Randy White - Dead Silence

It happened.

Buffalo-head completed three steps before he slowed to a halt, breathing heavily as he turned toward Metal-eyes, who was saying, “What is wrong? You look sick!”

Now Buffalo-head had an odd, confused expression on his face, and he was sweating. He attempted another step but almost fell. He looked from Metal-eyes to Will, as he took a big, dizzy breath and gasped, “This child is not normal. He is bad luck. We must… must-”

The man couldn’t finish. His eyes rolled back and his knees buckled. With a flesh-and-bones whump, his body hit the floor.

Suddenly, Metal-eyes didn’t care about the horse. He swung the gun’s red laser beam to Will’s chest, saying, “You’re insane.”

Will turned toward the old man, still holding the spear, and began walking toward him. “Why? ’Cause I’m gonna scalp you?”

Metal-eyes backed up a few steps. He said, “You are crazy,” sounding surprised but also suddenly interested.

“Not enough to kill a good horse, you sonuvabitch.” Will shifted the spear so that he was holding it over his shoulder, ready to throw.

Talking to himself, Metal-eyes said, “Insensitive to fear… rage compensation. I wonder if the child has abnormal pain tolerance.” The Cuban squinted through his glasses as if studying a bug. He said, “I’ll find out,” aiming the pistol at Will’s stomach, then at his pelvis, where nerve endings terminated in mass.

Will yelled, “You’re not the first man to point a gun at me!,” because that’s what came into his mind, the image of Old Man Guttersen holding a pearl-handled revolver the first time they’d laid eyes on each other.

Fast talking had saved Will back in Minnesota.

Not this time. The Cuban wasn’t chatty like Bull Guttersen. Will could see a deadness behind those silver eyes-an aloof, clinical interest-which Will didn’t understand, but he knew what was about to happen unless he could get the needle in the guy.

When the gun muzzle flashed, Will was focused on the man’s chest and already jumping to the side as he threw the spear, thinking, Just like in the westerns except real bullets.

The gun was so loud, the boy thought he’d been hit, but he’d jumped at just the right time and that saved him. But his spear missed, too… or had it?

Metal-eyes appeared to have swatted the shaft away before the needle got to him, yet now the old bastard was hunched over, crabbing fast toward one of the stalls, as Cazzio reared. The horse reared again and tried to stomp the man.

Will was hustling to retrieve his spear, yelling, “Get ’em, get ’em!,” as the stallion’s steel shoes made a coconut-popping sound on the floor, just missing the man as he pulled his legs into a stall, then reached to slam the door closed.

Spear in his right hand, Will touched his left fingers to Cazzio’s rump, not wanting to surprise the stallion, then traced his hand along Cazzio’s body until he was close enough grab the halter. The boy was hurrying, but also cooing, “Calm down… it’s okay… we’ll stomp the candy-ass later… easy…,” as he watched Metal-eyes peek through the stall bars. When Will drew his arm back to throw the spear, Metal-eyes ducked from sight.

“My spear’s tipped with deadly poison!” Will yelled in Tex-Mex Spanish, then had to switch to English to add, “One touch, that’s all she wrote!”

Buffalo-head wasn’t dead, but he was facedown in straw, making weird, drunken noises. Near him was a fifty-gallon drum of feed. Will used the drum to boost himself aboard the huge horse.

He got his fingers knotted in the braided mane, ready for the lunging acceleration, then signaled Cazzio with his boots, yelling, “Go!,” as he heard a gunshot so close that his ears rang. Metal-eyes fired three more times- whapwhap-whap -as Cazzio charged toward the blinding headlights.

Beneath the boy, the horse stumbled for an instant, then surprised Will by hurtling airborne, in a brief, arching silence, over the car’s fender, then jumped again two strides later, clearing a four-board fence, into the pasture.

Will was shaking, not only because he was scared as hell but also because he had never been aboard an animal so sure, so powerful.

“Go… Go! Yah!”

Cazzio galloped into the frozen darkness, the drumming of his hooves in synch with plumes of steam spouting from his nostrils. Will’s ears were attuned as his body matched the rhythm, hearing the countersynch snorting of the horse’s breathing, an occasional grunt and the slosh of belly water.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. The Chrysler was fishtailing down the driveway toward the road. Metal-eyes was trying to beat the horse to the overpass, where the pasture ended.

Fat chance!

The boy grinned as he leaned forward, finding Cazzio’s rhythm, once again. For a glorious minute, he felt that soaring warrior feeling, aloof, alone and free…

It didn’t last.

Cazzio stumbled… then stumbled again. The sound of his breathing was changing. Instead of snorting, the horse was wheezing, the air in his lungs making a bubbling sound as if leaking through a secondary exit.

“What’s wrong? You hurt?”

Will spoke into the stallion’s ear. As he leaned over Cazzio’s neck, he saw that bubbles had joined the plumes of steam coming from the animal’s nostrils. The boy’s nose isolated a metallic taste in the air.

Blood!

Cazzio had been shot, Will realized. The bullet had gone into the horse’s lungs, judging from the bloody bubbles, but Cazzio’s heart was so big that he’d continued running.

“Stop, it’s okay. I’ll call a vet!”

Will pulled back on the braided mane but Cazzio wouldn’t stop even though he was slowing. Because Will had once possessed an uncommon horse-Blue Jacket-he understood what was happening, and the knowledge created a vacuum pain beneath his heart.

Cazzio would continue running, no matter what. He would run and run, and keep running, until the last of his life had seeped away.

The fence marking the edge of the pasture was ahead. Cazzio had ten lengths on the car but was now struggling between a gallop and a canter. Will leaned low, like a jockey, and didn’t realize he was crying until his voice broke when he called, “Go!… Go!… Go!”

At the fence, Cazzio rallied, marshaling speed. His body swooped low before attempting takeoff, ascending, but with difficulty, fighting gravity’s terrible weight, and his front hooves clipped the top railing of the fence.

The horse was still ahead of the Chrysler when he landed and gained another length before his rear legs buckled.

Will anticipated the fall. He threw himself clear as the horse crashed head-first into the weeds, then made a high-pitched whinny of frustration.

As Will got to his feet, he stared at Cazzio for a moment but had to turn away. The horse was on his side, blood pouring from a wound in his chest. His legs were moving, clawing at weeds and empty air, still trying to run.

Above, on the overpass, the Chrysler had stopped, headlights bright. Seconds later, another car pulled in. Will guessed it was the man the Cubans had mentioned, the one they’d been waiting for.

Will was ducking beneath the lights and starting for the trees when he heard Cazzio whinny again. The cry was different this time. It communicated fear.

Will looked and saw that the horse’s eyes were wide and wild, terrified. He could also see two men working their way down the rock ledge, Metal-eyes, with his gun, in the lead.

It didn’t matter. Will ran to Cazzio and knelt beside him, his hands kneading the loose skin on the stallion’s neck.

The boy was whispering, “I’ll take you away from this. It’ll all be okay,” when Metal-eyes got close enough to say to Will, “Move-or I’ll shoot you, too.”