Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“Got him here, Virgil!” I called out, “I got him back here! It’s Lassiter!”

Berkeley came running up.

“The mine shaft!” Berkeley shouted out as he came running, pointing. “He said they were stowed in the mine shaft!”

“They alive?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Berkeley said, out of breath. “He went limp. I wrapped him in barbed wire.” Berkeley looked at Lassiter on his back, spitting up blood and teeth. “Keep going! I got this bastard, and the other! Go!” Berkeley grabbed Lassiter and started dragging him back toward the office like a rag doll.

I moved off as Virgil and Jimmy John came up. “Mine shaft!” I said.

Virgil, Jimmy John, and I ran down the coal rail into the fog. My mind was racing again, thinking about Emma, and I was feeling scared. Hell, all the gun hands we’d faced through the years, I was never scared. Not of anything, ever, but I was now. Guess I didn’t care about myself, or anyone else, enough to ever be scared. It never mattered really if I lived or if I died, but for some reason I felt different. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. We followed the rail as it curved around a tall outcropping and turned between low-growing evergreens before we saw the mine. Even though the shaft was within sight, it seemed like it was a mile away. A cluster of crows picked up out of dry hackberry trees surrounding the entrance to the mine as we got close. There were thick oak doors covering the entrance that were chained and locked.

Virgil stepped off to the side, put his Colt close to the lock, and pulled the trigger. The lock jumped but did not open. He shot it a second time, and the lock opened.

I unwrapped the chain looped between the two big doors’ iron handles, and we pulled the heavy doors open. The first thing I saw made my heart drop.

Emma was looking up at me, shielding her eyes. She was cowering some, covering her sister’s eyes from the light coming through the open doors. Though the late afternoon was covered with a hazy wet fog and the light was dim, the daylight was still a harsh contrast to the previous darkness of the mineshaft. When Emma’s eyes focused, seeing it was me who was standing in front of her, she started shaking and burst into tears. I moved to her. She rose up and lunged for me, putting her arms around me. I felt her lips on the side of my face, close to my ear. One of her hands was at the back of my belt, pulling my waist to her, and the other held the back of my head. She was not clutching me tight. She was holding me gently. She was trembling, and I could feel her warm breath in my ear.

“It’s you...” she said. “You are here, you came for us. You came for me...”

She stopped talking and kissed my face softly. She kissed me again, and again, and again.

Abigail was still shielding her eyes from the light. Next to her was Ernest C., a pretty woman with wispy, wheat-colored hair. Ernest C. saw Jimmy John behind me, and she looked at him as if she was looking at a ghost.

“Jimmy John?”

“It’s me.”

Ernest C. charged Jimmy John and was off the ground into his arms in an instant. Jimmy John held her tight. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and buried her face into his neck, sobbing, “Oh! Oh my God! Oh my God! Jimmy! Oh my God! Thank God!”

“It’s okay,” Jimmy John said. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

The women were dirty and scratched up. Their dresses were soiled and ripped up. Their hands and faces were smudged with black coal, but they were alive.

Virgil kneeled down, looking at Abigail. He held out his arms toward her as if he were encouraging a baby to take her first step, but she recoiled, moving back a little, shaking her head slowly.

“You’re safe now, Abigail.”

Abigail looked unsure of Virgil. It was clear she was in shock. She just gazed at Virgil with her big eyes and continued to shake her head slowly back and forth.

“It’s all over,” Virgil said.

Emma looked to her sister. “Abby, honey, it’s Marshal Cole and Deputy Marshal Hitch.”

Abigail frowned at Emma as if she did not understand.

“They are here to help us.”

Abigail turned her attention back to Virgil.

Virgil nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “What your sister is saying is right.”

Abigail looked at Virgil and nodded very slowly.

“You’re gonna be okay now.”

She lifted up some, looking at Virgil with a hopeful expression on her face.

“That’s good,” Virgil said.

She started rising, reaching out toward him. Virgil moved closer and just as she got fully to her feet, her body went limp and she fainted, falling into Virgil’s arms.

Virgil gathered her up, holding her. He situated her head resting on his left shoulder and her legs draping over his right arm.

“Let’s go,” Virgil said.

The trip back down to Half Moon Junction was without incident. After loading the horses and tying Lassiter and Wellington inside the stock car, we bid Jimmy John and Ernest C. farewell, climbed aboard the Ironhorse and left Crystal Creek. The farewell was just a tip of the sombrero from Jimmy John. No real good-bye was exchanged as he rode off to Tall Water Falls with Ernest C. sharing the saddle with him. Jimmy John left us sort of like when he arrived, simply and quietly.

Jimmy John wanted none of the outlaw horses we had gathered after the ruckus, so we traveled them down the rail and left them with Gobble Greene. Gobble was sad to hear about his dun horse but was more than grateful for the gift of the other animals. Berkeley’s black horse was still completely unstable. The horse had improved a little but remained in bad shape, so Berkeley told Gobble he should keep the black horse, too. If he recovers, Berkeley told Gobble, do with him as you see fit.

The time of travel was considerably less on the return to Half Moon Junction than our trip going up. Because the journey was downhill, Uncle Ted was able to maintain a much swifter speed on the Ironhorse and, when we arrived back to Half Moon Junction it was just getting light.

We got Abigail and Emma to Hotel Ark as the sun came up. Berkeley arranged for Rose to help them out with bathing and clothes. We did not see the reunion between the governor, his wife, and his daughters, but Rose relayed to us that the governor cried. They all cried, Rose said. Rose also shared with us some very fortunate news, that the outlaws had not raped the women.

When we left them earlier at the hotel, I told Emma it’d be a real pleasure to sit with her some before she and her family left for Texas. That notion seemed to make her sad, but she agreed.

After we got the women cared for, we secured the Texas money in the heavy vault at the Half Moon Junction Bank for temporary safekeeping. Following that, we got Lassiter and Wellington out of the stock car and locked them in the jailhouse with Vince and the other outlaw. Hobbs wired for the Texas Rangers to collect the four outlaws and according to the wire back, the Rangers were on their way.

Virgil and I spent the day getting ourselves situated. We got our horses shod, ate some brisket and beans, got a shave and a hot bath, and rested up some while the Chinese cleaned our clothes. Berkeley offered us a room at Hotel Ark, but Virgil preferred the open-air bunks behind the bathhouse that looked out to a hillside meadow.

It was late in the afternoon when I woke up. I found my clothes folded at the foot of the bunk I was sleeping on, and Virgil was gone. I looked out to the meadow behind the bathhouse, and trees surrounding it were swaying with the breeze and the air was much cooler now than when I fell asleep. I took my time getting dressed. I cleaned my teeth real good, drank three full ladles of water, then walked down the side hall leading out to the front porch of the bathhouse. When I stepped out the door I found the street was a bustle of activity. Up the street to the west, past the corner, I could see Berkeley talking with his deputy on the porch of the sheriff’s office. I crossed the street and started walking toward the office.