Haints Stay

by Colin Winnette

  He was not.

  He had first thought the shots were a kind of warning from the barkeep to ease off the door, but as they continued he realized they were coming from down the road.

  He spied two of the deputies huddled behind a cart and a barrel out in front of the jail.

  The windows were broken. He could see the piles of glass shining up from the porch.

  “He’s shooting from inside,” said the doctor.

  “Inside of what ?” said Alice.

  “The jail.”

  “The sheriff ?”

  “I highly doubt it,” said the doctor.

  The bartender cracked the door then and ushered them in. The shots continued. They kept their bodies low.

  “Why did they bring this on us ?” said the bartender. He kept his hand on the small of Alice’s back, pressing her to the floor.

  The doctor reached from the floor and batted his hand about the surface of the bar until it found the edges of a bottle. He brought it down and examined the label, then uncorked it with his teeth.

  Outside the jail, one deputy reloaded while the other kept his gun on the door. Sugar was moving around inside, but hadn’t fired in some time. The sheriff must have been dead. The other deputies were dead. The youngest, their dear friend, was gut shot and slung over the splintered railing that marked off the jail’s porch. It bowed toward the earth. At any moment it would come down.

  The deputy finished loading and looked to the other from behind his cart. The other deputy was curled up behind his barrel, bravely peeking out every so often to determine what they were up against. They summoned their courage. They spotted the strength in one another’s eyes, and the fears. They would stand together. They would avenge their partners and protect this small town. They took their pistols into each hand, gave one another a final look, then rose to rush the doorway.

  They moved several crouched steps before Sugar stepped onto the porch and fired upon them. One received bullets to the chest and gut. The other, a bullet to each leg. Scrambling on his back like a beetle, he gathered one of his guns from where it had fallen and brought it up to meet Sugar. Sugar kicked it from the man’s hand and sent a stray bullet into the body of the young deputy slung over the porch. The railing rocked with the impact and came cracking, splintering toward the earth, where it deposited the limp body of the young ranger.

  Sugar put a boot on the deputy. Sugar was still naked from the waist down. The deputy decided in the brief moment it took for Sugar to arrange himself above him that he would tell the killer everything he wanted to know. When Sugar asked, who are you ? who sent you ? what’s my crime ?, the deputy would proudly spill his guts.

  “Which way is the desert ?” said Sugar, pointing out the various paths leading from town. “Which way the woods ?”

  The deputy nervously pointed to one path, winding its way past the jail and on out toward a wasteland of red rocks and spiked lizards. Then he thumbed in the direction that lay before Sugar, leading down through the heart of town and back out the other side.

  “That way is the woods,” he said.

  Sugar was loading his pistol.

  The deputy could not help but notice that, without his pants, without his unders, this man looked entirely female.

  “Thank you,” said Sugar. He fired one shot into the eye of the deputy then retreated to the jail to retrieve his clothing.

  When the gunshots ceased, Martha worked her way to the window. The three of them, Martha, Mary, and Bird, were on the floor of the inn. The innkeeper had been kind enough to bring them in at the sound of gunfire. When the shots kept up, they took to the ground to avoid stray bullets and being spotted. The innkeeper received an unexpected end after being met with a ricocheted bullet sent through one of the front windows. She was bleeding and propped up against the fireplace, not long for this world.

  Against the pleading of Mary, who was clutching Martha’s hand and curled up against her body, Martha rose and went to the porch to retrieve her rifle.

  The killer emerged from the jail, buckling his belt with a sinister blankness. He was too far down the main drag to get a good shot, so Martha stepped back in to check on the children.

  “The man who killed our savior is out there,” explained Martha.

  “How do you know ?” said Mary.

  “How many murderers could be out in this area wreaking havoc at once ?” said Martha.

  Bird did not hazard to answer that question.

  “That is the survivor of those men who shot John,” said Martha. “He is still bleeding from the wound I left him with.”

  “What are you going to do ?” said Mary.

