Davy Crockett & The Alamo, 1836
by W.Wm.Mee

The Battle of the Alamo took place during Texas' war for independence from Mexico. It lasted thirteen days, from February 23 to March 6, 1836. In December of 1835, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers had occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located near the present-day city of San Antonio. On February 23, a Mexican force numbering in the thousands and led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. Though vastly outnumbered, the Alamo's 200 defenders, commanded by James Bowie and William Travis and including the famed frontiersman Davy Crockett, held out for 13 days before the Mexican forces finally overpowered them.

For Texans, the Battle of the Alamo became an enduring symbol of their heroic resistance to oppression and their struggle for independence, which they won later that year. The battle cry of "Remember the Alamo" later became popular during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 and is still used 'now and then' to this very day.

In 1835 Crockett wrote to friends about raising a company of volunteers to take to Texas to help with the revolution he believed was coming. He finally left his home in West Tennessee with thirty well armed men on November 1, 1835 to 'explore the Texas situation'. He arrived in Nacogdoches, Texas in early January 1836 and he and 65 other men signed an oath to the 'Provisional Government of Texas' for six months duty. Each man was promised about 4,600 acres of land as payment. Crockett arrived at the Alamo Mission on February 8.

"That be it, Davy?" Moses Bean asked, leaning away and spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the dry, Texas grass.

The former frontiersman, soldier, Indian fighter, land speculator and ex US congressman for Tennessee smiled at his old hunting partner. "That's it, Moses. The 'promised land'!"

Bean snorted and sent another squirt of tobacco earthward. "Sure as hell don't look like much!"

Davy smiled. "It's an old Spanish mission that Jim Bowie 'n' his lads took off the Mexicans."

"Ol' Jim kicked them tamolly eatin' Mexers out, did he?! Bean asked, grinning from ear to ear and showing all seven of his teeth.

"He did," Davy replied. "Though I believe they'll want it back sometime soon."

"That what we're here for, Davy?" Bean asked. "To help Ol'Jim keep those Mexers out?"

Davy nodded. "Out of the mission and out of the whole damned territory."

Nigel Wedgewood, an English adventurer that had joined them a few days earlier, took off his fancy top hat and mopped his sweating brow. "We are here, Mr. Bean, to assist Colonel Bowie and those brave men yonder to gain their liberty! To aid them in casting free their political shackles and lifting the despot's heavy boot from their necks!"

Moses turned to Davy, a puzzled expression clouding his usual rough, easy going features. "You mind tellin' me, Davy, what in tarnation this Britisher just said? I ain't book-learned like you—but he sure does speak perty, whatever it were!"

Davy smiled at his old friend. They'd been through a lot together. Indian wars, drought, floods and politicians. Moses wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was brave, honest and loyal, and Davy figured that's all a man really needed to be.

"What Mr. Wedgewood said, Moses, is that we came to help Texas break free from Mexican control n' become part of the United States, just like Tennessee n' ol' Kain-Tuck!"

Suddenly the clouds vanished and Moses once again was beaming toothlessly. "Well why the hell didn't he just say so?!"

Davy flashed a smile of his own. "Because, Moses, he's a 'proper' Englishman—and those fellas need to talk fancy when they go fox hunting with the queen."

"Fox hunting with the queen?!" Moses repeated. "Of England?!"

"Of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, old boy!" Wedgewood put in, deliberately strengthening his already considerable accent. "Then there's the afternoon tea."

Moses frowned. "Afternoon tea?"

"Quite right, Mr. Bean. With crumpets, of course."

Wedgewood then winked at Davy, put his fancy gold rimed monocle into his right eye and leaned in towards Moses. "Come to think of it, old chap, you bear a striking resemblance to the queen's cousin, the Duke of York!"

"I do?" Moses asked, the clouds once again beginning to gather around his frowning brow.

"Absolutely, old boy!" the Englishman replied seriously. "Except you're a lot taller—and have more teeth."

"So you're Davy Crocket!" a wiry, average sized man with an engaging smile said as he held out his hand. He was dressed in expensive but well worn hat, clothes and boots—and had a heavy knife on his belt that could pass for a short sword. There was a twinkle in his eye when he said: "I thought you'd be taller."

"I was at one time," Davy said, taking the man's hand and shaking it firmly. "But those damned politicians back in Washington whittled me down some!"

"They can do that to a man!" Bowie agreed loudly. "Damned lawyers too! Those bastards have been whittling me down daily over these Spanish land grants!"

"Politicians, lawyers and carpetbaggers!" Davy grinned, instinctively liking Bowie right away. "They should all be tarred n' feathered!"

Bowie barked out a laugh. "Either that—or elected to congress!"

"I'll drink to that!" Davy retorted. Both men seemed to think that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, standing uneasily beside the two older, laughing men, drew himself up ramrod straight and saluted. "Colonel Crockett, it is a great pleasure to meet you, sir. I'm Lieutenant—"

Still laughing, Davy waved him to silence. "First off, lieutenant, I'm no longer a colonel. That was some years ago in the Indian Wars, and I was only 'colonel' to ol' Moses Bean here n' about a few dozen farm boys still wet behind their ears! I'm no longer a colonel or a congressman, just plain ol' Davy Crockett from Tennessee. Now, where can a fella get a drink around here?"

Over the next week Davy and his men settled in, helped fortify the mission and made plans to repel any attempt to drive them out. Davy and Bowie hit it off immediately, however things with young Lieutenant Colonel Travis were somewhat strained. Travis was a stickler for rules and regulations while both the older men's 'military experience' had been with rough and ready, independent militia—men who were not used to taking orders or following rules that they considered foolish and unnecessary.

Travis and Bowie had already clashed over 'discipline and the lack of respect' and Davy's easy going and somewhat rowdy ways made the straight laced Travis even more uncomfortable.

"Your men, Mister Crockett," Travis fumed after Davy's Tennesseans and had started a drunken brawl with some Kentuckians: "are little more than an intoxicated bunch of undisciplined ruffians!"

Before answering the outraged young lieutenant-colonel, Davy slowly placed his cards on the table, finished his drink and then lit up a cheroot. Through the curling smoke the ex- Indian fighter squinted up at Travis.

"That maybe so, lieutenant, for in truth they are a mangy looking lot and their manners are somewhat lacking—but they are here, son, and they came here to fight and maybe even die for your cause! And by the looks of it there ain't no-one else comin', so my mangy, mannerless ruffians are all you've got!"

Travis turned even redder than he already was and stomped out of the 'tavern of the green' that Moses and several other old frontiersmen had set up.

Colonel Jim Bowie, sitting across from Davy, chuckled as he refilled Crockett's glass and then his own. "It's about time someone besides me put that puffed-up, stiff necked easterner in his place!"

Davy toyed with his glass. "I might have been a bit rough on the lad. He's one of those spit n' polish soldiers, but his heart's in the right place."

