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One hundred thousand dollars in gold was not an easy amount of money to spend. And his attempts to spend it had led him to a quiet little town by the name of Springwater, north west, away from the conflicts of war by the edges of the desert where coarse sand turned into dry dirt.
Springwater was hardly a town, and its name was so far removed from its torrid reality that it must be steeped in generations of ironic wishing. They had no church. Merely a congregation of nearby farmers on certain days of the week. There was a run down ranch two hours drive away from the high street he could call his own. It was barely a dent in his fortune.
Blondie settled into a strange sort of mundanity, practicing routine like the honest folks. He kept the nickname even though he had no one else to share it with, and had long since parted ways with the man who had given it to him. His horse and half a dozen hens kept him company. There was also a greyish yellow mutt that would beg him for scratches behind the ear. Folks here called him by the name of a dead man, one he picked up by the long stretches of the desert road.
Every second Monday he’d ride into town for the farmer’s gatherings. To purchase anything he could not procure himself, and to exchange his eggs for a pitiable amount of money. Anything looked pitiable compared to one hundred thousand worth of gold, spread amongst banks and buried in several unnamed locations mapped only in his mind.
The town was quiet and desolated in a way that made him question how a community had managed to survive. At least there was a saloon, and Blondie made himself very familiar to the people there despite his reluctant tolerance to drink. Watering holes brought whispers of news, and he kept his ear out for Tuco, hoping he’d catch a trace of him again.
The barkeep was the owner. He knew how to cut hair and cut limbs like the sawbones. His wife played the piano when she wasn’t laundering the rooms upstairs. She knew how to procure medicine from wild herbs, and her dexterous hands made her good at stitching wounds. But if one was any more seriously sick, they either had to ride out or wait for the doctor to ride in, twelve miles from the east for two days of the week. Or simply die.
Blondie liked it here, despite the boring slow way of living. Strangers were a rarity, himself was one when he had arrived three months ago. He didn’t mind being the outsider. When the weather would change he’d entertain thoughts of leaving again, and return to the long stretches of the lonesome desert road. Folks here lived in the secured comfort of routine and familiarity, timid and easily disturbed like desert mice.
So when he pushed into the saloon and found it starkly quiet, he knew there was a stranger in town before he had even laid eyes upon him.
The man was lithe, poised elegantly like a dark mountain lion by the bar with a glass of whiskey in his hand. He stood out, dressed in a pressed black suit like a city boy, with a beautifully patterned silk vest and a narrow necktie. He was dust free, barely a hint of mud on his boots or dirt on his coat. Though there was a slight greyish tinge to his countenance.
Yet the stranger wore a gun. He wore it comfortably and confidently across his belly. And when the stranger turned to face him, Blondie’s heart skipped a beat in startled fright.
Angel Eyes.
There was no mistaking it. Narrow face, well groomed moustache. Unforgettably piercing dark eyes. A dead man’s ghost stood by the bar.
Angel Eyes jerked his head as an invitation. Blondie approached unhurriedly cautious, as if a panther stalking her prey, each step slow and calculated, and his right hand hovered by his gun belt beneath his poncho. If not for the tight-strung silence across the saloon, he would’ve assumed this dark spectre was unseen to everyone but himself.
“You’re getting sloppy, boy,” said Angel Eyes. The man bit his pipe between his teeth in a coyish teasing smile. It was a new pipe, Blondie noted. Yellow instead of black.
Blondie took his time to light a cigarillo, inhaled deeply and chewed it between his teeth.
“I fired four shots,” he gritted.
One hit Angel Eyes on the shoulder, and the other his heart. One for his hat and one for his gun. He knew he did not miss. Though they did leave him in an open grave. Perhaps they should’ve buried him, made coming back a whole lot harder if there was six feet of dirt above you.
Angel Eyes tutted. Blondie bristled and tried to hide his agitation by switching his cigarillo to the other side of his mouth. His lips slightly curled up into a half-snarl.
“Four bullets for four men. And you missed all of it?” Angel Eyes was amused, eyes crinkled, “That’s quite unlike you, Manco.”
“Manco?”
He couldn’t recall a time where Angel Eyes or anyone else had called him that. Angel Eyes didn’t call him anything. They were not partners. He was just a tool, a man with no name, yet with the knowledge of a name that could lead them to two hundred thousand dollars.
Angel Eyes pulled the pipe from his mouth, looked Blondie over from head to toe in a way that made every hair on his body stand on point. He then clicked his tongue once, an unreadable expression on his sharp features.
