The 1880 Arizona territory sun glared down like the eye of a vengeful god. The town of Dry Creek sat under its weight, dust-covered and crooked, a few leaning buildings huddled together like old men too tired to stand straight. Heat shimmered off the dirt street along with the pungent smells of horse dung in piles everywhere, and every man’s hand drifted a little closer to his belt when the stranger rode in.
He came in slow on a dark roan horse, dust trailing off his boots like a ghost’s whisper. Black hat, coat faded from too many suns, and a sixgun riding low on his right hip, rawhide tied above the knee. Not slapped on like a ranch hand or worn like a lawman’s badge—no, this was the hang of a man who’d drawn and lived to draw again. Folks on the porch of the saloon leaned forward, rocking chairs creaking. As cowpokes gathered at the saloon’s batwing doors, the piano stopped mid-song. A boy’s voice whispered, “He’s a killer.”
Another white-whiskered old man at the bar doors said, “Those kind always have serious business when they come to town.”
The stranger stopped his horse, took a deep breath as he looked from side to side, dismounted in silence, tying off at the rail outside the Dead Dog Saloon. No one dared to say a word as he stepped through the swinging doors. Everyone had rushed back to their seats. Eyes tracked him. He didn’t look at anyone. He didn’t need to.
***
Inside, the place reeked of sweat, smoke, and spilled rotgut. A card game coughed up laughter in the corner. A piano softly picked up in mid-tune, but now played at a slower pace. The barkeep, a fleshy man with a broken nose and watery eyes, went rigid. The stranger’s boots thudded slow on the warped floorboards as he walked up and ordered whiskey in a low voice that didn’t care if anyone heard it.
“That’ll be two bits,” the barkeep said.
“Better be damn good for that much.” The stranger tossed the coin onto the counter.
Broken Nose walked to the other end of the bar to put the money in the register. Behind him, the soft clack of heels approached. A warm, whispered voice said, “You the one called James Mercer?”
He turned.
She stood with her weight on one hip, red silk dress clinging to curves carved from trouble. Dark hair fell over one shoulder, ruby lips, rose-colored cheeks, and eyes sharp as broken glass stared back at him.
“I might be,” James said.
“I wrote you that letter,” she said, voice still low. “About your brother. Eli.”
He nodded once. “Figured. Didn’t think I’d ever get one from a whorehouse in Dry Creek.”
“I ain’t just a whore,” she said, jaw tight. “And he wasn’t just your brother.”
He waited.
She looked around. The room held too many ears.
“Upstairs,” she said. “We’ll talk there.”
***
Her room was small but clean. Lace curtains, faded wallpaper, a chipped basin of water by the washstand. James sat in the chair by the window, hand resting casual on the butt of his Colt. Lilly poured two drinks, handed him one, then lit a lamp low and sat on the bed.
James eyed not only the pretty face, but the muscles in her arms. “Where’d you come from? You ain’t the typical soiled dove.”
“It’s a long story, but the short take is, Indians killed my family—Ma, Pa, and two little brothers—when I was seventeen, while I watched between the slats under our overturned wagon. That’s a horror you don’t soon forget. Two days later, without water, I thought I’d die, but another small wagon train came by and I hitched a ride to the nearest town. For two years, I worked hard as a cook and did the cleaning on a mean ranch, until I finally had enough of the owner taking liberties with me. If I was going to do that, I could get paid much more and be in a whole lot better situation. Here I am.”
“Life can be hard.” James shifted and straightened his back. “And my brother?”
“He was more than just another cowpoke to me. Spoke with kind and polite words. He wasn’t interested in my services, just me. I came to favor him a lot, too. I saw him play cards with some of the other dusty old men, and he won a little bit, and that might’a gave him some confidence. He bought me several drinks over the next day and even some lilac-scented bath salts at the general store. I warned him about the big game that always went on at the back table. Not only big stakes, but cheatin’ went on there. He said he had too keen an eye to let that happen. No way I could stop him, so the dangerous game began.”
“They said Eli drew first,” she said, voice strained. “Said he cheated at cards, was called out, went for his gun, and Lyle Berrigan had no choice.”
James looked out the window. “Eli never cheated in his life. And he wasn’t fast enough for a draw.”
“I know,” she said. “He never touched his gun. Lyle fired one shot under the table into his belly, then another above, and hit him square in the heart. Eli fell backwards in his chair, not moving. They put his pistol in his hand afterwards. Anyone, like me, who saw what really happened, knew better than to say anything or they’d end up at the undertaker, too. Later, I was outside the office door. I heard ‘em talking. Lyle, Sheriff Merton, and two others—Russ Cobb and Dalton Hayes. They knew your brother had gold in his saddlebags. He’d just come down from his strike not far from Tucson. That card game was just a way to get rid of Eli and claim it was a legal killin’.”
James’s mouth tightened like a vise straightening nails. “He wrote me about that strike.”
“They took it. Everyone said the shootin’ was fair. The sheriff swore to it. He and Lyle split the gold and probably sold the claim to somebody else. That whole group is about as crooked as a coiled rattlesnake and twice as mean and unpredictable. They don’t answer to nobody. It was terrible what they done to your brother.”
James drained another glass she’d poured. “That why you wrote me?”
