Night of Fire

by Nico Rosso

  Her timing had to be perfect. Instead of being crushed by the tall wheels or having the nose of the coach smash her body to dust, she rolled under the vehicle. It passed over her, only about a foot above. Heat from the engine blasted like an oven. Just as the coach was about to clear past, she grabbed onto the rear hitch and was yanked along with it.

  She had a vague sense of Tom rushing after her, shouting her name, but she was too concerned with holding on for her life to pay much attention. Her shoulders burned, fingers ached. Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself along the chassis. A final effort brought her boots up from skipping against the dirt. She curled herself onto the rear of the rolling machine.

  She saw Tom running toward her. He had the rifle ready, but couldn’t take a shot with her there. She motioned to him that she was planning on heading up. He nodded just before a bullet struck the ground next to him.

  Tom turned his attention to the attacking Whisperer with the ether pack, firing the Gatling rifle into the air. He ran and dodged as the Whisperer snaked through the sky, shooting back. Safe for a second behind cover, Tom waved her on.

  The coach bounced hard on tight springs, making her grip each handhold tightly as she climbed up the back. If she lost her grip, she’d be back on the ground. The driver wasn’t making it easy on her. He swerved hard to the left, swinging her out then slamming her hard into the metal sidewall when he swung back.

  Oh hell, he was bringing the vehicle around so the gunner could throw lead at Tom. She hauled herself higher until she stood on the roof of the coach. Crouching low for balance, she slowly walked forward, unslinging the shotgun.

  The armored driver caught sight of her and tried to draw a pistol. But he was weighed down by the metal encasing his body, and she was faster on the trigger. Her first blast punched a huge dent in the armor. One crank of the handle brought the next round to the chamber, and she fired, putting the shot in the gap between the armor’s arm and shoulder.

  A yell of pain echoed within the armor. The driver pitched forward and fell off the coach. Clanging loudly, the rear wheel rolled over his metal chest. The coach bucked hard and Rosa tumbled forward. She hit the deck, nearly losing her grip on the shotgun and sliding off the edge.

  But she managed to scramble into the driver’s seat and took the levers into her hands. The charger had been like trying to harness a whirlwind. Despite the speed and power of the coach, the controls made sense. She slowed the vehicle and swerved to keep Tom out of the gunner’s sights. She saw the barrels of the Gatling gun shifting in the shooting slot below her feet.

  “I’m driving this time, Tom,” she shouted to him.

  He sent a spray of bullets toward the flying Whisperer and broke cover. One time, the two of them had chased adventure, hopping a northbound train and taking it as far as Santa Cruz. She’d made it on board first and watched him running to catch the ladder on the side of the freight car as it picked up speed. They were both laughing and didn’t stop until the kisses and sex took over. No laughs now, but she did watch him as he sprinted toward the coach. The Gatling rifle was loose and ready in his hand. Ammo packs were over his shoulder, as well as the TNT. His cavalry uniform was dusty and worn from the fight, but it only made him look more like a soldier, not a tin figure on parade.

  And Dios, if he wasn’t smiling when he made the final leap onto the side of the iron coach. He climbed up quickly and took up a position next to her.

  “This circus keeps getting better and better.” He fired at the flying Whisperer, who avoided his shots and sent two more down at them. Lead ricocheted off the metal top of the coach.

  “Farrier’s is almost gone.”

  He patted the satchel over his shoulder. “Still have some TNT. That’ll stop the beast.”

  The towering machine still lumbered forward, reaching out with the sharp saw and grinding teeth.

  “From the inside,” she said. “We’ve got to blow it up from the guts out.”

  With a wink and a quick smile, he pulled a stick of dynamite from the satchel. “First we take care of the gunner below. Ready to jump?”

  She collected herself, gripping the shotgun and slowing the coach to a sensible pace. He struck a match, cupped his hands around the flame and lit the fuse of the TNT. It was only going to be a short run to the mining machine. There were no Whisperers in their way.

