“This is not your day, Shane. Call off your men and go.” Quillan wasn’t sure why he assumed Dennison was in control, except that his was the bully personality always taking the fore.
“Why don’t you step over and disarm that agent? We could use another hand. Give me a chance to make up for the last time.” Dennison made his voice reasonable, but Quillan almost laughed. Two parts gall, one part stupidity—that was Shane Dennison.
“There’s payroll in that box, Quillan.” Again the eyes smiled.
“Pay that other men have earned.”
One of Dennison’s party laughed, but Shane didn’t. “So you’re a bleeding heart now. Sure a long way from the reverend’s personal devil.”
Quillan heard hooves. In a moment there’d be another gun to face. He stepped inside the car and aimed his rifle at Dennison’s chest. “Time to move on.”
“To move you on—to the next life.” Dennison raised his gun and fired.
Carina’s heart seized like a fist clenched as gunfire exploded in the next car. Per favore, Signore, per piacere, keep my husband safe, keep them all safe.
Miss Preston rushed between the seats to the window. The outlaws’ horses stood empty-saddled, except the one man galloping from the front. “Yoo-hoo.” Miss Preston tapped the window, waving at the outlaw on horseback. “Hey, look over here. I want to see your face.”
The man spun and fired, splintering the wood beside the window. Carina flung herself at Miss Preston, slamming her into the wall, then dragging her down. “Are you crazy? Pazzesca? You want to get someone killed?”
Priscilla Preston’s skin flushed fiery red. Her eyes bulged farther than ever. “Get off me this instant. I want to see his face.”
Carina looked at her aghast. “Come to your senses!”
But Miss Preston struggled free and ran for the door and through it. Carina stared in disbelief. As the outlaws scrambled to their horses and galloped away, one last gunman emerged from the freight car and leaped to his horse, firing wildly. He took a bullet in the chest and fell, but not before Miss Preston crumpled on the tiny balcony. Two men reached out and dragged her inside. Her shoulder was bloody, and she shrieked, then flipped her head side to side, moaning.
Reluctantly, Carina knelt and took Miss Preston’s head in her lap. “Is anyone a doctor? See if there’s a doctor on board.”
A man rushed to check the other cars. Carina wanted to scold and scream at Miss Preston. Genius indeed. How could anyone be so stupid? But Carina had no emotion to spare. Where was Quillan? Signore! She stared at the door flapping open and shut. The one opposite on the Express car was splintered. She could see motion inside, but little more.
A man pressed in to where she knelt, and Carina recognized a doctor’s authority. “Hold her head up,” he said.
Carina adjusted it in her lap. He pulled on Miss Preston’s eyelids and felt her pulse. Then he tore her dress at the shoulder seam and checked the wound. Carina looked on with no squeamishness. She’d seen plenty of blood. The bullet looked to have entered beneath the clavicle, but whether it had lodged against the scapula or passed through she couldn’t tell.
Carina had a desperate urge to drop Miss Preston and find her husband. But she held on as the doctor urged the shoulder up and searched for an exit wound. Finding none he said, “I’ll have to cut.” He looked into Carina’s face. “Perhaps someone else . . .”
“I have assisted surgeries.” She could hardly believe she had said it. Why should she succor Priscilla Preston? And where was Quillan? What if he, too, lay injured . . . or dead? She started to shake, but it wasn’t at the thought of the doctor’s knife.
Miss Preston began to thrash, and the doctor ordered, “Hold her while I prepare.” He went to his bag and began assembling instruments.
There was a commotion behind her, and Carina turned. Quillan entered with his companions. He supported the groundhog shooter, whose leg was bloody above the knee, but whose face was kindled with pride. Quillan’s own sleeve was bloody and torn, but he was alive. Grazie, Signore!
Quillan eased his injured man onto a seat. Then he looked down at Miss Preston and frowned. “How—”
“She went outside to watch.” Carina tried not to sound as disdainful as she felt. It was not for her to judge.
A minute later Bennet rushed in from the other end of the car. “They got away. I fired some shots, but the two at the front rode away.”
Quillan looked out the window. “One fell. But I think he’s past the doctor’s help.”
“What about the agent?” someone asked.
Quillan glanced back at the Express car. “He’s standing. But I don’t think he would have been for long. He wouldn’t turn over the box. It’s a cinch they’d have shot him.”
Carina’s heart swelled. Quillan had saved the man’s life. There seemed three types of men: those who took life, those who saved it, and those who wouldn’t risk either.
The older Miss Preston rushed into the car with a handkerchief to her mouth. “Oh! My niece!”
A portly matron circled her with an arm. “There, now. The doctor’s tending her.”
As she spoke, the doctor held a cloth dampened with chloroform to Priscilla Preston’s nose and mouth. Carina recognized the odor and held her breath, then felt the woman slacken. Then the doctor brought out his scalpel and the probe with a tiny scooplike shape at the end to remove the slug. It took only a few minutes. Then he treated the wound against infection with carbolic acid. Again Carina recognized the odor and the process. She doubted this doctor wasted his time reading the bumps on people’s heads. After he had bound the wound with clean bandages, two men lifted Miss Preston to a berth and closed the curtains around her and her aunt.
Next the doctor moved his operation to Quillan’s companion. “What’s your name, son?”
“Miles Chapen Smith.”
“Well, Mr. Smith, it appears the bullet passed through the muscle of your thigh, exiting here.”
The man winced. “Then at least I’m spared the surgery.”
“You are indeed. And you’re a lucky man. Farther to the left it might have severed an artery.”
The man blanched. “Well, we gave those rascals the rout, didn’t we?” He looked up at Quillan with adulation.
Quillan quirked his mouth. “We did.”
He suddenly gripped Quillan’s hand. “Thank you. For pushing me aside.”
Bennet shook his head. “And I thought I was taking the dangerous assignment.”
Quillan met his gaze. “We all did our part. Maybe they’ll think twice before hitting this line again.”
The Wells Fargo agent came in behind them. “I’ve secured the car, but I want to personally thank you men.” He looked at Quillan and lowered his brows. “You know the gang?”
Carina startled. How could Quillan know those men?
“Just the one. A long time ago.”
The agent eyed him a long moment. “When we get to the station, I’ll need your statement for my report. Can you make an identification?”
“His name is Shane Dennison. I don’t know if he goes by it still.”
“They might have papers on him. They might not. Anything you can tell us will help.” The agent glanced at Quillan’s bloody arm. “Hit bad?”