by Tim Marquitz
Once the Reverend started up about retribution and the divine mandate of killing a heathen, folks in town would untuck their coin purses from between their legs and posse up, riding out after us. I wanted to be long gone by then. Until I was, there wasn’t anything but the open road and the disappointing memory of almost being killed. My eyes crept to the Indian.
“You could have told me the sight was off.”
“You could have asked.” Mika shrugged. “You said get you gun. I did. Don’t blame the red man because you people need canons to win a fight.”
“You people?” I shook my head. “I’m gonna shove a peace pipe up your ass, Sacajawea.”
“Did not know nitis traveled such roads, but Mika not rub wampum beads together with just anyone.”
“That’s not what I—” A cloud of dust on the horizon caught my eye.
“See, there they are,” Mika said, satisfaction radiating off his smug smile. “I think.”
After a quick direction check, making sure the small group of horses and riders coming our way weren’t from Bisbee, we settled in to wait. No point rushing into an ambush. Not long after we spotted them, the group rode up close enough for us to see them clearly.
Three men and one woman strong, they looked as if they’d just ridden out of a wanted poster. Scarves hung about the necks of the two lead riders, the color buried in the shadows of their dark hats. Cold eyes peered out from beneath their brims, and they carried rifles strapped across their backs with ammo belts strung openly across their chests. Dressed in blue denims and gray shirts, the pair looked related with only the hint of a blond mustache on one allowing me to tell them apart.
The same couldn’t be said about the other two misfits in the bunch.
The woman had a katana draped loosely over her shoulder where it hung with an easy grace alongside her flowing and colorful robes. There was no mistaking it for an antique. Its pommel and sheath were immaculate, clearly kept so by love and careful attention rather than disuse. A grin crept to my lips as I examined her Asian features, her dark eyes staring back at me. I love a woman who can handle a sword.
The last of the party was an Injun like Mika in name only. Unlike my uncertain and smartass scout, the brave looked as though he could wrestle a bison into submission and eat it at the same time. Thickly hewn legs squeezed the horse beneath him, making it look like a pony. A rifle was holstered on either side of his stallion, the leather wraps smooth and devoid of frill. His forearms were corded with muscle while his biceps looked as if he was smuggling boulders under the skin, the mountain peaks of his shoulders weathered by the elements. His eyes were two charcoal pits hidden behind the sweep of his jet black hair.
Mika called out to him first in their native language, and then greeted the others in English. The big brave grunted, but it was one of the white men who replied; the mustache-less one.
“You Ciepher’s boy?”
Lou Ciepher. That shit never got old.
“Yeah, you can call me—”
“Don’t no one care who you are, boy,” hairy-lip said.
“Now, now, Cletus. Mr. Ciepher is payin’ top dollar for us to help this here boy recover their property, so let’s be nice, ya hear?”
“I don’t remember nice being in the contract, Clay.” He swept his hat off revealing raucous straw blond hair. Blue eyes bored holes in my cheek, yellowed teeth appearing as his upper lip peeled back in a sneer. “Maybe we should ask for more money if’n we’re gonna have to tote this precious little boy along.”
“The next one of you inbred donkey-punchers who calls me boy is gonna get my gun lodged in his eyehole.” The fact that I didn’t have a weapon on me left the threat wide open to interpretation.
“See there, Cletus? Now you done hurt his feelin’s.”
The big redneck chuckled. “Least we know he’s got a pair of raisins on him, even if they is a little sundried.”
The big Indian grinned behind the brothers, enjoying the show. The woman sat stoic and watched.
“That there is Unktowa,” Mika told me, pointing at his brother from another mother before nodding toward the woman. “She’s May Lin.” He leaned in close, our horses butted against one another. “Don’t go peeing on her cooch; she mean.”
Images filled my head until the gist of what Mika told me sunk in. What he meant was far less interesting than what he said.
“You two done tongue wrestlin’ each other?” Clay asked, shaking his head. “Since you met us out here on the trail rather than at Bisbee, you musta done screwed somebody’s poodle. I’m guessin’ we needs to get a move on.”
