Dying Wish

by J. R. Roberts

  “You mean, if you win.”

  “Sure.”

  “And what if I win?” Clint asked.

  “Then you can have some more of what interested you so much the last time.”

  Clint shook his head. “Nope.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. If you want to bump up the stakes for me, then yours should go up as well.”

  “All right,” she said with a pout. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Simple,” Clint replied. “If I win, you’ll tell me something I don’t know about you.”

  Olivia studied the trail leading to the telegraph lines. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “If that’s the way you want to play it. Then, go!” And with that, she snapped her reins while tapping her heels against the sides of her mare.

  Even though Clint had been expecting something along those lines, the speed with which Olivia had given herself a head start was a bit of a shock. What surprised him even more was just how much steam the tan mare had in her stride.

  Clint knew Eclipse well enough to know the Darley Arabian was anxious to get moving. Just seeing the mare bolt and feeling the thunder of hooves through the ground was enough to cause all of the stallion’s muscles to tense.

  Although he gave the reins a flick, Clint held back from allowing Eclipse to hit full speed. Even at the somewhat subdued pace, the stallion was doing a fine job of catching up to Olivia. And then, once he could feel Eclipse was taut as a bowstring, Clint touched his heels to the Darley Arabian’s sides.

  He might as well have pulled a trigger because Eclipse took off like a shot.

  Leaning forward in the saddle, Clint held onto the reins tightly and adjusted to Eclipse’s movements. Since the ground was flat and open, there wasn’t even a need for him to steer.

  It was the best kind of riding there was. As Eclipse gained speed, Clint forgot about everything else that was happening in the world around him. There wasn’t room for him to worry about anything but staying upright and not stopping.

  Soon, Clint didn’t even feel like he was in the saddle. Instead, it felt more like he was falling forward and there was nothing to be done about it but keep riding.

  Olivia’s mare put up a good fight, which meant it took slightly longer than Clint had anticipated to catch up to her. Once he drew up alongside Olivia, Clint looked over and gave her a wave. One more snap of the reins meant the race was over.

  The telegraph lines were still about a quarter of a mile away.

  THIRTEEN

  The train pulled out of Amarillo on schedule. It let out its screaming whistle and once the pistons got moving, the entire metal beast started to roll and smoke billowed out from the stacks.

  “I still say you cheated,” Olivia said as she looked out the window to see the platform disappear from sight.

  Clint laughed and settled onto the uncomfortable bench toward the back of their car. “How could I have cheated?”

  “I don’t know, but you would have found a way.”

  “This is coming from the woman who was sharpening her skills at palming cards just a couple days ago.”

  “Was it only a couple days?” she asked. “Feels like it’s been weeks. I wonder if there’s any food being served on this train.”

  “Don’t go wandering off,” Clint told her. “Just stay put and get some rest.”

  Olivia scowled at him and pulled away as if he’d grabbed her arm. “I’ll go where I please, thank you very much.”

  “That other gunman got away, remember? I don’t know where he might have gone.”

  “I think we would have noticed if he’d been following us.”

  Clint was about to dispute that, but couldn’t do so with a straight face. The trail to Amarillo had been wide open and most of it had been covered at a fast gallop. Even if someone had been trying to track them, they wouldn’t have caught up before Clint and Olivia had boarded the train.

  “Either way,” he said, “we should be on the safe side.”

  “Then why don’t you accompany me to the dining car? That is, if there is one.”

  Clint started to protest, but wasn’t able to get out one word of wisdom before Olivia was up and heading toward the narrow door leading out of the car. Rather than put up a fuss, Clint got up and followed her to the next car.

  He was getting hungry anyway.

  There was a dining car, but it had more tables and chairs than actual food. When Clint sat back down at the little square table where Olivia was seated, he felt like he was stepping into the den of a starving animal.

  She eyed him intently and asked, “What did you find out?”

  “Well, I found out that we should be able to eat when we reach Abilene.”

  “That’s your good news?”

  “Abilene’s our next stop,” Clint offered. “That’s pretty good news.”

  Olivia crossed her arms, leaned against the window, and didn’t move from that spot until the Abilene station rolled into view.

  Strictly speaking, taking the train was faster than riding to Dallas on horseback. When it came down to all the sitting and waiting in discomfort while choking down sandwiches made with stale bread, the trip seemed a whole lot longer. At the moment, however, Olivia seemed happy as a clam.

  Savoring her second ham sandwich, Olivia smiled to herself and reached for her cup of water. The dining car was still mostly empty, but she sat at her battered little table as if she were in a fine restaurant. When she looked around for one of the porters who was acting as a waiter, she instead spotted a lanky man with thick stubble on his face glaring at her from the connecting door.

  Instinctively turning away from the man, Olivia settled behind her table and looked around the car. There were only three other occupied tables, and two of them were being used to host makeshift card games. When she heard the knock of heels against the floor, she wished the table was something a little more solid than some chipped planks partially nailed down to keep them in place.

  The train’s whistle shrieked through the air, but wasn’t loud enough to mask the sound of the approaching steps.

