Run of the arrow chapter 2 death at dawn

ested:
The sun beat down on the parched earth, baking the dust into a fine, choking powder that rose in clouds behind Quinn. Wanderer was running hard, his flanks lathered with sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Behind them, the Comancheros rode like demons, the rhythmic pounding of their horses' hooves a drumbeat of doom. Quinn leaned low in the saddle, urging Wanderer on.
He’d made the mistake of leaving his hideout, and now these renegades, hungry for the kill, were rapidly closing the distance. "Hold on, boy," he muttered, spotting a line of jagged granite boulders ahead. "Just a little further."
With a final, desperate surge, Quinn steered Wanderer directly into the shelter of the rocks. He hauled him up sharply, leaping down before the horse fully stopped, and dragged him behind the largest stone outcrop. He drew his Winchester. He had only twelve rounds left—maybe enough for three or four of them, if he was lucky and quick.
The pounding hooves outside slowed, then stopped. A deadly silence descended, broken only by the wind whistling through the rocks and the desperate, heaving breaths of Wanderer. Quinn flattened himself against the stone, his eyes darting between the gaps. They knew he was here; they were just figuring out how to flush him out.
A harsh, guttural shout broke the stillness—a command. Suddenly, a strange whistling sound filled the air. Quinn glanced up, recognizing the deadly tactic immediately. "The bastards..." he whispered.
Instead of charging the rocks, the Comancheros were firing their arrows high into the sky, calculating the trajectory to carry them over the granite wall and plunge down into the small pocket where Quinn was hidden. They were using gravity as their killer.
Quinn pressed himself as flat as a lizard against the earth, the grit biting into his cheek. The whistling grew into a terrifying, rushing sound. Thwack! A sharp arrow buried itself in the dirt a hand's width from his head, the fletching quivering. Thwack! Thwack! Two more struck the stone beside him, showering him with rock dust. He held his breath, every muscle tense, waiting for the inevitable, cold impact.
Then, a sickening, wet thump followed by a heart-wrenching, choked whinny. Quinn sprang up, looking over Wanderer. An arrow, a long shaft of painted wood and flint, had sunk deep into Wanderer’s shoulder, just above the joint. The horse had shifted at the wrong moment, and the projectile meant for Quinn had found him instead. He stumbled, his eyes wide with pain and confusion, letting out another high-pitched, distressed cry.
"Wanderer!" Quinn gripped his neck, his voice rough with despair. The wound was bad. He couldn't run. He couldn't even stand steady. The shouting outside intensified. They knew they had hit something. They were coming now, spurred by the sound of the stricken horse.
Quinn looked at the horse—his companion, his lifeline, his friend. He gripped his Winchester tighter. He couldn't leave him to them, and he couldn't take him with him. With a deep, awful breath, he pressed the barrel of the Winchester against the horse’s temple, looking into his gentle, dark eye one last time. "I'll see you in the high meadows, boy," he choked out, his hand shaking.
Blam! The shot echoed off the granite walls, a clean, swift end to the brave horse.
Quinn didn't wait to grieve. He snatched his saddlebags and water canteen, vaulted over the rocks on the opposite side, and left the dead horse as a silent offering, drawing the Comancheros in for one final, desperate stand.
 
Quinn checked the action on his Winchester 73. Around him, dust devils danced nervously—and through the swirling grit, the shapes of men on horseback began to coalesce.
“Looks like I’ll be seeing Wanderer sooner than I thought,” Quinn muttered, spitting a shard of dry grass from his lips. The snake, a hulking brute, gave a guttural laugh that was carried by the dry wind. “Hombre, you are done. Drop the rifle and we will make it quick.” Quinn didn't reply with words. He replied with a lever-action blur.
The first shot was a clean, sharp crack that seemed to silence the world. The man on the far left, reaching for his own weapon, slumped forward and tumbled from the saddle before the echo died. Quinn dropped into the meager shelter of a dried-up wash, the Winchester cradled like a lover. He was fast, his movements practiced from years of living on the knife-edge of civilization.
The Comancheros spurred their horses, circling and whooping, trying to draw him out. Quinn waited, calm as a hawk on a wire. A rider leaning low to the side of his pony exposed a sliver of chest. Quinn’s rifle barked again. Another man down, his horse galloping away riderless.
