Battle

by Tom Abrahams

  She could smell him in her memory. The oily musk scent that made her feel safe. His features had muddied with time. She recalled his skin. It was smooth and brown, with waves of thin black hair across the backs of his forearms. She could picture his pronounced nose and wide nostrils. He’d joked he could suck in a bird like a jet engine if he inhaled deeply enough.

  His eyes were sad. No matter how much he smiled or laughed, his eyes revealed a melancholy he’d done his best to hide.

  His shoulders were broad. She could sit on them when she was much younger and bounce around from spot to spot, reaching the books on the highest shelves.

  These days, she couldn’t put all the pieces together. Like a puzzle missing its middle, she couldn’t see his face. When she tried, it only angered her.

  Dallas nudged her from her daydream. “Hey,” he whispered. “I see them.”

  Lou blinked and refocused. On the horizon was a plume of orange dust rising like smoke following a moving fire. They were coming. Fifteen of them, maybe more. They were galloping toward town on Fourth in a posse wide enough to stretch beyond the edges of the road.

  She reached next to her and picked up a purse-sized rectangular mirror. The plastic frame was warped and the glass featured a large spiderweb crack running from one edge to the other. Lou rubbed her thumb across the fracture and then dropped her arm over the edge of the building, facing west. She tilted the mirror, the sun glinting off the mirror with bright streams of light. A flash responded from a building a half block away. She rolled onto her other side and repeated the signal to the east. Four streets away, between Lou and the approaching gang, a flicker of light acknowledged her signal.

  “It’s happening,” she said to Dallas.

  When she pushed herself to her feet and started to move, Dallas caught her wrist and held it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked about your dad. It’s none of my business.”

  Lou sighed and sucked in a pensive breath. “It’s okay,” she said. “When this is over, I’ll tell you about him. He might have liked you. Or he would have acted like he did, at least.”

  Dallas let go of her arm, rose to his feet, and followed Lou to the narrow staircase leading them down the building and to their next position.

  * * *

  Norma Gallardo slid the mirror into her dress pocket and opened the front door to the long U-shaped building in which she was holed up. She’d been there since prior to sunrise and her eyes were heavy with sleep. She could feel the swell under her eyes when she blinked, and the taste of last night’s dinner was on her tongue.

  It hadn’t been easy to sleep knowing what today might hold. She’d tried. Lord knew she’d tried. But the more she’d thought about her lack of sleep, the harder it was to doze off.

  Rudy had awakened her before dawn. They’d ridden to town together and then split up as Marcus had instructed. Although she had protested, she’d lost.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with Marcus’s plan, as it were. It was that she didn’t like being separated from her husband, and neither was she thrilled about being alone.

  The two women who boarded in their home had stayed behind. They were taking care of the property and, in the event everything went to pot, they’d keep it. Rudy was with Marcus; Lou was with the stranger, Dallas; and a couple of Marcus’s neighbors who volunteered to help were elsewhere in town, readying for the coming storm.

  Norma held the door open for a moment, standing on the uneven threshold while she soaked in the midday sun that shone directly overhead. The breeze fluttered a tattered nylon Texas flag on a pole across the street. The rusted pole was mounted to the façade of a one-story house and hung at more than its intended forty-five degrees. The white star at the center of the flag was rust colored and the edges of the banner were frayed and torn.

  Norma stepped from the doorway and south along the walkway that led to the street. The breeze whipped past her, blowing her hair across her eyes, and she combed the strands off her face with a rake of her fingers. When she reached the street, she stepped to its center and straddled the single yellow line. There was a dark red splotch on the asphalt between her feet. She stared at it for a moment and thought about the duel Marcus had won five days earlier.

  Was the stain from that fight or another? Was it a few days old, a few weeks, a year? She couldn’t know. There were too many fights to count, too many dead to remember.

  She swallowed hard, enjoying for a moment the cool swirl of air on her face and neck. The chill was refreshing and life-affirming. Her hands rested on her hips above a thick belt that hung loosely on her trim waist.

