David E Anderson – Author

I

The horse and his rider stirred dust that had remained dormant for decades. The rider wondered if anyone would ever pass this way again.

Groundrats, blind but curious, stuck their wrinkled heads out of holes in the Earth, listening as Doris and her horse passed.

A town appeared ahead, rising slowly over the horizon.

The horse’s pace, which had been maddeningly steady over the days they’d traveled, suddenly accelerated. Doris leaned closer.

“What?” she asked.

‘Mare…Mare…Ahead…’

The horse’s thoughts came in frantic bursts, overwhelming her mind so that she could only make out the most vital words.

They hadn’t seen a mare in years, not since Newland. He’d mated her, but had to move on before they could discover if any offspring had been produced.

Unlikely. Not much of anything was produced in Newland.

“Slow down,” Doris whispered softly into his ear, hoping to soothe him.

‘Can’t…Mare…’

“No, your thoughts. Slow down your thoughts.” She wondered if the town ahead possibly had more than one horse. Maybe they bred. Maybe there was a stable. Maybe the town had remained relatively free from horse-killers.

‘Mare…Danger…Horse-killers…’

“Fuck,” whispered Doris, slipping her right hand down to her gunbelt, just to be sure she was ready. Her ammo was fresh, her gun cleaned and fire-checked yesterday morning.

She was ready to take on the horse-killers.

From their position, the town seemed to be moving across the desert floor towards them, as if to say that it was ready, too.

II

The man in the black derby refused to give his name when he entered the town the previous night. Though this was usually considered a sign of suspicious incivility, he became part of the town within hours. He knew who was who and who was what, even if no one in the town knew anything about him other than the fact that he entered town from the west.

He drank through the night, and certain individuals joined him one by one like vultures to a carcass, until a congregation emerged from the grogshop at dawn that made the rest of the town uneasy.

Zachariah Freed, whose father had been lynched as a horse-killer the previous year.

Matt Quint, who’d come to town only a week ago and seemed to expect the arrival of people who would harm him, perhaps a posse.

Dan Koch, a man with scars covering his face and arms who seemed to have an unending supply of money. He spent most of his time in the grogshop and only worked enough to not be railroaded out of town for vagrancy.

They’d spent the morning watching the clocks, waiting.

Then Bob Simmons rode into town on the supply wagon, pulled by his mare, Jessie. The townspeople wanted to tell him to turn around and forget making this month’s deliveries. They knew full well what was coming, what Derby’s gang had been waiting for. No one said anything, not wanting to earn the wrath of this bunch.

Zak Freed and Dan Koch grabbed Simmons while Matt Quint untied the horse from the wagon. Before Jessie realized something was wrong, she was tied to the lamppost in front of the grogshop.

Simmons starting yelling for Derby’s gang to leave them alone, realizing that they were horse-killers. He started pleading to the townspeople for help, reminding them that he couldn’t make his deliveries without Jessie, and the town would die off without her.

Receiving no offers of support, he began throwing punches, which everyone knew was a mistake.

Derby, with deathlike speed, drew a pistol and shot Simmons in both legs, laughing. He climbed onto the supply wagon, throwing crates and bushels into the street, looking for what he knew would be there.

Finding it, he grabbed both of the metal containers and looked down upon Simmons, who was writhing on the ground, hollering in pain.

“You ready?” Derby asked all who were watching, opening the nozzles on the cans and raising them above his head. Only a handful of people in town had ever smelled gasoline before. It was a rare and expensive commodity.

“No!” screamed Simmons so loud that the entire town heard him.

III

Children, their hair disheveled, looked up from their crude handmade toys long enough to watch the horse and rider race past. Adults continued to talk amongst themselves, paying no notice to the violent intrusion on their quiet neighborhood, as if they’d forgotten what excitement was.

A girl of no more than two sat in the road playing with some kind of wheeled toy, running it back and forth in the tracks it had made in the dirt. Doris had to pull the horse’s mane to remind it to veer around the child. The child watched with some degree of fascination until hoof-raised dirt pierced her eyes and she began wailing.

