Board Story: Desert Heat.

[Eridanus]

Prologue

James Hunt watched as the grizzled old man seated to his right threw his cards down on the table in disgust.
"Lucked out old man," he said as he leaned back in his chair. The other men seated around the table were strangers, men passing through town just as he was. Hard men, drifters if he was any judge. The game had started out friendly enough, but the tension in the air had grown at the same rapid pace as the pile of money in the centre of the table.
"It's your bet. You plannin' to fold or sit there all day admirin' your cards?" the dealer asked the man to James' left.
The man said his name was JB, but who knew for sure? Strangers would soon as lie to you as tell you the truth about personal details like that. James knew only too well that anonymity could be the difference between life, and an early death in these parts.
"Easy now, 'ol buddy, "the man drawled in a whiskey warmed voice, addressing the dealer. "I'm just planning my strategy."
JB pushed his last remaining dollars into the centre of the table. "I'll see you, and raise you another five."
James narrowed his eyes, and glanced around at the faces of the men seated around the table, each man as hard to read as the one before.
"I'm out." His words accompanied by the echoing thud, and the chafing screech of wood against wood as the front legs of his chair came to rest again like their back companions on the floor, and he pushed away from the table.
He needed another drink. He wanted a woman. Cheap and warm like his whiskey. As James leaned against the bar he decided the woman could wait, the whiskey couldn't. He still had fifty miles to go before he reached home. If anybody could call a dusty furnace blown up from the desert like Falcon home. But, for the last few months Falcon was the closest thing he had had to a home for more years than he cared to think on. He could get a room, a bath, and a passable meal at the boarding house run by, Silent, one of Falcon's most enigmatic residents. And like trouble, a warm and willing woman could be found or avoided easily in Falcon.
For now, he wanted another shot of the two-bit whiskey that could burn a line of fire straight from the throat to the gut. Whiskey that could also wash away the 90 miles worth of dust that lay scratching in his throat. He'd have his drink; find whatever passed as a meal in this God forsaken town, then make a start at chewing up those last fifty miles to home.
Every one horse town in the west had a saloon or two like this one. The air heavy with the stench of sweat, smoke, and whiskey. The bar top, and tables scarred and dulled by spilled drinks, and hundreds of grimy hands. The floor nothing more than rough hewn wood, and hard packed dirt, that had soaked up it's fair share of whiskey, and blood, he had no doubt. Someone had hung a large faux-gilt edged mirror on the back wall of the bar in an effort to add a touch of luxury to the establishment. It looked what it was, fake, and gaudy. He'd been in worse he mused.
James signaled the barman for another whiskey, and took a gut-clenching gulp. Not even the liquid fire seemed to be able to banish the dust from his throat. Be damned if he would ride cattle again. Wet nursing a bunch of stupid beasts to the railhead might have given him a month's worth of pay, but the daily grind of mundane ness, and that bloody trail dust that clung like a wet blanket, and seeped into every pore, was not the life for, James. He could always take a job riding shotgun on the passenger or mail coaches that ran through Indian Territory. They were always looking for a man handy with a gun.
"Hunt?"
James lifted his eyes from the shot of whiskey he was about to down to the dingy mirror behind the bar. He saw the man behind him and nearly sighed. He knew the type only too well, young, and edgy.
"Yeah?"
The type that went out of their way to find trouble.
"James Hunt?"
The type that didn't know if you were around long enough it found you, anyway.
"Yeah. So?"
"I'm Rogers, Seth Rogers." He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "They call me Skeet."
James was sure the way the kid had said his name he expected it to be recognised. He decided that the whiskey had burned a big enough hole in his gut. Being sure to keep his hands well clear of his guns, he dropped some money on the bar. "Is there a place a man can get a meal in this town?" James asked the bartender.
"I don't want no trouble in here mister," the man said as he moved cautiously to down to the other end of the bar.
Giving the bartender a long, even look. "I'm not giving you any."
"Hunt, I'm talking to you."
As he slowly turned around, James watched Rogers spread his legs, and let his hands hover over the butt of his guns. He wore a double rig; tied down, and the holster riding high. The kid was packing .44 colts with well tended rubber grips, and sporting notches in them, James didn't doubt.
"You got something on your mind?" James said as he looked the man directly in the eyes.
"I heard you've got a reputation for being fast."
This time, James did sigh. He was getting too old for this. He watched as the hate, and fury poured into the lanky kid's eyes. Rogers moved his hands slightly; the right one moving subtly closer to the grip of the gun nestled at his right hip.
"I wouldn't try that if I were you," James said in an easy tone, a tone that belied the cold steel beneath.
James watched the grin spread across, Rogers' face. "I'm faster. I'm faster than you, and I'm faster than Eames who I heard you took down in Tucson."
James glanced around him--the men he'd left playing poker at the table in the corner had let their hands lie on the table as they watched on, the barman was now hunkered down behind the relative safety of the bar, and the swinging movement of the double doors gave testament to the hightailing of at least one of the saloons patrons--then back into the dark, edgy eyes of Rogers. James moved to walk past him, but Rogers shifted to block him.
"Come find me in a couple of years," James told him wearily. "I'll be happy to put a bullet in you then." "Make it easy on the both of us." James started towards the doors again.
Rogers grinned again. He didn't think he was going to die. His kind never did. "I found you, and I'm going to kill you. Everybody is going to know the name of Skeet Rogers."
Rogers went for his guns. James saw it in his eyes not in the motion of his hands. With a flash of steel, cold, and fast James drew his own. Shooting from the hip with instinct, and experience, like lightning, and thunder the guns fired. In an almost careless movement, James replaced his guns in their holsters, and glanced down at Skeet Rogers sprawled across the saloon floor, blood seeping from the wound in his chest.
James decided that the whiskey, and gunfight the town had given him was enough, they could keep the meal. He stepped over Seth-they-call-me-Skeet, through the doors, and to his horse. He was going home to Falcon.

