The Beautiful Dead

3

They arranged the bodies of the bounties along a wall inside the cottage to where they were side by side, slumped over each other. After the fight, Richard and Pete found the bodies of who owned the cottage prior, there were three of them: a man, a woman, and a girl no more than thirteen years old, dumped outside in the snow. The man they'd shot, but the women were bruised and cut, their clothes in tatters, Richard figured it better not to think about it. Pete stared long and hard at the young girl lying in the snow, her blue eyes still gazing listlessly, skin pale white like porcelain splotched with reddish-purple marks, her face as delicate and soothing as a poem, the beautiful dead. He stared with melancholy eyes, as if he himself had lost something in the end of her life. Slowly and gently, Pete knelt down and fixed the girl's torn blouse to cover her. Then, only for a moment, he ran a hand over her head and through her hair, standing just as quickly and stepping back beside Richard, who said nothing.
   It was difficult work digging in the frozen ground, Pete and Richard both spent most of the day chiseling a grave large enough for the three of them, and when they were done they marked the grave with a cross made from two pieces of old wood. There were no words said over the grave, no prayers, only the silence of tragedy and the whispers of the winter wind.
Richard could tell Pete had no words for what he had seen when he entered the cottage. The glitter had left his eyes, they had become duller, more contemplative. As he sat in front of the fireplace on the wood chair, gazing into the flames, he had the look of a much older man. The light of the flames licked his face and reflected in his eyes. It was as though he could see the demons dancing in the fire. As Richard leaned against the doorway and watched Pete he couldn't shake the feeling he was watching himself.
He eventually turned away and poured a cup of hot coffee from the kettle on the stove. The cup was a little too hot for his hands, but he didn't mind, he just let his fingers thaw against the metal side of the cup. The warmth was welcome after the long cold they'd been through. He sipped the black liquid noisily and relished the feeling of it running down his throat and settling inside. It was dark outside the window, even the pure white snow had turned to grey under the thick blanket of darkness. Clouds rolled heavily over the mountains and plains, large hefts of cotton churning in the sky. He could still imagine the cold, the frost creeping into his joints and bones, his fingers numb and turning dark, his face raw from the razor-sharp wind. He took another sip to wash away the phantom cold.
"Dick," Pete said.
"Yeah?"
"Is it always this ugly? Killing I mean. People always make it seem so heroic, but it's just...ugly"
"Death is a damning thing, kid, and anyone who deals in death is damned just as much as the men he's putting down. It's an ugly business, no matter who's pulling the trigger. It's not something for men who still have a chance."
   "Chance for what?"
   "Redemption."
Richard looked down at the boy, found a lost look still in his eyes, "There ain't any point in thinking too hard on it now. What happened can't be changed, and that's that. Don't go hurting yourself over it."
Pete receded back into himself, quiet, delving deep into someplace Richard himself tried never to look.
   After a while, Richard said, "We'll strap the bodies to a couple of their horses in the morning. Start the trip back," and after a pause, "You should sleep."
   Richard sat in a cushioned chair in the corner and set his cup of coffee on the floor beside him. He tipped his hat down and shrouded himself in black, eyes closed, listening to the crackle of the fireplace and hoping to drift into sleep.