The Price Of Red Death

A Thomas Sanguine Tale

“I’ll get you Braun!” The shrill, hysterical Youngman, drenched in water and manure was incensed. “I’m gonna kill you!” After the loud outburst the town square was silent, as snow fell, and the men and women who gathered in the saloon looked at the humiliated Kirk Hoanes with blank expressions. No one was laughing till Braun Josmith pointed and laughed, forcing out a mocking, hateful laugh that had all those who witnessed it laugh at the Youngman with forced ebullience. 

Only the Sheriff, watching from the window of his office, didn't laugh, his deputies snickered, but in the eyes of Kirk he saw trouble. He stayed out of the pranks and cruel stunts inflicted on the youth, mostly due to some old resentment for his old man, the Youngman’s only family member who died from illness several months ago. Leaving Kirk with an inheritance of a large sum of cash, land, stocks, and the bitterness of the town. 

Braun Josmith had hated the Hoanes family, since his father worked himself crippled trying to pay off debts owed to Kirk’s father. Father’s passed on their rivalries to their sons, who now had one tormenting the other. 

Ignoring the harassment for this long, Sheriff Hitchems decided it was best for him to have a talk to Braun, as he returned triumphantly to the saloon, praised as a town hero for humbling the Hoanes heir. 

“That overgrown brat deserted that, eh?” boasted one of the deputies whose smile was half rotted from neglect. 

“Kirk never caused problems, he was polite like his mother, and it's about time this town lays off.” The Sheriff stared down his deputy till he backed away to sweet the floors. “I’m going to talk to the saloon, don’t go spreading around that sort of talk, I don’t want this to get out of hand.” Putting on his coat, he strode out of the jail, and crossed the street, the snow crunching under his boots. 

Upon entering the saloon, the rowdy cheers died down, and only the piano playing could be heard. The eyes of the lawman were immediately focused on Braun, whose Germanic eyes looked back, showing a slight weakness for the matured man. Spurs jangled on the wood floor boards, and with each echo of spurs the room got quieter, till even the piano was mute. 

“This has to end Braun.” The Sheriff stood before Braun, who despite the cocky smile had eyes as nervous as a boy fearful of his daddy’s belt. “You got your laughs, but now it ends, let the hate end with Fredrick, he was cruel, but his wife wasn’t and neither is Kirk.” 

Braun scoffed, which earned him a rough grip on his throat. The grip got tighter and tighter, till the smile was a grimace of desperation. 

“I can’t—” Braun couldn’t breathe. 

“Come on Sheriff, you’re gonna strangle him to death.” begged one of Braun’s friends. 

Sheriff Hitchems didn’t stop till he saw that tan face till a faint shade of blue. Dropping him into a slump on the bar counter, the Sheriff offered one last dire warning. “Don’t press your luck Braun, I let it go for what happened with you father, but anymore and I’ll put you in jail, and I won’t be doing it twice, you’ll be gone.” 

Braun turned over a hateful look in his eyes, the restrained resentment of him and his father’s woes started to come fully to the surface. Seeing this in her man’s face, Sally Josmith went to his side, rubbing his face, trying to bring a healthy color back to it, trying to calm down her temperamental man. 

“It’s alright, you don’t have to do anything, no one thinks less of you.” 

The Sheriff looked into Braun’s eyes one last time before he left, making sure it was known that he made no idle threat. 

“That son of a bitch Sheriff is in his pockets!” Braun cursed.

“No!” Sally chided her man for such talk, feeling her swollen belly with child throb at those angry words. “He just had enough, and so have I, Kirk didn’t cripple your father.” 

“But he sure benefited from it. All that money he worked on the range to make, the farmhand jobs, and now he can’t even stand up straight, put my ma in an early grave.” anger was in his eyes. “But I’ll fix him, I am not the one who's gonna be chased out.” 

***

Later that night Kirk had calmed down, he had given his Mexican workers the weekend off, he wanted them to be relaxed, and prepared for Christmas, cause after he was planning a big expansion. Too much of his land was undeveloped, but he planned to cut away the wilderness the townspeople used for poaching on his lands, and to become a rancher. An ambition he was keen to achieve, doing so would see his profile increase, and maybe earn him the attention of some of the ladies in town. 

However after Braun’s continuous pranks and abusive displays of humiliation against him, the women in town shunned him, especially after he left town early that day covered in manure. Soap and a hot bath removed the stench and stains, but left him feeling humiliated. 

Anger was suppressed as he relaxed in his lounge, looking at the portrait of his beloved mother and father, who he imagined looked over him from heaven. As he sat back and read a book, Hamlet by William Shakespeare he heard something outside. 

