Iron Guns, Blazing Hearts Read online

  Her father’s work fascinated her and the education alone rivaled that of any university. Lately, she’d been considering the idea of following in his footsteps. He was certainly progressive enough to allow it. But she could never replace her mother and the role she had played in bringing Joseph Whitcomb’s greatest invention to fruition. Yet there were days she suspected her father had forgotten that particular detail.

  Speaking of details, there were ones about Logan that Violet would always remember. The way his brown eyes had crinkled whenever he smiled. His silky drawl. The possessive way his large, strong hands had gripped her waist–as if they belonged there.

  Violet was all too aware of how her body had responded to his touch. She shivered at the memory of his steely form pressing against hers. Logan’s relaxed, easy style reminded her that other kinds of adventures existed–ones only a man like him could deliver.

  Violet had never even kissed a man. Now, as she approached her twenty-sixth year, it seemed a dream forever out of reach.

  After an hour passed, she gave up her search. Either Logan traveled in different circles than she–which would surprise her, given his smartly tailored clothing–or he didn’t want her to find him. Maybe it had all been a game with him to pass time during the tedious trans-continental journey. Disappointment made her eyes sting. The first man who truly captured her interest had gone heartbreakingly cold on her.

  Weak sentiment would accomplish nothing, however. With her father now engaged in a lively discussion with a fellow passenger, Violet opened her weekly. It was the only solution she could think of to bury the memories of her mysterious, charming Logan.

  Turning the pages, she tuned out everything around her, from the clinking china to the clanking train as it rumbled ever westward. Then she bent her head to learn the fate of “Wild Wolf” Wallace and Miss Henrietta Dearheart:

  The marshal’s men closed in around Wallace. Miss Henrietta shrieked in dismay. “John, my love, no!” Unable to penetrate the ring of lawmen, she threw herself at Marshal Adams. Like a tigress, she beat her delicate fists against his chest. “Stop this folly at once! You know the accusation to be false!”

  But without a second look, Adams shoved her aside. Further implorations for mercy went unheeded.

  The deputies cuffed Wallace’s hands and feet and even roped his arms for good measure.

  All the while, Wallace’s unblinking eyes burned into Mad Bull, his gaze promising as speedy a death as Fate would allow. They dragged him roughly toward the jailhouse, treating him like a captured beast. Only once did Wallace glance behind him at the beautiful woman in white. Aching regret ravaged his soul. He should have done better by her.

  Alone and cold and shivering in the descending twilight, Miss Henrietta Dearheart wept, her tears a river of grief over the terrible, horrible loss of one of the country’s greatest unsung heroes.

  Would she ever see her true love again?

  The words on the page swam before Violet as keen regret pierced her own soul. Because of Logan, she could now relate to Henrietta’s plight. But unfortunately the chapter ended there. The final installment wouldn’t be available until next week’s issue came out. Biting back a groan, she returned to page one for a second read.

  While she revisited the story’s dark turn, a shadow passed over the page. At first, she ignored it. Passengers were entering and exiting the parlor on a regular basis. Except that this shadow didn’t go away, and it was blocking her light. With a mild harrumph , Violet looked up. “I beg your pardon, but you’re blocking my–”

  Logan stood before her. Logan! Violet stared at him, her heart singing. He had returned!

  Tossing the weekly aside, she stood. Hands swinging with girlish joy, she bestowed her sunniest smile upon him. But he had a black look about him, as though he had recently been the recipient of tragic news.

  “Logan,” she said, “won’t you please join us? I’d like you to meet my father.”

  Logan stared at her, his eyes turning colder and harder with each passing moment. The muscles of his jaw clenched and unclenched. “Miss Whitcomb,” he began in a low, strained voice, “I wish things could have been different between us. But I have to do this.”

  Her smile faltered. She couldn’t help noticing that his right hand hovered oddly in the air by his waist. “I don’t understand. Is something amiss? Perhaps I can help.”

