Blaze! Copper Mountain Kill Read online

  BLAZE!

  COPPER MOUNTAIN KILL

  Brian Drake

  Blaze! Copper Mountain Kill by Brian Drake

  Text Copyright 2017 by Brian Drake

  Series Concept and Characters Copyright 2015 by Stephen Mertz

  Cover Design by Livia Reasoner

  A Rough Edges Press Book

  www.roughedgespress.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Chapter One

  “What's the back-up plan if they fail?”

  Dirk Lion arched an eyebrow and looked across the table at his friend Bullet Ellis, the eternal contrarian. Bullet moved a toothpick up and down between his teeth. He was a good man to have on your side and his observations had saved the gang many times, but Dirk was a little fed up. Their current campaign was almost done and he didn’t want complications.

  “None of your lip this time.”

  They occupied a table near a back corner in the Silver Bow Saloon, on Harrison Street, across from the stage office. The place was full of wild-eyed cowboys from the surrounding ranches, drinking and hollarin’, and copper miners with their tired faces and dirty clothes nursing warm beer. The gamblers sat at a cluster of tables close to the door, while on the opposite end, on a small stage, a teenaged girl danced to the piano player’s up-tempo tunes. She hiked her skirts up to kick her legs out at regular intervals. Every time she did, the cowboys hooted. When she smiled at them, they hollered. The batwing doors swung in and out at regular intervals, somewhat circulating the hot air inside. Dust spotted the floor.

  “You’re depending on Jack and Homer to stop this stage,” Bullet said, tapping on the piece of paper between them, a map of the town with a point just outside the border circled. “Two men against who knows what? They won’t just have one shotgun messenger, not after everything we’ve been doing.”

  “Which is why,” Dirk said, “if they miss, we catch the stage when it comes in. They’ll be reduced in number and think they’re home free.”

  “What if Jack and Homer don’t make it?”

  “Ooops.”

  Bullet sighed and shook his head. He tossed the toothpick on the floor. He drank a shot of whiskey and refilled the glass with their shared bottle. He had longer hair than Dirk, was clean-shaven with a sharp jaw, and wore dark clothes with a long black duster. Dirk, sitting opposite, preferred lighter colors which, he thought, highlighted his dark hair and mustache.

  They were the two charter members of what had become known as the Lion Gang. Dirk ran the show and liked to keep the outfit small. He’d learned the value of a small force during his stint in the Colfax County War, which he vacated after realizing nobody was going to get rich fighting somebody else’s battles. He set off to fight his own, financing the effort with stage robberies, though he was still looking for a cause as he accumulated his funds. He had to admit his own personal cause, that of lining his pockets and living the good life, was probably the best thing to fight for.

  He and his men had five robberies under their belts, and Dirk was the only one with a bounty on his head. Not for robbery, but for the pointless shooting of a fellow in a saloon whom Dirk had accused of cheating at cards. Shooting the fellow had seemed like a good idea at the time, but Dirk hated the price he was paying. He had to stay away from California and points north where his wanted poster had been plastered from one end to the other.

  Dirk put a cheroot in his mouth and struck a match, blowing out thick clouds of smoke.

  “You gotta have more faith, Bullet.”

  “I got faith. Faith that things never go according to plan.”

  Bullet turned his head to watch the girl dance.

  “We pull this off,” Lion said, “the rest of the plan works out. If we don’t get that payroll, it’s our necks.”

  Bullet didn’t look at Dirk. “And they’ll make us bring our own rope.”

  * * *

  The riders entered town with their clothes and skin caked with trail dust.

  There wasn’t much to Butte, Montana. A large area of flat ground surrounded by low hills with taller mountains—the jagged Rockies—in the distance to the east, with smelting stacks on the southern and western sides of town belching thick black smoke into the air. Mining was the town business ever since copper had been discovered several years back. Black soot from the stacks coated the ground, giving the dirt roads a brown/black appearance.

  The pair rode up Main Street to the corner of Broadway where the big man on the lead horse stopped in front of the Hotel de Mineral. Everything in the city was related to what happened underground. Bars and restaurants bore signs with mining themes; other businesses either served the mines directly by providing supplies, or somehow served the workers who went underground in round-the-clock shifts.

  The big man eagerly swung out of the saddle, bending into a squat and letting out a satisfied grunt. Rising, he tossed his black stallion’s reins around the hitching post before the door and turned to the woman climbing off the chestnut next to him. She had long blonde hair tied back in a pony-tail under a flat-brimmed hat. Dirt ringed her high cheekbones and she looked worn out and the big man had to admit that he probably didn’t look much better.

  “Ladies first,” said J.D. Blaze, gesturing up the steps to the front door.

  “No way,” Kate, his wife, said. “When they see how disgusting you look, they won’t pay attention to me.”

  J.D. shook his head and climbed the steps, holding the door for her. Some of the black soot had taken up residence on the outer walls. As Kate walked through the door, J.D. thought he could use a finger to trace his name in the layer of soot. He was beginning to doubt the wisdom behind taking a vacation here.

