The sacrifice
HELL COWBOY
Chapter 1
Year 1880.
Somewhere in a dusty corner of the Old West, a horse moved at an unhurried pace down the main street of a town that looked as though it had been built around the dust itself.
Its hooves struck the dry earth in a tired rhythm. Sun-scorched wooden buildings stood on either side, some warped with age, their narrow balconies and hanging signs creaking whenever the wind slipped between them. Wagons sat along the road, barrels rested beside doorways, and a few men talked beneath the shade of the porches.
The rider looked at none of them.
David Callahan rode slightly hunched in the saddle.
Several sleepless days had hardened his face. Short beard, dust stuck to his skin, and an expression that warned anyone looking his way that he wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
But what truly made every movement difficult was the wound.
Under his clothes, along one side of his abdomen, a gunshot that still hadn’t finished healing reminded him it was there every time he breathed too deeply.
Callahan gave the reins a gentle pull.
The horse stopped in front of a saloon.
David stayed in the saddle for a few seconds before climbing down. The moment his boots hit the ground, pain tore through him and he had to brace himself against the animal.
He waited.
Breathed.
Then kept going.
He tied the reins to one of the wooden posts out front and gave the horse a pat on the neck.
“Don’t you go dyin’ on me too.”
The animal snorted.
Callahan headed for the entrance.
Every step hurt.
Not enough to stop him.
He pushed through the saloon doors.
The noise dropped almost at once.
It didn’t vanish completely. Somebody kept playing cards. A glass struck a table. One man went on laughing for another couple of seconds before realizing nobody else was laughing with him.
Several pairs of eyes shifted toward the newcomer.
David paused for barely a moment.
He took in the room.
Wooden tables.
A piano in the corner that had probably been out of tune for years.
Tobacco smoke gathered near the ceiling.
A kerosene lamp hung over part of the room, swaying slightly.
Armed men.
Plenty of them.
Callahan kept walking.
He reached the bar and rested one hand on it.
“Whiskey.”
The bartender picked up a bottle.
He said nothing while he poured.
Only when he set the glass in front of David did he look up properly.
And recognize him.
His expression changed.
Barely.
But David saw it.
The bartender lowered his voice.
“You know being here ain’t a good idea.”
David took the glass.
“Didn’t come looking for good ideas.”
He downed the whiskey in one swallow.
Set the glass down.
“Another.”
The bartender poured again.
“Callahan...”
David raised his eyes.
The man glanced discreetly around the saloon.
“There are men in here who’d collect on you without thinking twice.”
“Let ’em keep thinking.”
David slowly reached inside his coat.
The bartender tensed.
But what Callahan pulled out was a small portrait.
He slid it across the bar.
“Looking for this man.”
The bartender studied the picture.
His face changed again.
This time David caught it more easily.
“You know him?”
The man took a moment to answer.
“Friend...”
He quietly pushed the portrait back toward David.
“You’d better leave.”
Callahan didn’t pick up the photograph.
“Ain’t what I asked.”
“You don’t want to find him.”
“That’s mine to decide.”
The bartender looked up.
“David...”
A voice came from behind him.
“Well, well...”
Callahan closed his eyes for one second.
No more.
“Look who decided to show his face.”
Several conversations stopped altogether.
David slowly turned his head.
A man had risen from a table several yards away. His grin was too wide, and one hand rested dangerously close to his revolver.
Others began paying attention.
The man spread his arms.
“David Callahan.”
Now there was no doubt.
The whole saloon was watching.
David looked back at his glass.
“Ain’t got time.”
The man gave a short laugh.
“Well, I do.”
He stepped forward.
“And looks like I woke up lucky today.”
Callahan picked up his whiskey.
“Good for you.”
“There’s a fine bounty on your head.”
David drank.
“Enjoy it.”
The man smiled.
“Plan to.”
Callahan set the glass on the bar.
“No.”
The other man frowned.
“What’d you say?”
David slowly turned toward him.
“Said no.”
The man settled his hand on the grip of his revolver.
A few chairs scraped across the floor.
Two more men started to rise.
David saw them.
He still hadn’t moved his hand toward his own gun.
“Don’t.”
The man smiled again.
“Or what?”
Callahan looked at the hand resting on the revolver.
Then looked him in the eyes.
“You’ll have a hole in you before you touch that trigger.”
The smile disappeared.
For one moment, nobody moved.
The man went for his revolver.
David was faster.
BANG!
The shot shook the saloon.
The man fell backward before he could finish drawing.
One of his companions jumped up at once.
BANG!
Second shot.
Second man down.
And then the whole place exploded.
David dove behind the bar just as several revolvers opened fire.
Bottles burst over his head.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Wood splintered around him.
The bartender threw himself to the floor, covering his head.
“Damn you, Callahan!”
David dropped beside him.
“Told you it was a bad idea me being here.”
“You never said that!”
Another bullet punched through a bottle.
“Should’ve.”
Callahan pressed himself against the base of the bar.
He couldn’t just pop up and shoot blind.
He was wounded.
There were too many of them.
And they knew it.
He closed his eyes.
Listened.
One shot.
Another.
Two almost together.
Another from the left.
One more from the back.
David stayed perfectly still.
The shots began to spread farther apart.
Until they stopped.
Then came other sounds.
Cylinders opening.
Metal clicking against metal.
Spent casings hitting the floorboards.
Men reloading.
Callahan opened his eyes.
“Now.”
He rose.
BANG!
One man dropped before he could close his cylinder.
David turned.
BANG!
Another took a round in the chest and vanished behind a table.
A third tried to bring up his weapon.
David dropped back down before he could fire.
BANG! BANG!
The bar filled with splinters again.
But something had changed.
The others weren’t smiling anymore.
Several tables were overturned.
The men started taking cover.
David looked around from where he crouched.
Four down.
Still too many.
And now they’d learned.
Nobody was wasting shots anymore.
They waited.
Callahan breathed slowly.
Bad news.
His side was hurting worse by the second.
Worse news.
One man barely lifted his head above cover.
David fired.
The bullet struck the table.
The man ducked back down.
Callahan looked up.
The kerosene lamp was still swaying above one of the tables.
One of the men was directly beneath it.
David raised the revolver.
He didn’t aim at the man.
BANG!
The bullet shattered the support.
The lamp dropped.
The man barely had time to look up.
Glass smashed across the table.
Fuel spilled everywhere.
The flame found the kerosene almost instantly.
FWOOSH!
The man shot to his feet as fire began racing across the wood.
“Shit!”
He broke from cover.
David was waiting.
BANG!
He went down.
The others backed away while one man tried to beat out the flames with his coat.
Callahan used the chaos to move.
He crawled behind the bar until he reached the far end.
Looked toward the exit.
Too far.
He needed to make them waste ammunition.
He spotted a small empty barrel near the floor.
He nudged it with his boot.
The barrel rolled out from behind the bar.
BANG! BANG!
Two men fired on instinct.
“Idiots,” David muttered.
One of them realized too late.
Callahan came out from the opposite side.
BANG!
The man dropped.
The other fired.
The bullet passed close to David’s shoulder.
Callahan answered.
Click.
Empty.
He looked at the revolver.
“Course.”
The other man grinned.
“You’re empty.”
David threw the gun.
The revolver struck the man square in the face.
“Son of a--”
David charged him.
They crashed into a table together.
The wood groaned.
The man tried to hit him, but Callahan blocked the arm and drove a fist into his stomach.
Once.
Twice.
The man answered with a punch to David’s face.
David staggered back.
Another man came in from the side with a bottle.
Callahan barely slipped the swing.
The bottle smashed against the table.
David grabbed another.
CRASH!
He broke it across the attacker’s head.
The man dropped.
The first one came at him again.
David took a blow directly against his wound.
The pain stole his breath.
He dropped to one knee.
The man smiled.
“Got you now.”
David looked up.
“You talk too much.”
He drove his forehead into the man’s nose.
The man stumbled back screaming.
David got up and grabbed him by the neck.
