Roxy Sunset and the Great Train Robbery
A story from the Sunset Chronicles
Consultation provided by Margaret Corvid — you can read more of her writing on sex work and politics here
Content warning for language, slurs, violence
“How much?”
Roxy Sunset downed the rest of her whiskey. It burned along her throat. She looked up, tipping back her hat. She spit on his boot.
“Fuck you very much — that’s how much.”
“Why you dumb spic cunt.”
He reached for his gun, but Roxy already had the barrel of her revolver pressed firmly on his groin.
“I’d say you’re the dumb one, sir.”
He stepped away, muttering, “I wouldn’t fuck some pink-haired bitch anyway.”
Roxy rolled her eyes, pulled her hat back down, and nodded to the bartender for another drink.
“What’s his problem?”
Roxy leaned back in the barstool, stretching her arms out to embrace the woman who had approached her. “Oh, you know, Brandy, some asshole is pissed cause I didn’t immediately bow to his dick.”
“Tell me about it.” She pulled up a stool next to Roxy, and the bartender already had her drink set out before her.
“There ain’t nothing much more to say. And anyway, why waste my breath on that shit when I’ve got such a pretty lady next to me.”
Brandy rolled her eyes, and leaned into Roxy’s kisses along her neck. She smelled like rosewater and cigarette smoke, and her skin felt like velvet on Roxy’s lips. She whispered, “Glad to have you back, Roxy. Will I be seeing you later?”
“Most certainly, Miss Brandy.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“My heart is yours.”
“Oh yeah? Mine and every other woman’s this side of the Grand Canyon.”
“What can I say? I got a big heart.”
“You gotta big mouth too. Don’t go fucking up my business prospects.”
“What? Him?”
Brandy folded her arms across her chest.
“Aw, fine then.”
“We still good?”
“Yeah yeah, we’re still good.”
“You’re the best.” Brandy gave Roxy a quick kiss on the cheek, drank the rest of her whiskey, and hopped off the barstool, a flutter of skirts, her scent lingering on the air.
“Of course I’m the best,” Roxy muttered to herself, and motioned to the bartender for yet another drink.
She was awakened later that night by three assertive knocks on her wall.
Roxy groggily put her hat on her head, and checked the barrel of her gun. “Well, there it is — no woman can get any fucking peace around here.” She stalked from her room and kicked open the door next to hers, pointing her gun inside.
“I’m gonna need you to fucking knock that off right now.”
He was naked and standing over a crouching Brandy. Her eye socket was already darkening with a bruise, and though her face was red and streaked with tears, her mouth was tight with defiance. “Sure took ya long enough, Roxy.”
“Hey now — ”
“I paid for this,” he demanded.
“That’s a theme of yours ain’t it? Well, let me tell you something — it’s getting old. You paid to fuck this woman and it ain’t her fault you can’t get it up. Maybe you oughtn’t spend your day shoving your dick in people’s faces, then maybe you’d have some left over.”
“You pink-haired bitch — ”
Roxy snorted. “You sure are dumb, ain’t ya? Brandy baby, see if you can find something cold for that eye. This ain’t worth anymore of your time.”
“It sure ain’t.” Brandy gathered up her clothes, eyed the naked man, and gave Roxy a look.
“What?”
“Well I can’t leave empty handed.”
“Nono, of course you can’t. Hey you — where’s your wallet?” Roxy cocked the hammer on the gun.
“Can I at least get some clothes on?”
“Quickly, come on — I ain’t that big of an asshole.”
He fished his wallet out of his pants pocket before hastily pulling them on. He tossed the wallet to Roxy, who kept the gun aimed at him, and caught the billfold single-handedly without batting an eye. She passed it to Brandy.
“There isn’t even anything in here!”
“Oh goddammit. Fucking typical.” Without lowering the gun, Roxy procured a wad of cash from her pocket.
It satisfied Brandy. “I owe ya one, Roxy.”
“You owe me several, but I’ve lost count.”
She made a sound of disapproval and took the money. Roxy blew her a kiss.
“Now, you — son — I’m gonna need you to get out of town. If I see your face around past noon tomorrow, you’re gonna be a sorry son of a bitch.” She tossed his empty wallet at him.
He hollered after her as she left the room, but she slammed the door.
The next day Roxy Sunset checked in on Brandy, and commented that her black eye made her sort of look like a raccoon.
“Well at least raccoons wash their hands before putting them where they don’t belong,” she said.
“Now what do ya mean by that, baby? I did what you asked.”
Roxy Sunset laid in bed with her, pulled her closer, and kissed her breasts. Around them, the other working women brushed each other’s hair. Floral and human musk mingled in the hot air, the rustle of skirts kicking up sunlit dust.
“If you ain’t careful,” said another woman, turning from the vanity with the shattered mirror, “You’re gonna wind up dead.”
Roxy bit into a peach, and the nectar dribbled down her chin. “I ain’t scared of the Grim Reaper. Shucks, I’ve met him several times.”
