Synopsis: A forgotten desert house breathes just long enough to swallow a pack of bounty hunters whole, with Tripp Harlowe waiting quiet at its heart.
The old house stood alone against the sweep of desert, as if it had been set there and forgotten by men who meant to return but never did. Its boards were bleached gray-white by sun and years, its roof sagging, its door hanging open to a wind that came and went as it pleased.
Toward sundown a rider had come to it.
Tripp Harlowe dismounted without hurry and stood a moment in the yard, his gaze sweeping the horizon where the last light burned low along the ridges. He had been occupying this place for the better part of three days.
Tonight would be the last, he promised himself, as he looked back toward the road he’d left behind, then went inside.
He took a chair, one rung missing, and tipped its back against the wall.
The desert dimmed. Shadows gathered in the corners of the room. The wind slipped through the broken window and whispered across the floorboards.
Then came the men.
They rode in hard and dismounted quick, their movements sharp with purpose. Boots struck the porch. Leather creaked. Voices dropped low, then lower still, as if silence might grant them advantage.
Tripp did not move.
He’d left enough behind the last three days for any half-decent tracker to follow.
The door burst wide and the first outlaw crossed the threshold. The shot crashed through the house, sudden and terrible.
Tripp answered with a shot that drove the man back over the threshold, dead before he hit the dirt
The others surged in behind him, guns flashing, curses breaking the stillness. The room filled with smoke and splintering wood. But Tripp moved with a cold precision that was born of hard years and harder lessons. He gave ground once, then no more. His gun spoke again and again, each report finding its mark.
Men fell.
One staggered against the wall and slid down it, a streak of red followed. Another dropped his weapon and reached for something that was no longer there. A third turned as if to flee, but the door that had promised escape gave him none.
Then it was over.
The echoes faded, leaving only the wind and two men who remained alive.
They stood apart from one another, drawn by fate into the same narrow space between living and dying. Their eyes fixed on Tripp, and in them lay an understanding that came too late.
He leveled his revolver with his left hand, his right producing a book, cover worn, from his satchel.
“Y'all know who wrote this book?”
The men glanced at each other in confusion, the question strange and out of place among the dead.
Tripp cocked the hammer, “None of you?”
“L-Lucas Ward, sure. Everybody know that.”
“It's a fine book.” The other responded.
“Which of y’all can write?”
Another odd question.
One man lifted his hand, slow and uncertain.
The other opened his mouth.
Tripp fired.
The second man fell.
“Sit,” Tripp said.
The man obeyed.
From the book, Tripp tore a page–one side blank– from its back and laid it upon the table a pencil from his satchel followed.
“Write,” he said.
The man’s hand trembled as he took up the pencil, “Write what?”
“The words I'm gonna tell ya. Starting now: Dear Mr. Lucas Ward,” Tripp began, watching over the man’s shoulders as he scribed letters Tripp recognized but could not name.
“I am a man who once rode with the infamous Bridger-Keppler Gang.”
The pencil scratched rough against the paper.
“I got plenty good stories. The badges they wear now ain't right so I want their wrongs on record and my name cleared.”
Outside, the last light slipped behind the hills, leaving the desert in a hush of gathering night.
“I promise to be honest and true in my account.”
The man paused, then continued, a brow raised in interest at the words before him.
“Please meet me at Cholla Springs on the fifteen of June at half past six, evening.”
The wind stirred again, lifting the edge of the page.
“I think you will want to hear the things I have to say, no doubt your audience will. Signed, T.H”
When the writing ceased, Tripp turned the book and showed the man the address stamped within its cover.
“This is where I want it sent,” he said.
The man copied it with care born of fear.
“Now read it. The whole thing.”
The man did so, his voice low and uneven, yet the words were true to what was dictated.
When he finished, he looked up.
For a long moment Tripp regarded him. There was no anger in his face, nor mercy. Only a hardness that had been shaped by things long past.
He took the letter and folded it.
“That’ll do,” he said.
The shot came swift and final.
The man slumped where he sat, and the house, as if satisfied, returned to its silence.
Tripp stepped outside into the cooling night. The stars had begun to show, cold and distant over the wide land. He mounted his horse and turned toward the dark line of road that led away from the place.
Some miles off there stood a post office, a small outpost against the vastness.
