First Class Male (2 page)

The second gunman behind him, standing as stoically as a mountain, thumbed back the hammer on his revolver, proof they meant business.

“Hurry up now.” Red Bandanna shoved his gun into the conductor’s face. “We start with you.”

She gasped, terror crawling through her as the conductor complied, on his knees on the floor now, rifling through his pockets, tossing cash, his pocket watch and his wedding ring into the pillowcase. Callie was too far away to see if any sweat popped out on the conductor’s forehead, but she figured it did because it was popping out on hers.

“Now you ladies, just throw in your reticules.
Do it,”
Red Bandanna growled, his feet planted, invincible in black. He rammed his gun into the elderly lady’s temple. “And gimme that real fancy pin on your dress too.”

The woman squeaked with terror and tossed everything she had into the makeshift bag, including the pin. Her seat partner did too.

“For your convenience, we got someone in the back of the car. You in the last row, I’d give up that wedding ring if I wanted to live.” Red Bandana turned to the other side of the aisle and terrified two businessman out of their valuables while the train chugged merrily along. Clearly everyone else on board, in other cars, had no idea what was transpiring.

“You.” A big, beefy man who smelled like fried onions stopped beside her seat. He wore a blue bandana and had fringe on his leather vest. “Toss it in.”

She held onto her reticule, the one her sisters had made her for Christmas out of purple calico trimmed with matching ribbon. She thought of the money inside, even if it wasn’t much, it was her life savings. She’d worked hard to earn it. Her sister’s letter was there too, and the picture of Earl. Not worth her life, but still. It was hard to let go of it.

“Hurry up,” Blue Bandanna rapped his gun on her wrist, pain shot through her bone, and her fingers released.

The pain remained.

“Now gimme your jewelry,” he demanded, towering over her, so big and strong he could snap her in two if he wanted. He jammed his gun against her jaw. Horror rocked through her at the feel of the cold metal. The robber’s black eyes told her that he wouldn’t have any problem pulling the trigger, ending her life right then and there.

“I don’t have any jewelry.” Uncontrollable tears blurred her vision, terrified he’d pull the trigger anyway, but she tried to make eye contact, so he could see she told the truth.

“Say, now, ain’t you a pretty thing.” Blue Bandanna kept his attention on her but turned his gun across the aisle. The farmer sitting there tossed in his billfold and wedding ring without so much as a whimper. Blue Bandanna gestured to his fellow robbers. “Hey, look what we got here. A real looker.”

“Is that so?” Red Bandanna stopped in the middle of terrifying a nun. She dropped money and her rosary into his bag with trembling hands. He straightened up so he could better see through the car. When his gaze landed on Callie, his eyes smiled cruelly. “Look at that. She
is
mighty pretty.”

Callie gulped, shaking hard. She didn’t like this attention, she didn’t want to be around rough men. Besides, they had her money, they had everything she had to give. Would they just go away if she ignored them? She stared down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. Just think about Earl and his daughters, she thought. The robbers would leave, the journey would go on and she’d be with her new family in a matter of hours. It was going to be okay.

“I’ve had me a hankering for a pretty little thing,” Red Bandanna said thoughtfully as he whapped a young mother across the face with his gun when she couldn’t juggle her baby and take off her necklace fast enough. “Now that the last one is all used up, guess it wouldn’t hurt to get a new one.”

“Just what I was thinkin’,” Blue Bandanna agreed. His beefy hands clamped around Callie’s arm before she realized they meant to take her. Her bottom left the seat and she dangled in mid-air. She tried to cry out, tried to wrench away but the man was too strong. He was like Goliath, his strength not even human. He tossed her over his shoulder like she was a sack of laundry and clamped his hand around the back of her legs to keep her there.

“You’d be smart to lay there nice and quiet,” he told her, moving down the aisle, holding his pillowcase for the next row of passengers to toss their things into as fast as they could. “Or you won’t ever walk right again.”

Tears squeezed out of her eyes. Her head thudded with all the blood rushing through it. Her stomach felt queasy, but that was nothing compared to the absolute sheer panic charging through her. Help me, she wanted to scream, but she knew no one would. No one could.

“That’s it!” Red Bandanna called, heading to the door with his cache. “Let’s go.”

Bounce, bounce, bounce she went down the aisle, hanging over Blue Bandanna’s shoulder. Breathing hard, blinking away the tears of terror that just kept coming, she caught the apologetic look on the farmer’s face. Like the others, he was too scared to do anything. She saw the young mother, clutching her baby, crying with fear for her, and the nun bowing her head to pray for her as Blue Bandanna reached the door at the end of the car. Prairie wind billowed her skirts.

No, she thought. No, no, no. She went cold inside, numb with terror. Desperate, she grabbed onto the handrail by the door, holding on as hard as she could. Voices were shouting in another car, maybe help was coming if only she could hold on long enough.

“Let go, dammit!” Blue Bandanna lunged against the side of the door, slamming her head into the metal frame. Agony burst through her skull, spots danced before her eyes and then there was only darkness.

Belly down on the backside of a hill, U.S. Marshal Mason Greer knuckled back his hat for a better look at the craggy bluff up ahead and squinted through his binoculars. He frowned, straining to make out the distant smudges that were too far away, but he couldn’t get closer. Hell if he’d risk being spotted, not after twenty-eight days on the Folsom brothers’ trail. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he felt something crawling along his pant leg but he didn’t move, not until he was sure.