  The heels of J.D.’s boots thunked on the lobby’s wood floor, his spurs jingling with each step. He reached the check-in desk and noticed Kate beside him turning her profile to the clerk in a phony display of investigating the lobby decorations.

  “We need a room,” J.D. said, taking out a pouch of silver coins. “And a couple of baths.”

  The clerk smiled, trying to hide the crinkling of his nose, and passed J.D. a form and pencil.

  * * *

  J.D. sat in the deep porcelain-lined cast-iron tub in some of the hottest water he could stand. He felt the days of crud and grit melting away, thanks to a thick cake of soap applied vigorously to his body. Kate would be similarly submerged in the ladies’ bath down the hall. J.D. had eschewed the offered whiskey and tobacco. He wanted to stare at the wall and let his mind wander.

  Their last job, chasing the Liso brothers through the badlands of the Dakota Territory for a one-thousand-dollar bounty, had been a rough one, and the prospect of two weeks’ rest during Butte’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities seemed like the right prescription. They probably couldn’t handle any inactivity longer than that without getting restless. J.D. wasn’t in the mood to test the theory. He wanted some time off from the dangerous lives they led; shortly, the itch for action would become unignorable.

  Butte’s St. Patrick’s Day parade was known throughout the region and the surrounding territories, and the large Irish population made it authentic. A big parade followed by a week’s worth of revelry. J.D. and Kate arrived four days early to make sure they secured a nice hotel. The Hotel de Mineral fit that bill.

  The water finally began to cool. J.D. dunked his head one more time and pressed his hand
s to either side of the tub to push his big body out. He dried off and tied on a big white robe provided by the hotel. It was too large and swallowed him in soft cloth. His dirty trail clothes had already been collected and taken to the laundry by a young girl he assumed was the proprietor’s daughter. J.D. would rather have burned the clothes. The trail was hell.

  J.D. crossed the lobby. The adjoining bar on the opposite end was already doing brisk business. J.D. waved at the clerk. “Thanks, I feel alive again.”

  “You look alive, sir,” the man said.

  J.D. climbed polished wooden stairs to the third floor. The door wasn’t locked. He went in.

  “I thought you’d never get back,” Kate said from the bed.

  She smelled of a sweet perfume and her still-wet hair was splayed wildly on the pillow. Her robe was wrapped around her body but could not hide the curves of her hips, her long legs, or the swell of her breasts. She grinned at him with smoky eyes.

  “Not now,” J.D. said. “We’ll need another bath.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  He felt her eyes on him as he glanced in a corner where their saddle bags, weapons, and gear were stacked. He parted the balcony curtains which covered a pair of open glass doors. Cool air flowed into the room with the city sounds following. Hoof beats, shouts, and the mountains in the distance filled his senses. The floor of the balcony had been swept, but a light layer of soot was already reclaiming the space.

  “Jesus, this place,” he said.

  “You wanted to visit.”

  J.D. shut the balcony doors but continued taking in the view. The flat land and jagged mountains looked gorgeous at this distance, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to ride out there. “It’ll be worth it.”

  “As soon as I hit the poker tables,” she said, “we won’t have to work for a month.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  “Turn around.”

  He turned slowly and stopped. She had flipped open the robe to reveal her pale white body, one leg bent upward, the rise and fall of her breasts flowing to a flat tummy and the soft patch of hair covering the pink butterfly between her legs. Another bath or not, it was hard to resists.

  J.D. dropped his own robe and she showed a flash of lustful eagerness as he parted her legs and lowered his body onto hers. Their lips met in a hot wet kiss, the sweet scent of her perfume replacing the wonder of the mountains with another wonder, that of the amazing woman he was married to and couldn’t live without. He opened the robe some more and planted kisses along each side of her thin neck, moving down between her breasts as she gasped and shifted, the long nails of each hand finding a place on his back to dig in. When he moved up to her face and entered her with a slow thrust, her back arched, her mouth opened, and she urged him on with a quiet whisper. She wrapped her long silky legs around his back, locking him into place, as he moved in and out of her. J.D. felt a hot flush crawl up his neck and saw the same effect happening to Kate, her eyes closed, her body moving under his thrusts, her tight wetness making him drive deeper into her until they both exploded in delight, J.D. falling atop her spent. They clutched each other tightly, catching their breath, and then Kate laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re right,” she said. “We need another bath.”

  Chapter Two

  By the time J.D. and Kate arrived at the Copper Club Restaurant that evening, they were starving.

  As a woman billed as Rosie McGann sang on a small stage, diners filled tables with their jumbled voices filling the large room. Bar on one side with a wall-length polished mirror; tables lined up on the other. Waiters buzzed along the opening between the two. J.D. and Kate sat near the door, looking out the window at the street, ignoring the accumulated soot on the glass.

  Kate almost inhaled her order of spiced corn beef while J.D. took his time with pork chops and gravy, using a split order of soda biscuits to sop up the leftover gravy. He leaned back with a satisfied smile.

  “Look over there,” Kate said with a jerk of her head.

  J.D. followed her gaze to the bar where a man stood drinking down a glass of beer. Blue shirt, tan trousers, dark hair and mustache. J.D. saw the man’s face in the mirror.

