Orion's Belt - A Dark Sci-Fi Western Romance

They’ve got her bound real tight, rope cutting into her ankles and wrists, drawing blood from the raw skin. She’s been trying to fight, I can see that on her bloody knuckles and the dark bruise coming up on her jaw and under her left eye. Someone beat the hell out of this girl, then left her here to die.

It’s said that this land is getting more lawful all the time, but if it is, I ain’t seeing it. Every day me and the boys come across something more sick than the day before. It’s getting to the point I’m not sure if we’re outlaws or vigilantes, doing what should be done by them that wear badges.

“It’s coming! It’s coming…” She’s not screaming anymore. She’s whispering hoarsely, begging me with every breath she takes.

She’s right to be panicking. The gravel between the rails is rattling back and forth with the force of the Deadman Flyer. It runs from Slipknot Falls way up in the mountains to Drainneck, two lawless towns connected by this train that gets robbed twice a trip without fail. Ain’t no way this driver’s going to put the brakes on, even if he had a chance to see us here, which he won’t. They’ve tied her around a horseshoe bend, a blind corner where the train is a little slower, which doesn’t mean it won’t kill you, it just means you’ll be aware of it longer. Someone really hates this girl. Wants her to suffer.

Today’s not the day though. I get my knife between the girl and the rail without cutting her and cut the ropes, freeing her upper body before working on her ankles. My knife hits metal, and at first I think I must have hit the iron, but a second later I realize that it’s not iron. They’ve wound wire around her ankles, making it impossible to get her off the track by just cutting rope.

THWIP! TING! THUD!

A singing sound followed by a puff of dust tells me that the bastards who put the girl here have caught on to our presence. I ignore the bullets. Don’t have time for them.

The boys return fire, taking refuge behind rocks while shooting up at the men on the ridge, giving me cover while I work at the wire which is wrapped over itself time and time again. The rails are shaking harder as the train is getting closer and I’m starting to think we’re not going to get her out of here in time, not with all her limbs attached anyways.

That doesn’t stop me working. There’s blood and I’m not sure if it’s from her or me. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll be wearing her in a minute if I don’t get her free.

She’s gone quiet. Real quiet. I hate that silence. I’ve heard it too many times before, and it always means one thing: someone has quit fighting. I want to hear hollering, cursing, screaming. She’s going to need that energy to get out of this, because train aside, the gunfire shows no sign of letting up. Bullets are pounding into the earth all around us, constant cracks coming from nearby and above, some bullets hitting the rocks where my guys are hiding and ricocheting off at unpredictable angles.

There’s a sound like hell tearing open as the train approaches the corner and the charging wheels are forced into a curve. They protest, hot metal on hot metal. The ground underneath my knees is quaking with the force of the fast arriving locomotive as I scrabble over her, yanking nasty wire off her as fast as I can. She must realize she’s got some chance, because she starts screaming again as she feels her feet leave the rails, grabbing onto me for dear life.

She’s cursing and crying up a storm as I pull her from the tracks just seconds before a powerful gust of air, the screeching of tonnes of heavy metal thundering over rails, and the stench of smoke and grease announces the train hurtling past. Driver didn’t even sound his horn. Not surprised. Lot of ‘em don’t even bother to look anymore. Too hard to stop the train, even harder to get the image of a person smeared across the engine out of your mind. Plenty of drivers gone crazy from it.

“Easy now,” I growl. “Yer alright.”

She’s wriggling like a hellcat, but I’m not letting her go. She’s got that wild look in her eye that people get before they shoot someone, and in her current state I’m not certain it wouldn’t be me on the wrong end of the bullet if she were to get hold of a gun. She’s panicked, and right now she could do anything. I grab her round the waist and throw her on my horse, following her up into the saddle.