  His voice hardened. “Miss Whitcomb, I regret to inform you that this is a–”

  A deafening screech tore his words away. Then a terrible wrenching force gripped the parlor car in its claws, one that sent them both lurching violently forward. China pieces flew from tables, a cascade of dangerous shrapnel and scalding liquid. Curses and shrieks sliced the air.

  Logan clamped an arm around her waist while his other anchored them using one of the train’s ubiquitous gold-plated railings. Violet’s father crashed to the floor along with countless other passengers.

  “Papa!” she cried. She stretched out a hand, but the distance between them was too great. People around her flailed about, desperately grabbing for handholds even as the force whipped them about like raindrops in a hurricane.

  Without warning, a second force shot everyone backward. The car heaved and bucked so strenuously that Violet worried it might leap from the tracks. She grasped Logan tightly around the neck. Scream after scream from terrified women churned through the parlor. An invisible demon seemed to be on a rampage, intent on tearing them all apart.

  Then the wrenching motion abruptly stopped. So, Violet realized with a start, had the train.

  Logan’s grip upon her tightened painfully. “What the hell?” he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  The pale faces of the parlor guests, some scratched and bloody, stared about in confusion. Someone shouted for a steward, or for anyone who was available to make sense of the chaotic event. One mustached man wondered aloud if there’d been an accident.

  The din grew louder. Violet called to her father again. “Papa! Papa, are you all right? Can you hear me? Can you stand?”

  About ten feet away, Joseph Whitcomb waved a reassuring hand in her direction. “Yes, yes. Quite all right.” He rose to his feet and straightened his clothes. After adjusting his spectacles he studied his surroundings with shrewd calculation. “What the devil is happening?” He paused to absorb the sight of the man who held his daughter in a protective embrace. “Might be engine trouble. I should offer my assistance.”

  “What’s that?” a male passenger exclaimed, pointing at the north-facing window.

  A collective gasp arose.

  Logan released her, and as one they rushed to the window. Her father quickly joined them. Outside, the landscape was patterned with scrub brush and rust-colored dirt. But what drew everyone’s rapt attention was the great cloud of billowing dust rolling toward the train.

  Violet estimated it paralleled the entire length of the Golden Arrow. She glanced upward. A storm was unlikely, since the sky was cloudless. An earthquake, perhaps? But the turbulent, dense mass seemed too driven, too controlled. Violet shivered. There was something unnatural about it.

  The onlookers fell to near silence while absorbing the unfathomable development. Within moments, a strange noise arose. The low rumbling came from the direction of the dust cloud. Soon, it escalated to a raucous buzzing, like a swarm of locusts. The very air itself seemed to tremble.

  Violet narrowed her eyes, trying to pinpoint the source of the dust. Beside her, Logan studied the scene just as intently, one arm braced against the upper edge of the window. From his clenched fist, she had the sense he felt acutely frustrated about their current predicament. She ached to reassure him, but dared not miss a single moment of this strange development.

  A dismayed cry focused her attention back outside. Dark shapes began coalescing into view. It was a gradual, laborious process. They seemed to be metamorphosing from the dust itself. What could they be?

  Inside
the parlor car, the air reeked of fear-laced sweat. The passengers required an explanation. Now. She glanced behind her, but saw no train personnel. Violet wedged herself next to her father, who put his arm around her shoulders and held her close.

  Perhaps she would have an answer soon. The dissipating dust revealed a strange sight: a long row of bizarre iron steam carriages flanked the train. Black, carapace-like armor of rivet-studded iron encased each one. With mere slits for windows, it was impossible to see their interiors, or who commanded them. Rear-positioned smokestacks belched forth ashes and dark, sooty vapors. Pin-and-link chains encased over-sized sprocket wheels with wicked looking teeth. Presumably, the wheels required that kind of fierceness to navigate the rough Wyoming terrain.

  Occasionally, one of them shuddered as if with power barely restrained. Awestruck, Violet speculated about their purpose. Were these infernal contraptions responsible for the train’s unexpected stop? Who was operating them?

