Coilhunter - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (A Coilhunter Chronicles Novel) (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 1)

by Dean F. Wilson

  39 – GHOST TOWN

  There were a lot of ghost towns in the Wild North, back from the days when it wasn't all desert, when the townsfolk weren't all ghost. It was always arid there, but it wasn't always sand. The war elsewhere drained the area of good men and women, leaving space for the bad to move in. Some of these tumbleweed towns were now the hideouts for dangerous gangs, but most were too remote for anyone. This looked like one of them.

   The Coilhunter strolled up cautiously, dusting off a fallen sign with his foot. Rivertown, it read. He almost scoffed. There were no rivers up here, not now. Everything was old and weathered, but this must've been older than most, maybe older than he felt. If there had been a river nearby, it had long dried up, and the trough was filled in with sand.

   He continued on, slowly, through the town, keeping his hands poised at his belt. There were no more mines here, which could have meant anything, but he took it to mean he'd arrived at his destination. This was a shooter's paradise: many windows, more nooks, and much shadow. The eyelid of the sun was almost fully closed now. The red gleam it cast was weak, just enough to give an aura around the buildings, to point out a few—but not all—of the potential places where a rifle might be primed and ready.

   Much of the sand had blown out of Rivertown in the storm, leaving behind the cracked earth, with its few straggles of weeds. Somehow they still grew there. Somehow humans did too. He heard the grit break beneath his boots. His ears perked at every noise, his eyes darting to the noisemakers, his hands ready to make some of their own.

   He passed a corner shop, Dame Dew's, a confectionery. It brought back memories of his childhood, of hard-boiled sweets and gum drops, and of Old Peggy Coldren, who pushed a cart of home-made sweets through Loggersridge every evening. She was still there decades later, when little Ambrose and Aaron raced out to get their bonbons and lollies. He could almost taste the sweetness, but the memories were sour now.

   He continued on, glancing at every window, looking for a shifting shadow, listening for the click of a hammer or trigger. It was deathly silent. Even the wind held its whistles.

   He saw the Barons' Bank, all boarded up. That wasn't the property of the Dust Barons, but rather the old royalty and nobility that now went by the name of the Treasury. They were the “government” of old, and even out here in the wild, money ruled. As soon as they acquiesced to the Regime, however, their power quickly waned, and the money-lenders moved in, with their “your cash or your knees” approach. Often they got both.

   He continued on to a curve in the street, halting when he heard creaking wood. He turned slowly to see TNT Tom on a rocking chair, looking far too relaxed, looking far too alive.

   “You found us,” Tom said, puffing on his cigar. “My retirement home.”

   “Your grave.”

   Nox swiftly pulled out his pistol, but Tom held up his hand.

   “Don't be stupid, Nate.”

   Nox fought back the urge to pull the trigger. The gun was already cocked and ready.

   “You don't want to use gunpowder here,” Tom said. He flicked his cigar away. “I already put plenty of that down.” The cigar caught something in the sand and set it alight. Nox moved to see what it was, and Tom rocked back completely on his chair, triggering a trap door. He vanished, leaving Nox standing in the middle of a trail of zig-zagging fuses.

  40 – BOOBYTRAPS

  Nox ran, but he didn't know where he should be running. The entire ground seemed to have been wired, with the wire pressed deep into the cracks. Every building could have been rigged to blow. Many were.

   First to go up was the theatre. The fireball sent the roof sky high. The stage was strewn apart, the timber flying out in all directions. Nox raced away from it, feeling the gush of hot air on his tail.

   Then the bank blew, just as the Coilhunter passed it. He held his hat on as the blast almost threw him.

   Then a line of houses went, one by one, like dominoes. He'd barely got out of the way of one before the next one went up in flames.

   By the end of it all, half of Rivertown was flattened or ablaze.

   But the Coilhunter was still alive, and so too were TNT Tom and Danny Deadmaker.

