Steam puffed in the distance, a billowing cloud of promise barreling toward the pass.
His pulse quickened at the sight.
The prospect of so much gold, so unguarded, and so close set his teeth on edge and made the short hairs of his neck stand upright.
He watched the column of vapor moving toward him just a moment longer, wanting to sear the image into his brain. He gave the signal for Tex to clear the men and mounts from the blast zone.
His assemblage of bad men glanced wearily at each other, all dirt and scars and scabs. They were a consumptive congregation, each man hurdling along his own trajectory of destruction and terror.
They were still too new of a group. He had wanted them to be a cohesive unit, a well oiled machine of chaos, but there simply wasn't enough time. Even if they had be well acquainted, these men were loners, highway men. Though they didn't take orders well, this band of miscreants did have it all shored up in the brawn and pestilence departments.
The train came over the hill, rounded the curve and chugged into view as the concerto's virtuoso depressed the plunger on the blasting detonator with a flourish, a wide grin and a vociferous "fire in the hole!" A deluge of rocks and debris inundated the tracks about a mile in front of the smoke box.
His men began the breakneck descent to the valley below.
The porter engaged the continuous brake and the hulking steel titan shuddered to a stop.
Boyd snugged the bandana about his face and settled his hat low over his eyes. With a flick of his spur his sturdy mount raced down the sheer mountain side to the sound of several dozen thundering hooves and crackling gunfire to rejoin his cavalry train-side.
Though they were mere moments ahead of Boyd, Tex and Lefty were already prying at the door to the engine. They figured if there were riches to be had, they'd be with the people and not with the livestock in the cattle cars.
Boyd's stud slid to a stop by the door. The big stallion was as taut as a bow, toned muscles twitching, every vein protruding beneath his glossy coat, eyes rimmed with white and nostrils flaring.
Boyd swung a leg over and dismounted in one soft, fluid movement before his mount had come to a full stop.
He loosed his weapons as Lefty groaned and oscillated his crowbar.
The door gaped ever so slightly and Tex leaned into the darkness of the cabin, gun in front of his face.
Shots rang out, echoing off the mountain side and reverberating through the heft of steel.
Tex's brains splattered against the door in a shimmering crimson cascade of gore, glowing incandescent in the harsh midday sun as it misted Boyd and Lefty- sticky, warm, wet and metallic.
Lefty jumped back as Tex's dismembered corpse collapsed into the door, forcing it farther open.
The engineer, porter and a Marshal guard opened fire from their fortress of steel and bodies fell all around Boyd, with the weight of death upon themselves, dragging them to the dirt.
The horses scattered like leaves in a breeze, trampling remains and pounding blood into the dusty earth.
He heard the men go to reload and seized the opportunity to sneak around to the front of the train. Lefty had been winged, but secured himself in a bastion of the earlier landslide and drew their fire with well placed rounds.
Climbing on the track, then silently hoisting himself onto the cow-catcher, Boyd popped up at the window and dispatched all three men inside of a heartbeat.
With the smoke still rolling off his Colts he put them back in their resting places at his hips. He stumbled off the train and fell to his knees.
The cattle were spooked and banged around, anxious in the sweltering cars that would be their final resting place.
A dust devil swirled lazily around the weeping badman who had eyes only for the men face down in the dirt, life pooling around their mouths and flowing out their ears.
Tears trickled down his face, leaving pristine trails of tanned, weather-weary skin through Tex's brains and blast residue. He swiped at the tears with his blood-soaked hands a moment before the smell of gunpowder and death lingering there forced him to resort to his bandana instead.
Lefty hobbled over to where Boyd fell on the track. Though he held no particular feelings for Boyd, leaving him here meant the law- and the noose- would be one step closer to him and so he hoisted Boyd from his spot and threw him up on his horse.
He dallied the big stud off his saddle and they headed for the hills, trailing blood and sadness behind them.