Where Vultures Feast

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Chapter 1

The sun over the Sonora was a judgment, and Elias was its instrument. He moved with a quiet economy that wasted no motion and betrayed no thought. For two days, he tracked the outlaw not by his trail, but by the wake of chaos he left behind—a spooked herd of pronghorn, a hastily abandoned campfire, the lingering scent of cheap cigar smoke. He found him hunkered in the sparse shade of a Palo Verde tree, a man named Mateo, whose crimes were as numerous as the flies buzzing around his head.

Mateo saw Elias and his hand twitched toward the pistol tucked in his belt. Elias didn't draw. He didn't need to. His presence was enough—a calm, final statement. "You've caused a lot of trouble, Mateo," Elias said, his voice as dry as the riverbed beside them. Mateo, seeing the cold certainty in the other man's eyes, knew his running was over. It was the kind of stare that didn't bargain.

Chapter 2

"You're making a grave error, my friend!" Mateo exclaimed, his bravado returning the moment they were on horseback, his hands bound in front of him. "The five hundred dollars on my head is an insult. It's pocket change." Elias remained silent, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon where the town of Tres Cruces baked in the heat.

"I know where the 'Lost Dutchman' is," Mateo blurted out, the words tumbling over each other. "Not the mine, you fool, the payroll! The one General Crook's men lost in the Apache wars. Fifty bars of army silver, buried and forgotten." He leaned closer, his whisper conspiratorial. "I know the man who buried it. I know the name he put on the false grave to mark the spot." Elias gave no sign he was listening, but his pace didn't falter. A seed of avarice, hard and cold as a nugget of silver, had been planted.

Chapter 3

A hundred miles south, a man known only as 'The Major' sat across a table from a terrified land commissioner. The Major was a ghost of the war, a man whose uniform was immaculate but whose soul was soiled beyond cleansing. His eyes were a pale, washed-out blue, and they saw everything as either an asset or an obstacle. He was methodical, patient, and utterly without mercy.

"The manifest for the lost payroll," The Major said, his voice soft, almost gentle. "It lists a Corporal Finch as the sole survivor of the ambush. I have spent a month finding every man named Finch in this territory." He delicately placed a list on the table; all but one name had been neatly crossed out. "Now, you will tell me where this last one owns land." The commissioner, sweating under the man's placid gaze, began to stammer, knowing that to cooperate was a betrayal and to refuse was a death sentence.

Chapter 4

Elias collected his five hundred dollars in Tres Cruces, the sheriff locking Mateo away with a weary sigh. Elias bought a bottle of whiskey, took a room at the boarding house, and thought. The bounty was honest work. Tangible. The silver was a phantom, a story told by a desperate man. Yet, the conviction in Mateo's voice had been real.

That night, a single gunshot echoed from the direction of the jailhouse. Elias was on his feet in an instant, his gun in hand. He found the sheriff dead and Mateo’s cell empty. On the wall, scrawled in charcoal, were two words: 'Cemetery. Serrano.' Mateo had upheld his end of the unspoken bargain. He had given Elias the name on the grave. Now, Elias had to find the cemetery.

Chapter 5

The Major found what was left of Corporal Finch hanging from a cottonwood tree on his own property. The man had taken his own life rather than face what was coming for him. In Finch's cabin, The Major found his journal. It was filled with panicked, guilt-ridden entries about the lost silver, but it gave him the clue he needed. Finch wrote of burying his last loyal comrade in a "potter's field, where the outlaws meet their maker."

With cold efficiency, The Major deduced the location. Outlaws captured near the border were often tried and hanged in Tres Cruces. He rode north, his purpose clear. He now knew the cemetery, but not the name on the grave. He was one half of a key, searching for the other.

Chapter 6

Elias’s search for the outlaw cemetery led him to an old mission priest, who confirmed its existence—a cursed patch of ground west of town. As he rode through a narrow pass, the crack of a rifle sent splinters flying from the rock near his head. He dove for cover, returning fire at the two riders on the ridge. He was a capable fighter, but he was pinned down.

Suddenly, a third rider appeared, his approach unnervingly silent. It was Mateo. "It seems you need my assistance, friend!" Mateo yelled, firing his own pistol and creating a diversion. In the ensuing chaos, Elias managed to wound one of the attackers, but a lucky shot grazed his head, and the world dissolved into a blinding white light.

Chapter 7

Elias awoke to the stench of stale coffee and the pale, dead eyes of The Major. He was tied to a chair in a dusty, abandoned shack. Mateo was nowhere to be seen. The Major smiled, a chillingly pleasant expression. "The man you were with, the one who talks so much," he said smoothly. "He told my associate the name on the grave is Serrano. A curious detail. Now, you will tell me the name of the cemetery."

Elias said nothing. He had faced men like The Major before—men who believed their cruelty gave them power. Elias knew that information was his only leverage. The Major sighed, as if disappointed in a slow student, and picked up a pair of pliers from the table. "I have a great deal of patience," he said softly.