‘Horses?’ Perhaps it was one of his workers coming to tell him something, but he was too tired, and comfortable in his comfy chair to get up right away, he would wait till he heard a knock on the door. ‘Wait…those are whispers.’ Before he could get up to see what was happening he saw a great ball of flame come hurling at him through the window. 

It was a jug of moonshine, with a rag placed into the opening set aflame. The large hard glass jug shattered his window, and hurled across his lounge till it smashed against the far wall, exploding in a raging flame. Quickly his home got on fire, which burned his books, his family heirlooms, furniture, and the paintings of his family, all melted in the blaze. Fleeing his home, as the inferno reached its height, he stood out in the snow and cold as his home was quickly burning down to ash. 

“What do you do that for?!” one of the three riders, cloaked in the shadows of the night, shouted. “We were just gonna scare him!” 

“He looks scared to me!” ‘That’s Braun!’

“Braun you evil bastard! I’m gonna see you in chains for this!” hearing that threat, the three riders rode off, heading back to town. Leaving Kirk to watch helplessly as his home burnt to the ground. 

***

“You’re not gonna arrest him?!” Kirk was so angry he couldn’t help but try to take a swing at Sheriff Hitchems but the two deputies held him back. 

“Calm down now, we don’t wanna have to put you in a cell.” even the deputies didn’t like what Braun did to Kirk. 

“Look Kirk, I warned Braun yesterday, but it seems he got smart about it, he got his friends to lie for him—” 

“Yeah they were probably with him!” Kirk was a thin man, and couldn’t pull away from the deputies' grip. 

“—you’re probably right. But even if you could tell me you saw them, and not just a man in the dark who sounded like Braun, he is popular. The entire town may not like what he did, but they’ll not see him go to prison for it.” 

Resentment and a rage beyond anything he felt before was in Kirk’s eyes. “So you won’t do a damn thing then?! Like before, you were always on his side, always sticking up for the big guy in town.” 

“Now you stop it!” Despite his sympathy, Sheriff Hitchems had reached his tolerance for disrespect. “I’ll make sure you don’t bother you again, but I can’t throw him in jail without evidence that’ll stand up in court…” he could see that wasn’t flying with Kirk. “...I’ll look into it, I swear.” 

Kirk said nothing, he just glared at the Sheriff with a sour, pursed mouth, and a knotted furrowed brow. The deputies let him go when the Sheriff gestured them to do so, and Kirk marched out. He wasn’t going to his hotel room in town however, he was going to the telegraph office. 

Some time ago, a gunfighter came to their town of Ruckham, he was hired by the town to clear out outlaws who had taken to the hills. Though pricey, he got the job done, and of course Kirk’s father paid the heft of the bill, but before going the gunfighter left his father his business card. 

Written on the pale white card in blood red ink, ‘Red Death Travels, gun for hire.’ along with how to contact him by telegram. Walking out of the Sheriff’s office, without a coat on his back in the chilled winter weather, he passed by the saloon, and Braun was there, looking at him from the window. A cold mug of beer in his hand, and a mocking grin on his face. 

‘He won’t be grinning for long. I’ll have him gunned down and run that father out of town, it’s his fault for raising him to hate me so much.’

Walking in the telegraph office, with a bundle of cash he withdrew from the bank, to pay for the hired gun when he got to town. 

***

“You damned fool!” a harsh slap, nearly knocked Braun off his feet. “I didn’t raise you to be no arson!” Gruëber Josmith's face was redder than an Indian with rage. Eyes bloodshot, bushy mustache all bristly, his few remaining teeth grinding against one another. 

Sally intervened trying to keep the patriarch Josmith was bruising Braun anymore. “Please stop, he didn’t know what he was doing!” 

“Hell he didn’t!” Gruëber. Unwilling to push aside a pregnant woman, he wobbled over to an empty table, as usual patrons looked on from the windows and doorway, watching the familiar drama. “I told you the business with the Hoanes was over! It died with Fredrick.” a sudden look of shame came upon his leathery face, as his gray eyes looked off into the veils of the past. “I borrowed that money, I had that foolish notion of being a rancher…you didn’t have to join in my hate. Perhaps I was a fool for telling you all my troubles, half-drunk on corn whisky…I treated you like a hole, I would fill with my resentments, but it's over boy!” Gruëber grabbed his boy by the shoulders and shook him. “It has to end!” 

