Die trying, p.6
Die Trying, page 6
The train approached, black, heavy and muscular, spewing a trail of thick, dark smoke. They drew up alongside it, keeping pace. Because it was dark and they carried no illumination of their own, the passengers on the train were unlikely to notice them.
Katie expertly hung back to let the train push on ahead of them, affording Chris a good shot at accessing the last carriage.
“This is it. You got one chance,” she shouted over the thunder of the train’s mechanics. “Make it count.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Chris said.
Katie nudged the horse closer and closer to the side of the train and Chris stood with the explosives stuffed into the waistband of his pants, hands outstretched to grab the nearby railing. He kept his balance as the horse thundered beneath him, and then he sprang off, just managing to grab the railing in time. His feet failed to find purchase at first, but then he was on.
Gunshots popped around him, and at first, he thought it was he who was being shot at. But then he saw Katie ducking and veering away from the train, cowering from the fire of agents in the carriage in front of him. He knelt down and set to work getting the dynamite in place on top of the link and pin holding the carriages together.
* * *
* * *
Katie went wide at first, then drew in close to the carriage. She ducked as one shot and then another whizzed past her head. She took aim and fired back, blowing one of the railway agents clear off the train. He fell backward and was immediately sucked beneath the wheels and reduced to a single strangled scream.
So much for not killing any of them, she thought. The best-laid plans of mice and men went out the window when you were getting shot at and had to adapt.
Another agent took his place and Katie did not hesitate before shooting at him, too. The man shrank back as her gunfire struck the metal side of the carriage in a cacophony of sparks. The agent returned fire, but his shots went wide because of the wind and the speed at which they were traveling. The horse between her knees snorted from exertion. Katie knew she couldn’t risk pushing the beast past the point of no return. It was possible to run a horse to death, to break it beyond hope of recovery. She just needed it to push a little farther.
* * *
* * *
Chris looked for a sign of Katie but she was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t set the fuse until she was close enough for him to leap back on the horse. He waited, knowing the seconds were precious.
“Come on, come on,” Chris said anxiously. He noticed movement from within the carriage. They were working their way up to his end, and he knew that if he wasn’t quick, they’d walk right out and find him there. “Damn.”
He lit the fuse lines. Sparks flew from them as they consumed the fuse, working their way up toward the dynamite. Chris took to the ladder at the side of the next carriage. He climbed up onto the roof and ran along its length, heedless of the train’s motion or the very real danger that he might lose his footing and fall off. He ran to the end, then leapt onto the roof of the next carriage. He landed awkwardly, slipped a little, but managed to retain his position. Chris took to the end of that carriage, descending the ladder, counting in his head the whole time. He hunkered down against the rail, arms wrapped around the cool metal. He squeezed his eyes shut as the seconds ran out. The entire train shook as the night filled with one gigantic blast of light, a crashing explosion that split the air and hurt his ears.
He scrambled to his feet, hanging over the railing to look behind, the hot wind rushing past. The agents’ carriage had been forcibly detached from the rest of the train. It trailed behind them now, slowing down as they continued to accelerate. He saw men in hats waving their hands and scurrying to do something about their situation. The sight made him smile, though it was short-lived.
The train’s brakes squealed against the rails as they bit. The locomotive shuddered around him as the driver tried to slow it and bring it to a halt. Chris heard hooves to his left and looked in time to see Katie riding up from the other side of the train, evidently having crossed the tracks once the agents’ carriage had been blasted free.
“Don’t just stand there. Get back on,” she said. “Quickly, I don’t have long!”
A gunshot split the air between them, coming from the stricken carriage.
“Don’t worry about me. Get up front,” Chris told her. “Encourage that driver to push on.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Move up the train and get the map.” Another shot. Chris flinched. “Go!”
She needed no further encouragement. Katie kicked in her heels and the horse sped past the slowing train. Chris readied his pistol, fixed a bandanna over the bottom portion of his face and entered the next carriage, breathing hard.
* * *
* * *
The thin, rake-like driver of the train looked to his right at a woman on horseback with her gun pointed steadily at him despite the speed of both locomotive and beast. The horse she was riding was cantering, pushed to the point of collapse.
“Slow the train!” she yelled.
He shook his head frantically. The train could go faster, but not quick enough to shake off this woman. The driver looked down the barrel of her gun and his expression was that of an animal caught in a trap with no way out.
“I can’t,” he shouted.
She fired a shot up in the air and he flinched. Not from the sound of it—which was dwarfed by the racket of the locomotive’s engine—but by the thought of where the next shot would be aimed.
“Slow it down, I said!”
He held up his hands to signify his surrender, then moved to the operating levers and began to slow the locomotive down, brakes screeching as the wheels resisted the hot metal of the rails. When the train had slowed enough, Katie holstered her pistol and expertly stood in her saddle, balancing against the rocking movement of the horse, before leaping aboard the train.
Her horse ran off to the side and away, falling out of sight as the train continued on.