"Well, that might be, Davy," Bowie said as he dealt another round of cards. "But both me n' the men would like him a whole lot better if he'd pull that stick out of his ass!"

"Oh I'm afraid there's little hope of that happening, colonel," the Englishman Nigel Wedgewood grinned mischievously from the far end of the table. "My father was born with the same affliction. 'Woodus-Ap-Arsus' I believe is the medical term. Hereditary for most Englishmen and quite incurable this side of the grave. My elder brother suffers from it as well."

Bowie laughed and tossed his anti onto the table. "Yet this terrible disease has seemingly passed you by, Mr. Wedgewood."

"Doesn't it just!" the Englishman said in agreement. "My somewhat 'casual temperament' often drove my poor father to distraction. My brother Mycroft as well. He's actually worse than the old man. Fortunately both my sister Prudence and I seemed to be immune."

"Your sister Prudence you say?" Davy said as he matched Bowie's anti and doubled it. "I had a great aunt by Prudence. Quaker lady. Didn't hold with drinking, smoking or playing cards.

"How did she feel about fornicating?" Wedgewood asked casually as he matched Day's raise and then doubled it.

Bowie was taking a sip of whiskey at the time and nearly choked. "Jesus Christ, Nigel! You can't ask a man that about his old aunt!"

"Oh? And why not?" Wedgewood then turned to Davey. "Mr. Crockett, was your great aunt ever married?"

"Twice as I recall. Her first husband was scalped by a Cherokee raiding party. She was married to her second one for over fifty years—and call me Davy."

"Why, thank you sir. And you would honour me by calling me familiar as well. Now—Davy—did your dear old Aunt Prudence have any children?"

Crockett thought a moment before answering. "I can't give you an exact number, Nigel, but she had a passel as I recall. Mostly girls I believe."

Wedgewood turned back to Bowie. "Married twice. A 'passel' of children. Over fifty years married and outlived not one but two husbands! I'd say, Jim, that Davy's sweet old aunt knew 'quite a bit' about fornication!"

A Mexican army of over four thousand well trained troops arrived at San Antonio on February 23 and immediately put the small run-down mission under siege. It was led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna—a pompous, nasty, vindictive little man with powerful friends and family and illusions of grandeur. His detractors—of which there were many—called him the 'Mexican Napoleon'—but never to his face.

Santa Anna ordered his artillery to keep up a near-constant bombardment of the run down mission. Each night the guns were moved closer to the Alamo, increasing their effectiveness. On February 25, around three hundred Mexican soldiers crossed the San Antonio River and took cover in abandoned shacks approximately a hundred yards from the Alamo walls. The soldiers intended to use the huts as cover to establish another artillery position, although many Texicans assumed that they were launching an assault on the fort itself. Colonel Bowie called for volunteers to counterattack and burn the shacks. Davy stepped forward and said: 'Me n' my men will get 'er done."

"You sure you wanna do this, Davy?" Moses asked. "It'd be a whole lot healthier stayin' here behind these stone walls than going out there. Why them Mex soldiers could be hiding out in a number of those shacks!"

"Oh I doubt there's more than a dozen or so of 'em anywhere near those huts," Davy said to his old hunting companion. "Those fellas been marchin' for days now and will be plum tuckered out. Most will be too tired to put up much of a fight right now, but come morning they'll be thicker than flees on a hound—so we'd best set those huts ablaze 'n' get back here for supper!"

The mention of food always cheered Moses up, especially if there was strong drink to go with it. "Well, I just hope it ain't them hot chili beans again! My ol' guts cain't take much more of 'em. I've had the damn trots now for the last three days!"

"Goat's milk, old boy," the Englishman Nigel Wedgewood put in as he checked the priming on the brace of fancy pistols he carried.

"Coats the stomach don't you know? Allows you to eat all the tacos and spicy enchiladas you want. Also makes the passage out of the body far less unpleasant as well."

"Ya, well them damn chili beans go right through me!" Moses grumbled. "I couldn't sit a horse now if'n my life depended on it!"

"Then it's a good thing were walking down to burn them shacks!" Davy said, clapping the old Indian fighter on his broad back. "Alright boys, listen up. Jim Bowie 'n'that Travis fella would like us to go down 'n' smoke out any of Santa Anna's soldiers that might be sniffin' around those sheds."

"You want us to kill 'em, Davy, or just scare 'em off?" A raw-boned-looking backwoodsman by the name of Lemual Sparks called out. "I ain't kilt nobody but injuns afore this. Figure I might just bag me one o'them fancy dressed 'soldatoes'!"

"Just make damn sure Lem that one o' them 'soldatoes' don't bag you first!" Davy replied, and though there was a twinkle in his eye when he said it, everyone there knew that the majority of Santa Anna's men were hardened veterans and would be tougher than shoe leather.

"Ol' Lem don't need to worry, Davy," Moses put in with a toothless grin. "He ain't took a bath since leaving Tennessee three months ago. Any Mex fellas that get a whiff o' Lem will turn tail 'n' run!"

"Yer one to talk, Moses Bean!" Lemual shot back good-naturedly. "One look at that ugly puss o' yourn 'n' the whole Mexican army will up 'n' surrender on the spot!"

"If you boys are though complimentin' each other, it's time to go have us a little bonfire!" Davy grinned. "Move out in pairs. One with a lit torch to set the shacks alight 'n' t'other one to cover his ass! Set 'em all ablaze 'n' high tail it back here for a drink!"

"You buyin', Dave?!" someone called out.

The grin that legend and the penny novels said had once had mesmerized a grizzly bear flashed in the growing dusk. "Hell, yes I'm buyin'! Don't I always?!"

Never one to hang back when his friends were stepping into harm's way, Davy led the group down to the collection of adobe huts about a long bowshot from the Alamo. As instructed, the men went in teams; one with a pistol in one hand and a lit torch in the other, while his partner walked a few steps behind and off to one side, his longrifle cocked and ready.

Moses was setting fire to his second house when he and Davy heard first a shot, then a scream from one of huts to the right.

"Cat's outa the bag now, Davy!" Moses said, setting the dry thatch ablaze on one shack and tossing the torch onto the roof of another. Smoke was already thick in the air and yellow tongues off lame were now everywhere.

Then more shots were heard, followed quickly by shouting in Spanish. "Everybody back to the fort now!" Davy bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Shadowy forms came running out of the deepening twilight. Davy now held his longrifle in his left hand and a cocked pistol in his right. Any shooting now would be quick and at close range, making a pistol or knife the better weapon.

Moses was already leading most of the men back to the old mission. Davy stood watching the shadows and keeping a tally of who passed him.

"Where's the bloody Englishman?!" he asked Lemual Sparks as his partner passed him.

"That Wedgwood fella?" Lem asked. "He was up ahead o' me 'n' Jasper. "Said somethin' 'bout capturin' a prisoner."

Davy swore under his breath and told Lem and Jasper to get themselves up to the fort.

