Two Bit Westerns-Eli Stone Series

By God, Dead Weaver's brother had to know he's dead already. Had to know what we did to those Townsmen, too. I dismounted to look for anything that might help me dig a large enough hole for all the dead. Wishing I'd brought that spade along at least. Until it dawned on me just how much up against time I had to be. Need some kind of defense, if we're going to have the slimmest shot at survival. "What're you going to do?" Sarah said, her voice wavering. "Bury them," I said, stirring the smoldering ashes of the wagon with a dead branch. Didn't mean the dead either. Maybe later we come back and bury what's left of these folk, if we lived.

Slowly, the boy pivoted, hands in plain sight. "So, why'd that old man send you to me?" I asked. Dave's reluctance to answer was written all over his hangdog face. "What?" I demanded. "What'd he say?" "You sure you wanna know?" I slapped leather. The boy gasped and spit, "Never see this coming. Not in a million years. And something about irritation and," he winced and grimaced, "arbitrary bastard." Must've been the face I made, or maybe that sharp intake of breath prior to. "No," Dave cried, showing his palms. "Don't shoot me, man. I was just waiting for you to get back and the door was open, like that guy said. Didn't mean to fall asleep on your couch." I holstered my weapon in a flash, pressing blood from my lips until it hurt. "All right, all right." He waxed even more pitiful, like a pissing puppy. "I found a biscuit and ate it. I'm sorry, man. I'll leave now, right now." I said, "Put your hands down," and grit my teeth. "So, where were you headed when you ran into him?" "That old guy?" "Well, who we been talking about here?" Dave recoiled and snapped, "How the hell would I know?" I glowered, the boy backpedaled a step, neither of us saying a word for two drawn breaths at least. "Can I go now?" Dave said. "I don't like the look on your face." Right then, Sarah burst through the kitchen entry. "What the hell're you doing here?" she cried. I looked from Sarah to Dave and my lungs deflated. Perish the thought. "What's that supposed to mean, Eli?" she spit harshly. "Perish what thought?" She eagle-eyed Dave into a wincing cringe and said, "I know who you are."

I leaned back in my chair and smiled. Of course there was a gang holed up somewhere. Maybe more than one. Like any two-bit western. "So, you're wanting a gun hand, I take it." She frowned and poured herself a fourth shot. "To do what?" I asked. "Keep 'em off or kill 'em all?" "You'd have to kill them, I think," she said, slurring words ever so slightly. "Soon as they find out Weaver's dead..."

"Would it be too much trouble if we stay the night?" asked Eleanor. Of course, it's trouble, but I ain't gonna say that. "Camp out by the windbreak, if you want," I said. "There's wood for cooking around the side of the house. Just keep your kids away from the windows." "Why?" Jane said. "Punji traps." Eleanor said, "Smart." "You know what they are then," I said. She nodded, but Jane said, "No." So I said, "Dig a hole and plant some sharp stakes in it, then hide it under a flap of grass. Anybody steps in one's in a heap of trouble. Keeps people from crawling in your windows." "Did you dip them?" Eleanor asked. "You bet." "Dip them?" Jane said and her sister turned to her. "The sharp ends, in shit." Thought this Jane might be verging on a heart attack then, the way her pudgy face turned red. I said, "Anybody gets away, dies of infection later." "Nobody's gotten away yet, Eli," Sarah said, and earned Jane's wide-eyed stare. I had to grin. "No, they haven't, Sarah."

"Wouldn't listen," Dave said. "Heard the shots and was going after you," Sam said. Elliot added, "Dave decked him to keep him here." "Decked him good, too," Jesse muttered. Hard to tell in this light, but I think he almost smiled. Sarah nodded grimly when I looked her way. "You told us to wait for you," Dave said, on the defensive, as if he expected flack. Tom said, "Well, maybe he'll listen next time." A look at me half-ass grinning and Dave relaxed his stance. Jeremiah groaned, slowly sat up, fingers testing a jaw that was already swelling. Mumbled something no one understood, but the pain and anger in his face was plain. His father disarming him in one smooth, but unexpected move, Jeremiah leapt to his feet, hand to that fattening jaw, screaming shit no one could understand, pointing at Tom, at Dave, Jesse, Sam and Elliot, at me. Grimacing, wincing, he turned on Sarah, took a step toward her, squalling gibberish still, and I pulled my right gun. "Back up there, boy." Stopped him dead cold, but his look at me was murder in the pure degree.

"Why didn't you ever stop him?" Tom asked her. "Or at least tell me about it so I could?" She didn't answer Tom right away, you could almost see her picking through lie after lie in her mind, and he abruptly said, "Maybe you figured once he killed me, you'd have everyone working for you." Couldn't help wondering then if she hadn't helped in some way to drive Rosa mad, if only to get rid of her as well as Tom and Joanie. Sarah kicked my foot before I got more than a word of that out loud. "So you think he wants to kill you," Becky said. "Oh, yeah," Tom said, too casually. "He's had that idea in his head for a while now. That's why I took his gun after that fight with Dave. So he couldn't shoot either one of us." She averted her eyes, but we all knew who'd planted the seed.

