Chapter 19

"Say, Pat.

"Yessor, Mr. Hennessey, sor."

"Ye ever hear of a bunch called The Brotherhood?"

"Yessor, Mr. Hennessey, sor. I hear of 'um frum time ta time. They's a bad crowd ta cross, I hear. They gives our folks a real hard time."

"Well, I jus' thunk uv a way we kin pay 'um back fer some uv that trouble. An', at the same time, we kin make a penny er two fer our own selves."

"How's that, Mr. Hennessey, sor?

"It's kinda complicated. I ain't shore ye wud unnerstand, but I'll give it a try. There's a company buildin' a railroad line 'tween here an' Laredo. One day, it'll make a shit pot full uv money, but, right now, it ain't worth much. I think that our Shamrock Gang kin take it over with only a little money spent an' we can sell it later fer a pretty penny."

"Yessor, Mr. Hennessey, sor, I follows thet, but what's it got ta do with The Brotherhood?"

"Well, ye see, they're the scapegoat. We makes the railroad lose enough money an' they'll be fer sale fer a penny on the dollar. Alls we have ta do is make it look like The Brotherhood is the villain doin' all the bad stuff. An' the cops and the Rangers will be chasin' up a blind alley after The Brotherhood while the Shamrock Gang pockets the profits."

"Mr. Hennessey, sor, that's brilliant! When do we start?"

Capt. Johnson called Sean and Ezra into his office and had them sit down. They knew they were in for trouble when he offered them cigars; they took them, of course. After all three had lit up, Capt. Johnson said, "Well, boys, I got some bad news fer me. I'm goin' to lose y'all. Today is the last day y'all'll be workin' fer me."

"Shit, Cap'n, what'd we do? We must of screwed up real bad, but I swear I don't know what it was!" lamented Ezra.

"Oh, hell, Ezra, I was jus funnin' y'all a little bit. Maj. MacGregor sent me a telegram yesterday detaching y'all from this office and recallin' y'all to Austin to be special agents reportin' directly to him. I don't know yet ifen it's a permanent change, but it might be, or it might be only fer a few days or a few weeks. Whatever it turns out to be, I wanted y'all to know how much I liked havin' y'all under my command. Ifen it does turn out to be permanent, I want y'all to stop by an' say howdy every chance ya git. Ya're 'sposed to cotch the next stage to Austin, so git outa here afore I start cryin'. Adios!"

Sean said, "Adios, Cap'n, an' thank ya from both of us!"

Three days later, Sean and Ezra reported to Maj. MacGregor's office and were ushered into his inner office without delay. They saluted and sat in the indicated seats. "I'm glad to see y'all men report so soon. We got a big problem showin' itself an' we need to squelch it as soon as we kin. It looks like The Brotherhood got itself back together a whole lot quicker than we ever thought it could.

"They're back after a railroad, again, an' this time it's the new one under construction runnin' toward Laredo. The Austin and Laredo RR is about half built an' its runnin into all kinds of trouble from attacks. It's hard fer them to find men willin' to work fer what they kin pay, so they got work gangs made up of Mexicans, colored, and Irish. At least, they got sense enough to keep them separate and working on different parts of the line, but all three gangs are bein' hit by raiders. The Mexicans and the colored are gittin' hit more often an' they're quittin', rather than face the raiders shootin' at them.

"The governor wants these raiders stopped an' he wants them stopped now! Col. Jordon and I thought of y'all as the best men we got to go after the raiders an' stop the attacks on the railroad. Y'all have got some experience with The Brotherhood, an' y'all got experience as detectives, so we're dependin' on y'all to save the A&L's bacon. My secretary will give ya what information we have on the situation. Good Luck! Dismissed."

They saluted and went to see the secretary. They picked up the folder on the case and went back to the barracks to review it. After spending a few minutes looking at the meager information, Ezra said, "Shit! There ain't enough here to be worth spit! Looks to me like most of this come from newspaper reports an' not real detectives."

"I agree. Lets go git a beer somewheres and see what we kin figure out."

They adjourned to a saloon frequented by Rangers and bellied up to the bar. Each bought a beer and went over to sit in the chairs along the wall. "OK, now I kin think," muttered Ezra. "What we gona do, Sean? Ya're the brains of this outfit."

"I don't know what we can do, 'cept take a ride out to the last place what was attacked and see what we can find."

"Yeah, but that won't be much. It's been a week since the last attack. Any sign'll be blown away by now."

"I know that, but we gots to do sumpthin' or the major will think we're goofin' off."

They finished their beers and went to the railroad yard to find out if a work train was headed out any time soon. "Yeah, y'all jus' got time to cotch it, ifen y'all hurry. Y'all kin put yer hosses on a flat car, but y'all'll have to stay with 'em while ya're movin'."

"We kin do that. Which way is it? Come on, Ezra."

They found the train's conductor and explained what they were about. He helped them get their horses on the flat car and the train pulled out. The ride was very uncomfortable from all the cinders flying from the engine. Ezra remarked, "It's a damn good thin' we blindfolded the hosses afore we started out; otherwise, they'd be blind from all the cinders afore we could git where we're goin'."

"That's true, but it's still faster than ridin' a hoss all the way."

The train came to a shuddering, grinding halt just before they reached the first work crew. "What the hell! Them are shots! Raiders!" were some of the shouts heard up and down the length of the train. Sean and Ezra rushed to get their horses off the flat car and ready to ride. As soon as they could, they pulled their shotguns from the scabbards and rode toward the fray.

"Look, Sean! They're not shooting at the workers, they're shooting over their heads! What the hell is goin' on?"

Soon, the Rangers were noticed and the shooting was no longer over anybody's head. Immediately, Sean and Ezra returned the fire with their lever action shotguns. The range was a bit long, but they scored a few hits. However, at this range, the hits did not produce serious wounds, but were enough to drive away the raiders. Sean and Ezra pursued the raiders only long enough to be certain that they were not going to return. The two Rangers turned around and headed back to the site of the attack.

The gang foreman was profuse in his thanks at the Rangers' timely action. He was very excited and very difficult to understand through his thick Irish accent. Sean and Ezra finally calmed the man down and discovered that the attack had started only moments before the train arrived. Nobody was injured, but many of the workmen were scared shitless. There were threats to quit right and left, but the foreman finally got things calmed down and everybody back to work.

Sean and Ezra decided to follow the trail of the attackers and see where it led. The trail was easy to follow; you don't hide the tracks of ten horses. Unfortunately, the trail was lost when it reached a well-traveled road. Ezra determined that some of the riders went one way on the road and the rest of the riders went the other way. None of the horses had distinctive shoes which were easy to spot when they were mixed in with a lot of other tracks.

The Rangers rode back to the work site in hopes of picking up a lunch before they took the work train back to Austin. Both men were bemused by the fact that all that shooting had produced no bullet wounds among the Irish workers. On the other hand, the raiders appeared to have no compunction about shooting at Rangers.

After lunch, they rode the train up to the colored and Mexican work crews where they found that several workers in either gang had been wounded by bullets fired by the raiders.

"Ezra, this is crazy! The raiders are shooting at Mexicans an' colored workers, but not at Irish workers. What does that tell you?"

"I think it means that they don't care about the Mexicans or colored, but do care about the Irish. That jus' don't sound like The Brotherhood. The Irish are catholics an' The Brotherhood hates catholics. I don't get it."