Goldie Black 1

This is the first part of a story I've been planning but...it's awful. I'd need to completely scrap and rewrite it before I'd call it readable. Well, maybe I'll do that eventually.

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Jenkins, New Mexico. A tiny strip of wooden structures which would barely qualify as a hamlet if there were anything else in the surrounding scrublands to compare it too, Jenkins was a town that really only existed so the trains would have somewhere to stop and refuel. On one side of the clump of buildings ran a dust road that barely got out of town before splitting, squidlike, into horse paths that wound their way to the handful of nearby ranches. On the other side the railway stretched on and on and on through the dull green shrubs, such that even a person bored enough to try and scan it all the way to the horizon would quickly loose interest. Every day ranchers would ride in, argue with the shopkeep, and ride out. A bit later migrant cowboys would walk in, argue with the barkeep, and stagger out. Train engineers would stretch their legs on the sparse wooden platform and then go steaming off without a glance back. Occasionally you could hear a dog barking. This particular morning, during the heyday of what Mark Twain had dubbed the Gilded Age, looked like it would be no different - a haze of heat, grit, and laziness.

Then a crowd of men rode in and threw bundles of dynamite into the sheriff's office.

-----

Deputy Greene staggered in to a disused shed and collapsed against a stack of boards, blood seeping out of a tear in his vest. All around him he could hear more noise than Jenkins had ever made in his life, a constant crackle of gunfire and the occasional explosion. He couldn't hear the screams over the pounding of blood in his ears. He'd been heading out the back door of the jail just as the building blew up. The sheriff, his brother-in-law, had been talking to him not seconds before - it was sick, insane to think he'd just been shattered along with the rest of the building. The shockwave had thrown him off his feet, felt like it cracked every bone in his body, and something, a bullet or a bit of shrapnel, went right through his side. He was gutshot, he realized, and he was going to die slowly and horribly, just like Mrs. Blocker had died after her husband "mistook her for a coyote" during Jenkins' only murder case in living memory.

The deputy wiped his forehead, leaving a red smear across his receding hairline. He'd rarely even bothered carrying a gun, not that it would have mattered. The men never dismounted, never bothered going in to buildings - it sounded like they were just riddling every structure in town, hoping to kill all the occupants before... before what? What in the world could this many well-armed men be after in Jenkins of all places?

Deputy Greene heard a rolling thump rise above the gunshots, saw the men riding towards his hiding place through a gap in the boards. They wore dun riding clothes and nothing in the way of ornamentation, as if they wanted their bullets to be all that spoke for them. None of them had a mask. They either didn't care if they were identified later, or intended to kill anyone who could do so. This thought gave the deputy a sudden surge of desperate strength. He plowed his way through the weathered boards in the back of the shed and sprinted for the bushes. The men heard him. They rode around the shed and opened fire, chunks of sand and gritty soil spitting up around the deputy. He wasn't sure how far he got, somewhere among the tall bushes where hopefully the horses couldn't follow. A black shape suddenly appeared and pushed him over. He felt a boot on his chest, six rapid muzzle flashes and a single continuous bang that rang in his ears. He blinked the dust out of his eyes.

It was a dark figure indeed, but some corner of the sheriff's pain and fear-addled mind felt it very important that this darkness was rimmed with gold. The smoking revolver the figure slowly twirled was coated in it. In the corner of his blurred vision he saw a horse gallop by, a red-dripping body hanging out of the saddle at an awkward angle. The gunshots were distant again. He tried to ask the figure something, but nothing came out but a pained groan.

"Are you wounded?" the figure asked. The voice was low and rough, but...was that a woman's voice? The deputy's head flopped down into the sand. Now he knew he was hallucinating. The figure bent down and pulled the torn vest open a bit - it stung, but Greene was too tired to object.

"You got winged - looks worse than it is. Bleeding already stopped. You'll be in trouble if you don't have a doctor see it eventually, but for now you can just play dead." The deputy murmured a quiet but deliriously congenial "Thank you." The figure's shadow washed over the deputy, and then she was gone. Deputy Greene felt curiously numb, and was tired of thinking. There was nothing for him to look at in this position but the clear blue sky, so he closed his eyes.

