Our Final Moments -Chapter 2
Walk with the gang - Sucking on salt crystals - Spotting a giant - Finding some shade - Fallout at Fallon - At a crossroad
See the woman stuck to the ground, contorted backwards and gawking at the deadly sky. Her arms hang limp behind her, fusing to her lower half and morphing together with the ground; amalgamating into the hideous black curse that consumes all flesh which lay idle upon its desolate sands. The top half is mostly intact, save from being picked nearly clean by the hungry. The belly and chest is empty; hollowed out completely beneath her sun-bleached rib cage that’s draped over strangely with dried leathery curtains of skin. Golden white hair hangs almost whimsical, yet stiff like dried straw stuck malignant to a tight scalp which ends abruptly atop a polished skull with no face. The head has made home to the nesting of insects with thousands of legs and who scream like dying infants when breeding, emerging from the cavities of her eyes, ears, nose and mouth; creeping along the outside and being obstructed from view now and again by the passing of long shadows belonging to the feet of a band of beaten strangers and felons, each walking in line against the bleeding red sun.
Seven strangers, starving and dry, each with a price pinned to their name, dragging along the hot groves left by the feet which drug there before them. The faces can all be seen to be one of the same; mostly male, two female, sunburnt cherry red and peeling, withered chapped lips dare not to move lest they crack more deeply, each slugging along emotionless for countless hours through the never ending wasteland which birthed them this way. A man in the very back stops and pisses yellow dribbles onto a rag, then wraps it around his head and walks on.
The gang came in from the east, heading westbound from the gates of Augusta. The scenery from there to here remains eerily consistent; intervals of sand dunes, ruined bits of roofless building, torn up roadways, abandoned cars, dried carcasses, polished bones and of course, the never ending mountain range laid in the distant horizon; all passing them by malleably into a continuous blur of mindless motion and rhythm unarticulated to the brain. They tread straightly through the desert, stitching their steps perfectly between the feet of their fellow man in some sort of unspoken tradition created by themselves alone. They follow this path religiously, laid out before them by a man saddled upon a lushes black horse cursed with starvation; unshaven and covered in grime, his face kept shaded beneath a wide brim and his left eye’s kept covered with a patch.
They walk in complete silence without a single lick to each tongue save for the scarce dribbles of sweat collected from themselves, then rationed and shared amongst one another. By long the sweat fails to perspirate, inspiring to make haste across the desert with some hopeless ambition to cover more ground in search for some drink. Eventually they take to licking the running sores of the blistering backs in front of them, like some band of starve crazed chimps combing each other for bugs.
With nowhere to go other than anywhere they'd like, they march on straight. One after the other harmoniously.
A while later the desert begins to change beneath them slowly. Coarse yellow sands spread thin white across a leveled ground coated with salt dust, which sends a sting through each one of their open sores, eventually fading to a familiar dull throb. They walk alongside the bending path of some shallow river bed dried out some time ago; skeletal fish bones protrude from the cracking mud, almost fossilized and shimmering iridescent beneath the light of eternal day.
They walk more on for much longer, bend after bend, aimless and numb. The sand has stretched so thin and fine, almost like powder that stings like shards of glass against their blistering faces as it blows along in the cooling winds, and has become whiter than snow; dilating their eyes further into near complete blindness.
They come to another bend in the river bed, one that is sloped more steeply than the rest before it. The ground surrounding the dugout rhymes with immaculate emerald green and turquoise, the embankment covered evenly with chunks of white rocks embedded into the dry mud.
The lead dismounts and makes his way to the edge. The rest are soon to follow, each one falling to their knees and digging furiously into the ground, then gorging themselves upon the delectable immensities to which they’ve stumbled upon. An hour later they left, each member with a piece of rock salt knocking between their teeth; weighed down by the embarrassment forced within their pockets and satchels.
Pushing on, winged shadows circle their movements from above. Some time ago some members of the gang took to counting their steps until they got to the number one hundred, then kept track of each time they got there before starting the count over again. By the fifth or sixth interval each one forgot where they were and began the game over. The rest kept their minds as quiet as their lips, taking in the grains of sand skittering across the broken road, transfixed on the subtleties of the desert with their eyes closed.
A man in midline breaks the infinite silence. “Say Butch, how’s about we just take a break a while, set up some shade round’ some rocks?”
