Rising Fire

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Curly glared at his companion even though he couldn’t see Childers hardly at all in the thick shadows under the trestle, and Childers couldn’t see him.

  “Did you just make a joke?” he demanded. “I don’t recollect you ever makin’ a joke before, Childers. And as far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to make a doggoned habit of it.” Curly paced back and forth. “Ain’t it time for that blasted train to be gettin’ here?”

  “Should be along soon,” Childers said, as imperturbable as ever. “Too bad we didn’t have time to pay a visit to Foley’s place. I’ve heard that the girls he’s got working there are pretty good.”

  Oscar Foley ran the lone business in Stinking Gulch, or rather, ran the saloon and whorehouse side of it while his wife ran the store. Foley had four soiled doves working for him—a Chinese gal who claimed she was a princess back in her homeland, a sullen half-breed, and two sisters who’d decided they would rather do anything than grueling labor on their pa’s farm back in Kansas and seemingly had set out to prove it.

  The girls had a pretty easy time of it except when a ranch crew showed up with a herd to be shipped back East. Then they were mighty busy for a night or two. Because of that relative ease, they had survived in a profession that tended to chew up girls and spit them out on a pretty regular basis.

  “Yeah, that would’ve been nice,” Curly agreed with the other outlaw’s comment. “I came through these parts a few years ago and stopped for a night at Foley’s. Not bad at all, and I hear the same gals are still there. But I reckon stoppin’ that train and takin’ whatever’s in the express car safe is more important than a little slap and tickle with some dove.”

  Childers snorted. “That’s easy for you to say.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean you got Juliana, while the rest of us are pretty much high and dry.”

  “Juliana’s Alden’s girl!”

  “Yeah, but he don’t mind if you have a go at her now and then, and neither does she. None of the rest of us are allowed that privilege, even though she used to tumble into bed with whoever had the price in his pocket.”

  “Don’t you go talkin’ like that about her,” Curly warned. “She don’t take kindly to it.”

  “You jape at her about it.”

  “That’s different. Her and me are old friends.”

  “I reckon you could call it that,” Childers drawled.

  Curly said, “You know the real reason you ought to watch your mouth? Because if you get Juliana’s dander up, you know what she’s liable to do. She shot that marshal up in Harkerville when he wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but standin’ there gawpin’ at her!”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Childers admitted. “Anyway, there’s plenty of other whorehouses in the world besides Foley’s.”

  “You’re right about that.” Curly lifted his head and looked around. “Hey! Has it stopped rainin’?”

  “You know, I believe it has.”

  And as if that were the cue for which it had been waiting, the wail of a train whistle drifted through the night to the ears of the two men.

  * * *

  The flags that signaled the train to stop were mounted on posts located beside the tracks two miles out on either side of the settlement. That distance gave the locomotive room to stop once the engineer spotted the signal.

  Alden Simms and Juliana Montero sat on horseback fifty yards from the tracks. A few minutes earlier, when they had spotted the train’s headlight in the distance, Juliana had ridden up to the signal and raised the flag, then returned to Alden’s side. They watched now as the locomotive rolled past. The engineer blew the whistle to announce the train’s arrival, and they heard the squeal of the brakes as they engaged, too.

  Both of them still wore slickers even though the rain had stopped a couple of minutes earlier. A few drops still dripped from their hat brims. They were far enough back from the rails that they knew nobody on the train would have spotted them.

  “The engineer’s going to be pretty puzzled why the flag’s up at night like this,” Juliana said. “They wouldn’t be loading cattle on a westbound, anyway.”

  “No, but from time to time some important person might want to get on here,” Alden pointed out. “There are some big spreads in this area, and those cattle barons don’t like to be kept waiting. Anyway, the regulations say they stop when the signal flag is up. That’s what they’re going to do.”

  “We can hope so, anyway.” Juliana lifted her reins and turned her horse. “We’d better get moving if we’re going to get there by the time the train stops.”

