Levi lit a cigarette.
“You’re smoking now. Always looking for a new way to kill yourself, huh?” Duke said, prostrate on the floor. Teardrops of perspiration dotted his bare back and shoulders in marbled dayglow. Florid rose branches sheltered the patio from overhead, vines braided with beams of a pergola. Sunlit petals of garnet drifted around the two men.
“Ain’t got much to live for – thanks to you.”
Duke groaned through a final push-up and jumped to his feet. He mopped a forearm down his face and dusted his palms on Confederate gray pants. “Well, the gates of heaven and hell are shut to us both, friend.”
“I had the boys scout one of your stagecoaches. It was speeding off towards Tombstone this mornin’,” said Levi from under the brim of his cowboy hat. “Got the shipment of grenades on it?”
“My men are dead,” Duke observed, regarding the red-wine splatter on Levi’s shirt.
“Hrm,” Levi grunted into the tobacco paper and hung a thumb from his empty gun holster. “Ruined my new blues, too.”
“You’ve lost. Our past remains unchanged.” Duke grinned in mighty triumph. “That coach didn’t carry the explosives.”
“I know. The coach you dispatched last night did.”
Victory dimmed from the Confederate’s face as rose petals toppled by.
Levi put a hand to Duke’s naked pectoral but felt memory instead of flesh.
The clip of a grenade fell from the cowboy’s fingers, gripping the shell.
“Always lookin’ for a way to kill myself,” Levi smirked.