Another man appeared behind him with a revolver aimed his way.
Callahan saw the gun.
He seized the wrist of the man in front of him.
Turned.
Used his body as cover.
BANG!
The shot hit the gunman’s own partner.
David ripped the revolver from the wounded man’s hand.
Turned.
BANG!
The last shooter went down.
Silence.
Only the crackle of the fire remained.
David breathed hard.
He looked around.
Bodies.
Broken tables.
Shattered bottles.
Smoke.
One man groaned near a wall.
Another had decided that playing dead was probably the smartest decision he’d ever made.
Callahan checked the revolver he’d just taken.
Empty.
He let it drop.
Then he heard a click behind his head.
A shotgun.
“Don’t move.”
David went still.
He knew the voice.
The bartender.
“Turn around.”
Callahan slowly began to turn.
The man held the shotgun in both hands.
He was shaking.
Badly.
“Slow.”
David finished turning.
First he looked at the gun.
Then the hands.
Then the eyes.
Fear.
Not anger.
Fear.
The bartender swallowed.
“Don’t take another step.”
David stepped forward.
“I said don’t move!”
Another step.
The shotgun trembled even harder.
“Callahan...”
David kept coming.
The man’s finger was on the trigger.
But he didn’t fire.
David stopped with the barrel almost touching him.
He looked at the man.
“If you were gonna do it, you’d have done it already.”
He grabbed the shotgun.
The bartender tried to hold on.
Too late.
David tore it away from him.
Now the bartender had the barrel in his face.
He raised his hands.
“Don’t kill me.”
David watched him for a few seconds.
“Wasn’t planning to.”
He flipped the shotgun around.
WHAM!
The stock struck the man across the face.
The bartender collapsed unconscious.
David left the shotgun on the bar.
He picked up the portrait lying beside his glass.
Looked at it briefly.
The man in the photograph was still there.
The only one who truly mattered.
David slipped it back inside his coat.
He walked toward the doors.
Nobody tried to stop him.
Outside, the sun still beat down on the town as though nothing had happened.
David reached his horse.
Untied the reins.
Getting back into the saddle hurt more than before.
The wound was bleeding again.
He didn’t care.
He pulled the reins, and the horse started forward.
Behind him, the wrecked saloon remained, along with the dead and the smoke pouring through the windows.
David Callahan never looked back.
He still had a man to find.
***
But what had brought David Callahan to that saloon?
Why was a wounded man, hunted and carrying a price on his head, willing to risk what little he had left just to find a stranger?
To understand that, we have to go back a few months.
Before the wound.
Before the pursuit.
Before David Callahan had one man and one man only occupying his thoughts.
Back then, he still had a family waiting for him at home.
Margaret Callahan was only six years old.
She was small, restless whenever her body allowed it, and still young enough to believe her father could fix any problem if he simply decided to.
Helen, her mother, was barely into her twenties. She had long since learned to live with David’s temper, his long silences, and the hard stare that made most people think he was angry even when he was only thinking.
But that afternoon, Helen was the one who had been quiet for too long.
David sat at the table in their small house while she counted the few coins they’d managed to gather.
She separated them.
Pushed them back together.
Counted them again.
As though enough determination might somehow change the answer.
It didn’t.
David watched her for a while.
“That’s all?”
Helen looked up.
“That’s all.”
David looked at the coins.
Then toward the small room where Margaret was resting.
“What’d the doctor say exactly?”
Helen took a few seconds before answering.
“She’s worse.”
David tightened his jaw.
“I know that.”
“Then why ask?”
“I wanna know what he said.”
Helen drew a deep breath.
“She needs treatment. Medicine. And we’ll probably have to take her somewhere they can do more for her.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere else.”
David looked back at the coins.
“How much?”
Helen didn’t answer.
David raised his eyes.
“Helen.”
“More than we have.”
“How much?”
She told him.
David didn’t react right away.
But his gaze slowly dropped to the table.
It was too much.
Not impossible for a rich man.
Not impossible for a merchant with property, a rancher with hundreds of head of cattle, or somebody with a thriving business.
But David Callahan was none of those things.
He owned no land.
He had no trade.
And worse, he had a name and a face too many people already associated with trouble.
He hadn’t been out of prison all that long. Nothing serious enough to earn him the gallows, but enough that respectable men preferred not to have him working anywhere near their businesses.
Since Margaret’s birth, he’d tried to leave that life behind.
He took work wherever he could find it.
Mended fences.
Helped with livestock.
Hauled goods.
Did anything that paid at the end of the day.
But those jobs kept food on the table.
They didn’t save a sick little girl.
Helen knew that look.
David hadn’t said a word yet, but she already knew where his mind had gone.
“No.”
He looked up.
“No what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking. No.”
“Ain’t said anything.”
“I know you.”
David let out a slow breath.
“Then you know we don’t have the money.”
“We’ll find another way.”
“Tell me one.”
Helen stayed silent.
“Thought so.”
“David...”
“Give me one. Just one.”
Helen looked away.
David pointed at the coins.
“I can work till my hands fall off. I still won’t make that money in time.”
“You can go back to prison.”
“Could.”
“You can miss your daughter’s whole life.”
David looked up at her.
“If Margaret dies, there ain’t gonna be a life to miss.”
Helen fell silent.
David lowered his voice.
“If I end up locked up, you can bring her to see me.”
“And that sounds like a solution to you?”
“I don’t plan on getting caught.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
David didn’t answer.
Helen sat across from him.
“I don’t want to lose both of you.”
That finally cracked the hardness in his face, if only for a moment.
David looked back toward the bedroom.
“How much time did he say we got?”
“Not much.”
“Days?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Weeks?”
Helen lowered her eyes.
That was enough.
David rested both arms on the table.
Thought.
And Helen watched that old part of him begin to wake up again.
The same part David had spent six years trying to bury.
“Damn it,” she murmured. “You’re already considering it.”
David raised his head.
“Got a daughter counting on me.”
“You have a wife too.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t look at me like this only belongs to you.”
David stayed quiet.
Helen swallowed.
“I don’t know what the right thing is.”
Neither did David.
“But whatever you do...” she continued, “I want you to come back.”
David stood and walked to her.
He wrapped his arms around her.
Helen rested her head against his chest.
“She’s gonna be all right,” he said.
Even David didn’t know whether he believed it.
But that night, he made a decision.
He would go back to doing what he knew how to do.
He just didn’t know how yet.
Maybe hit a freight wagon.
Ambush merchants.
Steal goods and sell them somewhere far away.
He’d done things like that years before.
The problem was time.
To gather that kind of money, he’d have to do it again and again.
Every job would make it more likely he’d end up in jail before earning even half of what he needed.
And then Caleb Rourke appeared.
Caleb was exactly the kind of man David had spent years trying to leave behind.
An old acquaintance.
An old partner in trouble.
And above all, a man who could never stay away from something illegal for very long.
They met a few days later.
“Need your help,” David told him.
Caleb looked surprised.
“Well, that’s somethin’ I never figured I’d hear.”
“Need money.”
A smile slowly spread across Caleb’s face.
“Well then, old friend... looks like today’s your lucky day.”
David narrowed his eyes.
“When you say that, somebody usually winds up in jail.”
“That happened once.”
“Three times.”
“Details.”
David stared at him.
Caleb laughed.
“Listen. While you were busy playin’ respectable, I met some people.”
“You always meet people.”
“Not like these.”
David waited.
Caleb leaned in a little.
“Ambitious people.”
“Means nothing.”
“People who ain’t wasting time lifting three dollars off some drunk behind a saloon.”
“Keep talking.”
Caleb grinned.
“Now we’re talkin’ real money.”
David studied him.
“What’ve you got?”
“Me? Nothing.”
“Then you’re wasting my time.”
David started to walk away.
“But I know the man who does.”
David stopped.
Caleb’s grin widened.
“Knew you’d listen.”
“Talk.”
“I’m gonna introduce you to somebody.”
“Who?”