Our man leans back in his saddle and looks up to the coppery sky, suggesting the fate of themselves if they were to do so. The winged beasts swirl above, blotting out the sun in strobes, waiting for game. Every so often each beast takes share, cannibalizing on the foot flying in front of it, and behind losing the same.
He turns back to the gang, addressing the man whose salt supply has been sweat through his clothes, forming dried white crystals outlining his ribcage. He walks with a limp and keeps his left arm hung in a bloody sling stinking of rot. Weary is he, probably more so than the rest and our man takes account of this.
He looks back at the winged circle of death soaring above them once more, “Nah, we keep moving.” He mumbles to himself. Then shouts, “Come on y'all! We keep on and we’ll be out of the sun in no time! Just a few more miles yet!”
He reflected on his words, and took account of the miles which have passed them. There is something strange which occurs within the mind of man as he crosses these timeless planes. There seems to be only two things of concern - where one's been, and where they're heading. Everything else in between seems to pass by forever and ever, then being engraved into the memory as a single moment that's impossible to forget about, or to really remember completely.
The band kept on, weaving now and again from their lines as they fumble beneath exhaustion. They passed by an assortment of death littering the white sands; polished bones and skeletons -some of man, others cosmical and demonic in origin- wreckages of huge weapons and tanks lay sprawled and janky upon lobes of scorched earth, craters and trenches run deep against the land; the uncanny scenery of war painted and orchestrated by the brush strokes of the creator himself. The remnants of war long since forgotten, yet, mystically embedded into the history of this forgotten wasteland for eons to come. They kept walking, stepping carefully through the scattered debris.
As the mountains to the west began to shape themselves upon the crest of horizon, two winged figures as tall as men and with the legs of goats arose in the distance, blotting themselves shadowy black against the sun, then descended most rapidly against the currents of wind as they both separated and disappeared from eyesight far into the north. Some time later they returned, each flapping heavily in sinking swoops as they struggled to carry what appears to be the ass end of a horse.
It had taken no longer than the passing of six hours or so for their satchels of salt crystals to hang empty, each member standing more straight and stepping with deeper insight and gratefully partaking the quench of one another’s perspirations once more. They keep on like this for twice as long, eventually coming to the end of the battlefield and back into open plains and vastness. Sand dunes roll delicate across the distance, fading back and forth between course yellow and fine white, and obscuring the silhouetted mountain ranges protruding the concave of the foreground; casting their omnipotence against the open landscape like some sort of border wall for this continent and the one beyond. And between the mountains and here, a giant walks aimless in the distance; dust plumes beneath its long slender legs, clouding upward to its low hanging clutches. It resembles a man of great hunger, and stands taller than the mountains beyond. Its presence is unsettling, featureless beneath the sun and its skeletal frame is almost visible from where they are standing. They trek on, keeping the giant to their right as a constant reminder of where they stand in this new world. After a while the towering man stops dead in its tracks, then lets out a scream not unlike that of a trumpet which rumbles the air around them. The winged shadows break formation, drawing across the meridian of day. Time stands brief, it covers its head with hands much larger than they should be, and sobs most disgustingly hollow. Then, the ground beneath them quakes in delay as it stomps in a fit of rage and confusion, afterwards it stops, turns around and heads back where it came from, eventually disappearing beyond the horizon, its howling cries echoing still now and again through the empty air.
By long they come to an obstruction of sorts; a massive sand dune covering the road ahead and stretching either direction for far too long to judge. Making it to the base, they all stop and break for a moment, wringing out some sweat from their clothes to drink, then refixing the ragged bandages wrapped around their feet for some comfort. The winged shadows return, swirling around them and waiting starved above.
Trembling legs struggle a great deal as they each ascend the massive dune, crawling and digging, scrambling like sheep hiking a cliff. Grains of fine sand bury their hands, then roll away in a jingle of subtle chimes like fine shards of glass clinking off metal. The horse too, burying its hind hooves all but knee deep with each push.
In short they reach the summit, each on all fours and panting like dogs. They stand, and then they see, way off in the white horizon; a building stands lonesome in the landscape, filled with nothing but uncertainty and shade.
“YUAH!” Instantly, the lead makes haste full on down the dune and through the plain; he and his horse dancing magnificent across the desert sands, trailing away into a shimmering plume of dust growing broad into the still air. The rest then too start on, desperately struggling to run towards salvation. Each tongue confessing their thanks to God in depressing cries of animalistic instinct as they go.
