The Last Ride
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 2
Deputy Marshal Thomas Rigg walked the length of the stopped train with his jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
Steam bled from valves in angry bursts. Lanterns swung as deputies dismounted, voices sharp and overlapping, orders being given where none were needed. The desert had gone quiet again, as if it were holding its breath to see what foolish thing would happen next.
Rigg already knew.
He stepped off the last car and followed the scattered gravel to where she lay.
Ione Beaumontwas on her back beside the tracks, coat torn, hat gone, dark hair spread against the stone. One leg was bent wrong at the knee, the other twisted farther down, angles that made even hardened men look away. She wasn’t screaming anymore. That worried him more than the blood.
He stopped a few feet from her and stared.
For a long moment, he said nothing at all.
Then, flat and furious, “You absolute idiot.”
Her green eyes shifted toward him. Still sharp, still aware—damn her for that. She tried to move and failed, a faint sound escaping her that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t broken halfway through.
“Evening, Marshal,” she rasped.
Rigg crouched despite himself, anger burning hot and useless in his chest. “You jumped from a moving train,” he said. “Not a slow one. Not a stopped one. A moving train.” His voice rose despite his effort to control it. “What did you think was going to happen?”
She swallowed, breath shallow. “Thought I’d land better.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Her gaze flicked briefly to her legs, then away again, as if acknowledging them directly might make the pain worse. “Wasn’t planning on landing,” she said. “Was planning on running.”
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