Riders on the Storm

by Rob Blackwell

  Their eyes met. Jules had never taken part in a proper duel. It had been a brief fad in the West a couple years ago for a man to challenge another to a shootout in the middle of town. It had died out when people realized that giving an enemy a chance to defend himself was often a poor decision.

  But Jules felt like she was in one now. She met his gaze, determined to hold her ground. He’d put her up against a wall, and there was no more dangerous place for her to be.

  But the duel was interrupted by the sound of gunfire outside.

  “Bandits!” someone shouted nearby.

  Jules acted on instinct. She lowered the gun and handed it over to Will, disarming herself. She held her still bound hands up to Will.

  “That’s Rezzor,” she said. “Untie me and let me help get us out of this mess.”

  It was a risk, but she didn’t have time for a standoff inside the stagecoach while Rezzor was attacking from outside. He shouldn’t have attacked yet—they weren’t at the canyon—but maybe Rezzor had decided to move up the plan because of Jules’ interference. It no longer mattered. The gang was here.

  She hoped an act of good will would help set her free. She didn’t like her odds with her hands bound. Will stared at her, indecision written on his face.

  “I swear on my honor, Will. Rezzor and I are not on the same side. I’m not going to attack your men.”

  Will shook his head. Her words had clearly clinched it, but not in the direction she’d hoped. It had probably been a mistake to use the word “honor.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t take that chance. If you really want to help, you can stay in here without any fuss.” He turned to the other two soldiers, who were distracted by the sounds outside. “Watch them. If any of them make a move, shoot her.”

  With that, Will held up his revolver, opened the carriage door, and jumped out already aiming at a target. To Jules, he looked annoyingly heroic.

  Jules turned back to one of the soldiers.

  “You have to let me out of these!”

  But he was staring at her with horror, his gun cocked and ready. There were several more gunshots outside, followed by shouts and a scream.

  “Form up!” she heard Will shout.

  She was going to die. That thought didn’t bother her too much. Death would find her one day, and in her line of work, it was likely to be sooner than later. What did bother her was that she would die cowering in a box.

  “Calm down, Jules. Will can handle it,” Miranda said.

  Jules scowled at her. Will was a capable man and a decent shot. She’d once insisted he take her out hunting, more so she could feel a gun in her hand again than because she was that into killing defenseless animals. She’d seen him take down a buck from a fair distance away.

  She also knew he’d graduated fourth in his class from West Point. So he could give orders and make men follow them. But she would be damned if she was going to trust him—or any man—with her life. Her father had raised her better than that.

  “The minute you rely on others for your protection is the moment you surrender control,” Trent had said. “Never allow that to happen, Jules. Never.”

  She stared at the soldiers in the carriage. One was studying her, while the other was focused almost entirely on what was happening outside. Not that there was a good way to see what was going on. She saw a soldier gallop past while firing his weapon.

  “Luke?” Jules said. That was all she said, and Luke didn’t respond. But somehow she knew he’d be ready for what she did next. She nodded toward the window. “Miranda, take a look at that!”

  There was nothing to see, but both soldiers leaned forward expectantly, trying to get a gander at what she was staring at.

  Luke leaned forward at the same time, slamming his skull into the nose of the soldier opposite him. Jules leaped toward the second soldier simultaneously.

  The one across from Luke crumpled immediately, knocked unconscious by the blow to his head. Jules knocked the gun out of the other soldier’s hand and before he could react, backhanded him with her arms still tied up.

  He started screaming, but she scooped the gun off the seat and cold-cocked him with it, hitting him so hard he fell unconscious.

  “What the devil’s gotten into you two?” Miranda yelled.

  Jules turned in her seat. “Help me get these off.”

  “I can’t! My arms are tied too.”

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Jules muttered.

  “Why couldn’t you just wait it out like a sane person?” Miranda said.

  “Sanity was never my strong suit.”

  “God, but isn’t that the truth.”

