by Paul Bagdon
Ben looped his reins over the short hitching rail and walked toward the saloon. Halfway there, he crouched and picked up a handful of the fine, dusty powder of the street and sifted it from one hand to another. Then he lifted each of his Colts up by their grips to the point where only the last inch of the barrels remained inside the holster. When he released the weapons, they settled into the tanned and shaped leather in precisely the position he needed them to be.
From the street he could see that the inside of the saloon was as dark as a cave. He’d ridden around the place earlier. There was a glassless window on one side of the narrow building and a back door that hung at an angle from a single hinge. A few lanterns hung from the walls at night, but in the daytime the only light came from the window and doors and through the poorly caulked gaps between the boards of the structure.
He approached the front batwings at an angle, giving his eyes as much opportunity to adjust as he could. From his place on the warped wooden sidewalk, he could see a pair of prostitutes leaning against the bar, close to the front. A vaquero was slouched toward the middle of the bar, his sombrero hanging on his back. He had a bottle of whiskey in front of him and a glass in his hand. Beyond the Mexican stood Zeb Stone, talking to a man who had bandoleers of ammunition crossed over his chest.
“Stone.”
Stone turned to face him. “Well,” he said. “Well.”
Ben concentrated all his senses on Stone. The outlaw moved a step away from the bar, flexing the fingers of both hands, which were at waist level in front of him. His eyes were clear, and it looked like he’d shaved that morning. Ben flicked his eyes to Stone’s hands. They were as calm as the hands of a statue.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” Ben said.
“I know. Let’s git to it.” Stone’s mouth started to form another word and then his hands flashed toward the grip of his pistol.
Time broke into fragments for Ben. Stone’s draw seemed jerky, as if it stopped and started a hundred times before his own fingertips grazed the grips of his guns. His pistols somehow raised and extended, their barrels pointed at Stone’s midsection. He wasn’t completely sure how they’d gotten there. He watched, as if from a seat in a theater, as the hammers of the .45s in his hands slid back and began their downward arc. It seemed like an age before the hammers were home, but the impact of the two bullets an inch above Stone’s belt buckle was instantaneous, as was the gush of blood and the crumpling of Stone’s body to the floor. The outlaw’s pistol had not cleared leather.
Ben stared at the well of blood pumping from Stone’s midsection before he holstered his pistol.
“Might just as well finish him off. Gut-shot death is a long time coming,” the Mexican said.
“The way I hear it, he wasn’t in a hurry to let my pa die.”
“Up to you.”
Ben didn’t reply. Stone moved on the floor and then groaned. His hands reached for his stomach as if trying to stop the flow of blood. Ben turned away, moved past the Mexican, and left the saloon. He swung into his saddle and put several miles between him and the sordid little town before he thought about what he’d done.
When the uncontrollable shivering started . . .
Ben’s frame jangled as ague sent its frigid tendrils through his body. It took him a moment to realize that Snorty had stopped and had his head down, sucking scum-covered water from a shallow water hole half the size of a wagon bed. There was shade here, he saw, and a covering of sparse grass around the water hole. He dismounted slowly, fighting dizziness, and when both his boots were on the ground, he reached under Snorty and pulled the cinch free. The bit and bridle stayed where they were; the bit was low-ported and Snorty could graze freely with it in his mouth. Ben hauled the saddle and blanket off his horse’s back, but his legs crumpled under the weight, and he fell next to the water.
As he lay on the ground, he noticed a group of desert pine standing six feet away, and the secure, foot-high space under their lowest branches looked as inviting as a canopy bed in the finest hotel. He crawled toward the trees, dragging the sweat-soaked saddle blanket with him. By the time he made it to the shade, fever had replaced the arctic chill with the heat of a flash fire. With the last of his strength, he dragged himself under the lowest branches of the nearest tree and collapsed, still clutching the saddle blanket. When he awoke, it was night. He pulled the blanket over himself as best he could and slept again.
The first thing he noticed when he woke up was that the noise inside his head was gone. Pain from his wound was still with him, but it was a cleaner, more bearable pain, one that reached him directly rather than being filtered through disorientation and fever.
