TWO LEFT
by Eric Beetner

CALIFORNIA – 1892

Up until twelve hours ago there were three of us in town. That’s when I shot One-Eyed Jack and now there are only two; Morrison and me. That’s the recent history anyway. It started as thirty of us.

Thirty men of stout heart and strong backs journeyed to this town, this gob of spit on a map somewhere. Ghost town is too romantic a phrase but that’s what sticks for the locals who are less than local anymore, being several hundred miles away in Reno. Now there are enough corpses around to warrant ghosts but none did make any appearance to myself, though I cannot account for Morrison.

One-Eyed Jack didn’t really have one eye but, of the two he possessed, one looked away at such and extreme angle that you were never quite sure if he was looking at you at all. When entering into a conversation you had to decide right off the top which eye to choose and stay committed, even though the sight of it often rendered having a conversation a difficult track to keep because of the distraction and the wandering of the mind. This dual look of his was cause for an immediate distrust but still, Jack was one of our party when we lit out for this former camp and set about reviving the old ghosts in the hills around it due to what Murphy had discovered not two weeks prior.

Gold. A different strike from the one that tapped out and caused the flight of all one hundred and eighty-seven good folks who used to call Birchton a home. A strike that cut deep into the hills with a vein the likes we had never seen. It seemed to be one of those gold strikes of legend that presented itself like an iceberg; with only the tiniest fraction of it’s true measure to be seen for the looking. The lion’s share of the strike lay buried beneath the hills waiting only for the proper effort to bring it forth.

But, like the stories told of the snow-blind travelers and the conquistadors searching the thin-aired mountains for El Dorado, this was not to be upon further inspection. Oh it gave forth all right – plenty. Enough to make a man rich beyond his dreams, but not enough for thirty men who could dream awfully darn well. Thirty men who had glimpsed the far side of the world with that strike as it played on their eyelids late at night. Men who had made plans and struck deals with their lord expecting the payoff to be so great that such planning was necessary.

When it became apparent that what was already in the camp was the limit of the strike, stacked neatly into bags the weight of a small cannonball  (the type used in the war between the states and one such souvenir, having been brought to camp, becoming the unit of measure to our accounting) that was when the camaraderie of thirty men working as one became a camp of thirty factions each with his own interests at heart.

First the camp was of two minds, more or less evenly split.  This led to the cave- in that some felt was perhaps not accidental but, fortunate for those who did, the men that protested were, alas, trapped inside the mountain occupying space once held by the gold they had grown to covet. The loud cries of those that survived made way down to town through the night until just after first light. From the sounds of it at least six or seven men had survived the initial falling of rock and choking of dust. Just as quickly as the rising of dawn, the men who had the day before functioned as one to cause the cave-in, were now dividing again like paramecium in a dish; the sun overhead like God’s cruel eye staring down the length of a microscope at the mindless creatures acting only on instinct.

From there came accidents, tragedies, shootings of self-defense and betrayals at night witnessed only by the man betrayed and often not even by his two eyes as the knife was slid into his back. Such was the case with my bunkmate, Rawlins. He wore a long beard, but kept it tidy. He could swing a pick like Casey swung a bat. He was also in possession of two of the larger nuggets brought forth from the strike. That fact was perhaps the beginning of his descent but add to that also that he loved his whiskey more than his Mother and Wife, whom he had left behind in San Francisco, and his was a fate written in the sand just below where he stood, only he was too much a fool to see it.

Rawlins left the mess tent with a stagger in his step. His left foot wandered due to the drink but his right foot wobbled because of the two large stones he kept there. Outside my watchful eye, Rawlins fell victim to a spineless one whom I deduced was One-Eyed Jack, though that was ultimately not what brought me to shoot him. I imagined Jack spying Rawlins and his lumbering gait and not giving much thought at all to what his options were.

I don’t imagine any of us thought much through in this deal. If we had, the whole decision to ride up here and away from loved ones and well paying jobs would have seemed foolish. Quite often a town uninhabited by man is that way for a good goddamn reason. But we weren’t the first fools brought to our deaths by the lure of gold.

