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My horse shuddered nervously as I guided her into the narrow passageway between the boulders. “Easy girl,” I whispered, stroking her mane gently. “We’re okay.” I was lying, of course. Whisper knew my vocal tones as well as the flies that followed us knew the reach of her tail.

I knew the canyon that lay ahead of us was a deathtrap, plain and simple. Between the bloodthirsty savages still calling the territory home, and the murderous train robbers I was trailing, and were almost certainly lying in wait for me in the narrow expanse ahead, I’d be lucky to make it out alive.

I’d never been one to be frightened off by a little danger, and I had the scars to prove it. As lawmen went, my quarry knew there were three possible outcomes once Packard Campbell, known in lawful circles as Marshal Blood, and by lowlife varmints as the Bloodhound, was on their scent. One, you ended up in jail, two, you ended up dead, or three, I ended up dead. It was usually number two. Seeing as I was still kicking up dust and bringing ne'er-do-wells to justice, option three had never played out. I'd been close, but close didn't offer up very favorable odds to those on the wrong side of the law.

“Woah girl.” I drew back on the reins, though Whisper had already stopped. She knew my body language, after all. She snorted nervously, clearing her sinuses, and took a whiff of the scent on the wind.

Gun oil. Fresh. I smelled it too. It traveled the breeze accompanied by the faint aromas of gunpowder, chewin’ tobacco, and sweat.

~

I dismounted and tied the reins to a loose branch of scrub brush jutting out from the wall next to us. I crept away from Whisper, who remained as silent as the eye of a storm, and ducked into a crevasse large enough to shield me from three of four sides. Digging a small, cracked mirror from my vest pocket, I scanned the narrow passage around me.

The Lubbock Gang consisted of six men: three brothers, two lifelong friends, and a well-paid hired gun. The odds of them scattering like exposed cellar rats at the first sign of danger were slim to none.

I spotted the first two men quickly. The hired gun, a former Confederate soldier turned mercenary known only as Bly, perched about twenty feet ahead and thirty feet up, at the top of the canyon wall. Bly carried a Marlin 1893 lever-action 30-30 and wore his pistol slung low on his right thigh. The butt of the gun faced forward so that he could cross-draw with his left hand. He was at close enough range to put a hole in me the size and relative messiness of a whorehouse spittoon. Bly crouched behind a sizable boulder, perfectly shielding him from the canyon’s point of entry, though from my vantage point, he was nothing more than a sitting duck in an old, tan leather duster.

Closest to Bly was Garrett Long; one dangerous third of the murderous Long brothers. The Long brothers were inseparable and had a strict fraternal code of honor that bound them more tightly than blood-brothers, making them some of the most feared and unpredictable outlaws to ever ride the range. Garrett was stretched out on his belly roughly ten feet from Bly, and resembled a huge rattlesnake, sunning itself casually in the desert heat. He was armed with a rifle, bolt-action, though I couldn’t determine the make from his hidden position. I like to know as much as possible about my quarry before heading into a firefight, including what kind of guns they’re packing. In the right hands, a firearm is nothing less than a physical extension of the wielder. Just like a boxer needs to know if their opponent is a right-hander or a southpaw, I need to know what manner of gun a man is holding.

It took another minute or so to find the other two Long brothers, Hank and Bobby, and one of the two friends who completed the gang. Black Burt was as pale a sumbitch as ever crawled out from underneath a rock, but he was a deadeye with a revolver, and one of the most notorious gunfighters west of the ol’ Mississippi. I couldn’t see the second friend, a wily Irish varmint simply named Red, anywhere, though it was unlikely he was far. These men were as thick as thieves. Maybe that’s a redundant analogy, seeing as they were thieves, but hey, if the boot fits, right?

Hank and Bobby each carried a Winchester shotgun. Hank’s was an 1887 and Bobby’s was a 1901. They also had single sidearms slung low on their right thighs, butt facing back, gunfighter style. Burt loosely gripped twin 1860 Colt revolvers, and occasionally tipped them back, as if he was silently firing at an unseen target.

Hank, Bobby, and Burt had taken up defensive positions in locations where they wouldn’t risk catching each other, or Garret and Bly, in a crossfire.