The second thing he noticed was that he smelled terrible; a fetid combination of dried blood, fever sweat, and the poisons draining from his body created a cloud of longdead animal odor around him. He crawled out from under the branches and checked the position of the sun—half a day was gone. He sat in the warmth for a few minutes and then began to remove his clothing, setting his gun belt, leather vest, and boots aside. Clutching his clothes and the saddle blanket to his chest, he stood and walked unsteadily. The weakness in his legs reminded him that he wasn’t completely over whatever had gotten to him.
He stopped at the edge of the water hole. Snorty had muddied the water when he stood in it to drink, but that made no particular difference to Ben. He moved to the center of the pool, where the water barely reached his waist, and sat down, pressing his bundle of clothes below the surface. The water was tepid and covered with green scum—and felt wonderful. He swished his denim pants back and forth, wrung them out, and washed them again before tossing them back to the shore. His shirt, bandana, socks, underdrawers, and saddle blanket received the same treatment. Then he put his head and chest below the surface and stayed there until his breath ran out. He used a handful of sand to rub his skin in lieu of soap and parted the pond scum with his hands as he strode to the shore. The sun dried his body quickly as he hung his clothes from branches to dry.
He gave Snorty the rest of the crimped oats, leaned back against a tree, and slept again.
Zebulon Stone spat into the fire in front of him. It was down to white embers now, perfect to cook the rabbits his men had killed earlier in the day. He lifted a bottle and took a long, gurgling drink from its neck. The pulque, a raw-distilled whiskey made from cactus, burned his throat like molten steel. He knew the burning would be even more intense when the whiskey reached his stomach, where things had never completely healed since Flood had put the slugs in him. He spat into the fire and again lifted the bottle to his mouth.
The men—except the three he’d posted as lookouts—were drunk and loud on the pulque. Shots rang out every so often as they fired into the sky, and the occasional thunderclap of the Sharp’s made the pistol reports sound like popcorn. Stone grinned. They were his blood brothers: night riders, thieves, rapists, killers—none of whom he would trust any farther than he could throw a bull buffalo. Not a one of them had any more regard for human life than a coyote, which made them perfect underlings in his gang of misfits. Because they feared him, they obeyed him, and because they obeyed him, they were richer than they’d ever believed they could be. Their loyalty to him or to anyone else except themselves was nonexistent, but their greed and their unquenchable thirst for violence and blood kept them in line.
He had gunned down three of his men in the last few months, each of them in front of the gang. The disputes had been either minor, manufactured by him, or simply without reason, as in Pablo’s case, but they achieved what the outlaw leader wanted. The survivors were sufficiently impressed by his insanity and wanted to keep on his good side.
An outlaw wearing the torn and dirty gray shirt and pants of the Confederate army hunkered down next to his boss. “Been two days now. I guess Georgie ain’t comin’ back,” he said.
“No loss. Half the time he was stupid on that weed of his, an’ the rest of the time he was stupid on booze. Flood done us a favor.”
/>
“You figure he killed him?”
“Georgie woulda been back by now if he was alive. He wouldn’t go too far from his share of the money.”
“Thing is, Zeb,” the man began hesitantly, “we’re doin’ real good. We can hole up in Mexico for as long as we want an’ still have all the money we need. Why not just forgit about Flood? We could—”
“Lemme tell you somethin’, Reb. Flood’s more important to me than the money or any of you bunch of scum.” He took a pull at the bottle and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You ever been left for dead by a Bible-totin’ coward? You ever felt the fire in your gut a couple of slugs can put there? You ever wanted to die jist to git away from the pain? That coward ambushed me like I was some stinkin’ rummy that sweeps the floors an’ cleans out the spittoons in a fleabag Mex saloon an’ is caught with his paw in the till. You ever feel anything like that?”
“I didn’t mean nothin’, Zeb. You got ever’ right to—”
Stone’s words spilled out faster. “I got me the town picked out, an’ this time it’s gonna be a fair fight—an’ Flood an’ his voodoo book are goin’ down to stay. I’m gonna watch him draw his last breath an’ laugh like I was at a Fourth of July picnic!”
