Plague, Chapter Two

 

Chapter Two

A LOUD RUMBLING reverberated from inside Charlie’s stomach. The abandoned gunslinger longed for food, he longed for whiskey. He longed for women, he longed for a way to escape this cell. He longed for clearer thoughts. He longed for fewer things to long over.

    He couldn’t make it much longer.

    I can’t make it much longer, he agreed.

    He pushed his dirt-encrusted hand inside his perspiration soaked long sleeve gray shirt, rubbing it along his aching hairy stomach. Charlie moaned in pain. He imagined himself groaning out the word ‘food’ and chasing random people around town, savagely ripping them apart limb by limb, sinking his yellow stained teeth into their flesh, gnarling down on their kidneys and livers.

    A real feast.

    Charlie smiled, but immediately struck a straight face as he realized how sadistic and ridiculous he was thinking. It was just the hunger, he told himself. Just the hunger.

    Staring at Tyler’s rotting corpse again, he licked his lips, thinking how wonderful a flab of his skin would taste in his mouth. Just a small little flab, though. It wouldn’t be as if he was gonna cook him and devour the entire body or anything. Just a small, tiny bit. Surely no harm could come from that, right? His jaw dropped open. If he weren’t so dehydrated, drool would have spilled out. Thinking about liquid having a home in his mouth, Charlie reached to his left and picked up the remaining boot, taking a nice ole gulp of the contents residing inside. Afterwards he lightly shook the boot, hearing only a slight splashing. He was almost dry. Hopefully it would rain again sometime soon. It was hard as it was just going without food; he didn’t think he would be able to handle missing out on water as well.

    He wondered if his brother’s blood held any similar qualities as water, and immediately slapped himself across the face. “You just shut the hell up with that,” he said aloud. “I ain’t eatin’ Tyler. Already done an’ told ya that. So stop sayin’ it, ‘cause it ‘ain’t gonna come true, got it? Good. Now just leave me alone. I’m too damn tired for this. …”

    His head rolled to the right, causing his eyes to become fixated on the cell door itself. The door, with the iron bars that were just wide enough to hold Charlie back, even though he was damn near the width of a twig. And just beyond those bars, maybe only a mere five feet away, resting on the wall, hung the ever so desirable key ring. If only he could reach it, then maybe he could stop thinking about making a Sunday meal out of Tyler and instead walk down to the general store and grab some beans, maybe a couple pounds of jerky while he was at it. Sure, he didn’t have any money, but he didn’t really need any.

    Who needed money when you were the only living person in town?

    Speaking of cash, he was sure that it wouldn’t hurt anything if he were to happen to find himself in the bank as well. None of them needed any of that dough, now did they? Nope, the dead had no need for money. And after all, since when did Charlie have to consult if they were alive or not? Taking money was what he was all about, Tyler and him. They were the Morgan Brothers for crying out loud! The most feared gang in all of the lands! They needed money, why they just went ahead and took it. And if someone would to so happen put up a fuss, well they just went ahead and shot them. There was no ands, ifs, or buts about it. They were the Morgan Brothers. They didn’t take any lip from anyone. There was gossip of them in even the smallest, most scurvy towns around.

    “Oh, the Morgan Brothers? Yeah, I’ve heard of them. Ruthless fellows they are. Heard they took out an entire posse of Pinkertons back in Chicago. Yep, just the two of ‘em, too. Some say they’re immortal, and possess the eyes of an eagle’s. Crack shots, they are. Yeah huh, some of the greatest yet brutal pistoleers in all the West, and beyond. Perhaps the entire world.”

    Charlie had heard it all. Despite his memorable face being sketched across every wall in the country, he was still able to have a few shots in the corner of a saloon without anyone taking notice to him, giving him the advantage of hearing the gossip up close and personal. However, it did get tiresome after a while. Sure, it was quite amusing some of the rumors they came up with, but all of them seemed to sound the same. “Oh, I heard he did that and he killed him. …” It was just all the same clockwork speculation that you could find in any dive.

    Thoughts trailing back nearly two months ago, Charlie reflected over the last unbound memory of him and his brother together. It was a hot, dry day as usual. Maybe a Friday or a Saturday -- Charlie couldn’t remember. They were around ninety or a hundred miles away from El Paso. He and Tyler were frying a couple eggs at a small camp they had set up from the night before. The camp consisted of a tent and a sloppy fire that resided atop a tall rocky hill, giving the Morgan Brothers the ability to see hundreds of miles in every direction -- exactly the advantage they were hoping for.

