The Boilermaker by Dr. Keith Raymond

Down on the southern edge of Dodge City sat several old barns owned by the man known only as the boilermaker. He was old at middle-age and Chinese. He once worked building the railroad but settled down, having an indispensable trade in Kansas. Besides maintaining steam engines for the Santa Fe line, he diversified. He made nitroglycerin for the Central Pacific railroad and whiskey for the town near the Arkansas River.

Since folks couldn’t pronounce his real name, whenever anyone asked to buy whiskey wholesale, they referred them to the boilermaker.

It was late in the year 1878, a cool evening, when the boilermaker sat with Curly Rawlins doing what he did best besides making boilers—minding the still. Curly, busy with a bottle, kept asking the boilermaker to join him in drinking some of the Chinaman’s finest.

“No, no, Mister Rawlins, I thank ye again. No wheeskey for me while I’m working. It wouldn’t be right. You’re a gunslinger, yes?”

“You know I am, Boilermaker. What of it?”

“Well, you don’t stop to make bullets during a gunfight, do ye?”

“Don’t reckon I—”

The cocking of a Colt interrupted Curly. It even seemed to stop the drip, drip, drip of the still. Both men turned to the outlaw standing in the shadow of the barn door. Stray light reflected off the nickel of his pistol. “Give me your whiskey, Chinaman. All of it! Or I’ll shoot you dead.”

The boilermaker raised his hands, then shook them right and left repeatedly. “You don’t want to do that, Mister.”

“And what makes you think I won’t?”

“Boilermaker’s saying if you fire that gun in here, we’ll all die,” Curly added.

“Who asked you? ’Sides, if you help me with them crates, I’ll cut you in.”

“You’re missing the point,” Curly finished. “He’s saying this here barn’s filled with al-kee-hol vapor. You fire that six shooter in here, and the barn will explode. No lie.”

The outlaw in the black hat and chaps stood there in indecision, still holding the Colt pointed at the boilermaker. His long mustache seemed to curl up a little more at the ends as a tall shadow covered him from behind. The outlaw looked up at the shadow on the wall above the still.

Instead of a cowboy hat, the man, whoever it was, wore a British bowler. The outlaw looked like he was fixing to swing around and shoot the owner of that shadow until cold sharp steel slid up against his throat.

“Easy there, son,” a man said in the outlaw’s ear. “None of us want to die tonight. Especially not me. Now, lower that hammer real slow, and lower your gun even slower. I’m gonna take it from ya.”

The outlaw stank of the trail and too many days without a bath. Bat Masterson wrinkled his nose at the stench so close to the “stinker.” The outlaw tensed. Bat pulled the knife a little across his throat, so a trickle of blood soaked his already dirty red bandanna. He punctuated the cut with, “Don’t even think about it, son. I’m the sheriff of this here city, and killing you wouldn’t even interrupt my attending Sunday church services. Now, if you don’t mind….”

His answer was the snick of the revolver hammer settling back into place. The outlaw slowly lowered the gun. Bat grabbed it from his hand quickly while backing them out of the barn.

The boilermaker nodded his thanks to the sheriff. Their eyes met briefly until all he could see were four eyes, like coyotes, staring back at him from the street. He heard Bat say to the stranger, “I’ll be keeping this for ya until you get ready to leave town. Stop by the sheriff’s office then, and I’ll give it back. What’s your name?”

“Rudabaugh.”

“You kin to Dave?”

“Second cousin.”

“You a train robber like him?”

“No, sir.”

“Keep your nose clean, and you won’t end up like him. Now, I don’t see no reason to lock you up as nothing was stolen. But now you’ve been warned. See the barber about that cut. Tell ’em Bat gave it to you. And get a bath, for heaven’s sake!”

“Will do, sir. G’night, Mister Masterson.” With that, the stranger tipped his hat and walked up the street, greeted by the sound of gunfire, hooting, and hollering.

Curly stumbled out the barn door and slurred, “Good thing you came along just then, Sheriff. What you doing at this end of town, anyway?”

“Got a job for the boilermaker.”

“Mighty clever of ya,” Bat said to the boilermaker. “Don’t shoot or we all die!” He laughed.

“Weren’t me. It was Curly there.”

Curly shrugged, winked, and walked back into the barn after taking a swig. In passing, he offered the bottle to the sheriff.

