Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (29 page)

      
“He looks like one of those savages, no matter the civilized clothing,” Cordelia Scoville whispered to her companion. Her voice carried to Roxanna on the clear dry air.

      
Cain approached the herd, which so far had not stampeded. Seeing the wounded bull, he slid down from his horse and raised his .52 caliber Spencer. The buffalo stood still, its bloodied rear shank trembling, staring at the man. Then, without warning, it began a ponderous charge in spite of its injury.

      
Watching from a distance, Roxanna bit down on her knuckles when the bull charged at her husband. “He's on foot—if he misses—”

      
A shot rang out. The great beast went down cleanly, but the wind shifted suddenly and the herd caught the blood scent. In seconds, scores of placidly grazing animals thundered in a mass, billowing up thick clouds of dust.

      
Roxanna screamed out Cain's name and began to run toward him. Everyone around her raced the opposite direction for the cars, over a hundred yards distant.

      
As Cain remounted, he heard Alexa' s voice, faint over the pounding roar of the stampede. He kicked his horse into a gallop, yelling for her. What was the fool woman doing out here?

      
The herd ran instinctively from the scent of death, heading straight for the train. Cain followed the sound of Alexa's voice through the clouds of dust, praying he would reach her before they did. Suddenly she materialized, her once-vivid rose morning dress now coated tan, almost blending with the air.

      
“Alexa, ” he yelled, leaning down to scoop her up across the horse's withers as he reined the animal to the left, cutting away from the approaching buffalo.

      
Roxanna clung to his leg as they galloped furiously over the sun-baked earth. Beneath her the horse's hooves churned. If she fell off, she would be mangled beneath sharp iron shoes! She felt Cain's hand gripping her rucked-up skirts tightly, closed her eyes and prayed. Finally, after what seemed hours but could only have been minutes, he pulled the horse to a stop.

      
The ground still vibrated from the stampeding beasts that had swept around the front of the train, but the sound was growing fainter now and the air was beginning to clear. He released his desperate hold on her and lowered her from the horse, then slid down after her. She coughed until her eyes teared, trying to drag air into her lungs as he held her, soothing her. “Take slow, even breaths, don't clench up.”

      
At last she gasped, “Thank God you're all right.”

      
“Me? I was mounted! What the hell possessed you to run into the middle of a stampede on foot? Were you going to shoo the buffalo away like they were chickens?” His fingers bit into her arms, then he pressed her against his chest as she sobbed.

      
“I watched as you almost died that way once. I couldn't do it again. I...I just didn't think. You were dismounted when they turned to run and then I couldn't see you.” She could feel the pads of his thumbs rubbing the trail of tears from her eyes.

      
“Alexa, I'm sorry.” He tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot from the stinging dust. Two muddy rivulets had cut a pathway through the caked grime on her cheeks. Her hair looked as if it were a powdered wig. No woman had never seemed more beautiful to him than his wife did at that moment. What if he had lost her? He squeezed the frightening consideration from his mind and crushed her to his chest. “Don't ever do anything like that again or I'll tan that lovely little backside pink. Why didn't any of those so-called men try to stop you?”

      
Snuggled securely against his chest, she felt giddy with relief. “I suppose because they were too busy stampeding back to the train themselves.”

      
“Jubal didn't realize what he was asking when he gave me this assignment,” he said grimly.

      
She grinned through her grime at his harsh dirty face. “Oh, I rather imagine he knew exactly what he was asking. No harm's been done, Cain. It would be most politic to put the whole foolish incident behind us rather than alienate the directors and their political backers any more.”

      
He could hear the cautioning tone in her voice and knew she was right. “Damn, but I want to take that little weasel Scoville and throw him in front of a rutting bull buffalo to be stomped into mush! But I guess I won't,” he added reluctantly as he swung back up onto his mount and pulled her into his lap.

      
“We were supposed to have enough bathwater aboard to last two more days. After we get through scrubbing all this off, I bet the others will have to make do with cat washes until North Platte,” Roxanna said as they rode back to the train.

* * * *

      
The staged buffalo hunt in North Platte went off smoothly, as did several stops in route to Cheyenne for sightseeing on horseback. Horace Scoville had subsided into sullen quiet and Burke Remington's attempts to provoke a fight between various members of the party had ceased. Although the women were superficially polite to her, Roxanna knew they considered her little better than a calico cat. The men, however, were fascinated by her beauty and charm in spite of—or perhaps because of—the curiosity of her having survived the infamous “fate worse than death” only to wed the equally infamous Scot's Injun.

      
After two days of political speeches, banquets and baby kissing in the new territorial capital of Cheyenne, the excursion continued in the mountainous grades to the west. As they approached the high bridge near the summit in the Medicine Bows, the train chugged laboriously on the long inclines.

      
“Why is the train going so slowly?” Ralph Benner complained, peering out at the mountains.

      
“We've been climbing steadily uphill for the past day. The boilers can only stand so much pressure pulling a long heavily laden string of cars like these,” Cain explained. “We'll hit the crest just a few miles before the bridge. After that we'll pick up speed into Laramie.”

      
By late afternoon the scenery grew increasingly more spectacular, with snowcapped peaks glistening on the far horizon and summer field flowers blazing in purple, russet and white splendor. When the silly chatter of the women and bombastic posturing of the railroad barons became too much for her, Roxanna slipped away to search for Cain, who in response to a message had gone to the car where the horses were kept at the rear of the train. It was tricky negotiating between the last of the parlor cars and the freight cars. She waited for him in a deserted smoking car, hoping for a few moments alone.

      
When he entered the car, she smiled mischievously and said, “I couldn't stand Dr. Durant's pontificating about the Union Pacific linking the Levant to London another minute. I don't think he really believes it.”

