by Rory Black
Her wide open eyes stared in horror as the stage gathered pace and hurtled down the steep trail. The horses were galloping in their traces as they tried to outrun the hefty vehicle behind them.
Vainly, Sally hauled back on the long leathers again and tried with all her might to stop her team but she was too exhausted. The stagecoach continued to gain momentum as it thundered down the steep slope.
Desperate to know what was happening, Squirrel Sally leaned over the side of her stagecoach and stared in horror at what she saw. The wooden brake block had been ripped clean off the rear wheel.
She anxiously straightened up as the stagecoach body rocked her petite form back and forth like a rag doll. She was virtually helpless as she held on to the metal baggage rail behind the seat.
Her eyes widened as she stared at the bottom of the trail road that she was careering toward. Again, Sally strained every muscle in her body in an attempt to stop the team of horses’ increasingly rapid descent.
Yet no matter how hard she hauled back on the reins, she simply could not slow the vehicle’s pace. Time was running out fast and she knew it. The body of the coach shook beneath her split pants. Sally jumped down into the box for protection as the stagecoach reached the foot of the trail. She braced herself as best she could.
As soon as the lathered up team reached level ground, the following coach skidded on its wheel rims. The side of the vehicle slammed heavily into a massive tree. As the coach violently stopped, its team of wide-eyed horses were jerked backwards by the sudden impact as their reins tightened. Only the restraining straps and secure harness chains prevented the terrified animals from severely injuring themselves.
Clouds of dust engulfed the vehicle as the battered and bruised female scrambled up into the box. Dazed and shaken, Sally held onto the lip of the box and stared at her now stationary team. She slowly stood and rubbed her sore head as she tried to gather her wits.
Her grazed fingers pulled the sides of her open shirt together and tied them in a knot under her breasts. She checked her trusty Winchester and then picked up the bottle at her feet. To her relief, it had also survived the sudden impact. She took a long swallow of whiskey and then savoured its fumes as she replaced its cork.
Her shaking hands placed the whiskey bottle on the seat.
Then she rubbed her hand across her face. Sally noticed that the back of her hand was covered in blood. Sally’s fingers checked her nose. Although bleeding it did not feel broken.
‘Reckon that’s lucky,’ she sighed cynically.
Mustering the remains of her strength, Sally climbed from the driver’s box to the rough ground beside the scarred stagecoach. What little paint the vehicle still boasted had been scraped from its carcass.
She slowly checked each of the horses in turn and then wandered back to the coach. The damage looked far worse than it actually was apart from the missing brake block.
Sally crawled on her belly under the coach and pulled debris free of the axle. When satisfied she went back into the sunshine and got to her feet.
Her throbbing skull knew that although the brakes had been totally destroyed, the wheels were still somehow attached to the axles. She sighed with relief and then turned to look down the remainder of the trail toward the distant Ten Strike.
The distant town was bathed in sunlight.
‘Hell,’ she cursed in surprise. ‘I’m nearly there.’
Sally stared down into the valley and smiled as she recalled why she had undertaken this arduous trek. This was where she knew she would find the elusive Iron Eyes. This was where her man’s trail had led her. She had travelled the better part of a hundred miles to warn the notorious bounty hunter of the strange premonition which haunted her.
‘Now I’ve got you in my sights, Iron Eyes,’ Sally mumbled as she lifted her leg and stepped on the rim of the small front wheel below the driver’s box. ‘You better not be dead or I’ll be mighty cantankerous, beloved.’
Even though she was still shaken, Sally climbed back up to the driver’s seat and sat down. She lifted the whiskey bottle again and downed a quarter of its contents before forcing the cork back into the bottle’s neck.
Now she was ready to tackle the final leg of her long, painful journey. None of her cuts and bruises mattered any longer.
Sally exhaled and stared at Ten Strike from her high vantage spot. It looked so close she felt as though she could reach out and grab it but she knew that the journey was far from over.
