[DRB]: The Train
It had already been a bloody night by the time the crew stepped foot onto the train in Valentine. They’d recently tucked another two bank jobs under their belts, and neither had come without a long and violent trail leading up to them.
The train was supposed to be easier. Comparatively, at least. At its core, the plan was as simple as it could be: get on the train, rob it, get off.
They’d gotten lucky— the train had been in Valentine with only one conductor and one passenger. With one glance at their white sleeves and vests, the conductor was happy to believe they were lawmen and a few shadows, waving them aboard.
The horn bellowed and they set off into the long stretch of empty wilderness between them and the next town. A perfect setup for a quick job.
The crew split into two teams of three as the train lurched to a start: Oliver, Brian, and Cat would talk to the passenger, while Horace, Alice, and herself dealt with the conductor.
Their team went up to the front, Horace asking the conductor to stop the train on account of an apparent “stowaway” situation. He complied, and they asked him to come to the back car with them to sort it all out.
They passed back through the cars, filtering past their own team talking to the passenger. She had to wonder how the gears in the conductor’s head must’ve been turning with each empty car they walked through. How soon would he realize?
Horace drew his sawed off as they neared the caboose, light from the electric lamps overhead gleaming along the barrel.
Reaching the last car, he put it up to the man’s head.
“Alrighty sir. I’m gonna need you to put your hands up.”
The conductor turned around, raising his hands as instructed. His voice was low, looking over them all. “…You’re not law, are you.”
“No,” Horace admitted. “No, we’re not.”
“…What do you want?”
“Well. What’ve you got?”
The conductor paused, considering his response. “Not much,” he admitted. “A gun on my back to protect myself from people like you. But I don’t see that being of much use here.”
It wasn’t. At Horace’s behest, Alice stepped forward, disarming him and tossing his weapons off the back of the train. Next they took his hat. Then his shoes. Then his tie too.
And sent him on his way, back up the train.
For several moments, all three of them were certain the plan had gone off without a hitch. All they had to do now was link back up with the others, get on their horses, and go.
Little did they realize, though, a situation had begun to unfold at the front of the train.
Jogging back to check on the others, Filly began to hear a voice outside the train. She peered through a window, cringing as she put a familiar face to the callout. Law was here, wondering why the hell there was a train stopped in the middle of the line.
Filly crouched down, hunkering in between the rows of seats as the others cornered the conductor and put him on his knees. They’d already tied up the other passenger, keeping him from running off.
“We were just dealing with a stowaway situation, that’s all,” Oliver insisted to disbelieving ears.
“Can I hear from the conductor?”
Glances passed around the cabin. Alice urged the man to his feet. “Why don’t you go up to the window there and tell them everything’s fine?”
The sawed-off had found its way back into Horace’s hands, levelling once again at the shoeless conductor’s head.
The conductor’s voice shook as he complied, making his way to the window. “…what do you want me to say,” he whispered.
“Say that everything’s okay,” Horace instructed. “And we took care of the stowaways.”
He did.
There were more officers outside, a gathering team responding to a call for backup. The negotiator wasn’t impressed. “Some stowaways… that doesn’t seem like what’s going on.”
“I’m the train conductor,” he stammered. “Everything’s okay. We’re just— there were some stowaways on board. It’s under control.”
“Why all the guns then?”
Horace kept his voice low, careful not to let the man outside hear. “We’re your hired guards. Say it.”
And he did.
The negotiator was getting agitated now, unwilling to back down. Whatever they said, he could still see through the window at the situation unfolding.
“Can you stop pointing a gun at the engineer?”
It was testing Horace’s patience in equal measure. He spoke up, addressing the gathering lawmen outside. “I think you heard what’s going on here. The train conductor’s fine. We’re some hired guard.”
“So you can get the hell out of here,” Alice added.
Predictably, this wasn’t enough to dissuade them.
“Who else do you have in there?”
“The stowaway,” Oliver claimed. “You want to see him?”
He hefted the passenger onto his shoulder, stepping into the space between the cars. “This is him.” Oliver jostled the man, asking him, “Didn’t you board the train without permission?”