The snake and his remaining three men spread out. Quinn sighted on the rider trying to flank him through the dense sagebrush. He squeezed the trigger, working the lever with smooth, relentless efficiency. His rifle spoke for the third time! The third man screamed, clutching his shoulder, and veered away, out of the fight.
Now it was four to one. Quinn’s heart was steady, his focus absolute.
He heard the faint, metallic clink of the hammer striking an empty chamber. He quickly thumbed in the last three rounds he carried for the rifle. Three more bullets to thin the herd.
Quinn took a quick shot at the galloping target coming straight for him. A plume of dust and blood erupted from the horse’s neck. The animal shrieked and pitched its rider into the sand.
Two rounds left. Three Comancheros remaining. The snake, grim-faced and furious, and two others.
Quinn took out the last two men with the cold calculation of a chess player. One through the gut, staggering him. The other, a quick double shot to the chest that stopped his charge dead.
He worked the lever one last time. Click. The Winchester was empty.
The snake pulled his horse up short, eyes blazing with a mixture of disbelief and rage. He had seen four of his best men fall to a single rifle. He tossed his carbine aside.
“You fight like a devil, vaquero,” the snake snarled, drawing a long, wickedly curved bowie knife. “But a devil cannot fight a blade with empty hands!”
Quinn rose slowly from the wash, dropping the useless rifle. He drew a deep breath of the hot, dusty air.
“Let’s see about that, snake,” Quinn said, dropping his fists into a stance learned in the brawls of a thousand frontier saloons.
 
The snake charged, relying on size and the terror of the gleaming blade. Quinn sidestepped the wild thrust, catching the man’s wrist and twisting. The knife clattered harmlessly to the ground. Snake roared, swinging a massive fist. Quinn ducked under the blow and drove his elbow hard into the Comanchero’s ribs. A sickening crack told him he’d broken bone.
Snake staggered back, wheezing, and suddenly, the remaining two Comancheros, who had been watching the showdown from a nervous distance, sprang forward. Now it was a brutal, swirling melee in the red dirt.
The first man was short, agile, and came in fast with a boot knife. Quinn blocked the kick, grabbed the ankle, and sent the man tumbling backward. Before he could recover, Quinn stomped down hard on his wrist, crushing the hand holding the knife. The man cried out, clutching his ruined appendage.
Quinn turned back to snake, but the leader’s two bodyguards were on him. One wrapped him from behind in a desperate bear hug, pinning his arms. The other held a knife to Quinn’s throat. The air was thick with the suffocating scent of sage and dust, and the oppressive heat was a physical weight pressing down on the two figures. Sundown painted the western sky in brutal streaks of incandescent orange and blood-red, a fittingly violent backdrop for the confrontation.
Quinn stood rigidly, facing his adversary.
Across from him coiled The Snake, the feared Comanchero leader whose reputation for wanton ruthlessness spanned the territories from Texas to Santa Fe. He was shorter than Quinn, yet densely muscled, his entire frame primed for violence. His eyes were two chips of black obsidian beneath a sweat-stained bandana, and a chilling smile played on his lips, revealing teeth filed to sharp points—a detail Quinn had only heard whispered but now saw confirmed.
Between them, the sand was churned into a soft, disturbed circle around the only prize: a massive Bowie knife. Its bone hilt gleamed in the dying light, plunged point-down into the earth a deliberate ten feet from their starting marks.
A short, coarse length of rawhide rope, no more than two feet long, connected them. One end was cinched tight around Quinn's right wrist, the other around The Snake's left. They were tethered, forced into cruel proximity, like two bulls yoked to the same fight.
The Snake let out a soft, rasping chuckle, a sound like dry leaves skittering across rock. He spread his arms slightly, testing the immediate, restrictive pull of the tether.
“Hear me, white-man,” The Snake hissed, his voice dry and brittle as the desert floor. “The sun gods are watching this game. The winner takes the spoils; my men will not touch you if you win. The winner walks free to live another day. The loser stays here, for the buzzards to clean.” An older man translated the harsh words for the Comanchero leader.
Quinn offered no reply. He merely gave a single, curt nod, the tension in his shoulders coiled taut as piano wire. He shifted his weight imperceptibly, preparing for a sudden, explosive spring.
The Comanchero leader granted no signal. He moved like his namesake—low, swift, and entirely without warning.
