Katana and the Peacemaker

Chapter One

The Great Train Robbery

July 25, 1883



Somewhere right smack in the middle of a hot hell on earth known as the Mojave Desert, there was a thriving silver-mining town called Calico, the most prosperous boomtown in the area. Some business had been completed there recently and quite a sum of money was being transported on a train to San Francisco. Two gangs, through combined efforts, had devised a plan to rob said money.



The first gang had six members. Two were old men, Dick “Long Barrel” Hodgins and Jedediah “Babyface” McElroy. Three were of non-Caucasian ethnicities: Dodger Amsterdam was an Irish immigrant from New York City, Iñigo was an old Mexican bandit who frequently claimed to actually be the legendary bandit Joaquin Murrieta, and Jack “Twitch Trigger” Dobbins was the son of a white mother and a father of Northern Paiute and Comanche heritage. The final member was a young man named Billy Ringo.



Two weeks previously, Billy was fortunate enough to overhear a highly secret deal in one of the prospectors’ tents in Calico. Some San Francisco businessmen, including the notorious Vice President Collis Huntington of the Central Pacific Railroad, had arranged with the Calico prospectors for a large amount of money to be transported back to San Francisco by train: $300,000 in gold certificates!



Billy immediately telegrammed his five comrades in another boomtown to meet him in Keyesville, an infamous ghost town 140 miles west of Calico that was used as the gang’s primary hideout, followed by the Vasquez Rocks.



Billy made it to Keyesville in two days by stealing a fresh horse every twenty miles and riding for about three hours each time. The place was silent and empty as a cemetery, guarded on all sides by steep rough-and-tumble terrain nobody but a lone horseman could get over without too much difficulty. It was the perfect hiding place for a gang of robbers, especially when it was rumored to be haunted by the spirits of forty Paiute men who had been murdered there in cold blood by American soldiers and settlers. Trigger had chosen the place as their hideout because he knew it all too well from his Paiute heritage there; his uncle and cousin were among those men murdered.



Once the whole gang had arrived within the next day and a half, Billy had told all. The darkly glinting eyes of Babyface, Long Barrel, and Iñigo all sparkled with greed. They were in all the way.



Dodger just shrugged.



Trigger was quite unsure of the plan, but the overwhelming votes in agreement as well as the amount of money involved swayed his decision in favor of the plan. He was not greedy, but he badly needed the money.



In unanimous accord, they all mounted their horses and rode back to Calico. The trip took another two days. They spent the next week planning.



Long Barrel convinced another gang of three old men to join forces with his on this one heist. The trio only gave their last names to go by: Eastwood, Leone, and Peckinpah.



Trigger broke off from the gang for a few days to take care of something personal, but returned shortly before the scheduled train departure.



From what the two gangs’ surveillance of the locomotive’s operations found, nobody else knew of the money being transported, not even the crew. Apparently, the businessmen and prospectors were very untrusting with such a large quantity of money at stake, but that also meant very few or possibly no men at all would be guarding the money.



They could not find out where the money would be placed, but did know the conductor would have the keys to the cash safe without knowing what was inside. The businessmen even used a lowly mail delivery safe to ward off suspicion.



At six o’clock in the morning on the 25th of July, they all rode off into the desert to set up the trap that would set the robbery in progress. The train was scheduled to leave the station at one o’clock in the afternoon.





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Billy was an extraordinarily cocky young man with a love for adventure and total freedom. He was quite skinny for the ripe age of 21, with some muscle spiraled about him and legs as lanky as a coyote’s. His dirty blond hair was scruffy as a dust-filled mop; his dull scruffy face was overwhelmed by his ghostly blue eyes. His clothes were all newly bought, covered in barely any dirt: Stetson hat, spurred riding boots, long duster coat, open vest to hold his many various effects, shirt, Levi Strauss pants, and all. His slacked belt that hung low on the hip carried twin holsters for two Colt .45 Peacemaker revolvers, top of the line and completely loaded. There was also a little sheath fitted with a huge Bowie knife in his belt.



Rule of thumb dictated that a six-shooter should only be loaded with five bullets due to the fact that a round discharging from a loaded chamber if the hammer was forcibly struck could not be stopped. However, like so many other rules, Billy chose to ignore that one as well.



Hands on his hips, he set a booted foot comfortably on the hot metal of the railroad line before him, which ran in a straight line across the flat patch of land bordered in the distance on all sides by a bunch of dusty hills that rolled like ruffles in a carpet or potatoes lined up side-by-side. The trees that dotted the landscape here and there appeared as though they had been spilled from the skies and landed wherever they happened to.