“No.” Braun was not done with his hate. “He has all that land, that was our land! My legacy, I can barely afford a wife and…child.” he looked at his wife with sad eyes. “That…Hoanes boy, taking what our family had for generations, it isn’t right, he has to leave.” 

“Son.” The old father failed to reach him by slapping him around, by talking sense, even opening himself up to his own failure provided nothing to change the determined man. “Can’t you see, what point it is for us to have a son, if he will forever be in the shadows.” 

“Then you should leave.” The three members of the Josmith family turned to look at Kirk Hoanes, dressed in a new fur jacket, and fancy clothes he ordered from the large cities. A new look was on his face, one of determined pride, a vengeful pride, that came off of him like fleas from a wild mutt. 

“You got some nerve.” Braun tried to get up to strike at him, but Sally and his father held him back. “I’ll teach you, rich boy.”

“I ain’t no boy, and I’ve come here not to fight, it’s not my job to teach you a lesson.” what he said made the people outside laugh. Many of them still thought of him as weak and humorously childishly weak. 

Braun, feeding on the mockery of the town, stood up and smugly smirked at what he believed to be his lesser. “You talk big, you're gonna get the Sheriff to talk to me again. Well he knows better, come election time, the town will vote him out if he locks me up, and he knows it. Guess money can’t buy you everything.” Some of the people outside chuckled, but most looked on, still upset Braun went to such extremes. 

“I might get mad at that Josmith. But I’m not, cause I know I’ll be through with you for good.” 

Braun eyed Kirk’s waist, he didn’t see him with a gun belt, but he heard the distinct sounds of a deadly threat in his words. “You're planning to gun me down.” all mirth was gone from his voice, as a grim shadow came over him, as clouds passed by overhead casting the town in gloom. 

“I hired a gunfighter to kill you.” Kirk didn’t bother to turn around, he could practically sense the shock on Braun’s masculine face. 

“Who?!” Braun was trapped between being incredulous and genuinely afraid of the threat. 

“You're afraid Braun? He probably hired a circus performer.” a voice outside made the town laugh, not wanting to believe for a moment Kirk’s threat. 

“Hey Buffalo Bill is coming to town!” more laughter, which made Kirk’s face go red, as even Braun started laughing, only Kirk, Sally, and Gruëber were serious. Impudent rage came over Kirk’s face, and he lifted up a chair and threw it at the bar, shattering the window, and destroying a shelfs worth of liquor. 

“I hired Scarlet Rico, the gun my dad paid to clear out those outlaws. And he said he’d do it for thirty thousand, killing you, and running your worthless family out of town, thirty thousand, best money I’ll ever spend, and I’ll even pay for your coffin, Braun, and a tombstone, with your name, and a epitaph, that reads, ‘Braun Josmith, a real clown!’” Some people continued to laugh, most of the town was scared. 

Although a minority, to Kirk it sounded as if everyone was laughing at him, making his face burning hot with turmoil. “You’ll see! You’ll all see, he’ll come and kill you Braun, just you wait, he’s coming on the noon train, and you’ll deserve it too, you’ll deserve every bit of the lead he’ll put in you, just you watch!” his last words breaking down to a defeated sob, as he ran out of the saloon, and although no one laughed he felt as if those jeers were chasing him all the way to his motel room. 

Sally Josmith was afraid beyond reason, as she hurried out to talk Kirk out of deadly contract. During that Braun slumped on the bar counter as he was being poured a nerve steadying drink, with his father at his side, and the whole town calming him down. 

“Hey, don’t worry, that yellow belly has no guts to hire an actual killer.” 

“Yeah, the Sheriff will stop him.” 

“Here Braun takes my gun.” one of his best friends strapped Braun with his gun belt, with a six shot revolver in the holster. “Just so you ain’t caught unarmed.” 

“Thanks…but I ain’t worried.” Braun said, words that he mostly meant for himself, he didn’t want to believe it was true. As he leaned on the bar, he wondered if he took it all too far, and regret foamed in his heart, as a tempest began to storm through his veins. 

***

Sally stormed up the stairs of the motel, and frantically began beating on the door of Kirk’s room. “Kirk! For the love of God come out here! Please!” she continued to breathe hard, as her belly trembled and she relented to the agony of heaving around her unborn child. 

Concern overwhelmed his self-pity, and Kirk came out, tears smeared around his eyes, and a pouting face. “Please don’t hurt yourself Sally.” 

