With a heave he balanced precariously. Jumping forward to the Pullman car roof was easy. He was gaining expertise in running around on top of a swiftly moving train, just as he had learned how to pull himself up on tie rods under a freight car and ride along. This felt safer, in spite of the risk of falling off. Resting on the tie rods meant his back was only inches away from cinders and railroad ties as the train rolled along at top speed. A single slip then meant being torn apart.
Here, he felt like he walked on top of the world.
Moving carefully, he traversed the Pullman car roof and hopped to the third of the regular passenger cars. Ike enjoyed the freedom outside and decided to go one more car before dropping down to the platform between. Moreover, he avoided being detained by the woman whose ruby necklace he had recovered. Her gratitude embarrassed him.
He reached the front of the passenger car and swung around, feet kicking out to find the iron rungs mounted on the side. For some reason his foot kept slipping. With a grunt, he pulled back to the roof and looked down.
His heart skipped a beat. He stared into Kinchloe’s six-shooter. Even in the darkness the barrel looked big enough to drive a train down.
“You think you’re some kind of ape cavorting all around up there? You got no call being up there.” Kinchloe wiped his free hand on his coat. Ike realized why he hadn’t found purchase on the metal ladder. The railroad dick had been pushing his foot off whenever he tried to lower his weight.
“I was getting some air,” Ike said. His mind raced. He needed a better excuse than that. What he needed most was to figure out a scheme so that Kinchloe wouldn’t kill him. Avoiding the cinder dick and his partners had been his only idea. Now he was sorry he hadn’t gone into the third car and endured the woman with the ruby necklace’s admiration.
His best defense was being surrounded by passengers, and now he had played straight into Kinchloe’s hand.
“Why don’t you let me give you plenty more?”
Strong hands grabbed his leg and yanked. For an instant he clung on. Then he lost his grip on the edge of the roof and went flying out into space. As he fell, he saw the train race past. Lighted windows and painted letters and blurred faces rushed by.
Ike hit the ground so hard it knocked the wind from his lungs. By the time he painfully gasped in air again, the red lantern dangling from the caboose was a tiny dot. Then it was devoured by the absolute darkness of the desert night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ike moaned and shook his head. Nothing fell out of his ears, but somebody kicked the backs of his eyes, then dragged vicious Spanish rowels across them so hard that he moaned. He closed his eyes, pressed his hands against his face and slowly regained his senses. His first impression had been all too accurate. The train was long gone, and he stood alone in the cold night shrouding the West Texas desert.
“Chihuahua,” he muttered. Thoughts came tumbling out. He was in the Chihuahuan Desert. As if the name mattered. Sonoran or Chihuahuan, dead was dead. He shivered as a touch of wind stole away some of the heat surrounding him like a blanket. Two tentative steps took him back to the tracks. Dropping to his knees, he pressed his hand against a rail. Distant vibrations from the train faded. It had to be miles off by now.
He looked around. Starlight caused the landscape to take on a spooky aspect. Strange, eerie silvery light and moving shadows caused by the wind stirring the poisonous creosote bushes and mesquite trees made him jump more than once. Then he wished for the starlight to return when clouds began forming high overhead. The little light he had enjoyed before was sucked up by wispy clouds that looked like ghostly skeletons skulking across the sky.
Ahead? Back? How far was it to Eagle Pass? On foot the trek would take hours. Days. The distance to Marfa was as much a mystery, but overtaking the train held more of an attraction.
“Lily,” he said, shaking his head. He didn’t owe the woman anything, but he was getting into the habit of disappearing and not letting her know where he went, as if she really cared.
The thought came to him that she did seem to care. Their reunions were always something special. She was probably a good actress, but he doubted she was putting on a show just for him with her kisses and the way she hugged him when there was no reason. A nervous grin curled his lips.
“I don’t know where I’m going, except off the train again and again. One of these times, you’re going to come with me and leave Schofield behind.”
Then a different reason to keep going after the train came to him. Three freight cars laden with rifles and ammunition. Schofield had it in for him, and was responsible for killing Gregorio and Deputy Marshal Yarrow. Ike certainly had a grudge against the man. The fear in his gut staring down from the jail cell at the crowd shouting for his neck to be stretched wasn’t a memory to ever be erased.
Proof was lacking about the two deaths—murders—but evidence rolled along in the freight cars. All Ike had to do was find a lawman willing to open up a car and look. Then Schofield had a powerful lot of explaining to do, and all the railroad dicks with him wouldn’t keep him from a cell. He knew it. At least that’s what he hoped was true.
“All. That’s all I have to do.”
He exhaled hard and blew sand out of his nose. He wiped his lips on his sleeve, then began walking. However far he had to hike, it was going to be a long way. As he trooped along, he sang about every song he’d ever heard to pass the time. Somewhere close to two hours later, he ran out of tunes and began wondering what Lily or her ma performed in their act. They had to sing. With her fine voice, she had to sing to entertain a saloon filled with drunken cowboys. The moving scenery must be the majority of their act. As the cyclorama unrolled on one side and wrapped up on another roller, they performed, acting dramatic parts and . . . singing. There had to be singing to lift the spirit and lighten the heart.
Consumed with his own thoughts, Ike almost missed it. A dark shape beside the tracks, down an embankment, lifted an arm as if hailing him. He took two more steps, then drew his six-shooter and spun, ready to fight.
“Who’s there?” He called again when he got no answer.
And the dark shape didn’t move. It was as if one hand was raised in surrender. Only nobody stayed that still for so long.
Ike slid down the slope and came to a halt amid a heap of gravel. From this angle he saw that he didn’t have to accept some poor galoot’s surrender. He went to the handcar and leaned against it. The pump handle stuck up in the air and was what he’d mistaken for a man raising his hands in surrender. He settled on the edge of the platform for a quick rest.
The sky darkened even more. Clouds poured in from down in Mexico. In Houston, clouds like that always preceded a downpour. Out here in the middle of hundreds of square miles of desert, he wasn’t sure. The arid land was robbed of much rain. The clumps of cactus, the ocotillo and the low, thorny bushes were silent testament to continued drought.
Ike got to his feet and stood on the tilted handcar platform. A few tentative pushes against the handle convinced him everything was in good working condition. How it had been pushed downhill wasn’t anything he wanted to speculate on. In spite of that, he turned slowly, hunting for a body. His wild imagination brought forth a railroad employee pumping furiously, being derailed, plunging down the embankment and then dying on this very spot.