Wyoming Bounty

Wyoming Bounty









The room whorls with gun smoke and the scent of the freshly dead. The ghost of a recent gunfight. My bounty, Billy Ikard, lies dead at the end of the room, nestled in a pile of broken furniture. His arms appear to be splayed in a gesture of thanks. I approach him hungrily, kicking away a chair leg that lies over his shoulders. I have completely forgotten the reward money with the ecstasy of the kill.

My ears ring with the residue of what feels like a hundred gunfights, Ikard's voice lost in this auditory storm. I recall his words clearly, gristly and hushed and sending vile curses and taunts across countless battlefields, now lost forever outside of memory. I remember the distinctive crack of his handgun, as recognisable as his foul-mouth, his bullets sometimes coming dangerously close, opening up my skin and leaving a splash of me over the floor - but never coming close enough.

We are in an abandoned cabin, the family claimed by dehydration during a particularly harsh summer some time ago. Our horses stagger around outside, irreparably damaged by our vicious pursuit across the plains, but nevertheless still my only chance at reaching the closest town of Springfield where my reward money lies, ten miles away.

With a tired hand, the result of a non-stop four-day chase which finally culminated in me emptying four of my six chambers into this rat's belly, I turn him over, revealing his concealed face behind a scarf as though still trying to deceive me after death. Two dead eyes stare over my shoulder impassively. I tear the rag from his face, almost desperate to see the shadow I've been chasing for weeks.

As the veil is removed I recoil in horror. My eyes lock onto the grisly sight before me, my mind pleads with me to look away and flee, but I am involuntarily frozen to the spot.

In all my years as a bounty hunter I've seen some pretty horrible things. I've seen a man ground up in the wheels of a stagecoach, his insides spilled all over the road like a burst bag of meat, jelly and all. I've seen a man's head cave in under the immense power of a single action .45 calibre revolver, an eye knocked out and swaying over his cheek like a fleshy pendulum. I've seen a beautiful prostitute been given a hundred new holes and gashes across her body in what could be perceived as an example of the sickest sense of humour I've ever come across.

But those had all been intentional afflictions, consequences of an accident or a vicious attack. This, on the other hand...

It is getting dark. What little light of the day is left is seeping through the window with its dying breath. The shadows in the room are deepening and elongating, waiting for night before they fully develop and spread like a disease. The concaves of Ikard's face have twice as many shadows as they should, and for some reason seem deeper than any of the other shadows in the room. Two sets of eyes loll sightlessly across the room, the ecstasy of death's embrace.

I swallow hard, my throat dry with dehydration and tingling from prolonged exposure to the sun. Ikard's immediate face is as it was on the bounty poster, as normal as you or me. The other face, located where his cheek and left ear should have been, is shrivelled like an old piece of fruit left out in the sun, an expression of perpetual pain perhaps, and I am thankful that what I stare at is dead. I retch and almost vomit at the sight of this two-faced thing, a sudden nausea overcoming me from nowhere. It is joined by a gripping sensation of unprecedented terror, sending me reeling from the room right onto the back of my horse, urging it back to Springfield with keen kicks.

My horse dies at some point on my way back, and I am left stranded in the dark plains with over five miles to walk, my shoulder badly disconnected from being thrown over its back. Staggering towards the vast horizon and what would have been a beautiful moon in other circumstances, I pray that my dangerously depleted resources hold out just long enough to get me home. A coyote howls into the night somewhere nearby, perhaps signalling to its brothers that I am worth examination, to see if I am weak enough to risk attacking. I check my ammunition with my good hand and see that I have four rounds left. I pray that I do not have to use them, my accuracy and skill severely affected by my rapidly depleting condition.

I am certain I hear my name in the distance, a lingering whisper emitted from back the way I came. The cabin. For an irrational moment I am convinced that the man I killed has come back to life and is pursuing me with his ungodly form. My pace and the rate of my heart increase together.

The stars begin to shift as I watch, the constellations morphing into obscure shapes. I see twisted faces, corrupt sexual organs, unspeakable realms and objects that cannot be described with mere words. After what feels like a million staggered steps, I become convinced that I am doomed to wander these plains for eternity. I begin to fear for my wife and children, tormented by the thought of never seeing them again. I break down into a ceaseless wave of tears and shrill wails that last for what I'm sure is an hour, before I realise that the family I long for is entirely fictional, a product of this indescribable walk and my degrading mental condition.