“Oh Kirk.” Sally moaned with effort. “Why did you do it? He would’ve stopped, if only—” 

“If only I left?” sorrow turned to momentary anger, and the memories of all the times Braun tormented him, even before his father died, Kirk was a constant bully, from walks from and to school, to even joyous occasions. In his childhood Kirk and Sally were sweethearts, playing at kissing in the bush, but Braun won her with the strength of an overly matured body, and overpowering her kindly femininity with his undeserved masculine power. 

“No, Kirk—” but Kirk didn’t want her excuses for choosing Braun, that was long ago, and feelings they once had were buried under resentment and suffering. 

“You chose your side Sally, don’t go coming to me, now that I have the upper hand. He burned down my house, he is trying to destroy my life!” The words were a mix of sadness and anger. 

“Please call it off, what will it take for you to send the gunfighter away?” Sally pleads stand by themselves, as the distant whistle of the noon train comes into earshot. 

“I’ll stop him…if Braun turns himself in, and confesses what he did to my house.” Sally was stunned at the demand, she knew her husband did it, but the idea of him being locked up as she raised a child with no man was terrifying. 

“Can’t we just forgive and forget? Please. The town will think better of you for it.” Sally tried to appeal to his sense of isolation but it made him angry. Thinking about how aware she was about his loneliness, and did nothing to ease the torment. 

“Tell him, either he confesses or he dies…I’m going to meet the train.” 

Trying to hold back the determined young man, she felt her stomach squirm, and thought it better to run off to warn Braun, before it was too late. 

***

Two passengers got off at the noon train, one was a red suited man, an obvious gunfighter by the gun strapped to his waist, and to the more trained eye, the long, well toned hand, that moved with swift grace of a ballerina dancer. Dressing for the cold weather didn’t help Scarlet Rico’s taste for warmer weather, but the velvet gloves helped keep his hands protected from the chill. 

Once before he came to that town, he was a younger man, one who couldn’t command high pay for his skills, but after a reputation that included more than fifty confirmed kills, he was eager for another hefty payday. Money was for his talents in death dealing, but like anyone who dealt with the deck of death, he wasn’t willing to wager his life, unless it was some sort of thrill he got for killing, and he did—old, young, men, women, even children, any kind of man from white to black, he’d kill just to feel a tickle. 

No lawman he has faced could put the cuffs to him or beat him at a shootout, he was too swift at a quickdraw, too keen on the signs of danger, and no sheriff or marshal has even put him to the test. Taking out a pocket mirror he checked his curly mustache, and gave them a gentle brush, to assure he looked presentable. 

The other man who left the train was a far uglier man, a gunfighter by trade, but he wasn’t hired in the town, and had no reason to stop by, except he was hungry and wanted a bed. Yellow faced due to some unknown ailment by most guesses, purplish lips, large eyes, a hunchback like some gothic man-beast, and hair of an overstuffed scarecrow head. 

Carrying a satchel bag of black leather, the hunchback passed Kirk Hoanes on his way to the saloon. For a moment Kirk stopped to look at the horrendously ghoulish face that looked up at him, but continued on to his hired gun, his wallet filled with the promised pay. 

“Scarlet Rico, I presume.” Kirk held out his hand in greetings, but Rico didn’t accept it, instead he looked at him, scrutinizing his employer. 

“Kirk Hoanes, I remember your father. Did he have you hire me?” 

“My father passed on, months ago.” A bit of sadness in Kirk’s eyes didn’t bother Rico. “I wanted to get your help to…get rid of Braun and his father, they have been causing me nothing but grief, and—” 

“I don’t care.” the gunfighter said coldly. “You paid for my gun, not my ear.” The cold eyes of Rico’s dark auburn eyes made Kirk nervous as he was when he was a child, being talked to by his father. “Where is this troublemaker?” 

“At the saloon.” Kirk answered dutifully, taking a subservient role, being broken down by the gunfighter’s strict, familiar eyes. 

“Lead on.” 

***

“Braun, you have to turn yourself into the Sheriff.” Sally pleaded with her man, over and over again, tugging at his arm, as he regained some of his courage by the town’s feeding his formally weakened ego. “He’s bound to have met the gunfighter by now, please, go to the Sheriff, if not to turn yourself in, but to get help.” 

“She’s right son, this is foolishness.” Gruëber tried to urge his son, but he was too old to pull his bull of a son away, just as the hate started to spark again in the kiln of his chest.

“This is perfect. After I kill the hired gun, I’ll shoot Kirk, that snob had too much run in this town. And I’ll be able to finally end the Hoanes family, nice and legal. He came after me after all, with a hired gun, it's for my own defense.” 

“It be murder!” Gruëber slapped him on the back of the head. “You both have two apples, and you’ll be hung from the same tree.” 