I imagined Jack sneaking up on him but not in a manner that required all that much stealth, due to the effects of whiskey and Rawlins tendency to sing aloud to himself while walking. I picture it clear in my mind’s eye as Jack wields the blade, not for surgical cutting and not for swift action but for gore and brute force that would cause Rawlins not to fight back for in one blow he would have already been done in. As to the nature of the wound I cannot attest because I was not among the witnesses to the discovery of the body two days later in a gully past the old sluice shoots. Word came back that he had been stabbed and that the wound was not an elegant one but added as a caveat was that his body had been fed upon liberally by any number of creatures that frequented that same gully. Before I returned to my bunk Rawlins’ cache had been cleaned out of all useful goods by the other greedy hands, but they knew well enough to stay off of my goods.

I had distinguished myself as one of few words and mean temperament. I avoided the drink and preferred to approach this endeavor clear-headed or at least as clear-headed as one can be in the throes of a gold fever. I declined an invitation to take part in the cave-in but had already had cause to dispatch one of my partners over a dispute.

My share of the gold I keep safely in my pack, which is never away from my person. While sleeping I have fashioned a short rope to the opening flap of my pack and that rope is attached to the big toe on my left foot. My revolver is kept under my pillow and now that Rawlins was making his residence as a ghost in this town we chose not to call a ghost town, there was no reason for anyone to enter my bunkhouse unannounced or during sleeping hours. A week ago Sunday, when Pigeon Joe decided to test the depths of my slumber, he was met with my Remington and I doubt the shots scarcely awoke any others in the camp.

I prefer to aim for the heart myself. I have talked to many men who take aim directly at the head but I find that too messy and also the head a much more unpredictable target. The head you can move independently from the body and therefore it does so more easily and more rapidly. The heart is encased in a cage of bone, flanked by two arms, rotates only slightly and is wholly dependent on the legs for locomotion. And that night when I held the notion of returning to sleep, only the slight spattering of blood from a chest wound was a preferred alternative rather than having to switch bunks or take to sleeping out of doors from the brain matter and fluids that accompany a head shot.

And so the wealth of the remaining men had grown and so did the paranoia. At least one among our ranks, Clements, Bernard I believe, decided to take his share and return to San Francisco or head on for points east. If we were smart men we would have followed him like a pied piper across the Rockies to settle in Kansas or some such territory not laden with the burden of gold. Wheat fields in summer offer all the golden hues a man should need for a lifetime.

As I have no wife, and if I recall Morrison is also without, I had no reason to leave other than my own safety and that had not been a proper deterrent for engaging in this folly so why should it be the reason to stop. I myself had gained a share equal to nine other men and surely was in possession of enough gold to assure my stature in any city. And yet here I stood with only Morrison claiming a larger share and only I in his way from possession of the entire lot.

I had discovered a vantage point from which I could keep both eyes on Morrison without his detection. In the hay loft of the barn that stood between my bunkhouse and the former dining hall where he lay his bed I could make out his near every move from a tall window on the building’s side. Being a former dining hall it was open and Morrison laid his bed in the center of the room thinking it made him safer when in fact it made him all the more vulnerable to my prying eyes. Using Rawlins’ old spyglass, which I had retrieved from a hiding place the plunderers had not known, I could count the whiskers growing on Morrison’s chin.

One other thing I could count, and that I could make use of, was the number of bullets held in his gun belt. He kept only three. I awoke one morning to hear a single shot and could spy him carrying a rabbit back inside. That afternoon the count was down to two. With six in the chamber he had me eight shots to naught for I had run out of ammunition on the morning I shot One-Eyed Jack.

It took three shots to drop him and one more to finish him off. I broke my own rule by putting the last shot through his skull but after the thrashing about and his general alertness after my shots to the chest, I figured it best to be prudent. Jack had called me out that morning. My reticence was as much a call for distrust among the others as Jack’s misaligned eyes were at times and, the way he explained it, he felt I was not doing my part around the camp and as such should not be holding the excesses of gold that I had in my possession.

