Henry John and Pete spurred their mounts on. With luck, they both secretly thought, they might even sight the riders soon. Hopefully, by the time they reached the mountains.

  It was Pete who saw the dust cloud ahead first. He reined in his animal and pointed it out to Henry John. A smile crept on their faces, not the usual kind of smile, not one tinged with happiness or pleasure. It was a resigned, fatalistic smile of the end of the road.

  Breathing became difficult again. The pain in Henry John’s chest was intense. He couldn’t understand why it came on in these fits and starts.

  The heat of the noonday sun beat down on them relentlessly. It attacked them from below as well, as the desert sand heated up and boiled the very air they tried to breathe.

  They had no plan.

  Reining in his animal, Henry John told Pete they’d better think of something, and fast. The ideal situation was to get ahead of the riders, which meant heading off west and circling around – which could take the rest of the day.

  There seemed to be no alternative. They set their sights on the distant mountains, hoping to find a good place to bushwhack the men ahead.

  Without stopping for either rest or food, the two men made a detour, keeping their eyes triangulated from their position to the men ahead and the mountains.

  Night fell.

  The quiet of the desert was only broken by the hoofs of their horses crunching gently into the sand. This was soon replaced by the distant calls of coyotes and wolves baying to the moon before starting their nocturnal forage of life and death.

  The mountains loomed closer. The moonlight reflected off the rock, throwing strange and eerie shadows which set the hairs on the back of Henry John’s neck bristling.

  Reaching the mountains, they were sure they were ahead of the riders. Tethering their animals, Pete and Henry John clambered up the rock face to get a better view of the surrounding country, and to see if they could spot the group.

  Sure enough, they were ahead of their quarry. Less than half a mile away they caught the faint glow of a camp fire. They could even see the sparks lifted into the air, a bright red, glow in the black sky.

  ‘They’re camped out for the night,’ Pete said.

  ‘Yeah. We better decide on how we’re gonna play this.’ Henry John sat and pondered. Neither man was a killer – to the best of their knowledge.

  ‘Either we ambush ’em as they ride through the pass, or we attack when they’re asleep,’ Pete said.

  ‘I reckon we do it in the dark,’ Henry John said. ‘They ain’t likely to post no guards, now are they?’

  ‘Suits me,’ Pete replied.

  ‘We’ll wait a few more hours, make sure they’re asleep.’

  ‘S’posing they ain’t the ones?’ Pete said.

  ‘They are. Don’t ask me how I know that. I jus’ know they are.’

  ‘Reckon we should get some shut eye.’ Pete took a coin from his pocket.

  ‘Heads, I sleep first, tails, you do. OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Pete flicked the coin in the air. Henry John watched as it spun lazily, reflecting the moon’s glow as it reached the top of the throw, then just as lazily spun back to earth.

  ‘Tails.’

  ‘Wake me in an hour,’ Henry John said. He settled himself against a rock and tilted his Stetson over his eyes, folded his arms and fell asleep within minutes.

  Images of his dead family etched themselves on the inside of his eyelids. His eyes were moving rapidly from side to side like an eraser trying to rub the pictures out. To no avail. The faster his eyes went, the clearer the pictures became. Then the sound arrived.

  He could hear his first wife talking to him, cooing in his ear, putting his meal on the kitchen table, throwing her arms around his waist, snuggling up to him in bed.

  Then his second wife appeared, but not before he saw his first wife dead again, in glorious colour, in minute detail. He heard her last breath.

  Then he heard the thunder of the cattle. Saw their flared nostrils, heard the wood splinter and watched as his second family died. He was willing himself to wake up, to get rid of this nightmare, his own voice was saying wake up, wake up, wake up.

  ‘Wake up, Henry John. Wake up.’

  The rough hands shook his shoulders and he stared into the face of Pete. It couldn’t have been an hour, but, checking his pocket watch, he saw that it had been two.

  Henry John sat up. The cold night air freezing the sweat that ran down his face. The dampness of his clothes turned to ice.

