Menace in the Mysterious Train (Preview)

Chapter One

Red River Station, 1873

Edgar Campbell had a problem. He had an unbeatable poker hand, a red-handed flush with an ace to tip it over the top. It was the kind of poker hand that put a lot of wealth in the pockets of people like Edgar, who never had very much. He’d lived hand to mouth so long that having something other than a few coins in his pocket was too much to resist.

“Only what’s on the table,” the man said. He had eyes like a dead horse, staring ahead as if he knew more than Edgar.

Some poker players had a reputation that made them dangerous sitting down. Edgar wanted a friendly game. He set a limit that kept something in his pocket in case he lost. But the cards reacted favorably to Edgar. Seven hands into the game, and he’d won most of them. When the red hand appeared, and he knew it was a sure thing, Edgar went all in and tried to contain his excitement. But he wanted to up the wager. All he had left to bet wasn’t at the table in the Knave Noddy Saloon.

“I’m talking about a horse, that’s all,” Edgar said. “It’s a good horse. It’s a two-year-old gelding, fifteen hands high.”

“You’ll need it to ride out of here if you’re lucky.” His name was Kent. That’s what Edgar picked up from the other player to Kent’s right. They had shared conversations during a few earlier games. Edgar had paid attention and heard the name drop. Another man stood behind Kent close enough to peek at the cards if he leaned forward.

Edgar watched the man behind Kent’s shoulder lean in to say something. When he stood straight again, Edgar realized whatever he thought of the game when he started, it wouldn’t end well. Kent wasn’t playing poker. He played a game of subterfuge.

“You’re right,” Edgar said quickly. He left the five cards on the tabletop face down and waved a hand. “Never mind, whatever’s on the table.”

“Now, hold on,” Kent said. “You can’t walk back what you put out, Son.” He cast a look around the table. To his left was a man in a bowler hat with a broad waxed mustache covering his lips.

Edgar never made eye contact with the man in the bowler hat. His father taught him to play the man facing him and no one else. One thing Edgar’s father neglected to explain. Why shouldn’t the other players at the table have the attention? The man hadn’t lived long enough to explain it to Edgar. The man to his left side — Kent’s right — knew more than he let on when it came to the game.

Kent leaned back in the creaking chair. Edgar felt the tension in his shoulders and neck. When he watched the man behind Kent staring at someone over Edgar’s shoulder, he knew no matter the hand, he’d lose the game.

“You’re offering me a gelding,” Kent said. His tone and patience suggested he didn’t care how long the game lasted. “You say it’s fit and tall. It needs to come with a saddle. I mean, a horse without a saddle is about as good to me as one boot.”

“Plenty of soldiers around here missing one leg won’t complain about having a single boot,” Edgar said.

“That supposed to be funny?” Kent asked.

He felt that prickle of tension at the center of his back. Sweat rolled down his spine. He rolled his shoulder to scratch his face. It was a ploy to look over his shoulder.

His eyes confirmed what he already expected. A man leaning against the support beam didn’t have to smile or nod, even wink at Edgar. He’d read the hand and knew the game had changed. Somehow, Kent and the other two men had wedged Edgar into an unwinnable game. Their collusion meant he’d lost the pot; he’d lose his horse, and maybe walk out of the place without bullet holes in his only shirt.

“All I’m interested in right now is what’s on the table,” Edgar said.

“You wanted to bet the horse.” Kent got the attention of the other two poker players. “You gentlemen have any trouble with me taking this man’s horse too?”

They mumbled and grumbled, shaking their heads. The man standing behind Kent grunted with laughter.

“Well, I don’t want to hold up the game.” Edgar grinned at Kent. It was the best he had to give, but the man’s stony face and dead eyes had no humor or shimmer. “We’ll play it as it stands.” He flipped the five cards.

He’d raised the bet with the offer of his horse. That was when a red-handed flush beat everyone at the table. It was the best poker hand Edgar had ever held. It boosted his confidence so much that his pride tripped over logic, and he opened his mouth too soon.

The other men at the table tossed their cards into the pot, face down, and busted. Kent’s face finally showed an edge of humor. It was a cruel kind of look that suggested he appreciated Edgar’s squirming or seeing one-legged soldiers without boots.

Only four hands above the red flush beat Edgar’s hand. Somehow, in the course of the game, Kent had ended up with four of a kind. Four kings face-up on the table brought more grumbling and mumbling from the other card players. One thing that bothered Edgar: the king of spades in Kent’s hand was the one card Edgar had already discarded to get the winning red ace for his flush. Kent had pulled that king of spades from somewhere to get the winning four of a kind.