Hearing a scuttling noise in the ground, Billy looked down and saw a large black lizard with beaded yellow spots. He jumped back in surprise and reached for his gun to shoot the animal when Trigger came up beside him and placed his hand on Billy’s, preventing him from drawing the weapon.



“Relax… It’s a Gila monster… Latin name: Heloderma suspectum.”



Trigger was the quietest amongst the gang and the only man Billy trusted. He was forty years old, square-jawed, broad-shouldered, and thick; the man was big in every way from the waist up. His legs looked too long and skinny for his upper body, but it somehow worked out. Trigger sported short hair to convince his Caucasian peers he was a “civilized Indian.” His clothes were old and worn; everywhere you looked, from duster coat to Stetson hat to boots, there was not a single shiny spot or bit that was not roughed up and covered with dirt and dust. His weapons of choice were two Winchester rifles he had slung over his shoulders. He never was any good with pistols, always trembling when holding one, for which he was called “Twitch Trigger.”



Billy arched an eyebrow as Trigger kneeled down and extended a hand toward the lizard, which cautiously moved forward and then struck like lightning. It sank its teeth into the skin of Trigger’s hand and held on quite tenaciously.



“Uhh… Trigger… ain’t those things poisonous?”



Trigger seemed unfazed by the animal biting him and drawing blood. “Oh, yeah, but not enough to kill a human… most o’ the time. Nope… I’ve never known a single one to kill a man.” He lowered his hand to the ground and let the Gila monster pry its teeth from him and scuttle off.



Before either man knew it, the lizard took a short pause with its head still, on full alert. Then it sped off into the distance after a large rodent of some sort.



Trigger’s eyes widened and a grin overtook his face. “Well, I’ll be damned…”



Billy asked him, “What is it?”



“Prairie dog, genus cynomys. I thought they were extinct in this area.”



A cloud of dust consumed the two animals as they fought. Neither man could tell from the distance they were at which creature currently had the upper hand.



Trigger continued smiling and explained, “When I was a kid here, there used to be literally hundreds o’ those critters runnin’ around. Used to be more Gila monsters, too… Now, the unique thing about these prairie dogs… here in this exact place… was they were the only animal in the area able to become immune to the Gila’s venom.”



“How’s that interesting?”



“I’m gettin’ there… Now, see, over time, the Gila’s venom’d get more potent to counter the dog’s immunity. Then, over some more time, the dog gets back its immunity to that venom. An’ the advantage just keeps on switchin’ back an’ forth between the predator an’ the prey.”



Billy watched with piqued interest as the two animals battled it out beyond his range of sight into the dusty distance. However, both were too far away for either man’s eyes to be able to accurately tell which was winning. Billy kept his arms folded to feign lack of interest.



“That sounds like Darwin’s bullshit. You get that from him?”



Trigger stood at full height and wiped the blood off his hand with his sleeve.



“Nope,” he replied, “I known it since I was little, back when I lived around here. Used to be a story my father an’ my grandfather’d tell me. An’ it applies to everything, the never-endin’ competition between predator an’ prey to outdo each other.” Squinting his eyes and scanning the landscape, he added, “Looks kinda like the dog’s losin’, goin’ extinct around here.”



Billy inserted a cigarette between his lips, lit up, and smoked away, muttering only two words in response, “That sucks…”



Suddenly, Iñigo tapped Billy’s shoulder from behind and asked, “Oye, amigo. Got another one of those?”



Billy shoved him off and said, “Get your own.”



Iñigo groaned and stood idly by the railroad tracks. He was of generally average build and slightly hunched height, being a Mexican man of farming heritage in his late fifties. His torso consisted of a grimy shirt, a woolen sarape over that, a duster coat over that, and a massive-brimmed sombrero hat atop his head. Strangely enough for a gunman in an era of increasingly technologically advanced weaponry, he was armed with three outdated Colt Dragoon revolvers, two obsolete flintlock pistols, and an 1858 Remington revolver tucked in his belt.



All around him were the eight other men, all garbed in dusters like Billy.



Eastwood and Leone were the most stoic, both able to stand still for incredibly long periods of time and just smoke cigars. Eastwood did, however, scratch his bearded face every now and then. He also appeared younger than Leone, as his hair was a mixture of brown and gray. Leone was more rotund, with a full white beard, almost like an opera singer. Both men carried one Colt 1851 Navy revolver each.



Peckinpah was the most gruff-looking of all three, with the thinness of Eastwood and the white beard and hair of Leone. His clothes were as ratty and old as he was. Drinking whiskey from a canteen, he staggered a lot. No one was worried, though. He still knew how to use his Colt .41 Lightning revolver well at his most drunken state.



