Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels

by Stephen Mertz

  "I was awake."

  "And what were you thinking about with your eyes closed?"

  Boggs snickered under his breath, making sure to avoid eye contact with anyone.

  The engineer gave the whistle cord an extended pull to let the townsfolk up ahead know that the train was coming.

  J.D. sent a warning squint in Boggs' direction.

  "Maybe I was thinking how easy it would be to deliver our prisoner to the sheriff in a state of unconsciousness, slung over my shoulder."

  "Or mine." Kate's brown eyes appraised Cy Boggs. "Sure is a scrawny little pipsqueak, ain't he?"

  Boggs gulped loudly.

  "Now hold on, you two. Y'all can't mess with me like this. I got rights!"

  J.D. said, "You've got the right to remain real silent. I'd advise you to do so."

  The smoke-spewing locomotive rounded a curve and the town came into view.

  Boggs raised his left arm to shoulder level in an abrupt gesture that caused J.D.'s right arm to raise because their wrists were handcuffed together.

  "At least uncuff me now that we're coming in. You two and that old joke of a sheriff can walk me a couple hundred yards to the damn jail cell, can't you?"

  J.D. poked a half-smoked cigarillo into the corner of his mouth, thumbed a match and puffed it to life.

  "I rode with Sheriff Snap Foster in Kansas. He could take down ten of you. He still can."

  J.D.'s left hand remained on the grip of his holstered Colt. It felt unusual to be wearing the gun on his left side. He was right-handed but it had seemed prudent to not allow Boggs any sort of access to his gun. Boggs had started his life in crime at the tender age of twelve as a pickpocket in the red light district of New Orleans.

  The train started slowing, passing unpainted, dust-covered buildings, mostly of brick and adobe.

  J.D. took a quick inventory of their fellow passengers.

  A family of farmers with three grown sons, several seats to his rear.

  A few men ahead, traveling alone.

  And an attractive, trim-figured young woman seated across the aisle, three rows back. She was dressed for travel in pressed crinoline. Wisps of red hair curled from beneath a stylish bonnet that matched her dress.

  There was a surprised instant when his eyes met hers. Her eyes were green and radiant. A prominent chin, slightly cleft, made her all the more attractive in J.D's opinion. She possessed a well-shaped figure that the severity of her garments could not conceal.

  She and J.D. each quickly looked away, mildly startled at the unexpected eye contact.

  J.D. became aware that Kate's narrowed eyes, now more salty than sassy, had not missed his brief interaction with the redhead.

  "Jehoram Delfonso, were you thinking about making a new friend?"

  Kate was the only person in the world who could call him that to his face and not be carried away dead.

  "Now, Kate, don't be calling me by that name in public."

  "Why not? It is your name, isn't it?"

  "Well yeah, but there's no need to, uh, bandy it about in public."

  The prisoner was unable to restrain a chuckled sneer.

  "Del... Delfon...what did you say that name was again?"

  J.D. said, "See what I mean?"

  "And do you see what I mean, darlin'? No woman cottons to her man ogling pretty strangers."

  Boggs said, "Go on, you two. Don't mind me. Dang. J.D. Blaze. A henpecked husband."

  J.D. welcomed the distraction.

  He said, "You go ahead and laugh while you can, Cy. You're going away for a long time to a place where you're not even going to smile."

  Kate added, "You should have never shot that little girl."

  Boggs' gaze grew sullen.

  "The brat's going to live, ain't she? Hell, everyone knows it was an accident. Them cowboys opened fire on us first. How were we to know Mr. Tagman was out there in a buckboard, showing the herd to his granddaughter?"

  J.D. said, "There wouldn't have been any shooting if you hadn't been rustling cattle."

  "Point is," said Kate, "Mister Tagman and his high-rolling rancher friends got mad enough to throw in and post a reward big enough to make you high-tail it because you knew long riders like us would come after you."

  Boggs spat, nowhere near a spittoon.

  "I ain't going to stand trial for nothing. Thing what puzzles me is why ain't I worm bait like my compadres last night?"