“Is this another one of those childish game of yours?” The older man said, voice low. “Pretend we’re friendless strangers in a miserably lonely town?” Angel Eyes tapped his pipe on the counter, dug into the burnt tobacco before repacking it with a sigh. “I’m in no mood to play, since you’ve let those bandits slip away. We should get back to the road now. Track them down before their trail gets cold.”
Blondie couldn’t grasp his head around what Angel Eyes had said. Though the word ‘we’ stuttered across his mind, agitated his senses like a rough branch hooked on soft wool. It reminded him too much of the prison camp. There was an offer then, scant exchange of words. And he had to pretend to be amicable with the man who had ordered Tuco to be beat within an inch of his life.
“I ain’t your partner,” Blondie said, blew smoke in his face.
Angel Eyes dashed away the smoke and sent him a stern glare. “That’s enough.”
Blondie sneered, the hand by his gun twitched. Looking at the deep blue silk vest made his head buzz with a rising sense of dread, how could he have afforded those clothes. The cigarillo was bitter between his teeth and he gnawed on it like an offence. He should’ve stayed longer at Sad Hill, should’ve stayed long enough for Tuco to calm down and they’d each work a shovel to bury this bastard beneath the dirt. And then maybe he wouldn’t have to travel the desert road by his lonesome anymore, maybe he’d have a partner to share the burden of two hundred thousand dollars worth in gold. He needed to ask.
“You’re well dressed,” Blondie said, suppressed the heat in his voice with a forced breath of nonchalance. “Did you kill Tuco and take his share?”
Genuine confusion softened Angel Eyes’ harsh features. His brows pinned together, eyes misted with a curious sense of perplexment. “Boy, you say those words as if I knew what any of it means…”
“Such large sums of gold are often difficult to forget,” Blondie said.
A tight caution seeped into Angel Eyes, observable in the subtle shift of his posture, no longer leaning against the bar.
“Who are you.” The words were clipped, accusatory.
Blondie glared, lips peeled back to show teeth. “The man who killed you. I should be asking how you’re still alive.”
Angel Eyes reached for his gun.
Blondie was faster, he always was. He had his revolver drawn, hammer cocked, and casually poised by his hips long before Angel Eyes could even pull his gun from the holster.
He tutted. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Folks in the saloon grew restless and nervous. A few rose from their seats, itching to bolt out if given the opportunity. The barkeep backed away, made himself as small as possible against the cabinets. Blondie sighed. He liked this town. He had hoped to stay for a few more months, settle through the winter, before he had to move on again.
“Too slow for an assassin,” he hummed.
“I’m a bounty killer. There’s a difference.” Angel Eyes said slowly, frown deeply set. “Now put the gun down.”
“Turn,” Blondie ordered, “and walk. Hands behind your head.” He glanced at the barkeep, never fully taking his sight off Angel Eyes. “Find me a shovel.”
The barkeep nodded nervously, stammered a few words he did not care to listen. A shovel was placed in his hand, heavy with a promise.
They pushed out of the saloon. Angel Eyes at the front, stiff like a board and marching as if a man to the gallows. Blondie supposed the analogy wasn’t too far from the truth. He trailed after him like a shade. Three years since Sad Hill. He’d put this ghost to rest, give him a proper burial. Perhaps he’d even invite a priest from the next town over to say his last rites, so that Angel Eyes would rot right this time. Then he’d leave. With nothing but his horse and his mutt. Go south, into the desert, with the weight of one hundred thousand dollars on his mind. Maybe he would find Tuco again. That idiot had probably wasted all of his share already. If he was still alive.
“What happened to talking like civilised folks?” A soft voice sounded by his right, light with lazy confidence.
Another stranger leaned against the outer wall of the saloon, shaded by the awning of the patio with a gun pointed his way. Blondie froze, his own revolver near slipping as his grip went half slack. Sharp eeriness crawled through his spine like the chilling bite of January wind.
The stranger was a near identical mirrored reflection of himself.
“Manco!” Angel Eyes softened with relief.
“Got yourself in trouble while I was away, old man?” His mirror teased.
It was… uncomfortable, unnatural, to look at a stranger and see yourself glaring back. The man wore a poncho, brownish green, weathered by use yet sturdy. It was almost indistinguishable from his own. Underneath was a pelt vest and a blue shirt. Speckles of fresh blood dotted the hems of his trousers and splattered on the edges of his poncho, yet to turn dark. The only difference between them was his hair, it was a dark brown instead of blond. Even then, a few days worth of grease, sweat, and dirt from the road would make Blondie’s hair look much the same.
