by Andy Monk
Oh yes, the Thin Rider was generous with his gifts. Especially when there was killing to be done.
“Where are you going?” Dorry had hissed as he’d hunkered down and headed off into the grass. Sye had turned his flat eyes briefly in his direction as he’d calmly slotted more shells into his rifle, he hadn’t seemed much interested and he was soon scouring the grass again.
“Keep shooting to the left, I’m gonna thin their numbers some more.”
Dorry looked like she had more to say. Maybe she thought he was running out on them, maybe she thought he was an idiot who was going to get himself killed and leave them to fend off the Scourge on their own. Either way, he’d scampered into the grass before she could say more.
Once he’d been consumed by the grass he’d moved slowly, his rifle held flat in both hands before him, inching towards the closest of the flickering souls colouring the grass red with its fear and hatred and excitement. This one was the furthest to their right, circling around to get behind them. There were others doing the same, but this one had progressed the most.
He was the first to die.
Sye and Dorry were firing. There was an occasional shot in return, but most of the Scourge were keeping their powder dry as they worked to circle them.
Three of them were down, one was with the horses, leaving six to kill. The odds were getting better. The Thin Rider was happy.
He crawled a little further in search of prey, another soul was glowing ahead of him, its light painting the grass the colour of fresh blood. He settled down and took aim, watching the light grow stronger as the Scourge man pushed on towards him, pouring through the swaying stems like a tiny sun sinking into a grass sea.
Had he ever seen the colours of a soul shine so brightly? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think so. As the man grew closer he could see swirls and eddies of colour pulsating through the grass. A lifeforce. Vivid and bright, precious and beautiful. All that a man was expressed in a thousand hues swirling about his material form. Would the world be a different place if everybody could see what he could? Just how beautiful and elemental life really was?
He squeezed the trigger and the man’s soul faded to grey.
Probably not.
There was more gunfire now. The Scourge raiders were getting closer to Dorry, Sye and Laura. If he were them he’d have some of the men pin them down while others looped around behind. The two he’d killed were trying to do that, but there was still five left and a couple of them would be working their way around the opposite side.
He could crawl on and slowly take them out one at a time, but it only needed one of the bastards to get behind the others to gun them all down. There were two faint rose blush glows in the grass ahead of him close to each other, neither were moving and gunfire was coming from that direction so they were the ones keeping Dorry and Sye occupied. The other three he couldn’t see so they must be too far away, probably working their way through the grass to Dorry and Sye’s left.
Or they were blanks he couldn’t sense.
He licked his lips and hoped Boy Crow, the redskin scout he’d met after he’d tracked Stodder Hope leaving the Dark Carnival, wasn’t with this group. However, he suspected if Boy Crow had been here he’d already be dead. Or all the Scourge riders would be.
He levelled the rifle at the first of the distant souls. It was a harder shot given the added distance, the grass between them diffusing the light of the man’s soul, but he didn’t want to waste time getting any closer. His first shot missed, though not by much given the way the man’s soul flashed brightly in alarm.
Two more shots followed in quick succession and the light started to fade to grey, but not instantaneously. The man was screaming, a high-pitched wail that skimmed the grass, and the second man’s soul changed position, going to his buddy’s aid.
He waited till the bright colours of one soul merged with the fading colour of the other and then pumped shells into them both till there were no more colours to see bar the green and gold of the grass.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the sky, pushing more shells into the rifle. The only colour he could see was blue.
The retort of rifles was cutting through the silence of the plains more frequently now as the surviving Scourge raiders closed in on Dorry, Sye and Laura.
A wet-eared farm boy, a kid and an unconscious girl. None of them were fighters and all of them were in his care. He guessed the Thin Rider would accept their souls as greedily as he did any others, but he was providing such a bountiful harvest maybe Death would realise he owed him a debt or two.
But he didn’t think so.
He rose to a crouch and started running through the grass. He hoped Sye and Dorry had enough wits about them not to shoot him. Dorry was a bright kid, Sye, well... he threw himself back down into the grass panting. No one seemed to have shot at him as far as he could tell, but he couldn’t see any new souls either.
He took off his hat and raised his head, there still wasn’t much to see but grass. There was another exchange of shots, but everybody was keeping their head down and firing half blind at each other.
Taking a bearing from the rifle shots he got up and ran again, managing twenty yards before a bullet whizzed by his ear and he face-planted back into the grass.
Someone had started paying attention.
He moved forward again on his belly, pushing through the grass. There was a faint smear of colour beckoning him ahead now. Another soul to reap. It wasn’t moving any and the bark of a rifle sounded out in that direction. The man was crouching in the grass, firing at Sye and Dorry. Had he noticed how many of his comrades’ guns had fallen silent? If he had, it wasn’t showing in his soul yet. There wasn’t enough alarm for a man who suspected he was about to die.
A scream sounded out, but the soul ahead didn’t flicker or fade to grey. It wasn’t a woman’s scream so it hadn’t been Dorry. One of the other Scourge men or Sye.
