by Mason, Zack
Unbelieving, I examined my own body, surprised by the apparent lack of bullet holes. Adrenaline still surged through my veins though the battle was over. I holstered my weapons and took a deep breath.
"My, oh my, oh my. I don't believe I've ever seen so many bullets fly without somebody biting the dust!"
The cool, sarcastic voice froze me in my tracks. From the saloon, Luke Phillips slipped out, his frigid eyes like icy splinters, the complete opposite of Charlie Pugh.
"I do stand in awe of you gentlemen." He looked back and forth between Will and me. "What a battle! I do think everything in town has a new hole in it except for the two of you." He stared at me coolly.
My guns were holstered. I wasn't sure if I dared draw against Luke Phillips. The rumors about him were the stuff of legends. Deadly fast and deadly accurate. It felt like cowardice, but I couldn't bring myself to draw against him — it seemed like certain death. I hoped I was just being prudent.
"I see what you're contemplating, Talbot, but I wouldn't if I were you. It's just not worth the risk to find out, is it?"
Phillips glanced back at Will who was nursing his shoulder. He turned his back on both of us and walked slowly to his horse.
The arrogance of the man! He'd been sure we wouldn't shoot him in the back, and of course, we wouldn't, but why didn't Phillips pick a fight? Surely, he figured he would win. For that matter, why hadn't he taken any pot-shots from inside the saloon while we’d been distracted with the Talons and Pugh?
Those questions went unasked and unanswered as Luke Phillips rode off to join his compatriots. I went to see to Will's shoulder.
***
After the fight, pandemonium reigned in the streets. Luckily, no one had been hurt by any stray bullets. Now that my hot temper had cooled, I chastised myself for having provoked the fight in such a public place.
Will was pale and looked as if he might pass out any minute, so I wrapped his good arm around my neck and helped him to a room in the back of the saloon. The bartender emerged from his hiding place long enough to direct me toward it. The simple accommodation contained nothing more than a ratty cot and a stained wash bin.
Will sunk down on the cot gingerly, wincing with pain. He’d only been hit in the shoulder, but it was bleeding a lot. He saw the concern in my eyes, and his own narrowed sharply.
"It ain't nothing to worry about, Jake. I'm just gonna lay down here a while and rest. That's all I need, rest."
"We’d better take a look at that wound and clean it first."
"No! Just leave me alone! I need to rest, that’s all."
His anger shut me up, but I knew we couldn't leave the gunshot to heal itself. We might need to take the bullet out and the risk of infection and blood loss was high.
There was no arguing with him about it though, so I let him alone and asked the saloon keeper to send for the town doctor.
When I came back, Will had passed out. I knew I had to take a look at that wound to see how serious it was. To heck with his sensitivities. I took out my Bowie knife and cut away a piece of his shirt to expose the wounded arm. Oddly, he had some thick white bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulders. I didn’t know what they were for, but if I was going to get at the wound, I’d have to cut through those too, so I did.
Stunned, I quickly covered him back up again. I was speechless. Will was not Will.
Will was a girl!
I sat shocked on a bar stool for several hours. The man I'd ridden the trail with for months, built my ranch with, and confronted the Talons with, was actually a woman. There are times in life when a revelation is just too enormous for your mind to handle.
I wondered what his... what her real name was.
Thinking back, I should have realized the truth a long time ago. Will's slight frame, his higher than average voice. Now that I thought back on it, I hadn't ever really seen him shave. He seemed to always stay stubble-free naturally. I'd never seen him undress either. Just never really paid attention to those things before.
He could shoot like a sharpshooter, though. And rope cattle too. I mean she. This didn't make sense. Why would a woman do that? Why had this woman chosen to ride with me and hide her gender? Did she hide it from everyone, or just me? Was she some kind of a loon? Made no sense at all.
The bartender came up from the back of the saloon.
"Doc's looked your friend over, and she's going to be fine," he smirked. "Said it's just a flesh wound. He put some medicine on it to prevent infection. She's awake if you want to go in."
I didn't know what I was going to say to her. I didn't know what I could say. The look on the bartender's face told me this story would be all over town within hours, but what did I care?
I walked back to the small room. Once I’d paid the doctor, he gave some final advice for protecting the wound from infection, and scurried off.
My former friend sat upright on the cot, her back braced against the dingy wall. Long tresses of shining, jet-black hair hung loose around her shoulders. In that moment, I realized I'd never seen her without a hat before either. She glared at me with open hostility, which was funny, considering she was the one who had deceived me. I cleared my throat to speak, but she began before I could.
"So, now you know." She spat the words at me vehemently. I was taken aback by her anger.
"What’s your real name?" I asked.
"Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth...?" Bells went off in my head like a four-alarm fire.
"That's right, Elizabeth Miller. The sister of Joshua Miller. My brother.”
“Wha….” I shook my head in confusion.
