The Cost of Dying

by Peter Brandvold

  He hit the ground and lay writhing before, possibly realizing he might still be in Colter’s sights, he heaved himself to his feet and, leaving his hat and rifle on the ground, ran over to where the roan stood angrily switching its tail.

  Crouched and in obvious pain, tossing quick, wary glances back toward Colter, the lean man grabbed the hanging reins and fought his way onto the roan’s back. With one more look toward Colter, who could see the white line of the man’s teeth between his stretched lips, the man swung the roan around and put the spurs to it.

  He galloped off down the bench, several other bounty hunters booting their horses along behind him, also casting cautious glances over their shoulders.

  Colter lowered the rifle, rose stiffly to his feet, and stepped out from behind the rock. He stared off across the chasm. The posse horde was just then dwindling from his view, swallowed now not by the earth but by the sun—by the frank glare of an Arizona afternoon.

  They were gone. Colter was alone.

  There was only the sun and the pale rocks and the red rocks and the dusty, spindly shrubs, few as there were. And, save for the ratcheting cry of a lone hawk hunting somewhere up in that brassy blue sky, silence.

  No, he wasn’t alone. Colter saw them now as he shaded his eyes with his hand—a dozen or so zopilotes, Mexican buzzards, circling high above the canyon. They were dropping lower and lower, likely slathering as they flew, keeping watch on the carrion around Colter and in the chasm, little hearts quickening at the prospect of a tasty meal.

  Colter retrieved his hat. He spat to one side. It wasn’t spittle that struck the rock he’d been aiming for, but blood. He hadn’t realized in the frenzy of the dustup that in his tumble with Northwest, he’d bitten his tongue.

  “Damnit,” he groused, glancing once more toward where the bounty hunters had fled with their tails between their legs, one man bleeding from his arm. “You privy snipes made me bite my tongue!”

  The notion suddenly struck him as funny. After all that, he was walking away with a sore tongue, and he was mad about it. His laughter was probably due to the braining he’d taken in the tumble, but he dropped to his knees, laughing, blood running from his mouth. He leaned forward, pressed his forehead into the gravelly ground, still laughing, and rolled slowly onto his back.

  Slowly, the laughter left him.

  He heard the slow clomps of a horse approaching. Northwest’s shadow slid over him. The horse lowered its head over Colter, stared down at its addlepated rider through its coppery eyes that Colter had always thought showed more intelligence and character than the eyes of most of the other horses he’d known. And he’d known a few.

  Northwest worked his rubbery, bristled lips and gave a snort, blowing his warm, horsey breath, rife with the smell of sun-cured brush, at Colter’s face. His eyes were curious, probing, a little wary.

  Colter sobered. “Yeah,” he grunted out, brushing blood from his chin with his sleeve. “Yeah, I know . . .”

  He sat up and looked around. Mountains, rocks, more mountains and more rocks. That was all he could see in all directions. He looked to the northern mountains and then to the southern mountains, misty blue with distance. Where in hell was he?

  Somewhere west of Yuma. He’d given a wide berth to that notorious prison town for obvious reasons. He’d traveled through hot, dry, rocky desert mountains, sometimes not seeing a patch of green aside from cactus for days at a time. The sunsets had been miraculous, but the rocks had been black, as though sucked down, burned in hell, and then belched back up to this earthly perdition.

  The redheaded gunslinger had been headed to Mexico, because he’d known bounty hunters were after him. He’d smelled them on his trail before he’d made it to Phoenix one week ago. He hadn’t known how many. And he hadn’t known they’d followed him southwest from Phoenix and around Yuma.

  Now he knew.

  Now there would be far fewer. At least, for a while there would be fewer.

  But with a four-thousand-dollar bounty on his head, there would always be more where that posse came from—a posse likely made up of both lawmen and bounty men, both as corrupt as the most hard-bitten curly wolf to ever prowl the frontier.

  Staring south, loneliness turned the redhead’s heart as cold as a chunk of pure snowmelt. It lifted chicken flesh between his shoulder blades.

  Mexico. He had to get down to Mexico if he wasn’t there already.

