Badlanders

by David Robbins

  The hallway was quiet. Nor were there any sounds from below. That in itself was ominous.

  Jericho paused at the landing so Edana and Neal could catch up. “Remember, not too close.” He didn’t want a slug to pass through him and hit them. Taking a breath, he descended. He went slowly, a step at a time. To rush would be rash and prove fatal.

  No one tried to stop them at the next landing or the one after that or any of the others. He was almost to the bottom when he caught whispering from the lobby.

  Stopping, Jericho looked over his shoulder.

  Edana’s dress was smeared scarlet with Neal’s blood. Neal was pale but holding his own.

  “Give me my six-gun and I’ll help.”

  “Keep him here,” Jericho said to Edana. “No matter what you hear, don’t let him go out there until you hear me holler.”

  “What if . . .” Edana didn’t finish.

  “In that case it won’t matter.” Jericho smiled to encourage her, looked Neal in the eye, and nodded.

  “Jericho . . .”

  Jericho took the last steps on the fly and dived through the doorway. Somewhere the Sharps thundered and the slug thudded into the jamb. In midair Jericho banged off a shot at the partner of the man he’d shot upstairs, and the gunny grabbed for his throat. Coming down on his side, Jericho fired at Stimms, who was over by the front door. He rolled, pushed to a knee, six-guns crashing all around him. He felt pain in his left arm, but it didn’t stop him from shooting Tuck, who was over by the counter. His hat was sent flying. Grat rose from behind a chair, and Jericho sent a slug into him. Guns were still going off. He launched himself at a settee. It wasn’t much cover, but it was better than nothing. He emptied Neal’s Colt into Stimms, shot another gun hand by a pillar. A sledgehammer seemed to slam into his back, spinning him. Grat was still on his feet. Jericho fanned a shot, hitting him smack between the eyes.

  In the sudden silence, Jericho’s ears rang. He slowly rose. Things were fuzzy, his vision not what it should be. Grat and Tuck and Stimms and the man by the wall and the other one were all down and none were moving. He had begun to reload when a revolver blasted, and the next he knew, he was on the floor and his right wrist hurt and his hands were empty. The fuzziness was worse.

  The head and shoulders of Scar Wratner floated into view. Scar was smirking.

  “Good. I get to finish you myself.”

  Jericho struggled to focus. The words had come as from down a long tunnel, and Scar himself was fading in and out.

  “Any last words?” Scar taunted.

  Abruptly Jericho’s vision was crystal clear. He saw Scar’s smirk, and the dark barrel of a revolver thrust near to Scar’s ear. Scar went to turn, but the revolver went off and the other side of Scar’s head erupted like a volcano.

  Jericho felt gore splatter him and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, Neal was crouched at his side, holding the revolver.

  “Grat’s,” Neal said, wagging it.

  “I’m obliged.”

  “How bad?” Neal asked.

  “Bad.” Jericho wanted to rise but couldn’t get his arms to work as they should. “Where’d your lady get to?”

  “She went for the new sawbones.”

  “Didn’t know they had one,” Jericho said, and a veil of blackness fell.

  • • •

  The funeral was small and simple.

  Edana buried her sister next to her father. When the parson finished the eulogy and moved off, the few punchers who had attended went with him. She stepped to the grave and stared down at the coffin, and a tear formed. It rolled down her cheek and off her chin. “How did it come to this?”

  Neal put his left arm around her. His right was still bandaged, and he was under doctor’s orders to use it as little as possible for a couple of weeks. “I never meant it to.”

  “I know,” Edana said. “She brought it on herself, I suppose, taking up with a man like Adams.”

  “We dig our own graves, ma’am,” Jericho said from the other side of Isolda’s. He had more bandages than both of them combined.

  “I reckon so,” Edana said.

  Neal smiled. “Listen to you. You’re startin’ to sound like one of us.”

  Edana gazed out across the ranch. Longhorns were grazing, and beyond, the buttes reared red in the afternoon sun. “I am one of you now. I’d never go back East, even if you were to ask me to.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that happenin’,” Neal said.

  Breathing deep, Edana put her arm around his waist. “It gets into your blood,” she said.

  “What does?”

  Edana motioned at the Badlands. “The West. It’s more than just a place. It’s a feeling that settles in your heart and becomes part of you.”

  “Amen to that,” Neal Bonner said.