Coiling Point Excerpt
By Lincoln Rogers, copyright 2005
“Rosalie!” He screamed her name while an explosion of gunpowder, sounding like a demon roar of Lucifer, propelled the fatal bullet.
“Rosalie!” He shouted her name again and again as five more bullets stabbed the cobalt sky, but his rage at her was no match for the grief that lay before him. He wanted someone to blame for his own actions, and Rosalie was convenient.
Eli Burke lifted his face toward the sun, the lines around his eyes deepening their creases in defense against its brightness; the four-inch brim of his hat unable to provide adequate shelter from the unbroken sky. The rest of his lean countenance was a mixture of reddened skin, stubble, and sweat-hardened dust from a trail full of misery.
"Sorry about that, Kicker,” Burke managed to say after the land settled back to a suffocating quiet. “But I reckon you’re better off now."
The black horse lying in the dirt couldn’t respond to his long-time partner’s sentence, the cowboy’s parched voice rumbling like a chair dragged across the saloon floor back at the beginning of this misfortune... back at Skinny’s place. Kicker was dead, that first bullet relieving the stallion from the burden of struggling to move and draw breath with the combined venom of a dozen rattlesnakes consuming his life like flames through dry tinder. No matter the circumstances, it wasn’t easy for a cowboy to put down a good horse. It was devastating when the steed was his closest friend and constant companion. Burke wanted someone to pay.
Unbidden, an image of a beautiful woman flickered in his thoughts, and Eli spat a rare curse in response. He was a quiet man, viewing displays of emotion as a sign of frailty or the result of too much strong drink, but this was a heavy load to bear. As his gaze took in the lifeless form of his horse, his mind accused him in a voice only he could hear. Yesterday, he should have stopped sooner for rest. He shouldn’t have pushed the endurance of horse and rider just to get those extra miles -- miles now stretching like an arid barrier -- between him and that worthless town of Dry Gulch he left behind in the dust of a headlong sprint from shattered dreams. Bitter indictments circled his thoughts like a pack of wolves around wounded prey.
Eli’s fury bested him when he first lit out, changing to an all-consuming lust for distance that wouldn’t be satisfied. Half blind with a burden of weariness and thirst, Burke guided Kicker straight into another no-good town, this one located in flat rocks populated entirely by a nest of rattlers.
The first dagger of fangs from the rocks snapped them out of their exhausted trance, adrenaline providing a source of energy they hadn’t possessed moments earlier. The athletic stallion jumped and sprang throughout the middle of the lethal foes, searching for a way out of death’s trap, while Eli blew off six shots in quick succession from the barrel of his revolver. To his dismay, bleary eyes conspired against him, causing him to miss the coiled attackers. Burke was a dead shot, able on a good day to hit a jackrabbit on the run, but today was anything but good. If those pulls of the trigger had only found their marks, Kicker would be hurting, that’s for sure, but he just might still be alive. And Eli would still have his best friend. The inner accusations transformed to demons of guilt, a shouting lynch mob, deafening in their appetite for vengeance.
His hand journeyed to the unmoving neck of the black steed, palm quivering with a combination of fatigue and sorrow. The course timbre of Eli’s voice broke the enfolding funereal silence once more.
"Forgive a fool like me for leading us into that forest of fangs, boy. I know you did your best to get us out of there in fine shape, and you almost did just that. All I got is a pain in my leg from hitting it somehow during the fracas. If I’d been able to plug any of those vipers, you’d still be alive. I know it. It was my fault for running us so hard. Running from that miserable town and that low-down cheating woman..."
The confession paused while his throat gulped back fervent emotions attempting to pass. "Trouble is, boy, I ain’t never going to be in fine shape without you." Burke could feel a rush inside, building like a wall of water after a hard rain. The muscles of his rugged jaw tensed, and hands became fists as he resisted the flood the way a dam holds a river at bay. He cleared his throat before releasing syllables in a more controlled tone, but not devoid of feeling.
"I miss you already, Kicker,” he said, a single tear carving an unnoticed line through the dust on his cheek. “You were the best I ever laid eyes on."
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