Darrel Sparkman - After the Fall

“Hold it.” Trent’s voice was level and cold.

“Sure.” The man turned in the saddle and faced him. “How you doin’, boy?”

“Gunny?” He almost dropped his rifle as he looked back down the trail. “Did you see…?” He suddenly became aware of the girl struggling to get up from where the man had dumped her in the weeds along the edge of the trail.

Gunny sat facing him, hands folded across the pommel of his saddle—and finally Trent knew the truth. “You.”

“I reckon.” Gunny just sat, smiling at him.

He was speechless for a moment. In all his wildest dreams, he couldn’t figure this. Then… “My God. Why, Gunny?”

“I don’t owe you anything, boy. Least of all, explanations.”

He almost didn’t see the shotgun coming up in Gunny’s hands. Throwing himself to the side, he palmed his revolver. The roar of the shotgun was deafening as the shot went high over his shoulder. A couple of the pellets hit him like bee stings. Trent’s first shot hit the action of Gunny’s shotgun, splintering the stock—the second took the noncom high in the shoulder, punching him out of the saddle.

Gunny sat up groggily in the grass and stuck his finger in the hole in his shoulder. “You like to shot the lights out of me, boy.”

Trent just stood there, his mind still trying to comprehend what his eyes and ears were telling him.

“It’s him, John.” Katie’s soft voice came to him from behind.

He nodded sadly. “I know.”

“Take me to the shade, boy.” Gunny coughed, spat blood. “I could die in this heat.”

Trent walked over and kicked the shotgun away. Reaching down, he relieved the man of his handgun and knife, as well. Pulling him to his feet, he helped his old friend to a pine tree, leaning him against the trunk.

Katie led the girl away. She was quaking, sobbing and cursing in the same breath.

Gunny looked at him with guarded eyes, still trying to bluff it out. “Why’d you shoot me, boy?”

“You had the girl, you were—” He stopped.

Metal and wood clanked at his feet, as Katie calmly walked away again. Looking down, he saw a pile of tent pegs and rope. Half hidden in the tangle of rope was a branding iron. A small blackened cross adorning the end of it.

His eyes slowly came up to meet Gunny’s gaze. “All those women. Why Gunny?”

Gunny slid down the trunk of the tree, oblivious to the blood seeping from his shoulder wound. “What difference does it make, boy? I just do it. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. None of them women was any good. At first, they act as if they don’t want it. But they do at the end, they all do. They do anything I want.”

“Even my wife?”

Gunny glanced away. “Now I didn’t know that at the time. I’m sorry about that one.”

“You’re sorry.” His voice became dead and lifeless. “What about Saints and Hobbs?”

Gunny shrugged, then grimaced in pain.

The shot startled all of them. Bark exploded from the tree next to Gunny’s head, and Trent threw himself to the side. Coming up off the ground, he saw Cruz taking a rifle away from Starking’s daughter. Whipping back around, his hand streaking for his gun, all he saw was empty space.

Gunny was gone.

Standing in the sunlit clearing, Trent looked past the girls at Cruz. The man shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “I was watching you, not the girl. I didn’t think.”

Starking’s daughter tried to explain. “I’m sorry. I was just mad, I—”

Katie grabbed the girl’s shirtfront. “Don’t you realize what you have done? He’s loose again.”

“Katherine.” His voice was calm as his eyes searched the trees. “It’s nobody’s fault. We all messed up on this one.” He turned to the girl. “Are you all right, Miss Starking?”

The girl nodded curtly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Stupid, but fine.”

“Trent.” Cruz had moved across the clearing. “He got his rifle and knife.”

He was already thinking of the trail. A man on foot would be a lot harder to trail. “I noticed. He must not have been hurt as much as I thought.”

Cruz was having a hard time getting his head around it. “How could he get so much in so little time?”

“We are not talking about an ordinary man, Chico.”

Katie had led the Starking girl over to the horses to rest. Walking back, she said, “Something interesting. The girl said, just before they got to this clearing, Gunny mentioned they were close to his place. That might be where he went.”

He stood looking up the mountain. “Well, now….”

Cruz began walking toward the horses. “We go after him now?”

“Nope.” He cast a glance at the sky, and the long shadows under the trees. “It’s getting too dark. I’m not going into the woods after Gunny in the dark. He would be laying for us for sure.” He walked back to the horses. “Better make a fire, and get some food in our bellies. After the meal, put the fire out. We’ll sleep in a cold camp tonight.”

Later, when they were away from Katie, Cruz talked to Trent. “Where do you think he will go? I bet he’s long gone from here.”

“I don’t think he’ll go anywhere, Chico. I think he will stay right here, and wait to see what we do. He can’t chance an open fight, and he won’t want to lead us to his camp.” His gaze turned to the forest. “I’ll go out tonight.”

“But you said—”

He shrugged, thinking of the night ahead. “I didn’t want to worry Katherine.”

“Ah.”

The moon had come and gone, leaving the campsite a jumble of dark shadows and phantom shapes. The night air assailed the senses, as his eyes tried to penetrate the blackness. Every pore of his body tried to gather information his sight could not provide. There was very little breeze to feel, and the leaves of the trees were hanging limp in the fragrant night air. Trent stood in the darkness, silently adjusting his knife and handgun. He would leave the rifle. This would be close work.

He glanced toward Katie’s bedroll, wishing he could run his hand through her hair, or kiss her one more time before he left. But he knew he couldn’t. Silence was the key now. It was time to go, and Gunny knew he would be coming. With a slight rustle in the grass, he faded into the forest.

Dawn was still an hour away, and Trent had been completely around the campsite twice. He was beginning to have his first doubts. Maybe he’d guessed wrong. Maybe Gunny was long gone as Cruz thought.

Kneeling by a giant boulder that afforded his back some protection, he stared into the darkness. His senses were like raw nerves, reaching and touching everything, analyzing every sound and smell in the night air. He’d about given up when he felt it.

There was a change in the darkness, subtle and soundless, with a faint odor of sweat and leather. He moved his head, testing the faint breeze, trying to get some kind of direction from a sense only the animals of the forest would understand. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, and his breathing was shallow and silent. He was not alone.

It was total darkness all around, and the night felt ominous and foreboding. He carefully shifted his feet, and then froze as he inadvertently made a small scrunching sound. A blade swished through the darkness, hanging up on his buckskins before slicing into his leg.

He immediately retaliated, lashing out with his other leg, and feeling the satisfying thump as he connected. The two men came together in the darkness, grunting and straining, both trying for a knee to the groin at the same time, as they groped for the other’s knife hand. Over-balanced by the action, they hit the ground rolling, with Trent slashing his knife across Gunny’s chest. Suddenly Gunny was up and gone, leaving Trent crouched in the weeds, breathing heavily, nearly deaf to the night sounds from the pounding in his ears. Trent took a long, deep, silent breath, forcing his breathing to slow down.