  He didn’t want to. He wanted to ride north. He wanted to ride back to Colorado, back to his home in the Lunatic Mountains just north of the San Juans. An up-and-down land of snowy peaks and tamarack forests and cold streams chugging over boulders. He had family there, a girl who’d once loved him and probably didn’t anymore—so much water under the bridge.

  But he’d love her until he breathed his last.

  Home.

  Would he ever see it again? Would anything ever be like it was?

  All he knew was that for now, he was headed in the opposite direction of home—toward Mexico.

  Alone.

  Leastways, just him and his horse. At least he had Northwest. That was all right. Like dogs, horses made better friends than most men did.

  Colter Farrow checked Northwest over for injuries, reset his saddle, retrieved his hat, mounted up, and rode south toward Mexico.

  Chapter 5

  A bullet hammered a rock to Prophet’s left.

  The crashing blow sounded like a sledgehammer smashed against a cracked bell, kicking up a clamorous ringing in Prophet’s ears. He felt a burn across the outside of his left arm.

  The bounty hunter sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. “Ow, damnit!”

  He glanced down to see the tear in the sleeve of his sweaty, dusty buckskin tunic. Blood shone in the tear. Not much but a little. He’d cut himself worse trimming his fingernails with his bowie knife, half-drunk.

  Still, it burned like the nip of a horsefly. Worse, it angered him. He cursed the shooter and, as another bullet screeched over his head to blast another rock ahead of him, he cursed that shooter, too.

  “Back-shootin’ sons of Satan!” he cried, turning around in the narrow arroyo he’d been following, trying to get back to where he’d left Mean and Ugly on a plateau above him, in some far-flung ruin of an ancient Mexican pueblito, long abandoned.

  He dropped to a knee behind a pillarlike rock just as another bullet, flung from down the arroyo, smashed the face of the rock, throwing rock dust and shards in all directions. Prophet removed his battered hat and dared a glance around the rock’s left side.

  He could see them down there amongst the rocks—shadowy men with rifles clambering toward him, weaving around the rocks and occasionally crossing the narrow, winding arroyo that cut through the side of this low mountain strewn with rocks and boulders of every size, likely hiccupped by some volcano that had been old long before some dark god had cursed the earth with wretched humanity. All around him, the cones of ancient mountains rose, barren of anything except rocks like ivory dominoes.

  The pale line of the arroyo, a strip of white sand curving through the rocks, dropped down the mountains likely emptying into the Sea of Cortez somewhere to the east. Emptying when it had anything to empty, Prophet thought. That sure as hell wasn’t now. A fella would have a hard time finding a teaspoon of water anywhere around this dry cut in the nasty mountain desert.

  Another bullet slammed the face of the bounty hunter’s covering rock.

  Again, the ringing kicked up in Lou’s ears.

  Two more bullets hammered the rock’s face. He could feel the vibration against his shoulders.

  He knew what they were doing—the men still in hot pursuit of him after three long days of a breakneck run through southwestern Arizona and into Mexico. (Leastways, he thought he was in Mexico. There weren’t any signs out here, just as there were few saloons, though he could sure do with a stiff drink.) His pursuers were flinging lead at him, with surprising venom, no doubt to keep him pinned down so another one could gain ground
on him and end the chase right here and now.

  Poor, drunken Roscoe Rodane would be avenged at last!

  Prophet had seen the man the others were laying down cover for. He’d only glimpsed him, but he’d seen him, just the same—weaving through the rocks on the arroyo’s far side, crouched over the rifle in his hands. The man hadn’t thought Prophet had seen him, but the bounty hunter had spotted him, all right. That was the thing about bounty hunting. It gave you a certain savvy about those shadowing your own trail . . .

  Prophet leaned back against the rock, squeezing his Richards twelve-gauge in both his sweating, gloved hands, the shotgun’s leather lanyard looped over his right shoulder and neck. He’d left his rifle with Mean and Ugly. He had only the gut-shredder and the Peacemaker holstered on his right thigh. And his bowie, of course. The knife, like the revolver, had become a part of him.