“Y-Yeah!” The passenger replied shakily. “They uh— they caught me boarding the train without paying! Now they’ve got me all tied up, mister!”
“Then throw him outside,” the negotiator retorted. “We can take care of him.”
Meanwhile, things in the car had taken a different turn. It was clear that this wouldn’t work for much longer. They had to try something else if they were going to get out of this one.
“Listen to me,” Horace said, staring the engineer dead in the eyes. He indicated the hostage on Oliver’s shoulder. “The second they get out of the way, you’re gonna run to the front of this train and full speed out of here, or I’m going to kill this guy.”
There wasn’t a person in the room that doubted it.
No further encouragement necessary, the conductor sprinted towards the head of the train the second he had a clear path.
“One of you keep a gun on him!” Alice called out.
Brian was the first to follow, several of the others in hot pursuit as the negotiator yelled after them for what they were doing. The train lurched heavily and began to roll.
Horace and Filly stayed back, Horace with a gun on the roped-up hostage. Most of the law pulled up with the running crowd, but she was sure she’d seen at least one officer heading the opposite way earlier. Had he made it on?
Horace didn’t look up from the man as he spoke to her. “Filly— watch behind us.” She blinked momentarily to hear her name, but she’d just have to hope it didn’t get back to the law.
She rushed to the back of the car, keeping an eye out for the man she’d seen, or any other attempts to jump on.
Ahead of her an argument had broken out. “We’ve got another stowaway!” Oliver and Alice shouted, a litany of guns lining up on the two officers that had boarded onto the train. “Jump off,” the crew was commanding them. “Get off the train! You’ve got five seconds! Five! Four! Three!—”
She tried to breathe, counting her breathing exercises. Five, four, three, two—
A figure’s shape emerged in her view, walking up the car with a pistol trained down the corridor at the others behind her. “Got another one back here!” Filly cried out, her nerves all too evident in her voice as she stepped out from cover, putting herself between him and the others with a shotgun at the ready.
The officer took a few steps back, the barrel of his gun shifting to her instead. He spoke slowly, trying to diffuse her, “Nice and easy now…”
“Don’t do it,” she warned in return, keeping her weapon trained on him. “Don’t do it—”
They both knew the second gunfire was exchanged, there was no turning back.
Hearing her callout and having pushed the first two officers off, Oliver and Alice rushed to her aid, guns raised and pushing down the hall to force him back.
“Your friends are gone,” they warned him.
“It’s just you now!”
“You don’t want to be here. Go!”
Facing down the three guns, he seemed to agree, leaping off to relative safety.
Cries of “he’s off!” and “damn right!” rippled through their ranks to the front of the train like lightning, everyone rushing to consolidate their forces — and hostages — at the front of the train.
Not a single drop of blood shed so far.
With Brian keeping a gun on the conductor, they continued down the rails at as fast as the locomotive could push itself.
Screeching at full speed past Rhodes, Oliver pitched their escape plan. To their right there would soon be thick swamplands, they could jump off and—
“We’ve got another one on the roof!” —Alice’s voice, calling out from the coal car. From this angle, Filly couldn’t even see her. She peeked out the back of the car she was in but couldn’t tell where the next threat lay.
“Back off! Get off the train!” Alice and Brian snapped at an unknown assailant, trying to dissuade this officer as they had the others. An unfamiliar woman’s voice refused. She already had guns trained on them and wouldn’t be leaving.
In an instant, the tension broke.
Oliver gave the fateful order to shoot.
Gunfire erupted from the top of the train, and the woman’s voice was heard no more. Even as that happened, a bullet whizzed by Filly’s head— close enough to knick her ear. She jolted, immediately turning her eyes to the long train corridor behind them. This officer had not been alone.
“Take cover!” Oliver barked as more gunfire whizzed past them. “Hold position here and watch the hostage!”
They all scrambled to positions, finding protection behind walls, barrels, and boxes. Filly slid with Cat to the rear of the car, the two of them slamming their backs against the wood and metal. Filly switched to her revolvers, steadying herself even as bullets ricocheted up the cabin, splintering the wooden doorframe less than an inch from her body.