  Jules had a gun and the means to use it, but she wasn’t going to be much help like this. She started rifling through the soldier’s pockets. She found a small knife on his belt and tore it free. She handed the knife across her sister to Luke, who cut loose her bonds. She took the knife from him and returned the favor, freeing Miranda as well.

  “You’re going to get us all killed, you know that?” Miranda said.

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” Jules replied. She nodded to Luke. “Nice work on that one. See if he has another gun.”

  He didn’t. While he searched, there was more shooting and yelling outside. It sounded like a war zone out there. The coach, meanwhile, picked up speed, rocking and lurching down the trail.

  The sound of gunshots appeared to be coming from behind them. If that was right, Rezzor’s men were driving the coach forward, straight into what she assumed was another line of men. It was a tactic her father had often used.

  Jules swore and looked out the window again. She needed to know what was going on. She opened the door, and leaned out, looking to the rear. Will had taken up a defensive position, with at least eight of his men back there. Some had dismounted to improve their aim, while the others covered them from their horses. The stagecoach was speeding away, clearly hoping to outpace the attackers.

  She looked to the front and saw what Will wouldn’t—not in time. At least a dozen other riders were coming at them from that direction. They were several hundred feet away, racing down the trail.

  Jules had underestimated Rezzor. He must have had far more men hidden in the hills than she’d caught sight of earlier. The soldiers were outnumbered at least two to one. She wondered how he had the resources to recruit so many new men.

  She put her fingers into her mouth and whistled loudly. Will looked back, eyes widening in surprise when he saw her leaning out the door. She pointed to the front, and his jaw fell slack when he saw the rest of the gang headed toward them.

  Jules put a hand on the roof of the stage coach and then stepped on the open window to lift herself up. The two soldiers who’d been riding up there earlier must have dismounted, because it was empty now. She didn’t take a seat, but lay prone on the roof so that she wouldn’t be a wide target.

  She leaned her head over the side, speaking to the inside of the coach.

  “Find me a rifle!”

  A few moments later, a dark-skinned hand was holding up a rifle toward her.

  She grasped it eagerly and took careful aim at the bandits headed toward them. She took the jostling of the carriage into account. Under normal circumstances, she would target a rider’s head, but this was no time for precision shots. She aimed for the torsos, their biggest targets.

  Her first shot went wide, but her second knocked the rider off his horse. It helped that they were closer now, too far away to hit her with their revolvers but within easy targeting distance of the rifle. She winged another rider, clipping him in the shoulder. It probably wasn’t a fatal shot, but enough to knock the rider into the dirt.

  Rezzor’s men in front began to dismount so they could better aim at the stagecoach, several kneeling in the dirt. She saw puffs of smoke as gunshots tore through the carriage. One of the two drivers of the coach got hit and slumped over, jerking the reins to the left.

  The carriage went off the trail, jos
tling in the dirt, its wheels threatening to break as it hit rocks. The other driver attempted to get control, but he was shot a moment later.

  The carriage had lost both drivers in a matter of moments. The reins slack, the horses began to slow. Jules couldn’t let that happen. If they slowed, they’d be sitting ducks.

  She cursed and jumped up, crawling over a railing in front and heaving herself into the driver’s seat. She shoved one of the dead soldiers off the carriage and grabbed the reins.

  She jerked them to the right to get back on the trail as more gunshots rained down around her. She was in the worst position imaginable, a huge target that Rezzor’s men had to take out. She fully expected to get hit, but the bullets miraculously missed, hitting everywhere but her.

  Strangely, she could have sworn she saw one bullet that seemed about to hit her glance off in mid-air as if blown by the wind. The heat of battle could do funny things to a person’s mind.

  Jules snapped the reins, yelling “ya” and hoping like hell the horses would obey her. They surged forward, which was precisely what she wanted. Forward was the only way out of this mess.

  More gunshots tore up the seat around her, slamming into the remaining soldier on the driver’s seat with her. If he hadn’t been dead before, he was now.

