An Angel Blinked
*
The dull scent of dung and disappointment wafted through the hot, late-morning air as the street began to fill. Merritt twisted his nose and did his best to breathe through his mouth, but it did little to fight off the scent. Merritt hated these little towns. They were springing up all over the Wastes these days. At least the bigger of the pioneering towns usually tried to put on a show of civility. They usually had at least one decent street that was kept mostly clean of acridian droppings and the various fluids the locals expelled. But in these small towns, the word 'Waste' took on a double meaning. Merritt despised that a craft as unwavering and brilliant at his was ever plied in such an undeserving place.
The wind picked up suddenly, tossing some airborne dust into Merritt's face. The wind was almost straight on, and the dust could, if luck were against him, blow directly into his eyes. Merritt smiled at the thought. At least that would add some sort of challenge. Nothing else would. With his steely blue eyes, Merritt stared across the street, nearly empty in the middle but lined with countless onlookers and spectators along either side. Merritt's smile deepened. Good turnout for such a small town. Likely, there was little or nothing else in this town to keep these poor simpletons entertained. Merritt almost felt sorry for them.
He felt far more sorry, however, for the young centaur who stood in the center of the road down the street from Merritt. As the wind rushed over and past him, it carried his scent toward Merritt. Of course, Merritt's human nose could not possibly distinguish the centaur's odor on the breeze from the other, even less appealing fragrances, but Merritt imagined that he could smell the young centaur's nervous fear even now. The horse-man was inexperienced; that much had been abundantly clear from the moment he had issued his challenge. Merritt coldly stared his opponent up and down. This likely wasn't his first duel, but he couldn't have had many under his belt. His front leg muscles kept twitching, as if he thought the draw would come any second. His tail cast sporadically from side to side in anticipation. But the real hint was the eyes. They were furious; emotional. This centaur was no shootist, however much he may have wanted to be.
The centaur was also dressed in an odd, flowing white shirt that had clearly been made for a larger man. His hat was pulled back a bit, apparently in an attempt to protect it from taking off in the wind. He wore a simple, brown belt just at the point where his human half became horse, and his shirt was tucked into that belt lazily, right where his holster sat. Merritt shook his head in an almost unperceivable motion. It was important for a shootist to dress for the occasion. Merritt himself, a tall and whisper-thin man, wore tight brown trousers that hung close to his legs, ensuring quick and fluid movement. His shirt was a middle shade of gray, and about half a size too small, tucked in tight to ensure it wouldn't interfere in his draw. His hat, made of a thick leather and dyed a darker gray than his shirt, was pulled down low, to keep as much of the sun out of his eyes as possible. Merritt prided himself on always being ready.
The sides of the streets were almost full now, and it was nearly time to begin. The centaur was nervous, Merritt wasn't. He dully reflected on how he should have asked for his opponent's name, but it hardly mattered. Merritt remembered the first person he had dueled, but few others. They didn't matter much. It was just the game that mattered. It was that immeasurably tiny span of time between the signal and the draw, between victory and failure; that was all that mattered. Forty-seven opponents had lined up against Merritt, and forty-seven had fallen. This young centaur was his forty-eighth. Merritt briefly considered trying to talk the fool kid out of the duel, but he was too concerned that he would succeed.
Suddenly, the crowd seemed to sense it was time, and as one they began to stomp the ground in a slow, rhythmic beat. There were many ways to time a duel, Merritt knew, but he preferred the stomping method best. If the town had any innate sense of rhythm, it was the easiest to time. Every town did things a little different. Most offered one Counter, who would count up by yelling out numbers and, when he got to the last number, everyone watching would stomp. Some preferred to stomp along with each number. Some towns counted to three, some to four or five. One down out deep Wasteward liked to count to thirty, which was inexcusably dull for Merritt. This town, mercifully, was a three-stomp town, with a few extra ones before the counting started. At least this town did something right.
