The Blackhawk Brothers

Mike Barnett rides with his hat brim cinched so tight the edge bites a crease into his forehead, eyes squinting against a noon sun so hot the air itself seems to hiss. Sweat scalds his back where the shirt clings. Two days he's been in the saddle, and the horse is getting mean, but Mike has the mean to match.

He keeps his head low and studies the sign. Dry country up here: hardpan between the boulders, lizards skittering and gone, not even a turkey buzzard overhead. He's following tracks any greenhorn would miss: the displaced stones, a line of hoofprints hugging the edge of a wash, a silver button torn from a shirt snagged on a manzanita. Six years a sheriff, and Mike's nose for pursuit is as sharp as it ever was—sometimes, in the empty country, it feels sharper. Maybe that's just the loneliness getting to him.

But this is the work. He rides because he has to. Because nobody else left in the county would dare follow the Blackhawk brothers. Because someone has to bring them back.

The two of them—Bart and Daniel—are wanted for eleven murders, three robberies, and an unspeakable thing the postmaster in San Luis Obispo described in a voice so shaky Mike doubted any jury would believe it. Other men tried to track them: bounty men, a few deputies, a U.S. marshal. Mike is the only one who ever got close enough to see Bart Blackhawk bare-chested, his back slicked with blood and whip scars, gun still smoking, laughing while he hoisted the dead marshal onto his own horse. That was a year ago, and Mike still dreams it.

He keeps his jaw locked tight and his mind clear. If he thinks too much about it, the anger boils up and clouds his tracking. And Mike wants to savor this hunt.

They grew up together, all three. Not as brothers, but as something closer: sons of the same dry California town, all raised mean and reckless. They shared beds, fights, the backs of stables, the taste of creek water after a fistfight. Only difference was, Mike became the law. Bart and Daniel became the thing that feeds on it. The last time they spoke, Daniel spat in Mike's face and Bart said, "See you on the other side, sheriff." Mike can't tell if he means death or hell. He doesn't much care.

He crests a ridge and looks down into a little hollow: a stand of cottonwood trees, out of place and greedy for water, and below that, a valley green as a garden after so much dry rock. Even from up high he sees the shimmer of running water. And in the shadows—something.

Mike swings out of the saddle and hobbles the horse. He unslings his rifle, but keeps it low, a habit from too many years of walking into ambushes. He pads down the ridge, boots testing each stone, cursing quietly when the left boot rolls on a loose bit of gravel.

Closer now, he sees what the thing is: deer, or what's left of it. The head is intact, eyes glassy and staring at the sky, tongue lolled out like a red carpet. The body is butchered, flanks carved with a neatness that says human, not coyote. The guts are piled in a messy heap, and the hide peeled halfway off. Mike kneels beside it, touches two fingers to the blood. Still warm. His lips curl, and he grinds out a "Goddamn Blackhawks," like a prayer.

He circles the kill and checks for tracks. He's not disappointed: they couldn't have made the signs clearer if they spelled "FUCK YOU MIKE" in stones. He finds bootprints—Bart's, by the size of them, and Daniel's, wide and flat, as if even his feet were drunk. He counts three extra hoof prints besides the brothers' own, meaning they've picked up a stray or stole another man's ride. That narrows things, gives him hope. Three horses can't vanish in this scrub.

He finds the point where the trail leads out, down toward the water, and follows. The air in the hollow is thick with the green stink of the cottonwoods and something else: smoke, from a low fire. Mike’s stomach knots, and he moves slower now, every sense stretched out like a raw nerve.

The stream is colder than the air, running fast and sharp over polished stones. Mike cups his hands and sips once, letting the grit settle in his mouth. Then he rises, and edges forward through the brush. The tracks stop here. Or rather, they tangle and vanish, as if the Blackhawks sat down right where he’s standing and ceased to exist. Mike looks for their camp, for any sign of their bodies, but finds nothing except the stream, the trees, the bloody remains of the deer, and the hush that settles when prey knows it’s being hunted.

For a long moment, he stands frozen, listening. Nothing. He turns in a slow circle, rifle at his hip, breath shallow. The Blackhawk brothers are somewhere close, and Mike hates how much that thought excites him.

His jaw clenches so hard he feels his molars grind. He spits, a thick rope that lands on a stone. "Run all you want, you sons of bitches," he mutters, "but I will hang you both from the highest limb I can find."

And in the back of his skull, a voice that sounds like Bart, soft and lazy, says: "You sure you don’t want to fuck us first, Mike?"

Mike shakes his head, furious at himself for grinning. He steps out of the brush and stares down into the valley, squinting into the shade and heat shimmer, hunting for any movement. He stands there a long while, sweating and listening, until the sun starts to lower and the sound of running water is all he hears.

He has them cornered, and they know it. But for now, the bastards are invisible. Mike is left alone in the valley, the stink of blood and sweat thick in his nose, and the only company the memory of what used to be friendship. Or something more.

He mutters another curse and sits with his back to a tree, rifle across his knees, and waits for darkness.

In the gathering dusk, Mike lights a stub of a cigar. The hand that holds it shakes, but only a little. He lets the smoke curl up and watches the wind snatch it away, wishing it would take his thoughts with it.

He should be going over his plan, checking his weapon, thinking about the ground ahead. Instead, his mind drags him backwards, into memory, the way the desert sometimes brings a dead animal back out of the dust just to see if it still stinks.

He remembers the first time he fucked Bart Blackhawk. Mike must have been eighteen, still fresh-faced and cocky and mean, with nothing in his head but getting off and getting even. The two of them had been drinking on the roof of the old granary, passing a bottle and trading insults, and when Bart made a joke about Mike’s mother, Mike punched him so hard he split his own knuckle. Bart laughed with a mouthful of blood, pinned Mike to the tar-paper roof, and unbuckled his pants so fast Mike thought Bart was going to throw him off the edge. Instead, Bart spit blood on his hand and jerked Mike off, so rough and sudden that Mike finished in under a minute.

Afterwards, Bart wiped his hand on Mike’s shirt, grinning, and said, "Told you I'd win."

Later, Daniel Blackhawk made it a contest. He was the younger brother, softer in the face but with hands like shovels, and when he wanted something, he took it. One night, they caught Mike pissing behind the livery and dared him to prove he was "the biggest cock in California." Bart and Daniel lined up next to him, flopping their dicks out, and Mike remembers feeling embarrassed, because both of them were enormous, almost freakish. But pride is pride, and Mike matched them stroke for stroke, until the three of them painted the wall with what seemed like a quart of spunk.

