Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels

by Stephen Mertz

  Her anger and frustration came out in one extended sigh.

  She said, "His real name is Jehoram Delfonso."

  This did garner a reaction.

  She had guessed—hoped!—that it would, given that the name had piqued Iron Heart's curiosity earlier when he had tried to pronounce it, only to be shushed by J.D. Being shushed by a white man would stick in the craw of a warrior. This "crazy Indian" was her last shot at gaining her freedom.

  His gaze shifted to her.

  "What this mean...Je-Je-Jehoram?"

  "It's a Biblical name."

  "Ah...Bible—"

  Iron Heart nodded as if that explained everything, though she plainly discerned in the moonlight that she held his interest.

  She said, "Old Testament. A warrior king. J.D.'s mother was a Bible-totin' woman who thought a handle like that would do her son some good in a hard-ass world."

  "And Del...Dell—"

  "Delfonso. J.D. says that was some rounder of an uncle who somebody was fond of. Doesn't matter. Iron Heart, you have to let everyone you ever talk to know that's the real name of the famous J.D. Blaze. Jehoram Delfonso. He hates to be called that." Kate chuckled in spite of herself. "I want that name on the lips of every person he speaks to for the rest of his natural life. And that's just the start of me getting even with mister gallant for pulling this stunt on me."

  "Is funny name." Iron Heart made several attempts to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables without success.

  He was finally engaged in conversation! It was time to go for the grand prize.

  Kate said, "Iron Heart, you must live up to your name. You must free me."

  He was still trying, with great concentration and determination, to pronounce J.D.'s real name. He succeeded on the third or fourth try, more or less.

  Kate said, "You must cut this rawhide. We have to get to the mine. That damn fool husband of mine needs me."

  "Iron Horse not leave here. Iron Horse—"

  "Oh, stow it. You're a prisoner of your good intentions. Don't you see that?"

  Iron Heart blinked. In the moonlight, Kate could see embers of curiosity in his eyes.

  "Woman talk crazy!"

  "Oh, do I? What about those dead souls that have been revived by an evil, greedy man? Count Vlad exploits them even in death. He owns their souls. And you know all about it. You even showed us where they store the dynamite. Those workers are the souls of your people, Iron Heart, crying out to be set free. Don't you hear them?"

  Iron Heart broke eye contact with her. He resumed staring straight ahead, into the night.

  "Shut up, woman. Talk over."

  Kate said, "Like hell it is. You sit idly by while it's action that's called for. Only then will the spirits of your wife and child be safe and free. Help me do this! We are the tools that the gods have chosen to act on their behalf. Your intentions are pure, Iron Heart, but for anything to happen we must act."

  The lines of thought that ridged Iron Heart's countenance were deep enough to be discerned in the moonlight.

  For a long time, he did not speak.

  Chapter 18

  J.D. said to the Count, "You know my name."

  "But of course. I know everything that transpires in this remote backwater of your nation's great frontier."

  Flowery, but a sinister malevolence coursed beneath the words and oily smile.

  J.D. told himself, Stall for time.

  He said, "Heard you were the big noise in these parts."

  "It is my understanding that you have been hearing a number of things because you have been asking questions about me." The Count raised his wine glass. "Are you sure I cannot offer you a libation? It's of a most pleasing vintage."

  "I ain't the wine sort. But I will settle for some conversation."

  "Indeed. I admire your forthrightness, my dear Blaze. It is unique of your—shall we say rustic?—western culture." Vlad set aside his wineglass. "You have only hours ago arrived in Yonder and already you are a thorn in my side. Three of my men, dead in common barroom brawl. Where is your delightful wife, by the way, if you don't mind my asking?"

  Vlad's tone was a purring mockery of civility.

  J.D. heard himself clear his throat.

  "She, uh, couldn't make it."

  "A pity. By reputation, I've always fancied the two of you to be an unbreakable set, as it were." Count Vlad lowered himself smoothly into an armchair and gestured to an identical chair facing him. "Please, relax. Have a seat."

  J.D. said, "I'll stand, thanks."