The black sky begins to bleed over the landscape, an inky abyss and an unspeakable pantheon, a thousand pairs of intimidating eyes glaring down at me. The sensation of being plucked from the land by a great arm is overwhelming, and I break off into a trot, the extent of what my body will allow. As I stagger in horror, my eyes lolling with madness, I am suddenly set upon by a dark figure. Intense pain coats my right side as what I imagine is a blade enters my flesh. I scream and fire my weapon blindly, discharging my final four rounds in a desperate bid of survival, but this inhuman apparition still stands apparently unharmed. As it looms over me, my bowels empty with fear, spilling over my legs in a warm torrent and gathering around my feet in a swirling pool.

*

I awaken the next day to the smell of faeces and urine. The sun is torrid and unforgiving, and beside me the figure still stands as though waiting for me to wake up, to ensure that I feel every morsel of agony that it has to deliver. I cower in horror, certain that what I am dealing with is not of the material world, awaiting its killing blow.

Silence. Nothing happens. Slowly, I turn to my adversary.

It is at this moment that I realise that the previous night's vicious encounter was with a cactus. My right arm still aches where its spines dug in. Standing up, I growl with irritation, still slightly unnerved by the night's events and the hallucinations which I presume were from a combination of dehydration, starvation and exhaustion. It is when my mind suddenly recalls the two-faced and lifeless body of my bounty that a stab of horror begins working its way into my heart a second time, and a renewed determination to reach the town sets in again.

It is mid-day. I estimate that I have been asleep for at least ten hours, but I do not feel the least bit replenished. As unpleasant as I smell, I assume that the only reason why my unconscious body was not set upon by wolves or coyotes is because of this, and I cannot help but feel somewhat thankful. I scan the horizon, the desperation from the previous night making a resurgence. It is with great relief that I see the town is only thirty minute's walk away, and after pocketing my revolver I begin to stagger towards it.

I must be some sight as I stride into town, my trousers weighed with the dried contents of my bowels, my body caked in grime and dust and blood. The image of carriages and gaping citizens bring a sense of comfort to me, a fleeting brush with tranquillity, but there is still something not quite right – I am semi-convinced that it might be me.

The first thing I do is pay for a hot bath, peeling the clothes from my skin and lowering myself into it, sighing with its warm caress. I pay for food and water and fresh clothes and they are brought to me instantly by bewildered townspeople who begin to gather around my bath agog and eager to hear my story. With the table manners of a starving coyote, I devour the food and water that is given to me in less than a few minutes, my lips smacking together like a monologue from a madman.

The sheriff leans over me, the same man whom I learned of the bounty from. For a moment I consider cutting him down on the spot, certain he is responsible for the horrors I suffered from the previous night. I change my mind, unnerved by this fleeting savagery. From under his smoke-stained moustache he utters a single word of anticipation: So?

“I found your man,” I say, stepping from the now-filthy bath naked and revealing my wounds to the awed crowd, the bi-products of endless harsh gunfights and my surreal tangle from the night before, “if that's what you want to call him. But what I chased for four days didn't come from the womb of a woman. I brought with me around fifty rounds of ammunition, and I'm certain that around half of them were hits. Some of them were dead on, there was no way I could have missed. That wasn't a man you sent me after; what I killed was something else.”

“Well, I know Ikard was a skilful bandit, and he slipped from the law more times than I'd like to admit, but what you are insinuating is prepost...”

“Two faces.” I say, pulling a new pair of trousers over my tired legs. “That man had two faces. I left him dead in the old Samsonite house. Go get him. See for yourself, and I want my bounty.”

The sheriff regards me with a curiosity, partially convinced that I am a madman, partially convinced that what I speak of may be the truth. He removes his hat and strokes his hair indecisively. “You'll get your money once I see him dead. We leave for the house in an hour. I'll get you a new horse.”

“No.” I shake my head, a fizzing deposit of adrenaline released into my body at the thought of returning, quickening my heart. “I stay here. I ain't going back there.”

The sheriff opens his mouth to speak, then catches a glimpse of something in my eyes, silencing him. For a moment I can see that he believes me, the state that I have been left in convincing enough for him to realise that something ungodly is afoot. He nods and leaves the room, and slowly the rest of the townspeople follow him, until I am left alone to what may or may not be the thoughts of a madman.

