Ironhorse

6

I dropped to the aisle floor, then stayed low and moved toward the rear door. I passed over the top of Redbeard and the dead man with the Schofields and made my way out the door.

By the time I climbed the ladder to the roof of the car, Virgil was ahead of me by two cars. He was heading to the front of the train, to the engine. The locomotive was belching heavy smoke as I walked forward on the roof of the coach, following Virgil.

The train was still on an uphill grade, chugging through a deep gorge of red sandstone and quartz. Through a cloud of thick smoke ahead, Virgil stopped and crouched down. He was all the way to the front end of the first coach, just behind the tall tender car that carried the rock coal. I kept on the move and made my way over the top of the next car, and the next, and the next.

As I jumped to the forward car, the train cleared the gorge and started slowing down. To my left, there were three riders with a number of saddled horses keeping pace with the train.

No sooner did I see them than they saw me. The rider in the front pulled a Winchester from his scabbard, swing-cocked it, and rounded it in my direction, but before he could pull the trigger, Virgil shot him.

The rider tipped over in the saddle and fell under the herd, which prompted the other two riders to pull up.

I kept walking steadily forward and moved up next to Virgil, who crouched behind the tall tender. I looked back behind us; the riders faded away in the distance as the train continued moving north.

Besides being a steady and confident gunman, Virgil was one hell of a shot, best I’d ever seen, and that was one hell of a shot.

Virgil looked at me, rose up a bit, and pointed over the top of the tender toward the engine cabin. We could barely see the engineer and his fireman, but we could see enough to know they were being held at gunpoint by two of the bandits. The engine was loud, but the bandits had heard Virgil’s shot. They were looking out from one side of the cabin to the other. Virgil pointed, motioning for us to move up over the top of the tender to the engine cabin, and in an instant, we did just that. We moved fast and rushed the cabin.

Virgil shouted, “Drop ’em!”

The bandits did not drop their guns. They raised them instead, but they were too late. Virgil shot the one on the left. I shot the one on the right. They never fired a shot. By the time the thieves hit the cabin floor, Virgil and I were to the front end of the tender, looking down into the engine cabin at the shocked faces of the engineer and his fireman.

We kept our pistols on the bandits as we climbed down into the engine cabin. One bandit lay sideways on the floor — he’d been shot in the head — and the other was on his back, shot in the chest. They were both dead.

Virgil showed his badge.

“I’m Marshal Virgil Cole. This is my deputy, Everett Hitch.”

The engineer and the fireman were both huge men, with strong arms and overalls covered in soot.

The engineer slid up his goggles, revealing white circles around his eyes.

“Thank God you showed,” the engineer said.