05 Ironhorse (4 page)

“Whether Vince and the gang see their dead lying on the side of the rail or not,” I said, “they know we got control of the engine.”

“Not stopping for their horses,” Virgil said. “They most assuredly do.”

“What do you figure we do?”

“Gonna have to go at ’em.”

“Judging by the number of horses those riders had,” I said, “we got us a handful back there to deal with.”

“We do.”

“Not just Vince we have to be concerned about,” I said. “The whole of that Bragg bunch are no good.”

“They’re mean,” Virgil said. “Bad as they come, and we can’t just wait to get bushwhacked by ’em, either. We’re gonna have to go right at them. Have to be the spider on the fly.”

When the fireman opened the firebox, I looked back behind us, down the side of the tender. The light from the boiler made it possible for me to see a narrow ledge just wide enough to get a foothold running down the length of the tender. The fireman closed the firebox, and again it was dark.

“Open that door again,” I said to the fireman.

The fireman opened the door. I pointed out the narrow ledge to Virgil.

“I’ll make my way back,” I said. “Take a look.”

Virgil leaned out and looked at the ledge.

“Reconnaissance,” I said.

Virgil looked back to me.

“See what I can see,” I said.

Virgil stepped back and tipped his head toward the ledge, giving me the go-ahead.

“Take her easy,” he said.

I leaned my eight-gauge against the cabin wall next to the engineer, stepped off the platform and onto the narrow ledge. I crawled sideways down the side of the tender toward the front coach. When I got to the back of the tender, I could see light coming from inside the first coach. I edged my eye around the corner to see what I could see and almost fell as I jerked back, seeing what I saw. I quickly took a step back toward the engine, but my foot slipped, and this time, I fell.

After all the Indians I’d been up against and the years of taking on gun hands, a damn night train was gonna get me?

I was headed for the fast-moving earth below, but I caught a grab iron, a goddamn short piece of bar that attached to the side of the tender, and pulled hard, pulling myself back up to the ledge. I caught my breath, settled, and worked my way back to the front of the tender. By the time I made it to the back landing of the engine cabin, I was breathing hard. I pulled my Colt and motioned toward the coach.

“Four men in the breach of the door,” I said. “Got two women, both wearing white dresses.”

“The daughters,” Virgil said.

“They dragged them from the Pullman,” I said. “Brought ’em to the forward for a reason.”

“By God they did.”

“Using them as barter.”

“Or shields,” Virgil said.

“Force them to come over the tender in front of them,” I said. “We drop iron or they toss the women. We shoot, we risk the women getting shot or falling.”

“Not if we go at ’em first, quick like,” Virgil said. “Like you did, down the side. They won’t figure us coming at them from the flank.”

“Don’t expect they will.”

“That’s it, then,” Virgil said. “Let’s get after ’em.”

Virgil looked to the engineer and pointed north.

The engineer offered a sharp nod, and answered by giving the engine a bit more throttle.

9

WE STARTED OFF.
Virgil stepped from the cabin, walking the narrow ledge on the right side of the tender, and I moved back down the ledge on the left. It was hard to know exactly how this would go down. Virgil and I had been in many distressing situations, but crawling down the side of a fast-moving train in the middle of a dark night posed tall complexities. I thought about Virgil’s bum knee, and how long he would take before he’d get to the back of the tender. One thing I always knew about Virgil was that when his sights were set, time slowed down. I thought of Virgil’s words,
spider on the fly,
as I worked my way along the narrow ledge of the tender. When I got to the end, the first element I slid around the corner of the tender was my Colt with its hammer back; the next was my eye looking down its barrel.

I let lead fly as I locked target and jumped to the platform. My shot made its way to the chest of a large man wearing an open shirt and holding one of the women. He fell back and she dropped to the floor. I saw someone duck out the back coach door.

Virgil was on the platform from the other side, and his first shot caught the side of a robber’s head, splattering blood onto the daughters’ white dresses.

A fat man got off a shot. The bullet hit the doorjamb, splintering pieces of wood onto the platform.

My second shot caught the fat man in the throat. I did not see Virgil’s second shot, but a tall robber fell backward and dropped in the aisle.