    Their horses, Striker and Flash, lay asleep behind the tent, resting and charging their energy for another day’s worth of riding. Both brothers had already shaved and had a smoke, and now were eagerly waiting for their breakfast to finish cooking. Maybe afterwards they would strike up a game of Faro, gambling on their share of tobacco and other miscellaneous possessions. After all, there was still another hour and a half ‘till the stagecoach was due to pass.

    As they ate their eggs, Tyler said, “So, you ready for today? No slip-ups?”

    “Nope, no slip-ups today,” Charlie said. “I’m good an’ ready. Anxious, actually. Been pumped up for some action for quite a bit now.”

    “Good,” Tyler smiled, revealing his blackened teeth. “Glad to hear that. It’s supposed to be one heck of a score they’re loadin’, ya know. Oughta be a hog-killin’ time, don‘t ya say? Just make sure not to miss, and everything should go accordin’ to plan.”
    
    “Don’t worry, Ty. I won’t miss. I never miss. I’m a crack shot, don’t ya know?” Charlie chuckled, shoveling in a spoonful of egg. “Hey, where do ya suppose we’re gonna go after this hit?”

    “I dunno, Charlie. Maybe scout out some of El Paso, but after that … well s**t, we have all of America to journey, now don’t we? Where do you wanna go?”

    “How ‘bout we go back to California for a while? Maybe swing by Fresno again?”

    “Hm,” Tyler said. “I wonder why you’d wanna go there. It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain shady lady, now would it?”

    “Yeah, maybe,” Charlie smiled, his cheeks reddening.

    Tyler leaned back against a log, bending his legs slightly. “Tell me, how come you always seem to take such a likin’ to them fallen frails?”

    “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” Charlie mumbled, deliberately turning his head and staring off into the horizon.

    Tyler finished his eggs and began to roll a cigarette. “Want one?” he asked, gesturing the tobacco towards his brother, whom declined. After he finished rolling, he stuck it in his mouth, found a match in his pocket, struck it against the side of his boot, and lit it, inhaling deeply. He shifted his weight and leaned forward. “Listen, little bro,” he said, “now don’t get me wrong: there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with a painted cat from time to time, but they’re people you don’t wanna get attached to now, ya hear me? They’re good for a screw now and then but that’s it, and even then, you might catch their w***e diseases. Really, try finding one of them nice proper girls, and turn them wild. Trust me, there ain’t nuthin’ like one of ‘em nice gals turned bad. Have her join you on the run and oh boy, ain’t that just fine. Ya gotta find someone dependable, understand? You can’t trust a w***e, little brother. All they want is your dinero.”

    “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Charlie muttered, finishing his own eggs and standing up, choosing to end their discussion. He arched his back rearward and cracked it in a wave of pleasure. He wandered over to the edge of the cliff and tilted the brim of his Stetson downward, shielding his iconic eyes from the blinding sun. His eyes, oh how they were talked and marveled over all through the country. His right eye, his blue one. And his left eye, his green one. It was quite unique, and it was a uniqueness that the Law took to their advantage. You had damn well better believe that every single Charlie Morgan Wanted Poster featured colored ink when it came to the eye region. They certainly didn’t want to leave out on such a significant characteristic, now did they? It was a wonder why more people didn’t recognize him. Who knows, maybe they did and just feared for their life, therefore remaining silent. Anything could have been a possibility.

    A distant cloud of dust began to whirl up towards the north, around a couple thousand feet away from the hill they stood upon. As it drove closer, a tiny black rough edged circle made itself clear of what was causing the dirt to flurry. It was the stagecoach, and it was about an hour early.

    “Ty,” Charlie spoke, never moving his eyes from the oncoming hit.

    “Yeah?” Tyler asked, taking another drag from his cigarette.

    “It’s here.”

    “What’s here?”

    “The goddamn stagecoach, whaddya think?”

    “What? That’s impossible. There’s still like an hour to go,” Tyler said, springing to his feet.

    “Yeah, well, it’s early,” said Charlie, pointing to the cloudy manifest up ahead.

    “Well, I’ll be damned!” Tyler exclaimed, acknowledging the stagecoach’s faraway presence. “You ready, right?” he asked, turning to his brother.

    “You better believe it.”

    “Now that’s what I wanna hear! All right, I’m gonna start headin’ down now. Don’t you miss, okay? Just whatever you do, don’t miss the trail. Oh … and uh, don’t push too late. You know that, though, right?”

