by Tim Marquitz
But today, he wasn’t sure he would need that horde for very much longer.
For as long as Dalton could remember, his dreams had a tendency to come true. His father had always called it “the family’s curse,” but Dalton had a hard time thinking of these prophecies as anything but a blessing. Over the years he’d spent on the run, his dreams had told him when it was time to move on from a certain town, or when the Death Storms were on their way, and more than once they showed him the faces of the many men and women who wished to see him dead. It had been these visions of a man he had not seen in years that had awoken him over the last several nights, his body drenched with sweat, and a fever burning his head.
“Needin’ anything else, Dalton?” spoke a fragile, squeaking voice as the young girl who moments before daydreamed behind the bar walked over to his booth, snapping Dalton out of his reminiscence. Caroline had known Dalton since she was born, and over those fourteen years, she had often reminded him of his own daughters. Sometimes, he saw it in the things the girl would say, and other times it was in the expressions she would make, but most of the time it was in the way she saw the best in everyone, even an old outlaw like himself. Though he would never say it aloud, that always hurt him a little. The old man did not deserve her kindness, but still, she gave it to him time and time again.
“That’ll be all, Caroline,” Dalton answered, a small sliver of that distinctive Berm accent already beginning to show itself after only two drinks, though he’d tried so hard over the years to cover it up. On almost any other night he’d be slurring along like Tom Waits, singing out that old Neil Diamond song, Sweet Caroline, but the girl didn’t really know what that meant. She had only left Marion perhaps a half dozen times, and she had certainly never seen as much of this world as Dalton had. She had never been to those places where the multitude of worlds came together, where one world died, giving birth to another, but Dalton had. Standing there, Dalton had seen the very earth beneath his feet crumble and fall into nothingness, threatening to take him away to another world and spit something foreign and strange into this world in his place. Here in this world, the only one the girl had ever known of, there was no Neil Diamond, there was no Tom Waits, and there was no Sweet Caroline, except in the mind of some drunken old man rambling the night away to her about this nonsense or that. To Caroline, a diamond was just a rock, this Tom must have been waiting for something awful important, and there wasn’t a single damn thing about her that was sweet, if you really got to knowing her, that is.
Another thing Caroline didn’t know much about was that drunken old rambling man who sat in that same booth night in and night out. She thought she knew him pretty well, on account of how long he had been around her, but at the same time, she could tell there was a lot that he kept hidden away, just like they say an iceberg does in those far off seas Dalton had told her about as a child. She knew he was the man who had been living with her and her mama as far back as she could remember, back when she was still a little girl, and she knew her mother had told her Dalton was her father, even though the old man had always denied it when she’d asked. Regardless, she still liked to believe he was, because to her, that was better than the fact, better than having no father at all.
She never bothered to think about how he got the money to pay for his drinks every night or for the room he had rented above the bar for the last few months, or the way he had spent his time before he came to this dry, decaying town of Marion. Instead, she chose to remember how he had spent his time with her when she was a child, taking her north to Greyhurst to see the circus one week when she was six. She remembered when he took her to the harvest festivals in Lochlea when she was nine, and how he had bought her cornhusk dolls there, which even her own mother hadn’t thought to do. She didn’t know about his son who had died, or the valuables tucked deep in the bag he carried with him always and she certainly didn’t know about the gun he wore beneath his shirt on that evening.
As Caroline grew from four to fourteen she saw Dalton age at least 20 years. She thought it was unnatural to see, but that was just how time seemed to pass for the old man. Her mother told her years ago that the things the man had seen in the years before he came to Marion had aged him too quickly. As Caroline grew older, she wondered if her mother had meant those far off places where the worlds became one that caused the old man’s aging. Dalton would often drunkenly ramble on about these places whenever he caught the young girl’s ear, and for years, she thought it was just the old man’s imagination. After Dalton left her mother’s home, he stopped being her stepfather and started being the kindly old man who came down from his rented room for a drink every night and a solitary game of cards, or even a round of billiards if he were feeling particularly sociable. To her, the younger men in town were hard-edged and cruel, and quick to cheat a man of his age out of everything he had. She always wanted to warn him against talking with them, but she never did. A part of her always felt he could hold his own against those hard edged and cruel younger men if push ever came to shove, and she had yet to see him stand down on those few occasions when it had.
If her mother had ever told Caroline about the monsters that had truly driven Dalton to these dry, decaying streets almost twenty years before, Caroline would find it hard to believe. After all, robbers and murderers belonged at the gallows of Greyhurst, strung up by the Queen, not left free to roam the countryside, chatting up young girls and sleeping with their mamas. Besides, all the men she’d seen hauled away from these parts carried swords and knives like those three men playing billiards in the corner, not six shot steel with wooden handles like that boogeyman had in the stories that Dalton had told her as a child.
“Hey, Dalton,” she said, biting her lip as she turned to face the man. “Is something wrong? You’re givin’ off a kinda funny feeling.”