An older woman wiped Roxy’s chin with an embroidered handkerchief. “You sure you ain’t a ghost?”
Roxy sat up, pulling her hat down to hide her eyes. “Well, I get it. I’ll see myself out.”
Brandy blew her a kiss.
In the saloon, a young blond man with a patch over his eye made Roxy uneasy, so she rolled out into the waning sunlight to pack and smoke a cigarette. The streets were crowded with men and horses — the first cattle drive of the season had hit the town. The men shouted things at her, but Roxy was anxiously contemplating ghosts and walking the world of the spirits, and she didn’t hear the mortal men and their mortal, fleshly, clumsy desires.
She saw the shadows grow long and she sought the solitude of a vacant alley.
She lit a joint filled with weed she got in Mexico. The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly went up.
She turned on her heel, the gun drawn, the bullet nicking the brim of her hat as his body crumpled to the ground, blood instantly pooling everywhere.
Roxy exhaled, trembling, holstering her revolver. She heard voices shouting, folks gathering. She approached the body, tilted back his hat with the toe of her boot. She recognized him from the night before, and spit on the ground.
“Why’d you have to go and do that? Now you’re dead,” she said to the body, wiping sweat from her forehead. She rained money down on the dead man. “Give him a proper Christian burial and let his family know.” She pushed her way through the gathering crowd, and took the less frequented ways back to the saloon.
“That was a mighty nice thing of you to do.”
Roxy whirled — ambushed again — her gun drawn.
“Don’t ya point that thing at me.”
“Whatchya doing here?”
“I’m Casey. I been watching you. You’re a sure shot.” He leaned against a wall, and tilted back his hat. The moonlight twisted the deep, gnarled scar along the side of his face, and Roxy was glad for the eyepatch, certain that whatever laid beneath it would make her stomach turn. Strands of blond hair obscured his good eye. “You didn’t have to pay for the funeral. That man was an asshole.”
“Well, even assholes deserve to rest when they’re dead.”
“Even an asshole like you? Sure.”
“Well, that ain’t no way to make friends. I’m gonna be getting on. Goodnight to you, sir.”
“I ain’t done with you.”
Roxy Sunset cocked an eyebrow. “What else do ya want?”
“I wanna go with you.”
Roxy spit on the ground and began walking away. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah? I know you’re headed to San Francisco, and it ain’t for the gold.”
“There ain’t no more gold in San Francisco anymore.”
“Exactly. The railroad’s got it all now.”
“You know too much, boy, and it’s gonna get you into trouble. Truly, I wish you a goodnight.”
Roxy bowed, hat over her heart, kicked at the ground as she stuffed her hands in her pockets, and strode into the night.
She decided to get out of town the next day.
“When will you come back?”
Roxy kissed her mouth, brushed her fingers through her hair.
“You know that’s a silly question.” She kissed her gently over her bruised eye. “And I know you just want a steady customer.” Roxy took Brandy’s hand, pressed the neatly folded bills into it.
She started counting them. “Can’t blame a business woman for being shrewd.” She hesitated, and then threw her arms around Roxy’s neck. “May your ghosts go back to their graves, Roxy,” she whispered, “Be careful out there.”
Roxy felt better out in the desert, alone with her horse and her thoughts. At noon, when it got too hot to ride, Roxy took shelter in a canyon. It was littered with low shrubs, and birds fluttered and chirped in their branches. The horse found a patch of grass to graze on. Roxy took a nap, the hammer on her revolver cocked.
She slept too long and it was night out when she woke. She was comforted to see the campfires in the distance. She hadn’t intended to stay, but it was good to know she could.
Roxy led her horse deeper into the canyon, and paused to whistle three notes. From the shadows, the children came to greet her, and they took the reigns of her horse and she gave them candy from her pockets. To one girl in particular, Roxy said, “Where’s your mama?”
She pointed and Roxy went in that direction.
Nestled among the curves and crevices of the canyon were little adobe huts. Folks sat and talked around the campfires, catching up on the day. Roxy found her mama, but like most women, she wasn’t too pleased to see Roxy.
“Where have you been, Roxy? And why are you so skinny?”
“I been busy, I been busy.” She wrapped her arms around the woman, and kissed her full on the mouth. “How’d you get so pretty?”
“Don’t think I’m so easy. Haven’t you learned your lesson?”
“Nope. Still dumb.” Roxy tipped her hat, smirking. “But you got something to help fatten me up again or what?” She put a hand over her belly, feigning weakness and hunger.
She rolled her eyes. “You know how to help yourself.”
“Thank you, darling. Much obliged.” Roxy kissed her cheek as she proceeded into the house.
Roxy stood leaning against the canyon wall, eating from a warm bowl. The firelight flickered, and she caught phrases from the communal hum around her. It was mostly women and children, holding down a renegade enclave of shelter and peace in the middle of the desert.
There was a tug at her side, and Roxy peered down into two wide, bright eyes. She crouched down to the little girl’s level.
“How ya doing, Miss Lily?” Roxy plopped her hat down on the girl’s head. She giggled.