"Don't recon I can do that, Davy," Lem said, checking the prime on his longrifle. "Wouldn't set right with me runnin' off 'n' leavin' you to go look fer that English fella all by yer lonesome."

Lem then turned Jasper Clemens, another Tennessean. "What about you, Jasper? You with us to go save the Englishman?"

Jasper seemed to need a moment or two to ponder the question. The Clemens clan were always deep thinkers. Not fast, but deep. Finally he spit out a stream of tobacco juice and cradled his ancient looking musket.

"Wall I ain't sure 'bout savin' no Englishm'n. My granddaddy fought those red-coated bastards back in the Reverlootion. He carried ol' Maud here for nigh on four bloody years. Later on my daddy carried her against the Brits in the War o' 1812. Now here she is with me fightin'bean-eaters in Texas!"

"Fer Christ sake, Jasper!" Moses growled. "We ain't got time for no history lesson! Are ya commin' with Davy 'n' me or not?!"

Jasper replied after two of three thoughtful breaths— surprisingly fast for a Clemens. "Never said I ain't! Just ruminatin' on things! The i-runny of it all."

"The what?!" Moses asked.

"I-runny! You know, how goddamned strange some things can be!" Jasper replied.

Moses scratched his head. "What's strange about savin' some Englisman?" Moses demanded. "He's bloody well here fightin' with us ain't he?!"

"I think," Davy put in. "that's what seems so 'strange' to Jasper is that both his grandfather 'n' his father fought against the British, 'n' now you're asking him to risk his life to save one—with the same damn gun they used in their wars."

While Moses was pondering the fickle ways of Fate, Davy and Jasper were moving quickly into the heated, smoky air between the burning shacks.

"There he is!" Davy whispered urgently. "Up ahead by those two soldiers!"

Jasper squinted into the flame-lit shadows of the fast approaching night. Behind them over a half dozen burning huts elongated Moses' shadow as he hurried towards them.

"Looks like the tables got turned on the lad," Jasper said as he fixed a pitted but still sharp bayonet to the end of his old musket. "He came lookin' fer a prisoner 'n' ended up one hisself."

"Not for long he ain't!" Moses said, cocking his rifle. "I'll take the one on the right. Jasper, you think you can hit the fat one on the left?"

Jasper's answer was a wicked grin in a flame-lit face.

"You two just cover 'em," Davy said. "'N' don't shoot unless you have to! I'll handle this." Then Davy stepped forward, his rifle in the crook of his left arm, his right hand held up empty at his side.

The two soldiers that had been dragging the semi-conscious Englishman didn't notice Davy till he spoke to them, and by then he was only spitting distance away. "Ba-wenis notchus, ameegoes. Me friend. No trouble. You savvy?"

Both soldiers looked wide eyed at the tall American.

The thin one went to draw some sort of brass short sword but Davy suddenly rolled his left shoulder forward, causing the long, heavy octagonal barrel of his longrifle to connect with the right side of the man's head—dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

"Easy does it, ameego!" Davy said to the fat soldier, shoving the end of his rifle into the man's considerable stomach. The soldier's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He dropped the semi-conscious Englishman, dropped his own musket, and then dropped himself to his knees. "Pourfavour, Americano. No shoot I!"

By then Moses and Jasper were beside Davy. Jasper stood over the kneeling soldier like the Grim Reaper himself—only with a bayonet, not a scythe.

"You alright, Nigel?" Davy asked.

The battered and bleeding Englishman looked up at Davy. One eye was already swollen half closed. "Never better, old boy. Just another story to tell the fellows back at the club." He then hawked up some blood and spit out a tooth. "By the way—what took you so long?"

Though Bowie and Travis rarely saw eye to eye on anything, where they did agree was that their position was fast becoming hopeless.

"So just what the hell do you want to do about it then?" Bowie half shouted at the younger man. "Give up?! Turn tail and run?! What?!"

Travis, dressed immaculately as usual, looked at the older man and shook his head. "If anyone else but you had asked me that, sir, I would call them out to answer for such slanderous words!"

Bowie stopped and smiled, though it was not mirth that shone forth from his eyes. Neither the look nor the hand dropping to the bone hilt of his famous knife was lost on Travis. Knowing Bowie's reputation as a brawler, the younger man reined in his own anger.

"But now is not the time for such personal indulgences." Travis said, then he did something that he rarely if ever did—he smiled. "Perhaps, sir, when this is all over, you and I might carry on our quarrel, but for now I believe it best that we put it aside."

Bowie looked at the young man and slowly shook his head. "It's now abundantly clear to me, Mr. Travis, that you and I come from very different backgrounds. I had to haul myself out of age-old, grinding poverty while you seemed to have been born with a silver spoon up your ass—but before you go and get all riled up again, let me finish. You are a good man. A brave and an honourable one as well. The men all know that and respect you for it—and so do I."

Travis flushed red, embarrassed this time instead of angered. "Thank you for that, colonel. I'm delighted that I have the men's respect, sir—I just wish that I had— something more as well."

Bowie frowned, then poured both himself and Travis a drink. "That 'something more' you'd like to have—if it's there 'admiration' you want, that I'm afraid is reserved for the Davy Crockets of this world. All regular soldiers like you and me can hope for is their respect." He then tossed back his drink with one swallow and pointed at the door. "Now, kindly go outside and muster the men. Tell them plainly our situation and don't try to sugar coat it. Make it clear that reinforcements will not be arriving and that any of them that want to leave should do so right away before we are totally cut off. Also make it clear that any that do choose to stay will most probably either die here or be taken back to Mexico as prisoners of war."

Now it was Travis who was frowning. "But, sir, if I tell the men that, we'll hardly have any left at all come morning!"

Bowie poured himself another drink before responding. "Travis, all of them are volunteers who came here of their own free will. They deserve to know the truth. Besides, I think you'll be surprised by the number of them that choose to stay."

Still frowning, Travis headed for the door.

"So that's the plain truth of it, men," Travis said to the volunteers he had assembled in the courtyard. "No help is on the way, we are vastly outnumbered and if do you stay here you will either die or be taken prisoner. Both Colonel Bowie and I want you all to know that you are free to leave if you want, but it must be now before we are completely cut off."

Travis then drew a line in the sand and stepped back. "Any man that steps over that line is free to go with my blessing. In many ways you'd be foolish not to, for staying would be madness. Magnificent madness, but madness just the same!"

Over two hundred men shuffled about and glanced at one another. Then someone from the back called out. "Are you 'n' Jim fixin' to stay, colonel?"

"We are."

"'N' Davy?"

"He's stayin' 'n' so are his men."

The fellow that spoke then smiled broadly. "Well then, so am I!"

In the end not a single man stepped over the line.

The largest and final attack began just before dawn on March 6th, 1836. Most of the women and wounded non-combatants had gathered in the church for safety. The Mexican soldiers climbed up the north outer walls of the Alamo complex, and most of the Texicans fell back to the barracks and the chapel, as previously planned.