   Nox strolled through the ruins of the town, ready to run at any moment. Maybe Tom hoped this'd scare him off, but he should've known better. Or maybe Tom wanted him to come, wanted him to press in further, like the spider beckons the fly.

   He tried to find the trap door, but it was buried under all the rubble. There must have been another route, so he kept on walking, until he came to an old warehouse. In bygone days, it might have served the workmen on the river. Now it served as one of TNT Tom's hideaways.

   He pushed the door open slowly. It was dark inside. He wasn't entirely sure if he should strike a match. He stepped in, then ducked as a blade swung by. He heard Tom's hoarse laugh from up in the rafters.

   “Watch your head,” he taunted.

   Nox took another step, dodging another blade.

   “Careful now, Nate.”

   One more step, and one more blade. This one took a sliver off the brim of his hat.

   “Just a little off the top, eh? Snip, snip.”

   Nox halted. The blades swung back and forth behind him, slicing through the air.

   “When're ya gonna stop playin' games?” he rasped.

   Tom cackled, then coughed. “Coming from the toymaker.” His voice deepened. “You know, you drove me out of business at Loggersridge. It was all well and good when you were just making tidbits for the tots, but then you had to go and move in on mechanics too. That was my jurisdiction!”

   A steel-tipped log swung down fast. Nox stepped out of the way of it, but he almost stepped into the path of another. He grabbed onto the side of the first log and climbed up it, crouching down, letting it pull him back almost to the still-swinging blades, then send him forward to where he could almost see Tom standing on a platform far above.

   “That was just like you, though, Nate, wasn't it?” Tom shouted down. “Stealing my business and stealing by boy's girl. You go riding your high horse around the wilds, saying you're cleaning up the criminals, taking in the thieves, but you were one of them yourself. You didn't mind then, did you?”

   Nox said nothing. There was nothing you could say to people like Tom. For some people, once they got an idea in their head, the only way to get it back out again was with a guillotine. Nox wanted to deny the accusations, to say he'd never stolen anything, that he'd worked his trade fair and square, and just did it better than him, and that he'd won Emma's heart fair and square too. If anything, this whole thing just proved she'd made the right choice, even if it did mean her death.

   “Got no answer for your crimes, huh?” Tom bellowed. He seemed to be poised and waiting, ready to let loose another trap.

   Nox kept perfectly still, vanishing into the shadow as the log pulled him one way, emerging again as it brought him back. He knew the wait would get to Tom. Sometimes the itch got too much and you just had to fire, even though you knew you'd miss the target. Sometimes people were wound up more than the springs in their gun.

   Another log came down far to the side, striking nothing but empty air. Of course, Tom had probably worked up a reason to hate that too. When he exhaled, did it steal his breath?

   Nox studied the room carefully. There were ladders leading up to the next platform, and more leading higher. All metal. It meant there was no way he could make a leap for them without making some noise. By then, Tom would release the next trap, or run again. Nox wanted this to end, once and for all.

   So Nox took his guitar off and hit a button on it, immersing the lower level in smoke. Then he threw the instrument down to the floor, just as he leapt for the nearest ladder. The guitar made a clang, which echoed through the warehouse. Tom set loose another blade, but Nox was already up on the next platform, tip-toeing towards the next ladder.

   “Your s
moke doesn't scare me, Nate!” Tom shouted.

   Nox emerged from the haze behind the man, wrapping his arm around Tom's neck.

   “It should.”

  41 – LAST MAN STANDING

  Nox dragged TNT Tom out into the streets. The smoke from the burning buildings billowed through in periodic gusts, setting Tom coughing. Nox breathed out black smoke of his own.

   “Come out, Danny,” he rasped, clicking the hammer of his pistol and pointing it to Tom's head. He kicked the back of Tom's leg, making him fall to his knees.

   “He won't come,” Tom said.

   “Why, 'cause he's a coward?”

   “Because he owes you nothing.”

   “He owes me three lives.”

