Chapter Nine

"And here you said I'm not a good liar."

My eyes fluttered open to find Slim standing over me. "You're not."

"You believed all of that hogwash I dumped in front of you, didn't you?"

"I… I dunno… I…" I hate stammering. It's not that it makes me feel like I'm a frightened lamb stole too young from its ma or anything, I just hate when my tongue don't work right in front of an enemy. Dadgum. Did I really just think that? Slim ain't my enemy anymore. He's already proved that we're still pards. But if that's true, then why's he wearing the kinda glint in his eyes that only belongs to one of the devil's favorite kids? "Slim, I…"

"What's the matter? The truth about us too hard to swallow?"

I did swallow and dadgum he was right. It sure hurt to go down. "You ain't a liar, Slim. You're too good'a man to become that filthy."

"Then explain this."

Hand rising, Slim's pistol went as high as my head and stopped. "Slim?"

"I told you what I was going to do if I saw your face again."

The barrel of the gun producing bursts of hot and cold air alike, sweat and shivers were quick to cover me. "But I thought that you wanting me gone was just a made up story, courtesy of Heckard Channing."

He laughed. "That's what I wanted you to believe. In fact I had to make you believe it so I could win back your trust."

"What's trust gotta do with it?"

"How else could I walk right up to you and blow your brains out without you attempting to do the same to me? And here's the deal about trust. I don't trust you at all."

"Ain't I been unconscious enough for you to do me in? Two days, three nights, something like that. That shoulda given you all the time in the world."

"You make a good point, but you see, it sweetens the pot rather nicely having you watch. What's more, to have you know exactly who's doing it to you. Me."

"At the start of all of this, Heckard said you didn't want me dead. What changed?"

"The fact that you aren't really gone. I want to forget you, Jess. I want you completely out of my mind. But I was wrong. Your death's the only way I can achieve that. And since I already paid Heckard Channing one hefty sum, I don't figure on opening my wallet twice to him."

I tried to look past his angry expression to find the door. I couldn't see anything other'n Slim. And his gun. "You ain't a murderer, Slim. I know you ain't. Gimme a chance to prove that, will you? Lemme go out on my own. I swear I'll head to the west coast and stick my stake in the sand. You'll never see me again."

"No, Jess. This is as far as you'll ever go. It's over right now."

The hammer going down, I flinched. "Slim, wait."

"What for?"

"I just wanna know why."

He tilted his head. "Why does there have to be a reason?"

"There's gotta be! Nobody can change that fast. We were partners. I thought we were like brothers. What happened?"

"Yeah, we were, but you're too good, Jess."

Now it was my turn to laugh. "Me, good? My insides are about the same color as all that charcoal in the fireplace over there. You call that good?"

"That's not the kind of goodness I'm talking about."

"Then what?"

"You're too good at everything you put your hand to. You were already the best at gunfighting when you first rode in. Now that I mention it, you're the best at riding, too, and roping and branding calves. You're even the best when it comes to turning a woman's head. But where it counts the most is that you're the best at the ranch, Jess. I lived my entire life as a rancher's son and then a full-fledged rancher myself. You waltz in and without any experience running a ranch—boom!—you're better than me. I can't compete with you at work, at fun, at anything. You've won it all. And it's got to end before you take over the ranch completely."

The dawning light musta come with a lit match, for I felt my hide chafing as if I was being burned. "I wouldn't take your ranch from you."

"Wouldn't you?"

"No!"

"Then why has it taken two years for you to vacate? You're a drifter, a no-account that should've drifted away a long time ago. Every time you do drift I begin to hope my life can find some kind of normalcy again, but then you come back. You always come back! Why is that if you don't want a permanent stake on the place?"

"Because we're friends. That's why."

"No. You're no friend of mine. You're the opposite. A piece of scum, too low for me to even wipe my feet on."

"Then go ahead and shoot me! I don't care anymore."

"Fine, Jess. I'll do exactly what I've been dreaming of doing for a long, long time."

I don't think I was an angry as Slim was, but my heart was pumping enough fury to make my chest heave. There was also a lotta fear inside of me. Dadgum, there ain't no other way to feel when staring at your imminent death. In those last few seconds that I locked eyes with Slim, I realized I wasn't the only one afraid. His gun was coming closer to me and I reckon by the position he was taking the barrel that I was gonna wear the bullet right between the horns, but there was something else going on with his hand other than finding the target. Slim was shaking so hard I could hear his teeth rattle.

So he wasn't pure evil after all. He didn't really wanna kill me. Even if his tremble didn't make it obvious, I could see it in his eyes. Slim didn't really wanna kill me.

"Slim, don't do this," I said, my voice soft, rather pleading. "Please."