Davy and his men however were too far from the barracks to take shelter there and so were the last remaining group out in the open. They crowded behind the low wall in front of the church, eventually having to use their rifles as clubs and their knives and tomahawks, as the action was too furious to allow reloading.

"Seem's like this might be the end o' the trail, Davy!" Moses yelled as he avoided a bayonet lunge and buried his tomahawk in the soldier's tall shako. The blade remained stuck so he let go of the handle and drew his belt knife. "It's been a real pleasure traveling with ya, Davy."

Laying about him with his precious 'Ol' Betsy', Davy grinned back at his old friend. "Same goes for me, Moses—'cect you still owe me for that hound pup."

"What hound pup?!" Moses grunted as he punched a soldier in the face and pushed him off the wall.

"The one with five toes on her hind leg."

"That was nearly thirty years ago!"

Davy's grin widened. "I was waitin' for the right time to bring it up."

The actual Battle of the Alamo lasted less than 45 minutes and when it was over nearly all of the defenders were dead. Santa Anna ordered his men to take their bodies to a nearby stand of trees, where they were stacked together and wood piled on top. That evening, they lit a fire and burned their bodies to ashes, but the spot was not marked and can no longer be identified.

All that is certain about the fate of David Crockett is that he died there at the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836 at age 49. According to many accounts, between five or six wounded Texicans surrendered during the battle. Santa Anna had ordered the Mexicans to take no prisoners. Angered that those orders had been ignored, he demanded the immediate execution of the survivors, but a number of his officers refused to do so. Staff officers who had not participated in the fighting then drew their swords and killed the unarmed Texicans.

As Fate would have it, Santa Anna himself was captured and killed a little over a month later by an army led by Sam Houstan. Their battle cry at the time was 'Remember the Alamo'!

Breakout
by Tom Sheehan

When Purvis Drummond robbed the bank at Chase Hill, Kansas in 1870, and was nabbed by the sheriff on the outskirts of town within an hour of the robbery, he told the sheriff he had to get some money, and quick, for his mother.

"She's all alone now, Sheriff, and I was the only one she could turn to, so I went and robbed the bank. Looks like I messed things up for good for her, unless you take some of that there money and give it to her. Hell, they won't miss a couple of hundred dollars at the bank. It'd be like they chipped in for charity, and Mom'll be a sight better off than she is right now. Yes, sir, a sight better off for a good deed like you could do."

Tarmy Thomas, Chase Hill sheriff, knew the boy had been in Abe Lincoln's army for three years, his mother a widow and one of her boys dead in battle, as well as her husband, Chase Hill's first volunteer. Needless to spout off about, the sheriff had already developed a deep spot for the kid, robbery or no robbery.

"Don't she own that little cabin she lived in, where you grew up?" the sheriff said, already softened down to his boot tops by the kid's story, the sad look in his eyes, the sorry way his mouth hung open, like waiting for the next bite of a turkey leg or a hunk of rabbit, whatever came free and easy from a welcome hand.

"Naw," Purvis replied, "she gets the loan of it from the rancher Schmidt who's still after her since my pa died in the war, me and Grub following him into the army. She owes only God or the county, or maybe the rancher, for her status."

The sheriff liked the blond curls hanging on the back of Purvis's head, the "outlook and search" in his green-blue eyes, the ready smile at his mouth, and the feeling he sent about himself to close onlookers. For goodness sakes, his own daughter Pamela had dated him, even her who was not quick to do the housework around the home when she didn't have to. She'd learn in her own time, he surmised; they all did, or most of them. There was often more than the kitchen and cooking, and food preservation and clothing duties, and every family had at least one horse and that called for barns or pens or coverage for those that carried or lugged people places, did work for their owners, made do in the west.

But he had a prisoner who was a pleasant sort; probably a generally good young man who got caught up in deep needs. He'd treat him fair, that he promised himself, when he remembered how he had treated a few tough ones, rough as wild runaways at times, his own temperament running free and loose when ticked off by the slightest bad word in response to an order. The little complications that officials run into.

If Pamela and Purvis ever teamed up, she'd have to change her ways, for sure.

As it was in those days at Chase Hills, his office and attached jail were not selective or tight as drums, but came as a "this'll do for now" kind.

And so it had, until Purvis Drummond decided he was going to break out of jail, rob the bank again, and get his mother squared away; maybe even buying the cabin for her or getting one built on their own sparse property.

His avenue of escape proved simple, successful, and was followed by a ride on a stolen horse—the sheriff's horse, no sense leaving a gift horse alone in the darkness. When he tied the horse off in some brush at the edge of town, he snuck back into town, cracked a door ajar at the bank, slipped inside and took all the loose bills from the casher's till. It was a cake-walk for him and he slipped out of the bank richer than when he had slipped in there: his pockets were stuffed with paper currency, ones, fives, tens and twenties, no explanation necessary when trade came along. Without counting, he figured he had come away from the bank with at least $300, payday for the escapee.

On the way out of the bank, all things were dark and quiet, the whole town at sleep, his mind twisted into the power of a suggestion. An idea hit him with its simplicity, and his sense of derring-do; he'd hide out in the sheriff's barn, and he could have the best of two worlds at one time, enjoy the sheriff's hospitality and the sheriff's daughter, and both under one roof, and that would tick off the sheriff once he found out the escapee was still a tenant of sorts. It brought serious good feelings. The horse, of course, would be found soon enough, and his mother could wait a little while longer for her eventual rescue from poverty: hadn't she accomplished miracles so far in this poor life she was stuck in?

He shivered with joy and expectation and could already hear the stories the boys at the saloon would soon be spilling, and all of the stories leaving town via coach, carriage and lone riders spreading the tale of the young bank robber, twice a tenant of the sheriff, which were sure to multiply atop each other, like conceit builds drama, changes history on the view of a dinky little town being shaped up by a not-so serious bandit, bank robber, escapee, daughter ravager with glee, a one-time night sleeper who became a full daytime sleeper in the high parts of a custodian's barn as he occupied the custodian's daughter, her learning love as quick as it made itself available.

For a while, after his horse was found tied off outside town, the sheriff saw his lazy but lovely looking Pamela had instituted some changes and some duties on her daily schedule of things to do and get done. It was a pleasant change for him, and the new days passed in some pleasant observation, realizing she had learned so much in such a little time, conquered her laziness, found things to do ahead of their time, almost click her heels when a task was finished ahead of schedule,

He admired, in a hurry, her work in the kitchen as well as the odd jobs a woman sometimes has to do around horses, in the barn, doing her bit for the black, a pony, and her father's horse found out in the brush. Also, she had become the charming woman her dead mother had been. A neat comparison developed about the two women in his life, one gone beyond, one at her chores

There were mornings when Tarmy Thomas, Chase Hill sheriff, rising from sleep, found his breakfast, still plumb hot, on the table in the small kitchen, his horse saddled and at the rail outside his morning window, ready for whatever and wherever he'd be taken. Life hadn't been better for him in a long time.

