I wasn't really sure what to believe, but I knew that Emma was my next lunch ticket. The bounty on her head was high; so high, in fact, that if I were here, I would get the hell out of Texas and head to Mexico. But that would be dangerous for her there, just as it was for everyone who ran from the states and went down south. There was a whole separate group of outlaw gangs down there, and different Indian tribes. None of them looked kindly on gringos, not even a little bit. For most of the people down south, white people were the people who showed up and expected everyone to embrace them with open arms, even though white people tended to take more than they ever gave back.
I looked to my left and saw the place where the mesa's shadow crossed the road. I couldn't see if there was anyone on the other side of the plateau yet, but my horse was acting funny, as if it wanted to shy away and run. That meant it was smelling Indian horses, or maybe bandits. It didn't matter who or what they were if they meant me harm. As I kept my eye on the mesa nothing came charging out to get me, but just when I was about to look away I saw something glint—a rifle barrel catching the sun. Blood thundered in my ears and temples as I spurred my horse forward. I didn't want to have to dismount and try picking people off because I had no idea how many there were, or if they had any crack-shots with them. If they did, they last thing I wanted to do was stop moving.
“Faster! Move, move, move!”
I urged my horse on with my voice as well as my spurs, feeling sorry for having to make it work so hard in the desert, but also knowing that we were both in mortal danger. After about a minute of hard riding I slowed to a trot and looked behind me. What I saw made my blood run cold. It wasn't Indians, but bandits. The bright red handkerchief masks identified them as the Rooster Gang, a band of hoodlums on horseback notorious for their wanton destruction of ranches, towns, and hanging people in the desert. If they caught up with me, that would be it. They'd rob me, then hang me with a red cloth in my mouth as a warning to the rest of the people who traveled the planes.
“Faster! Go faster!”
The wind seemed to wrench the words from my mouth so that I wondered if my horse even heard me. I was scared, something that I didn't like to admit to anyone, much less myself. Being scared made me feel weak, and I knew I wasn't weak. I was a strong woman, both physically and mentally. I had my own mind, and my own will and way to do things. To make myself feel better, I held both reins with my left-hand and fired behind me wildly with my right, using a smaller caliber pistol I kept tucked in the back of my gun belt. I wasn't really trying to hit any of the bandits, just make them slow down a bit. They might be the craziest, meanest people around, but they would slow down a little when they heard the shots.
Just when I put my pistol back in its place the small town I was headed to appeared before me. Chancing a glance over my shoulder I saw that the bandits had indeed slowed down. But it wasn't time to celebrate just yet, as rounds from a rifle snapped past me. One of them must have a long-gun, and from how close he was getting to me, knew how to use it. Luckily, the sun was setting right behind the town, so the sharpshooter was having a hard time getting a bead on me. Before I knew it, I was in the town, just as dusk took hold of the sky.
~*~
“You mean to tell me that was you coming down from the mesa like a bat out of hell, firing over your shoulder like some kind of hired gun?”
The old man who had come to meet me when I tethered my horse at the rail by the saloon was what passed for the local lawman. I wasn't too impressed. He was old, really old, and his guns didn't seem like they'd been shot, shined, or cleaned in quite some time. There were spots of rust on the rifle he had slung over his back, and the bandolier of ammunition clanked against the pistols in his gun-belt.
“Yup, that was me,” I said. “I was shooting over my shoulder to try to make them slow down. I had no idea that those folks are prevalent out here.”
“They aren't,” the old man said. “They just recently posted up out there, and we've been trying to telegram the Marshals, but they seem like they don't want to come out because we all know that, by the time they do, the bandits will be gone. Doesn't send a very good message though not to respond at all, I say.”
I nodded as I stepped onto the boardwalk and made my way toward the saloon.
“I agree,” I said. “The Marshals act like they have better things to do.”
“Right now they seem more like debt collectors than anything else,” the old man said, hustling to keep up with me, all the while sounding like a broken wind chime with the racket his gear made. “I wish it wasn't like that because it leaves little towns like this place in a hard spot. I can serve as a lawman if I need to, but I'm not a good one. If I'd been younger, I would have been able to make it to the top of the saloon in time to help you, maybe even have shot one.”
I walked into the saloon, and the man followed, deftly moving behind the bar and pouring me a drink.
“This one is one the house,” he said.
Then he left me be, which I appreciated. I didn't ask him where he was headed to, but I got the feeling he was going up on top of the roof to make sure none of the bandits were slowly making their way to the small town under cover of darkness.
I sat there slowly nursing the drink he'd given me. Whatever it was, it was watered down, and the glass came to a cheating tapered bottom. I wondered if the owner was the kind of person who thought it a good idea to put the heads of rattlesnakes in his moonshine to make it more “potent.” I sure hoped not, the last thing I needed to worry about was getting sick from a concoction that didn't really make any sense. As my mind mulled over the murk I drank, my eyes roved the interior of the saloon. It was like the rest of them, or nearly. There was sawdust on the floor and spittoons. There didn't seem to be anyone else until my eyes adjusted and I saw the lithe figure of a man sitting with his back to the corner. I pushed away from the bar and made my way over to him.