“I’m good and I’m brave — like you asked me to be — but I miss you a lot sometimes.”
Roxy drew the little girl into a long embrace. “I miss you too, little one, but I — I just got a lot of things to take care of, you know? So I can make sure you and mama stay safe out here.”
“Roxy are you crying?”
“No, baby, it’s just the smoke.”
Roxy didn’t want to let go, but the little girl began to squirm, so Roxy released her, but not without pulling a shiny coin from behind Lily’s left ear. Her eyes flickered with fire and wonder as she gasped. Roxy pressed the coin into her small hand.
“So what’s the news Lily Bear?”
The little girl smirked and tipped the oversized hat on her head, and Roxy was startled to catch her own reflection in the gesture.
“Do you wanna see how good I am at looking after the horses?”
“Sure do.”
Lily offered her hand to Roxy, and Roxy grasped it gently as the little girl led her away. She whispered as they walked.
“There’s someone asking after ya, Roxy.”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“Blond man with an eye patch.”
Roxy answered as if Lily were telling her something childish. “I seee.”
Lily continued, not offended. “Was also asking if some other folks had passed through.”
“That’s a wild yarn, Lily Bear.”
“I suspect he was talking about some of the train robbers we’d seen earlier. They stopped by, real secretive, but I knew they was on the run.”
“Smart cookie.”
“Roxy, you can’t run your horse so ragged. They don’t live forever, ya know.”
“They don’t. But I do.”
They stood before the horses, who were tethered in a row and grazing. Lily ran a hand along the flank of Roxy’s horse. “You never know when you’ll need a horse to really run.”
Roxy took her hat back from the girl’s head and lit a cigarette. Something was bothering her, and her horse suddenly stamped a hoof uneasily. “Ain’t that the truth,” she said absently. In the moonlit shadows around them, Roxy thought she caught the quick, low movement of a cat-like ghost, but she couldn’t be sure.
She thanked Lily Bear and directed her back to the campfires after another long embrace. She watched after the girl’s departure for a while, thoughtfully smoking her cigarette.
The horse flicked an ear and snorted. Roxy placed a palm on his neck, could feel the heart beating deep in his warm body. She ashed her cigarette. “You need to quit following me around like a ghost. You saw what happened to the last man who did that to me.”
“That’s exactly why I ain’t scared of you.”
“It’s Casey, right? Casey — that’s the name to put on your tombstone?” She turned to face him, putting her cigarette out under the heel of her boot. She put a hand on her gun, but left it holstered. “You’re lucky I’m following the rules here.”
“Since when does Roxy Sunset follow rules?”
“I follow the rules when I don’t want to cause any trouble for the folks who’ve taken care of me. Anybody is welcomed here. They don’t ask questions. They only ask that you leave ’em as you found ’em, and pay ’em what you owe. Them’s the kind of rules I follow, and you should too.”
“Those are fair rules.”
“Most rules ain’t.”
He conceded, “Most rules ain’t.”
There was silence.
“What do you really want from me?”
“Got wind of a big train robbery, and I want in.”
The distant firelight somehow came into his face, causing the deep scars to ripple over his countenance like reflections of water. Roxy couldn’t stand to look at them long, and yet her eyes would go nowhere else.
“And I want you to go in with me.”
The volume of Roxy’s bitter laughter surprised even her. “You’re crazy, son.”
“Am I? You’re the one on the run from ghosts. Look, it’ll be easy. You know they were just here — it’s not too late to catch up.”
“That’s not how I want to make my way to San Francisco. I’m done with that sport.”
“But I ain’t. And anyway, this ain’t about money. This is about revenge.”
Roxy listened closely to the cicadas in the night and thought about all the nighttime desert animals hunting each other in the dark. Revenge was a word that echoed to her from the depths of centuries she couldn’t even fathom.
“I’m done with that sport too,” she said.
She felt the weight of Casey’s one good eye heavy on her soul. The scars obscured his expression, and Roxy couldn’t read his face for the small flickers of emotion that betrayed other folks.
“What the fuck happened to your eye anyway?” She found herself suddenly full of venom.
Casey tipped his hat. “A lover shot me in the face.”
“You probably deserved it.”
The gravity in his voice when he answered anchored Roxy to the ground. “I didn’t. I really didn’t.”
The silence hung between them. Roxy didn’t like it. She didn’t like his face — gnarled with scars, the one good eye peering out like a sullen moon. When she answered, the words almost didn’t make it out of her trembling mouth.
“I’m done with this — you hear?” She repeated it, for her own sake. “Do you hear me? I am done with this.”
He said nothing, he stirred not. Roxy wished she’d been on the move instead of napping earlier that day — then she could have been miles and miles away. She was suddenly fearful to turn her back on him, her hand twitched at her side, aching for the security of heavy metal in its grip. She didn’t like him.
Fortunately, with no trace of ire, he said, “Fair enough, Roxy Sunset. That’s a fair request.” He retreated into the night.
