Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels

by Stephen Mertz

  "You don't sound like you mean it."

  "From the start, this whole thing has been out of kilter. I'll believe it's finished when they send us home. And I mean breathin', not inside a box."

  * * *

  "Where do you think he's going?" Kate whispered.

  "Around," J.D. replied. "Just walking, it looks like."

  "Not much of a patrol."

  "That makes it worse. He could pop up most anywhere, whenever."

  "Right. He needs to go."

  Passing the barn, they'd peered in through a gap left by a missing board and saw two other men lounging beside the Conestoga wagon and its Gatling gun. They had the weapon pointed toward the barn's double front doors, and toward the house beyond. Its presence canceled any doubts that they had found the place depicted on the dead assassin's map.

  "You want him?" J.D. asked.

  Kate shook her head. "You're better at the sneaky stuff."

  "Okay, then. If you're sure."

  "I'm positive. I'll have you covered, though."

  "I never doubted it. No shooting, if we can avoid it."

  "Right."

  Surprise was paramount, with odds of four—or maybe more—to one.

  J.D. handed Kate his Winchester, reached underneath his coattail, and pulled out a hunting knife, its eight-inch blade reflecting errant moonlight. Kate gave him a head start, then crept after him, determined not to let an enemy attack from his blind side.

  Facing four guns, maybe more, they had to take it one step at a time, gain any edge they could over the odds.

  And if their plan failed? If they couldn't make it out alive?

  She drew small consolation out of knowing that they'd go down side by side, fighting until the bitter end.

  * * *

  "Boot me out like this is all my doin'," Carlan Naegle muttered to himself. "I didn't start this thing, chasin' a bunch of papers all over creation, killin' folks. Weren’t my idea."

  But he had gone along with it, of course, because it was his duty to the brotherhood and to his faith. The documents, whatever they might be, threatened the very fabric of society as Naegle understood it in the former State of Deseret, now Utah, founded twenty some-odd years ago, when he was just a kid, by Brigham Young and those who'd followed him out of Missouri, out of Illinois, across a hostile continent to find a place they could call home, where they could live as they saw fit.

  Things had been changing ever since: their lost, half-hearted war against the U.S. government in Washington; surrendering the principle of plural marriage to placate a distant, Gentile Congress; ceding much of the church's God-given authority to officers and judges picked by nonbelievers in the East. Naegle despised the changes, but the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles hadn't asked for his opinion, and they were not likely to.

  A loyal Danite did as he was told, shouldered the burden of defending all his brethren, even when they didn't know the order still existed. In the old days, Porter Rockwell—gray and crippled up, now—would have ridden out alone, or with a hand-picked company of men, to find the documents and deal decisively with any adversaries. But today...

  "You're stuck with me," he told the silent sagebrush that surrounded him.

  No, it wasn't absolutely silent, after all. Was that a breeze that whispered close behind him? And if so, why didn't Naegle feel it on his skin?

  He had begun to turn, was halfway through it, when a strong arm locked around his throat, cut off his wind and any hope of calling out a warning to his brothers. At the same time, pain lanced through him, starting underneath Nagle's right shoulder blade and biting deep into a lung, stealing his breath away. Before the second stab of agony tore through him, opening his heart to drain it, Naegle felt his knees buckle, and he was dropping into darkness infinite.

  * * *

  "The barn next?" Kate asked J.D., while he wiped his crimsoned blade.

  "It has to be. They've got us with the Gatling, if we rush the house first."

  "Right. There was a backdoor, I recall."

  "Lucky for us, unless it's latched from the inside."

  "And if it is?"

  "The gap we looked through ought to fit a Winchester," J.D. replied. "With any luck, we'll find a second one and catch them in a crossfire."

  "I can help you, then."

  "I'm counting on it, hon."

  They doubled back the way they'd come, leaving a dead man in the moonlight for coyotes, or for vultures in the morning. Coming up behind the barn, they took it slow and easy, almost tiptoeing, and found the opening left by a fallen board, never replaced. Peeking by turns, they saw the same two men, still sitting more or less where they had been short moments earlier. Their voices were a murmur, the specific words inaudible.

