Ironhorse

For years, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have ridden roughshod over rabble-rousers and gun hands in troubled towns like Appaloosa, Resolution, and Brimstone.  Now, newly appointed as Territorial Marshalls, they find themselves traveling by train through the Indian Territories.  Their first marshaling duty starts out as a simple mission to escort Mexican prisoners to the border, but when the Governor of Texas, his wife and daughters climb aboard with their bodyguards and $500,000 in tow, their journey suddenly becomes a lot more complicated.

The problem is Bloody Bob Brandice.  He and Virgil have had it out before, an encounter that left Brandice face-down in the street with two .44 slugs lodged in him.  Now, twelve years later on a night train struggling uphill in a thunderstorm, Brandice is back – and he’s not alone.  Cole and Hitch find themselves in the midst of a heist with a horde of very bad men, two beautiful young hostages, and a man with a vendetta he’s determined to carry out.

1) United States

FOR  JULIE

Allie was briefly mentioned. Cole spends a lot of time thinking about her and missing her.

Vince is the only recurring character that has any significant presence in this book. In "Appaloosa", he was Bragg's right-hand man. Now he's a train robber.

We also run into Dean and Redbeard. We have seen them before in the movie and the first novel of the series.

Chapter 9

"spider on the fly" - I'm not sure, but is this an allusion to the poem "The Spider and the Fly" by Mary Howitt?

Chapter 18

"Feelings get you killed" - it's the tagline from the Appaloosa film.

Chapter 22

"En este momento" - it means "at the moment" in spanish.

Chapter 30

"Luck most often is accompanied with knowing what you are doing." - ???

Chapter 33

"World-Wide Travellers’ Cipher Code" - This book really exist. It was published in 1901 and compiled by Thomas Walter Hartfield. 

Chapter 1

“What was the name of the philosopher we were reading about in the Dallas newspaper the other day?” Virgil thought some, then answered his question: “Peirce?”

“Charles Peirce.”

“Charles. That’s right,” Virgil said. “What was it they called him the father of?”

“Pragmatism . . . He’s a pragmatist.”

“That’s right. Pragmatist . . . Hell, Everett, that’s you, too. You’re a pragmatist.”

“Charles Peirce is a pragmatist,” I said.

Chapter 3

“Just because we have been away for a long while doesn’t mean Allie’s with Teagarden,” I said.

“Proof is in the pudding,” Virgil said.

“That’d be a matter of your sampling.”

Chapter 22

“So the air brakes,” Virgil said, “work disconnected from the engine?”

“According to George Westinghouse, they do.”

“George Westinghouse?”

“The fellow who invented the air brake.”

Virgil just shook his head, looking south into the dark night.

Chapter 33

“What? Damn, Virgil, your house burnt down?”

“Allie was cooking some fat belly, pan caught on fire, the curtains took to burning, and the whole place went up.”

Chapter 34

“But,” Virgil said, “‘what lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.’”

“Emerson?”

“Yep,” Virgil said. “Ralph Waldo.”