I started to argue, but yeah, he was pretty much right. There was poodle juice everywhere at that point.
“He pissed all over Reverend Ansell and the sheriff right there on Main Street,” Mika informed the group.
May Lin’s face broke out of its neutral mold and slipped into one a little more disgusted.
“What is it with you and piss?” I asked.
Cletus loosed a hardy laugh. “Never mind all that. Let’s get to going before the Reverend’s noose squad shows up.”
Content to do just that, I nodded. “Lead the way, buttercup.”
The cowboy snorted and slid his hat back on as Clay directed his horse off at an angle that would let us skirt Bisbee and, hopefully, anyone who might be looking for us. The others followed along, and I sidled in alongside Mika. He might not be much in the way of help, but if folks started shooting, I could at least count on him to catch a couple bullets for me.
#
Night had caught up to us a good ways north of where Mika and I’d met the freakish foursome. The two brothers talked pretty much non-stop the entire way. Big Red chuckled along as though he were three hides short of a teepee. May Lin held her silence and didn’t so much as give me a quick peek past her flowing robes. She could have been an animate head and a pair of pale hands for all I could see. It was a disappointing ride with only manly Indian boobs on display.
Clay had called a halt to the ride after he’d found a deep ravine along our path, leading us down its winding path until we were obscured from the land above. He and his brother had scavenged some tinder and started a small fire. The light breeze whistling through the crevice dispersed the smoke and scattered it long before it reached the top of the ravine. Folks would have to stumble right onto us to know we were even there.
Once we’d settled in, Clay tossed me a hunk of jerky and a chunk of stale bread. “T’ain’t much, but it’s better than starvin’, right?”
I couldn’t agree more, thanking him with a nod. Everything I’d brought to Earth with me had been left back in Bisbee. Cletus came up alongside me and dropped a satchel at my side.
“Ol’ Ciepher seemed ta think you might need more help than most folks we work with.” He motioned to the bag with his chin. “Packed you a goody bag, he did.” A big grin split Cletus’s lips. “Guess he was right, huh?”
Unktowa hur, hurred in the background while he shoved handfuls of bread into his mouth. My only hope was that he wasn’t the brains of the operation. Speaking of boobs, I glanced around to find May Lin. She was nowhere to be found.
Clay caught me looking. “Don’t you fret about little Miss Lin, there. She can take care of herself.”
“Last stud who tried to mount her got a slant-eyed makeover from his throat down to his almond sack,” Cletus added with a laugh.
Mika gave me an I told you so look.
“That’s not what I was thinking about.” It was exactly what I’d been thinking about. “So, since Lou didn’t let me in on the specifics—” he rarely ever did—“what’s the plan?”
I knew the job was to hunt down a relic that had been stolen from my uncle a while back. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, but he was sure I’d know it when I saw it. Lou was all about being cryptic and not letting me know more than he felt comfortable with, which was usually not very much. He’d hired the goons because he wasn’t certain I could handle the small t
ime wizard—Alton Mares—who’d snatched his shit. It was kind of depressing how little faith my uncle had in me.
Not that I deserved any, but still, that’s not the point.
“Ciepher got word that Mares would roll past Tombstone, taking the railroad into California where he supposedly has some hotshot ready to buy the loot.”
“So we take him down when he stops in Tombstone?”
Unktowa grunted something that sounded like amusement, crumbs turning into tiny stars as they hit the campfire.
“Well, you see, Mares won’t be taking no chances,” Clay told me, waggling a finger. “He ain’t planning on stopping at all. Not till he gets where he’s going.”
The words sank into my ears like a cell mate’s profession of love. “We’re taking down the train?”
“See, Cletus? He ain’t half as slow as Ciepher made him out to be.”
I slunk against the ravine’s dirt wall as the group chuckled, Mika covering his mouth to keep me from seeing him joining in.
“Best get some sleep, boy,” Clay said, grinning. “We got a long ride ahead tomorrow that’ll put us right in the crosshairs of our targets come about sundown. Won’t be no sleep for a while after that unless it’s a dirt nap.”
