Kate Cruel

By Caressa Layne

/ Third Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Flash /      

Kate draws a revolver from a holster as anyone else would draw breath. The whispered kiss of iron on leather as inaudible as the beating of her own heart. No one outdraws her; and they try in droves. They each fall hard at her feet. Such is the dancer’s grace of that lethal arm. There’s been stories–I’ve heard tell–that she was born with a pistol gripped in pink fingers. That she came out wet and screaming as any other living thing, but with a keen knowing of the fatal points in a man’s chest and head. That little Katie‘s girlhood was trial and gun fire, at least, so’s they all whisper as the bodies drop and men lay dying.

But I know the truth of it.

I laugh when I catch wind of those tales. A good belly laugh is hard to come by in times like these. They’re not so much as lies as they are tall. The Kate Cruel of those stories is cold and calculating. Some mystery of the feminine type for certain men close their eyes and stick their fat fingers under the covers to. But the Kate that I know, she’s a dead shot, sure, but that’s how all stories go, really, when I get to thinking on it. They way an account can start pretty near the truth of the matter, but as it leaves one set of lips and vibrates through the air to the receiver’s ear, it shifts as much as a butterfly does leaving a cocoon. Whether the teller wants it to or not. Once a yarn leaves the mouth, it ain’t yours anymore. Especially if it’s got any charm to begin with. Then it bears repeating, and who knows what it’ll metamorphosize into with each succeeding telling. A story after it’s been told grows beyond what the teller can have intended. A story, once it’s been told, belongs to everyone and no one.

But Kate belongs to me. As I read in a whisper by the light of our fire, she sleeps beside me. The flickering heat pinks her cheeks. The gun ain’t in her hand, though it sure isn’t far from it. But as she’s shut those eyes in my arms, her trigger hand rests on the soft of my belly under the pelts and blankets doing their best to keep the worst of the night away.

The fire cracks and she lifts her head.

“Why’d you stop readin’ for?”

“Well damn, Kate. A body has got a right to take a break every now and then, don’t I?” I smile and kiss her forehead. “Besides, you were sleepin’.”

“Well, now I ain’t. Please, Hazel, if you wo–” She sits up. I start, but she runs a hand through my unbraided hair. Her eyes are alert now; the drowsy has abandoned her face and a fleeting wisp of alarm takes its place. Though I’d put my best horse that I am the sole living being able to discern the fleeting flickers of emotions that pass behind those eyes. She carries on, coughing a little to cover her surprise: “Keep goin’, it was just gettin’ good.”

I grab the little book of poems once more and begin to recite from my mind, nonsense words to fill the dead air around us, as the hairs on my arms raise hackles to the gentle sound of approaching footfall. Somebody’s out there. Just beyond the reach of our firelight. And creeping in.

A branch snaps and startles my mare. Kate does not so much as flinch, but my arms dart to my sides as I pull my shawl close and reach for my own pistol. But Kate, as ever–quicker. Her own weapon in her hand and cocked, she aims a single warning shot into the night sky.

“Easy now, Miss Katharine. Don’t get excited, we just come to warm by yer fire. Have a chat with you and Miss Hazel.” A voice calls from somewhere to the east, though the source was still swallowed by the night.

“Then, I bid welcome, friends.” Kate hollered back, the laugh in her voice audible only to me–her eyes bright with what’s to come. The grin isn’t feigned as she scans the darkness. I hold my breath high in my chest. A pistol cocks. Kate knows her cue. I curse my slowness as I whip my head to the source of the click; Kate fires her pistol and chucks a blanket over the fire. With Kate pulling my arm, we’re on our feet and behind the brush before whoever out there has a chance to return fire. I catch wind of a muffled “mmph” and the night falls silent once more. But I know it ain’t for long.

A bullet bites into the log near my left side, and another to the right of Kate. She returns with a volley of her own. I fumble for my weapon, but realize it’s still stowed under my bedroll beside the fire. It’s all on Kate. The shots fly around us, each one originating as a pinprick of brightness in the dark.

I figure Kate’s shots. Each cock of the hammer. Each click of the trigger. One remains.

 She fires.

 In the time it takes for her to reload, a shot grazes my arm. The pain is instant. She sees my grimace in the blaze of gunfire–the night as bright as high noon. Until Kate takes her aim. Six final shots, then, just as sudden as it began—nothing but pitch and empty night. Two women alone in the dark.

Wordless and tender, Kate rips her skirt hem, binds my arm, and kisses me. My blood saturates the cotton and she and I mount our mares. I cast my gaze eastward, blessing the sun peeking over the hills–and daren’t count the bodies as the light of morning proclaims the toll of the fallen in the night.

Kate and I ride on.