The Sheriff and the Bounty Hunter

Mike Barret hates the dusk. The last of the sun pisses a mean line across the dirt and rocks, bleeding out, hissing into the foothills. The cold comes on fast, nipping at his knuckles, the inside of his thighs where sweat is already half-frozen from the ride. He presses his knees into the horse’s flanks, feels the twitch of the animal’s raw nerves through the saddle. The fucker’s scared, and he knows why.

There’s a name the Apache use for the Black Hills, but Mike never cared to remember it. He calls it Bastard Country. A good hundred square miles of broken rock, scorched scrub, every goddamned gully hiding something worse than the last. When Mike was a kid he’d come out here with his father to shoot prairie dogs for sport, and even then the land felt hungry, like it wanted blood and shit and bone. The sun dies quick in Bastard Country. And every shadow looks like a man waiting to gut you.

Mike is hunting. There’s a man in these hills who’s done worse than gutting. Name of Kerr. Douglas Kerr, but the posters call him “Dog” Kerr, like a joke, because he’s left more than one hound nailed up in a barn after killing its owner. The posters are a sick fucking joke, too; the best one is in the saloon window back in Dry Creek, and it shows Kerr grinning like he just pulled your tongue out through your asshole. Mike likes the way Kerr looks in the drawing. He thinks it’s probably true. All the best ones grin.

There were four sheriffs before Mike. All dead. One got his nuts blown off with buckshot, bled out holding his ruined balls. One got hanged from a telegraph pole, his boots found in the next town. The last two weren’t even found. Mike figures Kerr ate them or sold the bones to some asshole in New Mexico. There’s stories.

The wind picks up, rattling the dry grass and drawing a whining sound through the horse’s mane. The animal slows, sidesteps, and Mike yanks the reins in disgust.

“Stupid son of a bitch,” he growls, then spits brown juice onto the sand. The wind takes it away. His hands hurt, bad, the old breaks throbbing in the chill, but he holds the reins like he’s trying to crush them. He tells himself he’ll buy gloves if he makes it back to town, but he knows he won’t.

Mike is almost fifty, but looks older: too many fights, too many miles in the sun. He’s got a chest like a barrel and a gut that comes from whiskey and cured meats, not laziness. His cock is thick, fat-rooted, the kind that makes men look away at the bathhouse. Mike likes that about himself. He likes being the biggest and the meanest, and he likes that most men can’t meet his eye when he’s angry. He’s been sheriff for six years. The only thing that scares him is dying easy.

He kicks the horse again, this time with a little love, and they move up the draw. There’s shit on the wind—blood, maybe, or something rotting. Could be a deer, could be a man. Mike’s dick stirs at the thought. He’s not ashamed of it. Back in Yuma, before he took the badge, he used to work the gallows on payday. The way a man twitches when the drop fails. The way he pisses himself, shits himself. The open mouth, the tongue bulging. He’d get hard every time. Once, the hangman caught him with a fist down his own trousers, watching a banker’s neck go. The hangman laughed, then blew him behind the stock pens after.

Mike likes death, likes the way it smells and sounds and feels. He likes being the last thing a man sees. But more than anything, he likes a good killing, one that makes the body dance. That’s why he wants Kerr: alive or dead, but if alive, then strung up slow, let the whole town watch. He plans to stand at the front, crotch stiff, and wait for the twitching to stop.

But there’s another thought, more recent. He wonders if he’s the fifth. If Kerr gets him, if he’ll take the time to do it right, not just a bullet or a gutting. Mike hopes so. There’s a sick, cold pleasure in thinking about it. Maybe the dog will fuck him before it’s over, like the stories say, or maybe just hang him up and let the vultures chew off his eyes. Mike’s cock is stiff now, full as a saddlebag.