  Jules had given up trying to shoot. She might have been able to guide the carriage one handed, but she’d be lucky to hit the sky itself given how much the carriage was jostling.

  “What are you doing?” Miranda screamed from a hole near the driver’s box, cut there to make communication easier.

  “I’m going to ram the bastards,” she said.

  Half of Rezzor’s men had taken up position on the trail directly before them, firing away at her. She couldn’t believe they were missing. If they both survived this, she’d have to talk to Rezzor about his recruitment policies. Her father would have never hired such poor shots.

  The rest of the gang was engaged on horseback with Will’s men, the two sides clashing. Jules didn’t see Rezzor, but she briefly spotted Will, looking gallant in his uniform as he shot one of the bandits off his horse.

  She snapped the reins again, the carriage barreling forward with all the speed she could coax into the six horses arrayed in front of her.

  The bandits on the trail were a hundred feet away, then fifty, and they were still unable to hit her. She could almost see their frustrated and furious faces. At twenty feet away, some began to flee, but it was too late.

  The horses had picked up speed and the carriage, with Jules atop it, yelling at the top of her lungs, slammed into them. The horses trampled three of the bandits. The carriage reeled from the impact, nearly throwing Jules out of the driver’s seat.

  It might have kept going, but the stagecoach listed to the side of the trail and hit a large rock. Something snapped and the stagecoach jostled beneath her.

  Jules had enough presence of mind to jump off as it tipped over, crashing into the dirt.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Elizabeth Gatton was never an outlaw, but it’s said (probably in exaggeration) that she was so good at shooting that she could kill a fly a half-mile off in a single shot. She came from a well-to-do family in the South, but headed west sometime before the outbreak of the Civil War. She earned quite a name for herself as a sharpshooter, mostly at exhibitions, but she also helped Bill Hickock run down the dangerous Buford Gang in Deadwood, earning her additional notoriety.”

  — Jessie Berry, “Overlooked Women of History,” 2016

  Jules woke to the sound of gunfire.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out. Probably only a few minutes. She looked up to see the carriage lying on its side in the dirt nearby. She’d jumped clear of it and lay in the long grass along the trail. There was a rock a few inches to the left of her. She was lucky she hadn’t landed there.

  She got to her feet, but the world seemed to spin around her. A mounted man raced past, but she couldn’t tell if it was a soldier or bandit. Her vision was fuzzy. Maybe she’d hit that rock after all.

  She looked down, worried she’d find a broken leg or shattered arm. But aside from a dull ache in her ankle, she seemed remarkably unhurt. The ankle didn’t appear broken or sprained, just sore from the fall.

  She checked her upper body, noticing the revolver in her holster. She stumbled toward the carriage, praying that Miranda was okay. Another horse ran by, but she barely paid attention to it. First worry about Miranda, then everything else.

  She reached the fallen stagecoach just as a figure emerged from its side, which was now its top. Luke flung open the door, pulling himself up. He had a bloody cut on his face and was grimacing in pain, but still appeared to be in one shape.

  Jules opened her mouth to ask about Miranda, but Luke extended a hand down into the carriage in an obvious effort to help her up.

  “No!” Jules yelled.

  Luke looked over at her. There were more gunshots and shouting around them.

  “Is she all right?” Jules asked. Luke looked down, and then back at Jules, nodding. Jules practically sagged in relief. “Then leave her there!”

  He nodded again. Miranda wasn’t exactly safe inside the carriage, but she was more protected than she would have been outside of it.

  Luke reached down a second time and pulled up another rifle. Good. They’d need it.

  Her first thought was to grab the paymaster’s load and run off while she could. It was almost certainly in the leather storage area in the back of the carriage. She could get the loot, find Onyx and get the hell out of there with Miranda and Luke in tow.

