Moo!

By Kim Crux

Sometimes all the trouble in one’s life can be boiled down to one thing: wool socks. With red stripes.

As you might’ve already deduced, Moo! is not about beef.

It isn’t about bandits who psyche themselves up with self-help mumbo jumbo, about committing manslaughter against one’s own lemon of a horse, or about an intriguing cowpuncher at The Bar Circle Gets the Square Ranch, though these all figure into the story.

It’s about a woman who can’t let go, a woman with illusions of control. And, of course, the socks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kim Crux
• Release date: Oct 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992051501

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Moo!

Copyright © 2013 by Kim Crux

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in online, newspaper, magazine, radio, or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Published in Canada by Tungsten Books

www.tungstenbooks.ca

Cover design: Ryan Trefz

First Edition, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9920515-0-1

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For Paco, who spurred me on.

I.

Nelle slept hard. The wind swept low, walloped the earth; it swatted at the fabric draped over the stiff curve of her spine and hissed through the skeletal branches of the half-dead piñon above her, and still she slept. Despite the cold, gritty sand that stuck to her skin, sure to provide her with a complimentary exfoliation whether she wanted one or not, she was gone. Out. Even a neurotic whinny from her not-so-trusty, Industrial Revolution-coloured pinto, aptly called Pinto, could not penetrate her dense tangle of exhausted dreams. She was up to her crown in sleep. Drowning in sleep. A thrashing, burgeoning hunger sent up warning shots in her belly, but she slept on and on with arrant, possibly foolish, abandon. The desert moon, gleaming overhead like a giant polished spoon, did not disturb her, could not stir her alphabet soup of zzzzzz’s. Nor did the pervasive scent of juniper that rode in on the careening currents of crisp air. The woman slept. She slept in spite of everything.

A dust-ridden mess of russet hair clung to her salty, unwashed neck. It was sultry, boho desert chic, or so she liked to reassure herself. A gray, woolen blanket smelling strongly of sweaty horse, of course, had slunk its way around her shoulders. Her head rested at an awkward, bound-to-be-a-crick-in-the-neck angle on the less bumpy of her two saddlebags, which, if you’re interested in such sundries, contained a clean but infinitely wrinkled dress of indigo poplin; a white eyeleted petticoat; a bedraggled volume of Liz Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese; one bar of stinging lye soap; and a smug little tin of forty-four .44 caliber bullets. The other held her dwindling food stores, some matches, and a small, dent-riddled pot.

As usual, she slept on her left side, her knees bent and curled in towards her torso. She took deep, prolonged breaths, and with each heavy exhale her entire body seemed to settle a little further down into the dirt. While the loose suede gauchos she wore were perfectly comfortable for riding, they were hardly effective in keeping the nagging nighttime chill from creeping up her legs, so she sighed once, a burdensome tra without the airy, devil-may-care la la, and instinctively pulled her knees in even closer to her chest in an unconscious attempt to stave off the nipping air. In spite of this adjustment however, her right hand did not move; it remained where it was, resting firmly on the faded, but sturdy leather of her low-slung belt, inches from the 1858 Remington revolver fastened in the holster just below her hipbone.

The gun was no novelty. Of course, it was only natural for a woman conked out alone in the middle of the desert to have some kind of weapon. But this wasn’t a musket etched with daisies, complete with matching gilt ramrod accessory. Nor was it an old hand-me-down rifle that had spent decades mounted on two wooden pegs above the front door. It wasn’t something she’d picked up on impulse because it was on sale and might come in handy. The revolver was a well-maintained and exacting piece, if not the flashiest or newest of models. And she knew how to use it. Generally. The evidence of this was plain, provided that one actually bothered to seek out a shredded orange bandanna pinned to a particularly distressed ceiba tree down south.

Night became thicker, went from gazpacho to gravy, and even the shifty horse Pinto dropped apprehensively down in the dust to rest. In daytime, if one bothered to strain one’s eyes and peer intently downward, the makings of a village could be seen in the crispy, tinder-dry valley below. But now, the few remaining whimpers of light seeping from its dying cook fires and handful of oil lamps slowly fizzled or winked out, giving way to the black-cloaked silhouettes of heavy night. No, not vampires, damn it, but rather, the elongated shadows of tree branches or the intense black blotch of a desert fox moving along against a backdrop of slightly diluted, run-of-the-mill blackness.

