She looked askance. “Another might have shot off his own foot. How did you learn?”
Quillan stared down at his plate. “After I left home, I realized how vulnerable I was, a boy of fourteen with little muscle and less experience. I’d been taken in by someone just a little older, a little wilier. I knew I wouldn’t let that happen again, but what of someone stronger, deadlier? So I purchased a side arm and taught myself to use it.”
“To use it well.”
“Came fairly naturally.” He gave her a quick grin. “Just like for you.”
“Beh.” She flicked her chin with her fingers.
He definitely needed to learn that gesture. It was so descriptive. “Have you finished eating?”
“Yes.”
“Then I suggest we retire.” He led her back to their seats, reached up and pulled down the upper berth and fixed it into place, then rearranged the two facing seats to make a lower berth. Neither would hold both of them, and even with the curtains it would be uncouth. “Have you a preference?”
Carina looked up at the berth over her head. “I’ll take the lower.”
He unfolded the blankets provided, tossed one up for himself, then arranged hers. He pulled the curtains closed around them, drew her into his arms and kissed her. Then he climbed to the upper berth and removed his coat and vest and shirt. He laid them carefully beside him, then settled down onto the pillow. Looking up he saw his own face clearly, and that of the woman in the next berth over. It was the elderly Miss Preston, and she obviously had no notion of his view in the polished ceiling. She read a small book, Fireside Tales, her bespectacled eyes straining to read the print in the insufficient light.
Quillan turned discreetly to his side, thankful Carina was not atop where the man at footside would glimpse her. Something to remember if he ever traveled the Pullman Palace car again.
The air was brisk, the wind gusty as the party opened the side doors of the parlor car and assembled along the narrow balcony for the shoot. Carina counted four men armed for the sport, but many others had collected to watch. Quillan was in his buckskin, with another day’s growth on his face. Rogue pirate, indeed.
Miss Preston pushed in close to her. “Isn’t this fun? I hope they find enough game to make a good contest. Will your husband win, do you think?”
Carina shrugged. “I don’t know the rules.”
“First to spot, first to shoot claims the prize. If they hit it, of course. That man in the brown chesterfield and gaiters is keeping the score.”
Carina eyed the sandy-haired man with a pad of paper ready, wearing white pantaloons covered to the knee in leather gaiters. He seemed a bit of a popinjay.
“He’s a newspaperman.” Miss Preston said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you see your husband’s name in print. Supposing he wins, of course.” She licked her finger and held it up. “Wind is from the west.”
Carina didn’t point out that the train’s own motion caused that eastward breeze, and the gusts buffeted the side of the cars from the north. Not quite the genius she thought herself, that Miss Preston. Quillan stood ready with the others, armed with his Colt .45, his Winchester rifle leaning on the wall beside him. The side arm hung holstered at his hip as she’d seen it first. He hadn’t worn it since the demise of the roughs made his passage in and out of Crystal less dangerous. But she knew he carried it with him.
The crowd chattered until a yell of fowl and a shot rang out. It was William Scott Bennet who took aim and fired at a plover that took to the sky at the train’s passing. He must have failed to account for the train’s motion, for his shot missed. A moment later Quillan took down a second plover that plummeted from its startled ascent. Bennet frowned, but the crowd cheered.
“Waste of good meat,” Quillan said.
Miss Preston tittered. “Did you see him draw? He drew from his holster faster than I could see.”
Carina nodded. “He once shot the head from a striking rattlesnake.” Perhaps it wasn’t striking, but it might have been.
Miss Preston’s eyes did their spread and bulge. She turned swiftly and fixated on Quillan once again. In a short while someone hollered again and fired at a dusty brown blob not far from the train.
Quillan turned with a scowl. “There’s no sport in prairie dogs.”
But the scorekeeper counted it, so there were four more shots before the rest ducked underground. Quillan refused to shoot. A kestrel darted up from a ravine and Quillan hollered, “Falcon,” and shot. Both it and the mouse in its talons crashed to the ground.
“That should count for two,” someone hollered. “Brought down two with one shot.”
The scorekeeper agreed. Now Quillan was tied with the youth who’d shot three of the prairie dogs. The train was approaching a trellis over the same ravine, and everyone stopped for a moment to watch. It seemed such a rickety contrivance could never support the mighty, chugging steel monster, but it did. Directly beyond the ravine a herd of antelope bounded, their delicate white and tawny forms leaping.
Quillan shouted, “Antelope,” and brought one down with his Winchester rifle.
The others started shooting randomly, decimating the herd trapped between the tracks and the ravine.
The scorekeeper raised his hands. “No credit without acknowledging the target.”
Quillan jerked the rifle from one young man’s hands. “Enough!”
“I say.” Bennet got between them. “What’s the harm?”
“People depend on those animals for food.”
“People?” Bennet raised his brows.
One woman laughed. “Didn’t you see it on the menu last night?”
“That’s not what he means.” The speaker was the short, round-headed fourth man of the shooting party. “He means Mr. Lo, the noble savage.”
“He’s concerned about Indians?”
Carina saw the warning signs in Quillan’s face. Whether he spoke for the Indian tribes or not, the sport had gone too far. He would not participate in slaughter. He reached for his rifle and started toward her when more shots came.
The scorekeeper looked bewildered. “Who fired?”
But at that moment Carina realized the shots had not come from the train. A half dozen horsemen galloped toward them. Two split off toward the engine, and the others came alongside the caboose. The first rider caught hold and jumped aboard. Quillan pushed his way inside, but it was not haven he sought.
Carina rushed toward him. “Don’t go, Quillan. There are too many.”
He didn’t answer, just pressed her hand, then turned to the others. “If you want to put your shooting to better use, come now.”
“That’s crazy!” The young man who’d shot the prairie dogs balked. “They’ll take the Express and leave us in peace.”
“No guarantees of that.” A hefty bearded man reached into his coat for a Sharps four-barrel pepperbox similar to the one Quillan had bought Carina. She recognized the shape and grip. “The last time this happened they went through each one of us, women included. Took everything valuable we had.”
That sobered the whole group.