She tried not to think about what any of those bullets could do to flesh.
Tried not to think too hard about what her own guns could do to any of the lawmen in the cars behind them— it was too late for that. The firefight had started, and it wouldn’t stop until there was nothing left shooting at them.
The hostage screamed as a stray bullet hit him.
What ensued was nothing short of militant, each of them taking turns leaning in and out of cover to fire down the train as the rails twisted and curved, giving each of them potential angles. Half the shots Filly sent downrange were suppressive fire, trying to keep them from getting any closer to the front car. The other half were aimed at muzzle flashes several cars back. She couldn’t be sure if any hit their mark.
A longstanding warrant on his head, Horace asked to bail, and a roar of voices urged him to go. The chaos on the train would mask his escape. …They could hope, at least. Horses were chasing the train — more law, no doubt.
During a lull in gunfire, Oliver and Alice broke from cover to push the offensive, vanishing down the cars. The train twisted and turned as they entered St. Denis, making it difficult to keep track of their forms. More shots rang out into the night air.
Brian turned an eye from the conductor to yell for a status update. They gave what they could — still hearing shots, but couldn’t see anything. They were too far back now. He urged the train to keep moving. Just keep moving.
Filly held her breath as white sleeves began rushing back towards her, but recognized Oliver just in time to not open fire.
His voice was distant but growing quickly as he thundered back towards them. “Marshal on the train!” —he called out. “That marshal with the suit is on top of the train! Everyone stick together!”
Filly’s heart sank as he rushed past her, no Alice in sight. A second later, gunfire erupted from further back.
“She’s getting shot!” —Cat’s voice this time, beside her.
“Where is she!?”
“All the way at the back!”
A moment later as Alice reappeared between the train cars. Filly called out to her to keep moving, to hurry, but the strawberry blonde vanished a second time, pulling herself onto the roof of the train and producing a second burst of gunfire.
This time when she dropped down, she continued up the cars to join the others. “I put a few rounds towards him,” she called forward, “but he’s still up there!”
Back in cover, Oliver cursed under his breath. “I’m out of repeater ammo— does anyone have repeater?!”
Filly fumbled with her pockets, finding a box and tossing it to him. He began to reload, pulling back to the coal car to get a view of their final opponent.
She barely had time to watch him go, hearing something outside.
“There! There!” Filly screeched as a shadow of a man leapt over the gap between cars above her, raising her revolvers and unloading into the roof above her. Alice stepped out, putting a round towards him too. A cry of pain rang out, but he continued to charge the two up front, his bootfalls slamming against the roof of the train—
—Gunfire from Brian and Oliver in the coal car, and the charging steps turned into a final, heavy thud.
With that, the last of the lawmen seemed to be down.
At Brian’s callout, the train screeched to a halt just outside of St. Denis, the air still charged and frenetic.
As suddenly as so much chaos had begun, it all stopped. They lost each other as they scattered to the winds in singles and pairs, the constant grinding of train wheels replaced by only hoofbeats, heartbeats, and silence.
One by one, they would find shelter, reach out, reunite. With every telegram they asked again, did we all make it out? Did we lose anyone? And Filly would hold her breath waiting for a reply.
Anything could’ve happened with them split up. Horace could’ve been spotted by riders following the train, or any law responding to the scene for that matter. Alice, Brian, and Cat had all vanished the second Filly turned around. There had been law in the city as they were leaving it— which direction had their friends gone? Had they run into a patrol and been taken in? Shot? …Killed? The only person she knew for sure had made it out was Oliver across from her in the cramped hideout, scratching away at another telegram.
Minute by minute as the adrenaline wore off and was replaced with a blanket of sweat and shaking hands, her fears were eased by telegrams arriving in response. She counted to keep her breathing steady, not down this time, but up.
One, two, three, four, five— six.
Of the six that had set foot on that train together, every single one had made it out.
And within just a few more minutes, all of them had made it home.