Gold, Guns and Death in the West - A Wild West Story

CHAPTER 6 - The Journey

Thinking quick, she made her way out of the bed and towards a crawl space which was hidden in the floor. A place to hide should a dangerous animal break into the house. Now, it wasn't just predators she should be fearing. But the worst of all.

Just as she placed the carpet over the hatch, she gently closed the door as footsteps could be heard on the front porch. Keeping quiet in spite of her aching stomach, she was able to hold out until the four men scouring the house left.

This was eventually followed by a gunshot and the slumping of a small, young body.

"Come on, let's get out of here." A man's voice ordered.

A few minutes later, she emerged from the crawl space. Opening the door, she was greeted with the sight of her little brother dead on the ground before her. Cold as ice in the wild west.

*****

"I made my way into town to find help, but everything was just suddenly so different. Thankfully, Mr. Franklin took me in as his own and raised me. Eugene and his cronies seemed to believe him whenever he said I was his daughter. But, I will never forget what I saw that day..." The girl said, not noticing that the rabbit had been badly burnt.

"Who the fuck kills children?" The boy asks, angered and disgusted at what he heard. Only hating the man more.

"Monsters." She answered in turn. All of a sudden, the both of them began to smell something burning.

"Oh no, you burnt the rabbit." Stamp walked up to them. Sighing in annoyance.

"It ain't that much of a deal, I'll get another." The boy started to get up, before Stamp interjected.

"No, it's fine. Just stay here, I'll be back soon." He assured him, heading off into the night to try and catch another animal.

"Let's hope he doesn't get bit by a snake or something." He said.

"Now that you know all about me, I guess it's time for you." She said, tossing the rabbit's charred body off of the stake.

Lighting a cigarette, he pressed it to his mouth and took a few puffs.

"Fair's fair." The boy shrugged. "I'd say I'm no more than a simple young man making his way through life. But, that's not exciting ain't it? Well, don't remember that much of my childhood. It's all just kind of blank there. What, or who I remember the most is my dad. He was a lot like yours. He taught me how to shoot, how to ride a horse and how to survive in a world like this. One day, something happened. I-I don't exactly remember what it's probably something I didn't want to remember. But after that, my dad was gone. I don't know whether he ran away or died. But after that, I turned to bounty hunting in order to survive. That's been going on for maybe five or seven years now. Even as I was able to make honest money, I always had this feeling... of being lost and in a loop."

"I'm thankful you took it upon yourself to try and help my town. I've hated to pretend to be someone I wasn't, but I always knew that I couldn't face down all five of those scumbags. Now that you're here, a gunman with a working moral compass, we have a chance against them." She smiled.

All of a sudden, the sound of multiple hooves galloping could be heard approaching the camp, fast.

"Shit!" The boy yelled out. He grabbed his rifle and crouched behind a rock followed by his partner.

"Where are they?" She frantically asked.

Pinpointing where the galloping was coming from, the boy fired a shot into the night.  Hearing a pained, piercing cry and the sound of multiple horses panicking.

"Dismount!" He could hear Hugh calling out.

Rifle and pistol shots were fired blindly towards them. The girl quickly tossed sand onto the fire, putting it out. Commotion could be heard a few ways away as the gang started to fire at the improvised  encampment.

Bullets whizzed back and forth for a few minutes or so. Sometimes, they thought that they could see some of the gang members' silhouettes dashing from cover to cover.

All the while, one of the member's screaming could be heard. The one the boy had shot earlier.

"Keep firing!" A familiar voice could be heard. Stamp's voice.

"That sellout..." The boy gritted his teeth, blindly firing his revolver where he thought the Edwards Gang was located.

"Stamp! We trusted you!" The girl angrily yelled, popping off some shots from her bolt action rifle. Quickly reloading, her survival skills all of a sudden kicking in after all those years unused.

"Once you eliminated my jobs after you killed Stanton, my only hope was to find employment with Mr. Haynomd. I can't let you cut off another job opportunity, kid!" Stamp called over.

"The mine's a slave camp! There's no honest money to be made!" The boy replied.

"Money's money!" Stamp said. To which the girl responded with two shots from her Derringer Remington.

"I'm gonna fill you with so many holes you'll birth bullets, bitch!" A voice which the girl recognized as Thomas' cried out.

Peeking out from behind his cover, the boy immediately saw Grayson trying to approach them silently. Thinking quickly, he brought out his reloaded revolver and shot three times. The first one missed, the second knocked Grayson's rifle out of his hands, but the last got him in the shoulder. The mute man quickly retreated back to his cronies.

"Grayson's hit!" An angry Hugh yelled out.

"Goddammit, retreat!" Ordered a frustrated Thomas, the attack wasn't bearing anything and two of their own were already wounded. The sounds of the five gang members abandoning the attack came as a surprise to the both of them. A couple seconds later, their enemies' horses neighing and racing away cemented the relief. However, the member who was shot by the boy was simply abandoned by his fellow members, as evident by the pained grunting coming from somewhere.

"Cowards!" The boy angrily shouted at the retreating gang members.

After him and the girl checked each other for wounds, they headed over to where they could. The two of them headed towards where they could hear the injured gang member. Only a few seconds into the search, they found Mike underneath the corpse of his dead horse. The lucky shot from the boy had hit his horse in the head. It fell over, trapping Mike underneath it. In the chaos of the firefight, none of his fellow gang members had thought to help him.

"Hey, kids. This looks bad doesn't it?" He asked in a weakened voice. The sheer weight of the horse's dead body falling onto his chest had caused him to begin bleeding internally.

"Mike." The girl began, cocking her revolver. "Give us one reason we shouldn't blow your face off right now."

She held his own pistol directly towards him. The dying man stayed silent for a few moments, until he began to speak. A hint of regret could be heard in his voice.

"Don't have none." Replied Mike. "Someone like me don't deserve mercy, I've done many evil deeds throughout my life..."

"Such as joining up with a murderin' maniac?" The boy asked. "There ain't much excuse for that."

"If there's anything I have to say for myself, it don't matter anyways. Live good and long lives, the both of you. Don't make the same mistakes I did." Mike cautioned them both, eventually he slowly died in front of the two.

"Now what? They'll be expecting us." The girl said worriedly. "Any ideas?"

For a few seconds, the boy thought to himself.

"Yeah, one comes to mind..." He said with a slight smirk, it was risky, but ultimately unexpected.