Noose Jumpers: A Mythological Western

by Trevor H. Cooley

  Tom had been pulling out all the guns in the sheriff’s gun cabinet and had several boxes of ammunition set to the side. “A lot. I ain’t counted ’em all.”

  “Well you’re going to need to reload my gun for me,” Luke replied. “It’s hard to do with one hand.”

  Sandy looked back at Katie with a smile. “What good does it do to worry? No one gets to be a legend if they panic every time things get tough.”

  “That’s one of the first rules we had when we started the Red Star Gang. Stay cool, like Estrella,” Tom said. “Oh, Luke. Did you know you’ve been pardoned?”

  “What?” Luke said in disbelief.

  “Marshal Blye got us pardon letters from the Governor,” Sandy said.

  Luke sat up, wincing as his ribs complained. “I don’t want to be pardoned.”

  “Too late,” said Tom with a snort of agreement. “All our bounties start from the begi-.”

  A shotgun blast echoed from outside. Everyone froze. The tall deputy reached for the door handle. All three of their backers appeared to deliver the news.

  “Blye’s been shot,” said Pecos, and Sandy’s heart sunk.

  The deputy marshals outside the door began to shoot their rifles. Deputy Garrett brandished his gun and began to pull the door open.

  The bandits across the plaza returned fire. Bullets peppered the walls of the office. The heavy door was ripped from the tall deputy’s hand. Blye’s assistant, Deputy Miles, stumbled back through the doorway and fell to the floor, bleeding, multiple bullet wounds in his body.

  The firing stopped. A horse screamed. Deputy Garrett stuck his head out of the open doorway, checking to see if any of the other marshals were alive.

  Sandy grabbed the man and pulled him back into the room just as two more shots were fired. The bullets entered the room, one striking a wall, the other shattering an oil lamp. Thankfully it hadn’t been lit.

  “Careful! Don’t shoot up my office!” Wickee shouted as he ran towards the open door.

  “Get that door!” Sandy yelled. He reached down and grabbed the arm of Deputy Miles who was still lying in the threshold. He dragged the dying man inside as Tom ran past the opening and closed the heavy door.

  He got it shut just before Sheriff Wickee reached it. The sheriff threw his shoulder into the door, but the latch held. The door was a solid one. None of the bullets that had struck it during the first volley had passed through the wood. For once, the sheriff’s preparedness was in their favor. When Jeb had built the jailhouse, he had built it to withstand a mob.

  Tom grunted as he lifted a thick board to bar the door. It settled into place, held by two iron brackets. “He ain’t getting’ in.”

  “Yeah, but we’re trapped in here!” Katie said.

  “Hey, Tucker! You alright in there?” yelled Jeb from outside the door.

  Luke fired at the door. His bullet struck where he imagined Jeb might be on the other side.

  “Don’t make holes in the door!” Tom said.

  “I don’t think it went through,” Sandy replied.

  There was laughter in the plaza outside. “I’m afraid there’s been a catastrophe out here,” Jeb said. “Some wild desperadoes shot down all the marshals.”

  “You’ll hang for this, Wickee!” shouted Deputy Garrett, who was kneeling at the side of Deputy Miles.

  “I’m sure there’ll be an investigation. I’ll be properly horrified that that horrible man, Santos Alvarez, attacked with a large force of men and murdered the Chief Marshal and his brave deputies. I’ll send out a telegraph tomorrow and when men come to investigate, they’ll find a town in mourning and a bandit chief hanged, along with the three members of the Red Star Gang who helped him!”

  Tom, Sandy and Luke looked at each other and for once they were speechless. Katie slumped to the ground. Deputy Garret grasped the hand of Deputy Miles and wept.

  “Nothing to say?” the sheriff yelled and the plaza erupted in laughter. His voice softened. “Sandy, before you die I do want you to know I was sorry to hear about your momma. I always liked Elizabeth-Ann.”

  “You don’t get to talk about my momma. You don’t get to say her name!” Sandy shouted.

  “Alright now, that’s enough of that,” said an unfamiliar voice. The noise from outside muted down to a muffled rumble and Sandy couldn’t hear the sheriff’s mocking response.

