"Squeeze"

“Dorian Adler!” The shout came from outside. The bar room of the Railhead Saloon and Billiards Parlor had gone silent, as all eyes turned toward him in keen anticipation of his response.

Dorian lounged against the bar, one boot to the rail as he delivered a caress to the woman’s cheek. She was quite lovely, in fact. “Ah could get lost in those eyes,” he smiled.

“He’s a poet,” she nestled to his touch.

“Dorian Adler!”

“Hardly,” he chuckled. “Ah am familiar with a couple, howevah. Very old…from Earth-That-Was.”

“Dorian Adler! I’m callin yew out!”

Her gaze darted to the saloon doors. “You can recite some for me,” she smiled again, “when you come back.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ah suppose yah right. A kiss before dying?” She seemed to fit his arms to perfection as their lips touched in a slow, luxurious kiss. He took a deep breath, inhaling her scent, before whispering a few lines of classic verse.

“Mah little China girl,
Yah shouldn’t mess with me.
Ah’ll ruin evahthing yah are.”

He dropped coins onto the bar. “Whatevah tha lady wishes,” Dorian said to the bartender. “And anothah one fah me. Ah’ll be right back.” After donning his hat and setting the brim just so, Dorian Adler stepped through the swinging doors and into the street. He could hear movement…the scraping of chairs and bootheels striking. The audience was taking their places. Showtime.

“Dorian Adler!” the man shouted. “I’m callin’ yew out!” The voice was unfamiliar. He couldn’t make out the face in the glare of the midday sun. Tall, skinny. The clothes appeared lived in, but didn’t really belie either poverty or wealth. Another challenger, issuing another challenge.

“Consider me called,” Adler replied. “Why are we roastin’ out here, when we could be inside with a drink?”

“Yew will face me.”

“Oh, fah fuck’s sake,” the gunfighter shook his head. “What ten penny novel didja get that from?”*Writers,* he thought to himself of the hacks who had romanticized this grisly trade. *I’d sooner drill one of them, instead of this rube.*

“I’ve issued challenge! Yer obliged…”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Dorian twirled two fingers of his left hand impatiently as the right pulled his coat back. The pistol gleamed in the merciless sun as his hand settled nearby. “Say when.”

“Now!”

That was a surprise. They rarely actually said it.

Dorian watched instead for the host of other tells a person displayed when their intent was to see it through. In this case, the obvious shoulder drop was number one. Here was another wannabe who thought wearing his pistol strapped halfway down his thigh made him look dangerous. Granted, the look could be sexy…nothing like a woman pulling a long bore pistol on her thigh…but for the task at hand, utterly impractical. Dorian's pistol was drawn and trained before the hapless challenger could finish extracting his.

Gasps and whistles from over his shoulder. The man before him was frozen, his gun barely raised. “Can we go, now?” Adler asked.

The answer came in a muzzle flash. The round kicked up dirt twenty feet shy of the toe of his boot.

“Son, Ah don’t wanna…” He was cut off by another gunblast. This time, the bullet flew high and wide, striking the saloon’s wall planking with a resonant “thwack.”

“Now yah just pissin’ me off,” he warned, only to be ignored yet again. The challenger’s gun spat fire and lead. He heard the bullet’s song, felt the disturbed air of it’s passage within an inch of his left ear.

The die was cast. Dorian's aim was true.

Squeeze.

“Micah, why are we here?” The two men stood in a clearing amid a thick forest of terraformed mesquite. He’d known Micah Kinkaid peripherally through dealings with his older brother. As he awaited the answer, Dorian felt he knew what would come from the man’s mouth.

“Jack. You killed Jack. I cain’t abide that. A life fer a life.”

Dorian tilted his head. “Ah don’t suppose it matters that your brother was tryin’ tah kill me fah mah cut?” The job on Turrent’s Moon had proven surprisingly lucrative…lucrative enough to give some men ideas of eliminating their partnerships. Unfortunately, Jack Kinkaid had such notions when he put a knife into Dorian’s back. He still bore the scar to prove it, but wasn't about to offer it as proof. Lesson learned. He’d never turn his back on another Kinkaid.

“You took my brother,” Micah answered woodenly. “Stand and deliver.”

The distance was a lethal five feet. The man hadn’t even begun to react when Adler drew upon him. “Very well.”

Squeeze.

Tonight’s raid was simple, a burnout of a collaborator and his family. Captain Chavez had ordered him to “remain with the horses and watch the road.” Honestly, if given the choice of terrorizing Pete Renfroe and his family as the “brownhoods” set light to their house and barns, Dorian was glad to opt out.

The raid was a diversionary tactic. Draw the Alliance patrols to a terror attack and then slip through the unguarded gap on the valley rim. There was transport waiting, a chance to get off Hera before the purple net closed around them. It involved forty miles of hard riding, but there were friends along the way who’d offer fresh horses.

