his back up against the wall, and waited until Chance Carter came back outside.
“You son of a bitch, you killed my daughter,” Carter shouted, starting toward the barn with a double barrel shotgun in his hand.
So intent was Carter on extracting retribution from Travis, he didn’t see Frank step out behind him. Frank brought the hammer down hard, and Chance dropped to the ground.
Frank got down on his knees beside the rancher and hit him again and again with the hammer. He didn’t stop until blood, bone, and brain matter was pouring out of the wound.
“I think you can quit now, Frank,” Travis said.
Frank stood up and looked at the bloody end of the hammer. “Yeah.”
“What do we do now?”
“We get our guns and get out of here,” Frank said.
“How we goin’ to get out of here? The only horses Mr. Carter’s got is team horses. He ain’t got no saddles.”
In the distance they heard the whistle of a train.
“We’ll take the train,” Frank said.
“Like as not, it’s a freight train this time of day,” Travis said.
“All the better,” Frank replied.
The freight cars bumped and rattled through the night, the thunder echoing back from Poncha Pass. On the 2-4 -2 locomotive the steam gushed from the drive cylinder like cannon fire as it labored mightily to negotiate the grade. But five cars back, Frank and Travis Slater, who had hopped onto the freight when they fled the Carter ranch, could hear nothing of the engine.
The car had been empty when the two brothers jumped onto the train, but just before nightfall, two other men climbed into the car.
“You think the brakeman saw us?” one of the two men asked.
“Nah. Anyway, I think it’s Doodle. He’s a good one. He don’t ever throw you off,” the other said.
In the dim light, the two new men saw Frank and Travis sitting in the forward part of the empty car, their backs braced against the front wall so no matter how much the train lurched and jerked, they were able to keep from being tossed about.
“Hello, boys,” one of the newcomers said with a friendly greeting. “Been on the train long, have you?”
“Not too long,” Frank answered.
“My name’s Zeke, my partner here is Mickey. We know most of the riders, but I don’t think we’ve ever run across you two before.”
“No, this is our first time.” Frank pointedly did not give their names.
Zeke chuckled. “Don’t want to tell me your name, huh? Well, no matter. Sometimes when folks is down on their luck, they don’t like to give away their names. That’s fine with Mickey and me.”
“How many times have you hopped a train on this line?” Frank asked.
“I’d say twenty, maybe thirty times, wouldn’t you, Mickey?”
“Thirty times for sure. You might recall, one time we done it two times in the same week.”
“Yeah, I do recall. So this is your first time, is it?” Zeke asked.
“Yes,” Travis answered.
“Well, there’s some things you need to know. If you’ll listen to me, I’ll be learnin’ you some of them things.”
“We’re listenin’,” Frank said.
“The first thing is, you got to know what kind of car to hop, and you got to know how far it’s goin’,” Zeke said. “I mind the time Jimmy Peal ... You remember him, don’t you, Mickey?”
“I remember him well. He was a big man, maybe six feet four inches tall, or so,” Mickey said.
“Yes, that’s the one I’m talkin’ about,” Zeke said. “Well, sir, Jimmy Peal once hopped onto a car and the door got shut on him so’s he couldn’t get out. The car went all the way to New Orleans, it did, and when they opened it up down there, well, they found Jimmy Peal dead. He’d done starved to death.”
“He died of thirst,” Mickey corrected. “As big a man as he was, it would’ve took him a long time to starve to death. But it don’t take hardly no time at all for a man to die if he don’t have no water.”
“We’re sure goin’ slow now,” Travis said. “Why, I could walk faster than this.”
“That’s ’cause we climbin’ up Poncha Pass,” Zeke explained. “But we are near ’bout to the top now. You wait till we get over the top, then you’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?”
“You’ll see us speed up. The train will be goin’ lickity split an’ I wager you’ll be a’ wantin’ to grab ahold of somethin’ so as to be able to hang on.”
The train reached the top of the pass, then started down, gathering speed as the peaks lurched behind them in an increasingly faster rush.
