by Mike Miller
A pair of stout men in Chiksai’s posse retrieved their fallen comrade, pulling the corpse back onto firm ground. The open hole in the dead man’s chest released a trickle of wafting smoke which rose into the ether like the thick steam of a rancid stew.
Snider returned his concentration to study the space in the distance. He started with the top of the far cliff, the inevitable destination of the rogues according to Chiksai’s recollection of their journey. But quickly he dismissed the location as being impossibly far off to have nailed such a precision shot. There were not many other possibilities remaining on the opposite side at the base of the cliff. It was simply a flat expanse of snow-covered ground where the largest rocks or piles of snow were no larger than a small dog.
Then came a twinkle in the snow.
“Down!” Snider shouted. The thunderclap of a gunshot broke across the chasm.
Snider felt the whizz of a bullet ruffle his hair as it sped past his scalp. He heard its squishy collision with a body before he could turn back and see the aftermath. Young Private Crowe was toppling backwards, a dark stream of blood pouring from his neck onto his chest. Private Snider smiled at the sight, glad to see the boy die. He was thankful that the bullet did not strike himself, and Crowe had long been a complete nuisance, needlessly whining about the discomfort throughout the entire expedition.
“There!” Snider commanded, drawing his pistol and quickly emptying the chamber of shots. A wild array of gunfire soon deafened all as the opening shots begat a hurricane of explosions. As the infantry and Chiksai’s marauders raced to empty their weapons’ ammunition, the snowy ground on the far side of the bridge popped and sprayed miniature geysers of snow like a frying pan full of boiling oil.
While Snider vigorously raced to reload his weapon, he searched for the sniper again through the sputtering bursts of snow and earth. Squinting for a better view, he believed he found his target once again. Reloading the final bullets into the chamber of his gun, he then drearily laid it down on the ground as if it were a heavy tool at the end of a long day’s work.
“Hold,” he called, though the firing continued. Some men fumbled with their barrels, gunpowder and shells in their eagerness to fire off another round as if they were locked in a competition to see whom could dispose of their ammunition the quickest.
“Halt!” Snider shouted again in a battlefield voice that was louder than a barrage of gunfire. The shots slowed to a trickle and ceased.
Snider began to speak when a final blast arrived dreadfully late. “Sorry,” an unknown voice cried out.
Snider noticed Chiksai grinning. He and his men were all laying flat against the ground or shielded behind cover, but their weapons were all lowered in a show that they already knew what Snider had only just realised.
“He’s too far,” Snider announced, recalling Baxter’s preference for that gigantic Minie rifle which would afford him a range advantage over all of their weapons. Gauging the assassin’s distance at several hundred yards, he informed his men, “Only the long rifles might work.”
The men looked about at one another to see if each other understood this assessment of the situation. Still, there was a silence in the group as to the next course of action.
“What do we do, sir?” Finnegan bravely asked.
Snider held up a hand to shush the inquisitive sergeant. He listened expectantly, waiting for a sign. His men followed suit.
Another gunshot followed by a piece of stone wildly chipping away a few inches from Snider’s face. He appreciated the attention from his foe, then barked over, “Sullivan,” to the bewildered young Private Sullivan.
“Me, sir?” the boy asked.
“Rush across,” Snider hissed.” Now.”
The solider looked nervously back and forth between the far side of his ravine and his nearby commanding officer.
“You better hurry,” Snider encouraged, drawing his pistol on the indecisive boy. “Before he can reload.”
Private Sullivan took one more look at Snider to see if the order was serious. As if the cold glare in the colonel’s eyes were not enough to convince Sullivan, the barrel of Snider’s pistol trained upon him provided the final encouragement. Sullivan leapt to his feet and heroically charged toward the bridge with an enviable battle cry announcing a stout heart and bold conviction.
“Go, damn you,” Snider called out after him. When the youth finally reached the first steps, he had to slow his pace, watching his own feet to make sure they carefully hit their marks across the wobbling planks.