Nelle slept on. The landscape commenced its nightly nocturne. Actually, no. This was the desert after all, where a diffuse madness rose with the heat shimmer and infected the expanse. It was more of a slapdash mazurka than a nocturne if one bothered to look beyond the moon-glazed surface. On both the hillsides and in the valley, scheming coyotes wrestled in the dirt while others whooped on the sidelines; still others hid beneath the mesquite plotting their next big caper, occasionally leaping at some indistinguishable or imagined prey running low in the grass, mostly just for kicks. An elderly coral snake did a slow, indolent belly shuffle past Nelle’s well-worn Cordovan boots, pausing briefly to wonder just what the senorita’s horse thought of such footwear. Trees elbowed each other with chafed limbs. Two arguing javelinas went cursing through the sand, skirting the small village and dragging their signature stink behind them. Shadows jittered in the wind.

She had galloped out of Guanajuato rather abruptly and now, almost two months later, was camped on a hillside in the Barrancas del Cobre. Sometime after midnight when nothing much was happening, unless you counted an insomniac roadrunner reading the last rites to a lizard down in a spread of agave, a lone man rode quietly into the subdued valley settlement below her camp. He was a short man, but so incredibly lean that at first glance, he gave the impression of being tall. His face couldn’t hold any sort of emotion for more than a minute or two. Expressions appeared and then drained from him like flour through a sifting screen. He wore ragged gray pants and a denim work shirt. His nose cast a sharp shadow and his lips were barely detectable. A filthy kerchief dangled from his neck, and beneath the brim of his dusty, limp Stetson hid gray eyes specked with red, thanks to a significant dose of whiskey, and red hair specked with gray. His pistol hung low on a wilted strip of leather. If one were forced to sum him up succinctly, one might simply observe that he looked precisely the way a rattlesnake sounds.

He dismounted and led his horse to the only stable in the settlement. Banging on the door for a solid minute, he finally managed to rouse a teenager who came wandering sleepily up to him from around back of the building. Upon inquiry, this dozy muchacho grunted and told him in rapid-fire Spanish that he was not in the livery business and then bid him an unenthusiastic buenas noches. In his halting Spanglish, Whiskey Eyes argued, wheedled and whined, but the young man kept on shaking his head and eventually turned to leave and go back to his bed. So Whiskey Eyes, not left with much choice, dug into his pockets and produced several silver coins. He called to the lad and waited while Muchacho considered this new development.

No, said Muchacho. I told you, I don’t board horses or people.

A few more coins made their way from pocket to palm, and again Whiskey Eyes waited.

Bien, said Muchacho, embracing his entrepreneurial spirit and taking up the money. You and the horse can stay here for the night.

I am ever so grateful to you, murmured Whiskey Eyes sarcastically.

Flinging open the stable door, Muchacho told him he could pick whatever spot was available and help himself to some hay, and then quickly, silently took his leave.

Barracked inside were a loopy donkey and a stubby ox, and virtually no hay. The donkey kept bursting out into long, spasmodic fits of raucous laughter. So, as Whiskey Eyes turned in on a pile of burlap sacks, bone-tired from his long day of drunk riding, he pulled out the bottle he kept next to his heart and reassured himself with a series of rapid gulps.

It’ll all be okay, he told himself, speaking aloud. Don’t fret, man. Take a deep breath and relax. You are worth it. You’ve been tracking that woman for days. Never mind the stupid ass over there. Just go to your place of serenity… Yes, that’s right, you are a feather, blowing in the wind…

A few hours passed. Despite his exhaustion, Whiskey Eyes was still wide-awake. He was not a feather blowing in the wind. He was on edge. I will not gun down the donkey, I will not gun down the donkey, I will not gun down the donkey… he muttered, over and over.

He thought of the woman again. He had first spotted her riding along the outskirts of Durango. It was very unusual to see a white woman traveling alone. Or to see a white woman at all, down here in Mexico. And she was obviously savvy to that fact, since she did not venture into the City, and moved steadily and quickly, but not so quickly as to attract attention or hinder caution. There, near Durango, he had watched her from a distance as she had bought fresh tamales from a quiet little stand, and then had made her way, nibbling at one, past the sun-bleached cathedral and into the long, brown desert grass, meandering on in a northerly direction. She had been wearing a fine pair of gauchos and a vivid red blouse that made his eyeballs ache. She had smiled at the tamale woman, or was it at the large handful of coins she had picked through in order to find just the right combination to pay for her meal?

