Slade gripped Miles’ fur tightly. The young werewolf was running at a speed that was incomprehensible to the law man. Winds rushed all over them as Miles’ paws tromped across the prairie.
Soon, the Marvel of the Rails was within sight.
“Just get me on board then run,” Slade shouted into Miles’ ear. “I don’t need a dead kid on my conscience on top of everything else.”
Bringing up the Marvel’s rear was a henchwolf manning a gatling gun. He instantly spotted the duo and unleashed a hell storm of bullets upon them.
Miles zigged and zagged, dodging each shot effectively but just barely. It was all happening so fast Slade’s mind could barely keep up with it.
The lawman pointed his pistol at the henchwolf’s head and fanned the hammer, striking the back of his gun with the palm of his hand over and over until six silver-tipped bullets had tore through the henchwolf’s head. Blood splattered across the gatling gun as the henchwolf keeled over and fell onto the tracks.
Miles sped up until he was running just behind the train.
The human body comes with all manner of built in means of self-preservation. Slade had to fight ever reflex he had when he tentatively stood up on the young werewolf’s back. He knew he only had mere seconds before he’d stumble and fall, so he quickly pushed off and grabbed the railing that surrounded the gatling gun car.
Slade pulled himself on board. He took six bullets off of his bandolier and reloaded his gun as he watched Miles veer off to the left and out of sight.
The lawman climbed a rickety iron ladder until he reached the top of a box car.
The Marvel’s whistle blared. Its bell clanged. Slade struggled to maintain his balance as the train barreled down the tracks.
Far down the line, he could see smoke belching from the locomotive’s stack. That was where he needed to be.
The wind whipped up underneath the brim of his Stetson, threatening to blow it away until he pulled it down tight over his head.
Slade’s woman and his hat were both at stake, and he was determined to not lose either.
Slowly, he walked across the box car as the train rattled down the track.
Bookshelf Battle 
How is he still holding on if he’s using both hands to fire his gun and hold his gun?
Hmmm…I guess if pressed I could say well he did it all so quickly that he was able to shoot and still grab his furry steed again before he fell off. The aerodynamics of high speed werewolf travel are all very theoretical at this point but I feel like if you let go of your werewolf for only a few seconds, that’s not long enough to lose your balance and fall off.
I might think about this one and try to rework it a little so that question is avoided. Then again, there are so many things in movies that are unlikely yet we just give it to them because we’re having a good time.
Black Widow in Avengers 2 riding a metal box holding Ultron inside through the air until it lands perfectly in the back of a plane piloted by Hawkeye comes to mind.
I don’t know. There are many fantastical things in this that I’ll either straighten out or just hope that people give me a pass because, hey, it’s a novel about damn wild west zombies, were you expecting Shakespeare?
One thing I have been wrestling with from the beginning is that I don’t believe that Standing Eagle and his peeps would have even been around in Missouri around 1880, or at least not in the form of a village so close to a town.
When I researched and realized the Trail of Tears pushed them all away I kind of debated and eventually erred on the side that there it might be plausible that there were a few villages the guvmint hadn’t gotten around to chasing away.
At least that’d be my explanation to a savvy ready. The less savvy reader won’t notice. And ultimately, because I don’t have the means to start tracking down a bunch of Missouri history experts, I don’t know the likelihood of Indian villages in MO in 1880 so I just rolled the dice and went with it.
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