The town counter, a short Nog woman with a slight limp, stepped to the front of the crowd and called out a bellowing "One!" At that moment, Merritt knew this duel would be profoundly boring. The panic in the young centaur's eyes was screaming like a frightened child. Merritt would have felt bad for the kid, if he didn't find the weakness comical. He had never felt that panic, not even the first time. As the Nog hag shouted "Two," Merritt briefly reflected back on his first duel, against an old, wandering shootist like he had since become. Her name was Kallia, and her draw had been the most amazing thing Merritt had ever seen as a child, and he had worked tirelessly to be faster. When his first duel came, he was sure he was. He was right.
"Three!"
Merritt was moving before he even realized it. Before he could even fully process the action, his gun was out of its holster and, as if his body had decided to amuse his mind, he was pivoting backwards, turning his body at an angle. With his holster hip away from the centaur, Merritt brought his gun alongside the small of his back and fired. The movement was so impossibly quick that even with the extra step to shoot from behind his back, his shot struck his opponent full in the hand as the centaur's gun was leaving its holster. The poor horse-man howled in pain as he clenched his thumb, or whatever was left of it. The crowd cheered, and the Counter nodded in his direction, declaring him the winner, as if there had been any doubt. Merritt just smiled. It had been fun, but it was just another day. Nothing special. Just number forty-eight.
* *
Twenty-Lash the Vash was licking his reptilian lips as the wind blew by him. His clawed fingers moved back and forth, as if he was playing a slow tune on an old calliope, but instead of dancing along a keyboard, they were an inch from his gun. His eyes were narrowed, but darting, looking first at those gathered along the street, and then at the tall, blond, black-clad stranger in the street. Twenty-Lash had killed dozens of men, but he had never seen one like this before. The man was human, or at least looked the part. His hair was a bright yellow blond, and combed back neatly with a slight wave to it. He wore darkened glasses that hid his eyes, and smartly complimented the tight, jet-black clothes he wore. Even his boots were solid black.
The man stood straight and still as a statue. He didn't so much as move his head from one side to another. He simply stood there and stared at the murderous Vash who was waiting for the call. Twenty-Lash studied the man with growing concern. He had lived amongst humans his entire life, and had never felt so thoroughly unnerved by one. Something was wrong with this picture. Humans were never so motionless, so calm. As Twenty-Lash stared his foe up and down, he realized that the man's jet-black clothes were completely clean. There wasn't a speck of dirt or dust on them anywhere.
When the Counter stepped forward and shouted "One!" in his booming, minotaur voice, Twenty-Lash actually jumped. The crowd stomped their boots, sending a shaking percusion echoing down the street. The Counter shouted "Two," and again the boots of the townsfolk sang. This was a five-stomp town, which Twenty-Lash had never cared for, and now was certainly no exception. A five-count just gave a man too much time to think. The Counter yelled "Three" as Twenty-Lash started shaking a bit. But then he started thinking. Fear had never been an enemy to him before, always an ally. There was no need to change that now. When the word "four" rang through town, Twenty-Lash straightened, his nerves finally calm, his fingers ready to draw.
"Five!"
Twenty-Lash never saw the tall stranger move. He never saw the gun fly from his opponent's holster. He never saw the tiny projectile as it was forced through the air towards him in a burst of fear and fire. Faster than a mortal can blink, the tall, blond stranger ensured that Twenty-Lash the Vash would never see anything again. The lizard slumped lazily to the ground, the hole in the center of his head already gushing onto the dusty street. The crowd was stunned for a few moments, but eventually recovered long enough to applaud the winner. He didn't seem to notice. He simply stared at the lizard's body for a few long minutes before nodding once and turning to walk out of town.
One of the spectators, a woman who was just beginning to approach old age, watched him go with only barely concealed interest. She had seen much in her life, and many things she would rather have forgotten, but she had never seen any mortal move that fast. She doubted any mortal could. She had seen this man fight four times now, and she was convinced he was anything but mortal. She glanced down at Twenty-Lash the Vash. She knew him only by reputation, a heartless killer with a gun as quick as his mouth. He likely deserved his fate. Others this stranger had gunned down likely didn't. But his pattern was clear, and it was only a matter of time before...