He had tracked her in a half-assed way, catching up with her every few days or so, in between hangovers. Tracking was the one thing his father had taught him to do. And at the age of thirty-three, Whiskey Eyes had done enough tracking over the years that now he did it without thinking. Whatever he was fixated on, he followed, whether he intended to or not. And right now, he was fixated on the white woman crossing the desert. He wondered what such a woman could be up to, riding solo through the wilderness like that, staying off the main trails, sleeping in the desert, packing a gun. She was on a mission. No doubt about it. She hadn’t just gotten desperately lost while out berry picking. It was all very strange. Of course, he knew he would have to rob her eventually, once she’d satisfied his curiosity, on one of the days when he was feeling good about himself and up to it. She probably would have something he wanted. And even if she didn’t prove wealthy, he could at least have her. It had been far, far too long since he’d felt the succulent flesh of a woman’s thighs against his bony pelvis. Yippee ki yea! It was a win-win situation.

Nelle scrambled to life as the sun swept its first eager tendrils up over the eastern horizon. With one hand, she ran her fingers through her hair and with the other, checked for the hunting knife hidden at her thigh. She cinched her saddlebags back around her horse’s midriff and threw the blanket around his neck. Finagling a low fire amongst a small cluster of rocks, she rubbed her hands together and waited for the pot of water to boil. By the time the sun had crested the horizon and yellowed up the place, she had finished her tea, downed three cold empanadas, flung herself into the saddle, and gone. The rest had done her good. Energized, she was alert and in high spirits. In a matter of days, she would be at la frontera, and back in America.

It hadn’t been easy, this trip. Once, she’d almost turned back after spending too many hours riding against a stinging dust storm and wondering what she really expected to be any different about this unknown place she was heading to. She’d had a decent existence in Mexico with kind-hearted Beth. The two had been close since becoming step-cousins years earlier, but in Guanajuato, they’d become like sisters. What was she giving it all up for? But she’d fought through the storm, the questioning, and then an enormous cloud of sand flies, not to mention the accumulating fatigue of spending day after day in the relentless desert sun. She’d realized what it was she was moving towards. She wanted a life of her own making. She wanted to give way to the woman inside her and just see what happened, without expectation. She needed a private space and the time to focus on that. And now she was getting close.

Whiskey Eyes awoke much later, and in a much less pleasant manner, with a very angry campesino standing over him and the nose of an old Brown Bess poking at his sallow cheeks.

Who are you, and why are you in my stable? growled the unshaven farmer, nudging his musket even further forward, so much so that it would end up leaving an imprint on Whiskey Eyes’ cheek when it was finally withdrawn.

I, I mean, yo boardo here aqui con mi horso, err, caballo, in your livery, er, hígado, no wait, librea. That’s it – librea. Librea aqui, explained the thundering head of the young man.

There was a long pause as the campesino attempted to digest the jumbled hybrid of languages.

I’m not in the liver or livery business, the man finally replied, so you’d best pay me for the hay your greedy horse ate, and get out.

But I already pay your son, faltered the undignified man in the nest of burlap.

I have no son, was the farmer’s quick reply, Only six damn, indecent daughters, endlessly cavorting and carrying on…

Si. He here last night! grumbled Whiskey Eyes, in fractured español.

Nope.

Si. Maybe he help with cavorting?

Give me the money and get out!! said the campesino, suddenly a lot angrier.

Well, I give him all the money I had.

Sweet Bess nuzzled right up to Whiskey’s grubby temple, and the voice behind her said, Pull out your pockets. I want to see.

Considering the nudging firearm, Whiskey obeyed and pulled his pockets inside out. Two single réal coins rolled forth. The campesino snatched them up.

Liar, he growled, and stepped over to Whiskey’s horse, beginning to rifle through the man’s saddlebags.

Upon initial inspection, he found no other money, and not wanting to spend too much time fumbling around in this turista’s dirty underwear, he gave up and commanded him to go.

As much as Whiskey Eyes wanted to stay and get a taste of some of that cavorting, there was the unavoidable fact of a gun pointed at him, so he found it prudent to get himself gone, as the old man advised. He walked over and untethered his unimpressed horse. A few moments later, he staggered out of the stable and into the head-splitting light of midday, emitting the most guttural of groans.

To his horse, he sputtered, Can’t you walk more quietly, you prima donna?