Stand in front of the building; an abandoned gas station, all boarded up and forgotten, desolate and reclused from any sign of a living thing. Leather squeaks beneath him as he twists in the saddle, turning back to the gang approaching far off, scattered and masqueraded by the clouding of dust rolling the earth. Turn back to the building, watching intently and studying its property. The couple of pumps are post war, rusted and janky - their wells all dried up. The structure stands firm upon a block form; the base piled evenly with sand. Some windows are shattered, the rest are still framed and reflecting the sun into his gaze through open cracks between sheets of plywood and tin.
Something about the presence of shelter in this empty land calls for concern. Spurs jingle as his boots meet the ground, he walks slowly towards the front; a twitchy thumb hovers the handle of a holstered gun. Heavy clad chains are latched tight between the metal doors. He steps carefully and makes his way around the side. In the back he finds a doorway with no door; the frame is all wrecked, ripped down to the block and scored with deep scratches paired with three marks. The wicked black curse of the land has crept up the walls and all around it. Our man takes a deep breath, covering his mouth with a dirty bandana, then pulls out his gun and cocks back the hammer; disappearing through the dark entrance.
Run with the gang; steadfast and groaning as they near the shade; the heat is now omnipotent, more inescapable than ever before. They stop at the horse and watch in silence; pulsing fills the eardrum. Winged shadows circling from above. Then [flinching] a shot rings out from inside, then another, and another. Chains drop to the ground and one door drags open. In-rushes the group, fighting and trampling each other; the man with one arm hung in a sling fumbles in last, then the horse, too. Immediately, they all collapse and begin to worship, giving thanks to heaven, kissing the ground and apologizing; some start to cry, others laugh hysterically. Butch watches them in silence, unfazed and curious.
The building is barren, save for the columns of empty shelves and dusty warm ice-boxes stinking of freezer burn. Our man sets a crate beside a boarded up window and takes a seat, raising a foot to the sill and leaning into. He ganders the mess he’s created with a squint; each one collects themselves and allows their minds to settle for a moment before finding the strength to be here with consciousness. Slowly, they make their way around the store, window shopping the nothingness. One of the women -senior in age- steps around most delicate, poking about wide eyed like a scared mouse. In the back she finds an assortment of unlabeled cans and winces at the sight, then begins stuffing them into her pouch.
“Wutch ya got there, Jude?”
She stopped dead for a moment as a sharp pang ran across her consciousness. Liver spotted hands clutch the satchel desperately. Shaking like a leaf, she turns to the man standing behind her, his white face burnt red and covered with grime, staring her down with vicious eyes screaming with violence. She looks at him and then to her bag again and again.
Her elderly voice trembles as she steps away, pulling the bag closer to her chest. “I-I found it first, now just-just get back! It’s mine, it's mine I found it! Don't take it from me, please.”
Others begin gathering around her, backing into a corner like prey; her eyes darting back and forth to each one. A man bares his teeth like a dog, and before she could speak again he pounced on her, threw her to the ground and ripped her satchel in two. The loose cans pour out and roll across the floor, chaos ensues between them. Each person scrambled, fighting and screaming, biting one another until each had their own, then scurried away to their own special place in the store with their can; some stabbed at them with knives, other smashed them against the floor, one man began gnawing at his with bare teeth. In time they cracked open, filling the room with the smell of wet dog food; they ate to their fill.
Afterwards, everyone sat back and rested well; each bloated with a spoiled milk belly plumped upward. It had not taken long for the gang to slip into deep slumber; fixing themselves just fine on the cold solid floor. Butch stayed up a while after the rest, perching at his window and gandering outside through a crack in some wood as things passed by in the wind. A lonesome vulture cries out to the distance; allow him to sing, and what a terrible song it is that he gives us.
He’s awoken in a sudden jolt, still sitting as he was. Looks around the shaded room to the sleeping bodies laid sprawled out on the floor, then back through the sliver of outlook the window beyond. The rolling dust has calmed to a manor of idle and a single tumbleweed sits perfectly still in the distance. The coppery sky has cleared more bluely and rippled with thin clouds hanging way high and far west.
A manly voice startles him from behind, “Can’t sleep either?”
He turns to the man approaching hunched over and cradling a sling hung arm to his chest. Say’s nothing in reply as they sit now together, peering the blinding landscape and fixing themselves an inch or so farther apart, the one making sure to take care of his appendage; the makeshift sling stained black and fuming with the smell of rotting flesh.