  Through his spine he felt the reverberations of the bullets smashing the rock’s face. He squatted on his haunches, which were aching, as were his calves and ankles. He gritted his teeth, waiting, listening for the telltale scrape of a boot nearby, maybe the ring of a spur if the fool hadn’t thought to remove them.

  He glanced to each side, on the scout for moving shadows.

  A shadow moved on his right. It was followed by the faint rasp of gravel beneath a boot.

  The shooting stopped. There was a momentary silence before Prophet gritted his teeth and swung around the side of the rock, aiming the Richards straight out before him and tripping the right eyelash trigger.

  Boom!

  The man before him, six feet away and in the middle of the arroyo, was picked up and blown back against a boulder that had just turned dark red with blood and organ meat blown out the man’s back.

  There was another man to his left.

  Rather, there had been a man to his left.

  Boom!

  That sorry sack of goat dip met the same fate as his partner, blown back against another large rock and piling up at its base, his blood running down the rock above him. He’d fired his rifle just before he’d been cut in two, but now the rifle, which he’d thrown high in the air, clattered to the ground several feet down the arroyo.

  Another heavy silence fell over the side of the mountain. The dead men’s partners were no doubt in momentary shock at what they’d just seen from where they were poking their heads out from behind their own cover.

  Taking advantage of the posse’s shock, Prophet wheeled and, shoving the Richards behind him, where it jostled down his back by its lanyard, broke into a dead run up the arroyo, the floor of which rose more sharply as it climbed the side of the mountain, between larger and larger chunks of granite and limestone.

  A Gila monster poked its flat, orange and black head out from a gap beneath one such boulder, testing the air with its long, forked black tongue. Seeing Prophet, it jerked its head back into its hole. A good thing it did, for a second later a bullet hammered the rock where its head had just been.

  The shooter hadn’t been hunting Gila monsters. He’d been gunning for Prophet himself, just as the rest of the posse had resumed doing now, as well, bullets stitching the air around him, peppering the rocks and ground to either side of the steeply rising arroyo.

  As the arroyo floor rose sharply, dangerously, and Prophet’s progress slowed as he climbed, a bullet sliced across the outside of his right leg.

  He cursed shrilly, grinding his teeth, but continued climbing. The pain bit him deep, and while he didn’t take time to look, with bullets stitching the air all around him, he could feel the oily wetness of blood running down his leg from the hole in that denim-clad thigh.

  He hoisted himself up a steep incline, grunting as his brawny arms strained to hoist his burly bulk up the side of a sheer, perpendicular stretch of rock. As he climbed, another bullet burned along the left side of his neck. Cursing, he hurled himself up and to his right, into a jumble of rocks that served as a nest of sorts.

  Here he sought refuge from the lead storm. Momentary refuge.

  He could hear the posse members running and shouting as they ran, triggering their rifles. He knew they would try to work up and around him, and when they did, his nest would no longer be a refuge but a death trap.

  He wasn’t sure what to do. The way farther up the mountain offered little cover. It was mostly sand and small rocks. It was also a steep climb.

  A hundred yards or so above him, the top of the mountain beckoned. But that hundred yards was a long haul for a man with a wounded leg and a passel of wild gundogs hurling lead at him every step of the uncovered way.

  Lou wished he had his rifle. With the long gun, he could make a stand. He’d left the Winchester on his horse because he’d wanted only to scout his back trail after gaining the top of the mountain with Mean and Ugly. He hadn’t expected to run into posse riders. At least, not this close to him. He thought he’d put more distance between himself and his shadowers and hadn’t thought there’d be any need for his Winchester ’73.

  He’d thought . . .

  “That’s what you get, Prophet, you cork-headed old Confederate fool,” the bounty hunter maligned himself, knowing that his sometime partner would be using those exact words or even some more colorful. How many times have you been told that thinking ain’t your strong suit?

  Of course, Louisa wouldn’t have said ain’t. No, no. The Vengeance Queen used better English than that. She didn’t curse much, either, except maybe by accident when the chips were down.

  He chuckled now, indulging in fleeting, appreciatory thoughts of the comely, deadly blonde with the china doll’s face, smoky hazel eyes, and a hair-trigger temper.

