by JT Dylan
A quick glance at the Ox at the bar, his eyes gleaming, his tongue feverishly licking his top lip over an imperceptible smile, told me that it was he who had set the loon off like a crazy firecracker. Question was why?
The Ox was dressed like a man passing through. He had a travelling coat, well-worn but expensive boots, the beard of someone who slept under the stars and the deep color of a man who walked often or far during the afternoon heat. In contrast the guy on the floor was a local drunk. No shoes to his name. No money to be spending in the saloon. I had seen him before a couple of times, roaming the outskirts when the traders passed through. But I hadn't seen the Ox before. They seemed like an odd couple to be sharing a drink and a conversation. Time to shake things up.
I threw my gun casually to the Ox, 'Shoot him.' I said, as I took a stride toward the bar. The Ox didn't disappoint. With lightning quick reflexes, he had caught the revolver and reversed it at my head just as I reached the bar. I poured myself a large drink, ignoring the two guns now pointed at me. The bar tender had taken a cautious step back and was alternating his line of fire like a pendulum. Me, the Ox, Me, the Ox, tick, tock, tick, tock. I couldn't reach the old man's rifle with the bar in the way.
Not without a prop.
Tick, tock, tick ...
I swung the bottle of Jack in an arc. Tock; It smashed squarely against the tip of the barrel as it pointed toward the Ox. The bottle evaporated into fragments, knocking the rifle-butt into the old barman's eye socket and he yelped back, dropping the heavy gun on the bar. The woman squealed and ran, aiming to hide behind the old card player. She slipped in the boy's puddle and went sprawling into the table. I felt more than heard the hollow noise her head made as it clipped the corner. The card game was well and truly over, as woman, table, drinks and cards all crashed to earth in a pile.
The boy scampered away to the back room, clutching his wet drawers as he went. The old man simply blinked in disbelief, like a solitary house left untouched in a tornado's wake. He threw his aces and eights - Dead man's hand - after the rest of the pack.
The Ox and I got the best deal and were drenched in fine American whisky. The Ox barely blinked. I swiped the heavy rifle off the wet bar.
'I wouldn't do anything rash.' The Ox's slick drawl matched his agility, not his size. I looked down and saw that he had invested the split second distraction in advancing his gun hand. His finger was tensed on the trigger and the muzzle was sticking well into my gut. I gave him one last chance.
'We're all friends here big bear. I had to make sure old Fred here didn't hurt himself with this old blunderbuss.' I grinned at him to show how friendly I was. He grinned right back, and pulled the trigger.
When a man pulls a trigger at point blank, he's not expecting to have to be on his guard afterwards. At worst he's thinking he should be ready to pull the trigger once more toward the guy's friends. But it took that Ox maybe only a second and a half to pull that trigger three times at point blank.
What's the only sure-fire way to know if a man with a gun intends to kill you? Easiest way is to give him a gun, before he pulls his own. That way, at least you know where the bullets are.
It took me half a second to raise the old Winchester up to shoulder level. I used the other second to pummel the heavy end into the Ox's face. It hit him like a steam train. I heard something crack. Yet he barely flinched. His eyes were on fire, and he meant to kill me with his bare hands. It didn't matter. His flinch had made him lift his leg off the floor for a moment, putting all of his weight on the stool. I pistoned my leg out and snapped the seat's bad leg clean in two. Then two things happened at once.
The Ox fell backwards like a felled tree, crashing heavily onto his back, and rapping his head solidly on the bar's boot rail. At the same instant the saloon doors splintered open and three large men on heavy horses stomped in. Steam rose from the horse backs and black-red blood streaked down their flanks from gored spur marks.
The whore awoke at the noise and screamed again. The wail didn't last as long this time. There was a loud bark from the doorway, and the girl's head disappeared in a puff of red. Her lifeless body toppled to the ground and bled. Blue smoke rose from the shotgun barrel of the horseman closest to the bar.
No one moved. Even the loon stopped his whinging and locked his eyes on the new arrivals. A fly ambled along the bar, quietly enjoying the warm whisky. I wondered where the rest of the posse had gone. I glanced behind me at the back-room door. Pissing boy had opened it a notch and was gawping through the crack.
