He glanced up from the sick-colored bourbon filling the glass in his hand, his yellow-brown eyes faded and tired. Outside the barroom's slat-thin walls it was morning, a dry and desiccated dawn. He was somewhere in what used to be Mexico, but hadn't caught the town's name driving in. Not that he cared.

He cared only that she was here.

He cared that she'd just stepped through the door and was looking toward him. The jukebox played; the lyrics were appropriate. "Being with you girl... ...Like being stoned."

She dropped into a chair across the table from him, all adrenaline and curves.

"Ever been ass whipped by a bitch?" she asked, her voice low and wicked.

He held up the shot glass, drank its contents down. Then he poured another hit from the bottle of Jack Black before him. "More than I can count," he answered, his words hoarse, wired with strange emotion. He'd forgotten how she always smelled of sage.

She laughed, gripped the neck of the fifth of whiskey with a long-fingered hand and took a swig. She made a face. "You've got bad taste in liquor," she said.

"And women," he offered dryly.

Beneath pale blue eyes, crimson-stained lips curled into a darkly sweet smile. "Perhaps," she agreed. He shrugged.

"So what name you living under these days?" she asked when he didn't reply further.

"You pick," he told her. "You know them all."

"You know the one I like best."

"That guy's dead," he said. Then his gaze slid past her, toward two men in dusters who entered and walked straight to the oak bar without looking around.

She saw his look and heard the boot-steps, heard the bartender ask the newcomers their poison. She didn't turn. "What?" she asked quietly.

"They didn't even glance at us," he muttered.

"I don't underst—," she started to say. She didn't finish. Suddenly she did understand. She sat there in razored hose and a thin black shift that clung like wet paint to her body, with her piercings and tattoos and her blonde hair shorn tight. And the men hadn't even looked.

"When I say 'now,'" he whispered, "dive right."

"OK."

He arched an eyebrow. "What? You'd do something I tell you without arguing? You must be losing it, Jessi."

She looked irritated. "I know when it's important," she mumbled.

He smiled, and set the shot glass down without drinking. One of the men at the bar started to turn, far too casually for it to be natural. His hand was hidden beneath his duster.

"Call me Boone," the man across from Jessi said. Then, "Now!"

Jessi threw herself one way. Boone dove the other, his hand snaking beneath his long dark coat, coming out again filled with the bright clot of Colt Desert Eagle .45. The hammer was cocked, the muzzle rising.

The men at the bar snatched for their own weapons. One had an UZI, the other a sawed-off 12-gauge. Boone shot the man with the UZI, the bullet punching the fellow back into the bar. A dying finger convulsed on the machine pistol's trigger, spraying lead into the plank floor.

Boone rolled, kicking the legs from under a table, dropping it on its side to provide shielding. The man wielding the shotgun cut loose at him, blowing a hole in the table. Splinters screamed and stung. The man shouted, took a step forward. He pumped the shotgun one-handed. And while he wasted that instant, Boone punched the Colt through the jagged hole in the table and fired. Once. Twice. A third time.

One bullet ripped through the shotgun man's throat; the second and third jolted his body. He staggered backward, sat down hard on his ass. Pieces of lung serumed the bar at his back.

"Son of a bitch!" Boone heard. He swung left, eyes widening as he saw that the first man wasn't quite dead. From his knees, the fellow scrabbled for the dropped UZI. Boone brought up the Colt but heard the slap of someone else's shot. The bullet caught the man above the nose, tossed him against the bar. A sudden mist of gray matter hosed the air above the slug's exit wound.

The man dropped for good.

Boone glanced wildly around for the shot's source. Then he saw Jessi, standing in a shooter's stance, a small frame Smith & Wesson .38 smoking in her hand. He nodded into her gaze. But cautioned. "I doubt it's over."

She nodded back, a savage grin flickering over taut lips. Boone thumbed the ejector on the .45, dropping the half empty clip into his coat pocket while his left hand brought up a fresh magazine and slammed it home in the pistol. He chambered a shell. The stink of cordite burned in his nostrils, letting him know he was alive.

The barroom door smashed inward and a big man leaped through, an M16 gripped in white-knuckled fingers. Boone and Jessi both fired. The Colt's 250-grain lead caught the fellow high on the left, spinning him around. Jessie's shot, coming an instant later, took out half the man's occipital lobe, hurling him back through the door to sprawl dead on his face in the street.

Boone kicked the outside door shut. But at the same instant the wide front window shattered and a motorcycle came roaring through in the air, smashing down to splinter a table under the wheels. Two men bestrode the bike, one with another UZI to hand. That man opened fire, spitting lead at Boone, who dove desperately aside as bullets stitched the floor where he'd been.

They'd all forgotten Jessi. As the motorcycle landed, Jessi sidestepped and clubbed her pistol across the driver's face. He wore no helmet and the barrel of the Smith tore him a wider mouth.

The driver cried out, grabbed his face where blood spumed. He lost control of the bike, the big machine screeching down in an explosion of splinters and sparks. The man with the UZI was caught with one leg under the bike. Jessi shot him twice before he could free himself, the bullets slashing between the ribs, taking out the major blood vessels behind them.

The driver roared with rage and came to his feet. He clubbed Jessi across the cheek with his arm, knocking her sideways. She spun back to face him, snarling, the .38 lifting.

But Boone was there. He stomped the man's leg at the knee. The fellow screamed. Boone grabbed him by the head, twisting viciously, his muscles corded. The man's neck snapped with a sodden sound, like wet clothing slapped on concrete. Boone released his grip, let the man fall.