“Sure, Zeb. An’ I’ll back you up ever’ step of the way! Ain’t no man who can ambush Zeb Stone an’ live to tell—”
The click of Stone’s hammer being drawn back ended the man’s fawning as quickly and completely as would a bullet to his brain. He hadn’t seen Stone draw. Beyond the fire, a spatter of pistol fire and drunken whoops erupted. After a long moment, Stone eased the hammer down and holstered his pistol.
“Git me another bottle,” he said, “an’ I’ll let you live a little longer.”
When the sun passed its zenith and started downward, the slight drop in temperature roused Ben from the deep sleep in which he’d spent the day. As he dressed in his dry and fresh-smelling clothes, he realized he wasn’t sure how long he’d slept. It was possible, he knew, that he’d been out for better than twenty-four hours. And he wasn’t sure how long he’d been sick. Two days? Longer?
He smiled as he noticed a sensation he hadn’t experienced since before he’d ridden out of Burnt Rock: He was very, very hungry.
* * *
6
* * *
The pistol with the missing grip felt like an unfamiliar tool in Lee’s hands as she followed the erratic meandering of a jackrabbit with the sight at the end of the barrel. The fractured metal, probably the result of the grip being shot off in a gunfight, dug into the base of her thumb. Sweat dripped into her right eye—her aiming eye—but she didn’t dare move to wipe it away. The sun weighted on her like a bearskin robe, and its rays glinted off the places on the barrel where the bluing had worn away and pierced her eyes like tiny needles.
The jackrabbit dug at something with its forepaws and put its head down to sniff at the bit of root. Lee’s finger began a slow, even pressure on the trigger, with the sight at the juncture of the animal’s head and neck. She’d cocked the hammer of the single-action Colt a couple hours ago and hadn’t yet fired.
She pushed away the possibility that the weapon could explode in her face when she pulled the trigger. If the barrel had been at all damaged in Pablo’s gunfight, she was holding in her hand what amounted to a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse. She concentrated again on the rabbit. The sweat burned in her eye, but she fought against the blink that was causing her eyelid to twitch. The animal turned toward her, and its dark eyes moved past her without stopping. She applied a butterfly’s breath more pressure, moving the sight to the white crest on the rabbit’s chest, and drew a breath through slightly parted lips.
The rabbit skittered behind a rock, out of her line of fire. A second later a red-tailed hawk swooped in from her right, its talons extended and beak open, a chilling screeeeee issuing from its throat. It took less than a heartbeat; the rabbit screamed as the hawk’s claws sank into it, and then the bird rose sharply with its claws locked into the rabbit’s spine.
Lee eased the hammer forward to its seated position and stood, wiping her eyes with her left hand. Wobbling a bit on her feet, she tried to see past the dark specks that floated before her eyes. She’d not slept the night before. The storm had soaked her, and the sharp wind that followed the thunder, rain, and lightning had chilled her so deeply that her teeth continued to chatter uncontrollably until well after the sun had risen.
Dancer snorted, and when she looked over at him, he was eyeing her with curiosity. He wasn’t thirsty; he’d been sucking water from holes and depressions through the day and into the afternoon. But grazing was sparse. He chewed at the brown, almost lifeless prairie grass without much interest.
The Busted Backs were visible in the distance, even through the shimmering waves of heat. To her west, she could barely discern the shapes of what might be a few trees—probably scrubby desert pines, but at least they’d yield some shade. She thought she could make it there easily, but she also knew that distances were deceiving on the open prairie. What if that little spot is a day’s ride or more from where I stand? The more she stared, the farther away the trees seemed to be. There’s water there, or the trees couldn’t grow, she thought. And some animals or birds must drink the water. If only the gun would shoot straight . . .
