Here goes nothing.....
Here I go... Rated R. Comes in at 2484 words.
THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
By
Becky J. Rhush
CLACK! I ripped awake to the smell of scorched gun powder and the sight of Maggie shimmying her bloomers back up around her hips. The Indian woman I knew as Honwea stood over Maggie and the dead man, gun barrel still smoking.
“Grab his guns!” Honwea shouted, sending Maggie into a frantic search of the dead man’s holsters. Surrounded by men shocked awake by the gun blast, Maggie and Honwea charged into a shooting spree, blasting the cave into a hellish thunder of shrieking bullets and screaming girls. Six adolescent girls, their hands tied behind their backs, leaned into the cave wall, hiding their faces from the sparks of exploding dirt and whizzing ricochets.
I stumbled to my feet, adrenalin surging my legs, to realize I was no longer tied up. Confused, and with the storm of gunfire exploding all around me, I dropped back to my knees in the dust, scuttling toward the other girls. Honwea shouted over her shoulder.
“Cut ‘em loose!” She tossed a slender blade into the dirt between us. Sliding my hand out after the knife, the dirt felt sticky between my fingers. With the pistols lighting up the cave like the fourth of July, I caught a flash off the blade. Blood oozed around it in a river of red grit. Grabbing it, I shuffling around each of the girls, cutting their ropes loose one by one. With each severed knot, the nameless girl would bolt to her feet, tears streaming as she stumbled out into the rain. As I cut the last girl free, I caught sight of a burly, bearded man darting up behind Maggie.
“Mags!” I shouted, catching Honwea’s attention instead. The dark haired woman fired past Maggie to burst open the man’s chest into a red and meaty spray. Maggie whirled around to find the bearded man laying in the dirt not a foot from her, a hunting knife still clutched in his hand. He looked up at her with crazy eyes, blood gurgling over his lips even as his eyes shut into death. The cave finally went quite. Gun smoke and blood amalgamated in the shadows to fume up a gritty stink. Honwea and Maggie finally lowered their six shooters, their chests sucking in and out like the throat on a couple of bullfrogs.
“That all of 'em?” Maggie whispered.
“I don’t know….” Honwea said, uncertainty weighing on her words. A shrill whistle howled through the cave, leaving the dead men silent and us last three girls to ponder the massacre at our feet. Like a hawk, Honwea snapped her gaze to the edge of the cave. My eyes followed. The outline of a man crouching in the corner sketched into view. Honwea whipped her pistol back up, clicking the chamber ready.
“Come out.” Her words crawled dark. “Now.” The trader lifted from his crouch, his dingy palms up in surrender.
“Now listen here, engine…” he stammered, “you got no reason to shoot me. I… I never laid a hand on none of you bitches.”
“You tried!” Maggie shouted, red faced. “Big Charlie wouldn’t let ya. I heard what he said… was ‘fraid you give us some crawlin’ bugs or something. Knock our price down-”
“Come all the way out!” Honwea demanded. The scraggly man, whose given name was Billy, scooted out from behind the rock.
“Please…” he begged, his gruff voice shaking, “let me go.” Even from where I stood I could smell the stink of whiskey steaming his breath. He was an older man, slight, drunk and loathsome, and I figured he’d be lucky to leave the cave alive with Honwea’s pistol pinning him. Holding my breath and keeping silent, I noticed Mags counting the dead men. After sizing up the count with her finger, she looked to me with anxious eyes.
“We got one snake missing.” She tossed me one of her pistols. I nodded, drifting my frightened gaze into the bright light of the cave entrance.
“You were planning to sale us!” Honwea glared. “Harlots to the highest bidder!”
“But I… It wasn’t me…” Billy begged, his weathered hands still in the air. “I mean-”
“You know what was you?” Honwea’s words iced the air between them. “That raid on the Cherokee’s that slaughtered half my people. My parents. My sister.”
“We never planned to kill the women.” Billy stuttered, the color draining from his face.
“Go to Hell.” Honwea’s eyes blazed like black fire and she squeezed the trigger, blasting another thunderous CLACK through the cave. Billy flew backward with the blast of smoke, chucking into the dust like a skin and bones rag doll. The charred hole between his wide, blank eyes opened up like a hole in a bucket, spewing out blood.