“Elias Vance.”
David knew the name.
He’d never spoken to the man.
But he’d heard stories.
Robberies.
Shipments disappearing.
Men swearing they’d seen him walk out alive from places nobody should’ve walked out of.
Elias Vance had built a reputation without ever needing to brag about it.
That made it more dangerous.
“Vance?” David asked.
“The very one.”
“What’s he want with me?”
“A man who can handle a revolver without shooting at the sky every time his nerves kick in.”
“Plenty of those.”
“Not like you.”
David said nothing.
Caleb slapped him on the shoulder.
“Let me make the introduction.”
The meeting happened two nights later.
Elias Vance was different from what David expected.
He wasn’t especially large.
He didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
There was something about him that made other men wait until he was finished speaking.
Beside Elias sat his brother, Nathan.
David had no way of knowing yet that this would become one of the most important relationships of his life.
Elias looked Callahan up and down.
“So this is the famous David Callahan.”
David sat.
“Depends what you heard.”
Elias smiled.
“Enough.”
Caleb took a seat off to one side.
“Told you boys you’d get along.”
“Not yet,” David said.
Elias gave a quiet laugh.
“I like him.”
David rested his arms on the table.
“All right. What’re you planning?”
Elias didn’t waste time.
“A bank.”
David looked at Caleb.
Then back at Elias.
“No.”
Elias raised an eyebrow.
“I haven’t even finished.”
“Didn’t need to.”
“You afraid of banks?”
“I’m afraid of hanging for something stupid.”
Nathan laughed.
Elias didn’t.
“I’m told you didn’t used to think that way.”
David leaned back slightly.
“Didn’t used to have a wife.”
Elias studied him.
“Ah.”
David continued.
“Or a daughter.”
Now Elias smiled.
“Family man.”
“That’s right.”
“I respect that.”
David expected mockery.
None came.
Elias seemed to mean it.
“Then you understand better than most why a man needs money.”
David didn’t answer.
Elias leaned forward.
“We’re not talking about emptying some little cash drawer. Once a month, money comes through for payroll, merchants, and businesses across several towns in the area. It sits in that bank for a few hours before moving on.”
David began paying closer attention.
Elias noticed.
“The usual security is enough for a small-town bank. Not for what’s gonna be inside that day.”
“How many men?”
“Inside? A few. Outside is another matter.”
Nathan cut in.
“That’s why we need fast hands.”
Elias went on.
“We move right after the money arrives. Caleb and Nathan hold the entrance. You come with me. Another man handles the horses and watches the street.”
David slowly shook his head.
“Too much can go wrong.”
“Something can always go wrong.”
“What if somebody reaches for a gun?”
Elias looked at him without changing expression.
“Then we make sure he doesn’t get a second chance.”
David watched him.
“Do we have to kill anybody?”
Elias paused.
“Not if they do what they’re told.”
“Ain’t what I asked.”
“And I gave you the only answer I can promise.”
David stood.
“Don’t know.”
“You don’t have to decide now.”
Elias let him take a couple of steps before continuing.
“But before you go, you ought to know how much.”
David stopped.
Elias gave him the rough figure they expected to find.
Then said:
“If everything goes the way it should, each man walks away with close to a thousand dollars.”
David didn’t move.
A thousand dollars.
Elias knew he’d reached him.
“With that, you can disappear, Callahan.”
David slowly turned.
“Disappear where?”
Elias shrugged.
“Anywhere you want. Tennessee. Missouri. Farther east if that’s your taste. Take your family. Buy land. Start another life.”
Caleb smiled.
“One job, old friend.”
David looked at Caleb.
Then Elias.
“And after?”
“After that, you never have to see us again if you don’t want to.”
Elias spread his hands.
“Think about it.”
David did.
But not for long.
Over the next few days, Margaret got worse.
She slept more.
Ate less.
The house seemed smaller every time David looked at the same coins sitting on the same table.
He could go back to his old robberies.
One.
Then another.
Then another.
With luck, he’d gather the money before some lawman recognized him.
Or he could do it once.
One job.
A thousand dollars.
Treatment for Margaret.
A new place for Helen.
A new life for all three of them.
The more he thought about it, the less it felt like a choice.
It felt like a way out.
David met Caleb again.
And Caleb led him back to Elias.
This time, Elias didn’t need to explain anything.
“Thought it over?”
David sat down.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
David was quiet for a few seconds.
He thought about Helen.
Thought about Margaret.
Thought about the small pile of coins on the table.
“I’m in.”
Caleb smiled.
“Made the right call, brother.”
Elias held out his hand.
David looked at it.
Then shook it.
“Once,” David warned. “We do this, and I’m done.”
Elias held his grip for another moment.
“Once.”
David had no way of knowing yet what that decision would cost him.
He only knew he needed to save his daughter.
And if doing that meant returning one last time to the life he’d left behind...
he would.
Even if he had to sell his soul to the Devil himself.
***
David Callahan had stayed away from that life for nearly six years.
Six years might not seem like much to some men.
To him, it had been a lifetime.
Since Margaret was born, he’d done his best to stay away from robberies, ambushes, men who settled arguments by resting a hand on a revolver, and most of all from those old friends who only appeared when easy money was involved.
Now he was about to go back.
And it troubled him more than he was willing to admit.
He knew that life.
He had lived inside it.
But after so many years, returning to it felt like walking back into the house where you’d grown up and realizing you no longer remembered where the doors were.
He had changed.
Or at least he wanted to believe he had.
He needed to talk to someone.
And only one name came to mind.
Antonio Ortiz.
The small parish stood away from the busiest part of town. It was a simple building of weathered wood, its walls worn by years of wind and dust. There was nothing grand about it. A small bell tower, a few worn pews, and a crucifix behind the altar made up nearly all of its decoration.
Antonio did not need much either.
Well into his seventies, he moved with the patience of a man who had learned long ago that rushing rarely solved anything.
He had known David since he was a boy.
He had watched him grow.
Watched him become a troublesome young man.
Then an outlaw.
Then a husband.
And finally a father.
For years, Antonio had been one of the few people whose opinion David would listen to even when he had no intention of following it.
Antonio had advised him many times.
And when Margaret was born, he had been one of the first to tell David that he still had time to become something else.
David had never thanked him for it.
But he had listened.
When David entered that afternoon, Antonio looked up from one of the pews.
He studied him for a few seconds.
“That face never brings good news.”
David took off his hat.
“Good afternoon to you too, Father.”
“Have you come to pray?”
“No.”
“Then it is definitely bad news.”
A faint smile escaped David.
Antonio pointed toward the confessional.
“Inside.”
David looked over at it.
“Father, I just wanna talk.”
“And I simply wish to avoid trouble.”
“What trouble?”
Antonio started walking.
“If you are about to tell me something that could put you in prison, I would rather we do this properly.”
David followed him.
“What’s the difference?”
Antonio stopped.
“A great deal.”
“You gonna turn me in if we talk out here?”
“Depends how angry you make me.”
David gave a short laugh.
“Sneaky old man.”
“Confessional.”
“All right.”
They went in.
Antonio took his place on the other side of the small partition.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
At last, the priest sighed.
“Now then. Tell me, my son. What is troubling you?”
David kept his eyes on the floor.
He did not know exactly where to begin.
“Margaret’s sick.”
Antonio’s tone changed immediately.
“How sick?”
“Bad.”
“I am very sorry.”
David shook his head slightly.
“Ain’t your fault.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“She needs treatment. Medicine. Maybe we gotta take her somewhere else.”
Antonio fell silent.
David continued.
“I need money.”
That was enough.
The old man closed his eyes for a moment.
“No.”
David looked up.
“Haven’t even said anything yet.”
“You do not have to.”
“Seems everybody knows me too damn well lately.”
“I have heard that you have been seen with Caleb Rourke again.”
David snorted.
“Hell. Nobody in this town knows how to keep their mouth shut.”
“It is a small town.”
“It’s a town full of gossips.”