Days, he realized, had become celebrations by the score.

Who knows how long that engagement might have lasted until the errand boy for the Chase Hill General Store had stopped by to make a delivery to the barn, and couldn't wait to get back to town to tell what he had seen, his side of things, a legend in action?

Dance of the Damned
by Ruben White

The wind howled like a banshee through the skeletal remains of Deadwood Gulch, a ghost town clinging to the edge of the unforgiving Arizona Territory. Here, in a ramshackle saloon-turned-dwelling, resided Delilah "Lily" Croft, a once celebrated showgirl whose laughter had echoed through the grandest theaters of the West, now reduced to a whisper, a ghost haunting her own life.

Lily's husband, Cole "Colt" Tanner, a man forged in the fires of frontier justice, returned from a cattle drive to find their home a scene of chaos. Overturned furniture, shattered glass, and a chilling silence that clung to the dust-filled air. Lily, her eyes wide with terror, spoke of a shadowy figure, a predator who had invaded their sanctuary and left her teetering on the precipice of death.

Colt's jaw tightened, his eyes hardening like flint. He cradled Lily, his heart a storm of rage and protectiveness. "We'll hunt this varmint down," he vowed, his voice a low growl. But instead of seeking the law in the distant town of Redemption, Colt, a man who lived by the code of the West, where justice was often swift and delivered from the barrel of a gun, decided to settle the score himself.

They set out under the cloak of the desert night, the moon casting long, eerie shadows across the desolate landscape. As they rode, Lily's trembling finger pointed towards a figure emerging from the darkness. "Him, Colt! That's the one who tried to kill me!"

Colt's grip tightened on the reins; his eyes narrowed. He spurred his horse into a gallop, a predator on the hunt. A chase ensued, a deadly dance under the pale moonlight, culminating in a confrontation that erupted in gunfire. The figure crumpled to the ground, a lifeless silhouette against the star-studded sky.

But as Colt turned back to Lily, expecting relief, he found only escalating panic. "No, Colt! It wasn't him!" she screamed, her voice raw with fear. "It was him! Over there!" She pointed towards another rider fleeing in the distance.

Confusion battled with rage in Colt's gut, but he trusted Lily. He gave chase, his horse's hooves pounding the earth like thunder. He caught up to the fleeing rider, a young man with terrified eyes, and fired. The man fell from his horse, his lifeblood staining the parched earth.

As the echoes of gunshots faded, a chilling realization crept over Colt. Lily's eyes darted around, her words a jumbled stream of terror and delusion. She was lost in the labyrinth of her own mind, her accusations as shifting and unpredictable as the desert wind.

Suddenly, a figure emerged from the shadows, a man with a cruel smile and a glint of triumph in his eyes. "Looking for me, Colt?" he sneered. "I knew you'd come running."

It was Jake "Rattlesnake" Ramsey, a notorious outlaw and Colt's sworn enemy. He had orchestrated this whole macabre play, using Lily's fragile state to manipulate Colt, turning him into an unwitting executioner.

Colt stood frozen, the weight of his actions crashing down upon him. He had been played, his thirst for vengeance exploited, and two innocent lives had paid the price. He had become a puppet in Rattlesnake's twisted game, a weapon in the hands of his nemesis.

As Rattlesnake raised his gun, a shot rang out. Lily, in a moment of clarity that pierced through the fog of her madness, had picked up the fallen prospector's gun. Rattlesnake stumbled, clutching his shoulder, his eyes wide with disbelief.

Colt lunged, tackling Rattlesnake to the ground. A brutal fight ensued, a whirlwind of fists and fury under the cold desert moon. But Colt, fueled by guilt and rage, was unstoppable. He landed a final, devastating blow, silencing Rattlesnake's taunts forever.

As dawn broke, painting the sky with hues of blood orange and purple, Colt held Lily close, her body trembling, her mind still teetering on the edge of madness. He had avenged the innocent lives lost, but the price had been steep. He looked at his bloodstained hands, the weight of his actions a heavy burden on his soul.

The sound of approaching horses broke the silence. Sheriff Brody, a beacon of law and order in the lawless land, rode towards them, his face grim. Colt knew what awaited him— justice, even for a man driven by love and manipulated by deceit. He had become a killer, a victim of circumstance, and a pawn in a deadly game. As the sheriff dismounted, Colt surrendered, his gaze meeting Lily's, a silent promise to protect her, even in the face of his own reckoning.

The sun climbed higher, casting its harsh light on the scene, a stark reminder of the darkness that lurked beneath the surface of the Wild West, a land where love and vengeance danced a deadly waltz, and even the noblest intentions could lead to a tragic end.

Hanging Tom Horn, Again
by Dana L. Green

"Legal hangings west of the Mississippi are spectacles. I expect folks to come from 'far and wide' with their picnic baskets of fried chicken and biscuits. The saloon will be the gathering place for drunken cowboys and poker dealers and cheaters. Sadly, Billy, the undertaker, will be taking pictures and selling 'em on postcards for a penny. The festivities are scheduled to begin tomorrow at noon."

"How are we supposed to do it?" I asked as I rocked back in my deputy chair.

"It's a hanging," he said, looking at me.

"I've never done one before," I replied.

"Never?" he asked.

"Never. The sheriff does 'em with Billy. He's our undertaker," I said.

He gave me a full nod of understanding. "You've seen it done?" he asked with quick glance down into his empty cup.

"As a kid. But not since I got my badge."

"Who did you see hanged as a kid?"

"Tom Horn."

He looked surprised.

I gestured with my cup.

"Damn. Tom Horn. That was in Cheyenne," he said.

"I'll never forget it, never," I said. "It was a few days before Thanksgiving."

He stood up and turned around slowly twice as though he was remembering. "Hell, that's right  . . .  it sure was," he said.

"November  . . .  the 20th  . . .  1903," I stammered.

He stopped moving and in a soft questioning voice, "Were you there?"

"I was."

"How old was you?"

I took a sip of my coffee. "10."

"I was 12."

"Ten years and I still have a distaste for hangings," I said sadly.

"Deputy  . . .  it was a sickening day," he said, sitting back down.

"Yeah. I still have bad dreams."

He nodded and then raised an eyebrow. "I get it,  . . . " he paused. "So, deputy, what do you wanna do about our prisoner?"

"I'll let him escape after midnight," I offered as I gently rocked forward and lowered my aging chair legs to the floor.

"And then what?"

"You will hide in the thicket past the livery stable," I said.

"And then?"

"When he rides off on your horse, shoot 'im with your Henry, clean and simple."

"Frontier Justice?" he quipped.

"Justice just the same," I said curtly.

When the prisoner escaped, I told him to ride west out of town. The Livery was east.