Mercedes, a svelte, fast, and somewhat sassy dame of a horse, shook her head and smiled, but Sam, for Whiskey Eyes was not how he preferred to be known, was busy covering his eyes in an effort to quell the stampede in his head and didn’t glimpse this small demonstration of impertinence. Finally, after undergoing five or six minutes of erratic convulsions while leaning against his horse for balance and waiting for the sunspots to clear from his eyes, he fumbled for his canteen and took a long swig of his last resort - A-1, old-school, right-as-rain, Acme agua. Afterwards, he felt well enough to hoist himself onto Mercedes’ back. Now that he was down to an exciting diet of water, he figured he’d better catch up to that woman straight away in order to garner a little breakfast money. It didn’t matter now what she was up to or how inhibited he felt; he was hungry and had the beginnings of the whiskey, whiskey shakes.

Riding out of the village, Sam kept his eyes downcast. Whenever he lifted his head, dizziness descended upon him, so he simply pointed his horse north and spurred her forward. He knew the woman rider had been heading north for days. Clearly, she was making for the border, probably Arizona, if she continued on the line she was taking. His horse knew the way. He would have to make sure to finish things before she crossed. With his history, there was no way he could take a chance and cross into that nest of scorpions. There were too many folks back in America just itching for him to show up, and if he couldn’t pay up, he knew there’d be a shake up and he’d end up boots up under a saguaro in some particularly dried up corner of the Sonora.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, following a slim trail through the canyons, the pickled bandito came nodding by a thick clump of prickly Desert Spoon. His downcast eyes caught sight of several brilliant red threads wrapped around the spines of the tall silver green leaves. Immediately, he thought of the red blouse, and was encouraged. And he was correct in his suspicions. Nelle had been there several hours earlier. She’d lingered there for a moment as she sipped a little from her canteen and rested Pinto. Just as she had finished putting the stopper back in place, an exuberant cactus mouse had run across the path. This had been too much for the delicate constitution of a tired Pinto, and the horse had gone up in arms. Consequently, as much as she’d resisted, Nelle had gone down for a brief and scratchy swim in the Desert Spoon, tearing a small hole in her blouse as she’d clambered for freedom.

By nightfall, Nelle felt incredibly burnt out. She was certain the blisters on her ass had doubled in size from such a long day of steady, monotonous riding. She didn’t want to stop where she was, but she was too tired to go any further, and the sky was steadily darkening. She’d been moving through a strange filled with massive stone specters that leered at her in the shadows. She knew it was place called the Valley of the Monks, but she didn’t like it one bit, at least not in the twilight when everything looked askew and ominous. She didn’t feel tranquil, zenned out, or instantly and inexplicably unattached to her material possessions, as she’d half expected she might in a place so named. In fact, she felt very, very lonely. Throughout her trip, there had been moments of loneliness, moments when she wished she could simply hear the familiar sounds of the Guanajuato market, moments when she wished she could talk with Beth, but she’d managed those times. And she prided herself at being able to entertain herself for long periods of time with only her own thoughts. But here, in this odd place, she felt almost overwhelmed by her aloneness, and her smallness. What did any of her efforts in life matter? What did it matter where she ended up? It all seemed so pointless to her just then. One fought and struggled and searched to survive, and then fought, struggled, and searched some more in order to get a little bit beyond basic survival, and in the vast continuum of existence, it meant nothing. And in the end, one was always, always alone.

Eventually, her immense fatigue won out over her immense loneliness, and she and Pinto collapsed for the night in a dusty clearing between two huge boulders. No matter where she was, Nelle always preferred to sleep with something solid at her back.

Sam rode late into the evening. As the last dregs of alcohol left his body, his disposition went from foul to something far worse than foul. Abhorrent? Despicable? Nefarious? He was hell bent on finding that woman, and soon. His stomach gnawed on itself; his throat ached for a drink of something that would go down kicking rather than limp quietly down his gullet. But he knew he must be close. He had to be. She couldn’t have gotten any further. His instincts told him he must have passed her somehow. There had been no signs of her for the last little while - no fresh horse tracks, no more threads, nothing. So, in the Valley of the Monks, he unrolled his dirty blanket on a grassy hill and set his horse to munching greenery amongst the towering rocks. And as he settled onto the earth, he looked up at the stars and contemplated. He didn’t wonder how many there were, or what exactly the stars were made of. He didn’t consider the size of the universe or marvel at the mystery of it all. He didn’t wonder if there was someone on one of those stars looking back at him, or wonder what his place was in such expansive, unexplained beauty. Nor did he consider his smallness beneath such a magnificent sky. No, he tough-talked the stars.

Yeah, you twinkle now, he snarled, for tomorrow it’ll be my pistol that twinkles. And may God bless the guy who gets his own.