Look’s him up and down from the corner of his eye. “I take it you’s can't either way?” He asks while sucking a bit between his teeth, which is when the injured man notices a pile of unmarked cans sitting at the feet of our man; opened and licked clean.
“Nah”, he replied, coughing weakly and leaning over his arm. Then turn back to the room behind them, taking account of the contorted faces, twisting bodies and kicking legs of the sleeping rest. “Seems like none of us can.” He pauses for a moment, turning slowly to the grizzly man and the two exchange eyes. “That why you up Butch? Havin’ them nightmares too?”
“Seems the case with everyone nowadays.”
The moment passed by pleasantly; gaining their minds to be reminiscent of the charm of a slow early morning.
“So let me ask you this.” The hurt man broke out before coughing once more and pulling his blood stained sling even closer. “Is yours reality, or is they just normal night scares?”
He thought for a moment, closing his eyes and reflected upon the question. “Both really,” he says, “and sometimes a mixture of both.”
“Yea, me too.” His eyes fill with discomfort as his head turns away. “But lately they’ve been more real than not.” He looks to the ground and Butch looks him over with heavy judgment, then around to the rest just the same.
His eyes rest on a young blond woman laying midground, her sleeping eyes wincing and flinching as she gasps for short breath. Turning back, he says, “I take it’s the same for all of us.” His eyes follow back outside and up to the sun, “And I got an idea as to why that is.”
Something had occurred from within as both minds became one. Air stands thick between them, hung up and breathing like laundry. Behind each eye an entire lifespan runs on, and be it you who wonders which way they went. But such thoughts are far too common now; and it is them who will prevent such things from the mouth. Some words are best left unspoken.
The hurt man leans back a bit and closes his eyes, his yellow skin beading with sweat and his dry mouth clicking for air, then is shaken by the filling sound of the man's strong, gentle voice, “So how’s your arm holdin’ up?”
The man's head slumped downward, his voice became certain and soft; pausing between words as the breath seemed to escape him. “Not good Butch. Not good.” He shook his head delicately and changed the subject, “So how much longer till you make it to Reno?”
“Not sure, the time of a couple days, perhaps.”
Days; the word clung to both their minds almost humorously in its obsolescence.
They both leaned back, silent for a moment. Then the man ask’s, “So how many days do you think it's been? I mean, since this mess all started?”
Butch thinks for a moment, then says that he isn’t really sure anymore, but that he can say for certain that it's been a few years at least. In actuality however, our man knows exactly how long it’s been since the world went to shit, even knows the precise day when the whole thing started; when the people's ears had partaken the sounding of the first trumpet from heaven. Can even recall the last time he remembers the sun going down; fondly nostalgic beneath the light of a full moon. He spits on the floor and kicks back against the wall, resting his feet upon the sill once again and fixing his brim over his eyes.
In time he falls back to sleep, and when he awakes he is startled to find the man he’d been speaking with staring at him wide eyed and drooling; his skin’s now light blue, his eyes yellow and grey. Our man stands up and looks him over for a moment, then nudges him with the toe of his boot, his rotting black arm droops limp from its sling and flops to his side. Standing over him filled with pity, considering the opportunity of robbing the dead man, but then realizes such; the man lying dead on the floor before us just so happens to be the more fortunate of the two, and he almost begins to envy the peacefulness of the moment.
From his coat pocket he takes a folded stack of thick yellow parchments, takes one out from the stack and looks it over. Then drops it on the man's dead body before him. It read:
James Carlson - Dead or Alive. Wanted for the theft and slaughter of livestock. Reward - negotiable.
They set out, continuing westward beneath the sun and wandering the lands in search for some sign of walkway. Continuing on endlessly -forgotten and engraved all together- trekking on within the continuous hot groves turning over against themselves in the sands beneath their feet, moving forever in constant elision; dividing the world which they’ve encountered and leaving what had been and what would never be extinguished on the ground behind them.
After a while they started north-west. Butch rode out alone to scout the land, making account of the things all around them to which there is little; studying the horizon and partaking in the subtlety of rolling scrublands and flat bush plains which run on outside of vision with countless miles standing between them. He had taken off his hat to cool himself at length, considering the path he’d take alone through the banded washes of sand. But he would not follow, eventually fixing his brim, then turned the horse and rode back to the gang.
