Lefty stood up suddenly, causing all of them to flinch. He strode past them and out of the cell in four long, gliding strides. After retrieving his firearm and a wooden prosthetic forearm and hand from an evidence drawer, he headed toward the door of the jailhouse.
He stopped just before exiting and turned to face the Walkers and Adie.
“You may want to follow me if y’all want to survive,” he said.
Then he stepped outside into the bright, high-noon sunshine.
At first, they all just stood there staring at the doorway. Nobody said anything. Then the three Walker children looked at Adie, as if she could either confirm or refute what Lefty had just said.
“Guess we should follow him,” she said with a shrug.
“But he’s a murderer,” Cordelia said. “He said he killed over forty men!”
“Maybe they deserved it,” Adie suggested. “There’s a lot of bad men around these parts. You met the sheriff and the deputies . . . and they’re supposed to be the good guys!”
“You really think we can trust this Lefty guy?” Brendan asked.
“Seems like a man you can trust, to me,” Adie said. “Daddy always says that true honesty lies behind a man’s eyes, not in his actions or words. I saw truth in that man’s eyes.”
“Yeah, well, I heard death in his words,” Brendan said as he headed toward the door. “But . . . we’ve got no other option.”
The truth was, Brendan knew the sheriff and his men would be coming after them with guns blazing. And Lefty was the only person here who could possibly stand up to them. His sisters and Adie followed, apparently seeing the same wisdom in his logic.
Lefty led them along the back of the northernmost rows of buildings in the town. As they passed several houses, they saw a young boy playing in his backyard. His eyes widened at the sight of them.
Lefty raised a single finger to his lips. The boy nodded slowly.
They eventually circled around to a small stable at the other edge of town. Lefty went straight toward a pair of large horses tied together near the back end of the stable. One was a huge black steed that looked more like a dragon than a horse. The other was deep brown with several white spots. Lefty retrieved two saddles and started strapping them onto the horses.
“He’s beautiful,” Eleanor said, running up to the black horse. It was so big it looked as if it could have gobbled her up in a few quick bites. “What’s his name?”
She ran a hand along the horse’s neck and then gave him an encouraging pat on the side. The youngest Walker loved horses so much that the prospect of getting to ride one completely erased the fear of the dangers surely ahead of them.
“I call him Whoa! because he was so hard to break,” Lefty said, pointing at Brendan and Cordelia. “You two will ride him. He’s normally my pack horse, but I can leave my supplies behind.”
“Great,” Brendan said, eyeing the huge steed warily.
“I think he’s just joking with us about his name,” Cordelia said, trying to comfort her younger brother.
Almost on cue, the huge black stallion reared back on its hind legs and let out a long whinny. It crashed back down and then snorted several times as if warning Cordelia and Brendan to keep away.
“On second thought,” Lefty said as he continued to strap saddles onto the two horses, “perhaps me and the youngest will ride Whoa! You two can take Widowmaker.” He pointed at the other horse, stamping his hooves on the dirt floor angrily. “He gets his name from—”
“Don’t tell me,” Brendan said. “I really don’t want to know.”
Lefty shrugged and hoisted Eleanor up onto Whoa!’s saddle. Then he climbed up onto the horse behind her.
“Why are you helping us?” Cordelia asked. “You don’t exactly seem like the charitable type. Especially if it means you’ll have to leave all your supplies behind.”
“Four children are a lot more useful to me getting away and past the Mexican border than all of this extra stuff.” He pointed to the corner of the stable at the bundled packs that Whoa! usually carried. “Now stop yapping and get on your horse!”
“Are you coming with us?” Brendan asked Adie, his cheeks growing hot for some reason.
“Nah, my whole family’s here,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you got away.”
Brendan nodded as Cordelia pushed a small stepladder over to Widowmaker. They eyed the huge horse warily; neither of them had very much experience with horses at all. They were just about to start uneasily climbing aboard, when a sharp crack broke open the silence.
