LIKE OLD WEST STYLE!

Paul and I made the hike back up the slopes towards the town of Wright stopping only a few times on the way to drink water and stare back down into the oddity of Deltadesco. All it was now was a misty disc of white wispy clouds.

When we finally reached Wright we came to a clearing in a patch of forest beside the empty town and decided that some sleep might be nice. We sat our guns down as Paul and I quickly made a makeshift fire pit by placing a series of rocks in a circle, then we piled wood in the middle of it, Paul lit a piece of cloth from his bag and threw it on top and blew until the wood caught on fire.

“That ought to keep us warm for the night” Paul commented.

                I wasn’t much for talking as I lay on my side and played with a twig. My eyes felt like they looked beet red and bloodshot. I yawned and watched Paul build his own bed out of pine straw and leaves. he finished his cot and laid down with a grunt.

                The darkness filled the smoky night air and the animals of the forests around Wright chirped and screamed as the fire crackled and snapped.

“Jim” Paul spoke my name; I hesitated, not wanting to answer.

“What is it Paul… I’m tired” I replied annoyed.

“Who… who are you hoping that ticket goes to… me or Melissa” why such a difficult question at such a time? I hesitated again, but this time not because I didn’t want to answer, but because I found it hard to.

“uh… you of course” I didn’t play it off too well. Paul sat upright, I did the same.

“Really Jim, who are you hoping it goes to?” how could I play this one off?

“Look at the stars Paul and worry about it in the morning, seriously, look at them, they’re nice”

“God damn it Jim! Answer me! I don’t give a fuck about the stars!” Paul was infuriated. I sat upright as well.
“Melissa ok!” maybe I shouldn’t of been so honest.

“Shit! What about me Jim? You know I’m going! What, you’d let some bitch tear us apart!”

“Tear us apart! We aren’t even friends anymore god damn it! Not ever since Rebecca died!” I was shouting now.

“What do you mean?” asked Paul in what I knew was a fake tone of confusion.

“We aren’t… friends anymore; we’ve grown so far apart man. Remember when we ran into each other, it was like I met you for the first time, but instead of it being a miracle, me seeing the guy who knew me all my life, it was like we failed to re-connect” I stared at Paul through the flames of the fire, he stared back silently, emotionlessly.

“What are we going to do about those tickets man?” he asked me.

“Slit each other’s throats” it was a cold answer, but we had become cold people.

“Would you do that to me Jim?”

“If I had to” what had I become, something so much more different then the kind blonde haired boy my parents raised, a whole other person.

“Morning’s on its way Jim… we’re going into Wright”

“For what?” I asked curiously, why did Wright matter?

“how bout we have a shootout… like old west style, you get that .500 and I’ll take that M1” Paul grinned and let out a coarse laugh, I laughed too, tossed the broken shards of twigs in my hand into the fire and kept my eyes open. My watch read 3:30 AM, I was about to pull an all-nighter.

“Good deal man” I replied.

 

                My eyes felt like someone had kept a blow drier on them all night. The sun was just coming over the horizon and the fire was fading, why we had even built the thing, I don’t know.

                As I expected, the silence that had formed after our conversation never died down, I was waiting for Paul to say something as the forest became ever more illuminated, he just sat there and grinded his teeth.

“Wha…” I was cut short.

“What!” he snapped.

“Let’s make some coffee before we go do this thing” said Paul.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“Sure… lets have a nice drink before one of us gets his fucking head blown off!” Paul’s lack of sleep was showing in his erratic responses.

                Paul reached into his bag and pulled out the small burlap bag of loose coffee grinds which he had brought with him from La Grange, I slipped a shiny, dented steel pot from my bag and tossed it onto the sandy earth with a clink.

“There ya go” I said to him. He emptied most of his large water bottle into the pot, poured in the entire contents of the sack and after pushing most of the hot embers together with a stick, placed the pot crookedly on top.

                We watched the pot anxiously waiting for the water to catch a boil, it took about twenty minutes, but as soon as it did, the grains bubbled to the top and Paul took it off the embers. I pulled out a steel cup; Paul poured it full for me. I waited and blew on the scalding hot liquid before drinking it down as fast as I could, it burned my tongue until it was numb, then I reached the coffee grinds. It tasted foul and was hard to swallow, but I toughed it out. I threw Paul the cup, but Paul was smarter and used a shirt in his bag to filter the grinds out.

