Clash of Mountains

by Chloe Garner

  “There’s no way they’re going to manage that,” Wade said. “They don’t have the equipment.”

  Sarah glanced over.

  “You underestimate Lawrence that bad, too?” she asked. He frowned.

  “What do you mean? Lawrence couldn’t do it, either.”

  She shook her head.

  “Ain’t got the sense of a mad cow,” she said. “’Course Lawrence can put a train car back on its wheels. We get sandstorms what can derail a train any time they like, a train gets goin’ too fast and don’t know to expect it. Lawrence and Jeremiah are towns what die, they can’t get trains through. We gotta do it, we get it done.”

  Wade folded his arms.

  “Kayla’s gonna be pissed,” he said. “She didn’t like me coming for one night.”

  Sarah shook her head, takin’ out a lighter and goin’ to look over the car. Black. Blind stupid color for the desert, but it were just like Jimmy to bring in a black car to the dessert, just to prove he had the means to ride in comfort, anyway.

  “I didn’t think you drank beer,” Wade said after a moment of silence. Couldn’t stand to not talk, that one.

  “Don’t often,” Sarah said. “Prefer tea or water, but sometimes that’s what there is, and it ain’t like they put their tea in glass bottles, ‘round here.”

  “You know you’re Kayla’s hero, right?” Wade asked after another pause. “She asks me every day if I know what you’re up to.”

  “Know she likes to treat me like a dress-doll,” Sarah answered.

  “Well, she does that, too,” Wade said. “She says that you have a form she likes trying new things on.”

  Sarah looked back at him. Why in the world did the fool think she wanted to hear anything about it?

  He shrugged.

  “Hell if I know what it means, but she likes putting dresses on you because you aren’t a normal shape.”

  “You ever wonder how you came to have a pretty wife what dotes on you?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” Wade said. “I know it’s Jimmy.”

  Sarah glowered.

  “Certainly ain’t how you treat women,” Sarah said, goin’ back to her lookin’ at the car. Full side were smashed ‘gainst the side ‘a the train, and weren’t nobody in Lawrence fit to fix it. Total loss, from the look of it. Made Sarah smile that she’d caused it.

  “Are you all right?” Wade asked.

  “What?” Sarah asked. “You expected me to be chattier?”

  “No,” Wade said. “I didn’t ask. Kind of my job.”

  She blew air through her lips.

  “Gonna take a hell of a lot more ‘n that to take me down.”

  “Are you bleeding?” he asked.

  “Are you?” she retorted, puttin’ her fingers to her forehead anyway. There were some serious sore comin’ at her when she got down off the fight, but weren’t nothin’ she couldn’t handle. Best if she weren’t bloody-faced gettin’ of the train, though.

  “No,” Wade said after a moment. He’d checked, too.

  “Glad to hear it,” Sarah said. “Kayla ain’t completely set on what she’s set to dress me in for Rhoda’s weddin’, and I ain’t lookin’ to make that bit of fluff you call a wife mad at me.”

  Wade snorted.

  Someone slapped the side of the train and Sarah came ‘round the car as a hand came through with a pair ‘a bottles.

  “Gonna be a bit,” the voice on the other end of the arm said.

  “Keep ‘em comin’,” Sarah answered. She put the bottle cap to the side ‘a the train car and slammed it with her palm, then drank half of it down at a go, givin’ Wade his and goin’ to lean against the car. Wade made a similar motion to open his, then sputtered.

  “That’s gremlin beer,” he said.

  “That’s what we grow out here,” Sarah answered. “Ain’t ‘till you get to Carson they start gettin’ the other grains out of the ground.”

  Wade made a gaggin’ noise and handed his beer toward her.

  “That isn’t what they sell at the tavern,” he said, and she shrugged.

  “Was ‘till Jimmy showed up with his sense ‘a what he were and weren’t willin’ to tolerate there. Start bringin’ in the train every week, give ‘em a source ‘a money comin’ in consistent like, they can order most anything they like. Ain’t that hard.”

  “Why don’t they have them here, then?” Wade asked.

