Jodi Thomas (19 page)

Bailee followed his logic. “If Piper had stayed on that train, no one would’ve ever seen her again. Ever.” The last word chilled them all into silence.

Carter walked back to the deserted station. When he reached the comer of the platform, he sat Piper on it so that she was at eye level with the others. They were all soaked by the drizzle. Carter placed his coat around her to keep her warm.

“That doesn’t solve our problem.” Smith paid little mind to the child watching his lips. “If the old woman wasn’t the grandmother, she’ll never show her face again. She knows by now that you’ve had time to talk to the girl.”

Smith swore. “Grandmother or not, we’re still stuck with the kid with nowhere to hide her.”

“I’ll keep her at my place.” Carter glanced at Bailee.

She nodded. It wasn’t the best of plans, but it seemed the only answer.

“No.” Smith shook his head. “You’d be out there all alone. Any gang organized enough to pull off a train robbery would have no trouble picking you off while you went about your work, then moving in on Bailee and the child.”

Riley scratched a layer of hide off his chin while he thought. “Town’s not safe. Too many people around. At least your farm would be isolated. As many times as I’ve been out there, I’ve never come up on you unaware.”

“She’d be safe with us.” Bailee said the words like she believed them.

“Maybe.” Riley glanced at Smith. “If I go along as guard.” He shifted his stare to Carter. “I’m sure the McKoys could put me up for a few days until this problem is solved. We could be back here in a matter of hours if needed.”

A freight train whistled in the distance announcing its arrival. Riley moved closer and stared directly at Carter. “What’s it to be, son? If you take the child, I go along as part of the bargain. We can catch this cattle train when it slows to take on water and be home before anyone in town knows we’re gone.”

Bailee knew without asking that Carter had never offered the sheriff a night’s lodging.

“You’ll sleep in the bunkhouse,” she prompted.

The sheriff nodded as Carter swung up on the platform to retrieve Bailee’s bag from the station.

Bailee put her hand over Piper’s cold fingers and looked around. The drizzle seemed to close the world in around them. She couldn’t see beyond the station house. The town vanished in the gray light.

The train grew closer, signaling again with a longer whistle, then a short blast.

The sound hadn’t died on the air, when a popping noise made Bailee jump. It took her a heartbeat to register the sound. Gunfire!

Riley jerked his pistol from its holster with far more speed than she’d thought him capable.

Smith ordered, “Everybody down!”

Bailee glanced at the platform and saw Carter fall forward as more shots rattled the air like rapid-fire thunder.

She had no time to get to him. Grabbing Piper, Bailee knelt beneath the platform, holding the child close.

Riley was on the move. Running through the silent morning like a man dodging invisible bullets, he made it to the edge of the platform, then beyond. Smith followed, both Colts at ready.

For a moment, before they disappeared into the rain, Bailee saw them as young men once more, in their prime, in their element. Neither lawman slowed until they’d circled the area twice.

“If we can’t see them,” Smith yelled at Riley, “how the hell can they see us?”

“Maybe they’re shooting at sounds?” Riley answered, his voice high with excitement.

Several shots splattered off the wood of the platform, proving his point. The noise of the train grew louder, drowning out more shots.

Bailee backed into the blackness beneath the loading stage and waited. The platform smelled newly built, but sturdy. Piper was wrapped warmly in Carter’s coat, with her little carpetbag dangling from her hand.

When Riley came close, Bailee ventured a quick look above the wood and whispered, “Carter? Is he all right?”

Riley didn’t look in her direction as he backed near the opening and answered. “He’s fine. Keeping his head down. Don’t you move. There ain’t no telling who’s shooting at us. Might be one, might be more.”

For once, Bailee didn’t argue with the man.

Smith had disappeared into the fog, but she knew he was still circling, searching. She could hear the tapping of his boots along the edges of the platform. Riley stayed close, putting himself between her and the shooter.

Bailee felt Piper crying on her shoulder, but there was little she could do to comfort her. She tried not to jerk when the next round of gunfire came, knowing the child wouldn’t hear anything. If Bailee could keep still, maybe Piper wouldn’t know the shooting continued.

