We spent another night in a cheap motel in a little town, don’t even remember the name of it. After being jiggled around all day in the train, we slept like logs. Charlie snored so loud, Maddy and I could hear him from our room right beside the men’s.
I was getting used to Maddy. I liked her. She wasn’t an exciting person, but she was agreeable, and she was determined to do her job. She’d decided our cargo held the crown jewels the Russian royal family had smuggled out with them when they’d been rescued. I tried to figure out why anyone would hire us to guard them, and why they’d send the jewels to Dixie, of all places. But Maddy had her fantasy. She pointed out that Tsar Alexei’s first wife had been from Dixie. So it all made sense, to Maddy.
Jake, our leader, talked a lot about his boyfriend. Charlie talked about anything and everything. Rogelio was a silent brooder.
Third day, we crossed into the country of Dixie. We were approaching Sally, our goal, a little town in Louisiana. I wanted to get off that train so bad I was itching, and the others were the same. We had fallen out of our best readiness because we were too warm and no one approached us and we were sick of guarding the crate, which didn’t tick or ring or do anything but sit there.
Everything was boring until the train blew up.
CHAPTER TWO
The sound seemed to come out of nothing: the shriek of metal twisting, a deep rumble, the squeal of brakes, the yells of passengers. It was like death became able to scream.
Charlie was standing up when the train left the tracks, so he died first. He leaped up when the screeching began, somehow feeling it before the rest of us, so he had nothing to hold on to.
Lunch baskets and suitcases and books, every kind of thing, hung in the air along with Charlie as the north windows became the floor. Charlie flew through the air higgledy-piggledy, falling across a row of seats to crash into a window. I’m sure he died as soon as he hit the window, which shattered and cut into Charlie’s neck … though that neck had most likely broken first.
I saw it clear and separate, each little thing.
And then the hundreds of things happening came together in a blur of noise and sight when our car hit the ground beside the tracks and skidded on its side, along with the car before and the car after.
Maddy and I, we’d been sitting on the same seat. We ended up in a heap on what was now the lowest point, the north side of the train. The crate came with us. I grabbed hold of it when we began to tumble. I landed on top of Maddy, so I got the better of the deal. I heard her cursing. Not only was she alive, she was mad as hell.
Jake and Rogelio were almost hidden in the pile of items that had landed every which where—purses, suitcases, maps, a box of candy. The two men lay still. I feared the worst. Then I saw Jake’s arm move, the fingers flex.
After a long minute of trying to understand what had just happened, Maddy and I scrambled to get untangled. When I was sure the train wasn’t going to move any more, I rose to my feet. I wasn’t sure what or who I was standing on. “Up you go, Maddy,” I said, my voice a far-off buzz to my own ears. I didn’t know if she could hear me or not.
I had put my rifle under my seat, and I scrabbled for it and slung it around my neck. My Colts were still secure in my gun belt.
I wondered briefly about Ritter or Seeley, but they weren’t my crew.
“Someone’s gonna come to take our cargo,” I yelled, to make sure Maddy heard me over the screams and groans. Maddy and I pulled our guns and stood flanking the crate. It was splintered bad on one corner. I saw dark wood inside, but couldn’t make out anything else.
“You sure?” Maddy yelled back.
I thought my head would fly off. It seemed real logical to me. We’d been waiting and waiting for someone to try to take the cargo from us, and this train wreck gave ’em the opportunity. And I realized, all of a sudden, This is why we got blown up.
“I am sure,” I yelled. I felt blood running down my right cheek. Maddy was bleeding too. “You able to shoot?” I yelled, and she patted the air to get me to quiet down.
“I can hear you,” Maddy said. “I can shoot. Should we help?”
People all around us were asking for help.
I had a confused trail of thoughts. We should help ’em, but we weren’t doctors, and the cargo was our responsibility, and the men were going to show up shooting, and we had to shoot better or the people in the car would get shot anyway.
“We got to defend,” I said, and Maddy seemed content with that.