'You.' The eldest, a lean wiry man with pockmarked skin, pointed at the bar man. 'Three of your finest water pans for your horse guests, and a taste of scotch each for their riders.'
The old guy looked to me for help, didn't get any, shrugged, and went about serving the drinks. I noticed that the dead girl's hand was lying in the puddle of urine. For some reason, that made me even angrier than the fact that she no longer had her head.
I cleared my throat. 'Seems we may have outdone ourselves with the introductions. This young girl now lying headless in pisswater was Coraline.' I spoke to their front man. 'She's pleased to meet you. And you are?'
Three simultaneous gunshots rang out. The boy was shot in the head through the back door, the lunatic screamed in pain, and the old guy with the cards mewled like a sick cat.
'Anything else to add, Sheriff?' A shotgun and two large handguns pointed towards me, still smoking. I risked a quick glance across the room. The Ox still snored softly on the floor and the barman was frozen mid-pour. The old card player died in his chair, a dark rose blooming on his shirt.
A scream pierced the silence. 'They shot me! I tole you they was comin! I fudgin' tole you!' The lunatic's screeches were cut short by three further shots. He flopped along on his belly, his long wild hair splayed into a dark fan in the sawdust, then was still. It seemed the shotgun shooter also had a handgun.
'Now, you only have two more of your flock to protect in here shepherd, so I suggest you speak only when spoken to. Wouldn't you agree?'
I said nothing.
He dropped gracefully off his horse and slapped its rump. The horse trotted to the far corner of the bar, where the barman had filled three cooking pots of varying sizes with almost drinkable water. The horse drank gladly. The two other riders followed, and the horses joined their thirsty companion.
'We're looking for a man, Sheriff,' I assumed he was the leader, or that his two gruff looking companions were mute. He grabbed his whisky off the bar and breathed in the aroma, his eyes shut. 'and we think you can help us find him.' He handed the other two whiskies back to his co-riders, the shot glasses like thimbles in their bear hands. They made the Ox on the floor look like a rag doll.
The leader looked at me in amusement. 'You've been spoken to. Hence, you may speak.' He smiled, almost politely.
'You already know I won't help you. Which makes me wonder why you haven't shot me yet.'
The wiry man laughed, a real hearty laughter from his belly. 'Oh, that's beyond good. Maybe I won't kill you now because I'm impressed with your rapport. Is that the plan?'
I shrugged. I hadn't meant anything clever by it. I was just buying time. Try to work out what this clown really wanted, and who for. Before I killed him.
'See this tall gentleman here? Step forward Jake. Thatta' boy.' He put a hand on the shotgun fellow's arm as he stepped toward him. He couldn't quite reach his shoulder and keep it natural looking. 'How long have we known each other Jake?' he asked shotgun. Jake grinned at him, and with the onset of his smile I realised Jake was barely a man. He was a boy in a man's body. A farm hand maybe, working hard all his life, his body grown way before his years. His face weathered more than usual by time spent outdoors.
'Since forever I guess.' His voice cracked and I noticed the resemblance in their faces. Not father and son, but close enough. Perhaps uncle and nephew, cattle owner and cow-hand.
'That's right son,' he turned his smile to me, 'show the nice Sheriff what I bo
ught you for your sixteenth this year.'
Christ, only sixteen.
Jake produced a bone handled blade from his belt and held it up proudly. Now the act of a big man all but dissipated as he showed off his prize possession. 'It's for skinning rabbits and such.' he blurted. 'It's...' he stopped suddenly, realising too late that he was forgetting his place. He blushed a dark crimson and handed the knife to his boss, who twirled the knife in his hand as he spoke.
'You see Mr Sheriff, I'm a man of many qualities. But unfortunately for you, sentiment isn't one of them.' I saw a flash of silver as he moved to slap Jake in the face. There was no noise and for a moment I thought he'd missed. Then a terrible gurgling noise came from Jake, and red froth bubbled from his throat. Jake smiled and tried to cough. It was such a clean cut he didn't even know it had happened yet. It dawned on him slowly and he clamped both hands over his leaking throat.
