Then the Dalton gang saw the train, grimy lantern and smokestack and roiling black smoke, a dead robin splayed in its cow catcher. And noisy enough to make you deaf, all steam brakes and bells and steel versus steel as it slacked speed near the station. Over all that, I said, “Something’s wrong when a smoking car’s dark. Lookit that dang thing.”

“I only just noticed,” Bob said.

Grat nudged his horse forward but Newcomb grabbed its mane hair and jerked it to a stop. “The practice is to wait on Bob. He’s the one with the caution.”

Broadwell pulled out of line and nuzzled his horse in next to my brother. “Something’s inappropriate, Bob.”

“That’s been a subject of discussion.”

I could make out the coach windows: a sleeping man, a baby’s hand flat against the glass, a man turning a newspaper page, a gas jet turned down to dim. But that smoking car was black, not even the glow of a cigarette ash, not even a gas jet lit, and the shades up on every window.

Grat had his Winchester unstrapped and standing barrel up on his thigh. He slapped Bob in the right shoulder with the back of his hand. “Come on, Bob! Fool! You’re acting like an old woman.”

“It’s a deadhead, Grat. A setup.”

Powers sagged and crossed his arms on his saddle horn and moved a toothpick over his teeth. “Surely does have that appearance. Looks like a little ambuscade.”

The front door of the depot opened and the ticket agent stood on the threshold with a rifle in his hands, looking right and left, somehow missing us. He walked out to the siding with his eyes as big as they could be, and he banged twice on the express car’s wall before he returned to the depot brushing sawdust from his knees, his rifle in the crook of his arm.

As the train pulled out, the conductor peered out the window but couldn’t see us for our black slickers. He broke open his shotgun and extracted the shells. “Wharton, next stop!” he said.

The men in the smoker got up off the floor, slapping the dirt from their seats, releasing the hammers on their pistols. One said, “That was a real disappointment.”

The men in the express car were breaking open their guns, rocking with the train. The man with the fedora was still alternating his shoe heels against the safe door. His hands were under his knees. “Do you know what’s going to happen next? They’re going to stop the second section, hold up the regular train. My goodness, we’re sharp as tacks, aren’t we.”

Powers got off his horse and ventilated his saddle. Grat said, “I need a plug of tobacco. Who’s got a plug of chew they can lend me?”