Pike

The young man jammed the spurs on his boots into the side of the horse, **** to make it move faster.

Four hours earlier, Harry Braun and his three comrades had packed up camp and resumed their journey to the Devil’s Tit. It had started of as another boring day consisting of nothing more than sitting on their horses until their asses ached and their bellies moaned with hunger.

But five minutes ago; the man riding next to Harry, a large Irishman named Tom Flannigan, had been shot in the head, his skull exploding as it was pierced by a rifle-calibre bullet.

Before any of the three others had been able to react, another of Harry’s compatriots, Mike Roscoe, was shot in the chest and thrown of his horse.
Finally being able to react, Harry and his remaining comrade, Hank Kruger, had stirred their horses into action, racing out of the small canyon.
However, they didn’t manage to cover more than fifty yards before another headshot threw Kruger to the ground, some of his brains splattered onto Harry’s deerskin-jacket.

But Harry had gotten out of the canyon, and was now racing across the open ground beyond it like a madman, his mind focused on getting away into the hills that lay in front of him.

Harry Braun was no hero, he was more than eager to ****, bully and kill for his employer, Henry Aims, but he was by now means willing to die for him, or for anyone else.

The crack of another shot was heard, and then Braun’s horse collapsed forwards, throwing Braun through the air to land on his stomach.

Swearing that at least one of his arms had surely been broken when he hit the ground, Harry **** himself onto his feet and staggered on towards the safety of the hills.

A few seconds passed, and then another crack was heard. Harry felt how something hit him in the gut, and how his legs failed him. Haplessly, he fell to the ground.

Yelping and screaming, Harry managed to roll over on his back and draw his Colt Navy.
Too scared and too delirious to take into account the fact that the hills that the shots had been coming from were over a hundred yards away, Harry began shooting towards them.
When his gun clicked after six shots, Harry threw it away and dropped his head back down, pressing his hands against the exit-hole and started to cry.

After what had seemed like an eternity, he could hear the sound of hoofs. Whoever was riding the horse halted it roughly ten feet from Harry, who by now felt too weak to even lift his head and see who the rider was.

Now he could hear footsteps, and suddenly the vision of a tall, blonde man appeared above him.
The leanly built man was dressed in a pale brown duster over a shirt and a pair of denims, a Stetson on his head while his long hair cornered his bearded, weather-bitten face. In his right hand, the man held a heavy Colt revolver.

William Pike looked down at the sobbing gunman below him, noted that the young regulator had already wet himself, and felt the weight of his Colt Army in his right hand.
Pike and that gun went way back; at Shiloh he had battered another proud knight of Dixie to **** with it.

Pike was born and raised on a farm in Illinois, where his god-fearing parents had taught him to always be a good man, never lie or cheat, and to always do what was right.
Four years of service in a civil war had done a lot to compromise that upbringing, but below his rough surface, Pike still believed in it.
To his parents it had all been simple: If God could be both the father and the son, then God could shape both Black and White in his image.
Fighting his way through the plantations and cotton fields of the South, Pike had realized that not all whites shared that view.
After the war was over, Pike was discharged and returned home to his family in Illinois.

Upon his arrival, he found out that his family’s farm had been taken over by a lying son of a bitch of a banker, Henry Aims. His younger sister had disappeared, his mother had died of grief, and his father had been reduced to a bitter, drunken wreck of a man.
Vowing to avenge his family and find his sister, Pike saddled up and left the state of Illinois.

The search for Aims had been long and hard, and Pike had been **** to take several jobs to be able to finance his search. At one time, he had even worn a sheriff’s badge.

Two weeks ago, Pike finally picked up a good lead: four men had been unusually rough and lewd while drinking their way through Durango’s Red Light District. One of them had bragged to a prostitute that “old Aims will get us more money than you’ve ever seen once we return to him”.
Now, he looked down upon the last of those four men.

“W….who are y…ou?” Harry Braun managed to stutter out.
“I’m the man who is going to kill you.” Pike answered softly.
“What!? You can’t do that!” Braun protested, blood leaking out of his stomach.
“Four days ago, you four boys rode into Boswell Springs. You spent the night there and left the next morning. Soon thereafter, a young girl was found; having first been **** and then murdered. I showed up just after the townsfolk found the body.”
“T….that wasn’t us! You have no proof!” Harry protested, knowing far too well that the girl had been the result of Kruger’s desire for a good time.
“Courts need proof. I’m just a man; circumstances are good enough for me to judge on.” Pike cocked the gun and aimed it straight at Harry’s face.

“Now boy,” he went on, “you are going to die. From how much blood you’re losing, I guess that I shot straight through your liver. That’ll kill you, but it’s going to take at least a couple of hours. And whatever you’ve heard before; vultures actually don’t wait until you’re dead, they’ll settle for eating you alive once you’re too weak to resist.”
“B…but p…ple…ease!” Braun tried to plead for mercy.
“Nope, I ain’t aiming to save your worthless life, boy. But if you tell me where I can find Aims; I’ll put a bullet in your brains. And that's all the mercy you'll get.”
Pike’s voice was still soft and calm, but his eyes were hard as stone as he looked straight at Harry.

“Devil’s tit…” Harry finally said, realizing that a bullet was less painful than being picked apart by vultures.
“Much obliged.” Pike pulled the trigger.

Two days later, just before sundown, Pike looked down upon the Devil’s Tit from a hill.
The place wasn’t exactly Denver, but Pike had seen worse.
As he rode into town, Pike pondered upon his options:

Aims didn’t know about him, so Pike could afford to wait and prepare, find a weak spot and use it.
He could start of at the sheriff’s office, find out a few things about and maybe even get hired as a deputy.

Then again, Pike had tasted neither whiskey nor pussy for more than two weeks.
**** was what he was after, but four years of constantly getting shot at had made sure that Pike always made sure to satisfy his urges as soon as the opportunity presented itself.