Shotgun

by Courtney Joyner

  The battle was erupting just as he’d always dreamed it.

  Chaney kept close to the falling-in wall of the old shed, even as sniper shots blew out the window next to him. He fired back everything he had, tried to reload again, but the gun was too damn hot. More rounds pounded the Goodwill, ricochets screeching off rusty metal and powdering the rotting wood.

  Two of the new boys were blasted from their place atop the four-by-four braces, and they fell without screams.

  Lem’s buddy cracked off rounds for cover, yelling from beside a grave, “They’re going to bring out a damn Howitzer next!”

  Chaney wiped dust and smoke from his eyes. “Beaudine said we’d have to take him!”

  “From five men, not fifty!”

  Lem Wright steady-aimed from the other side of the shed, firing twice and hitting two more of the Red Hoods, one in the face and another in the chest. Target practice. He lowered his gun, watched them fall back twitching, and their horses scatter along the top of the canyon. He refused to be rattled.

  Lem cocked his own smile. “Dead or alive, we’re in it now!”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Taste of Hell

  The sounds of the firefight surrounded John Bishop minutes before he passed through the split in the mountain that opened into Goodwill Canyon. It was a barrage he hadn’t heard since the bloody fields of the war: all manner of gunfire, the shots crashing into each other, punched with the cries of men.

  His reaction now was different from how it had been during the “conflicts.” The shootings didn’t matter, and the screams weren’t reaching him. Bishop wasn’t there to save anyone’s life; his mission was his own. He lifted the rig from its saddle sling, keeping his arm extended, ready with double barrels as soon as Beaudine was in range.

  Fox saw the dead look behind his eyes, and slowed the painted, giving Bishop the point, while covering his back. She knew he was riding alone, even if he wasn’t. Her hand was tight around the throwing ax tethered to her wrist, and the bow was slung across her shoulder, rubbing her wound raw. Her breathing began to shallow, but she fought it. She had her mission, too, so pain had to wait.

  Guns bellowed from the canyon, and Bishop raced to meet them, Fox riding close behind. He rode faster, determined, the rig hoisted like a battle standard.

  At the Goodwill, Lem Wright watched the Red Hoods regroup after he’d shot two. He moved around the side of the old shed, where Chaney was pressing close to its shattered walls. An outlaw they hadn’t even seen get shot was lying dead in the weeds, one of his boots blasted open.

  Lem said, “Must’ve had his pistol pointed down at his foot when he took the bullet. That’s a lesson.”

  Chaney could only nod.

  Lem threw a smile to his buddy and the kid who’d taken cover in the miner’s cemetery just beyond the shed’s porch. They were hunkered by the graves, cracking off shots toward the canyon rim when it was clear. The kid was wiping away tears and sweat.

  Lem called out, “Dead or alive, we’re in it now!”

  The kid froze, his gun hand shaking. Lem pushed it, as he brought up his Colt. “Boy, if you don’t shoot, they’ll shoot you. It’s the way of the world.”

  Lem fired three times, delighting in his own marksmanship.

  The kid shot toward the rim, forcing some Red Hoods back, but hitting nothing. You could almost hear the laughter, as they loaded up again, and the kid scrambled from the cemetery, toe-tripping over a marker.

  Lem’s buddy grabbed him by the arm. “I brought you in on this deal, your gun’s mine!”

  “You said it’d be a holdup! I did this when I was an infantry drummer, I ain’t doing it again!”

  “You’re forgetting the gold.”

  “No, I ain’t.”

  The kid blew a hole in his buddy’s elbow, and made a panicked try for his horse. Running blind. That’s when White Fox saw him. She and Bishop were still a distance out. The Goodwill was in front of them, and the kid was dead set between the old mine buildings and the canyon wall, fear-struck, his feet refusing to move, with Red Hood gunfire pocking around him.

  Lem’s buddy fired the shot that mule-kicked the kid sideways. Somehow the kid couldn’t believe he’d been hit. “I never been in no real gunfight before,” he said as he collapsed, his own dead weight pinning him down.

  Bishop and White Fox rode hell-bent into the canyon.

