Crunch!

I must’ve dozed a bit asleep in the saddle. The sound startled me awake and I checked my mirror, wondering if that was where the strange sound came from. Timp's whinny, however, drew my attention to the road. As we came around the bend of a rocky outcrop, a large strip of the trail was frozen like a shallow creek in January. Except it was July, and this was no creek.

It was slick and melting from the hot sun, but still, the ice was at least an inch thick.

Dead of summer, there was only one way ice was forming out here, and I reckoned it had to do with my Lonely Hill bank robbers.

Shar’s final words to me caromed around in my skull. Asking when I would learn. Was she about to teach me one of her lessons?

Timp whinnied again and reared back when one of her front hooves slipped.

"Calm down, girl," I whispered in her ear. "Take it slow." Her hoof slid out again. "Slower."

She got the balancing down after a few more steps, and I made sure not to shift my weight. Timp probably would've loved to go around, but the stubborn old girl needed pushing these days.

I studied the ice as we went. Tracks left grooves through it, swerving this way and that. They looked like they belonged to wagon wheels, but there was no crash in sight.

Leaning forward, I kept my ears peeled. The silhouettes of carrion birds circled overhead in the ruddy sky, but plenty of critters died in these parts, ready to be picked clean by vultures. And the wind didn't carry any fresh stink of rotting flesh. Humans smell worse than anything after we die.

The tracks took a sharp turn near the ledge. It was strange enough to cause me concern, like whoever it was had gone careening over the edge. I swept my legs off Timp and landed in one smooth motion, my boots sending splinters across the ice.

A few strides later, I was looking down onto a promontory at three men, naked as the day they were birthed. They sat upright, tied up back-to-back-to-back. And not civilian types like Agatha and Lyle. These were hardened men—skin creased and leathery, and not because they'd been left out in the sun for God knows how long. One, a dark-skinned man, sported a clean-shaven face, the others finely groomed mustaches. These were men who knew how to take care of themselves.

I skidded down the rut, coming to rest on the outcropping.

The sight below was unnerving—a web of ice spread across each of the men's mouths like unholy bandit masks, chapped the skin all around it. Any longer and frostbite would settle in, and that wouldn't be a pretty sight.

Beside them, the cart responsible for the wheel marks rested shattered and broken. The three men were kicking dirt, clearly desperate to stay as far away from that precarious ledge as possible.

"Quit moving, or you're gonna bring the whole shelf crashing down!" I shouted.

Somehow, that made them move more, toppling over one another, their bodies wrestling for the topmost position.

I fired a round from one of my pistols into the air to quiet them. It worked, at least for the moment. Stomping over, I grabbed the dark-skinned one, and held the hot barrel against the ice covering his mouth. His eyes went wide as it slowly melted down through the middle before cracking off his face.

"Mary, the fucking mother!" The words came out like his mouth wouldn't work right. He winced and strained his arms, trying and touch his jaw where the skin around his mouth was left purple, lips drained entirely of color.

"What happened here?" I asked for what seemed like the hundredth time over the last few days. First the frosty bank, Agatha and the Nephilim, and now this? Things were always pretty hairy, but not like this. Hell was working overtime, it seemed.

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"Y'ain't gonna cut us loose?" His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth with every word, still unnaturally frigid.

"I ain't in a hurry," I said. "Not 'til I know you didn't deserve… whatever this is."

"Fuck you," he said.

"Got a mouth on you, don't you? Maybe I should have kept it shut."

The other two yanked and made him roll to the side. I gripped him by his frostbitten cheeks and held him upright.

"Who did this?"

"Some freaks.”

"That don't narrow it down much." I looked to the other two and shoved the man away. "Either of you wanna talk, because your friend here is pissing me off."

Both of them nodded vigorously.

As I moved to help the others, the first seemed to grow a tongue. "We were transporting cash overnight for our employer. Next thing I know, the carriage is sliding all over the place. Toppled off, right over. Luck provided this ledge, or we'd be dead as dirt."