  "I'll scout another spot and signal you, or come back here," J.D. whispered to Kate, his lips so close against her ear they made her shiver.

  "Careful, lover."

  "Always."

  Kate stood watch over the barn's guards and their hulking weapon in the Conestoga's wagon bed, while J.D. left to find another gun port in the old barn's wall. She noted that they both wore black frock coats, matching the one worn by the straggler J.D. had disposed of, but these two had laid their matching hats aside. Some kind of uniform? she wondered, and the Danite notion of J.D.'s seemed to be making more sense all the time.

  Kate tried imagining a church that raised an army of its own, but couldn't make sense of it. It took the normal hellfire sermons to a level that unsettled her, not only damning people from the pulpit, but erasing them from life itself, without regard to legal guilt or innocence.

  An airy whistle in the night distracted Kate. It might have been a whippoorwill, but wasn't. Somewhere to her right, J.D. had found his vantage point.

  Breathing slowly to relax herself, Kate raised her Winchester and let its muzzle ease into the barn.

  Chapter 14

  Abriel Hamblin tried to remember the last time he'd been this nervous, finally deciding that it must have been during his first meeting with LDS president Brigham Young. That was a different kind of nerves, however—pure elation over his appointment to the Danite order in the early days of Deseret's rebellion against imposition of authority from Washington, D.C.

  How long ago? No less than twenty years and counting, now. He'd been a relatively young man, then, at thirty. These days, when he looked into a mirror, Hamblin barely recognized the face that he saw staring back at him. His long struggle had aged and scarred him, robbed him of his onetime hope to raise a family, but he did not begrudge the sacrifices made.

  They paved his path to Glory.

  "What's the time?" Brother Moroni asked, still at his post beside the farmhouse window.

  Hamblin glanced at his pocket watch, something to do, and answered, "Fifteen minutes later than the last time you asked me."

  "I don't like this, Brother Abriel. McCarthy could've walked from town by now."

  And he was right, of course. Hamblin had already gone over all the reasons he could think of for the mercenary running late. Worst case, the Gentile snoopers might have killed him. Second worst, there was at least an outside possibility that Marshal Allred, having been excluded from their counsel, might have managed to arrest the gunman after he eliminated the two interlopers.

  If McCarthy were in jail, would he betray them? Murder meant a hanging rope or firing squad, defendant's choice, but would McCarthy try to make a deal? And what would happen, how would Allred take it, if he spun a tale of Danites roaming Utah in the modern day, long after their order was officially disbanded?

  Hamblin couldn't answer that, another thing that made him nervous.

  He regretted sending Brother Carlan out, wished he had kept the weakest of their members close, to watch him in these final hours of their mission. Should he send Brother Moroni out to find him now, and—

  Crack!

  A rifle shot, undoubtedly, from the direction of the barn.

  * * *

  J.D. lined up his targe
t, aiming through a gap where half a two-by-four had broken off and fallen, sometime in the distant past. He took his time, not rushing it, tracking the stranger as he rose and crossed the barn to find a corner and relieve himself, not bothering to step outside.

  Lazy? Or worried he'd be seen?

  This had the smell of yet another ambush, something the black-suited backshooters seemed to favor over stand-up fights. J.D., as it happened, had no problem fighting the same way, when it served his purpose.

  Crouched in shadow, he let the gunman finish his business and button his fly, lined up with his shot when the man turned around and began the walk back to his perch on the hay bales. A slow, steady squeeze on the Winchester's trigger, and death closed the gap between hunter and quarry, traveling around twelve hundred feet per second. Impact, near dead center on the target's chest, punched him backwards and down without a chance to reach the pistol on his hip.

  J.D. swung to his left, pumping his rifle's lever action, primed to fire again if necessary, but Kate beat him to it. Her man, rising to the sound of J.D.'s shot, was half-turned toward his fallen comrade when a .44 slug drilled his temple, knocked his face all out of true, and put him down.