That was the thing about the Blackhawk brothers: they were ruthless, and they never let a man forget his place. Mike spent most of his teenage years finding out just how far they could take a dare, and how much pain he could swallow before it turned sweet. It was always rough, always with a winner and a loser. Usually Mike was the loser.

He remembers, too, the last time: before Bart shot the marshal, before Daniel cut that old man’s throat in Santa Ynez. They caught Mike sleeping in the bunkhouse, held him down, and fucked him at opposite ends. It was brutal, and Mike didn’t even try to fight. He took it. He still remembers Bart’s voice in his ear: "You can’t ever quit us, Mike. It’s not in your nature."

After that, the split was final. Bart and Daniel rode south, leaving a string of dead men and ruined horses behind. Mike stayed and put on a badge, but it never fit right.

He knows, better than anyone, what the Blackhawk brothers can do to a body. The stories that made it back from their first robberies were all the same: they left the men dead, the women terrified, the lawmen humiliated. Sometimes, the men were found with their pants around their ankles, sometimes with something jammed up their ass so hard it ruptured their guts.

There’s a new story out of Paso Robles, about a deputy who died with a rope around his neck and Daniel’s cock still hard in his mouth. Mike tried to ignore the rumors, but the image stuck in his head. He wonders, half-serious, if that’s how he’ll go.

He figures there are worse ways to die.

Mike rubs at the front of his jeans, feeling the swelling there, and shakes his head. "Fuckin’ perverts," he mutters, but the words have no heat. He takes a long draw from the cigar, and the smoke reminds him of the way Bart used to taste, after a night on the whiskey.

He thinks about what he’ll do if he catches the brothers. He’s supposed to bring them back alive, but he knows he won’t. He can already feel the hard, glorious snap of the rope around Bart’s neck, the wild thrash of Daniel’s body as he kicks out his last. But before that—Mike’s gut twists with something ugly and hopeful—he knows they’ll put up a fight, and if they get the drop on him, well… he’s not above letting them have their way, just one more time.

He grins in the darkness, and finishes his cigar.

Somewhere, out in the cottonwoods, a branch snaps. Mike rises, his hand on the rifle, pulse hammering in his ears. For a long moment, he listens to the night. Nothing. Just the sound of water, and the memory of rough hands, and the knowledge that by sunrise, something will break.

He sits again, pulls his hat low, and lets the past ride him until dawn.

Mike doesn’t sleep, not really. By the time the sun rises, his head is pounding with the memory of Bart’s laughter and the anticipation of a final reckoning. He kicks out the remains of the campfire, douses his cigar in a patch of mud, and unslings his rifle. The air is cooler now, but heavy with the promise of heat.

He hitches the horse and does a slow spiral around the edge of the valley, checking the perimeter. For the first hour, nothing: just the splayed, drying tracks and the blackened bones of the deer. Then, fifty yards upstream, he finds a drag mark in the grass, and beyond that, a muddy hoof print so deep it must have been left by a horse carrying double.

He crouches low, brushes the print with his hand, and grins. “Sloppy, boys,” he mutters. But he likes it. Means they’re getting desperate, maybe careless.

Mike traces the path to the water’s edge, where the stream cuts sharp against a boulder, disappearing under a choke of willow and mesquite. He pulls a branch aside and finds the rock wall slick with moss and cold as a tomb. The stream issues from a split in the stone, barely wider than a coffin. He squints and tries to see into the darkness, but it’s just wet blackness, the air rich with the smell of wet leaves and rot.

He strips his gloves, kneels, and cups his hands to drink. The water is so cold it aches his teeth, and he lets the chill settle in his gut before standing. The narrow passage nags at him; he eyes the gap, guesses at the width. A grown man, even a heavy one, could squeeze through. A horse? Maybe, if forced. The brothers were strong enough to try.

Mike checks the ground for fresh sign: a torn-off bramble, a tuft of horsehair, a wet patch of clay pressed by a boot heel. All there, clear as a letter addressed to “the man too dumb to back off.” He wonders if Bart and Daniel meant for him to find it, or if they just didn’t care anymore.

He leads his own horse to the gap, ties it off to a nearby tree, and loads the rifle with slow, deliberate motions. The darkness inside the split is absolute. Mike shoulders the rifle and pushes in, one shoulder first, cursing as the stone rips his sleeve. He wedges through, feels the air grow colder, damp with every breath, then his boots splash into ankle-deep water.

The stream is the only noise now. Mike’s breath fogs in front of his face. The walls of the passage are close enough to scrape his knuckles. It feels endless, but after twenty yards the tunnel opens up, and he stands blinking in the light.

He’s in another valley: smaller, steeper, and wilder than the first. At the far end, the ground rises into a horseshoe of cliffs, and the stream pools in a muddy basin before sinking out of sight. There’s a raw, untamed beauty to it, and if Mike were a man given to poetry, he might have admired it. But all he sees is cover—too much, and too good.

A rusted metal bucket sits by the water, and nearby, the remains of another fire, this one fresher, the coals still faintly warm. There are drag marks here, too, leading up the slope toward a scatter of brush and boulders. He follows, slow and patient, scanning the shadows.

A low growl comes from somewhere up ahead. Mike freezes, knuckles white on the rifle stock. The growl becomes a bark—sharp, then furious. Mike steps sideways, barely dodges the blur that launches at his legs. It’s a dog: big, ugly, half coyote by the look of it. Its eyes are wild, ribs showing through a coat of dirt and scars. It lunges again, teeth snapping.

Mike brings the butt of the rifle down hard, catching the beast across the skull. It yelps, staggers back, then circles, snarling. For a second, Mike thinks about shooting it, but the noise would bring the whole world down on his head. He fakes a kick, and the dog shies away, tail between its legs, disappearing into the brush.

He’s about to press on when a shape rises out of the shadows behind him. Too late: something heavy—an ax handle or a rifle butt—crashes against the side of his skull. Mike drops to his knees, world spinning, and catches a glimpse of a shadowy, broad-shouldered figure. The last thing he sees is a familiar, broken-toothed grin.

Then everything goes black, and Mike floats in the darkness, wondering if this is what it feels like to finally lose.

Mike comes to with a headache like a church bell, all clang and echo, and a mouth full of iron. He blinks, tries to move, and finds himself hogtied, wrists and ankles lashed tight with rawhide and cinched to a pine pole. His shoulders are jammed up against rough stone, and his bare ass is prickled by needles from the mat of pine boughs beneath him. His clothes are gone. The air is cold on his skin, every bruise throbbing.

He squints into the light. Two men stand above him, blocking the sun. Both are giants, or close enough—one with a wild mane of gray hair and a beard to match, the other balding, but with a neck as thick as Mike’s thigh. They wear shirts open to the waist, and their chests are carpeted with hair. Even standing still, they look like they’re on the verge of violence.