He pushed on till the glow of the soul ahead was strong and steady through the grass. Then he kept firing until it faded back to nothing.
After that there was silence.
“Sye!” He shouted “Dorry!”
“All still breathing!” That was Dorry.
He risked sticking his head above the grass and then hurried back towards the others as fast as he could. No one shot him.
Sye and Dorry were both still crouching behind Laura’s horse. The horse now sported several new bullet holes, but, thankfully, neither of his companions did.
Dorry was wide-eyed and Sye was blank-eyed. Both were dealing with what the world in general and the Scourge in particular had thrown at them these last few days in different ways. And neither of them were who they’d been, for better or worse.
“You get any?” Dorry scanned the grass behind him, rifle raised in anticipation of someone breaking cover to take a shot.
“One left,” he crouched down on the other side of the bullet-riddled horse.
“One?” Dorry’s eyes widened even further and she dropped her rifle a little. Even Sye looked momentarily startled.
“Plus the one with the horses, if he’s still there.”
“Still there…” Sye growled. He still looked like a young man beneath his bruises and new bristles, but his voice sounded old and worn and impossibly tired.
“I think we got one… but how could you have got all the others?”
“I didn’t,” his eyes swept the grass behind them, “there’s still one left.”
Dorry didn’t look convinced, but she could go count the corpses later. Eight of the bastards were down, but one man could still kill them all given a chance.
He couldn’t see the man’s soul. Either he was too far away or his gift might have faded for the time being. The Thin Rider could be fickle like that. Despite not being able to see anything, his eyes kept being drawn back to a patch of grass directly behind Dorry and Sye. Maybe it was his gift, maybe it was just a hunch that the one man he hadn’t been able to track down
had been the one who’d swung the long way around to get behind their position while his friends kept them pinned.
Sye and Dorry followed his gaze.
“You see something?” Sye Hallows’ eyes reduced to black slits between the bruises and the glare of the afternoon sun.
“He’s out there…” he rose to his feet and Sye did the same. They were making targets of themselves, but they had more chance of seeing their remaining assailant on their feet.
If the last Scourge killer was smart he would have worked out his comrades were dead and slipped away. But if he was smart maybe he wouldn’t be riding with the Scourge in the first place.
It turned out he wasn’t smart.
A figure erupted out of the grass, firing wildly. Fresh-faced and screaming, he was no older than Dorry. Sye grunted in pain, but he wasn’t going to be distracted with dark work still to be done. The rifle was already at his shoulder and he took the young man in the chest before he’d even risen all the way to his feet.
He fell back into the grass as quickly as he’d risen.
“Damnit…” Sye cursed dropping his rifle and clutching his left arm.
“Let me see,” he peeled away Sye’s hand that was already red.
The bullet had gone clean through the meat of the bicep, but it hadn’t hit bone and though Sye’s face was contorted with pain it could have been worse. A lot worse.
“You’ll live…” he reassured him “…just get that cleaned up.”
Sye was pale-faced, but he managed a curt nod before dumping his ass on the ground.
As long as the wound didn’t go bad Sye would live. The same applied to Laura who remained unconscious stretched out on the grass. How they were going to get her back to Hawker’s Drift, however, he didn’t know.
Dorry had scampered through the grass to check on the young Scourge raider. Her face was set hard as she made her way back.
“He won’t be hurting no one again,” she spat, her eyes fixed towards the distant horses of the dead Scourge men, “Last one’s running.” She let out a snort of disbelief.
He looked up and watched the rider gallop away, leaving his dead comrades’ horses behind.
Sye managed to get himself back onto his feet, still clutching his bloody arm, but his attention was fixed on the west.
“More riders,” he breathed through gritted teeth.
He spun around to where two riders were cutting through the grass towards them.
“More Scourge?” Dorry raised her rifle, but he reached over and pushed the barrel gently down.
“No…” he grinned “…friends.”
*
“Jesus…” John X made no move to dismount. From his vantage point in the saddle he could make out some of the bodies scattered about them in the grass.
“No,” Dorry jerked her head in his direction, “it was mostly him.”
“Your friends said you were being attacked. Thought you might need a hand… but looks like you had everything under control. What happened?”
“I’ll explain later,” he pushed his hat back, “but we need to get back to town and warn them, there’s thousands more where these came from and they’re all heading for Hawker’s Drift, destroying everything in their path.”
“Yeah, Sally and the other girls told us, they rode on to town. Should be there well before sunset.”
Cece vaulted cleanly from the saddle and moved to crouch at Laura’s side.
“She’s busted her leg real bad,” he explained, though the splintered bone jutting through the girl’s ruptured flesh was probably testimony enough.
“Sye took a bullet too,” Dorry offered, standing by the young man.
Cece looked over, frowned and shot to her feet.
“Sye?” Between the heavy bruising, stubble and dirt she clearly hadn’t recognised him.
“Yes…?”
She flew across the trampled grass and slapped the young man hard enough to send him staggering backwards.
“You bastard!”
“Hey!” Sye gasped.
