The Hunted

By Chris Bell

I had been trackin' the man who killed my wife for nearly two years. Now, I knew how close I was to finding him. Now, I knew he was soon going to die by my bullet. I spurred my black roan and he pushed forward faster, just as anxious as me to reach our final destination. I was headed through a shallow ravine, which would lead me to a spring I knew of; there, I could get water, set up camp for the night, and rest my horse. The sun would disappear soon, settling for the night behind Split Mountain, nicknamed for its appearance of being split in two right down the middle.

When I reached the spring, I knew I wasn't its only visitor in recent days. Someone else had been here. Probably him. I couldn't be sure, but I figured it had to be him. Who else? I'd been on his trail and gaining on him for nigh on a week now. A half-day's ride ahead was Tickville, a fairly decent-sized mining town. If he stuck to his pattern, he’d hole up there for a good two days before moving on. It was there I'd kill him.

I awoke as the sun's morning rays danced on my face with their warmth. Within minutes I had started my fire; I reheated the coffee I'd made the night before and pulled jerked beef from my saddlebags. Twenty minutes later, I set off through the ravine and toward the trail that led to higher ground, pointing to Tickville. As my roan clipped along at a steady pace, my body sagged in the saddle, weary from almost two years spent hunting men. By nightfall, I'd be in Tickville and able to finally rest comfortably before having to kill one more man… The last man.

I reached Tickville sooner than expected and headed straight for the stables. The hostler was a burly man with greasy skin, a thick, hairy chest, and a belly the size of a whiskey barrel. He looked me up and down, said, "Two bits for the night," and led my horse toward a stable. A man of few words and he wasn't the nosy type. I hoped most of the townsfolk would be like that. With my saddlebags slung over my left shoulder, I crossed the street and headed for the hotel—a two-story building with a small sign that read, "Hotel" and then, "Drifters, Travelers, and Cowboys Welcome" in smaller writing underneath. Five dollars got me a room and a hot bath, and included a shave from the local barber. A good price to pay seein' as how I'd been on the trail for quite some time recently.

After eating a hearty meal of steak and potatoes in the hotel lobby, I decided to check the only saloon in town for my quarry. Plus, a beer sounded like a slice of heaven following my meal. As I stepped out of the hotel and into the darkness, I moved quickly to the side, melding into the darkness and avoiding silhouetting myself against the light from the door. As my eyes began adjusting to the dark, I scanned the street, a habit I'd made a long time ago. That habit had saved my life on more than one occasion. There were no signs of anyone lying in wait, so I moved down the boardwalk to The Deadman's Saloon, only two buildings down from the hotel on the same side of the street.

I pushed through the batwing doors into the saloon and immediately saw him. His back was to me as he leaned against the bar with a whiskey in hand. His pearl-handled Smith and Wesson 44-caliber six-killers were tied down low. Those were the same guns that were used to gun down my wife at the main house, while I worked in the fields of our farm almost two years ago… Why had he done it? Never knew. Didn’t even know who he was, but I swore from that day he put four bullets in her, that it didn’t matter who he was, he was going to die, like his men did before him when I’d found them. Those who’d been with him that day had led me to him. Never gave me a name, only a description: A man with two pearl-handled .44 Smith and Wesson pistols, a deep scar under his right eye from The War. Now, I just needed to see his face with the scar on it, but I was sure this was the man.

I took four steps inside and said, “Turn around.”

I was 10 feet away and said it loud enough that he could hear me over the noise in the saloon. He knew it was me; that I’d been coming for him, hunting him for almost two long years. He turned and I felt a lump in my throat. My eyes welled up with tears of pain, sadness, and anger. Him? How could it be him? I thought he’d died in The War?

My hand flashed for my gun as his lightning-fast hands pulled leather. We both came up firing, orange flames spitting from dark holes. People dove for cover under tables and behind the bar. I felt a tug at my left shoulder and a searing, hot pain as his first bullet grazed me. His second hit me in the leg, his right hand being slower than his left as I fired two rounds into his heart. That’s the problem with using two guns—you have too much to do and not a lot of time to do it in a gunfight. I had always told him that, even though he’d always been faster than me.

He dropped to the floor. Small holes in his white shirt started to spill dark blood. I don’t know why he killed my wife. I didn’t care. I set out to kill the man who took the one I loved most from me.

I had killed my brother.