The pressure on my chest eased even as a murmur of discontent rose. Hasan silenced them with a raised hand. “Wouldn’t you rather see these three men with a score to settle take aim at each other?” The uproar from the stands was deafening, feet stamping so hard the whole building shook, down to the nails. “Step up, Bandit!”
I took one long, shuddering breath. Maybe I ought to have thought this through. Or at least held firmer at a thousand. “Come on, kid,” a voice by my ear said. “You trust me, don’t you?”
I eyed the foreigner’s cocksure grin. “I don’t even know you.”
He reached out and pulled my hat off my head. I was glad I’d thought to shove my hair back under the sheema that was pulled low as my eyebrows, but still I felt bare without the hat. “All the more reason to trust me.”
The walk across the barn seemed too long.
Hasan grinned as he balanced the bottle on top of my head. “Better earn your money and not shake, kid. Or everyone’ll see the bottle trembling like a girl on her wedding night.”
My anger rooted me; the bottle didn’t move. Not when the foreigner stepped to the line. Not when he slotted his single bullet into the chamber. Not even when he raised the gun and pointed it straight at my head. Except I couldn’t breathe. He took careful aim, adjusting the shot. He was taking his time, and my nerves were fraying by the second.
“Just fire, you coward!” The shout burst from my lips the same second the gun went off.
I didn’t have time to flinch.
A boo went up from the crowd. And I was still alive to hear it.
I tipped my head and the bottle tumbled unbroken into my hands. I looked, and a bullet was embedded in the wall a hair to the left of my skull. Only then did I start to shake. I wasn’t sure if it was from nerves or from excitement. I wrapped my hands around the bottle to hide it either way.
In a blur of boos I walked back to the line. The foreigner passed me halfway across the pit as he walked out to the target. He paused for a second, placing my hat back on my head. “You all right?” he asked.
“Cut it a little fine there.” I tugged my hat back down.
“What’s the matter, Bandit?” Like he thought something was too damn funny. “Feeling a little less immortal?”
I shoved the bottle at him. “I wouldn’t taunt someone who’s about to aim a gun at your head.”
He laughed and kept walking.
And then I was the one standing behind the white painted line and he was the target. I could hit the bottle no problem if I wanted to. What were the chances Dahmad would actually hit the foreigner anywhere fatal? And even if he did, what was the foreigner to me? Not a thousand fouza in prize money.
I fired. The bottle stayed in one piece.
“The game is over!” Hasan cried over the shouts. “Dahmad reclaims his spot as your champion!” Some cheered, likely those holding slips with his number on them.
And slowly a new chant started to go up from the crowd. “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”
The champion was weaving unsteadily. “Yeah! I want a shot at the Snake, too.”
The foreigner had pulled the bottle off his head, but now the champion was swaggering over to the line, taking aim and gesturing at him to step back into place.
“They’re right!” Hasan crowed. “We can’t have a winner if Dahmad doesn’t shoot.” He cut his gaze toward me. I understood what he meant clear enough. No winner meant no winnings for the house. And that meant no money for us. “What do you say, Eastern Snake?”
My eyes met the foreigner’s and I shook my head. He held my stare for a long moment, all hints of joking gone. Then he stepped back and set the bottle on his head.
The champion stumbled up to the line. He could barely stand. He squinted at the foreigner, as if trying to make out where he was exactly. My father had been this drunk most days when he came home from factory work. He got his hands on a gun one of those times. My mother and I would've both been dead if he’d been able to shoot straight.
Dahmad raised the gun. From where I was standing I could see he was aiming straight at the foreigner’s chest.
The foreigner had beaten the champion last time. Dahmad was drunk enough to think revenge was a better idea than winning. And a man was a big enough target for even a drunk to hit.
As the champion’s hand squeezed down on the trigger, Hasan’s earlier words crashed down around me. There were no second shots in this game. I flung my body sideways without thinking and crashed into Dahmad.
The shove sent the bullet three feet to the left. The liquor sent Dahmad down into the sand while I staggered to find my footing, clutching my arm.
The crowd went up like a powder keg that had been waiting for the right spark.
They knew they’d been tricked, but no one seemed to know how. Some were screaming that the foreigner and I were in it together; others were shouting that Hasan had scammed them. In an instant they were rushing the bet wranglers.
“Son of a whore!” A pair of hands grabbed me by the front of my shirt. Dahmad was back on his feet and he had me clear off the ground, my toes dragging in the sand. I started to thrash, but he shoved me back against the wall of the pistol pit, knocking the air out of my lungs. And then there was a knife in his hand. Dahmad’s face was close to mine, his teeth bared, his breath reeking of spirits hot against my cheek. “I’m going to gut you from navel to nose and leave you here picking your insides up off the ground, boy.”
The foreigner’s hand clamped over the champion’s wrist, moving too fast for me to see. But I heard the sickening snap. I dropped to the sand in a heap as the champion fell onto his side roaring in pain, the knife clattering away. I saw bone sticking out of his arm. The foreigner swiped the knife from the ground. “Run,” he ordered.
The whole place had gone to hell.
A drunk smashed into a lantern as he careened; it dropped into the stands, shattering in oil and flames.
I turned to make for the entrance, but the brawl was too far gone already. There was no escape that way. The foreigner and I stood, backs against the wall. We were forgotten—the chaos wasn’t even about us anymore. The whole barn was filling with smoke. We were going to be choking in seconds.
“I don’t suppose you can fly?” he shouted over the noise, pointing his chin straight above us. A window just out of reach, above the stands.
I grinned at him even though he couldn’t see it. “I can’t fly, but I don’t weigh so much.”
He understood me perfectly. Linking his fingers together, he created a foothold. I shoved the pistol I was still carrying into my belt. Damned if I’d leave a decent weapon here.
I took a few short steps back and ran. My third step landed my right boot in the foreigner’s interlaced fingers and he launched me upward. My arms banged into the ledge with a jolt that was going to leave bruises. His hands were there under me, holding me steady as I dragged myself up the windowsill. The prayer house’s roof was an easy drop below, and in a few seconds I was out in the night air. I was dying to make a run for it.