“Howdy, stranger,” I said. “You wouldn't happen to be Emmanuel, would you?”
The figure stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. My left hand trailed behind me to feel the grip of the pistol in the small of my back—I know I'd have the drop on him if he tried anything because my drink in my right hand seemed to indicate I'd be a second behind, not a second ahead.
“Yes, I'm Emmanuel,” he said. “Are you the woman who has been looking for me? What's your name again?”
“My name?” I said. “Well, I guess there isn't much harm in you knowing it. My name is Samantha, and I'm a bounty hunter looking for the notorious Emma. We spoke very briefly over telegram.”
The figure nodded and motioned that I sit across from him. Instead of sitting across from him, with my back to the door, I sat beside him at the table. I didn't care if it made him uncomfortable for whatever reason, I wasn't trying to get shot in the back in some dive bar in the middle of goddamn nowhere.
“We have spoken,” Emmanuel said. “And we have much to discuss. Tell me, what do you know of Emma?”
I took a long drink, then spoke.
“Not too much,” I said. “I know that she was born and raised in a small cow town before she set off on her own. For awhile she was on the straight and narrow, but before too long things outside of the law called her name. Besides that, I know what everyone else who wants the bounty knows: what she's done.”
Emmanuel nodded and leaned back in his chair. He seemed uneasy about something, but I couldn't figure out what. Certainly, it couldn't be me, considering how I wasn't intimidating at all. I wondered if he was going to proposition me for help or offer to help me. If he did, we'd have to talk about splitting up the reward and other details. The saloon wouldn't be the best place for that. As I studied Emmanuel, someone else walked through the saloon doors. I looked over for a moment and found it wasn't someone entering but someone leaving—the old man headed back out into the night. When I looked back, Emmanuel had a pistol leveled at my head.
“You think it's so easy to catch this Emma, do you?” Emmanu
el asked. “You think you can just ride around the desert chasing her and never have to worry about what happens after you find her? Is that's what's going on?”
I wasn't sure what to do, but I did know that if I made any sudden moves, my brains would splatter all over the walls behind me.
“Listen,” I said. “I have no idea what's going on right now, but please believe me when I say that I only came here to speak to you about this because when I sent you a telegram you replied that you wanted to speak with me. All I want to do is talk to you, hear what you know about Emma, that's it. I'm not here to give you a hard time or anything, and if you're after her too, then maybe we can team-up? If not, I'll be on my way, and head back the direction I came.”
Emmanuel studied me as if mulling it over. I studied him back, for the first time realizing that he was awful slim for a man. There was something about him that just seemed off as if I wasn't missing something right in front of my face. The more I looked at Emmanuel, the more I realized I'd missing something big.
“You wouldn't happen to be Emma, would you,” I said. “Because if you are, prepare to be placed under arrest.”
Emma fired just as I knocked the pistol away from my face. The sound was deafening in the small space and left me disoriented. Before I knew what was going on Emma had kicked me over in my chair and was headed for the door. I pulled the gun from my hip and let loose a few errant shots after her, and then was on my feet following. I had no idea where the old-timer had gone, but I didn't really care—I just hoped that he didn't end up shooting me in the back in all of the excitement.
When I got back out on the boardwalk, I could see the shadowy figure which had just tried to kill me making its way toward what looked to be a very small hotel. I silently cursed this tiny town and all the small things in it: the small bar, the tiny hotel, all of it. Why did Emma have to be hiding here? And why had she responded to my telegram anyway?
When I made it up to her room, following the sound of her footsteps, it was just in time to catch a board to the back of my head. Everything went black.
~*~
When I came to I was tied to a chair and Emma was in another chair facing me, sitting so she could lean forward on its back. The room was barely lit, and there didn't seem to be anyone coming to check on us. It made me wonder if the small town was in cahoots with her if she'd struck some kind of deal with the townspeople that required their silence about her presence in exchange for their safety. It was hard to say, but I planned on asking her about it. I did, after all, have her undivided attention.
She was no longer disguised as a man. I took in her delicate features, her hair black as raven's wings, and her red lips. She was striking beautiful and tried to hide her big bust under clothing. It nearly worked, but not quite. The room was barren, save for a few of her things piled up in the corner. Most of it looked to be riding gear and a few guns. There was also a chest filled with what I guessed to be stolen goods of some kind.
“Yeah, that chest is full of money I stole,” Emma said. “You know the heist I'm talking about. The one in the last town. They didn't seem to think that a female bandit could pull it off because 'I'm a girl,' or some other nonsense like that. Well, as you can see, me being a woman didn't stop me from taking what I wanted from those ignorant, backwater, pukes. I hate people like that, the kind that are so short-sighted they can't see to the end of their noses.”