“Am I now?” he asked the girl, chuckling softly beneath his breath. He always found it some humor in it when the girl would talk about auras, or chakras, or some other thing most folks in this little town had never heard of it. Perhaps more than that, he found it a little funny that the girl thought she knew him at all. Sure, she knew the man who’d lived in this town for the last however-many years, but that wasn’t him, was it? That was just a character he played, or so liked to tell himself.
“It’s just…” she hesitated, careful to choose the right words. She’d known Dalton long enough to know you must always be mindful of your words when he’d been drinking. As a child, she’d seen in her mother’s bruises what happened when you didn’t. “You’re feelin’ like a man who’s been standing at the gallows with a bag over his head, just waitin’ for the floor to drop out beneath `im.”
Dalton simply stared at the girl. She was only fourteen years old, but sometimes she noticed things that no child her age should be noticing just yet. He didn’t know if it was the books she read, or the friends she kept, or maybe she had some clairvoyant fever dreams that haunted her at night as well. The truth of it was he had felt for years like he was standing at the gallows, but it was only the last few days that he felt that inevitable drop coming.
“I suppose I am,” he told her, straightening his spine as he sat upright and forcing himself to look her in the eyes for the first time since he came down from his rented room earlier that evening. “I’m just expecting to see an old friend soon. Someone I haven’t seen in quite a while, and one who, for a long time at least, I’d thought I’d never see again.”
“Well, is it anyone I know?” she asked him, grasping for something to keep the old man talking. She could tell that something was off with him that night, and she didn’t think that sitting alone, drunk and nostalgic, was a good idea for him.
“I don’t know how you would,” he told her, shaking his head. “I haven’t seen him since before you born.”
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll leave ya to it, then,” she said disappointedly, though she tried hard to cover the worried tone in her voice. “But hey, listen to me, if you need anyth
ing at all, you can find me right behind that bar, okay?”
“Thank you, darlin’,” he replied, placing his large calloused hand over her own soft and small one, and she smiled at him as her eyes met his. This moment they shared only lasted a few seconds though, as soon, he pulled his hand away from hers, and she saw his eyes once again dart to the door of the bar. With a sigh, she turned and walked backed to the bar, retreating to the same bored stance she spent so many hours of her week in. As Dalton saw her settle into this pose, he was glad she wasn’t hanging around tonight. If the fever dreams of the past few nights came true, as they so often had, he wanted the girl safe and far out of sight. When the Riders came to collect their bounty, they very rarely left any survivors to tell the tale.
Several minutes passed, and soon Caroline had retreated into the familiar daydreams of a life outside of Marion, an activity which was not uncommon for the young girl on those long, quiet evenings. A bell rang out, surprising the girl, and found herself wondering who in the hell would brave the Death Storms as she stood up straight and brushed the dust off the bar. Standing in the open doorway to the Ridgeback was a solitary man who looked every bit the desperado from a children’s story to the teenage girl at the bar. It would not be a lie to say he was an attractive man. He was tall, at least six and a quarter feet, and what little extra weight that he carried clearly came from his age slowing him down rather than from laziness. He looked to the girl to be at least forty years old, thought with the way Dalton aged, she was never sure anymore. The stranger’s face was thin, and the few day’s growth of a small beard that lay upon it suited him well. He appeared mostly untouched by the Storm that still raged in the streets, but she could see plumes of smoke and fire blowing behind him in the open doorway.
“Well, hello there, stranger,” the girl said, batting her eyes at the man, and beginning the small town shtick her boss demanded she put on for the “outsiders.” She had lived in Marion her whole life, and she knew every man and boy who called this town their home, so she could always easily tell if someone was a local stopping in for a drink, or a traveler looking for a room and some small comfort from the road. More than that, her boss expected to provide that sought after comfort, whatever it may be. Of course, she didn’t like this arrangement, partly due to her age, but more so because she thought the squirrelly little man who owned the Ridgeback was telling her that the person who she was wasn’t as important as the person that they wanted her to be. However, dislike it as she may, she learned a long time before that she had to help her mama however she could.
“What can I…” she continued in character, but the man interrupted her before she even finished the words.
“Clear out,” he told her sternly, his cold eyes meeting the girl’s own eyes. Something she saw in them, or rather something she didn’t see in them terrified her. “You and everyone in this… hell hole of a bar.”
“I’m sorry, but who exactly are you to walk…” she started to protest to the man, her words peppered by what her mother had always referred to as “her father’s temper,” but this time, her own fears interrupted her as the man pulled back the hem of his jacket. She didn’t know what intimidated her more: the holster that hung from the man’s belt or the dark scar tissue of a fading brand on his exposed forearm. Either way, she wordlessly backed through the double doors behind her and retreated to the back office of the bar. Within seconds, a young, squirrelly looking man walked towards the stranger, his tattoo covered arms feverishly clawing away at his own neck.
“How are ya’, sir?” the tattooed man asked, extending a slim, undefined arm towards the stranger. “I’m, uh... I’m the owner of this inn. Is there something I can help you out with today?”
Silently, the Rider pulled back his jacket once more, revealing the same gun and the same brand that he had previously displayed to the girl. Though Caroline had been unsure which object intimidated her more, the frail man knew exactly which one he feared. While some locals were willing to stop in for a drink, most of the people who came to this inn were those with pasts from which they’d wished to walk away, himself included, and the sight of a Rider’s brand chilled him.
