Run OF The Arrow

Suddenly,
a glimmer of hope caught Quinn's eye. Ahead, the endless plain gave
way to a shallow, rocky rise. Not a mountain, not even a hill, but a
tangled mess of mesquite trees and ancient, sun-bleached boulders. It
was the kind of place a man could disappear into, if he knew how to
look.

Quinn
gritted his teeth, his back pressed against the rough bark of a
juniper. Every heartbeat
sent a spike of white-hot agony into his shoulder. He was alone, a
day's
ride from the river, and the arrow
wound was starting to weep a thin, dark fluid. Infection
was a death sentence out here, swift and ugly.

With
his good hand, his movements slow and deliberate, fighting the tremor
of pain and fatigue. He ejected
a cartridge from his Winchester, a .44-40. His fingers, stained with
drying blood, worked the brass casing
until the bullet was loose. He twisted it free, the lead dropping
into the dust, useless now. Carefully, he tipped the casing.
A fine, black, granular river of gunpowder spilled out, catching the
last weak rays of light. He poured it into the dented crown of his
hat. He needed all of it.

"Gonna
be a rough night, old friend," he muttered, addressing the sky.

He
painfully
took off his shirt. The arrow-wound
was an angry, red gash, swollen and pulsing. He held his breath,
tilting the hat. The black grains tumbled over the brim and down into
the hole in his shoulder. They settled deep within the torn muscle,
looking like coarse, black sand against the pale flesh. The smell of
the sulphur was sharp in the cooling air.

He
paused, his jaw clenched, sweat beading instantly on his brow. The
next part was the worst. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
match. He scratched it on the stone beside him, the sound impossibly
loud in the stillness. The sulphur flared, then the tiny wooden stick
settled into a steady, bright flame. Quinn took one last, shuddering
breath, tasting the dust. He brought the little fire close to his
shoulder, right over the black-dusted
wound.

The
moment the flame touched the grains, the air was ripped apart by a
sound like a tiny, violent cannon. A brilliant, blinding flash of
orange and yellow light erupted, searing the wound. Quinn’s body
arched, the pain a colossal, staggering wave that drowned his senses.
He gave a strangled, wordless cry, his head slamming back against the
juniper bark. The agony was absolute, but mercifully short.

When
he could finally draw a breath, the stench of burnt flesh and powder
was thick in the air. He looked at his shoulder. The wound was black,
charred, and smoking. The powder had flash-cooked
the tissue, sealing the blood vessels and, more importantly,
sterilising
the open door to his body. The pain had dulled to a deep, throbbing
ache—a bearable pain.

Quinn
leaned his head back, letting the shock pass. He was alive for
now. He had to find a place to hide
up so he could heal.

Quinn
slapped
his horse lightly on the flank. "Go on, boy. Walk slow, leave a
trail." The horse, of uncommon sense, ambled off, disappearing
behind a thicket of hackberry.

Quinn
turned, the pounding of the pursuing hooves growing louder—a dull,
rhythmic thunder on the dry earth.
He had minutes, maybe less. He plunged into the thicket, ignoring the
pain. The air immediately cooled, smelling of dry dust and brittle
leaves. He scrambled over a low stack of grey
rock until he reached the edge of a draw—a
small, dry ravine. It was deeper than it looked, lined with loose
shale.

He
was about to descend when his eyes caught a detail on the opposite
bank—a massive, twisted mesquite
tree. Its roots, thicker than a man’s
torso, had been exposed by years of erosion, creating a canopy of
wood and earth. Beneath this root system, the ground had given way,
leaving a shadowy, wedge-shaped gap—just
big enough for a man and his rifle. It was a perfect, natural
hideout. A whisper of darkness in the blinding light.

Quinn
dropped into the draw, his boots kicking up dust, and scrambled
across to the mesquite. He flattened himself and slid into the gap,
pulling his Winchester '73 snug against his chest. The space was
tight, smelling strongly of dry earth and old wood, but it offered a
clear view out through the curtain of dangling roots.

He
had barely settled when the Comancheros arrived. There were five
of them, rugged men with hard faces and cruel eyes, led by
'the
Snake'. They were all armed, and they were angry.

