The Reckoner: Riding Shotgun, Part 3

It must have been a small eternity that Aiken stood over the young man’s body in the middle of the road.  He had killed many men in his life and each deserved it, and this was no different.  But this was the youngest that he had ever brought judgement too.  What would have his life been had he not turned to a life of thievery?  Would he have had children and a wife?  What about an honest living, perhaps a lawyer or a farmer?  He felt something akin to the young man.  As he had done so many times before he turned around and never gave the man a thought again.
At the coach, the businessmen had gathering the bandits and laid them in the road.  They dusted their hands off on their equally dusty pant legs as they watched Aiken approach.  Virgil sat against the wheel, pale and sweating.  His pant leg was pulled up and his ankle had swollen three times its normal size. 
“What are we going to do?”  One of the businessmen asked, looking between Aiken and Virgil, visibly shaken.
“Pull those bodies off of the road, go get that body down the road and put with the others, put Virgil in the Coach, and we’ll be off to Santa Fe.”  Aiken ordered the plan without any hesitation.
“What about the bodies?” 
“What about them?  They’re dead and it isn’t going to hurt them to lay out in the sun until we can get to the next coach station and they can take care of the bodies, if they choose too.”
“Shouldn’t we bury them?”  The other businessman decided to join the conversation.
“I’m going to give you two options and you can choose one of them.”  Aiken realized one of many things that he disliked when it came to dealing with others.  “You can stay here and dig graves and say a prayer or you can get in the coach and we go to Santa Fe.  Either way, Virgil and I are leaving, so are you coming with us or not.”
“We can’t just leave them for the vultures.” 
“They would have done the same to you.  So either get in the goddamn coach or get the hell off of the road!”  The conversation was over.  Aiken bent over and helped Virgil off of the ground and into the coach. 
The businessmen followed suit, but questioned, “What if this happens again?”
“It won’t!”  And Aiken slammed the door of the coach.
He climbed up to the driver’s box and grabbed the reins, “ha!”  he called out to the horses as he whipped at the reins.  He rode the horses and coach hard to the next changing station.  From there to the next and so on to Santa Fe.  It was dark by the time they stopped the stage in front of the bank. 
“Where have you been?  And where’s Virgil?”  It was Mr. Young, and he did not see the bullet holes that riddled the coach.
Aiken pulled the strongbox from the front boot underneath his seat.  He threw it down to the ground at the Banker’s feet and then grabbed the reins again.  “Ha!” and he whipped at the horses again.
He drove the coach straight to The Oriental.  He hurried off of the coach and opened the door.  The color had returned to Virgil’s face and the smile was following close behind.  There was part of Aiken that was relieved and that part made him uncomfortable.
“Do you think that you can put some weight on it?”  He asked the driver.
“I can try.”  Virgil snorted a laugh as he tried to get to his feet, to no avail, “I guess not.”
“I’ll help you out,” he turned to the businessmen still in the coach, “You get me a table in their that I can set him at.”
Both businessmen got out of the coach as fast as they could and Aiken climbed into it.  He knelt down and offered his arm to the man.  They hobbled to the door of the coach and out, Virgil leaning on Aiken’s shoulder as the driver hopped along as Aiken walked into the saloon.  Aiken quickly glanced across the barroom floor, the businessmen had found an empty table in the corner of the saloon.  The two hobbled over to the table and Aiken helped Virgil into a chair.
“Prop your leg up on the table.”  He said as he took off his hat.
The doors of the saloon slammed open, “What in the hell is going on with my stagecoach!”  The banker threw the doors to the saloon open.
Aiken never turned around, completely focused on his injured partner seated in front of him.  Mr. Young’s face was red and getting hotter as he made his way around tables and chairs to get to his driver and gunman.  “Tell me what happened out there, god damnit!”  He put his hand on Aikens shoulder, trying to force him to turn around.
He did turn around, not on any accord of the banker’s effort.  “If you ever put you hand on me again you’ll live to regret it.”  The fire had returned to Aiken’s eyes and the banker’s face began to whiten more than redden.
“Tell me what happened out there?  Why are you so late?  Did any of them get away?”  He still wanted answers.