He rides harder, letting the horse feel his mood. The sun’s gone, and the hills glow a weird red from behind. In the growing dark every bush is a gunman, every rock a corpse. Mike thinks about his own body, stretched out on the stones, guts cooling in the breeze, and wonders who would bother to bury him. Maybe Dan would come out and pick up the pieces, maybe not. The thought of Dan makes him smile—Bearhunter, that’s what they call him, even though he’s never killed a bear, just a hundred men. Dan is thicker than Mike, uglier, but has a laugh that would make Satan shit himself. Sometimes, late at night, when Mike can’t sleep, he jerks off thinking about Dan’s arms. The hands, the cock, the way Dan likes to spit in a man’s face before breaking his neck.

Mike keeps riding until he sees a spark, orange against the gray, not a mile away. Fire, maybe, or a lantern. The horse balks, and Mike lets it stop, reaching for his flask. The whiskey burns like a torch all the way down. He wipes his mouth and stares at the light.

Maybe it’s Kerr. Maybe it’s another bounty hunter, dead or wishing he was. Maybe it’s nothing. But the air is thick with promise, and Mike is hard as a fucking nail. He thinks about riding straight in, guns out, daring the bastard to try his luck. He thinks about what it would feel like to get killed, if it would be like hanging or something better. He thinks about pissing himself, shitting himself, coming in his own pants right before the bullet takes him.

He grins, baring his teeth. “Come on, you fuck,” he whispers, to no one at all. “Let’s see you dance.”

He tugs the horse into the last slope and heads for the fire.

He slides off the horse half a football field away and moves up the last bit on foot, boots silent in the powder sand, hand on his revolver. There’s a fire going, a big one, spitting sparks into the night like it’s angry. On the far side, a man sits hunched on a log, back to the flames, the outline of his head black against the orange. Mike sees a second shape too, darker, hanging off the limb of a mesquite. The wind brings the stink of smoke and burnt meat.

He closes the gap, pulling his gun slow, careful, then laughs at himself. No one’s sneaking up on Dan Bearhunter. The log creaks, and Dan turns his head. He’s got a piece of something roasted on a stick, the grease dripping off his chin and soaking his beard.

“You’re late,” Dan says, voice a gravel spill.

Mike holsters the gun and walks in, tossing his hat onto the ground. “You were expecting company?”

Dan laughs, a big ugly sound. “Always do. Sit down, Sheriff. Got whiskey, got meat. Got us a proper night’s work.”

Mike sits on the sand, stretching his legs. The fire feels good. He takes the whiskey when Dan hands it over, swigs deep, feels it burn the roof of his mouth. “That Kerr?” Mike asks, jerking his chin toward the tree.

Dan grins, exposing a mouthful of yellow teeth. “What’s left of him.”

Mike stands, walks over. It’s Douglas Kerr, all right. Even dead, his face is cocky, tongue sticking out, black and swelling from the ligature. He’s naked, swinging slow in the night breeze, balls drawn up, cock hard as a rock and glistening. There’s a streak of white on his thigh, crusted but fresh, and a line of piss on the sand below.

“Christ,” Mike says, grinning.

Dan comes up behind him. “Had to give him a little going-away present,” he says. “He begged for it. Fucker was a real talker, soon as the noose went on.”

Mike lets his eyes linger. The way the rope bites into the neck. The toes barely scraping the ground. The face, ruined but still alive with something. “How long did he last?”

Dan spits. “Long enough to make a mess. Fucker went hard as soon as he started to choke. You know how they do.”

Mike nods. He does. “You fuck him before or after?”

Dan’s eyes glint. “Both. Why not?”

Mike grins. He likes this about Dan. No shame, no fucking lies. If you’re going to do the work, do it right. He looks up at the dead man again, then reaches out and grabs the swinging cock, gives it a tug. “Not bad for a runt,” he says.

Dan cackles. “He begged for you, you know. Said he wanted to see the sheriff’s face.”

Mike lets go, walks back to the fire, sits. He looks at Dan, really looks at him: the thick arms, the hands like shovels, the gut that hangs over his belt, straining the buttons. Dan is what a man is supposed to look like. Strong, mean, dangerous as a snake.