  “Most likely do,” Sarah said. “Ain’t us payin’ for it, though, is it? You gonna spend your pretty money on someone else’s booze?”

  She took the beer from him and set it on the car, tappin’ a foot quiet-like as she waited.

  Few minutes more, and there were a metallic scream as someone set to cuttin’ away the door. Wade leapt to his feet and came to lean next to Sarah, hand on his gun. He weren’t completely senseless, at least. Sarah finished the first beer and set to the second, feelin’ round for a second and openin’ the car door to sit on the seat inside ‘cause she didn’t see cause not to. Wade sat down in the passenger seat, ahead of her, and they waited.

  Took most of an hour to get the door cut loose, then Sarah got out to see what had happened to the world outside.

  Even a bomb don’t do much to the desert. Sand and dust was cleared out of a small area, but everything ‘round it were sandier and dustier than normal. And there was bodies the men of Jeremiah was tendin’ to. More bits ‘n Sarah were used to, but a body is a body, ‘specially when you do both your own bandit killin’ and your own cow butcherin’. Weren’t no trivial thing, takin’ a man’s life, but also weren’t no point spendin’ a lot ‘a time standin’ around and pointin’. She headed for the front of the train, findin’ the conductor after a time.

  “When are we settin’ off again?” she asked. He looked toward the back of the train.

  “It’s going to take days to get the cars repaired,” he said. Preston accent. He’d know how important the train were to the cities along the line, but not really feel it. Not have lived it.

  “Cut ‘em loose,” Sarah said.

  “The vehicles inside were a guaranteed delivery,” he answered. Sarah rolled her jaw to the side.

  “So you weren’t gonna hold yourself up when there was men puttin’ bombs in those cars, but when they get smashed up and useless, you’re gonna hold off on leavin’ for Lawrence to be sure you get ‘em there, anyway?”

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Hi, let me introduce you to Sarah Todd, have you met?” Wade asked. “This is Jimmy Lawson’s new bride.”

  Sarah gave him a sharp look, but Wade didn’t have the common sense to blanch. That’s what livin’ with Jimmy Lawson’d get you.

  “Train goes out. On time,” Sarah said. “On my say-so. Anyone at the end of the line don’t like it, you point ‘em right at me.”

  The conductor adjusted his hat.

  “This engine is under my direction,” he said. “No one besides me or the engineer has any say in what we do.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrows, and she saw Wade edge forward, ready to body-block.

  “Is that how it is?” Sarah asked, touchin’ the underside of her hat with a finger.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” the man said, glancing at Wade with a worried expression. “So may I ask you to please take your seat, if you have a ticket, and let us figure out when it will be safe to undertake the rest of the trip.”

  Sarah couldn’t figure which she were enjoyin’ more, watchin’ the conductor try and tell her what were what, or watching Wade out of the corner of her eye as he worried she was gonna lay out the conductor and give him a peek at his own insides.

  Not a bad idea, at that. Bad day, she mighta done somethin’ of the like. Oddly, this weren’t the worst day she’d had.

  She eased her arms up ‘cross her chest and shifted onto one heel, suckin’ on a back tooth and takin’ the man in, just for another minute. Wade got stiffer an’ stiffer, and the conductor kept checkin’ over Sarah’s shoulder, hopin’ for reinforcement of so
me kind.

  “You know Errole,” she said finally. “Dinosaur what been on this line a good twenty years, now.”

  “I do, Ma’am,” the conductor said, and she nodded.

  “He ever talk about the mess ‘a crazy what lives out at the end of the line, here?” she asked. She glanced at the train. “Not with all the boys comin’ and goin’. Not the boxes and the bullets and the equipment. Back when he didn’t have the time to make it out there, maybe even not once a month. When he was unloadin’ that train on his own into a little locked room in that sorry excuse for a train station? He ever tell you?”

  She and Errole had history.

  The kind of history you get with a guy who owns the health and well-bein’ of a whole town in his hand, but he’s been neglectin’ that town for reasons maybe he controls and maybe he don’t.

  He had a hat with a bullet hole in it.

  Wore it, still.

  She liked him, much as she liked anyone.