After a long pause, she said, “Charlie’s dead.”
“Saw him,” I said. I found I was shaking all over from the wreck, and with the waiting. I could not help myself. I heard gunfire. Yes, this was it.
“Jake,” Maddy called, real loud. “Jake, Rogelio.”
“I’m alive,” Jake called back. He didn’t sound too sure. “You see anyone coming?”
“Not yet.” I had to raise my own voice to be heard over the screams. “But you hear the shooting?” It wasn’t constant, but the sound was getting closer.
“I hear it.”
“Jake, you and Rogelio out of the running?” Maddy sounded scared but determined.
“I’m trying to figure that out.” Jake sounded dazed and slow.
I spared a glance to my right. Jake was struggling to untangle himself from Rogelio and from another passenger who’d fallen across his legs, one of the old men, who wasn’t going to get any older now.
“You saw Charlie’s dead,” Maddy called to Jake. She was worried, trying not to sound it. “We can sure use you.”
Jake said a few things. I couldn’t understand him.
Maddy muttered, “God lay Charlie’s soul to rest.”
We had to shift around to get good footing, the crate tight between our feet. Maddy faced east, I covered west. There was more light coming from the east. I risked a glance behind me. Now that the choking dust was settling, I could see the east end of the car had been split by the force of the impact, just where the roof met the doorframe. The gap was tall as a man, but narrow.
Facing west, the car was darker. There was no new opening. Half the windows faced dirt. The door—now sideways—was intact, though splintered.
Maddy yelled, “I see someone coming.” She didn’t mean a rescue crew.
Jake crawled over to us, slowly and painfully. “All right, I’m here,” he said. “Where’s the fire?”
There was blood flowing quick and bright from a gash in Jake’s scalp. “You’re addled,” I told him. “Don’t try to stand.”
“I think I won’t.” Jake’s voice was groggy. But he was aware enough to prop his back against the crate and draw his pistol.
“Here they are!” I don’t think Maddy knew she was shouting. She was pretty excited, and in truth there was still a lot of noise coming from the people badly hurt or badly shaken. At the moment no one could get in our car from my direction, so I turned to look.
Two men with guns were squeezing through the crack, one at a time. That made it easy. Maddy shot one the instant he appeared. As he dropped, I shot the next one, who had just started to flinch back. There were screams of protest from the other passengers. Like “No!” and “What are you doing?”
Might be we had just killed two men coming to the aid of the injured. But Good Samaritans wouldn’t have had their guns drawn.
With those two disposed of and none more in sight at that opening, I turned back to guarding my end of the car. For a couple of minutes, the screams of pain and appeals to God for rescue battered at my ears. But the voices began to die down—for real, die down. And the live passengers realized no help was arriving anytime soon.
“They won’t come as fast this time,” Maddy said, her voice at a reasonable level.
“No,” I agreed. “But they’ll come. They went to all this trouble; shooting a couple of ’em isn’t going to stop ’em.”
After a few minutes I heard a big noise, like a giant can was being opened with a knife.
Turns out,
that was pretty much what was going on.
Outside the east end of the car, someone was prying at the narrow opening. At the same time, I could hear sounds coming from the door on the west end. Might be rescue, but I didn’t think so. We weren’t that lucky. Jake had sure picked a bad name for this crew.
“What if they’re helpers?” Maddy said, stepping right on my thoughts.
“They ain’t. Shoot ’em.” Jake’s voice was slurred, but he sounded sure. He was holding his gun, but it wasn’t pointed at anything. A quick sideways glance told me Rogelio was stirring. I was relieved he wasn’t dead, but I wished he’d rally faster.
After the screeching metal sound of the cutting tool quit, a big pry tool took over. More and more light poured into the car, and the people—the ones who had not fallen silent forever—were once again convinced help had arrived. They got excited. As if a group of men had known the train would derail and had gathered their tools and waited to assist stricken passengers.
Of course it wasn’t rescue. Someone fired in at us. The screaming resumed. Shit.
