by Barry Reese
But it wasn't any of those things that made every single person in Hunter's Notch know trouble had come to town. It was the way they moved. They walked like mountain lions, like cougars stalking the plains in search of fresh meat. They walked like hunters... like more than hunters.
The rumors started spreading like a brushfire. They tried to be sly at first, asking casual-like about the Doc, playing off that they were old friends. They didn't fool me, and I ran to warn my dad and Doc Thunder. They were back in the shed, talking to Mr. Wallingford.
“Doctor Thunder, you gotta hide – they're coming for you! They're gon' kill you! You gotta run!”
The big scientist kneeled down and grasped my arm. He looked right in my eyes. “Regulators?”
I nodded. He glanced up toward Mr. Wallingford.
Mr. Wallingford nodded. “The deal is set, Doctor.”
Doctor Thunder stood up. He rubbed his hands together and glanced toward pa. “You think the ol' girl can still go, Horace?”
“And then some, Elias.”
He turned his attention back to me and tousled my hair. “Why don't you help me back in my traveling togs, Daniel? I'll take the Steamer and lead these roughnecks out of here so no one gets hurt.”
“Now wait a minute,” my dad said, putting down his wrench. He planted a finger in Doc's chest. “You're not gonna martyr yourself for us, Doc. I don't let my friends go into a fight I got a horse in.”
“This is my fight, Horace,” Doc said quietly.
“Yeah... a fight against a man I got some issues with.” For a second I worried pa might hit him, but his voice grew soft as well. “I believe in what you're doing, Elias. And I won't let you face this alone.”
“But you have a son—”
I knew I shouldn't have said anything. I knew what it meant for pa to have Doc around, and what he seemed to do for us both. I knew that my pa would expect me to stand up for what's right, and to stand up for myself.
So what I said was, trying my best to sound brave, “I wanna help, too.”
“He's a good boy,” my pa added. “Good shot. Taught him myself.”
Doc stroked his chin, squinted, and stared at me just long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. “A good shot, you say?”
“The best!” I answered, not even bothering to hide the enthusiasm in my voice.
“Then you better put on some extra shirts and grab your rifle, son,” Doc said. “We're gonna lead these killers to their just rewards.”
I ran to my room and pulled out a couple of flannel shirts and my longjohns. As I was hurriedly putting them on, not even caring to make sure all the buttons lined up, my blood was roaring. There was a fluttering in my belly like a million flies buzzing there. I knew many people – many people right here in Hunter's Notch – would think it was fear, but I knew better.
It was excitement.
When I ran out to meet Doc, he already had the Steamer firing up. It hissed like a hundred snakes, heralding a twisting stream of steam. Julia Neimann stood next to him, a big shawl wrapped around her, only a few strands of her rusty hair peeking out from under the fabric. I couldn't tell you what Doc was saying to my pretty neighbor, but I could tell you what the look on his face meant. He was smitten with her something fierce.
As I ran up to meet Doc, he laughed. I know a lot of people who would think his laughing at such a terrible time would mean he was a bit crazy. But I'd spent enough time with him to realize he was laughing to keep all our spirits up, to keep us from being nervous or scared given what was coming our way.
“There's my protector. Climb on board, son.”
Julia helped me onto the back of the long saddle. Her skin was hot to the touch. “You best keep each other safe, you hear?” she said, smiling. I was struck for the first time with how her grin seemed to chase away the shadows.
“I'll do my best... promise!”
We watched Julia fast-walk away. She had a skip in her step that tossed up little clouds of dust.
“Judging from the time past, those guns are most likely getting themselves settled,” Doc told me as he adjusted the controls – pulling on a lever here, checking a gauge there. “If we catch them soon enough, we'd have a good head start. We want to lead them to that ravine due north—”
“Cross Creek,” I blurted out.
“That's right. Your dad will be there, hopefully with some friends of ours. Keep shooting at them, distracting them so they won't have a chance to think straight. They can't focus, we get to lead them, right?”
“Right!” I chambered a bullet in my rifle.
“And Daniel?
“You are not to shoot the horses, understand? Those animals didn't choose who rode them, and they shouldn't be penalized because of it.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He reached to the left and pulled back on a lever, prompting a big hiss of steam and a clanking of gears. “Alright... hold on.”
It's probably hard for you to understand, given how fast the world has changed since then, what it was like for a twelve year old me to be on that motorbike. There was a lurch as everything seemed to speed up at once, my house just receded into the distance faster than I ever thought it could. I felt the bite of gravel and dust as it got caught underneath my jeans, and the wind roared in my ears. Even sitting a little back from the big central chimney, I could feel the heat coming off of it, like I was facing the gateway to Hell itself. And through all this, I fancied I could see things clearer than I ever had, that everything around me was standing stock still for me to examine.
“They're railroad horses, so they're probably used to the racket,” Doc shouted over the all-fired hissing. He made a big circle and headed toward the main part of town. “You're going to have to be creative in raising a ruckus, son.”
“I can do that!”