  “I know.” Alden nudged his mount into motion as well. They ran their horses at a fast lope toward Stinking Gulch.

  This was the first job the gang had pulled since the bank robbery at Harkerville a week earlier, which had netted them just more than ten thousand dollars and had gone off without any more hitches after Juliana gunned down the marshal who’d been one of her old customers. After that killing, everybody in Harkerville had scrambled into their holes like frightened rabbits.

  Normally they would wait longer before striking again, but Alden was getting impatient. That was why they were changing things up and hitting a train this time instead of a bank. Sometimes trains carried a lot of money in their express cars. He had heard tell of holdups that paid off to the tune of thirty or forty thousand dollars. If they could get their hands on that much loot, he could put the owlhoot trail behind him and head for San Francisco to live out his days. He hoped Juliana would come with him, but that was up to her.

  If things didn’t work out that well with this job, the gang would push on into Colorado and hunt up some banks there. Alden was eager to be a respectable citizen instead of a robber and murderer, but he was also willing to be patient if he had to be. For a while, anyway.

  The lights of the train were visible off to the left as it slowed down. Alden and Juliana were moving faster than the locomotive now, so they drew even with it by the time it reached the settlement. The train was barely moving as the big Baldwin locomotive rolled past the cattle pens.

  Hamilton, Britt, Dumont, and Billy Ray had been waiting in the saloon all evening, but if they had followed the plan, they would have left the place and mounted up as soon as they heard the train whistle. Alden had confidence in them, but to tell the truth, their part in the plan was the least important. That was why he and Juliana had handled the signal flag themselves and why Curly and Childers were in charge of dynamiting the trestle. Alden trusted those two more than he trusted any of the others except Juliana.

  Alden spotted four moving figures on horseback in the light that spilled from Foley’s. They rode toward the locomotive, whooping and shooting. The train lurched forward as the engineer realized it was a holdup and leaned on the throttle, but the train was going so slow now that it would take quite a while to work up any speed.

  Alden didn’t intend to give his quarry that much time.

  He and Juliana veered their horses toward the first passenger car, right behind the tender. As they drew alongside the platform at the rear of the car, Alden reached over and grabbed the railing, then kicked loose from the stirrups and swung from saddle to steps. He pulled himself up, turned, and held out a hand to Juliana, but as usual, her independent streak made her ignore the offer of help and swing up onto the platform on her own.

  “All right?” he called to her over the clatter of the rails.

  She jerked her head in a nod.

  They both drew their guns and plunged into the car, heading up the aisle toward the front. Lanterns burned at front and back, but the light was dim. The passengers realized something was going on, though. A few women cried out, a man shouted a question while another man cursed, and a young cowboy stood up and jumped into the aisle, facing Alden and Juliana and blocking their path.

  “Hey!” the cowboy yelled. “What’re you—”

  Alden didn’t let him get any further than that. The gun in his fist roared and bucked, and
the cowboy slapped his left hand to his chest as he cried out in pain. Blood welled between his splayed fingers. With his right hand, he fumbled at the holstered pistol on his hip. Alden shot him again, this time in the forehead. The man’s head snapped back, and he collapsed as his knees buckled. Alden kicked him out of the way as he fell.

  The shots were deafening in the close confines of the railroad car. Terrified screams from some of the female passengers added to the din. Another passenger, probably a salesman from the looks of his clothes, managed to draw a small pistol from under his coat, but Juliana shot him between the eyes before he could even lift the weapon. His derby hat flew off his head, and blood and brains painted the window behind the man as he fell back onto the bench where he’d been sitting.

  Juliana turned, swept her gun from left to right, and triggered three more shots as quickly as she could, not caring if she hit anything. She just wanted the rest of the passengers cowering on the floor and wetting themselves in terror, so that they wouldn’t cause any trouble behind her and Alden.

  Then the two of them were out of the car and Alden began using the grab irons to climb onto the tender while Juliana guarded his back. Once he was up there, he watched over her while she joined him.