I studied them for a moment, doing the math in my head. If they were avoiding a crossfire, that only left two places for Red to hide. Red would either be directly at the entrance to the canyon, which I knew wasn’t right, because I’d already have a bullet in my brainpan from the ride in.

The other location was-

A revolver’s hammer cocked less than three inches from the back of my head.

~

“Easy there, Red,” I said quietly. “You should be awfully damned proud of yourself. Nobody ever got the drop on me this close or this quietly. You sure you ain’t one of them Kung Fu masters or somethin’?”

Red snickered at the comment. “Yer a funny man, Mr. Bludhoond. It’s a pity I’m gonna havta kill ya now. Ye might’ve had quite the career on Vaudeville.”

Red’s reputation preceded him, and I was quite sure it would be the only thing that might save my life. “Come on now, Red. You know you’ve never shot a man in the back. That Irish honor, or some bullshit like that. I understand you like to look a man in the eye before you kill him.”

Red breathed out through his nose, sounding like Whisper when she sensed a trap. “I might say t‘the Devil with honor, jest this once. It would be worth it t’be able t’say I was the man t’finally take doon the Bludhoond. Doncha fancy?”

“Maybe,” I conceded, realizing I could see his gun barrel in the old mirror I still held between my fingers. Christ, but that guy had steady hands. “If you think you could live with yourself, and your secret, shameful, dishonorable deed. Just imagine what your Pa would think. His own boyo couldn’t face me like a man, so he shot me in the back. Go ahead, lad. I’ll tell your old man about it when I see him in Hell.”

“Blast ye and yer sheep-shite yammerin’!” Red fumed. For the barest of moments, his focus wavered, and his gun sight strayed to the left. It only moved by a hair, but it would have to be enough.

I compensated for Red’s twitch by quickly rolling to the right. I ended up on my back, face to face with the man who, allegedly, would only shoot a man if he could see his eyes. His eyes were narrowed, partly because he directly faced the mid-morning sun, but mostly because I’d pissed him off, royally.

“Damn you,” he shouted, as he overcorrected and tugged off a shot that slammed into the soil just to the right of my head.

As Red palmed the revolver’s hammer back, I brought my right boot up as hard as I was able to from my prone position and drove the pointed tip right up between his bowed legs.

Red squealed like a stuck pig as he squeezed off a final shot. The left side of my face felt like someone pressed an icicle against it. I knew I'd been hit, though how badly remained in question.

The mirror in my left hand broke off where the old crack had been. As Red doubled over me in pain, I lashed out with the remaining shard, and brought it across Red’s exposed throat. The wound was shallow, there was no spray of blood or anything quite so dramatic, but it was clearly painful enough that Red’s left hand reflexively shot from his aching crotch and pressed against his throat. His eyes bugged as he felt a warm trickle of blood seep between his fingers. I’m sure the blood felt like a lot more than it really was. Honestly, Red might’ve lived if not for the bullet I put between his eyes in the second that followed. The fingers on his right hand flew open in surprise, and his revolver dropped, clattering down the incline, and landing somewhere in the rocks below.

I leapt to my feet and shoved Red backwards before he could land on me like a stinky old sack of onions. His body tumbled down the embankment to join his fallen revolver.

Shouts sounded from below, but there was no indication of movement. The others were trying to determine who was down – one of them or, dare they believe, me.

I didn’t give them the chance to figure it out. As the remaining bandits shouted out to each other in frustrated confusion, I pulled my trusty Henry from my rifle-scabbard on my back and began to fire.

As I said before, in the right hands, a firearm is nothing less than a physical extension of the wielder. When I’m firing my weapons, there’s no saying where my hands end, and my guns begin. Finger and trigger become one, and the rifle butt knows my shoulder like a baby knows the warm embrace of its mother’s arms. My eyes are autotuned to the sights of my rifle and my pistol, and when it comes to my trusty ol’ shotgun, no sighting is necessary, my friend. I can dead-eye a target as easily as pointing a finger.

Burt was the first to fall. A hole appeared in his forehead as I squeezed off a round, and he slumped to the hardpan soil without any fanfare, his twin Colts splayed out in different directions like abstract art.

I took out Hank and Bobby much the same way. Hank took a slug to the temple. Bobby, flinching as Hank’s head jerked back, took one to the throat. Hank never even knew he’d been hit, but Bobby took a minute or so to die. The desperado fired off a last wild shot that clipped an unsuspecting cactus as he choked on blood, bile, and chewin’ tobacco.