Historical conclusion:

Tom Horn was hanged one day shy of his 43rd birthday. He had killed 17 men while in the employ of the Pinkerton detective agency. At the time of his hanging, he was in employ of the Wyoming Cattlemen Association. This was during the dangerous and infamous vigilante war in Johnson County. He was hanged for the accidental death of 14-year-old Willie Nickell. Tom Horn was acquitted of the murder conviction on September 17, 1993, by a Wyoming court.

Lonesome Cowboy
by Arthur Davenport

The lonesome cowboy's out on a roam.

Thirty miles of fence to mend.
Today's grown old.

He finds an old cottonwood tree.
Says: "I guess here tonight I'll be."

He throws down his saddle and poke.
Pulls out some hard tack, coffee, and a smoke.

And the frayed-edged letter from Maria,
the only one who wrote.

The lonesome cowboy will pass the night away.
The Hotel of a Million Stars is where he likes to stay.

He doesn't have a house, or pay any rent.
Out on the range he's so content.

A new moon is on the rise.
He's searching starry skies,

thinking about Maria and her boy,
who's got his eyes.

The lonesome cowboy's tired.
He calls it a day.

He lays down his head to rest,
dreams the night away.

Colorado, pasture sweet,
tall green grass, wading through waste deep.

On his horse, with his cow dog.
The cowboy drives them on.

Up to Colorado from New Mexico.
Dreaming on until the dawn.

The lonesome cowboy will pass his life away.
Riding herd, mending fence.
He'll even put up some hay.

He don't like concrete.
It hurts his feet.
His cowboy boots don't like walking on a street.

There's just one thing he wants.
To find the love he lost.

He's whispering to the wind,
and sends his kind thoughts to Maria.

Espero te, siempre,
mi amor, mi amor perdido,
Maria.

Standoff on the Snake River Plain
by Will Mathison

The sun fell in a sky succumbing to an orange blaze that threatened impending dark. Across the flat expanse of sand and brush, purple mountains stood rigid and silent, setting the unyielding border between Earth and Providence. In the desolation fled a man on horseback, and chasing close behind was another rider.

The pops from the pursuant's pistol, which had once struck fear in the fleeing man, now became a secondary danger to the condition of his horse—both because the second rider seemed incapable of shooting accurately from horseback, and because he could feel his old appaloosa crumbling under the strain of their sprint. Each breath became more exhausted. Every step was more unsure. Then the faltering creature ceased altogether. The appaloosa's speckled hide deteriorated into the dust and brush, tossing its rider into the air in a pitiful evocation of Icarus, complete with precipitous meeting between man and earth.

Seeing his foe struck down by Fate herself, the second rider slowed to a prance and then a halt before slipping down from his horse. He approached a few steps, intentionally stomping his boots with each stride to produce a menacing rattle from his spurs. His white Gentleman's Stetson was lowered on his brow as he had seen it worn by more adept lawmen before him. The first man, emerging from the carnage and brushing dirt and briar from the wide black brim of his hat, stared down his pursuer. Though it had been many a year since encountering a challenger, he had experience enough from his days of outlawry to distinguish the confident from the proud, and this man was neither confident nor proud yet seemed mighty set on being both.

The man in the white hat hurled trifle words across the paces separating them that proclaimed the man in the black hat's particularly poor position and warned of the consequences of flight on foot. While his voice feigned bravery and the coolness that only experience or psychopathy delivers, the man in black discerned the slight trembling of the voice and the shivering of the young hairless jaw. In response he offered nothing but a slow nod of his wide-brimmed head and a slight twitch of his mustached lip. The man in white then presented two options: to lay down his weapons and come quietly or face the cold touch of Death. With effort, the man in black refrained from chortling at the rehearsed words. Finally, the man in black spoke. He had been retired for years; his days as a notorious highwayman merely an old song on the wind. A duel with the man in black would bring neither coin nor fame.

His statement was met by the artless assertion from the man in white that the law was the law and bad men must be brought to justice, lifted straight from some dusty law enforcement manual. The man in the black hat stepped forward, treading carefully over the strewn body of the appaloosa. It was as if winds and Earth moved with him for the man in the white hat began to tentatively retreat despite only moments before proclaiming victory for himself. The black-clad man spotted the fear dripping from his adversary's face and felt enraged. He saw the many winding paths of his life all converging here at this moment as clear as day before him, and the prospect that this meridian would involve such a man of weak courage and standing seemed a final lark from God or Fate or Apistotoke or whoever he believed in on that particular day. That old familiar snake began to coil in his stomach and start its unhurried ascent through his ribs and into his chest.

Upon the recognition of determination and hostility boiling within his rival, the man in white was gripped with that old fear. Like a chortling fire, it burned in his gut. Then flames crept up over his eyes and he was suddenly back on the battlefield. Bullets shrieked through the air and cannons ripped up the soil as if Hell was making its long-awaited siege upon the world of men in rhythmic volcanic discharges. He was struggling forward on his stomach while men rushed onward around him. A hand reached out for him, but in a moment the hand was gone. In those days, the man in white had been a man in gray. Amidst figures of night and smoke, his rebel uniform was mottled with the shades of war. Howls that he thought were only borne of the primal beasts of the frontier assaulted his eardrums. He tasted blood and tears, and the tears were his, but the blood was foreign. He was sick, unable to stand, unable to shoot the loaded rifle in his grasp, unable to flee. Only when a bullet finally lodged itself in his shoulder did he find relief. He didn't feel the gunshot that had shattered his collarbone, but he did feel his stomach, alight with a ravenous fire that rendered his limbs inept. Shaking as he held the rifle to his chest, he thought longingly for the cot that would be his world for the many weeks ahead.

Though far from the fields of the war of aggression, he stood again upon battleground, this time of his own creation. The flames still blazed before him, blurring his vision and shaking his limbs. Already, his knees trembled beneath the weight of his body and the impending violence. Paces across the desert, the man in the black trench coat glared from under his wide brim.

Drunkenly zipping under the shade of the hat, a fly had taken interest in the man in black, neglecting the body of the appaloosa only feet away. The man in black didn't dare swat it, knowing all too well the implications of any sudden movements in a standoff such as this, opting instead to fire puffs of air from his protruded bottom lip to shield his face. As the bug dove in close he blinked, then blinked hard again.

He saw a flash of white light—a long-lost memory resurfacing from the smoldering swamp of his mind. A camera on a wooden tripod flashed. The man in the black hat stood proud back then, with a young woman sitting at his right and an infant between them. He looked down at them both—the woman and the child—and felt the warm nuzzle of some furry creature deep within which he had once known and could have named but had been consumed long ago by a far bolder beast. The man remembered smiling down at his wife's glowing face and the wondrous stars that were his baby's eyes. They were the jewel blue of his mother's, not the charred brown of his own.