The sheriff and a few of the townspeople leave Springfield on horseback. I spend the rest of the day in the local saloon, attempting to drink the blotchy images of the previous night from my mind, the vicious manifestations and the fearful contortions spreading over my thoughts like a deteriorating mental illness, a spilled black ink worsening with every attempt to clean it up. In my pocket, a new box of ammunition lies, my insecurities and anxiety essentially making this purchase involuntary. At the bar, two loud-mouths try and aggravate me into a fight with their insults and threats, but on this day of all days I am in no mood or position to humour them. They continue to berate me for a while longer, but later grow bored and disinterested, turning on the barmaid and complimenting her 'assets'. Although I would normally not settle for this kind of behaviour towards woman, today I do not step in for the lady, my sympathies exclusively lying with myself.

I nervously peel the label from my beer; the sheriff is late. Three hours pass in what should have been a two-hour journey. I begin to fear for the men, their horrific fates manifesting in my mind, their wails of horror as their flesh is twisted playfully by the screaming cadaver of Billy Ikard loud in my ears as though I am actually witnessing it. The sun has gone down, what little safety the daylight offered now snuffed out, leaving me feeling exposed. I rent a room upstairs for a dollar and retire to what will surely be a sleepless night, certain the sheriff and the other men have been cut open and spilled like bags of water over cold Wyoming dirt. I recognise a tinge of guilt nestled amongst my organs, but it is so overshadowed by the terror that I barely notice it

Later I am brought from my troubled thoughts by the sound of approaching horses. I rush to the window like an excited child in time to witness the belated arrival of the sheriff and the other men. Laughing, almost manically, at my own negativity I make my way downstairs and meet them in the saloon. The sheriff ignores me and storms by, going straight to the bar and ordering himself a whisky. The other men join him, their moods doused in a blank melancholy. I sit at the end of the bar amongst them, but they do not look up. Worried by the suggestions that their silences imply, and completely perplexed by this strange reaction, I finally speak a single word of anticipation: So?

He takes a large swallow as though dousing an unseen oral pain, grimacing at the taste. “So? So there was nothing there. Just a big mess and a lot of spent shells. No body; no bounty. You wasted our time.”

I can hardly believe what I am hearing. “No... body?” I hear myself saying.

The sheriff nods. “That's what I said, yeah.” He takes another swallow, draining his glass. He nods at the barman to refill his drink.

The fleshy chambers of my heart fill up with an icy liquid, sending it into a violent stutter of terror. No body? My hands begin to shake, the image of Ikard's withered face vivid in my mind, the enormity of the situation completely overwhelming. I picture the twitching form of my bounty gingerly getting to his feet, his eyes bulging with fury and with a vicious agenda, a will to do unspeakable acts of mutation to my body until it is an unrecognisable mess lost to the cold desert somewhere. I turn to the sheriff again, determined to convince him that something evil is occurring, to warn him that powers beyond our comprehension are at work here.

It is then that I notice the darkness in his eyes, the cold vacancy implying that his thoughts have been corrupted and twisted by something not-quite right. Not sure whether or not these men are still under the control of their own minds, I decide that staying in Springfield would be suicide. Just as I am ready to hire a replacement horse and gallop as far from this ungodly town as possible, I rrealize that I have expended all the money I have, my bounty forfeited by the unholy disappearance of Ikard's body. I gasp in horror; I am trapped in this town.

Carefully, I ascend the stairs, my head spinning, mind reeling with sheer panic, terror and what I assume is the brink of insanity, rearing up like a fatal kick from a horse. I retreat to my room, making sure the door is locked behind me. With a shaking hand I drag a chair over to the window and sit, wondering not of the certainty of my death, only the manner of it. My dark fate lies completely exposed, visible with an azure and unnerving clarity. I gaze through the glass at the filthy horizon, wondering if Ikard will emerge from the distance, his eyes locked on me in a hideous glare of vengeance, or if my death will come from the men on the floor below me, their minds clearly not of their own, giggling harlequins for something dark and unsettling, their eyes threatening to strip the flesh from my muscles and rape the bloody form that remains. I grip my handgun tight, wondering if I should catch the men off-guard before they have a chance to get me, and perhaps cut down anyone else who emits the dark presence, the blackness corrupting their fragile mental states.

The box in my pocket rattles encouragingly. Perhaps I should fight my way to the stables and steal a horse? The temptation is almost too overwhelming to refuse. I must get out of this town. Trembling, I place a round in each of my revolver's chambers, spilling some over the flooring. Then I unlock the bedroom door.

Now, it is just a matter of waiting.