“Or be shot dead.” The unsmart witticism was added by the hunchback, who drank from a jug of water, and ate leftover bread that the saloon owner had, he didn’t serve food usually, but the nearby kitchen was closed till the evening, and the newcomer looked sickly. 

“Mind your own business, ugly.” Braun’s insult earned him a smack on the chest from his wife. 

“He’s sorry mister.” Sally apologized to her man. 

“None taken, I’m a peaceful sort of man.” he turned over and grinned a reddish smile, which made the people recoil at the sight of him. “The name is Thomas Sanguine, and to show no hard feelings fellow, I am saying this clearly, as someone who works the same trade, as that man coming to kill you, he will kill you before you even touch the grip of your gun.” 

Braun took offense at that, and everyone in the saloon stared at the stranger, with disbelief. “What would you know? You don’t even have a revolver on your belt.” laughing at the hunchback, Braun almost got his supporters to start laughing too, but in a flash a saw-offed, double barrel shotgun was aimed right at him, which made everyone quiet. “Hey, that ain’t fair.” Braun didn’t appreciate being shown up by a surprise pull. 

“Gunfighting isn’t about fairness, it's about whether you live or die, and you’re gonna die, that Scarlet Rico will kill you, earn his money, and won’t even chip in for the coffin.” Thomas finished his water, and gobbled down the last of his breast like a hungry animal. “However, for a price, I can take that fight for you.” 

Looking at Braun, the hunchback, replaced his shotgun back in the hiding place in his jacket, just as a challenge could be heard from outside. 

“Braun Josmith, come out!” challenged a harsh, threatening voice. “Come out and meet your maker.” 

“That’s him.” the hunchback got up, and planned to go out the back, unless he heard Braun take him up on his offer, he paused for a moment. “Last chance, I charge a reasonable sum.” 

“Come on son.” begged Braun’s father. “Hire him.” 

“No.” Braun had a blank expression on his face. 

“Please—”

“I said no!” Braun stared down his father, with the heat of any son who has become man enough to defy his father. “I have to do this, then what was the point of this all, it's me or him. And I doubt this yellow face is gonna put down that Kirk, this must be done.” Going towards the doors, Braun’s father knew he couldn’t stop him, but he could hold Sally back, as he was afraid she would get hurt in the crossfire. 

People in the saloon watched from the windows, as Thomas Sanguine left through the back, to get a room at the motel. Braun walked out through the doors into the street, and saw a scarlet clad man staring him down from across the way. Moving his sight to the left he saw Kirk, half-hiding in the doorway of the barber’s doorway. 

“Too much of a coward to face me by yourself!” challenged Braun. 

“You talk to me.” Rico said aloud, as he squared himself up for the shootout. 

While the two men were meeting each other in the street, Gruëber, a nervous old man, left Sally in the care of Braun’s friends, then went to the bartender. 

“Sal, give us your gun.” he asked desperately. 

“It's best you not get involved.” The saloon owner tried to dissuade the old man. 

“Damn it, give it here, I’m gonna go to his flank, I’ll go out the bank and surprise that killer, or do you want my boy to die!?” 

Sal relented and handed over his shotgun, and hurriedly the elderly man ran out the back. 

While in the street, Kirk was nervous, he felt his guts squirm, and his heart thump loudly at the back of his chest, and a sickly feeling set into his insides. 

“Hey, hey Rico…just wound him okay, and don’t hurt anyone else, alright? I changed my mind.” Despite speaking aloud Rico acted as though he didn’t hear a thing. “Rico? Rico!”

“You paid me to kill! And that is what you’re gonna get!” Rico never let his eyes leave Braun, who already regretted it, and was hoping to back out. Just as Gruëber rounded the end of the street, the gunfighter made the slightest of movements, and when Braun opened his mouth, to shout I give up! 

BLAM! Blood poured from his heart, leaking onto the snow like a beer barrel with a leak. Falling to his knees, watching his warm blood cover his hands, the man, too young to die, fell into the snow. 

“No! You son of a—!” Gruëber, too slow to save his boy, was planning to avenge him, but Rico, with the speed of the devil, turned and fired. 

BLAM! A cavity the size of a fist was shot in the middle of the old man’s face, and both father and son died in the street. 

“Murder!” 

“They’re dead! He shot him’”

“Quick, get the Sheriff!”

“He’s out at Jackson's place with his deputies!” 

