She hated the idea of going out at the hands of a man like Fouch, but she wouldn’t have to endure the notion for long. Any such pain would stop when her heart did.
She took what she expected might be one of her last breaths, preparing. Her nose crinkled. Vinegar. Something pickled must’ve gotten shot up in the kitchen. It wasn’t so bad; it took the edge off the stench of meat and blood and powder.
Then she loped out the door, Colt at the ready.
As she stepped onto the porch, she pivoted to the right to draw a bead on Fouch, but Dandy blocked her quarry completely.
Distracted by this complication, she lost focus for an instant and tripped on her own boots. A quick stumble and she was over the edge of the steps, tumbling to the dirt below. There was no time to curse her clumsiness, so she instead concentrated on making a better show of herself, using her momentum to roll onto her knees.
The new angle provided her a straight shot at Fouch, right past Dandy, but that meant the bastard had the same shot at her. And he was already primed to take it.
As his fingers slid over the trigger of his pistol, Rash could see straight down the barrel. That is, until the hideous sight of a ratty silk housecoat got in the way. It was the dumbest possible move Dandy could’ve made, jumping into the line of fire. Dumb and courageous and redemptive. He’d hijacked her endgame.
The old cripple’s torso exploded into three strings of crimson as Fouch’s weapon reported. Rash stared into his wide eyes as he collapsed to the ground, nearly as bewildered as he at his sudden impulse toward selflessness.
She felt his gift in her gut, like a a punch to the belly from an invisible hand. Perhaps she’d been too hard on him.
Then she was on her back, staring up through inattentive eyes at a fading wisp of cloud. She felt sick, like she needed to vomit. Her face flushed and her fingertips tingled. She glanced down at the shirt beneath her coat. Redness crept over it like age had to her once-reliable body. It was wet and warm, like a fresh bath after a long trail run. There was no pain. Just the heat and the sick and a creeping numbness that spread from her core, as if she’d taken thirty grains of calming cloves straight to the solar plexus.
Even in bravery, Dandy couldn’t get out from under failure. He’d spent his life to spare an old lady itching to die, and she’d taken the hit anyway.
Approaching boots crunched in the dirt and she twisted to one side, grimacing against the draining nausea. Suddenly she was in the shade.
Fouch and his ridiculous chin loomed above her, grinning as he dropped the hot casings of his spent cartridges onto her face.
She shook them off and scowled at him.
“Now that’s not very ladylike,” he said. “You should smile more.”
She tried to speak, but only managed a rasp while he reloaded with deliberation.
“Looks like you’ve sprung a leak,” he said, motioning to her wound. “Ain’t that just like a woman to ruin a perfectly fine picnic with her filthy bleeding?”
After sliding six slugs into place, he snapped the cylinder shut. Then he dropped the muzzle to her face, cocking the hammer in the same motion.
“What a waste of life,” he said. “You should’ve stayed at home and made babies like you were meant to. They would’ve been ugly, of course, but at least your life would’ve had value. As it stands, no one will even miss you.”
For the first time in as long as she could remember, a witty rejoinder eluded her. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut, wondering if the shot would hurt. She’d seen all sorts of expressions on the faces of those she’d killed over the years.
But then she heard Fouch lower the hammer with a click and holster his weapon.
She opened her eyes to his smiling face.
“I have a better idea,” he said, easing the forgotten Colt from her hand. “What say I kill you with your own gun?”
A whimper in the doorway drew his attention and he snapped to it with Rash’s pistol at the ready. It was Lila, pants soaking wet and gun hanging at her side.
Fouch laughed. Not at the shaking mess in front of him, but at the gun in his hand.
“I don’t even know if I can shoot this thing,” he said, trying to get a secure grip on the diminutive weapon. “It’s like a toy.”
Lila appeared to snap out of her daze.
“Where’s my Dandy?” she asked him.
“Dead. At my hand. Like you if you don’t mind me.”
In a flash of movement, she raised her gun to his face.
No, Rash thought. Way too high.
But Fouch didn’t think at all, instead relying on the reflex that had kept him alive through years of violence. He slid his index finger for the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Fouch cursed. His fat finger wouldn’t fit behind the trigger guard.
Lila dropped her aim to his waist as he threw the pocket Navy to one side and reached for his own holstered weapon.
The Colt exploded in Lila’s hands, wrenching itself free with the recoil and dropping to her feet.
Fouch staggered to one side, his gun hand frozen against his hip. He coughed twice, fell to one knee, and then collapsed into a heap as they always did.