“Your coach and money are safe and that’s your business.  How that happened is mine.”  He snarled, turning back to the driver, “If you want the stage to drive out tomorrow you better find someone to repair it tonight.”
Having the gunman turn his back to him, the banker seethed red again, “Don’t you turn your back to me.”  He remembered, however, not to put his hand on Aiken’s shoulder.
Aiken didn’t bother to turn around, “If you want me to guard that damned coach, get the hell out of here.  If not, I’ll go sit in the marshal’s cell until the judge returns.”
“Mr. Young,” Virgil decided to interject, “You’ll need to take care of the coach if you want us to go out tomorrow.  I know that Martin Livisten would be willing to do it but you’ll have to see him before too long or it will be too late to fix it tonight.”
The banker stood behind Aiken for a moment longer before turning around and barging out of the saloon in the same manner that he had entered.
“People don’t seem to be an area of strength for you.”  Virgil remarked, the smile had fully returned.
“Here’s what I know about people, we all die.  I will, you will, Mr. Young will.  All of us.  Some of us end up with our face in the dust and a bullet in our chest like the men on the road earlier.  And some of us lie in a bed, coughing up blood, and hope for the time that we close our eyes for the last time.  We are all equal and we’re all the same when we stand before the first great judge.  Why should I care more about some than others?”  His question wasn’t meant to be answered.
Virgil cringed as Aiken pushed against his ankle, “Do you think it’s broken?”
“It ain’t broken, but you hurt it pretty good.”  Aiken continued to push and prod on Virgil’s ankle, “We’ll have to find a crutch that you’ll have to use for a little while.  I don’t know if you’ll be able to drive for a few days.”
“I’ll be able to drive, as long as you don’t push me off of the coach again.”  Virgil chuckled through a cringe of pain.
“Don’t get in the way again.”  A smile crept across Aiken’s face and he didn’t seem to mind.

The Reckoner: Riding Shotgun, Part 2

It was early in the morning when Virgil knocked on Aiken’s door, but it didn’t matter, Aiken had been awake and waiting.  Santa Fe or Albuquerque or the middle of the dusty desert, he didn’t sleep well.  As soon as Virgil knocked Aiken opened the door, dressed and ready for the day.
“Did you sleep like that?” Virgil laughed as he clapped Aiken on the back.
Aiken shook his head and closed the door behind him.  After spending the evening with Virgil there was something about the man that he liked.  He was warm and inviting, there was no pretense or ungenuine character within him.  He had never met a man like him before, he was difficult to read because there was nothing to read hidden underneath the surface of the man.  What he said is what he meant and what you saw is exactly what you got.  Aiken had spent his life looking for the tell that would show the lie in someone’s story.  Virgil did not have a tell, and that still made him uncomfortable.  Yet he shut the door behind him and slightly smiled, it was unnoticeable to everyone.  But he noticed and he shook his head again.
They walked out of the hotel and saloon and started down the street to the bank and where the vermillion coach was waiting.  Next to the stage were two business men, both in clean suits and new bowlers.  The men were laughing, both of their voices carrying in the crisp, morning air.  It was just cold enough to see their breath and it punctuated the laughter as it entered the atmosphere.
“Mr.’s Johnson and Lee, I hope?”  Virgil stretched out his hand, the same smile on his face.
The men shook Virgil’s hand and then turned them to Aiken, expecting the same kindly welcome.  They didn’t receive one back.  They pulled their hands back with a slight shrug and went right back to their conversation.  Virgil stood their for a few minutes, almost as if he had been part of it he jumped right into the conversation and shared a couple of laughs.  Aiken stood off to the side, never belonging to the conversation.  He stood there and waited.
“Well, let’s get going.”  Virgil said as he opened the door to the coach, “We’ll have you in Santa Fe this evening and in Las Vegas tomorrow.”  After he closed the door he clapped Aiken on the shoulder again and climbed onto the stage.
Aiken climbed onto the stage and took his seat next to Virgil, “Do you want to get this trip started like you did yesterday?”  Virgil asked with a large smile on his face.
