Missing – A conclusion

The Dealer

Chapter One

Awareness rose like the dawn. An indigo film lighting the blackness beneath his eye lids. Sensations swirled around him brushing his skin in soft breaths. Something…something nagged at him as he sluggishly accepted the itching at his shoulders, the weight of a hat on his head, the pressure of his standing feet. Something niggled just out of understanding as he desperately sought…something missing…something that he couldn't find.

Absence.

The absence of sound.

The absence of his gun.

His eyes opened abruptly as the fingers of his left hand cupped the edges of his ear, the right landing against his empty hip while his head jerked upwards knocking the hat from his head. A broad rimmed, straw sombrero ranchero lay at his feet, wobbling back and forth on the tall crown coming to rest as he watched, his thoughts lost and unfocused. Leather strapped sandals formed a slim barrier between his soles and the pale colored dirt where he stood. The dim white weave of the all too familiar peasant garb of his youth and miserable eternity of his incarcerations cloaked his legs, covered his chest, scratched at his back. His holster, his Colt, his lifeline, were missing.

Searching his surroundings, an ingrained habit necessary for his survival, revealed an ordinary street framed with flat roofed adobe structures, a mix of stained white and bleached brown of assorted heights. Worn wood hitching posts held together by frayed rope stretched along the building fronts. He had been here—wherever here was—far too many times to wonder at the place. An impoverished town, one just like the other. Empty of promise. Empty of life.

Empty.

Nothing moved, not even the wind.

He heard only the ragged draw of his own breath. He had life. That surprised him. His right hand toyed with the coarse fabric at his hip, the left slipped along the smooth skin of his jaw, the fingers pushing his chin up, finding the steady pulse proclaiming that his heart beat and he wondered why.

The sun burned the crown of his head, the curve of his shoulders but he couldn't see it. Only the blaze of a white sky, dull as the colorless town, spoke of the merciless heat. Yet at his core, cold crept like an insidious fog toying with his soul.

Suddenly the sharp trumpet of a bell clanged loud enough to cover his yelp of surprise. He spun. A tower rose above him, but the location was unclear as smaller buildings stood in his way. The heart of the town, a guard keeping watch. The bell was calling. And the call was urgent.

He started to run, stumbled, and fell face first into the dirt, his mouth filled with the dust. He struggled to pull his knees beneath him, wiping uselessly at his eyes, the dampness of his sleeve smearing the grime into mud. He had no time to consider how the dampness came to be or why his skin felt clammy. The incessant ringing pulled him with a force that overcame the frailty of his body and with his right arm hanging loosely at his side, the left tucked at his waist, he yanked himself toward the need of the tower. Or was it his need? What need he couldn't say, but the niggling memory of a promise he hoped to fulfill dragged him on.

And then it stopped. The residual touch of the sound throbbed in his ears. The bell ended its call—silent now—but the tower remained, waiting.

He moved painstakingly along the empty street, his eyes seeking a path to the base of the tower. One step forward, the other dragged in its wake, a shallow trench in the dust marking his passing. Quiet wrapped around him as if every living thing was hidden in its depths. And then he heard the clink of glass.

He flipped toward the noise and faced yet another nondescript structure except for the faded letters painted with uneven script scrawled along the space above the door. S-a-l-o-o-n. He glanced toward the bell tower, but it kept its secrets. He tugged at his lower lip with his teeth and took a step to the sound from the interior. The batwing doors squeaked as he pushed through and fell with his back against the left side wall.

He paused to allow the glare to leave his eyes and the shapes within take form. The cooler air brushed against his heated face making him inhale a deep breath through his barely parted lips helping his pounding heart to slow. Tables with mismatched wooden chairs and benches, empty, spread haphazardly throughout the room. A bar, sturdy enough, told no tales although a single shot glass filled with clear liquid beckoned about half-way along its pocked marked surface.

A new sensation lay against his hip. His right palm folded around the butt of his gun, a part of himself returned. Warm air pushed through his nostrils although he masked his face hiding the relief that wrapped him like tender arms sliding beneath his arms to embrace him. The promise of a black shine on his boots shoved out from the tight leather of his calzoneras, the silver conchos climbing up his outer leg dusted by the street. Although he leaned against the wall in a deceptively disinterested pose, a jolt coursed through him at the vision of the faded red shirt with dark embroidery announcing his presence.

Madrid. Johnny Madrid.

But there was no one to see. No eyes to duck and cower. None to judge his worth.

