On the ridge, overlooking the Rio Grande, Felina sat atop her horse, her long shadow casting down along the canyon wall. The river surged below and it’s distant gurgling echoed through the chasm. The horse slid and ruptured the rocks set in the switchbacks and Felina looked over the edge and held fast to the reins, loosening her grip once they made it safely to the bottom.
They followed the river upstream, stopping only to gather water, food, and any dried sticks Felina could use for kindling. Near a calm spot in the river, Felina took off her boots and rolled up her trousers revealing her knotty bullet wound an the blotch of strange folds it left when it healed. She ran her fingers over it as if searching for new grooves, an explanation for why it healed the way it did.
The water was cold and stuck into her feet like knives. She winced as she traversed over jagged rocks and steadied herself when her feet slipped on the moss covered stones. She didn’t move and let the flow of the water stream around her legs. She plunged her hands into the river and struggled, letting whatever she gripped maneuver her. From out of the water, she clenched a trout and quickly removed the knife she kept in her belt and drove the blade into its flesh. Blood spurted from its gills and swirled with the ebb and flow of the water.
Felina sat by her fire looking out across the mesa towards the horizon. Orange and pink hues burst from the sun and covered the cloudless sky, and the yellow leaves of the cottonwoods disappeared in silhouette. It was an orchestra of Creation. The leaves rustling and the wind sweeping down the tableland and the water cascading behind her and the crackle of the fire and hiss of the fish skin as it slowly roasted over the flames.
Felina stared up at the stars, the moonlight punctuated by the shadows of the fire. In the distance, she heard the coyotes howling. Their band gathering and baying at one of their kills.
She woke up with the sun, stretching her arms out, one pointing east and the other west. She wrapped herself in her blanket, sweeping away the dirt and sleep from her eyes as she looked at the sun cresting the horizon.
The grasses swayed around her and then slowly withered and disappeared the nearer she rode toward the town. All of the children were in school. She saw them staring at the chalkboard, and the school marm, in her pleated dress, had her back turned while she made long loopy letters on the board. She kept her head down as she rode through, until she was able to see the wanted posters. She searched for a picture of herself or someone similar in appearance and when it wasn’t there, she tipped her hat back and rode confidently to the general store.
She replenished her gunpowder and dried goods. The shopkeeper, with stained white sleeves, slowly drew back her money she placed on the counter and scooped it into his hands.
“Now be careful with that gunpowder. Don’t heat it up too much. It’s a combustible. That means that it can explode. The last woman that came in here didn’t know a lick. Nearly blew herself up right outside after she tried to light one of those sissy sticks.”
Felina didn’t look up and tucked the goods into a sack.
The shopkeeper leaned over the counter. “Y’know, we’ve got a fine range of soaps that would suit a lady like yourself.”
When she left, and the town was far enough away that it wavered in the distance along the horizon, she grabbed the soap she stole from the store, put it to her nose, and inhaled. A flood of roses penetrated her head, dulling the rest of her senses. At the cantina, she used to pick fresh roses for the tables and sheered them of their thorns, except for the ones near the bud. If someone tried to grab at them or rip the petals from the stem, their palms filled with blood and they’d drip all over the table and the sawdust covered floors.
That night, she kept the soap close to her and held it against her chest, falling asleep to its scent. In the afternoon, when it was warm enough, Felina slipped out of her clothes and sunk deep into the water. Dragging the soap along her skin, pushing it into her pores, and scraping it up with her nails. Her hair spread along the surface of the water, forming a dark, fractured crown that billowed around her. Up above, on the edge of the cliff, a man on a horse fixed his eyes on Felina. She turned over and swam towards the bank, gathering her clothes and gun. She waited for him, placing the barrel of her rifle on the saddle as she stood to next her horse. She listened for the sound of hooves or a chuff. She heard only the wind, when it picked up and howled and the flow of the river. She pointed and shot at something in the bushes. The stillness was deafening and Felina fired again. Nothing materialized from behind the bushes. Still undressed, she walked on top her bullet casings ignoring the heat that seared the bottoms of her feet and over to the bushes. Felina pressed her face against the stock of the rifle and felt the butt press deeper into her shoulder. She moved the branches with the barrel and exhaled. The leaves, shorn from their boughs, littered the dirt. Felina turned around, searching again for anyone who might be watching. “Don’t wanna come out?” she shouted as she reloaded and then fired another shot. “Goddamn chicken shit,” she mumbled.
Felina rode fast along the river. She had grown comfortable over the last few months, looking at those endless horizons, waking up to the vermillion sunrises, and listening to the sound of the river sweeping over rocks and the little waves rolling up and down the banks, but she was being followed. The sound of distant hooves was always in the background, but Felina, consumed by the ache in her leg or the grief that seemed to blanket her, on those evenings she spent staring up at the sky unable to sleep, forgot to listen. The water flew up around her and her horse, forming a veil to hide their shape, but not their movements. She checked to see if he was still there, following closely behind. She looked back at the trodden down grass and searched for anything moving along the horizon. Birds hovered above, swooping down to meet the earth and bursting back up towards the sky with a small dark thing clutched between their talons, but he wasn’t there, not anymore. She continued to ride swiftly, heading towards the mountain range.
She ascended its trail, calming her horse whenever he slipped and was spooked by the rocks falling around them. They made it to the peak and Felina scanned the valley and the skyline below. Stray cattle dotted the pasture and no rider sat atop any of them. She rode back down on the other side of the mountain, away from the river.
