Stagecoach Ride
by Charles C. Cole
part 1
Imagine, if you will, being locked in a coffin, very much alive at the start, though you may soon wish otherwise. There’s room enough to sit up, barely, and the conveyance is bouncing miserably like it’s tied down to the back of a camel trotting across cobblestones with no two legs the same length.
The air you breathe might as well be the exhaust from an industrial furnace, hot and gritty. Oh, and you have five companions in there with you, one of whom could very well be an assassin hired to prevent you from testifying in court. Though it may seem fantastic, I assure you such was my “luxurious” stagecoach ride from Sante Fe to Albuquerque.
This was the 2180s. The infamous Ten Years War had pulverized technology, hurling civilization back to an earlier, more primitive era. At the time, I was a contracted investigator for United Banks. Guy McCrory was on trial for robbery, and I alone carried the proof, a signed affidavit from a security guard who had been the inside man hoping to share in the spoils until greedy McCrory shot him point blank in the back during the gang’s getaway.
According to the passenger manifest — I wasn’t so much nosy as overly cautious — across the bench facing forward, we had Lt.. Lawrence Gaylord, a former serviceman wearing a heavily decorated uniform, finally being discharged to return to civilian life. In the middle, there was Miss Harmony Fulton, daughter of the Albuquerque sheriff, home for the summer following a year at some Boston-area college for girls.
To her right sat Wilton Weld, the young new owner of a business and getting a feel of conditions for himself. He was undercover to all but me, if only because we’d shared a couple of drinks the night before, and he was eager to reveal the secret. Based on the peach-fuzz on his cheeks, he’d never grown a beard and probably couldn’t if he wanted to.
Across the bench facing back, Dead-to-rights Doolittle, a woman trick shooter from a traveling wild west show now retiring after a terrible accident. In the middle, openhearted Padre Rio Elizondo who was starting life at a newly constructed mission for indigent children. Then me, across from Weld.
Admittedly, some of these details had been excluded from the manifest but were soon sussed out in conversation. I share these facts early so that my fellow passengers are more than merely strangers or casualty statistics; these are real people who, for one reason or another, deserve to live.
On the roof sat two droids, one red and one blue; we called them Red and Blue. Red focused on keeping the six-horse team motivated and Blue rode shotgun. There was no gold chest on board, just luggage and mail and a trunk of new dresses for an upscale boutique called Petite Amie. My point: except for my testimony, which was hopefully just the period to the sentence, we represented no significant profit for any restless highwaymen.
It was June 21, 2188, the longest day of the year. Leaving the station with the first rays of morning, we had about fourteen and a half hours of daylight. The horses were supposedly genetically enhanced, but the passengers were not. We had a thick black velvet rope, clipped from one side of the car to the other, to hold us in place. There was no food served and no water. I suspected a few of the men carried pocket flasks, very much the rage, but, the way we were rattling, any attempts at libation would find the floor of the coach catching more spillage than the parched throats of weary travelers.
I had a long scar on my left cheek from an interview that had turned into a knife fight, where one of us had pulled a rusty knife from his boot and the other one — me — had defended himself with a broom handle. One of us got a case of localized tetanus — me — and one went flying out a second-floor window.
I am not an exceptionally brave man, but I will defend myself when cornered. I tell you about my scar because, inevitably, young ladies get curious. Men, in my experience, don’t mention it because to do so leads to an unnecessary and awkward contest of who’s come closer to death.
Introductions had been made — not that I needed them — and the extended silence that followed felt like the suppressed reaction to a loud fart in a crowded courtroom. Everyone had heard it, but nobody was willing to shatter the delicate decorum by reacting to it.
Then Miss Harmony pointed at my face. Invite me to your party; I promise I can get people talking. “Were you in the war?” she asked.
“Barfight,” I lied. “Someone insulted my mother.”
Weld snorted, feeling comfortable enough around me to do so.