  On one side, the wide, worn saddle-colored leather held a nine-millimeter. The other holster contained a solar-powered handheld transceiver. Norma adjusted the buckle below her navel and narrowed her gaze east along Fourth Street. Above, she heard the echo of a trapdoor slamming shut on the roof of the old county courthouse. Beyond the buildings at the far end of the street, where it curved gently north toward the highway, were puffs of orange dust.

  Norma glanced over her shoulder and beyond the U-shaped building in which she’d spent her morning. There were crops of dead scrub oaks and mesquite. The trees resembled zombie hands reaching toward the sky from their graves. Dotting the spaces between the tress were modest homes. Some of them, maybe one in every five or six, was occupied. The rest were in disrepair and home to whatever rodents managed to eke out a subsistence. The square grid of streets wrapped boxes that all looked the same to Norma. Each of them featured the dead or dying trees, knee-high weeds whose color varied between pale green and wheat, and eight to ten of those single-story houses.

  Baird was on the verge of being a ghost town. A couple of hundred people were all that stood between its place on a withered map and extinction. Yet none of them, save a couple, were willing to fight for it. They were tucked in their houses, hiding from the advancing army.

  This wasn’t about them, they’d said defiantly as she worked to recruit them. This was about Marcus Battle. This was his fight. He’d brought it on himself, they’d said. A life of violence begot violence.

  Norma hadn’t disagreed with them. They’d been right, of course. Marcus was a violent man who’d invited as much gunfire as he’d deterred. He was outlaw and lawman at the same time. While the townsfolk were happy enough to hide behind his bullet-riddled body for protection, they weren’t about to join him and stand by his side.

  Maybe if Rudy became the sheriff, it wouldn’t be so bad. He didn’t have the territory-wide reputation Marcus had. He didn’t court duels with fame-seekers or revenge-minded sociopaths. He was a quiet family man who might be exactly what her town needed.

  The thoughts chased each other through her mind as she stood there, her arms folded across her chest. Marcus was a man who couldn’t know peace, no matter how much he claimed to want it. As long as he was here, nobody in Baird could sleep easy. It was a paradox, of course, too much to process with armed horsemen on their way.

  A wisp of wind danced across her face. It was coming. If Marcus’s plan worked the way he’d designed it, she’d be the one to end it.

  * * *

  Marcus lay flat on the red roof of a single-story house, his belly on the mildew-stained shingles. It was noon. Somehow, he’d known the man who called himself Junior would be coming at noon.

  He and Rudy were four blocks east of Lou and Dallas. Rudy was on the ground in front of the house, Fifty lying at his feet, his big head resting on his meaty paws. They were on a dirt road that ran perpendicular to Fourth Street. A gust of northerly wind chilled the air. Marcus pulled his jacket collar up around his neck and flexed his fingers to fight off the stiffness that came with the chill.

  Rudy craned his neck to look up at Marcus. “Except for the fellas on the overpass, we’re all lined up along the same corridor,” he said, “and our lookout just left her post.”

  Marcus picked up a canteen from the roof and popped its top with his thumb. He slugged a long pu
ll of warm, metallic-tasting water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Is that a question or an observation?” he asked, and tossed the canteen to Rudy.

  Rudy caught it, brought it close to his lips, and held it there. “Both,” he said, and took a healthy swig.

  “Yes. We know they’ll ride into the middle of town. It’s what everybody does. This guy, Junior, isn’t going to be any different.”

  Rudy poured some water into his cupped hand and offered it to Fifty. The dog greedily lapped it up. Rudy offered him another taste. Fifty wagged his tail as he drank.

  “We know they’ve got three times the people,” said Rudy. “They’re on horses; we’re on foot. You still haven’t told me why that is.”

  Marcus took the canteen and capped it. “We’re easier targets if we’re on horses. Plus, we know this town; they don’t. We have the advantage.”