Dick “Long Barrel” Hodgins was the de facto leader of the two combined gangs, aged sixty and standing at six-foot-three with a long scar across his face from a Bowie knife fight in his youth. He wore a bandoleer of bullets slung across his body, a Colt 1861 Navy in a holster under his armpit, and carried an old Spencer rifle in his hands.



Dodger McDonald was around fifty years old, much skinnier and shorter than Billy, and wore ratty old winter clothes beneath the duster and a stovepipe hat that made him look like a short Abe Lincoln without the chin whiskers. His black hair was greasy from an oily gel he regularly scrubbed in it, his teeth black from a tobacco-chewing habit, and he had cocky swaggering gait. His weapons of choice were an 1869 Schofield revolver and a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.



Jedediah “Babyface” McElroy was the oldest member of the gang, at age 64, with hair as white as snow. His nickname came from how smooth and childlike his face appeared, in spite of his age. He carried a full-length double-barreled shotgun and a holstered Smith & Wesson Number 3 revolver. He was also new to the group, so nobody knew how he handled robberies aside from his infinite knowledge of explosives.



Explosives were critical to pull off this robbery.



Babyface was tapping his foot and checking his pocket watch all the while.



Billy hocked up a large bit of phlegm and spat it onto the tracks. “Hey, Babyface, what time is it?”



Rolling his eyes, Babyface responded in a venomous tone, “Billy, you asked me that five goddamn minutes ago. Ask me again an’ I’ll shoot you in the fuckin’ face.”



Scowling, Billy moved for one of his pistols, but Eastwood backhanded him upside the head. “Knock it off, kid!”



Growling, Billy eased his fingers off the butt of his gun, nodding to Long Barrel and inquiring, “Hey, Dick, why’d you invite these bags o’ bones to the party?” He gestured toward Babyface and the three older men, with Peckinpah and Babyface scowling in response.



Long Barrel was trimming his fingernails with a knife. “’Cause I prefer bein’ over-handed to shorthanded, Billy. We need all the help we can get on this one. An’ don’t call me Dick, call me your boss.”



Billy scoffed, “Whatever.”



Long Barrel sighed and shook his head, hands on his hips. He almost felt compelled to bend the young man over his knee and give him the beating of his life, especially considering he was old enough to be Billy’s father. “Didn’t your pa ever teach you to respect your elders, you little shit?”



Billy tapped his chin in a mockery of ponderous thought and shook his head. “Nope. Too busy.”



“Yeah, yeah. ’Course he was. All our fathers were too fuckin’ busy to teach us any morals. After all, we’re here to rob a train, aren’t we?” Dodger pitched in with a heavily burred Irish accent.



“Hey, Saint Patrick, quit your bitchin’. All you gotta do is follow a rainbow an’ you get a goddamn pot o’ gold, you fuckin’ leprechaun.” This comment from Billy made the others laugh.



Dodger snorted and turned back to Babyface, “What time is it?”



“Ten after two.”



Billy’s jaw gaped. “What the hell? Why’d you tell him an’ not me?”



Babyface retorted, “’Cause I like him better than you, you little shit.”



Iñigo nodded his head toward the watch. “Oye, amigo. You sure the time on that watch is right?”



Babyface glared and replied, “Why don’t you ask Trigger over there? The half-breed’s s’posed to be able to tell time by the sun’s position in the sky or by the shadows on the ground.”



Trigger dropped the cigarette he was smoking to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel, barely restraining a frown. “That’s a stereotype an’ you damn well know it.”



Dodger shrugged and snidely remarked, “Well, so’s that leprechaun bullshit Billy just pulled. Honestly… I used to have power. I used to be someone. I used to be a high-rankin’ man o’ the Dead Rabbits Gang back in New York… Now, I’m reduced to a punch line in a fuckin’ train-robbin’ posse.”



“Oh, get over yourself. If you liked it so damn much, why’d you leave?” was Billy’s annoyed response.



“The draft riots in New York in ’63. I made more enemies than I really needed because o’ that chaotic cluster-fuck, so I left as fast as I could.”



Leone suddenly blurted out in heavy Italian, “La locomotiva viene.”



Before the others could ask Peckinpah or Eastwood what he said, Peckinpah pointed toward the distant hills and barked, “Train’s comin’!”



Surely enough, there was a massive plume of billowing smoke in the distance, shortly followed by the train’s appearance from behind the hills. Billy could feel the track start to vibrate under his foot, the dirt and rocks near it shaking like an earthquake was coming.



