Love on the Line - Deeanne Gist [3]
Before long her head began to throb where the hatpin pressed. A rock beneath her skirts gouged her hip. The top of her left foot itched within her boot. And dirt continued to tickle her nose.
“Can we get up?” Rosella whispered.
But the men were already rising and assisting women and children to their feet.
“Rosella!” a woman cried.
“Mama!” Rosella scrambled upright. “I didn’t lose my hat; it’s still on the train.”
The mother’s response was lost to Georgie as the woman hugged her daughter and moved away, talking excitedly.
“It’s okay, miss. You can get up now.” A fellow passenger extended a large, beefy hand into Georgie’s line of vision.
She tried to use it for leverage, but her skirts had been hopelessly tangled by Rosella and she couldn’t rise.
“Beg your pardon, miss.” Grasping her waist, he swung her up, plunking her to her feet.
She swallowed a cry of surprise. “Thank you, sir.”
Even with his hat, he was an inch or two shorter than she and quite stout. “There now, no need to be frightened. Looks like one o’ them Texas Rangers got wind of Comer’s plans and hightailed it this way.”
Shaking her skirts, she glanced toward the engine car at the front of the train. The engineer stood toe to toe with a man whose features she couldn’t make out, particularly with the sun now having set and twilight fully upon them. But she could see his silhouette.
Tall. Broad. Muscular. And cocky.
“Where is everybody?” The engineer’s voice shook with anger. “They stole everything out of the safe, then emptied the passenger cars, and now Comer’s long gone. You fellas were supposed to be patrolling this whole area.”
“We were. We are. We’re spread out all along this route and have been for weeks.”
“Spread out?” the engineer screeched, arms waving. “You mean one by one? You aren’t gathered in large groups?”
“ ’Course not.”
“Are you crazy? That was the Comer Gang. You could have gotten us all killed.”
Georgie frowned. Comer wasn’t a killer. He was a . . . a kindhearted thief who, according to the papers, helped more people than he harmed.
The Ranger’s chest bowed out. “Listen, old-timer. One Ranger’s all you need. You only had one train being robbed, didn’t you?”
Georgie lifted a brow. It might take only one Ranger to make the Comer Gang scatter, but it’d take a great deal more to bring in its members.
With a sense of self-satisfaction, she glanced toward the woods, then froze. A half dozen bandits lay hog-tied together on the ground.
Her breath stuck in her throat. One Ranger did all that? She scanned the kerchiefed men but could barely make them out in the fading light. Still, from what the engineer said, Comer wasn’t among them.
“Maybe one Ranger would be enough.” The engineer leaned forward. “So long as that Ranger wasn’t you. Seems Comer gives you the slip ever’ time. The way I see it, you have about as much chance catching Comer as a jackrabbit at a coyote convention.”
Bunching his fists, the Ranger tensed, then turned and strode toward the passengers.
“Must be Lucious Landrum,” the stout man in front of her whispered to his wife. “He’s been after Comer for almost a year now. And look at the way he’s dressed, all spiffy-like.”
Georgie eyed the Ranger, unable to determine what he was wearing in this light, much less the clothing’s quality. All she could see was a cowboy hat, a vest, and a gun belt with two holsters.
“LOO-she-us,” his wife replied, drawing out the syllables. “Such a strange name. And look at his beard. I thought he wore a big, bushy mustache.”
“Normally he does. But you heard him; he’s been on the trail for weeks.”
The Ranger stopped several yards away and questioned two men at the front of the line. A woman in a black mourning gown began to quietly sob.
“We’ll know soon enough.” The portly man lowered his voice even more. “If his guns have bone handles carved with a boy on the right pistol and a girl on the left—closest to his heart