The woman shook off the thought. She glanced back at the tall stranger, making for the edge of town. She took a deep breath and wrapped one thumbless hand around her long walking stick. Without a word to anyone in the stunned crowd, she set off after the blond stranger, being sure to keep her distance.
* * *
It was raining, just lightly, in the town of Zymmer, and the streets were only about half-full of spectators for Merritt's forty-ninth showdown. This one was a minotaur by the name of Billbrush, but he insisted on being called Bullrush. He was the first opponent Merritt had faced in a long time that he had actually heard of. Bullrush had established a certain reputation in the Wastes. He wasn't the fastest 'slinger in Jakkard, nor the brightest, but he was built like a baloth and could take a shot like no other man alive. The scars from his wounds marked his body up and down, but Bullrush had never fallen in a duel. But then again, neither had Merritt.
The rain worried Merritt, although only a little. The water would make the gun's handle just that much slicker, and with the speed Merritt would be drawing, his grip might become an issue. He had dueled in the rain before, but Bullrush was a higher caliber opponent, if only slightly so. Merritt's accuracy would have to be flawless. It was just one more layer of challenge to pile on to his already challenging lifestyle. Merritt smiled. This was precisely what he was looking for.
For his part, Bullrush seemed unconcerned with the rain. The large minotaur was shirtless, undoubtedly to show off his scars in an attempt to intimidate his foe. Merritt laughed at the thought. He had never been intimidated. He knew that life was a finite resource, and eventually the Cruel Fate fell upon everyone. Each time he stepped out onto a street with another shootist, he knew the angels were watching him, just waiting to pull back their celestial hammer. That's why it was fate. Eventually, they would pull that trigger. But occassionally, every once in a while, the angels blinked. So far, for Merritt, they had blinked forty-eight times.
The Counter, a young human man of about twenty, stepped forward and bellowed "One" as the crowd answered back with a stomp on the moistening ground. Zymmer was a four-stomp town, but this Counter was young, and his cadence was a bit faster than it should have been. "Two" and "Three" came quickly, but the Counter seemed to pause before he finished. Merritt made himself a mental note to speak with him about it afterward.
"Four!"
The word came, as did the final stomp from the townsfolk, and Merritt's hand was moving. The very instant his hand made contact with his handle's gun, he knew he was in trouble. The rain had, as he had feared, slicked the handle, and Merritt's grip was less than it should have been. As the gun left the holster, the gunslinger felt it slide, just slightly, out of his hand. Trusting his instincts to move faster than his rational thoughts, he thrust his hand forward, tossing his gun with his thumb and middle finger over to his left hand. This time, the rain was no issue, and Merritt caught his gun flawlessly, pulling the trigger the instant the gun became motionless.
An instant later, Bullrush howled in pain and, trying to stop the bleeding from his now-stump of a thumb just as so many of Merritt's opponents did, gripped his hand. He preferred to shoot their thumbs rather than kill them, if possible. The point of the game was speed and accuracy, as far as he was concerned. Death seemed unnecessary. Besides, in Bullrush's case, nothing else would have guaranteed victory, judging from all the scars. But a missing thumb meant an opponent would never come back for a second try, and also served as excellent advertisement for Merritt and his skill.
The crowd was cheering enthusiastically for Merritt and what they assumed had been a trick shot on his part. Merritt smiled and let them believe it. He knew the truth, and that was enough. Maybe too much. For the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time ever, he wondered how many more he had in him. He wondered how many more time the angels would blink. With a subtle motion, he shook the thought from his head. He had won his forty-ninth duel, that's what mattered. He holstered his gun and walked off toward the Counter to discuss the young man's unfortunate cadence.
