“Do you think they know? Do you think they got a posse up yet?” John asked.

Tom started to scoff, but Sisson responded. “Hard to say. There's time for them to get up to the mine and back to Klondyke. Whether they been or not, I got no idea.”

They heard the noise first, coming from the east, coming at them. They moved closer to the riverbank, right under the trestle, tucked under the chaparral. Soon they saw the light. Sisson jumped off his horse and motioned for the brothers to dismount as well. When they had, he took the horses and led them back down the bed toward a clump of mesquite.

The truck slowed and stopped, then slowly began to make its way across the railroad trestle, bouncing from tie to tie. It stopped on the trestle, just beyond where Tom and John crouched in the dark. Tom could see it was a railbed truck, and in the back was a number of men. He could hear them talking but could not get a count on them. There were a lot, though. Maybe ten. Maybe more.

“Some of you men get down there under that trestle. See if they're there.”

Nearly simultaneously, Sisson and Tom pulled their rifles from the scabbards on their saddles. They held the rifles, not cocking them for fear of the noise but holding them at the ready.

“You want someone to go down there?”

“Hell, yes, I want someone to go down there.”

“Well, I want to get this goddamned truck off the tracks before a train comes through.”

“Well, I want the men who shot my brother. One of you ignoramuses get down there and look under the damned bridge. I want those bastards dead and buried before sunup so we can all get some sleep.” Tom recognized this as the voice of Braz Wootan, Kane's brother.

They heard the rustling then of the man coming down the embankment. Tom levered back the hammer on his rifle. He looked back to see where Sisson was. He couldn't see him, but he heard the click of the lever action on Sisson's gun. That near froze him, but it didn't stop the man coming down the embankment for a second. He heard the thud of boots as the man made the last small way from the bank to the bed. Tom could just barely make out his outline.

Tom sighted the rifle. He had him. That was no problem. But the second he shot him, the ones on top of the trestle would go for their guns. And they would be shooting down. Tom and Sisson would be trying to sight and shoot up, a much more difficult job.

He felt the drizzle and recoiled instinctively. When he did, he lost his sight on the man who had climbed down the embankment and who was coming very close to where Tom was crouched in the darkness.