  Sandy turned around and was startled by the sudden appearance of a strange gray-haired man in the middle of the room. His hair was parted down the center and his goatee was waxed and manicured. He wore an old-style green pinstriped suit and carried a fancy pipe in his hand. The smell of sweet tobacco smoke hung in the air.

  “We should talk about how you’re getting out of this alive,” the man said with an Irish accent and Sandy noticed a marshal’s badge on his chest.

  Pecos was just as surprised at the man’s appearance as Sandy. “What the hell’re you doin’, Constable?”

  Though Sandy didn’t know it, Luke’s and Tom’s backers were similarly startled.

  “What a stupid move,” said the Kid, from his perch on the edge of Jeb’s desk.

  The Constable didn’t reply to them directly. He approached the tall deputy who was still kneeling by the door. He was staring down at the body of Deputy Miles, which was no longer moving.

  The specter put a hand on his shoulder. “Poor lad’s moved on. What’s your name, Deputy?”

  The deputy looked at him in shocked confusion. His eyes focused in on the specter’s badge. “Pat. Uh, Deputy Pat Garrett, Sir.”

  “And how long have you been deputized?”

  “Three weeks, Sir. I wasn’t sure if this job was for me, but . . . Wait. Who are you?”

  The Constable nodded and tapped his pipe against the tall man’s temple. Deputy Garrett toppled to the floor. The specter turned to face the others. “There’s potential with that one. But he ain’t ready for what’s about to happen here.”

  “Who is this?” Katie demanded, pointing at him as she rose from the floor. “And why do the rest of you seem so much less surprised to see him than I am?”

  The Constable disappeared and reappeared suddenly behind her in a puff of smoke. “Sorry about this, missy,” he said and smacked the side of her head with his pipe. She collapsed silently.

  “We’ll wake them up later.” Zed walked over and pulled the sheriff’s fancy draperies over the room’s small window. He faced the others, placing the end of his pipe in his mouth. “Now you three should know by now who I am.”

  “A damned idiot, showing yourself to someone else’s prospect!” said the Stranger, his good eye glowing fiercely. “Get out of here! You’re done. Collect your prize.”

  The three Red Stars looked at each other, unwilling to talk to Blye’s backer and look crazy in front of the others. There was a series of muffled thuds at the door and they placed hands on their pistols in concern. Zed held out a calming hand.

  “It’ll hold for now. And they won’t try to shoot through it because the sheriff doesn’t want his precious office ruined.” The Constable noticed Tom’s wide eyes. “Yes, it’s been established. You can all see me. And to answer the questions of those still hiding, I’m aware of all that and I’m doing this anyway.”

  “What do you mean? Who’s hiding?” Tom asked, his face a mask of confusion. Was he talking about the Kid? Could he call out another backer like that?

  Zed rolled his eyes. “Wow, but the secrets are thick in this room. Come on, lads. The jig is up. If you don’t show yourselves, I’ll just tell ’em myself.”

  “Then we have a problem,” the Stranger said. A holster appeared at his hip and he drew a large revolver. Luke had never seen him do this before. The gun was made of black iron with a slight sheen of rust. It was archaic-looking, unlike any model he had seen before. “I won’t sit by while you break the laws we live by.”

  The Constable snorted. “We can have a shootout if you want, Stranger, but it’ll have to wait until this is over. We shoot now, your
prospects are dead and you start over anyway. What do the laws mean then?”

  Sandy and Tom stared at him with flummoxed glances. They saw him, but not who he was talking to. Had the specter gone mad with grief.

  “Fine!” said a voice, startling Luke and Sandy. The Kid made himself seen to them. He was sitting not two feet from Luke, wearing his Revolutionary War Uniform. He waved. “Hello, boys. I’ve known you since you were children. Sorry, Tommy,” he added with a shrug. “There was an agreement in place.”

  “Just a minute,” said Sandy pointing at the Kid and then at Tom in sudden comprehension. “So you . . ? Luke, do you have a backer, too?”

  Luke rose to his feet, not even registering the pain. He glared at the Stranger. “You knew this and didn’t tell me?” The specter didn’t reply. He still had his gun pointed at the Constable, his teeth bared.

