Hell's Jaw Pass Read online

  Sliding his gaze between the two would-be train robbers, on the scout for a deadly change in their eyes, knowing these two were too green-behind-the-ears not to telegraph when they were about to squeeze their triggers, Wolf stretched his mustached lips back from his large, white teeth and barked, “One . . . !”

  Both younkers flinched. Fear passed over their features. Their hands holding their guns on Wolf shook slightly.

  “Two . . . !” Stockburn barked.

  Again, they flinched. Both men’s faces were pale, their eyes wide. No, they hadn’t expected this. They hadn’t expected this at all. They’d expected to come in here and fleece these defenseless passengers as easily as sheering sheep, then they’d be on their way to the nearest town to stomp with their tails up. “Apron, set down a bottle of your best labeled stuff and send in your purtiest doxie!”

  Stockburn shaped his lips to form the word “Three” but did not get the word out before the coyote-faced lad slid his enervated gaze past Stockburn toward the rear of the car, shouting, “Willie! Roy! Take him!”

  A black worm flipflopped in Stockburn’s belly when he saw the two men dressed as drovers behind him lurch up out of their seats, cocking the hammers of their hoglegs.

  Ah, hell . . .

  Like any experienced predator, human or otherwise, when the chips were down, all bets placed, Wolf let his instincts take over. What he had here was a bad situation, and all he could do was play the odds and hope none of the passengers took a bullet.

  He squeezed the triggers of both his Peacemakers, watching in satisfaction as the bespectacled youth, who triggered his Schofield at nearly the same time, screamed as he flew back against the coach’s front wall. The coyote-faced lad screamed, as well, but merely fired his rifle into the ceiling before dropping it like a hot potato and falling back against the front wall, shielding his face with his arms, screaming, “Kill him! Kill him!”

  As the guns behind Wolf roared loudly, he dropped to a knee in the aisle, wheeling hard to his right, facing the rear of the train now as the two “cow punchers” triggered lead through the air where his head had been a heartbeat before. All the passengers were yelling and screaming again, and the baby was wailing even louder, if that were possible.

  Stockburn intended to take the two men at the rear of the car down as fast as possible, before a passenger took a bullet. He shot one of them with the second round out of his right-hand Colt. The man jerked back, acquiring a startled expression on his thinly bearded, red-pimpled face, as he triggered one more round in the air over Wolf’s head before collapsing, Wolf’s bullet instantly turning the bib front of the shooter’s poplin shirt red.

  Wolf shot the second “puncher” with the third round out of his left-hand gun, for that kid—they were all wet-behind-the-ears, snot-nosed brats, it appeared—ducked and ran for the back door, triggering his own gun wildly. Fortunately, that bullet only hammered the cold wood stove in the middle of the car before ricocheting harmlessly through a window on the car’s north side, evoking a scream from the girl with the cameo-pin face but otherwise leaving her unharmed—so far.

  Straightening, Stockburn aimed both Colts at the kid running out the rear door as the kid twisted back toward him, raising one of his own two hoglegs again. Wolf hurled two more rounds at the kid, his Peacemakers bucking and roaring fiercely, smoke and flames lapping from the barrels.

  The kid yowled and cursed as, dropping to his butt on the coach’s rear vestibule, he swung to his left and leaped to the ground, out of sight. A gun barked in the direction from which he’d disappeared. The bullet punched a hole through the back of the car and pinged through a window to Stockburn’s right.

  Cursing, Wolf ran out onto the vestibule. Swinging right, he saw the kid running, hunched over as though he’d taken a bullet, toward where three other men sat three horses about fifty feet out from the rail bed. Those men were holding the reins of four saddled horses.

  Apparently, those were the men who’d blown the rails. They were trailing the horses of the four robbers in the coach. Or the four who’d been in the coach.

  Three still were though they were likely dead or headed that way. These three out here didn’t look any older or brighter than the four Wolf had swapped lead with. They appeared startled by the dustup they’d been hearing in the passenger car, and their horses were skitter-stepping nervously. One man was having trouble getting his mount settled down and was whipping the horse’s wither with a quirt.

  They were all yelling and so was the kid who was run-limping toward them, tripping over the toes of his boots.

  “What in the bloody tarnation happened?” one of the horseback riders yelled at the wounded kid running toward him.