“I already told you how I liked Eli,” she said. “Not like the rest of ‘em. We had somethin’ special.” Her voice broke, just slightly. “He said if anything happened, I should write to you in Tombstone.”
There was a long pause.
“How many know I’m here?”
“Half the saloon, by now,” she said. “Eli talked about having a big brother. There’s a strong resemblance. You cast a long shadow, and talk moves quick.”
“They’ll come tonight.”
She nodded. “Yep. I ‘speck they’ll come. We’ll make out that you hired me for the night. They’d find out where you were, anyway. But I can help too. I got a .38 in my dresser for cowboys who don’t know what ‘That’s enough’ means.”
“You just make sure you stay outta the way of flyin’ lead. I don’t want you getting’ hurt on my mind. It’s about loaded down with regrets, anyhow.”
***
They came just after 3 a.m., leather boots whispering up the stairs of the dead quiet saloon, wood creaking under the weight. James was already in the corner beside the window, Colt .45 in hand, another pistol from his saddlebag, tucked in his belt.
Lilly was pale but steady. Dressed in nothing but her socks and a slip, knees drawn up, she gripped her little revolver tight against her chest like it might save her soul.
The first shadow moved into the light underneath the door and stopped. The doorknob turned slightly.
James fired once—crack! The echo thundered in the quiet room. They heard a yell and the sound of a body crumpling on the wood floor.
“One down,” James whispered to Lilly.
“Hell!” someone shouted. “Let’s get him.” More boots pounded. The door burst inward, and chaos erupted like an angry volcano.
Lyle Berrigan came first, a sawed-off scattergun booming. The blast tore the headboard off the bed. Lilly screamed, already to the side of the bed, ducking low. James put two bullets in Lyle’s chest, who fired the second barrel into the ceiling, and hit the floor like a burlap sack of potatoes.
The sheriff was next, shouting for James to drop it. James shot the lamp, plunging the room into shadows and firelight from outside. Then he moved—quick, low, ruthless.
Gunfire roared and flashed in the darkness. James took one in the left shoulder but dropped the sheriff with a shot through the cheek. Blood sprayed the wall.
Russ Cobb scrambled into the room with a knife, caught Lilly’s arm—she screamed and fired wild. James turned and shot him in the gut. The man groaned, hit the floor, and didn’t get up.
Dalton tried to run. James was on him at the top of the stairs, pressing the muzzle to his spine where his heart would be. “Tell me why.”
“Gold,” Dalton gasped. “We thought he was just some dumb bastard with dust on his boots. I didn’t know he was your brother, I swear—”
James fired the last shot in the chamber. Dalton tumbled all the way down the staircase, dead at the bottom. He hadn’t needed the spare sixgun.
Aroused by the gunfire, the bartender stood below in his nightclothes, looking up.
James ordered, “Somebody get the undertaker to come clean up the mess, and tell him to get some help. He’s gonna need it.”
“Yes, sir,” the bartender said in a trembling voice. “Right away.”
***
Dawn broke slow and red over Dry Creek. The undertaker worked overtime, and the sheriff’s office stood empty—the lone deputy, who wanted no part of the gunplay or trying to arrest the stranger, long gone.
James sat on the porch of the Dead Dog Saloon, a quick visit to the doc got stitches in the front and back of his arm, now wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage. Lilly sat beside him, her face pale but set.
“You leaving?” she asked.
He nodded. “Can’t stay.”
“They’ll send a new sheriff.”
“They always do. I won’t be here to answer questions.”
She looked down. “I could go with you. I’d like that.”
James looked at her. There was a world of sorrow in his eyes. He looked down and took a deep breath before he spoke.
“I had a wife and a five-year-old son once. Far as I was concerned, I had all the happiness a man needed. A pretty wife who loved me to pieces and gave me a fine son. He was growing up just like his dad. It was a near-perfect life. But one time while I was tending cattle in the hills, they got hold of some bad water and got the cholera. They’d just taken sick when I got home. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was, but later I watched their skins wrinkle and turn blue. All I could do was keep damp cloths on their heads, tending my wife and then my son. My little boy pleaded with me, ‘Pa, I feel terrible. Please do something,’ but I couldn’t.”
The next day, they both died. I buried them together. I’ve had enough hurt for two lifetimes. I ain’t settlin’ down again. I ride alone, Lilly. Probably always will.”
She bit her lip, nodded once, and they both stood. “I won’t forget you.” She hugged his neck with her face next to his. He embraced her too, then relaxed.
“If I picked somebody new, it’d be you. You’re one of a kind. If my hurt can heal someday, I’ll be back. That’s a promise.” James smiled and tipped his hat.
By midday, he was gone, riding into the desert heat, the grave of his brother behind him, and the weight of justice—however bloody—finally settled in the dust.
The town of Dry Creek watched him vanish as a small dust-devil swirled on the other side of the street. None would ever forget the day the stranger came with his sixgun low and his purpose righteous. Nor would they forget the reckoning and blood spilled in a whore’s upstairs bedroom.
M.D. Smith of Huntsville, Alabama, writer of over 350 flash stories, has published digitally in Frontier Times, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bewilderingstories.com, and many more. Retired from running a television station, he lives with his wife of 64 years and three cats. https://mdsmithiv.com/