*
~That bad man, Sheldon Lee, did not pass by Bill Curtis’ place again until
the next morning, two days after Christmas, jostling atop his carriage in the
unmoving, frigid air. The man, in his uniform, stepped out from behind the bar
and stood in the middle of the street, facing Sheldon. He shouted “Freeze
Sheldon Lee! Don’t you move,” and aimed two twelve gauge barrels
up at the renegade cabbie. Sensing the threat, Ol’ Sal turned sharply
almost toppling the carriage. It jackknifed across the street allowing Sheldon
Lee to roll off while keeping the carriage between himself and the man with
his twelve-gauge.
~There was a shotgun blast, followed by the tremendous thud of something soft
and heavy hitting cold hard street. Ol’ Sal never felt a thing. The blast
caught her squarely in the face with her mouth open. Some shot penetrated to
her brain through her eyes and the roof of her mouth, killing her instantly.
At first, only her head and forelegs dropped, while her hindquarters were tangled
in her harness. Ol’ Sal’s back leg was still twitching, pawing at
the ground like one of them countyfair counting horses trying to do algebra.
Then there was a creak, snap, and a slower thump then the last, as the traces
strained, snapped, and Ol’ Sal surrendered herself to gravity as she had
to death.
~The man stooped low to peer under the wagon. When a low-flying forty-four-caliber
bullet bounced off a cobblestone and harmlessly over him, the man did not flinch.
He reoriented himself in the direction of the shot’s origin. One of Sheldon
Lee’s black boots slipped down a little along one of the carriage wheel
spokes, where it perched with its mate holding Sheldon up out of sight.
The man fired his second barrel under the carriage, damaging the wheel, the
axle, and the frame of the carriage in that corner, but he could not make out
all of this right away because his view was obscured by smoke rising up thickly
through the cold still air from the barrel of his gun, and debris stirred up
around the target. For one frozen instant, all the man saw were bluegrey billows
of dust, steam, slush and snow and smoke rising up from behind, around and between
him and the carriage. He heard a stifled yelp of pain, but when the dust settled
there was no prone corpse, not even a pair of boots. The man’s eyes shifted
quickly to both sides of the carriage to assure Sheldon Lee was not coming around
at him. Then they ran along the bottom again, where they fell upon a puddle
of dark liquid beneath the middle of the carriage. A few drops fell into the
puddle as he watched. On the white snow in the breaking light of dawn it was
plain as day that the fluid was red. The man advanced cautiously. He dug two
more rounds out of his shirt pocket and tried to open his gun as quietly as
possible while he reloaded.
Sheldon Lee was hit in the leg, bad. His shin was shattered and he was trying
to stop blood from spurting from a severed artery, using his long black overcoat.
When he was shot, Sheldon had fallen from the wheel. Grimacing against the pain,
he had the presence of mind to realize where the shots were coming from and
managed to scramble onto the running board, crouching down over his wounded
leg so he would not be seen through the windows. He knew that his bleeding would
give his position away but he also knew that there were only two barrels on
a double barrel shotgun. At first he just ventured a peak through the windows
to the other side of the carriage. There was the man, fumbling to load his empty
weapon. Sheldon Lee pulled himself up with his left hand and took as much weight
as he could on his good leg. His other leg spurted freely and the agony was
like nothing else Sheldon had ever felt, but he managed to laugh just loud enough
for the man to hear.
~The man looked up to see Sheldon Lee sighting along that forty-four at his
forehead. A gunshot rung out….
© DCSmith 2003