  He leaned down to toss the dynamite in the firing slot. “That wasn’t a lie I told your parents. Meant every word.”

  “I know it.” And she didn’t hate him for it. Somewhere inside, she understood that he’d come back to Thornville because he would know to find her there. “And I know you’re crazier than a spring coyote. Throw the damn dynamite.”

  The fuse was almost at its end. He stretched toward the firing slot. A black line slashed across his shoulder. Then came the crack of the shot from above. He lost his grip on the dynamite and it skipped away behind the coach. Baring his teeth in pain, he recoiled, gripping his arm.

  She reached for him, but he held her off, gritting, “It ain’t bad. It ain’t bad.”

  A loud explosion sent a column of dirt and dust into the air behind them.

  Rallying, he gathered himself. “That’s our cover. Jump.”

  She burned with anger that he’d been hurt, but there was no time to check his injury. While the dust cloud was thinning, she and Tom leapt from the side of the rolling iron coach. The hard earth jarred her legs, and she fell to her hands and knees. Tom slid next to her. They grabbed each other to get upright again. Beneath his torn sleeve, a four-inch line of burned red flesh crossed his shoulder. But it didn’t stop him. The two of them ran to the side of the mining machine.

  The whole structure shook as it ate into the next building. The metal ladder on the side of the machine vibrated so hard, Rosa was almost thrown off. Tom was right behind, pressing against her on the ladder. Together they managed the ten-foot climb to the first hatch on the side. She yanked the latch, and he swung the door open.

  Two shots from the flying Whisperer splintered into the wood next to them.

  Tom growled, “Let’s tear their heart out.”

  The two of them climbed through the hatch and into the massive mining machine.

  Chapter Nine

  LIKE A DINNER party in hell, the engines, cogs, and pistons were deafening. Quartz lights set high on the walls cast eerie yellow light on the inner workings of the mining machine. Huge gears turned, running chains and belts deep into other parts of the device.

  Rosa and Tom stood on the landing of a winding staircase. She couldn’t see into the darkness of the level beneath them, but above them, the machine gnashed and chattered.

  Wincing, Tom checked the injury on his arm. “Sometimes an ether-charged bullet will burn the wound shut. No blood.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not as much as the thought of coming back and finding you married to Parker.” It seemed like another wry jab, but his eyes were dead serious.

  His depth nearly took her breath away. She said, “Then I guess you’re well enough to keep fighting.”

  “Until the end.”

  Before she could answer, a dark shape below snagged her attention. Leading with his gun, a Whisperer charged up the stairs. Her trigger was quick. The soldier took the shot in the chest and tumbled back into the darkness.

  She motioned Tom up on the stairs. “Looks like they’re going to test your resolve.”

  His long legs spanned the steps in easy strides. “Gonna be an awful crowded boneyard.”

  Twisting up, the wooden staircase took them alongside the inner workings of the machine. Metal grinding wheels broke apart the shreds of buildings as they were drawn inward. The debris fell into sifting pans that shook back and forth. There was no gold and silver to be found here, only the remains of the citizens’ hard work.

  “Give me a couple of sticks of TNT.�
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  Instead of getting them himself, he only turned so she had access to the satchel. While she retrieved them, he fired his Gatling rifle down the stairs, scattering more Whisperers coming for them. “Ain’t going to be any more stairs left soon.”

  On the other side of the spinning gears and rattling chains, more Whisperers climbed a separate staircase.

  “And no exits.” With the dynamite in her hand, she searched for any option. The only hatch was two flights up, at the top of the fifty-foot machine.

  He urged her up while firing at the Whisperers below. “Don’t know if you care to hear it, but there’s something I gotta say.”

  The Whisperers ducked away from his shots and sent a couple of shotgun blasts up toward them. Wood splintered from a support beam five feet away.

  “Before another word,” she said, “you think you could hit those guys below us?”

  “Can’t yet. It’s part of the plan.”

  “We don’t have a plan.”

  “Sure we do.” He spoke as if she’d been in on it all along. “Go for that high hatch.”