Specks of dirt exploded at their feet as a bullet smashed into the ground just a few yards away. Brendan, Adie, and Cordelia dove for cover behind a feeding trough as several more shots were fired and bullets zipped by them and smashed into the hitching post, spraying splinters everywhere.
Widowmaker and Whoa! whinnied nervously before bolting out of the stables at a Triple Crown pace, taking Lefty Payne and Eleanor with them.
“Gather your rifles, men!” Sheriff Abernathy shouted from the center of town, as he reloaded his revolver. “We got fugitives on the run!”
“He’s reloading,” Adie said in a loud whisper. “Come on, now’s our chance. Follow me!”
She began running away from the stables toward the train depot before Brendan or Cordelia could respond. They hesitated for a moment, worried about Eleanor riding off alone with an admitted mass murderer, but eventually dashed after her. After all, there was no way they could save Eleanor if they were dead.
As they approached the station, they saw a train just starting to pull away, and already knew what Adie had in mind.
The three fugitives ran onto the train platform and sprinted alongside the moving locomotive, which was gaining speed with each passing second. More gunshots rang out behind them, and Brendan was sure he was going to get hit at any moment.
Ahead of him, Adie caught the last car of the train and jumped up, snagging the railing. She pulled herself onto the back deck. Brendan caught up with the train a few seconds later. He ran alongside it for a few moments and then reached up and grabbed the railing on the back end of the caboose. His feet dangled for a few seconds and he had visions of getting sucked underneath the train by his shoelace. But Adie’s small and surprisingly strong hands grabbed his shirt and pulled him aboard.
He spun around quickly and saw Cordelia struggling to keep up with the train as it gradually accelerated. Brendan held the railing and leaned off the side of the train car.
“You have to jump now!” he screamed at Cordelia. “Or you’ll never catch it!”
Cordelia nodded determinedly and then took one more step and leaped forward into the air. But it was too late; Cordelia’s outstretched hand fell just short of the railing.
She had just missed the last train out of town.
Brendan and Adie had been prepared for the possibility that Cordelia wasn’t going to make it. They leaned off the back end of the train, holding the railing for support, and each snagged Cordelia’s outstretched hand at the same time. As if they’d been working together as an action duo for years, they seamlessly pulled her aboard the train in one swift motion.
Cordelia collapsed to the deck on top of Brendan.
“I thought,” she said, stopping for a moment to catch her breath. “I thought I was dead!”
“I knew we had you the whole time,” Brendan lied with a grin. “Now, uh, you want to get off me?”
Cordelia climbed to her feet and then helped her brother up. All three of them smiled in relief. But their smiles quickly disappeared when a bullet zinged past and lodged into the train’s back door, right between Brendan’s legs.
His eyes went wide and he thought for a second that his heart had literally stopped beating. But the sound of more gunfire snapped him back to life as more bullets peppered the rear of the train.
A dozen men on horses, led by Sheriff Abernathy in his wolf coat, rode up behind them, firing pistols and rifles at the passenger train with reckle
ss abandon.
“He’s insane!” Cordelia yelled, pointing at the passenger cars ahead of them. “There are innocent people in there.”
Brendan grabbed the door handle to the train car and pulled. It didn’t budge.
“It’s locked!” he yelled, swaying slightly as the train rumbled on, picking up more speed.
The ground rushed dizzyingly past below their feet.
“Up here!” Adie yelled, already halfway up a ladder that led to the roof of the train car.
Brendan looked at Cordelia. From her expression, he could tell that she also didn’t feel too excited about climbing onto the roof of a speeding locomotive. Especially with bullets whizzing past them. But then she shrugged.
“We can’t just stay here like sitting ducks,” she shouted, and jumped onto the ladder.
As if to drive home her point, a bullet smashed into the wall right where her head had been just seconds before. Brendan started climbing up after them. He wasn’t particularly fond of ladders, especially ladders attached to the back of a speeding train, but thankfully it was just nine quick rungs to the roof.
