Chapter Five

Who knew the fastest way to cure a hangover was fear?

The shot grabbed hold of his body and held tight. Dread might have stopped the room from spinning, but his belly was still doing enough flopping he would have sworn he was stuck in a boat, bouncing from one end of the sea to another.

The next shot attempted to even tranquilize that.

His head swinging toward the sound, he stiffened further, trying to gauge the distance, trying to gauge the reason. It was close. There was no need to study the echo any further. He knew it was close. Who was on the trigger-pulling side of the iron didn't need to be examined either. It was Peavey. It had to be. There might not have been the heinous hyena-like noise backing up the blasts, but instinct was pushing past the whiskey-enhanced fog enough to be certain. Peavey was the one shooting, but was he out for practice or was his aim on a moving target?

Suddenly there was another shot.

After enduring a bottle's version of hell, he hated swallowing, but the lump of fear had to go down. If he chewed on it or it gnawed right back, all he would gain was a bigger bellyache. The swallow complete, he leaned toward the little sliver in the wall. If only it was wide enough to see the full image on its other side, then he would know what Peavey's game was. Then again, didn't he already know?

He knew Joel Peavey. In fact, he could say that he knew the outlaw better than most. After last night, some might even call them bosom chums. His face scrunched with a retort. It definitely didn't go that far, but since Peavey saved his life from choking on the unmentionable part of overdrinking, there could be a friendly description along those lines.

"I shoulda known you'd be the sickly type." Peavey leered into his ear during the most difficult hour. "No guts. No guts at all."

Why he should remember that now when he was unaware of it earlier, he wouldn't know. He shouldn't even care, but it did push the previous thought in the most accurate direction. He knew there wasn't a kind bone in Peavey's body. It was clearly the opposite. The only reason Peavey entered the room to save him from being confined during his sickness was to watch him die another way, another day. Those shots he heard just might be the beginning of that other way, and it just might be today.

His thought so close to that kind of death, the last shot felt as if it hit him. It didn't. He looked down to his middle to make sure, but there wasn't anything other than whiskey staining his front. He did wear a new bandana in his mouth. He was in enough of a stupor to not recognize it when Peavey left him at daybreak. His tongue pushed against the kerchief, now a faded red. Peavey must keep a pile of these things on hand. At least this one tasted better. But then again, how could his mouth know when it was still numb from the burn of whiskey and its even hotter version coming back out?

The shudder could have been from the booze-induced memories that flashed at him like lightning, but it wasn't something stuck inside of his head, but what was stuck beyond that wall. While Peavey might shoot to make a man tap dance for the utter thrill that would run up and down Peavey's veins, what would give him the greatest thrill was to shoot straight into his enemy's heart.

And Peavey did have enemies. He knew he wasn't the only one. This had been his fear from the moment Peavey first sneered into his ear. He could only guess who was on the other side of Peavey's bullets. He could only guess if someone had died.

Working his breath in short, rapid puffs, he swung his body upright. He went too far. His back crashing into the wall behind him, his head was quick to follow. The bang and bounce should have banged and bounced him directly into oblivion's hole again, but the noise's familiarity kept him above the dark unknown.

When had he heard that sound recently? It had been like a hard fist against the door, but it wasn't the door. It had come from behind him. Immediately twisting his frame, he pressed his ear against the wall. There was nothing beyond silence now, but someone had been in there. And if he could count on the feeling in his gut, and since the whiskey no longer prevailed there, he could count on the feeling in his gut, he knew that someone had been just like him.

But who?

The thin line on the wall now enticing him beyond endurance, he flopped to his belly. Quick to learn that crawling wouldn't get him there, he rolled to his side and then dropped to his back. He had to perform the same move ten times to call it a success. When his legs hit the wall he scooted up to both knees. It was easy to lean his body against the boards, but he wouldn't give the same description in how he could see out.

Only one eye would be able to squint through the narrow slat. But it would be enough.