The merciless rays of the sun burned her exposed skin as she sat and contemplated the last part of her quest. Then her aching mind thought about the condition of her precious stagecoach. Sally wondered if she would be able to control the powerful six horses without the aid of the vehicles brakes.
The thought troubled her.
Then another even more daunting notion tore at her dazed mind. Sally’s eyes surveyed the vehicle below her high seat and wiped the blood off her face.
She was anxious that the stagecoach might not remain intact before she reached Ten Strike. Its recent history had taken a brutal toll on its weathered fabric.
Sally dismissed her concerns and focused on the trail with resolute eyes. It seemed quite level as far as she could tell but a half mile ahead it vanished from view.
Countless trees masked it from her tired eyes.
Would she actually need the missing brakes?
Finding out the answer might prove disastrous, she thought.
Sweat dripped freely from her hair and fell onto her torn pants but the still dazed female did not notice as she continued to study what still lay between Ten Strike and herself.
Ten Strike did not seem that far away to her.
Yet it was too far away to walk. There was only one way for her to reach the settlement and that was to risk her very neck and drive the stagecoach there. She reluctantly picked up the reins and carefully separated them between her gloved hands.
Sally teased the lengths of leathers apart, slapped them down across the backs of the horses and got the team walking again. If she could keep the horses moving at this speed, everything would be fine, she thought.
The stagecoach continued on along the slowly descending trail road and rounded a sharp bend. The tree canopies hung low and the tiny female had to duck under them as the stagecoach slowly moved forward. Then as the horses continued to pull their heavy burden along the leafy glade, a familiar noise filled her ears.
She had heard the distinctive noise before.
It was the sound of flowing water.
Sally pushed the hanging branches aside and guided her team toward the sound. A sound which was growing in intensity with every step of her six horses.
Then the stagecoach cleared the greenery and revealed the one thing she had not expected to see in the dense forest. It was a vision that was beautiful and dangerous in equal parts.
Sally eased back on the reins and slowed the team to a walk as she approached the one thing she had not even considered when she had set out along the unforgiving trail.
A powerful waterfall.
She stared in stunned awe at the impressive and daunting sight which faced her.
The waterfall was at least forty feet high and seemed to be coming straight from a natural fissure in the tree-covered rocks above the trail. Its continuous torrent was hitting the trail road so violently that it filled the small clearing with plumes of water and spray that rose twenty feet up into the sunlight.
Rainbows arched across her path hypnotically as Sally steered the coach across the wet ground toward the ominous vision. She pulled back on her reins and stopped the team twenty yards from where the water was crashing onto the trail road.
A million thoughts raced through her mind. As far as she could tell, this was the only way to reach Ten Strike from the logging road. Sally knew that it was impossible to turn the long stagecoach around in the narrow confines of the trail. She ran her fingers through her damp hair and wondered why the road had taken this course.
Her eyes focused on the wall of water.
‘How the hell am I meant to get these animals and stagecoach through that?’ Sally muttered to herself as her lovely eyes stared at the battered rocks. Every grain of sand and soil had been washed away from where the waterfall constantly hit the ground. Only bare rock remained at the foot of the flowing torrent. ‘Them lumberjacks must have carved out this road during a dry spell. Nobody could have done it at this time of year.’
Sally glanced to see where the volumes of water went after hitting the trail, but all she could make out was a dark hole surrounded by well-nourished plants.
Mist rose up from the devilish hole in the ground. Sally bit her lip and wondered what lay in the depths of that dark abyss. She could hear something like a fast flowing river but the crescendo of falling water was so loud that the young female could not be certain of anything.
She inhaled deeply.
Summoning every scrap of her remaining courage, Sally swallowed hard and carefully picked up the reins and held them in her left hand. Although every inch of her petite form was warning her not to go any further, Sally knew that she had to risk driving her stagecoach through the cascading torrent if she were to reach Ten Strike.
She had to challenge the flowing water’s might. There was no other way. Sally had to get to the remote settlement and warn her beloved Iron Eyes about the premonition, which gnawed at her craw, before it was too late.