  “I think I’ll wait until he’s worked his way down here a bit and try to put one in his back,” said Martha.

  “That’s cowardly,” said Mary.

  “He’s a killer,” said Martha. “There’s no sense in giving him an opportunity to express himself.”

  Sugar was rounding up pistols and bullets from the dead men scattered in front of the jail. The rest of the town was shuttered and gathered to the ground.

  The sheriff had taken the child somewhere and was vanished now. It was likely he was hiding in an alleyway or behind a box somewhere. He would be waiting for Sugar to make an effort to pass. The safest choice, as far as leaving went, would be to take to the desert. To skip the walk through town and its possible dangers. To take to open territory, with the knowledge that he would be hunted.

  But Sugar did not want to die in the desert, without food or water, as a hunted man. He stepped a straight line down the middle of the road, which led through the center of town. He watched each window as he passed. The first building was shed-like, possibly home to some tools or some dry goods. He couldn’t tell from the facade. The bar was next. He saw movement from deep within, but nothing directly at the window. He stepped onto the porch and pulled the hammer back on his pistol.

  He opened the door and saw the bar was empty. He heard nose-breathing. Maybe a hand over a mouth. He moved toward the center of the room and then there was a shot from outside.

  “Come out,” said the sheriff. He was alone, a rifle at his shoulder and a pistol in his hand. “You’ve had your fun. We’ve got men posted on the rooftops and we will burn that building down to bring you out.”

  “Where’s the child ?” yelled Sugar.

  He heard something then from behind the bar and turned slightly to greet it.

  “Come out,” said the sheriff. “Toss out the guns and come out.”

  “And what ?”

  “And nothing,” said the sheriff.

  Sugar stepped forward and set himself at the edge of the bar’s window. The tables around him were still stacked with chairs, as if it were the end of the day. But the door had been unlocked and there was movement from within. So someone was in the room with him, or someones, and they were keeping to themselves, at least for now. He peeked around the edge of the glass and saw the sheriff standing there, alone, his gun held firm on the exterior of the bar.

  Sugar examined the bottles lined up behind the bar, checking for reflection.

  “Now,” said the sheriff.

  “Don’t think I will,” said Sugar.

  “We will burn you out,” said the sheriff.

  “You may do that, but you’ll be burning whoever’s in here with me.”

  “Who’s in there with you ?” said the sheriff. His tone was flat, uncurious.

  “Looks like a young child and two old men,” said Sugar.

  “You’re a liar,” said the sheriff.

  The bartender rose up then, his hands above his head.

  “He’s not lying, Sheriff,” yelled the bartender.

  Sugar trained a second gun on him.

  “I believe you are in there, Lloyd, but not the child,” said the sheriff, from outside.

  “You should believe him,” said Lloyd.

  “Son of a bitch,” said the doctor, rising from behind the bar as well. He cast a punitive gaze at hi
s feet then redirected his energy on Sugar.

  “There is no child,” said the doctor.

  “Roy ?” said the sheriff.

  “Yes,” said the doctor.

  “It’s a little early,” said the sheriff.

  “Bold words for the only man among the four of us who has failed to perform his job this morning,” said the doctor.

  “I am doing my job,” said the sheriff.

  “That’s enough,” said Sugar. “Bring me the child.”

  “There is no child,” said the doctor.

  “I can see her reflection in the glasses,” said Sugar.

  Alice flinched but did not bring herself up.

  “You are mistaken,” said the doctor.

  “Bring her up and over here now or I will kill you both and fetch her myself.”

  “What’s going on in there ?” yelled the sheriff.

  “He is threatening our lives,” said the doctor.

  “You are drunk and a fool,” said Sugar. “Protect that child’s life by bringing it to me now.”

  The bartender gripped Alice by the arm and lifted her.

  “You son of a bitch,” said the doctor.

  “I do not want to go,” said Alice.

  The bartender did not speak but dragged her from behind the bar and over to Sugar.

