“A few minutes.”
“One first-class ticket,” he said, peeling off bills from his wad of scrip.
The clerk looked at him strangely.
“You don’t want to know where it’s heading?”
“You said it was going out of town.” The clerk nodded slowly. “That’s where I want to go.”
“How far? First stop’ll be Eagle Pass, then all the way up to El Paso. You can keep riding over to the coast, if that’s your fancy.”
“El Paso’s good,” Ike said. “I’ve never been there.” His mind raced. El Paso del Norte was right across the Rio Grande if he chose to lose himself in Mexico. If he didn’t, the Butterfield Stage ran through nearby Franklin. From there he had a choice of any destination in New Mexico Territory.
Until then, he could relax and watch the Edwards Plateau roll by. There’d be plenty of time to decide once he was far away from San Antonio and Martin Schofield.
Ike took his ticket and stepped onto the metal platform between the first two passenger cars just as the engineer vented a shrill whistle once, twice, a third time to warn that they were pulling out of the station. He clung to an iron handle and watched the rail yard slip past. Then he entered the second car and found a comfortable seat by a window that’d give him a good view toward Mexico all the way to El Paso.
He sank down, closed his eyes and smiled. He had handled things in San Antonio as good as the famous Augustus Yarrow. Now he no longer had to pretend to be someone else, a dangerous someone else. For the first time in a very long time, being Isaac Scott was good enough for him.
CHAPTER NINE
The rocking motion of the train and the rhythmic clacking of wheels against the rails persuaded Ike to slip off to sleep. The past day had been filled to overflowing with gunfights and death and nearly being lynched. He stirred and smiled dreamily at the notion anyone mistook him for a notorious lawman. He ran his fingers under his collar.
“Hanging Judge Parker,” he whispered as he moved around to wedge himself between the seat and the passenger car wall. He rested his head against the cool glass window. His intention of enjoying the countryside slipping past kept him from falling completely asleep. The few times he had ridden a train, he had been in a freight car or hanging on to the connecting rods underneath. Being an actual passenger was a new experience.
“Ticket, sir.”
A hand nudged him. Ike came fully awake, hand going for his six-shooter. Only his cramped position kept the pistol in its holster. He looked up at the conductor who repeated his request.
“Sorry,” Ike said. “I drifted off for a minute.” He fished out the ticket and handed it to the conductor, who studied it, punched out a portion and handed it back.
“You’re paid up all the way to El Paso. If you want to go on to Yuma or beyond that to California, you can buy another ticket at the depot. You’ll have to switch trains, though. This one’s scheduled to turn around and head right on back to San Antonio.”
Ike mumbled thanks and tried to get back to his nap. There was no way he rode this train back to San Antonio. Where he went once he got off at El Paso was something to think on later. Much later.
The sun poked up over the eastern plains and set the sky on fire with a new day. He stretched and lounged back. In spite of yawning, too much conspired against him to get back to sleep right away. He fished around in the same pocket where he kept the railroad ticket and drew out the battered envelope with his letter of introduction from Judge Parker.
He hastily tucked the paper identifying him as Deputy Yarrow behind and took the time to study the other sheets, some stuck together from spilled beer. His eyes narrowed as he read. The undercover lawman’s assignment had been to go after Schofield. While not named, one of Schofield’s own men had written to Parker about some illicit scheme. Ike decided the man who had betrayed Schofield, possibly for some undisclosed reward, was the engineer working in the roundhouse. He thought on it for a spell before he uttered the name, “Gregorio.”
That had to be the reason Schofield had killed his own man, but when Yarrow showed up, he had to find out who else knew what Gregorio had passed along to the law. He continued reading and pieced together other parts of the puzzle. Granger had suggested that Schofield owned the Grand Palace. Yarrow had proof—or rather, Gregorio had the proof. The saloon was tied in with whatever had prompted Judge Parker to send his prize investigator all the way into Texas, out of his judicial district.
The harder Ike tried to figure out what that connection might be, the more his head hurt. Watering down booze at the Grand Palace or having the manager, Zachary, cheating performers like Lily Sinclair and her mother hardly sparked outrage or enough of a crime for Augustus Yarrow to be dispatched.
He closed his eyes. The headache faded a mite. Ike had mined the letter for all the information possible. He needed to know more—or Yarrow would have needed more. Isaac Scott was a simple man running from a soul-crushing debt in Houston. And a railroad baron in San Antonio. He was riding in style, away from all his troubles.
Ike wondered why he didn’t feel better about it.
Again he settled down in the seat and drifted to sleep, lulled by the sounds and motions of train travel. And again he was awakened when a hand shook him. He pushed the hand from his shoulder, only for the next poke to be more insistent. One eye worked open. He sighed. An old woman clung to the back of the seat across from him. Her other hand was the source of his torment.
She poked him again.
“Sir, sir! Are you awake? I want to sit here. Is that all right with you?”
“Sit. Go on,” he said sleepily. The gray-haired woman flopped down next to him. Her knees banged into his, countering the roll of the train. She added insult to injury by elbowing him in the ribs.
“You don’t mind? At all? Are you certain? Some people on a train don’t want to share a seat with an old lady. Not that I’m all that old. I’m quite spry for my age. How old would you say I am?” She prodded him again with her sharp elbow. “Go on. Take a guess. You won’t offend me, sir. Not at all.”
“Old enough to have better manners,” Ike said, irritated. He rubbed his eyes and took a gander at her. “Fifty. You’re fifty.”
“Aren’t you the gentleman! Not fifty, not at all. I’m older. Guess how much older.”
“Sixty.” Her washed-out dress sported a paisley pattern, with a white lace collar faded to gray that had seen better days—better decades—and she kept her spectacles balanced precariously on the very tip of her nose so she peered over the rims.
Ike blinked. Something bothered him about the old woman’s appearance, but he was too groggy to pinpoint it. Her hair was tucked under a hat outfitted with a lace veil, but the veil had been pushed up away from her face so she could see better.
See better. The glasses. Eyes. Piercing green eyes.
Ike sat up straight and gaped. The old lady giggled like a schoolgirl.
“It took you long enough, Mr. Yarrow.” Lily Sinclair reached out and grabbed his hand with hers. The grip was far too strong for an old woman, but not for a young lady in her twenties.
“The eyes. Your eyes,” he said.
“Oh, my. Didn’t I draw in enough crow’s-feet around them?” She touched the makeup around her brilliant emerald eyes. “I thought I had.”
“I can’t forget your eyes,” Ike said. He stopped himself from telling her how captivating he found them, their sharpness and intelligence shining forth. “They’re not an old woman’s eyes.”