“It’s gotta be them,” Clint Dawson drawled, uncapping his canteen. “We’ve been weaving in and out of these bluffs and hills for too long. We’ve come up on everyone but the Folsom Gang. There ain’t anyone left. It’s just the process of elimination.”

“Yeah, it’s gotta be them.” Pauly Black agreed, rubbing dust off his rifle barrel with his sleeve. “It can’t be anyone else.”

Mason cut his gaze back to his binoculars, amused by his junior marshals. They were good men and better gun fighters. He was glad they had his back. “Looks like activity at the camp. Horses coming up the trail.”

A lot of horses. With his elbows digging into the hard-baked Montana earth, he swiped a stream of sweat trickling down his forehead, his eyes peeled for a better view. Eight, nine, ten horses. He frowned, biting back a curse of frustration. He would have liked to be closer, but he knew from personal experience the risk of being spotted.

Once he’d been closer than this and the gang had mysteriously fled in the cover of night, an hour before he’d planned to burst into their camp and make his captures. Somewhere out there was a lookout for the gang, scanning the silent craggy rises of bluff and cliffs.

The lookout would be up high, he figured, one or two men guarding the camp. Best place would be up on that tall bluff wall, tucked in behind those big boulders. You could see for a mile, probably, and get a good look at anyone coming and stay perfectly hidden.

Then that would be the first place he’d strike. Mason turned his attention back to the outlaw’s camp where the horses, nothing but blurry forms, had stopped, standing still while the fuzzy shapes of what had to be men swarmed into the shadows beneath the Ponderosa pines, out of his sight.

Frustrated, he bit back a curse, sat up and flicked off the half-dollar sized spider inching along his pant leg. The creature went flying, and he tucked his binoculars back into their leather pack.

“Too bad we can’t get the layout of their camp.” He inched down the backside of the slope, mindful of that probable lookout up on the cliff. He took care to make sure he was hidden by the rise and by the scrabbled pines before he stood. “Considering last time, we can’t risk it. We’ll have to go in blind.”

“My favorite way.” Deeks spit a stream of tobacco juice and grinned. His whiskery face and wild hair made him look like a mad man. “I’m up for it. I’d like to get these bastards before they hurt anyone else.”

“You’re thinking of that woman we found.” Mason bowed his head, felt his stomach twist, remembering. He rested his rifle against his arm and hiked down the slope, where the rest of his men waited with the horses. They’d come across the body a few days ago. She’d probably been pretty once—before the Folsom brothers and their gang had gotten a hold of her.

She’d been tortured for a long time, hurt for a long time and raped, God only knew how often. When they were done with her, the brutal men had left her body broken, she’d probably been beaten and kicked to death, maybe used as target practice. They’d left her for coyote food. Seeing that about broke what was left of his heart. He’d lost his faith in humanity long ago, and doing what he did for a living didn’t help, always seeing its darker side.

“Yeah, we need to get ‘em.” Grim, Deeks pulled his packet of chew out of his pocket. “I want ‘em real bad.”

“Me, too.” Grim, determined, his resolve like hard, unfailing steel, Mason planted his feet, considered the lay of the land, the trees behind them that would give them cover, and the fact that the sun was low in the sky.

Sunset would be here soon enough, and they wouldn’t waste time. He couldn’t risk the gang escaping in the night again. The trail of sorrow, murdered farmers, dead women—they were the reason he hunkered down on a nearby rock and began drawing a map in the dirt. The camp, the likely lookout, how they would approach, how they would strike. His hired men circled in, offering comments, nodding in agreement, seriously committed.

But no one could be more committed than him. Nine years ago he’d lost his wife to men like the Folsoms. Vicious, conscienceless men who enjoyed robbing, raping and killing. He wouldn’t be happy until every outlaw of that ilk was behind bars or dead. So he laid out his plan, going over it with his men until it was solid, every angle had been examined and any weakness found. They were ready. Failure was not an option.

“Did ya have to go and hit her so hard?” a man’s voice drawled from a great distance away.

Callie stirred, consciousness coming to her in small snatches in the dark of her mind. A voice, her aching body, the boom of pain in her head. Then it began to fade away, the blackness lulling her back, as if it didn’t want to let her go. She should fight it, she thought. But she didn’t know how.

“Aw, I didn’t hit her,” a gruff voice answered. “Just slammed her against the side of the train. Guess since I put my weight into it, it was a big blow.”

“You’re like a bear,” another man laughed. “She’s just a bit of a thing. Hope you didn’t do more than knock her out.”

“Yeah,” a different voice answered. “I was hopin’ this one might last longer than the other one.”

“Me, too,” one of the men answered. “But if she don’t wake up soon, I won’t wait. I like ‘em screaming, but dead or just knocked out is okay too.”

Men’s cruel guffaws reached her ears, and Callie’s eyes snapped open, squinting in the dusk of twilight. Pain exploded along the side of her head, radiating to her temple when she tried to move. She was on the ground, on her side with her arms twisted behind her. Something tight bound her wrists together. When she tried to move her feet, she discovered they were bound too. She remembered the robbery, the train, the man carrying her away. The images crowded into her brain like a nightmare, and her veins turned to ice.

This wasn’t a dream. She was tied like a hog ready for butchering, left on the ground in some scrabbly forest somewhere, helpless. Terrified, she squeezed her eyes shut again, the orange glowing light from the campfire made her head throb. It was late. The last she remembered she’d been on the train, and now it was early evening. She’d lost an entire day. Where was she? What were those men going to do to her?