The Dark Lady

us.
    “What's the matter?” asked Heath.
    “Just do what the man says!” snapped Peres urgently, pulling Heath by an arm into an empty building while I scurried down the ramp after them.
    “What happened?” demanded Heath. “What's going on?”
    Peres led us to a window and pointed to the slim figure of a young blond man who stood, motionless, at the far end of the street.
    “He's come for her,” he said.

11.
    The kid stood still, surveying the situation. From time to time his gaze would freeze on a rooftop or the interior of a building, and I knew he had pinpointed yet another of the bounty hunters who lay in wait for him.
    He was dressed in a faded, nondescript brown outfit. A laser pistol rested in a holster at his side, no longer connected to its battery pack, ready for instant use. A sonic pistol was tucked into his belt, a rifle was slung over his shoulder, and the handle of yet another pistol could be seen peeking out from the top of his left boot. He wore no hat, and the hot wind whipped through his golden hair so that it framed his face much as the halos in religious paintings framed the faces of human saints.
    Evidently the man who had told us to go inside was out of range, for the Kid paid no attention to him, but concentrated instead on studying the nearer buildings. There were perspiration stains beneath his armpits, and the back of his shirt clung moistly to him, but he seemed in no hurry to move either into town or back out into the desert.
    “It's suicide!” said Heath, staring out the window at him. “Doesn't he know it's a trap?”
    “He knows,” said Peres.
    “Does he think he can take them all?”
    Peres shrugged noncommittally.
    I turned to look at the jail. The Dark Lady stood in the window, staring intently at the Kid, her face serene. I wondered what he had done to make her betray him in this manner.
    “Here it comes!” whispered Peres excitedly, for the Kid had withdrawn his laser pistol and begun slowly walking down the street toward the jail.
    There was a brief motion on the roof, the laser blinked, and an instant later a bounty hunter rolled down the gentle slope and fell heavily to the ground.
    The man who had told us to get off the street drew a projectile weapon and fired it. Evidently he missed, for the Kid whirled and activated his own weapon as the man dove for cover. An instant later the man lay dead just outside our door, his face burnt black. I stared at him in horrified fascination, appalled that any race should consider such an end either heroic or romantic.
    We heard another gunshot. The Kid spun around, his pistol flying some forty feet through the air, and I realized that he had been shot in the arm. He immediately grabbed the projectile weapon from his boot and fired back, then turned as he saw another figure in the store to his right. I do not know what kind of weapon was trained on him, but he fell to the ground and rolled over twice, blood pouring from the gaping hole where his left ear had been, fury masking the pain in his face. Then, kneeling, he fired into the store.
    Two more laser pistols blinked, one from a rooftop and one from the tavern, and a number of bullets tore up the ground around him. The Kid fell backward as if hit in the chest by a heavy object. Then, as his body was rapidly covered by smoking scorchmarks of burning flesh and his vision was obscured by his own blood, he feebly removed his sonic pistol and aimed it at yet another bounty hunter.
    I wanted to close my eyes, but I found that I could not do so. Instead I stared at him, transfixed, as he tried again and again to kill as many of his antagonists as he could before he died. It was so contrary to anything I had ever experienced that, even though the grim pageant was enacted right in front of me, I was totally unable to comprehend why he would keep fighting when he had already incurred perhaps ten mortal wounds, why he didn't just give up and accept the inevitable.
    The air continued to be filled with the explosions of projectile pistols and the constant blinking of laser beams, while the Kid, his body jerking and spurting blood and ganglia as each bullet and beam found its mark, one eye hanging out of its socket by the thinnest shred of tissue, clawed feebly at his pocket with the only two fingers that remained on his hand, vainly reaching for one last weapon. Finally I could stand to watch the slaughter no longer and I turned my head away.
    Perhaps by chance, perhaps by design,