The Brothers Doom - Part 2 of 4
Two brothers, one doom.
THE BROTHERS DOOM
A TALE OF WE THE IMMORTALS
by Luke Warfield
Scribe in Black Press
Want to support this publication? Buy me a coffee here: coff.ee/scribeinblack
Listen to this post via YouTube.
IT CAME FROM behind, faster than a sparrow in flight and with a bodily force mightier than even the Western Theater Express at full steam. Ere Colt Doom could think, let alone decide on a course of action, the shadow of death was at hand and demanding its remittance.
Colt rolled into space as the deadfall broke through the tree line and smote the cliff, obliterating the elder Doom's choice ground down to the atoms. When he bridged the ten-foot gap to cold slope beneath—with nothing but his own body to absorb the blow!—the world whirred in a spool of shadows and dim tints, occasionally punctuated by sounds of snapping brush and cracking bones, as well as the ubiquitous companion of pain all throughout. Somewhere within the congress of sensations, a thunderclap pierced the din as if a violent squall had rushed over the land to heap insults atop his failings. And after gravity had had its way with him, leaving the man bloodied and aching among the fronds of a wild ivy bush, another thunderous belch shook the pine tops, adjoined by a flash of white fire, and Colt understood, at bearing witness to the phenomenon, this was no heckling storm but the report of an immense hunting rifle—the sort that leveled battle lines wholesale and sank greatbeasts to their chins.
Colt righted himself and skittered behind a belt of pine and sheltered there and listened to the wind. He knew by now his enemy would have concluded the firearm’s necessary reloading cycle; to run was to play Three Kings with death. He surveyed his ground and swept the snow-blown grades for a path of retreat, and he counted thitherto the patches of cover among the quarter-mile sprint back to the cabin. An idea to employ his hat as a lure sprang up in-mind but when he reached for the article he found that it was gone. Lost, undoubtedly, during his tumble down the hillside. He reached for his rifle, but it, too, was gone, leaving him with the pistol alone. Colt cursed the gods with an oath.
“Everythin’s against me!”
“Colt?” a pneumatic voice called back. At first, the retort had seized Colt Doom to the pith, but when the voice called a second time—“Colt Doom?”—his nerves steadied, for he recognized the character of his kinsman within its wraithlike timbre.
“It be,” Colt said.
“Not tryin’ to kill ye, Colt! I wanna help! I know yer wounded.”
“Why drop a rock on my head than?”
“Case it warn’t you! Warn’t tryin’ to hit ye no how; if I was, yer’d be kilt already alright.”
Finding this statement ludicrous, Colt scoffed. “Ye never was that good, Jaith.”
“What?”
“Said ye never cud hit a dyin’ horse if he laid down in front of ye! Now why ain’t ye drop yer ordnance en come out. Talk-like.”
“Only if ye do samewise.”
“Sure. On the count of three we’ll jes throws our guns down en step out. What says ye?”
“I know yer just gon shoot at me, Colt…”
“Do ye now? Reck’n that be for ye to me alike.”
“I said I ain’t tryin’ to kill ye.”
“Sure, I’ll believe that...”
“Suit yerself.” After a moment of repose, the voice followed up with, “Wall, whatta we do than, brother?”
It was a pertinent question, one in need of prompt answering. Colt peeked through a slit in the tree cover but saw no trace of his tormentor flesh or specter, just a black hole in the space where the “nest” once jet forth and the vague, looming bodies of forestry yonder. He turned and eyed the cabin again and deliberated over his options. Returning to the structure was his surest gamble given the newly lost high ground; from there, he might, luck fairing, entrench himself within like a castle knight out of some fairy book romance of valiance and vigilance. On such ground, Colt Doom ought to make his brave and righteous stand unto victory.
Leastwise, if the cabin proved ill-suited for defense against the siege to come, the strategy offered an opportunity to resume his flight to the big bay horse and from the battlefield entire. No matter the scenario, be it fight or flee, each path presented the same, pressing conundrum: To regain some semblance of an advantage—and to succeed in as much undamaged—Colt Doom must wager body and being by incurring enemy fire upon his position, then withdraw down the mountainside while his oppressor underwent the pertinent reloading cycle aforesaid. Not merely once, but thrice need he execute the maneuverer, drawing, evading, and retreating among the patches of cover wounded foot withal.
Yer a d—ned fool, Colt Doom! Why cain’t ye’ve jes stayed home...
