Circle of Love(31)

“No, you don’t,” Frances told him. “You’ll hurt innocent people.”

“These so-called innocent people didn’t care about what happened to me.”

“Seth, they didn’t have a chance. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. If you—”

“It matters to me.”

“Seth, please—”

Seth reached across Eddie to grab Frances’s arm, and she winced at the hard pressure of his fingers. “Listen to me!” he said in a voice that had suddenly become deadly serious. “We’re runnin’ out of time. I offered myself, and you turned me down. If that’s the way you want it, then pay attention, because I’m goin’ to tell you what to do. You haven’t got a choice.” He pulled out his watch and glanced at it. “Twenty minutes to Harwood. Right on schedule.”

He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and tied it loosely around his neck. As he got to his feet he said, “Pick up my carpetbag, Eddie.”

As Eddie gripped the handle with trembling fingers, Seth jerked him to his feet and held him by his collar. “Goodbye, Frances,” Seth said. “Don’t forget me. Someday I’ll come find you to see if you’ve changed your mind.”

Screeching, shaking, the train suddenly came to a stop. Some of the passengers cried out. A woman screamed, “Robbers! They’re right outside our car!”

Frances turned to look and saw three men on horseback with a saddled horse in tow. The men wore kerchiefs like Seth’s, but theirs were pulled over the lower halves of their faces, concealing them. One man rode to the front of the train. One kept his rifle trained on the car in which Frances and the children were riding.

Seth’s voice softened as he said to Frances, “I’m sorry. I want to trust you, to know you’d stand by me no matter what, but I don’t think I can, so I’m takin’ the boy.”

Eddie’s face was white with fear. He struggled, but Seth yanked him backward, pulling him toward the outer door of the railway car.

“No! You can’t take Eddie. I won’t let you.” Frances stood and faced Seth.

Seth drew out his handgun and pointed it at her. She heard a few whimpers of fear from the children and some gasps from the few adult passengers at the back of the car, but none of them dared to move or even speak.

“Didn’t you hear me? I said you don’t have a choice,” Seth told her.

Frances stared into Seth’s eyes as she slowly walked toward him and his gun. “You won’t shoot me,” she said, “and you won’t hurt Eddie. There’s a great deal of hatred bottled up within you, Seth, but there’s still some goodness and decency. Let go of Eddie. Give him to me.”

She saw the horsemen join forces again. Impatiently they rode toward the car Seth was in.

“Come on, brother!” one of them yelled. “We’re wastin’ time!”

Seth glanced quickly at the horsemen, then back at Frances.

“Give Eddie to me,” she repeated.

Seth hesitated. Then, in one quick movement, he shoved the gun into his belt and pushed Eddie toward Frances. No longer a cocky street urchin, Eddie wrapped his arms tightly around Frances, clinging to her.

In two long strides, Seth reached the door of the railway car, shoved it open, and leaped down the steps. He ran to join his brothers.

As he jumped onto his horse and began riding away, Frances cried out, “Those men are going to rob the bank in Harwood! We have to stop them!”





12





WHILE THE TERRIFIED children clung to their seats, the other adults in the car jumped up. Some ran to peer through the windows, and a few got in the way of the conductor, who burst into the car to see if any of the passengers had been harmed.

“We’re fine,” Frances told him. “But what about the others on the train? Did the men rob anyone?”

“I’m afraid so,” the conductor said. “Mr. Gladney’s mad as a stuck pig. Mrs. Gladney’s crying over losing her mother’s pearl necklace.”

Even though Eddie’s smile was wobbly, he said, “She’ll get her necklace back. The money, too.”

“Son, it’s not that easy,” the conductor began, but Eddie turned to Frances. “Remember, I told you, the telegraph—”

“We’re miles from town,” she said. “There’s no telegraph out here.”

“But there are poles and wires right next to the track,” Eddie said, “and next to the baggage car, in the mail car, there’s telegraph equipment. I found it there when I went off on my own, lookin’ over the whole train.” As color came back into his face, his smile widened into a grin. “I’ll go back there right now and tell the operator who the robbers are and what they’re plannin’ for Harwood. He can hook up his equipment to the telegraph line and wire ahead to the police—”