Blood Lands

by Ralph Cotton

  “I told you . . . didn’t I?” said the parson. “She killed me . . .” He turned loose of his wounded neck and let the blood fly until his eyes glazed over in death.

  “Yeah, you told me,” said Plantz in a strained voice, speaking to the dead face staring blankly at him. “A woman killed you, but you didn’t see it coming!” He backed up against the side of the house and slid down into a squat, still holding his wounded side.

  Knowing the others were all dead, Julie stood up from her crouched firing position against the side of a tree. She gazed long and closely at the side of the house before backing away from the edge of the woods. Plantz was still there, she was certain of it. Yet, as if to assure her, as she reached her horse and shoved the rifle down into her saddle boot, she heard him call out, “All right, Meredith, it’s just me and you! Is this the way you wanted it?”

  Julie stood for a moment just listening. She wasn’t about to say anything. Not yet. Instead, she stepped up into the saddle, turned the horse and rode through the woods to the main trail. From the trail she could see Plantz hunkered down against the house, and the parson’s body lying a few feet from him.

  Plantz’s rifle butt stood up from the saddle boot on his horse, at the hitch rail twenty yards away. But even though she knew she was out of pistol range, she stepped down from the horse, led it to the front yard and let its reins fall to the ground. Even though it had now been several minutes since Plantz had called out Baines Meredith’s name toward the tree line, Julie replied, “It’s not Meredith. It’s me, Julie Wilder. I’m the one who killed all your men, Plantz.”

  “The hell you are,” said Plantz, pushing himself up from against the side of the house. He gave a look toward the tree line, appearing concerned about not stepping out of his cover. “He’s still up there, backing your play. You had no guts for doing this.”

  Julie stared at him for a moment, realizing there was nothing she could say to convince him that the same woman he and his men had raped and beaten had returned and done such damage. “Where’re Macky and Conlon?” she asked.

  “They lit out when you and Meredith sent Kiley in wearing his drawers, with his face blown off,” said Plantz. “If that was meant to scare them, it worked. But I don’t scare.” He straightened up, facing her, having slipped his pistol back into his holster when he saw her ride down to the trail. The woman wanted a showdown, one-on-one. Well, he would give her that, he thought, so long as he didn’t have Baines Meredith firing on him from the woods, ambushing him the way he’d done these other three.

  His face blown off? Julie kept her surprise from showing. She had no idea what he was talking about, nor did she care. If Kiley was dead, that was good enough for her. Julie took a breath, her hand poised near the big revolver holstered on her hip. “I knew someday I would be standing here, looking you in the eyes,” she said. “I must’ve thought a thousand different things that I would say to you.”

  “Then you best get them said,” Plantz replied. “I’m not one to stand around when there’s fighting to be done. Let’s get at it.”

  “There’s nothing I’ve got to say.” Julie shook her head slowly. “Let’s get at it,” she repeated his words.

  “One thing though,” said Plantz, cutting a glance toward the woods line, then back to her. “Once I kill you in a fair fight, is he going to let me make it out to my horse and get away from here?”

  Julie thought it over for a second, then answered with a poker face, “That’s up to him.”

  “Yeah, gawddamn it, see?” said Plantz. “You’re a big tough gunslinger so long as you’ve got somebody backing your play. I’m not getting a fair shake out of this, either way it goes.”

  “You’re getting far better than you ever gave, you son of a bitch,” said Julie. She didn’t have to wait for him to draw. She knew it was coming; if it wasn’t it should have been. The big revolver streaked up from her holster and fired, one shot, dead center. Plantz flew backward, dead on the ground.

  Holstering the big revolver, Julie stood with her hand resting on its bone handle. She looked off in the direction of Umberton, making a note of those two names, Conlon and Macky. But she didn’t have to hurry. She would catch them. Now that she knew their faces and names, they would keep until she decided to go after them. They were cowards, and they knew someone was coming for them, sooner or later. That’s all it took. She could let them sweat for a while.

  She took off her hat, shook out her hair and touched her fingertips to the silver rose at her throat. She had her work cut out for her here, she reminded herself, looking all around, seeing the bodies on the ground, the burnt barn. There would be cleaning up to do, hauling away, a lot of rebuilding . . . other things, she concluded. But she didn’t mind.

  “It looks like I’ve finally made it home, Pa,” she heard herself say quietly. She felt a tear spill from her eye and run slowly down her cheek. Let it run . . . , she thought, feeling a breeze blow in warm and sweet from across the grasslands.