Thirteen

There he stood, the nameless man with his shotgun looking out toward the desolation of roaming desert sands and the enemies biding their time until he’d appear. He would show up when they weren’t looking, waiting for them to blink then strike. He brought trouble to every town; the southern towns knew him by his scarred tattoo. More like a brand on the back of his neck; Thirteen. It was given to him when he was a child, out of shame and punishment. He prayed to be strong one day and grow into something terrifying. They said he was the man to kill.

He was noted as being born in the soul of misery, the thirteenth child of an infamous gunslinger. A whore birthed him somewhere in El Paso, TX. He never had much growing up and never knew his father. He had seen him once when he was around ten years old. His father had been riding through town on a black horse; his mother was walking with him down through the dusty streets when he rode by. Thirteen knew this man was a murderer. He’d seen wanted posters and heard from some of her mother’s man friends that she’d been with him and he’d just about killed her. This didn’t shock the boy, he knew his mother wasn’t the ripest peach and had a temper as hot as an August sun. She’d been slapped around a time or two and had heard her shouting at some of her clients. He’d grown used to it.

By the time he was sixteen he had stolen a Smith and Wesson six shooter and a gray horse and made his way out of town. He felt accomplished in doing so, he felt like his father riding off with nothing to lose. For the first time in his life he was more then a boy with no name, at least in the desert he didn’t need a name. He rode for several days before running into another small town. He rode in looking mature for his age but still carrying a boyish guile about him, this would later in life make his nefarious image dangerous and attractive to many women. He tied up his horse in front of a saloon and dismounted, tightening his belt and opening his holster. He was hell bound to start a fight and didn’t care who he had to kill to gain some notoriety, just like his old man. He walked right in, sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender saw the determination in his eyes, he knew he’d come to raise hell. The look was classic; fidgety, wide-eyed, jittery hands and a sizing gaze from person to person. The bartender had no use for the desperado types and was a strict enforcer of the law despite his gambling rooms upstairs. He leaned over the bar and grabbed the boy by the neck subtly, staring him straight in the eyes and with utter passion and hatred for the boy’s dream said, ” If you wanna die or are looking for a draw call out the man sitting upstairs in the room to the left of the staircase. His wearing a brown buffalo duster and is always willing to put a whipping boy into a casket case. He’ll get your name known but know this, by god, if you start some shit in this bar and break a stick of wood I’ll personally reach into your chest and rip out your still beating heart like a goddamn injun savage”. He served the beer to the kid and walked off to tend another patron. He sat there shaken and drank down the beer. He stood and walked down the bar, he tipped his black hat at the bar tender and said, “I’ll collect from you before the next man walks through those swingin’ doors”. The bartender’s jaw dropped as Thirteen marched up the steps. He followed his directions and peered in through the crack of the door. There were four men sitting around the table playing poker. He pulled out his revolver and spun the barrel till it clicked, he kicked open the door and with some inherited perfection shot the man in the forehead just as he made eye contact with Thirteen. He aimed quick and shot the man closest to him in the heart and withdrew to the side of the doorway. Reloaded the two shots, peaked around the corner and shot another man hiding behind a bed and withdrew again. He knew there was one left. He could hear the man’s foot steps behind the door. He shot the door twice from where he was standing opposite it and heard the man groan in pain and fall to the floor. He walked in the room, gathered all the money on the table and checked the men for pistols. There was a shotgun and a pair of silver revolvers strapped to the man in the duster. He took the jacket and the guns and left the room. He gripped the shotgun and threw it over his other arm which held his six-shooter. He walked down the stairs ready for anything to attack him. Instead the room was still and awestruck. He moved powerfully through the crowd watching him, the bartender stood staring at him with disbelief.

“I did it you sonuvabitch and I swore that you’d be dead by the time the next man walked through these here doors”, Thirteen yelled to him. Just then the high Sherriff walked through the swinging doors and with dead precision shot the officer with shotgun and the bartender dead at the same moment. “Damn…” he said, “I’m good”. He left the saloon and saddled up his horse. He rode out of the town as a man infatuated with his aggressive display of valor. He rode on through dusk and into night, his adrenaline burned as he giddied the horse to go faster and faster. He knew another town, Las Cruces, wasn’t far away; there he could rest before news caught up with him and he too became a wanted man. He made it there by noon the next day, his horse was drained and he was in much of the same form.

He went into an inn and paid for a room, that night he slept long and hard. He dreamt of the Wanted poster that in a few days would show his likeness and how he’d be pursued for the rest of his life. He couldn’t wait. He also knew sleeping in a place like this wouldn’t happen again for a good, long time.

When he woke up in the morning, he collected his items and went down to the general store and bought enough food to tide him over for several weeks and a new black dyed blanket. He then went over to the tailor and paid thirty dollars to have a suit tailored specifically to his likings. It was all black leather and came with a pair of brand new rattlesnake-skin boots. The tailor said it would take him a week so Thirteen paid him twenty more dollars to have it finished by the following day. The man said it would be finished.