  They hurried past a rubberized belt looped around two gears powered by a howling tetrol engine. The machine’s forward motion shook the whole structure. Close to the top, everything swayed like a ship on stormy seas.

  One more set of stairs. Instead of being exposed to the inner workings of the device and the Whisperers on the other side of the open core, Tom and Rosa were protected by a large steel plate. The metal wall served as an anchor for several gears that spun, gnashing metal cogs against each other.

  Tom caught Rosa’s arm and slowed her down while they were still on the stairs, safe behind the metal wall.

  “Hold up,” he said. “This might be the last peace we know on this earth.” He continued, an uncharacteristic depth in his eyes. “Been doing my talking with my guns, but it’s not enough. You deserve the words. So what I got to say, Rosa, is that I’m sorry. For the way I left you. For not staying and fighting for you. Don’t know if you want it, but there it is.”

  She did want it. The words didn’t change the past, but they showed her something about the Tom who was with her now. Like finding an untarnished gold coin buried in the same dirt path she’d walked over a thousand times.

  There was nowhere else to go. The top landing was just a few steps away. The wooden stairs bounced beneath their feet. All down the hollow center of the machine the gears and wheels turned. Whisperers were still on the opposite stairs and more were no doubt coming up this side toward them.

  “It hurt like losing a limb then,” she told Tom as he glanced up at the hatch in the wall at the top landing. “But we’re both different now.”

  He absorbed her words, the emotions in his eyes deepening.

  She continued, “I was trying to be something I wasn’t.” This would be easier to talk about over a bottle of tequila in Francis’s saloon. “For my parents and the rest of the world. But not anymore. And you . . .” Danger bit down on them from all sides, like the teeth of a giant wolf. “You said you weren’t the right man for me when you left. Damn right. But you are now. You’ve been with me every step of the way.”

  Tom double-checked his revolver and wound the rifle’s clockwork. “Never want to leave you again.”

  “I think it had to be this way. We wouldn’t have worked then. But now . . . we fit just right now.”

  He nodded as the understanding sank in. Bullets didn’t seem to matter for a moment. Their bodies could be hurt, but they lived in more than the flesh. She felt a fresh energy as what she already knew about herself was built up by Tom’s strength.

  The machine lurched all around them. More of the town poured into its voracious maw and was being ground to splinters. Tom sprinted up the last set of stairs, back into danger, and undid the latch on the hatch.

  “You don’t owe me any explanation. I’ll take it, but you don’t owe it. Why are you telling me this now?” he asked.

  “Because I’m about to light the fuse.” She pulled a match from her vest. It flared quickly with the acrid smell of sulfur. The fuses on the two sticks of dynamite caught fire and blazed.

  Tom swung the hatch open. Sunlight streaked in, a solid shaft in the dusty air. She lobbed the TNT down the center of the machine and rushed for the exit with Tom.

  “Ladder?” If only they could climb down faster than the fuses burned. She secured the rotary shotgun over her back.

  “Not if the plan works.” He slung the rifle on his shoulder and crouched at the exit. “Jump.”

  The sunlight was blinding, but she knew the fall would maim if not kill her. With Tom, though, she would leap into the unknown. They jumped together. Then she saw his plan. Hanging in the air outside the hatch was the Whisperer with the ether pack.

  No way the soldier could’ve been expecting them to come busting out of the door. He didn’t even have time to raise his pistol when the two of them slammed into him and latched on. Tom quickly chopped at the man’s wrist with his hand, knocking the gun from his grip. The Whisperer tried to fight them off, but Tom punched him in the ribs, winding him.

  “You see,” Tom said with a wild grin, “if we’d killed all those Whisperers inside, they wouldn’t have told this feller we were just on the other side of the hatch.”

  With the extra weight she and Tom added, the three of them quickly sank toward the ground. The buoyancy of the ether pack cushioned the descent, making it a hell of a lot better than falling straight down. But the fight wasn’t over. The Whisperer continued to struggle, and someone was back in the driver’s seat of the iron coach. The barrels of the Gatling gun looked like the black eyes of a tarantula as they swung around toward them.