I tapped my saddle horn, "If. He. Survives. Said yourself he couldn't put food on a table." The look he give me, without a word, had me sucking serious air. "And you think you could do that. Pull the trigger on your own kid." Tom got nasty. "What about my other kids? You and yours. Never mind whoever One sends our way to help. Lot of lives versus just one." Color me skeptic. "But you think you could do that." "You couldn't?" I grinned cold. "Ain't talking about me now, are we." He knows I'd do it, flesh and blood be damned. I intend to live until I die and everyone who knows me, knows this. "Have to do it," Tom said, more to himself. "Too much at stake here."

Eli lay on that couch, eyes closed, thick black hair matted to his head. Face flushed like it was, I slipped my hand over the back of the couch to feel of his forehead and his fast horse almost got a piece of my sleeve. Shot to my full height then, waving both arms. "Get out of here, damn you. Go on." Kept waving, warning, trying to back that horse off some, and Eli opened his eyes. "Cricket, you damn fool," he snapped and slapped his right hip. Shot the ceiling, horse was out the door. Brought his revolver to his chest, folded his left arm over and said, "Listen, friend, if you mean to kill me with that Colt, roll your dice." I liked him instantly. "If I meant to, I'd be done already," I said. His eyes closed. "Abe Stone's son," I said. "Aren't you?" Mumbled something I didn't catch. "Do you know One Who Knows?" Sounded dumb as hell when I heard myself say it, but like I said, that's never stopped me before. Nothing out of Eli. A hand to his forehead, he was frying. That's how I met Eli Stone face-to-face. He didn't actually meet me for a few days though.

"Eli, meet Jeremiah," Tom said, "Becky's oldest." "Yours, too, Dad," he reminded Tom rather curtly and stuck his hand out to me. "He likes to forget I'm his first." I shook the boy's hand, Jesse's mouth tightened and he moved a few steps away to make room for Jeremiah at the corral fence. Tom said, "It's just easier to explain that way." "Well, I don't like the way you say it," Jeremiah announced, facing the horses. Tom rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. "Few horses you say?" he said to me, who nodded. "Come on," I said, leading off toward the barn. "Might as well pick you out some tack, then saddle up and take us a short ride." When Jesse held back, I waved him to join us. "Gonna need you, too. Got the perfect horse for you, I think." And I did, a nice black mare, big as Cricket, near as smart. Jeremiah scowled, marching next to his father. Two boys, younger than Jesse by a year or so, intercepted us between corral and barn. "Sam, Elliot," Tom said, grinning, "you guys come along, too." Is this a Western or what? The boys looked puzzled, Tom laughed and said, "That talking to yourself's gotten worse, hasn't it?" Best I could do was a stern scowl. "You spend years with just a horse." "Wish I could." And he meant that. Other, younger, boys and girls lounging on the porch came toward us, but Tom shook his head and waved them off. "Nuh-uh, you stay up here and man the corral gate for us when we come back." One boy hung his head, others frowning, and said, "Ok, Dad." Sam and Elliot roughed each other up playfully and I said, "Goddamn herd you got there, Tom. I don't know how you do it." "My job," he replied. "Your job," I said, shoving open one of the barn doors, pointing out the post ladders to all four boys, letting them go on ahead. "For God," Tom said. "You know, in the Old Testament." I nodded and he said, "Every time God destroyed a people, he left a remnant to start over. That would be us. And you." I smiled at that. Tom said, "I like to think it's proof positive that he's still got faith in us." "Must have," I said. "Maybe we'll get it right this time." "Maybe we won't."

Deaf to her, to what remained of the crowd parting like the Red Sea, in a quarter-turn, I faced a skinny teenaged boy dressed in buckskin, not six feet tall or twenty feet away, narrow shoulders, mismatched guns holstered over slim hips. Underfed. A swift scan of the roof of the black marble building caught the crown of a hat floating just above the rim. Now I frowned, squinting one eye. "Ain't gonna yell draw, are you?" "You tell 'em, Clint," somebody shouted. Even I had to grin at that. Sporadic laughter from the crowd faded to dead silence, the young man wrinkling his nose into a baby's scowl, obviously too young for the joke. "Calling you out," he said, arrogantly raising his pointy chin. "Heard you’re the man from up north." "I'm from out west originally," I replied. Somebody snickered lightly nearby, but I wasn't looking away. The boy put his face into that baby scowl again. "Ain't you the one kilt my brother?" "And which one was that?" "Shank," the boy said, his hands drifting to the butts of his guns. "Shank was my big brother." A wink from that rooftop, I slapped my hip and fired. A yelp like a battered pup, Shank's little brother spun to look. A body met the ground with a meaty thud raising a cloud of dust, leather hat seesawed after. His shiny weapon just a puff of dirt close by. Hands on his guns, Shank's little brother whirled to my leveled revolver, smoke trailing yet from the muzzle. "Even I ain't that fast, kid," I said.