Night of Fire

by Nico Rosso

  Fingers like iron wrapped around her wrist. She and the soldier both slid precariously in the doorway. He continued growling in German as she tried to bring the gun around toward him.

  She growled back. “Goddamn you. We beat you. Why don’t you just die?”

  It was time to end this fight. She stomped the heel of her boot into the top of his foot. He grunted, wincing, and slammed her hand against the metal side of the coach. Pain shot up her arm like red lightning. The pistol sprang from her grip and got caught up in the spinning rear wheel of the coach. She was jerked to the side as the gun was ripped from the lanyard.

  Being off balance, she was the perfect target for the soldier. He shoved her body, trying to make her follow her pistol into the whirling iron wheel. She braced herself with one hand against the door frame. The other hand gripped the edge of the roof.

  “I told you to die.” Coiling her body, she brought her knee up hard into his jaw. The soldier’s head snapped back, and he fell away into the coach.

  Wind tugged at her. Nearby branches nearly whipped her off the side. She fought the bumpy ride and pulled herself up to the roof of the speeding iron coach. Behind her, Thornville shrank. The destroyed mining machine sent a column of smoke into the air, but it didn’t feel like much of a victory anymore.

  “Where the hell are you, Tom? You’d better be all right.” He couldn’t hear her hissed whisper, but maybe it would ride the wind toward town.

  It felt like a giant bird of prey was swooping down on her. She turned toward the front of the coach just in time to see a thick tree branch quickly approaching. A hard dive took her to the roof and the branch swept over her.

  Dry leaves clung to her hair and she brushed them out as she collected herself into a low crouch. The driver still hadn’t noticed her. He wasn’t one of the armored Whisperers, but he did wear an ether pistol on his hip. Her only chance was to get to him before he turned around. As soon as this fight was over, she promised herself, she would buy a nice two-shot derringer for her boot.

  No time for hesitating. Every second took her further away from Tom and the fix he was in. She made one step toward the driver when the soldier from inside the coach hauled himself up on the roof with her. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and sneered.

  The driver finally turned and saw Rosa. His body stiffened with shock. He drew his pistol. One hand on the gun, the other on the steering lever, the driver split his attention between the path ahead and the fight she was about to get into with the very angry-looking soldier.

  “SON OF A bitch,” Tom growled. Rosa was gone. Snatched away like a rabbit in the teeth of a mountain lion. A fast, iron-clad lion with metal-studded wheels. He’d never catch her on foot.

  The Sky Charger should still be just on the other side of the canning building. He turned to run and bit down on another curse. Three Whisperers converged on him. There was no time to unsling his rifle.

  “You ain’t getting between me and Rosa.” It didn’t matter if they could hear him or understand his language. His revolver would tell the real story.

  One Whisperer stopped running and twitched his gun toward Tom. The Rattler slid easily from its holster. He was faster than the Hapsburg soldier. From the hip, Tom pulled the secondary trigger and fired a shotgun shell.

  The Whisperer fell. The remaining two didn’t seem too eager to join him. They fanned out, hands poised over their ether pistols. Tom’s pulse raced. How far was Rosa by now? How many men were in that coach? How many men was he going to have to kill to get to her?

  These two Hapsburgs stood too far apart. He could get one, but the other would fire before he could swing his pistol around.

  “I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait for you two to decide which of you dies first.”

  He fired at the man on his left and dove forward, rolling onto the ground. The bullet creased the Whisperer’s side. The man staggered, pawing at his gun but not able to pull it. But the other soldier did draw. His shot pierced where Tom had stood.

  Tom came out of his roll firing. He shot a bullet and a shotgun blast into the second Whisperer. The soldier wasn’t even on the ground when Tom turned on the other Hapsburg and emptied his last shotgun barrel into him.

  Gunsmoke swirled around Tom as he sprinted toward the canning building. Behind it, Rosa’s parents stood tensely with Whisperer shotguns in their hands.

