A high-caliber rifle bullet whizzed over my head and through my hat, sending it spinning in the air. I fell belly-first to the ground instinctively. Black Robin, El Maquino and their bandits shouted at us from their strategic points around the gold mine.
"Come out and fight like a man, Luke!"
"Have you turned yellow on us?"
I grit my teeth as bullets bit into the dirt around us. I crawled over to my hat, put it back on and shimmied over to a convenient, waist-high rock I could sit behind and use as cover. A bullet ricocheted off the back of it and rained rock shards and dust on the brim of my hat. Noir crouched beside me with a smile on his face that was half-smirk and half-determination.
I'd seen that smile before. It meant he was about to do something unexpected and, usually, badass. I knew better than to try to talk him out of it. I started to wave him on, but he was already on the move. He blurred across the open plain in front of the abandoned gold mine that Black Robin and his gang had hoped to lure us into so they could pick us off. But Noir was faster than they could believe.
My friend blurred across the plain like a black, smoky ghost. He zigzagged unevenly left and right to dodge the gunfire.
"Son of a bitch! I can't hit him!"
"What's that smoke stuff?"
"That's Little Squirrel! It's some kind of Injun magic, that's what it is!"
"Shut up and shoot him already!" Black Robin thundered.
I watched as Noir reached the mountain the gold mine was in. He started to blur up it, but he was stopped short as a bullet bored into the rock just where he would have been. He turned and saw Black Robin across the gully, grinning sadistically with yellowed teeth.
While all the attention was on Noir, I took the chance to run forward and hide behind another cover of rock, much closer than before.
The gunfire started back up. Noir channeled murk into his legs and jumped impossible high up onto another rocky platform. One of the bandits were there with a rifle, waiting for him. He swiveled and took aim at the swordsman.
FWOOSH!
Little Sq...I mean Noir didn't even bother attacking him. Instead, he simply phased right through him and kept moving. He leaped high over the gully, stuck his rain stick into the wall and used it as a vault to make it all the way across. He blurred his way up the water tower, catapulted off and landed in front of the brown, wooden shack built right into the mountain. Noir peered into a window, turned and signed at me.
'Raven is inside.'
He reared back and kicked down the door. He walked inside, out of my sight.
Well that was easy enough. Noir was too good to be a lowly sidekick for long. I hadn't had to do a thing.
I saw Noir walk back out, but his face looked different. And I soon saw why: Cyborg...El Maqino...stood behind with a shotgun poking into his back.
...Crap.
"I just lost the tiny bit of respect I had for you, Luke!" Black Robin yelled down at me. "You sent an Injun to do a real man's job! Pathetic."
A growl built in my throat before I even realized it.
"We got your little buddy and your purty girlfriend! You gonna come out and fight like a man now?"
My eyes narrowed.
You're damn right I will-
Wait. Did he say girlfriend?
A bullet ate into my previous cover further out on the plain. They must not have seen me move.
"I don't have all day, Luke boy! I'm gonna count to ten. If you ain't come out before I reach zero, I'm killin' the Injun. Then Miss Raven is next."
I ground my teeth together and fidgeted with my hat, thinking.
"Ten!"
I didn't have a whole heaping bunch of choices. I could either show myself-
"Nine!"
Or Noir and Raven would die. That was an easy choice.
"Eight!"
I pulled my pistol out of my holster from under my poncho. I clicked it open and made sure it was loaded fully.
"Seven!"
I snapped the bullet chamber closed and cocked back the hammer with my thumb.
"Six!"
I threw my poncho over my shoulder so it wouldn't get in the way.
"Five!"
I spit the chewing tobacco out of my mouth.
"Four!"
I gave a quick kiss for luck to the cross pendant around my neck.
"THREE!"
I tensed my legs under my hips, ready to move.
"TWO!"
"Here we go..." I mumbled under my breath. "Help me out, Clint."
"ONE!"
