Saddle Dust

Chapter 16

"Take her off the horse, Hadley..."
(Silence)
"Did you make sure she's unarmed?"
"Yea, but I'll check again."
Rough hands frisk her duster and pockets and boots, then silence.
"How long she been out?"
"Oh, I'd say most of the way here. I made sure she was awake when I roughed her up a bit though. I think she's got a rib that's off too, haha! But other than that, she's out cold with the cattle."
"You hit her or something?"
"Gave her a good knock with my pistol, that's all. I'd normally never lay hands on a woman for punishment, but this one was different. The damned bitch wouldn't shut up. Must've tapped some of that woman inside her after all with all that yappin' away she was doing."
Casey's mind is silent again for an indeterminable amount of time.
"Git those ropes off her. Let's bring her down to the bank. I'm done waiting."
Ice and something that takes away the little air she's been able to choke down fills Casey's world and her senses become blazingly sharp for a few moments. Then her head is dragged out of the airless ice and Casey blinks away the river water from her vision. She tries to gasp for as much air as she can but her efforts are mostly blocked by the bandana still tied around her throat. Its grey cloth drips icy water down her back raising goosebumps on her arms and neck.
"Cut 'er."
Casey feels a cold blade against her wrists and then they are suddenly free. Her feet are loose a moment later and she is thrown roughly to the mud by the collar of her duster. She writhes on the ground trying to get her numb feet working under her again while her hands claw and scratch furiously at the bandana still tight around her throat. Hadley walks up to her and jerks the bandana off of her neck. Casey falls forward on her hands and heaves in the dusty late afternoon air, coughing it back out seconds later. Her face is pale and Casey tastes old vomit and feels it crusted down the front of her mussed shirt. She regains her footing and heaves what feels like a thousand pounds vertical. The world swings wildly and her vision dims for a few moments before the oxygen begins to work and five men come into focus: The three men from the bank, Hadley, and...
"Waterton."
Casey's hand automatically flies for her holster but she finds it's empty. She cries out in frustration remembering that she turned in all of her weapons at the corral with the rest of the drovers. She reaches into her boot for her knife but finds it's gone as well. Waterton laughs, shaking his head, and takes a few steps forward. 
"Ah, Casey. You're just like your father. He always was two or three steps behind me."
Casey starts in lamely. "He isn't my blood father, jus—"
"He's just what? The man who raised you? Made you who you are today? Oh no, Casey, he is your father. Isn't that what a father is after all? Someone who takes care of you, raises you, and, ultimately, teaches you how to go about in the world? I think that both Sundance and Butch Cassidy did those things very nicely. You know, Frederick tried to be your father, but you refused. You just wouldn't be held down. And now look where that's gotten you. Don't you see? You're just where Sundance was three years ago: on the wrong side of the gun of justice."
Waterton draws his pistol slowly out of his coat pocket and clicks a bullet into place. Casey sees that the three other men and Hadley are armed as well and already have their weapons drawn and set to fire. Her breath hitches in her throat.
"But I'm a fair man, and I don't believe that this is a fair fight with you unarmed."
Hadley takes a step forward and Casey feels her entire body go stiff. She is briefly reminded of the day Sundance first introduced her to Waterton and she saw his shoulders go stiff. It's almost just like that day except that there's no protective wall of Sundance standing in front of her. It's just the barrel of a gun pointing the wrong way between her and Waterton's men. Casey flinches back as Hadley tosses her long barrel colt at her. It lands in the mud at her feet. The bullets click against the walls of the chamber as it hits the ground. Casey slowly reaches down and picks up her gun. She flicks open the cylinder and checks the chambers.
"They're all full." She says numbly. Waterton answers cheerily and winks at her.
"Yes indeed! I always play fair. Now, here's how this is going to work. We're each going to take ten steps backwards— don't worry, we'll be facing each other the entire time, and then on the count of three, we'll start play. Sound fair? Fair."
Casey's throat goes dry. She is an excellent marksman, but there's five of them.
Well, at least five I know about, but what choice do I have? Poor Steadfast...who is going to take care of him when I'm gone? They'll probably sell him off to some old farmer or if a farmer won't buy him, then they'll butcher him and—
"Ready there Ms. Long? Alright then, let's all take five steps back. Then I'll call the steps again and we'll take another five and proceed from there. Ready? One! Two! Three! Four! Five!"
Casey takes five uneasy steps backwards. She can already feel the bullets ripping through her body and prays that it is a quick death. At least she is no longer being humiliated by Hadley. Her stomach churns its remaining contents uneasily as the memory of Hadley's hands on her. If I'm going to die today, then both he and Waterton are coming with me. Then I can fight them again in Hell. The thought steadies Casey's hand and she finds the old familiar breathing pattern that Sundance showed her years before when he was teaching her to shoot in gunplay. 
"Alright there, Casey? Ready for the next five?"
Casey nods steadily. Her finger kisses the trigger gently and she prepares to raise it to Hadley's heart. Waterton calls out cheerily.
"Alright then! One! Two! Three! Fo—"
The steady pounding of hooves distracts the group. Casey's heart leaps into her throat as she recognizes the stolid and familiar pattern of Steadfast's hooves on the hollow-sounding mud.
"Steadfast! Here, here!"
Steadfast breaks into the clearing. His sides are soaked in sweat and foam speckles his mouth from his sprint to catch up with the group. The whites of his eyes flash in fear and his ears twist back in anxiety. Waterton and his men have had enough time to recover their senses and Waterton is shouting at them to start shooting at her. Casey feels the ground by her feet become pocked with bullets, but she is running. Steadfast charges at Casey and she catches his mane by the roots in her fist. She kicks a boot into a stirrup and throws herself into the saddle firing off two rounds into the confused and panicked group of men. Casey catches hold of Steadfast's reins and turns him around tightly to charge straight at the men.
Three of them (Waterton included) dive for cover but Hadley and one other stand their ground. Steadfast continues his charge forward and Casey is preparing to fire a third round (straight into Hadley's head) when Steadfast screams and begins to buck.
"Woah, there, steady! C'mon boy! I need you now. Please, don't go out on me now."
She pulls his reins in tighter, and tries to run him in a circle to buy time and calm him but Hadley and the other man each fire off another three rounds. Steadfast screams again and bucks unexpectedly under Casey. Casey loses her balance and is tossed from Steadfast's roliling back. Her left foot catches in the stirrup and slides all the way through causing Casey to be dug along beside her beloved horse's pounding hooves. Casey tries to call out to him to calm him, but he has taken too many bullets to remember her voice. Steadfast bolts towards the steep and slippery mud banks of the fast flowing river. Casey yells frantically to Steadfast and kicks even more furiously at the stirrup. She claws at the fast moving ground with her hand that's not holding the gun. A bush whips past her face and she lunges for it just as the bank begins to slope down towards the brown water.
Casey grabs hold of the bush and feels her foot jerked sharply from the stirrup. She looks back towards the direction that Steadfast had been running, and sees his hoof catch on first one rock, then another, then slip in the mud. He contorts his body to try to reverse his downward fall, but the water catches him instead. It pulls him into its icy depths. His head bobs above the water only once before his hooves stop churning the water and his legs fail him.
The river swiftly covers his splashing and carries on downstream.