Riders on the Storm

by Rob Blackwell

  Jules nodded. She’d guessed as much. He didn’t like talking about his time with that famous outlaw, and she knew little about him. It was strange, in a way. Most bandits bragged of running with the Kid, but her father had kept it mostly to himself. Rezzor knew, as did some of the other men, but it wasn’t something Trent boasted about.

  “They find out where he’s buried or something?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” Trent replied. “Just a whisper, really. It’s probably nothing.”

  “That’s why you’re leaving in the middle of the night. For a whisper? So what if they did find him? What do you owe that man?”

  “Everything, Jules,” he replied, his own voice almost a whisper. “Some men you owe a debt to. You need to repay it if you can.”

  “Funny, that’s not what I’ve been taught,” Jules replied. She reminded him: “’Survival, girl. That’s the only rule you need know about. Do what you must to survive.’”

  Her father grunted.

  “Maybe I was wrong about that too,” he said.

  “Has hell frozen over?” she asked. “Because you just said you might be wrong twice, when I do believe those words have never crossed your lips previously. Whatever you’re up to, I don’t like it.”

  “I am beginning to regret spending money on your tutors,” Trent said. “You know entirely too many words for my taste.”

  “It’s not the knowledge, but their use, I expect. Guns are the best weapons, but words will do in a pinch.”

  “And you’re just as handy with both, more’s the pity,” Trent said. “I’ll be back in a few days. If I get held up, I’ll meet you in the Black Hills. There’s a job over in Deadwood a week from now. Help Rezzor with it, if you would.”

  “You’re still not going to tell me what this is about?”

  “A vase,” her father replied. He said it so softly she almost didn’t catch it.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “A vase?”

  Another loud sigh. Jules was getting sick of it.

  “I’ll explain when I get back,” he said. “Probably should do it now, but I need to move.”

  “You promise?”

  “I am a bandit of my word,” Trent replied.

  And as strange as it was, that was mostly true. You could never entirely trust a man who lived and died by the gun, but if Trent made a promise, he aimed to keep it.

  “All right, go,” Jules said. “I’ll tell Miranda you said goodbye.”

  “Stay close to that girl,” Trent said. “She’s not like you.”

  “Thanks, Father. I hadn’t noticed.”

  He rode forward without another word, disappearing into the darkness. It was the last time Jules ever saw him.

  Chapter Eight

  “Among the Kid’s most devoted followers was Trent Castle. He had his own notorious reputation. There are some who speculate that Trent was the Kid, though the evidence for this is thin. The Kid was described as slight and thin, who almost never spoke. Castle was a large man, with a booming, intimidating voice. Moreover, the rationale for keeping two separate identities, both of them bandits, is dubious.”

  — Stephen Kaper, “Legends of the Old West,” 2015

  Jules glanced at the bank as they rode into Stanton, her hand unconsciously drifting to her gun.

  She rode past it without incident. It had been robbed twice in the past year, but Jules had never been involved. Every bandit needed some place to safely go, a town where they could go to ground if necessary, or at least buy supplies. Stanton served that purpose for her, as it had for her father. It was as close to a home as Jules had ever known.

  It was a fair-sized town, big enough for three streets, with homesteads hemming them in on a square on the outside. There were three saloons, two of which doubled as whorehouses, a general store that served a decent dinner and even a doctor who could do some dental work, a luxury some bigger towns couldn’t manage.

  Its primary feature was the large stone church built in the early days of settlements this far West, before Congress officially recognized the Dakota Territory in 1861.

  Any stone building was a novelty out here. All the other buildings were made of wood, but the town had been founded by some half-crazed preacher and his band of committed followers. From what Jules knew, the preacher had been the fire-and-brimstone type, predicting all sorts of bad things that would come if the men of the world didn’t change their sinning ways.

  Well, men didn’t change, and Jules guessed the preacher got tired of waiting. Some twenty years ago, he and his flock had committed suicide inside a crypt they’d built below the church. The rest of the town had been horrified, before generally deciding that Stanton was a far more pleasant place to live without the constant haranguing of a doomsday preacher. And they’d left a nice-looking church, to boot.

