Railroad! Collection 1 (The Three Volume Omnibus)

by Tonia Brown

  “Gentlemen?” he asked.

  The four stopped arguing and turned as one to Dodger.

  “I hate to interrupt your discussion,” Dodger said. “But can I help you in any way?”

  The five men stared in silence for a moment, then the red bandanna asked, “What the hell is that?”

  “Looks like a bug,” the blue bandanna said. “Like a damned talking bug.”

  Dodger was confused at first, then he remembered he was still sporting a pair of the professor’s goggles. He slid the SPECS up to rest on his forehead, much to the surprise of the men.

  “That’s not a bug,” the brown bandanna said. “Looks like a man.”

  The red bandanna snorted a short laugh. “Looks like a dead man to me.” He raised his gun.

  The other three followed suit, while the last one just kept on staring in silent awe.

  Dodger dropped his hands to the folds of his duster. “Now put that thing away. We don’t want to start something we can’t finish.”

  “Oh don’t worry,” the red bandanna said. “I always finish what I start. Ain’t that right, boys?”

  The first three grunted with deep, husky laughter.

  “I’m not looking for a fight,” Dodger said, flipping back his jacket to reveal the nine shooters resting at his hips. “And trust me, you aren’t either.”

  “Little man wanna play rough?” the red bandanna asked. “Wanna play with the big dogs, do we?”

  His three cronies laughed with him.

  But not the fellow in the black bandanna. Not the man who had spent the entire exchange staring at Dodger and not at the train. Instead of laughing, he finally spoke. And what he said nearly dropped Dodger to his knees in pained surprise.

  “Sergeant Dodger?”

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  ****

  Chapter Six

  Talk it Out

  In which Dodger tries reason.

  “Is that really you, Sergeant?” the black bandanna asked.

  “What tha hell are you goin’ on about, Clemet?” the red bandanna said.

  The young man, now identified as Clemet, raised a shaking hand at Dodger. “I know him.”

  “Dan,” the green bandanna said in a low voice. “He’s got some mighty big guns.”

  “I can see that!” the red bandanna, or rather Dan, said. “They don’t scare me.”

  “They scare me.”

  “Everything scares you, Tommy.”

  “Sergeant Dodger?” Clemet asked. “What are you doing out here in that contraption by yourself?”

  Dodger was glad to hear they thought he was alone. That was very good. The kid knowing his identity, however, was not so good. But Dodger would take the breaks he could get, and improvise the rest. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. My name is Carpenter. Not Dodger.”

  “Carpenter? Really?” Clemet leaned over his saddle for a closer look. “Are you sure? ‘Cause you could be Roger Dodger’s twin brother.”

  “I’m afraid not. Sorry.”

  “Huh. It’s uncanny. You look just like him. I mean, you’re a little older than him, but it’s been probably six years since I seen him. Maybe five. Do you know-”

  “Enough of this bullshit!” Dan roared over the question. He set the hammer on his pistol and leveled the gun at Dodger’s chest. “Give us everything you have, starting with those pretty guns. Nice and slow.”

  “Why don’t we just take the whole train?” the brown bandanna asked. “I bet Butch would be real glad if we brought him a whole train.”

  “Yeah!” shouted the green bandanna, or rather Tommy. “Dink is right. I bet we’d get the respect of the whole pack if we brought this back with us.”

  “And just who’s gonna drive it?” Dan asked. “Can any of you idjeets drive a train?”

  “Naw,” said the brown bandanna, or rather Dink.

  “Roy?” Dan asked.

  “Nope,” said the blue bandanna, or rather Roy.

  “I think Clemet can,” Tommy said.

  Dan twisted in his saddle to eye the man in question. “Dat true, Clem? You a driver?”

  “I was gonna be,” Clemet said, then hung his head before he added, “in my other life.”