Edgar clapped his hands together and rubbed vigorously. He stood up and nodded to Kent. “Great game, gentlemen. I’d love to win back what I lost, but I got a train to catch.”

When Edgar turned around, the man formerly leaning against the support beam now stood between Edgar and the door to the saloon. His father had given Edgar a lot of advice in the short time he knew the man. One thing Edgar’s father had warned: never call out a poker cheat at the table. They never worked alone.

“Where are you going?” he asked. Edgar only came up to the man’s shoulder. His wide-brimmed hat blotted out the overhead oil lamp light from Edgar’s view.

“I’m going to talk to my uncle.” He pointed at a random man in the corner of the tavern. “He’s the one-legged Union soldier over there.”

When the tall man turned left, the direction Edgar pointed, he slipped away right and disappeared through the incoming crowd. The batwing doors stayed open as he darted between the incoming cattlemen. The dark brought people into lighted hotels and drinking establishments.

It was already after nine, and Edgar decided to get out of Red River Station before Kent and the others caught up to him. He moved down the boardwalk. One of the soiled doves from the alcove to the hotel reached for him. She smiled and waved Edgar toward her. He grinned and pressed his fingers to the brim of his diamond top wide-brimmed hat.

“Not tonight, dear,” Edgar said. “I got a headache, and I’m out of money.”

She pouted and pulled the stained shawl over her shoulders. She returned to the shadowy alcove like a waiting spider that missed its prey. Edgar had other things on his mind than dealing with a woman making a living on her back. Getting out of town alive with his horse was the foremost. Everything else didn’t matter.

Edgar had tied off the gelding at the hitching post in front of the sign that read Cattle Rustlers and Horse Thieves Will Be Hanged. He knew how to read, and it was the kind of warning that made Edgar feel better about leaving the horse for a few hours. He suspected most horse thieves and cattle rustlers couldn’t read or didn’t care. It gave Edgar a modest peace of mind nonetheless.

He pulled the straps from the post and mounted the horse. Edgar jerked the reins to the right, leading the horse away from the boardwalk, two men on horseback approached from the direction of the Knave Noddy Saloon.

Edgar felt the hairs stand up on his neck, and he pressed his heels into the horse’s flanks to kick it into a gallop. He heard two horses racing after him.

Red River Station was a bustling railhead along the Chisolm Trail. The overland cattle trail had spurs that followed the rivers and fertile lands from Texas to Kansas. Any strong male looking for work knew places like Red River Station had wealthy men looking for extra hands. It was the kind of place Edgar needed to get ahead in the world.

He’d traveled along the river from his father’s farmlands when the well ran dry, and his father had died of cholera in the summer of ’70. At twenty-five, Edgar had intended to keep the farmland after burying his father next to the plot where they had buried his mother. She had died in the winter of ’68. Red River nestled at the tributary to the riverbed he’d followed. It was one of the largest settlements he’d found since leaving home.

After the war, things got harder for Edgar’s father. Nothing got any better when his mother had died. Edgar lost his father when the well dried up, and faced selling the land or praying for miracles. All he had left in the world was the gelding, a bedroll, and the Colt top loader his father had carried during his days as a Union soldier. The bank gave Edgar’s father the loan for the property. The bank had sold it to another farmer who showed Edgar the foreclosure notice at the same time he showed him the new deed. Whatever Edgar’s father planned for the future ended when Edgar had to vacate the property.

Red River Station was the one town Edgar thought he’d find a chance to prove himself. He’d read the advertisements placed in local papers from townships along the railroad. Cattle barons needed riders. They needed well-mannered and intelligent young men for employment. Edgar could ride. His mother had taught him how to read. His father has taught him how to shoot straight. Edgar’s father had had a lot of advice since they lost his mother. It was as if the man had been preparing Edgar for a world without his father. Poker games were a way to make quick cash as long as he knew when to walk away. Edgar suspected his father had never played poker with a man like Kent and his cohorts.

The poker game was a way to occupy the rest of the evening until Edgar could ask for work. Unfortunately, Edgar never got too far ahead in life before something tangled up his footing, and he landed flat on his face.