“You did good, Bearhunter,” Mike says. “Town’s going to shit themselves.”

Dan tears off a hunk of meat, shoves it in his mouth. “Town’s full of shit anyway.”

They drink, watching the fire, not talking for a while. The wind hisses through the brush, makes the corpse swing and twist in the air.

“You gonna leave him up there all night?” Mike asks.

Dan shrugs. “Let the coyotes have a look. I’ll cut him down in the morning, stuff him in a sack for the undertaker. He won’t mind.”

Mike thinks about the body, about the way it looked with the tongue out and the eyes bulging. He remembers the first time he ever hanged a man. Thirteen years old, father and uncle drunk off their asses, handed him the lever and told him to make a man dance. He did it, and he came in his pants right there, silent, shaking, not knowing what it meant but loving it anyway. He’s never gotten tired of it.

Dan picks at his teeth with a knife. “You want a turn, Sheriff?” he asks, voice low.

Mike grins. “Nah. You earned it.”

Dan looks over at him, then at the swinging body. “Maybe you’d like to watch for a while, though.”

Mike doesn’t answer, just keeps staring at the corpse. The firelight makes it seem alive, the shadows crawling over the muscles, the curve of the hip, the blue of the lips. He feels his dick stirring again, thick and insistent. He wonders if Dan knows. He wonders if Dan cares.

“You ever wish it was you?” Dan asks, almost like a joke.

Mike snorts. “Fuck no. I’d do it better.”

Dan laughs, but there’s something strange in the way he looks at Mike, like he knows a secret. He jerks a thumb at the body. “Fucker pissed himself three times before I cut him down.”

Mike nods, eyes fixed on the puddle under the body. “That’s how you know it’s good.”

Dan drinks, then stands up, wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Got a story to tell, Sheriff?”

Mike shakes his head. “Just admiring the view.”

Dan snorts, goes to his bedroll, and sprawls on it, arms behind his head. For a minute Mike thinks he’s going to jerk off right there, and he wonders if he’d mind. He watches the body swing, imagines himself up there, swinging with it, maybe Dan fucking his corpse too. The thought makes him harder.

The whiskey helps. He drinks more, then lays back, staring up at the sky. The stars are bright and mean, sharp points of cold over the hills. The fire spits and pops. Kerr swings, toes digging at the empty air.

Mike lets the feeling take him. The ache, the hunger, the need to see it again and again. Dan is snoring now, a big ugly sound, and Mike lets his hand slip into his trousers, slow and lazy. He stares at the dead man and thinks about what comes next. He’s not sure what he wants. But he knows he’ll get it.

The body twists in the wind, and Mike grins in the dark.

Dan wakes first. He’s got a bladder like a dynamite keg, and when he stands he lets loose a stream onto the dead grass, not a care if Mike’s watching. He grunts, scratches his balls through the filthy wool trousers, and then stokes the fire with his boot.

“Could sleep here all week,” he says. “But tomorrow they’ll want the bandit’s head in Dry Creek.”

Mike sits up, back popping like gunfire, and grins at the idea. “Should leave the bastard swinging,” he says. “Let folks see.”

Dan shrugs. “They’ll see soon enough. You want eggs?”

Mike laughs, because Dan always brings eggs. He has a dented tin pan, hisses a glob of lard into it, then cracks two into the white. The smell is sharp, greasy, a kind of home. Mike finds himself hungry. They eat, passing the pan back and forth, both of them staring at the body twisting above.

When Dan stands to fetch another bottle, Mike can’t help it—he walks over to the tree, looks close at Kerr. The flesh is soft now, swollen at the eyes and lips. The dick is still half-hard, sticking up at a stupid angle, shining in the morning light with the leftovers of Dan’s “going-away present.” The toes have dug little pits in the dust. There are coyote tracks around, but none brave enough to bite yet.

He feels Dan’s breath on the back of his neck.

