Blood- A Short Tale of the West

A heavily inebriated man gets into some trouble. Blood will be spilled.

Jamie Duff was not used to alcohol. It was partly because he was only nineteen and had never ventured to try the stuff before. His body weight also had to do with the events yet to transpire that evening; he weighed one hundred and forty pounds even and was of a relatively small, wiry build. In the back of his mind he knew he should just drink a beer and have a good time. However, the rough-looking men at the bar had been eyeing the youth with amusement and he ordered a shot of red-eye instead. Then another. And another, until the vile liquid went down without flavor nor hesitation and his movements seemed to be slightly too fast for his eyes to track. That's when the first thing happened. He went to tilt the glass towards his mouth but the whiskey just poured down his shirtfront. It took him a moment to notice but the men at the bar did not hesitate to laugh at him. Jamie was not angered too much by this. Instead, his clouded mind sought some form of retaliation while his hand instinctively threw the glass. He did not really mean to; they laughed at him and he threw a shot glass at one of the men's head. Despite his offset hand-eye coordination, the glass flew true. It shattered into a thousand starry crystals over the man's temple, leaving a gash that immediately filled with blood. He slumped against the bar for a moment, losing his balance, all the while holding his wounded cranium and groaning softly. His two compadres watched dumbfounded as Jamie hurriedly stumbled out of the bar. Then they ran outside to deal with him.

Jamie felt completely numb all over and he couldn't quite figure out whether or not he was walking at a crude angle. To make matters worse, there was serious trouble brewing in his stomach. He had all but forgotten about the men in the bar and he desperately needed to find some place to throw up. To his left was a thin alleyway between the telegraph office and a small warehouse. He stumbled into this alleyway as warm liquid crawled up his throat. Then, bending over, he let it all out. He felt no better afterwards, though, and decided to go sleep it off in the stables like all of the drunken drifters did. He found some sacks of grain and piled them together with some straw to form a crude mattress. When he laid down, however, he realized that he needed to urinate. Stumbling once again into the darkness, he went behind the livery and relieved himself. As he was putting away his member, somebody was approaching him. He heard the footsteps but did not register the noise in his brain and then something hit him in the side of the head and after he was down, he felt boot heels and toes mashing into his torso, face, arms, legs, and groin. There were three men kicking him mercilessly and he could not for the life of him figure out why.

He distantly remembered having something inside his boot that could help and reached and pulled it out. It was a derringer .44, as he saw by the moonlight, and he pointed it in the general direction of one of his assailants and fired. The explosion in the night was enormous. The bullet took a man in the heart and he backed up a step or two, ran into the wall of the livery, and slid to the ground. The other two ran away in fright as soon as the gun went off. They disappeared into the street like phantoms. Jamie sat up. He was vaguely aware of a burning sensation all over his body but in the moment it did not seem so bad, as he was still dead drunk. The man he had shot was sitting up against the wall, one hand lying in the dirt, they other resting limply on his lap. His shirt blossomed red like a flower in the spring and his eyes were already glazed over and one was half closed. Jamie threw up once again, not so much from the alcohol this time as much as the shock of the adrenaline wearing off. He stumbled back into the stables and passed out, the derringer still hanging loosely from his hand. The population in that small town were used to gunshots in the night, as people would get drunk in the saloon and kill each other or fire their pistols off in the air almost every night. The body wasn't even discovered until after noon the following day, so Jamie had no problems with the law. He woke up at about seven o'clock in the morning with a pistol in his hand and an extreme, throbbing pain all over his body. Several of his teeth were missing or loose and he felt stiff and hardly able to move. He walked outside thinking hard about the night before, trying to piece together fractured memories. He saw the body, covered in flies now, and the attack came back to him. He cursed and put the derringer back into his boot. He did not feel bad that he killed a man in self defense but it did leave his stomach feeling very strange. Jamie recognized the man as one of the three at the bar the night before. He was not the man who had been hit by the glass, but he closely resembled him. 