It wasn’t surprising when someone let off a gunshot. Social gatherings sometimes brought out the worst in people. Sometimes, men just wanted to prove themselves by firing off a few rounds. Others sometimes joined in for solidarity. Edgar realized it was a courtesy shot when the rifle report echoed off the clapboard shanties at the edge of town.

The man on horseback in front of him knew the area better than Edgar. He waited with the rifle pointed at the nighttime sky with the stock resting on his thigh. He’d gotten ahead of Edgar, while the other two riders closed in from behind. Edgar knew if the man wanted him dead, he’d lose the horse and his life that night. It was the same tall man who Edgar had bamboozled in the saloon to get away. He’d outsmarted the man once. Edgar couldn’t outrun a bullet.

“Where are you headed?” Kent asked. “We still got a bet to settle up.”

He rode up behind Edgar with the mustached bowler man from the card game. Kent was a little winded, but the poker face changed to amusement in the cool air. They had one railroad lantern hanging on a hook of an outhouse nearby. It was enough light to show Edgar he was outnumbered and surrounded.

“You and I both know that king of spades in your hand was the second one in the deck,” Edgar said.

Kent, the tall man, and bowler hat all laughed at him. He immediately regretted saying it. Somehow, integrity wasn’t part of Kent’s process.

“That kind of accusation can get a man killed, Son.”

Kent was a hardened and experienced man of the land with a weathered face and leather-chafed hands. He wore a six-shooter on his right hip and a sheathed Bowie knife on his left hip.

“I decided to let it go,” Edgar said boldly. “I don’t want you to think I don’t have a sense of humor. You got all I had to give on the table.”

“You offered your horse,” Kent said. “Isn’t that right, Abbott?”

The mustached man in the bowler hat nodded at Edgar. “He’s right, young man. You wagered your horse. Mr. Kent wanted the saddle included.”

“That was before I knew about the extra card.”

“What extra card?” Kent asked. His voice lowered. He looked at Abbot. “Did you see an extra card?”

“No, Mr. Kent,” Abbot said.

“What about you, Mr. Kennedy?” Kent asked. “Did you see an extra card?”

Kennedy didn’t need to speak when he let the lever-action Winchester racking another round into the chamber say it all.

“Okay,” Edgar said. He lifted his hands to show submission and empty palms. “I get it. You won. You got everything I had to give, Mr. Kent. All I want is to ride out of here, and you’ll never see me again.”

They were relatively alone. Edgar was in a standoff with three formable grifters who saw Edgar as an eager and easy mark. Kennedy snorted, but Edgar thought it was a laugh.

“You can leave when I get what’s owed to me,” Kent said. He pointed. “The horse you’re riding belongs to me. And I think you’re right. It looks like a fine horse, healthy, with a solid saddle too.”

“That’s a Union saddle,” Abbot said.

“You’re too young for the army,” Kent said, frowning. “Is that your daddy’s saddle from the war?”

It hadn’t occurred to Edgar to appeal to Kent’s empathy.

“Yes, it belonged to my father,” Edgar said. “He was a lieutenant in McCook’s Corps.”

“McCook? Is that the same Alexander McCook Corps that took on Bragg’s Boys at Liberty Gap in ‘63?” Abbot asked.

“Yes, sir,” Edgar said. He felt a surge of hope, perhaps if they were soldiers, they’d allow him the opportunity to slip away unscathed. “My father said it was a beating they took during the Tullahoma Campaign in Indiana.”

Kent sniggered. “I’ll say it was, Son. Your father was one of the lucky ones that got out alive.”

“Yes, sir,” Edgar said.

“You remember that battle, Kennedy?” Kent asked. “That was a hell of a fight.”

Edgar watched Kennedy nod slowly. It was impossible to miss the rifle pointing up at the sky.

“As I remember it, McCook was a lousy commander. Your father took orders from a man that got most of his troops shot up for a little slice of nothing.” Kent dismounted. He walked his horse toward Edgar. “You got no reason to be proud of your father.”

Before Edgar could pull away or defend himself, Kent grabbed his right leg and heaved. Yanked from the saddle, Edgar clung to the reins. The horse’s head thrust with him going down. It whinnied and fought back, yanking its head up, the straps slipped from Edgar’s hands as he smacked the hard ground.

“Your father was a good for nothing, Yank.” Kent hauled Edgar to his feet by his shirt collar. “That makes you nothing but the son of a Yankee.”