I had indeed been keeping to myself but when our number of thirty had diminished by twenty-seven I felt that any caution on my part was fully warranted. When his shootings and rocks hurled against the outer wall of my bunkhouse rousted me from my re-counting of gold, I had a brief moment of regret that I had not lit out for San Francisco or Reno while the chance was ripe. Why had I stayed here when I knew in my heart of hearts that it was a fool’s game? My hands were fair on the draw but I am no gunman to be sure. Three seasons on the railroad had ruined my hands so that the grip I was able to muster wasn’t up to snuff for a shootout. I had calm on my side as most gunfights I had ever witnessed were won by the man with a still demeanor. Jack’s disposition that morning put me at a square advantage on that regard.

I deduced that his ranting was not so much directly about me but as much to the camp in general. The combination of solitude, distrust and often days of silence had eroded on Jack’s already fragile mind. A lifetime of being on the outside due to his affliction had caused him to be a temperamental sort from the very first day. Matters of the mind I do not pretend to understand and therefore I keep my distance, but perhaps that only serves to rile up someone with a predisposition to disorder of the brain. “Some people just got crazy in ‘em from the start,” my Father used to say.

An uncle of mine had joined the crew of a sailing ship that set sail for South America and hit stormy seas that threw them off course into the South Pacific Ocean for nine weeks. For a man who had spent the first forty-two years of his life on dry land in Oklahoma, the confines and lack of panorama had been too much for him. He spent days muttering to himself and confiding secrets to the rats whom he no longer chased away from his bunk. When other men on the ships would try to engage him in talk, or implore him to work duty, he would only spit.

When they landed finally on a tiny island of bare-breasted native women and men eager to trade goods, he was beyond reclaim. The captain of the ship left him behind where he had been deposited in a cave on the far side of the island where they sent lepers and perhaps those born with eyes like Jack’s. Word got back to the family and my Dad’s only comment was “Lucky bastard. Goes off his rocker and they punish him by dropping him in a paradise full of loose-titted women and mango trees.” That fall my Father applied for a job on a ship but was turned down because of his age.

By the way Jack was shouting I knew he would come for me if I didn’t step out to meet him. I had taken to the habit of collecting up spent shells on the ground and placing them into my gun belt for the appearance of a fully loaded stock though I entered into conflict with Jack holding only four rounds in the chamber of my gun. I kept one hand on the butt of the gun, not needing to show off any quick-draw skills (of which there are none) and not anticipating a fair fight. I could feel the heat of Morrison’s eyes on the back of my neck as he watched and wondered which one of us he would have to fight for the final split of the stash. One for me, none for you.

I didn’t figure on talking my way out but still I had my notions of how this sort of thing should go down. I had seen Jack take on a man in a knife fight before and emerge victorious but that gave no indication how he would function in a gun battle. I took from that incident only that Jack was fearless and brutal in his attack. He fought not to make a statement and move on but he fought so that the man on the opposite side of his knife would fall and not get up again.

“Lousy, stinkin’ layabout! Only thinks for himself! Too good for the rest of us! Can’t even grace us with his fucking conversation. Sits up in that hayloft and watches like he was trying to get to heaven or something. Well, fuck you! We’re in hell now and that’s all the higher you’re even gonna get!”

Spittle collected in the corner of his mouth in foamy white peaks. It’s possible he was drunk, but drunkenness and madness are cousins sharing all the traits of family. As I stepped out into the swath of dirt we called Main Street, (partly as a joke) I saw what could be my opportunity. Jack wielded not his gun but his knife. I knew he was a marksman at the throwing of that knife but I still felt empowered that I had the advantage on this day. I kept my distance and did not respond to his ranting. I merely focused on his body movements, choosing not to attempt to read his eyes as I thought that could be my undoing.