“why’d you drink so fast Jim, you should enjoy life’s finer points” I couldn’t tell if he was bluffing, the old Paul would of wanted to wrap his hands around a gun to shoot someone faster than anyone else I’d ever met.

“Shut up and get it over with” he definitely didn’t, he drank slowly and with each sip sighed.

“Shit” I said.

                Maybe it was wise, he could have at least enjoyed his last moments if he was going to die. Was he scared though? I had never known Paul to fear anything. For the first time ever, I actually wasn’t scared. I thought I was going to die, but I had faith in my abilities as a crack shot, or maybe it was a just a lack of sleep that created a lack of fear.

“You ready” said Paul as he sat the cup in front of the camp fire.

“Yeah, are you sure you’re done ma’am” it was as if Paul and I had switched roles. I was being the asshole and he was being mellow, for once.

“Give me the Carbine so I can get rid of this Uzi” he demanded. I picked the carbine up from my side and tossed it to him, he caught it one handed.

“Come on, let’s go into Wright, just leave your shit here, the victor can come back and take the spoils of war when we’re done”

                Paul was speaking differently then he usually did. He wasn’t trying to be a hard ass anymore; could he have really been scared? I didn’t understand it. He wasn’t even smoking.

                We got up from our dusty perches and walked along a beaten dirt path surrounded by trees and ferns, we just eyed each other silently, our guns swinging in our hands until we were just on the outskirts of Wright. It was no different than when we had departed from it. The brown two story old western saloons style buildings stood like facades facing one another with an unpaved sandy road running straight down the middle.

                One might have expected a lone horseman with chaps, a cowboy hat and revolvers on his chest to ride into town, but it was just Paul and I as we stepped into the midst of it all.

“Ten paces?” I asked as we came to a stop between “Billie’s General Store” and “Erma’s Delights”.

“Sure Jim, who’s counting?” Paul rummaged through the breast pocket on his plaid shirt and produced the pack of Marlboro’s; he looked into it and found that it was empty.

“Shit” he cursed lightly under his breath and tossed the finished pack to the ground.

“Well, let’s get back to back and… well… I’ll let you do the honors Jim” We stepped up to each other, face to face and turned around. We held our guns skyward and moved back until we just touched.

“On my count” I said.

“One” we moved one step.

“Two” another step.

“Three”

                I don’t know what Paul was thinking exactly, but what fool would follow rules in a game against his life. When I reached seven I had expected him to turn around and cheap shot me, but it was I who did just that.

“Sev…” I didn’t even complete the word when I whipped around and shoddily aimed at Paul, the crosshairs were just to his right when I opened fire, dust kicked up behind him as he shielded his face with arms crossed.

“Fucking cheap shottin’ little bitch!” he shouted as we both snapped to our rights and began running, the shootout was on.

                Paul busted through the door of Billie’s general store as I turned around and dashed straight for the end of the town, before I reached it I whipped around the corner of a building on my left and quickly ascended a ladder onto a corrugated tin roof, zipped across it and dodged three shots that ripped from Paul’s M1 which he had fired from across the way on a balcony. I ducked to dodge the three shots as I came to a flimsy steel chute that connected the building I was now on with the next building which was one story taller than the single story building I was now on.

                I leapt onto the chute as it swayed unnervingly side to side from my weight. I didn’t worry about it; speed was what I should worry about. I tore across it to the next roof and leapt off of it. I ran to the next building which was another story higher and leapt straight through a second story window with my arms guarding my face.

                I didn’t stop to look around the dusty building because Paul fired enough shots to adequately blow out all four windows on the top floor porch.

“Shit!” I shouted as the high piercing carbine ammunition tore through the weak walls.

                I cleared two rooms in the building before kicking out another window and leaping out of another window. This time there was no building below me, just some kind of small scale industrial yard behind a small house. It was filled with an assortment of machines and ditches with debris piled around the edges. I flew straight into one of the ditches and rolled, I stood up and began running its length until I came to a ladder connecting a building next door that reached into the ditch. I climbed it and heard four more gunshots ring out, but they were nowhere near me, Paul was firing into the factory building.