He grabbed hold of Cece by the shoulders and yanked her away before she could do any further damage to the young man’s already battered face.
“You know…” John sighed, easing himself from the saddle much less athletically than Cece had, “…there’s nothing quite like catching up with old friends…”
The Widow
More survivors had made it into town since the morning and breathless tales of their escapes from the Scourge flitted back and forth across the square, where a good portion of the townsfolk had gathered for news.
Several of the survivors were injured and Doctor Rudi had set up a makeshift hospital in the church. There were only a couple so far that needed his help, but the fact the church was being used suggested more were expected.
The return of the Sheriff was greeted with smiles and slapped backs as if the town thought one overweight old man with a gold star would be enough to deter the murderous desperados who’d suddenly appeared out of the great empty nothing of the grassland.
If Sam Shenan’s the best paddle we have, Shit Creek is gonna be a fucking hard place to get out of…
“Sheriff!” the Mayor beamed, seemingly of the same opinion as the rest of the town.
“We got trouble,” the Sheriff replied through the smile he kept in place for the benefit of those too far away to hear him, which was everybody save the Mayor and her.
“I believe we do. I’ve called a town meeting, we need to reassure people our community is in no danger.”
The two men were heading up the steps into the Sheriff’s Office with Molly in their wake. She felt the curious eyes of the town on her back, but that was hardly a novel experience for her.
The Office was deserted save for Amelia and Ruthie Godbold, who both looked up as they entered. Amelia jumped off a chair to run across the room and barrel into her midriff.
“Hey!” she managed to exclaim before the wind was knocked out of her.
“You got away from the bad man!” Amelia squealed hugging her fiercely.
“Takes more than one… bad man to keep me down, hun.”
The Mayor looked between Sam and her, “Someone care to explain?”
The Sheriff tossed his hat onto a desk and patted down his thinning grey hair, “Like I said, we got trouble.”
Ruthie was standing by a desk, her eyes wide, “Did you find my folks? Emily?”
Sam shook his head after glancing at Molly, “We’re still looking for them.”
She gently extracted herself from Amelia’s embrace, “Why don’t you go and sit with Ruthie for a bit.”
Amelia managed a little humpf noise before going over to the older girl and taking her hand, “They want to talk about grown-up stuff,” she explained.
The Mayor turned his back on the girls and looked enquiringly at the Sheriff.
“Sam?”
“Blane has gone…” he shrugged and twirled a finger next to his temple.
“He tried to kill me in the Godbold’s place,” she added, “we can’t find Kate, Ash or Emily either.”
“I’m sure there must be some mistake.”
She lifted her hair and pulled down the collar of her blouse to show the bruises Blane’s fingers had squeezed into her neck, “I didn’t mistake these, or the fact he pulled his gun and tried to shoot those two. Or that there was blood on the floor of the Godbold’s house.”
She glanced at Ruthie and hoped she hadn’t been quite as loud as she usually was.
“How did you get away from Blane?” the Mayor asked.
“I shot him in the face.”
“He’s dead?
“No. Just a lot uglier than he was.”
“I sent Crackers and Royce to look for him,” the Sheriff added.
The Mayor blew out his cheeks and raised his eye to the ceiling, “Sam, we need every man we have...”
“I know. But we can’t have a homicidal lunatic running around town on top of everything else.”
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“No… of course. We have the town meeting in an hour. I want him found and I will deal with him when you do.”
“One of your little black bottles?” she demanded.
Sam’s shifted uneasily as the Mayor’s attention snapped in her direction.
“Do not try me Mrs McCrea. You’re valuable to me, but everyone’s worth is limited by their cost.”
She forced out one of her winning smiles.
“Do you know where the Godbold’s are?”
“No… Sam, I’ll be back for the meeting. Keep everyone calm until then,” he jabbed a finger in her direction before heading for the door, “especially her.”
“You didn’t mention Tom?” Sam asked, even though the Mayor had left the question was little more than a whisper.
“I’m a foul-mouthed, drunken hussy,” she explained sweetly, “I’m not stupid.”
“You think he had something to do with it?”
“I think he has something to do with everything bad that happens in this town.
The Sheriff of Hawker’s Drift didn’t try to argue with her.
*
“Did something bad happen to my folks?”
They were sitting by the window watching the crowd gather in the blistering sunshine scything across Pioneer Square. Sam Shenan was working the crowd; shaking hands, nodding, smiling, reassuring, telling folks everything was under control.
Lying through his teeth in other words.
She turned to Ruthie, smiled and patted her hand, “I’m sure they’re fine hun.”
She tried to shake the feeling she was doing much the same as the Sheriff, just to a smaller and less gullible audience.
The expression that flitted across Ruthie’s face suggested she’d come to pretty much the same conclusion. She went back to staring out of the window, her chin resting on her hand.
Amelia had decided sprawling on the floor was more comfortable and was busy drawing over the Sheriff’s stationery. She seemed to have shaken off the trauma of a madman trying to shoot her remarkably easily. Her fingers brushed her bruised neck. A damn sight easier than she’d managed herself anyway.