the crazed preacher turned bloodthirsty killer.
And she was going to help that happen, Maggie thought as she closed her eyes in dismay for a moment. She struggled to control her emotions.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Garth glaring at her warningly. She knew the message he was trying to communicate.
Any chance Ike and Caleb still had depended completely on her. She couldn’t let them down, no matter what sort of evil she would be helping to unleash on the rest of the territory. The citizens of Arizona would just have to look out for themselves.
Garth nodded, evidently satisfied that Maggie was under control again. No one else in the railroad car seemed to notice the fleeting byplay.
The locomotive’s whistle shrilled, and the cars lurched into motion. The station platform seemed to move past and then suddenly was gone. Pancake Flats fell behind the train.
They were on their way to the final act in this bloody drama, Maggie thought.
At least, she prayed that it would soon be over, one way or the other.
Sam dozed off every now and then as he lay on the water tank platform, but those few catnaps were the only sleep he got that night. He was young and resilient, though, so he actually felt fairly well rested the next morning.
Because of that, he was alert enough to spot the approaching locomotive while it was still quite a distance away. He watched the smoke rising from its stack for a minute or so, then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down to the others, “Train’s coming!”
Matt stepped out from behind the shed and nodded. “I’ll go fetch the horses,” he called in return. He turned and trotted off toward the arroyo.
Sam tucked his Winchester under his arm and started climbing down the ladder. By the time he reached the ground, Thorpe and Everett had come out from behind the shed as well, prodding Joshua Shade in front of them with their rifles.
Shade’s wrists were tied together, and several turns in the rope had been taken around his body, pinning his arms at his sides. A short length of rope bound his ankles so that he could walk, but would fall on his face if he tried to run.
The gag was still in place, but Shade was as wild-eyed as ever and made grunting noises through it. Sam had no doubt that the loco outlaw would be cussing and ranting up a storm if not for the gag. Probably foaming at the mouth, too. Shade had the look of a rabid animal about him.
Matt came back from the arroyo leading all the horses. He looked at Shade, grinned, and said, “He doesn’t look so dangerous now, does he?”
“Don’t you believe it,” Thorpe said. “I won’t believe that Shade is past the point of hurting anybody else until he’s swinging from a hangrope.”
“That shouldn’t be too much longer now,” Sam said. “The train will be here in a few minutes, and by tonight he’ll be safely locked up at Yuma. How long do you think it’ll take for the sentence to be carried out, Marshal?”
Thorpe shook his head. “I don’t know, but it can’t be soon enough to suit me. If not for my orders, I’d throw a rope over one of the beams on that water tank and haul him up right here and now.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me, too,” Matt said.
“I didn’t say we were actually going to do it,” Thorpe replied with a frown. “Shade’s going to hang, but it’ll be legal. If you wanted a lynching, you should have let that mob have him the first time back in Arrowhead.”
Sam said, “Take it easy, Marshal. Nobody wants a lynching.”
The train had drawn closer as they were talking. Its whistle blew, and steam billowed as the drivers reversed and the locomotive began to slow down. The screech of metal against metal rose into the hot morning air.
Thorpe and Everett forced Shade forward, each of them gripping one of the outlaw’s shoulders. Matt and Sam flanked them and held their Winchesters ready.
Suddenly, the blood brothers glanced at each other. Sam felt instinct prickling the hairs on the back of his neck, and he could tell from Matt’s expression that he was experiencing the same thing.
Something was wrong here, even though everything about the train looked completely normal.
Garth had been keeping an eye on the passing landscape and estimating how far the train had come from Pancake Flats. He knew from what the ticket clerk had told him that the water stop was twenty miles west of the settlement, and he knew about how long it should take them to reach it.
When he figured there were only a few miles to go, he stood up and started toward the front of the car, giving minuscule nods to Jeffries and his other men as he passed them. Jeffries waited a moment and then followed him.
The other three outlaws remained behind. They wouldn’t reveal their presence until the rest of the gang arrived. As far as anybody other than the conductor, the engineer, and the fireman were concerned, everything about this water stop would be perfectly normal.
Garth hadn’t decided how far to let things go before he forced the engineer to stop the train again. Before it got to Tucson, that was for damned sure. He wanted Bodine, Two Wolves, and Thorpe good and relaxed before he made his move, though. He wanted those sons of bitches to think all their troubles were behind them.
It would be that much sweeter when they realized that they were all doomed.
Garth had seen the conductor pass through the car a few minutes earlier, headed toward the front of the train. He and Jeffries caught up to the man at the front of the first passenger car, with only the coal tender between them and the engine. As they stepped out onto the platform where the conductor was standing, the blue-uniformed man nodded to them and asked, “Something I can do for you gents?”
Garth drew his gun as Jeffries closed the door behind them so no one in the car could see what was going on.