“Why you so interested in the meat, Sheriff?” Dan teases.

Mike grins, doesn’t look away. “Better than looking at you, fatass.”

Dan slaps him on the back, almost knocking the wind out. “You want a piece, go ahead. Ain’t no law against it out here.”

Mike snorts, but the offer sits heavy in his chest. He steps back, lights a cigar, and leans against the tree.

Dan opens the whiskey, takes a pull, passes it to Mike. “You staying or heading out?”

Mike takes the bottle, drinks deep. “No rush. Might as well see what’s left of the bastard in the daylight.”

Dan settles on his bedroll, legs spread wide, boots planted in the dirt. He pulls out a deck of cards, starts shuffling. “You ever wonder,” Mike says, slow, “if one of these fuckers might get you?”

Dan laughs, a real belly laugh, shakes his head. “Hell no. I got hands like boulders and a cock like a church bell. They can try, but I’ll kill ’em all. Just like this piece of shit.”

Mike nods, but he’s not convinced. He stares at the dead man, then at Dan. “What about you, Sheriff? You ever get that itch, thinking maybe the next one’s got your name on it?”

Mike feels it again, the bone-deep urge. He’s not sure if he wants to die, but he wants it close. He wants to see his end coming, teeth and nails and blood, not some fever or bullet from behind.

Dan stops shuffling. His eyes narrow. “You’re getting old, Mike.”

Mike grins. “So are you, old bastard.”

Dan stares at him, then at the fire. “You want to know what I think about? I think about living. I think about that first whiskey in the morning, and I think about the way a man screams when you break his fingers. I think about fucking, and fighting, and what’s for supper. Dying’s for the other guy.”

Mike laughs. “So you never even wondered?”

Dan takes another drink, then spits. “Nope. If it happens, it happens. Until then, I keep hunting.”

Mike lets that sit. He feels the air getting thick, like the last moments before a brawl. He wants to push it, to say what he really means, but he doesn’t. Not yet.

They finish the bottle, and the sun climbs higher. Kerr is a black shadow on the tree, face purple, cock deflated now. Mike wonders if, at the end, Kerr saw it coming. If he wanted it, just a little.

Dan stands, stretches, then pisses on the dying fire. “We’ll pack up at sundown,” he says. “Leave him for the coyotes till then.”

Mike nods. He sits, pulls his knees to his chest, and watches the dead man spin.

He tries not to think about what it would feel like. He fails. He thinks about it all day.

When the sun tips toward dying, Dan cracks a new bottle. This one’s rye, hot and sharp, burning the tastebuds to ash. The first one goes down clean, the second like a hammer. Mike can’t remember when he last felt so good, so wired and loose, like there’s a cold gun pressed to his temple and the bullet’s just waiting for a smile.

He watches the light bleed out of the hills and then over to Kerr, who’s drooping in the last rays, skin turning the color of overripe fruit. The tongue’s gone black. The balls hang low and soft. Mike feels nothing but a deep, whistling satisfaction. This is what justice means.

They don’t say shit for a long time, just trade the bottle, stare at the fire, watch the night animals start their screaming. Dan pokes at the flames with a stick, making sparks leap up and die.

“You know,” Mike says finally, voice hoarse, “I wish I’d killed the bastard myself.”

Dan grunts. “He’d have put a slug through your guts.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Dan glances at him. “Sheriff before you tried. He ate his own liver by the end.”

Mike grins. “That’s the way I want to go, Dan. Not like some goddamn banker, coughing in a bed. I want to look the man in the eye that’s gonna kill me, maybe spit in his face first.”

Dan shrugs, takes a long pull. “You want to get yourself killed, there’s easier ways.”

Mike is staring at the fire now, thinking about the way it eats everything, turns wood and flesh to cinders, leaves nothing but smoke. “What do you think is the best way for a man to die?”

Dan burps. “Quick, clean, and with a cunt in each hand.”