He went back the next day and got dressed in his new outfit. He took the belt from his old pants and strangled the tailor before he left. Taking the man’s savings which he left sitting in the back room. As he walked down the dusty road several couriers rode into town with posters being nailed to every post in town. He saw this and began running for his horse. He mounted his horse and rode off out of town. He could hear people chattering that the poster was of him as he sped through the road and out into open desert.

He was filled with pride.

The sun was around three o’clock and he wanted to find somewhere to spend the night.

Several hours later he reached the Caballo Mountains and tied the horse to a tree and rested beneath it with his blanket and slept till the sun came back up.

For the next two weeks he rode from sunset to sundown nonstop. He ached and was hungry; he rationed his food out appropriately and passed several towns for fear of being seen. The thrill of murder had evaded him, he forgot what made him want to do it to begin with and by the time he reached Silver City he had forgotten it even happened. The city was bigger then any he’d been in before. The buildings were bigger and much nicer but it still carried a depressing tone that he had found in the other places he’d been. He looked around for posters, he didn’t find any. He checked into a hotel and went straight to bed. He slept well into the next day and woke up sore. He heard footsteps outside his door. At least three men were gathered in the hall, they were armed deputies.

He heard their clumsiness before they got to the door and was dressed by the time they called for him to open the door. He offered for them to kick it down and propped the bed sideways so he had something to hide behind. Just as the head deputy put his foot to the door panel Thirteen pulled the shotgun’s trigger and blasted a hole through the wood and into his stomach. “You’re all a bunch of dead souls”, Thirteen hollered at them as he arched around the mattress and shot a deputy in the arm. The man dropped his gun and bent over to pick it up but he shot him in the top of the head. He fell backwards. “Just come out and I wont kill your two timing carcass”, the remaining deputy called. “Your bluffing, he yelled back, “what’s the reward fifty dollars”?

“Two hundred”, he replied.

“Well, I’ll be damned”.

He arched around again and with the shotgun blasted through the wall where the man was standing and heard him fall to the floor. He ran around and collected their badges and ammunition. He loaded up and ran out of the hotel. He passed the clerk and shot him in the shoulder as he exited the building. He ran towards the barn and noticed two men running after him from down the street a ways away. He got against the wall and pulled out his silver pistols and took four shots to take them out, they were shot in the same spot - their head and hearts.

He released his horse and rode out of town. He has a long life of heartache and carries it well. The bad luck wind blew across his back as he rode over mountains and hills. He left that slaughter and vowed a change. Something unforgivable dwelled inside him, an internal war that he’d never win. The nameless number rode over vistas and swallowed thousands of grains of sweat and dirt. He became mud.

Years passed by as he skirted death and being caught. He felt absolutely guilty; he knew redemption would be turning himself in and being executed. He could feel the noose tightening around his neck, every day with those rough fibers lacerating his skin. It was so real. He’d done this to himself.

One day as he was riding, he passed by a small tribe of Indians. It was night time and they were eating, he was so hungry. He’d been eating bugs and birds raw. He’d tear a wing off and chew out its underbelly. Nourishment was scarce and it kept him alive. He drew his pistols and went down the hillside on his horse and shot all ten of them. He dismounted, ate, slept and left three days later. He took one of their horses along with and eventually switched. He shot the old one in Casa Grande and buried his baby. For once he’d been grateful for the help, for the service that horse provided. He stood over the horse and felt the grave pulling him in. It rained that night.

He dreamt some nights of his mother, some days wondering if she were dead. Running her mouth off to some lay. He missed her. He’d never see her again. They wouldn’t even recognize each other. They had grown into disgusting figures of moral rust. He was twenty going on sixty-three and she was probably drunk. He still missed her.

At some point he looked down a valley and wished he could stay there forever, it looked like the answer he’d been looking for. After all the killing he wanted pastures and comfort. No rest for the wicked, he knew this. He thought maybe the ocean would be the end. He was headed west and knew it couldn’t be much further; he’d take his own life in the midst of the waves. Fall into the water and float away; an easy way to go.

He knew he’d never surrender but sometimes wondered if that would make him a better person. He’d shake the notion off and say “Who gives a damn” under his breath.

When he had exhausted his second horse and couldn’t walk another step and collapsed, he fell in the outskirts of San Diego. He died close to the ocean, something he had never seen. He died like his father, out run and killed by his own doing. If Thirteen had ever taken the time to learn how to read, he would’ve seen the poster had mentioned his murderous score. Aside from law enforcement, a tailor and cattle rustlers was also his father. The man in the duster, too slow to draw and too shocked to see his young reflection was his father – the ruthless gunslinger. His father deserved what he got but at the hands of his son. The bartender must have figured this to be the case and was appalled when Thirteen strode down the steps after the murder of his father. They looked so much alike that it would’ve shocked anyone.

He killed his idol; a man he’d become a murderer for. Without this inspiration he’d have been just another person in El Paso. Now he was dead in California, face down in the dirt thirty miles away from the San Diego Mission.

Eventually people found his body, took his weapons and tattered clothes, and stole his money. Also taken was his iconic black hat. The spirit of the un-captured gunslinger Thirteen lives on through old west lore. His bravado may have inspired another youngster, be it Billy the Kid or John Wayne.