Babyface grinned wide, kneeling down by the tracks and lighting a match to a long fuse connected to explosives set under the tracks. Once the fuse was sparkling, he got up and ran as far as he could as fast as possible away from it. “We’re in business, boys! Skedaddle!”



The rest immediately dispersed and put as much distance between themselves and the fuse as possible before it burned up.



In one spectacular yet deafeningly loud explosion, the stretch of track where the explosives were placed was blown sky high and the debris rained back down with a multitude of thunderous crashing until only smoke remained in the air.



The next sound to be heard was the earsplitting screeching of the locomotive’s wheels urgently braking to slow down and stop before reaching the huge gap in the line resulting from the demolition.



Covering their ears to muffle the painful noise, the outlaws all pulled their bandanas over their faces to conceal their identities and rushed toward the train as it still moved, weapons drawn and ready for action.



All four cars of the ten-wheeler locomotive were painted yellow, along with the engine and coal storage cars, with large blue letters on the sides of the caboose declaring the name of the train’s railroad company: Calico & Odessa Railroad Co., co-owned by Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Co. Of course, this was the fancy train for the wealthy passengers, like the businessmen of Calico’s silver mines. The glistening outside paint- and roofing job was testimony to that.



Iñigo, Dodger, and Babyface approached the engine with their guns held high and hurriedly rushed onto it. Once inside the metallic beast, they aimed their weapons directly at the elderly engineer and the young boiler man beside him. Both workers raised their large gloved hands up.



As planned, Eastwood, Leone, and Peckinpah raced toward the caboose to secure the back end of the line. They saw no movement from the cupola, a small windowed structure atop the roof meant as a lookout perch.



Billy, Trigger, and Long Barrel made a show of intimidating the wealthy passengers in the cars before they even reached the engine, firing their weapons into the air several times and then reloading quickly.



“A’right, gents!” Dodger cocked his pistol, pointed two inches from the engineer’s mouth. “Hand over the keys to the mail safe or I’ll blow 32 teeth into your goddamn brain, brother.”



Rather than dare to provoke the threatening men, the engineer shoved his gloved hand into his overalls’ pockets and relinquished a lone key to Iñigo, who passed it off to Billy behind him.



Billy cackled excitedly under his breath and hurried over the catwalk alongside the coal car into the first coach car, hollering to the men behind him, “Come on, Trigger! Iñigo!”



Inigo growled irately, “My name is Joaquin Murrieta, you stupid gringo!”



Long Barrel stayed behind to keep an eye on the engineer and boiler man.



As expected, the inside of the coach was an extravagant piece of work. The bench seats of the car, able to seat ten to twelve people all together, had cushioned upholstery in a fine green color with ornately carven wood. Around them, the windowsills and edges to everything were made of brass. White bulbous lights connected to the ceiling, the candles inside unlit. A car fit for the wealthy, which these passengers were.



The outlaws all began shouting threats to the surprised wealthy gentlemen aboard, all dressed in fine and dandy clothes from their top hats to their silk vests and spit-shined shoes. The ladies with them, wearing the finest dresses and hats, shrieked, but never moved an inch from their seats.



To emphasize the gravity of the situation, Billy fired once into the ceiling.



“Hands up where we can see ’em! No funny business now!”



The shrieks and multitude of raising arms toward the ceiling that followed showed they got the message.



Intending to herd all the passengers onto one or two cars to keep a better eye on them, Billy shouted while pointing over their heads, “Move to the next car! Hurry up!”



Most stood up of their own will and bustled past each other toward the next car, arms in the air. The rest, particularly the ladies, who were taking their sweet time getting up from their seats, were yanked from where they sat and shoved forward toward the next car. They scowled at the robbers at this “indignity.”



Babyface emphasized the urgency of the situation by pointing his shotgun point-blank at one woman’s face and growled, “Shut the fuck up an’ move your fat ass to the forward car or you’ll get a bucketful in the face, ’cause I’m crazy as a Kilkenny cat, bitch.” The woman spat in his face in response and stomped off into the next car.



They moved on through the second car and got the passengers there to move on to the third, where Eastwood was at the other end, ordering them to sit down. It was tight, but they all managed to get seated. They complained a lot, though, especially the ladies. Almost thirty people were packed into that last car in the rolling stock.



Billy told Dodger, Iñigo, and Babyface, “Okay, stay here, let ’em know you’re heeled, an’ watch the four-flushers. If you wanna, get all the cash you can off ’em.”