Edgar had never got hit in the face before. He grew up in relative obscurity on farmland, surrounded by wheat fields. He didn’t need schooling because his mother taught him about reading, writing, and counting. His father instilled specific values in Edgar that he thought might help him later in life. Edgar learned a lot from his parents. But fighting wasn’t something that ever came up in the lessons. He loved his parents, but at that moment, Edgar knew his father neglected to teach him how to defend himself honorably.

Kent’s fist slammed against the left side of his face like a leathery hammer. Edgar saw a burst of white with the connection, that like Kent’s fist, held lightning. He had the sensation of falling. When he smacked his head on the ground, everything went black.

Chapter Two

Rose Durham had a plan, but it only worked so long as she could fool the rest of the cattlemen who worked for her father. Rolland Durham had many men working around the cattle barns and fields who saw very little of Rose. It had to do with the main house’s location near the rest of her father’s stockyards. Every day, her father left the house at sunrise and traveled to the stockyards, leaving the nineteen-year-old alone with her aspirations and little else.

Rose was the daughter of a military man and she only took after her mother in the shadows of resemblance. She remembered very little of her mother. The woman had died during the war. Her father worked in Washington, DC, with a residence based in Kansas. The distance between her father and the safety of a home rooted deep in Union territory meant she never shared his experiences. She had her brother, Perry, and a stately manner under guard at all times, but little else.

Her mother died when the horse threw her in ’64. She had broken her back. She languished and died while Rose’s father remained steadfast to the president’s detail in DC, and he only came home for three days following her mother’s death.

She mourned the woman’s passing with her brother, Perry. When Durham returned to Kansas, he announced changes. He absconded with Perry to return to Washington once they buried their mother. Rose took up residence in a house with a woman and her children at the age of ten. It broke Rose’s heart, feeling abandoned by her father and brother. She said goodbye to the only two people left in her life that mattered at age ten and didn’t see Perry again until after the war. He returned with their father a changed and damaged young man.

She had once shared a profound bond with her brother that only happened with twins. Fraternal twins, as Rose learned growing up. It was something her mother said from time to time. Rose had shared the womb with Perry, and they had similar characteristics. They were of identical height and blue eyes. Perry had russet hair kept short in military tradition. Rose’s russet hair grew unruly, and she struggled with knots too often because the thickness tussled with its length.

Rose grew up independent and learned to live vicariously through others around her. The woman was a friend of Rose’s mother. She took in the girl out of a sense of loyalty to her friend. Durham had compensated the woman for Rose’s care. But Perry wasn’t welcome in the house, and Durham had other plans for the boy.

When Perry returned, it marked a point in Rose’s life that forged her way forward. He was a changed and troubled person. He hid from others and drank too much. He lost the vivacious light that once shimmered inside him. Something broke in Perry, and no matter how much Rose wanted to share his grief and help him heal, he refused her aid. They’d shared a womb and had ten years together.

When Durham took Perry away from Rose, it created a wedge between them. She lived a life of solitude. Perry lived a life under the military guard of her father. Neither option benefitted them. It wasn’t the life their mother had intended for them. They were casualties of a war that still harbored a lot of detestation between people who swore oaths and crossed swords. Rose only read about the war. Perry experienced much more of it while living with their father in Washington, DC.

“You live like a pig,” Rose said. She burst into Perry’s bedroom early Friday morning. The heavy curtains over the windows came open with clouds of dust. She needed more light and wanted to get to the window to air out her brother’s room.

Perry lay on his bed, face down, an arm over the edge. She saw the collection of wine bottles around the bedside table. Somehow, while everyone else in Montague County drank whiskey, her brother had acquired a taste for wine. It had something to do with his time in DC. No matter how often Rose pressed her brother about what he’d witnessed, Perry never gave in to her demands.

“Do you even have any clean clothes?” she asked, walking by the bed.

Perry’s bare back was pasty white in the morning light. She opened the window to let in the autumn air. The scarred white lines etched across his back showed in the morning sunlight. He never told her who had beaten him with a strap.

Inside Perry’s armoire, Rose found a shirt, trousers, and a scarf. She grabbed the clothes and went back to the bedside. She sat down at the foot of the bed with Perry’s clothes on her lap.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

Perry groaned. The throaty sound came from under the pillow. She got a better look at his back. Three long white lines staggered across his shoulder blades and down at an angle. His ribs showed through the pallor.

“Perry, I wish you talked to me,” she said. “I do not know you any longer, and I fear when I’m gone, you will forget me.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” His blue-gold eye squinted at Rose from under the linen.