  Banshee-like screeches and the sound of metal grating against metal shattered the air. Violet covered her ears. As if on cue, a pair of thick, serrated appendages burst from each of the iron beasts. The objects shot toward the train with alarming speed.

  “Bandits!” someone shouted. “We’re being robbed!”

  “Bandits, my ass,” Logan muttered. He yanked both Violet and her father away from the window and hauled them to the south wall of the car. There, he assumed a protective stance before them.

  Logan’s actions were puzzling. Given his previously unsociable, secretive behaviors, Violet questioned his sudden willingness to remove them from harm’s way. But the answers would have to wait. She strained her neck to peer over his shoulder. Stunned at the sight, she wondered if it would have been more prudent to remain hidden.

  The maelstrom of weaving, angry appendages surged forward in a relentless onslaught. Roaring, rotating daggers of death tipped each one. With uncanny precision, they jabbed at the train’s hull. Glass shattered around them. Metal and wood crumpled with sickening wails. Passengers trampled each other in order to escape the attack. Their screams were deafening.

  In a matter of minutes, the appendages reduced the north side of the parlor car to a gaping maw of jagged fangs. Cold autumn air rushed in with the swiftness of a black serpent attacking its prey.

  Then the dance changed. In a series of slow, undulating moves, the appendages advanced into the parlor car.

  Violet shrank against the south wall with the other passengers, even though logic dictated that it offered little protection. Her father shifted so he could block her from the attackers. The noble gesture nearly moved her to tears. Surely all hope had fled them by now.

  She screwed her eyes shut and braced for the painful slice of cold hard metal, certain that one of the spears would soon puncture her tender flesh.

  But Violet felt nothing penetrate her. In fact, the screaming began to die down, lapsing into muted sobs and scattered curses. She cracked open her eyes and peered over Logan’s shoulder. Unbelievably, the appendages now moved about with seeming intent, their wicked looking points bobbing and clicking like chattering insects. They hovered, waited. Watched.

  What did they seek?

  “Leave us alone!” a man shouted.

  The frightful spears zoomed around the car, occasionally nudging a passenger or turning him roughly about. All men, Violet noted. It was as if…as if they were seeking something.

  Or someone.

  “Watch out!” Logan shouted.

  He shoved her back so vehemently that she slammed against the wall. The reason became clear when movement at the floor drew her gaze: one of the appendages had wrapped itself around her father’s legs.

  “Papa !” she screamed.

  Logan reached out to catch him, but an appendage appeared out of nowhere and knocked him back. Joseph teetered precariously forward. Another of the insidious mechanical arms circled his upper torso, immobilizing him like a spider ensnaring its victim.

  Violet launched herself forward. She pulled and scrabbled at the appendages trapping her father. Another one launched itself toward her. Violet ducked, but quite not fast enough. The appendage pierced her hat, ripping it from her head. She trembled at the close call. Several inches lower and the thing would have buried itself in her face.

  Logan joined her. His face contorted and muscles bulged while he attempted to loosen the vise-like grip. Joseph struggled wildly, his face ashen and his eyes blazing with panic. But their efforts were to no avail. The appendages refused to budge. Several more snaked forward to wrap him in a cocoon of iron.

  Now the destructive spears began withdrawing from the car–and they were dragging her father right along with them!

  “Papa!” Violet cried, thoroughly aghast. What did these devils want with him?

  Time grew short. She had to act quickly. She glanced frantically around but saw nothing she could use as a cutting tool.

  Violet realized she had only one choice. “I’m coming, Papa!” Gathering her skirts, she leaped forward. Debris crunched beneath her feet. She stumbled, righted herself. Almost there!

  Aloft in the air, Joseph was now being transported through the gaping hole in the window. His head lolled, indicating possible unconsciousness. With a deep breath, Violet prepared to jump and latch herself to his iron net.

  At the same moment, something hard encircled her waist and jerked her back. Violet screamed, fearing one of the appendages had captured her. She lashed out with all the strength she could muster. “Stop it! Let me go!”