Little brass shells plunked into the dirt at the figure's feet as she reloaded her gun, stealthily approaching the back of the general store. It was the only two-story building in town - the shopkeep had insisted on building it that way, even though he didn't need half the space. The figure slid her revolver into its clever quick-draw holster and pulled a much stranger weapon out from somewhere in her coat. It was an oversized chunk of machinery with a steel cylinder running under the barrel and a U-shaped grip like the handle of an umbrella. The figure fired at the edge of the roof, a sharp pneumatic pop masked by the unrelenting gunfire from the front of the building. A barbed spike bit into the wood, a thin steel cable spiraling behind it. The line grew taught as the figure yanked it a few times. She pressed a little catch next to the trigger and held on tight, walking her way up the wall as the device reeled itself back up with a series of grating clicks. As she ascended the wall she could feel thumps at her feet as the raider's bullets passed through the ruined shop front windows to strike the far wall - the figure wondered if anyone in the building was even still alive, but realized there was simply no time to worry about them.

She pulled herself up on to the roof, crawling on her stomach and drawing two revolvers from her left hip. These were her workhorse guns, swing-out models with a jet black finish, bigger, clumsier, and deadlier than her golden quick-draw gun. She peered over the front edge of the roof, which was torn up with repeated bullet strikes, almost as if a giant had chewed on it. The shooting had slowed down a bit, and a handful of the men were trotting up to the doors of the houses. Finally ready to clear out any survivors, the figure thought. Well, now seems as good a time as any.

 "Scoundrels! Miscreants! Violent, heartless mongrels!" The men jerked their heads up, leveling rifles by reflex, bewilderment the only thing that stopped them from immediately shooting. The figure stood impetuously atop the roof of the general store, a gun held casually in each hand, the smoke from the raider's fire wafting up to her like a wreath of clouds. Everything she wore was either black or gold. A honey blonde braid stuck out of a black hat, black leather vest with gold buttons and trimming over a shirt made of cloth-of-gold. She wore black chaps over black denim jeans, black riding boots with gold stitching and spurs. Her gunbelt and bandoliers were black with gold buckles, and the long black coat she wore over everything had gilded steel plates sewn to it. The raiders looked at each other, dumbfounded. The figure grinned. As uncomfortably hot as this outfit was, it certainly had an effect.

"I'm giving you one warning only! If you've any logic in your addled heads, you'll throw down your weapons now, or face justice at the hands of fuck!" the woman threw herself on to her back and scrambled away as a bullet tore through the brim of her hat, a hail of rounds throwing up chips from the rooftop where she'd just been monolouging. She pushed her hat down firmer and cocked her guns, muttering to herself. "No sense of honor, no sense of drama at all, honestly."

She rolled to the side, several paces, sticking an arm and an eye over the lip. She fired two shots, scrambling back without waiting to see what they hit. Pulling herself to her feet, the woman dashed for the edge of the rooftop, leaping for the wooden awning of the train platform next door, a full story down. She twisted in the air, squeezing off two shots just before she landed - they weren't even remotely aimed, but when her target was a mass of disorganized men on horseback finesse wasn't really necessary. She glimpsed two men falling from their saddles, a puff of reddish sand leaping up behind one as the bullet went straight through his chest, just before she crashed down behind the waist-high "Miller & Darling Railroad Company" sign. It provided her some protection from the bandit's bullets as she hobbled, crouching, down the awning, further from the shop, sneaking a shot in now and then. They were still massed in a rough firing line in front of the shop - fairly good shots, but they obviously weren't used to coordinating fire, and their horses weren't conditioned to gunshots, which didn't help matters. She spotted three of them breaking away from the main group. Trying to flank me, eh? Well, I've survived one stupid stunt today. Second time's the charm? A bullet ripped through the sign inches from her face, spraying splinters snidely voicing their lack of confidence in her.

 She reached the end of the awning and gripped the edge of the sign, listening to the hooves thundering past the front of the structure. She took a sharp breath and swung herself out around the sign, her boot catching one raider right in the collarbone. He was knocked out of the saddle and she landed right in it, half-prone and backwards. Her legs flailed awkwardly as the horse predictably bolted, but she somehow managed to put a slug in both of the kicked guy's buddies and emptied both her guns into the mass of the raiders as her uniquely purloined ride fled as fast as it could. The horse's bucking knocked her out of the saddle, tumbling her behind the ruined stone wall of an empty lot.