I could relate. Many people in the world didn't think that I would make a decent bounty hunter because I was a woman. Of course, they couldn't be more wrong, but there was no way for them to realize that without me proving them wrong first.
“So, tell me, Samantha,” Emma said. “What were you planning to do when you found me?”
I shrugged. There wasn't much to say. We both knew that I was going to try to arrest her when I ran into her in the saloon. Now the tables were turned, though.
“I think the real question is what you plan to do with me,” I said.
Emma laughed.
“Well, that depends,” she said. “You see, you did wing one of the Rooster Gang members pretty good. Which was stupid, by the way. You could have made it here safe and sound without doing that. Now, if he dies, they'll be on us tomorrow night and who knows what will happen.”
“So it's like I thought,” I said. “You've exchanged protection for the townsfolk for your ability to stay here 'unnoticed.' Why did you respond to my telegram?”
“You seemed exciting,” Emma said. “And I figured if you turned out to be a real asshole I could just kill you. But I wanted to meet you first. It's not every day that I get to meet a female bounty hunter. Especially one . . .”
Emma's voice trailed off leaving me to wonder what she was going to say. I couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was, but I hated her so much at the moment there was nothing but rage felt toward her. I didn't want her to be beautiful, or thoughtful, I wanted her to be a boorish brute.
“Listen,” Emma said. “I'll let you out of those restraints if you promise to behave. I'll even give you your weapons back. Right now we're on the same team, for the moment, so there's no reason for you to try to pull some dumb, crazy shit like trying to arrest me again. And seriously, did you really think it would be that easy in the saloon? The bounty on my head is high, really high. Did you think it was high for no reason?”
Just then what sounded like an explosion rocked the small town. I'd heard such noises before at mining operations, but never away from them. Emma hurried to untie me, and we both armed ourselves before venturing out into the night. It was the saloon. The bandits had ridden into town and set it on fire in the evening. The man who had owned it swung from a nearby post, his neck pulled at a funny angle by a noose. The booze instead the saloon had ignited, causing an explosion.
“Jesus,” Emma said. “I never thought they'd actually take it this far. I mean, I expected some kind of retribution, but I figured it would be a few pot shots.”
It meant that I'd killed whoever I'd shot. My blood ran cold. It was hard to think clearly, and I found myself just following Emma's lead. Soon, with her help, we had most of the rest of the town's people armed and on top of roofs, waiting for the bandits to return. We both stood guard at the front of the town, but the entrance.
“What is the name of this place, anyway?” I asked.
“No idea,” Emma said. “Does it really matter?”
“I'd just like to know the name of the place I'm getting ready to fight, and maybe die, for.”
Emma put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. She smelled so good, like cinnamon and vanilla. She held me tight for a second, before giving me a squeeze and letting me go.
“I know you're scared right now, but you don't have to be. I'm here,” she said.
We both stared out into the night, trying to see the shapes of anyone approaching. My mind was spinning. I'd either killed a man or wounded him badly enough that another man had died for it. Not only this, but I was finding myself attracted to a woman I'd come to take into custody. I wasn't so concerned that she was a woman, and I was too—I'd grown up with two aunts who lived together and would have been married had it been allowed. But this woman, Emma, was a hardened criminal. There was no way that I could be having feelings for her; it just wasn't right. Not only this, but it might compromise my ability to do my job. After all, my soul purpose for being in the little town with no name, and now no saloon or lawman, was to bring her in for her crimes. Only when I did that would I be paid, and my doing so would probably put Emma on the wrong end of a noose.
I looked over at Emma and caught her staring at me. At first, I thought she might be checking me out, but then she gave me a look that could only be considered contempt. I understood where she was coming from. It was probably hard to stand her by my side and support me when I was someone who wanted to use her for my own ends. But maybe that was something Emma was used to by now. I couldn't be the first person that had tracked her down, in particular by the way she'd
talked back in the hotel.
“How long are we going to man, or woman, this post?” I asked.
“All night,” Emma said. “I don't want any more of those scumbags sneaking in here and taking good peoples' lives. It's not fair to the rest of the town, and it sure as hell isn't fair to the bandits. They came here looking for a fight, and by God, I'm going to give it to them.
I appreciated Emma's resolved, but I wasn't sure keeping everyone up all night was the best idea. It would just make people tired and irritable tomorrow. I didn't think the bandits would come back. They'd got their satisfaction, for the moment at least. Now they were most likely getting drunk around some campfire by the mesa, talking about what big bad men they were. That was the part I hated most about the bushwhacking types. They all thought they were real tough guys, even though their way of handling actual hard men was to shoot them in the back as they rode by.
“Emma,” I said. “I think we need to set up a fire watch like the military does. We could get an hourly rotation going. People could sleep dressed, with their guns by the bed. Keeping everyone up is going to wear people out, and that's what we don't want. Especially if the bandits keep this up. For all, we know they're going to do this every night until there is nothing left. What we need to do is be ready for that.”
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