  Louisa.

  He’d parted with her somewhere up north, after an argument, of all things, over his snoring.

  He chuckled again then, feeling the burn in his neck, swiped his hand across the cut. Blood shone on his fingers. That one wasn’t too bad. It was the leg wound that had him worried.

  On the other hand, why worry? A man worried over uncertainties. Now as he edged a look out between two rocks fronting the side of the mountain and seeing the posse riders climbing after him, spread out across the slope on both sides of the arroyo, making their way toward him, about to surround him, he was no longer uncertain of anything.

  Least of all that he’d come to his own bloody end.

  “Well, I’m gonna take some of these wolves with me, anyways,” Prophet spat out through gritted teeth, releasing the keeper thong from over his bone-handled Peacemaker’s hammer. “I can do that much, anyways. I’m gonna need all the help I can get beyond them smoking gates, shovelin’ coal for Ole Scratch . . .”

  He shucked the revolver, wincing as bullets hammered the rocks around him. He clicked the hammer back. Movement on his left. One of his pursuers had already worked up around him and was triggering lead as he crawled between two rocks, toward Prophet.

  The bounty hunter shot the man in his left knee but only because one of the shooter’s own bullets had shaved a whisker off Prophet’s left cheek. The shooter dropped his rifle and grabbed his ruined knee, howling miserably.

  “Stop your caterwauling, fool!” Prophet fired again, this time punching a bullet through the howler’s right ear, cutting the caterwauling off midhowl.

  Prophet fired at another man trying to sneak up on his other side. He couldn’t tell if he hit the man or not—he just saw him jerk back behind a small snag of rocks and cactus.

  “Here they come,” Prophet told himself, snaking his Colt around another rock and snapping off a shot down the slope.

  He missed his target, who’d just then dived down behind another rock about fifty yards away from him. More men were climbing the mountain on both sides of him, moving around him. Prophet emptied the Colt without hitting any more targets. They were moving too fast and swerving behind cover.

  Quickly, Prophet flicked the revolver’s loading gate open and began fumbling fresh shells from his cartridge belt.

  “He’s empty—rush him before h
e can reload!” Prophet recognized the voice of Dan Rodane.

  Lou continued punching pills into the Colt’s wheel. He was breathing hard and fast, his heart racing. He was sweating. “Here it comes,” he told no one in particular. “I’m about to pay the price for all my tomfoolery all these years since the war, as per our agreement. Scratch, get the shovel ready—fresh blood is on the way!”

  As he punched the last pill home he saw that he was too late. Another man had moved up on his left. It was Rodane himself, aiming down a cocked Winchester at him, the lawman’s smile lifting his thick, pewter mustache.

  “Any last words, Prophet?” Rodane said.

  Prophet cursed and flicked the loading gate home. He jerked the revolver toward Rodane. The sheriff fired first, however. The rifle’s bark froze Prophet. He jerked back with the impact of the bullet in his heart, the harsh blow slamming him back against a rock behind him.

  Bells.

  From somewhere came the sound of bells . . .

  Bells tolling just for him.

  This was the end. Lou Prophet, at long last, was a goner. Ole Scratch was calling his note due.

  Chapter 6

  Snarling at the pain in his chest, his life on the wane, Lou Prophet looked down at the hole in his brisket.

  He frowned.

  Wait.

  There was no hole. No blood.

  He clawed at his chest with both hands, certain he’d see blood shooting up out of the hole he felt over his heart, causing a hard, throbbing pain, like the punch from a three-hundred-pound sailor fresh from the sea and on a three-day drunk on the Barbary Coast.

  No. Nothing.

  What the . . . ?

  He glanced up. Dan Rodane lay prone, nose down in the dirt. He still wore his hat but blood welled up out of the back of the crown, and his body was jerking as though invisible beasts were feasting on him. His rifle lay to his right.

  Another man running up the slope jerked forward and went crashing to the ground, his own rifle clattering onto the rocks beside him. Another and another shooter went down, dancing, twisting, screaming, collapsing.