The fast-moving clouds of an oncoming storm swept the hue from the girl's cheeks, grey drenching the landscape in a murky stillness around her. The caravan proceeded in the distance, the only movement for miles. Chestnut mares kicked up the dust of thirsty earth, eagerly awaiting the coming rain, as wagons bounced along behind in the haze. "Papa?" Clara's pale lips whisper, then louder, "Papa! They're halfway here!" her drawl is shaky, her hands fumble.
Ammunition dodges its chamber, sweaty palms and nerves making her hands feel too large. The shotgun was her granddaddy's, and he's the one who taught her how to load it, God rest his soul. He told her to stand tall, and she'd be dammed if she didn't do him proud! Still, this was her first time firing at a moving target, and the stakes were high. In a smattering of heartbeats, the men would be on them, horses thundering through the empty streets.
Abandoned save their weathered crew, the town hadn't seen much action since the mines caved in a few years back. Two of the boys hailed from here, place was called Murphy's Forge. It was painted along the pine boards of the saloon's back wall, and hammered in metal on the swinging sign of the sheriff's empty station. A desk thick with dust near the window bore a familiar face on a wanted sign, the doors to the cells within clanging in the wind. The lads remembered this settlement as Hell, and had only returned out of a sense of duty and friendly disposition.
The strategic advantage that their knowledge provided couldn't be squandered, and Papa had said as much. Clara heard them last night, their voices drifting over to nudge at her tent flap. Curiosity getting the better of her, she had crept closer to eavesdrop, staying in the shadows of the trees. Papa's face came into focus, the flicker of the fire dancing in his white beard.
His steel eyes were locked on Griz, who sat opposite him on a gnarled log, Pip and French beside him. "Ghosts ain't real boys, I don't care what you done seen." Papa is saying, yet his eyes stay on Griz, "Fear makes men's minds turn to mush." he continues with a sneer, Griz shifts uncomfortably on the log. His wild tangle of red hair peeks out from under his fur cap, matching the blaze of his brother's next to him. It is Pip who answers papa's gaze, ever the protector of his younger sibling.
"No mush here, take a lunatic to go near them mines after what went down." His voice is deeper than Papas, although he's 20 winters younger. Clara shifted closer, trying to get a view of Pip's scarred profile. He wore his long locks in two braids down his back, bits of fabric woven in with the red waves. "Aint cowardice that keeps my shadow from falling that way, wisdom's more like it." he continues. He has Papa's full attention now, his icy eyes leave Griz for another time.
Papa said Pip could shoot a man in the eye 40 yards out. He hadn't been much further the day Clara first laid eyes on him, straight backed on his horse as he galloped into camp. He had met her gaze, a smile pulling the scar tissue of his left cheek tight. He had the same confidence tonight as then, Pip never wavered, yet here he was shying away from work. "Sir, with all due respect, consider my advice. That place aint fit for naught but spirits and misfortune." He took a swig from the rotating jug, before passing it on to French, who didn't have skin in this debate.
His eyes never left Papa's face, but his expression wasn't aggressive. That was just Pip, boys called him 'the thinker'. If there was a way, Pip would find it. He and Griz were the gang's best scouts, although Griz was more like in training. Probably why Papa was eyeing him up something fierce before, it was he who was supposed to scout out the town for them the day prior.
Even 10 feet away, Clara feels the tension grow in the air. "Way I see it Pip, misfortune already found our lot." Papa says, his voice is measured, as his gaze lazily wanders back to Griz. "We're a day behind now, and sitting on our hands before winter ain't an option boys!" He spits, and gestures for the jug, back to staring daggers at poor Griz.
"Lad!", He barks, catching Griz's attention. "No man with working gear between his legs lets another man answer for him, you tell me what you're so damn afraid of." He announces, and there's nothing for it. As Griz tells the tale of Murphy's Forge, Clara feels the hairs on her arms stand up, each shadow around her gaining menace in the late night chill.
Ore had brought the boys out west, a glimmer in their dad's eye, and younger siblings gone slim propelling them to leave their home behind. There had been 9 kids when the family sold their farm for a wagon and supplies. The remainder sewn into the skirts in his mother's trunk. When they arrived at Murphy's Forge a year later, it was just Pip and Griz, their daddy was half gone.