Aiken sat down without a word or even an acknowledgement of the joke.  The morning light had washed away any ability to pull down the wall that he had created for so many years.  He pulled the rifle from its holster and watched as he cocked the lever and chambered a round, “Let’s just get going.”  He said, turning his view to the road ahead he reholstered his rifle.
The road back to Santa Fe was the same that they had taken to Albuquerque, dusty with the occasional rabbit running across it.  The only breaks in the monotony were either the conversations that Virgil continued to start and that were routinely ended quickly by Aiken or the Coach Stations that were about every fifteen miles apart.  As soon as they would pull in Virgil would be off of the stage and into the newest conversations with the couples and families that managed the stations.  The two business men were able to get out and stretch for a few minutes and get a glass of water as the horses were changed.  Aiken just watched from his landing, occasionally tipping his hat if he was even acknowledged or answering any questions with one word answers.
The wind changed directions and he shivered once to quickly rewarm himself.  Instinctively his hand went to the gun at his hip as he continued to watch and wait.  The wind was too cold for his liking, no one else seemed to notice the change though.  And why would they?  He was alone and had been for so long that it he had learned to read everything around him.  If the only thing that stands between you and death is yourself, you learn to fight and you never stop fighting.  It was on the wind and he was going to fight.
“Let’s get going.”  He tersely said down to Virgil.
“In just a minute.”  Virgil turned up to Aiken with a questioning look forcing its way through his smile.
“Get those two and let’s get moving.”  Aiken wasn’t going to budge from his stance.
“Okay.”  Virgil wasn’t going to fight, he quickly went into the house and came out with the two business men.
“What is it?”  Virgil asked.
“Just get to driving, don’t go fast and don’t go slow.  And don’t stop until I tell you to.”  Was the reply as Aiken pulled the rifle from his holster and began to cock the hammer and then release it slowly.  The air was getting colder around him and he needed to stay warm.
Virgil whipped at the reins with a “ha” and the coach started down the road to Santa Fe again.  The wind had calmed again, the clouds in the sky had slowed to a crawl as they swept across the painted blue sky.  From the wind, the smell of sage from the brush around the road filled his nostrils.  Behind, the dust kicked up from the coach slowly settled back to the road.  The sound of the desert filled his ear, the buzzing of flies and bees among the sagebrush, the gentle scraping of pebbles as the jackrabbit hopped, the imperceptible rattle of a snake ready to strike.  The pounding of horse hooves against the burnt, desert soil.  The wind picked up, stronger.
“Run the horses!”  He yelled.
“What?”  Virgil’s smile disappeared as soon as he saw the fire in Aiken’s eyes.
“Run, and don’t stop until I say to!”  Aiken never returned Virgil’s look, though he cocked the rifle and left it there.
Virgil whipped at the reins and continued to whip at them.  The wind picked up and the dust from the horses and the coach carried into the wind, around them the pounding of hooves grew louder and through the dust shadows could be seen running through the brush.
“Stop!”
Virgil pulled on the reins as hard as he could.  The dust enveloped the coach as it came to an abrupt stop and the passengers slammed against the front of the coach interior.  The shadows overshot the coach.
“Get down!”  Aiken stepped in front of Virgil.
The dust continued to blow across the stagecoach, obscuring the view out as well as the view in.  Aiken scanned across the front of the stage as he held the rifle against his hip.  The shadows rode back and Aiken knelt on one knee.  The bullet hit the seat of the coach where he had just been.  Another hit a piece of luggage above the coach.  Aiken counted four shadow in total as they rode passed the coach.
“Get off of the coach and underneath it.”  Aiken’s eyes burned, not from the dust, as he directed Virgil, “The dust is going to settle and they’ll see you if you don’t hurry.”
Virgil didn’t need any more encouragement.  He jumped off of the coach and scrambled underneath it.  Aiken stood up and turned around to face the coming highwaymen, the dust began to thin as the wind carried it away from the road.  He could see two of the horsemen and squeezed the trigger.  One fell from his horse and Aiken chambered another round as the other two horsemen came into view through the dust.  Aiken turned and fired the rifle at the lead horse, the horse crumpled and threw the rider to the ground.  Jumping from the coach, Aiken landed on his feet and levered another round into the chamber.
