15 – A DEAL
The Coilhunter never lowered his gun. He'd done that before, back in the early days, and he had a few scars for it. She mightn't have been a killer, but she didn't need to kill him to beat him, and she didn't need him dead to bury him. This whole network of mines was one big burial ground just waiting to happen.
He tied her wrists behind her back, using the barrel of the gun to help wrap the knot. It was important that they kept feeling the touch of the steel, cool or scalding hot, to help keep them in line. There were a lot of threats with words in the Wild North, so much so that they didn't quite mean anything—but if you made the threat with the touch of steel, well, that meant everything.
“Keep steady,” he warned her. “You don't want my hand to slip.”
“I ain't gonna run,” she told him.
Nox scoffed. “That's all you've been doin'. It's kind of like askin' the desert not to be dry.”
He finished the knot, testing that it was tight.
“They'll be back for me, y'know,” she said. If she were wise, she would've kept her mouth shut. Then again, if she were wise, she wouldn't be in with the Sawdust Sparrows in the first place.
“They can come back, but you won't be here.”
She turned her head to him, eyes wide.
“You ain't just tellin' me the way,” he said. “You're showin' me.”
“No. I've gotta finish this job. I gotta get the money. I've gotta pay off my debts and get outta here. I can't afford no diversions. I can't afford—”
“You can't afford to say no. You got lucky today. Fate's given you a second chance. You should take it, gal, 'cos I won't be givin' you a third.”
She said nothing. It wasn't quite a “yes,” but it wasn't “no” either. She'd likely try to break free on the road, but he'd be watching her. Yet he knew he needed something else. Some people were too used to the nudge of a gun. They weren't quite used to the dangling carrot.
“Here,” he said, turning her around and nudging up her chin. “I'll make you a deal. You help me find out what Waltman wanted me to know, and I'll help clear your debt with Blood Johnson.”
She blinked at him. “You'll pay my debt?”
“Hey, I didn't say anything about payin'. Well, not with iron anyway.” He spun his revolver around and slipped it in its holster.
“He's a hard man to kill.”
“Good. I like a challenge.”
They heard a sudden howl from further back in the mine shaft.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
“Didn't sound like no Sparrow.”
“No.”
“You holdin' out on me, gal?”
“Trish said there was something else that lived down here.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Monsters.”
“And you believed her?”
They heard another howl.
“I believe her now.”
16 – MONSTERS IN THE MINES
They heard screams from one of the tunnels. A lot of screams.
“That sounds like Candy,” Sally said.
It was followed by growling and grunting, and the kind of noises nothing known to either of them made.
“That don't sound like her,” Nox added.
They both instinctively took a short step back.
“These monsters,” Nox said. “What're they like?”
They stepped back again. Nox kept his hand hovering near the holster.
“I don't know. They never said. Just that they were there, somewhere, sleepin'.” She looked at him. “You went down the Bone Path, didn't you? That's where we pulled you out. I think … I think you might've woken them up.”
They fell silent, focusing all their attention on the tunnel ahead, letting their minds create all kinds of horrors.
Then something emerged from the shadows of the tunnel. It was a huge, hulking figure, with bulging limbs, walking on its shell-covered knuckles. It had a face of knives, teeth long enough to spear you whole. It had three eyes, but they were small, as if maybe it didn't need them in the dark. It sniffed loudly, and as soon as it caught their scent, it bounded towards them, rocking the chamber as it went.
Nox had both pistols out before it made the second quake, and three rounds each off before it made the third. It gave out its terrible howl through the tiny gaps between the bladed cage of its teeth, then crashed to the ground at the Coilhunter's feet.
Sally opened her clenched eyes.
Nox smiled with his own. “Time we put 'em back to bed.”
The cave shook, and they heard the thump of knuckles, and the smaller, frantic patter of feet.
“You got enough bullets for them all?” Sally asked.
Nox knew he didn't. He was out hunting one woman, not an army. He looked around, spotting Nine-finger Nancy and her blood-spattered arsenal. He rummaged through the straps and holsters, pulling out a few guns.
“Nox!”
The pounding and patter grew louder. Limp-leg Trish raced around the corner, struggling to run with her bad leg. One of the creatures came after her, playing the ground like a drum. Then Trish slipped, just before she got to their chamber. She fell flat on her face and looked up at them with desperate eyes, even as the creature hovered over her.
“Help me!” she screamed as the monster grabbed a hold of her ankle and started to pull her back.
Nox let loose two rounds from the newest pistol he'd unearthed from Nancy's array, but then it jammed. The creature bellowed in response, but kept on tugging.
“Damn,” Nox said, casting the gun aside. He tried another, but it was blank. Half of these were just for show. But somewhere on her, in some of those cases, or behind some of those straps, were the rest of his weapons.
Trish's screams as she was dragged away were deafening.
“Help her!” Sally shouted.
He flipped his good pistol up and rolled out the barrel. Just one bullet left. He sighed and flicked it back into place. He had to make it count. He pointed it towards the tunnel, closing one eye. With the other, he could see Trish tilling the ground with her fingernails. He could also see the giant shadows of more of those lumbering beasts coming up behind.
