The Good, the Bad, & the Uncanny by C. Edward Sellner

Author:C. Edward Sellner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Outland Entertainment
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

NIGHTFALL ON THE BLACK DRAGON LINE

JAMES A. MOORE

“That wasn’t a snake.” Doc Sweets shook his head, pulled the cigarette from between his lips and spat. “A snake did that, I’ll eat my duster.”

Bill Parker looked at the hole descending into the ground that had destroyed the train tracks ahead of their ride and shook his head. He’d had his doubts. The hole looked like someone had dug it right there—not like something had burrowed out, but like something had dug down to get out of the heat, maybe. Or just to try fooling folks into thinking it was a rattler. In any event, the hole tore railroad ties and warped metal rails into so much twisted wreckage, bringing the train to a dead halt. Couldn’t very well ride the rails if the rails were gone.

“Then what was it, Doc?” Parker took off his top hat to scratch his head and then readjusted it. The day was too hot to go without his hat for long.

Sweets looked his way and spat again. “Someone trying to slow down a train ride might use a tactic like this.”

Parker’s hand slid to the Peacemaker in its holster. “Last thing we need is a damned train robbery.”

Doc chuckled and wiped a kerchief over his brow. The man was from Louisiana and didn’t seem to mind the heat. His eyes squinted up at the setting sun glaring down from the west and he frowned. They were several hours away from San Francisco, another territory best avoided as far as Parker was concerned. There was maybe an hour before the sun set and darkness claimed the land. It would be a long night if they couldn’t get the train moving. Harder to make repairs by torchlight, and there were any number of possible threats in the disputed areas.

“Wouldn’t be a first and I daresay it won’t be the last. And believe me, there’s worse things to face.” Sweets was a strange man, with his dark skin, and scars covering both arms, running across the backs of his hands and along his neck to just above his collar. It was impossible to deny that he’d had a hard life, but he had long since shoved all of that aside, and seemed perfectly content moving his charges from one location to another, no questions asked.

Bill Parker was not a kind man. He was efficient. He kept his brown hair short and favored a mustache without the matching beard, unless he was on the trail for too long. He almost never shaved when he was out on a job. He’d been working with Sweets for the last two years and found their arrangement to his liking. Sweets didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to have conversations, just played with his cards, delivered his goods, and occasionally brought Parker along on his deliveries. Mostly there wasn’t too much trouble, but the four they had with them? They were trouble. Parker felt it in his guts, and so far his guts didn’t lie to him.

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