  “Wells . . . Fargo!” the run-limping younker screeched.

  Another horseback rider pointed toward Wolf. “Look!”

  The run-limping kid stopped and glanced warily back over his shoulder toward Stockburn standing on the rear corner of the vestibule, aiming his right-hand Colt toward the bunch while holding the other pretty hogleg straight down in his left hand. Stockburn shaped a cold grin and was about to finish the limping varmint when a girl screamed shrilly from inside the coach.

  Stockburn’s heart leaped.

  He’d forgotten that he’d left that sandy-haired little devil with that dead front tooth still alive.

  He lowered his right-hand Peacemaker and ran back into the car, stepping to his right so the open door wouldn’t backlight him. Good thing old habits die hard or Wolf would have been the one dying hard.

  A gun thundered near the front of the coach. The bullet screeched a cat’s whisker’s width away from Stockburn’s right cheek before thumping into the front of the freight car trailing the passenger coach.

  Stockburn raised his Colt but held fire.

  The nasty little sandy-haired devil with the dead front tooth held the pretty cameo pin girl before him, his left arm wrapped around her pale neck. He held his carbine in his right hand. Just then he jacked it one-handed and aimed it at Stockburn, spitting as he bellowed, “I’m takin’ the girl, big man! You come after me, she’s gonna be wolf bait!”

  The kid backed up, pulling the girl along with him toward the coach’s front door, keeping her in front of him. She stared in wide-eyed horror at Stockburn standing at the other end of the car.

  Her hat was drooping down the side of her head, clinging to her mussed hair, which had partway fallen from its bun, by a single pin. A red welt rose on her left cheek. The sandy-haired devil had slapped her. Her mouth was open, but she didn’t say anything. She was too scared for words.

  Rage burned through Stockburn.

  As the kid pulled the girl out the coach’s front door and then dragged her down off the vestibule, Wolf hurried forward, yelling, “Everybody stay down!”

  He holstered both Colts and grabbed his Winchester rifle from where it now lay on the floor in front of the seat he’d been sitting in. He was glad to see that the young woman with the baby appeared relatively unharmed. She sat crouched back against the coach’s left wall, against the window, rocking the still-crying baby in her arms, singing softly to the terrified infant while tears dribbled down her cheeks.

  Stockburn pumped a cartridge into the brass-breeched Winchester Yellowboy’s action, strode down the central aisle. The passengers were muttering darkly among themselves while another child cried and the old lady with the old man wept, the old man patting her shoulder consolingly.

  Once they were all out of the carriage, the sandy-haired little devil started running toward the three men on horseback, pulling the pretty gal along behind him. The young robber Stockburn had drilled was toeing a stirrup and hopping on his opposite foot, trying unsuccessfully to gain his saddle and sobbing with the effort, demanding help from the others.

  “Look out, Riley!” one of the men on horseback shouted, pointing at Wolf.

  Riley stopped and swung back around. He pulled the girl violently up against him and narrowed his mean little eyes at
Stockburn, showing that dead front tooth as he spat out, “I told you I’d kill her, an’ I will if you don’t—owww!” the kid howled.

  The girl had spun to face him and stomped one of her high-heeled, black half-boots down on the toe of his own right boot. The kid squeezed his eyes shut and hopped up and down on his good foot before snapping his eyes open once more and then smashing the back of his right hand against the girl’s left cheek.

  There was the sharp smack of hand to flesh.

  The girl screamed, spun, and fell with a violent swirl of her burnt-orange gown.

  “I’ll kill you for that,” Riley bellowed, raising his Winchester, his face wild-fire red with fury. “I’ll fill you so full of holes your rich old daddy won’t even recognize you, you McCrae whore!”

  “Don’t do it, you little son of Satan!” Wolf narrowed one eye as he aimed down the Yellowboy at the kid. In his indignation at having been assaulted by the girl he’d been trying to kidnap, the little devil seemed to have forgotten his more formidable opponent with the Winchester. “Raise that carbine one eyelash higher, and I’ll send you back to the devil that spawned you!”

  Riley snapped his gaze back to Stockburn, eyes narrowed to slits. A slow, malevolent smile spread his lips. “My father is Kreg Hennessey. Yeah, Hennessey. Get it? Understand now?”

