Gunman

Gunshots echoed through the dusty streets, harsh sound waves bouncing off of adobe houses. Weathered wooden plates and bowls rattled on baked clay countertops. Then silence. A burro flicked its tail and twitched its ears, trying to rid itself of the annoying ringing that sounded flies. Nearby, furtive steps in the dust.

The sweat was dripping from my nose but I couldn’t move for fear of giving away my position. I had managed to scale a ladder (rickety as hell) during the last exchange. Moses and his boys were spreading out across the whole town, and I could see it all play out from the roof I lay on. They inched through alleyways. It looked the way water from a faraway rain looks when it starts to fill up a dry riverbed. Slow at first, but there was nothing you could do to stop them.

Then another round of gunfire. They must have found Sánchez. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. The gunfire stopped for a moment, then picked up again. I inched forward, trying to stay invisible. Then I saw Moses. He had three gunman with him. I sunk back down. There was no way. My mind raced back to my horse, the girl in El Paso, and that bottle of mezcal I’d shared with Jeremiah last year. I half smiled, then stopped myself. I smelled the crisp smoke of gunpowder and another memory filled my mind: lying in the dust shooting prairie dogs with my father.

“A gunman always takes his shot,” he’d say as we picked off varmints for hours.

I peeked over the roof. Moses was still standing there. He had a big black hat on and a pair of revolvers on his hips. He was gesturing for one of his boys to give him a rifle. In one smooth motion I leapt to my feet, steadied myself, and leveled my Winchester. Moses was looking away, across the town. I breathed out and squeezed my finger. He collapsed backwards.

The water that had spread through the town turned to hornets, and before I could jump down they had riddled me clean through. Every sting hurt more than the last, but I dropped to my knees and smiled, then keeled face first onto the dry wooden boards of the roof. Down inside the house, blood dripped slowly down onto the floor, each drop sending up a little puff of dust.