Mike knows them instantly. Six years haven't changed them that much, not even the years of running, the miles, the killings. Bart Blackhawk, still the bigger of the two, has gone to gray and put on weight, but the muscles ripple under his hide like coiled snakes. Daniel, the younger brother, is the same slab-faced lout he’s always been, only now his belly sticks out in front of him like a beer barrel, and his hands are even more monstrous. They’re both in their forties, but they look ageless, as if meanness alone has preserved them.

Mike shifts, testing the ropes. They bite deep. He’s naked, and the brothers have already seen everything there is to see, so modesty is a joke.

Bart is first to speak. His voice has gotten rougher, but the old, lazy drawl is still there. “Well, shit, Danny, look what the dog dragged in.”

Daniel leans in, grinning. “That’s a mighty fine catch, Bart. We eatin’ him, or fucking him?”

Bart laughs, a deep, ugly sound. “Don’t see why we can’t do both.”

Mike manages a smile, though it hurts his jaw. “You boys always did have trouble sharing.”

Daniel bends closer, eyes Mike’s nakedness. “Sheriff, I gotta say, you got old.”

Mike shrugs as much as the ropes allow. “So did you, Daniel. But you’re still ugly as sin.”

Bart slaps his thigh. “Still got the mouth, too. How long you been tracking us, Mike?”

Mike tries to spit, but his mouth is dry. “Long enough to know you’re hiding in this shithole because you can’t hack it on the outside anymore.”

Daniel leans back, and for a second, the brothers just stand there, looking down at their old friend turned enemy, as if waiting for him to say something else.

He doesn’t bother. There’s nothing left to say.

Bart steps forward, his boots crushing a pinecone. “We’re gonna have us some fun, Mike. Always liked you. Shame we gotta kill you.”

Mike nods, slow and steady. He knew this was coming. He’s surprised only by how calm he feels.

Bart squats down, his face close. His eyes are muddy and dead, but his grin is pure animal. “You want a drink? Or you want to say your prayers first?”

Mike snorts. “You’d just piss in my mouth.”

Daniel sniggers. “Now there’s an idea.”

Bart stands, stretches, and cracks his knuckles. “Let’s get him inside. The sun’s cooking him already.”

Daniel grabs Mike by the ankles and lifts him, easy as swinging a sack of feed. Mike’s head thumps against the pole, and the world tilts. Bart walks ahead, whistling a tune Mike almost recognizes.

They haul him into a cave hacked out of the rock face, cool and shadowy, lined with fire-blackened stones. Mike’s dumped onto the dirt Daniel kneels and sniffs at Mike’s hair, grinning.

“You know,” Daniel says, “I always did like the smell of you. Clean. Like soap.”

Mike grits his teeth. “You should try it sometime.”

Bart drops a canteen next to Mike’s head. “Drink up, sheriff. You’re gonna need your strength.”

Mike sips, the water cold and sharp, washing the taste of blood from his mouth. He lies on his side, naked and trussed, with two killers looming over him, and thinks: This isn’t the worst way he’s woken up.

He watches the Blackhawks, studying the bodies he once knew better than his own. He knows what’s coming. He knows he can’t fight them. All he can do is look Bart in the eye, and wait.

Bart stares back, and for a moment, there’s something almost gentle there. A flicker of what used to be.

Then it’s gone, and the two brothers close in, hands like iron on his flesh.

Mike lets himself go slack. He’s not afraid. Not anymore.

Daniel is the first to break the silence, squatting down by Mike’s hip and smirking in that punchable, gap-toothed way he’s perfected since boyhood.

“Hell of a homecoming, ain’t it?” Daniel says. “We missed you, Sheriff.”

Mike glances up at him, keeps his voice dry. “Missed you too, Dan. Especially your hospitality.”

Daniel leans in, gets a faceful of Mike’s morning breath, and laughs. “You always were a smart-ass.” He taps the point of his knife against Mike’s collarbone—friendly, almost affectionate. “You thirsty?”

Bart lumbers into the cave behind them, ducking so his hair scrapes the rock. He drops a canvas roll on the floor, then gives Mike a long, careful look. The attention is heavy, but not entirely unkind.

Bart folds his arms. “So what’s the story, Mike? You come all this way just to die with us?”

Mike doesn’t blink. “Figured you’d appreciate the company.”

Daniel sits back on his haunches, rolling a cigarette, his big fingers moving with a clumsy grace. “That’s a crock. You came for us ‘cause you still can’t get us out of your system. Admit it.”

Mike thinks about lying, but why bother? “Maybe,” he says, “I was just hoping you’d finally shut up and let me do the talking for once.”

Bart’s laugh is thunder. “That’ll be the day.” He pulls up a crate and sits, looking down at Mike with the same heat and hunger he used to have for whiskey and women. “You remember the last time we all shared a bed?”

Mike nods. “Hard to forget. I was picking splinters out of my ass for a week.”

Daniel snaps the match to light his cigarette, inhales deep. “That was the best fuck I ever had. Wouldn’t mind a rerun, myself.”

Mike gives them both a once-over, lets his eyes linger on the shapes and the shadows, the way the old scars have faded but the muscle underneath is just as thick as before. He smiles, honest and open. “Wouldn’t mind it either. If it’s all the same to you.”

Daniel’s eyebrows climb. “That why you hunted us, Mike? You just needed to get your ass split open again?”

Mike shrugs as much as the ropes allow. “Could be. You boys always did leave an impression.”

Bart grins, but there’s a weight to it, something final. “You know the price, Sheriff. You want our cocks, you pay for it.”

Mike doesn’t look away. “I’m not afraid.”

Bart’s smile sharpens. “Good. We never liked cowards.”

They all sit in the hush, the cave breathing with their rough voices and the stink of sweat and tobacco. Daniel flicks ash onto the ground, then leans over and nudges Mike’s foot with his knuckle. “You ever figure we’d end up here, the three of us? Last stand, all balls and blood and none of it mattering?”

Mike closes his eyes for a second, lets the memory of old times drift through him. He remembers the thrill of danger, the fire of their bodies together, the sweet agony of giving in. He opens his eyes. “Knew it from the start. Just didn’t know who’d be left standing at the end.”

Bart and Daniel both nod, the three of them in silent agreement.

Daniel grins. “Well. Let’s make it count, then.”

Bart stands, and the shadow he casts swallows Mike whole. “It’s a party, Sheriff,” Bart says. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Mike laughs, sharp and short, and for the first time since waking up in this godforsaken hole, he feels almost at peace.

He’s always been a man who likes to see things through.