He snored.

She snoozed fitfully, dreaming over and over again an old dream she used have as a teenager in New York. In the dream, she was running on foot, trying to escape a man who rode on horseback, and whose face was never revealed. She ran downhill towards a valley bottom, rushing through a maze of blue spruce, the sound of hoof beats coming closer and closer. Sweat slipped down her face, from forehead to chin. Her ankles burned from the constant exertion and chafing, awkward steps in stiff, brand new riding boots. But she kept sprinting, her blood pumping almost as loudly as the hoof beats behind her. Ahead, a small mountain stream wandered through the valley. As Nelle came to its edge, she felt the presence of the rider pressing down upon her, and she knew she had no time to spare in picking her way across the creek. So she simply leapt, hoping to clear the stony watercourse in one bound. It was no use, though. It was never any use. Her toe got caught in a cluster of gossiping stones and she went down. She didn’t go to pieces, but she shrieked as her right leg twisted and something inside it popped. She tried to get up as the horse behind her reached the water’s edge. She couldn’t. Instead, she started crawling her way up the riverbank. And that’s when it always happened. First, a sharp crack would split the air, and then the bullet would hit her just below the right shoulder blade. She would scream and fall to the ground, sliding back into the water. The pain would bloom across her whole body. She would gasp with the intensity of it and her stomach would sink in sheer terror. Looking up, she would see him, the gunman on his horse, his face obscured by the bright pulse of the sun. And lying in the chill, rushing water, she would look back down and watch her blood run red into the silver sheen rippling all around her.

All through the night, Nelle dreamt this same dream. And each time the crimson poured out from her body and into the water, she would jolt awake and find herself cold with perspiration and fraught with distress. She tried to remain awake, but kept slipping into sleep, her weary body pulling her back. And so, while the ocotillo wistfully waved in the night air, and a family of band-tailed pigeons talked softly to the moonlight, Nelle was curled up tightly, sleeping sporadically, the whole of her seized up with trepidation.

When the sun sent up its first timid feelers of light, it found her waiting with eyes wide open.

Looking down into the canyon from his post on the grassy knoll, Sam was eager to get things underway. He knew she was around somewhere. She couldn’t have gotten any further, unless she’d ridden late into the night like him. And he doubted it. It didn’t fit her pattern. So he scanned the vista below and decided to wait. Watch and wait, at least until he was awake enough to move on.

Hunger and thirst gnawed at him, but his mood was light. He’d slept soundly, and he felt that perhaps his day had come. Maybe the woman was rich. Perhaps he’d found his meal ticket. After all, hadn’t he suffered enough? It was time for him to get his. Maybe karma would look the other way. Maybe she deserved it, and he was an agent of karma. Oh yeah. That’s right.

Breathing deeply, he assured himself, "Today’s your day. You will take on this woman and take whatever it is she has. Think positive; success is around the corner. Keep your clarity and stay motivated. Animate your intention. Sam, you are the man."

The self-defeating thoughts of the day before were gone. He was cocksure and driven. He peered down into the rocky valley again, and in final preparation, invoked his power animal. For a moment, he was an armoured barracuda on the prowl, swimming in a whiskey pond, scarfing down all the shiny, unassuming fish smaller than himself. It was an ego day for Whiskey Eyes, and I guess we should give him some credit for not choosing a cliché power animal like an eagle or a wolf, or an eagle riding on a wolf’s shoulders with tongues of silver lightning licking a black background.

So Sam’s eyes bore down on Nelle as she rode northward, bleary-eyed and jumpy, through the Valley of the Monks. When he saw her, he quickly clapped a hand over his own mouth in order to prevent any exclamations of joy, and then slipped quietly onto Mercedes’ back. Carefully, the horse tiptoed along the hillside after Nelle, keeping a safe distance above the main trail. As he followed his target, Sam kept searching for an opportunity, an easy way to get the job done. He always did that first; he looked for an easy way. But here, no simple solution presented itself, other than sniping at her from where he was, and that just seemed to him to be a tad disgraceful. Robbing a lady was one thing, but shooting her in the back displayed a remarkable lack of confidence and zero finesse. And most importantly, it would eliminate any opportunity for a feisty little meet n’ greet down there in the dust. Still, he had to do something soon. After all, the sun was roaring steadily upwards, and the hotter it got, the shittier he’d feel.

You can do this, he psyched himself, Look out lady, here comes the ba-ba-ba-barracuda.

