The Rifters by M. Pax

Chapter 12

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Chapter 12

Resurrected. George “Haw Shot” Hawley hadn’t expected such a thing. Testing his body, he rolled his shoulders and shook each limb. They all worked, except his head. If he moved it too much, it fell off. Yet his senses worked, and he could speak. So he didn’t have much to grumble about, except for the strange thoughts sometimes invading his mind. No problem. He’d get rid of the birdman’s influence soon enough. It had no strength, annoying him like a case of the hiccups.

“Haw, haw!” Anyone in George’s way would be sorry. He hadn’t changed at all, except for the empty holsters. Hell on hot sand, he wanted a gun.

The birdman tasted strange, like fresh peas and sour beer. It tried to tell George what to do. Grab the man watching us.

Haw Shot hated being told what to do, but he hated being spied on more. “Haw, haw.” His first couple of steps stumbled. The nippy air pressed into his muffled senses, which worked slow. Everything about him worked slow, except for his hate and the pretty vows the birdman whispered in his mind. Kill. Revenge. Blood. Bart lives, but not for long. Not if you swear to listen to me.

Revenge had a ring to it. Maybe the thing in his head was his guardian angel. What else could have resurrected him from the grave?

The man on the rocks is Bart.

A temptation Haw Shot couldn’t say no to. “My guardian angel promises me a kill.” He howled his words, enjoying his new job as a spook. “You’re going to die, Bart. Outlaws shooting it out. It’s our destiny.”

Haw Shot had only met Black Bart once, well not so much met as spied on him. From thick brush, he had watched Bart perform the perfect heist, getting away clean with the Wells Fargo box and the mail pouches, earning more script with less effort than soldiering ever paid.

The following day, Haw Shot had polished his guns and loaded them with his best bullets. From town he procured a flour sack and cut two eye holes in it. Returning to the same spot Bart had profited from, Haw Shot had hid, waiting on the next stagecoach. Wheels crunched up the road, and the horses’ harnesses jangled. When he heard the driver’s whistles, Haw Shot jumped out, firing. “Haw, haw.”

A pretty young lady with golden curls had wept, bleeding from her stomach, hit by one of his bullets. Men and women in the coach had wailed like sunrise would never happen again.

Worse, the stagecoach had a shotgun rider and a second as a passenger. Crack shots, they had aimed at George and pulled their triggers. A fiery kick roared through his shoulder and another in his gut.

That had been the last thing Haw Shot saw until he found himself sitting on a horse under a tree with rope around his neck. The pretty young lady, dead because of him, had a lot of friends. The mother kicked the horse out from under him, wishing him an eternity in hell. As if the angels granted her wish, the rope had snapped off George’s head.

Entrenched in chaos and death, the heist had caused more raucous than any of Bart’s, yet no one knew Haw Shot’s name. His life, or lack of, was all Bart’s fault, and it was all Bart’s fault no one had ever heard of the notorious Haw Shot. “It’s not fair. Everyone knows who you are, Bart, and you never killed anybody. You never stole a huge amount of gold. You still got your head. That isn’t right.”

Stumbling down the trail, Haw Shot smelled cedar, sage, and juniper mixed in with the pines. Hot on a desert rock, it was nice to smell again. Crispness from snowy mountain peaks tingled his deadened skin. “This ain’t Nevada County.”