  A gust of wind blew through the room as Pecos Bill appeared, standing next to Sandy, his cheek full of tobacco. “Come on, Stranger, there’s no use keeping this up any more.” He spat and scowled at Zed. “You could be bringin’ trouble on all of us, Constable.”

  With a growl, the Stranger put away his gun and made himself visible to the others. “Why are you doing this?”

  Sandy and Tom drew back at his fearsome appearance. His very presence radiated darkness.

  “Like I said before, what do the laws matter at this point?” Zed asked. “My lad’s dead, but you three still have the chance to save yours if you work together.”

  “All of us have backers!” said Tom with a wild grin. “This is great! And if I could strangle you, Kid, I would right now.”

  “So . . .” Sandy tried to process it, his mind going back trying to find clues to this being possible. Tom’s backer had said he’d known them since they were children. “How long has this been going on?”

  “I’ve known the Kid all my life,” Tom said, and it frustrated Sandy how happily he was taking this. “But I couldn’t tell you because you would’ve thought I was crazy. Was it like that for you?”

  “No!” Sandy said. “I’ve only known Pecos for seven months; just after that last big job. What about you, Luke?”

  Luke blinked. “Remember that time I saw the devil as a kid?” He pointed to the Stranger. “That was him. But he didn’t become my backer until years later. Just before that big job.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” Sandy asked Pecos.

  The wizened old cowboy scratched his scruffy jaw. “We talked about it long ago. Promised not to. And there are reasons. Good ones. Even though it don’t seem so smart now.”

  “How long ago?” Luke asked.

  Pecos looked at Tom and Luke. “It, uh, feels strange bein’ able to talk to you two boys. I . . . It was long ago. When you were young-uns. When we learned we were all plannin’ to stake our claims to three boys from the same town, we had a reconnoiter. Set up an agreement to stay out of each other’s way.”

  “Didn’t know you three would end up bein’ friends,” the Kid said. “That’s made things awkward.”

  “We did it out of necessity,” the Stranger said, his glare still on the Constable. “And it was fine until now.”

  “Fine was it?” Zed scoffed. “I suppose I can understand you worrying about the boys trying to kill each other once they knew about our competition, but how many problems has this caused?”

  “I have a question,” said Luke, raising his hand like he was back in his mother’s school room. “Since the Stranger won’t talk about it, maybe you will. What is this competition even about?”

  The Constable put his hands on his hips. “How could you not know? It was in the contract you signed. Didn’t you read it?”

  Luke’s hand lowered slowly. “Not . . . all of it.”

  Sandy scratched his head. “Lot of legal mumbo jumbo.”

  “I don’t like to read,” Tom said.

  “Unbelievable!” Zed said in exasperation.

  The door rattled again and voices could be heard coming from the jail as men peered in through the barred cell windows trying to see what was going on. Several of them had stuck rifles through the bars, but there was no angle for a clear shot. A couple of them fired anyway and Sandy shut the steel door between the office and the jail just to be safe.

  Zed sighed, rubbing his hands together. “Well we don’t have much time so it must be brief. Do one of you want to do the explaining?”

  “Well it ain’t a simple thing,” said Pecos.

  “Alright, I’ll tell it,” said the Kid, standing up on the table. His clothes vanished, leaving him briefly nude, before re-forming as deerskin leaving him dressed as an Apache warrior. “So long before us white men came, the Indian gods ran everythin’ over here. As long as their people believed in ’em, they thrived. Then in came all us greedy folk, killin’ ’em and takin’ over. And, since there was not enough folk left to worship ’em, their gods started decidin’ it was time to skedaddle.”

  “Gods?” Luke said with a snort. “What are you talking about?”

  “The witch said there are as many gods as there are beliefs,” Sandy said.

  “Witch?” Luke replied, turning to Sandy.

  “The point is,” said Pecos. “That when the old gods started movin’ on, there was room opened up for new ones.”

  “The question you should be askin’,” said the Stranger to Luke. He blew out a long funnel of smoke. “Is how someone becomes a god.”

  Luke’s back straightened. “How does someone become a god?”

  Pecos frowned and waved a gust of wind, dispersing the smoke. “Like with everythin’ in this world, it starts with human belief.”

  The Kid grunted in irritation. “I was goin’ somewhere here.”