  “Like hell I will!” Logan snarled. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Violet twisted around in an attempt to escape his grasp. In the process, she lost her footing. She and Logan fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs. They stared at each other, panting heavily.

  Somehow, she’d gotten stuck between his thighs. Violet shook her head while extracting herself. “It doesn’t matter. I have to rescue him!” Her gloved palm met a mosaic of broken glass, making her wince. Despite the pain, she stood and faced the opening.

  Logan clamped both hands upon her arms, his hold inescapable. “We’re too late.”

  Joseph was forced into the nearest iron carriage. Violet began whimpering. Soon, only a tuft of his gray hair was visible. In moments, even that, too, disappeared. The sight tore a shriek from her throat.

  The more Violet fought to free herself, the tighter Logan held her. She sensed he did it for her own protection, but she still seethed with anger and resentment. Her father had been abducted. How could she stand there and do nothing?

  The attackers began to withdraw. Smokestacks wheezed and disgorged more black smoke, stinging her eyes. The deadly appendages receded within their iron cloaks, assaulting her ears with sharp scraping sounds. Engines roaring, the carriages reversed direction and thundered away to the north.

  Violet sagged in Logan’s arms. For unfathomable reasons, this terrible, unknown enemy had kidnapped the only family she had in the entire world. Tears spilled hotly down her cheeks. She had already lost her mother. As if that weren’t enough, Fate had dealt her yet another cruel hand.

  Would she ever see her father again?

  Chapter 2

  In Which Secrets Are Revealed, an Alliance Is Formed, and a Quest Begins

  Violet stared through the gap of the shredded train car at the wide, untamed territory before her. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere, the nearest major town probably scores of miles away. Not even a shack disrupted the panoramic vista.

  The dust clouds generated by the invading steam carriages had long since dispersed. Beyond the patch of desert surrounding the tracks, a viridian quilt stretched all the way to the horizon. The mid-morning sun shone brightly in a stark blue sky, but the air felt dry and cold. Whispers of a dark and dreadful night hovered over them all like a shroud. A shudder ran through her body, and she briskly rubbed her arms to ward off the macabre thoughts.

  In addition to ravaging the locomotive’s exterior, the attackers had wr
enched open every storage compartment within their reach. The attack had rendered that particular Wyoming plain a veritable Sargasso Sea of debris. Luggage, clothes, and other personal items mixed with mauled train furnishings and supplies. She feared many days would pass before help arrived.

  Logan had released her a few moments earlier, and though her arms ached where he’d held them, she missed his nearness. If not for his heroics, she might have been dead by now. She wanted to thank him, but a hard lump in her throat prohibited any words. A fresh set of tears escaped down her cheeks. Immediately, Violet wiped her sleeve across her face. This would not do. Only action would yield results. A scientist such as she aspired to be would hardly quail in the face of danger or the unknown. Papa, I’ll find a way to rescue you. I promise .

  But a very important questioned loomed–how would she find him? The identity of his abductor was a complete mystery. To complicate matters further, she lacked knowledge of the area, supplies, and suitable transportation.

  She bit her lip. The first problem to solve, then, was the matter of information. Who here among the passengers might know enough of the Wyoming territory and its inhabitants to provide guidance? Then, an abrupt movement to her left gave her a start. Violet shifted her gaze toward the source.

  Logan.

  He stood before the gaping maw, his broad back to her. His arms were crossed while he meticulously examined the damaged framework. Curious . What is he contemplating, I wonder? She recalled his heroic actions on her behalf. They reflected the protective nature of a lawman…but no, he wasn’t wearing a badge. Her breath hitched. An undercover agent? Yes, that must be it. He was a Pinkerton, most likely.

  Perhaps he’d been traveling to investigate a case when the marauders attacked. It would explain his secretive nature and his reluctance to become involved in her life. Whatever his identity, Violet felt drawn to his strength. Besides, she didn’t know anyone else on the train and the personnel were nowhere in sight. She certainly didn’t have anything to lose by asking Logan if he knew something about the attackers. Or the locale. Anything.