The Beautiful Dead

2

The day had come in full, sunlight streamed through gold-laced clouds and coated the ground, making a shimmering blanket of crystal in the snowy banks of the ravine. Richard and Pete had passed the night in shifts, one watching the cottage while the other slept. Neither of the two bounty hunters had seen anything during the hours spent spying, not even so much as a silhouette crossing a window.
   Pete had gathered breakfast for the pair of them, a few strips of dried meat and cornbread, from his saddlebag and they sat chewing silently. Occasionally Pete would glance at Richard and watch him for a moment, and, though Pete wasn't aware, Richard noticed, chose to ignore it, and went about chewing the salty meat piece by piece until it had turned to a pasty substance in his mouth while he stared at the cottage. There was something about Pete that made Richard inadvertently distance himself. He had ridden with a few men in his time, some little more than boys, most trying to seek adventure the same as Pete, and though they had the same admiring gaze, none had the sense of idolization Pete seemed to have. It wasn't that it was inherently bothersome or annoying to Richard--he had found that the admiration of younger men toward him was usually short-lived--it was that Pete still looked at him as something he wasn't.
   Richard finished his meal, brushed off the crumbs of cornbread from his breast and belly, then reached into his pocket for the pipe. The door to the cottage creaked open and a man walked out of the building onto the front stoop, standing with a blanket around his shoulders, his breath fogging.
"Look," Pete whispered, nudging Richard.
Richard crept up to the drop off of the canyon and looked at the man.
"That's Frank Williams, I think. Hard to tell."
"What do we do?"
   "You stay here, make sure to keep that rifle ready and cocked. I'm gonna head down. If anything happens down there I'm gonna need you to shoot straight, understand? I don't plan on dying today." Pete nodded and held the rifle close, Richard pushed his hat down before he pressed off the rocks and crept toward the slope. It wasn't too steep of a slope, he could manage to walk crouched without sliding for the most part, but it was almost directly ahead of the cottage, and he figured it would be easy to see from where William's stood, so he kept low to the ground so as to avoid his detection. The man stood at the top of the short stairs taking a piss, Richard could plainly see him from where he was, and he assumed it wouldn't be long until he was discovered. He hoped the boy wouldn't miss.
As he reached the flat of the ravine he could see Williams beginning to turn around and head back inside the cottage. He heard a voice, a man, hoarse and yelling, calling to Frank, he figured it was probably Forrester. Just before Williams could make it back into the cottage a shot rang out from the canyon and echoed in every direction off the ravine walls. Richard watched the man suddenly fling forward and collapse halfway in the threshold. Voices boomed from inside the cottage, indistinguishable and raucous. Someone grabbed the top half of William's body to drag him inside. Before they could, Richard fired his rifle into the doorway, sending splinters exploding into the air where the bullet impacted with the doorframe. He cocked the rifle, expelling the spent cartridge, and fired again, this time piercing the wooden wall. A pained howl echoed where the bullet hit and suddenly gunfire erupted from the windows toward Richard. He dove behind a cluster of rocks near a leafless tree and flattened himself on the ground behind them. It was hard to distinguish amidst the gunfire, but he thought he heard Pete's rifle firing from above.
As quickly as he could manage, Richard threw himself sideways and past the rocks, fired a shot which shattered through a window, leaving a jagged, circular pattern. He fired again, aimlessly hitting the front of the building, unsure the shots would give results, and repeated firing until the rifle was empty and making a hollow, metallic sound as he cycled the lever repeatedly. He dropped the rifle where he laid and pushed himself up and started running across the flatland to another cluster of rocks closer to the building. The bitter-cold air burned in his lungs. He felt hot lead whizzing past him, though he wasn't sure if the gunfire was targeted at him or Pete, but felt no fear of being shot. He dove behind the rocks and pressed himself against them, the prodding points jabbing into his back, and pulled the pistols from their holsters. He had twelve shots, and only twelve, he wouldn't have time to reload.