The words dry up and the silence is thick, charged with old need and new violence. Bart stands and strips off his shirt, letting it fall to the cave floor. He’s built like a steam engine, every inch of him packed with age-hardened muscle. His chest is covered in gray hair, thick as an animal’s pelt, the old whip scars white and shiny through it. Bart unbuttons his fly and lets his trousers fall, baring a cock that’s as impressive as Mike remembered—thick as a man’s wrist, veined and heavy, the head fat and purple.

Daniel snuffs his cigarette, shrugs off his own shirt, and tosses it aside. His torso is a map of faded bruises and strange tattoos. His belly is huge, round, but somehow tight, and below it his cock juts out proud and hard, straining the buttons on his filthy jeans. When he lets his pants drop, the cock springs out, long and wide, the foreskin bunched at the tip. His balls hang low, like ripe fruit, swinging as he shuffles closer.

Mike watches, throat dry. He tries not to stare, but there’s nothing else to do, and even tied up he can feel his own cock stirring with anticipation and dread. It’s stupid, but it’s honest. These men were the first thing he ever wanted, and the last thing he ever feared.

Daniel squats beside Mike’s head, wraps his hand around his own cock, and strokes it with lazy confidence. “See anything you like, Sheriff?”

Mike gives him a half-smile. “You always did have the prettiest dick in town, Dan.”

Daniel laughs, leans down, and slaps the side of Mike’s face with the heavy shaft. “Wait’ll you taste it.”

Bart is all business. He rolls Mike onto his stomach, yanks the ropes tighter so that Mike’s ass is up in the air, his chest and cheek pressed to the cold stone. Bart kneels behind him, spits into his palm, and slicks his cock. There’s no warning, no buildup. Bart lines up and rams in, splitting Mike open with a force that knocks the air from his lungs. It’s all white-hot pain, tearing and stretching, but Bart has always known how to fuck—he’s slow at first, letting Mike adjust, then speeds up, hammering in with long, brutal strokes.

Mike bites his lip, grunts, rides the waves of agony until his brain goes fuzzy and the pain becomes something else: a deep, thudding pleasure that churns in his gut. His cock is hard, leaking onto the stone.

Daniel kneels in front of him, lifts Mike’s head, and presses his cock against Mike’s lips. “Open up, Sheriff.”

Mike opens his mouth and Daniel slides in, filling him completely. The taste is sweat and salt and something sour, but Mike sucks it down, tongue swirling under the ridge. Daniel grabs the back of Mike’s head and fucks his mouth, slow and steady, pushing deeper with each thrust.

They set a rhythm: Bart in his ass, Daniel in his mouth. Mike is the instrument, the middleman, used and filled and wanted. He’s choking, drooling, tears running down his face, but he’s never felt more alive.

Bart groans behind him, hands gripping Mike’s hips so hard there will be bruises. “Fuck, I missed this,” Bart mutters.

Daniel is panting, cheeks flushed. “You always were the best, Mike. Still got the magic.”

Mike tries to smile around the thick shaft in his throat, but mostly he just gags and drools.

The pain and the pleasure climb together, impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Mike’s own cock is pressed against the cold stone, leaking with every jerk of his body. Bart hammers faster, breathing rough and desperate. Daniel shoves his cock all the way in, his belly squashing Mike’s face, and for a moment Mike can’t breathe at all—just darkness and heat, the taste of cock and sweat.

Daniel pulls out with a wet pop and slaps Mike’s cheek again. “You gonna cum, Sheriff? You gonna make a mess for us?”

Mike nods, wild-eyed, and Daniel grins.

Bart lets out a roar and empties himself inside Mike, hot and punishing. The suddenness of it triggers something in Mike’s own body: he cums, spraying onto the rock, his vision swimming with stars. Daniel finishes a second later, spurting thick ropes across Mike’s lips and cheek.

They collapse in a tangle, Bart pulling out and lying flat on his back, Daniel rolling Mike onto his side and cradling his head like a lover.

For a while, nobody speaks. The only sounds are panting, the thud of three hearts, the drip of water from somewhere deep in the cave.

Mike’s ass throbs. His throat is raw. His face is sticky with Daniel’s cum. But all he feels is relief.

Bart is first to move. He grabs the canteen, takes a long swig, and passes it to Daniel, who pours a little on Mike’s lips and chin, washing the worst of the mess away.

Daniel wipes his hand on his belly and looks at Mike with a tired affection. “You always take it so good, Sheriff. Better than most.”

Mike shrugs. “You learn to love the things you can’t change.”

Bart laughs. “There’s the philosopher.”

Daniel pushes Mike’s hair back, gentle now, the violence drained out of him. “You want a smoke?”

Mike nods, and Daniel lights one, holds it to Mike’s lips. He inhales, savoring the taste, the burn, the memory of old times.

Bart stretches, his cock still half-hard, and grins down at Mike. “Still think you’re here to kill us, Sheriff?”

Mike doesn’t answer. He just smokes, and waits to see what comes next.

Daniel pokes Bart in the ribs and says, “Remember that time in Salinas, when the whores tied us up and left us in the hayloft?”

Bart snorts. “We were there all day. Mike was the only one could get his hands free.”

Mike grins. “That’s ‘cause you two were too busy fighting over who got to fuck me first.”

Daniel winks. “We both won that round.”

Bart glances at Mike, something close to fondness in his eyes. “You know, Sheriff, I always said I’d kill you if I ever saw you again.”

Mike turns his head, meets Bart’s gaze without flinching. “You still planning on it?”

Bart considers, then shrugs. “Wouldn’t mind. Be a hell of a story.”

Daniel runs a finger along the rope burn on Mike’s wrists. “He always wanted to be the hero, you know. Mike. Make a name, take down the Blackhawk boys. He just never figured which side he was on.”

Mike laughs, bitter and true. “Didn’t figure it mattered, in the end.”

They go quiet again. Mike studies the curve of Daniel’s belly, the web of scars on Bart’s forearm. He lets the memory of old hunts and old fucks roll through his mind, a movie of things he can never tell another soul.

Daniel breaks the silence. “You ever get tired of killing, Mike?”

Mike thinks about it, honest for once. “No. I just got tired of lying about it.”

Bart nods, approving. “I like a man who knows himself.”

Daniel’s voice goes sly. “If you’d caught us, Sheriff—what would you have done? Dragged us back to town? Or just shot us in the back and saved everyone the trouble?”

Mike shrugs. “Would’ve shot you, if I had the chance. But I like the idea of watching you dance at the end of a rope.”

Daniel grins. “I knew it. The lawman’s always got a little hangman in his soul.”