See, I knew a lot of the horses around Hunter's Notch. I knew that even if the Regulators' horses got used to the noise and steam and commotion the Thunder Steamer made, the town horses wouldn't know what in God's name was roaring down the streets. And just to be sure, I shot a few of the troughs – not the ones the horses were drinking out of, but the small explosions of water caused by my shooting and the way the trough started leaking was enough to spook some of them. I saw a few horses rearing up and panicking, whinnying to beat the band.
As we headed out of town, I caught sight of a trio of shady-looking fellas rushing out of Mr. McMichael's saloon. One of them had to struggle with the roan stallion he unhooked from the hitching post. The other two managed to saddle up and urged the stallions on in pursuit.
Still, we had a head start. The Steamer was snorting out gouts of steam like a demon, but I could still see this pair coming closer, hazy shapes in the gouts of steams. I heard the whiz of bullets around me, the Regulators' aim thrown off by the exhaust. Doc dug into the bucket lashed to the side of his seat with his spade and dumped fresh coal into the intake chute. He pushed the left-hand pedal down as far as it would go, and the Steamer roared into renewed life.
I fired two more shots to either side of the hazy shapes. To my relief, one seemed to rear up as I struggled to reload.
“This is hard!” I called out to my pa's friend.
“You're doing fine, boy! Just keep them occupied!”
I concentrated hard on sliding those bullets into the stock; I had only so many bullets, and losing even one of them would serve to lessen our chances of survival. I felt the dust and grime on my skin, sliding in through the sleeves and pants legs, and I thought to myself how I'd have to wash for a week to get all of it off. One of the bullets from the regulators spanged off the top of the exhaust, and I was grateful it wasn't a half-inch closer.
Priming my rifle again, I took aim and fired. I prayed silently that all the noise and fog weren't throwing off my aim; truth was, I didn't want to hurt any horses either. Little explosions in front of the animals caused them a little skittishness, but these were well trained mounts. I could imagine how they were used to
gunfire by now, being the property of men who dealt in death.
We moved through the brush, the Steamer kicking up so much dust. “It's hard figuring out where to shoot!” I shouted.
“You're doing fine, Danny. We're almost there!”
“I sure hope so!”
Doc had already shoveled more coal into the stove, and the exhaust was getting so hot I feared I was set to be scalded – if the heat didn't set off the remaining bullets I had on me first. I felt my stomach lurching every time we hit a rough patch, and I wondered how people were ever gonna get used to riding like this.
Another volley of shots whizzed all around us as Doc banked left toward the downgrade that led toward the creek. Knowing we had some more cover, I reloaded again. By touch, it looked like I had one round left after this.
“I think I see it up ahea—”
Doc's booming voice was interrupted by the sound of a bullet piercing the exhaust. I pulled back to avoid getting the worst of it, but I still got a faceful of steam. The Steamer wobbled, veering from side to side as Doc struggled to regain control. I wanted so badly to scream, but I refused to. Doc was pa's friend, and he needed me. My vision was blurred, but the shapes behind us were getting larger and larger.
“We can still make it,” Doc insisted. “Just got to hold out a while longer.”
The shapes were growing. My vision was slowly returning, but I was afraid it wasn't going to return soon enough. Those dark shapes were threatening to fill my sight, meaning the Regulators were almost on us.
We needed a little more time. And I knew what I had to do.
I tried my best to memorize what that shape looked like.
I closed my eyes.
I raised my gun.
And I fired.
There was a whinny, followed by what sounded like a sack of potatoes falling to the ground. One set of hooves seemed to pull away. I kept that image in my mind of those dark, terrible shapes and moved my rifle a few tics to the left.
Once more I fired. This time I got a scream, half of pain, and half of surprise. “Dang it! Get out the way, Claude!” another voice roared.
More shots were fired. There was a little explosion, and the Steamer went out of control, wobbling and weaving crazily. I felt two strong arms enfold me and pull me to the ground hard, water splashing on my back and side. The hissing increased. My face was now throbbing with dull pain.
“You did good,” Doc whispered in my ear. “Just be brave a little longer, and we'll be fine.”
I tried opening my eyes. My vision was still blurry, but I could figure out what was coming forward heralded by the sound of hooves.
“You gave us a good chase, you fancy-pants weasel,” the man on the horse said with barely contained rage, his voice the sound of rocks grinding together. “Killed one of my men, wounded another. Using some gullible hayseed to do me dirty. No one's gonna argue you didn't deserve to be shot like a dog.”
Doc helped me up slowly. “No one's going to argue why you're going to hang soon enough.”
The Regulator on the horse laughed. I could make out vague details, but he still looked like a shadow to me, the devil's gunslinger come to drag both of us to Hell. “I don't see anyone aiming to arrest me, do you?”
I wanted to shrink away, try to hide from what to my mind was inevitable. But I wouldn't allow that to happen. I stood as tall as I could and looked the regulator right in his cold, steel grey eyes. “You can't kill someone for an idea!”
“I've killed people for less.”
“Your boss could have revolutionized cross country travel,” Doc Thunder said accusingly. “He could have been hailed as the man who made this country even smaller!”