He frowned. That wasn't right. He was something more. He was given something more and had clung to it as the most treasured thing in his life. But it was being stripped away back to the bare bones of his existence. He turned his hands to stare at his burning palms but saw only the calloused flesh, dread curdling in his gut. Thick barriers slammed into place. Any hint of weakness was buried in the muddled throes of his consciousness. Madrid was never weak. He knew that and cloaked himself in that knowledge.

Taking the needed steps to reach the glass, the comforting ring of his spurs echoed in the soundless room, asserting the confidence he didn't feel but was required to project. The barrenness of the place did nothing to remove the promise of the threat. He lifted the glass, brought it to his nose and sniffed.

Tequila.

He looked up into a mirror that stretched the length of the bar back. He blinked rapidly, not grasping the images drifting within its surface. Despite facing the mirror, he could not see his own reflection. He spun, the liquid spilling over his hand. The room remained empty. He slowly tilted his head to stare over his shoulder while keeping the room itself in his periphery. He forced his body to resist the tightening in his chest, the flicking of his fingers.

The mirror danced with people milling in the bar. Working girls thrusting their cleavage forward as they sashayed with trays filled with beer mugs and bottles of whiskey. Players tossed chips into piles, cards clutched in their hands, as their fortunes were made and lost. A drunk at a corner table sloughed to the floor as a cowboy dumped him out of the chair and rowdy vaqueros raised their mugs in delight of a table claimed for the night. A lively parlay played out in every saloon and cantina he used for a night. Except he stood alone.

The chilled tendrils of dread rose up and toyed at his throat which had lost the ability to swallow it back. Fear tightened and choked as despair ripped at his guts with a battering of failure, although how he failed lingered in the darkness. Its bite tore at him, nonetheless, threatening to take him to his knees in grief as it burst through whatever veil kept it at bay. He turned back and bent over the bar, his arms extended, grabbing the far side, his head laid out upon the damp surface. He sucked in air, unable to make sense of the reflection of the people who didn't exist mirrored in the spilled tequila that glistened on the wood.

It entered his consciousness slowly like a persistent tap at his shoulder wanting attention. The soft serration of cards shifting one between the other in a harmonious dance then sifting smoothly into a single deck, settled upon the surface of a table. Somewhere to his left, along a short hallway, a doorway stood a jar. A tap against the wood and the dance resumed.

The soothing sound of the cards caused him to blink, forcing the enlarged pupils to retract and the vivid blue of his irises to reassert dominance. His fear stepped back although his grief cut deep, a seeping wound bereft of binding. He shoved himself up, turned away from the mirror and took concentrated steps to the doorway. He gave the paneled wood a gentle nudge with his shoulder as he moved onto the threshold, the hinges announcing his entrance with a high-pitched squeal. He crossed his arms as he leaned against the doorjamb and watched.

A lone man sat at a round table facing him, a single chair across from him. The cards moved fluidly from his long fingers to the felt covered tabletop. That he was a gambler was not in question. As an adjunct to the worn deck of cards deftly spread before him, the black felt jacket trimmed in gold at the cuffs where white ruffles bloomed from the sleeves and the bright red cravat with diamond stickpin was as clear a uniform as any military officer. Had more slim and neatly manicured fingers been available, additional rings would have bejeweled his hands.

Other than the costume, the man seemed nondescript. A thin moustache rimmed his upper lip, light brown matching his straight, thinning hair trimmed tight against his head. Thin face with a sharp clefted chin. High cheekbones uncolored by the touch of the sun. Nondescript until the gambler's attention left the table and settled on him.

The golden eyes struck him like a predator preparing to pounce and the subsequent rapacious welcome in those eyes made him freeze in place. Well-honed tools of his trade allowed him to thrust the intimidation aside and he sent the challenge back.

"Quiet night," Johnny's soft-spoken drawl bounced throughout the room as if refuting his claim.

"Depends on what you're looking for, I suppose. What are you looking for?" the dealer asked, his voice deep, the sound encompassing the room. With the door pressing against his back, Johnny knew this had become the only room in existence in this place.

"Scott."

The name rolled off his tongue with a surety that he knew was accurate and as soon as the sound reached his ears, the memory of his brother at the bottom of the mine shaft filling with water overwhelmed him. He knew now where he failed. He allowed his brother to drown in that pit, unable to sustain the strength he needed to pull him from its depths.

With a clarity that surprised him, he knew where he was and who sat before him. Johnny surged toward the table shouting, "Let me find him - save him, then you can have me! That's what was agreed!" The memory of the words he directed toward whatever force filled the sky darkened with thunderous clouds, rain thudding into his face, imploring its intervention almost choked him. The strength he survived on, always shoving emotion aside, found him once again. He slammed both fists against the table causing the cards laid on its surface to jump. "Save him! Take me! That was the deal!"