  “You are all taking too long, I’m afraid,” said the Constable. “The situation is that there is room in the Pantheon of American Gods waiting to be filled. How one becomes a god is simple. First, they must become a legend. Second, they must die. Third they must find another mortal and make them a legend. Simple.”

  The three men cocked their heads and Tom spoke up. “Not simple. Who decides if someone’s a legend?”

  Zed waved a dismissive hand. “There is a whole organization, but that is not what you need to understand at the moment.”

  “They’re the ones who set the rules,” Pecos explained.

  “The point is,” said the Kid, “That here in the U.S. of A. there are legends croppin’ up all over the place, but there’s very few openings for new gods. That’s what the competition’s about.”

  “It’s very cutthroat, prospects killing prospects, and it’s getting worse,” said Zed. “Chuck and I have been watching it grow and it’s gonna be out of control soon.”

  “Because of things like this,” said the Stranger, glaring at the Constable again. “Folks breakin’ the laws. Again, Constable, you won. Why are you still here?”

  The eyes of the room settled back on Blye’s backer and now the boys understood. The Constable had made Blye a legend. Therefore, he could be joining the ranks of the new gods. The Stranger’s question was a valid one.

  “Because I don’t care about the laws anymore!” Zed replied, flames rising from the tobacco in his pipe. Startled, he removed the pipe from his mouth and blew them out. When he continued, his voice was thick with emotion. “Chuck was a son to me. As much as I want to move on from this half-life, be able to feel things again without making myself weak . . !” He swallowed. “But I can’t ignore Chuck’s dying desire. That lad died trying to get these people out of here alive. And I don’t want no non-legend without a backer like Jeb Wickee to get the best of him!”

  Surprisingly, the Stranger didn’t scoff at this explanation. His glare subsided. “What I don’t get, then, is how the boys knowing these things helps. You think Blye wanted them to understand this before they die?”

  “This ain’t about what these lads do or don’t understand. It’s about getting their bloody legends to get their thumbs out of their arses and keep th
em from dying!” Zed replied.

  “What do you expect them to do?” Tom asked his expression quizzical. He looked to his friends. “The Kid makes random stuff happen. What about yours?”

  “Mine scares people,” said Luke.

  Sandy shrugged. “Pecos can blow things around.”

  “That ain’t all I can do,” Pecos said with a scowl.

  Zed laughed. “You lads don’t even know what they’re capable of. You have three of the most powerful legends out there!” He pointed them out, one-by-one. “Pecos Bill; the hero so popular, folks are lining up to make up stories about him just to sell papers! The Kid; an impish menace so legendary in his day that outlaws all over the bloody continent name themselves after him. Then there’s the Stranger; an outlaw with a talent for causing fear and a knack for staying unknown. Even now that he’s dead, his legend still grows.” He raised shaking hands. “Ooh, folks still quake in their beds when they hear a stranger has come to town.”

  Luke looked at the Stranger askance. “So you’re stronger than you let on.”

  Zed laughed. “You bet he is. All legends are. We hold back, conserving our energy for when we might need it most, but these three? When word got ’round that they banded together and attached themselves to three talented friends in the same gang, the rest of the legends were shaking in their boots! Only reason you ain’t had other prospects gunning after you yet is because you’ve been quiet so far.”

  The Stranger’s anger was back. Black smoke boiled from his mouth and when he spoke, his very tongue glowed from behind his teeth. “We’re supposed to guide these boys to become legends on their own! Not do it for ’em!”

  “Yes! That’s what the laws say!” Zed replied, walking right up to him and glaring back into his smoking visage. “And how about that tussle in Luna Gorda? Did you sit back and let him do it all alone then?”

  “I might’ve done more than usual, but I stayed within my bounds,” the Stranger growled.

  “Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t,” Zed said. “And don’t misunderstand me. I agree with the laws normally. Legends going about using their powers to the fullest extent would bring chaos to the West that would rival the days of ancient Greece.” He folded his arms. “But for you to hold back now, with your charges surrounded would mean their certain capture. They’ll end up hanging from that monstrosity of a noose. Are you willing to let that happen?” He looked at the Kid and Pecos. “Are you?”