Sally pulled her bullwhip off the roof of the coach and unfurled its length. She then raised it above her head and expertly cracked it over the heads of the six black horses.
The team bolted like buckshot from a scattergun.
Having tossed the whip aside, Sally rested her feet against the rim of the box and leaned forward with the long leathers in her grip. The six valiant horses obeyed their mistress and galloped blindly into the powerful water as it crashed down onto the rocks before them.
But even the six powerful horses were no match for the waterfall’s unyielding might.
From the driver’s seat, Sally stared in horror as she witnessed all six horses knocked off the rocky ground and disappear into the abyss. Once the first pair had been washed off the trail the others followed in quick succession. Mist rose up like a ravenous monster and consumed the whinnying horses a mere heartbeat before Sally also felt the unbelievable power of the waterfall hitting her. The unceasing flow of continuous water swept the unfortunate female off the driver’s seat. As Sally fell helplessly into the darkness the stagecoach followed her.
Squirrel Sally did not scream.
There was no time.
Within seconds all traces of the beautiful female and her stagecoach were gone from view. They had been swallowed up just like the team of sturdy horses before them and fallen into the watery abyss.
Moments later, only the waterfall and its colourful rainbows remained. It was as though Squirrel Sally and her conveyance had never existed.
CHAPTER SIX
Ben Brooks drove his bloody spurs harder into his mount’s flesh than either of his ruthless companions as they thundered away from Ten Strike. Laker and Cohen followed Brooks along the winding trail into the uncharted forest and did their best to keep pace with their seasoned leader. Dust rose up into the cloudless heavens above the trail as though marking their chosen route for anyone with the guts to follow.
They had ridden more than five miles into what seemed an unoccupied land and not seen anyone either following or ahead of their mounts. Brooks knew that if he followed the seldom travelled trail to the south of Ten Strike, it would eventually lead them to the railhead at Durango.
Everything had gone as Brooks had said it would. They had achieved their goal and stripped the remote settlement of all its banked cash and made their escape exactly as their leader had planned.
As the tree canopies above them grew closer together and the sunlight no longer bathed the three horsemen in its merciless rays, they slowly began to ease their pace.
There was no more urgency in their spurs. Brooks rode between his lethal men and started to relax for the first time since they had shot up the small settlement.
‘How far is it to the railhead, Ben?’ Laker asked, pulling his tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket and rolling a cigarette as his mount continued to canter down the twisting rail.
‘I can’t rightly recall, Jody,’ Brooks replied as his eyes scanned the undergrowth which appeared to be closing in on them. ‘We ought to reach it before sunup, though.’
Cohen nervously looked all around them. The hills were covered in trees of every variety, making it virtually impossible for them to see very far.
‘I don’t like this forest,’ he commented as he kept tapping his spurs onto the flanks of his horse. ‘An army could be hiding in them trees and we wouldn’t be able to see the varmints.’
‘There ain’t nobody hiding in them trees, Sol,’ Laker said as his tongue traced along the gummed paper of his smoke.
‘There could be,’ Cohen grunted. ‘This seems like a perfect place to get bushwhacked.’
‘Stop fretting, Sol,’ Brooks said. ‘When we reach the railhead at Durango, we’ll sell these nags and buy us three tickets to Abilene. We got us enough money here to have us a fine old time while I plan our next job.’
The words had barely left his lips when the three riders spotted something fifty yards ahead around a bend in the trail.
Brooks raised an arm and pulled back on his leathers.
‘What is that?’ he growled as his cohorts stopped their horses beside him.
Cohen stood in his stirrups and squinted through the filtered sunlight. ‘Looks to me like a pinto pony.’
Brooks steadied his skittish mount. ‘Yeah, that’s what it is. A pinto pony with a rope bridle and a blanket across its back.’