  Jules eyed it as she passed. From the sturdy look of the thing, it would still be here when the rest of the town rotted to dust. She nodded to one or two friendly faces along the way. Many had known her since she was a young girl.

  They knew her profession, even if it was seldom spoken out loud. Allowing her to stay here freely gave them some comfort that they would never be her target, and Trent had been known to spread the word to other gangs to stay away. That didn’t always work, particularly since Trent’s disappearance, but the townsfolk didn’t appear to harbor any resentment toward Jules.

  The sheriff, an older man with a bushy white mustache and only a few strands of hair left on his head, was leaning on a chair outside the jail. Jules tipped her hat to him, and he winked in response.

  Garrett was her biggest champion. He’d only take her in if she forced his hand, and she’d probably have to shoot at least three people dead right in front of him to do so. But she’d never given him a hint of cause. When she’d been younger, he’d helped her with target practice on the outskirts of town.

  By rights, she should have stopped and turned over her guns to the sheriff while she was staying in town. It was a common law in many places in the Dakota Territory. But Garrett made an exception for her and she’d taken pains to make sure he didn’t regret it.

  Jules came to a saloon in the center of town and dismounted. She tied Onyx to a post while Miranda and Luke did the same with their horses. As she was about to enter, an ancient-looking man with exactly three visible teeth approached, holding out his hands. His hair was white and his clothes—trousers and what used to be a white shield-front shirt—were filthy. He glanced briefly at Jules and then shied away, like some kind of frightened animal. Instead, he headed toward Miranda.

  “Do you like my box?” he asked in a slurred tone.

  There was nothing but empty air in his hands.

  “Hi, Pete,” Miranda said, her voice sympathetic.

  Jules rolled her eyes. “Crazy Pete, how I missed you.”

  Both Miranda and Pete ignored her. Luke gave Jules a questioning look and she shrugged in response. Pete stared up at Miranda with wide eyes.

  “Do you like it? I found it in the desert,” Pete said.

  There wasn’t a desert for miles, but Miranda smiled anyway.

  “It’s beautiful, Pete,” she said.

  “Don’t open it,” he said. “You musn’t open it.”

  “Still living up to your reputation, I see,” Jules said, earning her a brief nasty look from Miranda.

  Pete didn’t notice Jules’ jibe. He laughed like a madman, which Jules supposed he was. For a long time, she’d assumed Pete was a drunkard, until it occurred to her that she’d never seen him drink any alcohol. It was possible he kept it hidden, but after several years, she thought she would have at least glimpsed him taking a nip from some bottle or another.

  “Do you have any?” Pete asked Miranda. “Do you have some?”

  Jules sighed. As long as she’d known him, Pete had always asked for the same thing. He liked wooden crosses. She wasn’t sure why, but he collected them. Often he made them himself.


  “Not today, Pete,” Miranda said.

  He shook his head in disappointment and ran off before Miranda could say anything more, loudly singing a nonsense song at the top of his lungs.

  “You shouldn’t humor him,” Jules said. “He just seeks you out now.”

  Miranda scowled at her. “It wouldn’t kill you to show him a little kindness, you know. You don’t always have to get something in return for being nice to people.”

  Jules shook her head, but didn’t say anything. If Jules let her, Miranda would help every stray they came across. It was admirable, but foolish, a great way to end up being taken advantage of.

  She strolled through the saloon doors, immediately taking stock of the room. There were four men huddled around a table in the corner playing poker and another group of men near the bar, talking in hushed tones. One of the men at the table looked up and sneered at the sight of Luke, ribbing his companion in the side to get his attention. But his expression changed when he spotted Jules, rapidly putting his head down.

  Jules didn’t recognize anyone in the place, except the barkeep, who greeted her with a wide grin.

  “Jules Castle, as I live and breathe,” he said.