"Jess."

There it was. That ain't the sound of hatred, but of friendship. Now I've gotta find the rest of him. I've gotta pull the tried and true Slim Sherman outta the depths of Hades before it's too late. "Slim, put the gun down. Let's talk about the old times, the good times."

A tear slid down his cheek. "No, Jess. I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to make me back down. But it won't work."

"Won't it? Look at yourself. You're trembling. You're crying. That ain't the way of a killer. Believe me, I know."

"Stop it, Jess. I've got to get you out of my life!"

"Then let me ride away. It's as simple as that."

"Jess, I've got to… I've got…"

"No you don't, Slim. All you gotta do is lower your gun and let me walk out the door."

"All right, Jess," he said, sniffing, but the tears couldn't stop their rain. "You win. Like always, you win."

It hurt having him use that line. To be clear, I ain't always the winner. My life's so far from perfect that if I was a gemstone, no amount of cutting and polishing'd ever make me sparkle. But since Slim's been seeing me in a different kinda light these last few years, maybe I do have something shimmering on my hide. I dunno. Whether fully tarnished or not, I reckon all that matters is that I'd talked myself free from his wrath, so maybe I am the winner here.

Except it didn't quite turn out that way.

He did pull his gun back. I watched as the tip of Slim's gun came away from my forehead, but during the retreat, Slim's hand shook even harder. It was the sweat, the tears, perhaps the guilt, maybe even more that made Slim's finger slip. Instead of letting go of the iron completely, he gripped the gun tighter. In that movement, Slim squeezed the trigger.

Heat exploding in my face, my hands crashed against the burst of pain. As my body slammed against the floor, I expected the coffin's lid to smack atop of me just as hard. But it didn't. Hell wasn't gonna let me in the front door that fast.

Dadgum! Why do I gotta be the only man in the world that's ever lived long enough to witness the gory of a pointblank bullet? Blood pouring worse than a waterfall, I could barely see through the red curtain. But even though I wanted to die, knew I was dying, I couldn't force my eyelids shut to welcome that everlasting shadow. I had to witness this last view, to know Slim was feeling just as much pain as I was. Because he didn't mean it. I know Slim didn't mean to kill me.

Slim's knees dropping onto the floor at the same time his gun was flung behind him, he screamed. "Jess! Forgive me!"

I had one last breath, and I reckon there was only one way to use it. "I already have, Pard."

A large, hairy hand grabbing my shirt front, I felt my soul being parted from my body. Here come the flames. I wonder if I fight hard enough I can shake off this beast and head on over to the golden stairwell instead. My hand shooting outward, I made connection with the burly chest and forced him back a foot or two. But I reckon the devil's got a lot more'n me when it comes to fighting and cussing and causing all kinda mayhem. My weary soul didn't stand a chance, for the hands were back upon me, throttling me and his hot air, it was streaming into my nose with the acridity of a lit keg as he screamed my name.

"Jess!"

The shaking getting harder, I blinked my eyes and the black and red flames changed places with gentle light. "What?"

"I said wake up!"

My focus getting clearer, I saw a familiar face where once I'd been staring at Satan. "Slim?"

"Yeah, it's me. Are you finally back with me or are you still lost in the dark?"

"I dunno, I…" There I went again, stammering like a fool. I reckon I can lay all the blame on my head. It hurts like more'n one bullet's parted my scalp. Wait. Ain't that what happened? "You shot me!"

"No, I hit you."

My hand sitting on my throbbing forehead, I slowly pulled it away and searched for the puddle. There wasn't a drop of red in sight. "You hit me?"

"I had to wake you up. You were thrashing so severely I thought you were going to break right through the wall."

I looked around me at the single room that made up the rundown shack. And then I looked at Slim. "I was asleep?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry I punched you rather hard. I just didn't know what else to do."

"So I've been dreaming? All this time it's been a dream?" My hands flinging up, I grabbed Slim's shoulders and held tight so I could keep his wide-eyed blue right in front of me. "Tell me how much of this has been a nightmare. And so help me, Slim, if it's all the way back to the beginning of this dadgummed story when I first stepped outta the saloon to a bunch of roughnecks with heavy boots, I swear I'll never touch a drop of medicinal purposes again!"

"To save both of us a load of grief, I wish I could tell you that you've been asleep for a week straight, lost in a whiskey-induced coma so you can kick the habit for good. But you haven't. I'd say from the way you were calling out, your dream lasted about fifteen minutes."

I closed my eyes. But then again, maybe I shouldn't or the scent of smoke'll be clinging to my clothes again. There wasn't anything like that inside of my eyelids, though. Death, hell and the main man that made his campsite there wasn't real. Well, at least not in my current state of living, they ain't. That meant Slim killing me wasn't real.