The three men nodded and pointed their guns at the passengers, ordering each one to hand over a wallet or purse with their left hand. Most verily complied, but the women were a bit more stubborn.



Billy and Trigger followed Eastwood into the caboose. Unlike the cars the passengers resided in, this was stuffy, filthy, and dull. A broken stove, desk with three legs, some grimy windows, and poorly made chairs were all that filled the car; a highly different realm in stark contrast to the wealthy passengers’ privileged domain.



Leone and Peckinpah stood at the side that consisted of a sliding door that was half open from their entry and beside a tiny ladder to their left that led up to the empty seats in the cupola above their heads. “Nobody in the angel’s perch,” Peckinpah reported, gesturing up toward the cupola. The caboose’s low roof forced them all to hunch a little.



Two crewmen in rough and dirty clothes and the fat conductor wearing a clean green suit stood quite insignificantly with their hands held high at the side opposite the sliding door.



Eastwood patted each man’s hips for weapons. “They’re clean.”



Billy laughed a little. “Okay, hand the safe over an’ no one gets –”



Then the door at the end that led to the caboose’s rear platform outside opened, revealing a fourth crewman adjusting his pants back onto his waist and pausing in alarm upon seeing the four robbers.



The outlaws paused, too.



There was a brief moment of confused staring exchanges before the man threw open his jacket and drew a pistol, pointing it shakily at Trigger.



“Don’t move or I’ll blow your brains out!!”



Trigger grumbled at his sudden predicament. “Billy…”



The young man was glaring at the crewman. “Yeah?”



“Why am I seein’ a fourth guy when you said there were just three?”



Billy retorted in aggravation, “Hey, he was never here before!” He pointed his finger at the crewman with the gun. “An’ you took too fuckin’ long to take a piss! You should know just two shakes finishes it, not however many you took your liberty with! If it’s more than two, you’re just playin’ with yourself!”



“Hey! I’m gonna shoot the redskin, so put the damn guns down!” the crewman shouted while brandishing the pistol. An abundant amount of sweat was pouring from his forehead and exposing how nervous he truly was.



Trigger frowned unpleasantly and seethed, “Excuse me?”



“What?!” he barked, his hands starting to shake.



“Okay… You could've used a number of other things to call me. You could've called me a lowlife, bastard, scumbag, outlaw, hell-bound son of a bitch, catamite, or even sodomite… But noooooo… You had to pick redskin.”



Without warning, Trigger raised his Winchester and blasted a single shot into the crewman’s gut, sending him flying back into the door and breaking it off its weak hinges as both man and door crashed to the platform floor outside. His head hit the metal of the platform’s curved grab rail quite hard, ensuring he was dead.



Once the glass from the door window ceased to crackle, all went silent.



The conductor, who had grabbed a metal box before the standoff, looked on uneasily.



Billy ended the silence by prying the box from the conductor’s arms and pointing his revolver at the man’s head. “Gimme that! Put your fuckin’ hands back up, dumbass!”



The conductor did so, sweat glistening on his forehead.



Peckinpah took long intimidating steps toward the three captives, his jaw clenched tightly in a seething manner. “So… any other one o’ you sons o’ bitches carryin’ a piece?”



The three men shook their heads frenetically.



Billy, meanwhile, had been fitting the key into the lock on the box and opened it up just then. What sight greeted him within made him smile and drove him into a fit of hilarity. The box was literally packed tightly as a block with gold certificates, equal to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.



Trigger nodded and smiled at the sight, too. “Well, we got what we came for.” He pointed to the conductor and crewmen. “Let’s tie ’em up an’ skedaddle.”



Billy slammed the box shut and tucked it under his arm.



While Trigger, Leone, and Eastwood moved toward the captives with some rope from a hook on the wall, Peckinpah headed toward the door and the dead man outside on the platform.



“Hey, what’re you doin’?” Billy asked the old man.



“Grabbin’ his piece an’ relievin’ him of any cash,” Peckinpah stated matter-of-factly.



He stood at the doorway, filling the frame, when he halted, his facial color dropping to that of a white bed sheet. Standing on the railroad ballast ground at the foot of the platform steps, there were two men.



One was tall and in his forties, wearing a dark brown jacket and clad everywhere else in black. He sported black sideburns and a clean-shaven face, though marred by a bit of scarring and his age. His breast bore a lawman’s star. His Colt 1851 Navy was holstered. He had ice-cold empty eyes.



The other man was in his sixties, wore a gray duster, and was aiming a doubled-barreled shotgun up at Peckinpah in the caboose doorway. He bore a star on his chest, too.