Oh yes, that is a cracked rib if I ever felt one. She thought as she pulled herself back to her feet and made sure she was crouched completely behind the wall. Well, I bet they're hurting quite a bit more than I am right now. She swung out her gun's cylinders and shook the empty casings loose. I can hear them riding up. Sound like they're pissed. She stuck the guns under her belt and jammed fresh bullets in, two at a time in each hand. Well too bad for them. Bunch of violent maniacs who can't shoot straight, can't ride - she pulled her guns free and snapped the cylinders shut with a flick of the wrists - can't even come up with a tactic beyond "waste lots of bullets." Come right on over then, you bastards, so we can end this. She peeked out behind the wall, smiling grimly. The bundle of dynamite made an oddly metallic thump as it bounced off her hat and landed right in her lap. In other circumstances, she'd have found the look on her face quite funny.

She leaped out from behind the wall, her screamed oath cut off by the explosion. A wall of men charged at her, guns blazing. She charged at them, likewise. A rifle round clipped her hat, tearing some leather free and bouncing off the compact helmet concealed under it. Men and horses dropped before her, as if the clot of bandits was a breaking wave. Another bullet hit one of the metal plates in the arm of her coat, scraping a patch of gold off to reveal the dull steel beneath. The impact threw her last shot off - in the corner of her eye she thought she could see little glittering golden motes trailing the dented bullet that had nearly ruined her arm. She dropped the big revolvers and snatched up her quick-draw gun. It was emptied in a flash too, but she couldn't stop running. She leapt over the bucking hooves of a dying horse - something gave in her when she landed. She'd been hit somewhere she hadn't noticed - or maybe she was just running out of steam. There was only one guy still standing. His horse had been shot out from under him, and he was staggered, holding his rifle at a weird angle. He tried to level it at her. She grabbed it and got inside, past the end of the barrel. Powder burned her hand as he fired wildly - but she had the momentum, so she didn't let him hold it for long. The stock slammed into the center of his chest. He was on the ground, so she dropped it. Breathing hurt, and her heart was pounding so hard she thought her head might explode.

"As I was trying to tell you," she said, a second before a swift stomp dadadadada, "The name is Goldie Black."

-----

"Goldie Black?" Sheriff Greene asked, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, who would honestly call themselves that?" The newly deputized Mr. Dawkins could only shrug.

"That's what Mrs. Reed says she heard. Well..." the deputy suddenly had trouble meeting Greene's gaze. "I guess we should start calling her the widow Reed now." Sheriff Greene felt something bilious rising in him. He looked down the bluff the two were sitting on, down at the town. It looked tiny from here. He saw a thin column of smoke still rising from the bombed-out jail, and if he squinted through the morning light he could see the nooses hanging from the bullet-riddled general store, from which they'd hung the raiders who'd survived their wounds. Nothing else was moving in the town, which made sense, as more than half of the population was now buried in the makeshift cemetery atop the bluff. The sheriff looked at the uneven rows of wooden crosses and thought of the bodies they'd just dropped, coffin-less, into shallow, sandy graves. Normally, if someone died in Jenkins their bodies would be sent up the tracks, to Empire or one of the other towns big enough to have its own undertaker. But now...

The sheriff threw his shovel aside and wandered off into the bushes, spitting at the unmarked mound they'd buried the raiders in. Now, of course, on top of everything else, it turns out they'd bombed the rail too. The sheriff kicked at a root. They still had no idea what the men were after. No way it was money - if they'd grabbed every last bill in town it wouldn't cover the expense of all the bullets and dynamite they'd used. Were they maniacs? Some anarchist group? And what would the goal be even then? Dawkins had said they should have at least spent more time questioning the raiders before hanging them, but he'd overruled him. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he thought it'd make him feel better. The sheriff kicked another root, much harder this time.

