Hell's Marshal (11 page)

A massive tornado wove its way toward him from the west, green light flashing and swirling inside it as the funnel danced its way across the plain. Frank ran, throwing himself in a ditch a few yards away just as a tree flew past him like a giant skewer. He wrapped his arms around a stout stump and held on for dear life.

The twister came to a stop over the prospector, and for a moment, the green lightning within it seemed to do battle with that around his body. The old man jumped to his feet and tried to run, but a bolt of green lightning shot down from the clouds, hammering through him. He stood, arms out, eyes wide, and screamed as the lightning burned through his body.

Then, he just disappeared.

An instant later, the funnel withdrew into the clouds and the storm moved off to the east.

Still in the ditch, Frank put his head down and let darkness swallow him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Frank woke to the buzz of flies and the smothering heat of the sun on his back. The earthy smell of loam nudged his senses and he tasted the grit of dirt in his mouth.

Cracking his eyes open one at a time, he found himself face-down in the ditch, his hair matted to his head, hat long gone. He pushed himself to a sitting position, surprised to find himself alone and still in one piece. Rain had soaked through his duster, so he took it off to dry.

He crawled to the lip of the ditch. Clear, blue skies dominated from horizon to horizon, though the smoke tendril of a train rose to the east, a lone scar on nature’s otherwise flawless face. The stand of trees in which they’d hidden the night before looked like a tangle of green and brown, now, trunks tied in knots by the tornado.

The twister. The prospector. Frank couldn’t wrap his mind around what he’d seen, what he’d caused. He’d wiped a soul from existence, killing not only its possessed body, but eradicating the essence itself.

Needing his mind off the subject, he checked his Colt, reloading with regular bullets. One remaining whiskey-coated bullet in his gun belt was now his only ammunition against Jesse James, should he manage to come across him. Spike still had the cuffs, and the lasso had disappeared into the clouds with the prospector’s body.

He’d have to choose the when and where for using the bullet—he’d only get one shot.

Levering himself to his feet, he re-holstered his piece, threw his duster over his shoulder, and started west. He had to find Spike and Curtis. A flutter of movement caught his eye, just to the north. But someone—or something, he thought, down on all fours—slipped into a grove of trees and disappeared, little more than a shadow receding into more shadows.

“Looks like I have company,” he mumbled to himself.

He trudged west along the tracks all morning, catching the occasional glimpse of his pursuer, always just inside his peripheral vision for an instant before slipping through the tall grass like a phantom. He seemed to want Frank to know he was there, watching him. Either that or he was taunting him, flaunting the fact that he tracked his prey and there was nothing Frank could do about it.

Frank stopped briefly at noon, resting under the shade of a willow, letting his body rebuild a bit, then headed west again.

Dusk had made its dusty, gray entrance when a stagecoach appeared on the western horizon, a black speck kicking up dust against the glowing orange disk of the sun.

Frank looked for somewhere to get out of sight until the coach passed, but the nearest trees stood fifty yards away, and the coach was approaching fast.

So he put on his duster, angled away from the coach, and plodded forward.

But the stage turned toward him, so Frank stopped and faced it head-on.

About thirty yards away, the driver whistled and reined in his four-horse team, skidding to a stop right in front of Frank. He was a young man, with a hungry look in his blue eyes and a rifle across his lap. Frank let his hand rest on his pistol.

“He’s here,” the driver said, his voice taut like a new-strung fence wire. “He’s alive, but he doesn’t look too happy.”

The stage door opened and Frank tensed, ready to draw at the slightest sign of trouble. He relaxed when Spike jumped down from the step, Curtis on his heels. The boy took one look at Frank and dashed to him, wrapping his arms around Frank’s waist.

Feeling awkward, Frank tousled Curtis’ hair and eased him back. Tears glistened in Curtis’s eyes, and he wiped at them furiously, turning away.

“I thought the prospector…”

“You oughta have more faith in me, boy,” Frank scolded playfully. “Takes more than one old man to kill Frank Butcher.”

Spike gave him a questioning look.

Frank shook his head. “The prospector won’t be hassling us anymore. But I had to use that one bullet I wasn’t supposed to use.”

Spike raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and handed the cuffs back to Frank.

“Well, you owe me a nickel, Curtis,” the barrel-chested barkeep said. “I told you Frank would win.”

The boy handed over a coin, making a show of disgruntlement, but unable to hide his ear-to-ear grin at finding Frank alive.

“Mister, you know you’re being followed?” The driver hefted his rifle—a Sharps carbine—as if to take aim. Frank held him up with wave of his hand.

“Been following me all day and hasn’t made a move yet. Let’s just put some distance between us and him.”

“You get a good look at him?” the driver asked. Frank shook his head. “Me either, but get in and we’ll leave him so far behind he can’t remember who you are.”

Frank and the others climbed inside, the driver cracked the whip, and the stage started rolling. They did a three-quarters turn and headed south. Frank gave Spike a wondering look, but Curtis explained.

“We found out where the gang is going. Looks like Liberty, Missouri is the site of their next heist. And they picked up some new members, too. There are about twenty of ‘em now. Maybe more.”

“And Camille?”

“Still with ‘em,” Spike said.

Around midnight, Frank realized the stage had neither slowed nor stopped since he’d boarded, maintaining a steady southward trot down the narrow dirt road. Spike and Curtis were sleeping, so Frank leaned his head out the window and called out to the driver.

“How long until you change horses at this pace?”

