RACON GUNNER MAN OF AGES IN THE LAST AMERICAN

The shot missed. It was too low. The elk bolted through the brush down the mountain. Racon sighed to himself, knowing that it would take all day to haul the carcass back up the slope. He was planning to get back to Durango by sundown, now it would be sun up if he was lucky.

Slinging his rifle, he surveyed the path down. The slope, lightly covered in snow, great for tracking but terrible for climbing. He reached into his bag and pulled out his canteen from between the two ragged-edged books.

Taking a long drink, he shoved his canteen back in, tightened the straps, and adjusted his buckskin leather coat. “I guess I’ll have to do this the hard way.” He said as he pulled his hatchet from the sheath on his belt and used it to help slow his descent down the hillside. It would dull up the blade something serious, but it was better than breaking his neck.

Reaching the bottom of the ridge, he spotted the blood trail and followed it with his eye towards the frozen creek. Just behind a small fur tree, he could hear the buck’s labored breathing. “Must have nicked the lung.” Racon thought to himself and walked up to the beast, admired it for a moment, then seeing it had just died he processed it for the long climb home.

He almost didn’t hear the truck’s engine as he focused on his bloody work. But he looked up just as the engine turned off, making a horrible rattling noise. Slowly he stood, sheathing his blade and reaching for his rifle.

The three men sat side by side in the small pickup truck. The driver’s mouth moved and then after a moment, they all raised their right hand. The driver looked at all their hands as if to count them, then they got out of the truck, three rifles pointed back at Racon as steam lifted from his head and the body of the gutted Elk.

“No need for the rifles strangers.” Racon said in a flat tone.

The three strangers split, two moved to his right, and the third moved left towards the cover of a fallen tree.

“You are the stranger here. And according to the laws, you need to come with us. Weapon down.” The driver said and pumped his shotgun and raised the buttstock to his shoulder.

Racon took a moment to look over his situation. The man on his left had found his kill shot while the other two advanced. Maybe he could get one. Maybe not. He slowly placed his rifle on the bloody snow at his feet. “Alright. I got no fight with you.”

The two advanced on Racon while the third covered them. They grabbed his rifle bag and relieved him of his hatchet and blade. The driver looked into the bag, pulling out the two books.

“What are these papers?” He said as if he had never seen a Bible before.

Racon kept silent as they escorted him at gunpoint to the bed of the little truck. In the back, they had a chain running down the middle with handcuffs attached to it, ten in all. They cuffed Racon to the middle one and sat awkwardly on the low wheel well. The three men got back into the truck and the rattling engine started hard. With a big jerk, they backed through the woods and started down a rough trail towards the East.

It was sunup when the little truck turned down a paved road, now overblown with snow. Racon sat with his back to the cab while he fought to keep his left hand from freezing. The truck stopped and Racon heard the muffled voice of the driver, then two of the three raised their hands and the truck moved on.

The truck stopped again after the sun had been up for about an hour. This time all three men raised their hands. They exited the cab and stepped to the side of the road to relieve themselves. Racon stood as best he could and did the same over the side of the truck bed.

He looked back west and saw he was far from his home in the valley of Durango. To the East he only saw rolling empty fields. “Where we headed?” Racon said as the three men got back in the truck. The engine started with that terrible sound and they moved on.

Sometime around noon, Racon woke from his cold nap. The truck had stopped and parked in the middle of a small town. There was a hardware store, a bar and some kind of jailhouse. The rest of the buildings seemed to be more residential or boarded up. Five men walked out from the bar and the three men got out of the truck. They removed Racon from his cuff and stood him behind the truck while they spoke just out of earshot.

Six of the eight men raised their hands, and they led Racon into the jail, where he was put in a cell and given a strip of jerky from his own bag and his canteen. He slowly chewed on a big bite, savoring the juices while he strained to listen to what was being said outside.

“Strangers are against our laws, they upset the balance. Too many opportunities to tie or break a vote. I say we dispose of him.” a gravelly voiced man said.

The next voice was one Racon recognized as the Driver. “But we ain’t seen a stranger in almost fifty years, shouldn’t we find out where he’s from, how many more there are of him?” The group of men grumbled, then the gravely voiced one said, “Vote on it.”