The man in black had looked up into another pair of eyes; round and set deep within a face swollen from plenty. They belonged to a man with a fattened smile and emaciated mustache. The man in black had smiled at the gentleman with an innocent belief that the character was his own personal Virgil in the world of entertainment and pleasure. The first time he had been dealt a hand of cards and put the bottle to his lips, he had felt a power and purpose beyond anything his sedentary life had offered, which included that delicate emotion which had once fluttered within him.

With another blink, the ghosts had vanished and the man in black was once again just a man with a hat and a trench coat and a loaded six-shooter hanging inches under his hovering fingertips. As the sky darkened, the nocturnal fauna of the desert stirred slowly from their slumbers and announced their return to the world of the living with shrieks and chitters. The cicadas and crickets commenced their ebbing droll, and cool air joined in to conduct the chorus. In the inner ear of the man in black, there was a distant rattle that echoed through the deep caverns of his body.

The man in white's stomach frothed like a pool of thick petroleum, and when he took a feverish gulp, it dropped a lit match down his throat and into his belly. Forth came an inferno that weakened the already tenuous pillars that were his legs and corroded the definite lines and angles of his vision. The world faded into the same pastels and grays that had painted another scene of such mortal fear.

Another flashback of warfare; another sprawling plain. It was the day before his badge had been torn from the front of his shirt. In fact, it was mere seconds before he had lost the honor of wearing that pin of the protectors of the frontier and the free peoples that populated it. With childlike inanity, he had yearned for the glory that the badge embodied. Never had he envisioned the lethal arrows screeching soundlessly through the air. Nor had he expected the loss of the bearded fellow with whom he had been debating the quality of whiskey between Quartzburg and Custer.

There was a spray of blood from the wooden shaft in the bearded man's windpipe. When the horses pulling his wagon reared, he wondered for a moment how their whinnies were capable of echoing so widely across the tallgrass plain. Then his thoughts were captivated by the feathered Indian who had summitted the hill beside him. As the man in white watched an armada of the war-painted men breach the earthen embankment, whooping in harmony with their mounts, the first gunshots cracked the dusty air from his comrades on the wagons before and behind him. A few of the horse-backed assailants fell callously into the thigh-high grass, splattered with crimson liquid identical to that now staining the cloth of the man in white's shirt.

The first cohort of natives pulled back from their direct attack and prowled the hilltop, relying on their winged blades to lay ruin to the remaining five rangers. For the first time, it occurred to the man in white to reach for his six-shooter which he fumbled to remove from its holster, his limbs adopting the structure of running water and the accuracy of a breeze. In the war, he had held, lugged, and fired much less governable weapons, yet faced by the frenzy of the painted riders, he was imbued with the same trepidation he had felt in the mud of the east. The gun bucked in his hand, spitting each bullet into the sand and brittle flora. An arrow whizzed through the corridor left between the roof of the wagon and the side of his head. The second arrow was fired by a stronger arm and steadier bow, but it was only capable of clawing the white Gentleman's Stetson off the man's scalp and casting it down from its lofty perch to the dirt below.

The man in white struggled to slip fresh bullets into the spinning chamber as another arrow thunked into a spoke of the wheel just inches from his booted ankle. His hands were shaking and there was the clatter of the metal falling to the wooden boards beneath his feet. In his mind, he saw the battlefield and felt the rush of fear in his veins as if it'd been injected into the bullet scar on his shoulder. Then the man in white was sprawling backwards, an arrow protruding from his chest like a branch from a trunk. He didn't even feel the impact of his back finding dirt or the arrow tip resting between his ribs. His eyes looked to the Heavens until he became conscious of his dire situation. There was a quick scramble as the man in white nestled his body against the side of the wagon with the misplaced notion that it would offer sanctuary from the attackers. His hand crawled across his chest, feeling the sticky red and the wooden projectile. Into his shirt pocket his fingers dove and heaved out a small square photograph, now stained in the bottom left corner. The man in white scanned the image as he had many a time before in the darker or duller moments of his life, then he clutched it to his chest, his eyes staring off at nothing in particular but consciously avoiding the sight of his grisly wound.

A bestial scream shook him to his feet. Another ranger had fallen just yards away, and a painted figure was standing over the man, clutching him by a tuft of hair with one hand while the other hand pulled a stone blade across the scalp. The man in white clambered back up into the wagon. His mind had gyrated away from any concept of honor or duty and fixated on survival. With a pop of the reins, he and the wagon were rushing away from the portrait of violence. A voice, if not many voices, called out for salvation, but it could not be distinguished whether they were from the dead or the living. A sudden arrow into his tricep was the final strike from the painted men, and then there was nothing but the open grass in all directions.

The man in white would never discover the origins of the fire that consumed the wagon behind him, but soon the wooden structure was engulfed in heat and devilish light. In petrified panic, he too was ignited like a box of tinder. Flames crept up from his belly, coiling around the arrows that bulged from his flesh, and licked across his eyes. Before him, the skyline melted into the horizon, and Heaven and Earth rolled and melded into some fire-governed land.

Now, he was far from tall grass and Indians yet still encumbered by the cowardice and yearning for synthetic respect that had shared joint custody of his soul since he had been given the burden of freedom. He tried to calm the fire that slowly melted his senses, but on it raged. Informed by experience, the man in black detected it all and would have pulled his lips into a devilish smile if only his cracked leather skin were still capable of such a feat. The man in black relished the fear that pervaded the faces of the unsure and the untested, and this man's blazed across the short expanse of sand and shrubs like a lighthouse eye on a distant horizon. But there was something in the man in white's young face that prod him like an itch. This itch diluted the usual seething passion he so often brandished in the moments before bloodshed. There was a softness to the young man buried under artificial ruggedness that he identified as innocence.

Suddenly, he recalled the jewel blue eyes of the woman he had once held in his arms; but in this memory, he held her by the shoulders and away from his own body as he had done with increasing occasion during the waning years of their affiliation. In those days, the round man had immersed the man in black in a lotus jungle of gambling and drinking. Here, he had thrived—not as the family man of his former days but as a nocturnal animal, engaging life in a way some may have considered gratifying but to others was simply reckless hedonism. His wife was of the latter opinion, for she saw clearly what the man in black was still too blind to acknowledge. As the months and years went by, every hand and every sip rendered less and less glory, starving the animal that had grown within him. But when his wife exposed this physical and emotional deviation of his character, the parasite seethed. The only apparent remedy was bigger gulps and bolder wagers, which further stoked and emboldened the beast. There was a time when the woman would throw her body between his and the door and plead for him to remain. Yet with a venomous word and often a strike, he would cast aside the woman he had loved and plunge into the night. When the woman tried to hide away the devilish draughts that had eroded the soul of her husband, she was met with a fury only sobs could quench.