"He
went this way!" the Snake
roared, his voice echoing off the rocks. "The tracks lead
straight into this brush!"

They
dismounted, their spurs jingling menacingly. Quinn could hear their
heavy breathing and the creak of their leather gear. They were so
close he could have reached out and touched the dusty fringe of the
Snake's
saddlebag.
Two of the men began crashing through the mesquite close by, their
boots scuffing the dry ground, shouting curses.

"The
horse tracks keep going!" one yelled. "He's still on him,
Snake!
He's trying to outrun us!"

Quinn
held his breath, every muscle tense. He knew he'd
left the faintest of tracks entering the draw, but the Comancheros
were focussed
on the clear, deliberate trail his horse had left heading straight
out.

The
Snake
walked right up to the edge of the draw, standing directly over
Quinn’s
position. A pebble, dislodged by his boot, tumbled down and landed
less than a foot from Quinn’s
head.

"He’s
not on foot," Snake
decided, his voice low and dangerous. "He’s on his horse. He's
tryin'
to draw us out in the open. You two, track the horse. Don’t
let him get far. I'll
take the other way with White-Eagle."

With
a final, chilling glance at the unmoving, silent roots of the
mesquite, Snake
remounted and rode off, followed by the rest. Their shouts and the
thunder of their departure faded into the oppressive silence of the
midday sun.

Quinn
waited, counting to five hundred, then counting again, until he was
sure the land was empty. Finally, he edged out of the root-cave,
brushing the dirt from his clothes. He looked back at the space—a
hidden cradle of earth and wood, concealed by the very unforgiving
nature of the land.

He
retrieved his horse a short distance away, gave the horse a grateful
pat, and swung back into the saddle. The Comancheros were gone for
now, fooled by a smart horse and a silent, gnarled tree. He mounted
his horse, who he now named Wanderer,
a beast as tired of running as its rider.

"Just
a bit further, Wanderer,"
Quinn murmured, his voice a low, gravelly sound. "We
need somewhere the shadows are deep enough to finally swallow us
whole."

The
rising sun caught the brass studs on his saddle, a brief, dangerous
flash. He’d
ridden through enough Indian
territory, seen enough false havens, to know the rules of
survival: Trust the wilderness more than man, and keep your powder
dry for both.

He
knew they were close. He'd
found a sign—a crudely carved symbol on a tree trunk, a mark of the
Comancheros' dark tongue. It meant: Seen
him. Following.

Quinn
spurred Wanderer
into a steady trot, his eyes fixed on the distant, jagged line of the
Devil’s
Mountains. He remembered an old prospector's
tale, a legend about a canyon deep inside those peaks, a place called
Valle
Oscura, the Dark Valley. A natural fortress, surrounded by
sheer rock and accessible only by a single, treacherous trail. If he
could make it there, if the legend was true, he might finally trade
the life of a hunted man for the lonely, hard-won peace of a ghost.
The ride would be brutal, but the alternative was a Comanchero knife
in his back.

The
trail into the Sierra
Diabolo was a relentless ascent. The air grew thin, and
the desert floor gave way to scrub pine and unforgiving granite.
Quinn dismounted often, leading Wanderer
up slopes that felt vertical. His hands were raw from gripping the
reins and the hot, rough stone.

Six
hours into the mountains, he reached the place the prospector had
described—a narrow, winding pass known as The
Serpent’s Tooth. It was a geological nightmare, a
pathway carved by ancient floods, barely wide enough for a single
horse, with thousand-foot
drops on either side.

As
he began the slow, nerve-wracking
crossing, a sudden sound echoed from the pass entrance behind him.
The distinct clink
of a steel horseshoe on stone. Not a single sound, but a pattern—too
steady, too heavy for a lone traveller.
They had caught up.

Quinn
pressed himself and Wanderer
against the canyon wall, drawing his repeater rifle. He squinted back
down the trail. Five riders, silhouetted
against the bright afternoon sky. They wore the dust-caked leather
and the grim, empty eyes he knew so well. Leading them was the
Snake, a man Quinn had hoped never to see again.

The
Snake
held up a hand, and the riders stopped. The leader knew the risk of
charging the Serpent’s
Tooth. A harsh, triumphant shout echoed up the canyon
wall.

