Only one of us will make it out alive this time.
We’d met many other times like this: gun in hand, sweaty palm. He stood across from me. A strong figure. He held his left hand over his bloodstained leather jacket. If neither of us made a move he would be dead in less than an hour from that trickle of crimson oozing under his palm. His other hand held a Ruger 10-22 with a banana clip. What the fuck was he huntin’? The rifle became his third leg as he pointed it to the ground and leaned on the butt.
I lowered my aim. My Ruger is a pistol, 44 mag. The 7 and a half inch barrel was waiting to release a bang you only hear once from his end. I had every chance and every right to kill this man. He bought himself a few more minutes by surrendering. He knew I wouldn’t fire if he put down his gun and he did. He sat on the tile floor in a pool of his own blood, gasping for every bit of oxygen he could inhale as he prepared to give me his last words.
We used to work for the same boss, him and I. He was my “compadre”. I baptized his first born in 1994, the same night of the earthquake in Northridge. We were still drinking when it happened at 4:30am. The women woke up in a panic and we had just opened our third bottle of Patron. We kept drinking as everyone came outside to where we were sitting. Everyone that ran out of the house joined us in a shot to calm their nerves. The sun came up soon after that.
“Raul….,” he suffered to say, “Tell my………..”
BLAM!
Fuck it.
He didn’t deserve any last words.
welcome to the writers workshop, big bad rafa!