“It makes me nervous when my partner is held at gun point,” the stranger said, casually thumbing the cocked hammer of his revolver. “When I’m nervous, my finger might slip.” He tapped loosely on the trigger. “Why don’t you lower your weapon and we can have a conversation?”
“You’re Manco,” Blondie guessed. The man Angel Eyes had mistaken him for. Anyone else would, too, with this much of a resemblance.
Manco hummed and shrugged.
Blondie stared at Angel Eyes, before glancing back to Manco again. Partners, how strange. Angel Eyes didn't have partners, only those he saw as tools, disposed soon after their uses expire. Folks who worked with him either had no choice, or were blind to the machinations of his schemes.
“This man is your partner? Do you even know who he is?” Blondie said.
“Do you?” Manco raised a brow.
“I think,” Angel Eyes said, lowering his hands, carefully shifting his body to face the two, “there has been a grave misunderstanding. Why don’t you introduce yourself, boy.”
“You know who I am,” said Blondie.
“I apparently do not. You look at me as if I am your greatest enemy. I’ve made quite a few enemies in my life, and you said you’ve killed me, somehow. But if I’ve been shot by a man with a face like yours, I’d never forget it.” Angel Eyes threw a smile at Manco, who huffed in return.
Blondie swallowed, uneasy, the cigarillo clenched tight between his teeth. Corpses did not crawl back to life. Sad Hill was three years passed. Four shots. Four bullets. He damned himself for riding away so hastily without checking on the body, for if he dallied any longer Tuco would’ve choke himself to death on that noose.
What if he had missed? Left Angel Eyes bleeding but alive in that ditch, with survivable wounds and working lungs to squirm himself out of the yawning mouth of hell. Then three years later, appeared at Springwater as if materialised from Blondie’s thoughts, to haunt him like a dark spectre; feigning innocence and a lack of memories, for what? To what end?
No. Four bullets. He did not miss. Angel Eyes was dead.
Blondie holstered his gun, Manco soon followed.
The man who looked like Angel Eyes exhaled, low and slow, patted his hand on his chest. Manco walked to stand by him with a light spring in his steps. They fit together well, despite the glaring differences in their stance and attire, one pristinely sombre and the other leisurely weathered. They stood like men who could turn their injured back and trust the other to not shoot. Even with Tuco and their years of turbulent partnership, Blondie had to sleep with one eye open - they were in the habit of slighting each other in the most inconvenient moments.
“Didn’t know you had a brother, boy,” the man said to Manco.
“Not one that’s still alive,” Manco said.
“The resemblance is unreal,” the man said, “any family you’ve unaccounted for?”
“More than a few,” Manco shrugged, then turned his deceivingly indifferent attention back to Blondie. “Got a name?”
“No,” he muttered, shuffling the dirt with his heels before adding, “my friend called me Blondie.”
The man laughed, soft. “I would have preferred to make your acquaintance under better circumstances, Blondie. I am Douglass Mortimer.”
“Colonel Mortimer,” Manco added with a small smile.
“And may I ask who did you mistake me for?” Mortimer said with a raised brow.
Blondie swallowed. “Angel Eyes.”
The reaction was instantaneous, Mortimer tensed, squared his already straight posture. A complicated emotion crossed his face, a look of disbelief mixed with a dash of humoured astonishment. Next to him, Manco wore a blank face of non-recognition.
“Sentenza,” Mortimer said, "oh I’ve read about him. Dangerous man that one. And you killed him?”
Blondie nodded.
“And I looked so much like him that you thought he came back from the dead to haunt you?”
Blondie nodded again, gestured to Manco. “Like me and him.”
“How uncanny.” Manco hummed.
“You mentioned gold,” Mortimer mused, “source of all great sins.”
“Confederate gold,” Blondie said.
Manco whistled, “sounds like a grand story.”
An orange glint in the dusty windows caught his sight. The sky had turned into a gradient of deep purplish blues and coppery, sandy reds from the sunset. Blondie shifted his weight from side to side, extinguished his cigarillo on the sole of his boot.
“I’ve got a ranch down the way,” he said, “two hour drive, but can be cut in half if you’re a fast rider… You can stay the night. Didn’t mean to hold you at gun point for so long.” He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish.
Mortimer smiled. “Lead the way.”