Roxy let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Roxy Sunset rose before the sun did, and when she went to Lily’s room to kiss her on the cheek, she hoped the little girl would rise to say farewell to her. Roxy was relieved, however, when Lily remained asleep, instead turning over in her bed as if brushing away a dream. For a moment, all the ghosts backed away, the sanctity of soft innocence obvious even to them, and Roxy’s soul found a place of peace. With great reluctance, she left Lily, and the people in the canyon, and — hopefully — Casey and his ruined face.
Near nightfall, Roxy got the sense that she may not be alone, and she circled back on her tracks and found higher ground to make a survey from.
They weren’t quiet. They brashly kicked up the desert nighttime stillness. There were three of them, hooting and hollering, and drunk on their egos. There were in no particular rush, but their sloppy handling made their horses uneasy and quick, until one of them spooked his own horse, and found himself thrown. The other two stopped — not to help their companion, but to point and laugh at him, and take the opportunity to make camp. It took them a long time to start a fire, and in all the commotion, Roxy was able to creep closer to them, the darkness and their drunkenness cloaking her.
Something had set her heart racing. She drew nearer, for once hoping she was wrong.
“Well, we at least took what we could,” said one of them, brandishing a bottle. The gold drink inside glowed in the firelight.
“I woulda sworn there’d be more money,” said the one who’d fallen from his horse.
“A bunch of bitches hiding in a canyon — why would they have?” said the last of them, thrusting his hips at the air, snatching the bottle from the first man, and drinking heavily from it. The amber liquid dribbled from his mouth, spilled down onto his unbuttoned shirt.
“Your fly’s down, you idiot.”
“Why are you even looking, you faggot?” He pointed his gun, the booze sloshing in his other hand.
“Fucking cut that out.” The man who’d fallen from his horse sat staring ahead, the firelight casting brooding shadows across his face. “You’re forgetting that we’re fucked. We’re fucked.”
“No we ain’t. This next time — we’re gonna do it this time. We fucked up last time cause it was a Sunday — no banking on Sundays. This time we’ll do it on a Monday.”
“Yeah, and we know for sure there’ll be cash.”
“They say no man can crack this safe though.”
“That’s horseshit.”
“Cracking the safe wasn’t the problem last time. The problem was there was no cash in there.”
“There wasn’t any cash this time either.” He leaned into the fire to light his cigarette, the flames nearly licking the tip of his hat.
“We got a consolation prize at least.” He zipped up his fly at last.
“I coulda sworn when we first rode in there’d be at least some cash. Got some gold though.” The first man took back the bottle and drained it. “Not bad shit either.”
“You shoulda seen her face — ”
Then all three men started, standing up, guns drawn.
“Did you hear that?”
Roxy urged her horse faster and faster, regretting how hard she’d ridden him earlier that day.
In the canyon at last, Roxy whistled, but no children came to her to take her tired horse. She pushed the animal forward, could feel the trembling.
The campfire was burning, but no one was gathered around it. The scattered adobe houses were all dark. She slipped from her mount and ran for the home she’d snuck quietly out of only that morning. She called a name, but no one answered. Roxy went into the bedroom, and in the bed, there was no girl.
“This can’t be, this can’t be,” Roxy breathed to herself. “This can’t be.”
She fled the house. Before the campfire Casey stood, solemn and dark.
“What did you do to her?” She grabbed the collar of his shirt, her knuckles white. She shook him, and he faltered, but kept his feet beneath him. The tears burned her eyes. “Tell me what happened.” Then she screamed, “Tell me what happened!”
Roxy stared into the one good eye and didn’t know if it was sadness or starlight that glistened there. The scars on his face were suddenly as deep as ravines.
His voice was choking. “It was too late, Roxy.”
She dropped to her knees, screaming, “No no no!” over and over again. She grabbed fistfuls of sand and dirt, grabbed fistfuls of her hair, ran her nails along her arms, scoring lines that flashed with blood.
Casey watched her become still and silent. He watched her rise to her feet, resigned. She pulled the gun from its holster, unlocked the safety, cocked the hammer, drew it to the side of her head.
He lunged at her. The gun went off in the night, the shot reverberating throughout the canyon as it flew from Roxy’s hand. She scratched at his face and kicked at his gut, biting the arm he tried to wrap around her. Her strength was desperate. She screamed, “How dare you, how dare you. Let me go — let me go! I’m so sick of this shit!”
She eyed the gun on the ground, and reached for it. He grabbed her wrist so tightly the joints popped. He finally pinned her to the ground, and she took a deep, hoarse breath. Roxy was suddenly as frail as a ghost. A moment passed long and lonely between them, and when he let her go, all she could do was cover her face and weep.
“Listen,” he said at last, “Don’t give them that satisfaction.”
She had fallen silent. She drew her limbs into herself and rolled onto her side, her back toward Casey.
He stepped away to gather more kindling for the fire. He fed it throughout the rest of the night, and it was only by sheer exhaustion that Roxy finally slept. She had nightmares, but none of them scared her as much as waking did.
Morning came fast and hot. Casey coaxed Roxy to sit and eat. He wrapped her in a blanket, and she drew it tightly around herself despite the heat. She said nothing until noon.
“You don’t have to stay, you know.”
Casey said, “I know.”
“Then why are ya?”
He sighed deeply. “You ain’t the only one running from ghosts, Sunset.”
“Revenge.”
He nodded. “Revenge.”
Roxy started bouncing her leg. She sprung to her feet, throwing off the blanket.
“Revenge!” she laughed, opening her arms up to the sky. “All these ghosts, Casey — all these ghosts around us — and you wanna go on inviting more of them in.”
“Well what exactly have you got left at this point, Sunset? You gonna go around fucking women, drinking, and running? You know you can’t run forever.”
The village gone and its rules lifted, Roxy didn’t care if she raised her gun and pointed it at Casey. “I’m gonna take out your other eye.”
But Casey had his gun pointed also, aimed straight at her face. “Blind leading the blind.”
“Fine — fine!”
“Think about it, Roxy. Think about them.”
She thought about them. She thought about their dark figures swaying grotesquely in the firelight, reeking of hot stale sweat and booze.
She thought about things that she had hoped she’d never have to think about, and she collapsed to her knees, weeping and wailing, mutated with grief.
Casey didn’t move to comfort her. He started up the fire and made coffee in a tin can, and Roxy became still again. She slowly got to her feet and walked to the fire. Casey lifted the tin can of sludgy coffee to her, and Roxy drank.
“Okay,” she said, “Okay.”
“We’ll catch up with them tonight.”
Roxy shrugged.
Casey and Roxy found drink while rummaging through the remnants of the village, taking whatever would be useful to them. They passed the golden bottle between each other as they rode, taking desperate swigs, filling their bellies with fire and their heads with fitful rage. The trail of their targets was not hard to find — littered messy tracks and trash. The men thought they’d left no one behind to follow them.
But it still took a whole day of hard riding to finally catch up with them, and when they did, Casey had to talk Roxy down from shooting them all right away. It was night again and the men sat around their campfire, drunk and worn out and dry with thirst. In their brazen haste they’d forgotten water.
So Roxy rode into their camp. She stared into the barrels of their raised guns and didn’t care if they pulled the trigger. She drank from a canteen, the water spilling down her chin.
“Word is you boys are planning a robbery.”
“The Sunset Kid!” said the one who swayed uneasily on his feet.
“Heard of me?”
“Heard you got a good aim,” said the one who cocked the hammer on his gun.
“Well that might be true.” Roxy sat back in her saddle, her gun holstered, rolling a cigarette.
“Heard you shot a lover in the face, Sunset,” said the one who remained sitting calmly.
Roxy paused before lighting her cigarette. “Folks been telling tall tales,” she said.
They all turned to confront another gun in the night. Casey tipped his hat with his free hand, the scars on his face seeming to move and weave in the flickering firelight. “Rumor has it no man can crack that safe.”
“Been a lot of wagging tongues. Somebody ought to cut them all off.” He remained seated, polishing his gun with a handkerchief. “What do you want Sunset?”
“What do I want, huh? That’s a profound question. I want to give you boys what you need.” She shook the canteen. “Cause I’d hate to see ya die out here … not when it’s gonna take all of us to make this happen.”
“You want in, Sunset.”
“Yeah, we want in.”
He spit into the fire. “Tell One Eye to stand down.”
“I got a name, and it’s Casey. Tell your boys to put their guns down.”
“Well, you boys heard him. One Eye says to put the guns away.”
“But Job!”
“Put it down, Zucks.”
Zucks reluctantly complied, eyeing Roxy with a look that made her skin crawl.
The other man threw his arms up in the air, nearly losing his balance. “So what? We’re gonna split it five ways now?” He holstered his gun like an insolent child.
“Shut up, Puerto.” Zucks elbowed him.
“Well, One Eye?” Job indicated the gun.
“I told you I got a name — ”
Roxy flicked her cigarette into the fire. “Come on, Casey.”
Job smirked. “You heard the little lady.”
Roxy tensed in the saddle, but Casey lowered the gun, his one eye lingering on Job. Roxy tossed the canteen at the men. Zucks grasped for it, pushing Puerto away. They drank like dogs.
“You best watch yourself, Job. Casey here cracked the Wilcox safe.” Roxy dismounted, tethering her horse. Her ghosts were haunting her heavy, and she was tired of this bullshit. “We don’t fucking want your money. We got plenty.”
“Then why do ya want in, Sunset?”
Roxy glanced at Casey. He nodded and pulled his hat down over his lone eye.
“Revenge.”
“Revenge?” Job started laughing. “You ain’t got enough of that?”
“It’s a tough habit to quit.”
“Habits,” echoed Job. “Sure, I understand. I got some of those too. Sometimes they itch real bad.” Without warning and without so much as a glance toward the two men, Job lifted his gun and shot a single bullet, which struck the ground at their boots.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Job, do you have to do that?” Puerto wiped sweat from his brow.