  ‘Seems you were dreamin’,’ Pete said.

  ‘Dreamin’ ain’t what I’d call it.’

  ‘I think the riders have settled down. Can’t make out any movement.’

  Henry John stood and gazed into the distance. ‘Hard to tell from here,’ he said.

  ‘I bin closer, much closer. They’d bin drinkin’, I could smell it and hear their snorin’,’ Pete said. ‘Let’s get this over with then.’

  The two men checked their weapons, rifles ready, guns loaded. Henry John took out a long, hunting knife and looked at it in the moonlight. The cruel, steel blade winked back at him, telling him it was ready.

  Carefully, they made their way down the rock face onto the flatlands once more.

  Henry John could hear the sound of millions of grains of sand grinding together as he walked. He heard the leather of his holster squeak as it rubbed on his belt. Then he heard his breathing. Shallow, slow and painful. He looked towards Pete, but the man heard nothing. The old panic crept into Henry John’s head and wouldn’t leave. The panic that said if you don’t get more air in your lungs, you’re gonna die!

  He opened his mouth wide, taking deep breaths, then remembered his mother, closed his mouth and breathed deeply through his nose. It still wasn’t enough. His chest hardly moved.

  Then it was gone.

  Slowly they moved forward, their boots crunching into the sand and hitting rock. To Henry John it sounded like thunder, the noise reverberating through his skull. Pete heard nothing. His gaze was fixed on the camp fire ahead. He had only one thought in his mind. Death.

  They were within twenty feet of the camp site now. Henry John moved to the left as Pete, wordlessly, moved to the right.

  Henry John took out his hunting knife. It winked back at him again, unbelievably, he winked at it.

  Crouching, the two men moved in at an angle. The sleeping men, snoring loudly, were in a circle round the fire, their horses were tethered out of the radius of the fire’s light.

  Henry John swallowed. It seemed to calm his nerves. He began to have doubts these men were the ones who’d killed Pete’s wife and son. He pushed them to the back of his mind. He was sure. There could be no doubt.

  Kneeling, he slit the throat of the nearest man. There was no sound. The blood pumped out on to the ground, it looked black. Some of it hissed into the fire.

  The dying man’s eyes opened – briefly – then closed again. Henry John moved on to the next body and did the same.

  The silence was broken by the sharp crack of gunfire. Pete Hollander didn’t have a knife.

  Three down, Henry John thought. Two more to go.

  Before he could reach his third victim, the remaining two men were wide awake and on their feet, guns drawn.

  Henry John dropped his knife and went for his gun. Too late.

  He saw Pete go down as one of the men fired. The other man turned towards Henry John and levelled his pistol.

  Everything slowed down from that point in.

  He felt the butt of his Colt in the palm of his hand, felt his elbow bend as the gun slowly came out of the leather holster. His thumb cocked back the hammer at the same instant and his right index finger caressed the trigger. He brought the gun to bear at hip level, not waiting to extend his arm, which was moving too slowly.

  Henry John watched as the bullet left the muzzle of his pistol and flew through the air before exploding into the chest of the man opposite him.

  He brought his left hand up and cocked the hammer for the second time. Swivelling the gun to his left, he loosed a second shot. The bullet moved even slower this time. Henry John could see the ragged filings on the end of the bullet as it flew towards its target.

  The man stood, feet apart, pistol levelled, pointing straight at Henry John’s heart. Before he could pull the trigger, Henry John’s bullet caught him in the stomach. The man doubled up on impact and flopped back downwards, sitting on the camp fire.

  Within seconds, he was a blazing inferno as his trousers, shirt and vest caught fire. Henry John had time to think about how he’d caught fire so quickly. The man’s clothes were covered in grease and dirt.

  Henry John watched as the man, forgetting the slug in his gut, ran off into the darkness before falling to the ground, writhing in agony trying to smother the flames.

  His screams pierced the night air and remained with Henry John for a long time.

  Then it was quiet.

  Panting, hardly able to breathe, Henry John walked across to the prone form of Pete.

