Last night, once more watching her room, Tilghman had felt thoroughly bewildered. The sale of the horse and wagon indicated that she planned to travel by train. By the same token, the purchase of clothes and suitcases, not to mention souvenirs, indicated a trip was in the offing. All that being true, the obvious question was where she was headed and when did she plan to leave? Perhaps more to the point, was she planning to meet Doolin at some distant destination?
None of it made sense. She could just have easily eluded pursuit in Oklahoma Territory, and caught a train from one of a dozen different locations. Instead, she had made an arduous trip by wagon through Osage country and then on to Kansas. To presume that she’d done all that simply to catch a train boggled the mind. Logic dictated that she had traveled to Kansas for one purpose only, to somehow connect with Doolin. But if that were the case, where the hell was he?
One thing troubled Tilghman even more. From the hotel clerk, and again with regulars in the saloon, he had confirmed that a tramp was hanging around town. To further his suspicions, he’d verified that the man had a pronounced limp and fit the general description of Doolin. The corker was that the tramp hadn’t shown up in Burden until the day after Edith Doolin’s arrival. All of that was coincidence compounding coincidence, and to Tilghman, any coincidence was suspect. He still believed that Doolin was camped out somewhere around Burden.
But now, his fourth day in town, Tilghman was no closer to the truth than before. A late morning sun filtered through the saloon window as he stood at the bar. Inwardly, though he had no notion of what it might be, he felt certain that something would happen today. Yesterday’s shopping spree, and the suitcases, seemed to him too great a tip-off to ignore. Edith Doolin was headed somewhere, and he thought today was the day. Which merely brought him full circle in a looping enigma. Where the hell was Bill Doolin?
Through the window, Tilghman saw a man wearing a porter’s cap enter the hotel. Looking closer, he saw Edith Doolin holding the baby in the lobby. A moment later, the porter came out the door, carrying her suitcases, and moved off in the direction of the train station. She followed a few paces behind, attired in one of the new outfits she’d bought yesterday. She looked like a woman who knew where she was going, and how to get there.
Tilghman trailed them by a half block. Some minutes later, they rounded the corner of the train station and disappeared down the platform. He stopped at the corner, looking around the edge of the building, and saw Edith Doolin enter the depot. The porter guarding her bags remained on the platform, surrounded by a crowd of people waiting on the train. Shortly she came through the door, nodding to the porter, the baby cradled in her left arm. In her right hand, she held a train ticket.
Off in the distance a whistle sounded. Tilghman glanced to the east and saw a passenger train perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Time was short, and he felt there was no choice but to risk being seen. He stepped around the corner, aware that the Doolin woman was looking downtrack at the approaching train, and strode rapidly along the platform. He scanned the faces of the crowd, assuring himself that Doolin was not among them. As the locomotive rolled into the station, he hurried through the waiting room door.
The ticket agent was a spare man with a receding hairline. He looked up with an expression of birdlike alertness, nodding pleasantly. Tilghman pulled out his badge.
“Federal marshal,” he said. “I need some information.”
“What can I do for you, marshal?”
“A woman with a baby just bought a ticket. What was her destination?”
“Wearing a blue dress, was she?”
“That’s the one.”
“Oklahoma Territory,” the agent informed him. “Final destination the town of Perry.”
For a moment Tilghman was too stunned to speak. “One last thing,” he finally said. “Where does she change trains?”
“Winfield,” the agent replied. “Southbound from there takes her to Perry.”
“Much obliged.”
Tilghman walked out of the depot. The passengers were in the process of boarding, and he saw the porter follow Edith Doolin onto the train. His head was still reeling from the fact that she was headed back to Oklahoma Territory. Her trip to Kansas made even less sense now. Something about the whole affair smelled.
Still, fishy or not, Tilghman had no choice but to follow her. There was always a chance that she would change tickets at Winfield, or meet Doolin at a stop somewhere along the line. His badge would guarantee him passage, and he delayed boarding until the last moment. He watched as the porter stepped off the train.
Then, oddly, Tilghman sensed that he was being watched. He glanced around the platform and saw no one but the stationmaster. His gaze swept the passenger coaches, and abruptly stopped at the one directly in front of the depot. Edith Doolin was seated at the window, the baby cuddled in her arms. She was staring at him with a strange smile.
When their eyes locked, she suddenly turned away. But in that instant, Tilghman saw that her smile was more on the order of a gloating smirk. The realization came over him that he’d been spotted, that she knew him. Perhaps not his name, but she had no doubt that he was a lawman. Her look, the sly smile, said it all. She knew he was following her.
Tilghman made a snap decision. Some inner voice told him that the Doolin woman was bait, meant to lure him away from Burden and out of Kansas. His instincts had never played him false, even in situations when his life was on the line. Whatever the source, these sudden hunches had never
