Bounty - Episode Two
This story contains language and sexual themes and is not suitable for anyone under 18 or anyone who is offended by such.
The locomotive barreled down the tracks, smoke curling from the stack jutting from the engine, and the train lights shining across the metal rails. The engineer, spotting a figure standing on the tracks up ahead waving a lantern with a red light, engaged the brakes of the train as it started its ascent up a moderate slope. The train squealed in protest, sparks flying as the metal wheels grinded against the metal tracks and the train’s whistle pierced the night air.
“Trouble ahead?” the engineer called to the figure.
“Not ahead,” Henry said, stepping off the tracks and approaching the train. He lowered the lantern and as he came into the glow of the locomotive’s lights, the engineer saw the dark bandana covering the lower half of Henry’s face. Henry held the lantern in one hand and pointed his revolver at the engineer with the other.
“Nobody’s gotta get hurt,” he said.
The engineer scoffed, “If you’re fixing to rob the train, it’ll take more than just you.”
Henry chuckled behind his bandana. “I agree with you.” He raised the lantern up higher and three figures emerged from the thicket of trees bordering both sides of the tracks, their guns drawn. “That’s why I brought some friends.”
“Ah, shit,” the engineer muttered.
“Mr R.,” Henry said, addressing a bulky man with an awkward gait, “will you kindly stand watch and shoot anyone that might feel brave and think it’s a smart idea to intervene?”
Louis Richards, nicknamed Lefty, his face also covered with a grubby bandana, nodded and limped towards the cars, pointing a double barrel shotgun at the train.
“Miss M, Mr. F.,” Henry called out, “would you be so kind as to relieve the passengers of anything valuable?”
Harris wore a grain sack over his head with the eye holes cut out, but they were off center and the hole for his mouth was a bit too low and, if it weren’t for the pistol in his hand, he might not have been taken seriously.
“Miss M.!” Henry called out to Sarah as she mounted the platform between two passenger cars. “When you’re finished, join me at the express car. I may need you.”
Sarah nodded as she disappeared inside the passenger car not occupied by Harris. She felt the passengers’ eyes on her. The lights inside the car flickered. Mothers hunkered down between the seats with their children and the men wore faces of bravado.
From experience, Sarah knew those were fragile masks that could easily be removed by a warning shot or a good smack to the face with the butt of her revolver.
“Valuables,” she said, “in this bag. Now.”
No one moved. Sarah aimed her revolver at one of the flickering lights and shot at it. The glass encasing the lamp shattered and rained down on one of the women brave enough not to hide.
“Once again,” she said, raising her voice. “Valuables. Now! Or next time I fire at one of you!”
That changed their attitudes real quick. The men scrounged in their pockets for their wallets or billfolds and dutifully dropped them in the outstretched sack as Sarah passed. One man claimed not to have any money, but offered her a gold pocket watch. She glared at him, but accepted. The women, too, handed her what valuables they had. Mostly jewelry and a few handed her paper bills.
“I don’t have anything,” said one woman, when Sarah approached. She wore a fancy dress and a hat with a large plume. Her nose curved upward and she wore an expression of loathing on her snobbish face.
“I bet you have a brooch or two,” Sarah said, her green eyes boring into the woman’s.
“No,” said the woman, locking eyes with Sarah and refusing to look away.
Sarah saw the woman’s lip tremor. She pointed her weapon at the woman. “I’d hate to shoot you. But if you think that brooch you have hidden in your stockings is worth dying for, so be it.” She cocked the hammer with her thumb.
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement and swiveled in time to see one of the male passengers lurching from his seat in an effort to tackle her. In one deft motion, Sarah pivoted targets and shot the man in the kneecap. He crumpled to the floor of the car, his head bouncing off the edge of the seat, screaming in pain, blood gushing from the bullet wound and a sizable welt developing on the back of his skull.
“Be grateful,” Sarah said to him, her voice menacing, “I didn’t shoot you dead.” She swung the gun back to the rich lady. “Let’s try this again.”
She shoved the sack in front of the woman’s face and shook it. It jingled dully. “Brooch. In the sack. Or I shoot you in the kneecap, too, and take it anyway. Your choice.”
Glaring at her, the woman pulled at the hem of her dress and retrieved the brooch from her stocking. It was an intricate gold piece with an ivory silhouette of a woman in the center and black filigree. She dropped it defiantly into the sack. “I don’t know how you live with yourself,” the woman said.
Sarah snorted. “It’s not easy.” She shook the sack and it gave off a healthy jingle. “But this helps.”
The injured man, still clutching his knee and sucking air in through his teeth, sweat beads forming on his forehead, writhed in pain on the floor. Sarah stepped over him and started down the train towards the other end of the car. She stopped as she reached the opening that led out onto the tiny platform between two cars. She fished in the sack and tossed the injured man back a couple of his stolen bills.
“So a physician can treat that leg,” she said, before ducking out of the car.
Sarah crossed the small open platform and into the next car. The passengers there looked pale and frightened. One man bore a busted up face, his eyes swollen shut and his nose clearly broken. He sat on the edge of a seat wincing in pain as a woman used a handkerchief to dab at the blood on his face.
“We’ve already been cleaned out,” said one of the male passengers. His hat was slightly askew and his mustache twitched with fury. “Your companion did a number on him.”
Sarah glared at the man. “That’s how we get things done when anyone resists.”
“He wasn’t resisting,” said the man. “He beat him to a pulp because all he had was a dollar in his pocket. Even after searching him and seeing that he wasn’t lying, he still pistol-whipped the hell outta him.”
Sarah frowned behind her bandana. She approached the injured man, who tensed at her approach. “You all right?”
“Like you care,” the man said, spitting blood on her boot.
Sarah’s first instinct was to smack him for dirtying up the boots she just had polished, but she restrained herself. She could understand his anger. The bloody sputum would come off with a good washing. Which she intended to make Harris do.
“I do when you cooperated and still got the butt end of a pistol. That ain’t how we do things.” She jerked her head at the man who spoke to her when she entered the car. “He says all you had was a dollar?”
The man nodded and grimaced and rubbed his jaw. “That’s right.”
Sarah sighed and reached into the sack of goods and fished out a five dollar bill. She extended it to the man, who scoffed at her.
“I don’t want your illicit funds,” he said, “just gimme back my dollar.”
“You’re probably gonna need a doctor,” she said. “And if you’re traveling with only a dollar in your pocket, my guess is you ain’t got much by way of goods or services to promise. I suggest,” she said, “you take the money.”
The woman tending to the man’s wounds said, “Take it, Harald. Your stubbornness is what got us on this train in the first place.”
Harald glared at his wife and at Sarah, but he shelved his pride and snatched the bill from her. “Thank you,” he mumbled and Sarah bet uttering those two words hurt more than his injuries.
Sarah exited the passenger car and jumped off the exposed platform to the ground, her riding boots kicking up a couple pieces of gravel as she landed with a soft thud.