“I didn’t see anything like that,” Jerry said.
“What about the rest of you?” Kyle said to the others. “Are you telling me that not one of you saw a prisoner being put on board when the train was in Purgatory?”
The uninjured passengers looked at each other and shrugged, but no one spoke up.
“All right, folks, let’s get on the train now,” the railroad official said. “We have to get out of here so we can bring up the wrecker engine to start cleaning this mess up and getting the track open again.”
“Young man,” someone said to Matt, and looking around, he saw that he had been addressed by the doctor. “I noticed you while we were rounding up all the injured. You seemed to know what you were doing. I wonder if you would ride in the car of the injured with me?”
At first Matt was going to refuse, but then he decided that riding in the car with the severely injured might actually be the best thing for him. The marshal would, no doubt, be questioning everyone in the other cars.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I would be glad to.”
By the time the train reached Sentinel, three more of the injured had died, including the first man Matt had pulled from the wreckage. The three deaths weren’t due to inadequate care, but happened because the victims had been so severely injured that even had they been in a hospital with the best of treatment, they would not have survived.
Matt found himself in a somewhat unique position now. Although he had a rather substantial bank account back in Colorado, there was absolutely no way he could access it from here. To do so would require him to write a draft, and while an exchange of telegrams between the banks could validate the check, it would also expose him as Matt Jensen, a wanted man.
Once he stepped down from the train in Sentinel, though, he saw what might be a partial solution to his problem. Some officials of the railroad had set up a table inside the depot building and there, they were giving twenty dollars to each of the passengers, explaining that it was a compensation for what they had been through.
Every cent Matt had had been taken from him when he was arrested back in Purgatory. For him the twenty dollars seemed like a godsend, but when he stepped up to the table, he was told that he would have to show his ticket to collect the money.
Matt made a show of patting himself down, then he said, “I must’ve lost the ticket back at the site of the train wreck.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but without the ticket, we have no way of knowing you really were there,” the train official said. “I hope you understand. If we didn’t do that, then just anyone could come in here and claim they were on the train.”
“This man was on the train, and I will vouch for him,” Doc said. “Without him, I fear many more would have died than did.”
The railroad official ran his hand through his hair, then sighed. “All right, Doc, if you say he was on the train, I’ll take your word for it.” The man gave Matt a twenty-dollar bill. “On behalf of the railroad, I wish to extend my apologies for the ordeal,” he said in what had become a rote statement.
“Thanks,” Matt replied. He turned to the doctor. “And thank you,” he added.
“No, young man. On behalf of the passengers, I thank you.” The doctor extended his hand. “You know, I never got your name. I’m Dr. Presnell.”
“The name is Cavanaugh, Martin Cavanaugh,” Matt said.
“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Cavanaugh. If you are ever in this part of the country again, please look me up. I would love to buy you dinner sometime.”
“Thank you,” Matt said.
Leaving the depot, Matt started up the street toward the saloon. In a small town like Sentinel, the saloon would not only offer Matt the opportunity for a cool beer—he had worked up quite a thirst today—he might also get a line on the people who had caused the train wreck in the first place. It was not that he expected anyone here to have any additional information on the train wreck, but someone might have heard of the man named Odom. And though Matt wasn’t a lawman, he had made himself a vow while holding the little girl’s body in his arms. That vow was that he would go after Odom and the others who had caused this.
When Matt told Dr. Presnell that his name was Martin Cavanaugh, it had not been a complete lie. Martin Cavanaugh was the name of Matt’s father. After his parents were murdered by a ruthless gang of outlaws, young Matt Cavanaugh wound up in an orphanage. Conditions in the orphanage were as brutal as any delinquent detention home, and unwilling to take it anymore, Matt ran away. He would have died, had Smoke Jensen not found him shivering in a snow-bank in the mountains. Smoke took him to his cabin and nursed him back to health.
It had been Smoke’s intention to keep the boy around only until he had recovered, but Matt wound up staying with Smoke until he reached manhood. During the time Matt lived with Smoke, he became Smoke’s student, learning everything from Smoke that Smoke had learned from his own mentor, a mountain man known as Preacher, many years earlier. Matt learned how to use a knife or a gun to defend himself; he learned how to survive in the wilderness, and how to track man or beast. But the most important lesson Matt learned was how to be a man of honor.
When Matt reached the age of eighteen, he felt that the time was right to go out on his own. Smoke did not have the slightest hesitancy over sending him out, because Matt had become one of the most capable young men Smoke had ever seen.
But just before Matt left, he surprised Smoke by asking permission to take Smoke’s last name as his own. Smoke was not only honored by the request, he was touched, and to this day there was a bond between them that was as close as any familial bond could be.
Matt could take back the Cavanaugh name to provide himself with some cover until he could clear himself, and that didn’t bother him. What did bother him was the fact that he might have brought dishonor to the Jensen name —it mattered not that he was an innocent man, wrongly charged. The unpleasant fact was that not only was he considered an escaped murderer, he was also now being accused of robbing the train and killing Deputy Hayes.