  Every man Jack of them went quiet at those words and hung their heads, as if honoring some secret tradition among them. In the echo of their conversation, Dodger took a long look at the one in the black bandanna, wondering who he was, how he knew so much about Dodger. What else did he know? After their shared moment of silence, the men picked up their threads of conversation and carried on like nothing had happened.

  “You drive or not?” Dan asked.

  “Sort of,” Clemet said. “I was training to drive before they transferred me to a combat unit on the front. I know a little, but enough to get by.”

  Dan motioned to the engine with his pistol. “You think you can manage that thing?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Dan, she ain’t got no tracks.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

  The big man twisted again in his saddle, looking behind the cab and out across the open desert. His cohorts followed suit, searching for signs of tracks. Dodger seized the opportunity of their distraction, drawing his weapons with movements as slow and quiet as he could manage. Which, all things considered, was very quiet indeed.

  “You can see where there were tracks,” Roy said, pointing to the lined pattern in the dust just behind the cab. “But they ain’t there no more.”

  “Where’d they go?” Dink asked.

  Dan grunted. “Must not matter; they were runnin’ without ‘em. Must not need ‘em.”

  “I don’t know,” Clemet said.

  “Yeah,” Tommy said. “Trains need tracks. Can’t run without ‘em. It’s a law, like grabity”

  “Grabity?” Dan asked, furrowing his furry brow.

  “Yeah, you know. When you fall down, you best grab onto something or you’re gonna hit the ground? Grab-it-ee.”

  Dan turned his eyes to the heavens with a heavy sigh. “Come on, Clem, we ain’t got all day. Can you drive it or not?”

  “I just don’t know if-” Clemet started.

  “Gentlemen,” Dodger said over the man. He had managed to work the pistols from their holsters without attracting the men’s attention, and now had the pair trained on the group. “This discussion is over, because you aren’t getting this train. In fact, you aren’t getting anything from this train either. You would do best to turn your horses and get on back to where you came from. Go on now, leave while you still can.”

  Squaring his weapon on Dodger again, Dan snorted at this decree. “And if we don’t leave?”

  “Then it will be my unfortunate duty to make you leave.” Dodger cocked his hammers, just to prove his point.

  “Are you sure you’re not Rodger Dodger?” Clemet asked, his rifle hanging loose from his hands, the business end of the thing pointed to the ground. “Only … you sound an awful lot like him.”

  “Shut up, Clemet!” Dan shouted. “Get your gun up, you moron. This ain’t a practice run.”

  “But, Dan, I think I know that man.”

  “And that makes a difference?”

  Clemet shrugged. “Well, yeah. I just … I don’t think I can kill a man I know.”

  “If he ain’t Pack, then he’s no good to us. He’s better dead.”

  “I know that's what Butch says, but … I’ve been thinking about that a lot too. Don’t seem right. I mean, we used to not be Pack, you know, in our other lives.”

  “He ain’t like us!” Dan roared.

  The scene fell into an uncomfortable hush as all four of the big man's cohorts cowered in their saddles at the raised voice of their leader.

  “Look at him,” Dan said with a sneer. “He ain’t one of us. We ain’t like him and never will be again. Don’t you ever forget that. Now get that peashooter up, right now.”

  Trembling, Cl
emet shook his head and whimpered.

  “Raise your gun!” Dan commanded. “Or I’ll turn you to soup.”

  “N-n-no,” Clemet stammered.

  Dan straightened up, sitting high in his saddle as he shifted his weapon to take aim at Clemet. A low growl rolled up from his throat. “What did you just say?”

  “I said no. I ain’t gonna kill him.” Clemet lifted the shaking rifle, pointing the business end at Dan. “And you ain’t either.”

  “Clem?” Tommy asked. “What are you doin’?”

  “Yeah, Clem,” Roy said. “You can’t shoot Dan. He’s Pack.”

  “I don’t care about the damned Pack,” Clemet said. He snuffled as he fought a rising tide of tears.

  “Whatcha mean you don’t care?” Dink asked.

  Clemet, in full-blown weep now, screamed at the top of his lungs, “I’m a man! Not an animal!”