  “If I see any more movement in there,” said the sheriff, “I am going to open fire.”

  “You’ll kill innocent men or a child,” said the doctor, “if you do so.”

  “Quit moving around, then,” yelled the sheriff.

  Sugar took Alice into his grip and pulled her against him. He fired on the doctor and brought him down. Alice tried to run but Sugar held strong. He kicked open the door and stepped onto the porch, his gun barrel pressed into Alice’s blond hair, singeing it and sending out the most awful-smelling smoke.

  “No,” she said.

  The doctor was fishing for a rifle or weapon beneath the bar.

  The sheriff stepped back to account for Sugar’s progression.

  “Let her go,” said the sheriff.

  “Where’s the baby ?” said Sugar. “I want the baby and I will go.”

  “Well, I did not expect that,” said the sheriff, “but you cannot have it.”

  “Where is it ?”

  “You’ll let her go and then I’ll bring you to it,” said the sheriff.

  “No,” said Sugar.

  “I’ll not have you threaten that girl’s life,” said the sheriff.

  “There is no threat if you do as I ask,” said Sugar.

  “I won’t,” said the sheriff. “Not as you ask it.”

  The doctor found a club perched on a row of small hooks hanging under the far end of the bar. He lifted it into his hands and gave it a few limp test swings. It was top-heavy and awkward.

  “You will,” said Sugar.

  Neither man flinched. The mouth of Sugar’s pistol barrel was cooling against the head of the child. The sheriff was aiming at the left side of Sugar’s chest. It was unprotected by the girl’s body, and it was possible he could puncture a lung or even strike the man in the heart if he was steady enough. He pulled the hammer back and ordered Sugar to release the girl.

  Sugar did not oblige and so the sheriff exhaled, steadied his hand, shut one eye to aim at Sugar’s chest, and fired.

  Alice collapsed against Sugar, who stumbled back but did not fall. At first she did not bleed and then she bled profusely from the forehead. The sheriff flinched and Sugar took only a brief look at the girl before firing his counter. The sheriff took two bullets before collapsing to one knee. He raised his pistol and fired again but hit no mark. Sugar, still clutching the limp body of the girl, stepped toward the sheriff and fired again and again as he did so. Bullets ripped at the man who slumped forward onto his bent and planted leg, before tipping over into the dirt. The doctor sprung from the bar then, swinging his club and aiming in a sort of general way at Sugar. Sugar turned and fired on the doctor, but his pistol only impotently clicked at the man who did not slow in his advance. Sugar pulled a third pistol from his belt and fired on the doctor, this time breaking a piece from the club and finally giving the man pause. He was not fully stopped, but he slowed to cast a glance at the mangled club, and this allowed Sugar to plant two more bullets in the bulk of him. The doctor stumbled but did not fall. The club slipped from his hand and bounced against the road twice, tapping once its top end and once its handle, before settling.

  The doctor said, “Stop,” and Sugar fired on him again, ending his protest.

  There were no men on the rooftops. The town had no response for what had just happened. Things were as still around Sugar as they had ever been. Only, the alleyways were a little safer now. The boxes he would pass, as he went from store to store and house to house, gathering supplies and ending any objections : these were safer too.

  Doubling back gained Brooke nothing but a little more time. He soon found the water again, and with it, a few small things to eat. Insects and algae, minnows and tadpoles. He caught a lizard but there was not much meat to it.

