The train lurched violently as the engineer in the cab threw on the brakes for all they were worth. The wheels screeched against the rails like all the banshees out of h.e.l.l.
The men in the caboose were thrown off their feet. McCluskey, still sitting in the chair, toppled forward and crashed heavily to the floor. As Luke glanced up, he caught a glimpse of the woman who had shot Chadwick flying backward toward the gap between the caboose and the last pa.s.senger car. Her pet.i.te size, blond hair, and blue dress told him his hunch was right.
Somehow, Delia had gotten out of jail in Rattlesnake Wells and was trying once again to free her lover McCluskey.
She screamed for real as she dropped out of sight.
That she had slipped between the cars, falling to a grisly death under the train"s wheels flashed through his mind in the instant before he slammed to the floor hard enough to knock the breath out of him and stun him. Somehow, he managed to hang on to the revolver.
The train continued to shudder and jerk and act like it was going to fly off the rails at any moment. Luke pushed himself up onto hands and knees and looked around. The rest of the men were still down, and McCluskey- McCluskey rammed into his side and knocked him sprawling. The Remington slipped out of his fingers and slid along the sloping floor.
The chair had broken when McCluskey was thrown forward so violently. His hands were still cuffed behind his back and he still wore the leg irons, but he had writhed free of the chair"s wreckage. He rolled, swung his legs up, and drove them out in a double kick that smashed into Luke"s ribs and kept him from retrieving the gun.
Luke grunted and tried not to pa.s.s out. He pushed himself out of McCluskey"s reach and fought his way to his feet, staggering as the train swayed and the brakes continued to scream.
Whatever was waiting at the bottom of the grade, it had to be bad.
Delia clung with all her strength to the front edge of the platform. She had grabbed it with one hand and had one foot hooked over it, and those were the only things holding her up. If she lost her grip, she would fall, bounce off the coupling, and land under the train. That was certain death.
Before the mysterious explosion, before the train had braked and thrown her off the platform, she had caught a glimpse of McCluskey through the open door. Knowing he was in the caboose, so close to her, gave her strength she didn"t know she had. Slowly, she began to pull herself back up onto the platform, even as the whole train continued to shake.
Delia got her other hand on the platform, and as she solidified her grip she was able to pull herself up and roll onto the steel floor. She looked through the open caboose door and saw McCluskey kick Luke Jensen. Frank was still in irons, but he hadn"t given up. He was still fighting. That determination was just one of the things she loved about him.
She had dropped the pistol when she was thrown off her feet, but a rifle lay just inside the door. Realizing the man she had shot had dropped it, she scrambled up onto her hands and knees and lunged toward the weapon before anyone inside the caboose noticed her.
Jensen had gotten away from McCluskey and managed to stand up again. Delia lifted the rifle and swung it up. It was heavy, but she didn"t care. She pointed it at Jensen and fired.
The whip crack of the shot was loud in the caboose. With the train shaking so much, accuracy was almost impossible, and she was disgusted to see that Jensen was still on his feet. She worked the rifle"s lever and fired again, but just as flame spouted from the muzzle, one of the other men lurched upward, trying to stand.
The slug caught him in the throat. Blood spurted from the wound in a red fountain as he went over backward, gurgling grotesquely.
Cursing her bad luck, Delia levered the rifle and fired again. She screamed, "Stay down, Frank!" and sprayed lead around the caboose. She didn"t care who she hit, as long as it wasn"t McCluskey.
Jensen kicked the caboose"s rear door open and vanished through it. Delia cursed again.
And the train finally ground to a halt.
Luke still had his second Remington, but he never got a shot at the crazy woman blazing away at him with the rifle. He wasn"t sure where she got the strength to wield the weapon, unless it was the pure insanity that drove her.
One of the slugs chewed splinters from the doorjamb as he ducked through the opening. He wanted to get out of the close confines of the caboose. He had seen what happened to Bertram and knew that the more wild slugs flew around, the better the chance of dying.
Out in the open, he thought he might be able to get on top of the car, race to the front of the caboose, and drop down behind her, taking her by surprise.
Besides, he wanted to find out what the h.e.l.l was going on. Was that an explosion he had heard, right after Delia shot Chadwick?
He didn"t have a chance to put his plan into operation. The train finally shuddered and shivered to a stop. A rifle cracked somewhere close by, and a bullet ricocheted off the iron railing around the tiny platform at the rear of the caboose.
"Hold it right there, mister!" a man shouted. "Drop that gun and get your hands up!"
Luke looked around. The rails pa.s.sed between two fairly steep slopes dotted with boulders. He spotted several rifle barrels protruding from behind those rocks and knew he was covered. Whoever those hidden gunmen were, they could riddle him with lead before he made a move.
He had no choice but to let his Remington thud onto the platform as he let go of it.
