Chapter 1 #2
No! That would be an unmitigated disaster. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he felt that it was his duty to arrest her himself? No, that wouldn’t do. She had to lie low, not be incarcerated.
Her father would sort it all out, and then she could come clean. Robert would understand her situation when she eventually explained it to him. He was bound to.
As they drove and the sky began to cloud over, it became a good deal colder. Lucy was glad she was wearing her thick winter coat, which was designed to keep her toasty warm even in Boston’s frigid winter weather. Texas had nothing on Massachusetts.
The others, however, in their thinner coats and jackets, seemed to be suffering. They huddled together, the couples snuggled while the others sat and watched the scenery go by, shivering.
After a while, Lucy saw something that perplexed her. She had been staring out of the cart at a diagonal angle, formulating her words for Robert, when she saw it. Out in the field, someone was keeping pace with them.
Perhaps he was just someone who was headed in the same direction as they were. He seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, urging his horse on as he was.
“Is there another town near Unity?” Lucy asked.
“Not really,” Michael said, roused from his own reverie. “There are a few farms nearby and a couple of outlying places.”
Nodding, Lucy lapsed into silence again. Perhaps the man was heading elsewhere. It was a big country. He could be going anywhere.
Movement caught her eye. It was another rider heading in the same direction. His horse was a bit behind the other one. This one seemed to be moving from one source of cover to another as though he didn’t want to be seen. Now that is odd!
“What are you looking at?” Kyle asked, frowning at Lucy.
She pointed. “There are two riders out there keeping pace with the cart,” she said. “They’ve been riding with us for a while now.”
Kyle turned to look, and then he thumped Warren and Jason on the shoulders. “Look!”
Michael was also studying the men on horseback. After a moment, he pointed. “There’s another.”
“That makes three,” Warren said.
“Yes, thank you, Professor,” Kyle said. “I’m pretty sure we can all count. What do we think they want?”
“Let’s not find out,” Troy said. He reached down under the driver’s seat. When he sat up straight again, he had a rifle in his hands and was checking the chamber to see if there were any bullets in it. He snapped the gun closed with a crack.
Lucy swallowed hard. “Are these the bandits that Robert wrote to me about?”
“Hard to say from here,” Kyle said, drawing his sidearm. “I think you ladies had better get ready to duck down. You don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”
“Kyle, is this really necessary?” Alice asked, looking terrified.
“Yes, my love.”
Lucy considered this. Her choices were to either hide in the cart like a coward or to show what she was made of. She would go with the latter.
“Where is my valise?” she asked.
“It’s in here somewhere,” Chrissie said. “But is now the time for worrying about your luggage?”
“This is the perfect time to worry,” Lucy retorted, looking around. “It’s the best time. Later will be too late. Now help me look.”
“Why?” Chrissie asked.
Because my gun is in there, Lucy thought but didn’t say. She didn’t know how these folks would react to her having a shooting iron of her own. Some people frowned on women learning to wield a gun.
Her daddy had bought her the gun when she was sixteen, and it was perfect.
It was nothing fancy, just a normal revolver, but it felt so at home in her hand.
She had practiced and practiced shooting stationary targets.
Eventually, she moved on to moving targets, and she enjoyed it all.
Not to mention, she was a pretty good shot.
“They’re getting closer,” Jeff said from up front. “Keep going, Kevin. We’ll deal with this.”
“There are only three of them,” Michael said. “Hopefully they aren’t serious about attacking us.”
“We don’t know that’s what they’re planning,” Warren pointed out. He was reaching for his own gun anyway.
Boom!
The gunshot flew over her head and Lucy ducked. Where was the blasted case? She hadn’t wanted to pack the gun, but carrying a weapon openly on the train had seemed like a bad idea, given her circumstances. She rummaged around, moving bags and things until she finally found it.
There was another boom and then another as the men began to fire. Lucy opened her valise and dug into it. Around her, she heard the thudding of hooves and the cries of men who had long since thrown caution and good sense to the wind.
Women screamed and guns fired. The air filled with the smell of gunpowder as Lucy groped around in her bag. Her hand closed on something. She pulled it out. It was her hairbrush.
Darn it!
There were more men on horseback. They seemed to have come out of nowhere.
“Come on, come on,” Lucy cried, desperate to find her gun and join in the fight.
One of the riders was coming up level with her in the back of the cart. She glared at him, and he smiled evilly at her.
“Oh no, you don’t!” she said with scorn.
He aimed his gun at her, and Lucy’s questing fingers finally closed on something familiar. With a smile, she flipped open the case with practiced fingers, withdrew her pistol, released the safety, and aimed it at the surprised bandit.
“Oh look,” she said. “I have one too.”
Boom!