Between Hell and Texas

by Ralph Cotton

  “Dawson…you bastard!” said Lematte, paying no attention to the flow of blood spreading over the bar top. “I still want to know—” His words stopped in his chest. He started all over. “I still want…to know, why?” His eyes turned flat and lifeless. He sank until his chin stopped on the edge of the bar top and stayed there, holding him suspended above a reflecting pool of blood. Dawson stood staring at his lifeless face for a moment. Finally, in a quiet tone, giving the only honest answer he could think of, he said, “Beats me, Lematte.”

  He turned and walked out onto the street, knowing that he had only one shot left in his Colt and knowing that somewhere Mad Albert Ash waited in the shadows. “It was never between you and me, Ash,” he said aloud, his eyes searching first in one direction, then another. “We can call it off right here, right now. Both of us can ride away.”

  “You don’t really think that, do you, Dalton?” The voice came softly, from every direction, from no direction, the words of some demon apparition, whispered from a lower plane.

  Dawson froze, only his eyes moving, searching slowly. He dared not speak. He waited for the next word and wondered if it would come before or after the killing shot from Ash’s gun.

  “I’m the one who killed the young drover,” Ash said. “I killed the old rancher, too.” There was no face, no direction, only the voice. “You could never forgive all that, could you, Dalton? Not after having saved my life. Think about it. Saving my life sort of makes you responsible for everybody I’ve killed since then, doesn’t it?”

  “Step out, Ash,” said Dawson. “Let’s get it done. I know you’re not a coward like Lematte. Show yourself!”

  “Well spoken!” Ash chuckled. “Tell me, Dalton, are you a gunman now?”

  “I am,” said Dawson. “Now come out, face me!”

  “I just repaid you for saving my life, Dalton,” said Ash, “By not killing you when you stepped into my gun sight. Does that make us even now?”

  In the distance Dawson saw the rising dust of many horses racing toward Somos Santos. He knew it would be the Double D riders. He wanted to finish this before they rode in. This fight belonged to him, nobody else. “We’re even now,” said Dawson, “Step out.” Blood from the graze on his forearm soaked into his sleeve and dripped from his shirt cuff.

  Ash appeared from the corner of the littered alleyway, wiping a hand across his mouth. “Speaking through a drainpipe is an old trick I learned years ago. Have you never heard of it, Dalton?”

  “No,” said Dawson. “And I’m betting you haven’t either.”

  “I hope you do realize that you’ve only got one shot left in that pistol,” said Ash, grinning. “Not that that should make you nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous, Ash,” said Dawson, slipping his Colt into his holster, getting ready for a one-on-one showdown. “I’ll live or die here today…I’m not nervous about it, are you?” He reached out to drop his Winchester to the ground.

  “Me? Nervous?” said Ash. “Well I hardly think so—”

  His words stopped short as his eyes lit in surprise and his right hand went for his Colt.

  Dawson had not dropped the Winchester. Instead of turning it loose he had let the stock slide through his hand until his hand reached the trigger, then he swung the barrel up, fast, cocking the hammer and letting it fall, in one swift split second.

  All of Ash’s speed came into play at once, his hand closing and raising his Colt in a streak of gunmetal. But he saw it was too late. The rifle shot nailed him where his ribs met in his chest. His breath left him and he staggered in place, his pistol hanging limply in his hand. He tried to speak but there was no air in him to form his words. He dropped to his knees.

  “You should have seen that coming,” said Dawson, watching Ash rock back and forth wide-eyed, then pitch face forward in the dirt. He walked in close, took Ash’s gun from his hand and shoved it down into his belt. He walked back to the middle of the street and watched the rise of dust grow closer as he punched out his empty cartridges, let them fall to the street, and replaced them.

  Along the boardwalk he felt the eyes of the townsfolk on him. But that was something he’d gotten used to now. He walked to the horse he’d ridden in on and shoved his Winchester down into the rifle boot, realizing now that he could have ridden Stony to town after all…now that he’d been given this day. Beneath his feet he felt the first low, distant rumble of the horses’ pounding hoofs. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. He thought about Suzzette Sherley, and Rosa Shaw, two women whose lives had brushed up against his briefly. Two women who were now dead. One, a woman he loved so much that his insides had ached for her; the other, a woman who loved him so much she had given her life to save him.

  As he walked along the dirt street he forced himself not to think about the dead. Instead he thought about the living, about Carmelita and himself. He could see Carmelita’s eyes and feel her touch and smell the scent of her on the warm Texas wind. It dawned on him how badly he longed to be with her right then, with her and nobody else…at that very moment…for no other reason than to live out the rest of this day.

  Ralph Cotton has been an ironworker, a second mate on a commercial barge, a teamster, a horse trainer, and a lay minister with the Lutheran church. Visit his Web site at www.RalphCotton.com.