by Chris Barili
“They should be here,” Spike said, looking both directions along the track. “If they’re going to rob this train, they should be in position by now.”
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Frank replied. “We should—”
“What’s that?” Curtis jumped to his feet and pointed at the oncoming train. “There, on top of the cars!”
Frank squinted into the growing darkness, and at first he saw nothing. Then lightning flashed, splitting a tree just across the tracks from them, and Frank saw what the boy was talking about. There, standing tall atop the first passenger car, tattered flannel flapping in the wind, stood the prospector. Even at a hundred yards, the old man looked eight feet tall, maybe more, and his eyes seemed to absorb the darkness around him, getting blacker than they’d ever been. His ghost-white hair streamed out behind him. He held his pickaxe to the sky, challenging the lightning to take its best shot at striking him down.
Frank’s first instinct was to hide, but the prospector stared right at him, and he knew without a doubt he’d been spotted. He drew his six-shooter, ejected one round, and inserted the green-glowing bullet, his weapon of last resort. He flipped the cylinder closed and spun it until the special round would be the last he fired. He preferred not to waste it on anyone but Jesse James, but something told him it might be all that stopped the old man this time.
He handed the cuffs to Spike.
“I’ll handle this,” he growled as the wind picked up and the rain started to pummel the earth around them. “You two stay safe. Get away if you can.”
“Hell no,” Spike said.
“Someone’s gotta rescue Camille,” Frank argued. “In case I don’t make it out of this gunfight on my own.”
The train was almost on them now, and Frank stepped out of the trees to take on the prospector from Hell. The wind stole his hat, but Frank let it go.
To his surprise, the prospector leapt from the passenger car, landing in a crouch a few feet away, tossing aside the bloody pick. When he started to rise, Frank drew and aimed at his head. The prospector froze, and an icy laugh hacked its way from his lungs.
“You still think you can kill me with a fancy bullet, gunfighter? That's why I used a living body. Unlike your corpse, it can change. Evolve.”
Frank cocked the hammer on his Colt in answer.
The prospector laughed again, the sound of ice cracking on a frozen lake.
“Even your friend with the Winchester over in those trees knows that won’t work.”
“Where’s Jesse James?” Frank barked. “I’m here to return him to Hell where he belongs.”
The prospector rose up to his full height, towering over Frank by two or three feet.
“Jesse and the boys went on ahead. They told me to come and be your welcoming party.”
His gut had been right—it was a trap.
“Then get to welcomin’,” Frank said, “so I can move on and do my job.”
The prospector drew his revolver so fast Frank barely had time to fire. The bullet tore into the old man’s left shoulder, rocking him back. Unlike the last whiskey-coated round, though, this one had no other effect. No smoke, no shrinking. Nothing.
Frank dove right as the prospector fired off a three-round burst that sent up wads of dirt and grass. Frank rose to his knee and fired two more shots, both striking the prospector in the chest. Again, though, the old man simply rocked back, then fired again. No shrinking. No pain.
Frank rolled and saw Spike and Curtis running for the speeding train. The prospector turned to aim at them, and Frank fired his last coated bullet at his back.
This time, the Holy-whiskey worked, making the prospector arch his back and fall to one knee. Seeing his chance, Frank holstered his gun and ran. He lowered his shoulder, ready to drive it into the wound in the old man’s back, but the prospector was ready for him. At the last instant, he wheeled, grabbed Frank by his duster, and flung him at the speeding train. Frank fell just short of the tracks, balling up to keep his limbs from being run over as the last car thundered past.
The prospector fell on him like a rabid dog, snarling and foaming, his black eyes full of hatred and bloodlust. The fingers of one huge hand closed around Frank’s throat, while the other held his right hand—his gun hand—down against the ballast of the track.
The two wrestled for control, but the prospector had the edge. As Frank watched Curtis and Spike jump onto the caboose, he felt his world going black. He tried to reach for his gun with his left hand, but the prospector held him still.
“Foolish judges sent the wrong man,” the prospector growled. Spit dripped from his mouth onto Frank’s forehead, where it burned, despite the rain on his brow. “After I destroy you, I’ll welcome your friends, too. I’ll enjoy hurting the boy.”
Fire erupted in Frank’s heart, and with the last ounce of strength in his left hand, he grabbed the lasso off his hip and looped it around the prospector’s neck. The old man’s midnight eyes went wide and he clawed at the rope. That freed Frank’s hands. In a single motion, he drew his Colt, put it under the old man’s chin, and fired the green bullet.
The prospector’s head snapped back, his body flying from Frank in a flash of misty, green light. He landed with a thud a few yards away, writhing on the ground as glowing, serpentine mist flowed around his arms and legs. On its own, the lasso tightened around his neck.
The light disappeared and the world fell silent. Even the thunder seemed muffled and distant. Frank rose to his knees, afraid to do anything but stare.
To his dismay, the prospector sat up, an evil grin spreading across his face like oil across a pond. His fingers grasped the lasso and started to loosen it.
“Fool,” he snarled.
Lightning flashed and the sound of the train returned, shaking the ground. Frank looked for the train, wondering how Spike had talked them into backing up, but a second burst of lightning showed him the true source of the noise.