He and Mercedes began the descent into the canyon.

Up ahead, the path curved slightly to the east. There were more of the huge thumb-like protrusions of rock over that way, and Sam carefully turned Mercedes, slipping between the upright rocks and deftly steering her towards the spot where the trail turned. As he guided his horse, he kept his eyes on the woman. He noted the top quality of her saddle, if not her horse, and couldn’t help but contemplate the fine price it would fetch. And so what if that was a gun on her hip! He’d never met a woman who could hit more than the empty air with a bullet.

For some time, Nelle had felt as though she was being watched. She told herself she was just feeling paranoid because of her restless night. After all, she’d seen no sign of anyone for quite some time. Best to concentrate on real dangers, like rattlesnakes, she advised herself. All the same, she continued to feel disconcerted, and kept her head low and her eyes open.

Flicking the reins, Sam urged his horse to a trot as he passed down the slope. If he timed it right, he would make it through the rocks and reach the bend in the trail just before she did. He could intercept her there. Beyond that point, the path grew straighter and less rocky, so it made sense to him to slip in front of her and block her way onward. Eagerly, he leaned forward, sensing that this shrewdness of his would soon mean money for whiskey. He hadn’t been this excited over a hold-up in months.

However, when Sam cleared the section of boulders, he saw, to his dismay, that the woman was nearing the interception point and was still ahead of him. Frustration getting the better of him, he flicked Mercedes hard with the reins and she accelerated again. He slipped a hand onto his gun and waited tensely for the moment when they would overtake the woman. He could do this just fine, he reminded himself. This way, it would be just a bit more dramatic. And, he admitted, a bit more work.

Mercedes made up some ground and she and Sam were almost to the trail when unexpectedly, one of her feet came down hard on a rough chunk of stone hidden in a clump of grass. The horse’s shoe struck the rock at an odd angle and there was a clank - a very definite clank, at impact. Sam cursed the horse in his mind, hoping the woman hadn’t heard it, but an instant later he knew she had. It hadn’t been a particularly loud clank, but it had been enough for an alert Nelle, who’d immediately looked up and over her left shoulder towards the origin of the sound. And sure enough, peering past her horse’s flank, she spotted him coming her way. She saw that he wasn’t wasting time and his gun was drawn, and she knew there was no conceivable way that that could mean anything good.

Goddamn it, she breathed, as she kicked her heels into Pinto’s cushiony flanks. Her horse was not used to such language, or rather to the tone behind it, and it gave him pause until Nelle planted another hearty kick into his side, at which point he decided to respond to her apparent urgency and leapt into locomotion.

The chase was barely on, and then it was off. Whiskey Eyes didn’t much feel like a cross-country epic on such a sweltering, depressingly sober morning, so he cocked his pistol and sent a hot little .41 caliber out exploring. It went whizzing neatly past Nelle’s raised eyebrows. And if a mouse could scare the bejesus out of ol’ Pinto, you can bet that this was just about enough to cause the poor horse to make a permanent career out of chasing his own tail. He swayed and careened and stood up on end, did a two-step and bowed, and hapless Nelle went for her second overland flight in the span of two days. She didn’t land daintily, but when another bullet went singing past her skinned arm, she thought it would be best to lick her wounds a little later.

Oh, argh, she rasped, as she crawled and slithered her way towards a nearby lump of granite.

Barely sheltered behind the rock, she pulled out her Remington. Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. She really needed to sit down and mull things over, but there was no time.

My first shootout, she muttered savagely to herself. What a milestone!

Peeking out from behind her post, Nelle took aim just as she’d practiced many times before. She managed to send off a sprightly melody of her own in the direction of the stranger. It was a miss, and the stranger replied in kind as he jumped from his horse and dove towards a thick stand of goatbush. Nelle’s core shook with fear, but her body moved automatically as she fired off another shot into the bush. No dice, for a shot pinged off her rocky barricade in response.

Seconds passed. She knew she couldn’t go on winging shots willy-nilly. Her extra bullets were in her saddlebag with Pinto. She had to have a plan if she was going to get away from whoever this was. Clenching her hand around the Remington, she tried to clear away the white patches of terror from her paralyzed mind. She could not die, not now. And to survive, she had to focus. No curling up in the fetal position. No panicked headlong charge. No sleeping on it and deciding in the morning. Think, she commanded herself, breathing heavily. And she obeyed.