   “You'll still be one short if you kill the both of us.”

   That was true, but two out of three wasn't bad. “Get out here, Danny, or old Tom gets a bullet to the brain.”

   “And what, you'd let me go free otherwise, Nate?” Tom asked. He hacked up some blood and spit it out.

   “Last call, Danny.”

   Just like the last call at the bar, and the rush that followed, Danny Deadmaker pushed open the saloon doors across the way. He walked out, slow and steady, the spurs on his boots grazing the ground behind him. He kicked them back deliberately, like he always did, drawing a little line in the sand. He didn't do it when he ran from the burning house though. He never left his signature trail then.

   He held out his hands. “Well, here I am.”

   Nox's glare was like gunfire. “At last.”

   A gust of black smoke blew between them, hiding and revealing them.

   “Never thought you'd actually find out,” Danny said. “Seems someone blabbed to Waltman. Thought we'd silenced him.”

   “You thought wrong.”

   “Let my father go, and we can end this.”

   “There's only one place he's goin', and you're goin' there too.”

   Danny glowered at him. He ran his fingers around the brim of his hat. That was another of his signature moves, not long before the draw.

   They stared at each other, shooting first with their eyes. The smoke came through again. Danny's hands hovered by his sides, the fingers flexing. One eye squinted. The other widened. The side of his mouth twitched.

   He drew, but Nox fired first. Danny clenched his teeth and dropped his gun. The bullet was embedded in his knuckles.

   Tom broke free from the Coilhunter's grasp, half-running, half-stumbling towards his son. Nox let him get halfway before he fired a grappling hook towards him. One of the prongs embedded in his shoulder. Nox pulled him back, letting him fall to the ground.

   “So this is how it ends,” Danny said.

   Nox took a step forward. “This is how it ends.”

   “It won't do you no good, you son of a gun!” Tom roared. He tried to pull the hook free, but Nox let the reflux of the coil drag him back a yard.

   “It won't do you any either,” Nox said, before firing another bullet. TNT Tom dropped dead right then and there. He'd started the fire, so he probably should've burned. He'd have to burn in Hell instead.

   Danny turned on the spot, desperate to run. You could see the fear in his face, even from where the Coilhunter was standing. You didn't need to be a Magi for that.

   “You didn't live like one,” Nox said, “but you can die like a man.”

   But Danny ran.

   Nox fired at the man's leg, sending him down into the dirt with a cry. Danny tried to crawl away, even as the Coilhunter strolled up next to him.

   “Or you can die like the dog you are.”

   He kicked Danny over onto his back.

   “I shoulda killed you too,” Danny growled.

   “Why didn't ya?”

   “I wanted you to suffer. I wanted it to turn you into a shadow of yourself.”

   “Well, you got what you wanted then. It made me this.”

   The last round went straight to Danny's skull. Back in the Deadmakers Den, one of Danny's pals could add another kill to the Coilhunter's tally, and wipe Danny's clean.

  42 – BURYING THE PAST

  The Coilhunter didn't drag the bodies back to the Bounty Booth to cash them in. There were no posters for Danny Deadmaker and TNT Tom, but there was still a big payoff, even if it was just a sense of relief. Nox let the spreading fires of Rivertown cremate them. It seemed fitting.

   He found his steel-shielded guitar in the warehouse, though one of the strings was broken. It kind of reminded him of himself. Yet it still put out a mighty tune.

   He travelled back to his monowheel, which was half-buried in the sand. The storm was long over now, though maybe it was brewing in another part of the Wild North.

   All things considered, the Coilhunter didn't feel as good as he thought he might. The killers were dead, but that didn't bring his family back. Hurting others didn't stop him hurting himself. But it was a start.

   He looked up to the sky, where the sun glared back.

   “I got 'em, Emma.” He sighed. “I got 'em, Ambrose.” His sigh was more pained than ever. “I got 'em, Aaron.” He shook his head. “Maybe I got 'em too late. Maybe I shoulda been huntin' 'em sooner, before they got to you.”