A massive tornado wove its way toward him from the west, green light flashing and swirling inside it as the funnel danced its way across the plain. Frank ran, throwing himself in a ditch a few yards away just as a tree flew past him like a giant skewer. He wrapped his arms around a stout stump and held on for dear life.
The twister came to a stop over the prospector, and for a moment, the green lightning within it seemed to do battle with that around his body. The old man jumped to his feet and tried to run, but a bolt of green lightning shot down from the clouds, hammering through him. He stood, arms out, eyes wide, and screamed as the lightning burned through his body.
Then, he just disappeared.
An instant later, the funnel withdrew into the clouds and the storm moved off to the east.
Still in the ditch, Frank put his head down and let darkness swallow him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Frank woke to the buzz of flies and the smothering heat of the sun on his back. The earthy smell of loam nudged his senses and he tasted the grit of dirt in his mouth.
Cracking his eyes open one at a time, he found himself face-down in the ditch, his hair matted to his head, hat long gone. He pushed himself to a sitting position, surprised to find himself alone and still in one piece. Rain had soaked through his duster, so he took it off to dry.
He crawled to the lip of the ditch. Clear, blue skies dominated from horizon to horizon, though the smoke tendril of a train rose to the east, a lone scar on nature’s otherwise flawless face. The stand of trees in which they’d hidden the night before looked like a tangle of green and brown, now, trunks tied in knots by the tornado.
The twister. The prospector. Frank couldn’t wrap his mind around what he’d seen, what he’d caused. He’d wiped a soul from existence, killing not only its possessed body, but eradicating the essence itself.
Needing his mind off the subject, he checked his Colt, reloading with regular bullets. One remaining whiskey-coated bullet in his gun belt was now his only ammunition against Jesse James, should he manage to come acr
oss him. Spike still had the cuffs, and the lasso had disappeared into the clouds with the prospector’s body.
He’d have to choose the when and where for using the bullet—he’d only get one shot.
Levering himself to his feet, he re-holstered his piece, threw his duster over his shoulder, and started west. He had to find Spike and Curtis. A flutter of movement caught his eye, just to the north. But someone—or something, he thought, down on all fours—slipped into a grove of trees and disappeared, little more than a shadow receding into more shadows.
“Looks like I have company,” he mumbled to himself.
He trudged west along the tracks all morning, catching the occasional glimpse of his pursuer, always just inside his peripheral vision for an instant before slipping through the tall grass like a phantom. He seemed to want Frank to know he was there, watching him. Either that or he was taunting him, flaunting the fact that he tracked his prey and there was nothing Frank could do about it.
Frank stopped briefly at noon, resting under the shade of a willow, letting his body rebuild a bit, then headed west again.
Dusk had made its dusty, gray entrance when a stagecoach appeared on the western horizon, a black speck kicking up dust against the glowing orange disk of the sun.
Frank looked for somewhere to get out of sight until the coach passed, but the nearest trees stood fifty yards away, and the coach was approaching fast.
So he put on his duster, angled away from the coach, and plodded forward.
But the stage turned toward him, so Frank stopped and faced it head-on.
About thirty yards away, the driver whistled and reined in his four-horse team, skidding to a stop right in front of Frank. He was a young man, with a hungry look in his blue eyes and a rifle across his lap. Frank let his hand rest on his pistol.
“He’s here,” the driver said, his voice taut like a new-strung fence wire. “He’s alive, but he doesn’t look too happy.”
The stage door opened and Frank tensed, ready to draw at the slightest sign of trouble. He relaxed when Spike jumped down from the step, Curtis on his heels. The boy took one look at Frank and dashed to him, wrapping his arms around Frank’s waist.
Feeling awkward, Frank tousled Curtis’ hair and eased him back. Tears glistened in Curtis’s eyes, and he wiped at them furiously, turning away.
“I thought the prospector…”
“You oughta have more faith in me, boy,” Frank scolded playfully. “Takes more than one old man to kill Frank Butcher.”
Spike gave him a questioning look.
Frank shook his head. “The prospector won’t be hassling us anymore. But I had to use that one bullet I wasn’t supposed to use.”
Spike raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and handed the cuffs back to Frank.
“Well, you owe me a nickel, Curtis,” the barrel-chested barkeep said. “I told you Frank would win.”
The boy handed over a coin, making a show of disgruntlement, but unable to hide his ear-to-ear grin at finding Frank alive.
“Mister, you know you’re being followed?” The driver hefted his rifle—a Sharps carbine—as if to take aim. Frank held him up with wave of his hand.
“Been following me all day and hasn’t made a move yet. Let’s just put some distance between us and him.”
“You get a good look at him?” the driver asked. Frank shook his head. “Me either, but get in and we’ll leave him so far behind he can’t remember who you are.”
Frank and the others climbed inside, the driver cracked the whip, and the stage started rolling. They did a three-quarters turn and headed south. Frank gave Spike a wondering look, but Curtis explained.
“We found out where the gang is going. Looks like Liberty, Missouri is the site of their next heist. And they picked up some new members, too. There are about twenty of ‘em now. Maybe more.”
