by Rory Black
Gleaming deputy stars flashed in the early morning sun.
Chapter Four
The bell of the massive locomotive had rung out across the arid plains for more than twenty minutes before the long train reached the small settlement. A blast of steam brought the deafening whistle to life as the long vehicle came to a halt. The engineer and stoker had not seen anything untoward as they expertly brought the iron horse to a standstill beside the water-tower. Dead-man’s Flats appeared to be exactly the same as it always was.
But the peaceful scene was about to alter.
As passengers slowly disembarked to take advantage of the sun-drenched stores which faced the six cars, they did not notice the seven men who lurked unseen in the shadows.
Snake Adams walked to Brewster and Mayne, who had been keeping their six mounts quiet behind the cafe. He snapped his fingers and drew their attention to him.
‘You and One Ear take the mounts a few miles down the tracks to where the trail heads off south, Ferdy!’ Adams ordered.
‘You reckon there’ll be enough time for you boys to get the job done by then, Snake?’ Mayne asked, rubbing his bearded chin.
‘Whatever happens, you wait there for us!’ Adams added firmly. ‘I’ll make sure the train stops there for us to get off, Ferdy.’
‘You sure that it’s on there, Snake?’ Brewster questioned. His eyes focused on the last car of the long train. A car unlike all the others. A car with no windows and a solitary sliding door.
Adams nodded.
‘It’s on there OK, One Ear!’
Both men stepped into their stirrups and hauled themselves on to their high saddles. They shared the reins of the five other horses between them.
‘See you later!’ Mayne nodded as he and Brewster spurred their horses. Snake Adams inhaled deeply and watched as the pair of riders led all their mounts a few miles down the trail.
Buck Harris moved to Adams’s side. He was sweating heavily and stroking his gun grips with his gloved hands.
‘There must be twenty or more passengers trying to get served in the stores, Snake!’ he said nervously. ‘We got all the townsfolk tied up behind the saloon. What’ll we do?’
‘Go tell them that everything’s on the house, Buck!’ Adams grinned. ‘Say that they can have anything they want. Liquor, grub and anything else they take a hankering for! They won’t ask no questions.’
‘Why won’t they ask questions?’ Harris frowned.
‘’Cause folks are greedy!’ Adams answered. ‘If they think they can strip this place clean, they’ll do it!’
Harris shrugged and headed towards the passengers.
Adams stepped down from the boardwalk and rested his knuckles on his hips. He stared at the train and bit his lip as the rest of his men gathered around him.
‘What we gonna do, Snake?’ Kyle Parker asked as he looked along the length of the train. ‘I never thought it would be this big!’
‘What we want is in the last car!’ Adams said knowingly.
‘That’s a damn shame!’ Coop Starr grumbled. ‘That means we have to take the whole damn thing!’
Adams nodded.
‘Yep, the whole damn thing!’
Ben Lynch leaned close to Adams.
‘The train crew are looking a tad curious, Snake! I reckon that they’re wondering where the railroad folks are who are ’sposed to help them water their boiler!’
Adams glanced along towards the steaming engine. Lynch was right. The engineer and stoker were hanging out from their high cab, looking for the workers who lived in the small town. Two attendants were also standing on the wooden platform near the first two cars.
‘I don’t like this, Snake!’ Parker admitted. ‘This is gonna be tougher than we thought.’
The others grunted in agreement.
‘This ain’t no tougher than any other job we’ve taken on, boys!’ Adams insisted. ‘In fact, I’d say it’s as perfect as it could be!’
‘Yeah?’ Starr raised both eyebrows.
‘We’ll make the driver take this train to where the boys are waiting with our horses. Then we’ll have them unhitch the last car and send them on their way,’ Adams said as he watched the huge chute pouring water from the tower into the thirsty boiler of the locomotive. ‘We’ll get what we’re after once we have that car separated from the rest of the train.’
