Jeopardy squared

It’s hot. So hot the earth is rising into the sky.

That old mare died a while ago. I gave her my last water and still she died.

I pull the silk kerchief off my neck, take my hat off – the rim is soaked with sweat and salt - put the kerchief on my head so it drapes over my neck and push the hat back on. Nothing makes anything any better. The sand ekes into my boots; I can feel blisters build.

I stink of sweat.

I drop the saddle. I’ll come back for it. If I carry it any further I’ll burn up like a mesquite leaf on a bed of coals. That little hiss of dying, then the ash lifts into the air and wafts away.

The town floats in the distance. Curls her finger at me and promises salvation.

I am a burning shell of a man though. Lips hard, fissured. Throat wheezing. The air crawls down to my lungs, sucks water from my veins, and I breathe it out into the furnace.

I can see his horse’s hooves. Follow them without thought. All the gold, all the water except my bottle. Generous of you Cody Callaghan. Thanks for only shooting my horse in the rump so it hobbled in pain for hours before it died. I could have ridden it, but the hell. A man’s gotta live up to something.

Seems you decided to live down to something.

I try to breathe through my nose so I lose less water. I walk in the laziest way I can so I don’t burn energy. The sun is a hammer. Every step a blow. The flameless air’s grasping furnace draws me in.

The town slowly floats down to the sand as I approach. I touch the gun he didn’t know I had stashed in the saddle. Yelp, jerk my hand away. Too hot to hold. I take off the hat, use the kerchief to transfer it to my right holster on the shady side. Kerchief and hat back on.

There are no horses in the street. No buggies. No kids, no drunks. I shuffle to the first house and collapse in the shade of its veranda. It is more bearable without the sun but not less hot. I crash through the door and back to its small kitchen but it’s as dry as a Navajo grave.

The next house is the same. Deserted. Ransacked. Dry as death.

There is a saloon across the road some. I stagger along under the veranda roofs, then take a breath and step out into the sun again. A hot breeze blows a dust devil down the road, over me and past. Like I didn’t exist.

I almost collapse into the bar but I back right out. It stinks. It stinks so bad.

Cody’s horse is in the middle of the floor, a bullet hole in its head. Saddle still on. No water. No gold. 

I stuff the kerchief over my nose and mouth and check the bar. Some ancient hard liquor. No water.

Out the back I check the kitchen but there’s nothing except some dried seeds green with rat poison. I remember that sweet, fat old Mexicon lady told me she always kept water under the floor where it was cooler. I kick the scratty carpet aside and lift the small trapdoor. A stone jug, just sitting there, Heavy. Corked. It smells like water. I drink some. Can’t afford to spew it up again. It tastes like the sweetest flower I ever smelt. I pour some on the kerchief and tie it round my neck. I fill my water bottle from the jar, drink some more.

I wonder what the hell I am going to do now, seeing as the town is dead, I don’t have a horse and the next civilisation is a couple of days away. Civilisation. Deadwood. That makes me smile.

I look out back. Cody lies dead in the dirt.

I listen hard but can’t hear anything. I look outside in every direction, go to the body and check his pockets. Nothing there. No guns. I take his last bullets from his belt, stick them in mine.

Back in the hotel I finish the water in the jug. Put it back under the floor. She might come back for it. Sorry about the water, but I’m doing my best to avoid that reaper guy.

I check the shops, the houses. This town just up and died. I guess the well ran dry and the rains never came. Nothing there for a burnt-up and desperate man.

There’s one more house, a bit out of town. I take a deep breath and head out into the broiling sun. I wonder how I could have walked all those miles. Just the 50 yards to the house is…

There’s a horse. Tied up on the far side. Its head just pokes out briefly then it ducks back into the shade.

I am exposed like a coyote howling on a hilltop in front of a full moon.

The hell, I just keep on walking, slip that Webley into my hand, break it, check the bullets, shunt it back together as quietly as I can.

I get to the house. No windows on the side.

Veranda will creak like a rusty well wheel. I head round the back. I am tempted to grab the horse and bolt, but if he has a rifle he could shoot me in the back.

Back door is shut. A stick on a string hangs out the back of the door. A crude handle. I pull it gently. No noise but I can feel the latch slip out of the catch. I push the door slowly in. No creak.

I look in. A rough kitchen. A dirty plate on the bench. Bean sauce. Flies. A snore in the front room.

I step carefully into the kitchen, towards the open doorway to the front room. Another step. Nothing. Another step. The plank under my foot breaks and I collapse, grabbing the bench. The plate falls off and rattles like a church bell.

In the front room he swears, there’s a gunshot, and a blood-curdling scream. More gasping, swearing, multiple gunshots through the doorway, the kitchen wall. Then the click of empty barrels.

I jump to my feet, gun held out, step into the room.

He is sitting on the floor, gold and water in the bags beside him. Our…my gold, my water.

Blood is pouring out of a hole in his boot. Seems that first shot was an accident. Shot himself trying to get his gun out of its holster. That’ll teach you to go to sleep.

I step over and pull his other gun from its holster, take the empty one off him.

“My foot, my foot!” he wails, tries to pull off his boot, but the pain is too much.

I take the saddlebags and tie them onto the horse. He hasn’t even taken its saddle off. In this heat. That’s a mark of the man right there.

I find an old tin bucket and pour in a pile of water, give it to the horse. It seems grateful.

The man has dragged himself out of the house and tells me I have to take pity. Can’t leave him like that.

“Oh I think you’ll find I can. We have a jeopardy squared situation here. That guy over there near killed me and took my gold. So I owed him. You killed him so I owe you on behalf of him. You know what I mean.”

He says double jeopardy, like he’s an educated man and deserves better.

“No,” I say. “Double jeopardy is where you can’t be tried twice for the same crime. Jeopardy squared is where you get punished for your own crime, and also for the crime you took on by killing someone else. I made that up, but it’s a pretty conception, don’t you think.”

He swears at me with words I don’t use.

I shoot his other foot. 

…

Me and that horse, we got on fine. He carried me and the gold to Deadwood. I looked after him until the day he died. I planted purple crocuses on his grave.