  Tom barked at them like they were shavetail privates. “You fuel it and water it?”

  “Sí,” her father answered. “Yes. Sí.”

  Her mother looked over Tom’s shoulder with worried eyes. “Where is she?”

  He couldn’t answer. The words caught in his throat. There was no explaining, no time at all. All he knew was that he had to find her. He mounted the charger, bringing it into the air as he fired up the engine. As soon as the turbine turned, he kicked the lever for the fastest speed.

  But the damn ether tank still struggled. The catalyst rattled like an old skeleton. As his velocity increased, the charger sank lower. It was agonizing, but he had to throttle back. Otherwise, he’d be digging a trench in the dirt trail, rather than skimming five feet above it.

  “Come on. Come on. Get me to her.” He leaned close to the charger’s head, letting the wind whip around him. The machine had no ears, but it didn’t matter. He even slapped the side of the metal neck with the reins.

  The town was long behind him but there was no sign of the coach or Rosa on the road. A hill rose ahead of him. He sped up the side, only two feet off the ground. When he reached the top, he used the momentum to soar higher into the air.

  Cold danger iced his back, replaced by the heat of purpose. He saw her. She stood on the top of the speeding coach. A tree branch rushed toward her and she dove to the roof just in time.

  His muscles tensed, as if he was there with her, as if he could just reach out and lift her away to safety. But he was more than one hundred yards away.

  Tom went into a dive on the charger, angling his descent so he’d catch the coach as it climbed the next hill. She had to hold on that long. She had to.

  Rosa stalked toward the driver.

  “That’s right,” Tom muttered between clenched teeth. “Get him. Throw that bastard from the top.”

  A soldier from inside the coach climbed onto the roof with her. Tom burned to go faster. If he could get his hands on that man, he’d crush the life out of him before he could touch Rosa. The danger escalated when the driver turned, seeing her and drawing his pistol.

  Thirty yards. The Rattler was steady in Tom’s hand, but it was too far a shot for the short barrel. If he missed the Hapsburgs, he could hit Rosa.

  The soldier on top with her launched into an attack. Tom always knew she was the devil of a woman. This day had proved that. She had fought with enough determination to stop a three- story mining machine. And now he got to witness her bring a living hell to the man in front of her.

  While the man swung his fists wildly, she sneered and kicked him on the inside of his knee. He buckled. She followed up with a hard punch to his face. It wasn’t enough to knock him out. The soldier pushed forward and tackled her onto the roof.

  Tom’s gut clenched. Twenty yards. Ten. Rosa rolled with the soldier. The son of a bitch tried to throw her from the roof, but she shifted her weight, taking them back to the middle.

  More speed meant less height, so Tom could only fly closer in agonizing increments. He was coming along the right side of the speeding coach when three shots rang out. The driver had spotted him.

  Weaving in the air, Tom felt the shots burn past. He also felt Rosa’s eyes on him. She and the soldier had frozen their fight for a moment. Great relief showed in her face, and Tom felt he could fly to her even without the charger. There was nothing sentimental in the look from the soldier. Pure hate.

  Tom shared the emotion.

 
The driver seemed to hesitate, trying to figure out whether Rosa or Tom should be his next target. Tom wasn’t going to let him make the decision. Two quick shots from the Rattler found their mark in the driver’s body. The man pitched forward, firing his own gun into the coach’s controls. Metal shattered and ground—the sickly sounds of a machine that wasn’t going to work right anymore.

  Bellowing in outrage, the soldier redoubled his efforts to throw Rosa from the roof. The path was straight for a while ahead of the coach, but with a dead driver slumped over the controls, any hazard on the road would be a disaster for Rosa.

  She fought the soldier off, kicking him in the gut and the hip until the two of them separated. They got to their feet and circled, too close for Tom to get off a shot.

  He called to her, only about ten feet from the side of the coach. “Ain’t got time for you to be dancing with another man.”

