Brolin (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Book 14)

by B. S. Dunn

  ‘You keep an eye on that feller, Blaine. I know him from somewhere but I can’t put my finger on it. If he gives you any trouble, shoot him and be damned.’

  Blaine nodded. ‘Sure thing, boss.’

  Stall disappeared into the next rail car and that was the last Smith saw of him until they reached their destination.

  You may think you remember me, thought Smith as he rubbed absently at his side, but I definitely know you, Mike Stall.

  The train rolled on and Smith could only assume that the outlaws he’d seen carefully picking their way along the top of the rail cars had taken control of the locomotive.

  The train emerged from the gorge and picked up speed once more. The rugged terrain flashed past until they were ten miles or so from where the gang had boarded the train; then it left the main line and rolled on to a spur.

  Smith at once realized where they were going. Their destination was the ghost town of High Point, an old silver-mining town. A quiet, solitary place.

  It concerned him a little because whatever the outlaws had in store for them, it couldn’t be good.

  Two

  Over a period of five years the mining town of High Point had come to life on the back of a silver strike, had lived hard, then died. It was a story similar to that of many boomtowns across the West. The last human inhabitant had moved on just two years previously; so, as a ghost town, High Point was relatively new.

  Empty false-fronted shops and businesses still lined the streets; the boardwalks, though now silent, were still in as good condition as when the citizens of High Point had last walked them.

  The Silver Bullet saloon’s sign still hung proudly above double timber doors. Its awning was still erect and intact, as were those of the two other saloons, the Red Garter and the High Point Castle. The Castle had once been owned by an Englishman who had been run out of his hometown for sleeping with the wife of a prominent businessman.

  A cross could be seen atop the church roof, proudly announcing the building’s presence as the train rolled slowly into town. This train was the first rail traffic the town had seen in the three years since the last ore shipment had been freighted out.

  Once the train had stopped all the passengers were ordered off and herded into the empty main street.

  When they were lined up Stall ordered the newly arrived West and Wallace to take anything of value while he and Kansas blew the MacNeale & Urban safe on board the train. In it they expected to find the $10,000 that they’d been led to believe the train was carrying.

  The two outlaws slowly made their way along the protesting line of passengers, taking all they could. A man in his late forties defied the two bandits as he held grimly to a roll of bank notes. West stepped forward and his six-gun rose and fell as it delivered its sickening load to the man’s skull. He dropped like a pole-axed steer.

  Amid cries of alarm the cold smile of the outlaw broadened as he bent over the prostrate form and ripped the roll from his hand. Then he spat on him for good measure.

  Smith felt his ire rise; he wished that he had a gun. Not that it would do him much good. More than likely get him killed. He watched as the two outlaws continued along the line, coming towards him.

  He had noticed seven outlaws. Stall and the one called Kansas were in the express car where the safe was located, while three more stood outside, waiting for them to blow it. That left West and Wallace, who were relieving the passengers of their valuables.

  A commotion erupted from the express car. Men scattered every which way and Stall and Kansas leapt clear. A thunderous explosion rocked the ghost town and echoed off the surrounding ridges. Flames and smoke belched out of every opening in the car as the dynamite blew. The trick was to use just the right amount, not to use so much as would blow the car off the rails. Now part of the express car’s roof had blown off, along with some wall planks.

  Some women gasped and every passenger, including Smith, ducked instinctively. Things began to look even worse as a well-dressed man in a dark suit and tie picked up the courage to fight back.

  A panicked cry of alarm came from West. Two sharp cracks from a small hideout gun sounded unbelievably loud and the outlaw staggered back, clutching at his chest. Two small red blossoms appeared on the front of his blue shirt.

  ‘Damn it, Wal!’ the outlaw cried, bewildered. ‘The son of a bitch shot me.’

  West sank to one knee, paused as if to rest, then toppled sideways into High Point’s dusty main street.

