Take the Shot

Weird West Short Fiction from the Sundered World

Lowing longhorns bounded across the prairie, their rapid pace nearly a stampede. Surrounded by their whirling dust, I howled like an angry coyote and urged them onward. All day long I’d choked on that dust, but now the dry mist became a fog that scratched across my eyes and filled my teeth with grit. Heaven knew how many head we’d lose from this reckless speed, but it was a sight less than what we’d lose from the threat behind us.

A dozen Saurian hunters pursued us, all dropped from their bent posture to give chase on all fours. Their green, scaly bodies ran near as quick as a horse that way, and more than quick enough to run down cattle. Worse, three of them wore long quivers full of poisoned javelins. Worse still, the lizardmen were led by a priest-mage, a blue-scaled fella in a feathered golden headdress waving a totem staff. Worst of all, the priest-mage rode a thunderfang, a two-legged beast tall as a two-story house. Its five tons of teeth and muscle crashed along the prairie with frightening speed, keeping easy pace with the hunters and steadily gaining on me and the herd.

I drew my Colt and thrust it behind me. Three quick shots at the pursuers killed one of them. I growled and slapped the reins again. A gifted marksman I may be, but long-range Parthian shots ain’t easy. When I turned for a more deliberate shot, I noticed colorful light flashing about the priest-mage. The totem staff sparked, and his razor-toothed mouth opened in a silent roar.

“Oh, no!” I gasped. “No!” I ducked low in the saddle.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted my fellow cowhand Darius riding some 40 yards away, pushing the herd with a piercing Rebel Yell and unaware of the new threat.

“Darius!” I cried. “Look out!”

I heard nothing when the explosion roared behind me, its invisible giant hand slapping me into the dusty air. The sky spun above me, and the ground soared up to end my flight with a white flash. Finally, a dim thunderclap filled my deadened ears. After rolling a few times—and realizing my bones somehow stayed intact—I lurched onto my knees. Everything moved like cold molasses.

A smoking black crater yawned nearby. My horse’s bloody, burned remains lay beside it, along with several mangled beeves. I couldn’t see Darius anymore, and I didn’t know if the blast got him, too. If it hadn’t, I didn’t figure he or any of the outfit could turn back for me. The monsters got closer, and the herd more distant. I was alone, and, for an hour-long moment, I gave up.

Then the instinct returned. The same steely, cold instinct that saved my hide at Antietam, let me witness Appomattox and brought me safely home to Maine. The same steely, cold instinct that made me a terror to the enemy when I thinned their ranks with steely, cold accuracy.

Scrambling over to my dead horse, I yanked my Spencer carbine from the saddle. The Saurians had vanished into a draw between the rolling hills, but the thunderfang’s great height soon popped it back in view, along with its spell-slinging rider.

Using the horse carcass for support, I sighted the priest-mage. I held my breath and took the shot. No question, it was a hard shot, but I’d landed harder. Just as I’d done in the war, I sent a 52-caliber bullet spinning at an enemy, and just as then, my enemy died quick. The priest-mage dropped twenty feet to the ground and landed among the hunters as they reached the hilltop. The thunderfang bellowed and reeled in a stupor.

I smiled with satisfaction as the riderless monster turned against the hunters. Back in those early days after The Sundering, we didn’t know much about the Saurians and thunderfangs, but we’d found out that killing a thunderfang’s rider made the mount rampage like it had hydrophobia.

The hunters scattered, but not before one got crushed underfoot and another scooped up into swordlike teeth. I took advantage of their distraction and blasted three more. Two of the javelin throwers darted around their dead leader’s mount like snakes, peppering it with their poisoned weapons. The others ran even faster towards me, hunger burning in their yellow, gator-like eyes.

I cocked the lever, and a smoky copper casing spun away. I had another lizard in my sights when rapid footfalls clattered up behind me. Ready for the worst, I rolled onto my back, carbine ready.

It wasn’t clawed feet I heard, but hooves.