Once I was satisfied Bobby was beyond chambering another round, I let my focus shift down to Garrett and Bly. Garret leapt to his feet as he realized one or both of his brothers were down. He scrambled ahead like a well-armed hermit crab, shouting my name like a nun scolding an ill-behaved student. Bly clearly knew where I was. He wisely allowed the frantic Garrett to stay between us, using him as a moving meat-shield. I chambered another round and fired at Garrett, striking him in the shoulder. I was already chambering again, when Garrett’s uncoordinated run slowed to an even less coordinated stumble. He threw his head back in surprise and agony. I was shocked to see an arrowhead protruding from his Adam’s apple like a kebab.

Bly, realizing the arrow’d been fired from the rear of his supposedly safe position, rolled forward in an awkward somersault, and began to zigzag in my direction. Apparently, he preferred incarceration to death. A small hatchet adorned with beads and feathers whizzed past his head, ending up lodged in yet another unfortunate cactus.

Arrows zinged dangerously close to Bly, one clipping his boot heel as he hot-footed it for my narrow alcove in the rocks. I felt a little better knowing none of the arrows or tomahawks were coming from behind me, but I was also well aware that if Red could get the drop on me, then so could the locals.

My beef wasn’t with the natives, but when an arrow put a hole in my favorite canteen, I realized they were out for blood, plain and simple. Bly’s blood, my blood, if we didn’t belong on their land, we were fair game. Whisper was safe, of course. The locals didn’t scalp horses. They’d take her back and feed her apples and turnips while they brushed her. At least there was that.

Bly made it to me faster than a rabbit bein’ chased by a hawk. Just like that, I was sardined into a stone crevice with one of the most dangerous men west of the Pecos. Strange bedfellows, as the old man said.

“Seems my meal ticket’s dead,” Bly wheezed. His loose drawl betrayed a distinctly southern upbringing. “If’n ye don’t mind, I’d rather take my chances coverin’ yer back, since I’m right sure yer lawman’s code says ye got to cover mine.”

I nodded curtly. “You do realize, if we get outta this alive, I’m gonna hav’ta take you in, son.”

Bly smirked. “If’n we do get outta this alive, Marshal, ye can try to take me in. Ye have my word as a commanding officer of the Confederate States of America on that.”

I laughed as a pair of arrows thunked into the rocks to my left. “The South lost, son.”

Bly drew his pistol and aimed it towards where the arrows seemed to be coming from. “The South will rise again, Marshal. Ye can count on me as much as ye can count on that.”

Well, I thought, that’s not encouraging at all.

~

Arrows continued to rain down on the stone notch where Bly and I hid. I noticed their accuracy increased with each incoming wave. As the locals got closer, their line of sight got wider. At least we could count on being able to see them as soon as they could see us. I made sure all my guns were fully loaded and ready to fire as soon as the whites of black greasepaint-covered eyes came into view. My Henry repeater, a marvel of modern weaponry that held sixteen rounds in the clip and could fire up to twenty-eight of those bad boys per minute, was up and at the ready. A scout or two would likely come ahead of the actual hunting party, and my rifle would be just the thing to pick ‘em off before they could fire an arrow at either Bly or me. My shotgun leaned against my elbow. It would be more useful when the group got closer together. Like the Henry, I could get off several shots in a short period of time. As a last resort, I could quickdraw my revolver like Zeus tossing lightning bolts, but the revolver was the least accurate of the three. As fast as our stalkers were known to be, accuracy was the most likely thing to get us out of our current predicament.

When I say predicament, please understand, I’ve been in worse situations before, but not many. It was the first time I’d found myself partially relying on the likes of Bly for my survival. I trusted my skin to nobody but myself, and maybe the local sheriff, Clem Pickett. Clem was a loyal lawman, though far too chauvinistic to make a smooth transition into the approaching twentieth century. He held some antiquated and downright offensive viewpoints on women, people of any other color, and folks subscribing to lifestyles or ideas contrary to his own. Clem Pickett was lily-white and as conservative as a preacher collecting the Sunday morning tithe. But as much as you’d never find me at a cookout with the gun-totin’ Neanderthal, I’d prefer his gun at my side than this Confederate, lowlife sellout. I guess beggars can’t be choosers, though, can we?