‘What exactly is it you want out of that car, Snake?’ Starr asked. ‘You ain’t told us nothing about this job and we’ve ridden with you for over a hundred miles. What could be so darned important?’
Adams glanced at the inquisitive outlaw.
‘You’ll know when I decide to tell you, Coop! Not one minute sooner. OK?’
Starr gulped and nodded.
‘OK, Snake! Don’t get riled up.’
‘Takes more than a back-shooter like you to get me riled, Coop,’ Adams said. He gazed at the end car. ‘What I will tell ya though is that the thing I’m after is worth more than its weight in gold!’
‘It ain’t money?’ Parker turned his head and stared at the thoughtful Adams.
Adams smiled.
‘Some things are worth more than money, Kyle. A lot more.’
‘I’ll have to take ya word on that, Snake.’
‘Damn right!’ Adams spat.
The sound of pounding boots drew their attention. They all turned and watched as Buck Harris ran out of the shadows and up to them. He could not have looked more excited.
‘I’ve never seen folks so happy, Snake,’ he said in a surprised tone. ‘I told them what you said about everything being free and up for grabs, and they just swarmed like locusts over the stores and saloon. Mostly the saloon.’
‘Good! I knew that they were no better than the rest of us.’ Adams laughed. ‘Them passengers probably won’t even notice when we takes this train on out of this godforsaken place without them being on it.’
‘Ya right, Snake,’ Harris agreed, pointing at the saloon. ‘Them galloots are drinkin’ that saloon dry. I never seen such drinkin’ in all my days. They’ll not even remember they was on a train in the first place, I’ll bet.’
Adams grinned and checked his guns.
‘C’mon! We’ve got us a big old train to steal!’
Chapter Five
Exhaustion had overwhelmed the gaunt and wounded bounty hunter as he wearily looked out from the narrow gap in the livery-stable loft door down into the street at the growing excitement. In less than ten minutes the streets beyond the corral had gone from being empty to being filled with dozens of heavily armed men. Iron Eyes raised the whiskey bottle and poured some of the liquid over the bullet hole. Even though the pain was more than most men could have handled, he did not even blink.
His eyes continued to stare down from his high vantage point at the men who now had a real reason to string him up from the nearest tree. The deputies seemed to have had no problem in finding others to join their search for the man who had killed the sheriff.
Iron Eyes watched them as they scurried around like headless chickens. They had lost their leader and now were all trying to work out what they ought to do next. Only one thing was certain: it was obvious that they would kill him on sight.
He knew that killing lawmen was always a bad move.
Iron Eyes poured another mouthful of whiskey over his wound before he covered his bleeding body with hay and buried himself in the corner of the high hay-loft.
Every few moments he fell asleep and then awoke with a nervous jolt. His eyes stared out from the hay where he rested. He knew that he needed sleep badly if he were ever to regain enough strength to flee this town.
But with every beat of his pounding heart, he could hear the deputies and others below him. Their voices were raised as their anger grew like a cancer inside them. Vengeance was a dangerous sin to toy with. Iron Eyes had given too many well-armed men a belly fall of it to chew on.
His life was not worth a plug nickel, and he knew it. Yet the bounty hunter was too weak even
to care. He had ridden with death as his constant companion for far too long to have any fear of it. Death was the only certainty in a life as hard and brutal as his, but he did not wish death to claim him before he was truly ready.
He rolled on to his face and looked down between the wooden boards at the stables below.
The deputies knew that his Indian pony was still tethered in the stable. That meant Iron Eyes would either have to come to collect it or he would have to steal another mount in the town.
Iron Eyes continued to stare between the boards. He could see two of the deputies near the large open doorway, bathed in sunlight. They were talking, but he could not hear a word above the sound of the restless horses. The two lawmen nodded to each other., then one walked back towards the street whilst the other remained in the stables.
They were going to try and set a crude trap, Iron Eyes thought. He watched as the deputy drew out his gun and then walked into an empty stall veiled in shadow. The man managed to make himself comfortable in the blackness.
