I haven’t slept in three days. Every time I close my eyes, I hear the sound of the wind moving through the dry weeds. It sounds like a knife sliding out of a leather sheath. I look at my hands and they won’t stop shaking. It isn’t just the age or the whiskey I quit five years ago. It is the weight of what is coming for us.
Hattie is sleeping by the fire. She looks so much like her mother it makes my chest feel like it’s being squeezed by a cold hand. She has that same stubborn line in her jaw. She hates me. I know she does. She has every right to. I was a bad father and a worse outlaw before I put on that tin star. Then I was a disgraced lawman. Now, I am just an old man trying to fix one thing before the dirt claims me.
“Go to sleep, Pa,” she said earlier. She didn’t say it with love. She said it like she was tired of looking at my face.
We are three days out from the homestead. In my coat pocket, I have the deed. It’s just a piece of paper, but it’s the only thing that says the well on our land belongs to us. Saul wants it. Saul is the kind of man who would burn a church just to see the colors in the flames. He has been following us since we left the city. I can’t see him, but I can feel him. He’s like a wolf that knows the deer is already limping.
The fire popped and Hattie jumped in her sleep. She whimpered a little. It was a small, broken sound. It reminded me of when she was five and fell off the porch. I didn’t pick her up then. I was too busy cleaning my pistol. I reached out to touch her shoulder now, but I pulled my hand back. I didn’t want her to wake up and see how scared I am.
The air got cold. It was that sudden, biting cold that happens right before the moon hits its peak. I stood up and walked to the edge of the camp. My knees cracked. The sound seemed to echo for miles across the flat plains. Everything out here is flat. There is nowhere to hide. If you see a shadow, it’s because something is standing there, watching you.
I heard it then. A low whistle. It wasn’t a bird. It was a man’s whistle, short and sharp. It came from the darkness beyond the tall grass.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I reached for my belt. My holster was empty. I’d given my gun to Hattie. I didn’t trust myself not to drop it if my hands started vibrating again. I felt naked. I felt like a lamb in a slaughterhouse.
“Saul?” I whispered. My voice was a dry rasp.
No answer. Just the wind.
I turned back to the fire. Hattie was sitting up now. Her eyes were wide. She held the heavy Colt in both hands. She was pointing it at the dark, but her arms were trembling. She is only nineteen. She shouldn’t have to hold a gun like that.
“Did you hear it?” she asked. Her voice was small.
“It was just a coyote, honey,” I lied. I hated the way the lie tasted.
“You’re a bad liar, Artie,” she said. She used my name instead of ‘Pa.’ It felt like a punch to the throat. “He’s out there. He’s going to kill us for a piece of paper.”
“He has to get through me first,” I said.
She looked at me then. Truly looked at me. The firelight showed the deep lines in her face that shouldn’t be there yet. “You’re an old man. You can barely hold a fork.”
The truth of it settled in my stomach like a bucket of lead. She was right. I spent my whole life being the predator, and now I was the prey. I looked at the deed in my pocket. I thought about the water. The well is deep and clear. If we lose it, the cattle die. The house goes to dust. Hattie ends up in the street or worse.
“I have a plan,” I said. I tried to make my voice sound like the man I used to be. The man who wasn’t afraid of the dark. “When the sun starts to peek, you take the bay horse. You ride hard for the creek. Don’t look back. Don’t stop for anything.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay here. I’ll talk to him.”
Hattie stood up. She walked over to me and put her hand on my arm. Her skin was warm. It was the first time she had touched me in three years. For a second, I felt like I could fly. I felt like the world was okay.
“He won’t talk, Pa,” she whispered. Tears started to track through the dust on her cheeks. “He’ll just do it. He’ll do what you used to do.”
The “Unseen Predator” felt closer now. I could smell the tobacco Saul smokes. It’s a sweet, sickly smell like rotting cherries. He was right there, just past the light of the dying embers. He was enjoying this. He wanted us to feel the clock ticking.
I sat back down on a log. My body felt so heavy. I looked at the redundant second chair we’d brought, the one her mother used to sit in. It was empty and covered in trail dust. It felt like a tombstone.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t say it for the deed or the land. I said it for the years I wasted being a ghost while I was still alive.
“I know,” she said. She sat down next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder.
We sat there in the silence. We didn’t talk about the future because we both knew it was a short one. I watched the grass move. Every ripple in the weeds was a heartbeat. Every shadow was a man with a gun.
I looked up at the stars. They looked like cold, white eyes. They didn’t care about water rights or old men or daughters who were finally being kind.
A twig snapped. It was close. Maybe ten feet away.
Hattie gripped my hand. Her fingers were ice. I squeezed back as hard as I could. I wanted to tell her I loved her, but the words got stuck in my throat. I didn’t want the last thing she heard to be my voice breaking.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the deed. I crumpled it up in my shaking fist. If Saul wanted it, he would have to take it from my cold, dead fingers.
The whistling started again. It was louder this time. It was a happy tune. That was the scariest part. Saul was happy because he knew we were trapped. He knew I was weak.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the smell of rain on the porch back home. I tried to focus on the warmth of Hattie’s head against my shoulder. I didn’t want to be scared when it happened. I wanted to be a father.
“Stay still, Hattie,” I breathed.
The grass parted. I didn’t look. I just held her hand and waited for the sound of the hammer clicking back. I waited for the dark to finally come inside the circle of the fire.
The wind blew hard then, tossing a cloud of ash into the air. It stung my eyes and made me blink. When I opened them, the fire was almost out. The world was grey and cold. And the whistling had stopped.
That was when I knew. He wasn’t waiting anymore. He was standing right behind us.
I didn’t turn around. I just held onto my daughter and prayed that the end would be quick. I hoped she wouldn’t see the look on my face when the light went out. I hoped she would remember me as something better than a coward in the tall grass.