Jake aimed Stardust at the Hines homestead. He could no longer see the light of the candle in the cabin window, but he knew it was still burning.
A coyote howled like a screaming infant. Jake thought once more of his little girl, she no longer screamed for her mother and father in the dead of night. She slept soundly with a little bit of drool pursed on her lips. Jake often found himself unable to sleep until he saw her dreaming softly. Even now he hoped she was dreaming sweetly.
The more he thought about it the more Jake could feel himself growing tense. Stardust whinnied as he squeezed his boots too tight against her sides, yet she knew he didn’t want her to take off. She must’ve known what Jake had now realized.
He was afraid.
Marcus was not going to come easy. He loved that wife of his and he believed what he did was right. Men like that can fight their way through more rock and sand and clay than anyone. Men like that needed a coffin paid for, but none of them thought ahead to have one on reserve to make their wife’s troubles easier once they were gone. Men like Marcus never saw their end coming.
Poor Alice Hines would probably kill herself.
The West didn’t leave many options.
Back east she had family, brothers, a sister, people who could take care of her. Jake should’ve put her on a train. Told her Marcus would meet her back in Kentucky and they could live happily ever after.
But what then when Marcus never came?
Jake knew there was no happy ending. He worked to remind himself it was Marcus’ doing, not his. His job was to give his little girl a happy ending. Wasn’t he old enough to know he couldn’t make the world a better place for everybody?
Jake found himself pleading the heavens to hear his deputy’s rifle. He knew as soon as Marcus was shot, things would get better. One day it wouldn’t even be on his mind again. One day he’d see his little girl grown up and married.
BAM!
Jake smiled. It didn’t last. It shouldn’t have lasted.
Stardust took off in a gallop, though Jake hadn’t given her any command. His hands couldn’t grip the reigns and he felt himself begin to slide off the saddle. But his feet hung in the stirrups and he bobbled with the night sky as his only vision.
Jake knew he was bleeding. He had been shot. He didn’t know how he let Marcus sneak up on him. It was too late now.
Jake heard another shot, but it was much further off. He imagined it was at the cabin. He imagined that is where Stardust took him now. He wished she’d take him to his daughter, just one last time. He closed his eyes, angry with himself for being shot. Angry he would not give his daughter or anyone a happy ending.
Another shot.
This one tasted like Alice Hines’ coffee and Jake flopped his chin into his chest, found the reigns and bore down. He hadn’t had an answer for Alice when she asked him earlier if it would hurt. It did.
There were three consecutive shots. They sounded faint beneath the breath and hooves of Stardust. The next one Jake felt.
It knocked him off his horse. He hit the ground and must’ve landed on the hardest patch of dirt in all of Texas. Jake wasn’t going to get back up, so he drew his shiny revolver.
He waited until he saw Marcus dart across the porch.
Jake fired.
Missed.
Marcus scrambled through the front door and yelled. But it had to compete with Jake’s pounding heart and just sounded like rage and nonsense.
Jake fired again.
Inside the cabin poor Alice Hines screamed. It sounded like rage and sorrow, none of it was nonsense, and she had every right.
Jake couldn’t see his deputy, couldn’t hear him either. His deputy wasn’t a coward so he could only be dead or dying. Just like Jake.
Jake couldn’t reload his gun, he lay on his extra bullets and only had four left. He wouldn’t fire again until he got a good look at Marcus, of course he might be dead by then.
Jake had never respected the possum. But it came to him right then and there that Marcus wasn’t going to stop yelling or come within his range until Jake had left his homestead or this world. Jake still didn’t respect possums. Hated them. But their cowardice didn’t have a gun. He closed his eyes and gasped like he’d heard so many other men do before. He worried it might actually be his last breath. He worried his heart was pounding hard enough against his chest that Marcus wouldn’t be a fool.
But he tried for his little girl.
He squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could, the pain in his side and shoulder wanted him to open them. He shut his mouth and tried to make his nostrils stay open.
On the backs of his eyelids a flicker of light danced and he tried to listen to the creaking of boards on the porch, but the night was silent. Stardust nudged him in his ribs and he almost cursed her as it felt like she’d shot him a third time.
But he bit his tongue.