Bart leans in, big hand stroking his own thigh. “You’d watch, wouldn’t you? Watch us kick and squirm, see how long we last. Maybe you’d get off on it.”

Mike doesn’t blink. “Maybe I would. Maybe I’d have you both stripped naked, cocks hard, so the whole town could see what you’re made of. Maybe I’d stroke myself while you kicked.”

Daniel cackles, delighted. “Now that’s a party.”

Bart’s eyes flare, hungry. “And what if we flipped it, Mike? What if we hanged you instead? Think you’d put on a good show?”

Mike thinks about it, lets the image bloom in his head. He doesn’t feel fear—just a hard, clear thrill. “I’d dance for you, Bart. And you’d like it.”

Daniel’s voice is soft, suddenly, almost gentle. “We’d all like it. Be the way things are supposed to end.”

Bart reaches over, grabs Mike by the jaw, and squeezes, hard enough to hurt. “You want it, Sheriff? You want to feel the rope burn?”

Mike licks his lips. “Better than dying with a bullet in the back.”

Daniel grins, strokes Bart’s cock until it’s thick and full again. “We could do it right now. Make it pretty.”

Bart lets go of Mike’s jaw, and the pressure lingers. “Not yet. Let’s make it last. There’s time.”

They settle back, close enough to touch, but no one moves. Mike closes his eyes, lets himself drift, and listens to the sound of his own blood, steady and sweet.

He knows how this ends. And he can’t wait.

Mike breaks the new silence first. “Suppose I’d gunned you down like you deserved,” he says, voice rough. “I’d have buried you face down in the dirt. Maybe fucked myself raw on your cocks first, just for old time’s sake.”

Bart laughs, voice booming in the small cave. “You sick bastard. We could’ve hung you instead, Sheriff. Naked as the day you were born.”

Mike grins, showing blood on his teeth. “Fine by me. Wouldn’t mind dancing for you two. Let you watch while you jerk each other off.”

Daniel rolls over, still half-hard, his belly jiggling with the movement. “You want to die like that, Mike? Dangling and writhing, balls swinging?”

Mike shrugs, as much as his battered body allows.

Bart grabs his own cock, gives it a slow stroke. “I’d make you kick for hours. Make sure you put on a show.”

Mike fixes him with a hard stare. “Just promise you’ll be watching. It’d be a waste if you missed it.”

Daniel snorts, wipes drool from his chin. “We’d never miss your last dance, Sheriff. Wouldn’t be right.”

Bart’s eyes gleam. “Think of it, Mike. You, naked and straining, rope around your neck, cock hard. Us standing by, cocks in hand. Wouldn’t that be a hell of a finish?”

Mike laughs, the sound bitter and sweet at once. “For all of us.”

They hold the moment, letting the vision grow in their heads. For a second, Mike thinks maybe this is how they’ve always wanted it—three men tangled together, bound by lust and violence, none of them getting out alive.

He closes his eyes, savoring the certainty of it.

There’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

The three of them settle in, breath slowing, every inch of skin buzzing with the aftershocks. Bart stretches, flexing arms that could snap a man’s neck in one squeeze. Daniel picks at a scab, watching a spider crawl up the cave wall.

Mike blows out a plume of smoke. “So, tell me, boys—if you got to choose, how would you go out?”

Daniel laughs, shrugs. “Hell, I’d like to get shot, I guess. Not in the head or the heart, though. Want to feel it. See how long I can keep going.”

Bart rumbles, “I’d want the rope. Always figured I’d hang, like every good outlaw. Let the whole town see me swinging, balls out.”

Daniel snickers. “You’d get hard, too. I bet you’d shoot your load before you died.”

Bart grins. “Count on it.”

Daniel looks at Mike, eyes narrowed. “What about you, Sheriff? How you want to go?”

Mike thinks for a moment, really thinks, and says, “Right here. Like this. Maybe with the two of you pounding me until I can’t breathe. Could die happy like that.”

Daniel’s tongue flicks over his lips. “You almost did, last round.”

Mike grins. “Would’ve been fine by me.”

Bart nods, approving. “That can be arranged. We don’t owe you any mercy, but we do owe you a good finish.”

Mike lets the memory of Daniel’s cock and Bart’s brutal fucking replay in his mind. He gets hard again, even before the bruises start to fade.

“Promise me something,” Mike says.

Bart’s voice is soft, almost gentle. “Anything.”

“When you finish me off, don’t be gentle. Make it last. I want to know I’m dying.”

Daniel’s cock twitches, already perking up. “You always were a sick fuck, Mike.”

Mike laughs, and there’s no fear in the sound. “Better than being boring.”

They go quiet again, each man lost in his own thoughts of endings and bodies and what it means to die on your own terms. Outside, the light is fading, and the cave grows colder. Mike savors it, the closeness, the certainty.

He’s ready.

They trade one more round of stories—bank jobs in Arizona, shootouts in the foothills, a whorehouse in Bakersfield where they’d nearly killed each other over a redheaded boy.

Then Bart sets down his cigarette, grinds it out with his thumb, and says, “Enough jawing. Time to finish the job.”

Daniel grins. “Couldn’t let him go easy, could we?”

Bart and Daniel haul Mike to his feet—he’s so battered and limp, they have to hold him upright between them. The ropes come back out, but only to keep his wrists lashed behind his back, the rest of him left loose and open.

They carry him to the flat rock at the heart of the cave, where he’d bled before. The stone is slick with old come and sweat, a little blood, and the stink of sex. Daniel shoves Mike face-down, then yanks his hips up and apart.

Mike’s jaw aches from the earlier use, his ass is still raw and leaking, but he’s so hard it hurts. He’s never been so alive.

Bart positions behind, spit-slicking his cock with a fist, and lines it up. Daniel kneels in front of Mike’s face, slapping his cock against Mike’s cheek and lips. Mike opens wide, and Daniel shoves in, choking him instantly.

Bart doesn’t wait. He plunges in, no warning, and fucks with all the pent-up violence of a man who’s been running his whole life. The force of it slams Mike forward onto Daniel’s cock, and for a moment, both men are buried inside him, splitting him in two. The pain is white and searing, but every thrust rubs Mike’s cock against the stone, grinding pleasure through the agony.

Daniel’s hands are huge, crushing Mike’s skull between them. He’s got no room to breathe, just the rhythm of Daniel’s hips and the taste of sweat and skin. Every time Bart rams in, Mike is pushed deeper, farther, until the back of his throat is numbed and everything is just sensation.

The brothers don’t hold back. They fuck him like they’re breaking a wild horse, like this is the last thing in the world that matters. Daniel’s cock swells and pulses, filling Mike’s mouth so completely there’s no hope of air. Bart’s hips batter his ass, stretching and tearing until Mike feels slick inside and out.