The sheriff shook his head. “Sorry, on duty.” Hen harrumphed. “Guess that kid didn’t spot the firebox under the still. Anyway, no one ever said outlaws were all that bright. By the way, how do you keep from blowing up the barn?”

The boilermaker answered, “See the slats missing at the bottom thar, all the way around?”

“Yup.”

“They let the weeskey vapor escape. It slides along the ground, see?”

Bat removed his bowler, scratched his head, then put it back on.

“So, you said something about a job,” the boilermaker said.

“That’s right. Got a kid, just came off the midnight train. Doesn’t speak a lick of English. All she does is cry and jabber at me in Chinese.”

“I can’t leave the still. Can you bring her here?”

“She’s right outside with my deputy.”

“Bring her in.”

Ed Masterson, Bat’s brother and unofficial deputy, dragged the girl by the hand toward the barn. Her wailing became screams. She resisted as best she could, waving a rag doll in her other hand, finally beating Ed with it ineffectually. The deputy kept her at arm’s length, making a face like he smelled something bad. Which he probably did, as no doubt she’d soiled herself.

The ten-year-old girl on seeing the boilermaker began a high-speed rant in Mandarin. Curly and Bat looked at each other then back at the boilermaker, listening and nodding to the girl as tears rolled down her cheeks. The boilermaker listened attentively, nodding and asking some clarifying questions, which she answered rapidly before continuing on.

“What’s she saying?” asked the sheriff.

The boilermaker gestured for her to stop so he could translate. “Her name is Lin-yi Ersao. She and her mother were on a train heading West when she fell asleep. When she woke up, her mother was gone. She walked up and down the train, but she couldn’t find her. She started balling at the conductor, and he dropped her off here in Dodge City where you met her at the depot. I suppose the conductor signaled a lineman to telegraph ahead to Dodge City for you to meet the train.”

“Did they think Bat was a babysitter?” Ed muttered, noting the girl was quiet for the first time since she got off the train.

“I reckon they wanted me to alert the stations up the line to look for her mother.”

Curly interjected, “Chances are someone kidnapped her. Ain’t never going to see her again.”

Lin-yi jabbered at the boilermaker again, clearly pleading with him. He answered reassuringly, but they both knew her chances of seeing her mother again were slim to none, which was when she broke down in tears and buried her head in his lap. The boilermaker, never having had kids, lifted his hands like someone pulled a gun on him. Slowly, he lowered one hand to pat her head.

“Well, I can’t stick her in a jail cell. Seems you’ll need to look after her while I look for her momma,” Masterson said to the boilermaker.

This so upset him, he yelled at Bat and Ed in Mandarin. It was their turn to hold up their hands. While they couldn’t understand a lick of what he was saying, the message was obvious. In the end, the boilermaker settled down enough to speak to them in English, “Okay, okay. I’ll look after her, but I ain’t raising her if you can’t find her momma!”

“Fair enough.” The sheriff left before the boilermaker changed his mind, taking Ed with him.

Curly took another swig of whiskey. “Tough break, friend. But she sure is cute.”

After a while, Lin-yi stopped crying. She rubbed her eyes, sniffled, then sized up the boilermaker, watched him change out whiskey barrels, plugging the one that just finished filling. Placing an empty one under the spigot, he opened the valve again, listened for the dripping at the bottom, then checked on the firebox.

“I’m hunglee,” Lin-yi said in broken English. This surprised both men.

“Stay here, Lin-yi. Curly, look after the still, won’t ye? I’ll get her some rice and tea.”

“You don’t have no wife, Mista?”

The boilermaker shook his head. Then answered in Mandarin, “Dead a while ago.”

“I’m so solly, Mista,” Lin-yi answered in English. She ate like a starving bear cub, not bothering with chopsticks and using her hands and dirty fingernails. Then she gulped down the lukewarm tea. The boilermaker made a straw bed for her, and after a while of staring at them in silence, she lay down. Soon, she fell asleep. He threw a horse blanket over her, and they listened to her dream. It was sweet, especially when she cuddled with the rag doll.

“I best be getting off to bed, meself,” Curly said with a yawn.

“G’night, friend.”

With that, Curly donned his Stetson and vanished into the night.

Lin-Yi woke on another makeshift bed, made from a pad sitting on a steamer trunk at the base of the boilermaker’s bed. He slept on, while Lin-yi got up. She swept the floors, started a fire in the stove, put the kettle on, and set some oatmeal to boil. When everything was ready, she woke him up and handed him a cup of tea.