“Lazy goddamn prick sucker! Got your tin of water up there for you and you alone. I shot me a rabbit this morning and you think I’m gonna share it with you? Don’t be fuckin’ ridiculous. I gave half to Morrison and I threw your half in the dirt!”

The unspoken law of this camp was that if a man were to die in an act of violence, then the man perpetrating that violence would inherit his gold. The foolishness of it was that this served only to encourage the killing. I hesitate to call it a law but more of an understanding that if one were to dispute it’s validity, he would surely get himself gut-shot on the spot.

As I walked forward I watched Jack’s hands, his shoulders and his feet. I did the math in my head that if I could drop him in one or two shots, then I would have two left for Morrison if he came calling; and he would. The spittle on Jack’s lip gave way and floated to the ground like a snowflake. It turned the dirt a dark brown where it landed just in front of his boot. He stood and huffed, his voice growing hoarse from the volume of his complaints. I was close enough now that I could see the sweat bead on his forehead. I could see the reflection of his gun holster in his knife blade. He held the knife in his shooting hand and that garnered me another few seconds of time had he decided to draw his gun.

Instead his arm reared back to throw the knife and this satisfied my requirement of self-defense so I raised up my gun and fired off two shots towards his heart. The thick leather of his coat slowed, but did not stop, the impact and it did cause him to drop his knife, which landed square in the middle of the dark spit stain. His legs stood true however and as his eyes each twirled around their own different directions in his head, he reached for his gun.

Math equations such as subtraction were far from my thoughts as I stepped forward rapidly and fired another shot into his chest. It must have collapsed a lung because he sucked in a huge, empty volume of air. He fell to one knee as I still pursued and came upon him in short order. In a clearer state of mind I would have let the three bullets do their work, which had begun, but a scare like that gets the blood flowing and the mind becomes unclear. I unloaded my final bullet into his head with no regard for the clean up.

One-Eyed Jack fell dead and I reevaluated the merits of the head shot based on its efficiency where my chest wounds had failed. I turned and retraced my steps in the dirt back towards my bunkhouse, forgetting about the gold I was now owed. Morrison would keep our gentleman’s agreement for now and I could collect my bounty later.

That was twelve hours ago and as I moved quickly through the street to claim my prize, that’s when Morrison and I met for our dénouement.

The moon was three quarters full, enough to navigate by, and the torches that lined the small main street were lit. We had a stage but no audience.

“I’ve no interest in killing you, Boothe. I think it’s high time we leave this place and I aim to do it with my mule loaded down. And that includes Jack’s share.”

“Jack’s share is rightfully mine. He called me out. It was a fair fight. You saw.”

“I was nowhere around.”

“You saw.”

The blanks filled my gun belt and I thought back to that moment seeing Jack’s exploded head and wished I had a stronger stomach for it. In that case I would have done the sensible thing and taken up his gun belt and the bullets contained upon. But my distaste for human viscera had caused me to flee prematurely of my duties: Grab the gun, grab the gold and get out of town. That was the sensible plan but I have mentioned the lack of sense in the camp and my specific state of mind after such a shooting does not bear repeating.

“I got no designs on your share,” Morrison was still in possession of his wits, I could tell that. “I’m suggesting that you take what’s yours and head east, I’ll head west. If I see you someday down the line I’ll deny ever knowing ya’"

If I knew one thing about Morrison after thirty-one days in camp, it was that he wasn’t about to walk away from any gold. My possession of it was merely temporary in his eyes. How he planned to get it was beyond my grasp at the time but it didn’t need to be elegant to work on an opponent who carried no bullets for defense.

“How am I supposed to believe you?”

“I could have shot you right where you stood after you plugged Jack. But I didn’t.”

A momentary lapse on his part as well. When the gore is as thick as it was when I shot Jack in the head, it plays hell with the viewer also. It gave me a notion that Morrison’s head was capable of being clouded, given the right stimulus.

“It seems, Morrison, that you have a slight advantage on me.”

“How’s that?”