“I am,” she said and stood. “I told you, I am going with the cattle on Monday. When Father has the cars loaded, I’m going to Chicago.”

Rose scanned the various objects around the room. The level of disorganization made it difficult for Rose to find other items to ‘borrow’ from her brother.

Perry moved on the bed. She glanced at him, sitting up. He looked around the strewn clothes and empty bottles. His bare hairless chest lacked definition. He wasn’t like other young men who worked in the stockyards. Perry’s hands were smooth and callus-free. He wore trousers from the night before but he’d had the sense to remove his boots.

His disheveled hair poked out in impossible directions. She felt his eyes on her.

“Dear Perry,” she said. Rose sat on the bed beside her brother. She pressed her hand to his cheek. His flushed skin felt hot against her palm. “I miss the boy who went away. I wish you were here with me.”

Perry’s facial features resembled Rose’s teardrop face with soft-angled low-arching thin eyebrows. She had more color than her brother. His waking hours mostly happened after sundown, while Rose relished daylight. She had wide bow-shaped lips and subtle laugh lines. Perry kept his lips firm, and Rose never saw him smile. Rose had a medium perky nose with nostrils that flared with anger. Perry’s nose was almost dainty in comparison. He had ruddy and smooth cheeks. It lent to his feminine appearance. He was slight of build with minimal muscle definition.

He seemed to hear her. “Would it help change your mind if I was still the child from before?” he asked.

Perry reached for the bottle near the bed frame. Uncorked, it still held a measure or two of red wine. Rose pulled it from his hand before he could finish it. He appeared surprised, not angry. She kept the bottle and shook her head.

“I don’t know which of one us is worse off, me for Father abandoning me, or you for joining him in Washington,” she said.

“You think going away and living an adventure will make a difference?”

“I think it’s time I experienced more of life than staying here. At least Father isn’t trying to sell me as property. I am ready to live, Perry. You can go too, you know. You’re not obligated to stay here. You don’t have to live by his rules anymore.”

“I don’t have the ambition anymore,” Perry said, staring at the floorboards. “I am content to—”

“To waste away?” she asked. “I see men twice our age who look half as young as you. Please, Brother. Come with me. Come share an adventure.”

“You think riding on a train for three days to Chicago is an adventure? You’ll be with men the whole time. You know that, right? They’ll act like men around you, and you can’t give away your secrets.”

“I can keep secrets, and men don’t intimidate me.” Rose felt a spark of excitement. She was exhilarated by the thought of being secreted among a company of men.

“They’re foul and disgusting,” Perry said from experience. “They pick their butts and noses with the same finger. They fart without regard for others. They piss standing up and don’t care who sees it.”

Rose had a collection of ideas that ran through her head and helped redden her face with embarrassment. But she couldn’t contain the growing grin at the thought of those various images.

“It isn’t funny, Rose. What happens if you’re found out?” Perry asked. “What do you think will happen once they discover you’re a girl?”

“I am a Durham. They work for Father; they will not dare do anything to me.”

Perry shook his head. “You have too much trust. You think because you’re a ‘Durham,’ it will stop them from having their way with you?”

“I think I can pretend to be a boy as well as you.” Rose laughed and stood up, still clutching her brother’s clothes.

“You look like a girl. You can’t change that. What if Father or Frank sees you?”

“Father barely notices me now. Frank can’t see as well as he used to, and I don’t have anything to worry about because you’re coming with me.”

Frank Shields was a former commander under their father in the war. When Durham and Perry returned to Kansas, Frank had followed them. He ran the stockyard as Durham’s most trusted man. Rose saw Frank as much as she saw their father, typically sharing dinner at the family table.

“What do you plan to live on once you reach Chicago?” Perry asked.

“I’ll collect the same wages as the others. I have money I saved over the years. I think there’s enough for two of us to start. I’m going, Perry. I want you to come with me. But no matter what, come Monday when they load the cattle cars, I’ll be going too.”

Perry shook his head. “I love your spirit, Rose. But this isn’t a Shakespeare tale. You can’t pretend to dress like a man and expect it to work.”

“You have little faith in me.” She grinned. “You remember the tale mother read to us? The one where Rosalind disguises herself as a shepherd—”

“I remember, and I know there’s no ‘happily ever after’ out there. You will see men at their meanest, cruelest. They’ll slaughter those cattle in the cars as they get sick. You’ll live with that stink on you and that muck under your fingernails. If you expect to go, you’ll have to pull your weight. Make no mistake. If they think you’re lazy or shying away from work, they will throw you off that train before it reaches Illinois.”

