by Chloe Garner
Hansen frowned.
“Hey,” he called. “Over here.”
The men backed out of the formative mine and looked at him, and Hansen waved.
“You all know who this is?” he asked. The men looked at each other with nods, and Hansen indicated his brother.
“This is Jimmy Lawson, and he runs Lawrence. If someone shows up looking to jump William’s claim, you go straight to him, and you don’t stop until you’re standing on his doorstep.”
He looked at Jimmy.
“You got a good clean look at them?”
Jimmy nodded.
“I’ll know them.”
What impressed Sarah was that she knew it was true.
She’d recognize them, sure enough, if she saw them again, but the idea that she’d know where she knew them from was laughable. They were just more ragamuffin young men like the ones who lived at the end of Main Street, and while she could pick out some of the ones she’d worked with in the past, and some of those she could even identify for why she knew them, they mostly looked the same to her. Jimmy would know these men the next time he saw them, even if they grew manes and beards and showed up in ladies’ dresses.
It was who he was.
“All right,” Hansen said, waving his hand dismissively at them again. “Should I add more root stock to the pot?”
“We’re heading to Lawrence yet tonight,” Jimmy said.
“Won’t make it before dark,” Hansen observed, and Jimmy nodded.
“We’ll stop, but I want to be back in the morning.”
“Work doesn’t ever end for a good enforcer,” Hansen said. “Thanks for checking in.”
“You let me know if you need anything,” Jimmy told him, and he and Sarah gathered up their horses. She whistled for Dog and they were off again, down the side of yet another mountain, following along the path of a steep stream that bounced and jolted down exposed rocks.
Sarah led the way back uphill, the long, red plain showing in between the mountains ahead of them from time to time as they crested the pass and started down again, and she pulled a hard left, heading north just to be harder to find.
They rode for a number of hours, easy enough work for Gremlin, Sarah, and Dog, but she didn’t want to push Jimmy and his mount any harder than that, and the distance didn’t buy them much more, anyway, so she called it a day, looking for a good place to camp as the sun started to weaken behind the trees above them.
Jimmy hopped down, untacking his horse and going with it to find water as Sarah set up her tripod, and he was quiet when he got back.
Suited her fine.
They spent the entire evening without saying so much as two words. She rolled them both a couple of cigarettes that they smoked past dark, and then they lay out their bedrolls and took their sleep.
They slept comfortably and easily until dawn.
--------
Riding over the last pass down through the foothills, the Lawson house came into view. Both of them sat high for a moment, checking on it as they always did, but there wasn’t much sign of unusual activity, especially at this distance.
As they got close, though, the stable boy came running out, his arms and legs flailing like any step might send him into a cluttered pile of limbs. He hit Gremlin side-on, which didn’t bother the horse as much as Sarah might have expected, and he looked up at her.
“The train didn’t come today,” he said, breathless. Jimmy’s horse snorted as Jimmy hiked up the reins, drawing both horses into sharp focus in a motion.
“Did Thomas do what I told him?” Jimmy asked.
“They’re all in the house, sir,” the boy said, and Jimmy nodded.
“You go get in with them,” he said, kicking his horse into a run. Sarah let Gremlin follow out of simple nature, whistling Dog off and home as he couldn’t keep up with the horses at this pace.
“Where are we going?” she yelled over the sound of the wind and hooves.
“Town,” he answered.
“You think they’re coming?”
“Train hasn’t been more than an hour late in the last two months,” he said. “Not without a big sandstorm to explain it.”
“If everyone is back at the house…?”
“The women,” he yelled. “And Thomas.”
Sarah almost smiled.
Almost.
“Where are the boys?”
Jimmy squinted at the horizon.
“Meeting the train.”
--------
Town was empty.
Once, not all that long ago, that would have been normal.
In the era of roaming, roving young men, the dust being lonely down the center of the street was eerie. Granger’s store had its doors closed, and the glass in Kayla’s shop was frosted over.
Quiet.
Quiet enough to hear the breeze.
“Where are they?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I left Petey in charge.”
“You did hell what?”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“He isn’t as worthless as you give him credit for.”
“Like hell he ain’t,” Sarah said. “You know how many men I had to bull whip in the last year, outside ‘a him?”
“None, I expect,” Jimmy said. “Doesn’t mean that he can’t plan a decent counter-offensive.”
“Is that what you’re plannin’?” Sarah asked. Jimmy stopped his horse, looking around in a long, slow sweep.
“Sarah,” he said without changing his pace. “You saw my gun order. What did you think I was going to do with all of them? Pile them up around us for defense?”
“You ain’t gonna use the defenses at the house,” Sarah said.
“If they caught us by surprise,” he said. “And it’s always the right thing to do. But if we can predict them, I see no reason to not go after them hard and fast.”
“Did you even listen to my ideas, or did you already have the whole thing figured?”
He smiled, still not looking at her.
“We do different things. That never surprises me. You dig in. I…”
“You bring an entire damned army.”
He settled in his saddle, eyes still out.
“I do what I need to do.”