“It makes you look distinguished,” said Miss Doolittle. “I hope it doesn’t make you self-conscious. I for one would rather have you on my team than in league with the other side.”
“Thank you,” I said, to which Padre Rio made a crooked smile. “Something bothering you, Padre?”
“You can imagine my position on violence,” he said. “No one knows the life challenges faced by our aggressors. Their childhood. Their battles just to reach adulthood.”
“He started it. I didn’t kill him. That was the ground when he hit it the wrong way.”
Miss Harmony turned to Gaylord. “Have you killed anyone?”
“Many,” he said. ‘It’s the golden rule of war: kill them before they kill you and your friends and your commander.”
“It doesn’t sound very civil,” said Miss Harmony.
“It isn’t. That’s why they make us parade in pretty uniforms so it’s more like an open-air Greek tragedy. You try to forget that they have families. Never look them in the face. When they fall, move on to the next engagement.”
“I’m sorry you had to do that. What will you do now?”
“I was thinking about farming, like my father and grandfather before me.”
“For some, killing is easy,” said Padre Rio. “It’s not your fault. While the soul is eternal, the flesh around it is disposable, am I right? But farming, for anyone willing to put their back into it, is a hard life. I will pray for you.” With that, Rio lowered his chin to his chest in prayer. Weld rolled his eyes.
Miss Harmony caught the gesture. “What about you, Mr. Weld? Have you killed anyone? It certainly sounds like a male rite of passage.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure,” said Weld. Rio opened one eye and examined the speaker carefully.
With the sound of fingernails on chalkboard, Blue opened the skylight and peered about at the passengers. “Trouble?” asked Weld, ironically ready to take the lead, our man undercover.
“No, sir. Just taking a headcount. While the passenger manifest says six, I note the cargo manifest only shows luggage for five.”
“I don’t have any bags,” I explained quickly. “I’m not staying. Sorry to worry you. If we get there on time, I plan to wash my face, brush my teeth, visit the courtroom, then sleep at the station for the ride back. That suit you?”
“To a T,” said Blue. “Sorry for the bother.” He closed the ceiling door, loudly. Everyone cringed. Then he opened it again and added: “We’ll probably do a stretch break in about ten miles. There’s a privy for the ladies.” He closed the ceiling door again. Everyone cringed again.
“If I knew someone in charge of this operation,” I said, “I think I would tell him to oil that damned skylight.”
“Good point,” agreed Weld.
Rio looked at me. “Is everything that offends you damned?”
“I never thought of it that way, but probably,” I said. Don’t get me wrong: I loved the guy. I was raised in a religious household in a tightly knit community until human pestilence washed over the countryside. I decided right then: if anyone picked on him, I’d take his side, unless he picked on me, then I might tease him just a little.
When we arrived for our stretch break, I unclipped the thick black velvet rope and sprang outside like a human cannonball. Miss Doolittle laughed. Considering that she probably didn’t do much of that lately, I was touched, rather than insulted. The ladies ran for the outhouse before the men could make a mess of it. The men drifted back behind some wide-trunked trees.
A mountain stream gurgled nearby: big rocks and rapid ripples, but shallow enough we could have walked across it. Weld couldn’t help himself and cupped his hands in the crisp running water. He slurped and gasped and pretty much made an undignified performance.
I shook my head.
“Do you blame me?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “but not everything that’s pretty is good for us.”
“You’re not talking about the water,” he said.
“Just offering unsolicited advice. While I’m opening my mouth, I’d say newborn sextuplets probably had more legroom.”
“Are you making more suggestions? You forget it’s just a glorified delivery vehicle. Nothing I do is gonna make increased demand. Unless there’s a fire or plague, and people are in a hurry to get away.”
I had the distinct impression someone was staring at me. I spun quickly, reaching for my firearm. Red and Blue were standing by the horses and looking at us, I swear, like they’d never seen two more unusual humans, “a waste of skin” as a droid barkeep once described the village drunk.
Copyright © 2026 by Charles C. Cole