  The kid bobbed his head twice as though Stockburn should recognize the name. “If you shoot me, you’re gonna have holy hell come down on you, Mister. Like a whole herd of wild hosses!” He turned his slitted demon’s eyes back to the girl, who stared up at him fearfully. “This little witch just struck me. Thinks she’s so much ’cause she’s a McCrae! You just struck a Hennessey, and you’re about to see what happens when even an uppity McCrae strikes a—”

  Stockburn squeezed the Yellowboy’s trigger. He had no choice. There was no way in hell the kid was not going to kill the girl. The little snake was not only cow-stupid, he was poison mean. And out of control.

  The Yellowboy bucked and roared.

  The bullet tore through the kid’s shoulder and whipped him around to face Stockburn directly. The kid triggered his carbine wide of the girl, the bullet pluming dust beyond her. She gasped and lowered her head, clamping her hands over her ears.

  The kid held the rifle out to one side, angled down. He held his other arm out to the other side as though for balance. The kid glanced at the blood bubbling up from his shoulder as he stumbled backward, rocks and little puffs of dust kicked up by his badly worn boots.

  A look of total shock swept over his face, his lower jaw sagging, mouth forming a wide, nearly perfect “O.”

  Still on one knee, Stockburn ejected the spent cartridge from the Yellowboy’s breech. Wolf pumped a fresh round into the breech and lined up the sights on the kid’s chest as gray smoke curled from the barrel.

  “Drop it,” he ordered. “Or the next one’s for keeps.”

  Riley stared back at him. The kid glanced at his shoulder once more, then looked at Stockburn again. The shock on his face gradually faded, replaced by his previous expression of malevolent rage. Jaws hard, he gave a dark laugh as he said, “You’re a dead man, mister!”

  He cocked the carbine one-handed then took it in both hands, crouching over it, aiming the barrel at Wolf, who pumped two more .44 rounds into the kid’s chest. The rounds picked the scrawny kid up and threw him two feet back through the air to land on his back.

  The girl screamed.

  The kid writhed like a bug on a pin, arching his back, grinding his boot heels into the dirt and gravel. He hissed like a dying viper. He snapped his jaws like a trapped coyote. He lifted his head to look at Wolf, and he cursed shrilly, his oaths growing less and less violent as the blood leaked out of him to pool on the rocks and sage beneath him.

  Finally, his head sagged back against the ground.

  “Dead man,” he rasped, chest rising and falling sharply. “Oh . . . you’re a . . . dead man . . .”

  His bloody chest fell still.

  His head turned slowly to one side.

  His body relaxed against the gravel and sage.

  CHAPTER 3

  Stockburn straightened, holding the smoking Yellowboy in both hands across his chest.

  He looked from the dead kid who lay in a pool of his own blood, to the girl, who sat a few feet away from him, one leg tucked under the other one. She looked from the dead kid to Wolf, and her eyes brightened. Her lips rose slightly upward at the corners.

  Stockburn lifted his gaze behind and beyond her. The surviving four would-be train robbers had cut and run. They rode straight away from the train at a hard gallop. At least, three were galloping hard. The fourth one, who’d taken a Stockburn bullet in his side, lagged behind a little, crouched low in his saddle, casting cautious glances back over his shoulder toward the train.

  A figure appeared in the door of the passenger coach, to Stockburn’s right. It was the old man who’d been sitting with the old woman. His gray hair was cropped so close it was nearly nonexistent. A thin stubble of a beard carpeted his doughy, craggy cheeks. The top of his head came up to Stockburn’s shoulder.

  He gazed off toward the dead kid, toward where the four others were fleeing, then turned to Stockburn and smiled, blue eyes twinkling. “That was some good shootin’. You Wyatt Earp?”

  “Nope.”

  “Buffalo Bill Cody?”

  “Nope, not Cody, neither, old-timer.” Stockburn glanced into the coach behind the old man. The other passengers looked shaken but otherwise fine. Several were peering out the open windows at the dead kid. A loud conversational hum had risen as they relived the shooting, some chuckling and shaking their heads in relief and amazement, others glancing toward the vestibule where Stockburn stood with the old man.