Katie hadn’t noticed the fireman before. But as she hit the deck, the air was knocked out of her and she rolled to her side to see the fireman barreling out of the cab with a heavy wrench in hand. He swung it up over his head to bring it down on her. Katie scrambled to her feet just in time, moving out of the way as the wrench clanged against the spot where she’d been. He brought it up again and swung it left to right. Katie leaned back, the wrench just missing her. She reached out, grabbed the fireman by the lapels and headbutted him in the face.
He yelled in pain, but maintained his hold on the wrench, jabbing it hard against her midsection once, twice. Before Katie could react to the hit, other than grunt, the fireman pushed her back. He was short and stocky, blood running down the lower half of his face from his busted nose. Katie clung on to the man’s dirty shirt, even as he forced her to walk back, and in the few seconds she had before he forced her off the train entirely, Katie remembered one of her earliest lessons: when you were up against a stronger force, your only option was to turn that strength against itself. So she allowed him to walk her backward, then swiveled about, her legs suddenly under his. He tripped over her, fell forward and caught himself against the side of the door. The wrench dropped from his hand with a loud bang.
The man spun about.
Katie took hold of a section of pipework overhead, swung up and kicked the fireman under the chin with her boot. His head snapped back from the strike, eyes rolling back. She didn’t stop to see him crumple to the floor, out cold. She turned on her heel and directed her attention to the driver. He shrank back, hands up again. Katie drew her pistol and aimed it at him, panting for breath, winded from her fall and the hit from the wrench.
“Get your hand off that brake and pick up the pace again,” she ordered him.
“Yes, ma’am,” the driver said, glancing toward his fireman.
“Looks like you’re gonna have to shovel your own coal for now,” Katie said. For a moment, the driver just looked back at her. Katie thumbed the hammer back on her pistol. “I said move!”
As the driver hurriedly fed shovelfuls of coal into the furnace of the iron beast, Katie walked back, stepped over the still form of the locomotive’s fireman and leaned out to get a look at the end of the train. The agents’ carriage receded into the distance. The driver was looking at her.
“Did I say to stop what you were doing?”
Without a word, the man went back to feeding the train with fuel, and moments later, she felt the train accelerate.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chris moved through the carriages, pointing his gun at anyone who might think about trying to stop him. For the most part, the passengers seemed to shrink into their seats in terror—acting on instinct to make themselves seem smaller than they were and less of a threat. People didn’t even know they were doing it half the time. But when you had a masked gunman in front of you, there was really only one thing to do and that was to make yourself as unthreatening as you could. But the possibility that someone aboard the train might take it upon themselves to play hero was at the forefront of Chris’s mind. In the third carriage, he noted several men seated down at the end turning to look at him. He recognized what he saw in their eyes—an eagerness that told him there would be trouble when he got near. A young woman of sixteen or seventeen sat next to an old woman who had to be her grandmother. Chris pulled the girl to her feet and made her walk in front of him. She cried out and the old woman next to her stood up and grabbed at him. Chris pushed her back into her seat.
“Stay down!”
The girl wriggled free, pulled the covering from Chris’s face and threw it to the ground. She tried to run but he snatched at her, caught her in his grip once again as he wrestled to keep ahold of her. The girl glared at him and Chris had no doubt she was memorizing how he looked.
“Pick that up,” he growled.
The girl bent down, picked up the covering and handed it to him. Chris pointed a finger at her.
“Don’t you move while I put this back on. I swear it. Not unless you want a bullet in your back.”
The girl scowled. “I’d spit in your eye if I could.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Chris said, fixing the mask back in place. He took hold of her again. “Let’s go.”
“No.”
“Get goin’, I said!”
The girl wouldn’t move at first. Chris pressed the end of his pistol into the back of her head. “Feel that?”
“Yes,” she said, her defiant tone cracking from fear.
“What is it?”
“A gun.”
“That’s right. It’s a gun. And if you don’t move those feet of yours, I’m gonna use it to decorate the inside of this carriage with your brains. Got it?”
The girl did as she was told.
“You boys don’t get any wild thoughts now,” Chris yelled. “I’ll just as easily put a bullet in this young lady’s head as any of yours. And if you think that’s a bluff, just try me.”
“Let her go!” the old lady called.
“You’ll quit your squawking if you know what’s good for you,” Chris called back to her without turning around.
He steered the girl past the men at the end of the carriage and out the door, both of them emerging into the night, the wind whipping at them from the sides as the train barreled along. Chris checked that nobody from the carriage he’d just passed through was about to follow him, then he instructed the girl to open the door to the next car.
“Lemme go,” she said.
“I will soon as I get where I need to.”
She opened the door. They stepped through to the next carriage, this one consisting of private compartments to their left and a gangway on the right. He pressed the girl on ahead of him.
Chris looked into each compartment but saw no sign of Kiel. He’d seen a photograph of the man taken several years prior, so he had a pretty good idea of whom he was looking for, and when he reached the final compartment, he recognized that the man sitting next to the window, peering out into the darkness as it rushed by, was Richard Kiel.
