'Marshal, will you be staying long in Cheyenne?'
'Only as long as necessary. I'll put Eli up in the sheriff's jail, wait for the first train south, then we'll be on our way to Denver.'
'I see,' Miss Noble said. 'And if-'
Martha Noble never finished her sentence for, in the next moment, their coach lurched violently to the side and lifted. Martha screamed and Longarm grabbed the arm of his seat as the entire train tilted.
Eli raised his handcuffs and tried to claw out Longarm's eyes. But the coach tottered and before Eli could reach Longarm, it began a sickening roll.
The sound of Miss Noble screaming in Longarm's ace did not drown out an explosion somewhere up ahead. Was it perhaps an avalanche?
Longarm reached to grab Miss Noble as she left her feet, but then he was flying too as the coach began to tumble down the mountainside. He lost consciousness as the sound of tearing metal and splintering wood filled his ears like a roar of a killer Kansas tornado.
CHAPTER 2
Longarm awoke slowly to the moan of the icy mountain wind and the anguished cries and pleas for help of the surviving passengers. He was aware of movement within the overturned coach, and when he tried to raise himself to his hands and knees, a shooting pain radiated across the back of his head.
He gritted his teeth, fighting to remain conscious. Light was almost nonexistent inside the coach, and Longarm could not distinguish anything. Close beside him a woman groaned and then cried softly. Longarm reached out to comfort her.
'Ma'am,' he whispered, suddenly aware of the intense cold and blowing snow. 'Ma'am, it's going to be all right. There will be help on the way.'
'Why is it so dark?'
Longarm recognized Miss Noble's voice. 'Maybe we're covered by snow. Maybe it's just the blizzard blocking out the sun. I can't say for sure until I get out and look around.'
'Where is your prisoner?'
'I don't know, Miss Noble. But I'll find out soon enough.'
With his right hand, Longarm reached up and felt a deep laceration in his scalp. No wonder he felt drugged and could hardly think straight. Longarm reached into his pocket and dug for a match. He used his thumbnail to scratch the match into life, and when he raised it up to survey the carnage and destruction, Longarm was appalled to see so many dead and injured.
There was blood everywhere, and most of the windows of the overturned coach were shattered, allowing the blizzard its deadly entry. Already, some of the bodies were covered with a white shroud of snow. The coach was lying on its side, but badly canted downward. Longarm was sure that their coach would have rolled even farther had it not been caught by an obstruction poking out of the steep mountainside. A sudden gust of wind extinguished Longarm's match and plunged the scene back into darkness.
Longarm lit another match, shielding its flickering light from the hard, blowing wind. He took a longer second look, specifically searching for his prisoner. Eli Wheat was gone. Longarm was sure of it. He was also sure that the approach of night would soon drive the freezing temperatures to a killing low and that, if he did not take measures to save not only himself but the other passengers, they'd all be frozen solid before morning.
'Deputy Long, we've got to help these people!'
Longarm turned and held the dying match up toward Miss Noble. She had been cut up a little by flying glass and appeared badly shaken.
Longarm's match burned out, and he squeezed the woman's arm in a feeble attempt to reassure her that all would be fine. 'Miss Noble, it's a wonder that our stove didn't ignite and turn this coach into a funeral pyre. The stove must have been thrown outside and then extinguished.'
'I don't know. But it's freezing in here.'
'I need some light,' Longarm told her. 'We have to find a lantern or we'll never be able to help the injured.'
'I think a lot of them are dead!' the young woman exclaimed, her voice near the breaking point.
'But we can't worry about that. We have to do what we can for those that can still be saved. Can you move around, Miss Noble? Are your legs...'
'They're fine.'
Longarm heard her take a deep, steadying breath. He was encouraged when she said, 'What can I do to help?'
'Let's get outside and see what happened to the rest of the train. Perhaps there are other coaches that fared better and that will offer shelter.'
'It's a miracle that any of us are alive.'
'We need a doctor,' Longarm said.
'That would be a second miracle.'
Taking the woman's hand and forcing himself to ignore the pleading of injured and confused passengers, Longarm struggled out through a window. The blizzard attacked him with demented vengence. The snow sheeted in horizontally, and visibility was less than ten feet.
'I can't see anything!' Miss Noble cried.
'Me neither,' Longarm said, hanging onto the woman's hand. 'But we must find out if anyone else survived. We