Then he fired, sending the bullet straight into Limp-leg Trish's forehead. She stopped screaming and fighting and tilling, and the creatures pulled her away, before they pulled her apart. It was all he could do to help her now. There were too many of them, and not enough bullets. He used to say that about the criminals. And here was one of them, standing at his side, and he had no more pebbles in his gun.
“Come on,” he said, pulling Sally by the arm. “We need to get outta here.”
Sally didn't say anything. You could see a lot in the Wild North, but you never saw everything. Most things faded away, but some left a burn on your brain. You could wash your mind a thousand times, but you'd never get those images out.
He tugged her more forcefully, until she almost stumbled over. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, wide with shock, wet with that little oasis of tears. He knew that look well. He saw it in a thousand faces. And when he dared look in a mirror, he often saw it in his own.
He grabbed his guitar and tossed it into one of the nearby mine carts. It twanged insultingly in response. He looked for his rifle. It'd usually be strapped to his back, but it seemed it was strapped to Nine-finger Nancy's instead. He was lucky she wasn't wearing his fingers as well.
“You're not seriously thinkin' of ridin' in that thing,” Sally said, nodding towards the mine cart. It was black with coal, and beneath the soot there was probably rust. The tracks didn't look a whole lot healthier either. It seemed like they went on forever, into the gloom.
Nox wrestled with Nancy's body, trying to pull free his rifle. For a dead woman, she could wrestle well. “I … d
on't … think … we have a choice.”
The growls and grunts came again, followed by the quakes. The shadows of the creatures appeared on the walls of the tunnel behind them.
Sally didn't need to be told to get in. She hobbled over to the cart, leant her belly against the edge of it, and let gravity tilt her forward until she fell inside with a clang. When she sat up again, her face was even more soot-stained than it was before.
“Nox!” she cried.
The creatures were now in the chamber, spreading out around the outer walls, surrounding them.
“Start her up!” the Coilhunter shouted back.
Sally struggled in her bonds. “I can't!”
Nox dropped Nancy's body for a moment and ripped the last remaining canister from his belt, flinging it towards the nearest creatures. It burst, and there was a bang, followed by a flash of white that left a sting in the eyes. It was debilitating beyond measure, and the Coilhunter had to rely on feel as he attempted to root out some good guns from Nancy's corpse. When the light faded, Nox realised something: not one of the creatures gave a howl at the glow. It didn't affect them at all. They were essentially blind. Just like Nancy's guns, the eyes were just for show.
“You shoulda freed me,” Sally groaned.
Nox gave another tug of the rifle, but it wouldn't come loose. “Hell,” he said, then grabbed Nancy by the shoulders and started to pull her with him.
“What're you doin'?” Sally cried.
“Gettin' my guns,” he grunted.
“Leave 'em!”
The nearest creature darted forward. The Coilhunter barely had time to let Nancy's body slump and his own hands reach around to one of the weapons before it was almost on him. He felt the trigger and heard the click, but there was no blast. Just as quickly, he kicked the body forward until the head drooped down, exposing the barrel of his rifle, still stuck to Nancy's back. He cocked it quick and let it rip.
The creature snarled and screamed, and limped back, wounded. It made a series of noises, a mix of gasps and clicks, which seemed to be repeated by the others, and they all seemed wary now.
That's right, Nox thought. Now you know the fire burns.
He grabbed the body again and quickly dragged it across to the mine cart, standing it up and hauling it in, until Nancy was poised upon a pile of coal, both legs and arms dangling over the edge. He hopped inside after her, kicking out a few stray lumps of coal.
Sally looked at him, her eyes as wide as ever. “You got no respect for the dead?”
“Oh, I do, but you gotta pay your respects to the living.” He shoved Nancy's body over a little to make room for his own. “And you're one to talk, Corpsecart Sally.”
He reached for the lever outside the cart and pulled it tight. The wheels creaked into motion, grinding against the tracks. Then it started to roll forward, away from the gathering monsters. They seemed to be continuing their obscure dialogue. Nox wasn't sure what they said, but he imagined it was some variation of: “Don't let the dinner get away!”
17 – ON THE RAILS
The mine cart creaked on the tracks, the wheels grinding as they span, the rust crunching apart as iron slammed against iron. This was a hand-powered vehicle, with two alternating hand-levers that needed to be pushed and pulled on either side. The Coilhunter worked them now, and the cart chugged up a slope, before plummeting down again on the other side. Then Nox could let gravity do some of the work.
“Where does this lead?” he asked.
Sally shimmied into place, letting the coal topple around her. She shrugged. “I dunno.”
“I thought mines were your desert,” Nox said. “Thought you knew every grain of 'em.”
“Yeah, well, you think a lot of things about me, and ain't none of 'em true.”
“They ain't all a lie either.”
She glared at him. “And what about you? Are the things they say about you all true?”
“Depends what they say.”
“That you're just as bad as the people you hunt.”
His chest heaved, and he exhaled a puff of dark smoke. “I hunt killers.”