  Rudy frowned. “It’s three to one.”

  “Yeah,” said Marcus. “But I think we’re all good for three kills.”

  “Even Norma?”

  “Especially Norma.”

  Marcus craned his neck past Rudy and motioned toward the overpass beyond their line of sight. “Those guys are going to be a big help.”

  “I hope so,” said Rudy.

  “This is going to be over fast,” said Marcus. “I’m telling you.”

  Rudy smiled nervously. “Lou kindly reminded me last night that the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral only lasted thirty seconds. I doubted her. She put me in my place with some inconvenient facts she had stored in that mind of hers.”

  Marcus chuckled. “She tends to do that.”

  Both men laughed for a moment. It eased the tension. Marcus flexed his fingers again and readied his rifle.

  “Is this plan of yours going to work?” asked Rudy.

  “Yes,” Marcus said. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last five years, I’ll admit that. My soldiering isn’t gonna win me any medals. But this time I’m on point. I think the plan gives our people the best chance of living.”

  Rudy’s features hardened. His muscles visibly tensed. His voice flattened with an unfamiliar tone.

  “It better. My wife is alone. I know she’s the last line of defense, but if your plan doesn’t work, she’s exposed. If anything happens to her, I might be the one who puts a bullet in you, friend or not.”

  Marcus nodded. “Fair enough. But if I’m wrong, you might be shooting my corpse.”

  Rudy’s eyes shifted to the east. The rumble of the horses was audible now.

  * * *

  Neither Blake Peele nor Aaron Cay were fighters. Both were better with wrenches and screwdrivers than with mechanized weapons. But they were willing and they were available.

  When Marcus plotted his defense, he decided to place Blake and Aaron on the Interstate 20 overpass that ran north of town. They’d be in a perfect position to snipe the advancing menace as it veered from the freeway and traveled the business extension on to Fourth Street.

  Even if their shots missed every one of the possible targets, they’d be both a warning and a distraction to Junior and his men. If they managed to hit any of them, all the better. Plus, being farther away from the action minimized the chances of them getting shot and killed.

  “Are these sniper rifles?” Aaron had asked when Marcus tutored them on the particulars of their weapons.

  “Any rifle in the hand of a sniper is a sniper rifle,” Marcus had replied. “Since neither of you are snipers, no. But they’ll do the job.”

  Two days later the men found themselves lying prone on the overpass, wanna-be sniper twins, rifles pressed to their shoulders, sweat beading their foreheads, their mouths dry, their hearts pounding.

  “You saw the signal?” asked Aaron.

  “Yeah,” said Blake. “She flashed it. I saw it.”

  Aaron lifted his head from the scope and panned the horizon with his eyes. “They’re coming. Do you see them?”

  Blake lifted his head and silently searched for the bad guys. His eyes moved past trees and across rooftops. Nothing at first. Then he pointed. “There,” he whispered.

  Aaron followed Blake’s finger to a hazy cloud of orange dust. It reminded him of smoke from a slow-moving locomotive.

  Neither said anything. Both fidgeted. Blake kept checking and rechecking the magazine in his rifle. Aaron was chewing on a weed, twirling it around in his mouth with his fingers.

  Blake exhaled loudly, as if blowing the puffball free of a dandelion. “Okay,” he said resolutely. “This is it.”

  The orange locomotive moved westward, closer to the edge of town. Both men knew when they were to open fire. Both men were to pick off men at the back of the group first, make them scatter.

  “On three,” said Aaron.

  “On three,” Blake echoed.

  The amateurs did what Marcus had taught them. They didn’t worry about scope adjustments other than focus, they didn’t account for wind speed or slope. They aimed, they pressed their fingers to their triggers, and prepared themselves to apply pressure.

  “One,” said Aaron.

  The posse was clearer to both. They could make out horses, men bouncing in their saddles.

  “Two.”