Antonio did not smile.
“Are you going back?”
David took a moment to answer.
“Looks that way.”
“David...”
“Didn’t come here for a sermon.”
“And I am not going to give you one.”
That surprised him.
Antonio rested his hands on his knees.
“You have a sick daughter. I understand perfectly well that you are desperate. I will not sit here and pretend your decision is simple.”
David listened.
“We can try to raise the money,” Antonio continued. “Ask for help. Take up a collection among the families in the parish.”
David gave a dry laugh.
“Father, look at this town.”
Antonio said nothing.
“Everybody here counts their coins before they buy bread. Who’re we gonna ask for money?”
“We could try.”
“Margaret ain’t got time for us to try.”
“You do not know that.”
“Exactly. I don’t know.”
David clenched his hands.
“And I ain’t gambling my daughter’s life on the charity of a starving town.”
Antonio lowered his gaze.
There was not much he could argue with in that.
“Then you have already made your decision.”
“More or less.”
“What are you planning?”
David stayed silent.
Antonio smiled faintly.
“Good. At least you still know when to keep your mouth shut.”
“Thought you said this was confession.”
“That does not mean I wish to become an accomplice.”
David smiled again.
The moment did not last.
Antonio’s expression changed once more.
“I only want to ask you one thing.”
“What?”
“Be careful with those men.”
“Always am.”
“That is not what I mean.”
David waited.
Antonio took several seconds before continuing.
“There are bad men in this world, David. You know that better than I do.”
David nodded.
“And then there is something else.”
“Something else?”
“People who have no limits. They feel no guilt. No remorse. They can live beside you for years and you may never discover what they truly are.”
David leaned back.
“Father, I’ve done bad things too.”
Antonio looked at him seriously.
“You have a soul.”
David gave a small laugh.
“You’ll have to ask God about that one.”
“I am not joking.”
Something in the old man’s voice made David stop smiling.
Antonio continued.
“There are demons among us.”
David stared at him for a few seconds.
“Father...”
“Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I am not speaking of cruel men.”
David remained silent.
“I mean demons.”
This time David could not hide his disbelief.
Antonio recognized it at once.
“I knew you would make that face.”
“What face am I supposed to make?”
“The same one I would have made at your age.”
David rested his elbows on his knees.
“All right. Tell me.”
Antonio breathed slowly.
“Many years ago, I encountered one.”
“A demon?”
“Yes.”
David was beginning to think the conversation had taken a very strange turn.
Antonio kept speaking.
“I was younger then. Much younger.”
He looked down at his aged hands.
“I believed I could face anything.”
David raised an eyebrow slightly.
That was difficult to imagine.
“I fought it.”
David looked at him.
“You?”
Antonio gave him an annoyed look.
“I was young once.”
“So they say.”
“Let me finish.”
David made a small gesture with one hand.
“Go on.”
Antonio returned to the story.
“I lost.”
He offered no excuses.
“It defeated me completely. I ended up on the ground without the strength to stand.”
David began listening a little more closely.
“I thought it was going to kill me. In fact... I asked it to.”
“You asked it to kill you?”
“I preferred that to what I imagined it might do to me.”
Antonio paused.
For a few seconds, his eyes seemed to leave that little parish behind.
“The demon came closer.”
David waited.
“It looked directly at me.”
Another pause.
“And it said, ‘I am not going to kill an old friend.’”
David frowned slightly.
“It knew you?”
“I had never seen it in my life.”
“Maybe it had you mixed up with somebody.”
“Perhaps.”
Antonio did not look as though he believed it.
“I never understood those words. Not then. Not now.”
David sat in silence for a few seconds.
Then gave a small shrug.
“Hell of a story.”
Antonio looked at him.
David had little else to say.
To him, that was still all it was.
A story.
A strange one, yes.
But a story.
Antonio continued.
“It taught me something. They can be much closer to us than we imagine. They can be acquaintances. Neighbors. People we trust.”
“Friends?”
“Those too.”
David sighed.
“Father, I don’t think Caleb’s a demon.”
“I am not speaking specifically about Caleb.”
“Then I don’t know who we’re talking about.”
“That is precisely my point.”
David stood.
“I appreciate the warning.”
Antonio slowly got to his feet as well.
“But you are going to do it.”
David put on his hat.
“Gotta do it.”
“No. You believe you have to.”
David looked at him.
“Right now, that’s the same thing to me.”
Antonio knew that expression.
Once David Callahan made up his mind, very few words could move him.
“Then at least promise me you will come back.”
David barely smiled.
“That’s usually the plan.”
Antonio did not return the smile.
“Your father used to say the same thing.”
David’s expression changed immediately.
“Don’t bring him up.”
“David...”
“Said don’t bring him up.”
Antonio went quiet.
David took a breath and lowered his voice.
“I’m not him.”
“I hope not.”
“Ain’t gonna end like he did.”
Antonio watched him for several seconds.
He had heard those words too many times, in too many different forms.
“I hope so too, my son.”
David walked toward the exit.
Before he reached the door, Antonio spoke one last time.
“David.”
Callahan stopped.
“What?”
“Whatever it is you have to do... come back to your family.”
David looked over his shoulder.
He nodded.
“I will.”
Then he left.
Antonio remained silent, listening to his footsteps fade away.
David Callahan was convinced he would return.
He still had a wife.
He still had a daughter.
He still had a home to return to.
And he still believed the most dangerous thing waiting for him was a bank robbery.
***
The night before the job, David barely spoke during supper.
Margaret had eaten little.
After several attempts by Helen to coax a few more bites out of her, the girl finally fell asleep early, tucked into her small bed while a dry cough drifted from the room every so often.
David remained seated at the table.
There was a glass in front of him, but he had barely touched it.
Helen slowly cleared the dishes.
She did not need to ask what he was thinking.
She knew.
“It’s tomorrow,” she finally said.
David looked up.
“Yeah.”
Helen set a plate on the table.
“I’m worried.”
“Don’t be.”
She looked at him.
David immediately understood that answer had done nothing.
“Helen...”
“I trust you.”
“Then trust me.”
“I said I trust you. I don’t trust them.”
David lowered his eyes to the glass.
“I can take care of myself.”
“You said that before you went to prison too.”
David breathed out through his nose.
He did not answer.
Helen sat across from him.
“You’ve been out of that life almost six years.”
“Didn’t forget how to use a revolver.”
“That is not what I mean.”
David raised his eyes.
Helen continued.
“You got out, David. We had a life. A bad one. Poor. Hard... but it was ours.”
Margaret coughed again from the bedroom.
Both of them fell silent.
David looked toward the door.
“And I wanna keep it.”
Helen looked that way too.
“So do I.”
“Then I gotta do this.”
“You do not have to do this.”
David looked back at her.
“What else do I have?”
Helen did not answer.
David pointed toward the bedroom.
“Tell me.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I wish there were another way too.”
“But there ain’t.”
David leaned forward slightly.
“It’s one job.”
Helen closed her eyes for a moment.
“That’s what everyone says.”
“I ain’t everyone.”
“No.”
She looked straight at him.
“You’re David Callahan. And that is exactly what worries me.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“Tomorrow we go in, take the money, and get out.”
“That easy?”
“Didn’t say easy.”
“You made it sound that way.”
David finally picked up the glass.
“I ain’t staying there one second longer than I have to.”
“And if something goes wrong?”
“It won’t.”
Helen kept looking at him.
David drank.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That face ain’t nothing.”
“You’re trying to convince yourself.”
David set the glass down.
“I’m trying to calm you down.”
“It isn’t working.”
David stayed silent.
Helen leaned closer.
“How much did you say your share would be?”
“Close to a thousand dollars.”
Helen looked toward the bedroom again.
A thousand dollars.
It sounded like an impossible amount of money to them.
“That pays for what Margaret needs,” David said. “And leaves enough for us to get the hell outta here.”
“Go where?”
David shrugged.
“Away.”
“That is not a place.”
“Good enough for me.”