 

[Eridanus]

Chapter 1.

Stepping from the coach onto the rough planked boardwalk, Kat shook out her skirts, and breathed deeply, her nostrils flaring slightly at the pungent smell of the town. She stood blinking steadily as the influx of sight and sound assaulted her senses. Glancing around her, Kat was eager to submit each detail, and impression to memory. Wagons rattled passed with a screech, and grind, sending a plume of dust to hang in the still air. Women in high necked, long skirted Victorian dresses, paused momentarily to brush the dust from their hemlines before moving into shops to make their purchases. The men, wearing guns on their hips and sporting unshaven chins and cotton clothes, stood in small groups discussing cows, Indians and the weather. Children darted in and out. Dogs barked, horses whinnied. All this, combined with the shouts of the men in the saloons and bawdy houses, gave an air of mayhem. With widen eyes; Kat turned her attention to the buildings. They all seemed temporary--crude and unfinished. With varying shapes and sizes, they sprang from the earth as if rooted. Their facades rising colourless and sun-weary, wrapped in a permanent blanket of dust. The street which they lined appeared to thirst for the kiss of a single rain drop. It's parched, hard packed surface cracking under the sun's relentless attack. Tipping her head back she looked up at the endless blue of the sky, the sun was already high overhead, and the heat haze indicated that it was going to be another sultry day, noticing for the first time that the throng of people milling in the street were wiping their brows to the heat.
This couldn't be Falcon. There had to be some mistake. With her father's large ranching enterprise so close surely the town would have a more prosperous look, and feel to it. This simply wouldn't do, she had paid to be taken by coach to Falcon at the end of the line, and that is where she expected to be deposited, not this sunbaked huddle of slack boarded buildings that was only fit for snakes, and cacti. No, this simply wouldn't do at all. Shaking herself out of her reverie, Kat turned in time to see one of her trunks tossed to the ground with a thud.
"Please be careful with my things, Mr. Hunt."
James hefted the next trunk, and tossed it to a grinning, Boomer who had been standing nearby awaiting his own luggage after he had alighted from the coach. "Yes, ma'am."
Biting down on her temper, Kat waited until he had jumped down beside her. "Mr. Hunt, why have we stopped here? I asked to be taken to the end of the line. To Falcon." He paused long enough to answer her, "Welcome to Falcon ma'am." James hoisted his saddle bags over his shoulder, turned on his heel, and strode off down the street.
With an indignant unladylike snort, Kat moved to stand with her luggage, and await someone in her father's employ to come, and collect her. Kat would have dearly loved to have had her father meet her at the stage, but a man in charge of such a vast pastoral holding as his would have a million things that would require his attention. Someone would be along soon, she'd happily wait.
Sitting down atop one of her trunks, Kat opened her reticule, and withdrew a delicate, white lace, and linen handkerchief, and patted the sweat from her neck, and brow. Now, Kat was not so sure it had been a good idea to have had such a large breakfast, as the contents of her stomach threatened to sit like a leaden weight in the heat. When they had stopped at the stage depot this morning, Kat had found herself famished. Her stomach had actually given out a growl to protest at its emptiness. She had eaten little over the week of her stage journey; thanks largely to the abominable creations labelled as food that was served up at each stop along the way. Too late for regrets she thought, soon she would be in the comfort of her father's home, and eating delectable dishes prepared by a qualified, and discerning cook--to be eaten amongst civilised society. A society that didn't include the likes of Mr. Hunt.


James was sauntering down the boardwalk in an easy manner when Sheriff DT stepped from his office into his path blocking any further progress.
"So, you're back then?"
Looking the Sheriff up, and down, and noticing not for the first time in their acquaintance that there was ever growing proof of the Sheriffs love of his wife's baking. "I'm here to throw my kit down at, Silent's boarding house until the next stage run. You got a problem with that?"
"Am I going to have a problem with that?" the Sheriff questioned as his glance looked past, James, up along the street to where, Kat was waiting patiently with her trunks.
"I'm not out lookin' for trouble Sheriff."
"Maybe not, Hunt, but trouble does have a penchant for finding you." Nodding towards, Kat, Sheriff DT asked, James curiously. "Who's the girl?"
"Told, Boomer that she was Old Man Ezekiel's daughter." James answered as his glance followed the same path as that of the Sheriffs.
Sheriff DT's eyebrows raised in surprised. "Sure don't take after her old man." A shadow of sadness played across the Sheriff's face, "Come to collect her father's personals, I expect."
James' head swivelled around sharply to look at the Sheriff's face to see if there was some hint of emotion that would betray the words he had just spoken to be anything other than fact. Sheriff DT noticed, James' questioning look. "You haven't heard? Old Man Ezekiel was shot, mortally wounded trying to defend those rag, and bone cattle of his, and that patch of barren land he called a ranch.
James wretched off his hat, and slapped it against his leg. "Damn it!"