The driver turned to face Frank, his eyes glowing a fierce, ice-cold blue, the stark red ash from a cigarette dangling from his lips.

“These ones don’t need changed.” The voice was the same one he’d heard earlier, just made colder by the glowing blue eyes. “Come on up and I’ll show you.”

Frank opened the door and swung himself around and up into the seat to the driver’s left. Up close, his eyes held more detail: varying shades of blue, a dark pupil, even flecks of silver. But they still glowed.

The driver held out his hand.

“Stanley Dobbs,” he said. Frank shook his hand, surprised to find it warm and alive. “Stan. Oh, I’m alive, all right. I just have access to certain…powers that most people don’t. The eyes allow me to see in the dark, like a cat, only better.”

“Frank Butcher, Stanley. You wanna tell me what you mean about these horses?”

“Did you notice that they weren’t spooked by you walking corpses, like normal horses are?”

Frank nodded, even though it had slipped his attention.

“That’s because these beauties aren’t your everyday horses, Frank. Look close.”

Frank leaned down, near the rear flank of the closest horse. He could feel the horse’s body heat, but there was something else, something unusual.

The horse looked back over its shoulder and Frank nearly fell from the seat. The animal’s eyes held the faintest, tiniest sparks of orange in them, as if embers floating from a fire had lodged themselves there. If he hadn’t been looking, he likely wouldn’t have noticed, But he’d seen those types of eyes in a horse before: in the underworld.

“You mean they…”

“Yep, you got it, Frank. These thoroughbreds come straight from the underworld, the realm of the dead. They can run for hours, if needed, then run some more. They should have us in Liberty by tomorrow night.”

Frank sat back on the bench, looked at the driver’s glowing eyes, and sighed.

“Who sent you?”

Stan laughed, a quick, honest sound that put Frank at ease.

“The judges, of course. They learned of the prospector’s presence here and figured you could use some help getting around.”

“They’ve been spying on me?”

“Did you expect anything less?”

Frank kicked himself for not expecting some sort of over-watch by the judges, especially Webber. They weren’t exactly the trusting types.

“So, they knew things were going south in and sent you to help?”

“Yep, it’s good old Stan Dobbs to the rescue.”

“How do they arrange for someone in the world of the living to help to with matters of the dead?”

“Everything has its price, gunfighter. You just gotta know the currency.” He sat up straight and stuffed his hand in his vest pocket. “Which reminds me, I paid a pretty penny for this. Hope you appreciate it.”

He handed Frank a piece of paper and a match. Frank struck the match and shielded it with his hand, using its light to read the Western Union telegram:

Whoever you are, not interested in life of crime. Retired now. Leave me alone.

- FJ

The match burned out and he was in darkness again.

“That was sent from Saint Louis to Omaha for a Mr. Thomas Howard.”

Frank shrugged. The name meant nothing to him.

“That’s one of the aliases Jesse used when he was alive. FJ is his brother Frank, telling him he won’t be joining him in his little group.”

“Finally, something went our way,” Frank said. “Now if we can just pick up a dozen more members of this little posse…”

“Well, you got me. I ain’t much, but I shoot straight, even in the dark.” Stan looked him over from head to toe, sniffed, and made a clucking sound. “You’d better get back down there and rest. Your reanimated bodies need—whoa!”

He reined in hard, the horse team whinnying and rearing up as they skidded to a stop in the middle of the trail. Frank’s gun came out, and the driver lifted his Sharps rifle to his shoulder.

“What is it?” Frank asked.

“Something crossed the road in front of us,” Stan whispered. “About twenty yards ahead. I think it was your shadow, down on all fours. Huge, like the size of a bull.”

“What is it?”

The driver put his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes, leaving just slivers of blue. He concentrated for a moment, then opened his eyes again.

“Can’t be certain. But I think you got a Hellhound chasing you.”

The doors opened, and Frank snapped to Spike and Curtis. “Stay inside! We got company you don’t wanna meet.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Stan said. “Jesse James shouldn’t have been able to bring a Hellhound into the world of the living. He doesn’t have that kind of power. Only…”

He let the though trail off, like a path to nowhere. Frank cleared his throat.

“How do we deal with it now?”

“It’s gone now,” Stan said. “I don’t see it at all, but it left something in the road in front of us.”

Frank dismounted, six-gun held before him. He looked back at Stan and Spike, both of whom had their rifles trained into the darkness ahead of him.

Frank still didn’t know what to think of Stan, whether or not he could trust him, so Spike’s support was comforting. He took a step.

“Straight ahead, about fifteen yards now.” Stan kept his voice low.

The prairie around them sat cool and still, the waving of the grass all that disturbed the night’s graveyard calm. The moon hadn’t risen yet, either, leaving Frank blind.

“Few more yards,” Stan said. “You should see it soon.”

And he did. There, sitting in the right hand wheel rut, was Frank’s hat, its black satin band caked with mud. The raven’s feather had gone missing, but the hat looked otherwise the same.

Cautiously, searching the tall grass for any sign of movement, Frank bent and picked up his hat. He inspected the inside, found it acceptably clean, and stuffed it back on his head. Then he trudged to the stage and climbed up next to Stan again. The driver snapped the reins and the wagon lurched forward.

“A Hellhound delivered your hat?” Stan arched his eyebrows over the crystalline blue of his eyes. “I think I’d have left it there.”

As they trotted through the inky black of night, Frank shrugged.

“I like my hat.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN