This excerpt is from chapter two of the second book in the Sundowners series; Tyler and Fivehawk must hijack a wagon in order to sneak into a mining camp owned by the evil rail baron Robur Drache...

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There was a very real moment when Tyler feared that the wagon would roll right over him without stopping, crushing him under the horse's hooves and wooden wheels; but instead, the buckboard halted and he heard a mumbled curse followed by steady footsteps toward him.

"Eh." said a voice, and a boot-tip nudged him in the ribs. "Wake up, there."

Tyler held his breath and continued to imitate a corpse, part of him hoping that the wagon rider wouldn't think of putting a few bullets in him, just to be on the safe side. He sensed movement as the rider crouched over him. Something hard poked him in the back - a rifle barrel.

"You be dead?" said the voice. "Be you? Huh?"

Tyler struggled not to laugh. I'm supposed to be a corpse, you idiot, he thought, Do you expect me to say yes?

"This better not be some kinda ambush, is all I'm saying."

Tyler took his cue and rolled suddenly to his knees, his pistol appearing from where he had hidden it under his chest. "It just ain't your lucky day, is it?"

The rider was a buck-toothed man with skin the colour of straw and an eye-patch. He almost fell over himself in surprise. "What what what?"

"Drop the gun!" Tyler grated.

"You drop your gun!" the rider retorted, raising his rifle.

"No, you drop yours!"

"No, you drop yours!"

Stepping out from behind him, Fivehawk tapped the rider on the shoulder. As he turned, the Indian snapped a twig under his nose and he fainted, dropping to the dirt in an instant sleep. He folded his arms and glared at Tyler. "Where did you learn that kind of ambush? In a schoolyard?"

The cowboy shrugged, brushing dust from his jacket. "It worked, didn't it? What did you give him, something like smelling salts?"

"Sleepwood." Fivehawk answered, moving to the wagon. "There's a lot of supplies here, food, rope, barrels of gunpowder." He indicated a wooden box. "Dynamite. There are chemicals as well, dozens of bottles of acid."

"The explosives will be for blasting in the mines." Tyler said. "Can't figure why Drache would want acid, though." Acting quickly, the gunslinger unhooked the black horse from the wagon and substituted it with his own brown and white dappled mare. "Maybe it's to destroy the rock with?"

Fivehawk searched the snoring rider, taking his hat, coat and eye-patch. "He has a letter here."

Tyler took the paper and examined it. "It's a bill of lading, from one of Drache's warehouses. Says our sleeping beauty here is one Mister Doglin of Kansas City." He folded the paper and tried on the flat preacher hat for size. "Bye-bye Gabe Tyler, hello Mister Doglin."

The Indian tied Doglin's comatose form to the black horse and cracked its' reins; spooked, the animal reared up and bolted back along its' route into the desert. "He won't wake for at least a day, so you have until then to find your uncle."

Tyler put on the rider's overcoat and settled into the buckboard's seat. "And you? What happens if I need to find you, or if everything goes south on me?"

Fivehawk indicated a mesa a few miles to the west, lower and flatter than its' neighbours. "There's a cave there filled with paintings on the walls that some say the Hidden People drew. If I'm going to try to find them, it is as good a place as any to start searching."

"Suppose they want to stay hidden?" "

They won't. Once I tell them about Drache's misdeeds, they will help us to defeat him and his men. No one could stand by and let such evil take place unopposed."

"But how can you be sure they'll help us?"

"I am sure." Fivehawk replied with finality, ignoring his own doubts. "You enter the camp under cover as this outrider and wait for me to return with the braves. Learn as much as you can about Drache's plans here and search out any weaknesses in the defences for when I come back."

"Got it."

The Indian hesitated for a moment. "Tyler, don't go off half-cocked while I'm gone with some crazy, spur-of-the-moment plan. Neither of us can handle these outriders alone."

Tyler made a hurt face. "Say, what do you think I am? Some hot-head with no patience and an itchy trigger finger?"

Fivehawk said nothing and simply gazed levelly at the cowboy.

© J.Swallow, 2001.

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