  Three men had died violently in as many seconds last night in Tombstone amid blazing gunfire, hurtling bodies and frantic shouts. J.D. had then rapped Boggs upside the head with his gun barrel and carried the unconscious man down Allen Street in Tombstone to catch the midnight train. With fresh blood staining the sawdust floor of The Grand Lady Saloon, and gunsmoke still hazing the air, no one had felt much like intervening.

  J.D. said, "Your compadres forced our hand. The ranchers want you alive."

  Boggs snickered. "I've got more compadres than those boys last night. Fact of the matter is I've got me a passel of compadres with enough guns and enough crazy to bust me loose and maybe burn this town to the ground if they've a mind to. You wait and see, lawman."

  Chapter 2

  "I'm not a lawman," said J.D. "We take on jobs for the law if the pay is right. When we turn you over to Sheriff Foster and collect our reward, we're done. What the law does with you is none of our business."

  J.D. had been a professional hunter of men for much of his adult life, since his days as a soldier in the War Between the States and traveling west. He'd worked periodically during the intervening years as a Texas Ranger before meeting and marrying Kate and going into business as the only husband-and-wife guns for hire in the west. Before Kate he had been hired to tame towns where decent folk—farmers, shopkeepers, and ranchers, people who wanted to settle a newly opened frontier--were being terrorized by outlaws, and throughout the years had escorted his share of prisoners. Prisoners generally started getting antsy the closer they got to the community where their crimes had been committed.

  Boggs, on the other hand, was growing cockier now that the station was in view.

  The train slowed to a stop, sending a shudder along its length. Passengers began standing, reaching for their grips, valises and haversacks.

  Boggs said, "They want me alive for two reasons. They've got to have their precious law and order. They'll find some no account liar to testify about me dry-gulching somebody or stealing a horse. They don't just want Cy Boggs dead. Them hypocrites want to prove that in Whiskey Bend, a man gets a fair trial before they hang him. But that ain't gonna happen...and there's why."

  J.D. and Kate followed the direction of Boggs' gaze.

  Five hardcases, each with a six-gun riding low, lounged near a hitching rail amid swirling steam from the locomotive.

  Five men.

  Six horses tethered to the hitching rail.

  J.D. stood, tugging Boggs to his feet.

  "Come on."

  They hustled Boggs down the aisle toward the front of the train car. J.D. scanned the interior of the car and the platform beyond the Pullman windows, his left hand ready to draw and fire at a moment's notice. Kate brought up the rear, close behind him.

  He had always been a loner until he met Kate yet even after time spent working together as a team, he remained surprised at the sense of security that came with having this capable woman as backup.

  Kate's hand would be on the grip of her six-gun. Or she could already have the six-shooter drawn. That wouldn't surprise him. Kate never waited for an invitation to a confrontation, be it domestic or with five gunslingers.

  The five ceased their lounging and small talk upon the train's arrival. They rose as a group, checking the action of their revolvers and the looseness of guns in holsters.

  Inside the train car, the pretty, red-haired woman who had exchanged eye contact with J.D. was also standing to disembark. She unabashedly appraised him as his little group passed her. She watched his every move.

  He led
Boggs onto the outdoor ramp between the train cars. Kate was a step or two behind them.

  "Darling," she said, "I think carrot-top back there wants to be friends with you too."

  "Uh now, Katie, that's not my fault. You should stop being so jealous."

  "And stop being a woman? Listen, buster. I know women. I know how fine you are, husband, and so does any other girl out there who lays eyes on you. And some of them are going to want to lay more than their eyes on you."

  They had never discussed their past all that much.

  J.D. said, "That sounds like bitter experience talking."

  "Just you behave. I sent red a look that said her and you wasn't such a good idea. I think she got the message."

  Cy Boggs said, "Hey, how's about you two cutting the personal chatter? This is where I get off."

  The wisps of steam had dissipated, providing a clear view of the station platform. A small number of people--men, women, young ones—stood near the station building. There were derby wearing traveling salesmen toting sample cases. A departing family accompanied by relatives to see them off. An assortment of folks who had come to greet arriving passengers.