He feels the world closing in, everything going black at the edges. There’s a moment—long, slow, eternal—where Mike realizes he’s about to die.

The sensation is so strong, so perfect, that Mike forgets the pain. He forgets everything.

He almost blacks out, drowning, every nerve alight with one final, exquisite agony.

It’s exactly what he wanted.

The last thing Mike feels is Daniel’s cock, pulsing in his mouth, filling him so completely he can’t even think about air. The world is shrinking, all sound drowned by blood in his ears. He’s hard, impossibly so, and as the blackness closes in, he explodes, body jerking, spraying his own seed across the stone.

Daniel roars, then drives in one last time, his cock locked deep in Mike’s throat. Hot cum floods Mike’s mouth and nose, spilling out and down his chin. Mike’s vision blurs—there are stars, then nothing.

Bart follows, hips pistoning, then freezing. He empties himself in Mike’s ass, so hard and violent it leaves him shuddering.

For a second, all three are frozen in place: Daniel’s cock in Mike’s mouth, Bart’s in his ass, Mike limp between them, sweat and blood and semen everywhere.

Then Daniel looks up at Bart, eyes wild, and nods.

Bart’s big hands clamp around the back of Mike’s neck. There’s a sharp jerk—easy, almost gentle. Mike’s head snaps back at an impossible angle. His body spasms, then goes utterly slack. Piss gushes from his cock, pooling on the stone and soaking the mat.

Daniel eases his cock out, wipes it on Mike’s cheek. Bart holds Mike for a moment longer, then lets him drop, face down, dead weight.

Daniel whistles, low. “That’s a good end.”

Bart grunts. “He earned it.”

They sit in the silence, staring down at the sheriff’s body, and feel a strange, aching pride.

Mike died exactly how he wanted: hard, used, and with his last breath full of the two men he hated most. Or loved most.

Bart spits, a gesture of respect, and closes Mike’s eyes with two fingers.

They let him rest.

They let Mike’s body cool for a while. Bart smokes, Daniel stares at the sheriff’s limp, exposed ass, the ropes still biting into blue-tinted skin. Eventually, Bart grunts and gets up. “Can’t just leave him here. He’d haunt us for that.”

Daniel nods, and the two of them set to work. They drag Mike’s naked body across the cave floor, out into the bright, pitiless daylight. He’s lighter now, empty of whatever had kept him going. The brothers haul him up the slope to a narrow cut in the rock—a fissure barely wide enough for a man. Bart wedges Mike’s body in, folds it like a broken scarecrow, and shoves him down into the dark. The body disappears with a wet thud.

Daniel wipes sweat from his brow, grinning. “Goodbye, Sheriff. Never did know when to quit.”

Bart spits after the corpse. “He was the best of us.”

They trudge back to the cave, hands and knees bloody, and collapse on their bedrolls, breathing heavy. For a while, they just lie there, savoring the warmth, the job done.

But the peace doesn’t last.

From down the canyon, the dogs start up again. Daniel hears the shouts first: voices, maybe half a dozen, all armed and closing fast.

Bart’s eyes narrow. “They sent a posse.”

Daniel rolls his shoulders. “They won’t get us easy.”

They grab their guns: Bart’s heavy rifle, Daniel’s cut-down shotgun. They check the loads, move to the mouth of the cave, and take up positions on either side.

The dogs come first, two mongrels, barking and yipping at the blood-stink in the air. Then the men—six in all, ugly and mean, with the look of bounty hunters who’ve done this before. The first two edge through the crack in the stone, guns up.

Daniel waits until the lead man’s shadow falls across the dirt, then fires. The shotgun booms, shredding the man’s chest. He drops, writhing, and Bart nails the second with a perfect shot, straight through the skull. Brains spray the rock.

The rest scatter, ducking behind trees and stones. Bart and Daniel hold their fire, listening to the curses and threats echoing in the little valley.

After a while, the voices fade. The brothers know the men aren’t gone—just regrouping, waiting for night, or for the brothers to make a mistake.

Bart reloads, eyes never leaving the shadows. “We finish this, tonight.”

Daniel cocks his gun. “One way or another.”

They sit back-to-back, guns loaded, cocks still sticky from the morning’s fun. There’s blood on the rock, and smoke in the air, and the sweet certainty that, come morning, nobody will be left to tell the tale.

It’s almost peaceful.

Almost.

Later Bart and Daniel venture out to the kill site, keeping low, rifles at the ready. The canyon is quiet now, the rest of the posse holed up somewhere, waiting for their moment.

The two dead men lie crumpled at the base of the slope. Bart squats and goes through their pockets, finds a flask and takes a swig, then pours some out for the dead. Daniel rifles the other corpse, comes up with a handful of bullets and a letter from a woman in Tucson.

He reads it aloud, the words trembling and sweet, then tosses it aside. “No one’s gonna write home about us.”

Bart unzips his fly, pisses a long yellow arc over the two bodies. Daniel does the same, both men grinning like boys. The stream soaks the shirts and mingles with the blood, an offering and a curse at once.

“Guess we’re famous,” Daniel says.

Bart wipes his hands on his pants. “For a little while.”

They lean against a rock, watching the sky, listening for any sound. The knowledge settles between them: they are done. No matter what, they aren’t leaving this canyon alive.

Daniel rolls a smoke and lights it. “You think they’ll shoot us, or burn us out?”

Bart shrugs. “They’ll come tonight. Shoot, then burn.”

Daniel nods. “You scared?”

Bart thinks about it, then shakes his head. “No.”

Daniel grins. “Me neither.”

For a while, they just sit and smoke, the world shrinking to the canyon and the sky above. There’s nothing left to do but wait.

They’re good at waiting.

Always have been.

Night falls like a curtain. The wind dies, and the heat lingers in the rocks. Bart and Daniel keep to the cave, lamp turned low, each on his own bedroll. For a while, they talk about nothing—remembering girls from their hometown, old poker games, the taste of peaches from their mother’s tree.

Finally, Daniel sighs and says, “I don’t want them to get me, Bart. Not those fucking bounty men.”

Bart glances over. “You want I should do it?”

Daniel looks up, eyes shiny. “Yeah. If you don’t mind.”

Bart grins, all teeth and darkness. “Always happy to oblige.”

They sit together, side by side, Bart cleaning his guns and Daniel drinking from the flask he’d lifted off the dead bounty hunter. They don’t say much. There’s nothing left that needs saying.