It was then that Jamie realized that they were brothers. Five years before, his own brother had been swept under an overhang by a river current and could not fight the rushing water hard enough to get out, and he had drowned. Jamie knew what it felt like to lose a brother. Judging from the type of men they were, they would be back for revenge. The dead man had an old revolver that still did not use cartridges. He took from the body a powder flask, caps, and large conical lead balls that would penetrate several inches of hardwood and would definitely make short work of a person. The weapon was a relic of times past; it was carried by the army during the war with Mexico back in the '40s and it was capable of putting down a horse in a single shot, if the shooter is a decent marksman. Jamie's father had owned one such pistol before he died of fever and drink and Jamie was well verse in its use. That is not to say that he had experience with it. He knew the loading process by heart but he had never fired it before. It was strictly for personal defense, though, and it would be more reliable than the derringer against two people. The thing was massive. He checked the load to verify that it indeed was loaded and then he tucked it into his belt and tried to decide what to do next. The only sensible thing was to leave town, else he be challenged to a showdown. He hadn't a horse so he checked the livery, deciding that it was more important for him to be mounted at that moment than anybody else in the town. The only beast inside was a mule that looked to be ornery enough to bite and kick and raise hell constantly. It would have to do. Jamie climbed onto its back and tried to make it move but it just stood there. He kicked its sides but it only snorted and flicked its head at him.

Jamie climbed off and checked its hooves. Sure enough, the mule was hobbled. He cursed his stupidity and climbed back on. The mule walked out at its own pace without the slightest consideration to its rider. Jamie ducked beneath the doorway and told it to go faster. The mule kept walking. Jamie was fearful of being seen; either by the two men he sought to avoid or by the owner of the mule he had stolen. He took off his boot and quirted the animal on the back of the neck, three times, and then it lost its mean streak miraculously and upped its speed. He rode out of town and then for another twenty miles, well after sunset, into the desert. There was an abandoned cabin atop a small hill that Jamie had seen several times in his life but never went inside of. He headed there now. He tied and watered the mule behind the cabin and then went inside. He had to force the door open, as it hadn't been used for many years and the hinges had rusted. He gathered several branches and sticks outside and then got a fire going in the fireplace, more to help him see than to warm him up. The interior was not in good shape. One wall was rotten, spiderwebs hung from every corner, a thick blanket of dust covered everything, and a massive centipede was busy crawling across the mattress in the corner. Jamie swept it off the bed and stomped it to death. He was very hungry and tired, but there was no food, so he set about cleaning the place up a bit and then he went to sleep. As he drifted away into unconsciousness, he felt very safe.

That notion was shattered in the morning. At around ten o'clock, someone shouted out, "Hello the cabin!" Jamie was still deep in slumber and at the sound of the voice he jumped out of bed. The pistol was in by his trousers across the room. He ran over there in his cotton long johns and grabbed it. His hands were trembling and he had to pull back the hammer with both thumbs.

"Hello!" he called out, trying to sound calm.

"Why you hiding?"

"What do you want?"

"I was hopin' fer some breakfast. If you ain't willin' to serve a stranger I understand."

Jamie looked out the window. There was a man he had never seen before sitting on top of a pale horse. Jamie opened the door. "I ain't got food," he said, almost apologetically. "I do got a fireplace if'n you still have some coffee to brew up."

"Alright, let me see to my animal," the man replied cheerily. Jamie closed the door and got dressed. As he did so, he noticed a massive purple bruise on his right side. He still hurt all over, and a day of riding a mule barebacked and then sleeping on a stiff straw mat did not help at all. He hid his discomfort when the stranger came in.

The man set down his saddle near the door. He leaned an old repeater against the table and sat down. "I appreciate you doin' this," he said. "Don't see many friendly faces round here. White ones at least. I'm Jack Bourbon."

"Jamie Duff." They shook hands. Soon there was a fire going and some coffee was brewing.

"You don't live here do you?" Jack remarked a while later.

"No sir," Jamie responded.

"Who does?"

"Nobody, I reckon. Place has been abandoned for as long as I can recall."

"Sure looks in poor shape," Jack commented, studying the room around him. Then he stood up and extended his hand. "I'm mighty thankful to ye."

"Yer goin'?" Jamie asked, disappointed. He felt safe with this man, like if the two others came for him that he'd have somebody to back him up. He did not like the thought of staying another few nights alone here.

"Wanna make town by nightfall."

"Well stay safe then."

"Sure thing. Goodbye." Jack Bourbon grabbed his rifle and his saddle and stepped outside. Jamie sat at the window and watched him go. The man walked towards the tree where his horse was tied up and began to put the saddle back on. Suddenly a shot rang out and Jack crumpled. A puff of smoke rose from near a boulder and two men rose and ran towards the downed man. Jamie cursed as his heart shot up into his throat and grabbed clumsily at the revolver. He ducked down from the window.

"That 'im?" One man asked. Their voices carried perfectly in the still air.

"Hell no that ain't, ye damned fool. This 'uns too old, and tall."

