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Iron Quill - Under the Water - Drowning in the Desert


Haunter

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Drowning in the Desert

 

Under water again.  Don’t breathe.  Lungs burning.  My mouth wants to open, to gulp in air.  Everything would be alright if I could just breathe.  Fight it.  Fight it.  Don’t panic.  What a stupid thing to say.  Panic is the only sensible response.  My pulse pounds in my ears.  Bubbles escape my nose and tickle up my face past my eyes.  I struggle.  Thrash.  I can’t hear them down here, but I know they’re laughing at me.  A few more seconds and I won’t be able to fight it.  I’m going to breathe in.  Maybe it won’t be so bad.  The edges of my vision are getting blurry and black.  Against my wishes, my mouth opens.

 

With a jerk, I’m hauled up out of the bucket.  The pockmarked bastard with the bad moustache pulls me up by a fistful of my hair.  I suck in a lungful of hot desert air that burns almost as much as the absence of it.  The midday sun is a burning ring of fire.   My eyes adjust again.  Water pours down my face.

 

“Tell the truth this time and we’ll make it stop.”  It’s the one with the eye patch who speaks.  He’s got a British accent.  Sort of cockney, but not quite.  I think he’s faking it.  “Simply confirm for us that you are, in fact, the man in black and we can put an end to this.”

 

“I told you I’m innocent!” I try not to sound as desperate as I am, “I’m not the man you’re looking for.  I have no idea who killed your friends, but it certainly wasn’t me!”

 

“He’s lying,” the moustachioed Mexican says, jerking my head back, “Just look at him.   I see the black coat.  I see the guitar.  I see the pistolas.  Sounds like the man to me.  I say we just shoot him and leave him for the vultures.”

 

“Lot of folk pass through the crossroads,” the big meathead with the wild black beard finally speaks, “We could string ‘im up like a message: Don’t mess with the Desert Dogs.”

 

“That’s why we need the truth of it, you thick skulled Neanderthal,” replies the Brit, “If we go about saying we killed the man who will not die, we better be bloody well sure we did.  If, in point of fact, we have done so, then our reputation will received a sorely needed injection of menace.  If we did not, then it seems entirely likely that the man will come around to correct that error.”

 

I say nothing.  I just look around, hoping for some sort of salvation.  All I see is miles of empty badlands.  The pitiful camp these three scavengers have set up in the little valley looks set to blow away with the next stiff breeze.  No one knows I’m here, and no one would care even if they did.  Salvation isn’t coming.  I’m going to die out here.  Drowned in the desert.  How ironic.  Maybe someone will write a song about me someday.

 

“You see my dilemma,” the Brit looks down at me with his one good eye, thumb hitched on his worn revolver, “It behooves us to be thorough in our investigation of the circumstances under which you came into our possession.  I’m very sorry to have to subject you to this.”  He gestures to the thug with my hair in his hand and I’m plunged into the water again.

 

Deep breath.  Water rushes up my nose.  It burns and forces its way down my throat.  Calm.  Be calm.  Be calm.  Let me up!  I don’t want to die here.  Distorted sounds of sloshing rushing in my ears.  Fight it.  Lips pressed tight.  Be strong.  Be brave.  He’ll pull me up soon.  Soon.  Soon?  Maybe the Mexican will let me drown.  Please.  Please.  Please.  Don’t let me die.  It hurts.  Thought my breath would last longer.  Bubbles escaping my nose.  Grit my teeth.  Be brave.  Be brave.

 

The Mexican wrenches me back out again.  I gasp and sputter.  The Brit tries to look sympathetic, but it’s so empty he shouldn’t bother.

 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I say, coughing out dirty water, “I’m just a musician.  I travel around the small towns to sing and play for a little money.  I was going to Innocence when you shot my horse out from under me.”

 

“Yes, yes, troubadour, restless soul, intrepid wanderer,” he says, “So then clarify for me why you are sporting a brace of such fine looking side arms?  It seems legitimately questionable how an itinerant bard such as yourself would be able to afford so lovely a pair of prison pistols as those.”

 

He’s got a point.  What can the truth hurt?  I’m dead anyway.  “I stole them.”

 

“A troubadour and a thief then?  A man of many talents!” The Brit seems amused by this.  I have a faint glimmer of hope.  Maybe I can win him over.  I can buy some time if nothing else.

 

“The reason I’m out here,” I try to sound confessional and conspiratorial.  I think it mostly just comes off as soggy and pathetic, “is because I stole Santiago Ortega’s pistols and he would very much like them back.” 

 

The Mexican laughs.  It’s a wet phlegmy smoker’s bark.  “You stole from the Ortegas?  Ha!  Maybe we just tie you to a horse and send you to Latigo.  Let the little sister use you for target practice!”