  The train was still moving slowly enough that a man walking fairly fast could have kept up with it. The four outlaws on horseback had peeled off. Up in the cab, the engineer and the fireman probably thought they had avoided the trap and were going to get away. The sound of the wheels changed as the locomotive crawled out onto the trestle over the gulch.

  Moving carefully over the coal piled in the tender, Alden and Juliana saw the sudden blossom of flame in the darkness up ahead. Even over the locomotive’s rumble, they had heard the heavy thump of the explosion. The engineer had to know the far end of the trestle had just been blown to kingdom come.

  There was nothing he could do except haul back on the Johnson bar and pray the locomotive could stop in time.

  Alden threw his arms out to the side to help him keep his balance while the train jerked underneath his feet. Once it steadied and continued skidding forward while the brakes screamed, he hurried ahead with Juliana right behind him. They took the engineer and fireman completely by surprise as they leaped down into the cab.

  The engineer flung his hands up as he whirled toward them. The fireman tried to fight back, though, swinging his shovel at Alden’s head. Juliana drilled him before the blow could fall. The fireman dropped the shovel and doubled over as the bullet tore into his guts. He toppled backward out of the cab with a strangled cry.

  “Mister, we’re gonna go over!” the engineer yelled as his eyes bulged with fear.

  “No, we’re not,” Alden said as he covered the man. “I calculated the speed and distance. We’ll stop with twenty feet to spare.”

  He was wrong about that. When somebody measured later, it was exactly eighteen feet and seven inches from the tip of the cowcatcher to the edge of the hole Curly and Childers had blown in the trestle.

  But it didn’t matter, because by that time the gang had taken over the train completely, robbed all the passengers, gunned down two more men who unwisely put up a fight, forced the express messenger to open the safe by putting a bullet in his knee—Juliana had done that—looted it of a disappointing eight thousand dollars, approximately, and were dozens of miles away. Juliana had been upset enough over the meager loot that she’d shot the messenger twice more, the bullets making his head look like a shattered pumpkin.

  But if she hadn’t killed him, Alden would have. He was disappointed, too. A man had to approach things on a practical basis, though.

  There were still banks down in Colorado just waiting to be robbed.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Sugarloaf

  “Smoke, I just saw Denise go out to the barn,” Sally said. “Maybe this would be a good time for you to go talk to her.”

  Smoke tried not to grimace. He didn’t want his wife to see the reaction her comment provoked. He would rather face fifty armed gunmen—something he had, in fact, actually done in his adventurous life—than upset Sally.

  But she was already upset, he reminded himself, so he swiveled his chair away from the desk in his office, where he had been going over the ranch’s accounts, and stood up.

  “I’ll talk to her,” he said, “but I don’t guarantee that it’ll do any good.”

  “Even if you just find out what she’s in such a snit about these days, it would be helpful.”

  Smoke nodded, stepped out of the office past Sally, and paused just long enough to kiss her gently on the forehead.

  “Snit” was an understatement, he thought as he left the house and headed toward the barn. Denny had been as surly as an old possum for the past week, ever since she had gotten mixed up in that shoot-out on the train station platform.

  He was confident the gunplay wasn’t what was bothering Denny. She had faced down plenty of trouble before, and she had inherited his cool head, fast draw, and pragmatic outlook on life. On more than one occasion, circumstances had forced her to kill, and as far as Smoke could tell, she had been able to put those incidents behind her, knowing that sometimes violence had to be met with violence if evil was going to be defeated.

  The shoot-out wasn’t the only thing that had happened that day, however. Smoke knew from talking to his old friend Sheriff Monte Carson that a couple of strangers had gotten off the train just before the ruckus broke out, and after all the powder burning was over, Denny had slapped one of the newcomers. Clearly, he was no stranger to her, but she had steadfastly refused to talk about it.