  J.D. was moving, then. Kate met him at the barn's backdoor and they were both surprised to feel it open when they shoved it inward, no latch stopping them. They crossed the barn to reach the double front doors, hauled them open with an effort as they dragged the ground, then raced back to the Conestoga wagon and its Gatling gun.

  * * *

  "Two shots. What's that mean?" asked Moroni Finlinson.

  Instead of answering him, saying what they'd both already calculated, Brother Abriel said, "Douse the lamps."

  Finlinson did as he was told, waiting for more gunfire, troubled when he heard nothing from the barn. Could an enemy have crept up on them, caught them unawares, killing both Brothers Jacari and Zerin with his first two shots? It seemed impossible, and yet...

  "They should be fighting back," he said, back at the window with his Spencer carbine clutched against his chest. "Do you think it's McCarthy, or—"

  He stopped, mid-sentence, turning from the window, eyes sweeping the main room of the farmhouse, seeking Brother Abriel. There was no sign of him, but something in the room had changed within the past few seconds.

  No, two things.

  The bedroom door, formerly standing open, had been closed within an inch or two of latching, stopping just before the mechanism would have made a sound.

  And there was nothing on the kitchen table, where a slim leather valise had rested moments earlier, the object of their quest and cause of so much death.

  Finlinson felt a twinge of panic as he called out, "Brother Abriel?"

  No answer.

  And once again, more urgently, "Brother!"

  Forsaking his post, Finlinson crossed the room and shoved the bedroom door wide open, peering into shadows there. Without the lamps, he couldn't search the darkest corners properly, but it felt empty—and he saw the room's one window standing open, shutters swaying with a night breeze passing by.

  "Bastard!"

  His leader had deserted him, and there was nothing left for Finlinson, except to stand his ground.

  * * *

  "You want to call them out?" Kate asked.

  "More trouble than it's worth," J.D. replied. "They meant to ambush us, or whoever showed up tonight. They've got no better coming, in my book."

  "Okay. Let's do it."

  J.D. stood behind the Gatling gun, already having checked that it was fully loaded, set to fire. He leveled its six barrels toward the farmhouse, gave the crank a half-turn as a test, and sent a short burst of .45-caliber slugs through the structure's front door.

  Dead on target.

  He let it rip, then, sweeping back and forth across the front porch, blasting window shutters from their hinges, drilling zigzag patters through the wall. The front door shivered, sagged, and fell away from shattered hinges, toppling back inside the house.

  A rifle cracked from one of the front windows, drawing J.D.'s concentrated fire. He gave the Gatling's crank two full rotations, ripping fist-sized pieces from the window's frame and pouring slugs inside, to detonate and smash whatever stood before them, be it wood, glass, crockery, or flesh and bone.

  A second shot came from the other window, bringing J.D. back around to crank off two more rounds. How many cartridges remained inside the Broadwell drum? He'd started with a full two hundred forty, but there was no way to calculate remainders, short of crouching in the wagon's bed and counting cartridge casings.

  And he had no time for that.

  If he ran dry, a second magazine sat waiting near his left foot, but reloading would distract him from the house and whoever was still alive inside. He trusted Kate to cover them, but there were other exits from the place—windows, at least, perhaps another door.

  Stilling his weapon, J.D. took a chance and called out to the house, "You're done in there! Whoever wants to see tomorrow, come out now, with empty hands!"

  * * *

  Abriel Hamblin heard the Gatling gun cut loose as he was galloping away, northbound, letting the night and combat's chaos cover his escape. He'd kept his tobiano stallion saddled, tied behind the farmhouse with a patch of grass to graze on, while he waited for McCarthy or whoever finally arrived that night. Now, with the trap in shambles and his brothers dead or dying, he was running out on them.

  For duty's sake.

  His foremost oath was to the church, and more specifically, to his superiors within that body, handpicked by his Heavenly Father to set and enforce policy. All Danites were expendable, a risk they understood and willingly accepted in exchange for the great honor of assuming service as a soldier of the Lord.

