The Loner: Trail Of Blood Read Free

force the engineer to move the train. Conrad sprinted for the locomotive.
    “Over there!” a man shouted from the other side of the train. “He’s headed for the engine!”
    A man leaned out of the cab and drew a bead on him. Before Conrad could react, someone jumped the outlaw from behind, tackling him and knocking him out of the cab. Both men fell to the ground. Conrad knew from the clothes of theman who had pitched in to help that he was the fireman.
    The outlaw rolled over and swung his gun toward the fireman. Conrad got there first and launched a kick that slammed into the outlaw’s head and drove it far to the side. The man’s neck broke with a sharp crack like that of a snapping branch. The gun went off as his finger involuntarily jerked the trigger, but the bullet screamed off harmlessly into the vast West Texas sky.
    Conrad holstered his left-hand gun and grabbed the fireman’s arm to haul him to his feet. “Are you all right?”
    “Yeah.” The man stared at him. “Good Lord! Ain’t you Mr. Browning?”
    Conrad didn’t waste time answering him. “Do you know how many more of them there are?”
    “At least two.”
    From the corner of his eye, Conrad spotted a cloud of dust boiling up a couple hundred yards from the train. As it came closer, he realized the outlaws would have had at least one member of the gang bring their horses. The odds were about to get worse … and he had already overcome more than any man, by rights, should have been able to.
    But not every man was the son of Frank Morgan.
    “Get back in the cab,” Conrad snapped. “Tell the engineer to get the train moving again. Open it up. I want us rolling away from here before the rest of the gang shows up.”
    The fireman jerked his head in a nod. “Sure thing, Mr. Browning.” As he climbed back into thecab, he called to the wide-eyed engineer, “Full throttle, Asa! Mr. Browning says we’re gettin’ the hell outta here!”
    Conrad hurried along the tracks. The train was a relatively short string: a couple freights, the two passengers, the baggage and express cars, Conrad’s private car, and the caboose. By the time he reached the first passenger car, smoke was billowing from the locomotive’s diamond-shaped stack and the train was moving again.
    He reached up for a grab iron and swung himself onto the steps, hoping the rolling train would take the gang members still alive by surprise and they wouldn’t have time to get back on board. Screams came from inside the car as he lunged onto the platform.
    Conrad could tell the engineer had the throttle wide open. The train began to rattle and sway as it picked up speed. He paused on the platform long enough to thumb fresh rounds into both guns, then threw the door open and dived inside.
    He slid to a stop on one knee with both guns leveled. At the far end of the car, one of the outlaws had an arm around the neck of a female passenger, dragging her backward as he held a gun pressed into her side. The other passengers in the car were hunkered on the seats, trying to stay out of the line of fire.
    The robber’s bandanna had slipped down to reveal a hard, heavy-jawed face with dark beard stubble on it. “Stay back, mister!” he yelled at Conrad. “I’ll blow a hole right through her!”
    “If you do, you’ll be dead a second later,”Conrad said. “You know that. You might as well drop the gun and save your life.”
    A savage grin twisted the outlaw’s face. “You can go to hell!” he cried. “You can’t shoot me without hittin’ her!”
    That wasn’t strictly true. Conrad could see enough of the man’s face looking over the woman’s shoulder that he thought he could put a bullet in the outlaw’s eye. But it was chancy, and he couldn’t guarantee the hostage wouldn’t be hurt. He held his fire for the moment, as the outlaw continued to back up with his hostage in tow until they reached the vestibule and were almost to the platform.
    Conrad glanced through the window to his