  The gunmen held their position around the hitching rail at the end of the platform. They stepped a few paces apart, each separating himself from the others to present a formidable line. Four wore the brand of seasoned toughs while the fifth among them was a freckle-faced teenager, his face screwed up in what must have been intended as a threatening expression...except that the kid looked barely old enough to shave, and there wasn't a line of hard living on his smooth young face.

  Sheriff Snap Foster stood at the foot of the metal steps leading down from the ramp. Snap was past fifty but his iron gray hair and the trace of a pot belly beneath his checkered shirt belied a steadiness of eye. He stared Boggs down along the length of a double-barreled Greener shotgun.

  "Welcome home, Cy."

  Boggs said nothing. He nodded at the five gunmen.

  They returned the nod as one.

  The Sheriff said, "Howdy, J.D. Job well done." Foster's baritone was raspy from decades of eating trail dust.

  "Sheriff."

  "And this must be the missus. Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

  Kate said, "Howdy there, Sheriff. I'll let you call me Kate if I can call you Snap."

  Snap chuckled as if he were not pointing a shotgun at a man.

  "Deal. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady. Me and your husband, rode us some hard trails back in the day, tracking down owl hoots just like Cy here."

  Boggs said, "I ain't no owl hoot. I'm a victim of circumstance."

  Snap continued as if he had not been interrupted.

  "Spent the night around many a campfire with J.D. Dang, but your man can snore."

  Kate nodded. "He has a tendency to be lazy too. But I can always count on him. That makes up for a lot."

  J.D. said, "Aw shucks. We all got our shortcomings." His squint shifted to the quintet of hardcases at the end of the platform. "So that's the personal welcoming committee for Cy."

  "You're damn right," said Boggs. "Those are mi compadres I was telling y'all about. You're going to turn me loose right now or you'll pay the price with your own damn blood."

  J.D. said, "Behave yourself. You're putting your own life on the line if lead starts flying."

  Snap Foster said, "Ma'am, I mean Kate, if what I've heard about your abilities as a shootist are true—"

  Kate said, "They are."

  "Then welcome to the fray. This could get wild."

  Boggs laughed.

  "Did you say ‘could'?" said Boggs. "Could? Sheriff, there ain't no doubting it. People are fixing to die and if they know it, they'd best light a shuck before it's too late." He sent an oily smile in Kate's direction. "And I do mean you, ma'am. You catching a bullet between them pretty eyes would be a mighty sad waste of female."

  Kate said, "I'm telling you, J.D., I really think he needs another swat upside the head."

  Snap eyed the welt that marred Boggs' features.

  "Trouble bringing him in?"

  J.D. shrugged. "Nothing we couldn't handle."

  "My husband is being modest." Kate lifted her voice to insure that she would be heard by the gunmen through the hissing and wheezing of the idling locomotive. "We left three new graves in Tombstone."

  Foster motioned down the street with the barrel of the Greener.

  "Well all right then. Let's get this man to his cell."

  Kate said, "And there was something about a reward."

  Boggs emitted a rude sound that might have been a laugh.

  "I ain't behind bars yet, you stupid bitch. Don't say I didn't warn you."

  Sensing the coming confrontation, passengers from the train scurried to observe what was happening from behind cover. The pretty redhead was among them.

  J.D.'s pistol remained holstered, his left palm on the grip, finger curled around the trigger.

  "We've got to get Boggs away from where bystanders could be hurt."

  Kate said in a low voice, "We missed that chance. Here they come."

  The line of gunslingers stepped onto the station platform. They strode forward, grim-faced. Spurs jangled on the planks of the wooden platform.

  "Howdy, boys," Foster called without a trace of amiability. "I suggest you fellas hold it right there."

  Boggs chose that moment to jerk his left arm outward.

  The handcuffs dropped from his wrist.

  J.D. knew immediately what had happened.

  Onboard the train just before they got off, when the train stopped with a jolt and Boggs had bumped into him, the prisoner had picked J.D's pocket and filched the key to the cuffs!