Bad water, no shelter, and harsh nights had leached the health from their kin one by one. Deliverance was a town that didn't much care for newcomers, and a doctor that was busy monitoring a tricky birth. Lorna Jean, she had pulled through within minutes of their Daddy breathing his last, the pink babe screaming out to mask Griz's sobs. What does achieving a dream matter, when it's cost you the ability to enjoy it?
He and Pip had taken mine jobs, seeing as how they were the only jobs around. It was hard work that left them too tired to much care how hungry they were, cheap ale warming their bones through the long desert nights. "Then one day the demon came, rose up through the ground." Griz pauses, waiting for Papa to call him a fool, but he just stares on.
Clara can see Griz shaking as he continues. "It was a warning at first, we knew it. But what were we all to do?" His voice cracks, and Pip sweeps in to cut him off. "We watched hands with no owners tear men to shreds sir, specters in the night who smothered babes in their cribs. Shadows which whispered madness into our ears until the day the damn mines caved in. And then the town was disbanded... we aren't cowards sir."
Silence stretches, and eventually Papa's eyes move back to the fire. He cocks his head as if conversing with the blaze, taking a long swig from the jug after a time. He shook his head wildly, and turned back to the group, although French was pretending to be emersed in witling something fierce.
"I'm sure your demon moved on long ago boys, besides we don't need to go near them mines." Papa winked, passing the jug along. "So rest up pretty for me, we got an early day to make up for your missteps." He said as he rose, ambling off to his tent without looking back.
Clara had crept back slowly to her own tent, telling herself she was shivering because of the chill, which had deepened since she departed. Demons weren't real, they were just something man made up to blame their terrible actions on... At least that's what Papa had said so long ago, when she was still afraid of monsters and mayhem in the forest.
Crawling back into bed, she reminded herself she was brave. This would be her sixteenth winter, she was a child no more. Her hands found the rifle, patting it in the dark. She was a true-blue cowboy, and she would show them all that tomorrow! With images of great victories and remarkable heroism pasted against her eyelids, her fantasies became dreams as her breathing slowed.
Papa had called out for everyone to rise before the sun had even made its mark, exhaustion blending all that she had heard the night before into her fitful dreams. the next hours were a blur of watering the horses, breaking down the camp, and settling their packs. Then the last leg of their ride to Murphy's Forge, rough terrain and blaring sun.
It had not all really sunk in until just now, as she watched the caravan closing the distance. The ghost town watched around her, it was time to earn her stripes. "Well, c'mon then girl, before you screw it all up!" Papa hisses, shaking her from her thoughts. And she sprints towards his voice, adrenaline surging in her temples. In just a few moments, her first battle would unfold.
Clara rushes into the saloon behind Papa, locking eyes with Pip. She knows him now, maybe better than any of the other boys. It's Pip who's kind in tough situations, who has a piece of advice or quick grin. Yet now he avoids her gaze, there's a look about him that is foreign. He takes a deep swig from a glass bottle and passes it on; it's as if she isn't there.
Must've been some booze left behind, but Papa doesn't look too happy to see it. The men sit up straight at the sight of him, adjusting hats and belt buckles. Still Pip doesn't react, his eyes glaze over as he stares blankly at the floor. Papa snatches the bottle from French mid swig, and addresses the group with a stern bark, pouring it out as he speaks.
"Pip get your rump on the rooftop now boy, before they get into view of us!" This jolts him something proper. Pip flies to action before the words are out, his scarred face taunt in determination. Griz hustles up the stairs in step with him, the wide brim of his hat obscuring his face, as Papa goes on. "French, Huel, Beck, line them windows. He gestures to the front of the watering hole, where the empty frames sat at around hip height.
The boys do as they're told, drawing weapons and squatting out of sight in their positions. "We should be able to shred 'em up before they've passed the length of the street." Papa grunts, drawing his pistol and falling in next to them to crouch below the sills. "C'mon girl, for crying out loud..."
