Counterfeit Lawman

The Only Chance

Ike skidded to a halt, circled the limp body with his arms and heaved. Finding that the man weighed too much to pick up, he began dragging the dead weight along behind the pile of rails until he reached a spot where a twist rolled the body under a car and between the tracks. Ike wasted no time flopping down to hide himself.

“You ought to—”

Ike clamped his hand over the man’s mouth to silence him. He pointed. Not ten feet away, the railroad bulls paced back and forth, arguing where their quarry had run.

“We plugged one of ’em, Kinch,” declared a detective pacing closer to where Ike peered out fearfully.

“The son of a bitch that got away’s who we have to stop. You sure he ran this way?”

“I saw him, Kinch. Really, I did. I’m sure I hit him, so he can’t get too far.”

“It’s on your head if you’re wrong. The boss doesn’t take failure easy.”

“I can’t forget what he did to Thomas. I never seen a man beheaded like that before.” He said in a smaller voice, “I never seen a man beheaded at all.”

The one named Kinch laughed. “The poor fool kept up for almost a hundred yards before the wire sliced off his head.”

“Imagine pacing a train like that for so long.”

“He would have caught up with the caboose if the boss hadn’t signaled the engineer to highball it,” said Kinch. “Good thing Thomas was far enough back that he didn’t splatter blood all over us.”

A loud cry off from across the rail yard caught the two bulls’ attention. They lit out at a dead run, leaving Ike trembling. He chanced a peek to see if the coast was clear.

“Come on, get to your feet. This’ll be our only chance when they find we’re not halfway across the yard.” When he got no reply, he shook the man’s shoulder. His hand came away sticky with blood. He wiped it on the man’s tattered coat. He swallowed hard when he didn’t get the protest he expected.

The man was dead.