  There had also been a man in the woods, but Sugar had not known about that. Brooke came upon the man while he was sleeping. Brooke was wandering the woods and discovered a clearing of grass being fed upon by a herd of longhorns. These were burly creatures. He had heard about them and seen their likeness, but had never seen one up close. They were formidable. Their horns were more than long. They were monstrous. The average creature’s performed a single curl before branching out away from its face. They split and thinned toward the end as if they were entirely for show, rather than weaponry. They shuttered at his approach but did not resist his hand. He touched one after the other, examining their crunchy fur with his fingertips and saying hello to one after the other. There was a small campfire on the opposite side of the herd and a man on his back with his hat over his face. He must have been sleeping because he did not startle at the sound of Brooke’s approach. A man like that was too fit for casual robbery to be ignored. Brooke and Sugar had been in the woods too long for any pretensions toward some code against the act. Codes of conduct were relevant only in the absence of need. Brooke set to the man’s nearby bag in search of something that might improve their situation. He found nothing but did wake the man who unsettled his hat and revealed himself to share a likeness with the man who had driven the horse that vanished Brooke’s wife.

  “It’s you,” said Brooke.

  “I do not know you,” said the man.

  “This is a faith-inducing level of coincidence,” said Brooke.

  “We do not know each other,” said the man. “I do not know who you think I might be.”

  Brooke was on the man’s throat before he could say much more. The man died quickly and it was no grand affair, but as Brooke sat to his side, reexamining the bag — a little more thoroughly this time — it occurred to him that he did not, in fact, view his wife’s true husband as a mortal enemy. He was not really an enemy at all. If anything, Brooke had stolen from the man and the man had only reclaimed what belonged to him. And Brooke had never really gotten along with his wife anyway, so he was no worse for the loss, when he thought it all the way through. The truth was, there was a hostility and a violence in him that was based on no external source. This was not a man Brooke had wanted to kill. Brooke had merely wanted to kill, and there was a man. The herd was too fascinating and dumb to suit the purpose. If the man was who Brooke suspected him to be, there was something meaningful behind the murder, even if there was no real good in it.

  He was thinking about it too much. Spending too much time there with the body and the bulls. They had not reacted at all to the killing. The grass was soft and long beneath him. There was a subtle wind around them. This area did not frost, though it was late in the winter months. He and Sugar had taken the route through this part of the plains, feeling that, though a great deal longer, their travels would be more comfortable and they would have a greater chance of staying healthy
and fit for when they came out the other end. Brooke found a small kerchief at the bottom of the man’s bag. Inside the kerchief was a bundle of small bones held together with a bit of wire. There was absolutely no way of knowing where it had come from or why, but Brooke assumed it was some attempt made by the man to keep his leavings to a minimum. Perhaps these bulls had nothing to do with him and he was on the run. Pursued by men or dogs or men with dogs, and any bit of scent left behind or too boldly displayed would be his undoing. Or maybe he had been traveling with the bulls to best obscure his trail. Or maybe it was an icon of some kind, a bit of religion the man carried with him. Brooke had no religion but knew enough to know that icons were a part of most Sunday gatherings. These manifested in very individual ways in people’s private lives and he was no one to judge what a man might carry with him and what it might mean to him. There was a bit of cheese and moldy bread in the bag too, which Brooke pocketed. There were no weapons and nothing more of any use, so Brooke abandoned the bag and the bones and the body and said goodbye to each of the bulls, one after the other.

  He loved his brother and they shared nearly everything, but something in him did not want to go into an attempt at explaining what had happened out there in the clearing that morning, so he kept the cheese and bread for himself and left the whole thing unmentioned. That was the one death he carried privately. The one death it was entirely possible no one ever knew he was responsible for, other than himself and the bulls. Whatever happened to the bulls was impossible to say. It was possible whoever had been after the man eventually did catch up with him. They would have been disappointed, seeing their work completed for them, but maybe there would be some condolence in the bulls that were left at their discretion. If he had been the man Brooke suspected, and the news ever made it back to his ex-wife, there was even the chance she would guess it was him who had done the killing. Judging by the man’s appearance, he had been out with the herd for some time. Or out in the wilderness for some time. Brooke had not been able to determine the man’s route, or had not taken the time to, and it was as possible that he was headed home as it was that he was headed out for good. Either way, if she heard anything she would likely hear that the man had been strangled. And, being a sharp lady and somewhat suspicious, she would likely assume it was Brooke. Which made him happy enough.