Maddy fired back. And Jake, too, so he was at least capable of that. I don’t know how close he came to his target. I had other problems. The glass window on the door at my end of the carriage smashed. I saw a crowbar inserted through the hole to pry open the door.
Hard to understand why they were doing that, since they’d have to crouch down to crawl through. It would be like shooting ducks at a fair arcade. I’d kill ’em as soon as I saw ’em.
But I couldn’t. See ’em. I only spied a hand in the opening, tossing in something. This was real bad. I fired at the spot where the hand was, hoping to wound someone, and a yell told me I’d done that.
The cabin started to get hazy. The “something” was a smoke bomb.
I’d heard of them but I’d never seen one. Kids sometimes built them to use for pranks. The people I’d talked to—people who knew arms and weapons—told me smoke bombs were dangerous because the chemicals could ignite.
I don’t know diddly-squat about chemicals. But everyone who’d spoken against the smoke bombs were right. The damn thing did ignite. There was a pop and flame in the middle of all that smoke.
And then there was more screaming and moaning. And the smoke grew thicker.
Maddy began coughing. “I can’t breathe,” she said between hacks. Something about this smoke was getting to her lungs particularly bad. I wasn’t coughing as hard, though my eyes were streaming. I forced myself to keep looking in the direction of the door, though I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut.
A face came out of the smoke, and I shot it.
“Can you see enough to shoot, Maddy?” I said.
“Just barely.” I could just hear her breath sawing in and out.
“It’s going away,” I said. Some wind was coming through now that the east end of the carriage was open. Most of the windows had been down when the wreck occurred. Thank God. I could see better. Maddy would be able to breathe.
But under cover of the smoke, other gunnies slipped into the car.
We began shooting in earnest. I killed a woman with bristly hair, then wounded a white-haired man. The white hair almost made me hold back, but he had a gun. I got him in the right shoulder.
It was great that we could make out who was coming in … but they could see us just as well, and we couldn’t move because of the damn crate.
I could feel Maddy trembling against my back. Maybe she could feel me, too. This was long, for a gunfight. They’re over quick as a rule.
Rogelio had risen to his knees, and one of the incoming gunnies tripped over him. Rogelio had a knife in hand and he cut the guy, who collapsed right beside him. But then Rogelio passed out again, before one of the others could shoot him in retaliation. I didn’t know if our crewmate was really out or if he was faking it, but either way, he’d finally done some good.
One came from either end, and they were both shooting as they entered. I felt Maddy get hit. I heard the noise she made. She was down. I was alone.
Rifle wasn’t good in these close quarters, but soon it would be the weapon I had to use. I was out of bullets in one Colt, had six left in the other. I am good with my left hand, almost as good as I am with my right. I got creased, between my shoulder and elbow. It burned. Pain leaped up my arm. I could feel the blood soaking my shirt. A big man loomed up out of the wisps of smoke, and he aimed to hit me with the stock of his rifle, but I shot him instead. Got a bit of blood spatter.
It got real hard to stay upright.
You can tell yourself your wound is just a graze and you won’t die. But getting shot hurts. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s an easy gunshot wound. My arm was on fire. I spared a glance for Maddy. She was now stretched full length over a couple of other bodies, gunnies or just passengers, I didn’t know. Jake was barely upright in his seat on the floor. He fired at the next attacker, missed, tried again and got him. But he had gotten hit in the exchange.
I was gonna die here, I figured, and I was so focused on the next person wriggling through the sideways door that I didn’t see anyone coming up behind me, across Maddy, until I felt a blow to the back of my head.
I knew I was done, but I twisted to fall across the crate.
I’d tried my hardest. I couldn’t do any more. I was out.
CHAPTER THREE
I was lying on the ground and Harriet Ritter was sitting on a tree stump a few inches away. She was talking to Sarah Byrne, the gunnie with the scabby wound on her cheek.
“… so it seems,” Ritter was saying, “that there’s an opening on the Lucky Crew, which should maybe be called the not-so-lucky crew.” If she was smiling, I was going to kill her. I opened my eyes a little wider. Ritter was not smiling.