Sally, who the men couldn’t restrain any longer ran out into the streets, tears streaming down her face, and a look of anguish that brought sorrow to all the townspeople who looked upon her, bow down in grief next to Braun, head in his back. Clawing at him, begging him with mortified tears for him to live. 

“Oh, God why!?” she lifted her head, her face drenched with cooling blood. “You monster! Maniac, why?! Why!?” 

“I was paid for it, you can blame me no more than you can blame the gun, or the money, or even the snow that he is in, there is only one you can blame.” Rico gestured over to Kirk, who trembled at the suggestion that he was solely responsible. 

Regret, guilt, and a childlike shock of realizing the glory of killing was nothing so romanticized in fiction, than Satan’s exile from paradise. 

“I—I told you not to, I…” Kirk couldn’t stand the eyes of everyone on him, he felt so ashamed, and unable to take their wordless accusations ran, ran towards the motel where he’d hide from their harsh words, before they could be said. 

“Kirk!” Sally’s voice was filled with feminine fury, “You’re a murderer! Murderer!” 

People of the town were divided on what happened, a division that was in each of them, no one truly sided with Braun or Kirk, they liked Braun, but knew he brought it on himself, and Kirk was like Braun, but came at it from a different situation. Deep down they all knew one of them could’ve stopped it, but it was so much easier to observe, and claim innocence, than to stake themselves to a position, moral or wicked. 

Rico left after Kirk, leaving the town to lament over the deaths of two of their finest citizens, just as Sheriff Hitchems and his two deputies returned to town, and saw in a street of white, two terrible spots of blood. 

***

“You hired me, now pay me.” Rico held his gun to the throat of Kirk whose legs wouldn’t stop trembling, he was pinned to the walls of the motel, and didn’t want to reward the gunfighter for disobeying his last moment commands. 

“But I told you, to wound him—”

“You told me to kill! On the telegraph, on the station platform, and as we walked through the streets you called for blood, I listen to the words I hear most often… not your last minute reprieves. Death is not a sentence to be lifted so lightly.” 

Shamed by the gunfighter’s words, he went into his coat, and pulled out his wallet. Being dragged to a nearby table, Kirk pulled out large bills, and counted them, till thirty thousand was fully paid. Roughly pushing aside his employer, Rico reached for his reward, noticing a hunchback man, with a horrible yellow face, was seated at the table where the cash was counted. 

“Don’t get any ideas.” warned Rico, his gun drawn, now pointed at the hunchback. 

“I don’t want your money.” Thomas Sanguine returned Rico’s scowl with a bloodied smile, which made the other man’s face distort in disgust, picking up his money, he placed it in his own wallet and went to get a room for his stay. He had to stay till the next train arrived in half a week. “The motel owner is out, he went to see the mess you made in the street.” 

Scarlet Rico scowled, not liking the other man’s morbid sarcasm. Taking a seat at the table at the far side of the lobby, it wasn’t long till the motel had more visitors. This time it was Sheriff Hitchems and his two deputies. 

Two men, the lawman and the gunfighter stared at one another, both knew the other man’s thought with nearly exact verbiage. As the Sheriff approached Rico’s table, the deputies moved to the flank of either side of the table, the three men eyeing the killer for hire. 

Once Hitchems was standing over Rico, he put his hands on his belt, and with a stone firm look passed decisive judgment. “You killed two men in my town. I’m here to take you in for murder.” 

“I was paid to do it by one of your own.” Rico said as if it was a defense.

“I heard more than one folk say he asked you not to kill, but you decided to do so anyway, that doesn't fly here. Now remove your gun, toss it on the floor, and come quietly.” 

Eyes shifting back and forth, Rico wasn’t sure which one of the Sheriff’s men would draw first, but the one on the right, the slow one, was the first. 

BLAM!

Shot in the heart. Before he hit the ground, Rico had his gun trained on the Sheriff whose hand barely grazed the grip of his weapon. Slowly he pulled back, but that wasn’t good enough for Rico, quickly he stepped up and with a swift bash from the butt of his pistol, severed the tendon in the lawman’s gun hand. Quicker than a bat on fire, the gunfighter had his gun trained on the last deputy whose hands were up, and his legs shook with pure terror. 

“Now you get both of you, and don’t come back unless you want to add to the graveyard.” 

Agony was on Sheriff Hitchems’s face, as he retreated, taking his deputy with him, he was in too much pain to even utter a warning or give the gunfighter a dirty look. Soon the motel owner came back and his face in complete disbelief, not only did he leave seeing two bodies of people he knew all his life, but then he returned to see his lobby had a dead deputy bleeding into his carpet, a man dressed in scarlet holding a smoking gun, and a man he was pretty sure had yellow fever. 