“Marshall,” Bly said in the loudest whisper he could muster. “If’n you call out to that horse you got tied yonder, it’ll come a runnin' up the hill, and provide the cover we’d need to get free of this-here deathtrap!”

“Of all the lily-livered, cowardly things to suggest.” I glared at him, considering ending our uneasy partnership with a bullet right then and there.

“Or not,” he said reassuringly, tipping his head sheepishly, and raising a scar-split eyebrow. The scar ran from somewhere under his hairline, and all the way down his cheek to his jawline. It barely nicked his eyelid, and looked like it hurt like a motherf-

“Jesus,” Bly hissed. My eyes followed his sudden shift in attention. An arrow stuck out of his right shoulder. The arrowhead protruded out the other side ever so slightly. The outlaw pursed his lips over gritted teeth and breathed sharply through his nose. “Lucky for us, I’m a lefty,” he said finally. “Is it clean through?”

“Mostly,” I replied quietly. “But we’re gonna need to get it out after we get clear of the locals. They’re close. Otherwise, that shot never would’ve got so deep.”

Bly nodded. His eyes blazed with determination, and beads of sweat peppered his windburned brow. He was a survivor. The South might not be returning, but when it came to sheer skills as a gunfighter, I had to admit, there were certainly worse men to be stuck with.

I reached out, and without giving him any warning, I snapped the arrow off an inch or so from the entry wound. Bly’s teeth remained gritted, but his lips parted like the Red Sea. As he quietly exhaled, I heard the faintest hint of a growl. Then, without a word, Bly sealed his lips and nodded again, breathing hard through his nose. I tossed the arrow aside, and the first of the natives leapt into view.

I can’t rightly say who fired the shot that killed him. Bly and I pulled our triggers almost simultaneously. There was only evidence of one bullet hole in his chest as the warrior slammed lifelessly into the rocks in his path.

And that started it.

From the first of the warriors to the last, we dropped more than thirty men. It wasn’t satisfying or glorious. It was survival. Without a second thought, we killed every man who came at us. When the dust settled, the only sounds remaining were dripping blood, Bly’s heavy breathing, and a quick, approving whinny from Whisper.

I picked up one of the feather-adorned hatchets and Bly put his hand on my wrist. I looked at him and let his eyes follow mine down to his wounded shoulder. He looked back at me, understanding my intent, and released my wrist.

“Brace yourself,” I warned. I placed the flat side of the hatchet’s blade against the broken end of the arrow and pushed.

Bly finally cried out as the arrowhead finished its trip through his flesh and ended up poking all the way out. Stepping behind him, I placed a notch in the edge of the hatchet over the shaft of the arrow, securing the weapon like a handle behind the arrowhead. I pulled for all I was worth, and the remaining third of the arrow came out as smoothly as a knife through butter. I stumbled backwards clumsily as it pulled out, and Bly took the opportunity to be the varmint I knew him to be. Taking advantage of my brief distraction, he picked up my Colt SAA from where I’d set it on the rocks to his left and shoved the barrel right in my face.

~

“Gotta say, lawman. Yer as good as the stories make ye out t’be.” Bly looked conflicted, clearly caught somewhere between admiration and wanting to get his ass to freedom. “If’n I thought there was even the slightest chance ye’d let me go, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

“You know I cain’t do that, Bly,” I said. “I cain’t break the law, even outta gratitude.”

Bly nodded. He didn’t look any happier than I felt killing the natives. “Then I cain’t let ye live, Marshal,” he conceded. “I will take right good care of yer horse and guns, though.”

“Well, isn’t that kind of you,” I asked. “Do me a favor and make it a clean shot, will ya’? Forehead, not face.”

Bly nodded amicably. “A’yup. Seems the least I kin do.” He looked at my Colt like a man inspecting a horse before purchasing it. “Fine weapon, Marshal. Looks like ye maintained it well. I promise I’ll keep up the tradition. By the way, thank ye kindly for leaving a bullet chambered. I was counting as ye fired at the end of the firefight. Turns out, ye only needed five of your six rounds.”

“You were countin’, eh? That’s right trig of you.” I shuffled my feet a bit. “Mind if I ask one more favor, Bly?”

“Aw, hell, I’m feelin’ generous...