have to go if she didn’t want to. But now I’m thinkin’, why not? I mean, we all know this is what she does anyway. So why not go ahead and do it again? Especially if it will get her and all the rest of us something to eat. There’s no tellin’ how long we’re goin’ to be sittin’ here. You know if the rescue train coulda got through, it woulda come for us yesterday.”
“She’s
“Let me make it a bit easier for you to decide,” Morris said. “If the whore comes with me, you all eat, and the boy lives. If she don’t come with me, none of you eat, and I’ll kill her, and the boy, and go back by myself.”
“Morris, what makes you think you’re going back with or without her?” Matt asked quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the young lady isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you.”
“Are you blind? You do see that I’m holding a gun to this boy’s head, don’t you? Now, I’m going to count to three. And if the whore don’t say she’s goin’ back with me by the time I get to three, I’m goin’ to kill this boy.”
“I’m warning you, Morris, don’t do that.”
“Ha! You’re warnin’ me? One, two . . .”
Morris glanced over toward Jenny, and that was all the opening Matt needed. He drew and fired in one lightning-fast motion. The bullet hit Morris just above his right eye, and dropping the pistol, he was slammed back against the front door of the car.
The four women in the car screamed in shock and surprise.
“Wow!” Timmy cried. “Steven, did you see that?”
“Are you crazy?” Senator Daniels shouted. “You could have killed the boy!”
“No,” Edward Webb said. “Morris could have killed my son, and I believe he would have, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Jensen. Mr. Jensen saved Timmy’s life.”
“Wow!” Timmy said again. “Wait until I tell all my friends!”
“What difference does it make?” Purvis asked. “We’re all going to starve to death anyway.”
“Purvis,” Matt said. “We may get hungry, but we aren’t going to starve. I once went ten days without eating, and I’ve heard of people going for as long as a month without eating. In order to survive, first we need heat, so we won’t freeze to death. Next, we need water, and with all the snow, we have plenty of that. The least important for our immediate survival is food.”
“That might not be the most important, but my feelin’ is we’re goin’ to get awful hungry before too long,” Purvis complained.
“I’m hungry now,” Troy said.
“Like I said, I’ve been through this before. We will get through it,” Matt promised. “As long as Santelli and the others stay in the dining car, they are more trapped than we are. We are the ones who are going to be rescued, not them. When the rescue team comes, Santelli and the men with him will go to jail, and they will hang.”
“Troy,” Julius said, starting toward Morris’s body. “Come help me take out the trash.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“It’s been two days. Do you think the train will get in before Christmas?” Sally asked as she took two dried- apple pies from the oven. “Because, if it doesn’t I’m going to have a lot of extra food to get rid of.”
“Oh, I’m sure the train will get here before Christmas. But even if it doesn’t, you don’t have to worry about getting rid of the extra food. Duff and I can take care of that for you. And we may as well start by having a piece of pie.” Smoke picked up a knife and started toward one of the pies.
“Absolutely not!” Sally said authoritatively. “The pies haven’t even cooled yet.”
There was a knock on the door, and Smoke smiled. “I’ll bet that’s Eddie telling me the train got there and Matt is waiting at the station.”
Smoke hurried to the door and opened it. “So, Matt’s here, is he? What time did the train get in?”
“No, sir, he ain’t here and the train ain’t got in,” Eddie said. “And it ain’t goin’ to get in.”
“What do you mean, it isn’t going to get in?”
“They’ve done sent a rescue train for it. They’ll be takin’ ever’one back down the mountain to Buena Vista.”
“Oh,” Sally whispered. “That means Matt for sure won’t be here for Christmas.”
“No, it doesn’t seem likely that he will,” Smoke said, disappointment in his voice. “But at least, if the rescue train takes them back to Buena Vista, he won’t have to spend Christmas Day trapped in the snow on the top of the mountain.”
“Eddie, it is nearly lunchtime. Won’t you stay and eat with us before you start back?” Sally invited.
“Yes, ma’am!” Eddie replied enthusiastically. “And thank you, ma’am.”
The table was laden with food; roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, stewed carrots, and green beans Sally had canned. She had also made a loaf of bread, which disappeared quickly. For dessert they had hot apple pie, over which had been put a piece of melted cheese. Sally had prepared a much larger meal than normal, partly in anticipation of Matt’s presence. The meal did not go to waste, though, as the two men and Eddie showed their appreciation by eating second helpings of everything.
“Well, I’d better be getting back,” Eddie said after he finally pushed away from the table.
“I appreciate you coming out here to tell us about the train,” Smoke said.
“Yes, sir, well I thought you might want to know.”
“You will come tell us if you get any more word about the train, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir, you can count on that.”
“Eddie, would you like to take a bear claw along with you to eat on your ride back?” Sally asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I ate so much, I hate to take anything else.”
“Well, I can understand if you are too full.”
A broad smile spread across Eddie’s face. “Only, I’ve near ’bout always got room for another bear claw.”
“I swear, Sally, I’d hate to see this boy and Cal in an eating contest,” Smoke said. “I don’t know who would win, but they’d likely run us out of food trying to determine a winner.”
Duff and Sally laughed, then Smoke walked outside to see Eddie off.
“It is cold out there.” Smoke came back in, clapping his hands together. “And it is getting colder. No telling how cold it is up at the top of the pass.”
“Oh, those poor people,” Sally moaned. “I wonder how much longer they’ll have to stay up there.”
Doodle Reynolds, the engineer of the rescue train, moved the Johnson Bar and the train came to a stop.
“What is it, Doodle? What’d you stop for?” the fireman asked.
“Look up ahead of us, Greg, and tell me what you think.”
The fireman leaned out the window and looked ahead. His gaze carried along the side of the engine, the brass work, the green paint of the boiler, then past the snowplow attached to the front. Fifty yards ahead of the train was a pile of snow across the tracks as high as the engine itself.
“Jehoshaphat, Doodle! I don’t think we could even make a dent in that. How far up the track do you think it goes?”
“I don’t know.” Doodle put the train in reverse. “But I don’t plan to get a second train stuck up here.”
“I hate we can’t get them out.”
“They aren’t in any trouble yet,” Doodle said. “They probably have enough food to last a couple weeks, anyway. For sure by that time, they’ll either be able to leave, or the snow will be melted enough that we’ll be able to get through to them.”
“The folks back in town are goin’ to be mighty disappointed.”
“No more disappointed than I am.” Doodle laughed. “I would love to come to the rescue, just so I could lord