  By this time Wallace had his six-gun out. He fired two wild shots. One bullet found its mark and hit the man in the shoulder, knocking him back and causing his next shot to miss its aim. He staggered to his left, in front of the cowering passengers. Wallace fired three more shots; two of the three missed their target but all found flesh.

  ‘Edgar!’ a woman wailed hysterically.

  From his crouched position Smith looked along the now rapidly disintegrating line of passengers. He saw a woman bending over a small form. It was the boy who’d been seated behind him.

  Cries of fear filled the high mountain air as the man, now mortally wounded, fired one last shot. It hit the outlaw high in the right side of his chest. The misshapen piece of lead shredded his lung after ricocheting off a rib, then it exited through his back.

  Wallace staggered about like a Saturday-night drunk. There was one live round still left in the chamber of his gun. He tried to raise it once more as his strength ebbed. The six-gun wavered in his hand as he attempted to find another target.

  Without giving a second thought for his own safety Smith lunged forward and cannoned into Wallace from the side. The outlaw screamed with pain as both men crashed heavily to the ground.

  Smith grappled for the gun, not to use it but to keep the other passengers from harm. He wrenched it from the wounded man’s grasp and scrambled back, out of Wallace’s reach.

  A soft footfall sounded behind him. Before he could react Blaine’s six-gun crashed into the back of his head. Bright lights flashed in front of Smith’s eyes, then everything went black.

  ‘What the hell is goin’ on here?’ Stall bellowed. ‘God damn it! What was that ... ?’

  Stall’s angry gaze dropped to the bodies of his men on the ground. It didn’t take a genius to work out that West was dead. He lay unmoving, his eyes open. Wallace was still breathing but those breaths came in gurgled gasps as his injured lung filled with blood.

  Stall’s rage simmered when he shifted his gaze to the passengers and saw a dead man lying in the dusty street. One arm was outstretched and a small .38-caliber, five-shot hideout gun lay beside the open hand.

  Further down the line a woman crouched over the small form of her son. The arms of her husband enveloped her shoulders which heaved in silent sobs as he tried to comfort her. Beside him stood a little girl, softly weeping.

  Stall’s gaze shifted again and lit upon two more wounded people, both men.

  ‘What the hell happened here?’ he snarled at Blaine.

  The outlaw shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know. When I got here that feller there,’ he pointed at Smith, ‘was on his knees and had Wallace’s gun. So I cracked him on his skull before he could use it.’

  Stall cursed out loud and drew his right-side Colt. He aimed at the unmoving form of Smith and thumbed back the hammer.

  ‘Wait!’

  Stall looked up at the short, stout lady who’d stayed his trigger finger. His angry eyes bored into hers.

  ‘He didn’t shoot your men.’ She pointed at the dead passenger with the gun near his outstretched hand. ‘He did. All the man on the ground did was try to stop any more innocent people getting killed.’

  Stall let his eyes linger on the woman’s face, then he looked back at Smith.

  He realized that this was the man from the train who had seemed oddly familiar and had set his mind to wondering.

  He frowned. The man’s shirt and coat had ridden up in the scuffle with Wallace, exposing pale flesh that bore th
e large puckered scar of an old bullet wound.

  It only took a moment for Stall to realize what he was seeing; then it all came flooding back.

  He smiled coldly.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned! After all this time.’

  By now the rest of his men had gathered around. They looked inquisitively at their boss.

  ‘What are you smilin’ about?’ Kansas asked.

  Stall looked around at his men, his smile unwavering.

  ‘Fellers, the man there, all laid out,’ he said, stabbing a finger at Smith, ‘is none other than Brolin.’

  Many of the train’s passengers gasped audibly when they realized that they’d been travelling with a wanted killer and gunfighter.

  Stall’s men looked at him as if he’d gone crazy. After all, the outlaw leader had claimed that he was the one who’d killed the well-known gunfighter.

  ‘I thought you said he was dead.’ Kansas gave voice to what they were all thinking.

