A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(2)

From the other end, two new men entered, and we all tensed.

“Dressed too nice,” Maddy muttered.

“Dressed too new,” I said. The two were young, early twenties, one blond, one brown-headed. Everything they had on was brand-spanking new. Levi’s, shirts, gun belts. Down to their cowboy boots. They’d gotten a payout of some kind.

I stood with my rifle pointed at the blond man, a step or two ahead of his friend. “Turn around, man, and go back where you came from,” I said. “We don’t want any trouble with civilians around.” Unless the two were prepared to kill everyone in the car, there would be witnesses. I registered that the grigori had stood and turned to watch.

The two newcomers didn’t seem to know there was a wizard at their back. Unless they were the wizard’s employees, they were fools. I knew there was other movement in the train car, but I kept my eyes on Blond and Brown, and past them on the wizard. Everyone else had to shift for themselves.

The wizard’s hands went down. He was not protecting the two. So they were idiots.

Then a lot of things happened in a flash.

The blond one pulled his shiny new gun, and I killed him. The brown-headed one had drawn his weapon, too, when Jake took him down.

I kept the Winchester aimed at them, just in case. My eyes flicked around, trying to see what was going on around me. There was an old couple crouching low on the floor in front of their seat, like the seat would protect them from a bullet. The fancy couple, both with guns in hand, looked down at the two dead men in the aisle right by them. The wizard had resumed sitting with his back to us like nothing had happened. A couple of other people were yelling, the usual “Oh my God!” and “What happened?”

Didn’t take too long for the train staff to get there, and Jake took over the task of explaining. All the rest of us lowered our weapons and sat down, so we wouldn’t look like we were going to shoot someone else.

Maddy and I ended up carrying the bodies to a freight car. Guess Rogelio didn’t want to get his hands dirty, and Jake was still talking. Charlie was sitting on the crate. After we’d gotten Brown deposited by Blond, we took the opportunity of going through their pockets. They were both twenty, both lived in Shreveport, and they had a lot of cash, which Maddy and I appropriated since they didn’t need it anymore. This was not something I usually did, but it was either we got it or the railway people.

Maddy saw the picture in my wallet as I put the money away. “Who’s the baby?” she said. “Yours?”

“No. A friend’s.” Not strictly true, but I didn’t want to tell Maddy the whole story of my friend Galilee, how she’d run away from Dixie pregnant by her employer’s son, how the baby had turned out to be a boy she’d named Freedom. Galilee Clelland had been my best friend, and when she’d died in the middle of a road, I’d gotten a hole in my heart. “I may see the grandparents on this trip, and I brought a picture to show them,” I said, despite myself.

Maddy looked at me curiously, but she could tell I didn’t mean to say any more.

The car was quiet again when we got back, at least until Jake began to talk.

He told us a bunch of stuff. We would be getting into Dallas soon, and getting off with the cargo. The Dallas law would come to our hotel to talk to us. When he was through, we all leaned in.

“What did you find on the bodies?” he asked.

I said, “They come from Shreveport. They lived on the same street. Stewart Cole and Burton Cole.”

“No letters or telegrams or receipts?” Jake looked disappointed. His mustache seemed to droop.

Maddy shook her head, her braid whispering across her back. “Not a damn thing,” she said.

“Take off their boots?” Charlie pointed to his own in case we didn’t speak English.

I nodded. “Only this.” It was a scrap off an envelope. It had 3rd car from rear written on it. Our car.

We had targets painted on our backs.

Or maybe the bull’s-eye was on our cargo.

At the Dallas station, we were met by the law. They were pretty anxious to know why we’d shot the two men. We watched the Coles’ bodies being unloaded from the freight car as the detective questioned everyone who’d witnessed their attack. To my surprise, everyone agreed that both men had drawn before Jake and I had shot them. Didn’t often happen that everyone agreed, and it sure made life easier for us.

The well-dressed couple acted like they were in charge of everything. The blond woman introduced herself to the police as Harriet Ritter, and she showed them something she carried in her purse, some badge or identification. They acted real respectful after that, to her and her companion, whose name was Travis Seeley.

I’d hoped to pick up more information, but they moved too far away for me to hear any more.

Next morning we walked to the station, Jake and Rogelio carrying the cargo. It wasn’t awful heavy, but the crate was bulky. Maddy and I took front guard. Charlie brought up the rear. People gave us quick glances as we went through the street on the way to the station, and then did their best to avoid us. Which was good. I hardly knew my new crew, but they were working well together.

Maddy was a poor girl from a farm in the middle of nowhere, Jake had been Lavender Bowen’s former second, Charlie had made a name for himself throwing his hand ax in the border skirmishes. As far as I could tell, Rogelio handsomed people to death. He hadn’t shown me another skill, but Jake vouched for him. Which is to say, we didn’t look well dressed or equipped with fancy stuff, but we all had experience.