  She raised an eyebrow at the conductor, and he swallowed, takin’ a half-step back. Sarah nodded.

  “That whole lot of crazy he told you about? That’s me. Errole done me right, brought what he could when he could. Kept the lot of us alive through a pretty bleak spell. You don’t mean nothin’ to me.”

  “Sarah,” Wade said. “This is a professional. You don’t get a professional to do what you want him to by threatening him with a gun. And that’s not how Lawsons work, anyway. We’re much more civilized. Now. I’m sure that it’s a matter of policy that he has to stay until the train cars are repaired and put back on the track, but I also think that we all know that policies have a certain amount of… give… to them, when there are other circumstances to consider. Don’t you think, sir?”

  Wade stepped forward, just a quarter step across in front of Sarah, not entirely eliminatin’ her as a threat, but offering protection of a sort. He offered the conductor a handshake, and the conductor took it, eyes never leavin’ Sarah. There was money in that handshake. There always was. The conductor nodded once, twice, swallowed and nodded again.

  “Yes, sir, you’re right about that,” he said. “I’ll talk to the engineer and the crew and see if we can arrange an earlier… more timely departure.”

  Sarah nodded, turnin’ away and listenin’ as Wade’s footsteps caught back up to her.

  “Jimmy says you’re the best bad cop ever,” he said, his voice chipper.

  “You feelin’ clever?” Sarah asked.

  “I got the train going, didn’t I?” Wade asked.

  “Run fetch the bags,” Sarah said. He gave her a sharp look and she turned away from it, goin’ to get on the train.

  --------

  Lawrence never changed.

  Didn’t matter how many buildings Jimmy put up, nor how many men poured off the train around Sarah, faces shiny with hope.

  The desert had a nature to it that there weren’t a man livin’, Jimmy or otherwise, could overcome. Red stretched off far as the eye could take it, and then the mountains, stretchin’ a line off to the west all the way south, all the way north, the somber guard of the red clay.

  Sarah stood on the worn wood of the train platform, lookin’ out over the men as they got their bearings and hoped for some clue what to do next. Eventually they’d figure out which way to town and start out for it. This close after a sand storm, weren’t so much a trail to follow as an idea, but any more a section of desert without so much sand and dust in it would open up, and they’d put their feet to it, trustin’ in their luck and their wits.

  “Dumber than an upside-down toilet,” Sarah said, shakin’ her head. Wade came to stand next to her, eyebrows up.

  “What’s that?”

  She shook her head.

  Idealists, one and all.

  Jimmy showed up on horseback, ridin’ Flower and totin’ Gremlin along behind him, and Sarah kept her tongue, not knowin’ if it vexed her that he were on her horse without her say so, or if it vexed her that he were doin’ it to vex her.

  He came to stand next to her on the platform, watchin’ the men, same as her, while Wade missed the whole thing.

  Men as like to starve as not. No bags. No plans. Swarmin’ past Sarah and Jimmy without ever knowin’ it were the two of them gonna save the lot, if anyone did.

  “Bad news,” Wade said.

  Jimmy looked at Sarah, eyebrow fractionally arched as he took in the boxes Wade carried. She raised a shoulder the same fraction, then sucked on a back tooth, lettin’ him know it weren’t her bad news.

  “You found out about the cars,” he said.

  “Weren’t the first,” she answered. The other eyebrow came up to match.

  “She blew them up,” Wade said. Couldn’t contain himself any more, like a puppy fixin’ on a treat.

  Jimmy’s tongue parted his lips.

  “Did you?” he asked. She nodded.

  “Convenient of Pythagoras to turn up some explosives for me,” she answered. “And you to lend me an expert to set ‘em off.”

  Jimmy nodded slowly.

  “The cars.”

  “Lookin’ to use ‘em as a snare,” Sarah said. “Take ‘em off the train, turn a key, wipe out the station and everyone standin’ around, plus any Lawson happened to be tryin’ to drive one. They are all comin’, aren’t they?”

  “No other way to get them all back to the house,” Jimmy said. “I need to find out how he knew.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Why did you blow them up?” Jimmy asked. “Spite?”

  She gave him a little mouth shrug.

