Around midmorning the blue sky took on a grayish cast and dark, flat clouds slipped in from the north. A light snow was falling when the hay wagon reached Neosho.
“Well,” Grant said, “thanks for the ride.”
“It beat walkin', I guess.” The young farmer grinned. “The depot is over that way.”
Grant was pleased to see several cowhands lounging around the big iron wood burner in the middle of the depot waiting room. Most of them had saddlesacks on the bench beside them.
Grant bought a ticket to Red Fork, although he meant to go only as far as Vinita, where the A & P crossed the Katy. He figured the extra money would be well spent if the federal marshals ever started checking on who bought tickets for where. He found a dark corner in the gloomy waiting room, pulled his hat down over his face, and pretended to doze until train time.
Shortly after one o'clock they heard the shrill whistle and raucous huffing as the glistening tall-stacked locomotive pulled into the station with its two daycoaches and string of freight and cattle cars. Most of the cowhands made straight for the smoker, but Grant pushed on through to the regular coach, hoisted his saddle to the baggage rack, and settled down to see the last of Missouri.
A girl and her grips occupied the two seats directly across the aisle: a fair-haired girl with sober blue eyes. Grant glanced briefly in her direction, then around the car. There were a few cattlemen, three or four drummers, two austere Creek Indians, and several workers in soiled corduroy who appeared to be oilfield laborers. Grant pulled his hat over his face again and pretended to doze until the train began to move.
He rode for several minutes with his face hidden. I've made it! he thought, rejoicing to himself. They'll never catch me now, no matter how they try! He tilted the hat from his face, enjoying to the fullest this new sense of freedom.
As the train rocked on he stared for several moments at this bleak, cold country of rolling hills and scattered timber and definitely made up his mind to change to the Katy at Vinita and head for Texas. The sight of this frosted land chilled him and made him long for the warm spaces along the Mexican border.
At last he turned his attention to the other passengers. The girl across the aisle especially interested him, for it was not the usual thing for girls her age to be traveling in this country alone. There was something strangely foreign about her— somehow she looked out of place, but Grant didn't know exactly why. She sat erect on the red plush seat, her back ramrod straight, her blue eyes staring straight ahead. Her dress was of heavy black material and severe in its simplicity; a plain pillbox of a hat sat squarely atop her yellow hair.
If she doesn't learn to relax, Grant thought, she'll fly all to pieces before she gets to wherever she's going!
From time to time his glance returned to the girl and he wondered where she was going and what was bothering her. Well, he decided at last, I guess it's none of my business. And he tilted his hat over his face again and went to sleep.
When he awoke, the first thing he noticed was that the sun had slid far to the west. Then he realized that the train had stopped and most of the passengers were out stretching their legs. Grant frowned. He and the girl were the only ones left in the coach.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
The girl turned her head just enough to indicate that she had heard the question. “I believe the train has stopped for fuel and water.”
“Where are we?”
“We have just entered the Cherokee Nation,” the girl said, then turned to gaze out the window on her side of the car.
Joe Grant grinned to himself. Not exactly the most sociable woman I ever saw, he thought. He stood up to stretch his legs, and that was when he saw the small band of horsemen headed toward the train from the north, and for a moment his heart stopped beating. There were six horsemen and all of them were outfitted with saddle guns and revolvers.
Grant swallowed hard, started to run toward the rear of the coach, and then realized that that would be a fool thing to do. Through the window he could see one of the horsemen talking to the conductor, and then all the other passengers came trooping back into the train. Sweat beading on his forehead, he realized that he was trapped. He had misjudged the speed with which the marshal's office could swing into action, and now he was trapped!
The conductor said, “Everybody take your places.”
Grant realized that the girl across the aisle was staring at him. Then she turned to the trainman. “Who are those men out there, conductor?”
“Deputies from the U. S. marshal's office, ma'am. Seems like there was a bank holdup at Joplin.”
“Do they think the robber is on this train?”
“Can't say, ma'am. They just want to look the passengers over; it won't take long.”
Grant sank back into his seat. There was a roaring emptiness inside him; the sensation of defeat sagged like a weight in his stomach. It was now a matter of minutes before they caught him, and there was nothing he could do. In a coach full of passengers he couldn't start a gun fight. He couldn't run because there was no place to go.
He hadn't noticed that he had dropped his hat until the girl across the aisle picked it up and handed it to him. She smiled a sudden brilliant smile, but on a second surprised glance Grant saw that it wasn't a smile at all. It was like a mask smiling.
“My name is Rhea Muller,” she said quietly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Joe Grant blinked his surprise. “Grant, ma'am. Joe Grant.” He took the hat. “Thank you.”
“You might as well go back to sleep,” she said blandly.
Back to sleep? He frowned, wondering what had suddenly got into her. Then he heard the deputies coming into the coach from the smoker, and the thought hit him. Sleep! Quickly, he lay back in the seat and dropped the hat over his face.
It was a one-in-a-million chance that made absolutely no sense, but at that moment Joe Grant was in no position to demand logic. He froze in a position of sleep and prayed. Then he heard the measured clamor of spur rowels as one of the deputies moved down the aisle. From under the brim of his hat Grant could see that the lawman was a squat, stone-faced man in his early forties. He raked the coach with a flat glance, then nodded at Grant. “What about this one?” he said to the conductor.
“Got on at Neosho. Cowhand, I guess.”
Then the girl said lightly, “His name's Joe Grant, Marshal. He works for my father. We've got an oil lease in Kiefer.”
“I see.” The deputy turned again to Grant, and Grant could see the snub-barreled Remington cradled in the officer's arm. “Well, his hair's not the right color anyway. No sense waking him, I guess.”
Slowly, very slowly, Joe Grant started to breathe again. But he remained very still until he heard the deputies leave the train—until he heard them get on their horses and ride away—until he heard the conductor give the signal to the engineer and the train started to move. Only then did he allow himself to change his cramped position.
Why the girl had lied he did not know. How she had known that he was the man they were looking for he could not guess. He did not care. A girl with that kind of nerve, he thought, I'm just glad she's on my side.
Gently, he tipped his hat off his face and glanced at the girl. She was staring straight ahead, just as she had been doing the whole trip. Tentatively, Grant cleared his throat, but she did not look around.
Grant wiped his forehead on his sleeve. Well, he thought, if this is the way she wants it, this is the way she'll have it! The least I can do is let her alone, if that's the way she wants it.
He lay back in the comer against the car window and pretended to doze, but it was not possible to dismiss this girl from his mind as easily as that. What if that marshal had searched him? The dark hair wouldn't have fooled the lawman long if he had given any reason for suspicion. Grant felt himself go weak when he thought of doing five years in a Missouri prison. That is what he owed the girl for what she had done. Five years of his life!
Once more he looked in her direction, and she seemed even more distant than before. She would not even consent to look at him, or even admit that he was in the car.
CHAPTER THREE