  He was dead. The single shot had caught him in the head. He never knew anything about it.

  Once again, Henry John was on his own.

  He searched through the men’s saddle-bags and found jewellery, watches and wallets. One of the wallets bore the gold-leafed inscription:

  TO MY DARLING PETE

  FROM YOUR EVER LOVING WIFE

  Henry John picked up his knife, cleaned it on the sand and slipped it back into the buckskin sheath on the rear of his gun-belt.

  He released the horses and let them run, then he went for his spade.

  He’d bury Pete, repeating the same thoughts he’d had when he’d buried his wife and son.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lying on his back, near the camp fire, Henry John felt fingers on his chest.

  He’d spent a restless night. After burying Pete – he’d left the other men for the buzzards – he’d made his way back to their camp site. In a daze, he’d lit the fire and boiled some coffee. He could neither feel the heat of the fire nor taste the coffee.

  His eyelids felt as if they weighed a ton. He had to sleep. But he didn’t want to sleep. He felt that if he did, he might never wake up again.

  The dreams returned, beckoning him. Dreams into nightmares were but a flick of the eye.

  He saw, rather than felt, himself flying. He couldn’t see what he was flying over, but he knew he was flying. The pain in his chest returned with a vengeance, gasping for breath, his nostrils flaring, he opened his eyes and saw himself lying there.

  Henry John woke up with a start. So clear, so intense had been the nightmare that both hands felt for the ground.

  Again, he was bathed in sweat, rivulets of icy water running down the back of his neck.

  He sat up. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was and what he’d done. For the first time in weeks, he rummaged through his saddle-bags and found the tobacco pouch. Rolling a thin cigarette, he pulled out a burning stick and lit up.

  The acrid smoke burnt its way down the back of his throat and steered a course through his lungs. He drew deeply again, his head swam as the nicotine found its way into his bloodstream. Henry John thought he was going to fall over. He didn’t. The dizziness lasted only a few seconds.

  He had no trouble inhaling deeply on the cigarette; maybe he should smoke more often, he thought. Then smiled.

  Dawn again. The sun stuck its head up over the horizon and tentatively dipped its long fingers into the oncoming day to see what it was like. As ever, it approved, and the head of the sun rose majestically into the air.

  Birds were already singing. Henry John tried to see one, but he couldn’t. All he could do was hear them.

  He ate. While eating, he decided he’d better return Pete’s horse and pass on yet more bad news to the couple who had his baby son. What was the kid’s name? Sean. Yeah, that was it. Sean.

  He flicked the stub of the cigarette into the fire and then kicked sand over the flames.

  He poured a generous amount of water into his Stetson and walked across to his horse. The animal’s ears flicked up at his approach, and it gently snorted and pawed the ground before burying its head in the hat, lapping up the water. Then he watered Pete’s horse.

  Saddling up, Henry John tied the reins of the second horse to his saddle and set off.

  The air was clear and crisp and the heat from the sun gently bathed his face and the back of his hands. A tolerable warmth he knew would grow in intensity as the day wore on.

  The long, winding trail spread out before him. He was in no hurry to deliver misery. He felt the breath of a breeze lick his face, saw the grains of sand roll against each other forming new ripples here, losing old ones there. The breeze grew stronger, filled the air with sand and the clear, blue sky took on a greenish tinge as the yellow sand rose in small billowy clouds.

  It was no longer a breeze. It was a wind.

  He halted the horses and reached into his saddle-bags for a bandanna. Tying it round his nose and mouth, the crimson bandanna billowed in the wind. The sand got into his ears, his eyes, up his nose and in his mouth. He ground his teeth together and listened to the crunch and grate as the sand lodged between them.

  He stopped again. The wind – which had sprung up from the breeze which had sprung up from nothing – was now a howling gale. The sand no longer gently billowed. It cut through the air like a million sharp knives slashing at the exposed skin of his hands and around his eyes.

  It was pointless going on. He couldn’t even open his eyes, let alone see anything.

