Ironhorse

24

I turned and looked back into the coach, row five, west side aisle. The seat was empty.

“No,” I said.

Virgil moved his head up and down very slowly.

“He’s not there,” I said. “There is no preacher sitting there.”

“That’s what I figured,” Virgil said.

Virgil did not turn around; he just remained looking forward up the dark track in front of us. We were still rolling north from the train’s forward momentum.

“I remember him, too,” I said, “but he’s not there now. There’s a freckle-faced redhead by the window.”

“Yep, she was holding on to him and was crying when we came by.”

Virgil had already identified the culprit. The fact that Virgil knew the man who had held up the Bible was not sitting where he was previously did not surprise me. Virgil saw way more than most. Even when things were on tenterhooks, Virgil had the ability to remain perceptive and steady.

Virgil turned and looked back through the open door into the coach. Except for the preacher who was previously sitting in row five, the west side aisle, everyone was looking at Virgil as if they needed some sort of answer. Virgil gave it as he crossed the threshold and walked a few steps down the aisle.

“Everybody get your this and thats in order,” Virgil said. “We will need you to turn off these lamps in a bit, and it will get dark.”

We dragged the dead gunmen out to the platform and slid them off the side. Virgil moved back down the aisle to row five. The redheaded freckle-faced woman who had previously been crying and holding on to the preacher was sitting by the window, looking up at Virgil. Sitting in the west side aisle seat was the preacher’s discarded Bible. Virgil picked it up. He opened the Bible and leafed through it as if he were looking for a passage or verse, then closed it. He looked at the back side of the Bible. Then he dropped it into the seat.

The freckle-faced woman offered Virgil a crooked smile.

“The preacher fellow who was sitting here holding this Bible,” Virgil said. “Was he somebody you knew?”

She shook her head.

“No, sir.”

“How long had he been sitting here?” Virgil asked.

“Not long,” she said.

She looked around at a few passengers sitting near her.

“He just plopped down here, short time before y’all two come through the front door shooting them robbers.”

“He came through the rear door here?” Virgil said.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “The robbers pointed their guns at him. I thought they was gonna shoot him, but he held up his Bible, talking about Jesus, and they didn’t.”

The other passengers sitting nearby nodded in agreement.

“Just preaching he was,” she said, “talking about going to hell. Spewing like it was just shy of noon on Sunday. The robbers told him to sit down and shut up.”

“And the preacher fellow just sat here?”

“He did... but I’m not real sure he was a preacher,” she said. “Well, if he was a preacher he was rather unpreacherly.”

“What was unpreacherly about him?” Virgil asked.

“When the shooting started, I grabbed on to him and I could feel he was carryin’ guns.”

“Guns?” Virgil said. “More than one?”

“Yes,” she said as she looked back and forth between Virgil and me. “Two I know of. One on his hip, one in his coat pocket.”

“When he left this seat,” Virgil said, “was he carrying anything?”

The woman looked up to the luggage rack overhead, then to a few of the passengers that were watching her.

“He had a fancy black suitcase,” she said. “He took it with him when he left through the front there.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Virgil tipped his hat and started to move, but the freckle-faced woman spoke up.

“It was hard for him with the luggage,” she said. “He had but one arm. His left arm was wood, and he had a hand that was carved and painted to look normal, but it was not.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said. Virgil looked a me. Then he looked to the rest of the passengers.

“We need to get these lamps off, folks,” Virgil said.