                I climbed up the ladder until I reached the third story of the old city hall and looked to see some large boards extended out to the slightly shorter building next door like a bridge, I jumped on them and slid down. The next movement was a leap of faith. I ran towards the front of the building praying that Paul was still firing into the wrong building and jumped over the front towards the ground. Before I landed though, I locked onto Paul, he was running out into the middle of the street towards the factory building. While airborne I aimed in my crosshairs and moments before he could whip around and fire I pulled the trigger.

                The kick from the enormous revolver was harsh and extremely loud and I could see its projectile kicked up dirt behind Paul, had I hit him? I landed with a thump and rolled in the center of town standing to my feet, I re-adjusted my aim to where Paul was now laying on his back groaning in pain with the carbine behind him on the ground.

“What happened bad boy!” I shouted cruelly.

“Is the almighty Paul done for!” I approached him and stood towering over him to look down on his face.

                He was rocking from side to side gripping his stomach in obvious pain. Blood spilled from between his fingers and appeared in his gritted teeth.

“Haha! Paul, I thought you’d win this for sure” I was on top of the world.

“Jim… I just don’t get it” he said hoarsely.

“What the fuck are you talking about man!” I shouted with an accompanying hand gesture.

“Don’t you see man…” Paul coughed and unlike the movies, no crimson drops burst forth, but moments later his stomach convulsed and his back arched, a crimson flood stinking of metal poured from his mouth and stained the sand beside him. I put my arm over my mouth and nose, squinted and looked away.

“God damn you are a mess Paul” I noted.

“Jim, listen…” he said softly.

“What!” I wasn’t about to show any remorse as I shouted my retort back at him.

“We were best friends… and you think we lost one another… why do you think I never killed you in your sleep… why do you think I never killed you over those tickets… Jim… I loved you… you were my…. My brother, ever since kindergarten, Haha…” his laugh wasn’t one of anger, or cruelty, it was a genuine laugh, and it was bright and faded the evil smile from my face for a moment.

“I don’t mind dying right here, right now… but it’s you that let two pieces of paper tear us apart… if you wanted them both so bad… I don’t know if I would have given them up… but I definitely wouldn’t have killed you over such shit… this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and that’s why I never bragged about fighting you” he put the back of his head against the ground and smiled as he looked up to the sky.

“I’ll see Rebecca… I see her now” blood started slipping from his nostrils and running down his mouth over his lips and onto the sand.

“I love you Jim, I lover her… I see her… her hair is blacker than ever, it still shines so bright” he wasn’t dead yet, I didn’t know if he was going to die soon, so I knelt by his side during his last moments on Earth.

“You fading away man?” I asked keeping false composure.

“This aint gonna come fast boy” he replied.

“I’ll be able to lie here and think about my life”

“Are you going to come clean with God Paul” I asked.

“Hell no!”he laughed and another tide of putrid blood poured from his mouth.

“Shit!” I looked away and closed my eyes to keep my stomach settled, I looked back.

“I can’t be here Paul. I don’t believe anything you say anymore” I didn’t know if I meant what I said, but I was a different man now, my eyes a little bit darker.

                I picked up the carbine and kicked Paul’s arms to his sides disrespectfully. I slipped the gun on my back and the pistol on my side. Next I reached into Paul’s pockets and snatched the tickets, he didn’t fight, he just laid there and stewed in his own defeat. After that I stuck a finger into my breast pocket and revealed blood stained ace of hearts, dropping it onto Paul’s chest.

“Karma baby, karma” I let out a false laugh to show coldness.

                I returned to the camp site not looking back once as sand swirled up around Paul and created a sheet of white between him and me. I gathered my items, put them in my bag and eyed the new tickets. They were yellow like paper gold, on them it read

 

One admission per person, per ticket

Departing from Braselton Wyoming on December 22, 2012 3:00PM         

 

I laughed, slipped the tickets into my pocket and looked toward the sun with my hand over my eyes to see which direction was north. I had one whole month. My real epic had just begun; everything building up to this moment was just filler space.

                Wyoming, land of purple mountains majesty and horse pastures, possibly a good one thousand miles away. I thought about how sore my feet would be and then recalled something Confucius had said.

“The longest journey begins with a single step” I took one step, and the longest journey began.

RATE THIS BRANCH!

At the same time he was surprised that it was still working.

excerpt from Hidden Mountain Heights Academy   by Marcwojo