the railroad yard man chimed in.
     Merle said, “Anyway we can get there quick?”
     The yard man moved some tobacco around in his mouth for a minute, spit out a stream of juice and said, “Both them tracks go to the same place. That secondary runs together no-switch ‘bout half a mile out of the yard.”
     The three lawmen looked at him.
     “Uh, no-switch - the tracks run directly into the other ones. But you’d need a way to get there.”
     Pike pointed to a hand powered car half hidden behind a low building in the middle of the yard. “What about that.”
     They all looked for he was pointing, squinting to see in the limited light.
     Hawk shaded his eyes and said, “Damn, Pike! We’re gonna’ have to rename you Hawkeyes.”
     The rail yard man spit again, started walking in that direction saying, “Yeah, that’d do it. If we could get it switched on to that track and I had someone to operate it for you.”
Hawk let out a sharp whistle and waved to a gang of men working thirty feet away. He walked towards them, stopped and talked for a moment, pointed back to the hand car. They talked among themselves for a moment and one of them pointed over toward a partially disassembled damaged boxcar. Four men peeled off and started toward the dilapidated car.
     Meanwhile Merle was explaining to the rail yard man that they could operate the hand car themselves.
     “Well, now,” spit, “this is railroad property,” spit, wipe, “I can’t just let you take it.”
     “This is official government business,” said Merle, but the man looked at him from underneath his eyebrows. “Might get your name in the paper - railroad employee assists U.S. Marshals.”
     The man stood a little straighter. “Yeah?”
     “Oh, yeah. Your bosses would love that.”
     “Weeeell,” spit, wipe, “maybe I can go with you, as a representative of the railroad.”
     Having settled that Hawk returned with several workmen, four of them carrying thick two by two staves pirated from the frame of the old boxcar. Under his direction they inserted the two by two pieces, two on each side of the heavy hand car lengthwise. With a man at each end, two in the middle, and one man in each short end of the hand car they strained to lift the heavy beast. Their first lunge lifted it about an inch only to roll forward a half foot, dropping the two by two pieces. They replaced the two by twos, called four more men over to help and managed to get the heavy piece of wood and metal off the track and across one track, almost across the next before they began to stumble and had to set it down. They had twenty-five feet to go across six sets of tracks.
     As they all took a new grip and prepared to heave Merle, who was on the left rear end of the poles, noticed one of the men on the short end near him walk to the front. There were now three men there standing shoulder to shoulder. Before he could turn to see why, Hawk gave the command and up came the hand car much easier than before.
     They slowly picked their way over the remaining tracks and managed to set the car down correctly on the next to last set of tracks. Merle turned to see the big pug turned driver standing there. He took off his coat and dress shirt and was standing there in a sleeveless undershirt muscles bulging with a big dumb grin on his face. Merle couldn’t help but smile back.
     With a few words of thanks Hawk, Merle, and the railroad man now devoid of anything to spit climbed onto the hand car. Pike was walking away with the big carriage driver who was twice as tall and twice as wide. It was quite a sight.
     “Hey!” called out Merle. “Where you going?”
     Pike raised a hand saying, “I ain’t no rail hand. I’ll meet you guys there.” He jerked his thumb toward the driver. “He knows where you’re going.”
     The rail yard man reached up and put his hands on the smoothly worn wooden handles of the hand car mechanism. “Works like a teeter-totter. You lift up as I pull down, then I lift as you pull. Getting started is the hard part. Once were moving it ain’t so bad.”
     He strained to pull the lever down. Hawk strained to lift it. Merle added his strength to pull down. Ever so slowly the car began to roll. By the third pump they started to pick up speed. The four men giving them a boost dropped behind and waved.
     “Okay,” said the rail man, “that’s three. At fifty you spell me. Next fifty I spell Mister Hawk. Next fifty he spells you, we do a hunert and rest fifty. It works out.”
     Soon they were speeding down the parallel track at a greater rate of speed than the freight that creeped through. Merle and Hawk had the pump handle going up and down at a rapid clip. The rail man cautioned them to set an even pace, in only a few miles they would have to stop this car. There was a single wheel low on the back end of the car that closed a single block over one wheel as a brake. This hand car generally transported foremen and supervisors who coasted to a stop. Merle and Hawk grinned at each other and kept on pumping.
     It was a clear night; the moon was up for a while, the track shown out before them. As they passed a marker the rail man got up to spell Merle, only instead of pumping he started putting resistance against the handle. He explained they had a wide curve to go around; too much speed and they would jump the track. Besides, shortly after the curve they’d be close to the freight depot and they didn’t want to crash into the back of the freight train.
     Their speed was still up a bit when they entered the curve, the hand car and passengers leaned heavily to one side, but it did serve to slow them down. The rail man had Merle replace him while he played brakeman. With the two big lawmen straining against the pumping handle and the rail man heaving against the mechanical brake wheel, the one wheel screeching in protest and sparks flying, they managed to slow the heavy car enough that there was only a gentle bump into the caboose of the freight train.
     But still when something is stationary and something bumps into it, it’s noticeable. Especially when it’s a several thousand ton train on a controlled track. One of the freight train’s brakemen came rushing back shouting, “What the Sam Hill is going on here?!”
     Two dark clad figures rushed past him but he spotted the yard hand on the hand car. “Who the hell are you?”
The yard hand spat, hooked his thumbs in his overalls, swelled up his chest and said, “You’ll know soon enough. I’m gettin’ my name in the newspapers.”