Daniel stands up, swaying a little, his shadow stretching across the pine mat and over the circle of candlelit stone. His hands are steady, his face calm, but the eyes are wild and hungry. He stares at Bart a long time, then nods once, slow and deliberate. “Do it here,” he says, voice flat, as though it’s nothing more than an ordinary request.

Bart finishes cleaning his gun, licks the last drop of whiskey from his lips, and rises to stand in front of his brother. The revolver is heavy, cold, and the metal seems to hum with the echo of all the times it’s been fired. Bart presses the muzzle to Daniel’s tattooed belly, just above the knot of hair and muscle. Daniel doesn’t flinch, just exhales, letting his gut soften against the steel.

Bart cocks the hammer. The click is sharp. He waits, half hoping Daniel will change his mind, say “wait,” or “give me a minute”—but Daniel just closes his eyes and smiles.

The first shot is louder than the world. It flattens everything, even the wind, even the ache in Bart’s chest. Daniel jerks with the impact, his body arching as the slug tears through skin and muscle, but he doesn’t make a sound. Blood wells up instantly, bright and thick, and splatters the pine mat with flecks of red and black.

Daniel grins wider, lips pulled back over his stained teeth, and says, “Again.”

Bart fires. The second bullet punches deeper, a blossom of blood and meat blooming from the wound. Still Daniel stands, hands curled into loose fists, sweat running down his ribs and pooling in the small of his back.

Time stretches out. The world becomes the slow rhythm of Bart’s breathing, the way his finger tightens on the trigger, the way Daniel’s body absorbs each new violence like it’s a blessing and not a curse.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Each shot is a small explosion, a gift, a memory. By the last one, Daniel is sagging forward, head drooping, sweat and blood mingling in a messy river down his legs. His cock, half-erect, bobs with each spasm of pain. Bart lets the gun fall from his hand, empty, and hears the clatter echo in the stone room forever.

Daniel tries to say something, but only manages a wet gurgle. His knees buckle and he drops to all fours, ass in the air, blood cascading from his gut to the mat. He looks up at Bart, eyes clouded but still begging, still insistent.

Bart knows what he wants.

He grabs the shotgun, the old double-barreled one they took off the first man they ever killed, and cracks it open to check the load. Both barrels, ready to go. He snaps it shut, kneels behind Daniel, and wedges the barrel between his asscheeks, forcing it past resistance and into the hole.

Daniel’s breath comes in ragged, choking sobs. Bart leans close, lips at the nape of his brother’s neck, and says, “You sure?”

Daniel laughs. The sound is sick, broken, but there’s joy in it. “Do it, you fucking coward.”

Bart pulls the trigger.

The blast lifts Daniel off the mat. Blood and shit and viscera spray out in a cone, painting the rock wall and Bart’s arms and chest. Daniel screams, but the sound isn’t human, it’s animal, a bellow of agony and release. He flops forward, spasming, and the scream dwindles to a hiss, then a rattle.

He’s still alive. Somehow, impossibly, he’s still alive. Daniel tries to crawl, dragging himself across the mat, hands clawing at the stone. His back is ruined, gaping like a second mouth. Bart grabs him by the head, pulls him up, and kisses his brother hard, on the lips, tasting blood and bile and fear.

Daniel coughs into Bart’s mouth, then laughs again, softer now, almost sweet. “You sick fuck,” he whispers, but there’s no hate in it, only satisfaction.

Bart draws the revolver one last time, presses it to Daniel’s ruined ass, and fires every round left in the cylinder. Each shot shoves Daniel forward a little, until finally he sags into Bart’s arms, limp and empty. For a long moment, Bart just holds him, rocking back and forth, the way he used to when they were boys and Daniel would get hurt climbing fences or picking fights.

Bart lays him down gently, wipes the blood from his face, and smooths Daniel’s hair back with a trembling hand.

Silence returns.

Bart wipes his mouth, licks the blood from his fingers, and sits back on his heels. He doesn’t feel joy, or sorrow, just the old hunger, finally stilled.

He drags Daniel’s ruined body to the cave entrance, lays it out like a warning. Then he climbs up to the highest ledge, the stars cold above him, and waits for morning.

It’s almost over now.

At dawn, Bart wakes alone. He eats the last of the jerky, drinks what’s left in the flask, then sets to work.

He finds a thick, twisted branch up on the ridge, and ties a length of rope into a hangman’s noose. He saws a log into a crude stool, sets it under the branch, and tests the weight. It holds.

Bart strips naked, tossing his clothes in a pile beside the tree. His body is a roadmap of scars and old injuries, muscles bulging under a coat of dirt and hair. He unlocks Mike’s handcuffs from his belt, clicks them shut around his own wrists, then fumbles the noose over his head.

For a moment, he stands on the log, looking out over the empty canyon. There’s no one to see him go.

He shouts once, voice echoing off the rocks: “Come and get me, you bastards!”

Then he kicks the log away.

The rope bites down before Bart even realizes he’s left the earth. His toes scrape wild at the air, heels scuffing the log as it wobbles away down the slope, thumping against rocks and out of sight. His body jerks, every muscle straining at the sudden noose, sinews going taut and tendons lighting up with fire. The branch holds, groaning, and Bart hangs a good three feet off the ground, arms locked behind his back in the iron, neck bent at a crooked angle.

It doesn’t break his neck; that would’ve been a mercy. Instead he gets the slow death, the kind that makes your head fill up and your eyes bulge, the pressure building behind your face until your heart pounds so loud you can’t hear anything but your own blood. He thought he’d be scared when the moment came, but mostly it’s just pain, and hunger, and the white-hot clarity of wanting to keep breathing, even as the rope strangles every gasp.

He kicks, legs bicycling, cock slapping stupidly against his belly with each jolt. The world contracts to a narrow frame: the sky going orange behind the clouds, the smell of pine sap and gun oil baked into his hands, the taste of his own sweat and blood where he bit through his lip. If he could, he’d laugh—hell of a way to go, after all this—but the sound gets caught somewhere in his throat and turns into a wet, ugly gurgle.

His vision blurs at the edges, colors swirling together, and then it sharpens again so bright that every little thing stands out—the whorls of bark on the branch above, the shimmer of a beetle crawling on a rock below, the thick shadow of his own body stretching across the clearing. His chest heaves with effort, ribcage flexing, and with every gasp he can feel the blood surging, pooling, making his skin throb. His balls tighten, ache, and then his whole body goes electric, a burst of pleasure ripping through him so fierce it feels like a gunshot.

He comes, harder than he ever has, seed splattering in hot ropes onto the dirt and his own twitching thighs. It’s stupid and glorious and exactly what he wanted, and for a second the pain recedes, replaced by a floaty, oblivious warmth. Bart closes his eyes, savoring it—the last high, the ultimate fuck-you to the world that was always chasing him.