“I was first in the queue.” Thomas Sanguine said, “so I want first choice in rooms.” 

***

Next day Kirk Hoanes wallowed in shame, he had caused death to plague his town, and was unsettled living in the same motel as the hired gun, he now reviled with intense hate. Scared of the evil he unleashed, he snuck out of his room early in the morning, he planned on sneaking into the kitchen to get something to eat, though he wasn’t sure his conscience would allow him to stomach even the most tolerable foods. 

Climbing down the stairs, he saw before he fully climbed down the scarlet clad legs of Rico, who was sitting in a lounge chair, his legs crossed. Quickly he climbed down the stairs, hoping to avoid eyesight, but before he could make it to the door, he noticed Sally was coming in, he stopped still, his face painted with a new color of fear. 

Letting out an exasperated cry, he ran out into the street, without the courage to face the widow whose soon to be born child he orphaned. 

Sally Josmith had nothing to say to him either, her face was coldly calm, her eyes reddened from every tear she believed she ever shed. Coldness set into her heart, and she approached the gunfighter unafraid, with a deadly intent in her mind, that was making her heart as hard as lead. 

“If you want to give me an earful woman, I’m not interested.” he said as he smoked his long, narrow cigar, believing she came to lay claim to some of the money paid for killing her husband. 

Instead he was surprised, as his eyebrows lifted in interest, when she reached into her purse to retrieve a bundle of cash. 

“Three thousand dollars.” she stated. “It was our life savings…but whatever life we had was over when Kirk hired you. Now I want to fulfill my man's last wish. I’m hiring you to kill Kirk Hoanes.” her voice was calm, and her words disgustingly venomous. 

Picking up the wad of wash, he thumbed through the bills, and for a moment he considered turning it down…but it was no small amount, though he usually charged more, but he figured he owed the woman. 

“Fine.” he said, blowing out the smoke as he pocketed the cash. “Consider it done.” 

***

Rows of empty benched lined the kitchen hall, no one wanted to wish coming to town with the gunfighter walking the streets, especially after he crippled their Sheriff’s gun hand. Only three men were in the kitchen, the cook, Louis, Kirk Hoanes, and Thomas Sanguine who shoveled in mouthfuls of eggs and beans into his mouth. 

Defeated, and half-sick from guilt, Kirk went to the nearest bench and wept into his hands. “Oh God.” he cried out. 

“The church is that way if you want to pray.” Thomas said, feeling his meal was being disturbed, even though he wolfed down two plates, and was almost done with his third, food staining his coat, and covering his lips. 

“The church can’t help me, what have I done? I just wanted Braun to stop, but…it all just changed from what I wanted.” The shame of what he did was killing him inside out. 

“We tend to mutilate our intentions when hate is our motivation.” Thomas stated, as he rose up after putting some coins on the table to pay for his meal. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, the Hunchback looked down at Kirk, shaking his head. “You should’ve called out Braun alone.” 

“But—he would’ve killed me, I’m…I’m no good at guns.” 

“You’re no good with hiring them either.” Thomas shamed Kirk even more, but he had a remedy for the Youngman’s inner turmoil. “Here, this has the answers to most of man’s problems.” 

Kirk lifted his head, as he was handed a book, a hefty, hallowed book, the Holy Bible, the crimson-gold lettering on the black leather were of high quality. “Are you a God fearing man?” Kirk was surprised the sinister looking stranger was of some religious belief. 

“God is the only thing worth fearing in life, because despite what men can do to one another, it was God who made us, and that makes him one sick son of a bitch.” Thomas Sanguine’s blasphemy offended and revolted Kirk, even more so once he opened the Bible and saw what was inside. 

“You are a depraved soul.” 

“At least I’m honest enough to admit my sins, and face the consequences.” Thomas Sanguine was about to leave, but he saw something out the swing doors. “Unless you want to pay me to face them for you.” The offer confused Kirk, till he followed the yellow faced man’s eyes to see Scarlet Rico waiting for him outside. 

Sally was standing in front of the saloon across the street, him and her eyes met, and he knew she hired Rico to kill him, a just revenge in her mind. 

As she stood there, she was startled when the Sheriff grabbed her arm, and roughly pulled her to him, “are you insane!? Hiring that killer, call him off.” Sally said nothing, just looked to where the violence would start, soon. “Damn it woman, do you think Braun knew when he was dying what he did was just plain wrong, let me arrest Kirk, get some real justice, not this bloodletting.” 