  Abriel Hamblin's task was to deliver what he had been sent to find and capture, placing it within safe hands before it could be used against the church, its president, and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He would do that—or his best, at least—no matter if it killed him.

  And, in fact, that still remained a possibility.

  The road he sought by moonlight ran due north to Salt Lake City, a distance of twenty-five miles from the abandoned farm he'd borrowed. With luck, if his horse didn't stumble and throw him, Hamblin calculated he could reach the capital by dawn, wake his commander, and hand off the cursed documents.

  And after that?

  Hamblin had no idea what lay in store for him, but he was ready to face anything, knowing his job was done. As for his brothers, sacrificed along the way, he hoped God would have mercy on their souls.

  * * *

  "Maybe you got him," Kate suggested.

  "Maybe," J.D. granted. "But I won't go strolling up there till I'm sure."

  He cranked another five or six rounds off into the bullet-riddled house, then called through gunsmoke, "No more warnings! Come out now, hands empty, or I'll bring the place right down on top of you and burn what's left!"

  After another moment's further hesitation, someone answered from the house, "Awright! I'm comin' out!"

  "Hold up," J.D. replied. "How many others with you?"

  "Nobody," the hidden gunman said. "Last one run out on me, the yellow rat."

  "Okay, guns first. I want to see them fly," J.D. instructed.

  First, a rifle sailed out through the open doorway, landing in the yard. A pistol followed, spinning in its flight, and dropped nearby. Behind them came a man of average size, all dressed in black from boots to high-crowned hat.

  "They all look just alike to me," Kate said, tracking the figure with her Winchester.

  "That's what they strive for, I imagine," J.D. said. And to their captive: "Straight on toward the barn, hands high. One false move, and you're a goner."

  "Sure, I hear you," said the stranger, closing in with even, measured strides. "You got me, fair and square."

  When he was ten feet from the barn, the Danite smiled, then made a twisting, swirling kind of move, spinning round and coming back to
face them with a pistol he'd kept hidden, somewhere underneath his long frock coat. Kate shot him first, then J.D. cranked the Gatling up and sprayed him with a couple dozen slugs, their impact holding him upright until the storm blew past and let him drop.

  "Jesus, J.D.!"

  "Just making sure," he said.

  "Okay. What now?"

  "There's nothing left but checking out the house."

  "You think it's clear?" Kate asked.

  "We'll never find out, standing here."

  "I was afraid you'd say that."

  "Distance," he reminded her, and jumped down from the wagon with his Winchester in hand. "If anybody's still inside there—"

  "Distance, right."

  They crossed the yard with thirty feet between them, only closing up when they had reached the porch without a shot fired from the house. J.D. went first, Kate covering, ready to fire at muzzle flashes if a shooter managed to surprise them.

  Inside, the house was a shambles, reeking of dust and kerosene. A lamp had shattered in the kitchen area, but Kate picked out a second one, unbroken, standing in a shaft of moonlight from a blasted window. Once she had it burning, they confirmed that no one else was hiding in the house and settled down to search the ruins.

  "If we ever get a house," Kate said, "remind me not to let you clean it."

  "Never planned on sweeping with a Gatling gun," J.D. replied.

  "It's not the method most approve."

  "Gets rid of vermin, though," he said.

  "I'll give you that."

  They started in the living room and went from there, leaving no cranny unexplored, no bullet-shattered piece of furniture unturned. The bedroom had been spared for the most part, thanks to an intervening wall, but Kate noted its open window when she crossed the threshold.

  "He said one of the team ran out on him. Looks like his exit, here."

  "We've lost him, then," J.D. replied. "No way of tracking him till sunrise."

  So they finished going through the farmhouse, checking underneath the musty bedroom's mattress, left behind by former occupants who didn't care enough to take it with them when they left.

  "Nothing," Kate said, finally. "If there were any documents around this place, they vamoosed with the runner."