Matt and Sam went in different directions. Sam ran around the front of the engine, leaping across the tracks in front of the cowcatcher, while Matt raced alongside the train. When he came to the first passenger car, he bounded up the steps to the platform at the front of it.
Sam reached the engine cab, which was partially open on the sides. Through that opening he saw the men crowded into the cab, including an hombre dressed only in long underwear who lay on the floor of the cab, either unconscious or dead.
The engineer and the fireman were easy to spot. So was the conductor. That left one man who had a gun in his hand, a craggy-faced, mustached gent who obviously had no business being up there.
As soon as Sam saw that man, everything clicked together in his mind. The outlaws had figured out the plan Matt and Sam had come up with to get Joshua Shade to Yuma, and they had taken over the train to stop that from happening.
The gunman in the cab must have seen Sam from the corner of his eye. He whirled, bringing up his gun as he did so. “Two Wolves!” he exclaimed as his face contorted in anger and hate.
Sam snapped the Winchester to his shoulder and fired just as flame spouted from the muzzle of the outlaw’s revolver. The Colt’s roar blended together with the whipcrack of the rifle. Sam felt the wind-rip of the bullet next to his ear.
His shot didn’t miss. The rifle bullet drilled into the outlaw’s chest, flinging him back against the engineer. Reacting swiftly, the engineer brought his hand down in a slashing blow against the gunman’s wrist, knocking the revolver loose. Then, as the outlaw began to sag, the engineer clouted him with a big fist to the jaw, knocking him the rest of the way to the floor of the cab.
Sam lowered the Winchester and looked toward the conductor, intending to ask the man if he knew how many outlaws were on the train. A shock went through him as he saw the gun in the conductor’s hand, and he realized too late that the unconscious gent who’d been stripped was the
Sam tried to bring the rifle to bear on the phony conductor, but before he could, the glare of a muzzle flash filled his eyes. He felt the heavy slam of a bullet’s impact against his body, rocking him backward. His feet slipped on the gravel roadbed. He heard another shot, but didn’t feel that bullet. He had already fallen to the ground and barely clung to a shred of consciousness.
Meanwhile, Matt had plunged headlong into the first passenger car, and the sight of a man running in with a rifle in his hands spooked the passengers into thinking the train was being held up. A couple of women screamed, and men started to their feet as they yelled questions and curses.
“I’m a lawman!” Matt shouted over the hubbub. That was stretching the truth more than a little, but it might quiet them down quicker than anything else he could say. “Take it easy!”
His eyes scanned the passengers and didn’t see anybody who looked like an outlaw. Just then, he heard shots from the engine and knew that his instincts, as well as Sam’s, had been right. If the gang had taken over the train, there had to be more of them somewhere in the cars. He ran toward the rear of the train.
As he came into the next car, somebody yelled, “Bodine!” and a gun cracked. A bullet smacked into the wall near the door after whipping past Matt. Screams filled the air.
“Everybody down!” Matt shouted. The passengers dived for the floor, leaving three hard-bitten-looking hombres who had stood up to blaze away at him.
A Winchester was no good in a fight like this. He dropped the rifle as he went into a crouch and palmed both Colts from the thonged-down holsters attached to the crossed gunbelts.
It would have been a sight to see if anybody had been looking. The innocent passengers were all bellied down on the floor, though, with their arms over their heads even though that wouldn’t offer any protection from flying lead. Matt stood at the front of the car with his guns roaring and flashing as the three outlaws blazed away at him from the other end of the car.
The man on Matt’s far left stumbled back with a couple of .45 slugs in his chest and then collapsed. The man on the far right twisted around, dropped his gun, and clawed at his throat as blood spouted from the place where a bullet had ripped it open. The third and last man got off a final shot that came close enough to knock Matt’s hat off his head, but that was the last chance the outlaw got. A bullet slammed him back against the rear door of the coach. He hung there for a second and then slid down it, leaving a crimson smear on the wood.
With his pulse pounding heavily in his head, Matt slowly lowered his smoking guns. All three of the outlaws were down, their bloody forms motionless in death. Out of habit, Matt holstered his left-hand gun and used that hand to reach to the loops on his shell belt so he could start reloading.
“Drop it,” a voice said.
Shocked, Matt looked down to see the blonde who had introduced herself to him as Jessica Devlin back in Pancake Flats. She knelt in the aisle holding the rifle he had dropped. Her pretty face was lined with strain. She was pale, but looked determined.
“Miss Devlin—” he began.
“Drop your gun, Mr. Bodine,” she repeated. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I…I will if I have to.”
Matt didn’t really believe her, but you sort of had to give somebody the benefit of the doubt when they were pointing a .44-40 repeater at you. He didn’t drop the Colt, but he slid it back into leather.
He didn’t need the gun anyway. He wasn’t going to shoot Jessica.
“Look, I’m not an outlaw,” he said, thinking maybe that was what she believed. “In fact, I’m working with the law—”
Jessica came to her feet, keeping the rifle leveled at him. The barrel shook a little. The Winchester was heavy, and she probably wasn’t used to handling a rifle.
“Where is Joshua Shade?” she demanded, shocking him again.
“Shade?” Matt repeated. “You don’t mean—”