‘An Injun blanket by the looks of it.’ Laker scratched a match across the top of his saddle horn, raised the flame to the cigarette in his mouth and inhaled the smoke into his lungs. ‘And where there’s a pinto there’s usually an Injun to go with it.’
Brooks drew one of his six-shooters from its holster, cocked its hammer and rested it on his thigh. ‘Do either of you boys see an Injun?’
Laker allowed the cigarette smoke to drift from his lips as he carefully watched the tethered pinto pony.
‘Nope, I don’t see nothing except that pretty little pony yonder,’ he answered before pulling the cigarette from his mouth. ‘That Injun is probably off hunting his supper. I don’t reckon on him giving us no trouble.’
‘Maybe,’ Brooks said doubtfully.
‘Let’s spur hard,’ Cohen suggested nervously. ‘We’ll be long gone down the trail before that Injun gets back to his horse.’
Brooks glared at the pony. ‘I don’t cotton to Injuns. The only good ‘un is a dead ‘un.’
Laker tossed what was left of his cigarette at the sand and shook his head.
‘Why go looking for trouble, Ben?’ he asked.
Brooks did not reply. He tapped his spurs and began approaching the pinto pony. Cohen and Laker followed the hardened outlaw through the rays of sunlight.
When Brooks reached the secured pony, he pulled his leathers to his chest and stopped his horse. He stared at the handsome young colt and started nodding to himself. His eyes focused on the beaded rope reins which were carefully wound around the animal’s head and nose.
‘Looks like a Kiowa bridle to me, boys,’ he remarked.
Cohen edged his mount next to Brooks’s horse.
‘The Injun don’t seem to be around here,’ he stated. ‘Let’s ride for the railhead. C’mon.’
‘Sol’s right, Ben,’ Laker agreed with the nervous Cohen as he steadied his horse. ‘We’ve bin lucky so far. We got the bank money and didn’t even get a scratch between us. Let’s spur hard and put distance between us and that pinto’s master.’
Brooks brooded as he stared at the cocked six-shooter on his thigh. The trouble with killing is that after a short while
some men get a taste for blood. Brooks was such a man.
He was about to rage at his cohorts when he heard movement in the brush beside him. His strong left hand jerked on his reins and forced his mount to back away from the pony.
Suddenly the young Kiowa emerged from the undergrowth with a young deer draped across his shoulders. As the brave stepped into the sunlight, he stared in disbelief at the three horsemen that surrounded his black and white pony.
For a moment the Kiowa and the bank robbers just stared at each other. Then the sun glanced across the barrel of the deadly six-gun in Brooks’s hand.
The warrior dropped the deer and went to pull his hunting bow from his shoulder. It was a futile gesture with no hope of success.
Brooks smiled as he squeezed his trigger.
His .45 blasted a deafening shot at the young Indian. The bullet lifted the brave off his feet. As the mortally wounded Kiowa landed beside the small deer, Brooks pulled back on his gun hammer again and fired.
Laker swung his horse around and stared at Brooks. Smoke trailed from the barrel of the .45 as the lethal outlaw chuckled to himself.
‘Why’d you kill that young buck, Ben?’ he shouted.
Brooks rammed the smoking weapon into his holster and then stared at both his travelling companions. The smile had been replaced by the look of a man that wanted to keep killing.
‘I killed him cos I wanted to, Jody,’ Brooks snarled. ‘If you boys got any objections, then you’d best get ready to join that feathered critter in the happy hunting grounds.’
Neither Laker nor Cohen said another word. They were too scared of what Brooks might do next if they opened their mouths again.
Brooks turned his mount and spurred hard.
Even though every instinct in their souls told them otherwise, Laker and Cohen followed the seasoned outlaw. They trailed his hoof dust further south into the dense woodland.
They had to. Brooks was the only one of them that knew how to reach the railhead at Durango.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Like a demonic nightmare cast out from the bowels of Hell, the terrifying apparition of the gaunt horseman emerged from the shimmering haze. He tapped his blood soaked spurs into the flesh of the tall stallion and rode deeper into the remote settlement.