Dadgum. A dream. It'd only been a dream.

I see the truth now. The longer I'm outta sleep's blackest pit, I could put together the little things of a dream that proves it was only a cockamamie picture living inside of me. The dream'd seemed real at the time, even through the blur, because I coulda easily blamed that on the pain that's gotta constant hold front and back of my head. But now that I'm remembering the details, the arm holding the gun on me was clad in a black shirt. Slim ain't never worn anything that dark. Right now, he's wearing the blue shirt I got him for Christmas. And there was more. The walls around me are plain. In the dream, I looked like I was back at home.

Air coming outta my lips in a grateful rush, I let my lashes flutter back open. "Dadgum."

"That must've been some nightmare you were having. Care to tell me about it?"

Dadgum, no. Not ever. I wish I could never think of it again myself, but I know that'll take an awful long time to recover from something like that.

Feeling him start to move away, my grip went into his flesh tighter. While I might not be willing to recreate my death for Slim's benefit, I couldn't let him go yet. "Wait, Slim. There's something that I don't understand in all of this, something that I gotta find out or a dream like that might make a grisly comeback. Or maybe that dream's still gonna come true. I dunno. But I gotta find out right now."

"What is it, Jess?"

"I believe you when you said there'd been a gun on you at the ranch house, forcing you to sign your name, to clear out all of my belongings, everything. But there wasn't a gun on you when you were here. It was just you and me. And you sounded so convincing there just ain't no other way but to believe that just as much."

"When?"

"You were lying right here, suffering from those bullet wounds."

Slim left the lock of my eyes to look back and forth across the small room. "Here?"

"Yeah. After I tucked you into the cot, let's just say you were less'n cordial."

The furrows on his forehead grew rather deep. "Jess, the only conversation I remember having was with Heckard Channing."

"He was here?"

"He must've been. I remember seeing him, talking to him and we certainly weren't swapping anything but bullets when he and that cousin of his were taking aim at my flesh when he caught up with my path awhile back."

"I was wondering who'd shot you. That makes me wish I coulda wrung his neck all the more. But that's another thing, Slim. I followed their trail before it petered out. They went south. Sure, I lost sight of them, but I woulda noticed if they'd circled back to the cabin. They didn't."

"But I remember him. Heckard had to have been here with me."

"No, Slim. I don't think so. The only person that was here with you was me."

Slim pushed out a long breath of air, one that sounded rather concerned. "And you think I said something to you that'd put a stone wall between us?"

"More'n a stone wall."

"Tell me some of the things I said."

I closed my eyes and the vision of the dream haunted me all over again. I couldn't stop the tremble from taking hold of me and I hoped that lifting my lashes would take the scene and bury it for good. "You said if you ever saw me again, you'd blow a hole through my head."

"I said that to you? That's not possible. That's the last thing I said when I saw Heckard Channing."

Burying my memories was sounding better by the second. "You said that to him?"

"I did."

Except there was something else to remember that carried the power of broken glass against my flesh. "But you also said you hated me. You even called me scum."

"I don't remember that. I couldn't have said that!"

"But you did."

"All right, hold on. Let me think. I remember dreaming of you. But when I woke, all I saw was Heckard's ugly face looming over me."

"That was me."

Slim's head wagged back and forth in a rough shake. "That can't be right. Heckard was the one that was keeping me company."

"No, Slim. That was me."

Mouth agape, Slim grew pale. "Oh, Jess. I'm so sorry."

"Slim. Do you mean to tell me that while you were looking at me, you were seeing him? You were saying all of those things to him?"

He put his fingers up to his hairline. "I must've been. I had a blow to my head, so I guess anything is possible when part of your skull's caved in."

I pulled back. Yeah, I believed him, I wanted to believe him, but at the same time, it was kinda hard to believe him. I reckon it's because the words he'd said cut too deep to be mended with his explanation.

He musta felt my doubt. "Jess? Don't you believe me?"

"I dunno, Slim."

"Jess, I wish I had something better to go by, but it's just so hard to put what I saw into words. Wait. Maybe you do know. When you first woke up, not from your nightmare, but when you first woke up, didn't you think I was an Indian?"

The half-breed's face was too dark to replace Slim's completely, but in truth, I didn't have to imagine too hard adding his image inside the room. I reckon that's because I had thought he was here, a lot more recently than when we first met. "I guess I did, Slim. I reckon we both got our heads turned around. I reckon mine's still caught in a troublesome place more'n I wanna admit. How about you?"

"I feel a lot better. But all I had against my skull was a gun butt. You never did tell me what hit you. Can't you remember anything at all?"