He saw Peavey, all right, atop his horse and dragging something along behind him. Better make that someone. The horse's rump and its persistent tail twitch kept the man's name a secret, but it was obvious that he was Peavey's prisoner. There was another important note to take. Peavey hadn't put a bullet in his victim. Otherwise he would be lying in a puddle of blood, not locked in a defiant stance.

His eye roving to the right, he searched for the one that was down. Craning his neck, stretching his back, bending low and then high, he gave his head a shake. There was nothing to see. No one wanted to stare at his nemesis, but in this case he had to. Gaze back on Peavey, he noticed the bend in the man's neck, the precise point to the kind of land that had no end. The smile, the sickening glint that went with it was all the evidence he needed. One of his friends had fallen. He could only imagine that the type of fall was straight to his death.

Anger put his shoulder into the wood. The grunt through his chest at the hit fueled him for another attempt to bust the board loose, but before he could create another thump that jarred his frame harder than the wall, his body went still.

"Oh, no you don't," Peavey said, pulling his gun to be a straight line with the single eye.

He stared back, hoping that Peavey could see the challenge he offered in one glare. There must have been the proper connection, for Peavey's threat increased. His gun inching even closer as he stretched his arm toward the wall, the finger played along the trigger.

Suddenly the man's teeth popped out from behind his lips, and then Peavey's lilt turned into a laugh. "Wait. I'm doing this all wrong. I've got my gun in the wrong direction. It's your other friend that deserves the point, not you. It'll scratch your hide a bit more this way, and I do love to give a body an itch. So here's the thing. You make one more attempt at an escape in there, and I'll put a bullet in his leg. He's already taken one to his arm, so that oughta make a good balance. What'll it be?"

With his tongue suppressed, he couldn't offer a proper response, but his body could obey. He pulled far enough away so that not even his sleeve brushed against the wall, yet he couldn't go so far back that the opposite side went blind to him. He had to keep his eye on the gun. And he had to know which man stood beyond its point.

He believed Peavey's threat, but if the victim's name was what his heart was pounding out, there was a strong belief in that man too. He knew the man on the other side of the bullet would rather take the lead if it meant his friend's freedom. But while he would have liked to be a part of fresh air again, he wouldn't force the press of Peavey's finger, not when the cost was far too great.

In a full act of surrender, he scooted away from the wall and returned to his belly. He hadn't noticed until now that his shoulder's punch had produced any change. There was. Down closer to the floor the thin line of light had spread to a wider crack. Both eyes able to take their fill, he looked through the horse's legs to the other pair. The angle wasn't perfect but giving a twist of his neck he just might be able to give the man a name.

Eyes now beginning to burn from stretching his lashes to their widest, he caught the glimpse he was searching for. The color of hair told him everything. His chest produced a hard wallop of grief, for in that discovery was another. It meant the man he couldn't see was gone.

His mouth formed a shout, but the bandana would never let it out.

.:.

Stillness sat all around him. It was so stark that he felt that his heart and breath shared the same feeling as he stood on the receiving end of Peavey's gun. His eyes could have been boring into the black hole with enough intensity that he could see the bullet. He could have been eyeing the finger, ready to ignite the fire that would send the piece of lead into his flesh. He could have even been staring into Peavey's lifeless shade of blue. His vision held none of these things. He was trying to discern who was on the other side of that wall.

There was no sound, no color, no hint, nothing.

Who was in there?

He would know the answer if the rope that stretched from horse to hide hadn't been jerked by Peavey's hand. Coming upon the cabin, the backend of the building giving way, it became the very birth of an escape, except the downward slide could become his very death. Hearing the rockslide and knowing there was a body in its middle, he hurried to watch the fall.

That was when Peavey tugged at his rope with the kind of force that knocked him to his backside. While he scrambled quickly to his feet, it was too late. The slide had carried his friend too far for his height alone to see.

