The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [50]
“Reminds me of the time, you recall, when we wus robbed out on the…” the fireman began, grinning.
The driver turned cold eyes on him. “Shut your mouth and feed the furnace!” he screamed. As the fireman bent to his task, the driver glanced backwards at the fast receding depot called Watertank. Out of habit, he felt in his pocket for his watch.
They were two minutes ahead of schedule.
***
Upton watched from the line of the scrub as the train pulled out, the sound of the huffing engine smothering the gunfire coming from the halt. Not that it was any danger to him, they hadn’t spotted his position yet. He was still winning.
When he first decided to change position before the four o’clock had arrived, he had felt pleased with himself. It had come over him in a flash. They would expect him to be on the high ground where he would have the best view over the halt. And because they would expect him to be there, they would get off the other side of the train. So, he would be where they least expected.
And it had worked, except for one thing. He had missed the first shot. If only he had taken out Quantro then, it would have been all over, but when he saw the bullet had missed he had been filled with horror. He could only console himself with the excuse the range was too far for accuracy. Nerves just didn’t come into it. At least that’s what he talked himself into believing. But how he wished that first bullet had landed where he had aimed. He would have had only Wiltshire to worry about, and he was easy meat.
But it had missed and there was still the both of them out there, and now suddenly he felt cornered. Because the scrub was so sparse and the ground so level he had been forced to leave his riding-horse with the loaded pack animals. He had forfeited that route of escape for the advantage of surprise. But that was gone now.
It occurred to him that everything had gone quiet. With the departure of the train the gunfire had stopped. Those passengers who had disembarked had all scattered from the flying bullets, and now without even the sight reference of the railroad cars behind them he wasn’t even sure he could pinpoint Quantro’s and Wiltshire’s exact positions.
He began to wonder if he was going a bit crazy and that the train hadn’t arrived yet at all and that he was still waiting. He frowned, but then as he lowered his head to wipe away the sweat from his face he saw the spent cartridge cases. He touched once. It was still hot. He glanced up, eyes straying from the straight line of the tracks, and beyond the last adobe house he spotted the buckskin stallion and the paint pony where they had stopped to graze.
Oh, this was real all right.
But where were they? Had they located his position? Should he switch to a new stand?
He was still wondering, when a bullet whipcracked through the scrub by his head.
CHAPTER 13
“Quantro?”
“I hear you,” Quantro replied, eyes still focused on the scrub ahead, carefully studying each clump for signs of habitation.
“I’ve been thinking. So Upton’s on this side, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ground’s too flat for stashing his horses.”
“Get to the point.”
“Then they must be on the high side. The silver too.”
Quantro’s gaze settled on the most likely looking cover. He squeezed off a shot. The bullet cut through the scrub, then hit a rock before whining harmlessly into the distance. As he worked the Winchester’s mechanism he pondered Pete’s remark. He was right. If Upton was out there on his own, the horses had to be hidden some place. Quantro refused to believe that Upton would have worked out immediately on coming to Watertank that taking the train from the flat side would cough up the best results. He had to have been on the high side first.
All this of course meant that if the horses, and more importantly the silver, weren’t with Upton, then what the hell were they doing lying here in the dust shooting at him for? They should be up there