“Not much you can do to stop this Sheriff.” she looked coldly at his bandaged hand, as he cursed at himself, and watched as the shootout was about to happen. 

While inside the kitchen, Thomas offered Kirk again his services. “I can face him for you, I’ll even charge less than he did, in fact for my help, I’ll just take the money you paid him.” 

Temptation was a brittle thing in his mind, and quickly eroded to his own hardened heart, it was tested and firmed up after it bled from the harsh pricks of reality. “No…I’ll go out there.” 

Before Kirk could go, Thomas stopped him. “Me first, I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.” Thomas walked through the doors, and met eyes with Rico, all he did was smile and say, “He’ll be right out.” Moving along down the street, but stopping some way behind Rico, which made the Scarlet gunfighter nervous, and wary of the Hunchback, worried he might intervene. 

“You coming out? yellow-belly!” Rico shouted, enough to stir the people who live in town to look out their windows. Slowly, with timid steps, Kirk walked through the doors, his hands clenching the Bible Thomas gave him, sweat covering his face, despite the cold winter wind that blew through town. “Someone has paid me to put you in the grave, Kirk.” Rico’s voice was grim and humorless. “Want to say a prayer from that book before I send you to Hell?” 

Kirk was nervous, his whole body was shaking, so much fear was on his face that it was like watching a lamb fret with fear knowing it was going to be slaughtered. 

“There is something in this book, but I hesitate to use it.” Kirk swallowed his throat dry. 

“Hesitation is the death of cowards, you remember that as you die.” as Rico’s slick speed lifted his gun, he saw the yellow faced man behind him pull out a shotgun. Horrible bloodstained smile, embedded in his mind as he turned around to shoot before he got shot. 

BANG!

A devastating shot ruined Rico’s hand, and his gun fell into the snow, along with his fingers and bits of his palm, his hand was destroyed, leaving only a bloodied, mangled limb. Everyone who witnessed this was in complete awestruck, never did they imagine they’d see Kirk, with a smoking gun from his hand, that he pulled out from a hollowed out Bible. 

“You shot me!” Rico was flabbergasted, no one had ever got the best of him, he’d killed whole groups of men, but now he was completely useless in a gunfight, his trained hand was now in pieces in the snow. 

Holding his bloodied arm to his armpit, he tried to stop the bleeding, he exhaled in harsh rasps, as he watched as Thomas with that mocking, grinning face walked up to him, and without hesitation pulled at Rico’s scarlet jacket. Unable to do anything since he was at the point of a shotgun, Thomas removed Rico’s wallet full of his earnings. Thirty-three thousand dollars, which went into his own pocket. 

“Thank you.” Thomas said, as if it was voluntarily given, and resting his shotgun over his hunched back, went back to the motel. “Perhaps I’ll see you again…maybe.” 

Sheriff coming over with his deputy who now was armed with his own shotgun, looked Rico right in his eyes. “After I take you to the doctor, I’m placing you under arrest for two counts of murder. Come along now, I don’t want you to bleed out before trial.” restraining his rage, as he was being led again on a path that would no doubt lead him to the hangman’s noose. 

“Hold on.” Kirk called out, causing the Sheriff to look back in confusion. 

“Hurry it up Kirk, we got to go before this guy passes out from blood loss.” 

Kirk after handing the gun he used to the Sheriff said after sighing deeply, “I’m turning myself in, I hired him, so I should take part of the blame.” 

“Look Kirk…no one would want you to—” 

“Yes they would.” he looked over at Sally whose cold face started to give way to conflicting emotions. “Take me in, let a jury decide how guilty I am.” 

Nodding his approval, the Sheriff led his captives away, as they passed by Sally, who Kirk was able to say one last thing to, until he would be locked up. “I should’ve listened to you, back at the motel, even if the town didn’t think better of me, I would’ve thought better of myself.” 

With that they went to the doctor where Rico was stitched up, and thrown in jail with Kirk where they both awaited trial. Before the Sheriff could arrest Thomas Sanguine for grand theft, for stealing thirty thousand from Rico, he bought two horses and a carriage, and rode away, which was just as well as the Sheriff had only two cells and two beds in his jailhouse. 

Laying back on the bed, Kirk would hear outside in the next few days, the townspeople celebrating Christmas, and was delighted that an anonymous good Samaritan cooked the prisoner’s a delicious Christmas dinner, and Kirk got a fruitcake all to himself, with a note. 

As he ate the delectable fruitcake, which he reluctantly shared with Rico, in the spirit of Christmas, he read the note. 

‘We all think better of you.’

-Sincerely, S.