When Brendan got to the top, he stayed on his hands and knees. No way was he going to stand up on top of this thing. It was already hard enough to stay steady on his knees with the wind whipping into his body like a swarm of invisible hands trying to nudge him overboard.
Sheriff Abernathy and his men were still gaining on the train.
“Brendan!” Cordelia yelled over the sounds of the train’s engine and the rushing wind. “We need to run toward the front! We’re too exposed back here!”
She was on her feet, wobbling slightly with her arms raised like a tightrope walker. If she could do this, then so could he, Brendan told himself. He was usually the reckless one.
He grabbed Cordelia’s hand, and she helped him to his feet. Brendan, Cordelia, and Adie began running on top of the passenger cars toward the front of the train. Once they got going, Brendan had to admit that it was slightly easier than he’d expected. The gaps between the cars were only a foot and a half, which was more like a long stride than an actual leap. And the rest of the train cars had slightly flatter roofs, providing more stability. It was sort of like running on a turbocharged moving walkway at an airport.
They were six cars closer to the front of the train, when Brendan spotted Lefty Payne and Eleanor on horseback ahead of them to the right. Widowmaker and Whoa! were still tethered together.
Brendan waved his arms frantically. Eleanor saw them but had her arms firmly gripped to the saddle and couldn’t wave back. Lefty looked back a moment later and then quickly motioned with a single sideways nod of his head for them to keep running toward the front of the train.
The guns continued to crack behind them, and every once in a while Brendan could hear a howling zip as a bullet whizzed past his head. He didn’t need any more prodding than that. The three of them bounded across four more train cars until they were even with the horses.
“Jump!” Lefty shouted.
“Onto the horse?” Brendan shouted back, eyeing Widowmaker’s empty back dubiously. It looked like it was forty feet down instead of just six or seven.
“Would you rather jump to the ground?” Lefty shouted.
Brendan glanced at the prairie rushing by in a blur of green and gold and brown. He definitely would not rather jump to the ground.
“Move, I’ll go first,” Cordelia said, stepping past him.
But once she was past him, she seemed entirely unsure that she’d actually meant it. Cordelia stood at the edge of the roof and looked down at Widowmaker’s back as if she were standing on the rim of an active volcano.
Before either of them could say or do anything more, Adie pushed past them both and hopped down easily onto Widowmaker’s back as if she were simply slipping into a swimming pool. She grabbed the reins with one hand and held out her other hand.
“Come on, jump!” she yelled. “It’s now or never, Brendan!”
He inched closer to the edge of the train car, until the back of the large brown horse was close enough that he maybe could have dipped down and touched it with his foot if they both weren’t moving at least thirty miles per hour. He took a deep breath and hopped down onto the horse’s back. He landed firmly on the saddle behind Adie, and for the next few minutes he writhed in pain and regretted not wearing his lacrosse gear—one specific item in particular.
Brendan was still howling in pain when he noticed that Cordelia was suddenly on the horse in front him, grasping at Adie’s shoulders for dear life. He did his best to reach out and steady his sister. And then, just like that, they were all firmly on Widowmaker’s back and veering away from the train behind Whoa! and Lefty Payne and Eleanor. The two tired horses sprinted up a gently sloping hill with a payload of five people on their backs.
The problem was the twelve or more heavily armed men still right behind them, still shooting. If it weren’t for Denver Kristoff’s attention to historical detail in making their old revolvers dreadfully inaccurate beyond twenty yards, all five of the fugitives would have been riddled with enough holes to be human water fountains.
But the sheriff and his men were getting closer. Nothing made this clearer than the bullet that slammed into Brendan’s rear end just as they crested the low hill.
“I’ve been shot!” Brendan screamed. “Oh, man, they shot me!” His panicked voice howled into Cordelia’s right ear.
“We can’t stop now!” Cordelia yelled back. “Is it bad? Where’d they hit you?”