  He scanned the big hall.

  Blue Feather stood nearby, between the archway that led out and a curtained niche in the stone wall. Her back was to the wall. Hands clasped before her. Eyes downcast, awaiting submissively for either dismissal or the Count's next command.

  J.D. saw no choice but to play the hand he'd been dealt. He would not have this unfortunate girl's death on his hands. She could easily catch a stray bullet between those scared brown eyes should a shoot-out occur between J.D. and the Count in her presence. He would delay action until she was clear of danger, or at least out of a line of fire.

  From his chair, with his legs comfortably crossed, the Count regarded J.D. with a bemused smile.

  "And so let us be straightforward. I would ask, sir, why you are here, standing in my parlor?"

  "Heard you was looking for a hired hand," said J.D. "That's why I threw out Grubmire's name, to sort of get your attention. He told me you were looking for a gunhand."

  "And so you shot down three of my men in a saloon fight?"

  "I shot them before they could shoot me."

  Count said, "You were asking questions. And now as you stand before me, you offer me naught but more subterfuge. You, sir, are renowned as part of the west's only team of husband/wife gunfighters. I very much doubt that you would grace me with your presence in the interest of obtaining employment without your spouse accompanying you. I ask you again. Why do you ask questions? Why are you here?"

  Trying to outthink and outsmart the Count wasn't working out so well. Kate had often reminded J.D. that he was a lousy liar, and so he threw in the towel.

  He said, "It's about the death of Percy MacNeil, and your acquisition of The Starlight Mine from him."

  The bemusement in Vlad's smile snaked up to his eyes.

  "I'm afraid you've expended much effort in aid of a very simple truth. Yes, I purchased the mine. Yes, Mr. MacNeil died shortly thereafter."

  "Quite a coincidence."

  The Count rose to his feet.

  "I have asked you to be forthright. I shall now extend the same courtesy to you. You see, I tricked Mr. MacNeil. I swindled him. Like most honest men, he assumed that he was dealing with an honest man. In difference to the late Mr. MacNeil, however, I would note that hypnosis was among those tools I employed. Legal papers are in order. They can withstand the closest scrutiny. The gentleman died believing that he had closed a business deal successfully, and that full payment was forthcoming. Alas, he passed away before said payment arrived."

  "A convenient coincidence."

  "Mr. MacNeil's demise was no coincidence."

  J.D. nodded. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Colonel Hitchcock tells me it was from natural causes. Nothing suspicious."

  Blue Feather emitted a faint sound. J.D. threw a quick glance in her direction. She had crossed her arms before her, drawing into herself, at mention of Hitchcock's name.

  Count Vlad said, "I killed Percy MacNeil without touching him. Without being anywhere in his immediate vicinity when he expired. I possess such power."

  "The Indians say you are possessed by dark gods. That you practice supernatural evil. That you raise their dead to work in your mine."

  The Count smirked.

  "It is difficult for your simple mind to grasp, is it not? I was taught rituals, incantations, access to sorcery while in Haiti. I was taught by an unpleasant fellow who called himself Baron Samedi."

  Blue Feather commenced a soft humming. Ee
rie. Tuneless. Percussive. She stood behind J.D. He craned his neck. She remained where he had last seen her, between the draperied niche and the archway. She rocked back and forth as she hummed.

  Count Vlad said, "We have distressed the poor child." His tone again mocking, this time of compassion. "Do you wish to be excused, my dear?"

  Blue Feather nodded with a single jerk of her head. Eyes remained downcast. Arms drooped limply at her sides.

  "Yes. Please, sir."

  "Very well. Leave us."

  The Count snapped his fingers and waved a hand.

  Blue Feather scurried through the archway.

  J.D. felt his palm grow sweaty, it having never left the grip of his holstered six-gun since first stepping into the great hall.

  Vlad stood as J.D. had first viewed him. Tall. Aristocratic. More than a hint of arrogance in the up-tilted chin and unflinching stare.

  "Well, Mr. Blaze?" Bemused malevolence coursed beneath the purring tone. "Any more questions?"

