Early Dawn

by Catherine Anderson

  Dory nodded. “It’s possible. But I’m hoping not. With Caitlin’s fair complexion and Ace’s black hair, she’ll be truly breathtaking if her eyes remain blue.” Dory studied Eden’s face, a slight frown furrowing her brow. “If the baby resembles Caitlin as much as Ace says she does, she also looks exactly like you. How are you going to feel about that? The first time you met Caitlin, I know it gave you a start.”

  Meeting Ace’s wife the first time had given Eden far more than a start. It had been like seeing her own reflection in a mirror and had shocked her to the marrow of her bones. Caitlin was a bit shorter than Eden, but otherwise, they looked enough alike to be twins, sharing the same fine features, wide blue eyes, and flame red hair. Until meeting Caitlin, Eden had accepted on a superficial level that Connor O’Shannessy was her biological father, but the reality of it had never been driven home until she stood face-to-face with her sister-in-law and saw the undeniable evidence of her parentage with her very own eyes.

  “I’ll be fine, Mama. I’ve come to love Caitlin. You know that. She isn’t to blame for what her—for what our father did.” Eden patted her mother’s hand to reassure her. Immediately after being told the truth about her real father, Eden had been furious with Dory for lying to her for so many years, but over time, she’d come to understand that her mother had meant well. Bastards weren’t welcomed into polite society, and Dory’s deception had spared Eden untold heartbreak during her childhood. If people in San Francisco had known of Eden’s illegitimacy and that her father was a land swindler and murderer, they would have made her life a living hell. “I’ll enjoy having a little niece who looks like me.”

  Settling back in the plush leather seat, Eden turned her mind to other possible topics of conversation. Revisiting the past always upset Dory, and little wonder. The poor woman had lived through trials that many females wouldn’t have survived. “I’m feeling a bit parched. I wonder if they have any lemonade on board.”

  Dory glanced at the gold watch pinned to her pleated silk bodice. “It’s nearly midday. We could adjourn to the dining car a little early. I’m hungry already.”

  “That is a grand idea.” Eden reached up to straighten her hat, an awkward creation bedecked with a riotous fan of red feathers and a fake canary. One nice thing about moving to No Name was that she would no longer have to follow fashions she felt were absurd. Her brothers would have a good laugh when they saw her with a bird perched on her head and wouldn’t hesitate to poke fun at her high-necked choker collar and bell-shaped skirt. Pushing to her feet, she offered her mother a hand up. “If we’re early, we can have our choice of tables.”

  “And perhaps we can save a place for that young woman with the towheaded little boy,” Dory suggested. “He is such a sweet child.”

  Eden glanced over her shoulder to smile at the young mother again. The toddler was squirming in his seat and rubbing his eyes with one plump fist. Eden sympathized. The train ride from San Francisco to Denver was always fun and exciting at the start, but the novelty soon wore off, even for adults.

  “Would you and your little boy care to join us for dinner?” she asked the brunette. “My name is Eden—Eden Paxton. My mother’s name is Dory. We’d greatly enjoy the company.”

  “Helen Rodericks,” the brunette said, leaning forward on the seat to briefly clasp Eden’s outstretched hand. “And we’d love to join you. Thank you so much for the invitation.”

  Eden chucked the little boy under his chin. “And what is your name, young man?”

  The child muttered something indecipherable. Helen clarified with, “Timothy.”

  “Hello, Timothy. I’m delighted to meet you.” To Helen, Eden added, “Perhaps over lunch, we can keep him entertained so you can enjoy your meal for a change.”

  Helen laughed and flashed a grateful smile. “That would be fabulous. He’s getting very restless, and I’m running out of ideas to keep him distracted.”

  “I’m getting restless, too,” Eden sympathized. “According to The Little Giant Cyclopedia of Ready Reference , modern-day trains travel at an average speed of just a little over forty-eight miles an hour, but this one definitely isn’t.”

  The brunette laughed again as she set Timothy off her lap and vacated her seat. “If only we were traveling that fast. We would have reached Denver sometime early this morning.”

