Miss Preston’s gaze intensified. “Would they?”
Even as she spoke the train began grinding to a halt. Grabbing hold of the posts as they were swept forward against one another, everyone started talking at once. This gang apparently would not be satisfied with the Express car. Otherwise why stop the train?
Quillan nodded to the man with the Sharps. “Anyone else with me?”
Bennet and his three friends looked at each other, then stepped forward. Quillan reloaded his Colt as he spoke. “We’ll split up. There’s a Wells Fargo agent in the Express car. He’ll be armed and ready, but he’s only one man. We’ll need someone to go forward and cover the ones holding the engineer and fireman. If they’re complying, they probably won’t be hurt, but we can’t take that chance.”
Bennet said, “I’ll go,” raised his rifle, and pressed through the crowd.
A gunshot sounded from the back of the train, and Quillan’s face hardened. “Let’s go!” He holstered the Colt and snatched up his Winchester.
“But what are we doing?” The balking youth caught his arm.
“We’ll contain them to the Express car or take them out from there.”
“Take them out?”
But Quillan was already moving into the small space between cars. Carina watched him go, her heart turning to lead. This couldn’t be happening. Quillan would take on armed outlaws? His sense of justice had already been piqued. Now it sought release. But at what cost?
The newspaperman in the chesterfield coat was unarmed but hurried after those who were. Carina felt paralyzed, one hand to her heart. Oh, Signore. But before she could finish her prayer, Miss Preston clutched her arm.
“Will he stop them? Will he keep them from coming in?”
At last she was showing a healthy fear. “I don’t know.”
Miss Preston’s eyelids pulled wide. “Did you get a look at them? At any of them?”
“Not closely.” And now Carina realized it wasn’t fear but excitement on Miss Preston’s face.
“Come on.” The woman pulled her forward.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see for myself.”
Carina tugged free. “This is not a show.” She wanted to slap the woman. “People could die. My husband could die.”
But whatever macabre curiosity held Priscilla Preston compelled her forward. Carina shivered. Her desire for excitement could endanger them all. Carina hurried after her.
Quillan led his companions through the first passenger car where people sat, white-faced, having heard the gunshots. At the end of the second car, he pressed close to the wall beside the door, gun at the ready, listening to the quiet that followed the shots. The other men divided up on both sides.
Quillan chafed. He had good horses and a wagon that held far more than Carina’s trinkets. His life’s work in the form of cash and bank notes was in a strongbox nailed to the underside. He wasn’t about to lose any of it. More than that, lives were at stake. “That Wells Fargo man can’t stand alone.”
The men shared glances. Quillan read their fear. “Keep guard here at the door. I’m going through.”
“I’m with you.” It was the man with the Sharps.
Quillan looked at him. “What’s your name?”
“Sam Tillory.”
“Someone give Sam a rifle.”
The contestant with sandy lamb chop whiskers handed his over, and he took the Sharps. Quillan raised his own Winchester. His Colt was loaded at his hip, but nothing spoke as loudly as a rifle aimed at the chest.
“There are four of them.” The young man who’d shot the prairie dogs raised his own Remington rifle. “I’ll come, too.”
“Are you sure?” Quillan searched the man’s eyes. Though he saw fear and insecurity, he also saw determination. “All right.” Quillan started through the door. One of the outlaws rode alongside the train, probably communicating between those holding the engineer and the others robbing the freight. At the moment he was passing forward away from them.
Quillan crept from one car to the other with Sam Tillory and the other, whose name he’d neglected to learn, right behind. Two of the gunmen had worked the side doors of the freight car open. Probably the gunshot they’d heard. A third was in there also. Quillan cracked the end door just enough to see what was happening inside.
“There’s no way I’m turning over this box.” The Wells Fargo man stood with a rifle poised.
“Don’t be stupid. We’ve four guns to your one.”
Quillan jolted at the voice. He couldn’t see the speaker, who must be the one mounted outside the car. But he knew him. He left the door and eased over to the edge of the car. Removing his hat, he peeked around the side. The black kerchief over mouth and nose only enhanced his recognition—Shane Dennison, looking exactly as he’d seen him last, half a lifetime ago.
Quillan’s heart pounded. What were the odds of meeting up with his “friend” who’d staged the bank robbery and left him, a fourteen-year-old fool, to take the fall? But then, was it such a long way from robbing banks in Laramie to robbing trains on the Wyoming plains? His hands tightened on the rifle. His Winchester ’73 was a .44–40 with a center-fire cartridge. Powerful and accurate. Swallowing the tightness in his throat, he moved back toward the door, then pushed it open with the barrel of his rifle.
One of the outlaws saw the motion and jerked his gun from the Wells Fargo agent toward Quillan. “Stop right there!” he hollered.
Quillan stopped but pushed the door fully open with his foot to let his partners be seen, guns at the ready. “What we have here is a Mexican standoff.” Quillan said it loudly enough to be heard by the man outside the train car. And now he had full view of Shane Dennison.
The man stared up in disbelief. “Quillan?”
Quillan didn’t answer, mostly because his fury and disgust were choking him.
Dennison’s eyes smiled above the kerchief. “Well, I’ll be hogswallowed. Here I thought we were in trouble.”
“No trouble if you take your men and go. Or do you still leave them behind?”
Dennison cocked his head. “Now, that was not my fault. If you’d have followed orders—”
“I’m giving them now.” Quillan saw Dennison’s eyes spark, and he slid his finger to the trigger. “Clear out before people get hurt.”
“Are you threatening me?” Dennison’s own finger twitched. He’d been a terrible shot, but that was fourteen years ago, when Quillan had been impressed by his august age of eighteen and every honeyed word that proceeded from his mouth. Fourteen years was time enough to develop skill with a weapon, especially when it appeared he used it for his livelihood.
The other men were looking tense and uncertain. Quillan knew the longer they waited the tighter the nerves would get. He glanced quickly at the agent, who seemed relieved to have backup but not sure where to go from there.