  The Fire Riders watched it all from the rim, and opened up, their muzzle flashes streaks of heat lightning. Bullets cut the air like hard rain, as Fox and Bishop split, each running full-out on opposite sides of the Goodwill, trying for cover.

  Another new boy shot at the Red Hoods from behind the old mining office, and got ventilated three times.

  The kid struggled in the middle of the road: pushing himself off the frozen mud, trying to stand, his life pouring out. Not making it. Bishop rode to him, the bay rearing.

  Bishop demanded “Beaudine!”

  Above them, Red Hoods were refocusing their aim.

  The kid tried to speak, his blood-slick hands a flag he was waving, but his voice had strangled to nothing. The kid pointed toward the mine entrance. Two shots from the rim dead-danced him a few feet, before letting him drop.

  Enemy snipers had strafed Bishop before, and that instinct took him over. He gaffed his horse, breaking left, and then running right, to the old mine entrance.

  The next shot hit the bay.

  The horse screamed, bucking wild as a slug tore her rump. Bishop lurched from his saddle, landing hard on the rig, the double barrel bashing his ribs.

  Chaney and Lem stepped from the cover of the old mine shack, crouching low, popping shots at the Red Hoods above, then turning their guns on Bishop. Their buddy was holding his arm, gritting through the fire.

  Chaney, the gambler, yelled, “And there’s our goddamn gold!”

  In a few simultaneous heartbeats: Fox’s throwing ax hit Lem’s leg above the knee, cutting muscle. He went down, trying to yank it free. Fox dropped from her horse, ran to Bishop, took the reins of both animals. Chaney followed her moves, thumb on the hammer of his Colt.

  Bishop caught Chaney’s action from the corner of his eye, got a sense of it, and protected her, shoulder-firing both barrels. The shotgun blew another hole in Chaney’s hiding place, while he mostly dodged the blast. But it was a maneuver that worked, giving Fox time.

  Bishop took cover in a small drainage ditch, slamming home two more shells.

  Fox ran the horses toward a large stack of rail ties, bound with metal bands. The shots from above were random, targeting anything, chewing the ground around her. Fox kept the animals steady.

  The bay snorted, as Fox worked to pull her down behind the barricade: getting her settled, on her knees, and then lying flat, so Fox could lie across her belly.

  On the canyon rim, the Red Hoods opened ammo boxes, got set.

  The bay was twisting, and Fox spoke, just letting the horse hear her voice. After some moments, there was no resistance as Fox pressed against her, the horse feeling the warmth of her body, calm in the chaos.

  A new volley pounded every bit of the Goodwill, shooting the buildings and surrounding area to death: chewing the rail ties, ricochets screeching off the old iron, shattering already shattered glass.

  The painted reacted to the gunfire, throwing his head back, biting at the air. Fox brought him down on his knees too, then to his side; finally, he did what she wanted. Straining, Fox kept both horses lying flat on the ground.

  Bishop threw a shotgun blast at the old mine shed, turned and threw another at the slag heap where Howard was ducking low.

  Lem screamed as he worked the throwing ax from his leg, pulling the blade free, red washing him. His buddy grabbed it, noting its feathers and markings, and yelled, “You’re a coward, Bishop! Hidin’ behind that Cheyenne bang-tail!”

  Bishop lowered the empty rig, drew the Colt Peacemaker with his left, and shot Lem’s buddy square in the chest. He turned, not returning fire, and stagg
ered off the porch, and through the cemetery before crushing an old wooden cross that had DIED BROKE scrawled on it. The joke didn’t escape him, and he death-laughed.

  The Red Hoods, and the rim-fire, exploded again.

  Bishop ran low across the field of battle, holding up the double barrels for protection, shots tearing at everything around him. He jumped behind the stacked rail ties as if tumbling into a shell hole. The bay reacted by sitting up, her muscles rolling, but didn’t stand. Spasms racked her back flank.

  The front of Fox’s jacket was a wide smear of the bay’s blood, but she calmed both animals as the shooting continued. She used her hands, voice, and body to keep them lying on their sides, out of the gun sights. Her touch was soothing and her quiet words somehow cut through the gunfire. The horses stayed down.

  But Bishop’s eyes were on the blasted-apart remains of the Goodwill and the scattered dead, as he tried to figure who was hiding where. “I couldn’t find him, but Beaudine’s here. He’s got to be!”