The rain began slowly; increasing the further she traveled towards the blackened clouds. The stormed moved like a wave. Crashing down in a cascade of water and receding only for a minute before the torrent began again. Felina attempted to check behind her, her hand hovering above the pistol she kept in her holster, ready to draw and shoot at anything hostile. That night, she didn’t sleep. In her hand, she held pebbles she gathered from the infertile earth, and as she nodded off, they fell to the ground waking her from her possibly fatal sleep. No man emerged from that tract of land that surrounded her or the next or the next one after that.
The rain continued on for three days, saturating the gnarled terrain, the ale creating fissures and oozing into the ground. Felina didn’t sleep. At night, she dreamt of a man who only traveled on foot. He wore a large, tan hat, that he pushed to the back of his head and his face was in full view. His eyebrows were so blonde, it was like he didn’t have them at all and his eyes, hazel and flecked with gray and blue, sat deep in his face. In the dream, he never blinked. Felina would stare him in those hazel eyes and put a gun to his chest, but he never moved, never attempted to protect himself. Instead, he followed Felina’s hands as if studying them, and just as it looked like he was going to speak, she’d wake up.
The unease crept through her, crawled along her appendages and seized onto her nerve endings. At times, she’d fire along the range, wasting her rounds and plugging the desolate space with slugs. She convinced herself that something was out there and every rustle or whisper was confirmation for her. On the fourth day, the rain finally cleared, and Felina, disoriented from all of the rain and wind, continued on with her journey. As she rode, she wasn’t sure if she was going in the right direction. Every mountain range looked familiar to her, every rock and lizard she saw, she swore she had encountered before. Felina changed directions, convinced she was going back the way she came. Along one of her maneuvers, she spotted a small town in the distance and its warm glow of lamps scattered along the range. The town, one Felina hadn’t passed through, was likely closed for the night. Her ammunition, once clanking noisily across her breast, was empty. She waited on the outskirts, until the first light of the morning crusaded along the hills.
Drunks from the night before still perched against the bottom of the stairs, their hands coiled around a whiskey bottle and their chins resting against their chest.
“Look here!”
Felina stopped.
“There’s a lady dressed in men’s trousers.” The voice called. “And men’s clothes. You tryna to be a fella?”
Felina ignored him and made her way to the general store.
Footsteps trailed behind her as she passed through the doorframe. “Ladies needn’t be dressin like that.” The breath from the man behind her fell hot and damp against her neck. It smelled like soured fish and bourbon.
Felina paid no attention to him and asked the seller for shells.
“You’re a lady ain’t ye? Once you look through the filth all over ye.”
She placed the bullets in her belt and slung it around her chest.
“You dumb too or just rude?” He twisted his hand around her arm and dung his dirty fingernails into her bicep. “It’s awfully mean for a woman to be so unmannerly.” His grip tightened around her.
The gunshot echoed through the town. Outside the store, people gathered and listened as a series of shots burst inside. Felina stumbled out holding onto a spot where her neck met her shoulder. Blood seeped out between her clutched fingers and red beads slowly dripped down her chest. Behind her, the man with the dirty fingernails teetered in the doorway, before falling to the ground. Felina stepped back, missing the stairs leading up to the store and dropping to the dusty road. She continued to hold one hand on her neck and applied pressure while she scrambled to find a rag to plug the wound. The man crawled towards her, searching for the gun he dropped after Felina’s bullets struck him. Blood soaked his abdomen and thigh and as he slid off the porch, he howled when his body hit the ground. Felina continued to treat her injury, and through the muck and dirt, the man dragged himself toward her, gnashing his teeth, snarling, as if ready to consume her. Felina writhed in the street, trying to move away from him and avoiding the horses and wagons. He grabbed onto her ankle and heaved himself towards her. She drove the heel of her boot into his face and used her other leg to push his head into the ground. He choked on the dirt that filled his gaping mouth as he breathed in. He reached his hand up and grabbed hold of Felina’s belt. He looked up at her, blood in his mouth, and a wicked smile crept along his face as he pulled Felina under him. His hands and fingers curled around her neck and squeezed. Blood filled his mouth and oozed between his teeth. He tightened his grip around her neck and drove his elbow into her chest. Felina tore at his face and pulled his hair before reaching down with one hand and feeling for her belt. Her fingers traced the edges from her abdomen down to her back. She was able to lift her body up slightly and wound her hand around a wooden handle. Felina plunged the knife into his side.
After the first gore, she repeatedly thrust in and out of his side and thigh. The man felt the warmth of the blood spew from his flesh. He fell on top of Felina, screaming and writhing, trying to plug up his wounds to keep him from bleeding out. She started to breathe rhythmically again and used her remaining strength to push him off of her. She stood up and teetered as she looked down as he continued to thrash in pain and his blood poured out of him, flooding and coagulating on the dirt road. The townspeople had gathered and stood silently as Felina looked over all of them. The man, still clinging to life, dragged his body over to Felina and outstretched his hand, touching her boot. He grabbed her ankle and pulled himself up to her so his head was resting on her foot. He begged for her to shoot him or kick his head in. For a moment, Felina thought about letting him suffer, letting him feel every puncture and the burning pain that came with it. A surge of pity overwhelmed her and she walked over to his gun buried in the dirt. She looked at it and the bullets that filled the revolver. She pulled back the hammer and put the muzzle to the back of his head. The gunshot rang through the town. Felina fell to her knees and placed her hand over heart. She looked down at the blood that flowed through her fingers and collapsed. Felina looked upwards at the heavens and watched as the birds above swooped down, their wings beating against the air, and back up again, flying directly in front of the sun. People stood over her body and her lips parted as if she was about to speak. A man in a tan hat leaned down to listen feeling her last exhale against his cheek.
Lauren Doyle is an emerging fiction writer and teacher based in New York. She grew up in the Bay Area and Phoenix, which are places that continue to influence her work. In 2019, she received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and has been published in Shorts Magazine.