“You!” Snider shouted back at his troops, who were all confused as to whom exactly he was addressing, “Anybody with long rifles, provide some damn cover!” In the enthusiasm of the moment, he turned and fired off his pistol into the sky. “I promise you we’ll kill him somehow.”
Chapter XXVI
The Battle at the Bridge
With measured breaths, Baxter strove to control his shivering. Gradually his hands steadied their trembling, so he carefully inserted the bullet into his rifle’s chamber. He blew his hands to warm them again, but they soon started their quivering as he locked the bolt into place. With his enemies’ bullets dancing in the ground before him, their splattering pops and pings were soothing, providing a metronomic rhythm to time his movements.
With his rifle reloaded, Baxter propped it back through the folds of the snow-covered blankets that constituted his hastily made shooting bluff. He peered through the tiny crease he had prepared to spy on the enemies. They had dispatched one of his former mates to tepidly walk the rope bridge, Private Sullivan, he believed.
Baxter didn’t want to kill the poor youth, but his weapon was not crafted for any other purpose. Trying to just clip the boy would still result in a severed limb or fatal wound giving the immense power of the rifle. He wished now that he had possessed the fortitude to simply sever the bridge’s support, to strand the opposition on the far side. But he could not consign himself to a lonely death on the mountain, nor destroy the route for the local inhabitants.
Even if they all stormed across, he knew they’d be limited in the rate of their travel by the bridge and rendered as easy targets from his vantage point. With more than enough ammo to shoot each foe thrice, Baxter figured he would not need to slaughter them all. The fear of death should scare the men into retreat, where he could eventually escape under cover of night. But staring now at the enraged faces of his attackers through his gun’s sight, particularly the vicious visages of Snider and the brute from the inn, Baxter realised that their vengeful rage might not relent.
To contrast the ugly rage before him, he closed his eyes to imagine his wife’s lovely portrait. He retrieved the picture tucked away in the breast pocket close to his heart to gaze upon her again. Though it brought him momentary joy, Baxter then became upset at the idea that he would never see the real thing again. It was difficult to remember her image in the flesh from their last moment together years ago. Reliance upon the drawing now complicated his recollection of her, so that even in colour she still seemed only a still, flat picture of herself.
Disgruntled at her fading memory, Baxter took aim and flipped the cover of his scope off to see Private Sullivan was now carefully crawling across the bridge on his stomach just over halfway across the bridge. Through the bubbled glass, Baxter lamented the look of fear on the poor lad’s face.
Whispering a prayer for the boy’s soul while carefully drawing his breath, Baxter pulled the trigger. “Forgive me,” he said softly. The gunshot roared through the cramped space, filling the confined air with the musty stank of spent gunpowder. His eyes burned from the fumes as if a locomotive’s chimney had just chugged past him.
In the distance, Sullivan’s shoulder exploded. The boy fell to his stomach and spun awkwardly backwards. His flailing limbs entangled in the rope sides of the bridge like an insect in a web, preventing his body from falling into the chasm.
Nearly as soon as Sullivan fell, another soldier rushed to fill his space. The newest
pursuer was smaller and moved much more nimbly across the bridge.
The race to reload began. Baxter’s gloved hand reached down for another bullet from his prepared pile when he fumbled the tiny slug, sending the metal piece tumbling into the snow. He cursed his sloppy handling as he retrieved the ammunition. He blew and polished the artillery shell knowing that he would pay for the mistake as even the slightest dirt could greatly distort the accuracy of such a ranged shot. As Baxter popped the bullet into his gun, he coughed and wiped at his eyes. They sweated tears from the intensity of the concentrated smoke which refused to dissipate in his confined quarters.
Peering at the scene on the bridge, he saw Sullivan was alive but now struggling with the newcomer who was straining to throw him from the bridge.
With a clearer moral mandate from which to operate, Baxter raised the rifle back to his cheek, careful to only caress the wood with his skin and not touch the freezing metal. Through the opened scope he could see that little runt Horace, a despised opponent of Baxter’s from long before the mutiny of their expedition. Drawing a long breath, he fought not to enjoy this kill.
