Rage of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone Page B

you any harm.”
    “On the contrary,” Smoke countered. “It will attract unwanted attention.” He considered the realities of the situation and grunted in resignation. “You’ll do what you must, but I would appreciate being kept out of it.”
    “Devil take it, man, the law will have to know who is responsible for saving the passengers and the express car contents. An’ that was you.”
    “Who shot the hard cases in the cab and got the train rolling again?”
    Liam grinned. “Ye have me there. I’ll see what I can do.” An hour went by after Liam climbed the nearest telegraph pole, during which time the bodies of the outlaws had been removed to the express car, before a shrill hoot came from a work engine on the opposite side of the breech. The 0-4-0 locomotive rapidly grew in size and detail. A whoop of encouragement came from the train crew as the three flatcars behind the locomotive ground to a halt and two dozen burly track layers scrambled off.
    Within half an hour the barricade had been broken up. The old rails were discarded, along with about a third of the ties. Muscles bulging, teams of two hefted new, creosote-fragrant wooden beams and laid them in place. Others stood by with shovels to fill around the base of each with coarse gravel. When finally the long, gleaming strips of steel rail were lowered in place by a hand-operated crane, the fish-plates bolted to them, and the spike setters pounded the last giant nail into the last tie, all hands turned to raising the ballast level to the original.
    Three short shrieks of the work engine whistle signaled its backward departure to the nearest siding, where it would get off the main line to let the express flash past. Although the repair procedure held little interest for Smoke Jensen, he had absorbed himself in it, rather than keep company with the moping Thomas Henning. When the passenger train got under way, he returned to the private car to find a much revived Thomas seated in the dining room, industriously polishing off a generous portion of meatloaf. To Smoke, the crusty brown slices smelled suspiciously of lamb, a meat he generally avoided.
    Thomas looked up and interrupted his chewing. “Lee Fong tells me this is antelope. I’ve never had it before. Actually it’s quite delicious.”
    Smoke wondered if Thomas was trying over-hard to compensate for his wife’s earlier outburst, or had he actually managed to forget the tongue-lashing? Smoke sniffed the air again. “I thought at first it might be lamb. Now I can tell that it’s goat.”
    “What?” Thomas’s expression of gastronomic pleasure altered subtly to one of incredulous alarm.
    “Antelope are in the goat family. They’re sort of overgrown, wild goats.” Smoke took secret pleasure in the shift in Thomas’s features that betrayed the images of revulsion that must be dancing in the young fop’s head. “But then, deer are also related, and every classy restaurant back East features medallions of venison. I think I’ll find Sally and we’ll join you.”
    “Th—there’s plenty,” Thomas invited in a sickly mutter.
    Once past the sidetracked work train, the express took slightly less than an hour, at full throttle, to reach Fort Hays. Smoke Jensen experienced the familiar unease even before he saw the swarm of gawkers, local journalists, and a tight knot of lawmen who waited on the platform. Someone had wasted no time in passing the word about the robbery attempt.
    It wouldn’t be the first time some politically ambitious sheriff leaked information to the newspapers in order to get his name on the front page, Smoke reasoned resignedly. Perhaps Liam Quincannon had kept his name out of it as promised. Or the private car of Colonel Drew of the D & R G would serve as a barrier between them and the inquiries of the scribblers and law alike.
    Smoke’s hopes were dashed when a deputy U. S. Marshal, the sheriff, and two of his deputies became the first to open the safety chain and step