— THE DEVIL AT HER BACK
799 Words
Part I — The Tracker and the Devil
The bartender wasn’t a coward, not exactly—he’d just lived long enough to know when death had walked through his front door wearing spurs. And death, today, happened to be wrapped in a weather-beaten coat with a woman’s shape and a shadow that wasn’t hers.
He pointed at the broken glass on the floor like it might protect him. “Ma’am… Shepherd’s not a name you speak in Burrow Creek. Folks vanish for less.”
“Good,” she said. “Maybe I’m lookin’ to vanish someone.”
The men in the saloon muttered darkly, eyes down. One slipped out the back door, quiet as guilt. Another took a holy medal from his pocket and kissed it like he meant to bribe heaven.
The bartender swallowed. “You askin’ for trouble.”
She set both palms on the counter. “I brought my own.”
Behind her, the air tightened, then shifted—like something huge had leaned closer. Not a sound, not a footstep. Just pressure. The kind that made lamps dim and sweat chill on the spine.
The bartender’s throat worked. “It’s… right behind you, ain’t it?”
She didn’t bother denying it. “Depends on your definition of ‘it.’”
“I don’t want no definition,” he whispered.
Fair enough.
She pulled the folded poster from her coat and slid it across the bar. The preacher’s smiling face gleamed up with paper-thin holiness.
“Where is he now?”
The bartender didn’t touch it.
He didn’t have to.
A large man at a corner table—sunburnt, scarred, too big to be scared of anything human—rose slowly. His hand rested on his belt where a long knife hung.
“I know who you’re after,” he said. “You got no business goin’ near him. Hell, even the wolves keep clear of that man’s camp.”
She turned slightly, enough to face him while keeping her back open—bold or foolish, depending on who you asked.
“You Shepherd’s guard dog?” she asked.
“I’m someone who don’t want to see Burrow Creek bleed again.”
“That a warning?”
“No, ma’am.”
He took a step forward.
“That’s a promise.”
The shadow behind her stirred.
A cold length of darkness uncoiled across the floor—thin as smoke, fast as a snake—before resettling behind her boots as if waiting for permission.
The big man froze mid-step.
“What in God’s name…” he whispered.
“Not God’s,” she said, turning fully toward him.
“And not yours.”
He hesitated, knife trembling. “Lady, you unleash that thing in here, you’ll kill us all.”
She shrugged. “Then don’t give me a reason.”
He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. And then, inch by inch, he sat back down.
Smart man.
The bartender finally found his voice. “Shepherd’s been movin’ through settlements north of here. Preachin’ revivals, collectin’ folks like cattle. They say he’s headed to the Drywater Gorge next.”
Drywater Gorge.
The name hit her like a hammer to the ribs.
She hadn’t been there since the night of ash.
“Why Drywater?” she asked.
“Rumor is,” the bartender whispered, “he’s plannin’ to raise somethin’. Somethin’ old. Somethin’ he thinks he can command.”
A slow heat crawled through her.
Anger.
Fear.
Memory.
“That preacher can’t command a rattlesnake without gettin’ bit,” she said. “No man calls up the dead without payin’ in flesh.”
One of the men at a table muttered, “Lady, you talk like you seen such things.”
She met his gaze.
“I have.”
Silence cracked around the room.
Then she took her horse’s reins from where she’d tied them by the door and stepped into the sunlight. The saloon exhaled behind her—men whispering, a cup shattering, someone praying too loud.
She mounted up, dust swirling around her boots.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then—
A second weight settled onto the saddle behind her.
Not a body.
Not quite.
Just enough pressure to bow the leather.
Her horse didn’t flinch. It had grown used to carrying two riders: one alive, one not.
“Come on,” she murmured.
The air behind her pulsed once—like a heartbeat in the void.
And as she steered her horse north, toward Drywater Gorge, toward the Shepherd and all the sins he’d left behind…
Boot prints formed in the dust beside her.
No legs making them.
No body casting them.
Just footsteps—matching her pace, stride for stride.
The devil didn’t follow her.
It rode with her.
Every step of the way.
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- Writer
