Rush

act viii. { august thirty-first }

{ ❧ Song of the Section; I'm Gonna Put You Down by Gangstagrass }

❧ August and his men had put two shiny bullets in Earl before we had a chance to stop them. For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I think that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Mercy and I had rushed up to the miner's camp as fast as we could. The usually bustling camp was deserted, as everyone had up and taken the day off to celebrate the fact that despite their overall misfortune, there was indeed 'gold in them thar hills.'

We were surrounded by an unimaginable amount of pine trees, which covered every lick of mountain in sight. The slanting afternoon sun lit up the mountainside with a warm orange glow. Vacant canvas tents shook gently in the summer breeze while the campfires from the night before smoldered in the heat of the day. But most important wasn't what we saw, it was what we heard. And what we heard was two shots just as soon as we'd arrived.

From there, it took us about a minute to find the source.

Earl's body was face down in the dirt, surrounded by three scoundrels and lying precariously close to a ridged cliff. And boy, were those bastards surprised to see us.

"Cecil, you expectin' someone?" the first voice hissed before we came into view.

"Like hell I am, John. Who the fuck would I be expecting?" the second man retorted, just as Mercy and I bounded around an evergreen tree.

But the man Mercy and I were most interested in was the man who stood between the two of them and over the body of ol' Earl. He turned to face us, just as I shouted his sorry excuse for a name, for what I prayed would be the last time.

"August Bell," I spat it out like it was something dirty on my tongue. As soon as I was certain I had their attention, I flashed a smile and continued on. There wasn't any use having an audience. "Your friends here ain't invited to this sit-down."

I knew Mercy would do me the honor.

Just as August and his men whipped around, Mercy pulled out her pistol. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the silver barrel caught the light of the merciless mid-day sun. Without a moment of hesitation, two more shots ripped through the peacefulness of mother nature with a vengeance that momentarily silenced the locust's song. Cecil and John hit the grown hard and kicked up dust on their way down, leaving August bewildered and confused, head whipping from side to side for answers. His face paled, at the sight of his less-than-innocent wifey, and me, the man he'd left for the gallows on the prairie a few weeks before.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, darling," Mercy greeted her husband with venom on her tongue.

"Mercy?" August choked. He fumbled for his pistol, hands searching his holster, which was conveniently very empty. His icy blue eyes shot to his jacket and holster, slung lazily over a boulder near Mercy. The gravity of the situation he found himself in was no doubt beginning to sink in. I watched him try to maintain his calm as he ran a hand through his slick, greasy hair.

"I know that ain't my sweet wife who just shot my friends here." He raised both of his hands in hesitant surrender and then cocked a confused brow at Mercy's wardrobe. She wasn't the lady he left behind in California anymore. "Why don't we all calm down for a minute and talk about this?" August suggested. August could talk the clothes off your back and that was what made him such a clever con. Maybe that was so, but Mercy and I? We were a whole other story. After all, they weren't going to call her Merciful Montgomery.

"Your brother's certainly giving you a long leash," retorted Mercy. She looked at him with a fire in her eyes I'd never seen before. I'd sure hate to have Mercy Montgomery look at me like that. It made me shudder. "Are you getting tired of being his bitch?"