The train had come to a stop about fifty yards short of a trestle across a river that flowed through the mountains. Keeping his hands in plain sight so the riflemen on the slopes wouldn"t get trigger-happy, Luke leaned his head to the side and peered along the train toward the bridge. He saw twisted steel rails curling up in the middle of the span and knew what had happened. Outlaws had blown a hole in the bridge so the train had to stop or crash into the river. That was the explosion he had heard.
Men began emerging from behind the rocks and working their way down the slopes toward the train. As they closed in from both sides, Luke counted almost a dozen. They spread out, a couple heading for the cab, others splitting up to cover the two pa.s.senger cars and the caboose.
Suddenly, shots cracked from inside the cars. Some of the pa.s.sengers were armed and willing to put up a fight. The outlaws dropped behind cover and returned the fire. Luke heard gla.s.s shatter as owlhoot lead raked through the windows of the pa.s.senger cars. Screams and angry shouts counterpointed the gunfire.
A shot roared inside the caboose, then a moment later another report sounded. Luke didn"t think whoever fired those shots was trying to defend the caboose against the outlaws.
His hunch proved correct. A moment later, Frank McCluskey appeared in the doorway, holding a revolver. He was free, although a cuff was still locked around each wrist. Short lengths of chain dangled from the cuffs. The leg irons were in the same shape. Luke knew the shots he had heard inside the caboose were Delia blowing the shackles apart and freeing McCluskey.
The outlaw grinned at the sight of Luke standing there unarmed, with his hands up. McCluskey stayed back enough that he wouldn"t be spotted by the bandits approaching the train. "You see, Jensen?" McCluskey gloated as Delia peeked around him at Luke, smirking. "I told you something would happen. It was just a matter of time."
"You"re not out of the woods yet, McCluskey," Luke said. "The men who stopped this train aren"t your friends. As far as they"re concerned, you"re just one more obstacle standing between them and those strongboxes full of gold."
"That"s where you"re wrong." McCluskey leaned out a little and raised his voice. "Hey! Back here! The gold"s in the caboose!"
A couple outlaws ran along the tracks, rifles held ready for instant use. They arrived at the caboose"s rear platform and leveled the weapons at Luke.
He looked over the barrel of one of the rifles and felt a shock go through him like a hard punch to the belly. The man pointing the Winchester at him, clearly ready to kill him if he made a wrong move, was his old friend Derek Burroughs.
CHAPTER 17.
Burroughs didn"t seem surprised.
But then again, he wouldn"t be, Luke thought. "When you told me you were going to do some prospecting for gold, Derek, I a.s.sumed you meant something else."
"Sorry, Luke. I didn"t enjoy lying to you. Just don"t try anything. n.o.body else has to die here." Burroughs circled out a little so he could see into the doorway. "McCluskey! Throw that gun down."
McCluskey edged back and to the side so he could use the doorjamb for cover. "The h.e.l.l I will! I don"t know who you are, mister, but I"ve got the gold. That means you have to deal with me."
It was true, Luke realized. McCluskey didn"t know who Burroughs was. Burroughs had hit him from behind, knocked him out, and hadn"t been around the jail after McCluskey had regained consciousness.
"Derek here is an old friend of mine," Luke told McCluskey. "He"s the one who saved my life last night by buffaloing you just as you were about to shoot me."
"Is that so?" McCluskey sneered. "Well, I don"t reckon it matters that much now. I"m not your prisoner anymore, Jensen, and like I said . . . I"ve got the gold."
"What are you going to do with it?" Burroughs asked. "You can"t haul it out of there. It"s too heavy for one man to handle. And we"ve got the train surrounded."
That was true. The shooting from the pa.s.senger cars had stopped. Either the men who"d been putting up a fight were all dead, or they had realized how futile their resistance was and had surrendered. Burroughs" gang appeared to be firmly in control of the situation.
McCluskey was just a wild card-but sometimes wild cards could determine the outcome of the game.
"Listen, mister, you owe me," McCluskey said quickly. "There were four guards in here. They"re all dead, thanks to me and my lady friend. You can waltz right in and take the gold without losing any men. Don"t you think I deserve something for that?"
The outlaw with Burroughs said, "Why don"t we just kill this loudmouth, too?"
Burroughs shook his head. "No, he"s got a point. Maybe we should cut him in for a share."
"I ain"t sure the rest of the boys would go along with that idea."
"They will if I say so, and if they know what"s good for them." Burroughs" voice was cold and hard as steel as he spoke, and the look on his face gave Luke a glimpse into what his old friend had become. He had turned outlaw, like so many former Confederate soldiers who had returned home to devastation and corruption. There was no mercy left inside him.
Or not much, anyway. Burroughs had spared his old friend"s life-so far.
Luke had no doubt that could change in a heartbeat.