“I will be fine,” Rose said. She cradled the clothes in her left hand and raised her right arm to curl. It was an image from a magazine she had seen once from Florida. It was a strong man showing his muscles in the illustration. Rose mimicked it in the mirror, thinking it something men did whenever they were alone together.

Perry stood and reached for her bicep. He pinched it, and Rose cried out. She slapped his shoulder.

“You’re going to get caught, and no one’s going to save you,” he said. “What about a pistol? What happens when someone draws a gun on you for looking at them cross?”

She poked Perry in the nose with her index finger. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to scare me. It won’t work.” Rose crossed the room to the door.

As she opened the door, Perry said, “You spent a long time alone, Rose. You’ve lived a sheltered life. You don’t know what it’s like out there. People are cruel. Men are vicious. I’ve seen men at their darkest. It’s not something I wish on anyone, especially you.”

“Well then, the best I can hope for is you coming along and protecting me.” She closed the door.

Rose stood quiet in the hallway for a long time. She needed to quiet her heartbeat before carrying the clothes back to her room. She had much to do before Monday. Chapter Three

Edgar didn’t know the time when he finally regained consciousness, only that it was daylight. He woke with a start to the sharp scream of the train whistle at the platform. He had lost hours. He rolled and used his arms to sit up. The left side of his face didn’t work as well as his right. He slowly moved his jaw, and gingerly touched his cheek. Both areas hurt.

Someone inside the outhouse made noises no one should share. Since Kent had knocked him out, he realized he’d lost a lot more than the horse. After testing the side of his face, Edgar reached for his holster. They took his gun.

“Son of a—”

“Hey, Kid, you still out there?” a gruff voice called from inside the lavatory.

The fact the gentleman knew Edgar lay unconscious outside the latrine bothered Edgar more than the man asking if he was still around. It suggested the man had stepped around Edgar without checking if he still had breath in his body.

“Yeah,” Edgar said. It was courteous to respond when someone talked to him. His mother taught him a few things about being responsible.

“You happen to see anything around there I can use to wipe my ass?”

Edgar picked himself out of the packed dirt and limped away without answering.

“Hey, Kid? Kid?” the voice called.

Penniless, horseless, unarmed, Edgar needed to get a handle on his wits before losing the last precious thing that mattered to him. Beaten and robbed of his last penny and the horse, talking to the sheriff would do little to no good. He was a wanderer, a man traveling towns looking for something that mattered to him. Edgar used up the little value he had left on a stupid card game.

“People don’t play fair, Pop,” Edgar whispered. He dug his hands deep into his pockets and strolled away from the community outhouses. A half-block away, Edgar heard the man in the latrine shouting for him.

***

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“Menace in the Mysterious Train” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

When Edgar Campbell arrives in Red River, he falls victim to a deceitful poker player and loses every worldly possession he has. Without hope, a horse, or even a pistol, Edgar gambles on a chance meeting with someone that will turn things around. Fortunately, luck smiles on him when he is assigned with the simple task of accompanying a cattle baron’s livestock to another town. Little does he know that amongst the cattle there is a cargo much more valuable, that will get him into trouble and will put his life in grave peril. What will Edgar be willing to risk in order to accomplish a mission that isn’t as innocent as it first seemed? Will he manage to protect the valuable shipment and defeat a murderous gang that disperses fear in its wake?

While Edgar is running for his life, he crosses paths with his boss’s daughter, who, determined to prove her worth, disguises herself and jumps on the same train with him. When Edgar discovers her true identity, he will do whatever it takes to protect her from the vicious outlaws who have invaded the train. The more time they spend together, the more he realizes that her braveness and wit have made him lose his mind. But as long as criminals are after them and his life is at stake, he has no time for love. Will Edgar help Rose survive the treacherous journey? Will he manage to get out of this train safe and sound, despite the endless challenges he encounters?

Fierce crossfires and an unprecedented hide and seek, take Edgar and Rose on an adventure that will remain indelible in their minds. Will they endure the wild ride across the frontier west? Or will overpowering forces ruin their chance at happiness once and for all?

A pulse-pounding drama, which will make you turn the pages with bated breath until the very last word. A must-read for fans of Western action and romance.

“Menace in the Mysterious Train” is a historical adventure novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.

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