"I was purty drunk last time, Dan."

"Well it ain't him, I know. He's probably up in that cabin. Hey kid! You in there?"

Jamie knew they would check it regardless so he decided on a show of confidence. Although he was more scared than ever before, and the dominant thought in his head was to hide or to run, he yelled out, "what the hell took you so long, ya coons!"

"Had to bury Kent you dirty b*****d!" Immediately bullets started flying through the windows and into the walls. The door was shot and it flew wide open. Jamie scrambled on all fours towards it and kicked it shut, but it was just reopened in the next volley of fire. After maybe twenty more rounds were expended, they yelled out, "you done in?"

Jamie was on the verge of tears. He thought desperately of home, of family, of friends, of good times and laughter. He didn't want to die, how the hell did they find him, oh god he didn't want to die... He answered their question with a shot through the window. He didn't linger to see the effect, but the cry of pain was all he needed to hear.

"That dirty a*****e shot my carrot off! God damn son of a b***h!"

"He missed it by a mile, calm yourself. We'll kill this son of a gun and then you can go see the sawbones."

"Nah, Dan, I'm bleeding all over! That b*****d shot my damn leg with a god damned howitzer, by god!"

"You wouldn't have no leg if it was a howitzer, now shut up an' keep shooting!"

That's what they did. Their guns kept squirting lead into the cabin but Jamie knew he was safe as long as he stayed away from the windows. Dan and his brother knew it too. After an hour long standoff, Dan was heard saying "screw this s**t, he's just a kid. What's he gonna do? I'll go up there and finish this."

"Good, because I think I'm dyin'."

"You ain't... oh, that is a lot of blood. Okay, I'll hurry."

Jamie took aim at the door. As soon as Dan kicked it in, he shot. The massive cone-shaped ball entered just below Dan's left armpit and went clean through his body. He gasped and turned, took a couple of steps, and then sat down. Jamie jumped up. Dan's back was turned to the cabin and he was slightly hunched over, as though he were asleep. Jamie shot him again through the back just under the right shoulder blade. He almost dropped the gun because of his nerves. Killing a man in complete darkness while completely drunk is one thing; watching a man die through the sights of a weapon is another. He desperately wanted it to end. There was another killer outside, though, and he had just lost both his brothers and got shot. He wouldn't give up and Jamie knew it. He peeked at the window and saw the man holding a Colt .45 with one hand, aiming at the cabin. He shot without aiming and the bullet whooshed through the empty window frame and buried itself in the wall behind him. Jamie took careful aim, trying not to expose himself too much, and shot. The gun kicked, jarring his already numb wrists for a fourth time. The wounded man jerked but did not die. He shot again and Jamie shot again. The man missed but Jamie did not. Still, there was an undying, vengeful force behind his assailant and although he was bleeding out extraordinarily fast, he kept on shooting. A bullet burned Jamie's arm and he yelped like a toddler and fell down. He did not want to get back up. He was afraid of seeing that fire in the other man's eyes again, and he definitely did not want to shoot him again.

"Give up!" he called. "I'll take you to a doc! I'm sorry about yer brothers!"

"Like hell!" the man said, and a bullet flew through the window, even though Jamie was no longer there. It was completely out of spite. Finally Jamie could no longer bear it. He was not used to such savage, random acts of intense violence. He felt like a child again, yearning for his mother. He curled into a ball and sobbed quietly for the three men slain by his own hand. The last of the three brothers kept yelling out insults and curses, then began to slow down, and finally he lost his breath.

Half an hour later, the man yelled out "I can't feel my body anymore- you happy, boy?" and Jamie wanted to scream out that it was all his and his brothers' fault, that they shouldn't of gone looking for trouble, but instead all he managed was "I can still take you to a doc."

"Yeah, come out here an' do that. I'm done in."

Jamie was relieved that the situation was over and he stood up and went to the door. The man was treacherous. He shot the moment Jamie came into view, but his aim was off because of his condition. The bullet dug into the wall and sent dozens of splinters flying into Jamie's skin. He howled and jumped back into the room. After a moment the dying man cackled. He passed away at sundown. Jamie made sure to bury the both of them proper.

Author's Note

Please keep in mind that this story is only a rough draft. It will never be made into a final draft, although I may from time to time make some changes as I see fit. Therefore, if the plot feels unrefined or you notice more typos than there should be, do not fret. I write for fun and I don't like going back and rewriting stories over and over again to make them perfect, as that is too tedious and stressful for my particular writing style.