Thoughts run on thicker than water, yet thinner than oil, they remain suspended somewhere between the liquid equilibrium of consciousness. So too does the landscape as it all passes by into more and more intervals of this thing and that thing taking part of the mind. Many steps away from where they’d been, now here the land is changing again; washed away and stretched out thin and far, the ground becoming more solid than ever and fading lighter and lighter the farther they walk. By length they find themselves within the outskirts of steam vents protruding the mantle; each encased with rings of fine turquoise and viper green staggered unanimously. Thick yellow sulfur smoke plumes from below, hanging thick in the air and sticking to the skin like glue. Eyes stinging. Lungs aflame.
They press on through the yellow plume, choking and coughing up phlegm as they go. In time they reach the perimeter of the sulfur field and through the fog shapes and shadows begin to form themselves silhouetted in the distance. Making way into cleaner air, visuals come to and out they can make from far away, the city of Fallon floating within the ocean of foolish desire.
The city of Fallon has for some time been laid under contributions by a militia of rough men who all claim to be man's final standing of law and order in the world. When the gang rode in they had been fallen upon as outcasts and criminals. Horse hooves clunking on the broken asphalt of the roadway, echoing delicate as the streets emptied out and all the towns folk disappear behind closed doors of their shanty homes spaced far and few between stretches of jagged ground.
They make their way to the far side of town, tie up the horse and enter the saloon. The presence of the gang had been well known upon their arrival, and even more so when they entered this drawn out room, stopped at the door by the force of long questionable looks from every kind of face in this place. The event of all small talk and chatter had ceased amongst a line of dirty white men gazing from the bar, reducing their words to faint whispers of their disliking. A band of Mexicans holding sticks begin to gesticulate towards them with deep character as a rogue billiard knocks behind an eight ball and sinks a stripe.
They make way for the bar and past them a small crowd rushes out. Take a seat at the bar, looking down its bow as each finds their own. The bartender greets them with a disrespectful drop of his lazy eye, then ignores them completely. More bodies disappear through a flapping doorway behind them.
Turned away, facing the drink, he speaks stupidly with a long southern draw. “I ain’t servin’ you’s.” Then turns around and illuminates his disfigured face through a beam of sunlight. His words are choppy and difficult to get out. “Boss man says I’d be on the lookout for folks such yer’selfs. Say’s I ain’t supposed to serve ya’s.”
“We’hell there kind feller, how you suppose we the folks your boss man told you to be lookin’ out for?” Butch says smartly while pulling a stool around and taking a seat.
The barman smirks with an obvious look, claiming, “Kind feller always remembers what boss man says’s.” He turns back around, attending to empty fogged glasses. “Got the mental eye of a hawk, and’s the memory of a toor-dall.” He says this while tapping the top of his head which is much smaller than it should be and formed poorly beyond his hunched nape.
“Well, looks like we’ll just have to serve ourselves then.” Butch states while reaching over the counter and snatching a dark bottle of liquor.
“Boss man gonna be mad.” The barman mumbled, then spit on a glass and polished it with a dirty rag.
Butch took a full cheek swig from the bottle, choking off the warm oily fire water, then knocked back another and slid the bottle down the counter to the next man. The gang had their share, passing the bottle up and down the row as much as three times before the bottle poured dry.
“Benny!” A dull shout came from behind a door which leads behind the bar room.
The barman shrieks dumbly, flinching his small head between his fat shoulders and placing a glass down gently. “Oho- Here comes boss-” Before he could finish, out burst’s the owner; a short, late aged man with a quick fuse of a temper.
He came rushing in violently, screaming obscenities and addressing everyone in the room with the business end of a sawed-off in one hand, and keeping his button-less overalls above his bare ass with the other. His old leathery skin shakes loosely from his bald head as he speaks very rapidly from an unclean mouth with a single front tooth.
“I knew it! I knew you’s be comin’ round here! This the gang of felons ole’ sheriff was speakin’ of, in’it? In’it Benny?”
Everyone took up and stepped back with their hands drawn upwards as the old man continued to drill the barman, waving his gun around sporadically. Then looked around anxiously, taking notice of the empty bottle sidelain on the bar.
“You wasn’t servin’ them, was you Benny? You was, wasn't you! Huah- Benny?” He shouted so loud and smacked the counter violently with an open palm; releasing his trousers and causing them to sag, revealing the top most of his hairy crotch and wrinkly legs. “You tell me right now if you were Benny, I swear to shit Benny! I’ll fuckin’ shooch-yous I swear I will Benny! Don’t you fuckin’ lie to me Benny!” He raised the gun with both hands and steadied it at the barman, then spoke more certain and clearly, “I swear Benny, I’ll put a hole right through your stupid dumb head, I will you ugly sumbitch.”