  “Gotta let go.” Tom nodded toward the ground, then punched the Whisperer again in the gut.

  They were still twelve feet off the ground. And the dynamite hadn’t gone off yet. Maybe the machine destroyed the fuse before the spark had reached the explosive.

  “Now,” he urged her. “Right behind you.”

  Gravity tugged harder on her after she released her grip on the Whisperer. The hard earth was a jolt, and she rolled with the impact. Looking up, she saw Tom still struggling with the Whisperer. Damn it all, if she’d stayed up there she could have fought the man with him.

  After throwing an angry-looking elbow into the soldier’s head, Tom pulled back slightly and unholstered his pistol. Instead of aiming at the man, he put the barrel against one of the ether tanks. The shot pierced the metal. Tom let go and fell away as ether screamed out of the tank. The Whisperer streaked through the air, flailing his arms for control.

  Tom hit the ground and stumbled forward until he caught his balance. He and Rosa watched the Whisperer slam into the side of the giant mining machine. Then the TNT exploded.

  A concussive thump radiated across the ground. The Crandall device bucked and shuddered. A five-foot-round hole was blown out of the wood near the bottom. Flames licked across the wood. Broken gears screeched. Shattered metal clanged. The engines hissed, then rattled like a consumptive giving up their last breath. More fires blazed. With a loud pop, an engine blew. A gash opened up in the side of the machine and it started to buckle.

  “There she goes!” Tom shouted excitedly. He ran to Rosa, and the two of them rushed through the street toward the canning building.

  Behind them the machine’s fuel and motors erupted. The blast separated her from Tom, knocking them both to the dirt. A huge grinding wheel tore out of the device and spun across the street. If she’d been standing, it would’ve cut her in half. Instead, the wheel whizzed above her and knocked a corner off the canning building, then lodged itself in a thick tree.

  A few feet away, Tom recovered his hat from the ground. “Won’t need to shave for a month.”

  More explosions wracked the halted mining machine. Wood splinters rained all over town. The saw blade clange
d to a stop halfway into the telegraph office. Smoke rose from the ruined device, carrying the smell of burnt fuel and spring bonfires. The mining machine was dead.

  A triumphant laugh bubbled up through her. She sprang to her feet, taking in the carcass of the Crandall device. “I told you not to come to Thornville,” she said to the ruined machine.

  Tom whooped behind her. Turning to him, her elation soared. It seemed like nothing could keep her from his arms. And from there, who knew?

  But she didn’t have a chance to find out. Instead, the iron coach came bouncing down the road behind her. A Whisperer leaned out of the open side door and hooked his arm around her waist. She was yanked from her feet. Her shotgun was torn from its sling and clattered in the dirt. Within an instant, she was carried away. As Tom streaked out of her vision, she saw three Whisperers rushing through the street toward him. Oh, God, there was nothing she could do to help him.

  She jabbed backward into the Whisperer with her elbows. He hissed in pain when she contacted his ribs. With his grip loosened, she turned to face him and punched as hard as she could in the side of his neck.

  The Whisperer’s mask fell off as he stumbled backward into the bouncing coach. He tried to drag her with him. She pried at his clawing fingers. Her heart raced, thinking about Tom being outgunned.

  “I’ve had enough of you bastards.” Bracing her hands on the door frame, she kicked the man in the chest, sending him hard into the side of the mounted Gatling gun, then to the metal floor.

  Her boots slipped on the edge of the coach as she tried to regain her footing. The ground was a rush of rocks and dirt below her. Trees blurred past. The coach sped down the road out of town, tetrol engine whining. Jumping would kill her.

  From the look on the soldier’s face and the muttered German curses, he wanted to kill her, too. Drawing her pistol was awkward as she teetered in the doorway. Her gun was halfway out when the man launched himself at her. She pulled the trigger but it was too late. The shot hit the ground as the man drove his shoulder into her chest.