He breathed, plain, calm breaths, and watched the steam rise from his mouth. Steady. Steady. Then he heard a bullet ricochet off a rock he hid behind, and a few hard fragments landed on the top of his hat. Taking one final, deep breath, he charged from behind the rocks and headed for the front wall of the cottage, the guns cocked in each hand. He saw Pete still perched on the cliff, a muzzle flash, and bullets colliding with the rocks about him.
There were voices inside the cottage, yelling, panicked. Richard turned the corner and slunk through the threshold, moving over Williams's body, a pool of blood formed around him, and found Kirk Connors sitting against a wall inside. He looked weak, near death, the result of a gnarly wound in his chest; his shirt was soaked in blood, and his bearded face was pale, though his eyes still retained a burning rage, and he steadied that gaze on Richard. He attempted to raise the pistol in his hand, but was too slow. Before the barrel had even cleared the floor Richard shot him in the face. His head slammed hard against the wood and chunks of flesh were left among the blood behind it.
   A man suddenly appeared in the room from behind the wall, wide-eyed and crazy, a pistol in his hand, screaming unintelligibly and shot wildly toward Richard. It was Billy. The bullet missed, hitting a wall behind him. Richard ducked down, narrowly missing a second shot which would have surely killed him, and shot once with rapid, experienced aim. The man spun backward and crashed to the floor, then laid still. Richard stood and moved quickly to the back of the cottage. He noticed a broken window to his left, some blood left on the glass shards. Richard looked through the window and saw a man in his skivvies hurrying across the snow powdered ground. He was moving fast, gaining at least three or four feet of distance with every bound. It was an awkward and desperate stride, not the stride of a man who expected to escape. Richard didn't even bother to raise his gun, before the man could make thirty yards from the cottage a final shot came from the canyon and the man fell forward with his arms thrown in the air and a short cry spouting from his lips.
Turning, Richard walked back into the main room of the cottage where Billy was still clinging to life, his breath shallow and wet. Richard stood over him and shot him in the back where he lay, straight through the heart. Then he made his way to the door, taking quick glances at the other two men, certain they were dead and not worth a wasted shot, before stepping out into the cold.
   He walked patiently across the empty landscape to the body flat on the ground. The air was bitingly cold but he didn't notice. The body had the look of a dead animal in the distance, only appearing human once Richard had come right up on him. A splatter of red colored the snow a little ways behind him, making a trail where he'd dragged himself across the ground by clawing in the soil.
The man heard Richard's footsteps behind him, and, defeated, he surrendered trying to escape and laid, exhausted, with his face sideways on the cold ground. Richard might have pitied him if he believed either of the men standing out there in the cold might deserve it. Instead, he looked upon the hapless and old and frail body of a man he used to know without emotion.
"Let me...let me see the face of my...killer...you sonabitch," Forrester said laboriously.
Richard put one of his pistols back in its holster, cocked the other, and moved toward the man. With his boot, he pushed on the man's shoulder and flopped him over. Forrester groaned in pain, then his eyes, hazy and losing life, fell on Richard. His face held no expression of anger or hatred, or even remorse, only a pained grimace. After he had looked at Richard's face for a while, taken in all his features, the wrinkles developed around his eyes, the rough beard growing white he'd left untrimmed, his sullen eyes, he let out a laughing sigh and closed his eyes.
"Dick McCarthy...goddamn...might've figured you'd be the one to kill me."
"Ain't what I wanted, James."
Forrester laughed, heaving up bloody saliva which he spat toward Richard.
"I'll be seein' you in hell," Forrester said, then he smiled, a huge, toothy smile stained red.
The words came with a calm, sure knowing that Richard would raise the pistol cocked in his hand, point it, and squeeze the trigger. Richard watched the final plume of steam rise from his mouth and vanish, then he looked at his face, memorizing it just as he had memorized numerous others.
"I'll be lookin' for you."