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.
**********
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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