“And don’t you go wandering off. That sweet little Chinee might cut your rooster off ‘fore she reckons it’s you,” Cletus added. He laid down with a laugh. “Sweet dreams. We got a train to catch.”
Unktowa grinned and fell asleep where he sat while the Brothers Dim settled in. Mika curled up nearby and caught my eye. He smiled.
“If you get cold, snuggle with fire.” He pointed at his ass. “This Happy Hunting Ground not for pale skins.” The guide rolled over and promptly started to snore.
I sighed again, and then once more to make sure anyone listening realized how aggrieved I was. Passive aggressive whining done, I snuggled up to the wall, dragged my bag over to use as a pillow, and went to sleep with visions of scalps floating in my head.
#
Morning came way too soon, but the rest of the day dragged on like the Inquisition. We’d snacked along the way after a light breakfast consisting of rabbit, which May Lin apparently caught at some point during the night, with barely enough time between waking and saddling up for me to check the equipment Lou had packed for me. A couple decent pistols were in the bag, with plenty of ammo and a gun belt, along with a few days were of food and water, but it was the grappling hook and rope that made me nervous. It wasn’t like we were pulling down a bronco or a wayward steer; we were hunting a damn train. I couldn’t see that going over well. Even better, I had about ten long hours to contemplate the foolishness of the plan, my stolen horse chafing my inner thighs something fierce. At least we hadn’t run into any of the Reverend’s flunkies.
The sun was just a couple inches from disappearing behind the horizon when Clay called a halt to our sad little procession of misanthropes. A few miles outside of Tombstone, we’d stopped atop a small bluff that overlooked the railroad tracks leading toward town.
“Just in time, it seems,” Clay said with a grin, a knotted finger pointing into the distance. Black wafts of smoke rose into the sky, merging with the approaching darkness. “That there’s our ride.”
Unkowa whooped and muttered something I didn’t understand, patting me on the back with a meaty paw.
“He say it’s time to pull your crooked arrow from between your legs and get ready for a fight,” Mika translated.
I glanced back at the Indian, picturing how I could derail the train using his big ass forehead. He smiled, and I smiled back, managing to turn around before it slipped from my lips. Images of Big Red slipping from the train filled my mind. In the distance, our target grew steadily closer.
“Shit,” Cletus muttered as the dark serpentine tail of the train slithered toward us. “They’re running full out.”
“Mares must know something’s up.” Clay yanked his hat off and wiped his brow before dumping it back atop his head. “We’re gonna have to hurry.” He glanced over at me. “You, your guide, and May Lin take this side. Me, Cletus, and Unktowa will hit them from the other side.” His eyes scanned the tracks, picking out a thick cluster of cacti and creosote bushes. “Y’all get on over to them bushes and stay put until the train’s right on ya. We’re only gonna get one shot at this as fast as they’s goin’, so we best make it count.” Clay turned to his brother and the red giant, waving them on before spurring his horse down the bluff.
“Where are your cannons now when we need them, white man?” Mika asked, shaking his head.
A flicker of a smile cracked across May Lin’s lips, the first expression I’d seen from her. It faded so fast it could have been my imagination. She didn’t wait around for me to confirm it, darting down the slope without a word. Mika shrugged and nudged his mount after her.
“You up for this,” I asked my horse. It neighed and shook its wild mane. “Yeah, me neither.” That, however, didn’t stop me from racing after the pair. When Lucifer tells you to bend over, you get to ankle grabbing and gritting teeth and hoping there’s dinner waiting for you on the other side of it all.
A few moments later, the clatter of the train growing, the three of us sat crouched low on our horses behind the bushes. The setting sun in the eyes of the conductor, we were pretty much invisible until our mark was right on top of us. The sky melting away and the ground rumbling beneath us, we waited. Sadly, that was the easy part.
I wasn’t worried about dying—not too much, at least—but ending up pulped beneath the wheels of a speeding train wasn’t my idea of a good way to go out. I clutched the grappling hook in shaky hands.