  “Instead we won’t be arriving until late tonight.” Eden smoothed her silk skirt. “My traveling costume will be hopelessly stale and wrinkled when we finally reach our destination. After we get to Denver, we have to take another train south from there to No Name.”

  “It’s all these steep grades,” Dory inserted. “No train on earth can consistently travel at forty-eight miles per hour up all these inclines.”

  Just as Eden turned to collect her reticule, the passenger car lurched violently. The sound of tearing metal filled her ears as she was thrown against the back of the seat in front of her. The impact snapped her forward at the waist, and she barely managed to catch herself from becoming airborne. Her blasted hat, securely anchored to her head with pins, went flying, taking some of her hair with it. Concerned for her mother, Eden groped for Dory’s elbow.

  “Timothy, are you all right?” Helen cried from behind them. “Did you bump your head?”

  “Dear God!” a man somewhere at the back of the car shouted. “We must have hit another train!”

  “Or there’s some sort of debris on the tracks,” another man grumped. “I swear, as much as I paid for my fare, you’d think I’d get better service.”

  “Mother, are you hurt?” Eden asked, helping Dory to regain her balance.

  Dory collected herself with brisk efficiency, righting her plumed hat and tugging on the cuffs of her leg-o’- mutton sleeves to straighten her velvet traveling jacket. “My goodness, what a fright! I’m fine, dear, just fine.” Dory cast a worried glance at the crying toddler behind them. “Is little Timothy okay?”

  Bent over her son, Helen replied, “He’s got a goose egg on his forehead, but I don’t think any serious damage was done.”

  “I wonder what on earth we hit,” Dory mused aloud.

  Eden was about to reply when a distant popping sound came from outside the train.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, have mercy,” a woman across the aisle bleated. “It’s a holdup! We’ll all be killed!”

  Helen grabbed her towheaded son into her arms. “Perhaps it’s only a mechanical malfunction.”

  Eden had been around weapons too often to believe that. The muted popping sounds were gunfire, no question about it. The train was about to be robbed.

  Eden quickly switched places with her mother.

  “What are you doing?” Dory cried.

  Eden knew better than to confess that she wanted to be in the aisle seat in case the situation became violent. Dory was older and frailer. Eden would recover from a physical injury far more quickly. “I just want to see what’s happening.” As she spoke, Eden sat down, spread a lace handkerchief over her lap, and began unfastening the diamond pin from her bodice. “Remove your jewelry, Mama. If it’s a robbery, they’ll want all our valuables. If we cooperate, we should be fine.”

  Dory clucked her tongue. “Not my wedding band, surely. It’s not worth much, and it has a great deal of sentimental value to me.”

  “Tuck it inside your bodice and give me everything else then,” Eden replied. In a louder voice, she addressed the other passengers. “If you want to survive this spot of trouble without any mishap, bundle all your jewelry and money in a handkerchief and stand ready to hand it over without argument.”

  “Oh, dear God,” a woman cried.

  Another woman snorted in disdain. “I refuse to hand over my ruby bracelet! It cost a fortune!”

  “Is it more important to you than your life?” Eden dropped her timepiece and gold locket onto the handkerchief. Then she reached into her reticule for her engagement ring, which she’d stopped wearing after receiving John’s letter. The large emerald, encircled by d
iamonds, was ostentatious and had never been to her liking, but John had selected it and she’d always worn it with pride. It was one piece of frippery she would never miss. “Hurry, Mama.”

  Eden heard footsteps on the platform at the front of the car and the faint sound of screams coming from the car behind them where other passengers with less coin were packed together in more Spartan accommodations.

  “We must be ready to hand it all over,” Eden pressed. “That’s why they’re here, for our valuables and any gold or cash that may be on board. If we draw no attention to ourselves, perhaps they’ll pass us by without a second look.”