Iron Eyes knew that the rest of the armed men were leaving a deputy inside the livery stables to wait for him to come back for his Indian pony. He raised his head a few inches and again glanced through the narrow gap in the loft doors.
He watched as the men split up into three groups and headed off in different directions. Iron Eyes sighed with relief and rested his head on his outstretched arm.
At least there was not a tracker amongst them, he thought. He had left a trail of blood halfway across Rio Concho that led right to where he was lying. If any one of those armed men in the street had ever ventured out from their safe community into the deadly landscapes which he had explored over the years, they’d have known how to hunt their prey.
He had hunted all his life. He had learned how to track and trap game for the pot almost before he had learned to speak. He had become the most deadly of souls over the years. Not because he had wanted to kill, but because that was the only way someone brought up in the wilderness survived.
It was always kill or be killed.
He had learned very quickly after he had first encountered white men that it was more profitable to kill wanted men than animals. It had been a natural progression for a creature such as himself.
He sighed again.
Not one of those men knew the first thing about hunting another living creature. For that, he was grateful!
Pain ripped through him again. He touched the bullet hole and then stared at the red fingertips. He was losing far too much blood but had no way of stopping the bleeding without drawing attention to himself. He knew that if he were to burn the wound it would stop pumping his life’s blood out of his painfully thin body. There was no fire up here in the hay loft for him to use.
His mind drifted back to the face of the sheriff as he had staggered towards him a few seconds before the lawman had realized he was dead. Iron Eyes wondered if the words he had spoken before being shot were true.
Was there really a bounty on his head?
Had the outlaws finally turned the tables on him?
Iron Eyes tried to think of a way he might escape this town alive. The more he thought, the fewer options came to him. He was still somehow alive, but still trapped just as he had been in the jail.
At least there were no iron bars here to taunt his injured spirit, he silently told himself.
He still had a small chance of survival. The hanging judge would not be able to pass judgment on him here and have him dragged helplessly to the nearest tree with a high broad branch.
If they caught up with him here, he would fight!
Only death would drag his bleeding body from this fragile sanctuary, he concluded. They would taste the fury of his Navy Colts as so many others had done over the years.
He would not die alone!
If he was headed to Hell, he’d be taking company. A whole lot of company.
Iron Eyes dropped his head back on to his coat sleeve and licked his dry cracked lips. There was only one way to get out of this town and that was on horseback, he told himself.
There was no other way of escaping Rio Concho!
Iron Eyes finished the whiskey and then closed his eyes. This time he would sleep.
Chapter Six
The gleaming wheels screeched. Sparks flew out in all directions as metal skidded across metal. The driver held on to the heavy metal lever and slowed the massive locomotive. Herb Snape and his engineer Ty Flynn had obeyed every command that had been shouted into their ears since the five armed men had boarded the train back at Deadman’s Flats.
The cold steel barrels of the cocked Colt .45s which pressed into the nape of their necks were other good reasons to listen. For men like outlaw Snake Adams never liked to repeat themselves.
Their trigger fingers were far too itchy for that.
‘That’s right!’ Adams breathed into Snape’s neck. ‘Stop the train along here!’
‘Here?’ the anxious train driver muttered.
‘Yep! See them two riders with the string of horses?’
‘I see ’em OK!’
‘Stop when this old loco is level with them!’
‘No problem, mister!’ Herb Snape gulped. ‘You’re the boss. I’ll get as close to them hombres as you want.’
A multitude of steam jets seemed to spit from behind the locomotive’s gleaming wheels as Brewster and Mayne showed themselves at the mouth of the narrow gulch. The two riders had the five other horses tied securely to their saddle cantles.
The driver had been as good as his word. He managed to stop the huge locomotive within inches of where Adams had indicated.
The two horsemen silently acknowledged the nods of their five companions as Snake Adams forced the two men down from the high engineer’s platform on to the dusty ground.