“I begged and pleaded with him not to be so foolish as to give up his life for the likes of you. My brother was a good man. A good man, you hear? And you're not. You're scum, a no-good murderer. At least I don't have to hide my hatred anymore.” She sighed greatly as if expelling a ton of tense air held inside until it’d grown stale. She clenched her fists and leaned forward aggressively, eyes blazing. “I hate you, Jake Halfbreed. I hate you with everything I have inside, and I always will!"
Her eyes proved it.
***
Now that I saw Will/Elizabeth as a woman, I realized that she was quite beautiful. Her words, on the other hand, were vicious and soul-rending. I'd stood there stunned for several minutes while she tore into me with her abuse. My former friend was a woman, and now my friend was my enemy and the sister of the mysterious man who'd died for me. That was enough to knock the wind out of anyone.
As I listened, I found out that she had been the mysterious gunman who'd saved me on separate occasions after the hanging.
She hated me for having taken her brother from her. She had not stayed to watch her brother die, couldn't bear to see it. However, she'd heard about the posse being formed in town soon afterward and very quickly realized that if I were killed, her brother's death would have been for nothing.
So, in spite of the hatred raging inside her, she’d set out to follow me, vowing to do whatever she had to in order to keep me alive. Her family had grown up on the range, and she and Joshua had learned to hunt and shoot from an early age, so surviving in the open was no problem. She was an excellent marksman too.
She'd been determined to keep me alive even if she had to shoot the sheriff himself in cold blood. There was no way on God’s green earth she was going to let her brother's life go to waste. Not as long as she still lived, breathed, and had something to say about it.
Elizabeth not only saved me from the posse, but she'd been the one who'd cared for me in Rio Perdido that time when I'd gotten stupidly drunk. It was her blurry face I'd seen tending me in that hotel room. Another time, she saved me from an ambush by one of Hartford's men when I'd been trailing the rustlers by myself.
After that, she realized it was going to get more and more difficult to keep aiding me in secret. So, she came up with the plan to act and dress like a man so she could ride with me everywhere I went and keep closer tabs on me.
I was astonished.
She didn’t want to see me again after that first visit, but I insisted. She moved to the hotel to isolate herself, but I couldn't bring myself to leave her alone in a strange town while she healed. I felt responsible.
Repeatedly, she told me to get ‘my butt out of her sight and leave her be’, or something similar. Told me she was fully capable of taking care of herself and didn't need the likes of me helping. Still, I waited.
After a couple of weeks, I saw she was pretty much better and decided to head back to my ranch. Alone.
I left some money with the hotel clerk for her, though I doubted she would take it, and started off down the trail.
Later that afternoon, twenty miles south of Bare Rock, Elizabeth Miller rode into my camp. She dismounted and made her own fire, fixing her own coffee, ignoring mine, and starting her own supper. I watched in disbelief.
Her manner was completely hostile, yet here she was following me once more. After she got settled in, she turned to me and said flatly, "Don't imagine my feelings toward you have changed, sir, but don't think for one minute I'm going to let you go off and get yourself killed either. Nothing's changed. My brother died for you, and I'm not letting you out my sight. That's all there is to it."
I thought everything had changed, but saying so would probably only invoke more of her wrath, and I had a feeling I'd be receiving plenty of that as it was. My life looked as if it wasn’t going to be very pleasant for a while.
***
So, we rode. The trail was just as dusty and weary as it'd been on the way up, but this time made worse by the presence of the hostile figure behind me, who rode a consistent two hundred feet back and hated my guts.
We ate, drank, and slept at the same time, but always separated by at least twenty feet. Her eyes studied me, stared at me, and only left me when searching our surroundings for potential ambushes. And while those deep, brown eyes were on me, they were filled with nothing but contempt and loathing.
I found myself returning her stare quite often. Sometimes, I watched her when she wasn't looking too. She intrigued me. It was quite an adjustment to ride with a person you’d considered a good friend, only to discover they were a female who hated your guts.
Anger and frustration took over some times. I'd had nothing to do with her brother's death. I mean, sure, he died in my place, but that wasn't my fault. I hadn't even known what was happening at the time. It'd been completely out of my control.
She had some nerve, treating me so poorly, directing all her resentment my way. Surely, any rational being could see that. But she wasn't behaving rationally, was she?
I wanted to go over and shake some sense into her so she'd see the cold facts of my case and realize I'd had no part in killing her brother.
That would never work, I knew. She was convinced it was all my fault, my responsibility. Nothing I said or did would change that.
The problem was that I secretly agreed with her. I felt like her brother's death was my fault, and it was something that was becoming harder and harder for me to bear.
On top of all that, I was upset by the realization that I was falling in love with her. Even when she had pretended to be Will, her true personality had always shone through. I could see that more and more now. I'd felt close to her as a friend when I thought she was a man, but now I found myself falling for her romantically.
No one had to tell me the foolishness of that. What a situation I'd gotten myself into. Things were growing more and more complicated, and I still had no idea what had happened to my brother.
Back in Bare Rock when I'd first spoken to her as Elizabeth, there’d been such fury in her words, but even then I'd felt a pull in my heart for her. The flood of her betrayal swirled crazily with a new sense of attraction. Her striking beauty lifted my spirit as if on wings, even as her spite-filled eyes dashed me to the rocks. What was I going to do?
