The Reckoner: Half Past Sunset, Part 2

* Half Past Sunset, Part 1

The storm front had caught up to the train.  Rain fell against the train car, a low methodic beat reverberated throughout, echoing in his ears the perfect rhythm of his heart.  The lightning flashed and thunder clapped as clouds darkened the daytime sky.  He usually enjoyed a rainstorm but not this one.

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The flickering light from the gas lamps that hung on the walls of the train car danced across the felt of his hat and the oily skin of his duster.  He carried the rifle on his hip as he walked down the aisle, ready to pull the trigger if anyone happened to move in front of the barrel.  Each footstep grew louder as he got closer to the broken door that separated the train cars.

As he stepped through the broken door and out to the small walkway that connected the two cars he didn't know what to expect, but his finger was on the trigger nonetheless.  He wanted to burst through the door into the next car, but he knew better.  It was the same feeling that kept him fiddling with the hammer in the train car, he couldn't explain it, he just knew, felt it in the air somehow.  With the rifle still in his hand he grabbed the ladder next to the walkway and began to climb up.

The train was burning fast, the wind whipped around him as he tried to gain his footing and he nearly lost it more than once.  Finally, his feet were underneath him and the rifle against his hip again.  Each drop off rain hit him like it was shot from a coach gun, the buckshot rain forced him to pull the brim of his hat down to protect his eyes the best he could.  He scanned over the train cars and hoped to see anything that would tell where the other train thieves could be at.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the movement he was looking for, two men on horseback were riding next to the train, a horse with an empty saddle between them.  He gingerly stepped to the edge of the car and waited.  Time slowed down as he he felt the resistance of the trigger against the padded flesh of his finger, his view was clear, the rain and wind had no effect as he stood there pulling the trigger.  And it released, the hammer slammed down, the rifle kicked into his hip, and time picked up again.

The kick off of the train car was deliberate and aimed towards the rider closest to him, the rider that rode lifeless in the saddle.  He was able to grab hold of the horses neck as his body hit the rider and forced him out of the saddle.  In his wet fingers the rifle began to slip.  There was a choice to be made, cling to the horse or the gun, he could only do one and the decision had to be made soon.  The ground was soft enough he thought and he let go of both.

Tumbling in the dirt and sand, it was an exercise to just avoid being trampled by the thundering hooves around him.  Stopping himself, he cautiously stood up as he watched the third man ride off.  Nothing was broken, bruised but not broken.  Running, he found his rifle in the sage brush.  Quickly he checked the barrel, that mistake had cost him once and he wasn't about to make it again.  There was no way he was going to make the shot count, but he pulled the trigger regardless.  The rider kept pushing the horse to the horizon.

The train was a slithering snake in the distance, there was no way that he was going to catch it, and that was alright by him.  He holstered the rifle and began to walk.  The rain fell on his shoulders and though his brown coat kept him dry it was a long walk he had chosen to make.  There was something about the rain that he enjoyed, he felt clean and that was usually a feeling that didn't last long.  On the horizon, through the rain, he made out a lone horse rearing.

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The full fury of the storm had hit.  The dry, parched ground soaked in every drop that it could.  It meant life could eek out its continued purpose, fighting and surviving.  It baptized the desert and cleansed her, washed away the blood that covered the land and gave everything a new start.  The storm was already beginning to wane, salvation doesn't long exist in hell.

* Half Past Sunset, Part 3

The Reckoner: Half Past Sunset, Part 1

The holster was unique, it had to be for a firearm as unique as his.  It tied off just above his knee and was open faced except for the small toe at the bottom that cupped the barrel of the piece.   There was a hook that attached to the saddle ring on the receiver, but that wasn't what made the holster unique.

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He played with the hammer of the rifle, cocking and uncocking it with the rhythmic clack of the train as it went down the tracks.  It was dusty outside the window, the entire landscape was arid and death clung to everything that tried to eek an existence out there.  The wind was blowing, sand and dirt flew across the desert landscape.  A dust devil spun across the horizon, growing and shrinking with each turn.  Just as quickly as it formed it had disappeared and he continued to cock and uncock the rifle.

The brim of his hat lifted only slightly, beneath the large, dark shadow two eyes pierced out, hawkish.  The rhythmic clack had become a solid grinding as the train jolted and slowed down.  Voices around him became louder, jumbled, not knowing what had happened or why they had stopped.  Unholstering the rifle and quickly cocking the lever, he hid it underneath his coat, across his lap.  He lowered his gaze back down, trying to relax into the seat for what small piece he could.

The noise in the car climbed to a feverish pitch, men and women arguing, children crying, old-timers yelling for a conductor.  Then all was quiet.  The wind had stopped blowing outside the window and the sand had settled.  On the horizon a storm front had gathered, blue sky gave way to blackened clouds.  It sat there, waiting to stampede across the sky and tear the land apart, bringing much needed life to a land that would strain to nurse every last drop and would leave it wanting, hope emaciated.

