Cautiously, Cole went toward the window on the far side of the train and peeped out. There was a full moon, and he could easily see four riders. The one in the front, sitting astride a big bay, his silhouette showing his exaggerated nonchalance, as though he hadn’t a care in the world, was a man not easily mistaken or forgotten.
Dropping to the floor in a sitting position, Cole leaned back against the wall and cursed rather colorfully under his breath.
“I’ve never heard most of those words before,” Dorie said softly, startling Cole so much that he aimed his gun at her and had it cocked before he realized what he was doing.
Dorie had snaked her way to him under the bed and when she looked at him only her face could be seen peeking out from under the bedspread that hung down to the floor. At the sound of the hammer of Cole’s gun being drawn back, she disappeared under the bed again. When she knew she was safe from being shot, she again peeped out at him. “Who is it?” she whispered.
“Winotka Ford.” Cole drew his head back against the wall of the train. “I’d heard he was dead. Otherwise I never would have gotten on a train like this.” Anger, anger at himself, was flooding him. “How could I have been so stupid!” He looked back at her. “That was his younger brother I killed in the bank holdup. I should have known Ford would come looking for me, but as I said, I’d heard he was dead. Maybe I heard that half of Texas wished he were dead.”
Shots shattered the silence of the night. “Come on out here, Hunter, and meet your Maker. I’m gonna watch you die.”
“What are we going to do?” Dorie asked, looking up at Cole as though she knew he could solve any problem in the world.
She’s giving me the hero look again, Cole thought. At least I’ll die knowing someone thought I was something more than a two-bit gunslinger.
“We are going to do nothing,” he said. “You are going to stay in here while I go out and fight Ford.”
&
nbsp; “Hunter!” came the shout from outside.
“All right,” Cole shouted out the window. “Keep your shirt on. I gotta get dressed. A man has a right to die with his boots on.” As he stood up, he looked at Dorie. “Help me get dressed.”
She came out from under the bed in a quick, agile movement, then gathered up his clothes and began helping him put them on over his long underwear. “I hope I’m not being nosy, but how do you plan to draw a gun if you can’t even button your shirt?”
“I’ll draw with my left hand.”
“Ah, yes. Ambidextrous.”
Cole didn’t bother to try to figure out what that meant. “Give me my shirt.”
Dorie turned away from him, then swiftly grabbed her hairbrush and, turning abruptly, threw it at him. Cole made a grab for the brush with his left hand but missed, and it noisily went clattering to the floor.
“Are you as good with a gun with your left hand as you are at catching things?”
“Shut up and help me with my boots,” he ordered, then when she was helping him into them, he began to talk to her in a quiet, calm voice. “I don’t know if he knows about you or not. I doubt if he cares. His problem is with me, not you.”
She was on her knees in front of him, pulling his boot on, and suddenly a great sadness engulfed him. He had seemed so close to having what he’d never thought a man like him could have. He’d never thought of having a wife and maybe a few kids, but now he realized that maybe that was the reason he’d agreed to marry this little woman who was so clean and fresh. He was smart enough to know that never again would he have a chance at someone like her. Never again in his life would a virginal woman come to him and offer him a life different from the one he had always known.
But now that chance was gone. He had no doubt that these were his last minutes alive. Winotka Ford, with a Cheyenne mother and an American father, was a vicious bastard. He’d never loved his brother, whom Cole had killed, but then, he’d never needed an excuse to call someone out in the middle of the night and kill him. Revenge was as good an excuse as any. Ford wasn’t interested in a fair fight. He wouldn’t face a man in the middle of a street and see who was the fastest draw. Ford liked to stop stagecoaches and kill everyone on board just for the sport of it.
Now the best Cole could hope for was to protect Dorie. Bending toward her, he put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes. “The minute I go out that door, I want you to go through the opposite door and mingle with the other passengers. Do you understand me? No matter what you hear outside, stay on the train, and don’t let Ford know you have any connection with me.”
Suddenly Cole felt sick to his stomach. If Ford killed him, what would keep that killer from boarding the train and plundering it? Even if Ford didn’t know that Dorie had any connection with him, he would see that she was young and vulnerable. And pretty, he thought, with her hair hanging down her back in a thick braid, with the soft ruffle of her nightgown about her neck and the way she was looking up at him. He was seeing what he would lose.
Quickly, with great fervor, he kissed her, and when he drew away from her, he was almost dizzy from the kiss. “I’ll see you later, all right?” he said, pretending that he’d be back, but then he said, “Tell your sister to take care of you and that I said you deserve more of a man than Mr. Pepper.”
He wanted her to smile at him, but she didn’t. Her eyes were huge, and he knew that if he stayed another minute he’d drown in them, and in that minute he was sure he was going to die. What had kept him alive all these years was the fact that he didn’t care whether he lived or died. But right now he did care. He cared very much.
“Hunter, you got ten seconds and then I’m comin’ in.”
“Take care of yourself, Apollodoria,” Cole whispered, then straightened up and went to the back door of the train car.
“You took long enough,” Ford said when Cole emerged onto the platform at the back of the train.
Cole stood still, waiting for the man to make the first move. Cole’s only chance for survival was to drop to the floor of the platform at the first movement from any of the four men and start shooting. That way maybe he could get three of them before he was killed. At least that would be three fewer to possibly hurt Dorie. He’d take Ford first, and then maybe his men would scatter, or maybe the cowards on the train, who had to be watching from every window, would help.
Chapter Seven