“You are a killer.”
“I only kill the worst of the worst.”
“Why don't you go and put that gun to your head then, cowboy?”
He was silent again for a moment. “This place needs a lawmaker.”
“We make our own laws here.”
“Yeah, like the loan shark laws that got you into the mess you're in. And hell, they're different for every shark. You wanna swim in those waters, then be my guest, but there's a lotta drownin' people out there, bein' pulled under no less. Someone's gotta do something.”
It was her turn to be silent. It was easy to talk about frontier freedoms, but they came at a price. If you wanted no laws for the good, you had to give them to the bad as well. Things got pretty ugly then.
“Nox!” Sally cried, waving her bound wrists.
He turned, and saw something approaching from the gloom. It was another kind of cart, but this one was powered by several of the creatures from before, and it had a large mining drill on the front, spinning wildly as it came near.
Nox pumped down on the levers, working his arms furiously. The drill cart came dangerously close, the tip of the drill grazing the sole of one of Nancy's boots. Then the Coilhunter managed to pick up the pace, pulling away from it before she became No-leg Nancy too.
He pulled and pushed with a frenzy, as if pulling his life back, and pushing theirs away. His muscles spasmed from the sudden intense force of it all. He could feel the lumps of coal digging into his legs. He could feel the whoosh of the stale, tar-tinted air on the back of his neck. He could see the monstrous faces of the creatures approaching, and hear the monstrous spinning of the drill.
He pressed his knees together over Nancy's body, catching the handle of a pistol between them and yanking it from its holster. As soon as it was free, he grabbed it and fired three times. Two bullets landed in the head of one of the beasts, but the third strike of the trigger just gave out a click. He tossed the gun over the edge, down into the deep darkness below, where it seemed to keep on falling. Just as quickly, he brought his hand back to the lever, back to the pushing and pulling.
“Free me and I'll work the cart,” Sally said from behind him. He could feel her eyes boring into his skull as if she was a drill of her own.
He said nothing, reaching for another gun with his heels. He couldn't get a good grip on it.
“Or free me and I'll work the guns,” Sally added.
“Never in your life.” The problem with promises from the con artists was that they were far too often just another con.
“Well, maybe in your death then,” she said. “Might come soon enough.”
He grumbled as the gun slipped between his heels again. The focus on it had slowed his pumping arms, and now the drill cart came a little closer.
He growled, grabbing a dagger from his boot and tossing it behind him, where it cleaved a lump of coal in two. “Try and stab me with that and I'll throw you over.”
He heard the tumble of coal as she shifted in place, and then the rub of metal against rope as she cut through the bonds. He half-expected to hear the rush of the blade coming towards him, or feel the sting of the metal in his side. He didn't expect what happened: she fired the dagger with incredible force and speed at the driver of the drill cart, landing the blade straight in its forehead. The creature grunted, then toppled over the edge of the vehicle.
“Damn,” the Coilhunter said. “Kind of wish I hadn't left my other daggers at the Burg now.”
She placed her hand on his, working the right lever. “Let me drive. I think we need you shootin'.”
She was right. Even as the drill cart slowed, another of the creatures took over, speeding it up again. And now several other tracks ran parallel on either side, an
d on some of them were more carts of various shapes and sizes, filled with more of the monsters, some with guns and daggers of their own.
Nox let Sally take over, while he rummaged through the arsenal wrapped to Nancy's body. He pulled his rifle loose, filled it with a few fresh rounds, then began taking out the creatures one by one, until there were no more bullets left in it, and none left in his pockets or on his belt.
He shoved the rifle into a strap on his back, then switched to the next gun Nancy's ghost had ready for him. There was only one round in the barrel, but he made it count, knocking away an incoming blade. It was like target practice all over again. Except usually he shot the objects up into the sun-seared sky, and when they came back down again, they only came from one direction. Right now, the monsters were firing things from all sides, forcing Nox to duck and dodge, and pull Nancy's body up like a human shield.
“We need more speed,” he urged.
“I'm tryin'.”
“Well, try harder.”
“We need more guns,” she said.
Nox looked at the two dozen more weapons strapped to Nancy. “Guns ain't the problem.” He fired another, but there was nothing in it. “We need bullets.”
He heard Sally gasp, and turned momentarily to see an intersection of the tracks. On the far end of the horizontal one crossing theirs was another cart, this one with a scooper attached to the front. It was meant for clearing debris from the tracks, but the monsters meant it for them.
“I think I need to slow down,” Sally said.
“No! The drill's gaining on us.” Nox focused his fire there. He even threw the spent guns onto the tracks, hoping they'd jam in the wheels, but most of them fell through the gaps.
“They're gonna crash into us!” Sally cried.
The scooper cart trundled down towards them. It had a larger stretch of track to cover, but it came from a slope, so its speed was faster. From the looks of it, they would strike each other soon. Sally could have slowed down to avoid them, but the drill would've pushed them on, if it didn't tear them apart first.
Coilhunter - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (A Coilhunter Chronicles Novel) (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 1) Page 6