Darius, riding to my aid! He reined his horse, and his blazing Winchester sent another Saurian tumbling.

Invigorated by Darius’ arrival, I scored another kill. Darius fired more fast than accurate, but got one more.

That left three, but I only had two rounds. I jumped up to meet them head-on.

Two of the lizardmen spread far out, one running at me directly and the other circling right with a javelin. I shot down the charger and whirled to face the thrower. Its already-flying missile sent my last shot wide as I dived to dodge it. I grunted as my body hit the ground and my shoulder hit metal. Turned out, I’d landed on my dropped pistol. The thrower closed in to finish me off.

I snatched up my Colt and fanned the hammer emptying the last rounds into the charging Saurian’s chest. It nearly fell on top of me, yellow eyes still wide and bloodthirsty.

I stood back up on shaky feet, looking every which way. The last Saurian charged Darius’ horse with snapping teeth, killing the mount and throwing the tall Alabaman. Ever the stubborn one, Darius rolled back to his feet and met the Saurian hand-to-hand. Such a move is suicide for most fellas—the lizards dress out to some two hundred pounds and over six feet high despite their bent posture.

But Darius ain’t like most fellas. Roaring like a grizzly, he wrestled the Saurian to the ground like an unruly steer and his Bowie knife flashed against flesh and bone. I gripped my empty pistol like a club and ran in to help, but the Saurian was already dead. Darius posted his boot against its shoulder and pried his knife from its skull with a wet scraping sound.

“Well, that ain’t the kind of murderin’ green monster I was lookin’ to kill with this,” he drawled, shaking blood from the long, dripping blade. My stomach soured at his strange remark, but I didn’t react. Instead, I retrieved my Spencer and a fresh magazine. Looking back across the prairie, I saw the other two javelin-throwing Saurians were gone. Some hundred yards distant, the thunderfang stumbled about all sleepy-like, its body a pincushion.

“Poison’s doin’ its work,” said Darius.

I reloaded my carbine and cocked the hammer.

“And I’ll finish it,” I replied.

I aimed, held my breath, and took the shot. The thunderfang’s eye socket burst into a red flower. With a final groan, it crashed to the ground with all the majesty of a sequoia.

Darius looked at me with astonishment and a hint of fear.

“I’ll be hanged,” he gasped. “Just…” He gestured at the fallen monster, searching for words.

“Just where in the hell did you learn to shoot like that?”

“Practice,” I said with a shrug. “And I’ve always been blessed with a keen eye.”

Darius wiped his blade against the grass and sheathed it.

“A keen eye indeed for a Yankee dairy farmer,” he said with raised brows.

I remarked that not all men north of Mason-Dixon were soft-handed city folk.

“’Specially us Mainers,” I added, thumping my chest.

We both looked due north, where the herd’s dust cloud steadily approached the horizon. I rubbed my eyes and the summer heat fell hard on my shoulders. Without a word of complaint, Darius recovered his Winchester and scooped the canteen from his fallen horse’s saddlebags.

“Best gather up and get movin’, I s’pose,” he said.

“Ayuh. It’s gonna be a hard day,” I muttered.

Then again, so were most days on the Great Western Cattle Trail.

***

Soon enough we lost sight of the herd. Darius and I followed the obvious trail at what felt like a turtle’s pace. I tried taking heart by remembering they’d need to slow down, and, in due time, stop for the night. My feet throbbed after a few hours, and I missed the callused soles and hearty conditioning I had during the war. Back then, forced marches were a way of life.

Darius, on the other hand, trudged on undaunted. Though just as sweaty and red-faced as me, his Alabaman constitution weathered the heat with greater ease.

“Y’all good, Danny?” he asked, glancing over a broad shoulder.

I waved off his concern, but then stumbled as a cramp seized my leg. I dropped onto my rump and drove a fist into my twitching calf with a series of curses. Darius came back to sit beside me and unslung his canteen.