The two rear horses split the coach.  The rider on Aiken’s side leveled his revolver at took a shot.  The ground underneath his feet quaked as the sprayed soil showered across his legs, Aiken didn’t flinch and brought the rider to the ground.  He moved as he chambered another round.  Opening the door of the coach he pulled the businessmen from the inside and pulled them to the ground and kicked to hurry them along to join Virgil underneath the coach.  The wood of the coach next to his head splintered as a bullet passed through it.
Aiken turned around and fired at the man who had been thrown from his horse.  He fell across the horse that he had been using for cover as he lined up the shot at Aiken.  Turning, he chambered the final round.  The bandit reined his horse and looked back at the carnage that had become more and more evident as the dust had blown away.  Aiken could read it on his face, he had seen the look before.  He was going to run like the cur he was. 
Aiken had seen it before and this time was no different.  He had long ago made the decision and he continued to live by it.  He pulled the shortened rifle tight against his hip and fired the last shot.  The rider crumpled in his seat and fell as his horse began to run.  It was a few yards before his foot had worked its way out of the stirrups and he settled to the ground.
He started to walk down the road towards the last man who had fallen.  The coward who would turn and run after trying to inflict so much damage and devastation.  Whether a man would run or face it head on, judgement comes.  He had been weighed and he had been found wanting.  Justice came with the price of lead.  The world turned and soon it would be him who would be found wanting.  Aiken levered the action of the rifle and watched as the spent casing tumbled through the air, landing upon the young man laying in the dust.

The Reckoner: Riding Shotgun, Part 1

He was awake before the sun, not sleeping well was a common torment from the time he was a young man.  He listened to the night tell her stories as he laid on the floor next to the bed, the hooting of the owl, the howl of a distant coyote, the slow stir of the wind through the empty streets.  Simply chaotic in the serenity it somehow offered to him.  He waited for it, could feel it traveling through the cool night air, it was a story of life getting on alone, the fine line between life and death, he had heard the siren song in the story and had come to know it all too well. 
It had been two days since he had consented to riding guard on the Wells Union Stagecoach.  It had been two days of wrestling between the idea of leaving town and staying.  He was accustomed to running but was too set on the idea of seeing a job finished that he had decided to stay.  It was easier to kill a man out in the desert, there was no man to answer to.  But in the city too many men had chosen to take it upon themselves to seat themselves high and thought it their grace to pass judgement.  He felt it but he still wondered why he had killed a man in the city.  And to his unnerving dismay he didn’t feel the need to run.
The coach was ready and waiting for him.  Two passengers waited just outside the coach, a man and a woman who were finely dressed, he had a top hat and morning coat on with a cane in his hand, she, a white dress that accented her petite frame and parasol opened to block the morning sun,  there were multiple sets of luggage packed on top of the coach.  The driver sat on the coach, he had his hat tipped back and a wide smile on his face.  His clean shaven face belied the age that clearly showed in the silver hairs that made their way from underneath the hat.   Aiken could only shake his head as he walked up to the coach, what had he gotten himself into, he wondered.  He wasn’t a gun for hire and he wasn’t a guard.  He knew how to use a gun and there he found himself.
“Mr. Young, your new guard’s here.” The driver turned and yelled through the open doors of the bank.
The banker, as clean and dapper as he was the night that he managed to hire Aiken, walked out of the bank.  His smile hid something and Aiken did not have a clue of what it was, but he knew that his new employer was just a little too slimy for his own liking, and he refused to shake his hand when it was offered once again.
“Mr., huh, Aiken,” The banker pulled his hand back, “How are you doing this fine morning?”
Aiken climbed up to his seat at the left of the driver, ignoring the banker’s question as he did so.
“Well, then,...” The banker wiped the smile off of his face, “You’ll be taking Mr. and Mrs. Tidwell to Albuquerque and delivering the payment in the strongbox to the Wells Union branch there.  Virgil, give the man his shotgun!”
