“That the coaches on fire, you think?” I said.
“Looks like it,” Virgil said. “Hard to say for certain.”
“Figure we’ll know soon enough,” I said.
“Figure we will.”
“And Half Moon, just there.”
“That it is,” Virgil said.
40
We left the coach where it had stopped and walked on down the track toward the fire. With the recently slain bandits, Virgil and me had plenty of weaponry choices. I carried my Colt and two other long-barreled Colts. Virgil had the .44 Henry rifle Bob dropped in the aisle and a second Colt in his belt.
“Least with Bob shot up, gone, hopefully dead,” I said, “and Woodfin cut like that, we have two less gunmen to deal with.”
“We do,” Virgil said.
“Vince is shot up, too,” I said. “No telling how bad, how deep. Might be he’s dead.”
“Might well be,” Virgil said.
“Ear shots are damn sure painful.”
“They are.”
“Hard to stop the bleeding,” I said, “and the pressure on the brain.”
“Don’t know he’s even got one.”
“Well, if he don’t bleed to death,” I said, “he’ll most likely go crazier than he already is.”
We continued walking, following the track toward the fire ahead and the halo of light from Half Moon Junction just beyond. There was no more rain now, and the moon was showing full in the sky as we made our way closer to the fire.
“That’s the coaches burning for sure,” I said.
“It is,” Virgil said.
As we got closer we could see the fire was a single coach engulfed in flames, but the wood was nearly consumed and the flames were getting lower.
“The governor’s car,” I said. “The Pullman.”
“Is,” Virgil said.
“Let’s hope him and his wife are not inside,” I said.
“Yep,” Virgil said. “Let’s.”
As we got closer we could see the other cars were safe.
“The Pullman’s separated from the cars behind,” Virgil said.
The other coaches were disconnected from the burning Pullman and were sitting fifty or so feet farther down the rail.
“Must have been disconnected on the move,” I said.
Avoiding any possibility of being spotted by anyone, we skirted off the tracks, moved into the trees, and continued on closer to the burning Pullman and back section of the train. As we neared the coaches we could see there were lamps burning in the fifth and sixth car and the caboose, but there was no one moving about. We stopped, staying out of sight in the woods when we were parallel with the coaches. Even though the windows were fogged over, there was no movement inside the fifth and six coaches.
“Don’t see nobody,” I said.
“Ramp’s out.”
The stock car door was open and its boarding ramp was extended.
“Made off with our horses,” I said.
“They did.”
“Half Moon looks to be not but a quarter a mile there.”
Virgil and I moved on a ways past the coaches, stepped out of the woods, and walked toward the caboose.
“Look here,” I said.
There was a line of muddy footprints where passengers departed the coaches. The tracks tapered off to the south, toward Half Moon Junction.
The back door of the caboose was wide open. I looked in; there was nobody inside. We moved on, looked inside the stock car, and as figured, all the horses, including Virgil’s stud and my lazy roan, were gone. We walked through the sixth coach to see if there was anything significant to reckon with, but it was eerily empty; even the bodies of the first two that got killed, Redbeard and the fellow with the two Schofields, had disappeared. Virgil’s cigar was still in the ashtray where he had left it when this whole rhubarb went down. He picked it up and flicked the ashes off with his finger. I produced a match from the matchbox the undertaker had placed in my coat and handed it to Virgil. Virgil dragged the tip of the match across the back of the seat and lit his cigar. After he got it going good he waved the match in the air and flicked it away with his middle finger.
“That was a good horse,” Virgil said. “Good saddle, too.”
“It was,” I said.
41
Virgil took a few deliberate puffs on his cigar and we moved on. Like the sixth coach, the fifth was empty, too. We walked back up the track a ways and looked closely at the remainder of the burning Pullman. The heat was intense and the light was bright. Virgil stayed back as I walked closer, looking into the fire of the fancy coach. I walked slowly around the coach, looking into the dancing flames.
“Don’t see nobody in there, do you, Everett?” Virgil said. “No burnt-up people, no bones?”
I continued walking around the coach, looking into the fire.
“Nothing yet,” I said as I walked back up the other side of the coach, looking closely into the smoky fire.
“Do not,” I said. “Don’t see any bones.”
I looked back to Virgil holding the Henry rifle. The rifle’s brass receiver was reflecting the flames and glowing a brilliant golden orange against the darkness.
“I reckon the governor and his wife got out, and away,” I said.
“Seems so,” Virgil said.
“Yep,” I said. “Somehow, some way.”
I walked back to where Virgil was standing, smoking his cigar. He was looking off toward Half Moon Junction.
“Hard to figure all this,” I said. “The governor and his wife, horses gone, the Pullman burning, the passengers, cars separated.”
“Is,” Virgil said.
“I figure the bandits took off and left the passengers to fend for themselves.”
Virgil nodded, slowly smoking the cigar.
“You think they took the governor and his wife hostage?” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Don’t think so,” Virgil said. “Now they are back here away from us, don’t think they’d have a need for ’em.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t guess they would.”
“Whether they are alive or not,” Virgil said, “is another matter altogether.”
“So what are you thinking?” I said.
“I’m thinking we do ourselves the necessity of getting over to this Half Moon Junction,” Virgil said, pointing the Henry rifle in the direction of the town, “and figure out just what befell.”
I nodded, and we started walking toward the town. We walked back past the other cars and past the caboose. A lamp was hanging on the back of the caboose, and as we passed it I noticed the engraving on the receiver of the Henry rifle Virgil was carrying.
“That yellow belly looks fancy,” I said.
Virgil held up the Henry a bit.
“It is,” Virgil said. “Got detailed engraving on it. Bunch of new scratches on the stock, and the front sight is busted off.”
We continued walking and left the light from the caboose behind.
“Not Bloody Bob’s rifle, that’s a fact,” Virgil said. “He stole it, I imagine. It’s got a deck of cards and a riverboat engraved on it.”
“Maybe he got it off some professional boat gambler,” I said.
“The other side of the receiver has happy and sad masks,” Virgil said. “Like you’d see displayed on tent shows.”
“Maybe it belonged to a gambler,” I said. “Who is a performer, a thespian or something.”
“Might,” Virgil said. “Just might.”
I opened Bob’s pouch and pulled out the extra cartridges I’d previously felt were inside and handed them to Virgil as we walked.
“Here,” I said. “What’s left of the cartridges.”
Virgil took the bullets and put them into his coat pocket as we continued making our way toward Half Moon Junction.