The fireman leaned out to see and got swacked in the neck with Grat’s bleached axe handle. Then the ladder clanged under Grat’s boots and I was hooked on the left ladder with a dangling leg and my pistol was cocked in my hand, the grip seated on the board floor next to the ash-pan damper handles so the gun was pointed mostly at a tallow can they used for oiling cylinders.

There was a purple mouse under the stoker’s hand at his neck. The engineer asked his buddy if he was all right. “Neck’s just a little scratchy,” he replied.

I was still making an effort to climb into the cab. I shouted at the two crewmen, “Hey! Look down in this direction!”

The engineer looked down at me, at a burly boy with steel-colored eyes and a blue mask over his nose, while the fireman touched the welt on his neck and backed away from Grat who was then large in that hot square of space. Grat poked the engineer against the furnace with his handle and heaved against the air-brake lever and momentum jerked us a little off our boots. The engineer leered at my brother’s exposed pistol, which waggled in a holster near his watch pocket. Grat noticed and said, “How would you like your nose broke? I just discovered a talent for it.”

The engineer smiled. “Could I still drink whiskey?”

While the train was still rolling, Kinney had lifted a window shade in the club car and seen the depot platform and Bob and Broadwell solemn at the elbows of the ticket agent. Sid Johnson, a man with prominent cheekbones and squint wrinkles around his eyes, peeked under the shade on the left side of the train and saw Doolin pass below him, stroking his red mustache and staring toward the caboose. Johnson raised his pistol and whispered, “Bang.”

LeFlore stood at the front connecting door waiting for Kinney’s go-ahead. All the other volunteers were sunk down in their seats with their hats off, revolvers cold in their hands, fear of us recruiting them man by man. Kinney said, “Okay, this is it,” and stood in the aisle like a boss politician. “Well, boys, shall we go out and fight them?”

I guess his boys didn’t answer.