The Trip To Judgement

Chapter 29

Jean lay back and straightened the blanket leaving Hannah propped on her side breathing heavily into her hand. Jean had slept hard and was surprised that her sister seemed not to have moved about either. If she never managed to get a dime, getting closer to Hannah was worth the cost of the trip. She looked at her profile and wondered what she thought about it. Hannah wasn't a greedy person but she was deserving for her compassion and sense of responsibility. If leading Howden on meant there was a chance of getting money for her sister then Jean was up for the game.

Across the aisle Harriet, awake for several minutes, fumed at the bewitched expression on Howden's face as he in turn watched Jean Bellows. He was her lever for getting money from the court and government; after all, hadn't he approached her first? She cleared her throat and when he glanced over she beckoned shyly, showing her most concerned face. James felt his mind slip into another gear; the widow Dingwall was also a very promising lode to be mined. He chuckled to himself at the analogy and carefully slipped across the aisle to where Harriet was holding the edge of her blanket up.

Stanley squinted through the blowing snow trying to decide if he was seeing smoke from the engine or just the storm gusting clouds of snow around the cab. It was just too far away to be sure and he decided that he should tell the Marshal just in case. He turned and called to the closest passenger that he could make out in the low light.

Abner came forward and listened to Stanley's concern and with a mighty yawn, said he would tell the Marshal. He looked the length of the car, squinting in the dim light at imagined shadows and at the various feet and legs he would have to negotiate and he decided it could wait; he was tired, too tired to be climbing over bodies in the dark. Abner took a seat farther down the car and was quickly asleep again.

FRIDAY MORNING

Ryan came awake with a start, his massive gun cocked and pressed against the stomach of the man standing over him.

"Whoa! Careful with that, Marshal."

"Uhh, Jonas! Sorry..." He released the hammer and put the gun away, shaking his head and sitting upright. "What's wrong?"

"Sun'll be up in a few minutes. Thought we should all be up and on guard."

Ryan hauled himself up and stretched the kinks out of body, looking down the car at the various groupings. "Stanley okay?"

"He says you didn't get back to him about the smoke from the engine. I didn't know what he was talking about." Jonas wiped a hand over his face. "I mighta dozed for a minute or two but I'm sure nothin' happened."

"Smoke from the engine? When? I didn't..." Ryan grabbed his hat and danced down the car over and around the sleeping passengers. Dozing guards was not what he wanted to hear about. He found Stanley still at his post and placed a hand on his back.

"What's this about smoke?"

"I told you last night. I thought I saw smoke from the engine cab."

"When? I didn't speak to—"

"I told Abner to tell you." Stanley looked past Ryan to where Abner was snoring, his head tucked down inside his coat collar.

"I never spoke to Abner." They both held their own thoughts for a moment and then Ryan waved an annoyed hand. "Forget them, tell me now."

Carl listened to Ryan's version of Stanley's information and nodded. "Sure. If he stoked the coals there might have been enough to get a fire goin' but he couldn't go anywhere."

"Maybe not but he ain't gonna be as frozen as we hoped he might. There wasn't any other weapons in the cab was there?"

"Just the poker and the shovel, a few tools for makin' adjustments, nothin' else."

"Okay, so he's still only got Jigger's rifle. It's time we made our move on Mister Devlin." Ryan walked back into the car and called for everyone to wake up.

Penny and Peter sat up feeling self-conscious; everyone was glancing their way and at the small bottle that had rolled out into the aisle.

"Miss Hatcher's medicine." Peter said weakly, struggling to his feet and gathering up the blanket.

"Hope it's done its job," Ryan observed wryly, eliciting sheepish looks from the two principals. "We're gonna need everybody to be awake and sharp." He joined Jonas by the bar at the end of the car, allowing them all to gather themselves for the coming day. Jonas moved in front of him, his back to the car and whispered an urgent message.

Devlin struggled to his haunches, blowing hard on his cold fingers. The sun was just cresting the mountain and, as little as it was, he could feel the slight warmth of its rays. He leaned over and looked down the tracks to the lounge car; nothing was happening but he knew they'd be awake and plotting something. The idea that he had a car full of people terrified amused him and he stood creakily, stamping his feet and banging his arms against his sides.

The bullet wound hurt more than before and when he pulled the bandage away he could see it was all inflamed and pussy looking. He took out his knife, gritted his teeth and scraped away the skin around the opening then pulled the poker out of the dying coals and laid it on his arm.

The pain was excruciating and he dropped the poker and fell back onto the engineer's stool, an animal growl welling up from his throat. The smell of singed flesh made him gag and he quickly rewrapped the dirty bandage over the blistering flesh.

The sun was higher now and he had to shade his eyes to see down the track; he should have repositioned himself earlier, he complained in his head, concerned about the disadvantage he given himself. He climbed back over the coal tender and up onto the prison car roof, pleased to see that from there he could see across the burned carcass of the dining car to both sides of the lounge car quite clearly.

He positioned himself on his stomach behind one of the roof vents and sighted down the barrel of his rifle. The pain in his arm made him favour it more than he liked but when the fun started, he'd manage. A fairyland snow of big flakes still drifted slowly down in the still air and the bitter cold of the car roof numbed his body in his mind.