"Deal! Why didn't you say so. Sit. Sit." A booted foot, pointed gold tips on the toe, shoved the chair out. Feeling like he was pulled by a string, or snared by a web, Johnny slid bonelessly into the seat. "What are we playing for?" The long fingers dexterously shuffled the cards.

"My brother's life." Johnny's hand rested on his gun because it gave him comfort, not because he gave any credence to its use in this place. A pile of coins appeared before him, a large opening pot in the center of the table.

"Interesting choice. Most play for themselves," the dealer stated, his golden eyes appeared to swirl. "Five card draw." The cards skidded along the table, Johnny stopping each as it arrived. Raising only the corners, his heart lurched at the King of Hearts, and he raised his eyes without moving his head to peer across the table at the dealer. The man stared back, his face expressionless. Johnny used his thumb to spread the remainder of the cards revealing both the eights of clubs and spades. He removed the two of diamonds and three of hearts and shoved them back. The dealer tossed the replacements then patted his own hand, and laid the deck aside, his entwined fingers resting on top of his cards.

Two pair. The aces of clubs and spades joined the eights. The Dead Man's Hand. Fair enough. Who he faced, God or Devil, Johnny didn't choose to know. He only knew he would sacrifice anything to save his brother. The King of Hearts burned in his hand. Maybe there was still a chance. Johnny drew in a deep breath and shoved the entire pile of coins to the center of the table then flipped the cards to reveal their worth.

"Take me," the words were a growl in Johnny's throat.

The dealer shrugged. The first two fingers of his finely groomed hand gestured toward the pot wordlessly telling Johnny to claim it. The sudden toll of the bell made Johnny leap to his feet.

"There's time for another hand, Johnny," the dealer calmly announced, his golden eyes locked on him.

The bell rang, a jarring sound. Johnny didn't wait. He ran through the empty bar and slammed against the batwing doors at full speed. His body tumbled into the barren street. He raised his head to stare at the circular tower, its top cut by pillars that supported a domed roof. Something glinted inside the openings—the bell swinging in chaotic arcs. The tower rose up over the town with no clear path to its entrance. Johnny scoured the road before him desperate to find the most expedient path. The bell engaged in a cacophonous rant of hectic alarm.

He ran.

Darting around buildings and through alleys, he fought through the maze that seemed to fold around him, barring his way. He felt as if he were aground in an unruly herd of bovines that switched direction and course to block the way he needed to go. The walls and rooftops seem to slide into place to blind him from his objective and block his path. When he lost sight of the tower, he clung to the call of the bell. He couldn't really say what he expected to find but he knew he needed to find it.

To save Scott.

When he stumbled out of the latest darkened alley to taunt his progress, he paused, the air in his throat unable to fulfill the needs of his burning lungs. The rounded tower stood like a sentinel before him. It seemed to serve no other purpose than to demand his attention. When his hands dropped to his knees to suck in air while looking for a door, the bell stopped.

Johnny groaned and grabbed at his left side, a casualty of his gasping need to slow his heart after his mad run. Or so he thought until he lifted his hand to drag his damp hair from his eyes and saw his palm and fingers streaked with blood. The reigning silence assumed an even greater urgency than the ringing that had brought him to this place, and he shook away any concern for yet another assault to his own flesh. He hurried to the tower base looking for a way in. He lay his left hand, the right resisting his demand to rise, against the adobe as he trotted the circumference leaving streaks of red that dried quickly to brown.

Anger overcame despair. He had failed Scott before, left him in that shaft, unable to complete the arduous task of pulling him out of the water rising from the rain. He would not fail a second time. As that conviction stormed through him, his fingers felt a gap in the wall. Not a doorway but an entrance set back from the outer wall, camouflaged from view until you discovered it. The gap was small, he turned sideways to enter, then scooted along the narrow passage that extended a half-turn around the base of the tower. It ended in a rock hewn staircase of off-color white steps expanding wide enough to accommodate a man. The narrow stairsteps continued the circular path around the tower, inviting him to the top.

He absently wondered if whoever had rung the bell would be coming down or would be an enemy he must face to save his brother. As Johnny traveled up the steps, his right shoulder jerked back, pierced by driving pain. He stumbled against the curved wall and dropped back a step but did not fall. His back pressed against the adobe. The wall was hot, but his body was cold with neither drawing comfort from the other. His head pressed against the wall as a scream tore past his lips. The blinding pain thrust him against the wall as if held by a saber that entered the front and drove through the back.