I stood there shaking and praying. If my Sunday preacher had told me three days ago that I’d be standing in a cave with a gun, I’d have called him a liar.
“You see Lester out there?” Mags flashed her blue eyes at me.
Lester? Then I realized.
The missing snake. I stood frigid and speechless, staring at Mags and Honwea. “Well go look, church girl!” Mags hissed in a sandpaper whisper. Trying to calm my trembling hands, I squeezed into the pistol’s handle, feeling the unfamiliar curve of the slick metal trigger against my finger tip. I inched toward the entrance. I squinted against the blare of daylight, feeling a sudden cold rush of moist wind breeze over me with a heady scent of spring rain. A moment later, the land of soaked yuccas, mesquite, and red mud came into view under a wash of morning rain. I flitted my eyes side to side, holding my breath. Praying I wouldn’t see Lester. I narrowed my sights on the ridge.
No missing snake. Letting out a relieved sigh, I turned back to Maggie and Honwea.
“I don’t see anyone.” I whispered. Maggie nodded, but Honwea looked past me, making certain for herself.
“Let’s get out of here before he does comes back.” She said.
“Are we heading back toady or-”
“Heading back?” The Indian interrupted me. “We aint’ heading back.”
“What?” My stomach dropped. Maggie shook her head, shuffling back into the cave. “But…” I stammered, “I have to go back! My daddy must be worried sick!” Honwea turned her back on me as well, ambling back into the shadows. With tears warming in my chest, I followed. Silence tensed the cave, engulfing all three of us. The pitter patter of rain mixed with the howl of the wind hurt my ears. I could feel my gut twisting, turning sick.
“Look Betty Jo…“ Maggie leaned her back against the wall as if her words bared a heavy burden, “these cowboys were slave traders. Flesh peddlers. They got buyers waiting out there. We don’t show up, they come looking.”
“You go home,” Honwea settled her cold stare on me, “you’re cutting your momma and daddy’s throat.”
“A handful of these bastards were lawmen trading on the side.” Maggie crossed her arms. “We go back, we’ll be hanging from the nearest tree.”
“But… they don’t hang women in West Texas.” I tried to convince myself.
“They do when it’s ‘those harlot bitches that shot up the sheriff’s posse’.” Honwea snorted. “Your not your daddy’s little girl anymore, Betty Jo. Not now.”
“But…” sobs twinged into my words, “there must be some way-”
“Listen,” Maggie softened her words, trying to sound comforting. “Me and Honwea, we been forced to ride with these bastards a lot longer than you. They don’t care if your Mexican, engine, or even a church going daddy’s girl like yourself. Those buyers are coming, traders or no traders.”
I stood dumbfounded, feeling the wet warmth of tears slipping my cheeks. My sixteenth birthday was a week a way. Mags could be no more than my age, and Honwea… maybe eighteen. We should be looking forward to days filled with sowing and baking, drinking fresh lemon-aid, swimming in the in the sunshine. In just three days, every trace of my innocence had been slaughtered like a spring pig. What could be left for me?
“The way I see it,” Honwea cut into my thoughts, “we escape now, or we don’t escape at all. You with us?”
“I-”
“You got two choices.” Mags put a gentle hand on mine, pulling the six shooter loose of my fingers. Tilting my palm up, she hovered the gun over it. “Be a whore the rest of your life… or become an outlaw today.” She rested the pistol in my hand. A chill wind breezed over me, raising bumps on my skin, gritting the reek of blood and gun powder back into my nostrils.
“Hey!” Came a gruff shout. I swung around to see a man running atop the ridge.
Lester. The missing snake.
“This is it.” Honwea said. “You with us or not?” My mouth went dry. I knew exactly what I had to do to prove myself. In the last three days, I’d learned quick. The pretty blond I knew as Mags was a wild thing. Free as the wind. Honwea wielded instincts sharper than a razor. She was cold and fearless. I was none of these things. Not brave. Not courageous. I was a scared and trembling church girl. The apple of my daddy’s eye. I stared through fearful tears, the pistol shaking in my hand. The last slaver sprinted down the hillside… on his way to kill us.
“Shoot, Betty Jo!“ Maggie shouted.
