The Wolves of El Diablo. Eric Red

become fewer.

      The legends said only silver could kill a werewolf, the officer remembered as he saw his troops’ regular bullets were not harming the monsters.

      A cruel irony then occurred to Colonel Jesus Higuerra as he hid under the train car, holding on for dear life, praying that the wolfmen would not spot him and hoping that discretion was the better part of valor ...

      How ironic it was he and his troops were defenseless.

      They had an entire train full of silver.

      Right before the werewolves showed up, The Guns of Santa Sangre had their hands plenty full with fifty pissed-off and heavily armed Federales and things weren’t looking good for them.

      Tucker had climbed onto the back of Bodie’s horse when his friend had pulled him off the ground. Galloping for their lives alongside the railroad tracks towards the front of the train, Tucker had clung to Bodie’s thick midriff as the big Swede drove his horse when the next thing he knew they were plunging headlong over the stallion’s head as it fell forward and collapsed beneath the saddle. As Tucker flew from his mount he knew the horse had taken a bullet. The outlaws landed hard, rolling in the dirt beside each other as the animal fell on its side and lay stone dead. Tucker helped Bodie to his feet and luckily saw his massive friend wasn’t hurt.

      They both threw an urgent glance to Fix who was already turning his horse around and riding back at full gallop towards them. With a grimly determined expression, the little shootist swung out of his stirrups, dismounted and slapped his horse on the rump, sending it riding off with an empty saddle. Gunshots filled the canyon, rebounding off the rocks and caroming in the dirt all around. The outlaws dug in behind some rocks, taking aim on the soldiers along the train and laying down a volley of suppressing fire with their pistols.

      “You lost yer horse!” Tucker shouted.

      “One horse ain’t gonna get the three of us out of here!” Fix snarled in retort. “No reason to get a perfectly good horse shot for no damn good reason!” The taut little man reloaded his revolvers and took aim back at the figures darting in the smoke by the misty behemoth of the railroad halted at the blast site.

      Tucker desperately scanned the area. The three gunfighters were on foot now and their only chance was to find cover.

      “Get in the train!” he yelled at the other two desperados. “It’s the only place to hide and make a stand! It’s the only chance we got! We’re sitting ducks out here! Shake a tail feather!”

      PING! PTANG! Two slugs ricocheted off the rocks a foot away in showers of sparks.

      Trading fire, Tucker heard the familiar roars first.

      He couldn’t believe his ears.

      “Something’s wrong boys!”

      Suddenly, the bullets were no longer coming in their direction. Now all the soldiers were firing what appeared randomly at all points of the compass. It was full dark and a heavy cloud had passed over the full moon drowning its malignant light. Staccato muzzle-flashes were the only illumination on the shapes that dashed chaotically in the gloom, a rampage of huge shadows. For quick split seconds, strobes of gunfire picked out the terrified masks of Federale soldier faces smeared with gore. The coppery stench of blood, lots and lots of it, now filled the gunfighters’ nostrils—a battlefield smell they knew well from very recently. The Guns of Santa Sangre hunkered in the rocks a hundred yards from the cargo cars at the front of the train with guns at the ready, swinging their gazes all around them to see what the hell was going on.

      All at once, the soldiers’ screams began to ring out everywhere, hideous high-pitched cries of unbearable agony made by souls being torn alive limb from limb.

      Fix smelled the familiar stench first: a primal reek of lupine perspiration and dead meat breath. “I know that damn stink, compadres, and so the hell do you!”

      “It can’t be.”

      Bodie recognized the unwelcome sight first and the other two outlaws did an instant later. “Werewolves! Goddamn werewolves!” the Swede spat. The monsters were everywhere, dragging down and feasting on the scattering troops. It was a total bloodbath.

      “I thought we killed them sonsofbitches!”

      “Reckon not!”

      Tucker shoved his friends. “We gotta go for that fucking train and we gotta go right now!”

      “Still got that silver bullet, Tuck?” Fix shot Tucker a desperately sardonic glance.

      “Right here.”

      “Make it count.”

      “It won’t.” Tucker chambered the silver round in his open cylinder of his revolver, spinning it shut with a racheting whirr. “Go!”

      He heaved himself out of the rocks and sprinted into no-man’s-land. Bodie and Fix broke concealment and came running out into the open, all of them making a mad dash for the stalled steam train across the valley floor. Their cowboy boots kicked up dust as they ran through the hanging smoke. Tucker, running in the lead, kept his Colt Peacemaker barrel up, finger tight on the trigger, loaded with the one silver bullet they had. It was good for one werewolf if he got lucky with a well-placed shot. Fix and Bodie ran behind Tucker across the roaring battlefield using their leader as a shield for he had the only useful weapon to defend themselves with.

      All around in the miasma, distorted shapes leapt and reared in the lingering dynamite blast residue in the gorge basin. Men were being torn apart left and right like rag dolls. Soldier silhouettes geysered blood that rained down and splattered in the gore sodden mist. Awful screams and hideous vociferating roars rang out in front and in back and on all sides of the trio of shootists as they ran for the train across terrain festooned with streamers of gritty haze. Tucker held his fire, narrow eyes cutting in every direction, saving the precious bullet. Then, moments later, the rugged massifs of the railroad’s coupled wagons reared over them and the cowboys had reached safety.

      It was short-lived.

      “Look out!” Tucker barked.

      New shapes now reared before them in the lingering smoke, frighteningly unnatural and all too familiar; towering furry beasts who stood eight feet tall with haunches like wolves, man-like chests, distorted canine snouts drooling foul froths of bloody saliva from foaming jaws. Six werewolf silhouettes approached side-by-side in a stalking formation. Five pairs of red eyes glowed in the lupine faces. The wolfmen had spotted the three gunfighters and were closing in for the kill.

      In the lead of the lycanthropes was a female, larger than the rest, teats and dugs bulging on her concave chest. Unlike the others, this one’s eyes were an eerie shade of blue, but it was clear she was the alpha even without that distinguishing feature. A palatably human raw hate radiated off her hot enough to spark kindling, and as the wolfwoman’s lips peeled back over her razor rows of blood-dripping fangs her snout leered in what looked unmistakably like a savage triumphal grin.

      Cocking the hammer over the silver bullet in his Colt Peacemaker, Tucker clambered up the leading platform of the nearest car and ducked inside with Fix and Bodie.

      With the surviving Federales in a disorganized panic, werewolves their real worry now and just one damn silver bullet between them, the gunfighters barricaded themselves inside the door and regrouped, figuring out what the hell was going to be their next move.

      Higuerra dropped to the ground under the train with a grunt and dragged himself on his hands and knees across the gravel and trestles towards the hitches between the cars. Everywhere, he heard gunshots, monstrous roars and the pitiful screams of his men. The Colonel could stomach hiding no longer and was crawling for one of the wagons where he could seek cover and add his own bullets to the battle.

      Clambering