They left the waiting room and stumbled onto the platform. While they had been avoiding Kinchloe, a train had pulled up, loaded passengers and now was pulling out, gathering speed.
“Get on. Run. Your mother’s already aboard.” Ike had no idea if that was true, but it gave Lily reason to jump onto the train and ride off safely. He hung back when he heard a commotion from the waiting room. The railroad detectives had raced through the baggage storage room and were hot on his trail.
“The caboose,” Lily cried. “It’s almost beyond reach.” She lifted her skirts and ran. At the very edge of the platform she made a grab, caught an iron rung and was yanked out into space. She hung suspended for an instant, then found her footing on an iron step. She pulled herself up and looked back.
She reached out to him, as if her arm might telescope all the way to the platform and save him from the detectives.
His last sight of her was more shadow than light as she stood under the overhanging caboose roof. The motion of the train caused her bright red hair to flutter like a banner of shining copper. Ike bent over and let a bull stumble when he grabbed for him and missed. Not content, he thrust out his leg and the cinder dick tripped and tumbled off the platform onto the tracks. Ike recovered his balance and shoved hard, catching another man squarely in the chest. The push sent him back into Kinchloe.
Frantic, Ike looked around. The ticket agent was unlimbering a huge Remington black powder pistol from a hiding place under the counter. Two baggage handlers exited from inside the depot. It didn’t take a second for him to know whose side they were on. Thrusting out his boot again, he tripped the man trying to stand. This sent the detective and Kinchloe crashing back to the floor.
Vaulting over them, he retreated through the waiting room, much to the displeasure of the four women there. They huddled together against his new intrusion. He touched the brim of his hat politely and said, “Excuse me for the interruption, ladies.”
He heard one say something very unladylike, then he leaped down the baggage room stairs and ran for the door he had blocked previously, then shot through. Kinchloe hadn’t respected STC railroad property and had ripped the door off its hinges. Ike burst out into the rail yard and sought any possible sanctuary.
Lily was safely away on the departing train. Where her mother had gone was a mystery, but he suspected she could talk her way out of any predicament. He put his head down and ran for all he was worth, jumping over tracks and veering this way and that to take advantage of trains on sidings and others slowly moving around, preparing to take on freight or unload boxcars creaking with produce.
Without realizing it he found himself back in the warehouse where the two women had been kept chained. He slowed, then stopped, bent over and hands on knees. He sweat like a pig after running around in the fierce Texas sun. Catching his breath proved harder than he expected. After evading everyone chasing him, from Penrose back in Houston to Kinchloe and Granger here in San Antonio, he should have been in better shape.
He straightened and looked at the mountains of crates. Hiding on top of them again until nightfall was the only idea that popped into his head. The cyclorama lay on the floor.
The scrape of boots against the dirt floor caused him to look up. Someone approached, running hard. Ike flopped alongside the canvas roll and pressed snugly against it. If whomever came up wasn’t paying attention, Ike hoped they’d not see him or maybe think he was part of the cyclorama.
He wasn’t that lucky, and they weren’t that careless.
“Shoot him, Smitty. Go on. If you won’t do it, let me.”
Ike peered over the edge of the roll of scenery and stared down the barrel of Smitty’s six-shooter. Another of the bulls stood beside him, his pistol cocked and aimed, too, but held clumsily in his left hand.
“Kinch said he wanted him alive.” Smitty didn’t sound too convinced. He itched to fill his victim full of lead for the chase he had given them.
“Shoot him. We can tell Kinchloe he got the drop on us.”
Ike started to protest that he wasn’t armed, then he saw the man urging Smitty to commit murder had a right arm all cut up. Like he had shoved it through a broken door and waved a gun around before having it taken away from him and used to scatter a gang of railroad bulls. Ike remembered the satisfying feel as the man’s wrist had broken.
“Yeah, why not?” Smitty sighted along the barrel of his Colt. It had been a dangerous, deadly day, but Ike had never before seen death coming for him so vividly.
CHAPTER FOUR
The bullet ripped past Isaac Scott’s head. He flinched and tried to hunker down even more behind the cyclorama. As large as it was, he wanted a full-sized mountain and not a roll of canvas to protect him. At the sound of a scuffle, he forced open his eyes and saw Smitty wrestling with another man. He sat up and stared, wondering what happened.
“Don’t you even think about running, you varmint.” Marshal Granger stepped out from behind the two wrestling men. He had his six-shooter trained on Ike.
“You got me, Marshal,” Ike declared. Joints aching from all the running around and fighting he’d already done, he stood awkwardly and lifted his hands high. He tried not to shake too much, but his nerves betrayed him. Getting shot at wasn’t something that happened often to him, not if he had a chance to hightail it before a killer drew a bead on him. His mind churned about as he took in the havoc all around. It finally became apparent that he was better off in the marshal’s custody than letting Smitty and his trigger-happy partner deal with him.
“You don’t have to wave your hands around like that. I already took your gun,” the marshal said. “You didn’t pick up another one, now did you?”
Ike shook his head.
“You can’t believe a word he says. When we was chasin’ him all over creation, he took a shot at us through the door from the baggage room,” Smitty cried. He tried to move to get a clean shot at Ike, but Marshal Granger stepped to block his aim. Seeing that his protests had no effect, Smitty let the deputy twist the six-shooter from his hand and stopped fighting the inevitable. “Ask him. Go on.” He thrust out his chest and bumped into the marshal. For an instant, Granger started to respond to such belligerence, then considered how this would turn quickly into a brawl and satisfied himself by just pushing Smitty away.
“Well?” Marshal Granger squinted hard at Ike, as if this forced him to tell the truth.
“You’ve got my gun, Marshal. I don’t have another one.” That much was true. Trying to explain how he had taken the gun away from Smitty’s partner and turned it on the railroad dicks was too complicated and would only confuse matters more.
“Him and the women—” Smitty’s partner was cut off in the middle of his protest.
“Shut up,” snapped Smitty. He grabbed his friend by the front of his shirt and lifted. “You keep that tater trap of yours sealed. You’re only makin’ matters worse.”
“That’s a real good idea for the both of you,” Granger said. “I don’t want to hear a peep, not until I ask you a direct question.” He slid his pistol back into a low-slung holster and stepped closer to examine his prisoner like a bug on a leaf. Ike started to raise his hands again. “You stop doing that. You’re not any threat.” Granger squinted a bit harder. “Are you?”
“No, sir, I am not.”
“Who’re these women he mentioned?” Granger kept his gaze fixed on Ike, but the question was clearly meant for Smitty.