"Star" by Garon E. Whited

The horse reared at the touch of spurs and screamed aloud.  It charged forward again, dragging the rope—and the man bound by it—through sand and sagebrush, gravel in the dry riverbed, and the red clay.  The man bled from scores of scrapes, cuts, and scratches.  His hands were locked around the lasso that had snared him, his arms drawn tight to ease the tension around his chest, to let him breathe the hot, brassy air and the dry dust.  When the run ended, he lay there gasping, half-choked and bloody.

“Again?”  The man on horseback asked, even as he turned the horse, preparing to drag the other back down and across the riverbed again.  He reined up, pausing at the gesture from his leader.

Two men joined the rider with the victim, their horses walking slowly in the blaze of sun.  The horses shied, nervous and uncertain at the smell of blood.  The victim lay on the sun-scorched ground, chest heaving; empty holsters hung from his narrow hips and a silver star winked, dusty, from the tattered vest.

“What do you think, Quincy?” asked the leader.

The one addressed shrugged.  “He’s ’bout done in, I reckon.  We could leave ’im here and he’d not make it a furlong.”

The leader glanced upward at the sun, a disk of molten metal in the noon sky.

“I think you’re right.  Perhaps we should just leave him.”

“Water,” croaked the battered man, barely audible.  “Jones… water.”

The leader—Jones—shifted in the saddle and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the pommel. He smiled.

“Ahh,” he sighed, content.  “Now we’re done.  That was what I wanted.  To have you begging, ranger.  For your life, for water… doesn’t matter to me.  You make it almost too easy.  The fact that you begged will be with me for the rest of my life—and for the rest of yours.”

Jones snapped his fingers and pointed.  “Fetch me that keg,” he barked.

“But, Jones, that’s not wa—”

“Do it!” he screamed, voice like a lash.

They did.  Jones dismounted and accepted the small wooden barrel.

“You must be dying for a smoke, too,” Jones observed as he set the keg down next to the ranger and seated himself on it.  He drew out a pouch and paper, rolled a cigarette, struck it to life with a match.  “I don’t think you can handle it just now, though.  You look too hot for that.  And you never really liked to smoke, did you?  Even when we were living back east, you couldn’t just enjoy things, could you?  A little money, a little fun.  The gratitude of a whore when you save her from a beating, or the jerk of a man at the end of a rope.”  He sighed.  “You never could.”

“Jones…” the man whispered.

“No, no—it’s too late.  You should have enjoyed life more, brother.”

“Jones… please…”

Jones rose and drew his gun; the butt struck the end of the keg, breaking it open.  The liquid inside sloshed at the blow, spattering like blood in the dusty soil.  He holstered the gun and hefted the keg.  With brisk movements, he sloshed it around the gasping man, wetting the baked, dusty ground, soaking the man’s legs, his arms, his body.  A last heave threw a wave of fluid over the man’s head and shoulders.

Jones took a heavy drag on the cigarette, then flicked it into the muddy dust.

Slow, reddish flames licked up immediately, almost invisible in the harsh sun.  The screams followed the smoke up into heaven.

*   *   *

The gunman walked into town.  He was unremarkable, aside from being afoot.  Six feet of lanky, leathery man, a broad-brimmed hat, a pair of low sixguns, and a heavy layer of wind-blown dust.  It was hard to tell what color his shirt and vest might be; his jeans were the faded no-color of a long time in the desert.

The town took no notice of him.  There was no one there.

He walked up onto the boards alongside the street, boots thudding, spurs clinking slightly.  The place was a boom town, now busted.  Nothing betrayed any sign of life, indoors or out.

He found a hand-pump at the old livery stable.  With the last of his water, he primed it, pumped it, and washed the dust from his face and hands.  Once cleaned, his skin was browned by the sun; his hair had lightened to a dark gold.  He filled both waterskins, then he searched the rest of the town to see if there was anything useful to be found—and anything to eat.

After considerable searching, he found a tight-sealed jar of pickles under the bar of an abandoned, dusty saloon.  He pried the jar open and tried one; they were still good—or as good as pickles ever get.  He ate quickly, but deliberately, as though he relished every bite.