Mike laughs hard, his sides hurting. He shakes his head. “You ever get the feeling, Dan, that it doesn’t matter how tough you are, there’s always someone meaner, someone who’s gonna come for you in the end?”

Dan’s smile fades. “You talking about Kerr?”

Mike nods toward the corpse. “He was good. Mean as a rattler. Best I’ve seen, maybe.”

“Best you’ve seen,” Dan repeats, almost like a challenge.

Mike meets his gaze, eyes steady. “I mean, second best.”

The fire pops, a fat glob of sap exploding in the heat.

Dan turns his head, slow. “Who’s first?”

Mike smiles, showing teeth. “You, Bearhunter. Thirty men, maybe more. And every one you fucked, you made them scream before or after. There’s no one better.”

Dan’s face is unreadable. He looks back to the fire, then at the bottle, then up at the swinging corpse. He grins, but it’s not a happy one.

“You’re fucked in the head, Sheriff,” he says, almost gently.

“Maybe,” Mike says. “But so are you.”

They sit that way for a long time, not talking, just passing the bottle, breathing in the stink of death and burning juniper.

Finally, Dan stands, pulls off his boots, and sits cross-legged by the fire. His belly hangs over his crotch, straining the buttons on his shirt. He stares at Mike, really looks at him, and Mike feels something shift, like a lever cranking inside him.

“You want to fight?” Dan asks, voice low.

Mike doesn’t answer. He’s not sure if he wants to fight, or fuck, or just see what happens if he stops thinking about anything at all. He feels the pull, the urge, the need to find out.

Dan opens his shirt, lets it fall off his shoulders. His arms are thick with black hair and old scars, forearms like fence posts. Mike watches him, fascinated.

“How would you do it?” Dan asks. “If you wanted to go out, how would you want it to end?”

Mike licks his lips, thinks hard. “With a man’s hand around my throat. Or a noose. Or both.”

Dan grins again, this time like a man seeing something beautiful for the first time. “Fucked up, Sheriff.”

Mike shrugs. “Guess so.”

The fire burns lower, and the world gets smaller, just the two of them and the dead man in the tree. Mike finds he’s shaking, not from cold or fear, but from something else. He knows Dan sees it. He wants Dan to see it.

Dan moves closer, sits next to him, their thighs touching. He smells like sweat and woodsmoke and blood. Mike’s cock hardens in his pants, aching and urgent.

“You ready to sleep?” Dan asks.

Mike grins. “Not hardly.”

Dan laughs, big and open. He slaps Mike on the back and leaves his hand there. It’s heavy and warm, and Mike leans into it.

The fire dies down, the corpse swings, and the world turns dark and simple. Mike stares into the night, into the black, and feels the hunger growing in his belly.

He wonders how it will feel, when the time comes.

They kill the second bottle in silence, broken only by the snort of the horse, the low rasp of fire chewing through the last scraps of wood. Mike’s insides are warm, his head fuzzy, but everything else feels sharp, raw-edged. The corpse on the tree doesn’t bother him. The itch in his guts does.

Dan pours the last two shots, looks at Mike, and says, “You got some ideas tonight.”

Mike grins. “Always do.”

Dan waits. His face is a wall, but his eyes are hungry.

Mike swirls the whiskey, lets it burn his tongue, then says, “Month back I had a run-in with Little Tom Parson.”

Dan grunts. “Asshole. Couldn’t hit a barn door with a shotgun.”

Mike nods. “Yeah, but for a second, when he reached for his iron, I thought about just letting him pull the trigger. Just see what it felt like. Only reason I didn’t is because he wasn’t worth it. Not a real killer. Just a punk with a bad hat.”

Dan watches him. “But you want it. To get killed.”

Mike shrugs, but it feels like a confession. “Might be. Getting old. Don’t want to rot away like the last sheriff. If it happens, I want it to be quick. Mean. I want to feel it.”

Dan leans in, voice lower. “You want me to do it?”

Mike laughs, but it comes out shaky. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Fuck ’em, kill ’em, make a show.”