  “How ’bout Kid Curry?” asked the old man. He poked Wolf’s shoulder with his finger. “Say, that’s you, ain’t it?”

  “Nope, not Curry, neither. Stockburn. Wolf Stockburn.” Wolf grinned.

  The old man frowned, scratched his chin. “Hmm. Never heard of the jake.”

  Stockburn glowered at the oldster. He shouldered the rifle and moved off down the vestibule steps. He walked over toward where the girl still sat with one leg curled beneath the other one, both palms on the ground. She smiled more broadly and narrowed her eye shrewdly. “The graybeard might not, but I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  “You’re the Wolf of the Rails himself—Wolf Stockburn. Formerly known, when you were town marshal of Wichita, Kansas, as the Wolf of Wichita!”

  Stockburn extended his hand to the girl and helped her to her feet. “Young lady, thank you for rescuing my tender ego.”

  She extended her hand to him. “Lorelei McCrae at your service, Mister Stockburn.”

  “Call me Wolf, Miss McCrae. You’re far too pretty for such formalities.”

  “Only if you call me Lori.”

  “Lori you are.”

  “Thanks for saving my life, Wolf.”

  “Ah, hell. Since I was in the area . . .”

  “Stockburn!” a man’s voice thundered from up the train apiece.

  Stockburn turned to see a big, swarthy man in blue pinstriped overalls and matching watch cap come ambling toward him from the direction of the engine in front of the tender car. Another man stood behind the man approaching Stockburn, similarly dressed. The second man was sort of slumped back against the tender car, clamping his gloved right hand over his upper left arm.

  “Wolf Stockburn!” yelled the approaching man. “Wolf Stockburn—gotta be you!”

  Lori McCrae smiled up at Stockburn and winked. “See how famous you are?”

  “Some might say infamous,” Stockburn told her, switching his gaze back to the approaching big man, who smiled broadly. “I’m at a disadvantage,” Wolf said.

  “Wally Frye, engineer. Pilot of this heap.” Frye hooked a thumb to indicate the big, black locomotive behind him, wheezing like a sleeping dinosaur plagued by bad dreams. He pulled off his glove and exte
nded his hand. “We’ve never met, but I’ve heard a lot about you. Most fellas who work for the railroads have.”

  “You don’t have to work for the railroad to know who this big, tall drink of water is,” corrected Lori McCrae, gazing admiringly up at the big railroad detective again. “All you have to do is read the newspapers.”

  As he and Stockburn shook hands, Frye chuckled and said, “Well, I never got around to learning my letters, but I’ve heard the stories, all right.” He turned to Lori and frowned with concern, looking her up and down. “Say, are you all right, Miss McCrae? That devil slapped you mighty hard!”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Frye.” Again, she smiled gratefully at Stockburn.

  “You two know each other?” Stockburn asked.

  “This is a small country,” said Frye. “Everybody knows the McCrae family. I’ve had the pleasure of trundling young Miss McCrae here a time or two to the main station in Cheyenne . . . during her frequent trips between Wild Horse and her school in the East, that is.”

  “I attend Miss Lydia Hastings Academy for Young Women in Poughkeepsie, New York,” Lori told Wolf. “At least, I did. I, uh . . . well, never mind.” She’d said these last words with a note of chagrin in her voice, flushing.

  “You quit?” Frye asked, incredulous. “My, my, my, how does your family feel about that? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “Well, they, uh . . .” Lori bunched her lips, wincing. “They don’t know yet. I’m sure it’s going to be quite the surprise,” she added with a fateful sigh.

  Frye studied her for a second. When she looked off, obviously wanting to speak no more on the subject, the engineer turned to Wolf and tossed his head to indicate the passenger coach. “Everybody in the coach all right?”

  “I believe so,” Stockburn said. “They got off lucky. Those curly wolves were a might free with their ammo.”

  “How many were on the train?” the engineer asked.

  “Four. Three still are.”

  “You took them down in fine fashion, Wolf!” Lori said, beaming up at him again. “I gotta admit I read those newspaper stories with a grain of salt. I shouldn’t have. The scribblers got you right—you have uncompromising resolve, a razor focus, and a deadly aim. Those who go against you do so at their own peril!” She made a shooting motion with her right hand, blew on the “barrel,” and gave him a wink.