"White-man!
You run like a coyote, but you will die
like a pig!"

Quinn
didn't
answer. He couldn't
risk revealing his exact position. He knew he had minutes before the
Snake
gambled and sent two of his men forward.

He
found a cluster of loose, wagon-sized
boulders teetering on a high ledge directly above the narrowest pinch
of the pass. They were just waiting for a nudge. His right hand was
useless, a dead weight pouring warmth onto the dirt. He tried to grip
the Winchester's
grip, and a fresh wave of agony made him bite back a scream. He had
to think fast. His left hand was strong, but clumsy with a rifle
built for a two-handed
operation. The problem wasn't
firing, it was reloading.

The
lever-action
mechanism of the Winchester required a strong downward pull on the
loop to eject the spent casing and chamber a new round, but Quinn
could manage it one-handed.
He fired the first shot. He shifted his grip, balancing the heavy
rifle just forward of the receiver. His thumb hooked around the lever
loop. He had practised
this, a trick born of boredom and necessity around countless lonely
campfires. A trick he called the ‘Twirl
Reload.’

With
a sudden, violent, yet controlled motion, Quinn tossed the rifle
upwards with his left hand. It spun, the butt stock moving up and
over. As the rifle revolved, the force of the spin drove the lever
all the way down and then, with a sharp ‘click-clack,’
the centrifugal force completed the cycle: the spent brass cartridge
was ejected cleanly into the dust, and the loading gate slammed shut,
bringing a fresh .44-40 round into the firing chamber. He caught the
rifle a heartbeat later, the stock slamming back into the shoulder
pocket of his good side. The entire motion took less than a second.

Quinn
squeezed the trigger. The rifle boomed. The heat radiating from the
barrel was instantly replaced by the cool, hard wood of the stock. He
pitched the rifle up again, letting it spin in a tight, mechanical
arc. The heavy lever dropped, the rifle twirled, and the used casing
spun out, glinting briefly in the harsh sunlight before hitting the
ground.

Quinn
repeated the movement three more times. He fired
three precise shots into the base of the nearest boulder, aiming for
the weakest point in the rock supporting it. The noise was deafening,
the echo rolling back and forth like mocking laughter. On the third
shot, the ground shuddered.

A
deep, tearing groan erupted from the ledge. The boulders shifted,
then pitched forward, gathering speed as they tore out the entire
side of the trail. The sound became a thunderous, grinding roar.
Quinn shielded his face as dust and small pebbles rained down.

When
the dust settled, he looked back. The Serpent’s
Tooth was no more. In its place was a horrific, yawning
gap filled with jagged rock and fresh landslide debris. No horse, no
man, could cross it now. He had bought his time, and perhaps, his
valley. He needed to find the Valle
Oscura, and he needed to find it now.

The
legend proved true. Beyond the landslide, the trail opened into a
hidden, unexpected basin. It was a bowl of land, shielded from the
sun by towering canyon walls, creating a perpetual twilight—the
Valle
Obscura. At the centre
of the valley stood the remains of an ancient Pueblo dwelling, built
directly into the side of a cliff. It was a structure of dried mud
and stone, remarkably intact, with a naturally sheltered cave opening
high up on the wall, overlooking the valley floor.

Quinn
looked up at the cave. It was defensible, invisible from the rim, and
had a clear view of the only viable approach. A perfect hideout.

He
spent the next two days hauling supplies into the cave, shoring up
the entrance with loose rock, and carving out loopholes for his
rifle. He found an old, dry spring line behind the dwelling, a
trickle of water he could capture. He was isolated, safe, and utterly
alone.

On
the third day, he sat in the mouth of his cave, cleaning his wound,
the cold mountain wind whistling softly through the high rock
chimneys. The Comancheros were out there, searching, but they
hadn't found the valley. For the first time in days, Quinn
felt the tension ease from his shoulders. He was an outlaw who had
finally become a hermit, swapping his dangerous freedom for an
unyielding solitude.

He
looked out over his valley, a vast, quiet space of scrub grass and
deep shadow. This was the end of the line, the final hideout. He had
traded the fleeting thrill of the open road for the heavy permanence
of stone and darkness. His exile was complete.