Colt pulled the revolver from his belt, unlatched the cylinder, and examined round and cap. All appeared in working order and so he closed the cylinder and stirred up his nerve for lethal action the way a soothsayer draws forth dark spirits to dark purpose. At once, and in like portion, the world grew and shrank—a process by which the parts of their sum were disassembled and inspected so that no furtive thing might go unobserved. A pronged wind gust bowed the pines with a doleful sigh. Loam crunched under boot. Breath smoked in whorls white and was gone. The redolence of gunpowder, of iron and something sour which may have been his own bathlessness for his clothes were wet with perspiration. The injury hammered on.
“Jaith?” Colt said, thinking of ways to distract his foe.
“Say now?” answered the voice.
“Why wasn’t ye home?”
“Don’t stay here no more. Keep the house fer appearances but I sleep up in them caves yon.”
“Dreams?”
“Every night.”
“Me too…”
“Say, how’d yer find me anyhow?” the voice said.
“Did same as ye. I broke the agreement…”
“What yer mean same as me? I ain’t come lookin’ fer ye...”
“Naw... Wall... ‘course not, ye wretch! What I’m meanin’ to say is I went home. Sawr that letter yer writ Ma ‘n’ Pa couple years back. That, if I ain’t mistaken, was against the rules. Hells, didn’t know yer learnt yer letters! Thought it a ruse er somethin’.”
“I lernt. Wrote a note askin’ the postmaster to read it to Ma ‘n’ Pa. Take it they did?”
“Theys did. Three times. She had anyone who ken read at the county seat do it, too. Memorized the whole thing, our Ma—even ‘cited it to me! Bragged it come all the way from Keoma1.”
“And how... Ah...” the voice cracked. “How is they?”
“Old. Ma’s got pains that keep her down most days. Pa seems strong enough. Mayhap a lil’ skinny. Theys thought we was dead. Done nearly kilt them to see me ride up. Done kilt me to ride off again...” Colt choked up at this and cleared his throat. “Hey, know what they tolt me?”
“Whas that?”
“One of the boys come lookin’ fer us.”
“Who?”
“Bull Fisher,” Colt said. “Ol’ Mush Mouth Fish. Gods strike me down fer lyin’ if he wern’t the best Three Kings player I’s ever sawr. Done took all my pay more than once. Tough ‘n’ clever sonofab—h for a Tollman. Don’t know nobody who had more sand tho he was short as a melonhead.”
“Same, I reck’n...” the voice chuckled.
“What’s that he used to call ye? Old Man Boy er somethin’? Said yer was too young to be actin’ like the old soul ye was...” Colt laughed again, this time heartier, with tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. “Cud hardly understand a d—mn werd he ever said.”
“Good man, that Tullman.” The voice said. “Did ye tell Ma en Pa anythin’ about us? Yer know, about our treaty er why we don’t come home?”
“I ain’t tolt them nothin’. I jes’ promised to find ye, an’ gave ‘em some plews. A good bit fer the trouble. They should be all took care of till they last days, I ‘spect. Find Ma a good doctor to soothe them pains.
“What, ye a rich man now, Colt Doom?” The voice sounded genuinely surprised.
“Got lucky. Came up big in them shoals down in Big Water City. Took me a job as a lighthouse keeper, but when all those fellers were seekin’ out treasure on the reefs, I took my shot.”
“Hit the mark, did ye? That’s smart. I’m happy fer ye.”
“Thankee... Anyhow, I tracked yer postage to Keoma. Used that ol’ photograph we gave to Ma n Pa to identify ye. Found some folks who said ye was a woodcutter ‘n’ railroad man called Belt. Said ye took on with a troop of Tremblers after some time, so I tracked ye to that bunch, and they pointed me here. Wall, yer wife did.”
The voice did not respond.
“Never took ye for the marryin’ type, ner the religious one,” said Colt after a moment.
“Was hopin’ to find a way to break the spell… Them Tremblers is the ones who taught me readin’ n writin’. So I cud know the scriptures. That’s why I come up here, too. Seek the gods, invoke their power. Mahap finds some redemption while I’m at it. I... I hate what we done, Colt...”
It was Colt’s turn to say nothing. He understood, at least, the curse-breaking venture. The rest was misplaced guilt, and he felt no such remorse for the villains who had received their due reward. Colt remembered himself. He had meant for the discussion to serve as a distraction while he finalized his escape route, but instead Colt had become the distracted one. It felt too good to talk to Old Man Boy, as their friend had knighted him, and he had lost his way in the experience. The realization made him fume. Why did things have to be this way? Why?
The voice seemed to echo this same line of thought, for it said, “Yer know we really ain’t gotta do this, Colt. We ain’t gotta give that ‘grew the last werd, deserve it as we might.”