Despite everything, Helen smiled a little.
David continued.
“We can head east. Tennessee. Virginia. Carolina. Don’t much care.”
“Carolina?”
“Somewhere nobody knows my name.”
“That may be difficult.”
David looked at her.
“Very funny.”
Helen’s smile grew a little.
For the first time that night, David smiled too.
But the moment did not last.
Margaret coughed again.
The smile vanished from Helen’s face.
David stood.
He walked to the bedroom door and watched his daughter from there.
The girl slept on her side, clutching a small blanket.
David stood there for several seconds, looking at her.
Helen came up behind him.
“You scared?”
David took a moment to answer.
“Yeah.”
Helen looked surprised.
David rarely admitted something like that.
“Of tomorrow?”
He shook his head.
“Of being too late.”
Helen lowered her eyes.
David turned back to her.
“If this goes right, we pay for the treatment. We leave. Start over.”
“And you think you can walk away from it again?”
David looked her straight in the eyes.
“Did it once.”
“For her.”
“I’ll do it again.”
Helen drew a deep breath.
“Promise me you won’t try to be brave.”
David raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t know what that means.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“David.”
He smiled faintly.
“All right.”
Helen stepped closer.
“If something goes wrong, you leave.”
“Helen...”
“I don’t care about the money.”
“I do.”
“Not more than I care about you.”
David stopped smiling.
She placed a hand against his chest.
“I don’t want to save Margaret and lose you.”
David covered her hand with his.
“You ain’t losing me.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No.”
He paused.
“But I mean to come back.”
Helen wrapped her arms around him.
David held her.
For a few seconds, there was no robbery, no money, no Elias Vance, no guns, no prison.
There was only them.
Helen spoke with her face against his chest.
“I hate this.”
“Me too.”
“I wish you’d never met those people.”
David looked toward Margaret’s room.
“Tomorrow’s the last time.”
Helen said nothing.
David kissed her forehead.
“A thousand dollars. We get Margaret well. We get out of this damn town and start over.”
“You talk as though it’s already happened.”
“That’s how I mean to make it happen.”
Helen looked up at him.
“Come back.”
David held her face between his hands.
“I’m coming back.”
And in that moment, he believed it.
He truly did.
The next day, David Callahan would return to a life he had spent almost six years trying to leave behind.
He only needed to commit one last crime.
One.
Then it would all be over.
***
The next morning, David Callahan loaded a revolver again with every intention of using it against other men.
It had been nearly six years since that weight had felt the same in his hand.
It was not that he had forgotten how to shoot.
A man did not forget that.
But as he checked the cylinder and settled the weapon into its holster, he had the strange feeling of putting on clothes that had once belonged to him and now belonged to somebody else.
He did not have much time to think about it.
Elias Vance was already waiting.
There were six of them in all.
Elias.
His brother Nathan.
Caleb Rourke.
Walter Briggs.
Tom Bell.
And David.
Six men for a job that, according to Elias, should take no more than a few minutes.
The money had arrived that morning.
A sizable shipment intended for merchants and businesses in several towns throughout the region would remain inside the bank for a few hours before continuing on its route.
Elias had gotten the information right.
Almost.
The six men approached from different directions so they would not draw too much attention.
The horses were left ready near a side street.
Elias looked over the group one last time.
“We go in. Take what we can carry. Then we get out.”
Nathan grinned.
“Sounds easy.”
David looked toward the bank.
“Never is.”
Elias looked at him.
“That’s why you’re here.”
They went in.
Everything happened quickly.
Nathan shut the door behind them.
Caleb and Walter took control of the customers.
Tom watched the street.
David and Elias went straight for the man in charge.
“Hands where I can see them,” Elias ordered.
The man obeyed.
A woman began to cry.
“Nobody has to die,” David said. “Just stay still.”
Elias glanced sideways at him but said nothing.
The manager was forced to open the place where the shipment had been stored.
And there it was.
More money in one place than David had seen in a very long time.
For one instant, he thought of Margaret.
Nothing else.
Tom and Walter began filling two canvas sacks.
“Don’t waste time on the coins,” Elias ordered. “Take what we can carry and move.”
David looked toward the entrance.
Something bothered him.
Two men stood near a side door.
They did not look like bank employees.
One wore a visible gun.
David looked at Elias.
“Who’re they?”
Elias frowned.
Those men were not part of the plan.
The shipment had arrived earlier than expected.
And the two guards who had escorted it were still there.
One of them realized what was happening a second too late.
His hand dropped toward his gun.
David reacted.
“Don’t!”
BANG!
The shot was not his.
Nathan had fired first.
The guard dropped.
The second man drew his revolver.
BANG! BANG!
The calm vanished.
A window shattered.
Someone screamed.
Customers threw themselves to the floor.
“Get the money!” Elias shouted.
Tom grabbed one of the sacks.
Walter took the other.
“Move!”
They ran out.
Then they heard the first shots from the street.
Someone had already run for help.
The sheriff was not far away.
Neither were his men.
“Horses!” Caleb shouted.
David fired at a man trying to come across from the other side of the street.
All six ran.
BANG!
Caleb stopped dead.
David saw his body twist before it hit the dust.
“Caleb!”
On instinct, he took a step toward him.
Elias grabbed him by the coat.
“He’s dead!”
“Let go of me!”
“CALLAHAN, MOVE!”
Another bullet struck the wall beside them.
David looked at Caleb one last time.
He was not moving.
David kept going.
Walter reached the horses with one of the sacks.
Then a bullet hit him in the back.
He dropped to his knees.
The sack split partly open when it hit the ground.
Bills and coins scattered across the dirt.
Nathan grabbed the sack.
“Leave it!”
Walter tried to stand.
Another shot.
This time he did not move again.
Tom took one in the side.
“I’m hit!”
David caught him before he fell.
“Up!”
He helped him onto the horse.
Elias secured the second sack.
“We’re leaving!”
The horses took off.
For several minutes there was nothing but dust, gunfire, and shouting behind them.
David held Tom upright as best he could while the man bled across the saddle.
Their pursuers kept pace for a while.
Then they began to fall behind.
Elias knew the land.
He took them off the main trail.
They crossed rough stone and dry brush.
When they finally stopped hearing horses behind them, nobody spoke.
They had escaped.
But of the six men, only four remained.
And one of them was barely breathing.
They reached the hideout late that afternoon.
It was an abandoned building far from town, old enough that nobody had any reason to come near it.
David got Tom down from the horse.
“Help me.”
Nathan dropped one sack onto a table.
Elias did the same with the other.
David laid Tom on the floor.
His shirt was soaked with blood.
“Need cloth.”
Nobody answered.
David tore a strip from Tom’s own shirt and pressed it against the wound.
“Hold on.”
Tom was breathing fast.
“I... I can’t...”
“Yeah, you can.”
“David...”
“Shut up and breathe.”
Elias stepped closer.
He looked at the wound.
David looked up at him.
“We gotta get him to somebody.”
“No.”
“He needs a doctor.”
“He will not make it.”
“You don’t know that.”
Elias drew his revolver.
David saw it.
“What’re you doing?”
BANG!
Tom stopped moving.
David froze.
For several seconds, the only movement was the smoke rising from the barrel.
David slowly stood.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Elias holstered the gun.
“He was dying.”
“I was trying to help him!”
“And where were you planning to take him? The town doctor? Perhaps the sheriff could have joined us.”
“We could’ve done something.”
“No.”
Elias looked at the body.
“We could not.”
David stepped toward him.
Nathan shifted slightly.
Elias raised one hand to stop his brother.
“I did him a kindness.”
“Don’t say that again.”
Elias held his gaze.
“He would have suffered for hours.”
David clenched his jaw.
“That didn’t give you the right.”
Elias watched him for a few seconds.
Then looked toward the sacks.
“Caleb is dead.”
David said nothing.
“Walter too.”
Silence.
Elias pointed at Tom.
“And now him.”
Nathan began opening one of the sacks.
Elias smiled faintly.
