Lost Trails by Martin H. Greenberg

Author:Martin H. Greenberg [Greenberg, Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786018246
Publisher: Pinnacle
Published: 2007-04-30T21:00:00+00:00

And so it was done. Pat went into town and bought me some new traveling clothes, including a brand-new silver-belly Stetson beaver hat, at the Lincoln Mercantile, rented a good stout sorrel gelding at the livery stable, and came back to the camp with his purchases. We finished what beef and beans Pat had at camp, and by dusk we saddled up and headed for Santa Rosa to catch the eastbound train. We did not say much during that forty-mile ride.

As the train chugged into the station, I could see that I was the only passenger on the platform. Pat and I said our good-byes and he wished me good luck at the Garrett School. We had talked all that out at supper. I was to lie about my age because there was no way that the headmaster would allow a twenty-two-year-old to enter the junior class. Pat had faked my credits in a letter he had written to Ethan Everett, the admissions officer. I had no worries about telling them my phony age because I was small and rather scrawny as it was. My beard had never amounted to much either. Pat had changed my name before writing the letters to the Garrett School. We decided that Patrick Henry McCarty was as good a name to go by as any. I decided to sign it as P. Henry McCarty because it looked more distinguished.

I wondered why Pat had given me back my “Thunderer.” I could have gotten off the train at Tucumcari and gone back to stealing livestock. I reckon he knew I was curious as all get-out about going to the Garrett School in Vermont. After I got settled in my seat aboard the train, I felt a twinge of homesickness even though I didn’t really have a home since my mother took up with Antrim. That Lincoln County War, when Old Man Tunstall got himself killed, put me into a situation that kept building every time there was any trouble. When Pat Garrett told me that I was being held responsible for twenty-some-odd killings, I laughed out loud. “If you believe all that, Mr. Sheriff,” I said, “you probably believe Mexicans do not eat chili.”

I have no idea how long after I dozed off that the sudden stop occurred. It almost jolted me off the seat and onto the floor of the railroad car. I saw out the window that dusk had nearly settled in. Glancing around at the other passengers, I noticed them looking around as if they might discover the reason for the slamming stop. It occurred to me that the engineer may have halted the train to take on water as he had before. I had not long to wait for the answer.

Through the forward door to the car, a gunman suddenly entered waving a .44-caliber Remington revolver in the air. Another man busted through the rear door, and the first one ordered everyone to toss their money and valuables into the canvas sack the second man was carrying with both hands.

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