'Please..' he whispered to me as he fell to his knees. I stepped toward him, already taking off my jacket ready to put pressure on the wound.
'Ahem...' The wiry man stepped nimbly between me and the boy, and gently pressed the tip of the knife through my buckskins and I felt the cool blade scratch my groin. 'He's done. Leave him be. Besides, the little prick's been helping himself to my whores. And I hate to share, don't you?' he winked at me, and I saw for the first time that his eyes were almost colourless.
The other big guy had apparently seen worse than this and actually chuckled. He seemed older, and a little darker skinned. He clicked his tongue twice and the horses harrumphed and trotted toward him. He led them quietly out of the Saloon. Leaving me alone with the maniac, the old barman, a snoring Ox, and a dying sixteen year old boy, bubbling quietly from the neck. Mercifully he had either fainted or slipped into his final moments, for he lay on the ground silently, his lifeblood quickly draining from him.
The maniac shut his eyes and rubbed his temple with his thumb and forefinger, as if all the killing had given him one hell of a headache.
'Now then Sheriff.. or do I call you...' he waited for me to fill in the blank. I didn't.
I saw the old timer behind the bar reach slowly for the rifle. I made eye contact and shook my head fractionally, No. He seemed thankful for the intervention and sagged as he exhaled, as if his neck were no longer able to hold the weight of his head.
The maniac with the knife opened his eyes and looked into mine. 'I guess it's just plain old 'Sheriff' then.' and smiled. The voices of a group of men shouting and whooping somewhere out in the street followed by screams of women reminded me that I had seen seven men in the distance, and not three. I hoped they weren't all as slippery as this character. I only had one pocket-full of bullets after all.
One of the men, a good-sized, sweating man, barged in through the busted saloon doors. He seemed about ready to shit his pantyhose.
'Sir, you just got to come see!' his face was red and he was wearing a big shit-eating grin.
The maniac calmly turned around and cracked a bullet right through the man's teeth. The guy still looked delighted even as he crashed to the floor, the back of his head a gaping, bloody hole.
'You just can't seem to get them these days.' the maniac said calmly, as if we were discussing it over breakfast. He misread the blank look on my face as a question and continued. 'The damned workers. Always forgetting the big picture. Always beating on some damned bitch or stealing some god-damned animals. Lord damn it!' This last he spat out with the first real hint of any feeling I'd seen from him yet.
He flipped the knife over in his hand and threw it down in anger. It spiked and juddered into the floorboard near the sleeping Ox's head, missing his right ear by a couple inches.
'After you good sir.' He motioned me toward the sunlight now streaming in through the splintered doors, waving me forward with the still-smoking gun. 'Let's see what these dumbwits have gotten me into now shall we?'
III
Three men were dragging a heavily pregnant woman through the dirt. A man lay on the floor in their wake, blood trickling from a gash across his temple. The girl's husband I presumed. She was kicking and fighting like a cougar. One had her by the hair, one was pulling hard on her clothes, and the other was laughing and kicking her bare legs as she went. I saw that this third had his hand down his trousers, and was feverishly trying to undo his belt.
Enough was enough. Time to get rid of these maggots.
I jolted forward a step as if I was making a dash toward them, then stamped my foot down hard and reversed direction and heaved backwards with all I had, hurling my right elbow viciously backward, swinging it past my shoulder at about a hundred miles an hour. The maniac was fast enough to react to the dash forward with a leap after me, but if he noticed the double back he left it a fraction of a second too late. He leapt face first and my elbow caved in the front of his skull. There was a terrible crunching noise and his body went limp instantly. He fell like a dead dog, his face a mask of red. I picked up his gun and aimed it at the trio. They smiled at me. Like they were having so much fun they couldn't switch to business mode quite quickly enough. I smiled back.
The pregnant lady screamed, a high wailing whine.
I fired four shots. The first blew a black hole where trouser monkey had been exploring himself. I could see red daylight through his thigh. The second bullet took off the right half of hair-puller's face. Except for his eye. It dangled in the wind. He stayed alive for maybe half a second to enjoy it. The third bullet went through coat-tugger's left lung, and a spray of arterial blood arced over the whole party. The fourth was for the big horse guy now standing a foot behind me, his finger tight on the trigger, maybe a second away from blowing my head off with his shotgun.