One fateful night, the booze-bolstered man had pushed a tower of coins forward on a hope and two kings and was confronted by a terrible assemblage of five black spades presented by the man beside him. In an instance, the fragile substance of his life was blown asunder, revealing hollowness. For the first time, he saw the desolation of his being, and he was horrified. Yet, the horde of men jeered and laughed in revelry at the demise of man, and his executioner in his revelry gave him a jovial pat on the back. The man in black's sinewy hand towed in the bottle before him and his tongue swept down a final swig. Then, the serpent came alive somewhere deep within and shot up through his chest, its twining body circulating down each leg and pulsing into each arm. When the man with the black hat violently pushed away from the table and shot to his feet, the men cackled all the more loudly. But now the beast commanded authority over his mortal frame, and through his eyes it saw only opportunity for the slain to become executioner.

The man in black turned his back to the table and the lantern-light and gazed into his long shadow bent against the wall. He pulled his floral-printed bandana over his nose. When next he breathed in deeply, it was not his own lungs that ingested the foul wafts of liquor and mud and excrement, but the lungs of the snake. With speed and grace, he spun and bit out at each man with the roaring fire-cracks of his revolver until all six held a bullet of their own deep within their flesh. In another sweeping movement, he filled his pockets with the blood-spotted coins from the table. These same coins he dropped irreverently upon the floor of his house only moments later to the utter revulsion of his wife. He snapped at her to load up what little they had on the wagon out back, but the woman, seeing the snake in all of its splendor for the first time, did not back down. When the man in black coiled and signaled his impending fury with the menacing rhythm of his rattle, she stood all the firmer. The man struck, and the woman searched for an instrument to combat the great beast. With swifter enterprise than Heracles, she lunged first for the chortling lantern on the table, but her counterattack lacked the speed of her venomous husband. The flaming lantern toppled through the air and burst upon the wooden floorboards, casting a dancing light throughout the house. Shadows silently reenacted the terrible scene in epic fashion on the walls, perfectly capturing each moment of attack and resistance, then of domination and tragedy. Finally, even the shadows were consumed by the growing fire that found footing in every corner of the house that had once been a home.

The man in black pulled his hat down low over his charcoal eyes and slithered out of the burning shack and up onto his horse. In the distance, he heard riders approaching, but he had neither the decency nor resolution to confront them.

Now, after nourishing the snake countless more times for the achievement of infamy unattainable to an honest man, he found himself upon a stretch of baked soil staring down some shivering figure. He lacked the liquid cajoling that normally unleashed the serpent's fury, but it had been years since it had fed. It needed little goading now. As he felt the wriggling of the serpent expanding from his torso into his limbs, he shouted a final warning across the sand. The man in white responded by adamantly, yet unsurely, grinding his feet into the dirt.

Thus, the stage was set, and the two actors locked themselves in the climatic dance of combat. The white-hatted man quivered as the lapping sounds of fiery tendrils beat against his very soul, while the black-hatted man bristled and bared his venom-dripping fangs from under his mustache. The song of the desert swelled. The horizon held the faded light of a dying coal. The wind held its breath.

The man in white tore his gun from its holster and aimed, but he was betrayed by the inner fire. His quivering finger pulled the trigger and launched an anemic bullet into the distant frontier beyond the man in black. His opponent—with something like interbred glee and pity—snatched his own pistol and lithely cocked, aimed, and fired in a thunderclap just barely preceded by the sizzling bolt that struck the front of the white vest just northeast of the heart. The man in white was sent into a spiral of cloth and flesh and blood but appeared graciously saved from pain, for once his body landed in the dust, it did not move.

The serpent hissed joyfully and receded into its den as the man in black surveyed the scene cast red by the setting sun. His lip twitched, and he coughed once as he finally crossed the threshold that had separated the denizens of light and dark. Only a sideward glance was paid to the contorted corpse as the man in black passed.

He met the dead man's horse where it had been left and had remained despite the pistol fire. The man in black readied himself to climb aboard when a curiosity pricked at the back of his mind and drew him once more to the man who had pursued him to the far reaches of this river plain. The man in black circled the body on the glossed wings of a vulture. He looked upon the face and the legs bent in mimicry of reclination and the one arm outstretched on the dirt as if reaching for something that was and would always be unattainable. With a pat down the front of the man's jacket, he discovered no money or trinkets of any worth. Then, concealed within the bloody folds of his left breast pocket, he found a small square photograph with his own bullet hole punched cleanly through. Using one thumb, he wiped away the sticky blood that corrupted the image to see a faded picture of a family, complete with a small giggling child, a seated woman with a lovely glowing face, and a suited man whose head had been cleanly obliterated by the bullet's fury. Even in the sepia blur of the image, he could see the jewel blue of the woman's eyes, for he had explored their vast depths many a year ago.

The man in black stumbled backwards, the serpent in his stomach writhing in protest as he gazed down at the fallen man before him. Suddenly, he remembered a long-repressed image. He saw his wife lying before him in a burning house, her eyes wide in final observance of the home they had once shared. Then he remembered a second pair of eyes, just as blue and fearful peeking out from behind their tin washtub as the man in black had turned and disappeared into the night. They were the eyes of a child he had long assumed—and maybe hoped—to have been consumed by the inferno. But the eyes had found their way back to him, only to be closed by his own hand.

A yearning for those blue eyes to reopen overcame him. As he looked down again at the faded image of his wife and child, and the round vacuum where his face had once been, an idea surfaced within him that sent the serpent into a frenzy. He held the photograph firmly between the fingers of his left hand while reaching for his pistol with his right. When he raised the cold steel barrel to the rough skin under his jaw, the snake lashed out, turning its poisonous bite upon its own vessel. Yet the man in black did not yield to the pain and rush of venom that sought to turn his muscles to stone. He looked down at the child—his child—and constricted his fingers on the thin metal lever. And in that fraction of a second between the click of the trigger and the bite of the bullet, he thought he felt the softest flutter of some long-forgotten creature within the vicious coils of the serpent.

A flash of orange and plume of red, and then two men lay in the hushed sands of the Snake River Plain; one in white still reaching for that which was now surely beyond his grasp, the other in black with an arm outstretched as if in return. An image of a family that may have been, enshrined in this sliver of time.

Moments later, there was movement in the scene of death. A slight twitching of the younger man's finger unsettled the stillness. Then came a sudden cough from what had once been the man in white and the spitting of blood onto the dry earth. He did not check the hole torn through his chest by the bullet, but simply rose and holstered his gun and strode over to the body of the man in black. For a moment, he peered down at the workings of the bullet upon the face.

The revenant's hands were steady as he grabbed the black-garbed cadaver and threw it over his shoulder. He cared not about the streaks of crimson that ordained his white jacket and pants. The body he chucked on the croup of his pallid steed, and the man in white felt only cool serenity as he pulled himself onto its back, never searching for the blood-stained photograph that had blown across the dirt and now found itself tangled in dry briars.

The sun had fallen in a simmering sky the red of a dying ember, ushering in the dark droves of the night. Across the flat expanse of sand and brush, shuddering at the whistle of the wind, purple mountains whispered in their primordial semantic between Earth and Providence. In the turmoil, there was a rider, and lying close behind him was what may have once been a man.