Longarm and the Train Robbers Read Free Page B

it's
just the blizzard blocking out the sun.  I can't say for sure
until I get out and look around."
    "Where is your
prisoner?"
    "I don't know,
Miss Noble.  But I'll find out soon enough."
    With his right
hand, Longarm reached up and felt a deep laceration in his
scalp.  No wonder he felt drugged and could hardly think
straight.  Longarm reached into his pocket and dug for a match. 
He used his thumbnail to scratch the match into life, and when he
raised it up to survey the carnage and destruction, Longarm was
appalled to see so many dead and injured.
    There was blood
everywhere, and most of the windows of the overturned coach were
shattered, allowing the blizzard its deadly entry.  Already, some
of the bodies were covered with a white shroud of snow.  The
coach was lying on its side, but badly canted downward.  Longarm
was sure that their coach would have rolled even farther had it
not been caught by an obstruction poking out of the steep
mountainside.  A sudden gust of wind extinguished Longarm's match
and plunged the scene back into darkness.
    Longarm lit
another match, shielding its flickering light from the hard,
blowing wind.  He took a longer second look, specifically
searching for his prisoner.  Eli Wheat was gone.  Longarm was
sure of it.  He was also sure that the approach of night would
soon drive the freezing temperatures to a killing low and that,
if he did not take measures to save not only himself but the
other passengers, they'd all be frozen solid before
morning.
    "Deputy Long,
we've got to help these people!"
    Longarm turned and
held the dying match up toward Miss Noble.  She had been cut up a
little by flying glass and appeared badly shaken.
    Longarm's match
burned out, and he squeezed the woman's arm in a feeble attempt
to reassure her that all would be fine.  "Miss Noble, it's a
wonder that our stove didn't ignite and turn this coach into a
funeral pyre.  The stove must have been thrown outside and then
extinguished."
    "I don't know. 
But it's freezing in here."
    "I need some
light," Longarm told her.  "We have to find a lantern or we'll
never be able to help the injured."
    "I think a lot of
them are dead!" the young woman exclaimed, her voice near the
breaking point.
    "But we can't
worry about that.  We have to do what we can for those that can
still be saved.  Can you move around, Miss Noble?  Are your
legs..."
    "They're
fine."
    Longarm heard her
take a deep, steadying breath.  He was encouraged when she said,
"What can I do to help?"
    "Let's get outside
and see what happened to the rest of the train. Perhaps there are
other coaches that fared better and that will offer
shelter."
    "It's a miracle
that any of us are alive."
    "We need a
doctor," Longarm said.
    "That would be a
second miracle."
    Taking the woman's
hand and forcing himself to ignore the pleading of injured and
confused passengers, Longarm struggled out through a window.  The
blizzard attacked him with demented vengence.  The snow sheeted
in horizontally, and visibility was less than ten
feet.
    "I can't see
anything!" Miss Noble cried.
    "Me neither,"
Longarm said, hanging onto the woman's hand.  "But we must find
out if anyone else survived.  We must find help!"
    Lowering their
heads, Longarm and the woman struggled forward along the
overturned train.  They passed another coach which had broken
apart and was ominously silent.  Then a third coach loomed up and
Longarm saw what he believed to be a glow of light from its
interior.  This coach had come to rest in an almost upright
position.
    "Stay with me!" he
hollered into the storm as he fought his way to the rear door of
the coach.  Doubling up his fists, he pounded on the door over
and over until it opened a crack.
    "Let us in!" he
bellowed.
    The door crashed
open.  Strong hands grabbed Longarm and Miss Noble and hauled
them inside.  A moment later, the door was jammed shut and
Longarm had to wipe ice from his eyelashes in order to see.  The
survivors of this