Thief of My Heart (Watty Awards Finalist 2012)

Chapter 48

Evie kept her eyes glued to the scenery outside her window.  And as lovely as that scenery was, there was really only one sight she hoped to see,  that of her beloved riding in to take her away.  She inhaled deeply and exhaled the air on a shaky breath.   She knew it was only a fantasy.  He would not be riding to her rescue this time.  Because he thought he had set her free from the bondage of a life with a wanted man.  But all he had really done was sentenced her to a life of loneliness, shackled to memories and dreams of what could have been.     For there would never be another for her.  No one would ever take the place of the dimple faced outlaw who had ridden into her life as quickly and unexpectedly as he had ridden out.  No one would ever be to her what Hannibal Heyes had been and would always be.....the thief who had stolen her heart.

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There she stood.  She was a beauty.  The snowy ground and trees surrounding her made the bright red paint of her cars stand out in vivid contrast.  Smoke billowed from her tall, black stack.  Steam wafted from under her heavy iron wheels.   Her brakes gave a squealing protest as they strained to bring the twelve car passenger train to a halt.   Atlantis was her name and she was due in Rock Springs, Wyoming this evening after leaving Rawlins this afternoon.  But she was going to be late. 

From a nearby hilltop he watched her as she ground to a halt in front of the debris from a rock slide.   The same rock slide that he and his gang had created with a well placed stick of dynamite.  He raised his right hand, giving the men on horseback behind him the signal to start descending the hillside towards her.  He sat still astride his magnificent black stallion as the others rode around him and made their way down to the bottom of the hill.  He stayed back watching as the others took up their assigned positions.   There was a time when he would have been the first one down the hill.  A time when his brown eyes would have been alight with excitement and a self satisfied grin would have crossed his lips at the prospect of another robbery successfully planned and carried out.  But not this time.  His reasons for robbery in the past had been greed, the thrill and just plain survival.  But this time none of those factors figured into the equation.   To be honest he wasn't sure why he was doing this.  Another thing that didn't figure into the equation.....his partner.  Without Kid Curry's presence he felt oddly ill at ease.  He shouldn't have.  He'd pulled off this kind of job dozens of times in far more dangerous situations and circumstances.  And he didn't know why he cared.  He didn't have anything left to look forward to in this life.  So what difference did it make if this job went wrong and his partner wasn't here to watch his back?   But there was little chance of anything going wrong.  It was a simple plan.  Stop the train, board the train and blow the safe.  In and out quick.  There was supposed to be a cache of gold bullion in that safe.   Out here in the remote southern Wyoming countryside, in the middle of winter their plan should go off without a hitch.  So why then did he feel so uptight about it?  He sure wished the Kid wasn't angry with him and hadn't refused to take part.  Because he could use some reassurance right now.  Or maybe he needed somebody to talk him out of doing what he was about to do.  Without Kid here, there was no one left to talk to,   no one left to understand.  The only other person who understood him and cared about him as much as Jed Curry did was fifteen hundred miles away in a mansion in Nashville.   Sweet, Evie.  My, God he missed her.  He didn't know it was possible to miss someone this much.  Not a day had gone by since he'd abandoned her in that field that he hadn't second guessed his decision to leave her.   Not an hour of each day went by that he didn't feel immense guilt for what he had done to her.  Not a moment of every day went by that he didn't think of her and long to see her face and touch her hair and hold her tight.  And the nights.  He didn't even want to think about the nights. Every night he would lie in bed and toss and turn.  When sleep did come it was usually alcohol induced and haunted with dreams of holding her close and making love to her.  He would awake in a cold sweat, his clothes and sheets soaked with his own perspiration and his head would pound with an incessant drum of a dull headache.  He supposed that was one reason he had decided to go along on this job.  Planning it and preparing for it had helped to at least dull some of the tremendous ache her absence had left in his chest,  and it had forced him to leave the booze alone.  He never drank when he was planning a job.  But still she was always there in the back of his mind, even when he was planning and working out the details.