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The two men walked together side by side at an unruly pace. One limped, the other stopped and started, awaiting his companion to take the lead before he caught up to him. One was a Klamath man, the other half Colville, half white, though he looked mostly white. They carried rifles and wore fur coats. The Colville man wore an old leather hat with a wide brim, the Klamath man’s head was bare, his thin streaky hair brushed behind his ears. The trees towered over them, the needles crushing under foot, the distinct smell of smoke and pungent flowers in the air. A camp was nestled above them. Mormons. Three men inside. The corpse of a woman, an Indian whore from a nearby town who was looking for a ride, her body raped and scarred. The three men had few holdings in the lord’s favor anymore, and yet they held dearly that their lord loved them. They kept the body in the back. Two played cards, each card torn and bent from an idle destructiveness that dwelled in the cards’ owner. He’d memorised some of the cards by the pattern of their folds and thus had the winning odds. The third, their leader, watched out upon the dell chewing tobacco and breathing in the crisp autumn air. It felt like the morning’s splash of cool water upon your face and he felt good. As good as he was able to take in the lord’s favor at least as he foresaw the heavy gray in the sky’s pelvis and knew it reared up a hard seed, a message from the good lord and a gift to the soil. But it was the sight he saw streaking forth along the rudded paths below that struck fear into his heart more than any message of God’s natural rhythms. It was an inquisitor of God, not in Spanish catholic robes, but in the lord’s firm ordering of events and actions. The man believed that what we defined as the concept of irony was really the true justice of God’s hands. God works in mysterious ways was not an uncommon phrase, but he considered himself a philosopher of thought and he felt a rock stick in his gut. Why had they done it? It was merely fun. It was merely needed to boost morale. Ultimately the plan was not to kill her. They had no intentions of doing so. But it was the sight of the blood. It leaked from her… from her, from her cunt, and it smelt like copper, and she cried and she thrashed and the titillating sense of her soft skin and the wetness in sensation drove him into a certain emotion. An iron raging lust that he was not disciplined to deal with. He knew the others felt the same even if it wasn’t in so many words. He felt his weapon on his side, and he dragged his hand to his crotch. It was growing. He remembered her and felt a weeping drag his spirit. If they came here they would cause trouble. They would be the discoverers of evil within those who were considered good men. If they sauntered up the camp’s trail they would be honed in on. And if they crossed the trail they would be warned away. And if they demanded peace he would question their faith. The good book said the word must be spread but this was the land of philistines and gentiles. Their well being was endangered. He was within his rights to keep them at bay. But what if they were of the Latter-Day church too? It would be his obligation to invite them forward. To welcome them. And they wouldn’t understand. It was unexplainable to one so far removed from the true events. The air was moist, reminding him of God’s seed ready in the air.

As the Mormon watched them, the two men walking came by the road so commonly trotted by the hunters and the thieves and as of recently, that of the Mormons too. The Colville man looked at the Klamath man fondly. A queer small fellow who hobbled like a child and could hardly compose himself straight enough to speak or eat properly, and yet he’d never seen a man shoot a straighter shot. It was like he had the eye of God in his scope lining up his shots. Then the Klamath man stopped hard in his tracks taking a moment or two to set himself straight. He slowly looked the Colville man in the eye, his face stern and hard as stone. When he had seen the speck that floated in the Colville man’s left pupil, the Klamath man pivoted himself and looked up into the brush that hung above them, beyond the dell. The Colville man could not see what he was looking at and yet he understood. And locked, eye to eye with the Klamath man, the Mormon shivered, his shoulders buckled like tarp and he began to slide out his weapon from his hip but as he felt the sight clip his belt loop, the Klamath man turned away and returned to his hobble. The Mormon shivered, raising his arm and closing one eye. He followed them with the sight of his gun and it wasn’t long before they were out of sight, gone behind the brush. He breathed in, breathed out. They would reach the fork that led to the camp. If they had any eye for unmarked trails, which the redskin would have, then they were likely to turn if that Indian had no sense about him, and they never did. Well Indians were never their equals and if they proved trouble then they were to be hunted. It was as simple as that. And no white man that traveled with an Indian could be considered sane in the head. He too was also of questionable standing. He left his spot and went around the side of the camp, sitting himself atop a mound of rocks as he held his weapon to his side. There was grunting heard down below, still not visible, the scratching of rocks tumbling down dirt. Steadily, their iotas grew down the path, coming up like a stream of smoke, dark and black, their clothes trail worn and their skin tanned like leather. He could see now they were both Indians. The taller man looked rather white, but he could see if the flush of skin and the shape of his jaw he wasn’t.

-Hold it right there gentlemen. This is a private camp. What do you want?

-We were hoping you’d be open to trade, said the Colville man.

-It depends. There’s some spare blankets. Not much else, said the Mormon, sneering at the smaller Indian.

-Then how about some directions? Said the Colville man.

-How about some names, said the Mormon. He spat off to the side.

-I’m Skinner, said the Colville man adjusting his hat, and he’s…. Well I call him Smokey.

-Alright. Then where were you looking to go?

-Tryna get to Spokane.

-Washington?

-That’s right, sir.

-Sir? Why you calling me sir?

-Just being polite.