“Here, let’s rest a spell,” he said, taking a sip. “Too much time in the saddle make you forget walkin’?”

I groaned and took a drink. My canteen was about halfway gone.

“More the heat than anything,” I said. “It’s a lot for this Yankee dairyman.” Though I’d been out west for months, I still struggled against the weather and missed Maine’s mild summers.

Darius chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Well, lucky for you, I was born into heat like this,” he said. “So don’t worry none, I’ll get us through! Long as we keep walkin’, we’ll catch the outfit. Less’n, of course…”

“Unless the lizards catch us first,” I said.

Darius sighed and stared off into the distance.

“It’s bad enough bein’ unhorsed on the prairie. Havin’ to look out for hostile Indians, hungry coyotes. Or just breakin’ your ankle in a stinkin’ prairie dog hole,” he said. “But these lizards?”

He wiped a sleeve across his dripping brow.

“Just what the hell happened these past couple years?”

“You mean you haven’t heard of The Sundering?” I asked, lifting my hands in mock disbelief. “’Bout how those Nevada miners found more than silver when they dug way down?”

Darius got back to his feet and I shambled up after him.

“I know the story,” he said as we resumed our march. “Just who’d ever thunk the earth was hollow, and full of lizardmen and thunder beasts?”

“Jules Verne could’ve thought it,” I said, after pondering a few seconds.

Darius squinted.

“Who?”

“A French author,” I explained. “I read a translation of his book on the train when I left home. Journey to the Center of the Earth. Some explorers go underground and find a whole ’nother world, all full of weird stuff.”

“Well, how about that?” Darius swatted a bug from his neck.

“Even stranger,” I continued, “Verne published that book in ’64, six years ’fore The Sundering.”

Darius laughed and scratched his chin.

“Now that makes you wonder just what that Frenchman knows,” he said.

“And how he knew it,” I added.

We walked on, constantly watching the hills around us for suspicious movement, and the ground immediately in front of us for any hazards.

“That Verne fella write any other stories?” asked Darius.

“Sure,” I said. “I hear his latest is about flying to the moon in a rocket.”

“The hell now?” Darius scoffed and rolled his eyes. “That could never happen.”

***

The blazing sun slithered along, slowly making its way to wherever the wide blue sky met the green sea of grass. Though the sun got lower, the heat didn’t let up much. As our water ran low, we took no further respites. I knew if I stopped again, I probably wouldn’t want to get back up.

My vision swam and I stopped watching the hills. I tried to remember New England. I tried to remember not only cooler summers, but the chill of autumn and winter. The daydreams only made my heart cold and reminded me why I was here.

I’d tried to return to my old life, and I’d failed. The war changed me too much. After all, I wasn’t just a soldier. I’d been in a unit of expert marksmen hated and feared by friend and foe alike. Our long-range strikes and hit-and-run skirmish tactics had soldiers both blue and gray calling us cowards and killers.

Cowards we certainly weren’t. Despite what many thought, we faced death with as much bravery as any other soldier and then some. Even fought the Rebs up close plenty of times. But killers? That we were. And damn good at it. Any Reb who spotted our green uniforms knew he wasn’t long for the world.

Such an experience made it hard to return to farming. I still knew cattle, but I’d grown too accustomed to danger. The drover trails out west seemed a decent enough answer, so I’d left New England without a backward glance.

My knees buckled and I caught myself. Even Darius’ long strides got shaky. Spots fluttered over my eyes and my empty stomach turned in groaning knots. I moved one aching foot over the other and dreamed of the suppertime stewpot. If it had meat tonight, I decided I wouldn’t care whence it came or how the cook got it. My dry mouth tried to water.

I wiped my brow, but it wasn’t so sweaty anymore. By then, my skin felt prickly and salt-crusted, and when I raised my canteen, I found only a few drops left. I stared at the empty thing, feeling like I could give my life to refill it. Just like those Rebels I fought outside a small Pennsylvania town…

“Gettysburg,” Darius croaked.