  The man’s name was Giovanni Malatesta, Monte had told Smoke. He was some sort of European nobleman, Italian from the sound of his name, and insisted that he had no idea why those hard cases had bushwhacked him.

  Denny had been to Italy several times while she was living in England on the estate that belonged to Sally’s parents, the most recent trip having been a couple of years earlier. It seemed pretty obvious that Denny must have met Malatesta on one of those jaunts. And as for why she just as obviously held a grudge against him . . .

  Smoke felt his jaw tightening as he approached the barn. He had speculated on why Denny might be angry with Malatesta and had come up with a reason, but it wasn’t one he wanted to think about. Even less so would he be comfortable discussing it with his daughter. But Sally had asked him to have a talk with her, so here he was, about to step into the barn—and wishing he was facing those fifty gunmen instead.

  The shrill sound of a horse’s angry whinny met his ears as soon as he entered the barn. He frowned as he walked quickly along the broad center aisle and made a turn into the shorter aisle that formed a T shape at the rear of the barn.

  “Denny, what are you doing?” he asked as he saw his daughter about to open the gate on one of the stalls back there. Inside was a magnificent black stallion, tossing his head up and down and moving around skittishly.

  Denny jerked her head toward Smoke. “I’m tired of this horse thinking he’s got me buffaloed. I’m fixing to show him there’s no horse that can’t be ridden.”

  “Rocket’s a killer, you know that,” Smoke said.

  “He’s never killed anybody.”

  “Not for lack of trying. If he had thrown you when he ran away during that race, the day of your brother’s wedding, there’s no telling what might have happened. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d gone after you with his hooves.”

  Denny’s expression hardened at the reminder of that incident. It had started a chain of events that had ended badly. Smoke knew the whole business had hurt her, although as always, she tried not to show it.

  Denny turned back to the gate and reached for the latch. “I still intend to ride him. I’ve done it before, and this time I won’t let him run away with me. He’ll see who’s boss.”

  “Maybe you’re trying to show somebody else who’s boss,” Smoke said.

  Again, Denny turned her head sharply to look at him. “W
hat do you mean by that?”

  Smoke drew in a deep breath and said, “I mean, riding Rocket isn’t going to prove anything to that Count Malatesta fella. He’s probably long gone from these parts by now and won’t even know a thing about it.”

  “He’s not long gone,” Denny said with a curt shake of her head. “He’s still in Big Rock.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Denny hesitated.

  “Cal rode into town yesterday, didn’t he?” Smoke went on, making a shrewd guess. “Did you ask him to check and see if Malatesta is still there?”

  Calvin Woods, who was now the foreman of the Sugarloaf after spending years on the spread as a top hand, would do just about anything for Denny, as would the other members of the ranch crew. It wouldn’t surprise Smoke at all if Cal had agreed to do a little spying on Denny’s behalf, even though he probably felt a mite guilty about it.

  “You don’t know anything about Malatesta—” Denny began.

  “That’s right,” Smoke interrupted her. “Because you won’t tell us anything about him. Whatever’s going on, you’ve got it all locked up inside you, Denny. We can’t help you as long as you’re doing that.”

  “That’s just it, Pa,” she said in a low voice as she looked down at the ground. “I don’t need any help.”

  “You don’t.”

  “No.” She raised her eyes and met his gaze boldly and defiantly. “I can shoot that no-good skunk myself just fine if he ever dares to set foot on the Sugarloaf!”

  Big Rock

  Brice Rogers was walking along the hotel’s front porch when he had to stop short to avoid running into a man who had just stepped out through the double doors.

  “Ah, Marshal Rogers!” Count Giovanni Malatesta said with a smile. “Very nimble of you, I must say. I thought we were about to collide.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t see you until it was almost too late,” Brice said. He was being polite, more so than actually apologetic. He figured Malatesta should have been watching where he was going. But the man was a foreigner, so Brice supposed it was best to be tolerant. Malatesta didn’t know western ways.