     Merle and Hawk took the closest steps up onto the loading platform and quickly worked their way forward. There was a large warehouse, a large open space and another large warehouse all along the length of the loading platform that ran parallel to the tracks. At the edge of the first warehouse by a large opening, the entire area being lit by dozens of gas lamps, they spotted Pearson talking to someone.
     Merle started to move his bulk forward but Hawk put out a hand to stay his progress. After all they were unarmed and Pearson was a killer. With his head Hawk indicated a stack of crates to their right closer to Pearson where they could remain undetected. From behind either side of the crates      in the shadows they observed the man removing his hat and scratching his head. Pearson reached down into a large duffel bag by his feet and produced a handful of bills. The man blinked, replaced his hat, and counted the bills. When finished he held out his hand. The two men shook hands, obviously having concluded a deal.
     Stealthily keeping their distance Merle and Hawk followed the two men down off the huge platform and across the grounds to a combination locker room-stable. They watched the man saddle a horse while Pearson slipped into the locker room.
     They were standing there whispering discussing how they were going to take this armed killer with only a Bowie knife between them when Pearson came out wearing trail clothes, the same ones      Merle saw him wearing in Railhead, only cleaned. He had that same .44 caliber hog leg slung low and tied. Over his shoulder was a set of saddle bags stuffed to capacity and he was carrying the now half empty duffel bag.
     He mounted the saddle bags, extracted a Winchester in scabbard from the duffel bag and tied that firmly in place to the saddle. He tied the duffel across the back of the saddle, mounted the healthy young dun colored horse, touched his forefinger to the brim of his hat and rode out the open door. All this while Merle and Hawk were cussing the city regulations they didn’t bother to obtain that didn’t allow them to carry their firearms within the city limits without special permission.
Immediately the two lawmen descended on the poor man who was standing there grinning, re-counting the wad of bills in his hand. They came at him from either side firing questions left and right. The poor startled man whisked the fistful of bills behind him and kept backing up until he came up against the wall.
     “Look, fellahs,” he cried, “it was a legitimate deal.”
     “Where did he say he was going?” asked Merle.
     “Did he have any other contacts here?” asked Hawk.
     “Who was he meeting?” queried Merle.
     “How many were there?” growled Hawk.
     The man took a deep breath and said, “Now, wait a minute. Just who the heck are you fellahs asking so many questions?”
     Hawk produced his dark leather wallet containing his badge and ID. Merle did the same.
Looking at Hawk the man said, “You’re a marshal,” he looked at Merle, “and you’re a deputy marshal. What’s the difference?”
     Nodding his head toward Hawk Merle said, “He’s bigger than me.”
     The man looked up at the two of them, Merle obviously being the taller and squeezing his eyebrows said, “But…”
     Hawk said, “I’m the boss.”
     Merle said, “But I’m in charge.”
     Hawk said, “We’re running out of time here.”
     Merle said, “You want me to pistol whip him, boss?”
     Hawk glowered at the man for a second. He wasn’t buying it. This was a city fellah, not some uneducated drifter doing dirt work out on the plains.
     The man said, “Now look, fellahs. This well-dressed gent is asking around about buying a horse and saddle. Says he’ll pay double. A few of us still ride to work, being way out south here and all. I…      I got a wife and kids, you know? So I sold him my horse and saddle for $500. That’s more than double what I paid. Why, that’s enough for a horse and buggy and some cloth for a new dress for the missus… and…”
     Merle said, “So you didn’t know this man before?”
     “No. Never saw him before.”
     Hawk asked, “Which way did he go?”
     With an exasperated expression the man pushed off the wall between the two hulking lawmen and led them to the open stable door. He held his arm straight out, fist closed, index finger pointing and said, “He went that-a-way! South. I don’t know where. It’s like I told you…”
     Both men strolled out into the moonlit night and stood staring southward. Hawk was rubbing the sore muscles in his arms muttering under his breath, “Damn!”
     Merle stood there for a second, took out the makings and rolled a cigarette. He handed the pouch of tobacco and papers to Hawk who looked down at the items in his hand and without lifting his head raised his eyes to Merle’s face peering out from beneath his eyebrows, down at the items, and back to Merle’s face. He looked like a forlorn puppy dawg begging for that piece of steak you had in your hand. Merle let out a heavy sigh, handed him the cigarette and rolled another one. As he was putting away the makings and digging for a wooden match he noticed Hawk standing there patiently, same look in his eyes, waiting for a light. If he wasn’t so worn out he would have laughed.
     They slowly walked back over to the back end of the loading platform, hoisted themselves up and sat there smoking and staring out into the darkness. Merle slowly stood up groaning, stretching, trying to work some of the kinks out of his abused body.
     “I think you’re right.”
     Hawk said, “I am?”
     “About city life.”
     “City life?”
     “It’ll kill ya’! I haven’t hurt this much sense… I don’t know when.”
     Hawk harrumphed and said, “You’re getting old.”
     “No older than you!”
     “How old are you?”
     “I’m… wait a minute.” Merle scratched the stubble on his chin. “How old are you?”
     Hawk looked up at him and said, “I asked you first.”
     Merle stopped his stretching, looked down at Hawk and said, “If I tell you, you’re just going to lie about your age anyway.”
     “No I won’t, honest injun,” and he held up his hand as if taking an oath.
     They stared at each other for a second and both of them broke out laughing. Hawk grabbed Merle’s forearm as he helped pull him up. Hawk groaned.
     Merle said, “See!”
     Hawk put his hands on the small of his back and bent backwards a couple of times. He threw his hands forward in the air, let them drop and said, “See, good as new.”
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