Not hesitating, Lila snatched up the Colt, walked up to his spasming husk, and blasted him between the eyes.
“One,” she said, her face stoic beneath salted cheeks.
Tears welled in Rash’s eyes, but she couldn’t tell if they were of pride or shame.
Lila knelt at her side.
“Are you gonna die too?” she asked.
Rash pursed her lips. “Won’t know until you lift up my shirt and tell me where I’m bleeding.”
Lila peeled up the fabric carefully, but Rash didn’t feel any pain for once. Not even in her teeth.
“See where I’m bleeding?” Rash asked.
Lila nodded. “Right beside your bellybutton.”
“Is it oozing or gushing?”
“Oozing.”
Gut shot. So much for dying quick and easy.
“What does it mean?” Lila asked.
“It means I’m a corpse with a heartbeat.”
“So you’re gonna die?”
“Fraid so, kid. Slowly. Painfully.”
“Ain’t nothing they can do for it?”
Rash shook her head. “I’ve got laudanum in my pants pocket. Get it for me.”
“What you gonna do with it?” Lila asked.
“I’m gonna end things.”
“No!” Lila shrieked. “You can’t leave me alone!”
“Can’t be helped. I’m leaving. You’d rather me die choking on my own shit in a few days then end things clean right here and now?”
Lila didn’t say anything.
“After I’m gone, I want you to head up to the pinyon. Jenny’ll be there somewhere. Ride her into town. There’s a boarding house for old ladies on Front Street. That’ll be your home until you come of age. It’s all arranged.”
“But I don’t want to live in no house for old ladies…”
“I don’t blame you,” Rash said, grimacing against the nausea. “But you ain’t long for choices. You got no people now. What you do got is five dead lawmen and Chinaman eyes. Worse, you’re a woman. And a young one at that. It’s a bum roll, but it’s what you got. Only thing that’ll stop the world from casting you aside or using you up is a good story. Reckon you got one, especially if you sprinkle it with some of that Dandy at Gettysburg magic. Use it right and the world may just leave you alone.”
“I don’t want the world to leave me alone. And I don’t want to hide behind no story. I want to be fierce. I want to be like you.”
“Well, you can’t be me. My life don’t even work for me no more and I’ve been at it for sixty years. Times have changed. Shoot one cat-caller nowadays and they’ll stick you in that electric chair of theirs.”
Rash winced. The pain was coming at last. “Now get me my laudanum.”
Lila reached into the front pocket of her denim XXs. She searched for a moment, then recoiled in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Rash asked while Lila sucked on a bloody finger.
“Bottle’s smashed.”
Rash sighed. Nothing was ever easy.
“Give me the Colt,” she said.
The kid hesitated.
“Now!”
Lila pressed the pistol into Rash’s hand and maneuvered her arthritic fingers into place.
When Rash tried to raise her gun hand to her head, her arm wouldn’t cooperate. She couldn’t even get it to her heart.
“Help me,” she said.
“What do I do?” Lila asked, tears streaming down her face.
“Bring it up to my head.”
Lila did as she bade, but when she released Rash’s hand, it sprung out of position.
“You have to hold it in place,” Rash said.
Lila brought her hand back up, pinning it in a position where the muzzle pressed against her temple.
“Goodbye, kid,” she said, then tried to pull the trigger.
Her finger wouldn’t move.
She sighed. Her body had finally let her down, and just when she needed it the most.
“You’re going to have to do it,” she told Lila.
“Me?”
“You wanted to be fierce, didn’t you? Here’s your chance.”
Lila wiped her tears away. “I don’t want to kill you,” she said.
“Want don’t enter into it. Just do.”
The kid stood up and cocked the Colt. “Where do you want it?” she asked, aiming at Rash’s forehead.
“Not there,” Rash said. “You’re liable to make me worse than when we started. Put it in my mouth, but aimed up a little. That’ll turn the lights out in a hurry.”
Lila slipped the muzzle into her mouth. She could feel the kid’s shaking hands through her teeth. She wondered if the lights really would turn out in a hurry.
Then the thunderclap came and she never wondered about anything ever again.
Not about Lila pocketing the billfolds of all the dead men surrounding her. Not about the kid loading Jenny heavy and then coming back for the pistols. And certainly not about her brief stop to pick up some dungarees on the way out of town.
South.
To Mexico, and a fresh roll of the dice.
Brian Koukol lives on the Central Coast of California, where he somehow finds time to write between soaking up rays and eating his weight in avocados. This story, like all of his fiction, is written with voice recognition software on account of his lifelong nemesis, muscular dystrophy. Visit his author website.