  But she looked behind the wreckage of the carriage to see Will kneeling in the dirt some twenty or thirty feet away, his hands over his head. Seven of his men were doing the same, while ten bandits surrounded them. Rezzor stood in front of Will, his gun drawn. Jules wasn’t sure how that had happened so fast. Maybe she’d been knocked out longer than she thought.

  Even if she made it out of there now, Rezzor would follow through on his plan to blame Jules for the killings here. If the U.S. Army ever figured out the truth—and she put no great stock in their intelligence—it would likely be after they hunted her down and hung her.

  Besides, the idea of letting Will die at the hands of Rezzor was unexpectedly painful. She hadn’t loved him, of course, but she’d never actively wished him harm either. And given what she’d done to him and his family, she at least owed him a better end than this one.

  They had apparently forgotten about her, perhaps assuming she’d been hurt or killed in the crash. Rezzor was talking to Will, but Jules was too far away to hear what he said. She could guess. Rezzor was the type to gloat after a victory. Always had been.

  Whatever promises he’d made to force Will to surrender weren’t going to be kept. Rezzor couldn’t leave these men alive. It was just a matter of time before Rezzor shot Will.

  She gestured for Luke to follow her, using the carriage to block the bandits and soldiers’ view of her. She crouched near the end of the carriage, Luke following suit.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  She wished she had her rifle too, but she’d lost it in the crash and didn’t see it lying nearby. She checked her revolver, dug into her pockets and found additional bullets. She’d have six shots. She’d need to make them count.

  “Can you hit Rezzor from here?” she asked. He gave her a look as if she’d insulted him. “Okay, then, wait for my whistle.”

  She stepped out from behind the carriage. She didn’t try to hide, but strode purposely forward, her gun held out in front of her. Some of the soldiers glanced her way, but likely thought she was part of Rezzor’s gang. Most of the bandits had their backs to her, surrounding the soldiers. The others were so entertained by whatever Rezzor was saying, they didn’t notice her.

  She was fifteen feet away when she could hear Rezzor talking.

  “I’m sorry to kill you, Colonel,” he said. “Truly I am.”

  He didn’t sound sor
ry. He sounded gleeful. He raised his gun to Will’s skull. It was now or never.

  Jules held her left hand to her mouth, stuck two fingers in, and gave a whistle. Rezzor reeled around just as a gunshot rang out. The bullet whizzed past Jules and caught Rezzor in the shoulder, knocking him down.

  Rezzor’s men all turned around, looking in the direction of the shot, but Jules didn’t wait. She began firing. She aimed at the ones closest to her, taking down two cleanly before four others had managed to regain their wits. They aimed at her as she kept firing.

  She took down two more, and watched as a fifth and sixth fell into the dirt, hit by shots from Luke. The remaining four all fired at Jules, but she didn’t flinch or duck. She calmly fired her two remaining bullets as she heard their shots fly past.

  By the time the dust cleared, there were only two bandits left. One turned and fled, sprinting for the hills. The other took careful aim at her. She was sure this bullet would find its target, but instead it slammed into the dirt in front of her.

  The bandit tried to get off another, but he was knocked over by Will, who’d risen to his feet and rushed the man. The bandit was so focused on Jules, he hadn’t noticed Will was moving again. The fleeing bandit didn’t fare much better. He ran twenty more feet before Luke shot him in the back.

  Jules walked over to where Rezzor lay in the dirt. She approached him cautiously, sure he was going to fire at her at any moment. Instead, she found him groaning on his side, clutching his shoulder. His gun lay a few feet away and Jules scooped it up.

  “Damn you!” he snarled at her. “I thought you were dead!”

  “Always check for a body,” Jules said. “One of my father’s many lessons, if you remember.”

  She put her gun to his head, aware that she didn’t have any bullets left in that one. That was okay—Rezzor probably didn’t realize that.

  “Go ahead, you murderous bitch,” Rezzor spat. “Do it!”

  She cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger, getting a kick out of the way Rezzor flinched.