Blaze of Glory

*****

The steam whistle ripped the air and echoed off the nearby cliffs as black smoke rose above the canyon; the Union Pacific train had arrived. Jack Diamond and his gang of outlaws watched from a distance, their horses at the ready. Months of planning had led up to this heist. Ever since they learned about the precious cargo on board, $500,000 in gold and silver bars being sent from Cheyenne to the mint in Denver, they had dreamed of this moment. They had an informant inside the railroad company, who had given them the precise itinerary of the train. Jack had begun planning in earnest. They had scouted the best spot to hit it. They decided on a narrow pass in the mountains just before a gorge spanned by a hundred-foot-tall wooden bridge, at Sherman Hill. They purchased dynamite, with which to blow the safe if needed. They thought everything was under control.

They couldn't be more wrong.

There were several things the outlaws didn't know. None of them knew that the train was protected by a team of Pinkerton agents, who had been tipped off about the robbery. They also didn't know that the agents had been tracking them for over a year now. Nor did they know that the agents were ready to protect the train and its passengers at all costs. They had no clue that the safe was rigged to blow if tampered with.

They were about to realize they had walked into a nightmare.

*****

A few months earlier Jack had been in Laramie Wyoming sitting at a corner table at his usual hang-out, a saloon. The room was dark and smokey, lit by only oil lamps. The smell of hand-rolled cigarettes hung thick in the air. There were brass cuspidors at the foot of each table, but the floor was covered with sawdust just in case.

Against one wall stood an upright piano. The piano player sat and hammered at the keys as if trying to beat a song out of the thing. He attacked the keys as if they had assaulted him in a previous life and it gave the tinny sound of the piano a rougher edge. Against the opposite wall was the bar. Polished mahogany with ebony inlay greeted many a dusty cowboy fresh off of the trail. But the star attraction here was the Rubenesque painting of a naked woman that was shown proudly behind the bar, in place of the standard mirror.

The place was packed full. Each table had four or five people at it. Some played poker, others bucked the tiger at the farro tables. Jack sat quietly, watching everyone with a cold calculation. After a run-in with a bounty hunter down in Colorado, he had been on edge.

He sat with his back to the corner to watch the room for any perceived threat. He had a half-empty bottle of Red Eye on the table before him and a lousy pair of deuces in his hand. He had won a few hands earlier, but he had hit a slump. The cards just weren't coming. It seemed like he hadn't hit a decent hand in an hour.

He was looking for a new score, something big and easy, something that would set him up for life. He was starting to feel old, almost as if time was running out. If he could get one more good job perhaps his luck would change.

He was about to fold his hand when a boy stepped into the bar calling his name. He glanced over and saw the messenger heading his way. Jack had befriended Billy a few days ago on a visit to the telegraph office and had paid him a few dollars to keep an eye out for any messages addressed to him.

Jack got up from his seat, leaving his cards and the whiskey behind. A surge of excitement came over him as he wondered. Maybe this was it, maybe this was the break he had been waiting for.

He reached Billy and took the message from his hand. He read it quickly, his eyes widening. It said:

"DIAMOND STOP HAVE JOB FOR YOU STOP MEET ME AT INTER-OCEAN HOTEL CHEYENNE STOP AM LEAVING OMAHA NOW STOP WILL ARRIVE CHEYENNE ON 18TH STOP BRING YOUR GUNS AND YOUR GUTS STOP JONES"

Jack smiled. Samuel Jones was his old friend and partner in crime. They had worked together on several jobs before and had always split the loot fairly. Jones was a smart and reliable man, and he had a knack for finding the best opportunities. If he said he had a juicy job, he meant it.

He had not heard from Sam in years, not since the fiasco at the bank back in Fort Worth. A few members of their gang had died then, others were wounded. Jack got away by heading out the back door to the alleyway. He stole a horse and headed for greener pastures up North. He knew nothing of what happened to the members of his gang, save for the ones he saw fall, their corpses bloody and riddled with bullets.