“There were six of us.”
David immediately understood where this was going.
“No.”
“No what?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
Elias began to count.
“Roughly six thousand.”
Nathan let out a whistle.
“Now there are three of us.”
David looked at them both.
Elias spread his hands.
“Two thousand each.”
David stayed quiet.
“What’s the matter?” Nathan asked. “You don’t want money now?”
David looked at Tom’s body.
Then at the sacks.
“Give me the thousand we agreed on.”
Elias raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“My share.”
“Your share just got bigger.”
“Don’t want it.”
Nathan laughed.
“What, you a preacher now?”
David ignored him.
“A thousand.”
Elias studied his face.
“The dead won’t come asking for it.”
“Neither will I.”
“You’re leaving a thousand dollars on the table.”
“Then keep it.”
Elias smiled.
It was not a cheerful smile.
“Interesting.”
David held out his hand.
“My money.”
Elias took a portion and placed it into a smaller bag.
He handed it over.
“One thousand.”
David quickly checked the contents.
Not because he doubted the amount.
Because by then he doubted everything else.
He put the bag away.
“We’re done.”
Nathan leaned against the table.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
David picked up his hat.
Elias kept watching him.
“Callahan.”
David stopped.
“What?”
“Good luck with your daughter.”
David looked at him.
For the first time since the job began, he could not tell whether Elias meant it.
“Thanks.”
He turned away.
Walked toward the door.
Nathan looked at Elias.
Elias said nothing.
He only looked back at him.
That was enough.
David kept walking.
Ahead of him was a window darkened by the falling night.
The room behind him reflected faintly in the glass.
David saw his own silhouette.
Behind it, Nathan’s.
And a hand slowly dropping toward a revolver.
David did not stop.
Nathan gripped the handle.
David drew his own gun.
He did not turn.
He swung his arm around his body.
BANG!
Nathan took the bullet before he could finish drawing.
He crashed against the table.
“NATHAN!”
David turned.
BANG!
Elias’s shot entered through his side.
The impact threw him against the wall.
David lost his breath.
For a second, he felt nothing.
Then the pain came.
Elias raised the gun again.
David fired from the floor.
BANG!
The bullet struck Elias in the chest.
Elias staggered back.
David fired again.
BANG!
Elias fell.
Silence.
David remained braced against the wall.
He breathed.
The pain was unbearable.
He pressed one hand against the wound.
When he pulled it away, it was covered in blood.
“Shit...”
He looked at Nathan.
He was not moving.
He looked at Elias.
Neither was he.
David managed to get to his feet.
Every movement cost him.
He picked up his bag.
His thousand dollars.
Nothing else.
The other sacks remained on the table.
David looked at them.
For a moment, he could have taken them.
He did not.
He had come for one reason.
Margaret.
He left the hideout.
It took him several tries to mount the horse.
When he finally managed it, he pressed a hand against the wound again.
He looked back at the building.
Nobody came after him.
David Callahan pulled the reins.
He had the money.
He had survived.
And as far as he knew, Elias and Nathan Vance were dead.
Now all he had to do was make it home.
***
David reached home long after nightfall.
Helen knew something had gone wrong before he said a single word.
He stumbled through the door with one hand clamped against his side and his clothes soaked in blood.
“David!”
Helen ran to him.
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine!”
“Keep your voice down.”
David looked toward Margaret’s room.
The girl was sleeping.
Or at least he hoped she was.
Helen helped him sit and carefully pulled the cloth away from the wound.
When she saw the blood, she covered her mouth with one hand.
“I told you I was afraid.”
David dropped a small bag onto the table.
The sound of money made Helen look at it.
“It worked.”
Her eyes snapped back to him.
“You call this working?”
David breathed with difficulty.
“We got the money.”
Helen closed her eyes.
She said nothing.
For much of the night, she did what she could to keep him alive.
She cleaned the wound, removed the bullet with trembling hands, and closed the flesh as best she could. David lost consciousness more than once.
By morning, he was still weak.
But he was alive.
That was enough.
Until a voice came from outside.
“CALLAHAN!”
David opened his eyes.
Helen stopped moving.
Again.
“DAVID CALLAHAN!”
David slowly pushed himself upright.
He knew that voice.
And for several seconds, he thought the fever had finally gotten to him.
“Can’t be...”
Helen looked at him.
“Who is it?”
David forced himself to his feet and moved to a window.
Then he saw him.
Elias Vance.
Standing in front of the house.
Alive.
David went still.
He had seen that bullet enter the man’s chest.
Seen him fall.
He could not be standing there.
Elias raised his voice slightly.
“We have unfinished business.”
David tightened his jaw.
“Thought we finished it.”
Elias smiled.
“So did I.”
There were other men with him.
David stepped away from the window.
“Helen.”
She already understood.
“What do we do?”
“Get Margaret.”
Something came crashing through one of the windows.
The glass shattered.
A torch hit the floor, and flames began to spread.
Helen screamed.
David grabbed his revolver.
“Back door. Now!”
Helen ran to the bedroom.
David fired from the window.
BANG!
One of the men went down.
Another fired back.
Wood splintered from the walls of the house.
David shifted to another angle.
His side burned.
The wound was opening again.
BANG!
Another man dropped.
“David!” Helen shouted.
Margaret was with her, frightened and crying.
David reached them.
“Get out the back.”
Helen looked at him.
“You’re coming with us.”
“Yeah.”
She knew he was lying.
“David...”
“Go!”
Helen took Margaret by the hand.
David opened the back door.
Looked outside.
It seemed clear.
“Now.”
Helen went first.
Margaret followed.
David took one step.
A man appeared from the side.
BANG!
The bullet struck David in the torso.
He fell against the doorframe.
He fired back almost on instinct.
BANG!
The man dropped.
But David could no longer get up.
Helen ran back toward him.
“No!”
“Keep going!”
Too late.
Elias appeared.
David watched him approach.
He tried to raise the revolver.
His hand barely obeyed.
Elias kicked it away.
Helen pulled Margaret against her.
David looked at Elias.
And then he understood.
“No.”
Elias looked at the girl.
David tried to drag himself forward.
“Elias...”
The man raised his gun.
“He was my brother.”
“She had nothing to do with it.”
“Nathan had nothing to do with your daughter either.”
David shook his head desperately.
“Don’t do this.”
Helen stepped in front of Margaret.
“Please...”
BANG!
Helen fell.
Margaret screamed.
David tried to push himself up.
“ELIAS!”
The gun rose again.
“NO!”
BANG!
And everything went silent.
David stopped struggling.
For several seconds, he could not look away from them.
Elias walked toward him.
David was barely breathing.
Elias raised the revolver.
This time he aimed directly at David’s head.
One of the remaining men looked toward the road.
“Elias!”
Elias kept the gun where it was.
“They’re coming!”
A cloud of dust was rising in the distance.
Horses.
Several of them.
Elias looked back at David.
“They’re close!” the man insisted.
Elias adjusted his aim.
Then--
BANG!
A gunshot cracked from far down the road.
The man beside Elias flinched.
“We gotta go!”
He ran for his horse.
Elias looked toward the road.
Then back at David.
For a moment, he seemed to consider staying.
Another shout came from the distance.
Elias lowered the revolver.
He ran to his horse, mounted, and disappeared with the others into the dust.
David lay beside the house while the fire continued to spread.
The authorities arrived soon after.
They found the house partly burned.
They found blood.
They found two bodies.
Helen Callahan.
Margaret Callahan.
But David Callahan was not there.
***
For several days, nobody knew where David Callahan was.
The authorities searched around the house, followed blood trails, and questioned people in town.
They found nothing.
The answer was much closer than they imagined.
In a small room behind Antonio Ortiz’s parish, David was still alive.
Barely.
The first time he opened his eyes, he did not know where he was.
The wooden ceiling seemed to move above him.
He tried to sit up.
The pain forced him back down.
“Do not even try.”
David knew the voice.
Antonio appeared beside the bed carrying a basin of water.