The rifle exploded, and the backfire of smoke made Baxter wince and cover his face. He flapped open the blankets at the back of his cover to air out the thick smoke. If a glint off his scope or the muzzle fire hadn’t revealed his exact position before, the vented and swirling black smoke would surely signal his location now, even in the looming shadows amongst the white ice and snow.
When his eyes stopped watering and the smoke evaporated, Baxter returned his attention to his target. Like a magician’s crude trick, the clearing smoke revealed a stunningly impossible sight. Private Horace remained alive. And not only did he appear completely unharmed, he was brutally jamming his foot into Sullivan’s bloodied face, using the side ropes to sturdy himself and reinforce the vicious attack like a crazed fighter illegally stomping his opponent in the ring.
Baxter had somehow missed his mark, an absolute rarity in his storied career of marksmanship. Perhaps because he had relished the opportunity to kill that a divine intervention caused the barrel to slip that minute millimetre which deviates misses from hits. Any crud stuck to the dirty bullet from its fall upon the ground would have contributed to a miss as well.
With one final push, Horace heaved Sullivan over the side, and the dying boy fell into the chasm. The lad didn’t make a sound, but his equipment clattered the whole way down. A bullet crumbled some nearby rock disarmingly close to Baxter’s brow to wake him from his daze. He moved to reload his weapon while watching Horace resume his crossing. Unlike the prior man, the private was not bridled by any fear or hesitation. His advancement over the shaky bridge was alarmingly swift.
By the time Baxter could stamp the next bullet into position, Horace had safely reached the near side of the gorge. Racing with both arms pumping in a full sprint, he scampered for cover around the bend of the cliff. Baxter raised his weapon, tracing the path while leading the target, then relented. His target had dashed out of sight behind the horizon of the curved cliff.
Baxter cursed his foul luck. With a hand shivering cold and mad from the latest setback, he checked his revolver to make sure it was loaded.
While wondering what to do about Horace, Baxter noticed a new soldier embark across the bridge to divert his attention. With his rifle already in place, Baxter closed one eye and squinted the other. In the magnified pool of the lens, the unknown boy’s wiry frame nimbly marched over the wooden planks.
Saying another prayer for mercy and salvation upon the innocent lad, Baxter pulled the trigger and watched the soldier’s hip explode in a splash of blood.
Then the scope was filled with a blur of red. It was Horace’s coat up close.
Baxter reeled back away from the rifle only to have it kicked back into his lower lip. He staggered back from the disorienting blow, recovering enough sense to catch Private Horace as he leapt in attack. The African was able to stop Horace’s arm as it plunged a knife toward his heart.
“You bloody turncoat traitor,” Horace shouted, shifting his weight to sit above the butt of the blade.
Baxter grunted as he valiantly fended off the attack, practically lifting his enemy into the air to prevent the dagger’s point from entering his chest.
With another growl, Horace’ s renewed push dipped the blade down again. The tip poked through the outmost layer of Baxter’s winter coat.
Wincing from the stab, Baxter heaved his opponent to one side, shrugging Horace onto the rocky ground while rolling in the opposite direction. By the time Baxter staggered to his feet, Horace was already poised for another attack, viciously sizing up his wounded prey like a feral predator.
“I’ll see you in hell, you stinking blackie,” he cooed. Baxter clamped his left hand over the right side of his chest as if swearing an oath. A thin dribble of blood trickled though his fingers. The two adversaries circled each other in anticipation of the next round.
Horace pounced forward with his knife before him like a rhino’s goring horn. Amateurs always led with the knife, Baxter smiled to himself, offering up the focal point of their offense to be so easily deflected.
Baxter chopped the knife aside with his right hand, then cranked the elbow back into Horace’s oncoming jaw. Even while Horace’s limp body was still plummeting to earth, the agile Baxter was already busy smashing the hand holding the weapon against a jagged stone in order for it to release the knife. Once his ears heard the metal weapon thud away in the snow, Baxter grabbed the groggy Horace by his collar and unleashed a rapid succession of rights into the man’s jaw. It only took three blows to put him to sleep, but Baxter added a fourth for good measure.