Upon a split-second’s closer examination of the stars, Peckinpah noticed engraved letters around an eye in the center reading “Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency.” Below the eye in tiny letters was engraved the Pinkerton motto “We never sleep.”



“Oh, shit.” Those were Peckinpah’s final words.



BANG!!



Whatever had been stuffed into that shotgun was certainly powerful. Just as old Peckinpah was blasted back into the car, the shooter was also thrown back onto his rear from the force of the blast.



There was a split-second pause that seemed to last longer than it was, like time had slowed. All seven men inside the car watched in wide-eyed shock as Peckinpah’s body thudded to the floor, blood drenching his torso where he was shot and pooling out onto the floor from the exit holes in his back.



Just as soon as time slowed down in that one moment, it sped back up again; and when it did, the caboose’s side wall opposite the wall with the sliding door spat bullets and wood splinters by the bucketfuls. The gun blasts from outside all combined into one continuous hail of noise louder than thunder, causing the caboose to teeter on its walls from their power.



The four outlaws threw their arms over their heads for protection from the splinters and wooden debris. They threw themselves to the floor for protection from the crisscrossing hail of bullets overhead immediately after.



In the ensuing chaos, none of the outlaws much cared what happened to the conductor and crewmen. It was Billy who lifted his head just enough to see all three were piled in a heap on the floor, their bodies riddled with bullets like Swiss cheese.



Unable to think in all the deafening pandemonium, Billy instinctively huddled by Peckinpah’s body and fired at any movement outside the doorway to the rear platform.



Trigger hunkered down by the stove and was about to kick the sliding door shut when he realized all the shooting was coming from the opposite wall; the side with the sliding door had no one outside it.



He slapped Leone’s shoulder behind him and pointed toward the open sliding door.



The Italian nodded in understanding and crawled to it, dropping out of it onto the dusty ground outside, hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. Looking toward the car ahead of the caboose, he saw five more Pinkertons standing outside firing their rifles and pistols into the car to deal with Dodger, Iñigo, and Babyface.



He turned and shook his head at Trigger. Trigger got the message and stayed put.



Leone took a sturdy stance, facing the five men, waiting for them to acknowledge him. While one was reloading his rifle, he spotted the rotund Italian. He barked, “Hey!” at his comrades, who all spun to face the outlaw.



The Italian’s eyes flickered back and forth between each man, sizing each one up. Some were eager trigger-happy hyenas; some were nervous Nellies; and at least one was very professional in appearance, face hard as stone.



In the blink of an eye, Leone had made up his mind and his gun was well out of its holster. The five men raised their weapons to counterattack, but he had already fanned five perfectly accurate shots at them. They dropped like dominoes, dead.



Then a click was heard behind him.



He turned to find the leader facing him, his Colt Navy pointed directly at him.



With the hypnotic charm of a snake, the Pinkerton grinned at Leone, noticing they both carried the same guns. Speaking loudly enough to be heard over the din of gunfire on the other side of the caboose, he said, “Hm… So’d you load it with five bullets or six?”



Leone did not even flinch. In a flash, he lifted his gun.



BANG!



After waving his hand around to clear the smoke in the air, the Pinkertons’ leader holstered his pistol and watched as his opponent spun around and fell to his knees before falling to the dusty ground flat on his face.



A shot struck him in the toe of his boot, spurting blood and a bit of bone from his toes. The man screamed once and then retreated behind the caboose.



Trigger hopped out of the caboose to the ground, rifle aimed and ready. Eastwood was right behind him and took a slight pause when he saw Leone’s dead carcass sprawled on the ground to his left.



“BILLY, GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!” Trigger hollered into the caboose.



Billy was lying flat on the floor between Peckinpah’s blood-drenched body and the conductor’s body lying by the wall erupting lead. Nodding, he dropped the cashbox and kicked it toward the sliding door, where Eastwood caught it. Billy leaned a little too close to the wall.



Suddenly, a blast went through the wall right by the left side of Billy’s face. The bullet missed, but a hail of wooden debris followed it and the splinters sprayed all over his face, his left eye in particular.



He immediately began flailing about on the floor like a cat in water, losing his bandana to the floor in the process. He was clutching his bleeding eye and squealing and cursing enough to grant him damnation in the afterlife. “AGGH!! MY G – FUCK! FUCK!! SHIT! MOTHERF – OH, GOD!! AGGGHHH!! GODDAMN IT!! FUCK!”



Seeing Billy needed some help, Trigger barked at Eastwood, “Cover the rear!” Then he dropped to the ground right next to the railroad tracks and aimed his rifle underneath the car’s bottom at the many pairs of Pinkerton agents’ legs standing on the other side.