The horse carried Doris between two wooden buildings, then veered to the left in preparation for a wide right turn.

‘Horse-killers…’

“I know,” whispered Doris, sliding her pistol out of its holster.

IV

“Those sonzabitches!” screamed Floyd Harliman from behind the bar. He slammed his hand onto the glass rack, and a mug toppled off, smashing at his feet.

“Dad?” Bradley asked, looking up from the paperback he’d gotten from Bob Simmons on his last visit. He’d already read it twice. Bradley was sitting on the floor behind the counter, paying no attention to the noises from outside until the glass broke.

“What the holy hell do they think they’re doing? Where the fuck does Dan think all that booze he pours into his liver comes from?”

“Dad?” Bradley asked again.

“Better get upstairs, boy,” said Floyd, opening the cash register and reaching into the back, where customers couldn’t see.

Floyd kicked at his son, and Bradley shot to his feet and disappeared through the back door.

V

Jessie backed away from the streetlamp with all of her strength, craning her neck.

Derby splashed Jessie’s side with the contents of one of the cans, and the smell of gasoline was overpowering. Jessie neighed loudly and tried rocking side to side in hopes of loosening the rope.

“Stop it!” screamed Simmons. “Stop it!”

He was ignored.

Jessie kicked at Matt Quint, but the horse-killer backed away quickly, laughing at the near miss.

Derby continued splashing. Standing on the wagon, he would be an easy target if a townsperson decided to try to stop him, but he didn’t seem to think anyone would.

Frantic, Jessie began moving side to side, shaking her neck to which her ropes were bound, trying to find a way out.

Derby dropped the canisters and raised his arms. From one sleeve appeared a cigar and, from the other, a lighter. His eyes seemed to shine in glory, like he was a mystic performing a miracle for all to behold.

He bit off the stub from the cigar, then lit the cigar and took two deep puffs.

The door to the grogshop flew open, and Floyd appeared with a pistol in his hand, which he aimed at Derby. “Just what the holy hell do you think you’re doin’?!”

Derby jumped down, landing squarely in front of Floyd, almost within reach of the gun’s barrel, smoking the cigar. “He shoots, kill him,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

Floyd suddenly realized there were three men training their guns on him, and the pistol suddenly felt like dead weight. “Let the horse live,” he ordered, his voice cracking.

Before Derby could reply, he was interrupted by hoofbeats. Floyd turned his pistol to the source and saw the horse and rider approaching rapidly. Derby’s mouth fell open, and the cigar dropped from his lips.

Derby had no time to move before the horse struck him. He was lifted from the ground and propelled into the air as the horse’s head came up.

Surprised and confused, the pistol in Floyd’s hand went off.

The bullet went through Doris’ left breast, tearing open her heart before passing out her back.

Doris began to fall sideways off the horse and she saw Derby’s cigar igniting the gasoline on the ground. She was about to fall into it, but managed to snag the horse’s mane. It held her long enough to pass the stream of fire before she fell to the ground, the pistol still in her right hand.

Floyd looked dumbly at the revolver in his hand, wondering if he’d really just killed the woman who was trying to make things right.

The gas beneath the mare flared and traveled up her legs, and her hide went up in flames. Zak, Dan, and Matt all backed away from the flaming horse, which now bucked as if the fire was an unwanted rider she could throw off.

Floyd looked up and saw that Dan was leveling his pistol at him, about to kill him, and he realized it was too late for him to fire first.

Doris sat up, clutching her chest with one hand and firing off two rounds with the other.

Dan shuddered as the first bullet tore into his chest. He turned to see who shot him and surprise fell over his face as he watched her fire her second shot, which entered his right eye and tore through his head, exploding out the back, taking blood and brain matter with it.

Zak and Matt leapt in unison to the side, putting the flaming mare between themselves and Doris.

Doris motioned for Floyd to join her at her side. Her left hand no longer covered her chest, though her white shirt now had a small red stain on it.

Floyd had once seen a man shot through the heart and there hadn’t been much blood, but that was because the heart stops pumping the moment the bullet shatters it. But hers was still pumping, obviously, or she wouldn’t be motioning to him.