Anger running faster than his fear, he turned toward Peavey. There must have been a keg of powder in his core. He could hear the sizzle as the thin strand burned down, ready to ignite him. It didn't matter that he was bound by rope and iron, if the point of explosion was reached, nothing would hinder him.

Well, maybe one thing.

His gun rising, Peavey sent a bullet in the air. Several grueling seconds later, he blew another one out of his iron. At the third he understood. While it wouldn't tame his insides completely, the powder trail could be brushed away. The man had survived the fall. Peavey wouldn't be shooting imitation rockets into the air to celebrate the demise of an enemy. He would be shooting to make the man jump. To make all of them quiver and quake.

But he didn't then. And he wouldn't now.

Stance growing stronger, he took his gaze away from the blank wall to stare at Peavey's gun. Every spark that flashed there was daring him to pull the trigger. If his voice could put sound to his taunt it would be saying the same. He could take another shot to his flesh. Yes, it would make him bleed, it would make him limp, might even threaten to pull a dark cover over his eyes, but it wouldn't hold him down for long. He would still get up to fight Peavey another day. Today, tomorrow, it didn't matter. Even if he had to wait until they were both inside of their graves, he would greet Peavey with more than his fists someday.

Feeling the challenge, Peavey gave his shoulder a slight rise. "I can see in your face that you want me to do it. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. But there's no maybe in this. All of you will get what's coming to you."

His eyes firing back, his tongue offered the closest version he could muffle. You'll have to shoot me first!

Peavey laughed. "Surely you haven't forgotten that little display back there?"

Somehow he received a double kick from Peavey's boots, even if they weren't within range. One hit his gut, the other his heart. The burn digging into his core made his hands roll into fists. How had Peavey deciphered his retort? It had the potential to grow, to make him leap at Peavey like he had during the moment of his earlier submission, but it was the other strike against his flesh keeping him still.

No. He had not forgotten what Peavey had done. It stuck in his hide like an actual bullet, like the bullet that hit his horse. And with that sharp sting came another, make that two more jabs just like it. There was no fear of what Peavey could do to him. That was why he was willing to take another piece of lead, whether there in his leg or a more final place. The pin prickles were for his friends, and the promise from Peavey that he would kill one, or both, in front of him.

The sigh pent up in his chest too long, he had to push it past the kerchief in his mouth. "Prrrvy."

"Ah, that's what I like to hear! Surrender. Feels good, too."

"Prrrvy!"

"Nope. No going back. I heard your defeat, clear as day. So now that we're to this point, I'll leave it all to you. The man hanging from the cliff. Now, he's fighting to scramble back up. I can see enough of his back to know for sure. He just might make it, but then again, a little push from me and he'll drop to a place that has no return. And then there's your other friend. He's not in as much peril as we speak, but all it'd take is to walk into that room and drag his soon-to-be carcass behind me. And then blow his brains out. Either way sounds fun to me."

"Prrrvy!"

"Nuh-uh. Not my choice. It's all yours. So. Who's gonna die first?"

Both hands straining against the handcuffs, his thumb pounded into his chest.

"You didn't hear me right the first time. You get to watch. It'll be the man in the cabin or the man on the cliff. Tell me, who's gonna die first?"

He stared at the wall with as much fire as he flung at Peavey. But while he had hoped the flickering arrows shot at Peavey could set the man directly into the eternal blazes, he tossed a different type of flame. He needed to see inside, needed to know who sat in a truss behind that wall.

Nothing changing before him, he turned his gaze toward the hillside where the crop of rocks kept the hanging body hidden. Who was down there? Did it matter? Inside and out, both were his friends. Both didn't deserve to die. And he couldn't be the one giving their final call.

Eyes back on Peavey, he shook his head.

"All right. But it would've been more fun coming from you," Peavey said, and then gave a nod to the cliff. "That one."

.:.

I think it's time to reveal an identity. Which one do you choose first? The man stuck in the cabin, the man in Peavey's current clutch, or the man dangling from a cliff? Who?