  "Not a damn one."

  J.D. pawed his revolver from its holster.

  The Count, with a small smile, addressed someone over J.D.'s shoulder.

  "Now, Colonel."

  J.D. cussed himself out. He started to pivot in the direction of the faint swish of curtains parting from the niche in the wall behind him. He made it halfway around.

  Colonel Hitchcock swung the barrel of his Army-issue revolver against the side of J.D.'s head.

  The last thing J.D. was aware of was the stone floor pitching up toward his face.

  He lost consciousness, swallowed by an infinite blackness.

  Chapter 19

  The first thing he heard was the jabbering.

  Jabbering?

  That was the only word for it. A slavering, chattering, mindless jabber of too many tongues wagging at once for there to be anything discernable.

  There was no way of knowing how long he had been unconscious. That state of oblivion had been fitful. At one point he felt the sensation of being roughly manhandled. Carried along with his boots dragging across the floor behind him, and then leaving the house. His boots dragging across gravel. Then nothing.

  Until now...

  J.D. tried to move. He could not move. He became aware of his surroundings, his condition, his situation, piece by piece.

  He was bare-chested. Each arm was secured by iron shackles to a large metal slab behind him. His ankles were likewise shackled. There was a cold, earthy feel to his immediate surroundings. And yet he was coated in sweat.

  He forced his eyes open. Craned his neck to get a look at his situation. Pain throbbed along the side of his head where he had caught the blow from Hitchcock's pistol.

  He was shackled upright to the large sheet of metal. His shackles were tight enough that they prevented him from sliding down off the metal sheet.

  The jabbering became louder as he regained his senses.

  There was a platform opposite him, extended from an entrance carved from the earth that otherwise surrounded him. Behind the platform, a sort of ramp that reached out over part of the open space that separated J.D. from it, the moonlit mine site was visible.

  They had brought him down here from the big house. Most likely dragged along by riflemen summoned to the castle after the Colonel had K.O.-ed J.D..

  Count Vlad and Colonel Hitchcock stood side by side on the platform, observing J.D.. The Count wore his habitual bemused smirk. The Colonel's eyes were wide and sweat beaded his flushed forehead as he eyed a sweaty, bare-chested man in shackles.

  Neither of them was jabbering.

  J.D.'s gaze dropped.

  The jabbering came from approximately twenty feet beneath him.

  Holy shit!

  It was fucking wall-to-wall zombies!

  They were packed in solid just below him. Their decomposed hands reached for him. Rotting fingertips clawed near his shackled feet. Blind jabbering. Blind lusting hunger for living flesh. His flesh! Every zombie that had been locked into the mine had gravitated to where the ramp overlooked them.

  The Count said, "They are restless. It is feeding time. Sometimes they get livestock for dinner. Your friend Mr. Grubmire had his remains devoured by them during a snack break only today."

  J.D. spoke the first thought that came to his mind.

  "Vlad, you're insane!"

  The Count chuckled, the purring sound nearly drowned out by the incessant jabbering.

  "My dear Mr. Blaze, I have far too much money and influence to be considered insane. I am eccentric."

  J.D. struggled in vain against the bonds that shackled him. He cursed himself more than his captors or the pathetic fiends beneath him. He was about to die having made the biggest mistake of his life. The last mistake of his life. He thought, I should have listened to Kate--

  He said, "What the hell sort of device have you got me shackled to?"

  Hitchcock was sniggering.

  "Go on, tell him, Count. He was so cocky, not knowing I'd ridden up to your place by the back road way. This is much better. I like it when they sweat." There was an undercurrent of perverse carnality in his voice.

  The Count said, "You have been attached to a modest device of my own design, intended to evoke the truth from those who would withhold it, and," he cast a disdainful glance at Hitchcock, "for the amusement of others."

  Hitchcock got defensive. "Those redskin bitches were dead when you let me use it on 'em." He ran the back of his sleeve across his blubbery lips.

  J.D. spat in Hitchcock's direction, but the ramp they stood on was too far away.

