Between the Marshal & the Vampire(4)

He grinned and wrapped his sandwich in a bandana before stuffing it into a pocket of his jacket. The pie he gulped down in four large forkfuls.

"I'll gladly take that compliment, ma'am." He stood and placed his hat on his head before unslinging his belt from the hook on the wall and cinching his revolver low at his trim hips. He seemed extremely tall and imposing in the suddenly too small compartment. Mariel imagined him taking two steps toward her and looming over her. She thought she wouldn't resist whatever he did after that. I may not live to see the sunrise…

But Clay, with a smirk on his face as though he'd read her thoughts, opened the door of the compartment and stepped out into the hall. "Darrell will be by. Don't open this door for anyone but him or me." She listened to his spurs take him away, his absence filled by a sense of disappointment.

Five minutes later, the second Marshal, Darrell, older than Clay by a good fifteen years but full of energy and possessing an unflagging, stern expression, paused outside her compartment to tip his hat at her. She smiled and waved. He returned the wave and continued on to the adjacent compartment where he'd spend the night guarding over her while she slept here.

It was mostly black outside the window. Night was the danger. Night was when Beaufort's gang was most likely to strike, and it was telling that Clay had assigned himself to this shift. He wanted to meet the danger head on. Hopefully that decision had been made due to a realistic assessment of his skills, rather than an overinflated belief in his abilities.

"You'll just have to trust him," she murmured to herself. "Both of them." She forced herself to eat her pie even though she hadn't the stomach for it.

After she'd closed the curtains on both windows, she prepared for bed. Lying in the darkness, she sent up a silent prayer for her Marshal guardians.

She hadn't considered herself a brave person before now, but she told herself she should. Testifying against Beaufort was a death sentence, or so had claimed her neighbors when the Marshals had showed up in Willowtown to escort her north. Would the inn still be intact when she returned home, or would it be victim to vandals or something unpredictable, like a fire? She couldn't honestly say she loved running the place, but it had become a habit, like eating dinner every day. It was simply something that was part of her existence. If her father hadn't died while he was so young, Mariel might not even live in Willowton. She might not even live in Mountain Sky.

That had been her half-formed dream, anyway, traveling and seeing the rest of the Empire. As a girl she'd harbored reckless fantasies of leaving her small hometown and joining the crew of an airship. In some fantasies she was the captain of that airship. It was an environment where she hoped a woman could prove her mettle. That was what she wanted: a fair chance to stretch her wings and challenge herself and be bold. The inn felt too small and constricting. Surely she was meant for more? She could shoot as well as most men she knew, could outrace many of them, and was certainly more educated than many, having developed a fondness for reading at her father's knee.

And yet she spent her days beating out mattresses and stirring stews and making conversation with drunkards. Now that she was away from Willowton for the first time in her life, she acknowledged that she didn't want to return to the tiny town.

But what would I do instead?

The depressing question, for which she had no answer, followed her into sleep.

She was awoken by a jolt that sent her tumbling out of the bed. The moment she sat up from her sprawl across the floor, she was grabbed by her shoulder. She opened her mouth to scream but another hand pressed over her lips.

"It's me, Miss Johnston." She recognized Darrell, the Marshal, bending over her. "Be quiet, now. Beaufort's men are trying to take the train."

Mariel's heart stopped. This was her nightmare coming true. "We've stopped."

"There was an explosion," Darrell said grimly. Mariel could see him slightly now in the faint light slanting through a crack between the curtains. He'd drawn his gun. "They've probably blown the rails. I need you to stay here and don't move. I'm going out to help Marshal Carson."

"Clay." Mariel's heart began to beat again, only now it thundered painfully in her chest. "He's out there alone!"

"Not for long." Darrell let himself outside into the hallway. "Keep the curtains drawn and don't open these doors unless it's me or Marshal Carson," he ordered. "Get dressed and be ready to move."

She was up and dressing before his running footsteps had faded from earshot. She strained to hear what was happening outside the train, but the other travelers were making too much of a ruckus for her to make out anything, their confused shouts and cries drowning out everything. Mariel took a chance and moved the curtain aside ever so slightly so she was granted a sliver of the outside view.

She gasped at the sight of men on horseback, bandanas covering the lower halves of their faces, guns glinting in the moonlight. She counted at least a dozen, but what if there were more? Even a dozen were too many for Clay and Darrell to defend against on their own. Would the other guests attempt to hold off the gang members?

Unlikely. The only person who had a stake in doing so was her.

"And yet I'm unarmed," she murmured.

She scowled. An airship captain wouldn't sit about in her room, waiting for the villains to come kill her. She cast about the compartment, looking for a weapon, a gun left behind. But of course that was absurd. The Marshals wore their weapons at all times. Which meant she needed to find her own defense.