“Unless you want to watch me execute every single one of these folks, and then put a bullet in your head too, you’d better clear ‘em all out by the time I count to five,” the Rider said in an calm tone, almost as if he wasn’t threatening the man, but simply stating facts. The tattooed man’s eyes darted once more to the Rider’s holster, where he now saw the fingers of the man’s right hand wrapped around the handle of the gun. “One.”
“Alright, fellas,” the owner hollered without hesitation, his eyes remaining locked onto the Rider’s while his words grabbed the attention of the men playing billiards on the other side of the floor. “It’s gonna be an early night tonight.”
“Two,” the Rider continued, his eyes not leaving the bloodshot ones of the squirrelly man.
“Oh, come on, man,” protested one of the roughnecks. “We can’t go outside, not with the storms! We’ll burn alive!”
“Well, that’s not exactly my problem now, is it?” the owner snapped at the man, his eyes leaving those of the Rider for the first time. “You’ve got a better chance outside those doors than you do inside ‘em, believe me.”
“Three.”
As the owner walked towards the men in the corner, the Rider found himself staring at the double doors through which the young girl had withdrawn moments before. He was glad the girl hadn’t argued with him and had retreated so easily. He never liked it when he had to kill children.
“We just got our drinks,” the Rider heard a second man argue with owner, as his own fingers rubbed up and down on the holster of his gun. He hoped the men would leave on their own, as he knew he did not have enough bullets to back up the threat that he had made.
“Four.”
“Oh, Aris herself!” the owner barked at the men. “You can take your damned drinks with you, just get out now!”
The Rider heard the men, still grumbling amongst themselves, pick up their glasses followed then the sound of boots on the floor as they headed towards the door, while the owner’s own crossed the taproom towards the solitary man sitting in the booth in the opposite corner.
“Not him,” the branded said, turning to face Dalton. “That one stays right where he is.”
Dalton chuckled quietly to himself, tipping back another swallow of his mead, as the owner simply put his hands up as though to say “you’re the boss” and raced out the bar’s front doors, leaving the two rivals alone together for the first time in decades.
“So you’ve finally figured it out, did ya?” asked Dalton, still chuckling to himself. He was not laughing because he found humor in this grave encounter, but simply because he didn’t know what else to do. In times of stress, he found he always quietly laughed. “I’ll be honest with ya’, I’m surprised it took as long as it has.”
The branded man did not speak as he crossed the tavern floor, removing his fraying Carlsbad hat before sitting down in a chair across from Dalton. Dalton's wide grin was a stark contrast to the stoic, ashy look that rested upon the Rider’s face.
“Well, come on,” Dalton prodded coyly at the man. “You’ve been at it for twenty years now. Ain’t ya’ gonn’ say somethin’?”
“Nineteen,” the man replied quickly. “It’s been nineteen years.”
“Nineteen?” Dalton repeated, still chuckling to himself. “Well, I’ll be damned; I can’t quite believe it’s been so long. But then again, I’m an old man now, and time doesn’t quite pass the same way as it used to, does it?”
The Rider offered no response to the man. Instead, he stared intensely into Dalton’s icy blue eyes, as though he could exact justice just by looking deep enough into the man.
“You know, I’ve had dreams about this day. Have you?” Dalton continued, throwing back another swallow of his mead. When the Rider did not reply, Dalton shrugged and continued, already knowing the other m
an's answer. “Hell, I’ve had plenty of ‘em. Even last night, I did. Now that it’s come though, I can’t tell you how a single one of ‘em went. Whether you took me away, all bound and chained, or if one of us left in a box, done in by the other.”
The Rider pulled back the hem of his jacket, removed the revolver from the holster where it rested and placed it on the table quietly, his gaze never leaving the eyes of Dalton Croyle.
“Oh, is that supposed to be some kind of answer then? Some kind of threat or something?” Dalton asked, unfazed, as he removed a revolver from his own belt and waved it in the air in front of the Rider’s face. “I got one, too. Ya don’t scare me, boy. And that scar? Ya might as well keep that thing covered up ‘cause ya ain’t no Rider no more either."
“I had six the last time we met,” the Rider said, ignoring the old man’s tirade as he picked his gun up off the table. Opening the chamber, he allowed the contents, two bullets, to fall forth onto the dusty wood. “And now I am left with two. One went into a cow’s skull years ago when I was lost without the kindness of strangers and a hungry stomach that threatened to take my life from me. One I used to scatter a crowd of vultures as they tried to make a feast of a man you’d left near Wren. There were pieces of the man scattered for miles along the King’s Road. A third one came within inches of your head back in Pine seventeen years ago.”
Dalton’s demeanor changed noticeably. Gone were the coy smile and the quiet chuckle, replaced by straight-line mouth and a coldness in his eyes. His hands let go of the glass before him and clenched into a tight, trembling fist.
“And do you remember where that one ended?" the Rider continued, smiling slightly at the realization that his words were causing the cloak that Dalton had worn for sixteen years to slip away, and the ruthless killer who’d lay dormant to reemerge.