But his body isn’t done. The pain comes back, sharper, and something deep in his guts buckles. He shits himself, piss streaming down his legs, the stink mixing with blood and sweat. His tongue lolls out, swollen, and his teeth click together as his jaw spasms uncontrollably. His hands, locked in the cuffs, ball into fists behind him, fingernails digging into his palms.

He hangs there a long time, much longer than he thought possible. The minutes stretch, each second a little death in itself. He swings gently, the wind nudging him left, then right, like a mother rocking a baby to sleep. The canyon is silent except for the creak of the branch and the buzz of flies already gathering. The world shrinks to the ache and the dark, and the memory of Daniel’s last smile, and the taste of whiskey and gunpowder and blood.

At the end, Bart doesn't howl, or beg, or rage. He just hangs, head lolled, eyes open to the rising sun. His feet stop twitching. His cock droops, spent, still glistening, the last of him dribbling out down his thigh. The flies settle on his face. His body goes from red to purple to blue, skin tight across the bones.

He’s alone, alone for the first time in his life and also the last, and the world rolls on without him.

The morning air is crisp and cool, carrying dust and the faint scent of last night’s gunfire. Far below, the girl and the boy and the dogs will wake and find silence where there used to be trouble. The men with badges and rifles will come, eventually, and what’s left of Bart will still be hanging there, daring them to look up, to take what’s left and do their worst.

Overhead, a hawk circles, then lands on the branch, just out of reach of Bart’s empty hands. It cocks its head, then starts picking at his face, curious and hungry.

Time passes, and nothing changes. The sun climbs higher, the shadow of the dead man shrinking until it’s just a black smudge under his feet.

And then, and then, the world is still.

There’s nothing left but the wind, the flies, and the echo of his last wordless dare.

After sunset, the remaining bounty hunters edge into the canyon, rifles up, boots sliding on gravel. They’re cautious at first—nobody wants to be the next corpse—but the stink of blood and shit tells them the real danger has passed.

They find Bart’s body swaying on the branch, naked and spectacular, balls as big as plums and cock still half-hard, chin glossy with drool. They whoop and holler, slap each other on the back, and take turns throwing rocks at the dead man’s swinging feet. One of the men, a kid from San Diego, dares another to tug Bart’s dick and see if he’ll cum again. They laugh when he does.

A hundred yards down, they find Daniel splayed out at the mouth of the cave, face blown open and ass ruined by the shotgun. The mess is so bad, a few men lose their lunch, but the leader—an old bastard called Stew—just grins. “I told you those Blackhawks was fuckin’ animals,” he says. “Look how they went out.”

They don’t waste time. The bounty is for heads, not bodies. Two men work knives, sawing off Bart’s head at the base of the neck, then Daniel’s. They wrap each one in a greasy bandana, mark them for easy ID.

The others get busy with the rest. Bart’s balls are lopped off, skinned and hollowed into tobacco pouches, the hide stretched tight and stitched with sinew. Daniel’s are smaller, but the kid makes a show of tying them into a coin purse, dangling it from his belt. There’s more laughter, and then the most daring of the crew slices Bart’s cock loose, slides it into Daniel’s slack mouth. Another man takes Daniel’s, jams it between Bart’s frozen lips. “There,” he says. “Now they can 69 each other in hell.”

The men piss on the bodies, stamp their boots in the mess, and light a cigarette to watch the work of their hands.

When it’s done, they pack the heads and trophies into saddlebags, wipe their knives clean, and ride out under a sky thick with bats. No one says a prayer. Nobody looks back.

In the morning, vultures wheel overhead. They land heavy and greedy, tearing strips from the bodies. The blood on the rocks is gone by noon, scrubbed clean by beaks and claws and the dry, hungry wind.

A mile up the slope, wedged in a cold slit of mountain, the last of Mike Barnett lies slumped and festering, forgotten by the world. His corpse is a swollen parody of what used to be—a taut, purple mess of skin stretched so tight it shines in the moonlight, every wound and orifice bulging with the silent, efficient machinery of decay. The first week, the meat of him bloats with the sweet rot of bacterial bloom, limbs ballooning, belly high and hard as a drum, mouth frozen in a rictus of disbelief. His tongue, once famous for its curses and threats, lolls blue and enormous over shattered teeth, inviting in the first wave of flies.

The flies come in sheets, laying their eggs in the corners of his eyes, the fold of his lips. Within days, the eggs hatch, and Mike’s world becomes a silent, seething mass of activity. Maggots burrow deep into the soft places, wriggling through the hollows of his face and neck, sluicing tunnels in the meat, churning out more flies, more eggs, a rolling tide of white hunger. The smell is overwhelming, a sweet and sulfurous pall that seeps into the rock and seeps down the mountain on every shift of wind.

When the gases build up, they blow out through the seams: a wet pop at the belly-button, a hiss and splay at the anus, a geyser of foam from the nose and mouth as the pressure equalizes. Skin sloughs off in sheets, hair and beard coming loose in curly clumps, fingers wrinkling and blackening, then snapping off at the second joint, picked clean by the jaws of beetles and the sharp beaks of birds. The eyes, last to go, collapse inward, sucked away by the vacuum as the skull caves and the face loses all resemblance to the man it used to be.

By the second week, nothing is left but a shroud of denim and leather, stained and crawling, and the unspooling of tendons and fat as the insects finish their work. Occasionally, a coyote or fox slips in to gnaw at the bones, but even they seem to sense something unlucky about the body, something mean lingering in the sinew, and they always slink away before they're sated. The cold comes early at altitude. Nights drop below freezing. The wind dries everything that’s left, leaving Mike as light and brittle as a bundle of sticks, limbs splayed in a pose of half-surrender, half-accusation.

He is less than a ghost now, less than even a story. No one will come looking; in the valleys, they already tell each other Mike Barnett got what was coming to him, that the mountains finally collected his tab. The only testimony to his passing is in the maggot rivers that trickle down the stones, in the white powder of bone-edged dust that gathers in the cracks and blows away with the first real wind.

At the same time, farther down the slope, the last remains of Bart and Daniel rot in their own public theatre. Carrion birds strip the faces in a day, yellow jackets and hornets finish the soft tissue in a week, and soon all the drama and violence that filled those bodies becomes another layer on the earth, a mineral memory for the next thing to grow there.

The world moves on, winter coming fast and early, hardening the mud and browning the grass. By the time the first frost comes, there is nothing left of the three men but bones, stories, and a handful of crude souvenirs riding east in the pockets of men too mean to ever die themselves.

And the canyon, at last, is quiet.

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