Redbeard jerked quick and inadvertently fired off a shot. It hit the man with the Schofield revolvers square in the chest.
The name Virgil Cole sort of did that to people. It made people flinch and do things they otherwise might not do. Redbeard might have been trying to pick off Virgil where he was standing behind the man with the Schofields, but the man with the Schofields went down.
The next shot came from Virgil and located itself in the forehead of Redbeard, sending him backward into Vince. Redbeard’s big body made for good cover, and Vince was quickly out the front coach door. Virgil moved fast up the aisle, chasing after him.
I grabbed my eight-gauge and followed Virgil in pursuit of Vince. By the time I made it to the door, the door had swung back closed and Virgil was on the platform of the forward coach. He turned quick.
“Down, Everett!”
A fast succession of shots rang out from the forward coach. Virgil moved quick to the side, out of the line of fire, as bullets came flying down the aisle, busting through the glass of the front car door and through the glass of the rear coach door. I shifted to the right and promptly dropped in a seat next to a heavyset woman. The passengers were screaming and crying as the bullets whizzed down the aisle, catching pieces of glass and wood. After a moment the shooting stopped. We waited. I was on the opposite side of the coach from Virgil. I could see him clearly through the busted glass. The passengers were distressed. Some of them were crying, and others started chattering nervously.
“Everybody quiet! We’re marshals,” I said. “Just remain quiet!”
Most of the folks stopped clamoring, but some kept talking.
“Quiet!”
Virgil looked at me as he reloaded his Colt.
“Who we dealing with, Everett?” Virgil said. “That hoss called you by name.”
“Not sure about the lot of ’em or how many they are, but that fellow shooting back at us is Vince.”
Virgil snapped the loading gate of his Colt closed with the palm of his hand.
“Vince! The Irishman from Bragg’s gang?”
“None other.”
“You sure?”
“It’s him.”
“He’s no good,” Virgil said.
“No, he’s not.”
Virgil shook his head some.
“What the hell is he doing down here?”
“Until you showed up,” I said, “trying to rob this train.”
“Vince!” Virgil called out loudly.
Vince did not reply.
“Vince!” Virgil shouted. “You hear me?”
Again, there was no reply.
“You already got two of your hands killed, Vince! You’d do best to give yourself up so we don’t have to kill any more of you! Including you!”
Nothing. Either Vince was waiting for us to make a tactical error and expose ourselves or he was going forward through the train.
“Might be on the move,” I said.
“Could be.”
“Don’t think it’d be a good idea to go through that door and find out, though,” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“No, it wouldn’t,” Virgil said.
“No telling how many they are.”
“Big train,” Virgil said. “Three in this coach might be a hint the whole slew of that bunch are on board.”
“If they’ve not already got control of the engine,” I said, “they’re gonna try.”
Virgil looked to the ladder by his shoulder, then back at me. He pointed up the ladder.
I nodded and pointed to myself, then pointed to the rear door of our coach.
Virgil nodded. Then he climbed the ladder to the roof of the train.
6
I dropped to the aisle floor, then stayed low and moved toward the rear door. I passed over the top of Redbeard and the dead man with the Schofields and made my way out the door.
By the time I climbed the ladder to the roof of the car, Virgil was ahead of me by two cars. He was heading to the front of the train, to the engine. The locomotive was belching heavy smoke as I walked forward on the roof of the coach, following Virgil.
The train was still on an uphill grade, chugging through a deep gorge of red sandstone and quartz. Through a cloud of thick smoke ahead, Virgil stopped and crouched down. He was all the way to the front end of the first coach, just behind the tall tender car that carried the rock coal. I kept on the move and made my way over the top of the next car, and the next, and the next.
As I jumped to the forward car, the train cleared the gorge and started slowing down. To my left, there were three riders with a number of saddled horses keeping pace with the train.
No sooner did I see them than they saw me. The rider in the front pulled a Winchester from his scabbard, swing-cocked it, and rounded it in my direction, but before he could pull the trigger, Virgil shot him.
The rider tipped over in the saddle and fell under the herd, which prompted the other two riders to pull up.
I kept walking steadily forward and moved up next to Virgil, who crouched behind the tall tender. I looked back behind us; the riders faded away in the distance as the train continued moving north.
Besides being a steady and confident gunman, Virgil was one hell of a shot, best I’d ever seen, and that was one hell of a shot.
Virgil looked at me, rose up a bit, and pointed over the top of the tender toward the engine cabin. We could barely see the engineer and his fireman, but we could see enough to know they were being held at gunpoint by two of the bandits. The engine was loud, but the bandits had heard Virgil’s shot. They were looking out from one side of the cabin to the other. Virgil pointed, motioning for us to move up over the top of the tender to the engine cabin, and in an instant, we did just that. We moved fast and rushed the cabin.
Virgil shouted, “Drop ’em!”
The bandits did not drop their guns. They raised them instead, but they were too late. Virgil shot the one on the left. I shot the one on the right. They never fired a shot. By the time the thieves hit the cabin floor, Virgil and I were to the front end of the tender, looking down into the engine cabin at the shocked faces of the engineer and his fireman.
We kept our pistols on the bandits as we climbed down into the engine cabin. One bandit lay sideways on the floor — he’d been shot in the head — and the other was on his back, shot in the chest. They were both dead.
Virgil showed his badge.
“I’m Marshal Virgil Cole. This is my deputy, Everett Hitch.”
The engineer and the fireman were both huge men, with strong arms and overalls covered in soot.
The engineer slid up his goggles, revealing white circles around his eyes.
“Thank God you showed,” the engineer said.
7
The train was chugging slowly as it moved up through the heavily wooded river valley. The wall of mountains to our left blocked what remained of the setting sun, and we were closing in on dark. Virgil opened the loading gate on his Colt. He replaced the spent rounds with lead-filled casings and undented primers as he looked out of the cabin, watching the woods passing by.
I reloaded my Colt as I looked closer at the dead gunmen on the cabin floor. Neither of them wore bandanas hiding their faces. I put the heel of my boot to the shoulder of the man lying on his side and turned him over.
Virgil looked back to me.
“Bragg’s hands?” he said.
“Don’t recognize either one of ’em,” I said.
“The others back there?” Virgil said.
“Not sure ’bout the hand you came up behind with the Schofields,” I said. “But the big red-bearded fellow you shot rode with Bragg. The other shooting at us was damn sure Vince.”
“Vince is a bad hombre,” Virgil said.
“Not afraid to pull the trigger,” I said.