A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(4)

I had put my rifle under my seat, and I scrabbled for it and slung it around my neck. My Colts were still secure in my gun belt.

I wondered briefly about Ritter or Seeley, but they weren’t my crew.

“Someone’s gonna come to take our cargo,” I yelled, to make sure Maddy heard me over the screams and groans. Maddy and I pulled our guns and stood flanking the crate. It was splintered bad on one corner. I saw dark wood inside, but couldn’t make out anything else.

“You sure?” Maddy yelled back.

I thought my head would fly off. It seemed real logical to me. We’d been waiting and waiting for someone to try to take the cargo from us, and this train wreck gave ’em the opportunity. And I realized, all of a sudden, This is why we got blown up.

“I am sure,” I yelled. I felt blood running down my right cheek. Maddy was bleeding too. “You able to shoot?” I yelled, and she patted the air to get me to quiet down.

“I can hear you,” Maddy said. “I can shoot. Should we help?”

People all around us were asking for help.

I had a confused trail of thoughts. We should help ’em, but we weren’t doctors, and the cargo was our responsibility, and the men were going to show up shooting, and we had to shoot better or the people in the car would get shot anyway.

“We got to defend,” I said, and Maddy seemed content with that.

After a long pause, she said, “Charlie’s dead.”

“Saw him,” I said. I found I was shaking all over from the wreck, and with the waiting. I could not help myself. I heard gunfire. Yes, this was it.

“Jake,” Maddy called, real loud. “Jake, Rogelio.”

“I’m alive,” Jake called back. He didn’t sound too sure. “You see anyone coming?”

“Not yet.” I had to raise my own voice to be heard over the screams. “But you hear the shooting?” It wasn’t constant, but the sound was getting closer.

“I hear it.”

“Jake, you and Rogelio out of the running?” Maddy sounded scared but determined.

“I’m trying to figure that out.” Jake sounded dazed and slow.

I spared a glance to my right. Jake was struggling to untangle himself from Rogelio and from another passenger who’d fallen across his legs, one of the old men, who wasn’t going to get any older now.

“You saw Charlie’s dead,” Maddy called to Jake. She was worried, trying not to sound it. “We can sure use you.”

Jake said a few things. I couldn’t understand him.

Maddy muttered, “God lay Charlie’s soul to rest.”

We had to shift around to get good footing, the crate tight between our feet. Maddy faced east, I covered west. There was more light coming from the east. I risked a glance behind me. Now that the choking dust was settling, I could see the east end of the car had been split by the force of the impact, just where the roof met the doorframe. The gap was tall as a man, but narrow.

Facing west, the car was darker. There was no new opening. Half the windows faced dirt. The door—now sideways—was intact, though splintered.

Maddy yelled, “I see someone coming.” She didn’t mean a rescue crew.

Jake crawled over to us, slowly and painfully. “All right, I’m here,” he said. “Where’s the fire?”

There was blood flowing quick and bright from a gash in Jake’s scalp. “You’re addled,” I told him. “Don’t try to stand.”

“I think I won’t.” Jake’s voice was groggy. But he was aware enough to prop his back against the crate and draw his pistol.

“Here they are!” I don’t think Maddy knew she was shouting. She was pretty excited, and in truth there was still a lot of noise coming from the people badly hurt or badly shaken. At the moment no one could get in our car from my direction, so I turned to look.

Two men with guns were squeezing through the crack, one at a time. That made it easy. Maddy shot one the instant he appeared. As he dropped, I shot the next one, who had just started to flinch back. There were screams of protest from the other passengers. Like “No!” and “What are you doing?”

Might be we had just killed two men coming to the aid of the injured. But Good Samaritans wouldn’t have had their guns drawn.

With those two disposed of and none more in sight at that opening, I turned back to guarding my end of the car. For a couple of minutes, the screams of pain and appeals to God for rescue battered at my ears. But the voices began to die down—for real, die down. And the live passengers realized no help was arriving anytime soon.

“They won’t come as fast this time,” Maddy said, her voice at a reasonable level.

“No,” I agreed. “But they’ll come. They went to all this trouble; shooting a couple of ’em isn’t going to stop ’em.”

After a few minutes I heard a big noise, like a giant can was being opened with a knife.

Turns out, that was pretty much what was going on.

Outside the east end of the car, someone was prying at the narrow opening. At the same time, I could hear sounds coming from the door on the west end. Might be rescue, but I didn’t think so. We weren’t that lucky. Jake had sure picked a bad name for this crew.

“What if they’re helpers?” Maddy said, stepping right on my thoughts.