In a lightning blur, The Snake dropped and lunged for Quinn's legs, intent on tripping him and dragging him to the ground. The two-foot rope instantly snapped taut, wrenching Quinn's right arm down and catastrophically throwing his balance forward. Quinn cursed under his breath, driving his left boot hard into the ground to anchor himself. Instinctively, he swung his cuffed right arm back, pulling The Snake’s lunging body into a jarring, unintended collision.
The impact was bone-jarring. They stumbled, the short rope a relentless tether forcing them into a savage, awkward waltz. The Snake recovered first, using the momentum of their tangle to twist his body and slam a vicious elbow into Quinn's floating ribs. A sharp, searing bolt of agony shot through Quinn’s side.
He's using the rope like a chain, Quinn realized instantly. Every movement is a calculated counter-pull.
Instead of retreating to gain space, Quinn drove forward. He used the Comanchero’s aggression against him, closing the distance completely and nullifying the reach his opponent sought. Their chests slammed together. Now, in this frantic clinch, the short rope was useless, and the fight devolved into pure, desperate wrestling—sheer brute force against brute force.
Quinn drove his forehead into The Snake’s nose with a sickening, wet crunch. The Comanchero roared, a sound of pure agony and blinding rage, and staggered back, momentarily incapacitated by tears and gushing blood.
This was the opening.
Quinn pivoted sharply on his heel, yanking the tethered right arm with all his strength. The violent pull spun The Snake completely around, staggering him into disorientation. Without hesitation, Quinn sprinted the few desperate steps toward the buried knife.
He was less than a foot away when a heavy boot caught him brutally in the small of the back. The Snake, moving with inhuman speed despite his injury, had lunged forward, the rope jerking Quinn to a dead halt inches from his goal.
Quinn pitched forward onto his knees, his hands scrabbling desperately for the gleaming hilt. The Snake was immediately upon him, falling onto Quinn’s back and driving him into the dirt. The Comanchero’s forearm clamped around Quinn’s throat in a brutal, crushing choke-hold.
The dust filled Quinn's mouth and nostrils. His lungs burned with mounting panic. The short rope felt like a hangman’s knot drawing tighter around his life. He bucked and thrashed, his free left hand clawing futilely at The Snake’s arm, but the hold was absolute. Black spots began to bloom and dance before his eyes.
The knife!
With the last reserve of strength, Quinn twisted his torso violently to the side, throwing the dead weight of both struggling men toward the weapon. He couldn't reach the handle, but his tethered right wrist landed directly on the raised blade's edge.
A raw scream tore from Quinn’s lips as the sharpened steel sliced deep into his forearm, the blood immediately welling and soaking the coarse sleeve. But the force of the fall, and the sickening scrape of steel on bone, had achieved its goal. The Bowie knife had been levered loose from the ground.
As The Snake eased the pressure slightly, startled by the sudden gush of warmth and the shift in momentum, Quinn rolled. He didn't try to stand. He merely grasped the hilt with his bloodied right hand, holding the blade upward in a defensive curl, still inextricably tied to his enemy.
The Snake instantly saw the knife and knew the deadly game had changed. He lunged, not to seize the weapon, but to shatter the wrist holding it.
Quinn didn't have the space to swing a blow. He didn't need it. As The Snake closed the gap, Quinn shoved the knife handle-first toward the charging Comanchero, then at the last possible second, reversed his grip and drove the tip forward into the soft, unprotected flesh just beneath The Snake’s ribs.
The leader of the Comancheros gasped, his eyes wide and shocked in disbelief. The fight drained out of him instantly, replaced by a sudden, total void. He looked down at the blade protruding from his side, then up at Quinn, and a wet, gurgling sound escaped his throat.
The two men remained kneeling in the dust, connected by the short rope, one bleeding heavily from a wound, the other dying from a mortal one.
Quinn gave a massive, wrenching tug on the rope, ripping the knife free. The Snake collapsed onto his side, his body already slack and unresponsive.
Quinn didn't wait for him to fully fall. He used the keen edge of the now blood-soaked Bowie knife to saw frantically at the rope cinched around his own raw wrist. The rough fibers parted easily under the razor-sharp steel.
He stood up, swaying slightly, the burning sunset now blinding him with its brilliance. He was free.
He walked past the motionless body of The Snake, not looking back, and mounted the Comanchero’s horse. The dead man’s words echoed clearly in his ears as he rode away toward the growing darkness.
The winner walks free to live another day.
Quinn wiped the knife on his trousers and kept riding, the grit and the blood of the desperate fight already drying on his skin, becoming a harsh part of the desert he had survived.