Once his scream tapered into rasping moans, he opened his eyes to stare up the ever-ascending steps with no glimmer of how much farther he must demand his body to travel. Although no visible weapon impaled him, his left hand dug at the pain in his right shoulder, pulling and rocking until something away gave way from his flesh. It freed him to take the next steps, slowly at first, then faster but he feared not fast enough.

Johnny's steps began to falter but he refused to give in. He dragged himself around yet another bend in the endless turn and heard another garbled sound from his own throat, this one filled with relief. The steps approached a landing, the side of the large bell visible as the area opened into a view of the gray sky. His pace increased but he misjudged the next step and his foot slid off the edge. His balance lost, he tumbled backwards down the steps.

He rolled down the stairs, striking his head against the steps and the wall until he was able to arrest his tumbles with his feet. Landing on his stomach, he looked downward, red drops falling onto the step below his chin. He scraped at his nose leaving a new streak on the back of hand.

"I won the hand!" Johnny shouted. "Save him! Take me! We had a fucking deal goddamn it! God. Damn. It." His voice trailed off, his eyes clenched against the pain. "Or I guess maybe that's the point." Johnny laid his forehead against the step for a moment before he tugged himself around and began to crawl back toward the landing muttering, "We had a deal… We had a deal... We had a deal…."

A lifetime, or maybe it was the end of a lifetime, passed when his left arm snaked onto the landing and his knees propelled him forward. Johnny stared down into the emptiness of the tower center—a colorless, shadowy place of gloom—before dropping his head back to see the inside of the bell, its long cord swaying out of his reach. Using one of the posts that supported the roof, he shoved himself to his feet and leaned over the precipice, his left arm supporting him while the fumbling weakness in his right struggled to snare the pull cord. His face locked with stern determination, he yanked it downward demanding a response when he screamed aloud, "We had a fucking deal!"

The bell cord released from its hold and a long rope tumbled into the open center of the tower forcing Johnny to land hard on his belly, wracking his tortured torso, air forced from his lungs with a whoosh, his throbbing head jarred against the edge of the opening.

He lay on the smooth adobe of the tower floor, but he gawked into the steep dirt walls of the mine pit. Several yards below him, brown water lapping at his armpits, eyes red-rimmed, lips tinted blue, Scott imploringly met his eyes. Mud caked his hair, coated his fists clenched around the rope. Johnny could see his lips moving but no sound reached him.

"Getting' ya out, brother," Johnny wheezed. "I remembered the rope," he teased.

Sounding oh so far away and almost out of reach, the soft tenor of his brother's voice, edged with a fear he was trying to hide, sounded from all around him. "J…johnny, I'm s…sorry I-can't d…do it—the r…rope—too w…wet—t-too c…cold. C…can't h-hold it."

Johnny heard his words calling back although he didn't think he mouthed them out loud. "T…tie y…yourself t…to the r…rope." The tug of the rope communicated a reply into his hands. He rolled to his back and with his feet pressed against the belfry supports, he began the painstaking process of moving one hand over the other, shortening the length between himself and his brother. His left assumed the bulk of the work, his right shoulder a mass of fire, but he continued. His eyes focused on a glimpse of gray clouds churning in the sky as he returned to the mantra that brought him to this place. "We had a deal. We had a deal. We had a deal."

The blue of his eyes began to disappear as the black of his pupils spread but his arms moved of their own volition, his legs staunchly holding him steady. His eyelids slipped closed and only the rough weave of the rope tearing at his palms and the shallow rasps of his breath leached into his consciousness. He thought he heard a slap against the stone at the lip of the pit, but he could no longer be sure. With all the power that remained in his damaged flesh, he gave the rope a final yank, but his right arm could no longer respond, and he sank limply against the stone landing.

"Scott?" he murmured, an echo in his head.

"Damn you, Johnny," Scott snapped from somewhere nearby. "You had no right. You had no right!"

A cry tore through Johnny's lips. His soul, ripped and tattered, bled out beneath him. An appalling sound filled the tower, pouring itself in heartrending agony into the town below. He failed again. No, not failed. Of all the sins that marred him, this unconscionable act eviscerated him. Not only had he failed to save the life of the one man he had cherished above all others, but he had also dragged him into his personal hell. Johnny's head pounded against the stone, his grievous scream a lasting testament bereft of hope. He lost himself in the wretchedness of his pain. And pain alone absorbed him.