  “I’d rather be dancing with you.”

  The soldier split his attention between Rosa and Tom. He bled from his lip, his eyebrow. Didn’t look like he wanted to take another beating from Rosa. Instead he slid to the side of the coach and swung down through the open side door.

  Rosa rushed to the controls, pushing the driver aside to take his seat. But nothing worked. She jammed the pedals and levers, and still the coach bounced at a breakneck pace along the path.

  “He shot the controls,” Tom explained.

  “Well how the hell am I . . . ?”

  He extended his hand toward her from the charger. They were only about eight feet apart.

  “Jump it.”

  She shook her head. “Fly up here and get me.”

  “No lift. Keeping this pace, this is as high as I get.”

  Movement inside the coach tightened his clock springs. The soldier shifted the Gatling gun’s mount. The barrels receded from the front firing slot. Holy hell, he could aim the gun out the side door, right at Tom.

  And then Rosa would die, too. Either falling off the coach or crushed in a terrible wreck.

  He waved her toward him with one hand, forcing the words out as he felt the tension like a noose. “Rosa. Rosa, I love you.”

  She stood stunned. “Why are you telling me that now?”

  The stick of dynamite in his other hand was the answer. He pulled a match from a pouch on his belt and lit the fuse.

  Two quick steps took her to the edge of the coach, then she leapt. Tom caught her with one arm. She wrapped herself around him. It felt like he took the first breath of his life, having her back with him.

  She eyed the lit dynamite in his hand. “A romantic man would’ve brought flowers.”

  “Well he ain’t gonna start shooting chocolate bonbons at us.”

  The nose of the Gatling gun poked out of the side door. Tom swung the charger close for a second and tossed the TNT into the coach. Rosa tightened her grip on him and he yanked on the reins. As the charger slowed, the coach sped away.

  A flash of light burst within the iron coach. The metal bulged and split, pushed out by the explosion. The wheels sprang free and sped ahead as the twisted body of the coach tumbled forward in a rooster tail of smoke and fire. A final screech and the iron carcass came to a stop, smoldering on the dirt trail.

  Tom brought the charger to rest on the ground, and he and Rosa dismounted to catch their breath. A fresh quiet surrounded them. No gunshots or explosions. Just the wind in the oak leaves.

  And Rosa in his arms to tell him the world was still worth living in. He gripped her tight, and she did the same. They were both battered from the fight. A bruise darkened the corner of her cheek. Hot iron seared at his shoulder, and he remembered that he’d been grazed there by an ether bullet.

  But hell if all that didn’t matter.

  She gave his hip a little shove. “You owe me a bottle of good tequila. I got more soldiers than you did.”

  “I got more. And I want my bottle of applejack.”

  “How about we buy each other a bottle and call it even?”

  “That’s a deal.”

  Sunlight showed all the rich brown of her eyes. Their depth was unimaginable. He wanted to dive in. Her mouth moved, but she didn’t speak. A little smile, and then she did speak.

  “I love you, too.”

  More than any ether tank, more than any modern invention, he was lifted up by the words and the strength of this woman before him. “But we’re out of dynamite.”

  The kiss drew him tighter to her. He felt every pulse of his blood through his body, and every place where she was pressed close. They pulled apart and stood holding each other. He unwound his hands from her and tugged at the hammered shell casing around his left ring finger. It slipped over his knuckles, and he didn’t miss it. The ring clinked dully into one of the leather pouches on his belt.

  She kissed him again, quick, then licked her lips like a hungry predator. “There’s plenty of dynamite.”

  Chapter Ten

  THE HONEST SOUND of hammer against nails rang through Thornville. Fresh-cut wood smelled like progress and healing. With Parker as gang boss, the half-eaten telegraph office had been finished in record time. Now every able body worked on repairing the blacksmith’s and farrier’s buildings. The stable could wait, and a temporary corral held the horses, who watched the work with passing interest.