    “Yeah, I know that. Jesus Christ, how many times have we done this?”

    “Okay, okay. No need to get hostile there, little brother. Just making sure. This is supposed to be a big one is all.”

    “Well then get the hell down there already,” Charlie ordered, getting agitated with his brother’s wariness.

    “Oh, well yes sir!” Tyler laughed, performing a military salute. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and dashed over behind the tent and slapped his horse, Striker, across the rear-end. “Wake thee hell up, Strikey! We got some banditry to do!”

    The horse shot up to his feet and Tyler jumped aboard, slapping the rear-end once more to make him move forward, and to descend the hill. “Yeeeeeeehaaaw!” he yelled.

    Charlie watched for a second as his brother made his slow way down the awkward moving hill, and then promptly turned around and approached the large boulder resting next to their tent. He walked behind it and placed both hands along its rocky surface. He began to push, rolling it towards the edge with a struggle, breaking sweat in the process. However, he managed to get the job done quickly enough with time to spare.

    “Like lickin’ butter off a knife,” he chortled.

    He rested his weight against the boulder and waited for the stagecoach’s arrival, which to his surprise, came a whole lot faster than he had expected. It was maybe at the most twenty feet away when he noticed how much it had gained since he last laid eyes upon it. “Ah s**t!” he yelled, hastily dropkicking the boulder off the edge of the hill, allowing it to collapse all the way to the bottom. The expected squeal and break sounds did not come into play, but instead just the usual following explosion of wood as the stagecoach crashed into the boulder. Charlie crawled to his feet and peeked over.

    “Oh Christ,” he muttered, realizing what he had done.

    The stagecoach’s shattered wood lay all over the desert landscape, most of it being on the side of the large rock. However, the horses were laying flat on the ground, with their heads beneath the boulder, puddles of dark blood quickly forming around them. Usually, when they did this act, when the boulder crashed to the ground, the horses would abruptly peel off to the side, letting the stagecoach wreck instead of themselves. But this time it had been a little different, now hadn’t it? Charlie had been too slow, and he knew he would never hear the end of it, even though the ‘slip-up’ held no importance to their robbery at all. So what, a couple horses had died. There was no harm in that. They usually ended up killing their masters anyway.

    “Goddamn it, Charlie!” Tyler yelled from below, as he approached the stagecoach himself. “Get the hell down here!”

    Charlie furiously kicked a cluster of dust and sped off towards his own horse, Flash. He awoke him and jumped on top, guiding him down the trail, all the way to the bottom. Tyler was already dragging the occupants of the crashed stagecoach out into the sand, checking them for weapons. He noticed the red bandanna tied around his brother’s mouth, and immediately did the same for him. Almost another slip-up, he thought. Christ, get in the game, man.

    As he arrived to the crash sight, Charlie hopped off Flash and approached his brother. “That all of ‘em?” he asked.

    “Yeah, think so,” Tyler said, catching his breath. “What the hell happened up there?”

    “Nuthin’. Let’s just get this over with.”

    “All right, go get the stuff, I’ll watch the guards.”

    Without saying anything further, Charlie obliged and entered the nearly obliterated stagecoach. He heard as Tyler roughed up the guards, spitting curses at them and beating them senselessly. Such as the way of Tyler Morgan, the more violent one of the brothers -- although it wasn’t saying much.

    It didn’t take long for Charlie to find the safe -- oddly, it hadn’t soared out into the desert like most of the stagecoach’s belongings. He grabbed it with both hands and dragged it out amongst the rest of them.

    “Whoo hoo, will ya look at that!” Tyler exclaimed, kicking a guard square in the face. Altogether, there were three guards, all of them beaten to a pulp. It wasn’t clear if they were dead or alive, nor who had caused more damage: Tyler or the boulder. “Mighty big safe, ain’t it?”

    “Yes, I suppose it is,” Charlie agreed.

    Tyler walked up to the safe and drew one of his Colt Single Action handguns from his gun belt, aiming quickly and effectively as he shot the lock off. The door swung open, unraveling a safe literally full of gold bricks.

    “Luddy Mussy!” Tyler exclaimed, his jaw dropping.

    “I didn’t think it would be this big!” laughed Charlie, his eyes glowing gold.

    “Neither did I, little brother, neither did I,” Tyler said, sticking his revolver back in its holster, bending down and picking up one of the bricks of gold, examining and breathing in its intoxicating aroma of wealth. “This is a lot of gold, a lot a lot a lot a lot of gold. …”

    “How the hell do you think we’re gonna carry this? It has to be too heavy for the horses, right?” Charlie asked.

