The Bridge

66

Chastain, Eddie, Virgil, and I left the two men tied up under the dilapidated tent and walked down the trash-cluttered road toward the wood-sided tent with hurting and hunched-over Dee in tow.

“Who’s behind this, Dee?” Virgil said, as we walked.

Dee’s mouth was bleeding heavily from being smashed into the eight-gauge. He just shook his head.

“Talk, Dee,” Virgil said.

Dee didn’t respond.

In the short walk, we were at the tent on the opposite side of the creek with women’s garments hanging on the stake ropes. We passed a few small tents and shacks as we got closer but didn’t see any other of the holdouts milling about.

Like we’d figured, with it being winter, the Yaqui Brakes weren’t at their full capacity.

When we stopped in front of the big wall-sided tent, a new guitar and fiddle tune started up from inside.

“This it, Dee?” Virgil said.

Dee didn’t answer, but we could tell this was where we needed to be. In fact, looking down the pathway of the camp road, there were no lights and no fires burning.

“Good, Dee, appreciate it,” Virgil said, as he looked around. “Do me a favor and have a sit right here.”

Virgil pointed to a crude chair made from green branches. The chair was sitting in front of an expired fire pit on the opposite side of the narrow road just across from the wood-sided tent.

Dee dropped in the chair and looked to the ground.

“Eddie,” Virgil said, without looking at Dee. “You stay out here with your Winchester at the back of his head.”

Virgil nodded to Chastain and me.

“The three of us are going inside here and pay these other fellas a proper visit,” Virgil said. “If this one here has any intentions of doing anything other than staying in this chair, kill him.”

Eddie nodded.

Dee remained looking at the ground, watching the blood drip from his mouth.

Virgil looked off down the path toward the men at the far end, but they were gone. Then Virgil looked to the big tent, then to Chastain and me. He nodded.

“Let’s go,” Virgil said.

We started toward the tent, but just before we got to the opening, Dee sprang out of the chair, shouting and running toward the tent, “Dirk! Fucking law, Dirk! Law! LAW... DIRK!”

The report of Eddie’s Winchester echoed loudly through the brakes. The bullet hit Dee in the back of the head and he fell face-first in the dirt. Without a moment of hesitation I was through the entrance of the tent, with Virgil and Chastain right behind me.

Inside was chaos. The guitar player and the fiddler, two older fellas, cowered and dropped to the ground. Two half-naked women screamed loudly. A man next to them raised his arms above his head, but the man next to him came up quickly with a sawed-off.

I let go with one barrel of the side-by-side. The sound was deafening, as the eight-gauge double-ought buck blasted out of the barrel. The man’s head exploded and splattered over the wall behind him.

Another naked man came out of the back of the tent with a pistol in each hand and my second shot detonated with a blast of fire that knocked him back the way he came.

We heard two shots fired outside the tent, followed by Eddie shouting, “Two, out here.”

I followed Virgil and Chastain as they backed out quickly from the smoke-filled tent.

“Got one,” Eddie said, pointing to a man on the ground next to the tent, writhing in pain. “They came out the back. The other is running off that way, in the creek.”

“Stay right here,” Virgil said to Chastain. “Shoot anybody else who needs it.”

I’d already reloaded as I moved toward the creek.

“I’ll take the creek, Virgil,” I said. “You take the road.”

Virgil was moving.

I pointed my eight-gauge at the man on the ground next to the tent. I could tell right away this was the bearded man I saw riding into town. This was Dirk, Dirk the cold-blooded murderer Cotter. He looked up at me.

Those were the eyes, the eyes I remembered: the murdering eyes. He was fully dressed. He’d been shot in the back and he was clutching his gut where the bullet exited. There was a rifle just out of his reach he’d obviously dropped when Eddie shot him. I grabbed it and slung it back toward Eddie. I thought as I moved off down into the creek bottom, How fitting. How fitting that both Dee and Dirk were shot by Eddie.

Just as I heard the water splashing under my feet, I heard a shot and saw ahead of me the flash of a muzzle as the bullet hit me.

I felt my legs give out. I fell back and dropped into the icy creek. Then all I could hear was the cold water rushing past my ears. I could see the stars above me.

I thought about Séraphine, beautiful, mysterious Séraphine. I thought about being in her arms. I thought about her long, slender legs and her dark, silky hair. I thought about touching her, touching her soft porcelain skin. I thought about her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes looking at me.

I remembered her intoxicating smell. I remembered. I remembered. I remembered. I smiled thinking, Cotter, men running, and water, water, water. I remembered. I remembered...

There’s Orion’s Belt just there, I thought. It is, that’s Orion’s Belt.