Hoofbeats of Danger Read Online Free

the table.
    The passengers huddled over their meal, eating hungrily. Annie had noticed that some groups of passengers were friendly with each other, joking merrily as they ate. Others—like this one—were silent, maybe even downright sour. Cooped up together day and night for three weeks as they rumbled across the continent, maybe they’d gotten on each other’s nerves.
    Billy sidled into the house, shaking rain off his jacket. He winked at Annie. She rolled her eyes. She knew that Billy should be in the barn; Express riders were expected to work around the station between relays. Still, she ladled out a bowl of stew for him.
    Davy popped up beside the woodbox. “Want to play the memory game, Davy?” Billy asked in an undertone. Davy nodded eagerly and plopped onto the bench beside Billy.
    â€œLook around the room, then,” Billy instructed Davy. “Fix in your mind everything you can see. If you want to be an Indian scout like I do, you’ve got to be sharp-eyed.”
    Annie perched on the end of the bench, twirling the tip of one braid as she studied the room. She and Billy had played this game often, and Annie was good at it. She counted five coach passengers. There was a brown-haired woman in black, and her son—about eight years old, Annie guessed, with a chubby, spoiled face. Across the table from them sat two men with gray beards—one stout, with a red face, the other thin, pale, and wrinkled. “Red Fred and Dick the Stick,” Billy whispered in Annie’s ear. She smiled but nudged him to be quiet.
    The fifth passenger, a thin man with glasses, held up his bowl. “May I have some more?” he asked in a reedy voice.
    â€œMr. Peeper,” Billy whispered. Annie couldn’t help but grin as she jumped up to serve the food.
    The station door opened and the sixth passenger walked in, his head and shoulders soaked with rain. Annie guessed he’d gone to the outhouse. He was a young blond man with a yellow handlebar mustache. Raindrops dripped from its two absurdly curled ends. “Goldilocks,” Billy whispered. Annie clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
    Annie looked over at Davy. He’d slid down to the hearth and was staring into the fire, daydreaming. “So much for the memory game,” she murmured to Billy. “Some Indian scout he’d make.”
    â€œAw, he’s just a pup,” Billy said. “No telling how he’ll turn out when he grows up.”
    Annie sighed. “I don’t reckon Davy will ever measure up for Pa. I mean, look how hard Pa is on me—he’s so disappointed I’m a girl. It don’t matter that I can hunt and ride and shoot—he wants a boy who can do all that. But that sure ain’t Davy.”
    Billy set down his bowl with a clatter. “Well, I can do all those things, and your pa ain’t a’tall fond of me. I reckon he’s just hard to please.”
    Jeremiah and the guard came in from the barn, soon followed by Mr. Dawson and the coach driver, Mr. Slocum. Annie scurried to fetch their food. Jeremiah took a bowl of stew from her with a husky. “Thanks” and tugged the end of one of her pale braids. Annie flashed him a little smile.
    Then she handed a bowl to the coach guard, a heavyset man in an olive green coat. He took it with a cheerful, hungry look. She didn’t recall seeing him before. She remembered Mr. Slocum, though—a tall, silver-haired, rugged man with cold, hawklike blue eyes. “Best jehu on the Overland Trail,” she’d heard her pa say, using the common nickname for coach drivers. “And don’t he know it.”
    Nate Slocum stood eating by the front door, peering out into the rain. Then he turned to the room, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Folks, we’ll stay here overnight,” he announced. “With this storm, it don’t make sense to travel in the dark. And Mr. Dawson thinks