Bandits in Dingstown E-Book

Axel Jansen

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Sheriff Jimjohn was a bit twitchy. Today the stagecoach would bring the wages for the railwaymen and he had gathered his deputies to protect their little town Dingstown in Texas from any kind of bandits and other vagabonds. Would the reckless Mexican bandits show up? Who are the strangers that arrived yesterday in town? Why does the Marshal in Waco not respond to his request for reinforcements? But they were prepared. Let's see what the day brings.

Leseprobe

Axel Jansen

Bandits in Dingstown

An adventure in the Old West

To my friends of the Saturday role playing groupBookRix GmbH & Co. KG80331 Munich

Prologue

It was Wednesday morning. The sun had risen about an hour ago and Sheriff Jimjohn had already washed himself in the barrel of cold water outside his office. Of course, he had only washed his face - too much body care should not be healthy, as one heard. It was considered unmanly to take a bath more than twice a month. He dried himself with a worn-out towel that must have been white a long time ago.

He liked his job a lot, at least as long as everything was quiet and he didn't have to do more than drag a couple of drunken guys out of Rogan's bar and put them in the drunk tank until they had their head cleared and didn't get their noses broken and front teeth knocked out while arguing for a few dollars. When the opponents had slept it off, he could usually release them and watch them return to Rogan's Bar in harmony to make their peace over a good glass of beer. Or two.

Otherwise, his everyday life consisted of sitting in the rocking chair in front of his office, pulling his hat deep onto his forehead against the bright sun, and watching the hustle and bustle on Dingstown's main street.

Dingstown was a small but growing town in Texas, located on the railway line under construction from Austin (via Fort Harrison and Waco) to Dallas. At least for the time being. As fast as the railroad network had spread since the civil war, one could bet that the steam horse might not stop in Dallas and would seek connection to the railroad network in the territories beyond the state border of Texas.

Dingstown did not yet have a real train station, but only a simple wooden boardwalk for passengers to get off and a water tower for passing locomotives. Since the current end point of the section wasn’t too far away, the locomotives were not dependent on being supplied in Dingstown, but this would change the further the line was extended, as the next station was only to be built about twelve miles away.

As long as the railway line was not completed, most long-distance travel was still managed by wagon and stagecoach. That reminded Sheriff Jimjohn of what he would face today and his face darkened.

Today the stagecoach would come from Waco and bring the box with the weekly wages for the railway workers. This time the extra payments for the executives of the "Texas Railway Corporation", short "Texway", would be brought as well. This included the annual bonuses for the engineers, the Texway Section Commissioner and a few other "higher-income earners". It wouldn't be little money.

Sheriff Jimjohn didn't really want to think about why the Texway had to pay out the money for all these men at once (no one in the southwest noticed that there were no women among these key people). ‘Why didn't they spread it over several months?' he asked himself. Here in the middle of nowhere between Waco and Dallas there was no opportunity to spend the money anyway, even if Rogan would double the prices for the whisky in his bar and Miss Violet’s girls worked overtime in her "hotel".

But the Railway Company would have its reasons and he couldn't do anything about it now anyway.

Jimjohn was glad that he got his fixed monthly salary, which would come from Waco with the stagecoach in two weeks, if the District Marshall didn't forget to go to the bank in time - again.

Jimjohn didn't care much about the dollars. He had enough to make ends meet, pay his black housekeeping lady reasonably and occasionally add a little extra if she did him a favor. Jimjohn was not married. This was not unusual in this remote section of the world, where not many respectable women showed up. It's a shame, because a little more femininity would not only enhance Dingstown’s streets (the main street and the few small side streets) visually, but also soften the sometimes rather bawdy tone of the conversations. It was rough here, but as long as this was the case, Jimjohn’s job was safe.

The sheriff thought that the usual brawls and occasional cattle thefts would be enough to occupy the criminal riffraff in Dingstown. However, he was afraid that the big money transport might attract a more sinister criminal element that could be roaming the area.

Some unwelcome guests

For a few months, a band of bandits had been around in the area of Waco. They were Mexicans whose families had lived in Texas for many generations and some of them had worked as railway workers for the Texway.

These Mexican bandits were known under the nickname "The TexMex", given to them as a snarky name, but they proved to be much tougher and rougher than the name would indicate. Their leader was a smart elegant looking guy who called himself Señor Rodriguez. If the rumors are right, his handful of Mexicans had been joined by the German-born trapper Karl Coat and young Bill from one of the more distant farms, both men possessed with apparently too much adventurous spirit.

Since the covered wagons drove in columns through the prairie (calling them a trek would be exaggerated here, but if it went on like that...) and each stagecoach had at least one armed man sitting next to the driver on the coach box. In case of important transfers, an additional gunman sat on the roof, if there was still space next to the luggage.

The cavalry garrison stationed in Fort Harrison had started to ride patrols more frequently and penetrated deeper into inhospitable regions than it had done before. So far without success. The TexMex had always managed to avoid the encounter with the cavalry, only to strike again in an unexpected place. The boys were cunning as they were unscrupulous.

And as if this wasn't enough, for two days a shady person had been floating around in Dingstown. His face with the dark blond hair somehow looked familiar to Jimjohn. He'd looked at the “Wanted” profiles that he kept in the drawer of his desk or hung on the wall of his office, but he hadn't recognized the guy. If only he knew where to put the stranger’s face.

To make matters worse, another shady figure had turned up yesterday, a coarse guy with a cranky face. Appropriately, the lad had registered in the hotel under the name "The Butcher", as the Sheriff had learned inconspicuously. That could be cheerful…

The man could not be overlooked with his exaggeratedly high dented top hat, yellow trousers with a red and green grid pattern on them, his red vest and the bright green jacket. He obviously didn't care to remain unseen. At least he didn't carry a visible weapon or a pistol belt around with him. Apparently he didn't need it.

The other man, whose face looked so strangely familiar to Jimjohn, was dressed more discreetly, but more elegantly than most of Dingstowns residents. Jimjohn estimated his age to be in his early thirties.

The two newcomers tried quite conspicuously to avoid one another and act as if they had nothing to do with each other. But that made them even more suspicious. ‘If they're not in cahoots, I'll eat my Colt Peacemaker,' Jimjohn murmured.

The Sheriff didn't think it was a coincidence that these two men showed up in Dingstown almost at the same time and so shortly before the stagecoach arrived.

After the guys from the Texway railroad company had been yapping all over the place that they wanted to have a good time tonight, everybody knew what the stagecoach would bring.

Miss Violet, who ran the brothel in Dingstown (although officially named as “hotel”), had organized some extra nice girls coming from Waco to take care of the guests. Jimjohn had seen the two young ladies when they came from the improvised train station in a horse-drawn carriage. He had liked the slender dark-haired one, maybe he would spend some of his saved dollars in the hotel tonight or tomorrow. Or wait a little longer, as the prices today would probably be much higher than usual (Miss Violet was enterprising that way).

He got rid of these thoughts. It was now a matter of keeping a cool head and taking precautions for the upcoming hours.