  Henry John dismounted and, forcing his Winchester into the sand, he tied the two horses to it. He found blankets and covered the horses’ heads in an attempt to shield them. They shied away, but realized what he was doing and stood placidly, turning their backs towards the direction of the strongest winds.

  Using the sailcloth that doubled as tent and groundsheet, Henry John covered himself over and sat in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a sand storm – to wait it out.

  He soon fell into a deep, trance-like sleep. The howl and whistle of the wind accompanied by the rat-a-tat-tat of the sand hitting the sailcloth like a Gatling gun, went unheard.

  He panted. Opened his mouth wide. Closed it. Breathed deeply through his nose as he dreamed.

  For some strange reason, the face tattooed on his eyelids was that of baby Sean. He was flanked on either side by Ben and Rose King. They were seated on the veranda of their little house, just staring. The picture vanished to be replaced by Sean in his crib in the root cellar. This dissolved into Pete’s dead face staring up at him, saying, ‘kill the boy too, why don’t you.’

  Henry John answered the voice by saying he hadn’t killed his mother, he’d only killed the outlaws.

  The voice and the face left him. He was looking into a whiskey tumbler, leaning against a bar top in an unknown saloon in an unknown town.

  His coat felt so very heavy, he could hardly keep it on, he could hardly stand. He’d have to sit and take the weight off his shoulders. The blue serge overcoat that fell from shoulder to ankle in length, weighed more than he could bear.

  The band around his chest returned and he gasped out loud in pain. He couldn’t suck the air in long enough. It kept wheezing out before it could do him any good.

  The weight was intolerable and the sound of the shot woke him up.

  It was dark. Stifling and dark. He couldn’t move. The weight on his shoulders wasn’t the overcoat at all, it was the sailcloth. He hadn’t realized it was so heavy. He could hardly move it.

  Opening a slit in the front, he saw only yellow. The yellow ran in and he watched it as, like an hour-glass, it began to fill up the inside of the sailcloth.

  Henry John remembered where he was and why he was there. Panic filled him. Then he relaxed. The thought of being buried alive no longer worried him. He felt calm. If this was how it was going to be, then let it be.

  On the other hand, he thought, I’d better see if I can get out first. No point dying yet if there ain’t no need.

  He forced his right hand through the slowly-filling slit in the sailcloth and pushed upwards.

  His hand reached the open air. He brought his left hand up and sat there moving his arms in small semi-circles, moving the sand away from his shoulders.

  He was free. Stepping back into the blazing sunlight, he looked around him. He couldn’t see the rifle, but the horses were still there. He dug down to where the reins met the cool of the rifle barrel and pulled the weapon out.

  Where he’d sat, a huge dome had built up that rose slightly more than five feet. To his left, it towered to a height of over twelve feet. He’d been lucky.

  The smooth terrain he had ridden into was now covered with dunes of varying height. It was disorientating, and he would have lost all sense of direction, had it not been for the sun and the mountains.

  Resuming his journey and with a heavy heart, Henry John walked the horses on. The going was difficult, the sand was deep and loose; before it had been hard-packed and easier to navigate.

  His path meandered, looking for the firmest ground and the shortest route.

  It took him five more long hours to reach the grassy plain and sight the Kings’ homestead. They were out on the veranda watching him ride in alone. He pulled up outside the picket fence and dismounted. They both looked at him and when they saw his face, they didn’t need to ask any questions.

  ‘Come in, Henry John. You look tired,’ Rose said to him. ‘Ben’ll take care of the horses.’

  Wearily, Henry John followed Rose. Before he entered he removed his jacket and shook half the desert out of it. Then he removed his boots and shook the other half out.

  ‘See you been married before,’ she observed.

  ‘Only the twice, ma’am,’ Henry John replied, and removed his hat.

  Coffee was boiling and some cookies were hurriedly placed in front of him.

  Rose sat and watched him eat and drink. She was dying to ask questions, but she refrained. There was something about the man – an aura, she thought – that prevented her.

 

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