“In the butt!” cried Brendan. “They shot me in the—”
And then he fell silent. His grip around Cordelia’s midsection loosened. Panic rose up in her throat, making it hard to swallow or speak.
“Brendan?” Cordelia shouted. “Brendan!”
Could someone really die that quickly from getting shot in the butt? Cordelia wasn’t sure, but was afraid to turn around and look.
“Is your brother all right?” Adie called out.
“I don’t know, but we have to keep going!” Cordelia said, before finally looking back.
Brendan was writhing, his free hand on his butt. He faced Cordelia again, still wincing in pain, but clearly alive.
“I don’t get it,” he shouted over the tromping of horse hooves. “I felt it hit me, and it stings really bad, but there’s no blood.”
“We’ll check it out when . . . if we ever get away from these psycho cowboys,” Cordelia said, relief allowing her to finally breathe again.
Meanwhile, on the lead horse in front of them, Eleanor was completely unaware that Brendan had been shot. She was too busy looking across the endless horizon for somewhere, anywhere, to hide. And then she spotted the perfect place.
A few hundred yards away, tucked behind another hill, she saw the unmistakable peaked Victorian roof of Kristoff House. She pointed at it and shouted to Lefty.
“Head that way!” she shouted. “That’s our house! It can save us!”
“How can a house save us?” Lefty asked.
“Trust me! Just go toward the house!”
Eleanor knew it wouldn’t let them down. Somehow, whenever things seemed to be at their worst, Kristoff House always found a way to save them. It had been there to get them out of a pickle too many times to even count. Which is partially why it still felt so much like home to the Walker children, in spite of all the horrible things that had happened to them there.
Lefty pulled the reins and directed a fatigued Whoa! toward the house. The horses clearly didn’t have much energy left. They couldn’t flee forever. So this strange house that he could have sworn wasn’t here a few days ago was as good a place to hole up as any.
Within a few minutes, the horses gratefully came to a stop at the front porch of Kristoff House. The five riders dismounted and rushed inside. Cordelia slammed the door shut and latched all three locks.
“Brendan!” she said. “Are you okay?”
He hobbled over to the couch, limping awkwardly due to the
wound to his butt and the impact of the horse’s saddle on his groin. He gingerly pulled something from his back jeans pocket. It was Kristoff’s Journal. There was a smoking hole in the center, passing almost all the way through it. Brendan poked at it with his finger. A small black slug fell out and plopped onto the floor.
“I guess that’s why there was no blood,” he said, grinning. “That old crackpot’s book just saved my butt. Literally.”
Cordelia frowned in spite of her relief.
“I just hope that hole didn’t erase anything important,” she said.
“Seriously? That’s all you care about?”
“Guys!” Eleanor shouted from the living-room bay window. “The men are still out there! They’re heading toward the front door!”
“So it’s at least twelve guns versus . . . ,” Brendan said, trailing off as he looked toward the outlaw Lefty Payne. “One?”
Lefty nodded slowly, knowing that as good a gunman as he was, one six-shooter couldn’t fend off a whole posse of armed men for very long.
“What are we going to do?” Cordelia asked.
“The Dyson?” Brendan suggested.
“That’s not going to work again, especially against more than a dozen cowboys this time!” Eleanor said.
Loud pounding on the front door silenced them all.
“Come out of there,” Sheriff Abernathy shouted. “Or we’ll break down the door and shoot every last one of you!”
Lefty Payne stepped in front of the door and then looked at the three Walkers.
“The little one said this house can save us?” he asked with his eyebrows raised.
“Maybe,” Brendan said, looking down at the Journal clutched in his hands. “I’ll start reading. There’s a section in here that had some technical sketches of the secret passageways and hidden features of the house.”
“Make it fast, kid,” Lefty said. “I can’t buy us much more time.”
Brendan opened the Journal toward the back and began skimming as fast as he could, looking for Denver’s breakdown of all of the house’s many secrets.
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