Papa throws a hand out towards Clara, and she feels as if she watches herself grasp it in 3rd person, pulled below the windows ledge in slow motion. Her breathing quickens, the air feels thick, her heart hammering in her chest like a trapped bird. Slow she reminds herself, slow down... Gratitude that she loaded her chamber earlier floods through, as she watches the street between frequent blinks. She wouldn't cry, not now.
They can't see how the horse's flanks foam as they gallop, seething muscles propelled by panic. The wagons bounce along behind them, throwing up a dense cloud of dust into the air. Even Pip's sharp eyes don't notice that no one is driving the wild-eyed horses now, that the stretched canvases behind them are streaked red; not until it's too late.
Papa is shooting with the boys on the first floor as soon as the caravan is in range, but Clara can't take her eyes off of the copper skinned woman, who appears through a wall, and walks straight through the bar top in a slow stride. Her hollow eye sockets search Clara, she can feel it in the way her black lips curl into a smile.
She raises one mangled looking hand to her unusually white teeth, gesturing for Clara to be quiet. "What the hell?" French bleats, Clara turns to see his heart jump out of his chest. Impossibly, she can hear it land on the ground with a wet smack over the gunfire. His eyes stay locked with hers as he sinks to his knees, blood gurgling up through his lips.
Papa screams, spinning Clara again, he clutches his stomach as crimson spreads from his hands. He looks at her with pleading in his eyes, vulnerable in his fear of death. "Clara..." He starts, but something tears him away, dragging him along the floor and up a wall. Agony jumbles his next words, as one of the boys is flung through the window next to Clara, into the path of the horses.
Clara feels the ground sway, screaming internally, she cannot make her body move. She watches French bleed out on the ground, willing her eyes away from Papa, who screeches like a pair of fighting cats up on the wall. Hands won't move. Her feet are heavy, it's hard to breathe... The slaughter wavers before her eyes, and in the street a crunch can be heard. Each scream blends together, and finally Clara realizes she is screaming too.
Then the collision, it is her turn. She feels the grip of the demon, throwing her over its shoulder. The smell of gunfire mixes in with the blood. Had she done a good job? She sobs into the specter, and it sweeps her from the saloon, out into the sunlight. The terror is too great for sweet Clara, darkness consumes her as her limp body bobs along in the gait of her captor.
Being dead isn't so bad, Clara thinks. The familiar smell of wood smoke mixes with the crisp scent of dusk. The last warmth of a long day radiates under her, a smooth contrast with the cooling air. If I never open my eyes, everything will stay the same, she thinks.
A wolf howls in the distance, and then shuffling footsteps approach. There is something in their pattern, the way one leg seems to lag, that finally forces Clara's eyes open. The purple mountains greet her, and she realizes she isn't dead at all. Ambling towards her slowly, is Pip, his face streaked with blood. "I'm sorry Clara." he says, and she already knows.
He falls down next to her, the small fire he must've started before he left holding his gaze. He grabs his pack from near her head, his face set into a grimace. "Was it quiet there?" Clara asks, as Pip ruffles through the pack. He pauses like he's going to answer, and then seems to decide better. He throws her a hunk of bread instead, along with "Eat."
The food is long gone, and the sunlight is fading when he finally speaks. "Your papa was a fool Clara, but I'm still sad to see him go." He finally looks over, his sharp eyes cutting away the last of her. Clara looks around for her shotgun, nodding to find it there.
"You clutched onto that thing like it was your own arm, good instinct too." He spits on the thirsty earth. "It will get tough here now without an outfit girl, I'm going to need you to be keen." He looks as if he'd smile in any other circumstance. "First thing my pa said when he gave me a gun, was to hold it until it felt natural. We might be one step ahead with you Clara."
They locked eyes for a moment longer, all the words that could never be enough replaced in the shared grief on their faces. And then Pip had enough, although his voice sounded odd as he turned away. "Get some sleep if you can, I want to get as many miles between us and this place as possible in the morning." Clara couldn't agree more.
Here's my western-fusion-thingy that I've been working on for... a really long time. It was super out of my comfort zone and it felt like pulling teeth to edit it... SO, I decided to just post it all at once, lest I need even more editing LOL. I hoped you liked it! 😅