“And Camille?”
“Still with ‘em,” Spike said.
Around midnight, Frank realized the stage had neither slowed nor stopped since he’d boarded, maintaining a steady southward trot down the narrow dirt road. Spike and Curtis were sleeping, so Frank leaned his head out the window and called out to the driver.
“How long until you change horses at this pace?”
The driver turned to face Frank, his eyes glowing a fierce, ice-cold blue, the stark red ash from a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“These ones don’t need changed.” The voice was the same one he’d heard earlier, just made colder by the glowing blue eyes. “Come on up and I’ll show you.”
Frank opened the door and swung himself around and up into the seat to the driver’s left. Up close, his eyes held more detail: varying shades of blue, a dark pupil, even flecks of silver. But they still glowed.
The driver held out his hand.
“Stanley Dobbs,” he said. Frank shook his hand, surprised to find it warm and alive. “Stan. Oh, I’m alive, all right. I just have access to certain…powers that most people don’t. The eyes allow me to see in the dark, like a cat, only better.”
“Frank Butcher, Stanley. You wanna tell me what you mean about these horses?”
“Did you notice that they weren’t spooked by you walking corpses, like normal horses are?”
Frank nodded, even though it had slipped his attention.
“That’s because these beauties aren’t your everyday horses, Frank. Look close.”
Frank leaned down, near the rear flank of the closest horse. He could feel the horse’s body heat, but there was something else, something unusual.
The horse looked back over its shoulder and Frank nearly fell from the seat. The animal’s eyes held the faintest, tiniest sparks of orange in them, as if embers floating from a fire had lodged themselves there. If he hadn’t been looking, he likely wouldn’t have noticed, But he’d seen those types of eyes in a horse before: in the underworld.
“You mean they…”
“Yep, you got it, Frank. These thoroughbreds come straight from the underworld, the realm of the dead. They can run for hours, if needed, then run some more. They should have us in Liberty by tomorrow night.”
Frank sat back on the bench, looked at the driver’s glowing eyes, and sighed.
“Who sent you?”
Stan laughed, a quick, honest sound that put Frank at ease.
“The judges, of course. They learned of the prospector’s presence here and figured you could use some help getting around.”
“They’ve been spying on me?”
“Did you expect anything less?”
Frank kicked himself for not expecting some sort of over-watch by the judges, especially Webber. They weren’t exactly the trusting types.
“So, they knew things were going south in and sent you to help?”
“Yep, it’s good old Stan Dobbs to the rescue.”
“How do they arrange for someone in the world of the living to help to with matters of the dead?”
“Everything has its price, gunfighter. You just gotta know the currency.” He sat up straight and stuffed his hand in his vest pocket. “Which reminds me, I paid a pretty penny for this. Hope you appreciate it.”
He handed Frank a piece of paper and a match. Frank struck the match and shielded it with his hand, using its light to read the Western Union telegram:
Whoever you are, not interested in life of crime. Retired now. Leave me alone.
- FJ
The match burned out and he was in darkness again.
“That was sent from Saint Louis to Omaha for a Mr. Thomas Howard.”
Frank shrugged. The name meant nothing to him.
“That’s one of the aliases Jesse used when he was alive. FJ is his brother Frank, telling him he won’t be joining him in his little group.”
“Finally, something went our way,” Frank said. “Now if we can just pick up a dozen more members of this little posse…”
“Well, you got me. I ain’t much, but I shoot straight, even in the dark.” Stan looked him over from h
ead to toe, sniffed, and made a clucking sound. “You’d better get back down there and rest. Your reanimated bodies need—whoa!”
He reined in hard, the horse team whinnying and rearing up as they skidded to a stop in the middle of the trail. Frank’s gun came out, and the driver lifted his Sharps rifle to his shoulder.
“What is it?” Frank asked.
“Something crossed the road in front of us,” Stan whispered. “About twenty yards ahead. I think it was your shadow, down on all fours. Huge, like the size of a bull.”
“What is it?”
The driver put his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes, leaving just slivers of blue. He concentrated for a moment, then opened his eyes again.
“Can’t be certain. But I think you got a Hellhound chasing you.”
The doors opened, and Frank snapped to Spike and Curtis. “Stay inside! We got company you don’t wanna meet.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Stan said. “Jesse James shouldn’t have been able to bring a Hellhound into the world of the living. He doesn’t have that kind of power. Only…”
He let the though trail off, like a path to nowhere. Frank cleared his throat.
“How do we deal with it now?”
“It’s gone now,” Stan said. “I don’t see it at all, but it left something in the road in front of us.”
Frank dismounted, six-gun held before him. He looked back at Stan and Spike, both of whom had their rifles trained into the darkness ahead of him.
Frank still didn’t know what to think of Stan, whether or not he could trust him, so Spike’s support was comforting. He took a step.
“Straight ahead, about fifteen yards now.” Stan kept his voice low.
The prairie around them sat cool and still, the waving of the grass all that disturbed the night’s graveyard calm. The moon hadn’t risen yet, either, leaving Frank blind.
“Few more yards,” Stan said. “You should see it soon.”