He fired and a shin burst in one bloody explosion, followed by the man it belonged to falling to the ground. He fired twice more, crippling another two men, before the rest realized what was happening and retreated behind the car wheels to cover their legs. This also slowed their firing rate into the car.



Eastwood, while firing his pistol toward the caboose rear to ward off anyone behind there, dropped the cashbox and reached inside the caboose with his other arm to pull Billy roughly to him, letting him drop to the ground. “Get up, kid!”



Still covering his left eye with his left hand, though the blood was still percolating through his fingers, Billy lurched to his feet, swaying in confusion. He had to let his left hand down when Eastwood shoved the cashbox into his arms to hold onto.



Eastwood emptied the bullets from his pistol’s chamber and started running along the locomotive line. Billy and Trigger trailed close behind, with Trigger holding onto Billy by the scruff of his neck and Billy firing blindly at any possible pursuers behind them.



Dodger suddenly leaped from the forward door of the car with all the passengers crowded inside right in front of the three running outlaws, falling to his knees and crying out in pain.



Eastwood helped him to his feet and realized Dodger had been shot in his right leg, as there was a long trail of blood seeping from a hole in his thigh.



The Irishman roughly shoved Eastwood off him and spun around to aim his shotgun at a Pinkerton in pursuit who suddenly appeared from the gap between the cars. He did not waste a second squeezing that trigger, blasting the man violently into the car exterior.



“I’m a’right! Just run!” He wasted no time doing that, too.



Hesitantly following Dodger, the trio continued firing aimless lead behind them at their pursuers. It worked at preventing said pursuers from getting any clear aims of their own and forcing them to take cover between the cars.



“What about Babyface an’ –” Billy hollered to Dodger once he was out of bullets.



Dodger took over firing for Billy with his own revolver. “They’re down! Leave ’em!”



Upon reaching the engine, Trigger hauled himself up onto it, hollering, “Hey, boss! We gotta –” The words caught in his throat at what he saw.



Long Barrel lay on the floor, lifeless. His hat was a few feet from his body and his skull had been bashed open. With the boiler man holding a shovel that had blood on it and the engineer holding Long Barrel’s rifle and revolver, it was obvious what happened.



The engineer caught Trigger in his view and instinctively cocked the revolver and aimed it at the outlaw.



Trigger reacted quickly and popped a shot in the old man’s arm. Through the man’s inevitable scream and subsequent dropping of his weapons, Trigger shot him again in the brain, dropping him flat on his face.



“PA!” the boiler man yelled, eyes widened in distress.



Trigger aimed at the boy and fired. The bullet bounced off the shovel and ricocheted a couple times, but the force of the gun blast floored him.



Before Trigger could take another shot, the young man reacted on the adrenaline pumping at a thousand miles an hour through his body and flung his shovel at the gunman’s leg, the blunt force and split-second jolt of pain off-balancing him and causing him to topple to the floor.



“Fuck!!” Trigger cursed, moving to get back up.



The boiler man suddenly lunged at him like a wild animal full of rage, holding him down with the shovel and bringing the handle-shaft quite forcefully down into his face, striking him brutally and giving him a bloody lip and nosebleed.



Having sufficiently weakened Trigger, he raised the shovel blade above the man’s head, intent on plunging it into his skull.



A bullet struck the boiler man in the throat and threw him onto his back on the floor. He did not die, but he writhed soundlessly on the floor like a worm, both hands clasped around his throat in a futile attempt to cover the spurting wound.



Dodger reloaded his pistol hurriedly. “Trigger, you a’right?”



Slumping onto his knees, Trigger relaxed his breathing and raised his rifle above the boiler man, not caring one bit if the young man was going to die soon anyway. With tremendous force, he brought the butt of his gun violently down on the boy’s face several times, not stopping until the boy’s nose had been forced back into his skull.



Standing up and wiping his blood-covered hands onto his shirt, Trigger turned and shoved past Dodger. “I’m fine,” he muttered in a hoarse voice. Stopping to look back, he gave a nodding gesture to the dead young man. “He’s not.”



He quickly hopped out onto the ground outside, taking cover in front of the coal car from the Pinkertons’ gunshots with the others. Dodger was right behind him, carrying Long Barrel’s bandoleer.



While Eastwood was firing back at the Pinkerton agents around the corner, he pointed toward a specific tree hundreds of yards away.



“Okay. We all run for the horses on my go,” he said.



The others nodded, quickly reloading all their weapons and preparing themselves for one long stretch of a dash. It was definitely not going to be easy, especially not in their high-heeled riding boots, but their lives depended on it.