* * * *
Merritt was sitting at the bar in a mid-sized tavern in Zymmer, nursing an oversized glass of Noggle Ale. He was a third drunk and two thirds disappointed. He had hoped to catch a show at the cabaret while in town, as they were well-known for having one of the liveliest shows in the Wastes. But when he had made his way over there after his duel, all he had found was a boarded up door with a sign reading "Closed for Repair." Merritt had frowned over the sign for several minutes before making his way to the closest tavern and starting the process of drowning his disappointment.
After far too much time, Merritt finally finished his drink, and was just about to order another when he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder. In his life, this usually meant a challenge, and Merritt immediately spun around, his right hand dropping to the gun at his side. Usually, when these things happened, Merritt found himself staring into a face twisted into some kind of ugliness, either contorted from rage, arrogance or drunkenness. This time, however, the face he found himself staring into was actually quite lovely, if a bit aged. It was also staggeringly and suddenly familiar.
"Kallia!"
The old woman smiled at him. "I hoped I'd find you here." She paused, looking him up and down for a long moment before she continued. "You look well, Merritt."
He nodded. "So do you," he said, although his eyes fell unconsciously on the missing thumb of her right hand, which was resting on her large walking stick.
She glanced over at where he was looking, and then back to his steel blue eyes. "Sure, rub it in a little more, huh?"
Merritt looked up at her sheepishly, but she was smiling warmly at him. "Does it hurt?"
She laughed at him. "It's been years, Merritt. I don't feel it anymore." With her left hand, she poked the scar tissue where her thumb had once been. "Of course, it makes firing a six-shooter pretty damned impossible."
Merritt rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Yeah, that was kinda the point." He hesitated, then looked back at her eyes, which were just starting to wrinkle around the edges. "Still, sorry about that."
Kallia smiled. "It's like I told you years ago, the night it happened. No hard feelings. You probably saved my life, anyway."
Merritt nodded. He remembered that conversation well. "So what brings you here, Kallia?"
Suddenly, the older woman's smile faded. "I've come to return the favor, Merritt."
His eyes grew wide. "You want to shoot off my thumb?"
Kallia rolled her eyes and turned her head away to one side. For the first time, Merritt noticed the gray in her auburn hair. When she looked back, she had a mildly annoyed look on her face. "No, Merritt, I'm here to save your life."
"What are you talking about?"
She leaned in close, glancing in either direction before speaking. "Merritt, there's a man coming for you."
For a moment, Merritt said nothing. Then he laughed just once, and then again, and then a lot. Kallia leaned away, looking displeased. After a few moments of laughter, Merritt stopped and shook his head. "Kallia, there is always a man after me. I'm the best, remember? Everyone wants a shot at the best."
"Well, now I've seen better than the best, Merritt."
Merritt didn't have an answer for this.
"I'm serious, Merritt," she said in low tones. "I've never seen anyone that fast." She paused, making sure she had his attention. "And he never misses."
The younger gunslinger gulped. He could suddenly feel the eyes of the angels on him, and he could hear the hammer being pulled back on some distant pistol beyond the crystalline sky. "Where is he?" Merritt asked in a whisper.
"Heading this way," she warned. "Do you want to see?"
Merritt nodded.
"Are you sober enough to ride?"
Merritt thought for a second and then, faster than a shot, drew his gun and held it up without even looking at it. For a second, he simply held it in his hand, allowing its weight to comfort him. Then, just as quickly, he forced it back into its holster and he looked back at Kallia. "Yeah, I'm good."
* * * * *
The streets of Dry Wells were lined with more people than Merritt thought the town could have possibly supported. He and Kallia had ridden their acridians hard the entire night and half the day to get here, and they were just in time to see the strange man she had told him about. He was standing in the middle of the street, as motionless and unreadable as a wall. Across from him stood a foxfolk woman that Merritt recognized by rumor as Sherye, an up-and-coming shootist from Verkell. She was new to the game, but had scored a few impressive victories against some of the best. By all accounts, she was one of the calmest and most collected shootists to have ever ridden Wasteward.