And as he lay there he could hear his daughter’s voice. She was telling him it was all a bad dream. He imagined her standing next to him. He imagined her growing up and being as beautiful as her mother. He saw her in white standing next to a good man, not a good man like Marcus, but one with the sense not to seek trouble, a man who remembered his family first. He saw his daughter with a little girl of her own and then he thought she kissed him.
A smile cursed across his face. He felt the warm breath of Stardust and heard a grunt above him.
It shattered the fantasy.
“Say your prayers, make your peace law man.” Marcus stood on top of Jake, the barrel of his rifle held to Jake’s nose. Jake wished he hadn’t opened his eyes, wished he could die in the dream of his daughter’s happiness.
“Ya hear me? Make your peace, Sheriff, I ain’t lettin’ you take me in.”
Jake had known that since he arrived on the Thompson’s Ranch. Saw what Marcus Hines had done to Thompson’s cattle, and to fat Thompson himself. Alice Hines had known too. As soon as Jake had shown up on her porch and told her what her husband had done.
“Find your religion, old man,” Marcus said. “Hurry up, it’s all I’ll afford you.”
“Marcus, please,” Jake begged. “For Alice.”
Jake thought of all the Alices in the world. He didn’t pray for himself, he prayed for them.
“She needs a happy ending,” Jake muttered.
“There’s a reason the sun rises in the east, Sheriff. It’s because out here things end. They end so there can be another day. It’s our day that’s coming Sheriff, not yours. You’ve lived your life, let me live mine.”
Marcus needed to be free. Marcus may have been fool enough to think he could take revenge on a bad debt. But he weren’t fool enough to let himself go to jail. Every man has his limits. The well is only so wet.
Bam.
The shot was deadening, final.
Jake winced, even though he thought it was his gun that fired. He dropped it but it sounded heavier than it should have when it hit. It sounded like the body of a man.
Jake opened one eye and saw Alice Hines. There weren’t any fresh tears streaming on her face. That river was dry. A few tears still clung to her chin but they wouldn’t be alone for long. She shook and dropped a rifle at Jake’s feet.
He was too tired to keep his eyes open any longer. He rolled his head over and saw the blank stare of Marcus Hines. There was no life in those eyes. Marcus Hines was as free as he ever would be.
***
Jake opened his eyes again. There was a wet cloth on his forehead that had dripped water in his eye, he blinked it away and saw old Doc Brown leaning back with that familiar tucked in pair of lips and thick eyebrows shading his eyes.
“Am I gonna live, Doc?” Jake moaned. His mouth was dryer than any summer’s day he’d known.
“My diagnosis has always been the same for you, Sheriff. You’re dying. But not today.” Doc Brown smiled and opened the door. For some time nothing happened. Doc Brown didn’t leave and no one entered. Jake tried to sit up but Doc Brown stopped him.
“Take it easy there. Don’t want to rip the stitches.” Doc Brown looked like he might smack him, so Jake obeyed, plus it hadn’t felt good to move. “Come on in already,” Doc Brown ordered.
Mrs. Williams came in her hands on their daughter’s shoulders pushing the worried little girl in.
“Daddy’s awake now,” Mrs. Williams said softly.
“Hey, little girl.” Jake coughed and saw it frightened his daughter. He forced a pleasant smile. It wasn’t hard, he was so happy to her.
“Go on, Alice, Daddy’s okay now. He’s been sleeping,” Jake’s wife said. Jake fought another cough as he thought of Alice Hines, the little girl who grew up and didn’t get a happy ending. He would never forget her. She’d given his little Alice a chance at a happy ending. There was no other way Jake Williams got out of the Hines Homestead alive. No other way.
“Give me a kiss, little girl.” Jake reached out for his daughter and she jumped into him.
“Daddy, did you gets shot in your dream?”
Jake smiled warmly and hugged his daughter, he almost told her he hadn’t, but she hugged him so tightly back he lost his grip on the words.
“You got shot in my dream. That’s why I’m glad dreams aren’t real.”
Jake kissed his little Alice and knew that one day he’d have to let her go, but it wasn’t going to be today. Today was his day. He and Stardust were done.
Jake knew it wasn’t a happy ending. It was a western ending. It was the right ending.
THE END.
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