own bed.”
It took just a second for Kyle’s words to sink in. Then, when she realized what he said, she gasped.
“What?”
Kyle started laughing.
“What Indian girl?”
Kyle laughed harder. “I’m joking.”
“That’s nothing to joke about!” Sally insisted, and getting up, she jerked the cover off the bed so that both were exposed.
They looked at each other for a moment, then Kyle reached for her. “On the other hand,” he said, “this is no joke.”
“Indian girl my foot,” Sally said as she sat down on the edge of the bed, then leaned over to kiss him.
Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door.
“Marshal? Marshal Kyle, are you in there?”
Boomer’s loud words were augmented by more knocking on the door.
“Just a minute, Boomer, just a minute!” Kyle said with a frustrated sigh. He reached for his clothes. “Give me a minute.”
“Yes, sir,” Boomer said. “I don’t mean to disturb you and Miss Sally none, but this is important.”
“It damn well better be,” Kyle said.
A few moments later, when both were fully dressed, Kyle walked over to sit on a settee. He nodded toward Sally as a signal that she could open the door now.
“Good evening, Boomer,” Sally said as sweetly and innocently as she could muster.
“Evenin’, ma’am,” Boomer replied. “Is the marshal here?”
“I’m here in the parlor, Boomer,” Kyle called back. “What is it? What is so all-fired important?”
“It’s about the train, Marshal. Doc’s train.”
“What about Doc’s train? Did he miss it?”
“No, sir,” Boomer replied. “Well, that is, I don’t know.”
“No, he didn’t miss it, or you don’t know? Which is it?” Kyle asked, confused by the answer.
“I mean the train ain’t got in yet,” Boomer said.
“The train hasn’t arrived?” Kyle glanced at the wall clock. The clock read five minutes until nine. “It was supposed to have arrived at seven thirty, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. And Mr. Cooley, he got a telegram that said the train left Purgatory Station on time. The thing is, Marshal, it don’t take but a little over an hour to get here—but the train is already an hour and a half late.”
“Does Cooley know where it is? What happened to it?”
“No, sir, I don’t reckon he does know,” Boomer said. “There don’t nobody know.”
“Saddle our horses,” Kyle said. “We’ll ride down the track toward Purgatory and see what we can find.”
“We could do that,” Boomer said. “Or we could…” He let the sentence hang.
“We could what?”
“We could take a train. Cooley’s puttin’ on the switch engine, and he plans to run it back down the track toward Purgatory. If the train left Purgatory when it was supposed to, and when the folks back in Purgatory said it did, then we’ll find it quicker by goin’ on a train than if we was to go back ridin’ horses.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Kyle said. “Also, if there was a wreck, we’d need the train to bring the people back to Sentinel.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, come along then. No sense in wasting time here.”
“No, sir, I figured you’d be wantin’ to get on this right away,” Boomer said. “Miss Sally, I’m sorry to be bustin’ in like this, breakin’ up your welcome home to Marshal Kyle ’n’ all.”
Sally nodded. “Don’t you worry about it, Boomer, you did the right thing,” she said. “If there was a train wreck, Ben needs to get out there as fast as he can.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s sort of what I was thinkin’, too,” Boomer said.
Chapter Nine
By the time Kyle and Boomer made it back to the railroad station, they saw that a car had been attached to the little switch engine. The car was crammed full with rescuers, in the event their worst fears were realized and there was an actual train wreck. For that reason, Kyle believed there were probably as many sightseers as there were actual rescue workers on the train.
“Cooley! You need to add some more cars!” Kyle said. “At least three, and maybe more.”
“What for? Ever’body that’s goin’ is already aboard,” Cooley replied.
“What about the people we find at the train wreck?” Kyle asked. “Don’t you plan on bringing them back?”