Swiftly, in a matter of fleeting moments, there were four dead gunmen and we were in the open doorway of the coach. Both of the young women were safe and on the floor in front of the first passenger seat.

“One hand made it out the back, Virgil,” I said.

Virgil and I stood side by side with our Colts trained to the back of the coach, looking for other robbers. The car was thick with smoke and there was not another bandit left standing. Many of the passengers were covering their ears, eyes, or mouths and, for the most part, were silenced by the instant carnage.

We reloaded. Then I gathered the weapons off the men we’d shot. Virgil looked to the passengers.

“I’m Marshal Virgil Cole; this is my deputy, Everett Hitch. Everybody stay seated and remain quiet. We’ll do our best to rid this train of these thieves.”

Virgil looked down at one of the young women and offered his hand. She looked up and grasped his hand. Virgil helped her to her feet. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped blood from her face. She was pretty. Her face was similar to that of an angel you might see in an old biblical painting. She had rosy cheeks and large eyes. I helped up the other woman, who was also pretty, but more womanly, more slender and tall.

“You two the governor’s daughters?” Virgil said.

The girl with the rosy cheeks and big eyes clutched Virgil’s arm. She was shaking hard and could not say anything. The taller woman spoke.

“We are. I’m Emma; this is my little sister, Abigail.”

Abigail burst into tears. Emma was also shaking but breathing easier than her sister.

“Our . . . our mother and father are back there somewhere,” Emma said and pointed.

“How many guards are with your family?” Virgil asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Emma said. “Two that I know of. Pinkerton men, maybe there were others elsewhere on the train, I don’t know.”

“The two Pinkertons are in your car?” Virgil said.

“They were,” Emma said. “One was stationed at the front of the coach and the other at the rear.”

She looked at me and back to Virgil. Water filled her eyes.

“I’m not for certain,” Emma said, “but I’m pretty sure they are both dead.”

10

VIRGIL WAS WITHOUT
a doubt listening to Emma, but his attention had turned toward the rear of the coach. He moved from Abigail’s clutch and positioned himself square-shouldered, looking at something I had not seen. He took a few steps and stopped. Then he raised his Colt with his arm extended out straight in front of him.

“Dean,” Virgil said. “Get up. Real easy. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

I leaned to the side for a clear look around Virgil, and sitting in the second-to-last row was a lanky gun hand named Dean. Virgil knocked out his tooth years ago on top of the rocky rim above Appaloosa when Dean was riding lookout for Bragg.

“I got my pistola in the side of this here lady’s corsetta,” Dean said. “You take one step closer and I’ll ruin it.”

“Why?” Virgil asked.

“What do you mean, why?” Dean said.

“I’ll kill you if you do,” Virgil said. “So why?”

Dean’s eyes moved from side to side.

“Let me tell you how this will go down, Dean,” Virgil said. “You drop your pistola in the aisle there, stand up with your hands where I can see them. Do like I say.”

Dean didn’t move.

Virgil pulled back the hammer on his Colt. A few of the passengers gasped.

“Okay!” Dean said. “Okay!”

Dean held his pistola out into the aisle and dropped it. He stood up with his hands in the air, stepped into the aisle, and faced Virgil.

“Take a few steps back,” Virgil said.

“What?”

“Right now,” Virgil said.

Virgil was using Dean to block the door. Dean took a few steps and his back was to the door.

“Good,” Virgil said. “What are you and the others doing down here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that.”

“Um . . . just travelin’ the train.”

“Don’t test me, Dean.”

Dean swallowed hard.

“Vince the boss?” Virgil pressed.

Dean looked at Virgil and frowned a bit.

“Is he?”

“He . . . he is,” Dean said.

“This his idea?”

“It is.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Um, we was to ride down to Paris, Texas, and get on this train and . . .”

“And what?”

Dean was sweating. He swayed his head from side to side.

“Rob it.”

“Why this train?”

“Vince said because of the land run happening in the Indian Territory that there would be a lot of people on the train going that direction with money.”

Virgil moved a little closer to Dean and stopped.

“What else?” Virgil said.