David took several seconds to understand.
“Father...”
“Still one, yes.”
David breathed with difficulty.
“Helen...”
Antonio set the basin down.
He did not answer.
David looked at him.
“Margaret.”
The old man lowered his eyes.
That was enough.
David closed his eyes.
For a long while, neither of them said anything.
Antonio had reached the house shortly before the authorities.
He had seen the smoke from a distance.
When he found David, the man was barely breathing.
He dragged him away from the house, got him onto a wagon as best he could, and brought him to the parish before the law arrived.
Then he did the only thing he could.
He tried to keep him alive.
The first wound had torn open again.
The second bullet had passed through his body without striking any vital organ, though it had done more than enough damage to kill a man who received no help.
Antonio cleaned the wounds.
Changed the bandages.
Kept the fever down.
Gave him water whenever David could drink.
And for days, he waited.
David barely spoke.
He slept.
Woke.
Slept again.
Sometimes he asked about Helen.
Other times about Margaret.
Then he stopped asking.
On the fifth day, he could sit up without fainting.
On the seventh, he managed to stand.
He lasted less than a minute.
Antonio found him braced against a wall.
“Back to bed.”
David shook his head.
“Need to leave.”
“You need to learn how to walk again.”
“I can walk.”
He took a step.
Nearly fell.
Antonio caught him.
“Impressive.”
David gently pushed his arm away.
“Where’s my revolver?”
Antonio looked at him.
“No.”
“Father.”
“No.”
David held his gaze.
Antonio knew that expression.
There was no grief in it.
Not at that moment.
There was something worse.
“Who are you looking for?”
David did not answer.
Antonio sighed.
“You still have two open wounds.”
“Then I’ll find him before they open any wider.”
Antonio slowly shook his head.
“This will not bring your family back.”
David looked toward the window.
“No.”
He paused.
“But I’m gonna find him.”
A few more days passed.
When David finally walked out of that room, he was still pale, still moving with difficulty, and his torso was wrapped entirely in bandages.
Antonio handed him his coat.
Then his hat.
And after considerable thought, his revolver.
David slipped it into the holster.
“Thank you.”
Antonio watched him.
“You can still stay.”
David shook his head.
“No.”
“Then at least tell me what you intend to do.”
David remained silent for several seconds.
“Find Elias Vance.”
Antonio lowered his gaze.
He knew perfectly well that any attempt to convince David otherwise would fail.
“Wait.”
He stepped away for a moment and returned with a small portrait between his fingers.
David recognized it immediately.
Elias.
“Where’d you get that?”
“It does not matter.”
Antonio handed it to him.
David took the photograph.
“If you truly intend to hunt him, you will need more than a name.”
David studied the portrait.
“Thought you didn’t want me going.”
“I do not.”
Antonio held his gaze.
“But I also know that you are going.”
David tucked the photograph inside his coat.
“Thank you, Father.”
“Do not thank me yet.”
David opened the door.
Antonio spoke one last time.
“Just try to come back alive.”
David did not answer.
He left.
He was still wounded.
Still weak.
And could barely mount a horse without feeling as though his wounds were tearing open again.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Now he had only one purpose.
Find the man who had destroyed his family.
***
Days later, David Callahan reached the town we already know.
He was still wounded, weak, and sore from the two gunshots. Inside his coat he carried the portrait of Elias Vance that Antonio Ortiz had given him before he left.
He tied his horse outside the saloon and went in looking for information.
He ordered a drink and showed Elias’s photograph to the bartender, asking whether he knew the man and where David might find him. The bartender recognized both Elias and David, but instead of answering directly, he tried to convince Callahan to leave before he attracted too much attention.
It was already too late.
One of the men in the room recognized Callahan and loudly remembered the bounty on his head. That was enough to interest several others.
David tried to avoid the fight and warned the first man not to draw.
The man did anyway.
David shot first.
From there, the saloon descended into chaos.
The men opened fire, forcing David behind the bar. Wounded and badly outnumbered, he waited for them to burn through ammunition, then used the moment several of them began reloading to come out of cover and put some of them down.
Once the others realized Callahan was not firing blindly, they started using cover.
David then used everything around him.
He shot down a kerosene lamp to force one man out of position, used objects in the room to draw unnecessary gunfire, and waited until several of them had little or no ammunition left.
The fight eventually collapsed into close quarters.
David struck, disarmed, and dropped the last men who tried to face him, using their own weapons against them when necessary.
When it was over, bodies covered the floor and the saloon was partly wrecked.
Terrified, the bartender tried to stop him with a shotgun. David realized the man had no real intention of firing, took the weapon from him, and knocked him unconscious with one blow.
Then he recovered Elias’s portrait.
He had gone in looking for information.
And he had gotten it.
He left the saloon, mounted again, and continued on his way.
Now he knew where to find the man he was hunting.
***
The man we had seen at the beginning rode alone once more.
But now we knew who he was.
We knew where his wounds had come from.
We knew why he carried Elias Vance’s portrait.
And we knew there was no one left waiting for him at home.
David Callahan had lost his wife.
He had lost his daughter.
He had lost the money he had risked everything to get.
And now he had only one thing left.
Find Elias before it was too late.
He did not.
The authorities had been following his trail for days. David was wounded, exhausted, and running out of places to hide.
Eventually, the sheriff and his men cornered him.
David tried to fight back.
It was not enough.
He was arrested and taken back to town.
His record, the bank robbery, the bodies left behind, and the men he had killed during his flight closed off any possibility of freedom.
He was tried.
And sentenced to hang.
The execution was announced publicly.
On the appointed day, much of the town gathered around the gallows.
Some came out of curiosity.
Others because they had known the name David Callahan for years.
Others simply wanted to watch an outlaw die.
David stood on the platform with his hands bound.
His face was bruised, his body still battered from his wounds, and he wore the same grave expression he had carried through most of his life.
He did not look afraid.
Nor did he look calm.
Only tired.
A disturbance moved through the crowd.
An old man was pushing his way through the people in a hurry.
“Excuse me.”
He gently pushed past a man.
“Let me through.”
Antonio Ortiz managed to work his way close to the gallows.
When he looked up and saw David standing there, he stopped.
For years, he had feared this moment.
He had watched David’s father walk a similar road.
He had tried to keep the son from ending the same way.
And there he was.
“No...” Antonio murmured.
David heard his voice.
He searched the crowd until he found him.
Their eyes met.
Antonio slowly shook his head.
David held his gaze for a few seconds.
There was not much to say.
The hangman stepped closer.
The noose dropped around David’s neck.
Antonio took a step forward.
David never looked away from him.
“I’m sorry, Father.”
Antonio opened his mouth to answer.
He never got the chance.
The trapdoor opened.
And David Callahan fell.
***
The trapdoor opened.
David Callahan fell.
And everything disappeared.
There was no pain.
No darkness lasting for minutes.
No tunnels, no voices calling from somewhere far away.
One instant he was dying in front of an entire town.
The next, he was standing.
David opened his eyes.
The first thing he felt was heat.
Not the heat of summer or a burning house.
This was ancient heat. Heavy heat. It seemed to rise from the very stone beneath his boots.
He looked around.
A vast hall stretched before him.
Black columns climbed until they vanished into darkness too high to measure. Small channels of molten rock ran through cracks in the floor, casting a red glow across the chamber.
Beyond them stood structures.
Towers.
Bridges.
Massive walls built across mountains of dark stone.
In the distance, volcanoes sent pillars of smoke into a starless sky.
David stood still.
“This has gotta be a joke.”
He looked down.
He still had a body.
His hands.
His boots.
His clothes.
Even the mark the rope had left around his neck.
He breathed slowly.
“So it was true.”
A voice answered from the far side of the hall.
“Many things are.”
David raised his head.
Something was approaching.
It was tall.
Far taller than any man.
It wore a dark, robe-like garment beneath plates of blackened metal. Its skin resembled burned stone, and beneath it thin glowing lines ran through its body like lava trapped under a crust.