  “Then he is.”

  Bishop’s voice was skidding. “Two of these men were there that night, I know it, as sure as anything.”

  “Oóoxo’eéstómáne.”

  The Cheyenne word for revenge had just been evenly spoken when more bullets tore into the rail ties, wood chips flying. Bishop and Fox kept the animals lying down. The horses didn’t struggle.

  The bay’s head lolled, and Bishop said, “We can’t lose these horses!” He pulled his medical kit from the saddlebag with his left hand, frantically going through it, finally dumping half of it. “Did you check the wound? Completely?”

  “I was saving her.”

  “Not if she dies of blood poisoning! What about the slug?”

  Bishop’s words were sharp, impatient, as he cleaned the blood away from the bullet strike on the bay’s rump. The wound was a crease in her flesh, the hair around it scorched.

  Bishop absently touched the bullet trench on his own neck. “It’s all right. There’s no slug, no lead.”

  Bishop looked to Fox, took a breath. She nodded. He massaged the bay’s neck, as he always had, before dabbing the wound with water and iodine. The horse half-kicked at his touch, straightening her leg and whinnying, but letting the doc finish. Trusting him.

  Bishop dried the wound, then ran his left hand over the bay, patting her gently. White Fox watched him struggling to put the supplies back in the kit and snap it closed. She reached over and did it for him.

  Fox said, “Otahe.”

  Bishop listened.

  There followed a few moments of rumbled-echo gunfire, and then nothing. Not even the metallic cocking of weapons for the next barrage, or orders being barked.

  Nothing.

  No one spoke, or seemed to move. The shooting had actually stopped; the canyon was still. The steady wind disturbed pieces of broken glass and wood, jarring them to the ground, and then there was nothing. Again.

  At the mining shed, Chaney stayed crouched, peeking his head around a corner to eye the movement along the top of the ridge. From what he could see, the Fire Riders had pulled back.

  He stayed in place and checked his guns. Fully loaded.

  A few of Beaudine’s new boys emerged from their places behind the old shacks or piles of lumber, in bloody shock after the battle. One of them walked to the body of Lem’s buddy, still sprawled in the miner’s bone orchard, and kicked him over to make sure he was gone. Then he grabbed his wallet.

  Behind the slag heap, Howard pressed himself against the rocky trash, holding his lit cigar half an inch from the fuse on a dynamite bundle. Listening. Waiting.

  He got through half a prayer, but couldn’t remember the rest. The smoke was tickling his nose, and he sneezed, giving himself away. Howard ducked for cover from the bullet rain he expected, but it never happened.

  Bishop heard Lem Wright moaning in pain by the old shed, but there were no other voices. Not even whispers. He and Fox stayed low behind the stack of rail ties, their horses flat against the ground, starting to stir, snorting.

  Bishop reloaded the shotgun rig, eased it shut, smothering the sound of the barrel locking with the palm of his left hand. Fox drew an arrow for her bow, and fitted it tight, but didn’t draw back. Not yet.

  They watched as Howard stood up from the cover of the slag heap, his fist around some dynamite, the cigar clenched in busted teeth. Betsy was holstered. He drew on the cigar, and sneezed again, his eyes watering at the awful smell. He was a huge target, but no one took a shot.

  “See? You had no confidence, but I knew you were a good soldier. We shouldn’t have revealed our positions all at once, but I suspect Dr. Bishop knows us by now.”

  The familiar voice spoke from behind the cross braces that supported the collapsing entrance to the silver mine on the far side of the canyon. Bishop lifted the rig toward the voice, his body tensing as it continued : “I would say our common enemy has decided to let us settle our differences without them.”

  Beaudine stepped from his place between the large support timbers and the canyon wall, carrying his rifle and the long cleaver. He was over fifty yards away from where Bishop and White Fox had taken cover, and out of their range. They could only watch as he walked around the bodies of the Red Hoods and their horses, their blood mixing with the icy slush and mud, long gone.

  He poked at each with the cleaver blade, as a triumphant warrior would use his broadsword. His tone was pure victory: “I brought this one down, and those other two, and more I suspect. But you all did your part, so earned your share. I’m proud of you, men.”