  Upon reflection of the event, Dodger supposed he would have to blame his lack of practice for what happened next. While five years of tilling fields and gathering eggs hadn’t sucked all of the assassin instincts out of him, it had left him a bit rusty when it came to combat readiness. Had he been in command of his usual habits, he might have been able to squeeze off a shot before the big man did. But as it was, Dodger was not only out of habit, he was out of sorts.

  It wasn’t very often a gang leader killed one of his own, right in front of you.

  No sooner had Clemet issued his declaration of his assured humanity than his boss man laid the poor lad low. A single shot to the chest knocked Clemet out of his saddle and onto the earth beneath, where he writhed in the dust. For a few heartbeats, all Dodger could do was gawk at the barbaric display: the kid rolling in the bloody dirt, his horse kicking and whining at the sound of gunfire, the other four looking on as if it were the most natural thing on earth to shoot one of your own men.

  The distinct click of a pistol cocking brought his attention back to the moment, and things tumbled into a quick succession of events after that.

  Dodger, thankfully not at a loss for all of his instincts, dropped to the platform’s metal floor as he hollered at the top of his lungs, “Giddyup!”

  The men opened fire on the cab. Buckshot and bullets showered the metal panel that separated Dodger from them before Ched could get the cab underway. Dodger didn’t know how the thin metal sheet was holding up to the barrage of fire. He decided to blame it on the professor’s inventiveness.

  Within moments, the cab was in motion, but so were the bandits, the men slapping and yelling at their steeds as the cab did its best to pull away. Dodger took this chance to pull open the doorway and roll inside, then pushed the door closed behind him. When he stood again, he almost tumbled over the professor crouched on the floor, arms over his head. The man looked very much like a turtle hiding in its shell.

  “If you’re going to cower,” Dodger snapped as he holstered the guns, “then get in the corner and out of my way.”

  The professor lifted his head from his folded arms. “I see your discussion didn’t have much effect.”

  Ched didn’t appear as worried as the professor did about the gunfire. He seemed more concerned about hightailing it out of there, bearing down on the throttle and working the wheel like a wild man. “We can’t run her far before she’s shed of fuel or water or both. We’re gonna have to go back to the resht of the line or she’ll end up dry.”

  “We don’t have to run far,” Dodger said. “How tight can you lay down those figure eights?”

  “Comfortably? Maybe quarter-mile.”

  “And uncomfortably?”

  The driver shrugged. “Couple hundred feet.”

  “That tight?”

  “Shure, but I warn you, when I shay uncomfortable, I meansh it.”

  “But you can do it that tight?”

  “I don’t shee why not. Without the whole line, she turnsh on a half-dollar.”

  “Good then. On my cue, turn her hard and run her back to the horses. Once past them give me ten seconds of straight away, then start your eights.”

  Ched nodded his understanding. “Short of like a one-man wagon shircle?”

  “I don’t see what good that will do,” the professor said.

  “He’sh hoping to confush the hell out of ‘em.”

  “Something like that, yeah,” Dodger said. “But give me a warning on your turns. I don’t want to waste ammunition by being jolted out of my shot.”

  “Shure thing, Sharge.” With his grimace for a grin, the driver readied his cab.

  Dodger ignored the title as he slid the door open again.

  “What are you planning on doing?” the professor asked.

  “Time for talk is over.”

  “I hate to be the one to say I told you so, but-”

  “No time for that either.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Then grab hold of something and stay down.”

  “Right,” the professor said, and did just as asked.

  Dodger stopped to stare out of the back window at the men following them.

  Four men.

  Six rounds before he had to stop and reload.

  Life on the farm required very little gunplay, and what times did call for firing off the odd shotgun were handled by none other than the matron of the farm herself, Mrs. Bolton. The closest Dodger had gotten to a weapon in the last few years was handing the old woman her piece when it came time to slaughter a cow or pig. He offered to shoot them for her, but she always insisted on doing the deed herself, and Dodger was more than pleased to leave her the responsibility. He supposed, somehow, she knew he had long since grown tired of such things.