Suddenly he realised that he had neglected to watch the bridge. He scanned for the downed rifle, then leapt towards the gun upon locating it. Once he could feel its sturdy wooden stock in his hands, Baxter tumbled into an acrobatic somersault, so that he settled firmly onto one knee with the gun poised at his cheek for the ready.
Just a few feet beyond the bayoneted barrel of his gun stood a woman in black. It was the nun from the train. She looked frightened and haggard with skin as pale as the surrounding snow.
Confused by this new apparition, Baxter lowered his weapon. With teetering steps, she crept towards him like an eerie, unearthly ghost.
“What...?” Baxter’s voice trailed off while his mind tried to surmount this event, “What are you doing here?” The question burst from his mouth in a suffocating gasp as if he had been choking on the words. “I’m so sorry,” He prayed that she was not a celestial emissary sent to judge him.
“They kidnapped me,” she said weakly. Long locks of her wavy brown hair drooped before her face when she bowed her head. “When you betrayed them, they took me.” Her voice was not angry or emotional, only soft and faint.
Baxter sighed, his soul now heavier with remorse for the most innocent victim of this disastrous caper. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking to her eyes for forgiveness though she continued to avert her gaze downwards. “You’re safe with me. I will save you.”
Over her shoulder he spied another trooper approaching upon the bridge. He raised his rifle back to his gaze while locking its sight upon on his target.
The gunshot exploded in another bombastic thunderclap that echoed across the chasm. But Baxter had yet to pull his trigger.
Baxter sank to the earth while his rifle floated away from his powerless grip as if carried on a current. His blood-covered left hand instinctively returned back to his chest. In an odd coincidence, it seemed he had been shot in the same exact spot in which he had been recently stabbed. Baxter couldn’t help but smile at the irony. Perhaps the wound was an ideal target to strike.
The giant pistol in Janice’s tiny hands exhaled a plume of smoke like a spent dragon. “I’m sorry,” she said with a sniffle.
Baxter felt the world going dim before his eyes. “Me too,” he said.
The shining sun spread its whiteness. It enveloped him in a warmth
he hadn’t experienced since departing civilisation on this damned adventure. From the mists and ether in the distance, he could see his love approaching him. Her beautiful face never looked prettier in the magic light. Whether she was an angel from heaven or the beginning of a cruel trick perpetrated by the demons of hell, he did not care. Just the sight of her made him happy. He never thought he would die peacefully.
Chapter XXVII
Conrad Reborn
The world was white. Perfectly enveloping Conrad, the absolute whiteness of the world was the cosiest blanket, a mother’s bosom, the afterglow of great sex. His vision may have been unusually blank, but it was not something to be feared. The simplicity, the stillness, the quiet, nothing was hidden here, and it was lovely.
Whether this was dream or not, Conrad didn’t care since he was happy.
As soon as Conrad came to this satisfied conclusion, everything began to change. In the peripheries, the world started to blur. The empty void became filled with a mild blue, then darker hues of gray. The colours alarmed Conrad, who was already sorrowful for the vanishing of the emptiness.
A calm but steady tone emerged, growing louder while wavering in pitch. The sound broke into different sounds and became a medley of noises. His ears bubbled with chatter, wind, and the crunching rhythm of footfalls in the snow.
Conrad was not sure when exactly he had opened his eyes, but they were now open. Staring outwards into the view before him, the sky was beneath him, a murky tableau of colours battling over the setting sun. Above him were the jagged Himalayan Mountains. The sharp white peaks were being devoured into darkness by each other’s shadows. With a steady and rolling bob, his head bounced along while somehow moving through this countryside.
Somewhere was the dreary chatter of Nepalese, underlined by the lazy screech of the wind.
Then he realised his neck was sore, almost bent backwards enough to snap.