But that was not what Merritt was seeing in her now. She was shaking. It was not visibly apparent. In fact, Sherye was doing a remarkable job at hiding her fear from the crowd. But Merritt had been in the game a long time, and had studied it even longer, and he could see her fear radiate off of her like smoke from a campfire. The tall man showed nothing. There was no fear in him whatsoever. There was no concern, no doubt, and no weakness. He merely stood and waited, his black clothes tight and spotless, his face clean and expressionless. Merritt closed his eyes and, as he often did while shooting, imagined he could detect the scent of the others. He smelled Sherye's fear immediately. From the tall man, he smelled nothing.
The Counter of Dry Wells began to count, and with each number, the crowd and Sherye both grew more and more nervous. Dry Wells was a ten-stomp town, far too much in Merritt's opinion, and he suspected Sherye agreed. He could tell she was getting worse with each number and with each stomp from the crowd. By the time they had reached seven, Merritt was sure she'd draw her gun and shoot herself, but she didn't. When nine came around, her vulpine fingers were twitching so badly that it looked like she were waving to the ground. But at ten, Merritt didn't see her at all. His eyes were fixed solely on the tall stranger. Merritt stared wide-eyed as the Counter shouted "ten!" He never saw Sherye fall, a new hole sitting right between her eyes.
"What in the hells..." he whispered.
Kallia laid her good hand on his shoulder as she leaned close to his ear. "Didn't I tell you?"
"I was looking right at him," he exhaled, scarcely believing his eyes. "I was looking right at him, Kallia." He was shaking his head. "I never saw him move."
"I know," Kallia said back as the crowd began to disperse. "It's been that way every time. Come on, we should get out of here."
Merritt turned back to his old friend, his head, and now his hands, still shaking. "I've never seen anybody move that fast. It's not possible."
"Not for a mortal, maybe," she agreed. "But I think that one is anything but."
"What does he want?"
"I don't know, Merritt, but I don't think it's a good idea to find out."
Merritt nodded, and the two took a step to get out of the street and make their way towards their acridians. However, before they could make their second step, a voice rang out, impossibly close.
"You are Merritt."
It was not a question. Merritt froze immediately, the voice cutting straight through him and hammering into his very soul. The crowd had fallen completely silent, and even the wind seemed to still at the voice of the tall stranger. Slowly, the gunslinger turned around to find himself face to face with the dark glasses of the tall stranger.
"I am."
The tall man did not move. "You have hurt many."
Merritt looked over at the body of Sherye, lying bleeding in the dusty streets of Dry Wells. "I have killed fewer than you have, it seems."
"Your sins are your own," the tall man said emotionlessly. "The shootist's game is a wicked one, and you are one of the best at it."
At this, Merritt straightened to full height. "I am the best."
"We shall see. Return here in one hour."
The tall man did not even wait for a reply. He simply turned around and strode away, leaving Merritt to ponder his fate for a little while longer. And a little while longer was likely all he had left.
* * * * * *
An hour had passed, the street had been cleaned, the crowd had gathered once more, and once again, the tall stranger stood in the middle of the road. This time, however, it was Merritt who stood opposite him, his fingers hovering anxiously beside the handle of his gun. Kallia stood next to him, about to leave, probably for the last time. She had spent nearly the entire hour imploring her friend to simply leave, but she knew he wouldn't. She hated the thought, but she knew she wouldn't have, either. Refusing a duel was the ultimate shame for a shootist, even in the face of certain death. She had walked that path and played that game, and she knew it had to end here, in the center of this street.
The Counter stepped forward and yelled. "Clear the streets!"
He was looking directly at Kallia. She nodded, then turned back to Merritt. She looked into his steely blue eyes, likely for the last time. Then she put her thumbless hand at the back of his neck and pulled him close, speaking to him in a barely audible whisper. "You're a showman, Merritt. Show him up." She glanced back at the tall stranger, and then back at Merritt. "He's faster than you," she paused, meaningfully, "and he always aims for the head."