The driver next to him pulled a sawed off double barrel shotgun from the luggage rack at the top of the coach.  It was a strong built piece of iron, it felt cool in his hands as he rubbed them over the well worn stock.  The lacquer used to protect the walnut stock and forearm had been worn and the deep brown was slowly fading to a light tan color.  The action was loose, with a simple flick of the lock the barrels fell open and Aiken could see the cold brass that had been loaded.  Aiken could feel that it has been used and had taken more than one life.
Smooth and cold, Aiken handed the gun back to the man seated next to him, “I won’t be needing that.”
“You have to carry something.” The banker incredulously started.
“I am carrying something,” Aiken fired back as he pulled the rifle from his holster, “And if anything happens that this can’t stop that shotgun wouldn’t have stopped it either.”  He chambered a round as he stared down at the banker.
The banker turned his attention to the man and woman standing at the side of the coach, nervously watching the the exchange between the men, “Alright Mr. and Mrs. Tidwell, Virg and Aiken here will see you safe to Albuquerque.” The smile returned to his face.
After seeing the couple into the coach the banker returned to the front of the coach, “Make sure that nothing happens here or you’ll need more than that rifle to slow me down.”  He hissed through his smile at Aiken.
“Then get the hell out of the way.”  Aiken took the reins from the driver next to him and whipped the horses into a run.
They were out of Santa Fe before he slowed the horses down and handed the reins back to the driver next to him.
Taking the reins, the driver still had a smile on his face.  The events minutes before were completely forgotten, “Well, my name is Virgil, friend.  And you are?”
“Aiken.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Aiken.”  Virgil held his hand out for Aiken, and held it long enough that after Aiken looked at it and then back at the rode, and then back again, that Aiken shook it.
There was something in that handshake that Aiken had never felt.  Perhaps it was what made men shake hands upon introduction, even if it was the hundredth time the introduction had taken place.  It was warm and kind, strong and firm, yet gentle and protective.  It was friendly.  And Aiken pulled his hand back before the shake had finished and went back to looking at the rode.
Virgil didn’t seem to mind, he went back to looking at the rode as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.  The bumps and holes in the rode forced Virgil to pull back on the reins and slow the horses down a little bit.  Aiken scanned the road ahead, behind, and the land to the right and left, nothing stirred and the coach continued down the dusty road.
It was some time before Virgil spoke up again, “I’d like to thank you for saving my life.  How was it that you were in the right spot at the right time?”
Aiken just shrugged his shoulders.  How was he going to tell the man next to him that he felt it in the air.  Was there a way to explain that every breathe that he drew before that moment tasted of death, decay filled his nostrils as he chambered a round?  If a man would stop and listen he could hear the reverberation of a soul coming close to the oblivion. 
Aiken just shrugged his shoulders, “Lucky I guess.”
“A man who carries whatever you call that on your hip and argues about carrying it versus a shotgun is a man who understands something more about life and death than just getting lucky.”  Virgil answered his own question.  “Where are you from?”  He continued his jovial interrogation.
“Idaho, but that was a long time ago.”  Aiken surprised himself with the answer.
“Never been to Idaho myself, but I had an uncle that moved there after the war instead of living under reconstruction.”
Aiken nodded and went back to watching the road.  It was an uncomfortable silence that he found himself in.  He hadn’t said where he was from for a long, long time, long enough that he had almost forgotten himself.  Or at least had tried to forget.
The rest of the trip to Albuquerque was uneventful.  The two sat in mutual silence as the desert passed before them.  It was mid-afternoon before they arrived in town and unloaded their passengers and strongbox.
“The bank puts us up in the Occidental down the street before we head back to Santa Fe in the morning.  Grab whatever you need and I’ll buy you a shot.”  Virgil said as he climbed down from the stage.
Aiken followed Virgil from the stage and down the street.  The older man made him uncomfortable, he couldn’t put his finger on it.  Virgil kept the smile on his face the entire time the road down the dusty, bumpy road from Santa Fe.  He was difficult to read and Aiken didn’t like that, he prided himself in the fact that he could read anybody.  It was the simple, overlooked body language and intonations that communicated so much more than what a person said.  Aiken had staked his life on that ability more times than he could remember, and meeting someone like himself, and yet so different, made him uncomfortable.  He felt exposed, he felt vulnerable, and he couldn’t shake that feeling.