Rain ran off the wood above and splattered, forming a curtain between her hiding place and the world beyond. The thin liquid barrier might save her life.

A thud sounded suddenly against the wood above her. Someone had fallen.

Bailee fought down a scream.

Smith’s voice cracked over the noise of the train. “Riley ! Riley!”

She heard footsteps running across the wood, then the scraping sound of a body being moved. Then nothing but the rain and the release of steam as the train pulled close to the platform. Unlike the new passenger train that had left minutes ago, this train hauled freight. It rattled and groaned and spit.

Carter dropped down so suddenly in front of her, Bailee felt her heart jump. He carried Riley’s limp body over one shoulder as he stepped through the thin waterfall coming off the platform.

“Bailee?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she answered without moving out of the blackness.

“When I run toward town with Riley, can you get Piper on the train?”

“Yes,” she answered, seeing only the bottom half of slowly moving cattle cars before her.

“Stay hidden until then.” His tone was low, solid, worried. “We have to time it just right. I’ll distract them, you run. With luck they’ll be watching me and won’t see you climb aboard.”

“Is Riley still alive?”

“I think so.” The train sounded impatient to be on its way. “Head toward home. I’ll find you.”

He moved away before she could say more. She waited in the steamy wooden cave for his signal. She wanted to beg him not to go. Riley was already shot. When Carter moved into the open, the ambusher would try again. He was putting his life in great danger to give her a chance to run for a train she wasn’t even sure she could board.

The train shuddered and began to move as Bailee heard Carter’s boots hit wood above her. The sound of the train muffled his steps, but she listened. Solid, strong steps ran away from her.

There was no time to make certain he made it. Even if she could lift Piper up and look over the platform, the fog would prevent her from seeing more then a few yards.

The air rumbled once more, and she wasn’t sure if it was thunder or gunfire.

Holding the child tightly against her, Bailee did as Carter told her. She bolted for the train.

At the last possible second she grabbed a boxcar door handle and jumped for the opening. Piper’s little bag banged against the outside of the train, but the child gripped it tightly.

Bailee held on to the opening with one hand and tried to pull them both inside.

Her wet skirts and the weight of the child drew her back. Her fingers slipped an inch down the handle. Just when she thought she could no longer hold, a solid grip closed around her wrist and pulled. Suddenly several hands touched her and tugged at once, drawing her to the darkness of the car.

She felt as if the tugging on her arm ripped her muscles apart, but she couldn’t turn loose. There was no going back. If she fell from the train now, she and Piper might both be killed.

Then, suddenly, she was inside the car. The wind no longer whistled in her ears, the rain didn’t sting her face.

For a long moment she knelt just beyond the doorway, not caring that her new dress was getting filthy on the car’s muddy floor. All she could think was that she’d left Carter to face trouble, maybe even death, alone.

With muscles near frozen in fear, Bailee lifted herself enough to scoot backward, pulling Piper out of the opening. The sudden freedom from the wind and rain blanketed over her. She leaned her back against the door and took a deep breath for the first time since she’d heard a shot.

“It’s all right,” she whispered as she stroked Piper’s hair. “We’re safe. We made it. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Tears fell from her eyes as she realized Piper couldn’t hear her. The child had to know she was in danger, but did she realize she was safe?

Bailee touched Piper’s shoulder, pushing her an inch away. “It’s all right,” she said again, hoping Piper could understand when she watched her lips move.

Piper’s eyes stayed tightly closed.

Bailee increased the pressure on the girl’s shoulder, planning to shake her slightly to get her to look up.

Warm blood streaming between Bailee’s fingers stopped her.

“Oh, my Lord!” Bailee cried as she saw blood covering half the child’s chest. She looked closer: Blood soaked the front of Piper’s dress and the lining of Carter’s coat. The child was wounded, must have been all the while they’d hidden in the darkness. Yet she hadn’t made a sound.