  Instead, his hawked gob arced down into the face of one of the zombies. This inflamed the whole bunch of them to a new level of lusting, hungry hysteria that echoed off the mine's earthen walls.

  The Count said, "Mr. Blaze, I have put you in a position to choose."

  J.D. glanced down at the slavering horde of zombies reaching for him with their decayed arms. Yowling their hunger. An unholy cacophony. He glanced back up at the men on the ramp.

  "Choice?"

  "Precisely. Colonel."

  Colonel Hitchcock drew his revolver. He aimed it across the noisy abyss, its muzzle aimed directly between J.D.'s eyes.

  J.D. said, "What the hell?"

  The Count said, "This is your choice. You have a wife. I want to know where she is, so that she can be stopped before she becomes, shall we say, troublesome. Tell me where my men can her, and I will instruct the Colonel to put a bullet between your eyes."

  J.D. winced.

  "That's first prize for telling the truth, huh? Uh, I'm almost afraid to ask but...what's second prize if I don't come up with an answer that you like?"

  "Simple. You forfeit a fast death. Bang. You are gone. It is over. On the other hand, should you refuse to tell me what I wish to know, well, I shall activate a mechanical device that will release your shackles. You will drop and...they will devour you. You will feel most of it. Screaming will do you no good but you will scream no matter how strong you are. They always do. Their teeth will rip out your organs, which they will fight over. You will die screaming."

  J.D. looked past them.

  Three riflemen stood just outside, in a loose semicircle, facing outward with their weapons at the ready.

  He said, "I see you're keeping what gunnies you've got left close at hand. That's a good idea. You'll think a tornado's touched down once you see my woman with a burr under her saddle."

  Hitchcock, sighting down the length of his arm, lowered his aim. His eyes shone. White spittle formed at the comer of his mouth.

  "Let me blow his dick off. That'll make him talk."

  The Count said, "No. Obey me, Colonel. Blaze dies quick from your bullet...or I release him and he falls. What is it to be, Mr. Blaze? I repeat, one last time. Where is your wife?"

  The sudden sound of pounding hoof beats and a blazing six-shooter carried to them, along with a woman letting loose with a crazed rebel yell.

  J.D. said, "That sounds like her now."


  Chapter 20

  Kate rode in at a full gallop. Her left hand guided her mount. Her right hand filled with iron, she pegged off shots at the riflemen.

  A doorway constructed into the side of the hill over the mine shaft. That was where they had her man! J.D.'s black stallion had wandered down and loitered nearby, unattended and unnoticed.

  Her rebel yell cutting above the thundering hoof beats and the barking of her six-shooter had the desired effect, startling the riflemen, surprise causing delayed reactions. Her first round missed but, she was sure, only by a hair. She rode dead-on at them. She fired again. This bullet knocked one of the gunnies off his feet, the rifle flying from dead hands. The surviving two riflemen were bringing their weapons to bear on her when her next round took the second man through the heart, killing him instantly.

  Count Vlad and Colonel Hitchcock emerged from the hillside doorway.

  The Count vanished like a bat into nighttime shadows.

  The Colonel raised his revolver and started squeezing off rounds at Kate. Simultaneously, the last remaining rifleman dropped to take aim. Both of their bullets zinged through open air where Kate had been only seconds earlier, before she dropped to ride side saddle, returning fire at a gallop from under her racing horse's neck. She dropped the third rifleman. Hitchcock decided to dart away, surprisingly agile and light on his feet for a man of his girth. Kate drew rein before the hillside door. She fired a shot after the fleeing figure of Hitchcock. The officer pirouetted and crumpled with a loud cry of pain as he reached deep shadow.

  Kate dismounted. She ran to the doorway and through it, onto the platform. She saw J.D.

  His face broke open a grin. Shackled. Spread-eagle to a metal sheet. A mass of gibbering zombies just below him, dozens of decayed arms stretching frantically for him.

  "Hi ya, babe! Welcome to the party."

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  The jabbering, grasping rabble of zombies was straight out of her nightmare except for one thing: their stink had not been part of her dream. The collective foulness of their stench was bad enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.