“By my count you got eight bullets and I only got six.” A lie was permitted on occasions such as this my Father explained to me once.

“You fixin’ on a gunfight?”

“No. Just fixin’ on protecting my back as I ride on out of here.”

“Six ought to do you.”

“I sure would feel better if we was even.”

I stuffed a hand in the pocket of my pants and tore open the fresh stitching in the lining of the pocket that concealed my plan.

“I give up one and we’re square, is that it?”

“I intend to pay.”

I drew out my hole card. A nugget as big as Rawlins’ two put together. I had found it on the third day out and had kept it from everyone. Even then I anticipated an ugliness to come. I tossed it to the ground and it landed solidly, without a bounce, near a dried stain of blood from where Jack had fallen. Morrison must have moved him out in the night. Small piles of dust had been kicked up over the brain and skull fragments. A long line of tiny black ants made a sidewinder up and into one of the small hills to feed.

When Morrison heard the gravity thud of the gold on the dusty lane he knew it was genuine. Nothing sounded like the density of gold. Nor looked like it either and his gaze was fixed. My hole card was an ace. Like seeing Jack’s head break apart and his off-kilter eyes hit the dirt and roll together, finally reunited in a common stare, a cloud overcame Morrison and his vision blurred.

“Whaddya say?”

Still with the full intention of killing me shortly, Morrison couldn’t see why he should not hand over a single bullet. Anything if it meant getting that nugget into his hands right this instant. To turn it over and feel the weight. To bite down and taste the softness of real gold on his teeth. If I had been in possession of even a single bullet at that moment I could have used it with impunity as Morrison’s stare never faltered from the ground before him.

With his left hand he plucked one of the remaining two bullets from his belt. He wedged his thumb under it and flicked upwards sending the small brass filling skyward at a long arc towards where I stood. As soon as it had left his hand he began to move forward towards the gold nugget. I kept watch of his attention and tried to follow the trajectory of the bullet as it neared me. The small ordinance hit the dust and kicked up a tiny poof like a cannonball being launched at the row of ants caught up in their own civil war. But ants need no weapons or armor. When they go to war, and it has been proven that ants are the only other species beside man who do stage fully forged battles, they attack one on one. They grapple always to the death and with no regard for anything but the battle itself. It becomes the all-encompassing motive in their lives for that brief time. No other thoughts are allowed to enter their brains and afterwards the battlefield is strewn with the carcasses of single mindedness. The ghosts of a billion ants inhabit these hills. They died with a single thought on their minds and in that instinct they felt no pain. All receptors shut down and a pure, shining focus severs the brain from all else.

I truly did hope that Morrison felt no pain when I shot him. I suspect he did not. His focus on that stone was as pure as any I have ever seen. I’ve seen men in rapture at the body of a beautiful lady but still open to distraction. Morrison was true to the end. He did not see me pick up the bullet. He did not see me place it in the chamber. He did not notice the other, empty holes that firelight shone through. He held that nugget in his hand and I tell myself now, in a small recess of his own mind, death was welcomed then. What more to life was there than the weight he held in his hand?

He did not notice when I took two steps forward, the better to get a clean shot at his head. He offered up the perfect target when he lifted the stone to the moonlight to inspect it closer. He was planning on spending the next several days up close to that stone. He may have even let me live and been satisfied with his distraction. I would not be satisfied however with Morrison’s filthy hands on my nugget.

I had no intention of cleaning up such a scene and left his body, ruined head and convulsing torso, where it lay in the dirt. The moonlight will be enough to lead the mule down out of the hills to start the trek to Reno. Maybe there I will part with my nugget and pay for a bath to wash off the dirt of these hills. I will feel glad to be rid of the ghosts of this camp.

BIO: More about Eric's writing can be found at http://ericbeetner.blogspot.com. His crime novel 'One Too Many Blows To The Head', co-written with JB Kohl, is scheduled to come out later in 2009 unless something goes horribly wrong. Something always goes horribly wrong...