Adams dropped down on to the soft sand, poked the barrel of his gun into the engineer’s belly and waited for Lynch and Parker to escort the rest of the train’s crew from the passenger cars.
‘What do you want of us exactly, mister?’ the sweat-soaked engineer asked fearfully. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘Hush up and you’ll live longer!’ Adams said, his eyes narrowed. ‘It don’t pay to get too nosy. I’ve heard it can reduce a man’s life considerably.’
‘We ain’t carrying no gold or nothin’, mister! Honest!’ the stoker snapped. ‘If ya holding up this train, you’ll go away empty-handed!’
Adams lowered his head, then swung his gun hand with every ounce of his strength. He smashed the barrel of his weapon across the stoker’s face. Ty Flynn’s neck almost snapped as his head was violently struck. Blood and teeth hit the largest of the train’s wheels before the man fell unconscious into the sand.
‘Reckon that dumb ox didn’t quite understand me when I said for you guys not to ask any more questions.’
The engineer was about to speak when he felt the gun return to his middle. He sucked in air and swallowed hard.
‘Stop shaking! He ain’t dead!’ Adams snorted. ‘But it don’t matter none to me if we have to kill all of you. My boy Buck there wants to kill everyone he meets. I only have to snap my fingers and it’ll happen. Savvy?’
The engineer nodded.
‘We gonna kill these varmints, Snake?’ Buck Harris asked as he jumped down from the closest passenger car. ‘C’mon! Let me kill someone!’
Adams stared at his bloodthirsty companion.
‘Maybe later! You keep ya guns on them.’
Harris smiled. It was the smile of a man who liked nothing better than killing. He had killed all sorts of people in his time. Men, women and children of every known color and creed. It had become a thirst which could never be quenched. An addiction which could never be satisfied.
‘Get here, Coop!’ Adams shouted at Coop Starr. Starr had been an explosives expert years earlier when the railroad companies had wanted mountains removed so they could lay their tracks on level ground wherever possible. His skill with dynamite had proved invaluable to
Adams over the years. There had never been a bank or safe that Starr could not get into.
‘You figurin’ on letting me blow the door off that end car, Snake?’ Starr asked with a glint in his eyes.
‘Only if the guard inside it don’t open up peaceable like.’ Adams replied.
Both outlaws walked the entire length of the locomotive at a brisk pace. Both were eager to get there, each for a very different reason. They did not slow up until they reached the last of the cars.
The outlaw leader reached up and hammered on the green sliding door with the grip of his gun.
‘Open up or we’ll surely kill your pals out here, boy!’ Adams yelled at the locked door. ‘Open up now and we’ll spare ya miserable hide.’
A muffled voice came from inside the car.
‘Who are ya?’
Snake Adams looked at Starr and raised his eyebrows. He could not believe his ears.
‘I’m the loco bastard that’ll kill the rest of the folks workin’ on this train if you don’t unlock this damn door! Open up!’
‘I’m armed!’ the voice shouted out defiantly. ‘I got me a scattergun and plenty of shells. You try and get in here and I’ll blow you all to hell!’
Adams rubbed his chin and turned away from the car.
‘We got us a plucky little rooster in there, Coop.’
‘I could use a stick or two of dynamite to encourage him to open that door, Snake,’ Coop said.
‘No, not just yet.’ Adams took a few steps and waved his arm at Parker. ‘Get that engineer down here, boys.’
Kyle Parker grabbed the neck of the engineer and hauled him away from his unconscious stoker and the conductors. He pushed him along the length of train until he was standing before Adams.
‘W . . . what you want of me?’ the terrified driver stammered.
‘You know the guard inside there?’ Adams asked.
The driver nodded hard.
‘Sure do. His name’s John Parsons. He’s a stubborn little critter and no mistake. Nobody likes him. He’s a real company man. You know the sort?’
Adams pulled out a cigar, bit off its tip and spat.