"You OK?" he asked Jessi. She nodded, wiping her mouth on her arm, leaving a bloody smear across white skin. She kicked the dead man. "Fucker," she muttered.

Boone grinned, then froze at the sound of vehicles pulling up outside. He heard shouts, and the sound of many guns being loaded. "More," Boone said needlessly. "Maybe too many to fight."

"Yeah, well," Jessi said. "We don't have much choice."

Boone looked around, his face grim. Then a quick thought crooked his lips. "Maybe we do," he said, holstering the .45. He walked toward a smell of burning jeans, bent to tug the motorcycle upright off the dead man whose leg was scorching beneath it's mufflers. The bike was an old Honda Valkyrie, a beautiful machine dressed in black and chrome. He checked it for damage, found nothing more than a bent foot peg. He climbed on, poked the start button. The engine caught with a beast's deep, purr-rumble.

"Going my way?" he asked Jessi. She shook her head but tucked her .38 into a boot and picked up a dead man's 12-gauge sawed-off. She straddled the back of the bike, jerking her silken shift out of the way and wrapping her left arm around Boone's waist. She rested the shotgun on her right hip, finger coiled near the trigger.

"You still like girls with guns?" she whispered in his ear.

"Hold on," is all he said, as he released the clutch and the rear tire spun on the cedar-wood floor, smoking in blood. Abruptly, the machine shot forward and Boone muscled it toward the back hallway. The rear door loomed, but Boone didn't slow down, only fed the engine gas and pulled back on the handlebars.

He felt Jessi tuck her head behind his shoulder as the massive cycle rammed the back door. The thin screen of wood exploded outward and they burst through, going airborne for an instant before crashing to earth with a tremendous jar.

Boone fought for control, somehow held the bike upright. That was all he could do, and half a dozen men stood scattered around a white pickup in front of them, two with rifles ready. The first gunman was close and Jessi hammered him down with a shotgun barrel. The second man fired, the bullet tugging at Boone's left side. Jessi dropped the shotgun into line with the fellow's body and stroked the trigger. At such range the 12-gauge pellets spread very little. The lead was a moving wall when it tore the fellow open to leave surreal scrawls of crimson across the white truck.

The motorcycle swept past men diving for cover, and Boone heard the shotgun blast a second time, heard Jessi shout, "Got the truck tire!" Then the bike was barreling toward the desert, late shots from the other men puffing up dust behind them. They powered across a set of railroad tracks, switched from dirt road to dirt trail. In fifteen minutes they were well out of town and Boone pulled to a halt. "No signs of pursuit," he grunted.

"For now," Jessi added.

"Yeah," Boone agreed, rocking the Honda forward and taking them out of there slowly to avoid dust.

When they finally hit a highway running south, Boone gave the bike its head. They'd been hovering around a hundred miles per hour for about twenty minutes when Jessi cursed and held up a hand that glistened red. "You're bleeding," she shouted in Boone's ear.

"That last rifle shot," he yelled back. "Felt something."

"Pull over," she ordered.

"I'm fine."

"Cut the hero shit and pull over," she yelled louder.

He did as he was told, taking the bike off the road and behind a clutch of boulders that hid them from the highway. He killed the engine and waited for Jessi to climb off. "Stay sitting," she ordered as he started to follow her. He chuckled but obeyed. She pushed back his coat and probed the wound in his left side. He winced. "Looks like the bullet just passed through muscle," Jessie said after a moment. "You'll need stitches but you'll live."

"Bind it up," he said. "It'll be OK."

She nodded and tore a few generous strips of silk from her dresses' hem before padding them over the wound. Then she reached for his belt buckle, and he didn't say a thing as she loosened it and pulled the leather through the loops. She tightened the belt around his torso to hold the bandage in place, then looked up to find him admiring her legs.

"Asshole," she muttered.

"Sorry," he grinned. "It's just... Well. That outfit didn't cover much before."

She rolled her eyes. "OK, big hero. Wanna tell me about that bar scene back there?"

Boone stopped grinning. The moment was here. "They weren't hunting me," he said, sliding his hands into his coat pockets.

She frowned. "Huh?"

"Drop the act, Jessi. Those boys were looking for something. And I doubt they just misplaced it."

Jessi's gaze turned cool. "If you thought I stole something, why'd you help me?"

Boone only stared.

Jessi's features twisted suddenly with self-disgust. "Awww shit!"

Boone Tasered Jessi before she could grab for her gun. She went down, body arching, one cry spilling lonely to the desert air. Boone cuffed her hands behind her back, then popped the shock electrodes lose and sat her upright. She spat at him as he stepped back and re-pocketed the stun gun. "You're working with them!" she snarled.

"You know me better. I'm a solitary kind of guy."

"I thought I knew you. Lover!"

Boone shook his head. "It's just business. The jewel you stole was actually a data storage device. The folks who recorded that data are desperate to get it back."

"You think I'd risk my life for a fucking diamond? I stole it for the information. It's worth millions. But you'll never find it."

"I already know where it has to be, Jessi. We've just gotta wait. A few hours. A day." He gave a humorless chuckle. "Or I could feed you laxatives?"

Silence stretched taut.

"We can make a deal," Jessi said suddenly. "You loved me once."

"I loved you more than once," Boone said. "But love doesn't buy my whiskey."

Jessi's blue eyes frosted over at his words. "You really want me to come after you, don't you?"

Boone smiled. "It's all gravy," he said.

-END-

Copyright © 2009 by Charles Gramlich