The first bullet drilled a hole clean through the bandito’s sombrero, through which the rays of the hot noonday sun fell like whips on the glistening muzzle of Fenimore’s rifle, peeking out from between two dusty rocks a good hundred paces away. The bandito didn’t move. He’d already drawn his revolver. He merely cocked his head, and the sun’s rays slid from the muzzle to a thick bead of sweat gathering on Fenimore’s brow. Fenimore didn’t say a word. He just chomped down on his cigar, moved the muzzle slightly to the left, squinted—and made sure the second bullet didn’t miss.

It hit straight into the bandito’s forehead like an Ash Wednesday cross.

The rays disappeared.

The bandito crumpled to the ground.

Fenimore slung his rifle over his shoulder, took one last drag of his cigar and tossed it aside. It hit the ground no less dead than the bandito.

Fenimore rose from his crouch, watched—no dust rose on the horizon—and listened. There was no beating of hooves. Nobody else was coming. They’d underestimated him. He grinned and looked forward to wearing clothes again. Save for the timepiece on his wrist he was naked, and the relentless sun had burned his skin brown.

He lowered himself down the side of the outcropping from which he’d shot, and circled to where he’d hidden his tired, thirsty burro. There’d be water in the bandito’s pack, he thought, untying the burro and patting its warm chest. He still hadn’t decided what he’d do with the bandito’s horse. Take it with him and sell it, probably.

The bandito’s corpse lay on its back, its eyes half open and still fully plastered over by the sheen of surprise. Bright blood trickled from the hole in its head.

Fenimore recognised the dirty face underneath: Pedro—a hired gun who rode with Ulrich’s gang, but not one of the dangerous ones. Pedro, as far as Fenimore remembered, had been a brave bad shot. Good qualities for a foot soldier, but bad ones for staying alive. Not that it mattered anymore. What mattered was that Ulrich had underestimated him. As for Pedro, he wouldn’t ever shoot a gun again. It was good to be underestimated. It was bad to be dead.

Fenimore pulled off Pedro’s boots, followed by his wide leather gun belt, cotton pants, worn shirt and navy-white poncho.

The dirty body underneath was flabby and hairy, and for a few seconds the sight of it made Fenimore wonder whether any woman loved it, whether the small time Mexican gunslinger had had a small Mexican wife who’d given birth to thin, barefoot Mexican children. But then the stink of death hit so hard that Fenimore ripped his eyes away. Each man chooses his own path. In doing so, each also chooses the way—if not the exact circumstance—of his death.

The bright blood flowing from the hole in Pedro’s head had turned still and dark.

Fenimore put on the dead man’s boots and clothes, tied the dead man’s horse to his own burro, and took a long drink from the dead man’s canteen. When his lips were wet and throat no longer dry, he let the burro drink the water, too. Its ears shot up at the first refreshing taste. The horse turned its emaciated snout to beg for a sip, but Fenimore didn’t let the horse drink. If it died, so be it. He wouldn’t get much for it anyway. He then tied Pedro’s gun belt around himself, inserted Pedro’s revolver into the holster and mounted his burro.

He looked ridiculous on the little animal, but he felt good.

The burro began its lumbering walk.

Pedro’s horse followed.

Eight hooves made eight dull sounds on the tough ground and as he rode Fenimore felt a few coins rattling around in his new pants pocket. They made a rhythmic jingle-jangle that somehow matched the monotony of the landscape around him. Jingle-jangle. The sun moved. Jingle-jangle. The shadows lengthened. Jingle-jangle and jingle-jangle and nothing except the passing emptiness…

When he finally stopped for the night, Fenimore took the coins out of his pocket and held them, one-by-one, between his thumb and forefinger against the darkening sky. He observed each in turn. The coins were seven. Six were old and grimy, probably whore money or poker winnings, but the seventh was clean and beautiful: freshly minted, and even more freshly stolen.

Seven coins for seven faces.

Six grimy ones for the six men who’d taken from him—Constanza, The Slovak, Butcher Bellicose, Tartaro, The Little Pimp, and Ulrich—and the seventh for the woman he’d loved, who’d sold him for a future full of dollars, and who now went unnamed, even in his head.

When he was done brooding, Fenimore stacked all seven coins in the palm of his hand and squeezed them into a fist as hard as he could. He would crush them. One-by-one, he would hunt them down and kill them.

He wanted to toss the coins into the air and massacre them with Pedro’s revolver.

But he was getting ahead of himself.

He was letting his emotions take control of his mind.

He focussed his thoughts, relaxed his fist, uncurled his long fingers and dropped the coins back into his pocket. There would be a time and place for revenge. Paths would cross, even on a continent as great and untamed as this one, but that would be many days and many adventures from now. Tonight, he needed rest. Tomorrow, he would formulate a plan. In the coolness of the present evening, although he finally felt safe enough to close his eyes, he was also broke and hungry.

As he lay himself down to sleep, Fenimore felt weaker and more alone than he’d ever felt. Even during the survival days he’d not felt this way. He’d had company. Tonight was also the fourth consecutive night that he was spending alone, and he wasn’t used to it. A man gets used to the female shape. Sleeping without a woman’s body—without his woman’s body—next to him was as strange as riding without a horse. He had nowhere to put his arms and no one with whom to share his warmth. He was swimming without water. He was a fire without heat. He was the empty landscape and the day’s heavy, closing eyelids. They had taken everything from him, but it was she who had taken his soul, leaving him as bare and exposed as he’d left Pedro, with just the one-hole sombrero on his head and all of America chomping at the bit to swallow him up.

He imagined a pair of vultures pecking away at Pedro’s body, pulling at long, elastic bits of flesh.

He remembered Master Taki once telling him, “Everything breaks. Give something enough time, and it cracks.” Then Master Taki had—click—opened the safe. “Everything breaks.”

Even trust.

Even love.

A shot rang out.