   He'd spent countless hours wondering about that, asking himself “what if I did this?” or “what if I did that?” It seemed there was no end of regrets. He'd counted more of them than the bodies he'd buried or dragged back for the reward.

   He started up the engine, vowing to continue his mission, to cleanse the Wild North of crime, to stop more killers before they got to someone else. To him, that was the real reward.

  43 – DEBT COLLECTOR

  In a quiet corner of the Burg, a train of carriages pulled up. It was dusk, just after the Dust Barons' curfew, but Blood Johnson obeyed no rules, and no one enforced them against him. He stepped out, flanked by his guards. He had that permanent grin on his face, the one that showed his gold teeth. His hair was gelled back, and his beard was trimmed tight. He had a face of too many victories. The Wild North owed him a defeat.

   He swaggered into the safe house, where Handcart Sally was tied up.

   “Where's my money?” he asked, never letting the smile fade. It was strange for a smile to show anger. It showed a lot of different emotions on Blood Johnson's face.

   “I told you I'd get you it soon.”

   “Soon is come and gone.”

   “Please. Just another week.”

   “You said that last week.”

   “I got held up. I would've had it. Please, Blood. I can get you it. I just need more time.”

   “What do you think, Sam?” He turned to the companion at his side, Sam Silver.

   “Well, if she's good for it, then she's good for it.”

   “And if she isn't?”

   “Well … then she isn't.”

   “Words o' wisdom, there,” Blood Johnson said to Sally. “How about a trade though? I'll give you another week if you give me one of your fingers. Sure, we can make it a month for a hand.”

   The glass of the oil lamps shattered and the wicks blew out. The room went black. There was a shuffle of feet as Blood Johnson's men turned wildly. The clamour of their voices betrayed the panic. Sometimes grown men feared the dark.

   “Shut your traps, will ya?” Blood Johnson ordered.

   Everyone went silent, but their heaving breaths could still be heard, as well as the shaking of guns. Then there was another sound, like the cranking of a lever.

   “What was that?” Blood asked. “Who's there?”

   Sam Silver perked his ears when he heard a familiar tune, a recognisable strum of a guitar's strings. Others there knew it too, but Blood Johnson only knew it by rumour. That enhanced the sound, added to the fear.

   “The Coilhunter,” Sam Silver whispered, barely audible. Maybe he was too afraid to draw that awful lawmaker's attention.<
br />
   “Get us some lights,” Blood Johnson barked.

   Matches were struck and held out before them.

   “What's that?” some of them cried.

   In the poor light, they saw what looked like a metal duck standing by the door. A toy. Yet, when the light shone on it, its head moved. It almost seemed to look up at them.

   Blood Johnson's jaw dropped. So did the duck's. It quacked.

   Then there was a bang like nothing they'd ever heard before, and they felt like their eyes were on fire. Everything turned to a blinding white. The light seemed to invade beyond their sight right into their brains, leaving a searing mark there. The men screamed, dropping their matches and guns, clutching their eyes and dropping to the floor.

   Blood Johnson grunted and stumbled about, blinking madly as if the light was like grit in his eyes. The light had long faded in the room, but it wasn't fading fast enough from his sight. He turned around, looking everywhere, as if seeking out some shadows to hide his eyeballs in. Then the light faded a little, enough to see the dark silhouettes of people rolling about on the floor, enough to see the shape of Handcart Sally strapped to the chair, enough to see the formidable outline of the Coilhunter standing next to her, unmoving, like a statue, or like some boogeyman that didn't haunt children, but grown men and women who hadn't let go of their childish ways.

   Blood Johnson backed away, falling over the bodies of his men, collapsing to the ground, waving his hands in front of his face, as if swatting away invisible cobwebs. The duck waddled up beside him, and he flinched and cried out when he saw it, though he only saw its outline.