The barman hmphed and reconciled, “Duhu- See, I told you’s that boss man was gon-”
“Shut the fuck up Benny!” The old man barked quickly, then turned to the group standing hands up, pointing the gun directly at Butch. “You’s that bounty hunter, ain’t ya? And these, well I take it these your profit then, huh?” He said, gesturing the barrel back and forth.
“Now sir, I ain’t familiar with no bounty. We’s just a band, no harm no foul.” Butch lowered his hand in front slowly.
But the old man is having none of it, shouting “You lie! I ain’t wanna hear it!” Shaking, he fixes his trousers and grins. “Now, you figure most folk heard bout you’s by now. I take it they’s gon’ get the Marshall right this very minute, yauh I reckon.”
“Yauh” Benny second from the side.
Butch spoke calmly. “Honest to God sir, I think there’s a mistake of sorts goin about.”
“Ain’t no mistake bout’ it! I know who you is! Now shut your fuckin mouth and save it for the lawmen.”
“Look, boss man, I realize we stumbled in through the wrong door, best we just move on and everything be just how it was b’fore we came in.” Butch lowered his hand even further and continued. “Besides, we would never of walked in if it weren't for kind feller here offerin’ us such fine drinks.”
At this the owner turned back to the Barman, scolding him fiercely and threatening him, going on with such extremities like, ‘I knew it, I fuckin knew it’ and ‘you ugly sumbitch! I’ll fuckin kill you!’, and so on. Momentarily, the barrel of his gun swayed off the crowd and back on the Barman. An instant later, a single dull pop rings through the room, striking it silent and still; smoke trails steady from the barrel of a revolver drawn out perfectly straight in front of our man. The owner flops dead to the ground. The Barman’s face and chest now freckled with blood.
“Ooouuu, uuuh, ooh, ga-” In shock, the Barman started, “Ma- hu, uuh” Hands stretched downward to his murdered boss, trembling and babbling nonsense to himself, swaying back and forth while rubbing the crown of his small pointy head - wide eyed and panting. Frantically, he began squirming and padding around, reaching for something from under the counter. Blinking, another shot rings out.
Still stands the Barman; cross-eyed and staring upward to the perfectly centered hole between his brow. A fine trail of blood runs down his short nose blotting out one eye. Reaching up and poking around -curious and scared- and then examines the sticky red between three fingers. Falling to the ground backwards, landing in a solid thud that rumbles the floor and sends dust rolling through the sunlight of a window pane.
Butch holsters his gun and makes for the corpses. Rummaging through the pockets swiftly, he turns to the crowd watching speechless from afar. “Well, go on.” He says while gesturing with one hand. “Take whatcha can, hurry up now.”
They looted the place, took what they could carry and then some more. Butch took the old man's sawed off and swung it around his back. Behind the bar he finds two pistols; a rusty .45 1911 and a .44 magnum derringer.
He slid the derringer down the side of his boot, then shouted across the room, “Aye, Oliver. Here!” He tossed the 1911 to the dark skinned man standing toothy in a shadowy end of the room. He then draws his own revolver and reaches it across the bar to a tall skinny man wearing torn up business clothes, “Roman, take this.”
The man flicks his greasy black hair to one side properly and checks each cylinder, then presses Butch for the two missing rounds, spins them in, holsters the gun in the back side of his waist, then resumes looting the bar.
As the rest carried on like this, Butch got to work ripping and cutting the clothes off the backs of the dead folk, then dousing the rags in corn liquor and stuffing the ends into the bottlenecks. Doing such, he calls out to another man, the youngest of the lot, and instructs him to go out and check the perimeter, then to ride the horse around back and tie her up somewhere safe. The young, blonde man does just that, returning to tell of no sight that anyone is coming their way. He and Butch then dragged the dead Barman across the room, setting him decoyed behind a dusty curtain hung above a window at the far end of the saloon. He then took cover behind the bar along with the two women while Butch began flipping tables top over facing the entrance. Oliver took hold of a collection of molotov’s and Roman took down a flaming lantern swinging above the pool table, they both then made way up the stairs and took post in a room with two beds outlooking the street below.