Colt’s blood boiled—all the reasons for his calling here flooding in like a raging tide. The earlier feelings of nostalgia and longing suddenly burned up like paper on the face of the sun, and he shook with fists so tight the bones in his knuckles popped all at once.
“Speak fer yerself!” Colt said. “I ain’t deserve nothin’ like this! We did what Little Boots said. Orders, thas how I see it! ‘Sides, them b—ds killed two of our kind. They got what was comin’ to ‘em judged ‘n’ just!”
“I mean it, brother, we ken beat it. Go back ter where yer come from, and I’ll move somewheres else. Simple as that. The answers are out there.”
“Oh? Answers? Yer mean five years yon when yer hunt me down ‘n’ shoot me like a dog in my own bed? I’m through sleepin’ with the tapers lit. Through sittin’ in corners ‘n’ countin’ steps ‘n’ markin’ alleys from one door to the next! I’m tired of dyin’ young bein’ the only thing on my mind from when I get up to when I lay down. Tired of it hauntin’ my dreams. Tired of feelin’ like I got no future no matter what I do er how hard I try. No, ser, I’m gon live!”
The time had come! Colt spun and cut into the open and leveled the pistol and spammed its contents upon the great, high mountain. Something huge and hunched moved along the scarps to Colt’s left flank, but when he swung the Locke crosswise to strike the creature down, the entity had already vanished into the woods again—gone like some grotesque revenant back to its demesne of horrors. The sky broke with the report of a cannonade, and Colt threw himself down in defense against it. Drawing himself up by the scruff, Colt Doom ran for the cabin as fast as any mortal man’s dexterity would allow. Balls zipped overhead. Air whistled across the ears. Funnels of dust burst to the left and the right, and then fell to the ground like ash.
“D—n ye, mountain devil!” he shouted.
Just then, an acute band of air glanced off Colt Doom’s right earlobe, and the man let out a shout of fright as he tumbled to the ground. On instinct, he reached for the appendage but found only blood, which glazed his fingers thick and dribbling, analogous to a dipstick drawn from a bucket of fresh paint. He felt about the side of his head and found nothing there, and the truth fell unto him like a night terror.
His ear... It was gone!
“Gods!” he yelled, and he looked to the mountain as one expecting the gods to answer.
What’re ye doing, fool?! Git up! Hide!
Colt cussed his fragility, for there he lay like a weeping child, meanwhile granting his foe room to prime the next volley when the house was nigh ten meters across the parcel. Should he lie his head upon the enemy’s lap, too? Where was his military bearing? Had he become so soft in his civilian life? So flaccid of mind? No longer! He must fight! He must live!
With that newfound vigor, Colt righted himself and rushed for the cabin, the pain in his foot and ear remote now, numbed by sheer wrath, his mind on nothing other than the roar of the mountain, the expected kill shot to inevitably follow, and making it to cover before either of those things could occur. But the shot was yet to come, and Colt dove behind the body of the house and curled into a ball only to be greeted with silence. He rolled against the cabin wall and sat there heaving, temples, chest, and ears thrashing like a drum and fife line on the field of battle. He spat, wiped the snot from his mouth, and spat again. He popped open the cylinder of his revolver and dumped the ash and began reloading the armament from powder to ball to cap.
“Gods d—n sonofab—h!” he huffed. He flicked the cylinder closed again and checked his position. For the first time, Colt saw up close that which he had merely speculated from afar: Jaith’s homestead was furnished with bizarre, if not obscene, relics and curios—a funhouse of painted cairns, stone circles, and alien calligraphies established and devoted to purposes and divinities beyond reckoning. Carved runes arced along the cabin’s surface in queer scrawls. Dream catchers hung from the eaves, swaying tandem with the wilted tails of trapped game, beaded with crystals and polished pebble stones that clinked and pinged on their hooks. There were animal skulls, bone-made figurines, stick effigies, and other handcrafted relics Colt knew no name for.
So, the rumors were true… Jaith, you done lost yer mind up here!
Colt rallied. Now was the moment of decision: Entrench or flee. Stand or run. What was he to choose? There were wounds of the flesh to think about, and without treatment they might turn grave. Perhaps even interfere with his ability to withstand siege. But then again, Colt Doom might never have this opportunity again; to run would mean to lose the advantage forever. Moreover, it meant to live on the run until whatever end found him.
That ain’t no way...
Colt wiped the sweat from his forehead and began crawling.
©Luke Warfield. All rights reserved.
KAY-OH-MA