  Rosa stood in the middle of the street, watching the town come back to life. Behind her, the corner of the canning building that had been damaged was getting a new coat of paint. The blackened wood of the mining machine had been cleared out as soon as it had stopped burning. But there were still genuine Crandall men sifting through the area for anything salvageable.

  They cast furtive glances at Rosa, gun-shy of approaching lest they got another tongue-lashing like the one she gave them when they’d first shown up. Idiot corporate men who couldn’t keep their equipment properly guarded during a war. They insisted it would never happen again. Tom explained that if it did, every Crandall man would be considered a traitor to his country and dealt with appropriately. Looking from the stripes on his uniform to the star on her vest, the mining men shrank away.

  And then Tom had to go away. It hadn’t even taken twenty-four hours after he’d returned as a soldier for him to make himself indispensable in her life. Not just in the battle with the Hapsburg saboteurs. But he fit just right next to her. They’d both grown to the point where they complemented each other’s strengths. She could never question his loyalty again. His dedication to her was like a campfire and a blanket over her shoulders on a cold night. And a Winchester across her lap.

  The chill had crept into her nights after he left this time. It was only a couple of days after the fight with the Hapsburgs, shorter than his leave should’ve been. But he said the Army had to know. The enemy might try the same thing somewhere else. This was no excuse to run. She saw in his eyes how much he wanted to stay. He didn’t sneak away like before. Instead, he flew boldly off on his Sky Charger in broad daylight.

  A shadow skimmed along the ground, and she shaded her eyes to look in the sky. Tom rode down from forty feet above her, relaxed in the saddle and looking crisp in a new uniform. But she knew polished buttons and a stripe down the side of his thigh couldn’t completely tame him. Dios, his wild side was all hers. His arrival breathed new life into her. It felt like she could soar into the air to meet him twenty feet over the ground.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” he called down, pinching his brim, a wicked little smile on his face.

  “Sergeant.”

  Shaking his head, he pointed to the new patches on his shoulder. “Second Lieutenant.”

  As he flew closer the smell of roasting carrots reminded her of when they flew back to Thornville after her wild iron coach ride. It seemed then as if her heart would never stop pounding. But that might’ve been Tom’s doing, not the crashing death she’d avoided.

  Coming in high, th
ey had seen the burning ruin of the mining machine and the splintered remains of the buildings it had destroyed. Her parents and some others had surrounded the surviving Hapsburg soldiers, containing them with their own guns. Parker had saddled the fastest horse to ride to the closest authorities.

  Once the fires had been put out and the soldiers had been tied up and secured in a barn, she and Tom had walked together to Francis’s saloon. The bottle of tequila was on the house.

  She was brought back to the present as Tom landed near her and dismounted, stretching his legs. He untied his saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder. But as he walked toward her, a new worry tightened her ribs.

  “A promotion,” she said. “Does that mean they’re giving you a platoon of men to command at the front?”

  “Nope.” He took off his hat and ran his hand through his short blond hair. “It means they’re giving me a territory.”

  The smile grew on his face. Bold in broad daylight, he wound his arms around her waist. No doubt the town was watching. Including her parents. Rosa was the sheriff. She did what she wanted.

  She kissed Tom, and he kissed her back.

  When they pulled apart, he indicated a small metal insignia pinned on his collar. “You’re looking at the very first Upland Ranger in the Home Guard division. Top brass started it up on my recommendation.” He gazed over the town and the hills that surrounded it. “It’s my duty to keep the home front safe from any more enemy attacks. And . . .” His hand gripped hers. “I get to work closely with local authorities in my territory.”

  She hoped the top brass knew what was good for them. “Which includes Thornville.”

  “Bet your ass it does. I made sure of that. No way I’m fighting the enemies of our country without you at my side.”

  It sounded right, the two of them protecting the land. “They have you barracked in San Luis?” They started walking down the street, toward her sheriff’s office.