Outside, the wind was rising.

Taking a cracked glass mug, he washed it out, filled it with water, and climbed the stairs to the balcony that ran around the main room; the windows were intact on the second floor.  He leaned against the wall and watched the dust storm coming, sipping from the mug.

Ahead of the storm were three horsemen.

*   *   *

“Jones, we have to get out of this wind!”

Jones glared over the muffling scarf around his lower face.

“I know that, Cull!  The wind’ll have our hides off.  We need a place to keep the horses, too!  Keep an eye out for a barn or building that we can take ‘em into!”

The three kept their heads down and the horses plodded on, almost feeling their way through the darkness and the blowing dust and grit.  The wind was like the roar of a furnace, hot and dry, and they kept bandannas over their faces to keep out the dust.

“There!  That saloon!” Quincy cried, pointing.  “We can ride right up into it!”

“Good eyes,” Jones answered, and turned his horse.  The fit was tight; he laid himself down next to the horse’s neck to squeeze in, but all three of them were soon inside; the horses’ hooves clattered and clacked on the dry wooden planking.  The men dismounted and unsaddled the beasts, then removed themselves over to the bar.

“Anything back there?” asked Quincy.

Cull shook his head.  “Not a damn thing, ’cept an empty jar.  Pickles, by the smell.”

Jones perked up his ears.  “Smell?  You can smell pickles in the jar?”

“Sure.  S’got pickle juice still in—” Cull broke off mid-sentence, staring as Jones drew his pistol.

“Christ, Jones.  I didn’t know y’hated pickles so much,” Quincy offered.

“Shut up,” Jones hissed.  “It means someone else is around here.  The jar should be as dried up as a maiden aunt.  Someone opened it recently.”

The other two stared at him, then drew pistols themselves.  Jones motioned Cull to check out the back rooms of the saloon.  Jones and Quincy went upstairs to search the second floor.

Door by door, Jones and Quincy checked the bedrooms.  Quincy would open them, silently, while Jones remained poised to shoot anyone that came into view.  Room by room, they slowly searched the place, finding only broken furniture, broken windows, and dust.

Between doors, Jones would stare at the floor and mutter about tracks, but nothing he saw made any sense.  No footprints.  Just some sort of disturbed stripe, like a track in the thinner dust of the balcony.

The second floor was empty.  Jones and Quincy went back downstairs, grumbling.

“Coulda been a ambush,” Quincy muttered.

“Yeah, it coulda been.  But I doubt it.  Some prospector, probably.  We lost those lawmen four days back.  Besides, I doubt anyone knows this washed-up town is even here.  And how could anyone know we’d be coming through?  Hell, I forgot it was here!”

“So what d’we do if we find the prospector or whoever the hell it is?”

“Kill him and take his goods.”

Quincy brightened.  “Sounds good!”

“Thought you’d like it.  Now where’s Cull?”

They looked around the main room; Cull was nowhere in sight.

“Bastard’s probably sleeping on a pile of old washing,” Jones muttered.  “Go wake him up and tell him he’s fetching water, if we can find any in this hellhole.”

Quincy grinned and mock-saluted.  He disappeared behind the bar and into the back.

A moment later, Jones heard a strangled squeak.  Instantly, the pistol was up and ready; Jones crept forward, crouching down in front of the bar and carefully peering over it.

Quincy came out, staggering and pale. 

“Jones,” he whispered, “you’ll want t’come see . . .”

Jones frowned, perplexed and worried.  “Damn it, Quincy!  What the hell is going on with you?” he asked, rising and circling the bar, gun still in hand.  “I’ve a mind to put a knot on your thick skull just for—”

“Jones,” Quincy repeated.  The sickened tone stopped Jones’ tirade in mid-phrase.  “You really, really oughta see.”

Jones stared at his pasty-faced henchman for a moment, then walked into the back room.  He came right back out, pale and shaken, his jaw clamped hard to avoid retching.  Both of them moved to the bar to sit, to lean, to be somewhere else, to be away.