He found himself in a spot among the bushes, where the sandy soil had been whirled around, like a dust devil had touched down. He'd unconsciously wandered over to the place where he'd passed out. Under the bandages, a spot in his side ached. That woman - if anything, she'd made things worse. Showing up out of nowhere, killing or disabling the whole horde of raiders (she must have had help, were there sharpshooters on the bluff?) and vanishing right afterwards. A loud and violent end to a loud and violent beginning - sure they'd managed to survive thanks to her, but what had they gained? Nothing but a distinct feeling that forces they couldn't understand were bowling over their lives without even noticing. It was the uncertainty that was driving him mad. He vaguely remembered she'd told him to play dead. Well, what in the hell else was a man supposed to do in this situation?

A shrill whistle startled him out of his reverie (rework). A train whistle?

"Aww, hell." The sheriff broke into a run, towards the train tracks (rework). Whose job was it to report that the tracks were damaged? Whoever it was, he supposed they'd be dead by now. It'd completely slipped his mind, and now it looks like there'd be another disaster because of it. He scrambled up the gravel embankment the train was set in and waved his arms frantically at the approaching engine. To his luck, it wasn't necessary - the locomotive, an ornate black beast with brass fittings much fancier than what usually came through Jenkins, was coming in slow, and ground itself to a halt just a few yards away. He saw the blue and white stripes of an engineer's cap sticking out of the cab and heard someone shouting at him, but it was rendered indistinct by the churning of the train. He was too busy doubling over and trying to catch his breath to answer, anyways. By the time he could stand up straight again, a man in a fine three-piece suit had hopped out of the train.

"Tracks...are out...past the town..." he said, his voice hoarse.

"Ah yes, we'd heard." the gentleman said. "We're actually here to do maintenance on them. But by God, man! You look like you're about to keel over! Come in and have some tea, we'll take you the rest of the way into town."

The sheriff couldn't quite think to refuse - it'd been quite a while since he slept, and that run seemed to have taken what little spirit he had left. The big man helped him get on the train, waving a signal to the engineers as he did.

Sheriff Greene found himself in a traincar whose state startled him. The car was decked out like some sort of parlor, or the office of some big-city banker. A creamy floral-patterned wallpaper edged with fine wood paneling ringed the car, studded with low bookshelves. There was a great mahogany desk in front of the one big window, and a smaller table with a checkerboard top and several chairs.

"This a pay car?" the sheriff asked. His host chuckled.

"Of a sort. But I haven't introduced myself, I am Laurence Darling, co-head of the Miller & Darling Railroad Company."

"Er, Howard Greene. Sheriff Howard Greene, sir. It's a pleasure to meet you." The sheriff shook the man's hand, feeling a little self-conscious over how dirty it was. This man didn't look much like an important businessman - the way his rapidly thinning straw-colored hair tended to whisp about whenever he moved robbed him of any air of authority he might have had. The sheriff sat down at the smaller table, then immediately regretted it.

"Sorry, Mr. Darling, I think I may have just got dirt all over your chair."

"Oh, not at all," he said, falling into a chair himself, "I imagine you've been rather too busy to wash, what with..." Mr. Darling trailed off as a dark look came over Sheriff Greene's face. They looked at each other for a moment, then looked away. The door at the other end of the car swung open, and in walked a young woman carrying a tray.

"Tea's done! Oh, do we have a guest?" she said chipperly, curiously unintimidated by the dirty, haggard man sitting with Mr. Darling. The sheriff reflexively reached up to take off his hat, only to discover he'd left it back at the graveyard. He chuckled inwardly at how out of sorts he'd gotten. The woman bent over to put the tray in front of the two men. The sheriff was having trouble placing her - she had an almost childlike face, and her salmon dress was bedecked with frills and ribbons like those the young daughters of the local ranchers were always trying to get the shopkeep to order, but she was awful tall and...wide...to be that young. She had straw blonde hair a lot like Mr. Darling - his daughter?

"Ah, yes, this is Mr. Greene, the local sheriff. Mr. Greene, this is Henrietta Miller, the other head of the company." Miss Miller blushed theatrically.

"Well, in name at least. I inherited the railway from my late father, but Mr. Darling is the guiding force behind our business."

"You sell yourself short, dear. It was Miss Miller who conceived of this operation, you know." The man gestured about with his teacup. "We envisioned this private train of ours as a sort of mobile headquarters, an office on rails where we could take care of most of the business of running the company while traveling the country on it. It lets us make personal inspections of things, and ensures that we meet a good portion of our employers personally, at some point."