  The door burst open and three disreputable-looking men spilled into the car, all of them wielding Colt .45 revolvers, Eden’s own sidearm of choice. As a youngster, she’d spent countless hours learning to handle all types of weapons, a skill her eldest brother, Ace, had deemed highly important, even for a girl. But young ladies in the upper echelons of San Francisco society had no need to carry a gun. Though Eden still target-practiced on a regular basis to avoid getting rusty, she’d fallen out of the habit of keeping a weapon on her person.

  Eden took the measure of the robbers and was instantly filled with dread. They were the filthiest creatures she’d ever seen, their clothing rank, their unshaven faces gray with grime. But what truly alarmed her were their eyes. Her brother Joseph had taught her to size a man up by searching his gaze. Eyes are windows to the soul, he was fond of saying. Look hard and look deep, little sister. If you can’t see into a man, run like hell. These men’s eyes resembled gray marbles—cold, glassy, and expressionless. The hair at the nape of Eden’s neck prickled. Unfortunately, running like hell wasn’t an option. She could only send up a quick prayer that no one on board would be harmed. The men seemed well practiced in the art of robbery. One rushed to the back of the car, a second covered the middle, and the third took a stand near the front door, brandishing his weapon as he thrust out a soiled drawstring bag to collect the passengers’ valuables.

  “Jewelry, timepieces, money!” he barked. “Keep your traps shut and hand it all over if you want to stay alive!”

  A finely dressed gentleman at the front of the car pushed up from his seat. “Here, now, there’s no need for violence!” he cried.

  That was all the poor man had time to say before he was shot dead center in the chest. The bullet’s impact sent him careening backward onto his wife’s lap. The woman began to shriek hysterically, pressing her hands over the hole in her husband’s shirt, which oozed blood.

  “Morrison!” she cried. “Morrison?” She looked up at the robber, slack-jawed with shock. “You’ve killed him!” she screamed. “You’ve killed him dead!”

  The bandit leveled his gun at the woman’s forehead. “And I’ll kill you dead if you don’t shut up.” He tore a necklace from around her throat and stuffed it in the bag. “Give me the rings. Now. Or I’ll hack off your fingers to get them. Don’t think I won’t.”

  The woman tugged at her blood-smeared rings, trying to pull them over badly swollen, arthritic knuckles. “Morrison, Morrison,” she chanted softly. “Oh, dear God, dear God.”

  Eden sat frozen in her seat. She’d never seen anyone die. Ace and Joseph had always tried to shield her from the ugly aspects of life, and they’d been mostly successful. For a seemingly endless second, she could only stare in horrified disbelief at the murdered man’s sprawled legs. How could a life end so quickly?

  The towheaded child behind them began to cry again. Eden heard Helen frantically trying to shush him. The bandit who manned the middle of the car waved his gun in a threatening manner.

  “Jewels and money, and be fast about it if you don’t want no holes in your hide!” He extended a bag toward an older woman two rows forward. “I said everything!” he barked when the matronly lady failed to hand over her earrings. Then, without waiting for her to comply, he jerked the gold loops from her ears, tearing the flesh of her lobes in the process. “Your fault, not mine. Stay quiet, hand stuff over, and there’ll be no trouble.”

  The woman’s husband surged to his feet. “Dad-blast you to kingdom come, you miserable excuse for—”

  The robber fired his Colt, burying a bullet right between the poor man’s eyes. And just that quickly, another person was dead. Eden was now trembling violently, one litany repeating in her mind: God help us, God help us, God help us.

  To her horror, the robber’s attention shifted to the shrieking child behind her. Timothy. Eden’s heart caught. She heard Helen’s breath snag in terror.

  “Shut that little shit up!” the gunman snarled. “Or I’ll plug him, too!”

  Glancing back over her shoulder, Eden recognized Helen’s paralyzing fear because she felt it herself. Instead of soothing the little boy, Helen clutched him rigidly to her bosom, her eyes as large as nickels, the pupils dilated with terror. Frightened by his mother’s stiffness, the child screamed more loudly. The bandit stomped closer, raising his Colt as if to shoot.

  “I told you to shut him up!”