If things kept along this way, she'd never give me the chance to do anything about it. One evening, I decided to try and break the ice. I was falling for her hard, and not trying was worse than crashing and burning.
"What do you want?" She looked petite in the shadows of the small fire she'd built fifty feet away from mine.
"I thought maybe we could talk, Elizabeth."
"There’s nothing that remains to be said, Halfbreed. I don't care to associate with you, so leave me alone!"
"Listen, I only want to point out that your brother's death was not in my hands. If it'd been up to me, I would never have allowed it, be assured, and..."
"Sure, sure. I've heard it all before. Mom and everybody else tells me it was fully Joshua's decision, that he made it all by himself. Well, I can see past that house of cards. If you'd never been charged with murder and if you hadn't been facing the gallows, there would have been no need for him to die. Of course, I hold you responsible for his death, and I always will. You're a coward! Too afraid to face up to the consequences of your own crimes!" She said this last part with particular vehemence.
Her calling me a coward really incensed me. There was no way on earth I would share my feelings for her now. I was no coward. It hadn't been in my control. I was not in control.
I wanted to hurt her back. "You're just an irrational, spoiled child! I was obviously mistaken to try and have a calm conversation with you. I don't know what you're doing following me around like a little puppy anyway..."
"A little puppy, huh?" She jumped up to her feet, indignant.
"Yes, a stupid, little puppy. You're following me around everywhere and generally making my life a living hell. It is still my life, you know. You may think you're protecting me physically, but you're killing me otherwise. And cramping my style for that matter. Why don't you just ride off somewhere and leave me alone!" That was actually the last thing I wanted.
We argued and yelled for a while. She got so steamed, her face turned beet red, and I thought she might explode. I don't know if it was lucky or unlucky that she didn't.
"You don't want me around, that's fine! Take care of yourself, for all I care. I did everything I could to make sure Josh didn't give his life for nothing, but I can see now it's pointless. You're gonna get yourself killed one way or the other."
She began slamming her gear back into her saddle bags, but I never really expected her to actually leave.
She did.
Like a scar that just won't heal
Blue-eyed gypsy, you're still with me.
“Lonely Won’t Leave Me Alone”
- Trace Adkins
It was a cold ride home, if you could call that ranch my home. I still felt like I was just a caretaker, waiting with some hopeless hope for my brother to come waltzing in off the range and reclaim what was his. Nothing in the world would have made me happier.
I knew it was hopeless. The circumstances surrounding his and Jessica's disappearance couldn't have been more sinister. They weren't coming back, and the sooner I got that through my thick skull the better.
I didn't see Elizabeth at all on the way home. She had really left, and it'd left a hole in my heart. I kept glancing at my back trail, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but there was no silhouette against the horizon trailing me. I was completely alone.
The charcoal grey sky gave testimony to my mood. There's nothing more lonesome than traveling home by yourself, knowing there's going to be no one to greet you when you get there. The cold just made it worse as I tried to huddle further into my jacket against the icy winter gales coming in from the northwest.
It looked like it was brewing up for a storm, and a pretty serious one at that. The kind of weather that told you winter was taking charge.
I hoped I could make it back to my cabin before the storm hit. I didn't have much farther to go, but it was coming in fast.
The wind nipped at my face and whipped its cold fingers around my ears until I couldn't feel them anymore. Snow drifted down in large, fluffy flakes, but then began drizzling down an hour later in a kind of wicked, knife-l
ike sleet. That kind of sleet is one of the worst things nature has to offer. It soaked my clothes, freezing them against my skin. I’d never been so miserable in all my life.
My mustang kept ducking his head down, trying fruitlessly to evade the biting gusts of wind. White ice clung to his flank in large chunks. We were both soon chilled to our cores.
The freezing sleet changed back to snow, but we were already half frozen to death, so it didn't matter by then. If we could make it back to the cabin we'd be okay. Heck, I’d let my horse come inside the cabin with me if he got us through this.
The snow began piling up, pushed into drifts by the wind. My horse had to step higher to keep from stumbling. He tripped anyway when one of his hooves sank through the snow into a prairie dog hole. The abrupt jolt of the movement caught me off guard and threw me from the saddle. My head hit a rock, and I blacked out.
When I came to, blurry snow swirled all around. My horse was nowhere to be seen. No loyalty lost here, pal. If he showed up at the cabin later, there was no way I'd let him inside now.
I figured I couldn’t be more than a mile or two away. If I could just manage to keep aimed in the right direction, I'd probably make it, though the snow was coming down so thick it was hard to see more than about fifty feet.
I tried to get my bearings and started off in the direction I thought was right.
***
The steps were interminable. On and on, I trudged through the whirling snow, which erased my tracks behind me, and blinded me to the way ahead. Shivering was a memory, my body having long ago given up its fight against the cold.
It couldn’t be much farther. Just up ahead had to be the bend in the trail that opened into the wide vale where my brother had built his cabin. My home.