“How are you gonna manage to use all those young men?” Sarah asked.
“Split them up into companies,” he said. “Appoint captains. Create a battlefield strategy.”
Sarah sat very still, watching him.
“They ain’t never gonna see you comin’, are they?”
He looked over at her, sideways, still listening.
“You aren’t the only one who studied while they were abroad. If the man who is doing this is serious, we’re still going to have our hands full.” Now he turned fully to face her. “You once said you’d be my attack dog. I thought it was… a simple way of viewing yourself, but I’m going to ask you to stay with me and do just that today.”
“Jimmy, I’m with you,” she said, pulling her rifle and checking it, then the extra cartridges in her pocket, and then her handguns on either hip. She pulled her extra ammunition out of her saddle bags and then turned her face up to him again. “I’m ready. If you’ve got a plan, I’ll follow.”
He nodded.
“Do you smell it?”
She frowned, focusing.
Smell was one of those things you picked up, in the desert. Campfire, cow, meat, even sand, you could smell it coming often before you could see it.
And yet he smelled the gunpowder before she did.
“Can’t hear it,” she said. “That’s a hell of a fight.”
“How many men do you suppose you could fit on a train, if you were willing?”
She looked at him with wide eyes.
“You think they loaded up the whole thing?”
“Hiding them here is possible,” he said. “But the easiest thing would just be to pack one out…”
Hundreds of men. Easily. Maybe a thousa
nd, depending on how much train they had to work with.
“This is gonna be a blood bath,” she said.
“They won’t be used to the desert,” Jimmy said, putting his own guns back away in their holsters and starting his horse forward at a long-legged walk as Jimmy kept his head up. “We’ll use that as much as we can.”
“How do you use a desert?” she asked. “Everybody can see everybody from forever?”
He smiled darkly.
“Exactly.”
--------
The wind shifted twice as they got closer, and the sound of gunfire was audible from more than a mile away. Sarah could smell something burning, hot, angry, not like wood smoke, and the smell of gunpowder grew stronger as the light wind came around directly into their faces.
They found a group of men shuffling away, looking over their shoulders, and Jimmy looked over at her.
“Your bullwhip, if you would.”
She didn’t like the idea of using it on fleeing men, but she pulled it loose anyway, letting it snake along the ground next to Gremlin so he could see it. He wasn’t going to like it when it cracked.
“Report,” Jimmy called. One of the men looked up.
“Lawson,” he said, for the benefit of the other men. They slowed, not quite stopping, waiting to see what Jimmy would do.
“Report,” Jimmy said. “What’s going on?”
“Can’t kill ‘em,” one of the kids said. “They’re picking us off.”
“Suicide,” another of the men said.
“You know why they’re here?” Jimmy asked. There was muttering, but no one seemed confident enough to answer directly at Jimmy.
“They’re here to kill me,” Sarah said. Jimmy glowered at her.
“They’re here to shut down the mines before they start. They don’t like the idea of us finding absenta, and they want to stop it.”
“Why?” one of the men called. “What’s it to them?”
“Economics,” Jimmy said.
“Not worth risking our lives,” another man said.
“You already did risk your lives, coming here. And then you stayed. If it isn’t worth it to you, by all means, leave on the next train out, but for now, you’ve got a good gun on you that I bought with good money, and I need you holding them down so that Sarah can kill them all.”
Sarah gave Jimmy a hard look, knowing exactly how many shots she had with her rifle, and knowing there was no way in hell she was going to be able to pick off men at any good distance with a foreign firearm, but not actually contradicting him out loud.
They looked at her skeptically.
“How many are there?” she asked.
“Too many,” said one.
“Can’t count,” said another.
“Turn it around,” Jimmy said. “You keep shooting at them until I say otherwise. After that, you can do whatever you want.”
A man came running from behind them.
“Jimmy,” he called. “Jimmy Lawson?”
“Yes,” Jimmy said, sitting taller. Sarah snaked the bullwhip along the ground and the men clustered closer together. Not entirely unlike herding cattle.
“Your brothers are all watching for you,” the man said. Sarah could tell at this distance he was one of the Kirk boys, but she couldn’t tell who under the hat and dust. They bore a striking resemblance to their daddy.
“Get them back up there,” Jimmy said, motioning back at Sarah. She watched the Kirk boy struggle with what to do next - they were kind men, as far as Lawrence men went, and threats of force against allies wouldn’t be easy for them.
Nina Joiner wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.
Sarah nudged Gremlin into a trot, following Jimmy as she re-coiled her bullwhip, and drawing her rifle to let it ride along her leg as they rode, just in case.
The train was visible from here, but it was just a black smudge in the middle of the red distance, and they rounded a very slight depression where the sand was wearing away before they found that they could see the rest of the fight.
The Lawsons had done well for themselves, Sarah thought. There was a fan of men around the train in little clusters, maybe a dozen apiece, and the sound of gunfire as they got closer was nearly constant. She wondered if Jimmy had actually ordered enough ammunition, considering.
She’d never done the math.
