“Got on at Neosho. Cowhand, I guess.”
Then the girl said lightly, “His name's Joe Grant, Marshal. He works for my father. We've got an oil lease in Kiefer.”
“I see.” The deputy turned again to Grant, and Grant could see the snub-barreled Remington cradled in the officer's arm. “Well, his hair's not the right color anyway. No sense waking him, I guess.”
Slowly, very slowly, Joe Grant started to breathe again. But he remained very still until he heard the deputies leave the train—until he heard them get on their horses and ride away—until he heard the conductor give the signal to the engineer and the train started to move. Only then did he allow himself to change his cramped position.
Why the girl had lied he did not know. How she had known that he was the man they were looking for he could not guess. He did not care. A girl with that kind of nerve, he thought, I'm just glad she's on my side.
Gently, he tipped his hat off his face and glanced at the girl. She was staring straight ahead, just as she had been doing the whole trip. Tentatively, Grant cleared his throat, but she did not look around.
Grant wiped his forehead on his sleeve. Well, he thought, if this is the way she wants it, this is the way she'll have it! The least I can do is let her alone, if that's the way she wants it.
He lay back in the comer against the car window and pretended to doze, but it was not possible to dismiss this girl from his mind as easily as that. What if that marshal had searched him? The dark hair wouldn't have fooled the lawman long if he had given any reason for suspicion. Grant felt himself go weak when he thought of doing five years in a Missouri prison. That is what he owed the girl for what she had done. Five years of his life!
Once more he looked in her direction, and she seemed even more distant than before. She would not even consent to look at him, or even admit that he was in the car.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS WELL past midnight when the train reached Vinita. The conductor called, “Southbound passengers change trains for McAlester's and the Choctaw Nation.”
The girl across the aisle said, “Conductor, is the lunchroom open?”
“No, ma'am, but passengers can get coffee in the station.” The girl took up a small leather satchel as Grant moved into the aisle. “Can I give you a hand, ma'am?”
She looked at him briefly and coldly. “No, thank you.”
For a moment Grant stood puzzled and frowning as she moved up the aisle and was handed down to the ground by the conductor. All women are puzzles of one kind or another to most men, but Grant had never met the equal of this one. He noted that she had left all her grips on the seat, with the exception of the leather satchel, which meant that she was continuing on toward Tulsa or Red Fork. He guessed he'd never find out what had prompted her to lie for him, as he meant to change to the Katy and head south as soon as possible.
With a shrug Grant hauled his saddle down from the baggage rack and headed toward the end of the car with the other passengers. He dropped stiff-legged to the cinders into a cutting night wind peppered with sleet. Drawing his head into the collar of his windbreaker, he shouldered his saddle and headed toward the yellow lamplight that flowed from the depot's windows.
He could see the other passengers on the inside, huddled around a big wood burner, drinking coffee from tin cups. The aroma of coffee was a welcome smell in the night and Grant hurried his pace a bit. Then he heard the warning chatter of a telegraph key inside the station, and his steps slowed and finally stopped. No telling what would be coming over the telegraph. News of the robbery, maybe. Possibly they had found his dead horse by this time, and his saddle roll. Maybe they'd even talked to the farmer who'd brought him to Neosho.
On second thought Grant decided that he'd rather not be where the lights were too bright or the crowds too thick. He slung his saddle to the ground beside a baggage cart and pressed into a niche beside the semaphore tower. Anyway, he thought, I'm out of the wind. He could wait here till the crowd thinned out and then he could get his coffee and a ticket for Texas.
After a while two cowhands came out of the station and hunched against the depot to light cigarettes. Their heads ducked against the wind, they talked for a moment, then moved off into the shadows on the other side of the depot.
Grant frowned, faintly puzzled as to why the two should prefer to stand in the cold rather than stay in the depot or return to the train.
Fairly soon the westbound passengers began coming out, one at a time, hurrying back to the coaches. Instinctively, Grant hunched deeper into the shadows when he saw the girl come out of the depot, and he smiled faintly. He'd never seen a woman just like this one, and he guessed he'd never see one again. Just the same, he thought, watching her hurrying toward the coaches, I appreciate what you did for me. More than you'll ever know, probably.
He started to step out of his hiding place when he saw the two cowhands racing out of the shadows toward the girl. “Just a minute, ma'am!” one of them called. The girl paused for just an instant, turning toward the man, then she wheeled and ran toward the orange-lighted windows of the coaches.
A short sound of surprise tore itself out of Grant's throat. He shoved himself away from the depot and started running as the girl tripped on her long skirts and fell into the gravel and cinders along the tracks. Grant and the two cowhands arrived at her side at the same instant.
One of the men, Grant noticed, was tall, long-faced, and gangly. The other was almost as tall as his partner, but thick and heavy. The heavy one lunged at Grant with both fists swinging.
Grant saw the ham-sized fist looming in his face. The blow to the side of his face numbed him and he went reeling back against one of the cattle cars. His mouth tasted of salt and blood, his knees felt ready to buckle, but he shoved himself aside in time to escape the big man's second rush. He grabbed blindly, caught the man's sleeve, and with savage satisfaction pumped his own hard right fist into the man's stomach.
He glimpsed the thin man and the girl scrambling on the snow-patched ground for possession of the leather satchel, and then the heavy man came in again. Grant went reeling back under another blow to his face.
For an instant he was dazed; the world tilted sharply and he fell back on his side. All fight had been knocked out of him for the moment. He wanted to quit. Then he heard the girl scream and saw the thin man tear the satchel from her grasp, and suddenly Joe Grant remembered how much he owed her.
“Let's go, Bat!” the thin man yelled. “I've got it!”
But Bat was concentrating at the moment on something else. Suddenly Grant's world stopped its spinning, and he looked up and saw the man's big face grinning down at him. He saw the kick coming but could not move away in time to escape it. Instead, he grabbed at the big square-toed boot, pulled and twisted, and the big man came crashing down in the gravel.
The girl was still screaming. From the corner of his eye Grant glimpsed the thin man racing for the shadows at the end of the depot, and he thought: I guess this is no time to insist on fair play! He grabbed his heavy revolver out of his waistband and hit the big cowhand across the back of the head while he was still falling.
The man called Bat was tough. He grunted, cursed, and started to push himself up to his hands and knees. Grant brought the revolver back again, but the girl shouted, “Let him go! The other one has my money!”
Still dazed, Grant staggered to his feet and leaned for a moment against the cattle car.
“Catch him!” the girl shouted again. “You've got to catch him!”
Grant stared at her. He looked up and saw the racing thin man. I owe it to her, he thought. I'll catch him if it kills me!