The Seer And The Stetson

Leavin' me behind

"Stop!" Jolene's honeyed voice rose from the back of the wagon. 

Ellie watched River from the corner of her eye as he immediately complied without hesitation. He'd never responded so well to her steering. She huffed, pressing her lips into a thin line and folding her arms over her chest. Annoyance adding to her already frazzled nerves.

"This is your stop, Sheriff. Now, get the fuck out," She heard Jolene say. 

"You just gonna leave me, here, in the middle of nowhere? I will not be treated thusly, Goddamnit! I demand you return me to Black Brooke!" The sheriff's gruff voice barked over the silence. 

When he would not comply, Jolene gave a firm kick to his posterior. Propelling him face forward from the back of the wagon. With his hands and feet bound, he landed on his side with a thud. Narrowly avoiding a life-threatening blow to his skull on a nearby rock. His features contorted as pain echoed through his body. He rolled a few feet down a slope before stopping. 

"Damn you! Damn you to hell, Jezebel!" He hollered, spit flying from his lips. 

Jolene shook her gloriously full head of hair, "They teach you tellin' the truth is good till you start doin' it and then everybody gets offended" 

She jumped from the back of the wagon, "Fuck yourself, with a fist up your ass, today at the present moment!" She crassly gestured, sticking her middle finger in the air for good measure. 

"Vulgar bitch!" The sheriff roared, "There'll be a posse with at least ten on your heels. Not a one of you is gonna make out of this alive."

Jolene stared a moment or two in the distance before responding. "I'm afraid this one's above your bend, Sheriff. Here comes Maskwa now." 

Ellie's eyes darted to the rear of the wagon. A man rode hard towards them. The first thing she noticed was the deep sun-kissed copper of his skin. The rich earth tones harkening memories of wet clay. 

As he drew closer, the details of his countenance became clearer. He was acutely handsome, with a face that would stop anyone in their tracks. His features were made sharper, more menacing by the red and black war paint that covered him from forehead to chin. His dark hair was a black as ink. It was shorn along the sides to the scalp. The remaining hair rose skyward giving it a hedgehog appearance. He wore an open black vest atop the exposed skin of his muscular chest and soiled brown trousers adhered like a second skin to strong thighs. 

It was the eagle feather in his hair that captured Ellie's notice the longest. He was a warrior and a highly skilled one too. The colors of his aura sharped as he brought his horse to a canter only a few yards from them. It gleamed white with tinges of gold and blue. He had achieved self-mastery. Not only was he talented and disciplined but cold and critical. She wondered how he ended up with someone like Jolene. 

As the warrior pulled the horse's reigns bringing it to a halt, he nodded to Jolene, confirming her suspicions. 

"As I was saying, Sheriff, that posse ain't comin'" Jolene's lips curled into a self-satisfied smile.

"You gonna leave out here to die!" The sheriff shouted. His tone changing from impudent to forlorn in a matter of moments.

Jolene pulled one of her guns from its holster and cocked it as she charged towards him. 

'She's going to kill him!' Ellie thought, panic rising in her throat rendering her mute. Suddenly, the possibility that she'd spend the rest of her life as an outlaw became real. The rest of her very short life. And there is no way they'd blame River and Jolene for this. She, her family, and Maskwa would take the hardest part of this fall. There was nothing so dangerous, so undesirable as a colored people killing white folks.