It was the gun that worried her. She had confidence in her own marksmanship. Uncle Noah had taught her a great deal about survival in the West. Her shooting lessons had begun when she was ten, and she had to use both hands to hold the small, single-shot .22 caliber Derringer. By the time she was fourteen, she could put six slugs into a saucer-sized circle painted on an old board fifty feet away. When she was sixteen, Uncle Noah introduced her to rifles, and she showed as much skill with long guns as she did with pistols.
She’d never gone hunting with Uncle Noah, although much of the meat they ate came strapped over the back of his stoutest stallion. She’d told her uncle, “When I’m starving—when I really need the food and have no other way to get it—I’ll go hunting.”
Right now, on her third day without eating, she really needed the food. Hunger was draining her strength, and she knew she had to be alert in order to find Ben.
It was almost dark when she reached the water hole. The place had seemed to travel away from her at the same speed at which she’d approached it. And she hadn’t dared ask Dancer to hurry; he’d eaten nothing of substance for two days, and his stomach roiled and growled with hunger. When he’d caught the scent of grass, he fought her, but she’d held him at a walk all the way, talking and humming to keep him calm.
By the time she’d stripped off the saddle and rubbed him down with handfuls of dried weeds, it was almost too dark to see. She fit the hobbles on the horse mostly by touch while he happily chomped away at the patches of green grass near the trees.
After seeing to Dancer, she settled under the saddle blanket with her back against the saddle and the pistol in her right hand. As she said her prayers and drifted into sleep, her stomach growled monotonously, like a far-off thunderstorm.
The noise, a skittering sort of sound, drew her from her sleep. She gathered her thoughts before she eased her eyes open. Hunger had been her first conscious thought—and her second thought was that whatever was making the noise could no doubt be eaten. Her grip tightening on the pistol, she raised her eyelids the slightest bit and stared at the water hole through tiny slits. A couple of prairie dog families—several adults and twice as many young ones—were arguing on the far side of the water, perhaps fifteen feet from her. The animals moved rapidly, seeming to leap or run for no reason.
An impossible shot. Her breath left her in a long sigh, and she began to push back the saddle blanket when she heard Dancer scuffle in the grass beyond a trio of pines. As she swung her head to the sound, she saw a jackrabbit darting between two of the trees, switching directions, and then scrambling in a straight line that would bring it past her not more than six or eight feet away.
&nb
sp; Her left hand was already on the edge of the blanket; she brought it toward her feet and raised the .38. “Target shooting’s for easterners,” Uncle Noah had told her. “Instinct shooting’s what puts meat on the table.”
The jackrabbit veered again, away from her. She swung the pistol in a smooth, short arc and squeezed the trigger. The eruption of dirt in front of the animal caused it to veer again, toward her, and she squeezed the trigger a second time. The rabbit took the slug in its chest, did a loose backward somersault, and flopped to the dirt on its side. Its rear legs twitched twice, and then the body was still.
Lee stood and walked the few steps to her kill. She’d never cleaned a rabbit for the pot—but that really didn’t matter. She had no pot, and she had no fire. Bile rose to the back of her throat as she pictured eating the raw meat, but she knew she had no choice. She cut out slabs of side meat and two legs, washed the meat in the water hole, and ate until she was past full.
She slept then in the shade of the desert pines. When she awakened, most of the day was gone. She felt stronger and cooler—much better than before she’d eaten.
All of Stone’s men had hangovers when he woke them up that morning by firing the Sharp’s into the remains of the fire. The thumb-sized slug hit the embers and sent sparks and bits of wood fifteen feet into the sky. Then the debris of the fire settled on the men like raindrops from a passing cloud—except that this rain was hot and burned their flesh, hair, and clothes.
“Fill your canteens,” Stone ordered as he paced around the camp with the big rifle over his shoulder, his finger still inside the trigger guard. “We ain’t stoppin’ today, ’cept to give the horses a breather, an’ we ain’t stoppin’ tonight. We can’t afford to kill the crowbait we’re ridin’, so we’ll walk ’em until the heat lets up. Any of you who has a horse drop out from under you walks, an’ the money stays with the gang—with me—until you catch up an’ claim it.” He smiled for a moment. “’Course, that ain’t real likely to happen.”