    Tyler stood back up with the brick still grasped firmly in his hand, tapping it against the side of his leg. “I dunno … s**t; I didn’t think there would be this much gold. I … I have no clue what to do with it.”

    “Maybe leave some behind and come back for it?” Charlie suggested, although he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it himself.

    “Nah, that wouldn’t do. Too many thieves around.”

    It was then that Charlie took another glance at the unconscious guards. There were three of them: all of whom guards. A thought struck him then.

    “Hey, Tyler …”

    “What? Are you thinking or what? We gotta get a way to transport all this --”

    “Tyler.”

    “What?!”

    “Where’s the driver?”

    “The driver? What are you talking about?” Tyler asked, impatiently.

    “The driver of the stagecoach. There should have been one, right? Where is he? Not here, that’s for sure.”

    Tyler turned around and examined the guards, realizing the exact same thing his brother had just realized not even half a minute ago. “Well, I’ll be damned --”

    A gunshot echoed throughout the desert, and an explosion of blood erupted from the center of Tyler’s back, causing him to fall to the ground and drop the brick of gold. Fifty feet from the crash sight stood a man covered in sand, holding a rifle. A rifle that was pointing towards them. Without putting another thought into it, Charlie grabbed his Peacemaker from its holster and squeezed the trigger only a single time, and watched as a cloud of red mist sprayed out of the stagecoach driver’s head, throwing him to the ground.

    He holstered his revolver and collapsed to his knees, staring down at his brother. The bullet had entered his chest, exited through his back. He was breathing heavily and blood was gurgling in the bullet hole, as if he was boiling in some sort of witch’s cauldron.

    “Da hell did he come from?” Tyler whispered.

    “Must have flown off the coach when it crashed. Should have seen it coming. Man, Tyler, I’m so sorry. I really messed up, didn’t I? Goddamn it!”  

    Charlie slammed his fist down into the sand as tears started to drip down his cheeks. His brother was going to die. It was obvious.

    Tyler opened his mouth to speak, but Charlie quieted him down. “No, don’t talk. It’ll just make it hurt worse.”

    However, Tyler refused to remain silent. He opened his mouth once more, and Charlie let him proceed.

    “Watch out,” he said.

    The beaten guard brought the brick of gold down on top of Charlie’s head, and then everything went black.

*********

CHARLIE LET THE remaining water pour down his parched throat, and tossed the boot aside. It was a brand new day, maybe a brand new week, too -- he wasn’t sure. Maybe today would be the day of his escape. It was a possibility, wasn’t it? Sure it was. Anything could happen. Perhaps a wanderer would happen to come by, and discover him rotting in this here cell, and free him. Free him back into the world where there was food and water and other humans for him to converse with. Yeah, this sounded like not a half-bad idea at all. This would happen, he knew it would. It had to happen. Otherwise, what would be the use of all this waiting, sitting, laying, crying, dying, and wasting? Something good had to come from it. It had to.

    Charlie turned his head towards the monstrous pile of s**t resting on the far side of the cell, and became appalled when he discovered that it had shrank since he last inspected it. In fact, it was barely a pile at all, but more of a sloppy spatter of feces. He began to wonder if it had ever been as big as he remembered. Maybe it had only been his imagination. No … he had specific, vivid recollections of it being as tall as his knees, and then some. Where had the rest of it gone? Clearly somewhere in hiding, waiting for him to fall back asleep. Oh no, Charlie wasn’t going to let that happen to him. No way. He just wouldn’t go back to sleep, that’s all. It shouldn’t be too hard. He was already going without food and water; sleep should have been a piece of cake.

    Charlie looked back at the key ring hanging from the wall. Just five measly feet away. Five feet was keeping him from living. If only he had an extra arm, then maybe he could escape this hellhole. He stood up and approached the corner, unzipping his fly and releasing the few drops of urine his body could still maintain. His eyes traveled to the window, into the dry desert. Nothing for miles. Just sand. In addition, the clouds had been extremely sparse these past few days, which began to worry him. He knew he had to cope with the possibility that it may never rain again -- well, at least not for a very long time anyway. Another thing, he had to eat. This was an essential part of life. You had to eat. Otherwise, you died. Simple as that.

    Charlie turned away from the window and found himself gazing upon his brother once again. His stomach growled. He licked his lips. Imaginary drool fell from his mouth.

    Just a small flab, he thought.

    Just one small flab. …