  He put a glass on the counter top and immediately poured her a whiskey.

  “Dy, good to see you well,” she said as she sat at the bar. Miranda and Luke joined her.

  “Ms. Miranda, I’m again surprised to find you with a woman of such poor reputation,” Dy said jovially.

  Dy was a big man whose former muscle had turned mostly to flab. He stood behind the bar, but she knew he now lugged around a sizable gut. He was a long way from his days riding with her father, when he’d been lean and trim. Dy was older than Trent, probably pushing fifty, with long sideburns in a style that had gone out of fashion at the end of the Civil War.

  “You know what they say,” Miranda replied. “Can’t choose your family.”

  He laughed more than the weak joke deserved, and poured Miranda a glass of water.

  “Something I can get for your friend?” he asked.

  “Nothing, thanks,” Luke replied.

  Jules leaned in. “He into town yet?” she asked.

  Dy gave her a wounded look. “Always straight to work,” he said. “You have your daddy’s sense of conversation.”

  Jules met his gaze. She liked Dy, but it would be a mistake to underestimate him. There was the shotgun he kept underneath his bar, and the steel that hid beneath that soft exterior. It had to. He’d ridden with her father for many years.

  “He’s at Rita’s,” Dy replied. “Has a room upstairs. The word is he’s waiting on someone to bring him something. I had an inkling it was you.”

  “When’d he get into town?” Jules asked.

  “Two days ago. I don’t imagine he’ll stay much longer. He seems antsy. Hardly ever see him not in motion.”

  Jules frowned. It wouldn’t do to lose her man now, not after so much time securing the meeting.

  “Any other news?”

  If there was any man who collected the goings, comings and major events around these parts, it was Dy. The man heard everyone’s sob stories, as a start. But he also had a shrewd ear and a sense of discretion that got him well-rewarded by the right people.

  “You heard about Evanston?” Dy said. Jules nodded. “Buggers are going further afield from the Maelstrom,” Dy continued. “Tempests springing up without warning. Folks keep asking the government to help.”

  Miranda gave a derisive snort. “They’ve been ignoring the Maelstrom for more than twenty years. I believe the official line is it doesn’t exist.”

  Dy looked at her grimly. “True. There was a newspaperman in about two months ago. He’d lost a job in Chicago after reporting on the developments out here. Government doesn’t want people knowing how bad things are. Keeps blaming the deaths on the Sioux.”

  That story couldn’t last much longer, Jules believed. After the treaty with Red Cloud fifteen years ago, Sioux attacks had started to die out. They reached another height seven years ago when Crazy Horse defeated Custer, but by the following year, most of the resistance had been squashed.

  That may have been partly the result of the wrath of the Maelstrom. Like everyone else near that part of the world, the Sioux had been forced to flee the massive storm. That hadn’t stopped settlers from blaming them for its existence, accusing them of witchcraft. The Sioux, meanwhile, blamed it on the white settlers, saying they’d stirred up trouble while searching for gold. The only thing the two sides agreed on was to stay the hell away from it.

  “Anything else?”

  “Word is that there’s quite a bounty for the bandits who hit that train a few weeks back,” Dy said, turning back to Jules.

  “Terrible fortune for them, I’m sure,” Jules replied dryly.

  “There are a number of us who recognize the handiwork,” Dy said. “But why’d you have to kill half the train, Jules? There were women and children in there.”

  Jules shook her head in exasperation.

  “You really think I’d do that?” she asked. “I don’t kill folk for sport.”

  “Awful lot of dead people on that train.”

  “Missing people, Dy,” Jules said. “I doubt they could produce many corpses. If I knew anything about that robbery—and I’m not saying I do—I’d conjecture the train got hit by a tempest halfway through somebody robbing it. No bandit would’ve had reason to kill that many folk.”

  Dy crossed himself. “Heaven protect us.”

  “Never took you for a papist, Dy,” Jules said.

  “Can’t be too careful. I had a missionary priest bless this establishment just in case. He was happy to do so for such an upstanding man of town.”

