Use Your Head by Brandon Barrows

Sweat greased my palms, slicking the reins I held. I wiped one hand against my denims, then the other, hoping Dixon wouldn’t notice. His horse, to my right, was calm, but mine made a nervous little sidestep. I knew the feeling.

On the cusp of the ridge ahead, Gilford knelt, field glass to his eye. Dixon, sitting on a rock, smirked faintly at nothing that I could see.

“Scared, kid?” Gilford asked without turning, breaking the stillness. Silence did me no good, but neither did the question.

“Leave him be,” Dixon answered. His smirk turned to me. “He’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, I’m all right,” I lied.

Gilford laughed. “He’s jumpier’n a hog in a damn slaughterhouse.”

“He’s fine,” Dixon repeated, lookin’ square at me. “Hart’s got his brother’s gun, and he remembers why he’s here, don’t you, Hart?”

A month earlier, my brother, Lincoln, was shot during a robbery gone straight to hell. Somehow, Dixon, Gilford, and Lincoln all managed to escape, but Linc didn’t last the night.

When Linc died, grief came first, but nearly overwhelming fear followed. I wasn’t part of the gang, only a tagalong Dixon tolerated because I was Linc Prescott’s younger brother and had nowhere else to go. I expected to be out on my keister—sixteen, skint, and alone in the world.

Cloyd Dixon surprised me, though. He only said how sorry he was the job went badly. “Badly” did it no justice, but I kept quiet, from fear of and respect for the man keeping me fed.

Weeks passed. Cloyd treated me good, and Gilford—well, he didn’t treat me bad, just sort of ignored me. I began to forget the fear. Finally, when Dixon suggested I start earning my keep, there seemed no choice. I was scared all over again, but I owed him.

“I’ll remember.” I pushed the other thoughts aside.

Dixon stood, taking his horse’s reins from me. “The job’ll be a cinch.”

“Ain’t there a marshal? Or a bank guard?”

“Why’d you bring up his brother?” Gilford complained. “Now he’s thinkin’—”

“Shut up,” Dixon snapped. “No guard, and the marshal’s laid up with a broke ankle. Heard it in town yesterday. Even if he weren’t,” he patted his holster, “this here makes folks take whatever you give ’em.”

“Unless they got a gun, too.” It just came out, but I knew right away it was the wrong thing to say.

Dixon was irritated. “Maybe, but if you got a gun and some smarts—look, just use your head, don’t do nothin’ stupid, and it’ll work out fine.”

“Clerk’s left the bank,” Gilford announced, sliding the glass into his pocket. “No sign of the manager.”

“He’ll be a while longer, I reckon.” Grinning again, Dixon swung into his saddle. “Let’s go.”

Ice in my guts, I mounted up.

Dust motes danced in the sunlight streaming through the bank’s tall windows. At almost five in the afternoon, the place was deserted aside from a beefy, well-dressed man behind the waisthigh counter.

Dixon was leadin’, me on his heels. Gilford stayed outside. The man behind the counter looked up and smiled. “Say, you’re the fellow I talked to about opening an account. Come to make that deposit?”

“Like to see your setup again,” Dixon replied.

“Certainly.” The man pushed open a gate in the counter and gestured for us to follow.

The room behind the public area was cramped, really just a hallway ending in the steel door of a vault. My mouth was dry, and the gunbelt across my hips never felt heavier.

“The vault’s brand new, see. The latest model—”

“Open it,” Dixon demanded.

“Actually—” The manager froze as he noticed the gun now in Dixon’s hand.

“Open it,” Cloyd repeated.

The banker’s fists clenched, but his voice held steady. “I can’t. It’s a timed lock. It won’t open until eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Liar!” Dixon snarled, swinging the barrel of his Colt against the other man’s jaw with a vicious sound of metal on flesh. The banker went to his knees, mouth bloody. I felt sick.

Dixon leveled the gun at the man’s face. “Open the God-damned vault.”

“Let’s just go,” I blurted, suddenly desperate, feeling how wrong this was. Did Linc do this sorta thing? I couldn’t believe it. “He said he can’t open it.”

“He’s lying. He’ll—”

With a roar, the banker lunged for Dixon. Dixon sidestepped, barely escaping the bigger man’s grasp, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Jammed or a dud cartridge.

Dixon swore and uselessly pulled the trigger again and again as the banker closed in, red-stained teeth bared, face furious. I watched, frozen, as something in Dixon changed.

“Shoot!” Dixon shrieked, bravado gone, everything now suddenly different. Without the gun, it was like he wasn’t even Dixon anymore—like the weapon was more Dixon than the man was. In all the time I lived with him, I never learned as much about Dixon as in that moment.

“For God’s sake, Hart,” Dixon cried as the banker got a hand on him, “use your gun!”

I felt the weight of the six-gun on my hip—the same one my brother had carried. I remembered Lincoln, gut-shot, dying in agony. I’d probably never learn exactly how Lincoln ended up shot, but I could guess now, and I knew nobody deserved to die like that.

I remembered what Dixon said earlier, too. I knew good advice when I heard it.

Lifting the gun from my holster, I pushed between the other men, my weighted fist swinging low. Dixon doubled up, staggered, and sank down against the wall, pure confusion on his face.

I handed the gun to the stunned banker. “Better call for help, mister. Use the back door, though. There’s another fella out front on lookout.”

“What’re you doing?” Dixon squeaked.

“Just what you told me to do,” I said. “I’m using my head.”

As the banker hurried out, I put myself between Dixon and the door to await whatever came next.

And this time, I wasn’t scared.

—BRANDON BARROWS is the author of the novels Burn Me Out, This Rough Old World, Nervosa, and over fifty published stories, some of which are collected in the books The Altar in the Hills and The Castle-Town Tragedy. He is an active member of Private Eye Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He is a regular contributor to Saddlebag Dispatches, as well. Find out more about Brandon and his writing on Twitter @brandonbarrows or on his website, www.brandonbarrowscomics.com.