The Crossings by Jack Ketchum

and I went back to my barrel again and finally the man behind it was aware of the angle and direction of my fire and ignored Hart for a moment and turned to aim at me and when he did I put a bullet into his chest.
    Hart had turned to fire at Ryan and now I saw why. The third man in the corral lay as dead as the other two and that left only Ryan. There was a puzzled look on Hart's face that told me it wasn't Hart who had shot the man.
    I did as he did, slamming bullets into the old oak door until it barely even looked like a door anymore, just a tall dark rectangle of ruined hacked wood but my rifle was about as ineffective penetrating the thing at this range as Hart's Peacemaker and Ryan wouldn't show his face and finally I had to reload again.
    And realized that so did Hart.

    I don't know why I did what I did then.
    As I've said, I'm not a brave man.
    And I am not generally given to foolish endeavors.
    But suddenly I could no longer stand to see Hart out there on his knees while I remained in cover. I stepped out of the scrub and concentrated on reloading and not the pain shooting through my leg or even Ryan for that matter aware only that for the moment at least the firing had ceased on both sides as I stumbled limping toward him and managed to get one bullet and then two into the rifle and I was no more than ten feet away when the firing started once again and I felt something slap my head like I'd run into the limb of a tree and it whirled me away to the ground and then I was tasting mud in my mouth and blood and then the next thing I saw was Hart take still another shot to the chest throwing him down, the two of us lying practically side to side.
    I looked up and saw Ryan come off the porch smiling, wearing the look of a man happier to kill than eat, saw him glance first dismissively at me and then walk up to Hart with his pistol raised and I heard Hart say you worthless piece of horseshit, you're dead, you know that? and you could see it suddenly dawn on the man that against all odds or reason it was true just as Elena who had come out from behind the outbuilding and was now only three or four steps behind him blew out the back of his head, shattering his face and pitching him into the mud.
    I attempted to move.
    "Stay still," she said. "You're head-shot, Bell." She went to Hart and knelt beside him.
    "You might have let me help right from the beginning," she said.
    "You did help."
    "You know what I mean."
    "It's all right. There's nothing I'd have wished to do differently."
    "You're a fool, Hart."
    "Not a kind thing to say to a dying man, Elena."
    "I'm sorry."
    "Don't be."
    "I was only just beginning to like you, Hart."
    "I don't know why you would," he said. "But thank you, ma'am."

FIFTEEN

    We crossed this time at Gable's Ferry. That meant we had to travel north a ways but we didn't want to risk the river with our burden. Old Man Gable had hired help by then and the boy who ran the ferry wasn't happy to see us wounded as we were and bearing two shot corpses. A few of the girls from the compound were with us. He seemed to like their company much better.
    I wasn't hardly fit for digging, nor was Celine, so it was Elena who buried them out behind our corral. A shady spot on a little hill where the wind would whistle by on an autumn afternoon and we marked their graves with two crosses cut from wood off the corral itself since it was Mother who had built it. Again it was Elena who pushed and then hammered them deep into the fresh-turned earth.
    "Want to say something, Marion Bell?"
    I thought for a moment. "I don't know what to say. They were my friends. The best I ever knew. Best a man could want, I think. So I guess that's what I'll say. They were my friends."
    She looked at Celine.
    "Brave men. Kind men and generous. I won't forget them."
    Then Elena did a surprising thing. She produced a small tattered Bible from the folds of the skirt she'd made for the occasion. I recognized it to be Mother's.
    I had never seen