  She cocked a smile at him. “He bless your storeroom, too? Or the place it connects to? Don’t remember you being so pious when I was younger.”

  Dy looked wounded again. “A man can be forgiven his wild past, Ms. Castle. And I’d appreciate it if you avoided talk of the storeroom.”

  Jules nodded. She wasn’t sure why she was teasing him about it anyway. Every good criminal—even one who’d gone mostly legit—needed a place to store goods out of the public eye.

  “Consider it done,” Jules said.

  “The Devil’s running roughshod over this land, Jules,” Dy said, real concern in his voice this time. “It’s getting dark out there. You best be careful.”

  Jules was about to stand up when she heard someone screaming out in the street. Miranda was off her stool and out the door before Jules could object. Luke stayed where he was.

  Jules looked down, drank the whiskey in a single gulp, and put more money than her drink had been worth on the bar. “Thanks for the chat,” she said. She knew he’d keep it to himself.

  She walked out of the saloon, noticing that some of the card players from earlier were now gone. Outside, she saw one of them shove a young woman—no older than 18—in a low-cut maroon dress that displayed a sizable bosom. She had pale skin with freckles, and she looked intimidated.

  “You overcharged me last night,” one of the men screamed at her. “All I got was a quick ride that cost me a whole dollar.”

  Jules frowned but kept her distance. She could practically feel the rage radiating from Miranda, who stood to the side watching the altercation.

  The attacker’s companions began to laugh, apparently in reference to his “quick” ride, which seemed to infuriate him further. He was dressed well, wearing spotless rattlesnake skin boots and a blue shield-front shirt that he probably thought made him look like General Custer. But he hadn’t shaved for several days, giving him an uneven growth around his face. Combined with his bloodshot eyes and haggard expression, he looked like he’d been on a bit of a bender. Maybe he’d come into a lot of money recently and the only ways he knew to spend it were on clothes, booze and women.

  “If you were quick, that’s your own business,” the girl replied.

  “She’s got you, Duggett,” one said.
>
  Duggett punched the girl in the face. She fell to the dusty ground, holding a hand to where she’d been hit.

  “Listen here,” he said, and took a step forward as if to kick her.

  Miranda turned to Jules. “Do something,” she whispered in a hiss.

  Jules sighed and turned away, intending to walk to Rita’s. She felt sympathy for the girl, but it wasn’t a good idea to get involved in other people’s fights.

  “That’ll get you killed,” her father’s voice said in her mind. “You stick to your business and no man else’s. When in doubt, run away. People may call you a villain or a coward, but at least you’ll be alive for them to call you something.”

  Their father had delivered the same lesson to Miranda. But it had clearly never taken.

  The girl in the street let off another scream, but Jules didn’t look to see what had happened. She’d seen enough.

  “Hands off her!” Miranda called out, and Jules stopped in her tracks.

  She wheeled to find her sister in the street, her finger in Duggett’s face. “You’ve done enough already,” Miranda said. “Leave her alone.”

  Jules swore under her breath. Miranda was going to get her killed one day. Probably today.

  “Is that your girlfriend?” the man, Duggett, shouted at the girl still lying on the street with her hands to her face. “That explains a lot.”

  “Get away from her!” Miranda yelled.

  Duggett made a move to kick his victim again and Miranda grabbed him by the shoulder. Duggett shoved Miranda to the ground and stepped forward to kick her instead.

  Jules whistled, momentarily drawing his attention and that of his companions. She didn’t pull her gun. With three other men behind Duggett, that was a fight she would lose. Besides, gunning down a gang of men in the street was exactly the kind of thing that Sheriff Garrett wouldn’t be able to ignore.

  “I wouldn’t,” Jules said, stepping forward.

  The other men started laughing. Duggett broke off from Miranda, giving Jules a lecherous look.

  “What have we got here?” he asked. “A little girl dressed up in big-boy clothing. You one of Tina’s friends? Maybe I’ll take you for a ride next.”