  With a triumphant shout, Boggs plunged away from him.

  Chapter 3

  Cy Boggs threw himself at Sheriff Foster.

  The suddenness and ferocity of the assault came too quickly for anyone to react. Several things happened at once. It seemed to Kate that time sped up.

  Boggs snatched the Greener shotgun from a caught-by-surprise Snap. The prisoner's body slammed the lawman with considerable force for a man of his slight build, resulting in Snap lurching uncontrollably against J.D. and Kate. Boggs then ran like hell away from them, leaving J.D., Kate and Snap to untangle themselves from each other.

  J.D. drew his gun, tossing it into his right hand.

  The five approaching gunmen cleared gun leather in unison to provide Boggs with cover. At the first sign of drawn weapons, Kate and J.D. opened the exchange of gunfire. Kate heard hot lead sizzling dangerously close.

  A gunslick to her right caught Kate's first bullet. He jackknifed from the platform.

  Two more went down under J.D.'s fire, flung into backward sprawling slides that left trails of blood that glistened in the sunshine.

  One of the two remaining gunmen darted for cover behind crates that were stacked on a wooden luggage wagon. He and J.D. exchanged fire. J.D.'s bullets struck the crates behind which the man sought cover. The gunman's aim was lousy. His bullets came nowhere near J.D.

  Meanwhile, Boggs was running along the length of the train car. Kate took aim at him but before she could squeeze the trigger, he'd darted between the Pullman cars, disappearing from her sight.

  Kate darted after him.

  The man behind the luggage wagon risked a shot at Kate. A window of the Pullman car shattered above and behind her. She returned fire. They both missed. But the distraction gave J.D. the clear shot he needed.

  His next shot took the outlaw in the arm that had been extended from behind cover to fire at Kate. The gunslick cried out in pain. He stumbled blindly from cover, not releasing his grip on his pistol. J.D. finished him with a head shot.

  That left the freckle-faced kid. Both revolvers half-raised. Wildness burned in his eyes and manner. But he hesitated. Untried senses shocked by the sudden death thundering about him.

  Snap Foster also hesitated with his right hand less than an inch from his gun.

&nbs
p; "Drop ‘em, son."

  "Sorry, gramps. I've got to!"

  The kid started to raise his guns. Snap drew and fanned off three rapid shots. The kid's knees buckled. He looked down at the three bullet holes that had suddenly appeared in his chest. His expression changed to stunned disbelief. He coughed blood and collapsed. Dead.

  Foster grumbled irritably. "Gramps? I hate it when they call me gramps."

  Kate was leaping onto the connecting ramp between the Pullman cars, hot on the heels of Cy Boggs who she spotted nearing the end of the next car down, the last car of the train. Kate held her fire.

  Passengers had sought cover on this side of the train from the shooting on the station platform. They had fallen away at first sight of a scrawny, running man waving a shotgun.

  Except for the pretty redhead who had been giving J.D. the eye. She remained on the observation deck that was attached to the read of the end car. She stood there with her back drawn straight, her purse clutched before her.

  Kate began advancing along the Pullman, keeping as close to it as possible in order to present as small a target in case Boggs decided to turn and open fire on his pursuer.

  Boggs seemed to have forgotten about her. Before she could get a sure shot at him, he passed the observation deck, not even pausing to acknowledge her presence until her hand delved into her purse, withdrawing a Derringer that she aimed at Boggs.

  "Stop right there, whoever you are."

  Boggs drew up. He howled as if at a coarse joke.

  "Don't jape with me, wench. Put down that pea-shooter."

  Kate shouted a warning from midway along the train car.

  "Lady, no! Get down! Give me a clear shot at him!"

  If the redhead heard Kate in the excitement of the moment, she gave no indication of it. Her petite hand continued to point the diminutive pistol at Boggs.

  She said, "You stand right where you are and don't move."

  Boggs said, "Go to hell, lady."

  He unloaded both barrels of the Greener. The blast at short range lifted the woman off her feet, throwing her against the closed doorway that led into the train car.