Shotgun by Courtney Joyner

smoke still trapped inside him.
    The boy said, “I’ve never seen no miracle before.”
    Creed kept his head locked toward Bishop and White Fox as if he could see them, and said, “This is no miracle, boy.”
    Blood sprinkled Bishop’s chin as his chest racked. White Fox pulled him forward, and wrapped her arms around him and clamped them together in a fist in the center of his back. She yanked her arms inward, forcing more smoke from his lungs.
    Bishop gulped for air, struggling for breath, his lungs burning.
    White Fox called, “Water!”
    Fat Gut screamed out, “They almost killed me, Cousin! Why the hell you helpin’ ’em?!”
    Creed said, “Because we’re not finished.”
    Creed handed the canteen from his saddle to the boy. “Give him all he wants.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    The boy tried a salute, his hand tangling in his stalks, before taking the canteen. He hitched up his tattered pants and stepped around two bodies, trying not to look at the faces with mouths and eyes locked open. He stopped a few feet away from White Fox, before looking around at Creed’s men, their guns aimed right at him. A couple of them were smiling.
    The only sound was the hack ripping from Bishop’s chest.
    Creed said, “Give him the water!”
    White Fox snatched the canteen from his hands. “Hold him.”
    The boy slipped an arm around Bishop, propping him up. “I swallowed some smoke in the cave myself. It’s god-awful.”
    Bishop drank, coughed, drank some more. He looked to White Fox, managing, “ Eametanéné .”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Coffin Man
    Resurrection, Wyoming, was the kind of place that Chaney loved and Lem Wright hated. It was a new border town, being built from the mud up. For Chaney, that meant rail workers and teamsters who could be stupid-drunk with their pay, and ladies who had set themselves up to take as much as they could.
    Fresh-cut lumber, glass, and wet paint were everywhere you looked, and the air was full of the noise of saws, men, and working animals. To Chaney, it was music: the sound of cash being made.
    But for Lem Wright, Resurrection was something blank, with no tradition or history. The kind of place “that might be something someday,” but wasn’t yet, and likely he wouldn’t live to see it. New places reminded him of his own mortality.
    So it was all right that Lem and Chaney guided their horses past the freshly painted porch of a feed store, to Gutterson’s Funeral Parlor. The name was scrolled on the front window, with a discreet crucifix and Jewish star tiny in the corner of the glass.
    Lem tied his horse and went for a close look at the symbols. “Wonder who buries the Chinamen?”
    The window, backed by purple drapery, bloated Lem’s face, but was kind to his wandering eye.
    Three old women in mourning black stepped from Gutterson’s, and Lem moved aside, taking off his hat in elaborate fashion, and half-bowing his head. One of the women was crying, with the other two at her elbow, offering comfort.
    The crying woman stared at Lem’s face long enough to get out some words. “My Edward was injured in the war, too. Thank you for your brave sacrifice.”
    â€œYou’re welcome, ma’am.”
    She began sobbing again, guided off by the other two. Chaney watched all this, flicking his tooth with his thumb, thinking what he could do with a widow’s bank account, when Lem’s voice snapped him back. “Ready to take care of some business?”
    Chaney joined Lem by the front door. “Haven’t said a damn word in four hours. I got distracted.”
    â€œI’ve been deciding if we should stop or not.”
    Chaney slipped his hand inside his jacket, an obvious move for a weapon, before asking, “Why this place?”
    â€œSo you can meet another one of your partners.”
    Lem opened the door to the funeral parlor, gesturing for