“And what – make his railways obsolete?” the regulator sneered. He pulled his pistol. “He don't need people being able to get where they need to go any faster... yeah, we could have just wrecked your toy, Doc, but you still could get it in your head to rebuild it, and we can't have that. It's just a shame this little brat you chose to hide behind has to die along with you.”
The regulator took aim and pulled back the hammer. I closed my eyes yet again – this time not because I had to, but because I didn't want to see the bullet coming. The pain all over my face was getting sharper, but I figured I wouldn't have to suffer much longer.
And Doc... he laughed.
“You there, Captain?”
And a new sound rent the air – the sound of a dozen rifles being primed. “Sure am.”
I opened my eyes again. The regulator was looking around, and there was something new in those cold, grey eyes of his.
Fear. Fear from being surrounded by a number of cavalry riders, all training their rifles on him. I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder to compliment Doc's on the other one... my pa's.
“Heard enough?” Doc asked.
“More than enough,” one of the soldiers, a man with a magnificent mane of long hair and a well-trimmed mustache and beard replied. He stepped down from his vantage point near the top of the downgrade, followed by three of his men.
My father looked down at me. “You alright, Daniel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You did good, boy.”
The next day, the captain sat down to dinner with us. It turns out that the envelope I gave Jed Wallingford was for the Army outpost outside Tulsa, outlining the situation and putting forth an odd proposal for the United States government. The captain of that outpost, a man by the name of Uriah George, cabled the news of the Thunder Steamer to Washington, along with an offer to develop a military version of it in exchange for protection, funding, and the patents for a civilian version.
“Of course the White House is very interested in your deal, Doctor Thunder,” Captain George told my pa and Doc over brandy. “And I will personally tell the War Department of my impressions of your fabulous device once I return to Tulsa. We'll set you up with a workshop there to—”
Doc raised his hand. He had dressed up for this occasion, commissioning a suit from Julia Neimann's father, and he looked a damn sight different from when he first roared into our lives. “Now hold on a minute there, Captain. The Steamer you saw couldn't possibly have worked as well as it did without the help of Mr. Wilde here and his son. Why, at this point Horace knows the mechanisms of my work as well as any man alive, and that includes me.”
“We could relocate the lot of you.”
The Doc shook his head. “I was thinking that until we perfected The Steamer and got her ready for mass production, it would be best for me to work quietly, out of the public eye. Tulsa's a growing city, after all, and I'd be bound to attract attention. Now if I worked out here, in this small town...”
“No one would suspect.” The Captain took a drink of brandy. “I can understand the good sense in that. It's highly unusual, but I might be able to get the Secretary of War to sign off on it.”
“Good, good,” Doc said with a smile, “And – on a personal level, Captain... since this will put some inconvenience on you, seeing as how you'll be shuttling back and forth to keep an eye on us... if you learn of any unsavory situations in this or adjoining territories, my young friend and I would be glad to look in on it.”
My eyes must've gotten saucer-wide. “Me?”
“Certainly, Daniel. We're a team – you, me, and your father, yes?”
I tried to hide the pride I felt. “You bet.”
“You gunning to be on the cover of a dime novel, Doctor Thunder?”
“Not at all,” the big redheaded scientist told Captain George. “I want to do this for the same reason I want to perfect the Thunder Steamer... to help my fellow man.”
And help we did... many times. Thereafter, every time the town of Hunter's Notch heard dual thunder rolling across the plains, they knew the Thunder Riders were on the hunt again.
WALKER ON THE WIND
by Desmond Reddick
From the journal of Douglas Walton, Constable in her Majesty’s North-West Mounted Police
Sep
tember 21st, 1903
Cape Fullerton, Northwest Territories
The wind cuts here. It blinds you and threatens to throw you into the air if you don’t stand firm. The tent is secured as strong as can be, but it shakes violently almost without rest.
Constable Martin and I will have to build a barracks before too long, not only in preparation for our colleagues to join us, but to bolster our survival out here. The land is desolate and unforgiving. The weather is not unlike the passes through the Rocky Mountains, but it is flat. On one side, ice as far as one can see, and on the other, the great sprawling Hudson’s Bay. The solitude is heavily felt, but almost welcome after several years out west. There, we faced weekly struggles for survival – the Americans trying to take the government’s share of gold back over the border with them had to be stopped constantly. Not to mention the horrible massacre at Battle Creek. Here, the only struggle to survive is against the elements. We can handle that, I think.
The Eskimo people are cautious and have given no sign of aggression. They keep their distance, but perhaps soon they will come to see us as a positive influence up here. Our job, partially anyway, is to enforce whaling licenses and keep order. We are here to protect them as much as we are to protect our borders. They will see that eventually.
They are not the problem; it is those who come here and wreak havoc that need to be watched. All things living up here – Eskimo and animal alike – must be hardy to survive. We need only to stay away from hungry polar bears and keep warm to do well. There is nothing else but legends of vengeful ghosts. I believe none of it; the wind can cause people to come up with the most ridiculous of bogeymen.
For now, my colleague and I need to collect supplies and scrap to help with the construction of a barracks. There will be a lot of work to do before settling in to routine, but surely within the month, we should have much more comfortable living arrangements.