Gold, Guns and Death in the West - A Wild West Story

CHAPTER 7 - The Confrontation

In the early morning, the rising sun cast it's warm embrace onto the harsh patches of land as a train barreled down the tracks with the might of a hundred horses. With it an exquisite looking railcar owned by Renee Haymond himself. The Mining Baron would visit his last vestige of his wealth every week, along with collecting the extracted materials aboard his train in order to ship them back to his mansion.

The rails ran underneath a uniquely shaped stone arch, being only a few inches above the roof of the locomotive it was a scenic opportunity that wasn't passed when Haymond ordered the construction of the rail line to Little Valley.

Sipping some tea, the aged man sat comfortably in his luxury car smoking a long stogie. Admiring some of the biggest gems his workers were able to fish out of his now closed mines during his company's heyday. Something he usually did during the train's long trips in order to pass his time. With Little Valley's mines alone, he was ultimately able to build his wealth back up to what it once was.

"Mr. Haymond. We're about half an hour away from Little Valley Station." One of his hired security guards addressed him. He was dressed in a suit and a gatsby hat, wielding a bolt action rifle with sling.

"Thank you." He said, with the response of a nod by the guard.

As the train passed the stone arch overhead, two slight thumps on the car's roof could be heard.

"Go check it out." Haymond ordered one of his security guards. The mentioned guard cocked his rifle, heading to a ladder to access the train car's roof. Opening the hatch on top of the ladder, he looked around, only to immediately be shot in the head and fall back into the car. Haymond yelled in anguish at his compromised safety as the engine slowly grinded to a halt. The aged mining tycoon looked out of his window to see the engineer and coal shovelor fleeing the front of the train.

"No! Come back!" He cried out as he opened the window, the remaining guard with him decided to try and use the ladder on the outside of the car to try and intercept the assailant on the roof.

As he readied his rifle, he opened the door between Haymond's personal car and the coal car. Only to be greeted with the sight of the barrel of a revolver pointed straight at his face. His brains were blown away as Haymond attempted to hobble away on his emerald studded cane. Only to be met by the girl as she held her pistol towards him from the hatch.

"End of the line." She warned with a grim expression. Meanwhile, the boy shut the door he came through behind him, making sure to lock it in case the man wanted to try something. The girl climbed down the ladder, pointing her pistol straight at Haymond with a stern, angry look on her face. "Let me kill this son of a bitch."

"No. Not yet." The boy said, walking around Haymond's car to survey the car he made a home for himself in. "Nice place."

"You know who I am, don't you?" The man asked, not just to the boy but to the girl too.

"The cowardly snake who enslaves an entire town for some shiny rocks?" The boy's grim expression taunted the older man. He knew who he was, he just wanted to spite Haymond out of the disdain he felt for people like him. "Her and I know damn well what kind of a 'man' you are."

"You are bounty hunters right? I-I can offer a very hefty sum." Haymond spoke with a jitter in his voice. Panicking, he held up his cane which had an enlarged emerald decorating the top. "This and more."

"We don't want none of your fucking money." The girl growls, cocking the hammer on her revolver.

"Talk some sense into your partner!" Haymond cries out.

"Ain't no reasoning with vengeance, Mr. Haymond. 'Specially when your thugs were responsible for killing her entire family. And possibly worse." The boy sat himself down in the tycoon's chair.

"T-the mayor had a daughter?" Haymond asked. "Eugene said he killed every last one of them!"

"So you admit you sent them!" The girl yelled, smacking her pistol's grip into Haymond's forehead. "That's what it's all about? Dealing with my dad, he doesn't agree with you. So you send in the filthy lowlifes to massacre everyone and whoever they could find... Their mistake was, that they never knew about and never found me."

"Please! I can get you more money than you can ever dream of! Plus full ownership of the town once the mines are exhausted!" Haymond pleaded with the boy. "Bounty hunters are just in it for the money! Aren't you? Dispose of this crazy woman! Before she does something extreme to me!"

"You have no idea of what your actions do to other people, don't you? Yourself is all that matters isn't that right?" The boy grinned with a sarcastic chuckle. "The Edwards Gang has been in your employment for years. Doing what you could never do. Like forcefully evicting innocent families off their lands with the basis of a cheap rumor."

"No! No! You're wrong! I'd never do such a thing!" Haymond wailed.

"Horseshit." The girl sneered, pressing her gun into the back of the man's head.

The slimey, cowardly man slowly collapsed onto the ground as his fear slowly made his legs buckle beneath him.

"Don't kill me, please." He looked up to both of his captors with pained fear in his eyes.

"Why not?" The boy asked, with a click of the gun's hammer coming from him as well.

"Because I-" He had no time to respond, as the girl popped a shot into his head. As he fell onto his face, she unloading all five remaining shots into his corpse. The boy released the hammer and holstered his revolver.

"That's for Little Valley and all you may have done." She spat on his dead body, firmly stomping onto his cane with her boot and snapping it. She then looked towards the boy, who just smirked with satisfaction at his dead body. "So, we cut off the head of the snake. The body's still a threat, what's the rest of your plan?"

"Shovel enough coal into the train to get us to the Little Valley station. We'll take them by surprise there." Said the boy, making his way to the engine as his partner reloaded her gun.

"Hold on, I have an idea too!" She called out to him.