“Get your ass over here!” she screamed, her horse standing faithfully behind her.

Floyd stepped off of the grogshop’s porch uneasily, not sure if he should trust someone who wouldn’t die.

A bullet razed his shoulder and that decided it for him. He ran to join Doris.

“How…” he began, but a silencing hand swept down in front of him, and he complied.

“Get ready,” Doris ordered.

Matt suddenly jumped onto the porch, rolling and firing wildly at them.

Before Doris could return fire, she heard a snap of the rope breaking, and the mare suddenly charged forward. It was free, though still aflame.

Matt fell sideways, holding an arm out as if it would stop the mare from charging at him. He brought up his gun and fired twice into Jessie’s head, finally making him an official horse-killer. The horse collapsed onto his legs, setting his overalls on fire. He yanked his legs out from under the mare and rose, flailing at the flames that engulfed his legs. He turned and ran into the grogshop.

Zak stood up from behind the dead mare and opened fire on Doris and Floyd.

His first bullet ripped through Doris’ throat and another shattered her right wrist, causing her to drop her pistol. A third bullet struck Floyd’s right thigh, spinning him around. He also lost his gun.

Massaging her wrist, Doris picked up her gun. She hadn’t yet regained the muscle control to fire it, but it was returning.

Zak found that he was out of bullets and ran for the alleyway behind the grogshop. Doris raised her pistol and steadied her hand, preparing to shoot the man dead, when another man, his shirt on fire, crashed through the front window of the grogshop. Matt’s flaming overalls had somehow set fire to the saloon. Two more men followed him out of the grogshop, smoke pouring out after them.

By the time they were out of the way, Zak was gone.

“Ma boy, ma boy,” pleaded Floyd, trying to stop the blood flowing from his wound.

“He’s inside?” Doris asked.

Floyd nodded wildly, pointing to the windows above the saloon.

Doris’ horse neighed behind her in understanding.

“Is there a back door?” she asked. “A way I can get up?”

Floyd nodded. “Side door. In the alley.”

The horse began to move forward.

“No!” yelled Doris. “The last one’s in the alley!”

The horse nodded and retreated.

She ran to the alleyway and saw Zak taking cover behind an aluminum trashcan near the side door of the grogshop. Having reloaded, he fired once. The bullet struck the wall and ricocheted past her.

Doris raised her pistol, but Zak ducked down behind the garbage can before she could fire.

Deciding that caution was unnecessary and time was running out for Floyd’s son, she ejected the clip from her gun and inserted a new one, then stepped into the alleyway. She fired two bullets into the trashcan. The can absorbed the shots, as she’d expected. She just wanted to let the bastard know she was coming.

Zak rose to his feet and started blasting away frantically. Bullets pierced both of Doris’ legs. She began to stumble, then grabbed the wall for support and kept walking, letting go of the wall after a moment.

“What the hell?” Zak asked, and fired again, hitting Doris in the chest. She stopped for a moment, then raised her pistol and fired two bullets, one into Zak’s heart and one into his head.

VI

Doris opened the side door of the grogshop, and dense smoke poured out. Smoke inhalation wasn’t a problem for her, but she was unable to see through the black haze. And though fire couldn’t kill her, it could cause unbearable pain for as long as she was engulfed by it.

She could see flames through the smoke, and a staircase to the side. She quickly ascended the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a long hallway. At the far end was a small boy holding a shotgun, which wavered in his grip. Seeing Doris, he raised the shotgun and gripped the trigger.

She didn’t have time for much else, so she ran at him, reaching for the rifle.

The boy raised the shotgun and fired, pulling back in fright at the last moment and putting a hole in the ceiling. Trying to quickly reload, he succeeded only in dropping the bullets to the floor.

The smoke coming up the stairwell was getting thicker. She couldn’t take him down the stairs. She’d survive, but he wouldn’t.

Doris grabbed the gun from the terrified child’s grip, then shoved him aside and quickly slid two bullets into the rifle, all it would hold. A thick cloud of smoke formed above her head as she fired the two bullets into the wall, knocking two holes in it, each a foot in diameter. Sunshine poured through.