Job put out his hand and Zucks relinquished the water canteen to him.
“Sometimes they itch real bad. Sometimes they can’t be scratched, sometimes you gotta shoot the damn thing off, eh One Eye?” Job drank the water.
Casey did not look at him. “We’ll have to ride hard tomorrow if we wanna catch the train in the pass by nightfall. Then we can make an easier getaway.”
“Who says we oughta listen to you?”
“We heard you botched the last robbery real bad.” Roxy stepped up to Job, indicating the canteen. When Job refused, Roxy just laughed and lit another cigarette. “Have it your way.”
Roxy moved toward her horse, stroked his hide, and untethered him.
“All right. You’re in, Sunset. You and One Eye — you’re in.”
“Good choice, Job.” She produced a canteen of her own from her horse’s saddle bag, and drank. “You boys rest up. We’re riding first thing tomorrow.”
They all spent the rest of the night in surrendered silence.
There were ghosts in Roxy’s dreams. She walked a long hallway lit blue with the moon. The walls were made of adobe, chilled to the touch in the hollow desert night. Shadows darted like scurrying mice along the ground, holding still and breathless if Roxy passed too closely.
Roxy felt something on the back of her neck. She put her hand there and pulled it away covered in fire ants. They began stinging her — a swarm of them — and her skin was all at once full of fire. She screamed and fell to her knees, and the ghosts on the ground crowded her, climbing inside of her mouth, and then she couldn’t breathe.
“Just a dream — it was just a dream.” Casey was dark against the weary firelight.
Roxy rolled over, but when she closed her eyes, she felt like she was still staring into the starlight. “Fuck it,” she grumbled. She sat with Casey. They shared a dark, muddy coffee. They had made camp a small distance from the three men, and both groups had appointed a rotating watch. Midway through Roxy’s turn, as she was nodding off with her chin in her hand, Casey relieved her of her duties, saying that he needed less sleep cause he only had one eye.
“So how’s this gonna happen, Casey?” They both watched the boys begin to stir and wake. “You really think no man can crack that safe?”
“Well, that’s what they say. Roxy, let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“How much do you trust me?”
Roxy rolled a cigarette. “That’s a funny question, Casey.”
“You do trust me though.”
“I don’t trust anyone. We’re doing this cause I’m angry.”
“Well so am I.”
“Then I trust you enough not to kill me.”
“Oh?”
“Cause when you’re angry — when you’ve been angry for a long time, which I suspect you have been — you learn that it won’t do you no good to get distracted.”
“You’ve been angry a long time too.”
“Eye on the prize, Casey.” Roxy tipped her hat.
“Oh, I’ve got my eye on it.” He gestured with his shoulder toward the three men.
Roxy and Casey huddled together and made a plan. The plan was to hold up the train in the narrow pass known as Devil’s Gate — that was something they could all agree on — and they’d hold everyone at gunpoint. Between the five of them, there were enough guns and eyes to scare folks into keeping still. And even if the train was guarded, Roxy could take them out easily, although that would only be as a last resort because after they found and cracked the safe, Casey wanted to turn the tables on Puerto, Zucks, amd Job, and turn them in for the rewards on their heads. Roxy didn’t ask — because she was satisfied enough with her own reasons — but she suspected that Casey had a particularly gnarled bone to pick with Job.
“I’m gonna kill Zucks though,” Roxy declared.
“And you’re gonna kill Zucks,” Casey echoed. He poured the last of their whiskey into the coffee, and they drank.
It took a while for the boys to organize. Roxy and Casey hung aside passing a joint between each other. “Sun’s coming up fast,” Roxy warned. Zucks snarled something uncouth at her, and Roxy said, “Well, if the boot fits, sir. There ain’t nothing you can say that I haven’t heard before.”
After that they pretty much rode in silence, with Puerto occasionally protesting their hard pace in vain because no one responded. They came upon the railroad tracks and followed them up to Devil’s Gate. Twilight was settling on them. Hustling in the purple glow of a dying sky, their horses ragged, the five of them managed to rip apart a section of the tracks. Roxy had to hand it to the three men, who proved experienced at the craft of creating mayhem.
“This ain’t our first time at the rodeo,” Zucks said, sweating with effort.
With the tracks asunder, they covered their faces, and receded into the shadows to wait.
The inevitable crash was violent, throwing the entire train into disarray as multiple cars plowed into each other. The conductor, seeming to have noticed the tracks, attempted to halt the train, and though the locomotive did not stop in time, his efforts did prevent the cars from utter destruction. Black smoke poured from the hot belly of the locomotive. With the advantage of night and chaos around them, the five robbers whooped and hollered, riding their horses in circles, trying to sound like ten people.
“You two — round up the passengers from the back. Meet us in the mail car,” Job barked, gesturing with his gun at Roxy and Puerto.
“And let you bastards out of my sight?” Roxy would rather die.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take One Eye with us.”
“And split us up? You think I was born yesterday?”