I dropped to my knees and spun at the same time. I fired the shot before I hit the ground. He looked stunned. He had the shotgun in one hand, his revolver in the other. He looked at each hand in disgust, like he was more disappointed with himself than he was about the fact that his guts were trailing behind him like fat pink spaghetti. He aimed his pistol at me and then died on his feet. His carcass crumpled in a heap in the dirt.
A slow clapping echoed through the windy street. I instinctively aimed at the noise and blinked the grit from my eyes. The Ox was on his feet after all it seemed. Maybe sixty yards away, leaning on the saloon's porch. His nose was broken where I'd hit him with the gun.
'Most impressive Sheriff Jack. Certainly a lot quicker than you were indoors. Must take you a while to get warmed up.'
I saw it then. Not a party of seven men. But eight. One sent out ahead to scout quietly. The others to follow on afterwards, big and loud and ugly. The Ox had been playing me all along. If he was expecting a conversation he was going to be disappointed.
I ran through the scenarios available. Didn't like my options. I had fired four shots from the gun, the maniac had fired two before that. Empty. I let it drop to the floor.
Adrenaline is good for two things. Flight and fight. I put everything I had into flight. Towards the Ox. I closed 50 of the 60 yard gap quickly. My lungs burned and my leg muscles bunched into tight coils. I pistoned my arms to gain momentum. I felt like I could run through walls. The Ox remained where he was. He sneered, his lips peeling back, his teeth almost canine in the sunlight. I was almost on him, and his hands were still resting on his hips. Relaxed almost. Something was wrong. If he had a gun, he would be aiming it by now. No reason not to. The sun glinted off his buckle and I suddenly remembered. The boy's knife as it pronged the ground near the Ox's face. The Ox meant to skewer me. And I was doing all the work for him. I was running toward that knife as fast as I could. Too late to stop now. Three yards to go. I watched his eyes. A man could bluff in hundreds of ways but the eyes couldn't. I was almost on top of him when they changed. They seemed to go darker a fraction of a second before his right hand came up, the blade a quick flash in the light.
When a man drops to the ground or slows himself down, it's always predictable where he'll be at the end of the movement. Unl
ess he doesn't even know himself. I kicked my left leg hard up to the right like I was kicking a rabid dog and let the momentum spin me around and down. I was going to fall hard but I was also moving quickly away from my expected tangent. The move had an unpredictable outcome because I wasn't limiting myself to the known safety positions of a man in a controlled fall. I was spinning all the while, yet falling toward him. The blade scratched my sleeve as it sliced past. Just where my belly had been two fractions sooner. And then I was crashing into him at full force. I saw the knife jerk out of his hand with the impact. Then his chin hit my head, my head hit the ground and we were a tangle of limbs and boots and dust and rocks.
Even as we rolled, I felt his sledgehammer blows on my back, on my neck, on my chest. He had fists like cannon balls. If one of those connected with my face, I wouldn't be getting up again. I couldn't even see him, let alone hit him. The world was still upside down and a spinning blur. Purple lights danced across my field of view. I opened my eyes wide, and looked for the brightest light. Two more blows, one to the shoulder another to the chest. I was running out of time. His next combination was likely to kill me.
Then I saw what I was looking for. When a man looks directly at the sun two things happen automatically. First, his eyes clamp shut, and second, the image is burned onto the retina. The world was no longer a sea of incoherent images. It was now a blank bright red canvas with a single perfect white disk shape toward my right shoulder. I knew exactly where I was at that frozen split second; facing eastward, directly away from the saloon.
I hauled myself toward where I thought the timber platform ended and launched off into empty space. I fell two long feet and landed hard on my side in the dirt, the air knocked out of me. I heard the Ox breathing heavily, scrambling after his prey. I rolled back toward the wooden overhang and slotted neatly under the saloon porch. I figured the Ox was an intelligent man. He would work out within three seconds that he couldn't squeeze in after me and would instead head toward the easier option of the shotgun by the door. Then it would be another two seconds to pick up the gun and another four to reach under the floor and blast his way into the gap after me. Seven precious seconds.