My ears perked up and I blinked with sore, sticky eyelids.

“This heat, bein’ this thirsty…it reminds me of Gettysburg,” he said.

Our cattle outfit was full of veterans both Northern and Southern. We rarely discussed the War Between the States out of mutual courtesy, choosing to bond over the new, shared hardship of the trail rather than pick at old wounds. Any other day, any other time, I wouldn’t ask him any other questions.

Maybe it was my own confusion from the weariness and thirst. Maybe it was idle curiosity about a former enemy’s experience of a battle we both fought in. In my daze, I cast aside manners and took a shot at reliving the past.

“Really? Tell me more about it,” I said.

“Lord, that day was hot,” he said. “Probably even hotter’n this one. But if’n anyone could fight in the heat, the 46^th Alabama could!” Coughing interrupted his story, and he stumbled. We both almost fell when I grabbed his arm, but I managed to keep us both upright.

“Much obliged,” he gasped. Darius took a few more heavy steps and continued, “We overrun that wheatfield and peach orchard, and would’ve gone straight onto them big hills overlookin’ the whole damn Yankee battleline.”

My blood ran cold. Despite the heat, I shivered. Darius and I hadn’t only been at the same engagement, but on the same part of the battlefield. I felt myself carried 1500 miles away and nine years into the past. Though I walked across the dry, dusty Oklahoma prairie, I felt the humid Pennsylvania air hanging on me like a wet blanket. I remembered crouching behind a broad oak tree and bracing my Sharps rifle against it. We were ready for them.

Wood and metal clattered on the hot breeze as a Rebel platoon lugging canteens approached a creek. Gettysburg natives called the stream Plum Run, but we gave it a new name after the battle.

 “We was dyin’ of thirst, needed water to keep fightin’. So, me and some others ran to a nearby crick to refill the canteens.”

I had my target. I held my breath, and I took the shot. A hail of 52-caliber rounds tore through the gray-clad troops from hidden positions on three sides. They might as well have been ducks in a wash tub. Some toppled onto the bank. One dead Rebel landed against a rock sitting up, looking like he slept in the sunshine. Most others fell into the water, so we called it “Bloody Run.” One scurried back to his feet, clutching a wounded arm.

“Everyone around me fell. The shots came from everywhere, but I couldn’t see the enemy,” Darius went on. “I got hit in the arm.”

He paused, and his knuckles whitened into a vise grip around his Winchester. With a deep breath, he tightly shut his eyes and opened them again. He rolled his shoulder and winced.

“I ran,” he confessed. “Ran like hell when I got up.”

I was watching the slaughter as I opened the falling-block breech and slid a new cartridge home. My nostrils stung with copper and hellfire. I jumped up and joined my fellow marksmen’s advance against the few survivors. The last Rebel took off for a treeline opposite the creek. I raised my rifle and held my breath.

I didn’t take the shot.

I didn’t know why, but my eyes that stared down rifle sights hundreds of times, my hands that made dozens of widows and orphans, my reflexes that guided me through battle after battle—they all froze on that hot July day.

The last Rebel vanished into the trees. I lowered my rifle. Every feeling flooded back, made clearer as that last Rebel recalled those same events through a different view.

“I dropped down once I got back in them trees,” Darius said, his voice rough and choked. “The Yanks rushed the survivors and captured ’em all.” His knuckles went paler around his repeater. Teeth ground against each other, his mouth became a painful grimace.

“It was Berdan’s Sharpshooters. Them green-jacketed yellabellies was always shooting from afar off and scamperin’ away ’fore we could shoot back. Never fightin’ like men!”

Darius’ insult to me and my unit kindled something deep inside, and my own fiery response burned against his anger. He balled a fist against his brow and anxiously slapped his thigh, but he relaxed as his hand found his Bowie knife. My thumb wrapped over my Spencer’s hammer.

“I made a promise that day,” Darius breathed, resting his hand atop his knife. “I swore revenge. I swore if’n I ever found one of them cowards, I’d do the opposite what they did to my fellas.”