The sound of many gun chambers emptying was heard.



Eastwood shouted, “GO!”



The quartet of men leaped from the only cover they had in the barren landscape and ran pell-mell for the tree Eastwood indicated. They only glanced back every now and then to be sure they were shooting in the right direction as they ran, throwing all the lead they could at their pursuers to keep them from pursuing too closely lest they get shot.



Dodger ran the slowest, straining himself to the point of near-collapse to overcome his limp caused by the excruciating pain of his leg wound. The boots did not help either.



Having put maybe almost a hundred yards between themselves and the Pinkertons, who chose to come out from their defenses just then to run into the open and give chase, the outlaws stopped firing back and doubled their running efforts to get to the tree where their horses were tied up as fast as possible.



“Dodger! How many you see back there?!” Billy hollered without so much as a glance back.



Dodger slowed a bit and turned to look. Bad choice. A bullet from a rifle hit him square in the chest and threw him to the ground like a doll.



Trigger and Billy halted in their tracks, turning around to find Dodger’s body slumped in the dust behind them. They hesitantly moved in his direction to help him, but gunshots around them culminating in geyser-like eruptions of dirt had them running for the tree again.



It was every man for himself.



Now halfway between the train and the tree, with almost twenty Pinkerton agents armed with a large number of revolvers and rifles pursuing them and the earth erupting all around them from landing bullets, Billy turned and started dashing like a rabbit from side to side in front of Trigger.



Trigger was baffled. “What the f –”



“Zigzags! Run in zigzags!!” he shouted.



After several more shots landed around him, Trigger saw no other choice and quickly followed Billy’s lead, running from side to side in a desperate bid to avoid getting hit while racing toward the tree, looming ever closer.



Both men fired off a few shots every now and then to slow their opponents’ pursuit of them. Once Billy noticed the tree was a mere fifty feet away, he veered straight for it like a lizard running on water, his heart thundering in his chest like a storm. His left hand still clung onto the cashbox with a dead man’s grip.



Once Trigger figured he was close enough, he spun on his heel to run straight for it when a bullet nicked the heel of his boot while he was spinning around. He leaped in the air out of instinct and flung the barrel of his rifle behind him while still in the air, firing once behind him before he landed hard on his side.



The bullet caught an agent directly in the face, his head practically freezing in mid-air while everything below the neck flew forward and his legs kicked at the air, before he landed hard on his back in the dust.



Trigger rolled over several times to hide behind a tuft of grass as yellow as bad teeth, managing to avoid the few badly aimed shots scattered around him. He wasted no time in firing his rifle at the rest of them the moment he hit the ground, aiming and shooting while lying on his right side.



He knew how to use his Winchester, too. Two shots caught a couple men in the chests, one in a man’s arm, and one more hit a man’s head and splattered his brains on the ground. All four hit were around eighty feet away.



The rest, maybe fourteen agents or more, threw themselves to the ground to avoid being shot and began crawling like worms to get closer, firing their pistols all the while. Trigger was baffled that he had not noticed this earlier. The agents were using their pistols, but no smoke was coming from them. Since when had gunpowder not produced smoke?



The crawlers stopped not long into their efforts when Eastwood and Billy, both men mounted on horses with guns readily drawn and loaded, fanned several shots the agents’ way.



Trigger blessed his lucky stars and bolted to his feet toward the tree, running up to one of the seven horses tied up by the reins to the branches and untying the animal from the spot. He hopped on, took hold of the reins and spun the mare around.



Billy and Eastwood both galloped off for the hills once they had run out of bullets.



It was Trigger who gave them all more time to escape by untying the remaining six horses and firing his gun over their heads. The beasts panicked and bolted off in the very direction the Pinkerton agents happened to be, all of them still crawling around on the ground like caterpillars.



It was a hilarious sight for Trigger, seeing many of the agents jumping to their feet and running away from the small stampede with a fairylike skipping in their hurried steps.



Laughing heartily, Trigger casually snapped his mount’s reins, kicked his spurs into the mare’s loins, and kept on laughing as he rode off after Billy and Eastwood. He caught up with them soon enough and all three departed the scene together, posthaste.







Author's Notes

* For those who noticed, yes, the characters Eastwood, Leone, and Peckinpah are meant as tributes of sorts to my three favorite Western film directors: Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone, and Sam Peckinpah.

* I realize no prairie dog has any immunity to Gila venom, at least that I know of. That was meant as symbolism, not a scientific statement.

* I'm a history buff, so there are several historical references. Hope other history buffs spot some of them. ^_^