  Chaney barked, “Yeah, fine. When the hell do we get it?”

  Beaudine took a few steps closer to Bishop and Fox, but kept his body angled, still at too far a distance for the shotgun’s spread. Fox sat up on her knees, drawing her bow and aiming to shoot just over the top of their wooden protection, hitting Beaudine in the upper chest or throat.

  He shielded himself with the cleaver blade, taunting. “That’s up to Dr. Bishop, now that he’s our prisoner.”

  Fox adjusted her shot, not taking her eyes off her target and reminding Bishop: “He’kotóomoehá.”

  Calm in words, fierce in action.

  Bishop then called out, “You made your deal with Captain Creed, not me.”

  “All that matters is you understand that you and your gold are now spoils of war.”

  Bishop squeezed Fox’s shoulder, letting Beaudine’s declaration bounce off the canyon walls and vanish before he stood up from behind the rail ties. The bay and the painted both got to their feet, flanking him.

  Fox, and her aim, stayed low and fixed.

  Bishop held the rig, taking in the damaged and dead of the Goodwill. Chaney, Howard, and Lem stayed on the ragged edge of their positions, holding weapons and the few new guns. Waiting to make a move, they stood bloody and tired.

  Bishop measured his words. “Does this bunch understand that killing me gets you no gold?”

  “They follow my orders.”

  “I’m barely holding back; a few of those dead are my doing, and I’ve left more behind.” Bishop turned, pointing to Howard, Chaney, and Lem with the shotgun. “So, you might want to hear me out, Major.”

  Beaudine tossed an order, “You all stand at ease.” Then he faced Bishop, “I appreciate the military courtesy.”

  “Did you forget that I used to be a doctor?”

  Beaudine nodded. “No, I have not.” Then he grandly pointed to the shotgun rig with the cleaver. “And that addition you’ve made for yourself is ample testament.”

  Bishop raised the shotgun level with Beaudine’s stomach. “What I mean is, you think I don’t recognize a man with a mental disorder?”

  Chaney spit, “Jesus, another losing game.”

  Beaudine’s words tumbled. “You’re not in a position to be saying these things—things like this. Testing me is foolish. You, of all people, should know that! Howard, do you want your share? Ready to take it?”

  Howard held up the dynamite
bundle in one hand and the lit cigar in the other. “How many times you gonna ask?”

  “That dynamite? Every shack. You’re surrounded by it. Mr. Howard has made sure this entire place could be blown straight to Heaven.” Beaudine turned the long cleaver in his palms, as he had that winter night. “We’re all prepared to do what we need to do, so I’d think you’d stop flapjacking, and start cooperating!”

  Bishop used his old bedside manner: “You need to stay calm, think, think of your officer’s training. Get yourself clear.” He adjusted his shoulders, tightening the line to the triggers. “Look around you. This didn’t go as planned. These aren’t Creed’s men, so you tell me—vigilantes? Someone sent a damn army after you, Major.”

  Beaudine’s voice jumped. “And we’re victorious! We walked through the gates of hell for that gold, and it’s ours! Are you saying you’re not going to surrender it? Play that game again?”

  “The gold’s not here.”

  Chaney called out, “Then you take us to where you got it buried, or whatever. What’s this stall for?”

  “These aren’t the only Red Hoods! They were riding down on us when we came into this canyon.” Bishop yelled out to Lem, who had tied a belt above his knee to slow his bleeding, “You think this is over?”

  Lem strained, “Going to help me, Doc?”

  “Tell Beaudine what you think.”

  Lem threw it out, “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

  Beaudine shook his head, thoughts breaking. “No, no. We won this battle, and you’re my prisoner, and you better damn well start acting like it!”

  Bishop hit hard: “In truth, you’re the prisoner. You believe I have this gold? If you don’t follow my orders, you’ll never see a bit of it.”

  Beaudine closed his eyes, sorting thoughts. Chaney stepped from behind the shed, arms outstretched. “What the hell do you want, then? This standoff isn’t taking us no place.”

  “Beaudine, the bastard with the blind eye, and the big one. I don’t know the rest of you, I don’t care. Ride on.”