Roxy caught a covert look from Casey just in time.
“Fuck you, man. Come on.” Roxy slapped Puerto’s horse on the rump, and kicked her own horse to ride down along the length of the train.
Roxy and Puerto boarded both ends of the last passenger car. Inside, the riders were still trying to recover from the crash. Roxy fired one shot at the floor, silencing the screaming and commotion. “All right! You folks know what’s up! Guns and goods on the floor. Look me in the eye, and I’ll shoot your head right off! Behave yourselves and you might just see the morning light.”
Puerto swept through the car, gathering the guns, money, and jewelry the passengers desperately gave up.
It all moved quickly, and smoke and the smell of hot oil permeated everything. Roxy knew she had to focus, but her mind was wild trying to net all possible outcomes. She didn’t like not knowing what was going on up ahead, and she questioned her immediate compliance with the plan she had seen brewing like a black storm in Casey’s one good eye. The trust it implied surprised her, and put her on edge. Meanwhile, she had to work with Puerto to hustle the passengers from one car to the next, until they got them all disarmed and rounded up in one coach. Then she and Puerto locked them in from the outside, barring both doors of the coach with debris from the crash.
“Come on, let’s go!” Roxy shouted at Puerto. Her stomach was uneasy, her heart was beating fast. She fingered her gun in its holster, and in her mind she pictured the shot she would put through Zucks’ head. Puerto, bloated with loot, fumbled to mount his horse, the eyes in the beast’s head rolling backwards, the whites showing all around. Roxy’s own horse moved as if spooked, but she had no time to heed the ghosts.
She couldn’t wait. She rode up to the mail car. Thick black smoke poured from the locomotive, and near the busted tracks she spied the body of whom she assumed was the conductor, a lifeless shadowed lump tossed from the wreckage.
Somehow though, the mail car had been spared, and as Puerto caught up, Roxy was already boarding, gun in her hand. Zucks nearly shot her in the face when she burst into the car, and Roxy threw up her palms, shouting, “Hey now — hey!”
“Where’s Puerto, Sunset?” he barked.
“Put that thing down, you son of a bitch. Puerto’s right behind me.”
Zucks lowered his gun only when Puerto appeared, his face red with effort.
The smoky air in the car stung Roxy’s eyes, but she could clearly make out the postal workers on their bellies on the floor, their hands clasped behind their heads. A couple of them laid on their backs, but they were no worry cause wherever their spirits roamed, it wasn’t in a world where they could shoot a gun.
Roxy stole a glance at Casey, and the scars on his face were dark with sweat and smeared ash. He held his gun cocked and pointed, ready to shoot any one of the workers who dared to move. Roxy coughed and struggled to take in a full breath.
“What the fuck’s the hold up y’all?”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Sunset. Job’s almost got it.”
Job, meanwhile, started cursing in a language that sounded like words of the possessed. He slapped the metal safe at the back of the car and instantly withdrew his hand, shaking it out in pain. “I can’t get a good goddamn read on this thing. Everybody just shut the hell up.”
They all held their breath. Roxy looked to Casey again, but his one good eye was trained firmly on the safe as if nothing else in the world existed. His dark scars deepened with desperate focus, twisting his face into a vision of a desert-dried skull. With a sour taste of despair, she began wondering how — if need be — she could make a break for it on her own.
Job pressed his ear to the safe and turned the dial on the front. His hair was matted with sweat and ash. Roxy wrinkled her nose against the smell of burning oil. Job sneered like a coyote over carrion, seeming to hear something he liked, and turned the dial again, but the safe door failed to fall open. The tension in Casey’s body slipped from him, but he did not blink or look away, not even as Job opened fire on the safe, the bullet ricocheting off the steel box, and sending everyone hollering and ducking for cover.
His face twisted like a demon, Job turned on everyone. “Well then you know what? It’s the next best goddamn thing.” Without any warning, Zucks and Puerto flung themselves at Casey, wrestling him to the ground, and sending his gun skidding across the floor. Job caught it under his boot, just as Zucks and Puerto pressed their own weapons to Casey’s head, one man on either side.
“So what’s it gonna be, Sunset? Come quietly with us, or One Eye is a dead man. We ain’t leaving empty handed. There’s a pretty price on that pretty pink head of yours.”
Roxy heard Zucks lick his lips under his bandana.
Again, Roxy tried to catch Casey’s eye, and again, his eye revealed nothing but a dark universe of spinning stars and frenzied focus.
“Who the fuck do you think I am?”
“A woman who shot her lover in the face.”
“Tall tales.”
“Someone with a lot of enemies, Sunset.”
“Every single one of those assholes deserved it.”
Job shot at the floor, and Roxy found herself stepping unsteadily back. It was getting hotter and smokier in the mail car, and she was dizzy with shallow breaths. She struggled to keep her hands from shaking, and she wondered if she could even shoot straight, or if she even had a shot at all.
“Come on, Sunset, or are you really as chicken shit as they say?”
Puerto clucked in his throat.