-Well it’s not what I am. Not no general am I?

-No I don’t believe you are.

-That’s right. Well if you’re tryna get to Spokane you were on the right trail. Done a fools thing walking off it. Just keep on the way you came and try not to stop at any of the forks you come across.

Skinner adjusted his hat again and resettled his coat and pack.

-Think we’ll be going now.

-That’d be best.

-Didn’t catch your name, Mr.

-Ain’t got one.

-You must have a name?

-No I don’t. I don’t need a name.

-Must be a hard life.

-I find it’s rather easy. Now get before you cause trouble.

-Oh, just one more thing, said Skinner, you haven’t seen a young girl traveling these roads lately have you?

-A young girl? The Mormon questioned. Ain’t seen none women here lately, he said, and it was subtle, his hand lowered, his muscles tensed, and his thumb pulled back a hammer.

Skinner nodded, stepping back. He saw numbers in the man’s eyes. The wind pushed the leaves and needles, the shrubs blew and nature’s silence grew. The Mormon watched the smaller Indian who stood hunched, unmoving. The Mormon felt his muscles tense like the strings of a piano, waiting for peace to be upon him, and he felt the cold metal bless his grip, and he drew too late. Smokey drew his rifle in a flash, aiming it atop his forearm and shot. Birds scattered and the echoes of the gunshot faded in soft waves with the wind. All stood frozen. The Mormon felt himself for injury but he was clean. Then came the clatter of metal on rock and the firm thump of meat upon the earth and all looked up the trail on the rocks to see another man dead at the hill’s peak, now atop the earth he’d be buried in. The moment stood still in each man’s mind, the slowed and steadied time of seconds turned into minutes that slipped into hours in each man’s head. The steady waiting, timing for the exact moment for all hell to break loose. Not too soon or you’d be pounced on by cougars. Too late and you’d have a sunset between your eyes. And then it happened, they drew like knives, and a flurry of gunshots, God’s peace disturbed by man’s reordering of dust and metal, a thousand explosions in the air over Oregon, and before they knew it they were all hidden behind their rocks. The scream of bouncing brass burned in each man’s mind, the chaos turned thought into mere matter, a primal reaction that reduced man’s hierarchy to pure animal cunning. And then nothing but the smell of smoke and gun powder, their weapons hot in their hands, their chests hitching up and down, their lungs burning from the sharp stab of the air. Thick and bitter was the desire to be the first to shoot next. Each bullet loaded quickly but wearily. And then all stood still.

Skinner peered to his right. Smokey was stuck in the hip, splayed out on the dirt of the trail. His breath was shaky but he still aimed his rifle. His sight honed up the hill at a 45° angle.

The mormon croaked, his muscles on fire. He wasn’t sure if he’d been hit. Everything was alight but he was out of ammo. His dead companion’s revolver was in the middle of the trail. He locked eyes with his other companion who had come out just in time to be stuck in the leg and was now leaking blood from behind a tree across the trail. They nodded at each other and he pointed down at the revolver in the middle of the trail before pointing out at the small Indian. His companion nodded again but his eyes were shaking in his skull. With his gut aching, the Mormon counted to three on his fingers, drew a deep breath, and came running out from cover. The explosions began again, he was blind to it all but the gun on the ground. His hand grasped around it before he was hit with a weight that knocked him down on his back. Flying over him was his companion, and then like a firework, blood and viscera exploded and a headless body hit the ground. Tattered playing cards wafted down to the Earth and the Mormon cowered up into a ball. He knew it was his time to repent.

Smokey let out a heavy sigh and rolled onto his back, he laid in a puddle of his own blood. His vision blurred, his eyes tainted with mud. Skinner ran out from cover, his sights honed on the remaining Mormon, he kicked his weapon away and hogtied the man as his cries filled Mother Nature like a shot of rotgut whiskey. Returning to his companion he lifted him up, propping his back against a rock. Smokey faded in and out, the pain had become abstract and he said little. When Skinner lifted Smokey’s shirt, he saw the bullet was lodged in the surface of the wound. It flowed with blood like a river but he saw it would be little but a flesh wound. Still, he tore some garment off his own shirt and attempted to bandage it as best he could. When he was done with Smokey, he carried on up the trail and towards the Mormon’s camp, the eerie crunch of needles beneath foot soundtracking the tension he felt as he approached the overlook that the Mormon looked down on them from. He stared for a while, seeing out on the way they came, seeing the dense meshes of trees and shrubs, and the roads carved out through it like winding snakes. The wind blew and a foul stench was carried beneath his nose. The feeling of unrest was birthed alive in him, growing fast into a tortured agony. The cry began to swirl, coming from his stomach and crawling up through his throat. The sound seeped into the wind and the branches, and he ran for the tent, knowing what he was to find. The buzz of flies. They bore out like a swarm of locusts. The air was dense and sticky and was filled with a sickly sweet odor, the taste on his tongue reminded him of stale beer, sweat, and the smell of rotten eggs. It was too foul to open his mouth and yell, he could not scream and so tears filled his eyes instead. He held his fist beneath his nose, raised his pistol, and walked away. One last shot rang on the Mormon’s trail, and it was no longer the Mormon’s trail.