      
“Not according to Jubal. The good doctor is just in this to milk all the money he can from the government, then pull out and the Union Pacific be damned.”

      
“Why—” She stopped speaking when the train gave a sudden lurch forward. “What was that?”

      
He frowned. “I don't know.” He glanced out the side window, then opened the door through which he had just come and stepped out onto the platform.

      
Roxanna heard his oath before he returned, grim-faced. “What's happened?”

      
“The freight cars have come uncoupled.”

      
“But how?”

      
“I'm not certain. It's been a long hard pull up the divide. Maybe the strain caused a coupling pin to give way when we crested the hill and started downward, or the yardmen in Cheyenne didn't check the couplings carefully enough.”

      
“We'll be in Laramie in a few hours. Surely they can send an engine out to pull the freight cars in,” she said reasonably.

      
His eyes narrowed on the slow decline of topography outside the window. “We may not have to pick them up. They may just pick us up,” he replied grimly.

      
“What do you mean? Oh!” she gasped, realizing they were curving around a series of low dips and rises in their descent into Laramie. If the loose cars behind them gained momentum over the next few downhill turns, they might just crash into the passenger cars from the rear.

      
“Yeah. It could be a pretty tight race. We've got to put on some real steam and pull enough ahead to reach the switching tracks at the railhead.” He held her by her arms and looked into her eyes. “I need your help, Alexa. Go forward and start rounding up all the passengers. Get them into the front Pullman next to the engine. Have everyone lie on the floor. I'm going to tell the engineer. Then I'll be back to help you.” He studied her face. “Will you be all right until I return?”

      
“You're wasting time, Cain,” she replied, trying to appear as calm as possible.

      
He nodded, then ran past her, racing to reach the engineer.

      
Train wreck! Roxanna tried not to panic as she made her way back through the cars. She approached the men smoking and playing cards in the next car. “There's an emergency. We need to get everyone up front.” She quickly explained what had happened.

      
“You mean the train might crash?” Scoville squeaked.

      
Seymour huffed and Durant paled but nodded. “We should get everyone to the first car. It would be safest.”

      
They set out through the train, gathering up all the passengers. Surprisingly enough, when Cordelia Scoville and even old Mrs. Seymour grew hysterical, fainting and sobbing, Sabrina Remington, in a no-nonsense manner at odds with her usual syrupy drawl, told the older women to pull themselves together and move to the front of the train. Seizing hold of the blubbering Cordelia, Sabrina practically dragged her forward to the front car. The others followed docilely.

      
Over the rhythmic roar of the steam locomotive, Cain quickly explained to the engineer what had happened. “Maybe we can get the attention of the crew on those freight cars. Hit the whistle a loud blast—distress call. The cook and several of his helpers are on the food car, plus stock handlers in the back. If they look out and see what's happened, they can try to set the hand brakes.”

      
“Not easy, but it could work,” the engineer, Paul “Jingles” Pringles, replied. The big blond Swede blew a mighty blast on the whistle, followed by several more as Cain climbed out of the cabin to watch for a response.

      
Nothing. He cursed, finally climbing back down into the cabin. “It's as if they're all gone, but I know they can't be.”

      
“How close are the cars?” Jingles asked.

      
“Close!”

      
The engineer paled, opening the throttle wide while his stoker fed the voracious boiler. Cain helped the fireman haul wood from the bin across the floor, tossing it into the maw of the furnace until it was fed as much as it could hold.

      
The engineer had never run this far west before, but Cain was familiar with every mile of treacherous curves on this run, having supervised the grading and laying of track. The heavily laden livestock and supply cars might catch up on any of several curves, literally knocking the passenger cars off the rails and down steep rock embankments.

      
‘There's a sharply dropping turn coming up around that outcrop of shale about a mile ahead,” he said, pointing to the left. “Can the train hold the track?”

      
Jingles wiped the sweat from his face with a greasy red bandanna. “Your guess is good as mine, Mr. Cain. I ain't never run a train wide-open throttle downhill on curves like that last one we just took, but if we made that, hell, I reckon we'll make the rest.”

      
Cain climbed out of the cabin again and leaned over, looking for the uncoupled freight cars. “We gained a couple hundred yards on them on that last incline. I'm going to lighten up these passenger cars, see if we can increase our speed. You keep on that whistle. What the hell's happened to those men?”

      
Jingles nodded. “Send me a man to keep watch on the runaway cars. If anyone aboard applies the hand brakes, I'll need to slow this baby down—quick.”

      
“Right.” He walked into the first car, now filled with passengers, and sent Benner forward, then said to the others, “I need able-bodied men.” He selected four Union Pacific employees and Remington, Argyle and Schmidt, all chosen because they were larger men who could lift and carry. “We're going to throw anything we can overboard to lighten the load on the engine.”

      
He directed the men to disperse through the cars, tossing out the doors and windows all the trunks of clothing and linens, furniture, weapons and ammunition, everything not nailed down. At one point a hysterically screeching Cordelia Scoville came storming into the car that several of the men with Cain had just finished cleaning out.

      
‘‘How dare you!” she accused, red-faced with fury, glaring at Cain. “I just saw my trunks—all my jewels, my new Worth ball gown—everything thrown down a ravine in this desolate wilderness!”

      
“Unless you want to be thrown down a ravine right after it, I suggest you get out of our way,” he replied.

      
“He'll do it too,” Sabrina Remington said cheerfully, coming up behind them.

      
“I'll have you know Mr. Ames is a personal friend of the congressman's. I'll see you fired from the Union Pacific, you—you red savage, you!”