“A pussy is still a pussy,” hissed Zucks.
Roxy’s ghosts pressed against her, hot, moist, and sticky as a lover’s bare body midday in the summer. The collar of her shirt felt tight and her hands felt numb. She thought of the women in the canyon, and of her Lily Bear now gone. Dark spots obscured her vision.
Had she really shot a lover in the face? Only Roxy knew, and what she knew she did not want to say to herself. At last Casey’s single eye rolled up to meet hers.
And then the things that happened next happened so quickly Roxy barely had time to catch her breath to make a sound. The locomotive, burning into the night, exploded, rocking the mail car behind it, sending everything into hot, smoky chaos. Roxy didn’t know how, but somehow Casey kept his footing, and Roxy didn’t know how, but somehow Casey got a gun in his hand and pushed everyone aside to race back to the safe. Roxy didn’t know how he did it, but she didn’t waste the chance to get her gun trained on the three train robbers.
Casey began to work at the dial on the safe.
Between gritted teeth, Roxy said, “What the fuck are you doing, Casey? It’s all sideways, we gotta get the hell out of here while we’re still alive!”
But before Casey could answer, Job laughed. “You goddamn fool, no man can open that safe.”
And for a moment, everything became still and slow, as Casey unfurled to his full height, and in one motion, turned to face Roxy, and Job, Zucks, and Puerto. He pulled his hat from his head, and even in the smoky dimness that filled the car, the long blond hair that fell loose could not be mistaken, releasing with it a strong perfume of lavender.
“But I ain’t no man.”
Roxy’s eyes widened, and she thought for a moment that she might already be dead, because the woman who stood before her, blond hair like a glowing crown of fire, looked not unlike a ghost who’d been haunting her ever since she ran from a lonely house on a lonely cattle ranch, the desert the only witness to the things that transgressed inside those four adobe walls.
Casey kicked the safe, and it opened, and she quickly filled a sack with bank notes and jewelry, and solid gold bars. She pointed her gun at the three men, but their utter disbelief had already rendered them harmless.
The one eye winked at Roxy, and hoisting the sack over her shoulder, Casey darted from the car and into the night.
Roxy was about to say a name, but her breath was cut short. With his hand tight around her neck and his teeth gritted, Zucks hissed into her ear, “I know what happened to her.”
Pure fury boiled through Roxy’s veins. She gasped, “You don’t know shit.”
“For someone who shot a lover in the face, you’re awfully sentimental about a little girl.” He tightened his hand. Roxy’s lungs burned and her heart thumped in her head. She reached a hand up to his, digging her nails in, and she didn’t care that she felt cold metal against the side of her head. She felt darkness at the corners of her vision, but if she was going to die, she was going to die with her eyes open. Ghosts had walked with her long enough, and their shadow world didn’t scare her anymore.
“Sunset!” she screamed. The bullet was loosed. Zucks’ hand fell from her throat. Roxy looked up, and though her vision blurred, the blond hair that was lit like a halo could not be mistaken. “Come on, Sunset, let’s go.”
“You came back?”
Casey rolled her eyes. “Let’s go while we’re still alive.”
As Zucks reclaimed his consciousness, Roxy grabbed his dropped gun and pointed it at him. He put up his hands, grinning even in the smoke and chaos that surrounded him. “Go on and do it, but you’ll never see her again.”
“Sunset, let’s go!”
Roxy cocked the hammer on the gun. Zucks’ eyes widened. She fired a shot into the ceiling. Zucks and the two other robbers fell to their knees, covering their heads.
“This ain’t over.”
But for now, it was, and Roxy finally heeded Casey, both of them fleeing the mail car, making sure to scare the three men’s mounts out into the desert before getting on their own horses. Roxy could hear the men screaming and shooting guns as she and Casey put miles between themselves and the trainwreck.
Casey and Roxy rode and rode and rode, silence between them, and it wasn’t until daybreak that they finally slowed.
At last, Casey said, “You almost let them shoot me.”
And after another long silence, Roxy replied, “Naw. That’s one mistake I won’t make twice.”
Casey stopped her horse, her blond hair falling around her face. She tied it back into a quick braid. “At least you’re learning some things,” she said. “I was gonna let them have you, you know, but — ”
“An eye for an eye leaves the world blind,” said Roxy. Casey winked, the scars crinkling around her face.
“You didn’t shoot Zucks when you had the chance.”
“I’ll get him in the next life.”
“Maybe I’ll see you there, Roxy.”
Casey kicked her horse into a gallop, and Roxy caught the small sack of loot she tossed to her. Roxy tipped her hat, and sat heavy in her saddle, watching Casey disappear into the flat line of the desert horizon.
She rolled a cigarette and lit it. She shifted the little drawstring bag from hand to hand for a moment, and it jingled with coins and jewels. There were still scores to settle. But before that, what she needed was a stiff drink and a tender lay. Maybe she had learned her lesson, but for as much as she wanted to quit her bad habits, revenge always seemed to find her. So Roxy decided she’d put that lesson into practice another day.
