The clerk hesitated, and for a second Maggie thought he was going to ignore her plea and close up anyway. But then he let go of the shutter, sighed, and asked, “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“I need to know when the next westbound train will arrive, please.”
The clerk laughed. “I don’t have any passengers headin’ west for a week at a time, or sometimes even more, and now tonight there’s all sorts of folks wantin’ to catch a train goin’ in that die-rection.”
Maggie tried to look only idly curious as she said, “Someone else wanted to know about the westbound?”
“That’s right. A deputy United States marshal, of all things. He didn’t give me any details, but I reckon he must have a prisoner he’s got to deliver, from the looks o’ the wagon he had with him.”
“What about the train?” Maggie asked, trying to curb her impatience.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told that lawman, missy. There won’t be no westbound train through here, nor eastbound neither, until the work crews get through repairin’ the trestle over Bowtie Canyon. That’s gonna be another couple o’ days at least.”
“No train?” Maggie didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more worried. If the marshal and his companions were stuck here in Pancake Flats with their prisoner for several days, would Garth attack the town in an attempt to free Joshua Shade? She wouldn’t put anything past the outlaws, but she didn’t think there were enough of them left to risk a raid such as that.
“That’s right, no train,” the clerk said, talking to her now like she was a not-very-bright child. “When I hear any different, I’ll put the news on the chalkboard. Now, would you like to buy a ticket for when the train
“What? Oh.” Maggie shook her head. “No, thank you.”
The clerk rolled his eyes, as if wondering why she had bothered him about it if she didn’t want a ticket. He reached for the shutter and said, “Good night, then,” rolling it down with a solid thump before Maggie could change her mind and ask him anything else.
She didn’t know how Garth, Jeffries, and the other outlaws would take this news, but there was no doubt in her mind that she would go back and pass it along to them, as Garth had instructed her to do. For a second while she was talking to Matt Bodine, she had considered telling him everything and throwing herself on his mercy, begging him to rescue Ike and Caleb somehow.
If anyone could do such a thing, it would be Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves, she sensed.
But it was too big a risk. She couldn’t disobey Garth’s orders, because she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to cut Caleb’s throat, and he might do the same to Ike. Or he might just leave Ike somewhere in the wilderness to die slowly and painfully from his head injury. Maggie couldn’t take a chance on either of those things happening.
So she went back to her horse, swung up into the saddle without worrying now about riding astride so that her calves were exposed, and sent the horse back up the street at a fast trot. She was thankful she had learned how to ride a horse as a girl, back on her family’s farm.
As she passed the general store, Matt Bodine was stepping out of the establishment. He raised a hand to wave at her, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She didn’t have time to stop and chat, and anyway, as long as her husband and son were prisoners, Bodine was one of the enemy.
She didn’t look back as she rode out of town, heading north.
Now that was mighty funny, Matt thought as he watched Jessica Devlin—if that was her real name—leaving Pancake Flats. She had ridden into the settlement—not wearing riding clothes—gone to the train station, spent a few minutes there, then mounted up and ridden right back out of town.
From the looks of it, she had come to find out the train schedule. Matt couldn’t think of any other reason why she would have stopped at the depot. The clerk must have told her about the trestle being out.
Well, it was none of his business, Matt told himself. Carrying the bag of supplies he had picked up at the store in his left arm so that his right hand was free in case he needed to slap leather, he headed back to the livery barn.
He went around back and kicked the door. “It’s me, Sam,” he called through it. A moment later, he heard the bar being lifted; then the door swung open.
Matt stepped inside quickly. In the dim light of the lantern that had been lit earlier, he saw Sam and Everett flanking the door, each of them holding a Winchester. Marshal Thorpe was beside the wagon, the shotgun in his hands.
“Any trouble?” Sam asked as he closed the door behind Matt.
“Not a bit.” Matt hesitated. “Oh, wait a minute. I had to shoot a couple of hombres who were botherin’ a woman.”
Sam sighed. “I heard those shots and wondered if they had anything to do with you. I figured that chances were they did.”
“I knew that’s what you’d think,” Matt said as he set the supplies down on the wagon seat. “But you’d have done the same thing, Sam. They’d been drinkin’, and they would have molested the gal if I hadn’t come along.”
“What gal?”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. Somebody from around here, I guess. She told me her name—Jessica Devlin. But it didn’t mean anything to me.”
“Me either,” Everett put in. “I don’t know everybody in these parts, but I don’t recollect any Devlins hereabouts.”
Sam said, “I’ll bet she was young and pretty, wasn’t she?”
Matt smiled. “Well, now that you mention it…”
Thorpe said, “You shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in a shooting, Bodine. Lopez is liable to try to throw you in jail for killing a couple of locals.”