Jack folded the message and tucked it in his pocket. He thanked Billy and tossed him a silver dollar. He then grabbed his hat and his coat and headed for the door. He had to get ready, he had to pack his bags and his guns. He had to catch the next stage to Cheyenne. He had a feeling he was onto something big.

"God, it'll be good to see Sam again," he thought.

Jack left the saloon and untied his horse from the tether, before mounting. He rode Diablo towards the corner of Second and Grand Avenue where sat the Laramie House.

The Laramie House was a two-story brick building with 25 rooms. It sported a dining room and a bar. At the back of the place was a billiard room. The Laramie House was opened five years earlier by John and Elizabeth Baker, it was one of the grandest hotels West of the Mississippi.

Jack dismounted Diablo and tethered him to the post outside the hotel's front entrance before entering and making his way up to his room on the second floor. His room was a small and simple space with white plastered walls and a heavy rug on the floor. The room contained a bed, soft and very warm. The room had a dresser and a washstand. There was a chair by the window that looked out onto Second below. It was well worth the two-dollar daily charge.

He entered the room threw his hat on the bed and walked over to the dresser. Jack dipped his hands in the wash basin and splashed it on his face. He looked in the mirror then. He traced the lines on his face with his eyes.

"When did I get this old?" he asked himself.

His eyes followed the line of the scar on his left cheek, given to him as a youth in a knife fight outside Dallas years before. He looked himself in the eyes then. They were hazel and were a real contrast to his long dark hair and mustachio. He sighed and reached for the bed roll on the floor near the dresser. Jack placed it on the bed next to his hat. He then opened his riffle roll to check his long arms.

He kept a Henry repeating rifle, a Sharps .50 caliber, and a sawed-off 12 gauge, in this riffle roll along with the necessary tools for cleaning and upkeep of the weapons. Jack laid this next to his bedroll on the bed. He went to the closet removed a leather bag and began removing what few clothes he brought with him from the dresser and placed them neatly inside the bag. He placed his boxes of ammunition inside the bag before placing it on the bed as well.

"Why hadn't I ever even checked on Sam after Fort Worth?" he thought. Sam had always been able to take care of himself. "Still, I should have found him after the robbery instead of selfishly heading to Wyoming territory." he reasoned.

Jack walked slowly over to the bed and sat with his face in his hands for a moment before looking out the window at the setting sun. There would be one more stagecoach leaving for Deadwood tonight, and he knew he had to be on it.

The Deadwood Stage would get him from Laramie to Cheyenne in about 18 hours, before traveling to the Black Hills of the Dakotas and the raucous boomtown of Deadwood. Its offices stood close enough to the livery stables that he could board Diablo there, then walk over to the stage office to purchase a ticket to Cheyenne.

Jack checked his Colt revolvers he always wore and his Bowie. Jack put on his hat, gathered his belongings, and headed out the door. He walked down the stairs of Laramie House and up to the front desk and settled his bill with the hotel.

After paying the few dollars he owed for his room, Jack walked out into the waning sunlight and mounted Diablo. He rode in the direction of the livery stables. He passed other saloons and a couple of brothels on his way. Laramie was a town full of trouble. It was the kind of town where he could easily disappear, fading into the shadows like some mythical creature of old. No one took much notice of him, as long as he behaved himself.

Most of the time, Jack did behave himself. He was a likable guy who was slow to anger. Once he got angry, though he was fierce. Enmity had nearly gotten him killed far too often in his youth. Once, outside Dallas, for instance, he attacked a man who had been heckling him at the bar. An older man had been joking about Jack's babyface appearance at the time. Jack had ignored the man at first, but the guy just wouldn't stop pestering him. Eventually, others at the bar joined in, laughing at Jack and his seemingly impotent rage. Jack sat there, at the bar, seething. His blood boiling as he filled with rage. Jack left the bar and waited for the man outside. He stood in the corner of a dark alleyway, waiting for the man to come out. He stood and replayed all of the jokes and insults over and over, stoking his anger into a fire only violence could quell.

