flash the Indian was out the door, feet crunching through the cinderbed as he made a dash for the engine.
Everything was against it, least of all the guard at the rear of the train stepping out far enough to see one of his charges making for the front. One well-placed shot and Iâd be that most useless of creatures, a man with a contraption he didnât know how to run. Try selling that to a man like Harlan A. Blackthorne.
The guard heâd struck opened his eyes, saw me standing over him, and dropped his jaw to cry out. I swung the stick, catching him along the temple. His eyes rolled over white and his head fell back to the floor.
In the next moment I nearly fell myself. The floor lurched forward, my ankles turned, and I flung my shoulder hard against the wall, dropping my stick. Then as the train continued to pull, the floor slid the other way, resisting the pull of the hitch, but by then I had a grip on the frame of the door Joseph had left open and kept my footing. I snatched my hand away just as the door swung shut, sparing my fingers. The boiler chuffed steam, a live cinder from the stack flew through the open window, sizzling when it landed on a rug. I stepped over to crush it out with the toe of a boot, then went back to grasp the senseless guard by the collar, swing the door back open, and heave him outside before we reached lethal speed. At that he struck on his hip and shoulder and rolled three times.
As I pulled the door shut, something split the air by my left ear and knocked a piece out of the mahogany molding near the ceiling in the far corner, exposing raw yellow wood. I heard the report a quarter-second later, a shallow pop in the open air. Another slug starred a window, but had been fired at too shallow an angle to penetrate the glass. Through another window I saw VigÃa Férreo running our way from the direction of town. He stopped, watching the train pick up speed. The face under the neat straw hat showed no emotion. The mathematics tutorâturned-policeman might have been calculating our rate of travel.
There was a thud overhead. I followed the sound to the window Joseph had left open, but laid aside the shotgun in favor of the machete Iâd confiscated from the guard heâd struck. I waited with it raised, staring at the opening.
It took a week for a bone-handled Colt to come through it, clenched in the brown corded hand belonging to the man on the roof. I curled both hands around the macheteâs handle, hesitated to make sure of my grip, and swung it down with the force of an axe. Something hot splashed my cheek. Someone screamed hoarsely. The revolver, still attached to the hand, fell to the floor and slid across it, spraying blood from the stump of the wrist. The trigger finger tensed. The report was deafening in the enclosed space, but the bullet plowed a harmless path across the rug, burrowing like a mole. A moment later something flashed past the window: the rest of the guard Iâd crippled, falling to the earth.
The adobe buildings sped past in a brown swipe. Just then the whistle brayed: a long and a short, followed by two longs, an impudent farewell. I thought that unnecessary. Adding train robbery to my employment history seemed enough without Joseph rubbing salt into an open wound. We were manufacturing enemies the way they cranked out machine parts in Chicago, and we hadnât even begun the climb into the Sierras.
Â
FOURTEEN
A dead hand would make a fierce opponent at arm-wrestling. Luckily for me, this one came without an arm.
I pried the Colt loose, picked the hand and wrist up by the fingers, and pitched it out the window to rejoin its master in whatever afterlife awaited him. The fingers were warm and a little moist. They opened as it fell, like a crumple of paper losing tension or a supplicant asking for mercy.
I see that hand in dreams. At times it pleads, at others beckons. If the damned thing would just strum a guitar, or play a few bars of
Everything was against it, least of all the guard at the rear of the train stepping out far enough to see one of his charges making for the front. One well-placed shot and Iâd be that most useless of creatures, a man with a contraption he didnât know how to run. Try selling that to a man like Harlan A. Blackthorne.
The guard heâd struck opened his eyes, saw me standing over him, and dropped his jaw to cry out. I swung the stick, catching him along the temple. His eyes rolled over white and his head fell back to the floor.
In the next moment I nearly fell myself. The floor lurched forward, my ankles turned, and I flung my shoulder hard against the wall, dropping my stick. Then as the train continued to pull, the floor slid the other way, resisting the pull of the hitch, but by then I had a grip on the frame of the door Joseph had left open and kept my footing. I snatched my hand away just as the door swung shut, sparing my fingers. The boiler chuffed steam, a live cinder from the stack flew through the open window, sizzling when it landed on a rug. I stepped over to crush it out with the toe of a boot, then went back to grasp the senseless guard by the collar, swing the door back open, and heave him outside before we reached lethal speed. At that he struck on his hip and shoulder and rolled three times.
As I pulled the door shut, something split the air by my left ear and knocked a piece out of the mahogany molding near the ceiling in the far corner, exposing raw yellow wood. I heard the report a quarter-second later, a shallow pop in the open air. Another slug starred a window, but had been fired at too shallow an angle to penetrate the glass. Through another window I saw VigÃa Férreo running our way from the direction of town. He stopped, watching the train pick up speed. The face under the neat straw hat showed no emotion. The mathematics tutorâturned-policeman might have been calculating our rate of travel.
There was a thud overhead. I followed the sound to the window Joseph had left open, but laid aside the shotgun in favor of the machete Iâd confiscated from the guard heâd struck. I waited with it raised, staring at the opening.
It took a week for a bone-handled Colt to come through it, clenched in the brown corded hand belonging to the man on the roof. I curled both hands around the macheteâs handle, hesitated to make sure of my grip, and swung it down with the force of an axe. Something hot splashed my cheek. Someone screamed hoarsely. The revolver, still attached to the hand, fell to the floor and slid across it, spraying blood from the stump of the wrist. The trigger finger tensed. The report was deafening in the enclosed space, but the bullet plowed a harmless path across the rug, burrowing like a mole. A moment later something flashed past the window: the rest of the guard Iâd crippled, falling to the earth.
The adobe buildings sped past in a brown swipe. Just then the whistle brayed: a long and a short, followed by two longs, an impudent farewell. I thought that unnecessary. Adding train robbery to my employment history seemed enough without Joseph rubbing salt into an open wound. We were manufacturing enemies the way they cranked out machine parts in Chicago, and we hadnât even begun the climb into the Sierras.
Â
FOURTEEN
A dead hand would make a fierce opponent at arm-wrestling. Luckily for me, this one came without an arm.
I pried the Colt loose, picked the hand and wrist up by the fingers, and pitched it out the window to rejoin its master in whatever afterlife awaited him. The fingers were warm and a little moist. They opened as it fell, like a crumple of paper losing tension or a supplicant asking for mercy.
I see that hand in dreams. At times it pleads, at others beckons. If the damned thing would just strum a guitar, or play a few bars of
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