“Now!” Honwea ordered. “Shoot now!” Their voices melted in my ears as if I were dreaming. Lester scampered closer, his boots smeared with red mud as he hurdled patches of yucca. His hand dropped to hover his pistol. Pulling it free, he aimed right at me. With a canyon echoing blast, smoke clouded his barrel. The shot dropped Honwea and Maggie to dirt. My knees buckled.
“Shoot him, Honwea!” Mags begged from below me in the dirt. A couple more seconds, and it would be too late.
Would dead be better? Easier in the long run? My heart thrashed inside my chest like it might shatter my bones. Pulling my pistol up, I stiffened my arm and squinted an eye. Fearing the bruising kick of my own gun blast, I swallowed my soul and prayed.
God forgive me…and pulled the trigger.
A Couple Months Later
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked the little girl with pig-tails. She stared up at me with frightened, glassy eyes, balling her fists into her momma’s billowy skirt. Her fear shown plain on her flushed pink face and she kept quite, trying to hide in the safety of her momma’s hem. I understood. Even I could smell the cinnamon sweet scent of gingerbread that spiced her momma’s dress. It served as a slight comfort to me, reminding me of my own momma. I didn’t blame the youngin’ for her silence anyhow. Must be hell to be caught up in our mess. Neither me, Mags, nor Honwea ever wanted any youngin’s to get caught in the middle of these predicaments, but it seemed to be happening every where we went.
“All of it!” Mags shouted as the elderly banker shuffled green backs into a burlap sack. “And not one nickel less! Don’t you try swindling ol’ Maggie West cause I got no fear of puttin a hole in yer head!” Sucking on the pinch of salt water taffy between my cheek and gums, I watched Mags clang her rifle barrel between the bars and into the banker’s face. I shifted a skeptical gaze to Honwea, who stood look-out at the door. The Indian woman mirrored my concerns, but stood sturdy, her rifle aimed and ready in her solid grip. I drifted my gaze back to the huddle of strangers that included the little girl with pig tails. It was clear, especially on the painted faces of the proper ladies. They had never stood witness to a bank robbery. Much less one pulled off by two white women and a squaw wearing oversized men’s clothing soured by sweat and day’s old dust. I was particularly struck by the moon eyed little girl, flitting her stare between my guns and Honwea. No doubt her ma and pa had told her some bloody bedtime stories about engines, all of it hogwash.
“Well?” I asked the child again, trying to take her mind off of my two pistols; one deftly aimed at the seven or eight bank customers, the other at the banker himself.
“Um…um….” she mumbled in her high pitched cherub tone. “A mommy?”
“Good kid!” Mags shouted over her shoulder, sending a collective flinch through the customers. “Stick with that. Aint much else they offer a woman these days.”
“Unless you wanna meet with them slave traders.” I snorted.
“Yeah! Hell, them slavers sure picked the wrong three wild gals, didn’t they?” Mags gave a wicked giggle, then flitted her eyes back to the banker. “Come on! How longs’ it take ol’ man!” She pounded her rifle barrel against an indignant palm.
“Honwea!” I shouted, catching sight of the tall man in suspenders sneaking up on the Indian. Like a stone whipped from a slingshot, Honwea snapped her rifle back over her shoulder and fired. Blood splattered into her hair and the tall man dropped like a sack of potatoes. As I gawked his bloody forehead. It reasoned to me that no matter how many times I saw it, I might never be able to stomach a man getting shot. Screams tangled into the air with the now familiar stench of hot blood and scorched gun smoke. Mags slid the first money bag from the counter, tossing it to Honwea, then pulled the second for herself.
“Let’s ride!” She shouted, running past me. I squeezed off a few shots to panic the customers, then took into a sprint, hurdling the dead man blocking the doorway. Pulling onto my horse, I heard Honwea shout those terrible and familiar words.
“Here comes the law!” She swerved, turning her horse in the opposite direction.
“Betty Jo!” I responded to Mags firing three more shots, these aimed at the approaching posse. With that, the three of us shook dust, blazing off into full gallop with up to fifteen lawmen on our heels.
It’s funny what can become of a woman when she has only two evils to choose from. Choosing the lesser of the two, it’s even funnier how good she can become at it, falling into it as natural as the day she was born. As if it were meant for her all along. Like me. I don’t regret a thing I’ve done since that day in the cave. I’m a church girl surviving the best I know how. An outlaw by day. A snake hunter by choice.