followed, putting a bit of distance between themselves and the bickering robbers, who were now circled around the safe.
It didn’t take long to figure out who was in charge. The other three were clearly muscle; only one of them seemed to be shouting commands. “There’s our man,” Mason said as he pointed to the leader. “If we could take him out...A shot in the leg ought to do the trick.”
Bucky settled in to line up his shot, following Mason’s thinking. “Then we can pick off the rest.”
“Just do something! Mr. Arlington’s bleeding bad.” Liam was growing frantic.
Mason was out of options. He looked at Bucky and gestured back toward the now dozen armed men behind them. “Give each of them a target—wounding only, no killing in front of those youngsters. Understood?”
As Mason started to move, Liam grabbed his leg. “What about me?”
“You stay here. You’ve been brave enough already.”
“No!”
Mason couldn’t say he was surprised, and he didn’t have time to argue. “Are you good at sneaking?”
“The best.”
Mason pointed to the most likely spot for some accomplice to be hiding horses. “Head on over there and look for horses.” He tossed the lad the bosun’s whistle from his vest pocket. He used it for shooing away stray dogs, and the thing always made Ace crazy. Maybe it would rile up the bandits’ horses if they had any. “Blow this all around to spook them and then run back here but be careful. Someone’s bound to be guarding them.”
The boy caught the whistle with one hand. “Got it.”
Mason picked his way down between the rocks toward the rail line, still unsure how he was going to draw the men. He was almost in range when the biggest of them said, “How about I go get the horses and we haul that safe outta here?”
Not a lot of brains there, Mason thought to himself as he imagined the robbers attempting a getaway while dragging a heavy safe through the Nebraska countryside. Their lack of speed would be compounded by the obvious tracks.
The leader surprised him by consenting. “Just go get the horses. Jake,” he shouted, pointing at another man, “get that hat full of loot, and fer Pete’s sake get Miss Prissy and them brats back in the car.”
Mason waited until the last possible moment, weighing every stride the big man took toward the horses—and Liam—with every child who stepped back onto the train. Bucky must have followed his thinking, for just as Mason cocked his pistol Bucky’s shot rang out, pinging loudly against the safe to ricochet into the woods over Mason’s left shoulder. From behind him the
bosun’s whistle sounded; Liam had found the horses. Run, kid. Mason sent him a mental message as shouts went up from all corners of the clearing and from other passengers who’d had enough sense to stay inside the railcars. The leader turned in the direction of the shot long enough for Mason to burst from behind the rock cropping, shouting himself.
In the two seconds it took the leader to turn, Mason fired. The bullet tore into the man’s pant leg just above the knee, sending him to the ground. Half a dozen shots came from the ridge above, sending the place into a frenzy. Hoping Bucky was as good a shot as usual, Mason sprinted across the clearing to grab Holly Sanders by the waist and nearly haul her into the railcar behind the other woman and children. The fallen robbers managed a small volley of return fire, but even a sharpshooter would have a hard time hitting the men hid up in the rocks. When the bosun’s whistle echoed again from the safety of the rock outcropping, Mason let out the breath he’d been holding for the boy.
There was a moment of stunned stillness. The robbers had used up their ammunition. Bucky and the others were surely trained on each of the fallen men, ready to fire if one of them made a move. Mason left Miss Sanders at the railcar with the children—most of whom were screaming by now along with half the passengers—and rushed to crouch at the still body of Mr. Arlington.
One hand on the man’s bloody chest told Mason nothing could be done. “Rest in peace, Arlington.”
* * *
Holly watched in horror as Sheriff Wright took off his jacket and laid it carefully over Mr. Arlington’s face. The man was dead. Shot for the crime of trying to let the bandits go, for trying to save the children from harm. The cruelty of it seemed to pummel Holly’s lungs, and her steps wobbled as she made her way toward the sheriff.
“Lord have mercy on poor Mr. Arlington. Lord have mercy on all of us.” Even as she felt relief that the gunfight was over, sorrow made her tears hard to fight back.
One of the things Holly most admired about Sheriff Wright was his quiet passion for justice and safety. Today held no justice and precious little safety. She would not have thought it possible for Mason Wright to look more stoic, but he straightened from the body with such a weary, pained effort that she felt it constrict her heart. He felt the crime—the murder—as sharply as she, even though neither of them knew the slain man.
There was a selfish corner of her heart that insisted this could have been prevented if Mason Wright had accompanied her to Newfield. He’d raised a lukewarm objection, saying he wasn’t in favor of her going at all, but eventually consented to letting her travel alone. That hurt. A childish part of her wanted to think today wouldn’t have happened if Mason Wright had been her protector.
But today had happened, and while she heard the old woman and several others flutter in panicked concern over a crying Miss Sterling behind her, no one steadied her as she stood over the body. Now, as always, she was the last one anyone thought to protect. Quiet, competent, invisible—even in this. All yesterday’s sense of accomplishment evaporated just as quietly as Mr. Arlington’s blood seeped into the sod. No comfort would be coming her way. That meant that it was time—as usual—for her to look past herself and see to comforting others.
“You saved us,” she said, as she moved toward Sheriff Wright. Holly needed to keep speaking, to hear her voice fight the sense that she was evaporating into the sod herself.
He looked at her, his blue eyes brittle and hollow. She so rarely viewed those eyes—downcast as they often were or hidden in the shadow of his hat brim—that they never ceased to startle her when he stared. “No.” He raised the single syllable like a knight’s shield.
“But it is true.” The sheriff seemed so very tall as she ventured another step toward him. Mason Wright was the kind of man who would take Arlington’s loss as a personal failure, ignoring all the lives—including hers—he had just saved, and she hated that. Hated that she’d fail in this attempt just as she failed in every attempt to make him see his worth because he never looked at her long enough to notice.
He held her gaze just then, doubt icing his eyes until Holly felt a shiver run down her back. “No,” he repeated, but only a little softer. Holly hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath until Sheriff Wright broke his stare and looked down at the body shrouded in his own coat. Her practical nature wondered if his coat would be stained beyond repair, or if he would even care.
The shift in Sheriff Wright’s attitude was physically visible. Whatever emotion had bubbled to the surface was resolutely put down with a deep breath and squared shoulders. His attention spread out beyond her and the body to take in the whole of the clearing and the larger crisis at hand. Everything about him said “enough of that, now to business,” and Holly wondered if she would see that side of him up close ever again.
Even his voice changed. “Is she the other agent?” He nodded toward Rebecca Sterling and the upset children, now surrounded by the few other railcar passengers. “Liam mentioned a Miss...”
“Sterling, yes, that’s her. Liam!” Holly suddenly remembered the brave boy who’d run off to get help. “Is Liam all right?”
“Shaken, but fine. Clever boy.”
“I was so worried, sending him off.” She scanned the clearing for signs of his