They sat there waiting in the heat, the street outside dead silent and the repetitive squeaking of a rusty shutter swaying back and forth chimes the menacing atmosphere. Much time had passed before any sign of traffic could be heard. Then, in rides the law; five or so men, unshaven and badged, each riding horseback. They stop outside the saloon and the Marshall speaks first.
“Ain’t no sense in hidin’, we know you’re in there!” He shouted most broad and confidently, pinching and twirling the ends of his scraggly mustache. “No need putin’ up a fight. Just come on out and let's work this through.”
“What reason we got workin’ things out with you?” Butch shouted from inside.
“Whelp,” The Marshall replied, “With how you’ve found yourself run in with the law, and seein’ as how I represent said law, perhaps you’d think it smart to charm myself, see if we can't take things easier on you and your gang of misfits pent up in there witcha.”
“Fuck your law!” Butch shouted back.
The other law men snicker amongst themselves as the Marshall hopped down out of his saddle, making his way across the road and reasoning with them, “You see now, well that's not very gentlemanly of you.” The other few then too hopped down from horseback and took out their guns. “You see though, I like to find myself to be a reasonable man, and I’d be willin’ to let you off with that one. Now here’s your final chance, come out peacefully with your hands up. Or we can just sit here and smoke y’all out like vermin!”
A long moment passed with no response. “Them two men in there witcha, Is they dead?” Another empty moment passes. The Marshall turned to his crew with a smirk, then spat at the ground in front of him. “Fine! Have it your way then.”
And they did have it their way. In an instant, windows smashed open from above and flaming molotov’s came raining down, every single one of which missing completely except for one that just so happened to land directly on top of a man running hunched over across the road. His body went up in a sudden flash of vicious heat, screaming most awful as he thrashed about with flailing arms, then falling to the ground kicking and rolling for dear life; which is when the shots began to exchange. The saloon filled with smoke and splintering wood flinging through the dusty air as glass bottles explode from behind the bar; showering the young man and females with old liquor of every kind and shards of different colored glass. A stray bullet ricochets around the room in a rapid zing, bouncing and pinging here and there above there heads, then getting lost somewhere in the woodwork. Commands and harsh shouts stir through the street, abruptly cut short by plunging lead. The horses too, naying and squealing so hoarse as they collapse in the dirt; others break on down the road out of sight.
The shoot out was short lived, lasting no more than ten minutes. As the smoke and dust began to settle, and the flies began to swarm, the gang collected themselves rightly; gathered their things and headed for the front. Every member behind Butch stands unharmed - every lawman lay dead or dying in the pale dusty road. So too the horses; turned over gluttonously on side without making a sound save for the popping of their teeth. Each body soaking in dark shingles of their own blood drying in the hot dirt.
Butch saddled up, behind him walks the rest; now armed on their own and carrying an embarrassment of clothing, leather bandoliers, ill fitted brimmed hats and glass jugs tied together with thin rope. When they rode out the streets stood empty, not even a dog nor a fowl followed them to the gates.
They continued westward still, Fallon slowly shrinking smaller ever more until eventually disappearing to the east as they go. The mountains drew nearer and bits of distant rock that once seemed but a pebble now tower around them on all sides quite comfortably. Breaking the crest of a valley and walking with much ease as they descend further into the gully. The old dusty basin divides itself; dotted with footprints crossing the now open plains of scrub weeds and dried out peppercorn fields browning the fenced out hillsides to the south, and to the north wild goats stagger the sheer cliffs which form the valley perimeter.
They walk on some more, shrub brush rolls and the heat seems much softer now. Ahead, a road begins to form itself south-west and they follow alongside a dried lake bed for miles. Other things begin to pass by; scattered bricks, blackened cars, crumbling home foundations and lone standing chimneys scattered about a scorched earth. Continuing on, they come to an intersection busy with rubble and wreckage. Straight on is all the same, and to the north the mountains reign on forever. Turn around, now facing south and squinting way off - a figure. No, two, one large and the other small; bobbing most gentle, swaying back and forth and heading our way.
Butch rides ahead, galloping steady against the wind. He draws closer and the figures begin to take form, making themselves out to be what appears as a man riding horseback, beside him, a dog.
Horse hooves trot no more and the two stopped at a distance - face to face, eye to eye; just a spit length apart. Air grows heavy between them as each stares him down.
The two-of-cups, and its perverted miss fortune, prevents their vocabulary.
Speaking only with their eyes, they come to some terms.
Waaaaaat!!!!! Please please don't make use wait super long for chapter 3 bruh!