Valley of Fire (4 page)

Pretty soon, it sounded like Gettysburg out there. I tried to push open the lid to the coffin, but didn't have much room, especially with the nun lying on top of me.

“What are you doing?” Geneviève Tremblay raised her head off my shoulder, bumped it against the lid. Groaned. A bullet tore a hunk through the coffin, buzzed my ear, thudded into the lid.

“Mother of God!” The nun dropped back onto me, heavy, almost knocking the breath out of me. Or would have, if I hadn't expelled all the air in my lungs when that bullet practically made my presence in a coffin fitting.

A horse whinnied. Another answered.

Bullets sang out. The train seemed to be picking up speed.

“Push up!” I yelled at the nun.

“What?”

“Put your back against this lid.” Just talking filled my mouth with the stench of dead rats.

She understood. She worked her hands between my arms and pressed against the bottom of the coffin. I lifted my arms on either side of her body, pushing the lid.

I pushed harder. Her body strained. She drooled on my chin. The rats smelled deader. Harder we pushed. Straining. Hell, there was only four screws in that thing.

The lid came flying off. The nun rose, and toppled over the side, crying out in pain. I sucked in air that didn't stink of rats, sat up, reached for where I knew that Winchester should have been.

It disappeared.

The train lurched. So did I. The flour sack emptied its contents. I forgot all about the shell belt and the Winchester that was gone. I grabbed my hat, and flung myself out of the coffin, landing on straw, and something else.

I cussed.

“That's what it is,” Fenn called out in the darkness.

I began peeling the fresh horse droppings off the palm of my hands.

It occurred to me that no guns was shooting. I looked toward the sound of Sean Fenn's voice, waiting for my eyes to grow accustomed to the new darkness.

A match flared, and I caught Fenn's face, then followed the light. It grew brighter. Then, glorious light.

Fenn had fired up a lantern.

By that time, the train was moving at a lively clip.

I glanced around. Sister Geneviève was on her knees, shaking her head, then locating Fenn. She came to her feet in an instant, but didn't cross herself, didn't pray, didn't do one thing but make a beeline for Sean Fenn and slam a fist into his jaw.

'Twas a sight that made a pagan like me proud.

Sean Fenn had four inches and thirty pounds on me. He was a big gent, tougher than a cob, but the nun's fist had sent him backward. Unfortunately, he didn't fall out of the boxcar.

“Rats!” Sister Geneviève sounded more like a fire-and-brimstone Baptist than a nun from the order of the Sisters of Charity. “Rats were not part of the plan!” She lowered her hand and began massaging the scraped knuckles.

Fenn laughed and touched his jaw, turned to me and shrugged.

The nun went about straightening her habit, her hood, then reaching inside the coffin. For a moment, I thought she was after the dead rats, but she pulled out the shell belt, and tossed it to Fenn, who was lighting a cigar from the lantern's globe.

Behind me, I heard hoofs scraping the floor, and turned, finding two bay geldings. Off to the other side, I spied a burro, two goats, and a crate full of chickens.

A rooster crowed.

Figuring my palm was as clean as I'd get it, I picked up a handful of hay, rubbed my hands in it, then brought the straws up to my nose . . . just to breathe something other than dead rats. I turned my head and spit, then dropped the hay, and faced Fenn.

He held the Winchester. He was a fast one.

A grunt caught my attention. Turning, I seen Sister Geneviève on her knees, hands pressed against the foot of the coffin. Stupid, I know, but my first thought was
Is she really praying over those rats?

Then the coffin moved. She was pushing it.

I stepped out of the way.

She give me a cold look. “Would you mind helping me?”

“Helping you do what?”

She didn't answer, just stared into the coffin, and pushed again. At which time, it struck me. I walked to the front, grabbed the box, pulled it to the open door where the wind blew hard and the air smelled of piñon. I stepped to the side, grabbed the pine again, and me and the nun pushed that box full of dead rats out of the car, and into the night.

Sean Fenn never lifted a hand to help. He did withdraw his cigar, blow smoke, and say, “Thanks.”