The boilermaker looked around in amazement. He saw the steaming, fragrant oatmeal on the kitchen table and sniffed the air. It was late morning. He heard the stagecoach come in, men on trotting horses, and even the swish of twirling parasols on the street. Lin-Yi grinned at him, almost happy.

He sipped the tea and smiled. “You didn’t need to do all this.”

“I had four brothers. I did it every day. It’s a comfort for me to do it for you,” she answered in Mandarin.

“My name in Xinhui Taishan,” he said.

She gave him a full bow in deep respect.

“You may call me Xinhui when we speak Mandarin but the boilermaker when we speak English.”

He nodded and finished the tea. “No time for breakfast. Must work. Engine number seven coming in at noon, and I have an order to repair from Big Boss before it heads East.”

“Then I must come. Maybe the conductor knows where my momma is?”

“Better you stay here.”

“Better I go,” Lin-yi insisted.

Xinhui scratched his scalp, then flattened down his hair. “Okay, you help. Follow me.” Xinhui got out of bed, pulled on his slippers, then walked to his tool barn. She followed, leaving the oatmeal on the table.

After pulling tools from the wall, he placed them in a rickshaw. Lin-yi looked at them with consternation. He kept tossing them in, including a kerosene torch with a hand pump.

“Why they all bent? Looks like snakes. Can’t you afford good ones?” Lin-yi asked in Mandarin.

He laughed. “That there is a double-ended railroad wrench. That’s the way they come. I use it when I need to adjust the pipes, like for a steam brake. Now let me finish.”

In no time, the boilermaker had her pulling the rickshaw north to where the train was due to come in. Lin-yi struggled with the weight, pulling mightily, but making a fine job of it. The two of them made quite the pair, him four paces ahead, her dragging the rickshaw behind. Cowpokes hooted, shopkeepers shook their heads, and women scolded him for making the child work. The boilermaker ignored them all.

When they arrived at the empty track, he pulled out a twenty-dollar gold pocket watch to check the time. “Should be here in a few minutes.”

The whistle blew. Hunters were stacking up buffalo hides, getting ready to load them onboard.

The locomotive bell rang. Steam came from the

brakes while conductors jumped off the passenger cars. They swung red lanterns as the train slowed coming into the station. The engineer stuck his head out the window and nodded at the boilermaker. Xinhui waved back. Men and women in fancy dress were lifting their bags to board, while the freight doors opened.

Lin-yi spotted Bat Masterson walking up to talk with a conductor, while the boilermaker climbed aboard the locomotive to inspect the damage and plan his repairs. The stoker waved to the Chinese man before dumping the steam from the boiler, cursing. He walked over to the water tower to swing the boom over and add water to the thirsty engine.

Xinhui was busy cranking on fittings when he looked down to where Lin-yi was staring downtrain. “You gonna help, or are you just going to stand there? Grab me that torch and come up here.”

“Coming, Boss,” she replied after a start.

The boys hanging around the tracks picked up rocks and threw them at her.

“Hey, you. Git!” Xinhui yelled at them.

“What you going to do, Chinaman? Beat me up?”

One kid spotted a burly man with his sleeves rolled up, heading their way. “Let’s go, Bill. There’s a bull coming.” The kids ran away, laughing and taunting the bull as they shot around the depot building.

“Okay, Lin-yi, you pump that thar. That feeds the torch while I weld. Just keep pumping until I say stop.”

A few minutes later the stoker came and yelled up to them, “You done yet? I gotta get the steam back up. We got a schedule to keep!”

“Go ahead. Get started. I’m just finishing up,” replied the boilermaker.

Lin-yi jumped down and ran toward Bat Masterson, who was heading up-train on their way. “Any word on my momma?”

“Oh! You do speak English.”

“A rittel.”

“Sorry. Still lookin’ into it. Have to talk to one more conductor.”

Xinhui finished, tightening a fitting to the steam whistle, frowned, and looked down on them. “Bad luck, then.”

“Well, seeing as things turned sour, why don’t you two meet me at the saloon? I’ll treat you to dinner once you’re done.”

“Thank you kindly, Sheriff,” said the boilermaker. Lin-yi and Xinhui were down, but they weren’t out. Still, Lin-yi looked at him with sadness in her eyes.

