Man with No Name- Shooting into Knight's Visor

He fell backward, slamming down with a force that momentarily drove the breath from his lungs. Before he could roll aside, his adversary was upon him. The armored figure dropped down and one steel-clad knee landed on his victim’s chest with crushing force, pinning him helplessly to the ground.

“How about it, bounty killer?” he panted. “You got any more funny jokes to make before I go to work on that ugly face of yours?” He lifted the broken sword high.

The time for concern over the well-being of the man in armor was past. The hunter had no choice if he expected to survive to collect any future bounty.

He tipped up the muzzle of the Colt forty-four and fired his last shell point blank into the face plate of the helmet bending above him. Again there was a metallic crash and a great, silvery smear spread across the slotted visor as the leaden slug struck and fragmented, the droplets of hot lead flying through the vertical slits.

The armored man howled like a witch at the fiery stake and fell back, steel scrabbling on steel as his gauntletted hands clawed wildly at the visor. The visor, its hinged joints sprung out of place by the impact of the heavy
slug, refused to open.

He rolled over and over, screeching, “My eyes! Oh, my God. my eyes! I’m blind, goddamn you! I’m blind!”

The hunter shoved himself upright on the ground and sat sobbing for breath as he hurriedly reloaded the empty pistol. His adversary struggled to his feet and stumbled in aimless circles, pawing at the face plate and bleating in anguish.

The frenzied wanderings brought him closer and closer to the rim where the table-land dropped sharply to the floor of a deep canyon. In wild and belated alarm the hunter scrambled to his feet.

“Look out!” he yelled. “Stop! Stop right where you are or you’ll fall over…”

One moment the armored figure was in plain sight, staggering crazily. The next moment it had vanished from sight. A wild, hollow yell ended abruptly in a metallic crash.

From the rim of the sharp dropoff, the bounty hunter stared grimly down at the crumpled mass of steel and blood and flesh far below. After a time he turned away and went back to mount his horse.

- Blood for a Dirty Dollar, chapter 15