“Just go about your evening, gentlemen.” My words were slurred and I pounded another shot the instant they left my lips. “I’m not here to prove anything.”
“This is the guy who put Roger Haddock down?” The younger man stepped forward with his shoulder length blond hair dangling over his face. “He’s just a drunk.”
“Let’s just get a drink.” The older man put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder and they walked up to the bar.
I should have known it wasn’t that easy. Alcohol makes people do stupid things. I didn’t have an ego, but when the liquor was burning up my veins, I definitely didn’t appreciate being their fool. It seemed like my time in the Dakota Territory was getting to the point people weren’t going to leave me alone and I decided that it was time to saddle up and head to Kansas where my name didn’t carry much weight. It was also the last rumored spot where the James-Younger gang was spotted and I could use the cash.
I drank until my legs were barely able to push me off the barstool, but I still had enough life in me to get to my bed. Money was too sparse to afford a woman for the night, but at least I wouldn’t mind when the alcohol took me to the quiet oblivion sleep normally offered. I pushed through the swinging doors and stepped out onto the wooden porch. All I needed to do was stagger across the way to the hotel and I could find the rest my body was craving. As my boots hit the dirt, I heard someone else walk out behind me. I didn’t turn around, but the hair on the back of my neck was telling me that something wasn’t right.
“Carmichael!” The voice boomed and I knew it belonged to the younger man I had heard earlier that night.
“Yeah?” I let out a sigh and turned towards the saloon.
“I hear that Haddock’s widow will give her farm to the man who avenges her husband’s death.” He walked closer and smiled. “I could use that land.”
“You’re getting married, right?” My words were slurred, but my mind was still sharp.
“I am.” He nodded. “To the most beautiful woman in the west.”
“If you don’t want her grieving over your grave instead of crying on your wedding day, I would suggest you put whatever fantasy you’ve cooked up to bed early tonight. I’m not looking for trouble.” I held up my hands as a sign of surrender—I definitely didn’t want to fight him.
“You think she’ll be grieving?” He laughed and stepped down onto the dirt. “You must not know who I am.”
“I don’t care.” I shook my head back and forth. “You’re just a kid. Let it go. You don’t want to draw on me.”
“That farm would be a good place to raise my children.” He moved his hand towards his hip.
“You won’t have any children if you don’t move your hand away from your gun.” I felt my fingers twitching involuntarily.
“Maybe I’ll name the first one after you.” His hand shifted and opened as he prepared to draw his weapon.
His hand made it to his gun before mine was even near my holster, but he didn’t fire first. Before he could even get a good grip on his pearl handled revolver, the bullet was leaving the barrel of mine. The boom echoed through the quiet town, followed by a groan when the bullet hit him square in the chest. I didn
’t shoot unless I was going to kill, and I didn’t give anyone a second chance. The reality flashed in his eyes when he hit his knees. His last breath was a gurgle as blood filled his lungs. He fell forward into the dirt as the saloon emptied.
I didn’t have to explain myself. They knew what he had done before they saw the smoke rising from the tip of my barrel. He was another cocky son of a bitch that had decided to test his luck against someone who didn’t give a shit if he breathed another breath. If he had decided he was going to try and take me down, I was going to show him why it was the last mistake he would ever make. The older man that had walked in with him shook his head and sighed deeply as I holstered my gun. I walked towards the hotel and crashed into my bed before his body was cold. Killing didn’t keep me up anymore, even when I wasn’t drifting into the darkness thanks to the liquor flowing through me.
“HE KILLED MY ANTON!” A loud female voice woke me from the slumber and the sun was already rising in the sky.
“Anton drew on him! He knew better!” A raised voice spoke louder than the shriek that had woken me.
“We were supposed to get married!” I could hear a sob drowning out the man’s voice.
I staggered to the window and rubbed my eyes. A woman in a green dress was frantic, tears flowing down her face as she argued with the older man I had seen the night before. I might not have given a shit about the man I killed, but my heart wasn’t so stone cold that I couldn’t sympathize with the distraught woman below me. I threw my shirt on and fastened my belt around my waist before walking towards the stairs. I didn’t have words that would calm her, but I wasn’t going to hide in my room if she wanted to face me. Life was rarely fair in the west and I knew she didn’t ask to be widowed before her wedding day. I pushed the doors of the hotel open and stepped out onto the porch.
She immediately looked at me with emerald eyes that burned with more fury than any I had seen before. In an instant, her body seemed to become engulfed in a green aura and she pushed the older man away as she approached. My mind started to fog, like I was trapped in her gaze. I tried to take a step forward, but my body was no longer within my control. She moved up the steps so fast that it seemed like she was floating. Her eyes got more intense the closer she got to me.
“Why do you torment me?” Her words were almost like a song.
“I...” I tried to speak and looked around the town, but it seemed like we were in our own bubble with everything around us frozen.
“Every time I find happiness, it is destroyed.” Her lips pursed, and she lowered her chin. “You will suffer like I have suffered—an eternity of torment for your transgression.”
Before I could respond, it felt like my soul was ripped from my body. I was spiraling into darkness with nothing around me to grab onto. My belt unwrapped from my waist and floated away before I could reach out for it. After the darkness consumed me, I felt myself falling until my knees were once again on the ground. I could tell I was far away from the Dakota Territory because I was in the middle of a field covered in snow. I stood up and looked around in every direction, feeling lost as I got colder with each passing second.
There was a light in the distance and I started walking towards it. It seemed to be the only thing I could focus on in the blinding whirlwind of ice. Each step was harder than the one before it and when I finally got close enough to see the source of the light, I thought I was dreaming. If it didn’t feel like death was consuming me I would have sworn the sight in front of me was nothing more than a fantasy. I walked through a gate with vines that seemed to be sprouting roses, despite the intensity of the winter that was clearly underway, and walked into an old castle. I had never seen anything like it in real life, and it looked like the kind of thing the storytellers would talk about when they were describing wars that happened long before I was born and long before America was even discovered.
“Hello?” I pushed the doorway of the castle open and stepped into the warmth.