 

I force a weak smile, “So you can see why I’m out here in the badlands.  I just need to disappear for a while.”

 

The Beard picks up the pistols out of my piled belongings and looks closely at the markings on them, “Som’bitch is tellin true.  They got Ortega brands on em.”

 

It’s not entirely true.  I stole them from a drunk pistolero, but why muddy things with facts?

 

“You’ve certainly got hefty minerals my friend,” The Brit laughs, “Though you appear to have a significant deficit of common sense.”

 

“A’right, so I get the pistols,” The meathead scrunches his furry eyebrows till they knit, “but that don’t explain the hat ‘n the coat.  They’s still awful black.”

 

“I believe I can apprehend the intent of this clever ruse,” The Brit looks quite pleased with himself, “I think our friend here looked to borrow the man’s reputation to avoid unwanted complications.  There’s not many would impugn the reputation of the man himself.  A guitar and a pair of pistols in hand, all that’s needed were the clothes to complete the ensemble.  By all means correct me if I misspeak.”

 

I nod my wet head, “Guilty as charged.  I figured it would be easier to skate by with a little good will on my side.”  This is about as good a moment as I’m likely to get, so I play my last cards, “Speaking of good will, it sounds like you’re a few men short of a posse.  We’re all men of flexible morals.  What say you untie me and we start over?”

 

“Too clever by half, my boy,” says the Brit, still smiling, “but as my associate says, I’m inclined to just tie you to the crossroads post to send a message.”  His smile drops when he looks at the Mexican, “Drown him.  Save the bullet.”

 

One hasty breath before I’m face down in the bucket again.  Now I panic.  There’s no coming up from this one.  It’s over.  Heart’s pounding like a trip hammer.  So hard not to breathe.  I struggle and thrash.  I kick something, maybe the Mexican’s foot.  I hear my screams trapped in my throat.  I give it everything I’ve got.  Fight.  Kick.  Try to knock the bucket over.

 

Noises.  Gunshots?  A bullet passes through the bucket, an inch from my face.  The wood shatters and the water falls away.  I suck air as my face mashes down into the shattered wood.  The hand on the back of my head lets go.  I hear his body hit the ground behind me.

 

Silence. 

 

Footsteps, slow and even, crunching in the grit.

 

“You okay son?” 

 

I look up through the splayed slats of my mangled bucket.  He’s a silhouette against the blazing white sun.  Wide brim hat, duster, a smoking pistol in one hand and the other extended to help me up.  Over his shoulder I see what can only be the neck of a guitar.  I nearly piss myself.

 

“I’m okay,” I stutter, fresh dirt turning the water on my face to mud, “Thanks.”

 

He helps me up and unties the rope around my wrists.  I look around.  My tormenters lie dead in the dirt with smoking holes in them.  The sudden peace in the valley is eerie.

 

“Those are some distinctive looking duds,” he nods toward the pile of my belongings.  He’s got this low deep drawl that’s almost hypnotic,

“Don’t suppose you’d know anything about them?”

 

Busted.  Think fast.

 

“Yeah,” Looking pitiful comes pretty easy to me in this moment, “That’s how they snookered me.  The one with the eye patch.  He was dressed like you.  I…” A little shift from pitiful to sheepish, “I thought he was you, I mean from a distance.  When I came up close his two thugs jumped me and took everything I had.  They bound me up and tortured me.  They were looking for you.  He dressed up like you when they robbed folk passing through the crossroads.  He said he figured you’d come looking, then they’d do for you.”

 

“So you’re just an innocent fella passing through, huh?”

 

It freaks me out that I can’t see his eyes in the shadow of his hat.  I have no idea what he’s making of any of this.

 

“Yeah, nothing much to it,” I say, shaking my head ruefully, “I was just riding for Innocence, looking to get clear of the city and find some honest work.”

 

“Uh huh,” He pokes at the pile of clothes with the toe of one worn boot, “Well son, might be that news travels slow, but Innocence has had some troubles of late.  I’m thinking it ain’t a place for an earnest and hard-working fellow like yourself.  Tell you what though, I’m heading north.  Why don’t you join me?  Help me get those fine looking irons back to their rightful owner.” His tone clearly implies there is a lack of alternatives, “Latigo’s always been friendly to me.  I’ve a mind to repay the kindness.”

 

I start thinking I was better off drowning.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fair point.  That was sort of the intent, though I may have taken it too far.  I remember a character from some movie... Sin City I think, who used way over the top pedantic language in an effort to sound smart despite the fact that he was essentially just a goon.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

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