  “They ain’t all battered. Just the first couple or so.”

  She adjusted her hat, lettin’ the bottom edges of her eyes come up, just for him, lettin’ him see how little she minded what had happened. Jimmy swung his attention to Wade.

  “My wife isn’t going to be any more forthcoming with what happened, it would appear,” Jimmy said. “Would you tell me what actually happened?”

  Wade gave him the two-minute version of it, includin’ Sarah leanin’ on the conductor, who was standin’ at the engine as the men left the passenger cars. Jimmy looked over at the man.

  “You know who I am?” Jimmy called, only raisin’ his voice enough to prove he didn’t have to raise his voice for people to make the effort to hear him.

  “Yes, sir,” the conductor said. Sarah gave him a dour look. Sure, he knew Jimmy when he’d been back less than a year, but never hears of Sarah Todd when she’s been out here long as anyone cared to remember.

  “You should know who she is, too,” Jimmy said. Heads turned, just casual curiosity, and Sarah turned her hard look on Jimmy. She didn’t need him fightin’ her battles. Not when it came to who thought what of her. The conductor stepped forward.

  “She identified herself as your wife…” he said, but Jimmy shook his head.

  “No, that’s got nothing to do with it. This is a woman who carries a bullwhip and knows how to strip the flesh off your ribs with it, when you make her angry. You stand up to her at your own risk. No one is going to back you up.”

  “You done provin’ you’re a proper bull, coverin’ your cows? We got bigger problems ‘n this.”

  Jimmy turned his eyes to her, body still pointed at the conductor, and Wade came to step into line of sight with both of them.

  “They were high-tech bombs,” he said. “I’ve only ever seen them in Intec. Have to import them.”

  Jimmy was back with them.

  “Pythagoras,” he said. He looked at Sarah, tipping his head toward her.

  “We have things to discuss back at the house.”

  “Noticed you only brought one spare horse,” Wade said.

  “Y’all may be plannin’ to turn Lawrence into a parkin’ lot, but it ain’t one, yet. ‘Round here, we walk when we got a place to be,” Sarah said.

  “Says the one with a horse,” Wade said. She shrugged.

  “I’d ‘a been walkin’ into town, same as you, but you wouldn’t ‘a heard me whin
in’ ‘bout it like turned-out dog.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Wade said. “Do I not get any credit for saving your life?”

  Jimmy’s head turned at that.

  “I did,” Wade said. “They would have blown her up, if I hadn’t been there.”

  “Don’t count them chickens,” Sarah said. “I done what was best and easiest, not the only thing available for doin’.”

  “You said we were going to be wallpaste if I didn’t work faster,” Wade said. Whiny and needy for a grown man.

  “Is that how I should be doing it?” Jimmy asked. “The houses are getting closer to done. Your wife will want to be involved in the final design work. Bring her to the main house tonight, and we’ll talk.”

  “About house decorations, or about what the hell just happened in Jeremiah?” Wade asked.

  “Tell everyone,” Jimmy said. “We’re going to war.”

  --------

  Gremlin jawed off at her for a bit, feelin’ his oats and skippin’ back and forth ‘cross the road while Flower kept the straight path down the middle.

  “He done good,” Sarah said as Gremlin finally settled in.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Jimmy answered. She glanced over at him, but he didn’t look back. “I need you to go to Intec.”

  “Just got back,” Sarah said. “Had a bunch of hired guns on our heels, as you might recall.”

  He glanced over.

  “The line up to Magnum will be done in four days. You’ll go in to Tyrew and north from there. If you go in disguise and stay away from the places that we spent most of our time, no one should even know to be looking for you.”

  “Whoever’s tellin’ you the line’s gonna be done has been lyin’ to you,” Sarah said. “You saw that dust storm. No way they kept workin’ through it.”

  He gave her another sideways glance.

  “You really think that I can put up all of the investor housing as quickly as I did and can’t manage to get four houses built for my brothers in six weeks?”

  “Thought you were draggin’ your feet to prod ‘em into takin’ care of themselves,” Sarah observed. “That and the reservoir ain’t goin’ so good, either.”