Dan’s eyes are hard, but there’s a flicker of something softer, maybe respect. “I can do that. For you.”

Mike stares into the fire, then over at the body. He tries to picture his own corpse hanging there. His cock stirs, and he lets himself feel it, not hiding from Dan. He wants to say it, but the words catch in his throat.

Dan says, “You want the full show?”

Mike looks up. “Hell yes. I want it to hurt. I want to know what it feels like. You always say you do it right. Prove it.”

Dan grins, big and wolfish. “You ever been fucked, Sheriff?”

Mike licks his lips, feels his whole body burn. “Not by a man who could finish the job.”

Dan nods, once. “I’ll do it tonight, if you want. Right here. You go out hard, like a real man.”

Mike is shaking now, but it’s not from fear. He tosses back the last of the whiskey, wipes his mouth, and stands. He’s ready.

“You want me to fight, or just take it?” Mike asks.

Dan shrugs. “Up to you. Some like to struggle. Some like it slow.”

Mike thinks about it, about the feel of Dan’s hands, the way they crushed a man’s windpipe last winter, the way Dan made him watch, made him hard. He wants it all.

He says, “Do it like you mean it. Hurt me.”

Dan stands too, and in the firelight he looks even bigger, his arms corded with muscle and mean. He steps close, grabs Mike by the collar, pulls him in.

Mike doesn’t resist. He can smell the other man’s sweat and whiskey, the blood and smoke. His own cock is a club in his pants.

“You sure?” Dan asks, voice almost a whisper.

Mike grins, bares his teeth. “Don’t fuck around, Bearhunter.”

Dan slams him down onto the dirt, hard. Mike’s head bounces off a rock, and his vision pops white for a second, but it just makes him harder. Dan yanks down Mike’s pants, not gentle, and Mike’s dick slaps up like it’s saluting the end.

Dan spits in his hand, jerks himself twice, then jams in. The pain is a gunshot, tearing him open, and Mike howls, but he doesn’t fight, just lets the heat and the fire and the hurt roll over him.

“Take it,” Dan growls, pounding in harder. “You want to die, you’ll die my way.”

Mike chokes, coughs, feels his own breath burning out of him. The pain is everything, and so is the pleasure, the wild raw edge of it. He’s leaking, dripping onto the dirt, his cock rubbing rough against his own belly.

Dan’s hand clamps around his throat, big as a shovel, squeezing till the world goes blurry at the edges.

“You ready?” Dan says, and Mike just grunts, can’t breathe, doesn’t care. This is what he wanted.

The world narrows to nothing but pain and heat and the iron grip on his neck. His cock spurts, white and hot, all over his chest and belly. Dan keeps squeezing, keeps fucking, until Mike’s vision goes black.

Somewhere in the dark, he hears Dan say, “Good boy.” He wants to laugh, but there’s no air left.

He lets go, lets it happen.

He wakes with his face in the dirt. There’s a boot in the small of his back and a hand fisting the hair at his crown, jerking his head up. Mike grins into the pain, spitting blood and mud.

Dan’s voice is rough in his ear: “On your feet, Sheriff.”

Mike staggers up, dizzy and shaking but more alive than he’s ever been. His pants are hanging off one ankle, shirt torn down the middle. Dan’s already naked, his belly looming over a cock so big it looks fake, like a pistol made for God. Mike’s heart hammers. He’s never seen a man like this—every inch muscle, fat, and violence.

“Strip,” Dan orders, his own hand stroking up and down, slow and mean.

Mike pulls off the ruined shirt, kicks off the boots, yanks his pants the rest of the way. He’s hard again, harder than before, his cock pointing at Dan like a threat.

Dan laughs. “Look at you. You want it so bad you’re leaking.”

Mike stands straight, chest heaving. “You gonna kill me, or just talk about it?”