I stared out the rolling darkness, breathing deeply, letting the cool air wash me clean.

Finally, facing Fenn again, I asked, “What happened back there?”

“Yes, Mister Fenn. Explain that gunfight, if you please.” The nun had taken my lead, and stepped to the open door. The wind whipped off her hood, and I got an even better look at her face, though it was dark despite the lantern. Her dark hair blew. Her chest heaved in breath after breath.

Fenn stared at her.

“The depot?” I had to remind him.

“Oh.” He shifted the rifle under his armpit, puffed on the cigar a mite, then withdrew the smoke, and wet his lips. “I bought that coffin in Vegas. Had it brought up to the room.”

“And?”

“Turns out, Felipe Hernandez owns the funeral parlor.”

That figured. The man owned everything else.

“Guess one of his kin told him,” Fenn said. “Made him wonder why, if my brother had been killed in Texas, I waited till Vegas to put him in a coffin.” He grinned. “Then one of his men mentioned that I'd said poor Gus was killed by Comancheros.”

“I knowed it!” I couldn't help myself. “I knowed that lie would trip you up, get us all in a heap of trouble.”

“Well, we got away.” Fenn flicked his cigar into the night, backed up a few steps, and drew his revolver. He punched out the empties and began reloading the chambers from the shell belt the nun had tossed him. Facing the Sister, he added, “And the dead rats helped us get away.” He stared at me.

“Not yet.” It was Geneviève who spoke.

“How's that?” Fenn didn't look back at her. Didn't even look at the Colt he was reloading. He kept his eyes on me, the untrusting cad.

“We haven't gotten away.” She was kneeling—not in prayer—by the horses, which did smell a lot better than what we'd been smelling.

“Oh, Hernandez will come after us,” Fenn said. “But he can't outrun a train.” Fenn pulled back the hammer, lowered it gently, and dropped it into the holster he wore. He had filled every chamber with a .44-40 shell. Most folks kept the one under the hammer empty so they wouldn't blow off a toe or entire foot, accidentally.

“He can send a telegraph.” That came from me.

Geneviève and Fenn looked my way, their expression seeming to say,
He's not the idiot we thought he was.

Fenn stepped toward the door, holding his hat on his head as he peered into the night.

“Even you can't shoot a telegraph wire,” I said. “From a moving train. In the middle of the night. Without a moon.”

“Besides,” Geneviève added, “they might have already sent that wire.”

I will admit that I felt pleasure in that distraught look on Fenn's face, despite the fact that if I got caught, I'd be dead real soon.

Fenn started with, “There's a chance—” but quit before he made a complete fool out of himself. There was no chance. No chance at all.

Sister Geneviève stood and moved closer to the two horses. She spoke to them softly, reached one, and began rubbing her hand over its neck. The second horse tilted its head and gave her a nuzzle. She hadn't put her hood back up. The nun, I mean.

She peered over the nearest animal's back. “I don't see any saddles.”

I got her meaning. “Likely in a baggage car, or with the folks who own these mounts.” But I was looking, too, causing the hens to cluck, the rooster to scratch, and the goats to start peeing.

The laugh from Sean Fenn sounded full of contempt. “You can't jump horses out of a moving train.”

He was right, of course.

Heading south out of Vegas, we was moving at a right fast clip. But before long, the train would turn west, bound for Santa Fe. Pulling any load through Glorieta Pass wasn't easy. Around there, the train would slow to a crawl. We'd ease the horses off then, hoping they didn't break their legs, or we didn't break our necks, and ride on to . . .

Valley of Fire? Bareback? Three people on two horses?

Horses wasn't the problem. What if Felipe Hernandez telegraphed ahead to some stop like the station by Starvation Peak? Or Bernal? Fulton or Rowe? Nah, that wasn't likely. Most of them places had only telegraph repeaters to send the message down the line and water tanks. The train didn't even stop between Vegas and Santa Fe, except to take on water.

“Come to think on it,” I said, being struck with genius, “best thing would be to get off at Romero.”

