But I couldn’t. See ’em. I only spied a hand in the opening, tossing in something. This was real bad. I fired at the spot where the hand was, hoping to wound someone, and a yell told me I’d done that.
The cabin started to get hazy. The “something” was a smoke bomb.
I’d heard of them but I’d never seen one. Kids sometimes built them to use for pranks. The people I’d talked to—people who knew arms and weapons—told me smoke bombs were dangerous because the chemicals could ignite.
I don’t know diddly-squat about chemicals. But everyone who’d spoken against the smoke bombs were right. The damn thing did ignite. There was a pop and flame in the middle of all that smoke.
And then there was more screaming and moaning. And the smoke grew thicker.
Maddy began coughing. “I can’t breathe,” she said between hacks. Something about this smoke was getting to her lungs particularly bad. I wasn’t coughing as hard, though my eyes were streaming. I forced myself to keep looking in the direction of the door, though I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut.
A face came out of the smoke, and I shot it.
“Can you see enough to shoot, Maddy?” I said.
“Just barely.” I could just hear her breath sawing in and out.
“It’s going away,” I said. Some wind was coming through now that the east end of the carriage was open. Most of the windows had been down when the wreck occurred. Thank God. I could see better. Maddy would be able to breathe.
But under cover of the smoke, other gunnies slipped into the car.
We began shooting in earnest. I killed a woman with bristly hair, then wounded a white-haired man. The white hair almost made me hold back, but he had a gun. I got him in the right shoulder.
It was great that we could make out who was coming in… but they could see us just as well, and we couldn’t move because of the damn crate.
I could feel Maddy trembling against my back. Maybe she could feel me, too. This was long, for a gunfight. They’re over quick as a rule.
Rogelio had risen to his knees, and one of the incoming gunnies tripped over him. Rogelio had a knife in hand and he cut the guy, who collapsed right beside him. But then Rogelio passed out again, before one of the others could shoot him in retaliation. I didn’t know if our crewmate was really out or if he was faking it, but either way, he’d finally done some good.
One came from either end, and they were both shooting as they entered. I felt Maddy get hit. I heard the noise she made. She was down. I was alone.
Rifle wasn’t good in these close quarters, but soon it would be the weapon I had to use. I was out of bullets in one Colt, had six left in the other. I am good with my left hand, almost as good as I am with my right. I got creased, between my shoulder and elbow. It burned. Pain leaped up my arm. I could feel the blood soaking my shirt. A big man loomed up out of the wisps of smoke, and he aimed to hit me with the stock of his rifle, but I shot him instead. Got a bit of blood spatter.
It got real hard to stay upright.
You can tell yourself your wound is just a graze and you won’t die. But getting shot hurts. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s an easy gunshot wound. My arm was on fire. I spared a glance for Maddy. She was now stretched full length over a couple of other bodies, gunnies or just passengers, I didn’t know. Jake was barely upright in his seat on the floor. He fired at the next attacker, missed, tried again and got him. But he had gotten hit in the exchange.
I was gonna die here, I figured, and I was so focused on the next person wriggling through the sideways door that I didn’t see anyone coming up behind me, across Maddy, until I felt a blow to the back of my head.
I knew I was done, but I twisted to fall across the crate.
I’d tried my hardest. I couldn’t do any more. I was out.
CHAPTER THREE
I was lying on the ground and Harriet Ritter was sitting on a tree stump a few inches away. She was talking to Sarah Byrne, the gunnie with the scabby wound on her cheek.
“…so it seems,” Ritter was saying, “that there’s an opening on the Lucky Crew, which should maybe be called the not-so-lucky crew.” If she was smiling, I was going to kill her. I opened my eyes a little wider. Ritter was not smiling.
“You can live,” I tried to tell her, but it came out more like a croak.
“Thanks. Glad you woke up.” Ritter had blood on her clothes and she smelled like engines and metal. So did Sarah Byrne. I expected I did, too.
“Who is dead?” I sounded clearer this time.
“For starters, most of the gunnies who came after you. We got out quick through the hole. We shot two of ’em from outside. The old man on your team, the one who carried the ax, is the only one dead from your crew. Jake Tutwiler has a head wound from the wreck and a bullet wound in the arm, not likely to kill him. The big girl was shot in the thigh. That good-looking Mexican who doesn’t smile has a broken nose, a sprained shoulder, and a broken rib or two.”
That didn’t seem like many wounds, for someone who’d been slumped on the floor last I’d seen him. “The other gunnies get the crate? The ones shooting at us?”
“No. Travis and I stopped them. Just in time.”
“Thanks for rushing to help us,” I said. Maybe sounded a little bitter.
Ritter’s lips tightened. “We got to it as fast as we could. We climbed out of the car before anyone else got moving. I twisted my knee, and Travis dislocated his shoulder. He’s got a cut on his chest that will need stitches. We kept about six of ’em off. You heard the shots, I guess. Couldn’t help it that some got in.”
Maybe I should have apologized. I just didn’t have the energy. I looked at my arm, to see I’d been bandaged. Felt like the wound had been slathered with something. “What’s on it?” I looked up at Ritter for an answer.
“A new medicine, supposed to prevent infection,” she said. Her face had relaxed. “It’s hard to find.”
“And yet you had some,” Sarah Byrne said. Sarah didn’t sound like she cared much for Harriet Ritter.
“Yes, I had some.” Ritter sounded real calm.
“What’s happened?” I asked. I had no idea how much time had passed.
“The dead are over there,” Sarah said, pointing.
I lifted my head, trying to get the lay of the land. I was on the ground close to the wreck. The train had been running just about west to east, and I was on the north side in a fallow field. About a quarter of a mile away was a road running parallel to the tracks. On the north side of the road there was a low hill. I could just see a row of bodies lying side by side on the slope. I counted twenty.
“And that many again, or more, likely to die,” Harriet said. “No telling how many were hurt. They’ve put up a tent for the wounded, and got nurses over there. They’re bandaging them up and taking them to the little hospital in Sally, a nurse said.”
How much time had passed? More than I’d figured when I’d first come to. “Who did it?” I said. “How’d the train leave the tracks?”
Sarah Byrne answered me. “Something blew up. I don’t know who set it off. There’s been some unrest hereabouts recently. Maybe it was because of that. Maybe whoever was after your cargo just seized the chance to make a grab.”