  Stall nodded. ‘I thought he was. After I shot him we couldn’t find the body. I figured he’d just crawled off some place and died.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s him?’ asked Jack Murphy.

  ‘Of course I’m damn sure,’ Stall snapped. ‘I ought to know. See the scar there on his side? That’s where I shot him.’

  ‘Well, I guess you can make sure now,’ Kansas suggested. ‘Put a bullet in his head and be done with it.’

  Stall eased down the hammer of his Colt and shook his head.

  ‘No, I got me a better idea. Get him up and get ’em all in that church yonder.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Kansas.

  ‘Just do it,’ Stall snapped. ‘Once you’ve done that, lock it up tight. I’ll be cleanin’ out the safe in the express car.’

  The outlaw Murphy cleared his throat. ‘Um, about that ...’

  ‘What?’ Stall’s patience was dwindling fast.

  Murphy hesitated a moment before he informed his boss of the bad news.

  ‘There is no money.’

  ‘There what?’ Stall’s voice held a low menacing tone.

  ‘The safe was empty.’

  Stall’s eyes flashed as he looked about the prisoners.

  ‘Where is the damned express agent?’

  He located the worried-looking middle-aged man. ‘Where is the money? There’s supposed to be ten thousand dollars in that safe.’

  The man swallowed nervously as the outlaw’s steely gaze intimidated him.

  ‘It … it never shipped.’

  The change in the outlaw boss’s demeanor was visible as he grinned at the express agent. A big disarming smile made the nervous man relax a little. Then Stall raised his Colt and shot him in the head.

  Amid the cries of alarm and a sudden flurry of movement, Stall shouted aloud:

  ‘Get ’em in the damn church! Now!’

  ~*~

  ‘All done, boss,’ Kansas told Stall, who was sitting on a weathered bench seat that threatened to break under his weight.

  Stall looked over and noted with satisfaction the rusted chain that Blaine had found in the old blacksmith’s shop. It was looped through the door handles, effectively sealing the passengers in. He nodded.

  ‘Burn it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Burn it to the ground.’

  Three

  Brolin moaned and rubbed his head as he awoke. He gasped as a flash of pain seared across his scalp and he tested it with a tender prod. His fingers came away clean, but boy, did his head hurt!

  ‘Are you OK, Mr. Brolin?’ asked a woman’s voice.

  He froze. He hadn’t heard the name in a long while.

  Brolin looked up at the woman who’d spoken. She was short and plump and wore a blue calico dress. He recognized her from the train.

  ‘Are you talkin’ to me, ma’am?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘Yes, Mr. Brolin.’

  ‘I’m afraid you have me confused with somebody else, ma’am,’ he lied. ‘My name is Smith.’

  ‘That’s not what the killer said,’ a man chimed in. ‘He said it so we all could hear. He said you were Brolin. Said he’d know you anywhere from that bullet scar he put in your hide.’

  Brolin sighed and climbed to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, then gathered himself as he leaned on a timber pew.

  ‘Where is Stall?’

  ‘Oh, so you do know him then?’ the man asked. His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Figures. Killers should know other killers.’

  Brolin’s brown eyes grew cold. He looked directly at the man, who promptly took a step back. He was thin and dressed in corduroy trousers with a matching coat.

  ‘I asked where Stall was?’ Brolin said through gritted teeth.

  ‘He’s outside somewhere.’ It was the woman who answered him.

  Brolin turned his attention to her. Unlike the man, she showed no sign of nervousness.

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ she continued, ‘we’re locked in a church.’

  Brolin took in their surroundings and noticed that the eyes of nearly everyone in the room were turned to him. Some seemed a little apprehensive but most, he guessed, were curious. He shook off their looks and continued to assess their predicament.

  The church was dimly lit. The sunlight that managed to sneak through the cracks in the boarded-up windows was ineffectual in providing much illumination. Many passengers sat on the long timber pews. The space appeared spartan, and lacked the usual accoutrements of a place of worship.