Chapter 8

Mateo had seen the ambush for what it was—an opportunity. While The Major’s men were focused on Elias, he had slipped away, a ghost in the midday sun. He had no horse, no water, and no weapon, but he was alive, and for Mateo, that was always the first victory. The desert, however, was a far crueler captor than any lawman.

His bravado was baked out of him under the relentless sun. The glib talker was reduced to a primal survivor, his throat thick with dust, his mind haunted by mirages of cool, clear water. He was forced to confront the pathetic truth of his own existence, a life built on bluffs and petty betrayals. He was nothing without someone else to fool.

Chapter 9

After two days of torture, Elias gave The Major what he wanted: the name of a cemetery, a real one, but the wrong one. Satisfied, The Major left him for dead, riding off with his men. But Elias was not a man to die so easily. He gnawed through his ropes, his wrists raw and bleeding, and stumbled out into the night, driven by a cold, incandescent rage.

He was no longer just a bounty hunter seeking a reward. He was a man who had been wronged. He found the trail of The Major’s men and followed it for a mile before turning sharply south. He wasn’t hunting The Major. He was hunting Mateo. He knew the direction a desperate man would run, and he would find him. There was a score to settle.

Chapter 10

Mateo, delirious and near death, collapsed at the edge of a forgotten Apache settlement where a lone woman, an outcast from her tribe, was tending her goats. She took pity on him, giving him water and food. For a week, he recovered under her silent care, his body healing, but his mind still racing.

One evening, staring into her fire, he saw symbols carved into the clay pot she used for water. They were markers, trail signs. The woman, seeing his interest, drew a map in the dirt, showing him a safe path through the mountains. She pointed to a pass. "The spirits of angry men sleep there," she said in broken Spanish. "Where they bury the white-eyes who break their laws." It was the outlaw cemetery. He now possessed both pieces of the puzzle.

Chapter 11

With his strength returned, Mateo stole the woman’s only horse and rode away without a word of thanks. He felt a surge of his old self, the cunning survivor. He was in control. His luck changed further when he found Elias, passed out from exhaustion and fever by a shallow creek, a pathetic shadow of the man who had captured him.

A wicked grin spread across Mateo's face. He let Elias drink, then prodded him awake with the toe of his boot. "Well, well, my friend," Mateo sneered, holding the reins to Elias’s horse, which he’d found grazing nearby. "It appears our roles have been reversed. I believe you know the way to the cemetery. You will guide me."

Chapter 12

The journey was a slow purgatory. Mateo, emboldened by his new position of power, was relentless in his mockery. Elias walked, his head bowed, enduring the humiliation with a chilling stoicism. He was conserving his strength, his mind cataloging every slight, every taunt. He was a coil, winding tighter with every mile.

Meanwhile, The Major, realizing he’d been deceived, was working his way back. He had tortured the truth from one of the men Elias had wounded in the pass. He now knew the cemetery’s true location. The three men, each believing they held the key, were now on a collision course with a lonely patch of cursed ground.

The outlaw cemetery was a bleak, godless place. Crude wooden markers leaned at odd angles, the names of the dead bleached away by the unforgiving sun. The wind whispered through the scrub brush, sounding like the sighs of forgotten souls. Mateo, giddy with anticipation, forced Elias to help him search.

After an hour, Elias stopped. He pointed with his chin. There, set apart from the others, was a small, unassuming cross, half-buried in the dirt. Carved into the weathered wood was a single word: SERRANO. Mateo let out a triumphant laugh and began to dig with his bare hands, the promise of fifty silver bars erasing every hardship from his mind.

Chapter 13

"I'll take it from here." The voice was calm, almost bored. The Major stood twenty yards away, a rifle resting comfortably in his arms. His two men flanked him, their pistols drawn. Mateo froze, his hands deep in the dirt. Elias slowly raised his hands, his face an unreadable mask.

"This is a delicate situation," The Major observed, taking in the scene. "I have the guns. You have the location. It seems a new partnership is in order." Elias took a half-step forward. "There is no partnership with a man like you," he said, his voice low. "One of us will walk away with the silver. The rest will stay and fertilize the ground."

The agreement was made. A three-way duel. At dawn, they would stand in a triangle around the unearthed grave, the open box of gleaming silver bars between them. During the night, while Mateo slept fitfully and The Major kept his vigil, Elias moved. He crept to where Mateo had carelessly left his pistol and, with a surgeon's precision, removed the firing pin.

As the sun’s first rays touched the desolate landscape, the three men faced each other. A silent understanding passed between them. Three hands dropped to their holsters. Two shots echoed in the morning stillness. The Major fell backward, a look of surprise on his face. Mateo clicked his pistol uselessly, his eyes wide with terror. Elias stood untouched, smoke curling from the barrel of his gun. He looked at the silver, then at the pathetic figure of Mateo. He broke open his pistol, reloaded the single spent chamber, and turned his back, walking away without a word, leaving Mateo alone with the silver and the dead. The bounty was paid in full.