  The posse slowed. The men kept their crosshairs on their chosen targets.

  “Three.”

  Then the targets did something they didn’t expect. They headed north.

  “Hold,” said Aaron.

  “What are they doing?” Blake wondered aloud.

  Aaron lifted his head. “I don’t know. What do we do?”

  A bead of sweat thickened and ran the length of Blake’s nose. “I don’t know.”

  Aaron lowered his head again, holding his eye to the scope. “I say we shoot at ’em anyhow.”

  “Which group?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I don’t know,” said Blake, exasperation in his voice.

  “The ones coming at us,” said Aaron. “The guys coming north. I say we hit them.”

  * * *

  Junior Barbas sat high in his saddle, his body bouncing rhythmically with the gallop of his horse. There was a breeze at his face that numbed his cheeks and dried his eyes, but he was barely conscious of it. His eyes and his mind were focused on the narrow, rutted street ahead. It led straight into the heart of Baird and to the place where he would avenge the wounds inflicted on him and the death of his father.

  He could picture Marcus Battle’s face. It was plastered in his mind. He could feel the unexpected punch and burn of the shots to his arms, smell the sour odor of his father’s decomposing remains. He could taste the briny sweat that dripped into his mouth as he pushed his body past what his muscles and nerves told him was possible.

  He tightened his grip on the reins and surveyed the landscape ahead of them. Bumppo rode at his side, his horse keeping pace. Another hired gun rode to his other side. Behind them, the remaining fifteen mercenaries galloped in an amoebic, undisciplined blob.

  Junior had instructed them to kill anything or anyone they saw. Men, women, children, horses, goats, dogs. They were all fair game.

  “Makes it easier if you ain’t gotta guess about what to shoot,” he’d said.

  As the southwesterly running road curved straight west, Junior raised his hand above his head and slowed the horses to a walk. He signaled for the men to arm themselves and pointed. A group of men rode north. He pointed to the left and another posse rode south.

  “They won’t expect us to split up,” Junior said to Bumppo. “They’ll think we’re all headed straight up Main Street.”

  “You want me to lead one of the other groups?” asked Bumppo. “We can meet on the other end of town and—”

  “Naw,” Junior said and then winked. “You stay with me. I wanna keep an eye on you.”

  Bumppo frowned. “Whatever you want,” he said disapprovingly. “You’re the money man.”

  “Damn straight,” said Junior. “Now let’s do this.”
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br />   The moment he turned his attention to the road ahead, the crack of rifle shots echoed. A second volley of shots, one after the other, snapped and reverberated like rolling thunder.

  Junior yelled at Bumppo, “You and me! Now!”

  He ordered the remaining four men to hold their position and kicked his horse into a gallop. Another thunderclap of shots ripped across the sky as he rode quickly to his men. Not seventy-five yards ahead, he spotted two of them bleeding out in the street. Neither of them moved and their horses were gone. A third was sitting awkwardly in his saddle, grasping his neck. Blood leaked and sprayed with the dying man’s pulse.

  The three that had moved north were off their horses and hiding behind the façades of buildings on either side of the street. Junior drew his rifle from his scabbard and slammed it against his shoulder. He scanned the distance as a round zinged past him an instant before he heard the percussion of the shot.

  “There,” he said, nodding with his head and directing Bumppo to their targets. “On the overpass. You see ’em?”

  Junior narrowed his eye at the targets, a pair of men lying low on the overpass north of them. Neither presented an easy shot. He drew in a deep breath, settled his boots in the stirrups, and picked the one to the left.

  “You take the one to the right,” he said to Bumppo.

  Junior put his finger on the trigger, centering his aim on the target. He applied pressure at the same time he saw a muzzle flash fill the optics. The rifle blasted its round, the butt kicking hard against his shoulder. He kept his eye to the scope, watching for the result. Then he saw it, a spray of pink, and the target slumped forward, flattening its profile against the road. The shot from the target rumbled across the sky.