The man pushed his cap back and stuck out his chin belligerently.
“What do you want now?”
Ike drew his six-gun and laid it on the counter. The ticket agent stepped back and raised his palms in front of his chest as if to push away any bullet sent his way.
“The cars weren’t moved back to San Antonio,” Ike said in a soft voice more menacing than if he’d shouted. “If they’d been scheduled to go west, there’d be no call to detach them.”
“I . . . I just came on duty. Honest, Mister. I didn’t see them being moved.”
“Where else might they be? Not south, not west. Where?” He gripped his six-gun, slipped his finger through the guard so it rested on the trigger. “There can’t be too many spur lines coming into this depot.”
“Franklin. There’s a spur out to Franklin. It’s not far. With a little engine hooked on, it’s not more ’n fifteen minutes away.”
“Do you believe him?” Ike asked Lily. She crowded close behind, looking around his shoulder at the agent.
“He seems like an honest fellow,” she said, as if trying out that notion when she knew it was not true. “And a generous one, too.”
“You can’t rob me! I don’t have any money. I just came on duty and haven’t sold any tickets yet!” He pulled open the cash drawer to show how empty it was.
“We’re not robbers. Quite the contrary. You saw us with Marshal Stoudenmire, out in the street?”
The man’s head bobbed up and down.
“He’s gone off to assemble a posse. I’d like to be mounted and on the trail of some dangerous criminals when he returns,” Ike said.
“The only problem is that we don’t have any horses,” Lily chimed in, picking up Ike’s cue perfectly.
“All I got here’s a buggy. It . . . it belongs to the Southern Pacific, and I’m not supposed to use it for anything but business.”
“This is business,” Ike said. He dropped the wallet with the badge where the clerk saw it. The man’s eyes went wider as he stepped back. If the badge had been a rattler, he wanted out of striking distance.
“Go on and tell your boss,” Lily said. She elbowed Ike before he protested. “Tell him you denied a Federal marshal the means to prevent a terrible crime.”
“A deputy marshal,” Ike said. “And one with a temper matching Marshal Stoudenmire’s.” He snatched up the badge and shoved it into his coat pocket. With a smooth motion, he lifted his six-shooter and carelessly waved it about. While he didn’t aim directly at the clerk, he made sure the muzzle swung about in his direction enough times for the man to get the idea.
The man threw up his hands high over his head, as if he were being robbed.
“Go on, take it. I can square it with Mr. Thornton.”
Ike figured this was the man’s employer. He dropped his six-gun back into its holster and nodded curtly. “Thank him for us.”
“He—who should I tell him took the company horse and buggy?”
“Gosling,” Lily called as she hurried to the edge of the platform. “He’s the district US marshal.”
Ike saw that the name made an impression on the clerk. Like the town marshal, Gosling was someone he’d heard of. For all Ike knew, Marshal Gosling rode the train regularly and was known to the clerk. He touched the brim of his hat and dashed after Lily. She descended a ladder at the end of the platform with more agility than he could muster. By the time he stood on solid ground, she sat in the buggy, reins in hand.
“Well, come on, slowpoke!”
She handed him the reins as he sank down beside her. Their combined weight caused the buggy to sag. He hoped the horse was rested.
“There’re tracks running north. Those are the only ones going in the right direction,” she said.
Ike coaxed the horse into a quick trot. He held his tongue because he wanted to tell Lily the horse tired fast pulling both of them and that she ought to stay behind. There was as much chance of her obeying as there was of them bringing Schofield and his men to justice. But he had to try the latter. The former took more courage on his part. Crossing the determined woman wasn’t likely to ever be successful.
“There,” she cried after ten minutes of trotting along. “There’re the freight cars. All three of them. We caught up with that low-down skunk!”
Ike saw something more than she had. A half-dozen horses were tied to a nearby hitching post. From their look, they had been ridden hard. Their riders were nowhere to be seen.
He slowed and finally halted some distance from the freight cars. The small engine that had pulled them from the El Paso depot was still attached. Black plumes roiled upward only to be caught high overhead by an air current that failed to reach the ground. The fluttering black banner seemed appropriate for a pirate like Martin Schofield.
“The Franklin depot’s still a mile farther on,” he said. “Schofield is meeting with the Comancheros where nobody’ll see him.”
“What are you going to do? Look! There’s Smitty! I’d recognize him anywhere.”
Smitty prowled about, a shiny brass rifle in his hands. The weapon flashed as he pivoted around and returned to a spot out of sight near the freight car doors.
“I can sneak inside,” Ike said, his mind tumbling with ideas. “The doors on this side will let me through the freight car so I get the drop on them.” He touched his six-shooter. Six shots. There were that many Comancheros. With Schofield and his two henchmen also in and around the railcars, he’d have to make every shot count, then reload and keep shooting.
“You can’t hope to capture them!”
Ike’s notion was more like an ambush. Shoot as many of them as he could, scatter the rest and trust to Lady Luck that he was still alive to arrest Schofield.
“Arrest,” he scoffed. He touched the wallet in his coat pocket. Carrying the badge made him think he was a lawman. Reminding himself he had never even shot at a man, much less killed one, before reaching San Antonio was important if he wanted to keep on breathing. He had learned. Whether the lessons were good ones remained to be seen.
“Faint hearts never won the day,” Lily said. She looked at him, then planted a big kiss squarely on his lips.
When she pulled away, Ike smiled, just a little.
“That’s not the quote, is it?”
“You’ve already won the fair maiden,” Lily said. Her emerald eyes sparkled. “And you had better not do anything foolish to get yourself all shot up. I’ll never forgive you, if you do.”
He started to tell her to drive over to the Franklin depot and see what help she could muster to come save him. Ike jumped down and put his hand on the butt of his six-gun. A cold shiver passed through him. He froze when he saw a long shadow engulfing his own. Someone stood behind him. From the shadow, he knew he had a six-gun pointed squarely at his spine.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. Ike raised his hands. “You got me. Let the lady go and you won’t have to bother yourself anymore.”
“You’re giving up? That easy? You surprise me, Deputy.”
Ike turned slowly. The man who had crept up on them while they tried to figure out the best way of stopping Schofield towered above him. The Walker Colt in his steady hand pointed directly at his heart.
“Do I know you?”
“Might be you arrested me once. Then again maybe not, Deputy Yarrow.” The man moved around so Ike got a better look.
Tall, rangy, he had been on the trail long enough to accumulate a layer of brown dust all over. His nose hooked like a hawk’s beak, his skin had turned to cured leather, and his deep-set dark eyes drilled into Ike. Shoulder-length brown hair bobbed as he turned his head to get a better look at Lily, but he took in her beauty with a quick glance and saw no threat. There was nothing weak or indecisive about this man.
“How do you know me?”
“I was in town and heard about your, shall we say, meeting? Yes, your meeting with the town marshal. When I heard it was none other than Augustus Yarrow locking horns with Stoudenmire, I had to see for myself.”