“Um . . . well, we did that. We got on back in Paris. We was gonna gather folks’ belongings, then get off and meet our horses right back there, but you and Hitch done changed all that.”

“Lot of horses,” Virgil said. “Your fellow thieves from Bragg’s gang?”

“For the most part.”

“How many are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one?” Virgil said. “Why so many?”

“Don’t know,” Dean said. “Big train.”

“Including the rider,” I said. “We killed nine.”

“That’d leave eleven,” Virgil said.

“It would,” I said.

Dean looked at Virgil and closed one eye.

“Counting me,” Dean said. “That’d be twelve.”

“We ain’t counting you,” Virgil said.

11

DEAN WAS THINKING
hard about why he wasn’t being counted when Virgil interrupted his thought process.

“Turn around, face that door,” Virgil said. “Pull the shade, put your hands above the door.”

Dean did as he was instructed.

Virgil walked down the aisle and picked up the Orbea Hermanos pistola Dean had dropped.

“Don’t think about nothing but keeping your nose to that door, Dean,” Virgil said.

“I won’t.”

Virgil looked to the passengers.

“Anybody here good with a gun and not afraid to use it?”

A sodbuster sitting with a frail woman lifted off his seat slightly and removed a floppy-brimmed hat from his head.

“I don’t got no gun, but I ain’t afraid to use one, ’specially on them,” the sodbuster said, pointing at Dean.

“What’s your name?” Virgil said.

“Ness,” the sodbuster said.

Virgil looked at the young woman by his side.

“This your wife?”

“She is.”

The frail woman offered a nervous, thin-lipped smile.

Virgil checked the chamber of Dean’s pistola. He spun the cylinder to see if it was full, then handed the pistola to Ness.

“That skinny fellow at the door,” Virgil said. “Shoot him if he moves.”

“Yes sir,” Ness said.

An older, dandy-looking gentleman wearing a finely tailored suit stood up from his seat toward the rear of the coach.

“Marshal,” the dandy said. “I’m heeled.”

The dandy pulled a .38 plated short-barrel from his vest pocket and showed it to Virgil.

“I’m a retired veteran of the Army,” the dandy said. “I’ve killed before, and I’m not afraid to do it again.”

“What’s your name?” Virgil asked.

“Cavanaugh,” the dandy said. “Captain Lowell Cavanaugh.”

Virgil pointed to Dean.

“Do the same, Captain,” Virgil said. “Point that short-barrel at him. He makes a move, pull the trigger.”

“That I will do,” Cavanaugh said.

“Hear that, Dean?” Virgil said.

“I do,” Dean said with his nose to the door. “I ain’t moving.”

The locomotive was working hard, chugging up a long, gradual grade. Virgil reached down with one hand, grabbed the collar of one of the dead robbers. He dragged him out of the doorway and slid him off the side of the platform. I followed suit, and a big elderly man gave me a hand. We dragged the dead men out of the doorway and discarded them off the side of the platform and onto the hardscrabble earth passing by.

Virgil stood tall, looking at the passengers.

“Everybody just remain calm. My deputy and I will be best suited if you stay seated and don’t fret.”

Abigail and Emma were standing together in front of the first row of seats, holding hands. Abigail was still shaking. She took a deep breath.

“Marshal,” Abigail said. “What about our mother and father?”

Her voice was much different from her sister’s. It was husky, yet she sounded like a little girl.

Virgil tipped his head to the seat.

“Why don’t you and your sister have a seat,” Virgil said.

Abigail did as Virgil asked and lowered herself onto the seat with her shoulders held back and her chin up, as if she were royalty. Emma stayed standing for a moment, then sat next to her sister.

“We’re gonna do everything we can to get everyone off this train safely,” Virgil said. “Including your mother and father.”

“Thank . . . thank you,” Abigail said with a trembling voice. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I . . . I’m just frightened.”

“I know,” Virgil said. “But me and Everett are here now, and we’re not.”

Abigail lowered her chin. The small move made her eyes appear bigger than they already were as she looked up at Virgil.

“We have been doing this kind of work a long time,” Virgil said. “We are good at it. It’s what we do.”