“Jimmy,” Wade called. He patted a man on the back nearby and jogged over. “You need to scuttle the horses. They started shooting at the bigger targets a while ago.”
Sarah slid to the ground, grabbing her saddle bags and her bullwhip and waving her arms at Gremlin to get him going. He’d make it home eventually. Jimmy was only a fraction of a second behind her, and he didn’t take as many supplies off of his horse before letting the skittish animal run after Gremlin.
“Over here,” Wave said, waving them forward. Sarah took her rifle and leveled it, watching the men as they scurried around by the train under constant fire.
“They’re workin’ on somethin’,” she said. Jimmy stopped and turned to look at her. She watched for almost a full minute, the scope not strong enough to really make it clear, but she got an impression, letting the weapon drop to point at the ground again and following the direction Wade had indicated.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Somethin’ mechanical,” she said. “We might be gettin’ return fire we ain’t set to handle, here any minute.”
“A lot of them are still on the train in cover,” Wade said. “Petey thinks we’ve got ‘em pinned down.”
“Like hell,” Sarah said, seeing Jimmy nod grimly as they walked.
“Get down,” Rich called. It wasn’t an urgent noise - more annoyed - and Sarah only went along so far as to duck her head slightly. Normally she would have expected to hear the return fire as it came past them, the whizzing noise of bullets and the smack-thuds out in the desert when they finally hit ground, but with the background noise, there was no hope of that. Jimmy put a knee down on the ground next to where Little Peter was peering through a rifle scope of his own.
“What have you got?” Jimmy asked. “How’s the plan holding together?”
“We’ve got ‘em pinned,” Little Peter said. “They’re just hiding in the train and they have these guys out running around, but they ain’t accomplishing nothing. Been doing it for almost an hour now.”
Sarah looked around the fan of groupings Little Peter had managed, then raised her rifle again to watch.
“Who’s makin’ kills?” she asked.
“What?” Peter asked.
“Making kills,” she said slower. “Down there.”
“Who’s making good shots and killing our men?” Jimmy asked, his head up.
“You see the cluster, five of ‘em there by the door into the fourth car?” Wade asked. Sarah let her eye relax. If you strained, you tired your brain out and you stopped really seeing what you were looking at.
“I got ‘em,” she said. “Three of ‘em with rifles.”
“Watch for the kick,” Wade said. She waited. One of the men shot, and Wade said nothing. A moment later, a second one shot. “That one.”
She nodded, relaxing further, feeling the weight of the gun against her shoulder, on her arms, the way it nudged as her heart beat.
“They’re armored?” she asked.
“Don’t look it,” Peter said. “How’d you know?”
“This much fire, they ain’t got but two or three down,” Sarah said. “Ought think about what’s gonna happen to your munitions levels at this rate.”
“Someone said they were hard to kill,” Jimmy said.
White flesh. Face. Sarah blinked.
Pulled the trigger.
“Damn,” Wade said.
“Next,” she answered, pulling the bolt action to load the next shell. Nice big, solid gun, was a bolt action. Stood the powder kick better ‘n most double-action guns, on account of the bolt not needin’ to move when the powder lit off. Powerful, accurate.
> Slow.
Wade took a moment to give her the next target and she lined it up, slow, even, unrushed.
Two shots, two kills.
“You got a plan for when the men you armed turn out to be on their side?” she asked, leaving her eye flat.
“The locals know to watch ‘em,” Little Peter said.
“How many on the train?” Jimmy asked.
Wade gave Sarah a third target and she hit it, dropping to a knee as she loaded the gun again.
“Hell if I know,” Little Peter said. “They ain’t all come off.”
“Need to draw them out,” Jimmy said. “I don’t want them getting the idea that they’re going to lose and just running.”
“Why not?” Rich asked. “Wouldn’t mind ‘em giving up.”
Sarah couldn’t find argument with that. She was watching the men at the train through her scope again, forcing her breath into the right shape, listening as much as she could between shots for anything she was missing in the chaos.
“We want to make it prohibitively expensive for him to send another army at us,” Jimmy said. “Of any size.”
“Gimme another one,” Sarah said, settling her finger on the trigger and staying on one knee.
“The mechanics,” Jimmy said. Sarah looked at him, actually turning her head away from the scope.
“They ain’t the ones killin’ our side,” she said.
“Will be,” he answered. She sucked on a back tooth and nodded, settling back in.
“I’m going to check how much ammunition you have,” he said.
“Wait,” she answered. Her shot was there. She pulled the trigger, four shots, four kills, then nodded, watching the result as men scrambled to get the dead man out of position and continue working.
Gruesome work, but she’d done it long enough.
She felt Jimmy’s hand in her duster pocket, the clink of shells as he counted them out.
“You’re going to need more,” he said.
“You think?”
She lined up the next shot.
Why weren’t they doing something else? Just staying there like sitting ducks, letting her pick them off?
Her fifth shot missed.
She was still in her normal range for accuracy, and she had to expect she was gonna hit train instead of man sometimes.
“Jimmy,” she said, blinking and trying to force her brain to see again.