Two great horns rose near its temples.
Its eyes had no pupils.
Only fire.
David watched it approach.
“Well...”
He looked around again.
“If this is Hell, reckon I earned it.”
The creature stopped in front of him.
“David Callahan.”
“That’s me.”
“Thief. Robber. Killer. Fugitive. A man of violence.”
David raised one eyebrow.
“See somebody was taking notes.”
The demon did not react.
“Your life left enough marks upon the world to bring you before this tribunal.”
David glanced around.
“Tribunal?”
“Every being must answer for what it did during its existence.”
The creature extended one hand.
The floor in front of David began to glow.
Ancient symbols appeared between the stones.
“I am Malthor, Principality of the Threshold and custodian of the souls that pass through this domain.”
David said nothing.
Malthor continued.
“By the powers that govern the realms of existence, by the laws that keep order and chaos apart, light and darkness, life and death--”
David began looking elsewhere.
Malthor stopped.
“Are you listening to me?”
“More or less.”
The demon studied him for several seconds.
“You are being condemned.”
David looked back at him.
“Oh.”
Malthor continued.
“Your deeds have earned you a place here.”
David looked around the hall again.
“Yeah. Figured that part out.”
Malthor turned away.
“Come with me.”
David did not move.
“Where?”
The demon kept walking.
“To meet your eternity.”
David considered that.
“Sounds pleasant.”
He followed.
They left the great hall and entered a corridor so vast David could not see where it ended.
Hell opened on both sides of them.
It was not a single sea of fire.
It was worse.
Great lakes of sulfur and molten rock stretched beneath enormous stone platforms.
Between them lay small patches of land.
Islands.
But every one held something different.
David slowed his pace.
On one of them was a street.
A human street.
One man held a weapon on another.
He fired.
The victim fell.
Then everything stopped.
The dead man stood again.
The shooter returned to where he had begun.
And the scene repeated.
Again and again.
David watched.
“What the hell is that?”
“His punishment.”
On another island, a man stood surrounded by coins.
He gathered them desperately.
Every time his hands filled, the coins melted and began pouring from his mouth.
He choked.
Fell.
And everything began again.
Farther on, a woman wept in front of a door while a child called to her from the other side.
She opened it.
There was no one there.
She closed it.
The child called again.
David stopped looking.
“Nice place.”
“Space has been limited lately.”
David looked at Malthor.
The demon kept walking as if he had said nothing unusual.
David gave a short laugh.
“Was that a joke?”
“No.”
That made it even funnier.
They continued.
At last Malthor spoke again.
“Your condemnation, however, presents an opportunity.”
David looked at him.
“Knew there was something coming.”
“There is a problem in the world of the living.”
“Always is.”
“Not like this one.”
Malthor stopped beside the edge of the immense corridor.
Below them, thousands of those small realities of punishment continued repeating themselves.
“Demons were not created to live among humans.”
David remained silent.
“We may influence. Tempt. Whisper. Introduce thoughts. Push a man toward that which he already desires to do.”
Malthor gestured toward the depths below.
“But we must do so from here.”
David looked down.
“From here?”
“What humans call spiritual presence does not require one of us to walk physically upon the Earth. Our influence crosses the planes.”
David tried to follow.
“Like talking to somebody from the next room.”
“An extraordinarily poor comparison.”
“Still works.”
Malthor continued.
“Some ceased to obey.”
His voice changed.
“They took human bodies. Built lives. Families. Bloodlines. Some remained for decades. Others for centuries, using different eras to begin one life after another.”
David frowned.
“Why’s that matter?”
Malthor looked at him.
“It matters entirely.”
The corridor seemed to darken.
“A demon living a life that should never have existed alters human decisions. Produces descendants. Changes governments. Begins conflicts. Prevents others. Creates people who should never have been born and erases possibilities that should have occurred.”
David began to understand.
“They change history.”
“They change more than history.”
Malthor raised one hand.
Luminous lines appeared above them, thousands of paths crossing one another.
“Time is not a single line.”
Some of them began to fracture.
“Every unnecessary intervention creates new disturbances. One life may become hundreds. Hundreds may become millions.”
David watched the lines.
Some vanished completely.
“They’ve been doing this a long time.”
“Yes.”
“And you can’t stop ’em?”
Malthor began walking again.
“We can.”
He paused.
“The cost would be too great.”
David looked at him.
“Explain.”
“If we send armies of the underworld into the physical world to correct the interference of other demons, we multiply the very problem we are attempting to solve.”
David smiled faintly.
“To clean up the mess, you’d have to make a bigger one.”
Malthor looked at him.
“Precisely.”
“That one I understood.”
They kept walking.
“Which is why we need something else.”
Malthor stopped.
“A human.”
David laughed.
“Picked one a little late, didn’t you?”
“Your death is not an inconvenience.”
David stopped smiling.
Malthor watched him.
“Elias Vance was one of them.”
David went completely still.
For the first time since arriving in Hell, his expression changed.
“What’d you say?”
“The man who murdered Helen and Margaret was a demon.”
David stared into nothing for several seconds.
Then he remembered.
The shot.
Elias falling.
The blood.
And then the man standing outside his house as if nothing had happened.
David clenched his jaw.
“Explains a lot.”
“Elias is not the only one.”
Malthor started walking again.
David followed.
“In every era, there are groups led by higher-ranking demons. Generals. Lords. Individuals powerful enough to keep others under their influence.”
“You want me to kill ’em?”
“I want you to kill the one who holds them together.”
David looked at him.
Malthor continued.
“Remove the principal one and the others lose his protection. Some will flee. Others will willingly return here. Those who remain can be dealt with afterward.”
David nodded slowly.
“Cut off the head.”
“Precisely.”
“And what do I get?”
Malthor stopped.
He had known that question would come.
“A second life.”
David did not react.
“When your work is complete, you will not return here as one of them.”
Malthor gestured toward the islands of punishment.
“You may return to the human world.”
David stared at him.
“Don’t care.”
“I have not finished.”
Malthor stepped closer.
“Helen.”
David’s face hardened.
“Margaret.”
Now Malthor had his full attention.
“Don’t play with me.”
“I am not.”
Malthor spoke without raising his voice.
“Fulfill your purpose, and you will be given another chance with them.”
David did not breathe for several seconds.
“Margaret will return healthy.”
That struck harder than any bullet.
“Free of illness.”
David stared at the demon.
“Helen as well.”
Silence.
“A new life. Far from what you were. A chance none of you were given before.”
David lowered his eyes.
Malthor allowed him to think.
“Why me?”
“Because you need what we need.”
David looked up.
“You are filled with rage. You have lost everything that might once have made you turn back.”
Malthor began to circle him.
“You are extraordinarily skilled with weapons. You survived men who should have killed you long before you ever reached this place.”
He stopped in front of him.
“And once you decide to pursue someone, you do not stop.”
David did not deny it.
“But there is another reason.”
“What?”
Malthor smiled for the first time.
“You want to return.”
David thought of Helen.
Then Margaret.
“Yeah.”
“Then we have an agreement.”
David held out a hand.
“No.”
Malthor looked at the hand.
David lowered it.
“First tell me one thing.”
“Ask.”
“Elias still up there?”
Malthor answered immediately.
“Yes.”
David smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
“Then I’m in.”
Malthor placed a hand against his chest.
David felt something pass through him.
It was not heat.
It was as though fire had ignited inside his bones.
He dropped to his knees.
Red energy began to race through his body.
His skin darkened.
The wounds vanished.
His veins glowed like iron fresh from a forge.
David clenched his teeth.
The ground beneath him cracked.
A burst of energy rolled through the corridor.
His hat formed again over his head.
Then the boots.
The cloth.
Plates of dark armor appeared across his body as though forged directly onto him.
A revolver formed at his waist.
Glowing runes spread across the metal.
David raised his head.
His eyes burned with an intense red light.
The life of David Callahan was over.
But the story of Hell Cowboy had only just begun.
