“Months!” Truslow was raking through a box of clothes, seeing if anything took his fancy. He decided nothing did and hurled the box out into the weather. “I could rebuild that trestle in a week. Give me ten men and I’ll have it up and working in two days. Faulconer don’t know goose shit from gold dust, boy.” He jettisoned a barrel of soda and another of clearing starch. “There’s nothing here,” he sniffed, then clambered back to the ground. He glanced west, but the landscape was empty. “Go to the caboose, boy,” he ordered Starbuck, “and bring me some hot coals.”

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking that if you ask me another goddamned question I’ll shoot you. Now go and get me some damned coals.” Truslow upended both boxes of .69 cartridges into the boxcar while Starbuck climbed into the caboose where a small pot-bellied stove still burned. There was a zinc bucket of coal beside the stove. He tipped the coal out, used a poker to open the stove’s door, then raked a handful of the glowing lumps into the empty bucket.

“Right,” Truslow said when Starbuck got back. “Throw the coals onto the cartridges.”

“You’re going to burn the wagon?” The rain hissed as it fell into the bucket.

“For the Lord’s sake!” Truslow grabbed the bucket and chucked the coals onto the spilt cartridges. For a second the coals just glowed among the paper tubes, then the first cartridge exploded with a soft cough and suddenly the whole pile of ammunition was a blazing, exploding, twisting mass of fire.

Truslow picked up his leather bag of loot, then beckoned Starbuck away. “Come on!” Truslow shouted up to the two men he had left in the rear passenger car.

As the guards left each car they warned the passengers that anyone following the raiders would be shot. Most of those raiders were burdened with bags or sacks, and all had the looks of men well satisfied with their work. Some walked backward with drawn pistols to make certain that none of the passengers tried to be heroic. “The trouble’s going to come when we’re past the barricade,” Truslow warned. “Tom? Micky? You hang back with me. Captain Hinton! Get the engineers aboard!”

Hinton chivied the two engineers back into their locomotive’s cabin, then followed with his drawn revolver. A second later the great machine gave an enormous hiss of steam, a gigantic clank, and suddenly the whole train jerked forward. A woman in one of the passenger cars screamed. The boxcar was well ablaze now, spewing black smoke into the driving sheets of rain.

“Go on!” Truslow shouted encouragement to Captain Hinton.