"Right," I said, drawing out the word. "And the bindings?"

"They were on us before we could even get a shot off."

"You Pinks?" I asked.

"You a Marshal?" he retorted.

I sniffed, knowing the answer to my question just from reading his expression.

Pinkertons. They all had the same look. Hired guns only rich folk could afford. Tough as nails, and out here, they usually skirted the letter of the laws they swore to uphold.

"Sounds like the bank wasted money," I said.

"Why don't you untie me and say that, boy?"

"Boy," I scoffed. Sure, his hair was graying, but I probably had a decade or more spent on this Earth on him. Truth was, I didn't care for his tone, neither. I'm sure he was frazzled, his crew getting run up on like that, but this wasn't the best way to treat a savior.

I sighed. Graciousness was a dying virtue.

"What'd they take?" I asked.

"You fucking blind? They took it all! Everything! Can't you see that? The money, guns. They took our goddamned clothes. Our clothes! Who fucking does that? Barely got a look at them before they yanked us out of the wreckage, said we’d ‘taken enough,’ and knocked us out cold. Next thing, we're lying here with our mouths frozen shut. In July. It don't make any fucking sense."

"Why not kill you?" I scratched my chin, asking myself more than I was anyone else. If this was the work of the crew from Lonely Hill—which I had to assume it was—they didn't seem to be doing much killing back there either. Not the normal modus operandi.

He blinked. "That's your question?"

"It's a question."

"Goddammit, untie me!"

The others grunted at the demand as well, as if finally realizing I hadn't even bothered to get that ice off their faces yet.

"Fine," I said. "C'mon." I knelt, and he dragged the others toward me, their bare thighs chafing along the dirt. I pulled my knife, pushed his head toward the ground, and set the blade against the rope behind his back.

"What'd they do with the cash?" I asked.

"The fuck you think they did with it?" the Pink asked.

I'd just started cutting when I pulled away and looked him dead in the eyes, pointing the tip of my blade in his face.

"Listen up, Buttercup. I could toss the lot of you into that gorge, and folks would think it was nothing more than a few Pinks getting drunk and driving too soon. You want that?"

The other two protested emphatically but he kept his face stern.

"Now, you’d best answer me with some respect on this one," I said as I started cutting again. "You see which way they were headed?"

Despite his attempt at holding onto whatever dignity he could, the gentleman started acting like one now.

"When I came to, I saw a trail of dust across the gorge, leading toward Elkhart,” he said. “Same way we were heading to make a deposit at the bank there."

I paused. Whether by chance or purpose, the outlaws stumbled upon these men on their way. That meant Dufaux's Elkhart branch was their next target for certain.

"Mr. Dufaux ain't gonna be pleased," I said, testing the waters.

At the mention of the man's name, something like fear flashed in the Pinkerton’s eyes. But then, he set his jaw firm and said, "No shit."

About what I could expect.

Elkhart was a far bigger town than Lonely Hill, and there was bound to be enough guns to slow the robbers this time. But in a town that size, they could blend in, get right to the vault without a shot fired. Even if word of the last robbery had reached Elkhart's ears already, they wouldn't know what hit them.

"Next time, earn your pay." I sliced the rope and left the dark-skinned Pinkerton there to help his brothers-in-arms.

Was I jealous? Perhaps. Back in my day, I wish there'd been a lawful way to make a living using my particular set of skills. Let alone with federal backing. The West was changing; that was for damn sure.

But wallowing wouldn't stop the fiends I was after.

Without another word, I climbed back up, crunched across ice, and mounted Timperina. Gave her a startle, I moved so fast. And I swear, I could see Shar in the glassy ice watching me with a look that said, "I told you so." That if I hadn't stopped for Agatha, I could've beaten the outlaws here and put a stop to things already.

Nope. It didn't matter. What was done was done. My pursuit would end in Elkhart, where I’d take down the ice-wielding outlaw and banish whichever demon had sway over him right back to Hell.