“You can live,” I tried to tell her, but it came out more like a croak.
“Thanks. Glad you woke up.” Ritter had blood on her clothes and she smelled like engines and metal. So did Sarah Byrne. I expected I did, too.
“Who is dead?” I sounded clearer this time.
“For starters, most of the gunnies who came after you. We got out quick through the hole. We shot two of ’em from outside. The old man on your team, the one who carried the ax, is the only one dead from your crew. Jake Tutwiler has a head wound from the wreck and a bullet wound in the arm, not likely to kill him. The big girl was shot in the thigh. That good-looking Mexican who doesn’t smile has a broken nose, a sprained shoulder, and a broken rib or two.”
That didn’t seem like many wounds, for someone who’d been slumped on the floor last I’d seen him. “The other gunnies get the crate? The ones shooting at us?”
“No. Travis and I stopped them. Just in time.”
“Thanks for rushing to help us,” I said. Maybe sounded a little bitter.
Ritter’s lips tightened. “We got to it as fast as we could. We climbed out of the car before anyone else got moving. I twisted my knee, and Travis dislocated his shoulder. He’s got a cut on his chest that will need stitches. We kept about six of ’em off. You heard the shots, I guess. Couldn’t help it that some got in.”
Maybe I should have apologized. I just didn’t have the energy. I looked at my arm, to see I’d been bandaged. Felt like the wound had been slathered with something. “What’s on it?” I looked up at Ritter for an answer.
“A new medicine, supposed to prevent infection,” she said. Her face had relaxed. “It’s hard to find.”
“And yet you had some,” Sarah Byrne said. Sarah didn’t sound like she cared much for Harriet Ritter.
“Yes, I had some.” Ritter sounded real calm.
“What’s happened?” I asked. I had no idea how much time had passed.
“The dead are over there,” Sarah said, pointing.
I lifted my head, trying to get the lay of the land. I was on the ground close to the wreck. The train had been running just about west to east, and I was on the north side in a fallow field. About a quarter of a mile away was a road running parallel to the tracks. On
the north side of the road there was a low hill. I could just see a row of bodies lying side by side on the slope. I counted twenty.
“And that many again, or more, likely to die,” Harriet said. “No telling how many were hurt. They’ve put up a tent for the wounded, and got nurses over there. They’re bandaging them up and taking them to the little hospital in Sally, a nurse said.”
How much time had passed? More than I’d figured when I’d first come to. “Who did it?” I said. “How’d the train leave the tracks?”
Sarah Byrne answered me. “Something blew up. I don’t know who set it off. There’s been some unrest hereabouts recently. Maybe it was because of that. Maybe whoever was after your cargo just seized the chance to make a grab.”
“Pigs may fly.” It stood to reason—at least to my reason—the tracks had been blown up to make an opportunity to get the crate. It had happened between towns, when the tracks ran through fields, where there wouldn’t be many witnesses. Maybe the plan had been made up on the spur of the moment, but that was what its goal had been.
“The derailment might have been an accident. Or an equipment failure. Or something on the tracks,” Ritter said, like she’d made a promise to be fair.
“Something on the tracks like dynamite.” Sarah started pacing, her hands jittery around her guns. Her traveling bag was on the ground.
Was mine somewhere close? I had to look for it. Where was my rifle? Though I was worried, I couldn’t seem to get up just now. I would. Real shortly.
“Travis has gone to get his shoulder popped back in place and to gather information,” Ritter told us, though we hadn’t asked.
“You want a drink of water?” Sarah knelt beside me.
More than anything. “Yes.”
She slid an arm under to lift me a little and put a canteen to my lips. The first gulp, though warm and metallic, was just what my throat needed.
“Thanks. You look in good shape,” I said after she’d put my head back down.
“I landed on the asshole we had the talk with—man who hit his wife? Broke his fucking neck, which saved me.”
A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose) Page 2