Panic shattered the last ounce of sanity she’d clung to. Bailee felt herself slipping into a cool darkness where all the problems of the world disappeared and nothing mattered.

“No!” she screamed. Anger ran through her blood. The same anger that had made her hit Zeb. The anger that had made her act before she thought when she saw someone robbing her father’s office. The anger that had gotten her into trouble must now somehow save her life. And Piper’s.

Bailee fought the dizziness and stood to her knees. “I’ll get help. Don’t worry.” She pulled Piper close as she moved farther into the boxcar hoping to find something, anything to help the child.

She took one step, tripped over her muddy skirt, and fell. Twisting as she tumbled, she let her shoulder hit the floor a moment before Piper fell atop her.

Bailee’s head hit the floor of the car so hard the thud echoed around her.

She cried in pain and looked up, praying she hadn’t hurt Piper more.

Just beyond the child, almost invisible in the shadows, strange faces watched. Suddenly Bailee remembered the hands pulling her in. But had they pulled her to safety, or into their lair?

Bailee drew in a breath to scream as the faces moved forward. The light inside her mind faded.

T
HE RAIN FOUGHT CARTER AS HE RAN. BLINDING HIM. tripping him in knee-deep puddles, thundering in his ears until he could hear nothing else. He longed for the luxury of one look back, of knowing Bailee got on the train safely with Piper in her arms. But he couldn’t risk it. Riley bled from several bullet wounds. If Carter didn’t get him out of the rain and to help quickly, the sheriff would be dead.

Gunfire sounded behind him. He couldn’t tell if it echoed or if someone fired back. The train’s whistle muted the noise. Bailee
is pulling away from the station with Piper,
he told himself.
Bailee has to be on the train.

Carter stepped onto packed, slippery earth. He’d reached the main road that led to town. He slowed enough to try to make out any place where he’d find help.

The stores were closed for Sunday. Even the saloon had been locked when he passed it on the way to the station. Their hotel was two blocks away, and he doubted he’d be able to find much help there. Nothing ahead invited him to enter.

He glanced to his left at a two-story house standing apart from Main Street, closer to the tracks than any residence would want to be. A lone woman, still in her night-clothes, sat in a porch swing watching the rain, watching him.

Plowing through the mud, Carter headed toward her.

She stood as he neared and leaned forward. “You need help?” she yelled over the storm. “Hey, mister, what happened?”

Carter drew closer. “A man’s been shot!” he shouted as he tumbled onto the porch, without bothering to use the steps. “Can you help me?” Carter forced the words out as he asked another for help for the first time. But this time he had no choice; the sheriff’s life was at stake.

“I’ll do my best.” The woman wasted no time asking more questions. She helped Carter carry the sheriff into the house and yelled for someone called Fat Alice. Several women answered her call.

“I thought I heard shots between the train’s noise and the thunder,” a huge woman said as she barreled into the room. “I figured trouble was riding in with this storm.”

Carter stood a few feet inside the door as a swarm of women, some who must have just gotten out of bed and hadn’t taken the time to put their clothes on, clamored around the sheriff. The one who owned the name Fat Alice shouted orders like a general in full charge as they took Riley from Carter.

They spread Riley on a gaming table in the center of the main room and began stripping clothes off the poor man. Carter thought of throwing the sheriff over his shoulder and heading back out into the rain. But he felt sure these women would fight for the wounded prey they seemed to have caught. They chattered so rapidly as they worked, Carter couldn’t make out individual words.

A young girl, who still looked like she had a head to grow before she could call herself grown, handed Carter a towel.

“Thanks,” he managed to say without taking his eyes off the flock of women working on Riley. Fat Alice lifted her gown above her knee and pulled a thin knife from where it was strapped to her leg.

The girl watched him with open curiosity for a minute before saying, “Don’t worry. They know what they’re doing. They’ll get your friend patched up. He ain’t the first fellow who stumbled in here full of lead.”

“I got one!” squealed a woman with the strangest color of hair Carter had ever seen. It reminded him of autumn leaves left damp in a pile to rot.