Written for r/WP‘s Smash ’em Up Sunday. Smash ’em Up Sunday stories are up to 800 words and are written to a set of constraints. This round’s set of constraints are
Word List: Dusty, Horse, Gunslinger, Firewater
Sentences: The untamed wilderness held endless possibility
And
A shot rang out..
Genre: Western
Final requirement: A question is answered with silence.
The cicadas’ song died off in the cooling hours of dusk and at last softer chirps of crickets down at Running Horse Creek took up the night’s watch. Their chimes were preferable to Augustus. He’d had his fill of cicadas. The whole of the young, untamed Republic of Texas held endless possibilities, they said. If that were true, it had to be somewheres the cicadas didn’t sing. Couldn’t hear himself think with the damnable things roaring like the Devil’s Punchbowl. At least now he could take up his ponderings with the gravity they deserved.
The reprieve from the heat reinvigorated, giving him a mind for all manner of tasks to pass the time. After all, there was no use in dwelling on the promise he made Fanny Shaw. By rights she’d be on her way to make sure he was held to it whether he dwelt on it or not.
It wasn’t a cheering thought. Those ponderings would ride. They always did.
He settled further into his rocking chair and set to stuffing a pipe, pinching the meager pile at the bottom of his tobacco pouch. He would smoke and think. Maybe polish his gun or saddle, get some whittling done, write to his brother, mayhaps. But there was no one to whittle for any longer, and none of the rest would be much use.
With the low moon winking through the far magnolias, he located the flask in his pack. He liberated it, letting the firewater slip past his chapped lips and beyond to do the Good Lord’s work.
It was then that Fanny Shaw, quiet as a Comanche, chose to appear on the far side of the porch, as plain as day in the Texas twilight. The gunslinger was as she’d always been. Tough lookin. All angles. A little leathery. A lot dusty. Pa used to say she was a mighty severe woman. Augustus supposed he was right. Fanny’d earned her crows feet, fair and square, every last one of them.
Graying dark braids swayed over her hips, their tiny beads clacking against iron twins as she stepped towards him. Her hands rose in peace, but he knew how fast those barrels could level in her palms.
He too raised his hands, showing their empty faces, and gestured to the stool next to him. As if he had any right to offer her a stool she owned, on land her grandpappy staked himself. Her expression said much the same.
She sat, hiking a boot on each high rung so her sharp knees stuck up in the air, her feedsack dress hanging over them with an absurd type of elegance. Augustus imagined if a cricket could wear a dress, that’s what it would look like. He offered the flask. She refused. They sat in silence, ‘til the naked moon rode high and even the chirrups lulled to nothin.
He could have holed up in the house and fired until the bullets ran out. Or met her at high noon outside of town. Hain’t right though, and a man knows a thing like that deep in his bones. No amount of gunsmoke could make some things disappear.
“Was startin to think you wouldn’t come. Maybe you would jes head for the border. Start a new life. Never look back.”
She glanced at the flask. “That rotgut has you fooled.”
He took another pull, wincing as some spilled down his split lip and chin. “Hell, Fanny. If you’re fixin’ to kill me I wish you’d jes do it.”
A thumb drifted over her revolver’s hammer, the edge of it disappearing under her dirty fingernail as she used the metal corner like a pick.
“Do you think that’s what I should do?” Her voice broke for an instant, then was iron once more. “You think it would bring back my little girl?”
She was mine, too. But the words didn’t come. Tears welled. Emptiness seized his chest like a vise. Weren’t no answer he could give. Just the promise he’d made. And broke.
She stood.
“Fanny–”
Her boots thudded with even measure to the end of the porch. With a half-strangled sob, she asked, “You got a last wish er somethin?”
Regrets clouded his vision as he met her eyes. “I got a lot of those.”
“Yeah. So do I.”
He felt the hammer cock as surely as if it were a breaking of a rib. Eyes closed, Augustus resolved to breathe deeply of the sweet magnolia breeze.
The shot rang out.
It struck as true as any bullet Fanny’d ever set in motion. Gasping and blooming crimson, he crumpled against the cabin.
“May God take pity on your soul, Augustus Shaw.” Then, as the hammer cocked back once more, “‘cause I sure as hell won’t.”
Then she fired again.