And it broke!  The door to the train car splintered as the body fell through it and to the floor.  Behind him, stepping through what remained of the door was a man who wielded a six shooter in both hands.  They were cold, blued steel with sandalwood grips, they were big irons that had put more than one man in the ground.  Women screamed and men cowered, and a bang! echoed through the train car.  He shot the man on the floor, "Be quiet!" he yelled, "nobody try to be the hero and you won't end up like that poor fella right there," he pointed the pistol at the corpse on the floor.

The bandit pulled a burlap sack that hung from his back pocket and opened it up, awkward as he tried to juggle the bag and a pistol in one hand.  With the other pistol he motioned at the sack, "put your valuables in here!"  He walked down the aisle of the car, holding out the bag and stopped at every passenger.  They filled the sack with bills, watches, a few rings, anything that could be scrounged.  He wore a smile as he walked down the aisle, his yellow teeth peeking from behind his unkept beard, the duster he wore was a few sizes to big and created a train behind him which he luckily never tripped on.

It didn't matter though.  Aiken didn't even lift his brow as the bandit got to his seat.  "Put whatever you got in the sack and there ain't gonna be no trouble," the bandit said as he cocked the pistol in his free hand.
"Are you sure you want what I got?"Aiken looked up at the man standing over him, staring, unblinking at the barrel trained on his face.  The bandit's smile faded just slightly as he caught Aiken's grinning eyes, he felt it before he heard the bang.  It felt hot, a tearing, searing hot that wouldn't let him scream, all he could do was drop what was in his hands and clutch at his belly.  He wasn't sure if the heat was from the bullet or from his life that was spilling through his hands.  He didn't have long to ponder the thought before the stock of a cut-down rifle caught him under the chin and he closed his eyes.

Aiken caught the spent casing as he cocked the lever of the rifle.  Unceremoniously he dropped it on the bandit as he stepped out into the aisle, the rifle butted against his hip, and he took the first step towards the engine of the train.  The deluge on the horizon hinted that it wouldn't let up for some time.

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It was the leatherwork that set the holster apart.  Oak leaves and acorns had been tooled into the leather, and years of sweat, blood, and sand had worn a warm brown sheen into the old gunbelt.  He wore it as naturally and comfortably as he swung his arms when he walked.  Hidden in plain sight, between leaves and acorns were two scriptures: Luke 22:36 and Revelations 6:8, two of the sacred words that he understood.

* Half Past Sunset, Part 2

The Reckoner

Dust swirled around his boots, kicked up by the brown duster that had seen too many years on his shoulders.  As if time had slowed down, he heard the smoking casing as it bounced off of the ground, it thudded in his ears.

"Job's finished." He said, nonchalantly, almost angrily.

He holstered his gun, a sawed down Winchester 1873, and picked up the casing from the ground.  It was his favorite gun, even if he had to modify it to make it usable.  Though it felt like a kick from a mare's leg, he'd use it until he was put in the ground.  

**********

He hid behind a rain barrel, bullets flying through the air.  How had he found himself in this predicament again?  He looked around, trying to find someway to save himself and just maybe end the life of "South Paw" Williamson.  Wood chipped from posts along the boardwalk with each piece of lead that struck upon it, glass shattered into millions of pieces, somewhere along the street a woman screamed, and there was nothing that could help him.  A bullet struck the water barrel, narrowly missing his brow as it exited with a plume of water behind it.

"Son of a bitch."  He hissed between his teeth.  Lifting his rifle from the ground he knew that there was only one thing that could maybe save him.  He put one bullet through the gate, cocked the lever, and stood up.  Turning, the rifle went up to his shoulder and he pulled the trigger.  Just as the trigger released the hammer, the small piece of mud at the end of the barrel came into his view.

**********

"Aiken Monro come out from behind that tree or we're gonna kill you!" A rough voice hollered from somewhere behind him.

The sweat dripped down his brow, down his nose, and fell to the dirt near his boots.  The rifle hung loose in his hand, quivering as it tried to hold on as he lost feeling and blood from the bullet hole in his shoulder.  Even though the length of barrel he had cut off months earlier lessened the weight of the rifle, it was still difficult to hold in his trembling grasp.

Bullets began to fly through the air around the tree that he stood behind.  He could feel the dull thud as a few slugs found their way into the tree, with each one more sweat soaked into the parched ground.  It was a struggle to cock the lever of the rifle and as it clicked closed he knew he had a single chance to make one last stand.  

With a deep breath he spun out from behind the tree and began to put the rifle up to his shoulder.  Suddenly the sting in his shoulder intensified and the rifle flew from his hands.  Scrambling, he found another tree to hide behind.  The rifle was too far away for him to reach, and it didn't matter at the moment, there was no way that he would have been able to put the stock up his shoulder.  The wood had splintered where the bullet had ripped through it and tore it from his hands.

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He put the spent casing up to his nose, there was something intoxicating of the acrid smell of the burnt powder, something that helped burn off the stress and calm his nerves akin to his fiddling with the bullet holes in his brown coat.  Each step towards the corpse laying on the ground was deliberate.  He bent over, put the casing on the dead man's chest, and turned around.  As he got on his horse he pulled the brim of his hat down and rode away.

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The story of The Reckoner continues here.