  Yet here he was again, hands itching to grip cold steel and mind reeling from the scent of blood in the warm air. He didn’t want to kill these men—he didn’t want to kill anyone—but he couldn’t see any other way. If their leader was willing to drop one of his own men over a petty argument, then he would be more than willing to kill Dodger and those in his charge.

  “You ready?” Dodger yelled back over his shoulder.

  “Yesh, shir!” Ched hollered.

  Dodger slipped his goggles over his eyes then grabbed the edge of the platform to brace himself. “Now!”

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  Chapter Seven

  Fill Your Hands!

  In which Dodger proves his worth and finds an inner voice.

  The train heaved and lurched as it shifted to the left, pitching everything and everyone not pinned down as far right as Newton’s various laws would allow. The professor wailed with a banshee cry, the sudden turn either taking him by genuine surprise or overpowering his weaker constitution. Dodger’s body formed a wide arc as he pressed his feet to the floor and clung to the doorframe’s edge with every ounce of power he possessed. Just as suddenly as the jolt came, it passed. The moment the train showed signs of stability, Dodger gathered himself and drew his weapons.

  And in that moment of making ready, it all came flooding back to him.

  Every ounce of doubt melted into a cool, collected series of thoughts. His skills, both trained and intrinsic, consumed him whole. This eagerness seemed to take on its own voice, whispering in his mind, reassuring him that what he was doing was indeed the right thing.

  We can do this, no problem. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Calm and steady, son. Wait ‘til they draw close enough to be sure of your aim. Steady and calm. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

  Dodger watched through the helm window as the train approached the men. The horses kicked and bucked as the riders pulled their reigns to a stop, unsure what to make of the oncoming cab.

  Good, this is very good. Stay still and let us draw our mark. Aim for the heart, my friend, and make it quick. Show no quarter. Take no prisoners. They will show you no mercy if you let them gain purchase on the cab. They will not cease unless you stop them.

  Dodger pulled back the hammer on the right-handed gun and drew his recommended deep
breath. When the cab began to pass the men, he shifted his attention to that side, following their trajectory as he readied his aim. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as his targets came into view, into the line of the revolver’s sights.

  Here they come … and here we go.

  Steady.

  Aim.

  Fire!

  Dodger had often heard that a weapon ‘kicked like a mule.’ He had also been on the receiving end of just such an actual kick more than once in his life due to Mrs. Bolton’s ill-tempered ass. But this was the first time in all of his thirty plus years that he could honestly put the two together.

  Boon’s hand cannons recoiled with the genuine ferocity of a kicking mule.

  The pistol jumped to life in his palm, unleashing the power of three simultaneously fired bullets, and shunting the surplus of kinetic energy into the grip and right up Dodger’s arm. Something popped in his wrist as the whole works snapped back hard against his tense forearm. His resulting shot went too far and too wide, missing all four targets and in turn alerting them to his plan with an ear-splitting report that all but drowned the chuffing of the train.

  The riders reacted at once, wildly firing their guns and howling like mad dogs. Once the train passed them completely, they turned and gave chase. Dodger cradled his injured hand, cursing the sight of his swelling wrist.

  Calm down, son. No good getting worked up over a little knock. You’ve still got the left hand. Put her to use, before those men put you down.

  “The recoil is too much,” Dodger mumbled, mostly to himself.

  Then loosen your grip a bit and pull the kick inside and across your chest. It will leave you sore for certain, but tis better than a pair of broken wrists.

  That sounded like a fine idea. One that just might work.

  And, eerily enough, an idea that didn’t feel like his own.

  “Almost time!” Ched shouted over Dodger’s pondering. “Best grab onto something!”

  Dodger holstered the gun and tried his best to hold onto the platform edge with just his left hand. He knew it would be useless to try to holster the right-sided weapon. His hand was too swollen now to do anything more than just hang onto the thing.