  Helen began petting the boy, the flutter of her trembling hands frantic, her softly uttered reassurances unconvincing. The child shrank closer to her torso and let loose with an ear-piercing wail. The robber stopped and took deadly aim at the back of the toddler’s head.

  Eden sprang up from her seat, spun, and threw herself over Helen and the boy. “No!” she cried. “He’s only a baby!” Spreading her arms and legs to provide the mother and child with more cover, Eden heard heavy footfalls advancing on her. “Please, no! Don’t hurt him. We’ll make him be quiet. We will. Just give us a moment.”

  The next instant Eden’s scalp exploded with pain as the gunman’s hand closed over her chignon and jerked her erect. She stumbled and nearly fell backward into him. As terrified as she was, she shuddered at the stench of his unwashed body, a nostril-burning blend of urine, soured sweat, and whiskey. The force of his grip on her hair inflicted such pain that she turned to relieve the sting and found herself looking up into his unshaven countenance and hard gray eyes.

  “Well, now,” he sneered, running his gaze from her face downward to take measure of her person, “ain’t you a purty little thing. Be nice to me, and maybe I won’t kill the squallin’ little snot.”

  Bile surged up the back of Eden’s throat. This animal had just killed two men. She wanted to spit in his face, but fear tempered the urge. As if he guessed her thoughts, he twisted his fist in her hair and rammed the barrel of the Colt against her cheekbone. Eden braced herself, convinced that he meant to pull the trigger. In some distant part of her mind, she registered that the little boy had stopped screaming, and thanked God that his mother had managed to silence him.

  “Don’t . . . hurt . . . her!” Dory pleaded, her words interspersed with sobs. “Please, mister, don’t . . . hurt . . . her. She’s done nothing to you, nothing. Just . . . take the valuables and leave her . . . be. Please!”

  Eden straightened her shoulders and met the man’s gaze. She saw no mercy in those stone gray depths, and in that moment, she knew she was going to die. Fear made her legs quiver, and she almost wet herself. She wished her mother would be quiet. This man would kill Dory with no more regret than he would feel swatting an insect.

  “Don’t hurt her!” Dory cried again.

  Another gunshot rang out at the back of the train. Eden flinched. Some poor woman’s wails told Eden that someone else had just taken a bullet. Afraid her mother might be next, Eden cried, “Our valuables are on the floor. They’re worth a small fortune. Take them and go.”

  Tightening his meaty hand over Eden’s hair, the bandit bent his head and slurped his tongue over her lips. Only by sheer force of will was she able to keep herself from gagging. His front teeth had rotted into little brown snags. His spit tasted like vinegar. When he straightened, his battered gray hat sat askew, revealing greasy brown hair gone pewter gray at the temples.

  “You’re more valuable than a handful of trinkets,” he informed her with a leer. “Across the b
order, a little redhead like you will bring top dollar.”

  The man at the rear of the car yelled, “We gonna keep her, Wallace? Hot damn! We’ll have a fine time tonight!”

  Oh, how Eden wished for a gun. Ace had taught her well. With her Colts at her hips, she could have taken on all three men and been the only shooter left standing when the smoke cleared. Instead she could only remain there with her neck twisted to ease the pain of the brutal grip on her hair.

  “Why not?” her assailant replied with a laugh. “If nothin’ else, she’ll give us some fun.”

  Before Eden could react, the man bent at the knees, tossed her over his shoulder, and started back up the aisle. “Collect the rest of the loot!” he barked. “We need to make tracks!”

  Grabbing for breath, Eden made fists in the tails of the robber’s filthy jacket, her head spinning from the rush of blood to her brain. She heard Dory screaming and could only pray one of the bandits didn’t silence her with a bullet. Relief swamped her when no shots rang out. Her rump collided with the door as her captor drew it open. Then the cold May air cut through her clothing, its iciness nipping at her skin.

  It hit Eden then. These horrible men planned to abduct her. She needed to do something to save herself. Only what? Physically, she was no match for them, and she had no weapon. Her upper body bounced with each fall of her captor’s feet as he descended the steps from the platform. Then she heard gravel crunching beneath his boots.