Leaning out from behind the rock, Nelle could no longer see the man but she spotted some of the brush moving, so she fired again, and heard the subsequent snapping of branches. A few seconds later, he shot back, and even though he missed, Nelle let out a bloodcurdling cry and kept her revolver silent in her hands.

She waited.

This will work, she assured herself under her breath, as she crouched in trepidation.

Her face was hot. Her eyes darted this way and that.

Well, I must’ve nailed her, said Sam to the barrel cactus nearest him.

He waited for a few minutes before edging cautiously out from behind the brush. Nothing happened. Slowly, he crept towards Nelle’s hiding place, pausing often to listen. Nelle leaned against her rock, gun at the ready. Just when she thought she could no longer bear the agony of waiting or the strain on her calves, she heard the clinking sound of his spurs as he moved still nearer. Finally, she heard his panting breath. Her heart rattled its increasing displeasure. She steadied her hand. The clinking grew even louder. It was almost right next to her.

Now, now, now, signaled her mind to her body, and she sprang out from behind the boulder, firing a shot straight at the centre of the dark form in front of her. Instantaneously, she heard the bang and saw the sickening, abrupt lurch of his body. She watched as he righted himself and an appalling blotch of red began to engulf his shirt pocket. The stranger looked down at his bleeding chest, his mouth a circle of amazement, and then over at her. Immobilized, she just stood there. Moments passed. Intolerable, agonizing moments. Her revolver became heavy in her hand and she stayed still, unable to stop staring as the bright red stain reached his belt, as the man wobbled but did not fall. She saw him place both hands on his pistol, and even yet, she could not move.

His hands unsteady, the man fired. The shot grazed her arm, and only then, as the sudden stinging sensation moved across the limb, did she emerge from her horrified trance. Automatically, she raised her gun and fired at the man again, a trickle of blood beginning to drip from her elbow.

The second shot tunneled into his hip and again the man wavered, before falling to the ground with a strangled cry. She watched his knees buckle, his torso sway until it gave way to gravity, and finally his right temple impact the dry earth. Disoriented, she wondered if there were any bullets left in the man’s gun. She’d forgotten to count. How long had this been going on? How long ago had she leapt out from behind the boulder and fired at him? Weren’t people supposed to die right off when you shot them in the chest? For a moment, she looked off into the throng of boulders and the sparse patches of brown grass. Exhausted, she felt as if she’d been standing there for days. She looked back in front of her just in time to see the man, a gnarled, angry smile on his face and blood oozing out from between his teeth, slowly lift his gun. Shaking her head at him, she hesitated a moment, but he continued laboriously moving his left hand towards the hammer, so she wasted no more time and shot the thing right out of his hands. Enough was enough, she thought, with a pleading look to the horizon.

Strolling over to him, she kicked the gun out of reach. She looked down at the stranger, his eyes dilated and glaring up at her, his skin pale and dotted with perspiration. It would not be long now before he died, she realized. And even though she felt as if she’d been standing there for ages waiting for it all to be over with, she was still dumbfounded, looking down at this thin man not much older than herself, a man in physical shock and about to leave life because of her. She could still hear the singular pop of the first shot and see the blood begin to spill from his pectoral.

But, I...I...I…kkkillled yyyyou, he choked plaintively, gulping at the air futilely as blood cascaded into his lungs.

Au contraire said the woman standing over him, not without a pang of regret.

You bitch, he hissed back.

The stranger resembled a fish dragged in on a line, dazed by the sudden cruelty of life, sides heaving, sucking at the air desperately. The man even flopped a few times, and from these pitiful throes, little billows of powdery dust arose from around the outline of his body.

You goddamn witch of a bitch, he wheezed, relentless even as he lay dying. Blood dribbled from his lips. Bitch, bitch, bitch, he snarled.

Nelle looked away for a moment, aghast at the gruesome scenario in which she found herself. She reminded herself that this man was no victim. He had attacked her, had tried to kill her. And now he was cursing her for defending herself.

Thanks for bringing me back to the keynote theme of this encounter. It’s really validating being reminded of how much of a dick you are. I mean, I can feel my biorhythms stabilizing as we talk this thing out.

He shut up after that.

Standing in the arid heat of the canyon, her eyes squinting beneath the barrage of sun, Nelle watched resigned as her attacker slipped into the Final Frontier which, just to be clear, is death and not outer space. She wondered detachedly what it was that made blood turn brown. A stalking wind swept through the tufts of grass and then moved on. Before long, the stranger’s eyes took on that stoned look of wonder that signaled death had set in for keeps. She knew the look. She’d seen it before.