She reloaded and fired two more shots, then snagged the boy and threw him onto her back, holding onto his shirt with her left hand. She ran at the weakened wall and flung her body against it. It gave way and Doris fell fifteen feet to the street below, breaking an ankle on landing, but keeping her grip on the boy.

Her horse whinnied and nudged her with its snout. Doris stood on one foot, shaking her broken ankle until it healed.

She led the boy and horse around to the front of the grogshop.

The boy’s father lay dead in the street, his eyes rolled up as if staring at the dark red bullethole in his forehead.

“Who shot him?” Doris screamed at the crowd.

The crowd was mute.

“Who…shot him?” she asked again.

People looked from one to the other as if expecting someone else to answer.

Doris was furious with the crowd. She was trying to protect them, and they were refusing to help her in even the smallest way. They were afraid.

If fear kept them quiet, fear could make them talk. She would give them something to be afraid of.

Doris unslung the rifle and aimed it at a man in overalls. “Who shot him?” she asked the man calmly.

His mouth opened and closed, afraid to answer, but afraid not to.

She raised the rifle so that he could see straight down the barrel.

“D-Derby,” he said, and she immediately knew he was speaking of the man with a derby who’d started the fire. She thought he was killed when the horse struck him, but he had evidently survived.

The boy was crying, looking down at his father’s body.

“Do you have family?” she asked him.

The boy shook his head.

Doris gritted her teeth. Unless she could get someone to take him in, she would have to watch after him herself.

“My dog,” he whispered through his sobs.

“You have a dog?” she asked, surprised. Dogs were almost extinct, and she hadn’t seen one this far west for a century or so. “Where?”

“Home.”

“Where?” she asked again.

“West,” he said.

Though Doris wasn’t sure which way was west, her horse always knew directions and immediately turned and headed toward the far end of town.

The boy, mourning, dragged his feet as they walked. Finally, Doris picked him up and set him on her horse, and she walked alongside.

“Are you one of them?” the boy asked. “The Guardians?”

“You’ve heard of us?” Doris asked.

“Granddad said there used to be a hundred of you before his time, but there weren’t that many anymore. He said that you were immortal and could speak to animals. Are you one of them?”

“I am.”

“Strange. I always thought granddad was making it up. It didn’t make sense. If there were a hundred of you, and you were immortal, then why aren’t there still a hundred of you? Where did the rest go?”

Doris wondered that herself. The Guardians always traveled alone, but it used to be that she would rarely go more than a few years without crossing the path of another like herself. But after the human population started decreasing, so did the population of Guardians, it seemed. She hadn’t laid eyes on another one for almost five hundred years, and hadn’t heard a believable report of another’s existence for three hundred. As far as she knew, she was the only Guardian left.

She wondered where the others had gone, and if she would end up going there as well.

“Granddad said you all were fearless,” said the boy.

“I used to be,” Doris whispered.

Passing a boarded-up church, the boy yelled, “there!” At first, Doris thought he was telling her he lived in the abandoned church, but then spotted a house in its shadow.

Barking issued from the house and the boy climbed down from the horse. Doris followed him into the house, where the boy clutched a beautiful golden retriever, suddenly bursting into sobs that could only be a mix of joy and grief.

Doris both envied and pitied the boy. He knew loss, felt pain, but at least he could feel emotions. Doris knew nothing but dedication toward the human race. When one died, she felt nothing but a sense of failure, a slight anger at herself.

She grasped nothing but a shadow of the boy’s emotions. She understood that his love existed, but she didn’t share it. The closest she came was her feelings towards her horse, but she only cared for him because of what he provided for her. If he were to become useless to her, she wouldn’t feel any remorse in leaving him behind.

The dog licked the boy’s face, whining as its tongue lapped the boy’s tears. The dog could sense his grief, and felt more love than Doris ever could.

The horse outside neighed, calling out to Doris. Someone was coming, someone who the horse feared. Horse-killer.

She told the horse to get away from him, but he was already moving.

Doris heard two blasts and the horse let out a short high-pitched neigh.

She heard him thump to the ground outside, and could feel his thoughts go black.