Mika grunted beside me. “Tie rope around your wrist,” he said, showing me what he’d done. “Keep hands from starting fire.”
The image of rope burn flashed in my head, and I quickly did as he suggested. I’d done a lot of stupid things in my life, but right then, I really couldn’t think of any quite as bad as what I was about to do. A quick glance over the bushes only confirmed that thought.
The train barreled down the tracks, wind whistling in its wake loud enough to be heard over the merciless clack of the wheels. The engine was an obsidian blur in the growing darkness. Smoke billowed from its stack, its cow-catcher gleaming like feral teeth. The beast kept coming.
From where we hunkered down, I didn’t see any obstacles to our boarding except for the fact that the train was hurtling down the tracks at an easy 85 mph. One misstep and we were gonna be bugs splattered across the steel monstrosity. That thought playing havoc with my rectum, May Lin kicked her horse into a frenzy.
“Go! Go,” Mika screamed, tearing off after her.
Before I even knew it, my horse was streaking after them. “You in a hurry to die,” I screamed at it as we cut an angle toward the oncoming train. The clatter of its passage drowned the world, stealing the voice from everything around. The sound throbbed inside my skull, setting my teeth to vibrating.
One hundred yards…fifty…twenty-five…and then the engine roared past, black steel and silver windows merged into a murky haze. May Lin loosed her grappling and leapt from her horse before the grapples caught. And instant later she was flying. With the ease of a butterfly, her feet tapped the side of the car, and then she was on top. Mika hurled his rope and went after. Only slightly less graceful, he made it look easy as he clambered alongside the woman.
Then it was my turn. I grunted and threw the grapple with all my might, aiming it as best I could for the top of the closest rail car as my partners-in-crime had. It caught with a clunk, the sound bringing a smile to my face.
Unfortunately, momentum hated my happiness.
A sharp snap nearly ripped my shoulder from its socket, rope searing my wrist. I was airborne an instant later, my horse disappearing to be replaced by the furious whip of the ground flying by. I spied Mika as I swung toward the cars. If his scrunched expression was anything to go by, things were about to get worse.
And they did.
Unable to get my feet to the right angle, it was my back that collided with the side of the rail car. The impact shuddered through me. Every bone in my body turned to rubber, and I bounced away, eyes spinning in their sockets and my brain sloshing around inside my ringing skull. Reality crept in just as I hit the end my rope. My eyes shuttered into focus as my momentum was redirected, sending me flying back toward the train. Only that time it wasn’t just the train waiting.
One of the car’s windows had been levered open, curtains ripped aside by the wind. The dark barrels of a shotgun took aim, following my trajectory. A man with a grim smile sat behind the trigger. I could have sworn I heard the hammers clack back. Panic grabbed hold.
I twisted against the rope, sending myself into a spin. There was the muffled bark of gunfire, and I felt the heat of the shotgun pellets that flew past my cheek like a swarm of angry hornets. I ducked away, and then found myself facing down the other barrel, which hovered just feet away. There was nowhere to go.
The gunman pulled the second trigger just as I hit into the open window. Both of us screamed at the same time. I’d come in so quickly that he hadn’t been able to fire until my side slammed into the shotgun. He unleashed hell into my ribs, but the pressure backfired down the barrel. It erupted in a fury of shot and sparks. My head cracked against the window frame, adding to the joy of being shot, as momentum flung me into the rail car, shards of glass flying. I landed heavily on the gunman, knocking what little wind he had left out of him. He grunted as we bounced across a wooden seat and hit the floor. My arm hung twisted at my back, the rope still attached. Blood ran down my wrist, and the charred scent of toasted flesh filled my nose.
I reached back to loosen the rope just as the door flew open at the back of the car. Pistols burst through the door first, followed by the guys holding them. Men of few words, they communicated in bullets. I ducked away but a sharp tug on my leash pulled me through the shattered window. A girly shriek pried its way past my lips, and I was in the in the air again, a battered marionette with only one string. The men inside the car raced to the window and fired.