“Wait,” Chris whispered at the girl. He yanked her back and peered in again at the man. “Move on up the train. Don’t speak to no one. Don’t do anything to sabotage me. If you do, I will find out where Granny lives and pay her a visit. You find a seat up there and keep yourself to yourself. D’you hear?” he said in a hushed but threatening voice.
The girl nodded.
“Go.”
She did as she was told.
When she’d left the carriage and moved onto the next, Chris opened the door to Kiel’s compartment. Kiel turned to look at him, eyes wide at the sight of Chris there with the bandanna covering half his face.
“Who are you?”
“Just a man making his way,” Chris said. “Where’s your lockbox?”
Kiel stood. “To what lockbox are you referring?”
Chris aimed his pistol at him. “Don’t make any sudden moves. Now, I ain’t got the time to stand here talkin’ with ya. I know you got a map in a lockbox. I want it.”
“Preposterous!” Kiel barked, face turning red. “An outrage!”
“Keep your voice down. It might be an outrage but I want it nonetheless. You can either give it to me, or I can shoot you down and find it for myself. Either way, I’m leaving this train with the map.”
Kiel visibly weighed up his options, and after a long moment had passed, he seemed to give in. The man sighed, his stooped posture signifying resignation to his own fate. “Allow me to get it,” he said.
“No funny business.”
Kiel glanced at him. “No funny business,” he repeated dejectedly.
As Chris looked on, Kiel turned his back on him to open a chest on the floor. He rummaged around in there for a second before whipping about, a gun in his hand. Before Chris could react, Kiel pulled the trigger. The shot smashed into the wooden framework of the compartment, mere inches from Chris’s head. He ducked to the side and returned fire, hitting Kiel under the chin. The force of it knocked the man’s head back, the contents of his skull exploding and smearing the compartment wall. Kiel’s lifeless body sagged to the floor. Chris pushed him to one side and searched the chest, feeling around with his hands until his fingers landed on the smooth exterior of a lockbox. He pulled it free and examined it. Sure enough, it had Richard Kiel’s initials on top, just as Lockhurst had said it would.
He opened the lockbox to find the map inside. “Bingo.”
* * *
* * *
The fireman groaned as he stirred on the floor. Katie nudged him with the toe of her boot. She’d already taken the liberty of binding his hands behind his back with rope and doing the same to his feet.
“You’re gonna want to get up,” she said. “But don’t do that. Resist the urge. There ain’t nowhere for you to go.”
“Who are you?”
Katie pressed her boot against his face. “Last person you’ll ever know if you ain’t quiet.” The fireman didn’t say another word. Katie stepped into the cab. “How long until we reach the tunnel?”
“Couple of minutes,” the driver told her.
“That for certain or a guess on your part?”
The driver swallowed, face shiny with sweat, eyes red. The man looked close to collapse from the work of operating the locomotive while attending to the red-hot furnace at the same time. “Lady, I know this line. I’ve been driving trains up and down her for years now.”
“I want you to stop at the mouth of the tunnel,” Katie told him. “And once I get off, I want to see you go on your way. D’you hear?”
“Yes. I hear you.”
“Good. You done well today,” she said. “Knew when to do what you were told.”
The driver looked at his fireman. “Did you have to beat him so bad?”
“Afraid so,” Katie said, rubbing at her midsection. “This is a robbery after all.”
The driver didn’t respond.
She heard boots crunching over the charcoal stored behind the cab and watched as Chris got to the edge of the coal store and jumped down. He looked at the man hog-tied on the floor but asked no questions. He tipped the rim of his hat toward the driver. “Evening.”
Katie stepped in front of him, eager to know. “You got it?”
“I got it.”
“Have much trouble back there?” Katie asked.
“Nothin’ I couldn’t handle,” Chris said, deciding to tell her about Kiel later on. “It was getting pretty dicey with those agents, though, weren’t it?”
“Well, it’s not like we didn’t know it would happen. This was never an easy job.”
“Hence why I told him I needed another man.”
“Man?”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Man. Woman. You know what I mean. Another set of hands.”
Katie cocked an eyebrow. “I hope you appreciate this woman’s talents.”
“I’d better,” he said, glancing down at the hog-tied fireman. “Wouldn’t wanna end up like this poor son of a gun.”
She took Chris by the elbow. “What about Kiel?”
“Tell you later,” he told her.
She searched his face. “Like that, is it?”
“Afraid so.”
The driver began to apply the brakes again. “Coming up on the tunnel,” he reported.
“Remember what I told you,” Katie said. “When we’re off, be on your way if you know what’s good for you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” the driver said.
The train slowed to a halt just before entering the tunnel. Katie and Chris climbed down and stood back from the track. Katie had her pistol back in her hand and waved the driver on. Without another look in her direction, the man set the train in motion once again. Katie and Chris watched it roll into the tunnel, picking up momentum until they could hear it clattering along inside.