In Mandarin, Xinhui said, “It’ll be all right.” He followed that in English, “She will turn up.”

Lin-Yi dropped the rickshaw in front of G.M. Hoover’s saloon by the horse trough, then wiped the sweat from her brow. The whores upstairs jeered at the boilermaker and made come-ons to the cowboys walking by. She followed Xinhui inside, staying close while holding on to his leg. She stared wideeyed at the rodeo in progress inside.

Xinhui spotted Bat by the piano and headed his way. Bat kicked out two chairs for them, then they sat down. The barmaid, seeing Bat with his party, came right to the table.

“Howdy, Sheriff. What can I do you for?”

“Steaks all around, corn if you have it, a beer for me and my pardner, and milk for the little lady.”

Stella looked over at the girl, curiously, asking, “Well hey there, you new in town? Where you from, sweetie?”

The boilermaker took over. “Sorry, Stella, she doesn’t know much English. Probably didn’t understand a word you said. Came in on the train last night.”

“She kin, Boilermaker?”

While Masterson was talking, Lin-yi was signaling Xinhui, begging to hear about her momma. He tried to ignore her and pay attention to Bat. That all ended when she kicked him under the table. Xinhui started and looked at Lin-yi like someone goosed him.

“Nope, but I’m looking after her,” Xinhui said. “For now.” He eyed Masterson.

“Well, welcome to Dodge City! I’ll be right back with your dinner.” She sashayed away, swinging her hips.

Xinhui looked around the saloon. Noted the empty holsters. “Nobody’s packing. What gives?”

Bat checked around. “That’s right, you don’t get to the north side of town much. Earp made it a rule when he was sheriff. No guns north of the line. Everyone turns ’em in when they arrive and takes ’em only when they leave. Me and Ed are the only ones packin’ iron. Made a big difference, let me tell you.”

While Masterson was talking, Lin-yi was signaling Xinhui, begging to hear about her momma. He tried to ignore her and pay attention to Bat. That all ended when she kicked him under the table. Xinhui started and looked at Lin-yi like someone goosed him.

“What is it?” Bat finished, seeing his expression.

“She wants to know if ye got any news on her momma.”

He lit a cigar and chewed it for a second, which only made Lin-yi more impatient. Finally, he got around to saying, “Well, it’s not the problem of one missing Chinese woman. It’s a matter of too many coming and going, getting on and off the train. If there’s anything she can tell me about her mother that might help me better identify her….”

Although Lin-yi understood everything he said, she let Xinhui say it all again in Mandarin. She frowned for a moment before answering Xinhui in Mandarin.

He translated for the sheriff. “It seems she had an expensive jade bracelet her family gave her before she left China.”

Just then, Lin-yi jumped to her feet, and the blood drained from her face. At the bar, one of Hoover’s bouncers dangled a jade bracelet at one of the working gals. He was talking and grinning, and the gal with red hair and a full bosom shook her head. She raised her hands, clearly not wanting the bauble. But he kept trying to entice her with it. He even pushed his cowboy hat up on his forehead, but she was not budging.

Somebody else was, though. Lin-yi was up and moving toward the bar, to the chagrin of Bat and Xinhui, before they saw the jade bracelet and made the connection. By then, Lin-yi was yelling in Mandarin at the greasy, black-bearded guy with rotten teeth and a dirty brown vest. Her words weren’t making a dent, and he started laughing as she took air swipes at the bracelet.

The cowboy bent his knees, dangling it closer to Lin-yi, teasing her with it. It was indeed her mother’s. The teasing continued, and the working gal tried to dissuade him. “Come on, Tex, quit teasing the little China doll. At least someone wants it. Maybe she’ll give you a thrust for it, ’cause I ain’t.”

Tex dropped a little lower, then started bobbing the bracelet like a piñata every time Lin-yi grabbed for it. Pearls of sweat collected on her upper lip, and her anger was plain for all the guys drinking at the bar to see. They started to laugh at her frustration. Then they saw something none of them would ever forget.

The girl leaped onto him. She climbed up him like a monkey going after a coconut. She grabbed the bracelet with her left hand, and her right elbow came swinging around for his chin. The look of surprise on his face was classic. Her elbow struck, blowing a couple more teeth from his mouth, and like a great oak, the big man fell over, hitting the deck, then passing out cold.