Steel hissed against leather, and the long blade gleamed as Darius stared at his reflection within it.

“I swore I’d kill ’em up close. Slow and painful-like, if’n I could.”

Darius trod on for several steps before he realized I no longer stood near him. He slowly did an about-face and stumbled onto his back foot. My Spencer sat tight to my shoulder with the sight lined up right between his widening eyes. That instinct had returned. The one that always returned when I needed to survive or make sure something else didn’t.

“Cowards, huh?” I growled. “Those are some big words for someone who ran like a rabbit.”

Darius dropped his Winchester and pointed his blade at me.

“Who’d you serve with, Danny?” he asked. I figured he knew now, but I answered anyway.

“D Company, Second US Sharpshooters.”

My finger covered the trigger.

“I’m a lot of things, Darius,” I said. “A coward sure ain’t one of them. But a killer? Lots of men both blue and gray thought so, ’cause I wore green.”

I pushed the hammer back and it slid into place with a deafening click. I planted my feet firm against the ground, even as my blood pounded and knees trembled.

“And you know I can blast through an eye socket at a hundred yards.”

I took a deep breath and held it. My tremors disappeared. I was ready to take the shot.

“Your move, Reb,” I said.

Darius dropped into a half-crouch and snarled.

“Some things never change,” he muttered, unfastening his pistol belt and letting it fall. “A Yankee bastard too yella to fight someone up close.”

I accepted his challenge without words, de-cocking the hammer and laying my Spencer down. As I stood back up to my full height, I drew the short blade I carried in my boot and dropped my pistol belt.

“You want revenge on a Sharpshooter?” I asked, holding my knife in a downward grip. “Well, now’s your chance.”

Prairie sounds and heat faded away, replaced by the drumming in my ears and the burning in my gut. I sensed little of my surroundings, becoming keenly aware of my short, quick breaths pulsing through swollen nostrils dry as chalk. My weary body renewed its vigor with a tense and sharp recognition. The man before me was no friend. Not someone who had saved my life, and I his. Not a proven companion across miles of hard riding and months of hard work.

No. Through the red haze over my dry eyes, all I saw was a gray uniform. An enemy who I’d let escape, and who I wouldn’t let escape again.

Tense as springs, Darius and I circled. Slowly, we narrowed the distance between us when all at once he lowered his head and charged. A roar sounded and I raised my blade.

Something struck me from behind. I cried out and toppled onto my face, pain surging through my ankles. I tried to get up, but my legs were lashed tight with a bola. Its cords were a strange gray silk and the weights were fist-sized bloodstones.

That could only mean one thing.

I wrenched my neck around, straining to look behind me. Stalking through the high grass, a tall figure—tall even among its monstrous kind—approached with glowing red eyes. Dark bony spikes ran along the top of its snout, leading to a pair of horns pointing out sideways. Over its huge shoulders a thin leather cloak flapped in the breeze. Leather made from human skin.

A Saurian mancatcher.

Even in those early days, we’d learned that worse than dying in a fight with Saurians was having them take you alive.

With a growl, the Saurian dropped to all fours and pounced over me. As it touched down, it pinned my legs and right arm and grabbed at my flailing left. I thrashed and struggled to little avail, and the lizard’s hot, foul breath made bile rise in my empty stomach.

My desperately grasping left hand found my knife, and drove it into the lizardman’s shoulder. It groped at the wound with a roar, losing grip upon my limbs. With a strength only a fight for life can give, I kicked both my bound feet into the mancatcher’s chest and knocked it backwards.

Before it could recover, I shoved off with both legs, arm outstretched. As the mancatcher found its feet, I found my Spencer. A quick first shot pierced its gut and it doubled over. A second, more deliberate shot splattered its brains.

I crawled quick as I could to the body, got my knife, and freed my legs. Rising into a kneel, I spotted another mancatcher dragging Darius away, the tall Alabaman hogtied and struggling against his bonds. I slapped the carbine up to my cheek.