“He… he…” Quincy began, looking sick.

“Shut up!” Jones snapped, hands white-knuckled on the bar.  The smell of blood came strong through the now-opened door.

“Who would have—”

“I said to shut up!” Jones repeated, taking hold of his crony by the shirtfront.  “Listen to me!  Someone strung Cull up and stripped the skin off him.  We’re gonna find him and we’re going to blow his guts out.  Get me?  Do you get me?”

Quincy nodded convulsively, shivering in the rangy man’s grip.

“Good.  Get your gun and follow me.  There’s only one set of stairs; whoever it is has to be on the ground floor.”

Together, they moved through the building, treading quietly, sixguns out.  The howl of the wind was a constant thing, drowning out the sound of their boots on the dried-up wood of the floor.  Again, they searched, room by room, and again found nothing.

“Where is he?” Quincy demanded.  “He ain’t here!  There ain’t nobody here!”

Jonas scratched one temple with the front sight of his gun.  “He’s just outside is all.  Knew we’d come gunning for him the moment we found Cull and he ran for it.”

As if to prove Jonas right, the wind slowed for a moment, a lull that cleared the air for a small distance.  A figure stood in the street, immobile, undeniably real.  Both men stared through the discolored glass and the cracked panes, trying to make out more of the figure.  The wind rose again to a banshee howl, bearing the cloaking dust with it, taking the figure into oblivion.

“Come with me!” Jonas ordered, and they both raised bandannas to cover their faces.  Outside, in the blowing dust, they moved forward together, gun-muzzles questing for a target.  Quincy fired, the flat crack of the shot swept away, echoless, and he pointed.

“There!  I seen someone!  Someone just hid hisself in that building!  I seen him!” he shouted.  Jonas nodded, not bothering to answer in the demon wind.  The two approached the wind-scoured front door and Jonas pulled Quincy’s ear close.

“I’ll watch the front.  He may be trying to sneak out the back.  Go around.  If there’s a back door, kick it in and I’ll come in the front.  If there isn’t, just come on around and we’ll both go in after him!”

Quincy nodded and trotted off, leaning into the scouring dust.  Jonas waited.

For long minutes, there was only the steady keening of the wind.

Jonas snarled to himself.  Incompetents!  Fools!  If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.  Jonas started around the building, checking the corners carefully, ready at the slightest sign of danger to tighten his finger by a trifle and send blazing death screaming into the clouds of desert-wind dust.

The back door was open and banging in the storm.

Jonas flicked his head around the edge, just for an instant.  No one in sight inside.  He dashed across the opening and drew no fire.  He risked another, longer look.  It was the local jail.  There was no sign of Quincy.

But, wrapped in a blanket on one of the cell bunks, there was someone.  Someone who might be able to shed a little light on what was happening.

Jonas moved stealthily into the jailhouse, placing each step with the skill and caution of an old hunter.  He crept ever-closer to the sleeper, pushing the cell door open slightly more to allow himself passage.  It took minutes to cross thirty feet of space, but Jonas was willing to spend the time.

The first real noise he made was the clicking of the hammer as he drew it back.  The muzzle was already pressed against the back of the sleeping head.

“Wake up,” Jonas directed, nudging the head harder.  “Wake up, you dog.  Wake up and tell me what’s going on.  Wake up!”

The sleeper was either too terrified to move, or dead.  Jonas kept the gun against the sleeper’s head and grabbed one shoulder to roll him over.

Quincy rolled limply, loosely, his body flopping with that peculiar rag-doll quality of the newly dead.  His eyes were wide, showing the whites all around, and his face was frozen in a rictus of such terror that Jonas flinched back from it.

The cell door slammed, locking as it did.  Jonas whirled.

And screamed.

*   *   *

The wind whipped the flames into a frenzied streamer, a comet of fire come to ground, the belching mouth of Hell.  The screams from the building had lasted a long time, but had eventually died with the throat that uttered them.  Now there was only the wind and the satisfied crackling of the fire.

A star lay in the dusty street, gleaming like a bloody, silver eye.