She leaped on his chest, babbling at him in angry Mandarin as he bled. But he wasn’t moving. About that time, Bat and Xinhui arrived, Bat pulling his Peacemaker. When the shock wore off around them, the other bouncers formed a circle around their fallen friend, menacing.

“Now boys,” Masterson began, “you don’t want any part of this.”

One cowboy answered, with more sun on his face than brains in his head, “That little girl is stealing from Tex. That bit of shiny is his.”

“No, it ain’t. That there is from that girl’s momma. She went missing on the midnight train last night. I got questions for him.”

“Might’ve once been her momma’s, but it’s Tex’s now. And we aim to reconcile the sitchiation.”

“Come any closer, and you’ll get a belly full of lead. Who’s first?”

Ed moved away from the gal he was chatting up at the other end of the bar, pulling his gun to provide Bat with back up. The cowboys weren’t backing down, figuring the odds were in their favor. Things got tense. Gamblers stood up from the Faro tables and backed away.

A deep booming voice came from the back. “What’s the problem here, Sheriff? My boys are just doing their jobs. Now I don’t want a dust up over some coolie.” G.M. Hoover appeared out of the crowd, carrying a case of whiskey toward the bar on his shoulder, forearms like ham-hocks.

Just then, the saloon doors swung open, followed by the explosion of a Colt Buntline Special long barrel. Everyone turned, then froze. The .45 caliber bullet disappeared into the ceiling, stopping the music and conversation.

Wyatt Earp scanned the crowd. “That’ll be just about enough of that! Now that the odds are even, you boys clear off.”

Hoover’s bouncers scattered like leaves, while Lin-yi stood over Tex, still on his chest, holding her momma’s bracelet.

“I had it handled, Wyatt,” Masterson said.

“Sure you did, Bat. Ed, how are you?”

“Mister Earp, good to see ya. What brings you to Dodge City?”

“Just passing through, delivering an outlaw to justice. Now what’s this all about?”

Bat explained as he and Ed wrangled Tex, dragging him to jail. Everybody in the bar made way, not for the famous lawmen, but for the girl that took down that big oak of a man. She strapped on her mother’s bracelet proudly. Even the boilermaker put a respectful distance between himself and her.

Bat rode with Wyatt and his posse out to the end of the territory with the outlaws in his custody. Coming to the edge of Bat’s jurisdiction, Wyatt bid his colleague a fond farewell.

On the sheriff’s way back to Dodge City, buzzards circled about a mile from the nearest railroad crossing. He needed to investigate. Many an outlaw left bodies out in the wild beyond the city limits—cases of revenge, deals gone wrong, gambling cheats, or the victims of Indians—for the varmints. The Cheyenne, respecting the land and their people, would retrieve dead members of their tribe, but they left any white men to rot in the sun.

Bat set off through the brush to see what had attracted the scavenger birds. It was the sheriff’s unfortunate duty to collect and document those he could for the Federal Marshal. Even if they had a bounty on their head, as a lawman, Bat never received the reward. Coming up on the scene, he pulled his bandanna up over his nose as the stink was intense.

There were six bodies. After climbing off his horse, he poked them with his cane. Five males, one female, she being the only one lying face down. The others were face up. Four of the men were arranged in a half circle around the woman. The fifth was several paces back from her feet with a knife in his chest. All were clearly dead.

Twin circular blood stains on the woman’s back declared someone shot her. The man behind her had a Gasser pearl handle pistol just beyond the reach of his right hand. The four men in a half circle around her looked to have been beaten to death. Their faces broken and bloodied, limbs broken. While the woman wore a dress, she had on embroidered slippers.

Looking closer, Bat saw she was Chinese.

She put up a terrible fight against insurmountable odds. Fighting for her life, she no doubt gave worse than she got. In the end, though, flying feet and fists were no match for a few well-aimed bullets. Bat slid up the woman’s sleeves and checked her wrists. Besides her bruised knuckles, there was the impression of a bracelet once strapped to one of them. Removing his bowler, he placed it over his heart.

To his surprise, his eyes filled with tears.

He put his hat back on, mounted his horse, and headed back into Dodge City. He’d send the undertaker out for them in the morning... or what was left of them once the coyotes and buzzards finished, that is. Of course, he might have been wrong about the identity of the woman. The girl would need to decide.

Another task he wasn’t looking forward to.