I slowly nodded my head. "Yeah. I got hit by a pair of iron fists, more times than I wanna count."

"What?"

"A horse."

It wasn't a place for laughing, yet Slim sputtered out a chuckle anyway. "A horse?"

"Yeah. Name's Demon. Dadgum, that reminds me," I said as my hand felt for my pocket. "Well, would you look at that?"

He did and at the sizable sum, Slim couldn't help but finger the roll of bills. "Jess, this is five hundred dollars. How'd you get it?"

"Like I said, I got hit by a pair of iron fists. Demon's, that is. He sure gave me a walloping I'll never forget."

"And for that you were given five hundred dollars?"

"Not really. Let's just say that the five hundred was the closest price of friendship I could find."

Slim pointed at my head. "You got this for me, didn't you?"

I shrugged. "I reckon that mostly depends on if Alamo's tied somewhere out front."

"He is. Traveler is too."

"Well, I'll be dadgummed," I said, my smile able to genuinely grow. "I didn't go through this for nothing after all."

"You'll have to explain yourself, Jess, because right now, all I want to do is scratch my chin at that."

Since I hate putting myself on a pedestal, all I did was lift one shoulder. "I dunno, Slim. My throat's kinda dry from all this talking. Maybe another time."

"Let me get you some water, Jess, to help loosen your tongue."

My thirst grew tenfold. "Coffee'd go better."

"All I've got is water."

"Dadgum," I answered, and then all my thoughts about myself disappeared. Halfway across the room, Slim's upper half swayed toward the floor. "Slim!"

He immediately pulled his hand away from his waist, but I couldn't miss the ugly grimace he put on his face. "I'm all right."

"No you ain't. Sit down. What with everything happening to me, I kinda forgot about what you've gone through. Now sit down before I knock you down."

"You wouldn't be able to swing a hard enough right, Jess, and you know it."

"Could to. Only don't make me prove it."

He smiled. "All right, I'll sit."

"Good," I said and then scooted over so we could share the only seat. "You said you'd taken a gun butt up there. When'd Heckard clobber you?"

"After he shot me up."

My fists closed over in anger. "He told me he got pleasure in seeing his victims suffer. I reckon that includes you."

"He obviously expected me to die. Now that I'm remembering those last moments before darkness came and took over, I expected it, too."

I was still angry. Dadgum, I've must've been carrying my entire weight's worth of fury on my chest. But I did have to soften some. Thankfulness had a way of doing that to me and I was more'n grateful that Slim didn't die. Praise be instead of praise me. Since Slim didn't know, though, I had to throw in a little personal glory.

"I reckon you woulda if I didn't have my knife on me. There ain't no doc in these parts."

"You took the bullets out?"

"I did. I'm glad you didn't see the way my hands were shaking. If you had, I reckon you woulda galloped right through that door before I touched you. Sure, I dug the lead out without damaging your carcass further, but using the style of an experienced doc, I did not."

Slim's hand reached for the bullet wound on his leg. "That's kind of hard to grasp, Jess."

"What? Me pretending to have surgeon hands? Dadgum, I've done it before."

"I know you're a good pretender, but that's not it. You took the bullets out of me and all the while you thought I hated you."

"Yeah. So what about it?"

"Why'd you do it?"

"I couldn't let you die. You were still my friend no matter what you'd done to me."

"Jess, I don't know what to say."

I could sense he was struggling to hold back his emotion. If I thought about it enough, I just might join him. I figured I'd smile and leave the rainy season alone. "You don't gotta say anything. It's enough that we've never been enemies."

"I know you're right, Jess. But I have to say thanks anyway. I couldn't be a proper friend without telling you how much I appreciate what you did. Thank you."

"Dadgum, it was nothing."

"I knew you'd say something like that."

I shrugged. "I coulda said you owe me five bucks for the operation. Ain't that what Doctor Sweeney charges?"

"I think that's per bullet."

"Dadgum! Then you owe me ten!"

"I'll try to remember come payday," Slim said, and I instantly felt the change in his demeanor. The little bit of lightheartedness was gone. "That makes me think of the payroll. And someone else that's fully involved in this."

"Heckard Channing." The animosity came off my mouth with a rather hard spit. "But what're we gonna do about him? We're both too beat up to go after Heckard, especially when he's got such a jump ahead of us. Besides, Heckard's bound to've gotten that money by now and running with a smile all over his face."

Slim sighed as he put his head against the wall. "I know. Right now we're both alive and together. That's got to remain our focus."

Yeah, but that ain't all of it. Not by any stretch. Heckard Channing might be gone. But not forgotten. Not forgotten at all.