Doris ran to the front door, yelling for the boy to go out the back window and run. She opened the front door and saw Derby raise his pistol at her. She drew her own but was unable to fire before Derby shot her twice in the forehead.

She fell to the ground, starting to heal, barely on the edge of consciousness. She couldn’t feel the gun in her hand, but frantically sent out nerve messages to shoot. Her hand flopped like a fish.

He shot her again in the side of the head, then again.

Doris blacked out as Derby walked into the house.

VII

When Doris returned to consciousness, she was alone. Her gun was still in her hand. A headache was fading, like waves receding with the tide.

She rolled her head. She’d never sustained that much trauma at once, but seemed to be recovering completely, like always. She was slightly confused about where she was, but memory flooded back as her brain repaired itself.

When her double-vision cleared, the first thing her eyes focused on was the horse, lying on its side in the street. Flies were already settling on its corpse.

She rose and staggered into the house.

The boy was halfway out the window. Blood ran down the wall, forming a puddle beneath him.

She wanted to scream in frustration. Once upon a time, her efforts were successful more often than not. She used to actually leave a town in better shape than she found it, with no one dead but the horse-killers. When she made the decision to protect someone, they used to survive. But lately, her efforts hadn’t been paying off. It seemed that the horse-killers were winning, that human society was crumbling at a greater rate than ever.

She wondered how long it would be until she was truly alone in the world.

VIII

She met the horse-killer named Derby at the west end of town. He sat in the dust, shooting at groundrats when they dared to pop their heads up. They would duck down at the sound of his pistol firing, but not always quick enough to avoid the bullet.

Doris aimed her pistol at the back of Derby’s head and said, “hey, asshole.”

He didn’t flinch or even seem to acknowledge her presence. He took aim at a hole and fired as soon as a groundrat popped its head up, spraying blood across the ground.

She was about to introduce herself when Derby spoke. “Who are you trying to protect them from?”

“You,” she said, and shot him in the back of the head.

Derby fell facedown between his legs, then sat back up, putting his hand to the back of his head. He shook his head, then turned and stood up.

Doris blinked her eyes, then lowered the gun. “You?” she asked. “A…Guardian?”

“That’s right.” He bowed slightly and grinned, amused at her astonishment.

“But…you’re a horse-killer!”

“Guilty as charged.”

“No!” she screamed and shot him in the heart.

He stumbled backwards, then laughed.

“It’s not right,” Doris said. “Our goal is to save them, not destroy them!”

“I ask again. Who are you trying to save them from?”

“Outlaws. Wrong-doers. Horse-killers.”

“Themselves!” he shouted, and fired a bullet into the ground. “You’re only trying to save them from themselves! They are the outlaws. They are the wrong-doers. They are the horse-killers.”

“Some, not all.”

“There will always be horse-killers. Even if you rid the world of every villain, the next generation of mankind will produce more. It’s futile. There’s only one way to stop the killing, and that’s to let them die.”

“That’s not true,” she protested. “Don’t say that if it’s not true.”

“You will come to understand, to become what the rest of us have become. I can see in your eyes that you’re already becoming disillusioned with your efforts and their results. It won’t be long before you give up on mankind entirely, as the rest of us have.”

“You’re saying I’ll be a horse-killer?” She laughed nervously. “You’re saying I’ll shoot horses and little boys and…and groundrats?”

“First you’ll just walk away, as the rest of us did. But eventually you’ll get tired of waiting for the end, and decide to speed the process along. Then you’ll start killing. A few of us have already started. The rest will join in soon. Then we’ll just be waiting for you, woman.”

“No!” She shot him again, in the neck.

“No sense denying it,” he croaked, holding his hand over his throat. He cleared his throat and his voice was fine again. “The bad comes from within themselves, and it always will. As long as they’re around.”

Doris shot him one last time, then turned and left. She wanted to hear no more of his rantings. He’d gone insane, overwhelmed by his inability to save them. She’d never join him and the others.

Never.

She found the dog near the abandoned church. It followed her into the desert.

It would die of thirst before they reached the next town.

She, however, would never die.