  Olivia patted one of her skirt’s pockets to find the derringer still in its place. The little gun wasn’t much comfort, however, when she thought about the hungry fire that had been in the man’s eyes.

  She didn’t want to look behind her.

  Olivia didn’t need to turn around to know the man was there. She could hear his steps and could practically feel the heat coming from his body. The only thing that frightened her more was when those steps came to a stop directly behind her.

  As the sound of the train’s whistle faded away, Olivia could hear the subtle rattle of the connecting door opening again. Since she’d been focusing on that noise, the sound of the voice coming from less than a foot behind her made Olivia jump.

  “Surprised to see me, sweet thing?” The voice hissed.

  Olivia still didn’t want to turn around. Instead, her eyes frantically darted about for any indication that anyone else in the car was taking notice. The men at two of the tables were absorbed in their games, and the woman at the third table was feeding her child as if there was nobody else around.

  Olivia’s hand inched toward her derringer as a second set of footsteps approached her from behind.

  “I know you saw me.” The voice snarled. “Truth is, I was just as—”

  Suddenly, Olivia heard a loud slap followed by the scuffle of boots against the floor. She, along with everyone else in the car, turned around to get a look at what was going on. Unlike everyone else in the car, however, Olivia smiled when she saw the lanky man being hauled toward the connecting door.

  “Why don’t we take this outside?” Clint said as he dragged the lanky man toward the door by the scruff of his neck. “These folks are trying to eat.”

  FOURTEEN

  “You see?” Clint said as he dragged the man from the dining car and tossed him onto the small iron balcony between cars. “This is what I get for step
ping outside for a few minutes.”

  The lanky man was close to Clint’s height, but was wiry and wriggled like a snake as he tried to shake free of Clint’s grasp. His clothes were dirty rags and his hat only seemed to be held together by thick layers of trail dust. Even the stubble on his face looked more like growth sprouting from the desert floor than anything coming from a living thing.

  “You got the wrong man, mister,” the lanky man said.

  “Really? Then why were you hanging over that woman like some kind of buzzard?”

  “Maybe I made a mistake, too.”

  Clint laughed and said, “I saw you reaching for that gun at your side. That sure as hell was a mistake.”

  The man’s lips were curled up into a sneer and his eyes darted down toward his holster. Even though Clint was standing too close for him to get a look at his pistol, the man seemed to gain some confidence from knowing the gun was there.

  With a sudden burst of movement, the man leaned back and brought one knee up. Clint was just quick enough to twist so his hip caught the brunt of that knee instead of his groin. Even so, the impact was close enough to send a cold wave of pain through Clint’s lower body.

  The lanky man was still moving. When he brought his knee back down, he stomped his heel on Clint’s foot. Clint wasn’t quick enough to avoid getting hit that time, and he felt the crunch of his foot being ground under the man’s boot.

  Rather than let the pain take too much of a hold on him, Clint used it to stoke his own fire. He tightened his grip on the man’s collar, balled up his other fist, and then pulled the man closer while delivering a short punch to his gut.

  The lanky man let out a pained wheeze and crumpled around Clint’s fist. He then leaned forward a bit until the top of his head pressed against Clint’s chest. From there, the lanky man snapped his head upward and caught Clint squarely on the jaw.

  Clint had no way to see that coming. One moment, he was preparing to end the fight, and the next moment, he was blinded by a blunt pain in his jaw. When he tried to take a breath, the pain became so intense that it robbed him of the breath that was already inside his lungs. Clint’s next impulse was to get the hell away from the lanky man so he could regain his senses without getting knocked out.

  Blinking furiously, Clint cleared his head just in time to see the lanky man coming at him. Instead of taking another swing at him, the lanky man lowered his shoulder and ran straight at Clint. This time, Clint was able to tense his muscles in preparation for the impact.

  The man’s shoulder didn’t hurt Clint, but felt more like a dull thump. While he was still feeling that jarring impact, Clint also felt himself being shoved backward. He staggered past the connecting doors of the cars. Before he could think about how close he was to the railing behind him, Clint felt his legs and backside slam against the iron bars.

  Not wasting any time once he had Clint off balance, the lanky man sent a series of short, chopping punches to Clint’s ribs.

  Clint gritted his teeth and got a look at the man’s face. He could see the joy in those eyes as the man landed one punch after another. Now that he had a good idea of where to aim, Clint leaned back to give himself enough room to deliver a punch of his own. His arm snapped straight up, glanced along the lanky man’s chest, and sent his knuckles into the man’s throat.

  The punches to Clint’s ribs stopped.

  The lanky man clasped both hands to his throat and let out a hacking cough.

  His eyes were wide open, and somehow managed to stay on Clint no matter how hard it got for him to draw a breath.

  Clint stepped away from the railing and touched the spot on his face that hurt the most. There was a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, but nothing much worse than that.

  For a moment, both men just stood motionless and looked at each other.

  Then, the lanky man’s hand drifted down toward his gun.

