Ironhorse

37

Bob laughed loudly again. He was enjoying himself. I suppose this encounter had been a long time coming for Bob, considering Virgil was the one responsible for the lead in Bob’s throat and his however many years spent in Huntsville.

“Yeah, you got soft,” Bob said. “Probably eating cakes and candies, too.”

Just like Virgil said he would, Bob stepped out quick. He managed to get a shot off, but Virgil shot him, twice. Bob dropped his rifle in the aisle and staggered back to the platform rail. He leaned on the rail like he was bellying up to the bar.

“You fuck,” Bob said. “Aww...”

“Slow us down, Everett,” Virgil said.

The wind was moving through the coach, and we were rolling pretty fast now. I thought about what Whip had said, about going too fast. I stepped out onto the downhill platform and turned the brake wheel. The brakes engaged, making a screeching, grinding sound, and sparks shot out from the undercoach. I let up some, maintaining a pressure that was firm but not too hard. The last thing we needed was for the chain to break. I looked back through the coach. Virgil was standing square in the aisle, facing Bob. Bob was still standing next to the platform rail. After a moment, the coach started to slow.

Virgil took a few steps toward Bob and stopped.

“What are you doing on this train?” Virgil said.

“I ain’t on the train. Fact is, I’m in a goddamn coach with two holes in me ’cause you just shot me.”

“You shot first.”

“I did at that.”

“You had a choice.”

“I did at that,” Bob said, “and a goddamn good choice I made. If I knowed for a fact it was you, you lilac son of a bitch, and Hitch I was shootin’ at, I would’a took better aim! Fucking do-gooders, the both of ya.”

We were now traveling slowly, but the wind was whipping through the coach. I stepped into the coach just behind Virgil.

“Hell, fuck,” Bob said quietly. “Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.”

Bob turned slightly, facing directly toward us. It looked as though he was shot high in the chest and high in the side. Which was consistent with Virgil’s style and pattern, tight and high. Virgil always shot high on the body. As long as I had been with Virgil, I never saw him put a bullet in a man’s gut.

Bob leaned over and spit. “Shit.”

He was holding his side with his left hand just under his armpit. His other hand held on to the platform rail, and his body moved ever so slightly with the rhythmic side-to-side motion of the coach as we continued rolling.

“Y’all,” Bob said, “are most likely teetotalers, too, I ’magine.”

Bob moaned and leaned back on the rail. A blast of wind whipped through the coach, and the door between Bob and us slammed shut, and the remaining glass in the door shattered. In an instant Bob was no longer standing there. Virgil and I moved quickly up the aisle with guns ready. We opened the door and stepped onto the platform, but Bob was gone.

“Stop us, Everett,” Virgil said. “Get us stopped.”

We were still rolling pretty fast. I turned the brake wheel some more, and we started to slow again, but I had to take it easy.

“What the hell was he doing?” I said. “Don’t make good sense, don’t seem practical, Bob coming up this track, Virgil.”

“Good sense ’n practical don’t have nothing to do with Bloody Bob Brandice.”

Virgil did not want to take any chances with Bloody Bob being on the loose. Since it was, in fact, Bloody Bob we’d encountered, Virgil didn’t want to leave him to do more of what Virgil knew firsthand Bob was capable of doing.

“I guess the fact we’d been identified as being on this train and the fact there was a lone coach drifting down the track was good enough for Bob to start shooting,” I said.

“That’s right,” Virgil said. “And if it just happened to be nuns or children he shot, so be it. Makes no difference to Bloody Bob who he shoots. If he didn’t get me and he killed somebody else, he’d just put ’em on a spit and have ’em for late supper.”