Then she let him go and disappeared into the crowd. Before Merritt had time to ponder her words, the Counter yelled "One!"
The crowd stomped their boots, and the sound was somehow more thunderous than it had ever been before. Merritt knew suddenly that he was going to die.
"Two!"
The stomp reverberated through his bones. Forty-nine times before, Merritt had stood in this place, or one just like it, and forty-nine times, he had survived. Perhaps some had been a miracle. But most had been his speed.
"Three!"
As the third stomp thundered, Merritt knew that his speed was nothing now. The tall stranger was faster than a human could blink. How could he hope to match that kind of quickness?
"Four!"
In Zymmer, he could have fired now. Silently, he cursed the town of Dry Wells and their blasted ten-stomps. It was entirely too much time.
"Five!"
And yet, as the stomping of the town counted off the seconds to his death, he knew it wasn't enough time at all. His entire lifetime was now down to five simple numbers.
"Six!"
Memories flooded back to Merritt. They were memories of the forty-nine men and women who had stood opposite from him down the forty-nine streets he had stood while the Counters yelled out their numbers as if lives weren't about to change, or end.
"Seven!"
He remembered now, with a clarity he had never known before, the sight of every one of his former opponents, people who had been just a shade slower or a touch less accurate than he was. People who had lost thumbs or, in lamentable cases, their lives, to his pistol. To him.
"Eight!"
He remembered the scents he had imagined from his forty-nine opponents, his forty-nine victims. He had always felt like he could smell their fear. But the tall man carried no such musk. The only scent of fear Merritt could smell now was his own.
"Nine!"
And here it was. The Angels were staring at him now, staring down in silent judgment, down the barrel of some eternal gun, just waiting to pull the trigger, just waiting to hand him the Cruel Fate once and for all. The time had come. There was nothing left.
"Ten!"
The world seemed to slow to an impossible speed. Merritt could swear that he could see the very air pushed away by the sound of the townsfolk's stomp. Merritt could barely feel his own movement as he fell to his knees. He barely heard the explosion from the tall man's gun, which seemed almost to simply appear in his hands. He barely felt his own gun leave its holster, aim almost of its own accord at the tall man's head, and fire. The world seemed to hang there for an eternity, and nothing returned to normal until the tall man's head snapped back, a bullet shattering his dark glasses right at the bridge and continuing through his skull. Yet even as the world returned to normal, the man just stood there, his strange, metallic eyes staring blankly forward.
Then the tall man fell. His pistol dropped to the ground with a strangely loud thud that echoed even more loudly than the crowd's stomping had. For several long seconds afterward, there was only silence in Dry Wells. Then, suddenly and as one, the crowd burst into spontaneous cheers. Instantly, Kallia was back by Merritt's side, trying to help him up. When the shootist had finally regained his feet, he felt the top of his head, pulling his hand away to reveal a minuscule trail of blood.
"Merritt, what happened?"
Merritt was stunned, and answered in short exhalations of breath. "You said he always aimed for the head. I figured, maybe if my head was somewhere else, he'd miss me. So I dropped."
Kallia looked at him for a long moment, and then started to laugh. "You dropped to your knees in a gun fight?"
Merritt slowly started smiling at the thought. "I guess I did. Hey, there's no rule in the shootist's game says you gotta stay standing!"
She laughed with him then and slapped him roughly on the back. "The angels blinked, huh?"
Merritt nodded dumbly. "This one did, at least!"
He knew his game wasn't over. He knew that others would come for him. He knew that each day he would get older and older, while his challengers got younger and younger. He knew that age would slow him down, perhaps just a few fractions of a second, while speeding others up just as much. He knew he had escaped the Cruel Fate by the smallest of margins. But for right now, that didn't matter. Right now, all that mattered was that Merritt had faced death fifty times, and fifty times, death had lost. And for another day at least, that meant Merritt had won.