In the distance arose shouts and screams as the first columns of flame lit the night sky. Strider was nervous, as were the other horses. He snorted and stamped the ground, his withers trembling as he fidgeted . “Not long now,” Dorian whispered, laying a reassuring hand to the animal’s neck. “We’ll be gone before yah can say…” By the time he heard the pistol’s report, it’s stinging blow had already sent him tumbling from the saddle. For a moment, he lay in the dirt, listening as two sets of footfalls approached.

“Didja kill him, Em?”The voice belonged to Josephus, the youngest of the Renfroe clan. Dorian’s father had delivered him.

“Nevah you mind,” the older sister, Emily, whispered harshly. “Yah ‘member tha dam we built on tha creek? Ah wantcha tah go there. Hide in tha bushes an’ wait til Ah come. *Dohn mah?*”

He knew Emily well. As a sickly child who was frequently shunned by the more able bodied boys of the valley families, Dorian had found companionship in the girl. The friendship lasted until their teenaged years, when his first awkward attempts at romance were rebuffed in favor of a more robust competitor. Any remaining contacts between the pair had been lost when he left for medical school.

And now, here she was, rudely tumbling his body over as she attempted to straddle him. His utter lack of fighting skill telegraphed itself yet again, as an attempt to strike her with his pistol resulted in the gun flying off into the dirt. “Yah son of a bitch!” Emily raged. “Burn out mah family…our livestock…”

“Traitahs,” he hissed as he tried to ward off her blows. His left shoulder hurt like all fire, but it was moving well enough. “Gave ovah tah tha alliance!” All fight evaporated from him when Emily slid her gun barrel up under his chin.

“Ah know you,” her voice trembled as she spoke. “Even undah that brown hood. Roughly, she grabbed the leather mask, flinging it away. “What wouldja father say, Dorian?”

“Don't know. Yah’ll find him buried under our chinaberry tree,” Adler growled, “where our house used tah stand…til yah friends burned us out.”

“And yah think that gives yah tha right….” Her words hung in mid air as the target scan of a pistol suddenly whined in her ear.

“You want to hand me that gun…nice and slow.” Captain Marisol Chavez and her band of marauding “brownhoods” had materialized from the surrounding darkness. “Tell me, girl,” she said from beneath her own hood, “did I hear you call him by name?”

Two beefy sets of hands hauled Emily up by the arms. “Yes,” she glowered at the dark figures. “Ah grew up with that piece of shit.”

“Dorian?” the captain said without turning her masked eyes from their hostage. “Take up your pistol.” As he got to his feet and retrieved the gun, she delivered her verdict. “Shoot her.”

His jaw dropped. “What? Why?”

“Because I told you to,” she whirled on him. “That girl knows your name. Makes her a risk to every man in this outfit. This is your mess. Clean it up. Do it now,” the captain ordered. “Before I shoot you both.”

“Cap’n,” one of the masked raiders spoke. “Patrol’s comin’. We’d best git.”

Chavez raised her weapon. “Now, Adler.”

“Ah can vouch fah her…”

“The hell you can!” Emily retorted.

“Listen…Em,” he tried to reason with his childhood friend.

“Don’t you dare call me that,” she snarled.

“Five seconds,” Chavez announced, “and I shoot you both!”

Dorian lifted his pistol. “Run,” he whispered. “Run…please run…”

*"Cāo nǐ!"*

Squeeze.

The cargo bay was empty. He climbed to the upper deck, and the galley. Also empty. Lunar Veil was a ghost ship, devoid of any signs of human occupation. Her engine turned, but with no mechanic to keep watch. The crew and guest quarters were bare.

He moved forward, pacing the corridor toward the ‘no man’s land’ of the bridge. After bounding up the final steps, Dorian pulled the release and forced the heavy door to slide open.

Again, no one was present. He took in the myriad of flashing lights and screens at what he assumed to be Riley’s seat. None of it made sense; short of the occasional ground shuttle or horses, he had no idea about handling the piloting for a vessel. He lifted his eyes toward the forward panes. Beyond, the icy black seemed to stare back into him, as a child might study a bug in a jar.

“Dorian Adler!” The voice rang from somewhere aft, more a fleeting echo than evidence he wasn’t alone. Had he actually heard it at all? Taking a pistol to his hand, he made for the galley.

“Dorian Adler!”

Right behind him. He spun about, the weapon at the ready.

Haddie stood there.

“Was that you?” he asked the child. She remained mute, regarding him with a dispassionate eye as her tiny hands lifted a heavy pistol.

He felt no need to warn her, no pang of conscience or alarm as the child took careful aim. Taking up his second pistol, Dorian gave her a friendly smile as he spread his arms wide. “Go on, ‘Little Diamond,” he encouraged. “This works fah me.”

He closed his eyes. She squeezed.