On cue, the horn tooted, and the train began to slow.

“We wait till they get water, and when the train begins to move out, we get the horses out.”

“And the brakeman?” the nun asked.

“It's still dark,” I said. “Got to take the chance he won't see us.”

“Two horses. No saddles.” Fenn was annoying me.

“You know me, Sean. Horses tend to follow me around.” I grabbed a hold on one of the wall slats as the train jerked to a stop. “There are a few homes around there. Might could find us some saddles and blankets and such. It's an easy trail. South from Romero to Anton Chico, Puerto de Luna, Fort Sumner, and down toward Lincoln. Easiest way to get to the Valley of Fire.”

Actually, the easiest way was to take the train south, get off at Socorro, ride east to that lava flow. But that was also the easiest way for us to land back in the Las Vegas pit.

Fenn motioned us to hide behind the mound of hay them two geldings was eating, then he turned down the lantern. Above the hissing, I heard footsteps outside, and spotted the glow of a lantern as the brakeman made his way toward the locomotive and tinder.

Geneviève and I knelt in the darkness.

“I guess I shouldn't have pushed that coffin out of the car,” she whispered.

“I'm glad you did.” I did not add
providing that brakeman don't notice that it ain't in here.

“Evenin'.” The brakeman had stopped to chat with Fenn.

“Hello. I told the conductor I was riding in here with my dearly departed brother.” Fenn motioned toward the coffin that wasn't there.

“I heard. Sorry about your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“You need anything? Got coffee in the caboose.”

“Not now, but thank you. Maybe the next stop. When is that?”

“Bernal. We stop every seven, ten, twelve miles or so.”

“Coffee would be fine then. At Bernal.”

I heard more footsteps.

“Ah,” the brakeman said, “here comes the conductor.”

When Fenn turned to look up the tracks, the brakeman pulled a pistol. I didn't see it. Didn't see the brakeman at all, but that metallic sound of a hammer being cocked I heard just fine.

“I must ask you, sir, to step out of the car.” That brakeman was a cool one, and smart. He'd struck up a right friendly conversation, easing Sean Fenn into a false sense of security, and when Fenn had turned his attention toward the conductor, the brakeman had drawed his pistol, and pointed it at Sean's belly.

The nun turned to me. “Telegraph?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

My head shook. “Fenn's set-to back at the depot.”

Fenn jumped out of the boxcar, and the conductor began demanding, his accent harsh. The chickens started squawking, and the goats bleating, but I got most of what riled and suspicioned the conductor and other railroad folks. What had been the meaning of that gunplay back at Las Vegas? Innocent passengers and AT&SF employees could have been wounded, or killed.

More folks was out there than just the conductor and brakeman. If one of them happened to take a look-see inside this car, my neck was good as stretched, and the nun was good as excommunicated, burned at the stake, put on the rack, or whatever they done these days.

Don't know if Geneviève was praying, but I sure was.

“Take his gun,” the conductor said.

The boxcar door slid shut.

More shouts, but the only thing I caught was, “We have a schedule to keep.”

The horn sounded.

“We will deliver him to the sheriff in Santa Fe,” someone said. “Till we learn what was the cause of the shots in Las Vegas.”

Moments later, we was moving again.

Either my luck held, or God had answered my prayer. Sean Fenn was out of the picture, and I was alone with a beautiful nun.

A goat peed on my boot. I cussed.

All right, we wasn't exactly alone. I hurried to the side, turned up the lantern just a bit, found the Winchester and shell belt. Thankfully, nobody had stuck his head inside the car, they'd been too much in a hurry to get Sean Fenn tied up—I assumed they had tied him up, or maybe put a ball and chain on his leg, and manacles on his wrists.

“We can stop in Bernal,” I told the nun. “Get off there with these two horses. Can you ride bareback?”

She didn't answer. She stood at the door.

“Don't matter,” I said. “I think I can borrow a couple saddles and bridles at this farm I know about. No sidesaddle, though. Not likely anyway. Sorry, Sister.”