  A murmur of voices hummed around the enclosed space, mingled with the sobs of a few. A stifled cry of pain sounded and Brolin saw the doctor tending to a wounded man.

  His eyes found the family he’d seen on the train. They were seated on a pew towards the front of the church, the man held his wife while the little girl rested her head on her mother’s back. Brolin felt his anger surge back when he remembered the body of the small boy as it lay in the street.

  He turned back to the woman.

  ‘What happened while I was out of it?’

  The woman went on to tell him of the events that had unfolded while he was unconscious. Brolin frowned. Why would Stall refrain from killing him? With what he knew of the killer, from their first encounter up until now when he’d shot the train passengers, it didn’t make sense that he should still be alive. He couldn’t work it out. Unless …?

  ‘Fire!’

  That one word had an immediate effect on everyone locked up in the High Point church. Brolin pushed his way through the crowd of people who’d turned to look to where the cry had come from. The cacophony of anxious voices rose as fear gripped everyone.

  Brolin looked at the twin doors of the main entrance. Smoke swirled beneath them and filtered through the tiny gaps in the doors. He put his shoulder to the oak doors and pushed. They barely moved.

  He drew back, then hit them with force. Again with hardly any effect. The rattling sound from the other side told him all he needed to know. Stall and his men had chained the doors shut.

  Brolin looked behind him and shouted at a group of men who were standing and watching his ineffectual efforts.

  ‘Give me a hand. The doors are chained shut.’

  His words brought more gasps and cries of alarm from the other onlookers but also spurred the men on to come to his aid. Six stepped forward and put the combined weight of their shoulders into the drive at the doors.

  The doors snapped back against the chain but it held fast. Though rusted, the iron links were still strong. Another attempt produced a similar result.

  ‘Get something we can use to prise it open,’ Brolin ordered.

  Two men moved through the crowd to a pew and proceeded to break it up. When they had finished one man scooped up a long piece of four-by-two. They figured that if they could prise it into the small gap between the doors they might be able to lever them open.

  ‘Look! Over there!’ This time the cry came from a woman.

  Heads turned and the horror of their situation redoubled when t
hey saw a new source of smoke.

  ‘Oh my God! There’s another over here!’ a man cried.

  So that was it, thought Brolin. Stall had set multiple fires, knowing the old church would burn to the ground rapidly and take all inside with it. He’d almost killed Brolin once. By hell, he wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to succeed this time!

  ‘Everybody spread out. Check the walls. See if you can find anything - any gaps.’

  The crowd dispersed as people went to search along the walls of the building to look for any means of escape. The church was filling with smoke and people began to cough as the acrid fumes burned their throats and lungs.

  ‘I can’t find anything,’ a man shouted.

  ‘Me neither,’ cried another.

  A loud crack sounded through the smoke and Brolin turned to look at the source of the noise at the main doors. Despite the thickness of the piece of timber they’d been using, it had snapped neatly in half.

  ‘Oh no,’ he heard a young lady cry in despair. ‘We’re going to die. Burn to death.’

  ‘The hell we are!’ Brolin uttered softly. The snap of the timber had given him an idea.

  ‘You men,’ he bellowed, ‘come with me.’

  The men followed him across to another pew.

  ‘Pick it up and carry it over here.’

  The men lifted the pew and followed Brolin to the nearer side wall. He heaved another pew out of the way, clearing a passage for them.

  He pointed at a place on the wooden wall, then ordered them:

  ‘Hit it there. Use it like a battering ram.’

  The six men now swung the pew back then brought it forward, using all the strength they could muster. It crashed into the wall with a loud bang. The wall trembled under the assault but remained intact.

  ‘Do it again.’

  Back, forward, bang.

  ‘Again.’

  Back, forward, bang.

  ‘Again.’

  This time a loud crunch greeted their ears as the pew came apart in their hands.

  ‘Damn it!’ Brolin shouted. ‘Grab another.’

  They cast aside the shattered fragments and picked up the pew that Brolin had pushed aside. They went at the wall vigorously once more.