"Hollis Kittredge's daughter. The conductor."
"Forward. With Pruett. He went up when—when the—"
They found the conductor, a big soft-bellied man named Haggerty, on the coal tender, clinging to the rail and shouting at the engineer, who was shouting back. The engine noise swallowed them both. Louisa Kittredge climbed the iron ladder in her magenta dress and her white gloves and stood on the coal heap with the wind tearing the feather off her hat and carrying it away across the prairie like a small bright bird.
"Stop the train!"
Pruett, the engineer, was a lean grey man with goggles pushed up on his forehead. He looked at her, at Gabriel behind her, at the colored man's overcoat and the shape of something heavy in it, and his hand stayed on the throttle.
"Mister Haggerty says we got robbers aboard—"
"The robbers are gone. The explosion took them." She leaned in close so he could hear. "Mr. Pruett. You were at our house at Christmas. You brought a pound of horehound candy and you told my father that the Number Four's firebox was cracked and he ought to retire her. Do you remember me?"
Pruett stared. Then, slowly, he pulled his goggles down off his forehead and looked at her through them, as if they helped. "Miss Louisa."
"There is a car back there that belongs to this railroad, and men are about to set fire to it. Stop the train, and then take us back."
Haggerty grabbed her arm. "Miss, with respect, the company rule is clear. In the event of a holdup we run to the next station and wire. We don't go back into it. Not with passengers. Not with you aboard. Your father would have my position."
"My father," said Louisa Kittredge, "is the reason we are in it."
She said it before she knew she was going to. Gabriel saw that. He saw her hear her own words, and saw them land in her, and saw her decide to let them stand.
Pruett looked at the conductor, and at her, and at Gabriel, who had said nothing. Then he shut off the throttle and reached for the brake.
The train groaned. Iron screamed against iron, and a long shudder ran back through every car, and they were all thrown forward against the rail of the tender. Coal slid around their ankles. The prairie slowed. A hawk sitting on a telegraph pole watched them come to rest, then lifted off, unbothered.
In the silence after, with the engine panting like a winded horse, Haggerty said, "And who in God's name is he?"