  Although the lanky man made a fairly quick reach for his weapon, Clint was even quicker. But Clint didn’t reach for his own gun. Instead, Clint reached out to grab the gun from the lanky man’s holster, and managed to take possession of it less than a second before the man could get a grip around the handle.

  Clint pulled the gun up and out of the lanky man’s fingers. He then kept his arm moving as he chucked the pistol over his shoulder so it could sail completely over the railing.

  “There,” Clint said. “What are you going to do now?”

  The lanky man answered that question by turning toward the door of the next car and pulling at the handle.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Clint snaried as he lunged forward to pull the lanky man back in much the same way he’d pulled him from the dining car.

  Instead of fighting Clint the way he had before, the lanky man reversed his steps while twisting at the waist. Clint tried to lean back, but still got clipped by the man’s elbow as it swung past his face. There wasn’t much behind that elbow, but the impact turned Clint’s head and sent him stumbling away from the door. Since the lanky man was still in Clint’s grasp, he came along for the ride as well.

  Just as Clint righted himself, the man caught his foot on the grate of the balcony under his boots. If the lanky man had been hard to wrangle before, that task became almost impossible once he was stumbling awkwardly with all his weight behind him.

  “Hold on,” Clint said as he felt himself being pulled toward the railing. “What the hell are you doing?”

  If the lanky man had an answer to that, he wasn’t able to give it. He was too busy tripping over his own feet and finally tumbling over the rail. He hit the railing with his hip, completely lost his balance, and pitched over the side.

  Using the same speed he’d used to snatch the man’s gun from its holster, Clint grabbed hold of the man’s other arm. He was barely able to get a grip on him, however, since the lanky man was flailing in a blind panic.

  Wind whipped past Clint’s face. The train’s wheels clattered against the tracks. If the man let out a yelp or cried out, his voice was washed away by the train’s sounds so Clint couldn’t even hear the man. Of course, Clint had other matters on his mind, like leaning halfway over the rail and trying not to fall from the train headfirst.

  “Hold on!” Clint shouted as dust and rocks pelted his face and the wind sent his hat flying away.

  The lanky man’s face was twisted into a mask of fear. His mouth hung open and his eyes were wide, despite all the grit being blown at him.

  Clint tried to get a better grip, but only felt his fingers closing on empty sleeves. The man’s arms were bony and slipped too easily from his grasp.

  “You’ve got to hold on to me!” Clint shouted. “Otherwise, you’re gonna fall!”

  But the lanky man already seemed to be considering that option. He twisted his head around to get a look at the ground passing less than a couple feet or so under his dangling boots. Some clumps of weeds and grass were almost tall enough to whip against his ankles.

  “Lift your leg onto that rail!” Clint instructed. Even as he spoke those words, Clint wondered if the man could hear a single one of them. The sound of his own voice was barely making it to Clint’s ears through the rest of the train’s noise.

  When the man slipped another inch or two down, Clint leaned forward and clawed his way toward the man’s elbow. Already, the weight of the man was close to pulling Clint over the side. After that last little slip, Clint could feel the impact of the man’s boots knocking against the side of the train or possibly even the ground.

  Clint pulled up with one hand and grabbed hold of the man’s arm with his other hand to pull the man up as if he was pulling a thick length of rope.

  And then, before Clint could do anything about it, the man was gone.

  Because Clint had been pulling so hard, he staggered back from the railing as soon as the lanky man’s weight was no longer dragging him down. Clint ran back to the rail and leaned over to get a look for himself. He saw the man rolling away from the train amid a thick clu
mp of weeds.

  Just then, the door to the dining car opened and Olivia stuck her head outside.

  “Have you been standing out here the whole time?” she asked.

  FIFTEEN

  When the train arrived in Dallas, Olivia was the first one off. Not only had she been anxious to leave the train since the moment she’d boarded it, but she’d also gotten more and more nervous as Clint told her what had happened with the lanky man who’d snuck up on her.

  “You’re sure nobody is following us?” she asked as she hurried away from the platform.

  Clint walked beside her and struggled to keep up. “I saw the man rolling in the grass, remember? Even if he could run after the train, I doubt he was too anxious to try.”

  “Well, there could have been another one somewhere, you know.”

  When Clint reached out to grab her hand, Olivia turned as if she was going to take a panicked swing at him. “What are you doing?” she snapped. “We’re here. Let’s get away from this train.”

  “You want to give your horse up to the railroad? I know I don’t.”

  Olivia stopped and let out a frustrated breath. “Fine, but if either one of them are waiting for us, then it’s your fault.”

  Leading the way back to the platform, Clint wrapped his arm around hers as a gentle way to make certain she didn’t get away. Once he got a look at where they were unloading the animals from the livestock car, Clint turned her in that direction.

  “So,” he said calmly. “You saw more than one of those men?”

  Looking over at him, Olivia was quick to reply, “Did you see another man? You only mentioned one.”

  “But you made it sound like there were more of them.”

  “I only saw one. Actually, I barely even saw him.”

  “You sounded pretty sure of yourself,” Clint said. “In fact, I think you may have let it slip more than once.”