Michael Spradlin - Blood Riders

Van Helsing threw back his head and laughed. “Ach. So true, Major! So very, very true! You make a very good joke!” Hollister hadn’t intended it as a joke and knew Van Helsing wouldn’t be laughing either, if he’d been as close to one of those demons as Hollister had.

When they finally pulled into Denver, it was seven o’clock. The train chugged slowly onto a siding at the main station yard. The rails led the train inside a large warehouse. Checking his watch again, Pinkerton stood.

“Dr. Van Helsing, this is the end of the line for you, for now at least. Thank you for your assistance.” Van Helsing shook everyone’s hand.

“Ach. It is gut to have you with us, Major Hollister and Sergeant Chee. My thoughts and prayers will be with you on your mission,” he said.

Gathering up his papers and tucking them into his battered valise, he shrugged into his topcoat. “Adieu, gentlemen!” he said. He took one last look around the train, studying the devil’s traps and the markings on the walls; nodding in some internal agreement with himself, he reached the door of the car and paused. “Major, I want you to know something. What happened to you and your men, on that ridge in Wyoming… it vas not your fault. You could not have known what you were facing. And I believed you, Major, from the very first time I read the report. I just wanted you to know that. I believed you.”

The small man’s words were starkly sincere and Hollister could not help but be touched by them. No one had ever mentioned the incident to him in such a manner before. He gave the doctor a small salute. “Thank you, Dr. Van Helsing.”

Van Helsing returned the salute and left the car.

“Very good,” Pinkerton said. “Gentlemen, if you’ll accompany me outside. I think you’re going to enjoy meeting your gunsmith.”

“We have a gunsmith?” Chee asked. His appreciation of weapons at his disposal was already near euphoria and the idea of a personal gunsmith was close to sending him into hysteria.

“Yes, indeed,” Pinkerton said. “You might have heard of him. His name is Oliver Winchester.”

Chee and Hollister stared at each other in amazement. Winchester was the most famous gun maker in the country, next to Samuel Colt, who had died years ago. Winchester rifles were famous the world over, and his 1873 repeating. 30-caliber model had become the best-selling rifle in history. Practically every home, cowboy, rancher, and cattle thief on the western frontier owned, wanted, or had stolen one. Once again Hollister stopped to consider what he had gotten himself into.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pinkerton, but a gunsmith? I don’t think guns are going to work on these things. As you reminded me, my Colt…”

“All true; however, wait and see what Mr. Winchester has created. You’ll be going into battle with far more than a Colt, Major.”

They stepped off the train. Hollister marveled again that Pinkerton had managed to find a building big enough for the entire train. Almost as if on cue, the door opened at the far end of the warehouse. A slight but determined-looking man with a dark black moustache and beard, and wearing a fine suit with a bowler hat on top of his head approached them. He strode straight to Pinkerton without taking his eyes off him. The two men shook hands.

“Gentlemen, please meet Oliver Winchester, owner and president of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company,” Pinkerton waited a moment while the man greeted Hollister and Chee.

“Oliver, do you mind?” Pinkerton said, pulling the silver Saint Ignatius coin from his vest pocket. Winchester closed his hand around the offered coin. The three men waited, and Hollister wondered what would happen if someone, or something, held the coin who was not who they claimed to be. Would lightning strike them or smoke and fire seep out of their hand before they burst into flames?

But nothing happened. Hollister saw Pinkerton relax slightly and when Winchester retrieved his own coin from his coat and offered it to the detective, it felt as if some unspoken challenge had been laid to rest. Yet a small sliver of doubt still crept into Hollister’s mind. What if these creatures weren’t affected by silver? After all, Van Helsing said the metal “appeared to bother them” but not how, and what happened when it did or even if it really did. Had they tested it? If so, how? He would have to read up in the doctor’s journal about all this.

A porter had followed Winchester into the building pushing several large wooden cases on a dolly. The gunsmith thanked the man, who departed without a second glance. Hollister still found it odd, being in a building with a train inside it. Then again, he’d been in prison four years. Maybe things had changed.

Like the weapon that bore his name, Winchester was no nonsense. He got right to the point. He hefted one of the crates onto the table and popped the lid off. Chee inched forward, like an eager puppy, desperate to see what was inside the box. Jonas knew Chee was dangerous enough when he was unarmed. But he also appeared to have an unusual interest in guns. Hollister reckoned this made him doubly lethal.

Winchester removed a rifle from the case. It looked like a normal repeater, one of the big Henry’s Jonas had seen in the war.

“Gentlemen, this is an 1866 model Henry rife. It has had some modifications and enhancements made to it. Mainly, changes were made to the barrel that allow various types of ammunition to be used without damage to the mechanism or structural integrity of the barrel. You’ll each be issued one of these and there will be another dozen on board the train for your use. Please do not lose them. They are extremely costly and difficult to produce.”

“I used a Yellow Boy myself, riding with General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley during the War,” Hollister said, referring to the nickname given the Henry Rifle. The brass casing on the gun shone nearly yellow when polished and had given rise to the name. “It’s a fine weapon.”

Winchester beamed with pride.

“Sergeant Chee here was a little too young for the war, but I’m sure you’ve heard some of your elder brethren in butternut gray talk about the Henry,” Winchester said. Chee smiled.

“Yes, sir. Some of my uncles fought with the Eighth Louisiana. They called it ‘that damn Yankee rifle you could load on Sunday and fire all week.’ ”

Winchester laughed. “So I’ve heard. Well, given these new models and their capabilities, perhaps our enemies will grow to fear them in the same way,” he said.

For the next hour, Winchester went over the modifications to the rifles and the contents of the first case. They were given ammo that was modified for their side arms. Some bullets were made of silver and some had been dipped in holy water before they were fitted into the cartridge. Others were wooden as with the Gatling guns on the train, their ends machined into a sharp point. They looked especially deadly, like miniature spears.

When Winchester was finally winding down, Hollister noticed that he hadn’t opened or said anything about the second case.

“What’s in the other box?” Hollister asked.

Winchester stopped a moment and looked behind him at the case on the ground. He smiled and put one foot on top of it and stuck his hands in his vest pockets, looking for all the world like some carnival huckster.

“This?” he said, feigning disinterest and tapping his foot on top of the crate.

“This gentlemen, is a little something I like to call ‘The Ass-Kicker.’ ”

He then proceeded to show them how it worked.

It was the damndest thing Hollister had ever seen. It looked like a short-barreled shotgun had mated with a… he didn’t know what, maybe Monkey Pete’s train, and produced a weapon suitable for the devil himself. Winchester held it out and Jonas was almost reluctant to take it from him. There were two large steel baffles along the barrel, gauges and gears everywhere-all shining and polished-and a collapsing stock. It appeared to him the gun might fly apart at any minute.