"We've also got workers and equipment to do minor repairs to the track and infrastructure," Miss Miller added, "Which is lucky in your case, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes ma'am it sure is." The sheriff said with a suppressed sort of cheerfulness. He wasn't exactly sure he understood matters of business and industry like that, but the conversation was doing him something good.

The train rumbled down the track slowly, clanking and thudding along, the car shifting subtly. It came to a stop in front of Jenkins platform with a short, distracted screech. Sheriff Greene had never much cared for tea, but the taste was starting to grow on him. He saw Miss Miller looking out the window, at the ramshackle and battle-scarred buildings. Greene was glad he'd got all the bodies removed by that point.

"It's such a terrible thing..." Miss Miller said. The sheriff grunted in a dire but private way, that curiously articulate sort of grunt that people who live on the borders of civilization seem to learn naturally. "A terrible thing, the sort of thing that can scar the heart as much as the body."

"Folks out here are used to rough living, to tragedy, ma'am." the sheriff replied. "You don't need to worry about us none."

"You're wrong." The sheriff looked up at Miss Miller, cocking a brow. Well, she'd seemed sweet at first, anyways. She fiddled with her teacup, not meeting his incredulous gaze. "People out here are used to scarce food and scattered bandits. Wholesale slaughter like what happened here..." The room seemed to blink as the shadow of a high-flying bird flitted over the window.

"My parents died when I was young, Mr. Greene. They were murdered in our home. The killer was never caught." Her voice was clear and steady, though she wouldn't look up from her tea. "This...left me quite disturbed. Inconsolable, you'd say. It took me awhile to realize..." she met his gaze for the first time, "I realized that even after the loss had become tolerable, a fear remained. I realized I was letting the killer destroy my future as well. So I determined I would find it again." She smiled, her tone lightening considerably. "Though, I can't exactly say I've done much with my life since then, I still would say I'm a better person because of it."

She took a sip of her tea, and Sheriff Greene stared in to his. He swallowed the rest in one gulp and stood up.

"Mister Darling, you said you said you had men putting the track back together? Think they could use a few extra hands? I imagine some folk here could do with something to work on."

Mr. Darling nodded. "Why, yes, we actually are a bit shorthanded. Just talk to my man Henry up front."

"All right then, thanks a lot, for your hospitality." he replied, opening the door behind him. "Ah, and thank you, Miss Miller."

"Any time," she smiled back. The door closed, and there was a sound of someone hammering a post in the ground far away.

-----

A mile or so out of town, a spray of stars hung low over the big desert sky. The creamy cold light illuminated the solitary rider as she galloped for the train, parked on a side-track a few miles outside of town. On the platform of the last car, Mr. Darling watched his wife ride up, stock-steady, hands folded on the railing. She pulled to a stop near enough that she could step right off the horse onto the train.

"I need to see her, quick." she said in a voice just above a whisper.

"She's in a bad shape." Mr. Darling responded. His wife nodded at him, and entered the traincar.

Miss Miller was sitting slumped over the desk, her eyes focused on a bit of grout between the window and the wallpaper. She did not look up at Mrs. Darling, who was dressed in dark, simple riding clothes, nearly-black hair wrapped in a tight bun, and pince-nez rendered opaque by the yellow gaslight.

"It seems they had the raiders executed before they could be questioned," Mrs. Darling announced, "But..."

"The bodies." Miss Miller stated.

"I dug several up. They all had the 'Draconic Oroboros' tattooed into their arms."

Miss Miller stood up, the leg of the chair bunching the carpet up. She set about the room, yanking her gloves off.

"Your rib isn't healed." Mrs. Darling said, though not with the insistence she would have used a few years ago.

"They were  waiting for us. That was all for the sake of an ambush, to catch me." Miss Miller said flatly.

"You're wounded." It seemed like it should be enough. Miss Miller stopped, one hand on the tall bookcase next to the desk. She turned her head towards Mrs. Darling, though she still wouldn't look her in the face.

"My plans aren't changing. We know they're doing something somewhere in these hills. Something terrible. Something no one can stop but me." Mrs. Darling said nothing. Miss Miller swung the bookcase open, revealing the secret compartment behind it, stashed with black and gold clothes.