Ironhorse

20

In an instant, I swiveled back a step and kicked the door right under the brass lever, knocking the bandit on the other side backward. He raised his pistol, but I shot him first. Virgil shot a skinny bandit behind him who managed to clear leather with his pistol. Vince had just entered the rear door but was backing out. Dean was with another robber, five rows from the rear of the coach. He had another revolver and got off a shot as he backed up. The bullet pinged off the ceiling. Virgil’s shot hit Dean in the chest. The fourth bandit also got off a shot, but it hit the back of the seat just to my left, and I sent two shots to him and he fell back. Vince got his Hopkins & Allen pointing at me. He fired a shot that registered just above my head. Then he ducked back out the rear door before I could get a clear shot. Virgil shot just as Vince closed the door, and we could hear Vince yell, “Goddamn it! Goddamn it!”

The coach was full of blue smoke, and except for the cowering and stunned passengers, the car was now empty of gun hands.

A fearful freckle-faced woman clutched a preacher holding up a tattered Bible like it was a shield as Virgil and I moved down the aisle.

“I’m Marshal Virgil Cole; this is my deputy, Everett Hitch!”

“God bless you,” the preacher said as I followed Virgil. “God bless you!”

We moved swiftly down the aisle. An old fellow with a beard stood, offered his hand. “Much obliged, Marshal.”

“Sit down!” Virgil said. “Stay seated! Everybody stay seated!”

The old man promptly sat down.

“We got them on their heels,” I said. “They’re backing up.”

“They are,” Virgil said.

We stepped over Dean and the other robber’s body. I thought about what Virgil had said to Dean. Virgil was a man of his word. He kept his promise to everyone, including Dean. He gave Dean a chance to be counted, but Dean did not take it, and now he was dead.

When we got to the rear door, Virgil shifted to one side and I shifted to the other. Virgil edged his body over so he was not in front of the door and lowered himself to where he was sitting back on his heels. He opened the loading gate on his Colt and reloaded.

“If it weren’t for that telegram you received in Laredo,” I said, “we’d be riding through hill country, watching dancing girls in San Antonio, taking our leisurely time getting back to Appaloosa. Fact, though, we’ve wound up on a train, chasing some of the meanest no-goods we’ve ever come across.”

“It’s what we do, Everett,” Virgil said. “We’re lawmen.”

I opened the loading gate on my revolver and dumped the empty casings.

“Beside that fact,” Virgil said, “we got unsettled business with the lot of them.”

“That we do,” I said as I reloaded bullets back into the Colt’s chamber. “Some point, though, I ’spect you’ll be telling me about that damn telegram?”

Virgil didn’t say anything. He slowly cracked open the door.