Benjamin jumped to help Flynn, but the lawyer flung himself at the boy. Prescott outweighed him by a good eighty pounds and the boy found himself pinned in the seat. Benjamin wriggled and squirmed but Prescott's weight bore down on him.
"Let me up!"
"Hell no!"
In the aisle, Gilmore was back on his feet and facing Flynn warily, fists at the ready. Flynn glanced around for his gun, but the Le Matt had slid out of sight.
He knew things had gone badly wrong. In another moment, all the passengers might get out of hand. They would have a mutiny, and there would be no stopping it.
Where the hell was Fletcher? To his astonishment, Flynn saw that the captain was still slumped in his seat, his eyes closed and mouth hanging open, sleeping soundly.
"Fletcher! Wake up! Shoot this son of a— "
Gilmore rushed him. Flynn tried to dodge, but the narrow aisle gave him no room. The other man grappled him around the waist and they both tumbled into the seats. A woman screamed and Flynn glimpsed Fletcher running for the door, away from the fight.
Gilmore jabbed at his kidneys with a series of rabbit punches. Flynn swatted him in the side of the head. With a snarl, Gilmore butted his head into Flynn's nose. Flynn's eyes ran and he felt a hot trickle of blood from his nose. Gilmore tried it again and Flynn bit his ear. As Gilmore howled, Flynn slammed up with the heel of his hand and caught him under the chin so hard that his teeth cracked together. Then Flynn felt himself kneed in the groin and experienced an awful, excruciating pain that took his breath away. He bit Gilmore's ear even harder.
They rolled into the aisle. Neither man could get the upper hand in such a confined space and they grappled and gouged.
Then Flynn remembered the horse pistol in his coat pocket. He fumbled for it, wondering if the thing would even fire.
As Flynn groped in his pocket, that gave Gilmore an opening, and he got both hands around Flynn's neck, digging his thumbs deep into the throat on each side of the windpipe. Flynn's vision swam with black dots. He was in trouble. His fingertips touched the pistol.
The other man had his knees on Flynn's chest now, pinning him to the floor. Flynn couldn't breathe. His hand slipped around the butt of the old pistol. He barely had the strength to drag the weapon free. He managed to pull back the hammer, wondering whether or not there was a percussion cap in place. He had never bothered to check.
The hands tightened even more on his throat and all Flynn could see was the savage face grinning down at him as if through a fog. With one final, desperate effort, he jammed the muzzle into Gilmore's side. For just an instant, Gilmore's eyes went wide, knowing what was about to happen.
And then Flynn pulled the trigger.
The .54-caliber ball ripped through the other man's body. The clothes touching the muzzle smoldered after the blast. The gory hole in his back, torn by the large ball of lead, was big enough to swallow a fist. Overhead, the ceiling was splashed with blood. Gilmore's body slumped to one side and Flynn shoved it off.
"That was close," he said. He was breathing hard. It had been a tough fight, maybe not the toughest of his life, but he didn't want to think about what might have happened if he hadn't been able to reach the pistol in time.
Nearby, a woman was gasping in astonishment at the life-and-death struggle she had just witnessed. He could also hear Mrs. Parker. "Oh my," she kept repeating in shock. "Oh my."
"Shut up, woman," Flynn snapped. "For the love of Christ, shut up."
Mrs. Parker didn't need to be told twice. She touched her fingertips to her lips and fell silent.
A moment later, the door to the car flew open and Captain Fletcher rushed in, followed by Hazlett and Pettibone. All three had their revolvers out. The blast from Flynn's horse pistol had left the air sulfurous and tinged with blue smoke, and the three soldiers squinted to see through the haze.
Flynn jerked his chin at a seat nearby, where Benjamin was still struggling with the ungainly bulk of the attorney. Pettibone walked over, reversed his Colt, and clubbed Prescott behind the ear with the butt of the pistol. Prescott went limp, and Benjamin managed to wriggle out from under him.
"You should have shot that fat bastard," Hazlett said. Pettibone ignored him. Going to Gilmore's body on the floor, he rolled it all the way over with the toe of his boot.
"Yup," he drawled. "He's a dead 'un. Half his guts is on the ceiling."
Mrs. Parker whimpered again.
Hazlett grinned down maliciously at Flynn, who still on his knees in the aisle, rubbing his throat. "What's the matter, Irish, can't handle the civilians?"
"Go to hell," Flynn said wearily, and reached up to grab Pettibone's offered hand. Back on his feet, Flynn looked around and quickly assessed the situation. Gilmore was dead. Prescott was on the floor, shaking his head groggily. Terrified, Mr. and Mrs. Parker cowered in their seat. The faces of the other passengers ran the gamut from looks of horror to blank stares as they tried not to meet the raiders' eyes.
One face, however, was not there.
"Someone's missing," Flynn said. "I saw the door open to the next car."
"It's the woman," Benjamin said. "The one who was with him. She's gone."
"She's probably planning to jump off the train," Flynn said. He limped toward the door. "I'm going after her."
"Brave man," Hazlett said sarcastically.
Flynn found the Le Mat and holstered it, thinking he wouldn't need it against a woman. He opened the door to the howling, open air. The train was still flying at a reckless speed. Seeing the ground rush past in a blur, he doubted the woman had jumped. That would be suicide. There was only one place she could be.
Flynn crossed the bucking platform toward the next car, which carried the passenger's baggage. None of the raiders had explored the freight car because they had been too busy keeping the passengers in line and ripping up rails.
Flynn tried the door. It wouldn't budge, so he hit it with his shoulder, this time throwing his weight into it. The door popped open.
He stepped inside, but couldn't see a thing. The interior was nearly pitch black. What little light there was leaked in from around the shades drawn over the windows and from the cracks under the rear door, which opened toward Lincoln's car.
Flynn squinted into the darkness. "Come out, ma'am," he said. "Save us both the trouble."
No answer came. Not that he expected one.
Swearing under his breath, Flynn stepped into the blackness. He kept the Le Mat in its holster. There had been enough bloodletting for one day, he thought, and Flynn had no intention of shooting a woman.
Carefully, he moved deeper into the car. Like a blind man, he became acutely aware of smells: oiled leather, dust, moldy canvas. The place needed a good airing out.
A sound, somewhere ahead. He paused, listened. Heard only the clacking of wheels on rails. The swaying motion inside the dark car was disorienting.
"Come out, woman," he snapped impatiently.
There. That noise again. A swishing of skirts? Sounded like it was behind him.
Flynn spun, his hand on the revolver.
Nothing.
Unnerved, he shuffled toward the windows. After what he had just been through, he was in no mood for a game of cat and mouse with the woman, whoever she was.
He reached toward a window, intending to let some light in, when he felt the cold touch of razor-sharp steel against his throat.
Flynn froze.
Chapter 17
"Greer!" Schmidt shouted. "Look at that!"
Ahead of them on a siding, an old Grasshopper-type engine sat under steam. The nickname fit the locomotive's insect-like appearance. The Grasshopper was small and much slower than the new locomotives, but it was one of the workhorses of the B&O, pulling freight on local routes and spurs to towns off the main line. The old locomotive was still much faster than the hand-powered car.