I held my breath, aimed at that monster, and took the shot.

Just as I’d done in the war, I sent a 52-caliber bullet spinning at an enemy, and just as then, my enemy died quick. The shot impacted between the shoulders and tore out the breastbone. My foe crumpled in a heap.

The last reports of my shot faded from my ringing ears. I held my position, my hands trembling, my legs aching, and my sight blurring as I blinked my dry, sore eyes. For an hour-long moment, I remained in place, a quaking statue unable to move.

A different instinct returned. One hard for me to accept, but it was there just the same: that tired calm, that heavy sense of relief after every battle’s end.

My normal senses revived. I lowered my muzzle and looked around, making sure no dangers remained as I rose to my feet. I cursed and shook out another leg cramp.

I limped over to Darius, picking up his blade along the way. His Bowie knife in my hand, I loomed above the prone, bound and helpless Rebel. Darius eyed the fallen green beast next to him, then rolled over and looked me right in the eye.

“End it,” he said through his teeth.

I nodded somberly and gripped the Bowie knife tighter.

I cut his hands and legs free. Darius sat up, his face twisted in confusion.

As I stepped back from Darius, I noticed a waterskin on the fallen mancatcher’s hip. With a thankful prayer I pulled it free, raising it to my mouth and nearly drowning myself. After I shook off my wet coughs, I passed it to Darius he drank gratefully. With an exhausted sigh, I lowered myself down across from him.

“You dropped this,” I said, holding the Bowie knife hilt-first towards him.

Darius stared for a few ragged heartbeats, then took the weapon and sheathed it. He looked at the ground.

I don’t know exactly how long we stayed there, all tired and shameful. Neither of us spoke, and neither of us looked at the other. Images of the war faded like an aging newspaper, the surrounding prairie growing more real. The chattering bugs and birdsongs. The slightly sweet scent of the tall, waving grass, tinged by dry dust. Overhead, the big sky was blue as ever, dotted with thin clouds flowing eastward, carrying our past where it belonged. 

“It’s all gone, ain’t it?” Darius said.

“What is?” I asked.

“Everything,” he said, shaking his head. “The war, our old lives, everything. The world’s upside down.”

I nodded and rubbed my eyes. They were dry no longer, much less sore.

“We almost killed each other over the past,” I said. “And then the present rose up to end us.”

I slowly got to my aching feet and stretched. Combat’s numbing drug was gone and its aching consequences had arrived. But the water eased my cramps and granted the vigor needed to go on.

“Who knows what the future holds?” I said. “I’m pretty sure not even Jules Verne could imagine it.”

I held out a hand to Darius and he took it, rising up beside me.

“But it’s sure as hell gonna be dangerous, so I’m glad to know a tough-as-nails Rebel who fights Saurians with a knife and wins,” I said.

Darius gave a tired chuckle.

“And how ’bout an eagle-eyed Yankee what drops thunderfangs a hundred yards away? Hell, we’re a pair for the ages,” he said.

***

We gathered our weapons and the captured waterskin from our would-be captors. Doggedly remaining on the herd’s trail, we caught the sight and smell of a cookfire as the sun dipped low and golden light fringed the western sky. After cresting a hilltop, we found the outfit’s camp below. The herd was there, waiting for us, their lowing mingling with the cool evening breeze.

Our fellow cowhands greeted us with relieved smiles, firm handshakes, and a few hugs from the more sentimental types. Darius and I savored a hearty and mysterious stew and warm bedrolls as night fell.

The next morning, my body ached all over. Bruises and cuts dotted my skin, and a single night’s sleep was hardly enough to recover from the previous day’s adventures. Darius looked just as stoved up as me as he mounted up with groanings aplenty.

“Ayuh. It’s gonna be a hard day,” I said to myself as I climbed onto a new horse and saddle.

Then again, so were most days on the Great Western Cattle Trail.

THE END