Hell's Marshal by Chris Barili

then growled at the paper again.
    “Damned coyote,” Frank spat. “Other than biting the prospector, you’ve done us no good at all. You almost got us lost, scared those horses, and now you’re growling at a newspaper. You’re as worthless here as you were in the underworld.”
    Batcho sighed and put his chin on his paws.
    An hour later, Curtis was snoring, his head on Spike’s shoulder while the stout barkeep coated more bullets in what remained of their Holy-whiskey.
    “You’d have made a fine father,” Frank murmured.
    Spike looked up and studied him through squinted eyes, his brow wrinkled so much the dead, dry skin cracked.
    “That’s why you couldn’t shoot him, isn’t it?” Spike asked. “Because he’s in a kid’s body and you…”
    Frank looked out the window, into the growing darkness. The stage had slowed to avoid injuring the horses, but he could see little in the shadows.
    “Leave it be,” he warned.
    “You can’t dwell on that now. We need you.”
    Frank sighed and took his hat off long enough to run his fingers through his dead hair. It had started to soften a bit, as if life were slowly returning to his body one strand at a time.
    “What would you know about it? You never shot your own boy.”
    “You didn’t know,” Spike reassured him. “You couldn’t have—”
    “Don’t matter. I know what it’s like to shoot a boy, and to lose one. Jeb Fisher is someone’s boy, and if I can find a way, I’ll capture James’ spirit without killing the body it lives in. I owe his father that much, at least.”
    Curtis lifted his head and opened his bleary eyes. “His pa’s dead. Died in the mines. Mom in childbirth. He’s got no one to return to, and the boy I used to know…well, he ain’t in there anymore. Kill him, Frank. You’ll be helping him.”
    Spike clapped Frank on the shoulder.
    “The judges sent a gunfighter on this mission, Frank. They had plenty of dead lawmen, plenty of bounty hunters, and plenty of other men. But they sent you. They knew your reputation and sent you because of it.
    “You don’t send a gunfighter to catch people, Frank. You send ‘em to kill. If we’re gonna win this, you’d better get to killin’.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
    They arrived at the train depot in Adair just before nine in the morning of their second day, their third set of horses lathered and huffing, their driver eying his passengers as if they were ghosts. Frank wondered if the man had any idea now close that was to the truth.
    The station at Adair was a simple, steep-roofed building with white clapboard sides and no platform. Passengers milled around on the hard-packed dirt surface, their clothes caked in dust. Anvil clouds rose in the far west, though, threatening a soaking later. A single locomotive, gleaming and black, puffed smoke ahead of its mix of passenger and boxcars. Its whistle blew, making Curtis jump and Batcho tuck his tail.
    “The robbery happened about a mile and a half west of town,” Spike told the others. “There’s a stone marker, commemorating those who died. I’ll see if I can find a wagon to carry us the rest of the way.”
    “We’ll walk,” Frank said, starting down the road away from the depot. The train lurched forward at the same time, chugging west, its cars slow to move behind it, as if they longed to stay and rest at the depot.
    Curtis took off at a run for the nearest boxcar. When he reached it, he ran along beside the train, matching its speed.
    “This will be faster!” he shouted. “Come on, quick now!”
    Spike grinned at Frank. “Grit.”
    Then he huffed and puffed his way alongside the boy. Frank sighed, then followed, Batcho yipping at his heels.
    Spike grasped the handle on the boxcar door and heaved it open just as a shout rose from the depot. Spike hauled himself inside, then tugged Curtis in with him. The train had picked up speed now, and Frank struggled to keep up. He managed to grasp Spike’s wrist, though, and the stronger man pulled