Back in the sheriff’s office, Masterson leaned in to listen to what Ed had to say while Tex rattled the bars, demanding release. The stories didn’t match, of course. The questioning went as expected—a pack of lies. It only made the truth that much uglier. The sheriff would wait until the undertaker returned from the bush to summon the boilermaker and his charge.

“You’ll be fine right where you are, Tex. This might be all cleared up in the morning. Then again, you may have an appointment with the hangman,” Bat said, staring at his ugly face. That only brought more cage rattling. Finally, Tex gave up and lay down on the cot.

The boilermaker and Lin-yi were loading a wagon with cases of whiskey the next morning when the sheriff stopped by. He told them what he found and said, “Many apologies, but I have to ask the little lady to identify one body.”

Xinhui turned to Lin-yi, but her face already collapsed. Crying, she ran into his arms. The boilermaker found his inner father, his heart aching for her. Even if it wasn’t her momma, witnessing a dead body leaves an indelible mark on a young girl, especially someone who died with her boots on.

Bat stuck a cigar in his mouth and lit it, not wanting to show them any emotion, though he choked up all the same.

The undertaker had the corpses all lined up in pine boxes in front of his place when the boilermaker, Lin-yi, and the sheriff arrived. Lin-yi climbed down from the whiskey wagon, her chin already quivering. Cautiously, she approached the coffins. After a long look, she spit on each of the men’s bodies.

Bat sat on his horse watching. When the girl came to the woman, he expected her to scream.

Instead, she stared and shook her head twice, three times. Big crocodile tears rolled down her cheeks as she fixated on the corpse in silence. Then she climbed into the coffin and snuggled up against the dead woman.

Stroking her momma’s cheek, she wrapped her body around her and wept silently.

People stopped in the street. Women pulled out hankies and dabbed their eyes. Even soldiers paused, still drunk from the night before, and stared.

The boilermaker climbed down, then went to Lin-yi. Gently he lifted her out of the casket.

Lin-yi tried to cling to her mother like she had her little rag doll two nights before. She wrapped her arms and legs around Xinhui burying her face in his shoulder.

He carried her back to the whiskey wagon where he lifted her up onto the seat above the feed box.

“Wait,” she said in Mandarin. She began taking off the jade bracelet.

Xinhui stopped her and said, “No use burying her with it. It’s a keepsake. A memory of her you need to hold on to. Please.”

It surprised the sheriff. He spoke to her in English. It was even more surprising when the boilermaker said, “You’re my family now. I’ll take care of you. You can come home with me.”

Lin-yi responded by leaning over and hugging Xinhui again, weeping.

Two women stopped on the boardwalk, watching.

“Isn’t that just the sweetest thing, Mabel? The boilermaker taking on that orphan.”

Mabel shook her head, “Dang them outlaws! They got what they deserved. A one-way trip to boothill.”

“After what I heard the girl did to Tex in the saloon. No surprise. If her momma was going down, she’d take the lot with her. And she did.”

“Hmm… mm.”

A month later, Tex climbed the scaffolding heading toward the noose. A crowd gathered. Some crying for blood, others jeering at the injustice of killing a white man for a crime against a coolie. The boilermaker stood in silence, stone faced.

Out from behind the crowd, a few cowpunchers heard a sizzling. Lin-yi raced around them and stuck a stick of dynamite underneath Tex’s belt buckle, the fuse burning down toward the leather. With his hands bound in back, Tex broke away from the deputy and ran up Front Street holleringlike a banshee for help, but everyone backed away from him in a rush when they saw the dynamite.

When he blew up, there was nothing left but startled horses.

Dr. Keith Raymond is a Family and Emergency Room Physician. He has practiced medicine in eight countries in four different languages. He currently lives in Austria with his wife. When not volunteering his medical skills, Keith is writing, lecturing, or SCUBA diving. In 2008, he discovered the wreck of a Bulgarian freighter while diving in the Black Sea. Keith has multiple medical citations, along with publications in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Grief Diaries, The Examined Life Journal, The Satirist, Chicago Literati, Blood Moon Rising, Frontier Tales Magazine, Utopia Science Fiction magazine, and in the Sci-Fi anthologies Sanctuary and Alien Dimensions among others. He is also the fiction editor of Savage Planets magazine. “The Boilermaker” is his first story to appear in the pages of Saddlebag Dispatches. Another of his stories, “Playing the Loot,” appears in West of Dodge: Where the Legends of the West Begin, a new Saddlebag Dispatches Anthology.