  “Dirk Lion?” he said. “What a surprise.”

  “What’s the bounty now?”

  “Fifteen hundred, I think. Murder charge.”

  “Shall we—”

  “We’re on vacation, babe.”

  “Come on.”

  J.D. broke another soda biscuit in half. “If he’s still here at the end of the week, we’ll make a move. Between his bounty and your poker winnings—”

  “We won’t have to work for two months.”

  “I’m already bored from doing nothing.”

  “Where are his partners?” Kate said. “Unless he’s not on a job? Could he really be here for the parade?”

  J.D. swallowed half a biscuit. “What did I say about vacation?”

  “You have to admit—”

  “The Marshal here is quite capable. It’s not our business.”

  Kate drank some coffee but kept glancing at Lion from time to time.

  “I want to see,” J.D. said, “if we can go a week without firing a gun.”

  “Do you believe in miracles?”

  “Right now I want to believe in some of that sweet lemon pie our waitress talked about,” J.D. said, waving the young woman over. He ordered a slice for both of them. The waitress was a cute brunette with a line of curls along her forehead. She smiled at J.D. and went to get the pie.

  Kate kicked him under the table. He winced.

  “What now?” he said.

  “I don’t like the way she looks at you,” Kate said.

  He shoved the remaining soda biscuits her way. “Have another, hon.”

  * * *

  A team of six powerful horses pulled the stagecoach at a moderate speed along the dirt road leading to Butte.

  Dry Basin Creek, off to the right of the road, ran parallel, and the shotgun rider alternated his scan from the open land to the left and the creek on the right.

  Lou Mace kept his hat tipped back so as not to miss details. He cradled his ten-gauge double-barrel scattergun with his trigger finger on the side of the weapon. Two other shooters rode in the coach as extra protection, the cabin’s side curtains closed to disguise their presence.

  Mace had been a shotgun messenger for six years, spending most of that time with Wells, Fargo before taking the job guarding payroll for the Pyle Mining Company. The owner, John Pyle, paid better than Wells, but with recent troubles it didn’t seem like a lot of money anymore.

  The problems had begun just over a month ago when an as-yet-unidentified gang ran a campaign of sabotage and attempted murder at Pyle’s mine that they now expected to expand to payroll attacks. The same gang had also hit, and ultimately caused the demise of, the Besco Mining Conglomerate several months earlier. Pyle and Besco, along with a third mine owner named Fenton Nix, were the “Copper Kings of Butte”, and it hadn’t taken long for war to break out between them. They all knew Nix was behind the attacks. He’d bought out Besco when Besco finally gave up after his miners, tired of being shot at, quit working. Now Nix was gunning for Pyle. It made Mace angry that everybody knew what Nix was doing, but the fact that members of the gang had avoided capture and that there was no solid proof Nix was involved made it a hard case to prove. There was a lot of money in the mountains surrounding the town; apparently not enough for a three-way split.

  The stage bounced along the rutted road, the driver on the box holding tight to the reins.

  Mace took a moment to look ahead. The outer buildings of the town were becoming visible. Almost there. He cocked the hammers on the scattergun and gave the spare shells on his belt loops a reassuring touch.

  The driver, Billy McIver, said, “Just take it easy, Lou.”

  “I’ll feel better when we’re in town.”

  The stage continued on.

  Closer.
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  But not close enough for the danger to have passed.

  * * *

  Jack Nillis and Homer Wade lay flat in the brush with Dry Basin Creek behind them.

  The creek water flowed in a quiet trickle along the V-shaped notch in the ground that extended several miles before terminating just before the edge of town. Both men peered through the greenery at the approaching stage that was maybe twenty yards away.

  “Curtains closed,” Wade said.

  “More gunners inside. They learnin’ after Besco.”

  Jack Nillis lay a little ahead of Wade. They carried rifles in their hands.

  Nillis, the older of the two, held a Winchester rifle that had belonged to his now-dead brother. Both had ridden the outlaw trail after the war, but Tom Nillis hadn’t been as lucky as Jack. A bounty hunter’s bullet stopped Tom in Dodge; Jack’s return fire killed the bounty hunter and Jack stopped long enough to grab his brother’s rifle as the Dodge City police closed in.

  Homer Wade had been a decent cowboy before he realized he could have more fun taking other people’s money. He carried a Winchester Yellow Boy carbine. The weapon was scuffed and scratched but still fired true.

  Wade tucked the carbine into his shoulder, his elbows digging into the dirt. “I got the driver.”

  Nillis aimed his own rifle with his mind on the shotgunner who thought he was being so smart by moving his head back and forth.

  “On my signal,” Nillis said.

  He aimed a little ahead of the shotgunner.

  “Fire!”

  Chapter Three

  Nillis fired first. His bullet split the air over the shotgunner’s head. He cursed.

  Wade’s carbine boomed. The driver’s head snapped back and the man tumbled over the side head-first, the big wheels of the stage rolling over his body and smashing him into the dirt.

  The shotgunner let both barrels go, the hot pellets tearing through the brush but nowhere near Wade and Nillis.