"I"m coming in there, McCluskey, and we can talk about this." Burroughs went on. "Luke, you go back inside, too. I want you where I can keep an eye on you myself. You"re too tricky to trust otherwise."
McCluskey frowned as he considered that, then he said, "All right, mister, but you"re the only one who comes in. The rest of your bunch stays out there, and if you try anything funny, you won"t leave this caboose alive."
McCluskey backed away and motioned for Luke to follow him into the caboose. Burroughs came up the steps with his rifle. Caught between the two of them, Luke stepped back into the caboose.
All the bullets Delia had thrown around in here had resulted in a bloodbath. Luke had seen Bertram and Chadwick gunned down. The other three guards were dead, too, sprawled in limp heaps on the floor.
The only one who had survived was the conductor, who sat huddled against the wall nursing a wounded left arm. The sleeve of his uniform coat was dark with blood, and crimson ran down his hand and dripped from his fingers. Delia stood over him with a revolver in her hand, watching him.
Burroughs followed Luke into the caboose, looked around at the bodies, and nodded grimly. "Looks like you live up to your reputation as a killer, McCluskey."
Luke didn"t say anything about how Delia was the one responsible for slaughtering the guards, and McCluskey didn"t correct Burroughs" a.s.sumption, either.
As for Delia, she looked like she didn"t care whether McCluskey got credit for the killings. All that mattered to her was that she had been reunited with the outlaw she loved with such unaccountable intensity.
"Where"s the gold?" Burroughs glanced around. "Never mind. I see it," he said as his gaze fell on the strongboxes stacked in the corner. He took a step toward them, but McCluskey got in his way.
"I told you, we have to make a deal before you get your hands on those boxes."
Burroughs" eyes narrowed. "You just don"t understand, do you? I"m the only thing keeping you alive, McCluskey, and I"m running out of patience. Sure, we can swap lead if you want. Maybe you"ll be lucky and live through it. But my men will storm this car and you"ll be wiped out, both you and your little blonde."
"Yeah, but us dying won"t do you a d.a.m.n bit of good," McCluskey countered, "because you"ll be dead, too, and you won"t ever get to enjoy any of that gold. Cut me in on it, and everybody gets to live." He glanced at Luke. "Well, everybody but Jensen, anyway. One way or another, that one is a dead man."
Burroughs looked like he didn"t care for that idea. "Let"s settle the other matters first. I suppose what you"ve done is worth, say, one bar of gold."
"I was thinking more like ten."
"Good Lord, man!" Burroughs exclaimed. "That"s almost a full share, and you"re not even one of us. You just happened to be here."
"Right place, right time," McCluskey said with an arrogant grin.
"Two bars," Burroughs said.
"Eight."
"Four."
"How about six?" McCluskey asked. "That"s splitting the difference."
"Four is as high as I"ll go. My men won"t like it if I give you even that much. They won"t mutiny over it, though."
"Not even five?" McCluskey wheedled.
Burroughs shook his head. "Four. That"s my final offer."
Delia said, "Frank, how much is four bars of gold worth?"
"A lot," McCluskey replied. "All right, Burroughs, you"ve got yourself a deal." He moved the gun he held toward Luke. "Now, about Jensen-"
Luke knew McCluskey was about to gun him down in cold blood. He tensed his muscles, knowing that he would rather make a desperate leap toward the outlaw and die fighting than just stand there and take it.
Before either Luke or McCluskey could make a move, Burroughs pivoted sharply and struck out with the rifle he held. The b.u.t.t slammed into the side of Luke"s head and knocked him off his feet. Explosions went off inside his skull as he hit the floor.
Burroughs grinned. "You just leave Jensen to me."
It was the last thing Luke was aware of before darkness claimed him.
CHAPTER 18.
If somebody had asked Luke, he would have said that the odds of him waking up alive were pretty d.a.m.n small. But that was exactly what happened.
As awareness seeped back into him, he knew he wasn"t dead.
It was the only thing he was sure of. He didn"t know how much time had pa.s.sed or what he would find when he finally succeeded in forcing his eyes open.
He took stock of his circ.u.mstances. He was lying on something hard, but it was too rough to be the floor of the caboose. Light beat warmly against his eyelids, shining through them a little even though they were still closed.
He was outside, he decided, almost certainly lying on the ground.
His arms were pulled back in an uncomfortable position. He tried to move them a little, just to see if he could, but they wouldn"t budge. Something rough around his wrists tied his hands together-a lariat.
His feet were bound, too. He was trussed up tightly enough that all he could do was lie there.
But he wasn"t blindfolded . . . or gagged, for that matter, although he didn"t see what good being able to talk would do him. He opened his eyes to slits and looked around as much as he could without moving his head. If anyone was watching him, he didn"t want to reveal that he was awake just yet.
He was lying on the ground, all right, off the cinders of the roadbed and about twenty feet from the rails. He could see the caboose.