Once Upon a Time with the Dead

Alkali dust under the white blaze of a Mexican sun.
Riders are coming. To a village standing idle on a ghostly quiet day. Or so at first it seems.

Then, from the bell tower of the adobe church a lone guitar chord rings out. Quick fingers pluck a haunting tune. From one blank window comes a wink of silver. From another a click-click snap. Men are waiting: good, honest men who are aware only that an old hatred is sweeping across their land.

The riders drift into the village square, long gray coats flapping in the dry wind that moves the dust. There are five of them. Known men. Wanted men who covet what doesn’t belong to them. Men with strange, dangerous names like Doc, Clay, Jesse, Ringo, Sundance. Their eyes are black, colder than the single-action Colts at their hips. The leader is Jesse. He dismounts, spurs chinking on the paving stones that mark the square.

Jesse’s movements are a signal. The guitar clashes, strings shredding with sound. From the windows of the town rifles speak smoke, and the rolling crack of gunfire hammers the brilliant sunshine. Bullets tug at gray dusters. A horse drops, and another, their riders leaping free, hands diving for pistols, coming up belching fire.

Jesse takes a shotgun slug to the chest, a .44 round through his shoulder. But his own guns are banging. Splinters and glass fly from the building above him. A man tumbles through a broken window, crashes through fleeing pigeons to the street.

The villagers are outmanned. This is not the predictable evil they had expected. Their bullets tear holes in flesh and tattered gray, but it is only the defenders who fall, until they all lie crimson and still against a canvas of light and stark shadow.

But the gray riders? They do not bleed. They will not lie down. Though dirt has been their friend before.

∼ Charles Gramlich