Dan moves fast for a man his size. He’s on Mike in two steps, slamming a fist into his gut. Air explodes out of him, and Mike doubles over, gagging. Dan grabs him by the throat, lifts him off the ground, then slams him back onto the dirt.

“You want to go out like a man, I’ll make it happen,” Dan says, his breath hot in Mike’s ear.

Mike crawls, but Dan is on him, pushing him down, huge hands pinning his arms. He mounts Mike, shoves his knees apart, and rams his cock in dry. The pain is savage, like a red-hot knife splitting him in half. Mike screams, but it’s what he wanted.

Dan thrusts hard, all the way in, tearing something deep. He laughs, then grabs Mike by the hair and yanks his head back. “You feel that, Sheriff? That’s what a real man fucks like.”

Mike’s vision goes black at the edges. His cock is diamond-hard, the agony making him lightheaded. “Do it,” he grinds out. “Don’t stop.”

Dan doesn’t. He pounds in, each thrust brutal, smashing Mike’s hips into the ground. The world becomes pain, spit, and dirt. Every time Dan pulls out, he slams back in harder.

“You wanted this,” Dan growls. “You wanted to get fucked and killed by a better man.”

Mike can’t argue. He’s drooling, leaking, his own dick scraping in the sand. It hurts so much it feels good. He wants to die like this, getting destroyed by the meanest fucker on earth.

Dan spits on Mike’s back, grabs his balls from underneath and squeezes. “You got a last request, Sheriff?” he sneers.

Mike chokes, trying to suck in air. “Break me,” he whispers.

Dan’s hand slides up to Mike’s throat again, closing off the world. “I’ll break you. Then I’ll piss in your mouth. Just like I promised.”

The words make Mike shudder. He jerks, shoots a hot spurt onto the dirt. Dan feels it, laughs, and starts choking him for real.

Mike’s lungs scream. He feels his heart jackhammer, his brain sparking like a telegraph line. Dan fucks him deeper, harder, grinding his cock in with the rhythm of his hands crushing Mike’s neck.

Blackness starts to crawl in from the sides. Mike holds on, rides it out, wanting to remember every second.

He comes again, even harder, pain and pleasure blurring into one endless howl. Dan never lets up. The grip tightens, the pounding intensifies.

“Time to go, Sheriff,” Dan whispers, almost gentle.

Mike’s last thought is of flying, of falling, and of the man who beat him.

Everything goes black.

Dan keeps fucking the corpse long after the life goes out of Mike’s eyes. He slows down, savoring it, digging in with every thrust, feeling the tightness and the heat turn slack and cold. The world is silent except for the wet slap of flesh, the hiss of his own breath, and the crackle of dying fire.

When he’s ready, Dan pulls out and stands. His cock is bloody, spit-slick, and still hard. He stares at the body a long time, then kicks it over, face up in the moonlight. Mike’s eyes are open, his mouth slack, his tongue hanging out like Kerr’s. Dan grins. He’s always liked symmetry.

He steps up, aims, and lets loose a hot yellow stream right into the open mouth. Some of it splashes onto the face, but most goes down clean. Dan shakes off, spits, and laughs.

He kneels, grabs Mike’s cock, which is still half-hard and leaking. “Guess you liked it after all, Sheriff,” he says, then slaps the dead man’s face for good measure.

He stands, looks at the two bodies—Mike on the ground, Kerr still swinging from the tree. He’ll have to make it look good. He figures he can drag Mike under the tree, put a bullet in the back of his skull. In the morning, he’ll dress the bodies, tell the story: Kerr got the drop on Mike, but Dan got Kerr. Two for the price of one.

The thought makes him happy. He’ll get the reward, get laid in Dry Creek, maybe find a new sheriff to kill when the itch comes back.

He gets dressed, boots up, and gathers his things. He doesn’t bother covering the bodies. The coyotes will get them, or maybe the next sick fuck who comes through these hills.

Dan tips his hat to the dead, then shoulders the whiskey and walks into the night, whistling.

He’s the best there is. And he knows it.

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