Calling to her horse and at the same time, moving adroitly towards him, she eventually coaxed him out from his rather poor hiding place behind a tall, asparagus-like stalk of yucca. Reaching into her saddlebag, she found the tin of bullets and carefully reloaded her Remington. As she did so, she considered further the man going to mush nearby. What had he ultimately intended to do? This stranger couldn’t have been one of his crew. No. He was too ragged and not crafty enough, and most importantly, he was alone. He had no idea where she was, and would never have sent a lone man to fix things up the way he wanted. She scanned the valley, double-checking. Nope, this had been just an ordinary hold-up or horsejacking. The man must have figured she was an easy target. But somehow, she’d managed to make it through her first firefight just fine.

Well, that wasn’t so bad, she said optimistically to her sketchy horse, before dropping to her knees and vomiting into the prickly pear.

II.

Picking at the peeling skin on her sunburned nose and wiping the desert grit from her parched lips, Nelle crossed into Arizona Territory at Blackwater, an appropriately named, but much-frequented watering hole, seeing as how it was the only watering hole within a span of thirty miles or so. Not keen on making the acquaintance of any more banditos, she did not linger there for long. Beyond thirsty, she forced herself to choke down some of the questionable water, mysterious black floaties and all, while Pinto sniffed suspiciously at the rusted trough she had kindly filled a few minutes earlier. Page seven of Cowboys For Dummies indicates that you must always see to your horse’s needs before your own, and Nelle had done just that. But Pinto clearly wasn’t reciprocating with the unerring devotion and gratefulness befitting an equine comrade. In fact, Nelle thought the eye rolling and snorting was a bit much.

Oh, give it up! she snapped. Don’t be such a finicky diva!

The horse turned his nose up at her and looked away, offended by her harshness. Nelle sighed. She knew she was overreacting. After all, Pinto had been her only companion for miles and miles and miles. No matter how moody he could sometimes be, she would be in insufferable straits without him, and likely lonely enough to fire shots if the next person she encountered rode by without so much as a mannerly wave.

I’m sorry, Pinto. I’m still a little shaky from that gunfight back there.

Pinto gave her a conciliatory look, and then both horse and rider put their heads down and grimaced through chewy gulps of the grimy liquid, emitting gagging sounds of a most striking quality. Somehow, they both managed to swallow enough to stave off a blazing, unromantic death by dehydration. Afterwards, Nelle hesitated for a moment before ponying up and doing what she had to do. Groaning, she filled her canteens with the cloudy water.

Despite the lackluster refreshments and the absence of a Welcome Wagon, Nelle was as delighted as a Mexican ghost on the Day of the Dead. She’d made it back to America! Sure, there were still dangers ahead, but she had covered a good deal of country and managed to avoid trouble so far, with the brief but disturbing exception of Whiskey Eyes. So she was proud of herself. She winked at Pinto, who remained steadfastly unimpressed by the general state of affairs, and after loosening her stiff muscles with a series of leg lifts and forward lunges, she climbed back atop the animal’s back and set out once more.

Even as she celebrated her arrival, she was already thinking about the ride to Tucson. She knew this was remote country - the kind of remote country typically represented by tumbleweed blowing across an endless expanse amidst strange, macho whistling sounds. If she lingered long in such a place, an antihero was bound to appear, with a heap of trouble trailing behind. Plus, she was desperate to get to the respite of a cushy bed and to devour a meal that consisted of something more than a handful of found objects being boiled in a pot and dumped onto the cold rubber of stale tortillas. She had also heard that this was Apache country, and that these days the Apache were hardly enthused about the influx of ill-mannered prospectors and other riff raff into their territory. And while she really couldn’t blame them for the current breakdown in diplomacy, she didn’t exactly want to run into any of them, no matter how lonely she was. Too many mistakes had been made, and she did not want to get pulled into that fray, if she could help it.

Heading north as usual, she kept a sharp eye on her surroundings. Still very edgy over her recent encounter with the man now interred in an abandoned, oversized coyote den, she kept her right hand on the familiar protection strapped to her hip. And as she rode, she made sure to check behind every cactus for short, dishwater-coloured men with twitchy pistols or eyes dashed with red lightning. At one moment, an old, rotten saguaro happened to keel over from utter exhaustion at the precise time she meandered past, and thanks to her vigilance, or rather, paranoia, the sagging succulent received an impromptu, bullet-festooned send-off into the hereafter. The encounter left