Finally, the man exited the saloon and started walking his way. The man was roaring drunk, of course, so Jack thought he might have a chance against him. Jack stepped from the shadows, his father's old Bowie in his right hand, and lunged at the stranger. The man quickly stepped to the side and used Jack's momentum to throw him to the ground. The Bowie fell from his hands as Jack hit the ground and slid just out of his reach.

Jack rolled over then. The drunken man stood over him with his knife drawn. The man fell on top of Jack, the man's entire weight heavy on his chest. The man held the razor tip of the Texas Toothpick under Jack's eye. The cold steel of the knife's razor edge spurred his will to action as the stranger moved it toward his throat. Knowing that he had to act quickly, or his young life would be over, Jack seized the man by the wrist and twisted it with all his ferocity. The stranger howled in pain and dropped his knife. Jack, moving quickly, kicked the man off him and onto his back on the street, grasping his broken wrist in pain. Jack lunged for his Bowie.

The man was also up and holding his knife in his other hand, he lunged at Jack who dodged his attack and slashed his knife across the man's face. The man's scream could be heard blocks away as he clutched his bleeding eye. Seeing his opportunity Jack stabbed the man in the heart. The stranger fell to the dirt, dead.

A warm trickle ran down his face. He touched the wound. He came away with blood on his fingers. Jack discovered the man had cut him as he moved the blade closer to Jack's throat. Cursing he looked around. A few people were watching him from the windows of the inn. They probably couldn't see what had happened too well in the darkened streets, but he knew they would piece everything together, so he had to get out of there quickly. Jack ran to his horse and after mounting it, galloped away into the darkness leaving behind a corpse and a legend.

*****

Henry Jones entered the offices of his superior, Capt. Charles Watson. It was early September and Chicago was already starting to see a few flurries. He had rushed to his Captain's office in the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in such a hurry that he forgot to dust the flakes from his hat and coat.

"I've gotten a lead on Diamond," Jones said.

"Tell me what you've got," Watson demanded.

"An informant at the Union Pacific office says Diamond should be in Cheyenne soon to plan to hit the Union Pacific as it heads to the mint in Denver," he told Watson.

"Are you sure? When is this supposed to happen?" Watson asked his deputy.

"The source is reliable, sir," Jones replied. "He said details are still being worked on and the train isn't going to depart from Nebraska for several weeks. They'll be hauling gold and silver bars worth around $500,000."

"Henry, this could be the break we've been needing." Watson began. "We've been waiting for him to get desperate. A fortune in gold will be too tempting for Diamond to pass up. This is our chance to bring Diamond down."

"Agreed, sir," Jones replied. "Our informant says he will let us know what else he learns and pass any new information on to us."

"Good," Watson said in dismissal of his deputy who dutifully left the office.

Captain Watson had been chasing after Jack Diamond and his gang for over a year now. They had robbed two banks and multiple stages around Wyoming, and Colorado over the past four years. He'd been assigned the case after a couple of passengers tried to stop one such robbery. The gang had killed the two in a shootout and Watson was assigned the case a week later.

He'd sent agents to the areas the gang was thought to frequent seeking information. Most people either knew nothing or decided they were better off saying nothing. Much of the time his agents would return with little more than what they already knew. But each new piece of information added another piece to the puzzle. Eventually, Watson would have enough pieces in their proper places to catch the gang.

He knew that if he kept chipping away at Jack's defenses, someone in the gang would slip up. Watson would bust through the barrier between Jack and himself and arrest the gang. He was certain of it. It was only a matter of time. It always happened, outlaws were much like shooting stars, burning bright against the night sky before petering out to nothing.

Getting a few agents onto that train may be his best shot at capturing Diamond. He began then to devise a plan to do just that. When Diamond and the gang hit the train, Watson and his agents will be hiding onboard. He'll have a few agents in plain clothes, posing as passengers. Others, including himself, will guard the safe itself.

He'll have agents in plain clothes board the train as it leaves west from Omaha. Having them on board from the beginning of the trip should guarantee they won't be discovered by the outlaws, or anybody else before he springs his trap. He'll have the agents wait for a predetermined signal before letting their presence be known.

Watson started making the arrangements almost immediately. He sent an agent to the Western Union office to send a warning to the railroad company