Jezebel: Condemned. Insolent. Impudent. Shameless.


Hang the Jezebel. There is no room in this world for a red woman.

Let her do the dance on thin air. Let it be her last.

Call men from all corners of every county and realm as far as you can go. Send in the the trackers, the journeymen. I don't care how proud they be. Or how vile. This woman belongs on them gallows. A noose the only necklace she deserves.

I want her here. I want her brought to my hands alive.


- Margrahm Hexx, in the first days of July, addressing Lofton.

He wore a canvas duster despite the heat. Nobody thought anything of it around here. F*cking posers dressed like him all the time, he'd seen it. The goggles were down over his eyes, gears and lenses and crazy lights studding his cheeks. On the inside, they gave him constant updates about his surroundings. Right down to the molecular level, if he wanted it. He didn?t need it, right now.

Down the street three men dressed like extras in Rawhide were strutting toward him, singing in unison. He called out in a rasp of black cigarillo smoke, ?Don?t give up your f*cking day job, okay, dude??

They reached the front of the building, warbling Oh my darling Oh my darling Oh our darling Madison in unison. They even tipped their hats back at the same time.

Realization hit. He stopped dead in the street. ?You are f*cking kidding me.?

Their eyes were dead. They stared through the window, turned to look at him, drawled a synchronous Howdy to yah. They weren?t human. Probably weren?t alive. The goggles registered them at ambient air temperature, claimed they were made out of wood or polyurethane or nothing, bleated, and gave up trying to figure them out.

He climbed the porch steps, spat the cigarillo back out into the road. ?You're the assholes I'm supposed to meet??

They flashed three sets of painfully white teeth at him. Bingo, Judah. Go fetch us the Jezebel.

He shook his head, shook back the dreds, shook entropy into place around himself with the duster like armor. ?Okay, whatever. Gimme five minutes. Sing to yourselves. Circle jerk, I don't care.? He muttered to himself as he shouldered the door open, ?F*cking creepy sonsabitches.?

In the room: three people in an orgiastic knot by the fire (and why the f*ck was a fire burning in August?), two men and some kind of cat-weasel-hyena cross; a few pretty boys and a woman behind the bar; a couple leaving by the back door; another goddamned cowpoke sitting next to a white-haired woman and a brunette. He?d scanned the picture in from the wanted poster and uploaded it to the goggles, and they called a match. The brunette was his mark.

He pushed the goggles up onto his forehead and grinned like a shark tasting blood in the water. He started walking. He could hear the lawmen singing outside, creepy warbling song like a badly tuned piano rattling the window in its frame. The words leaked in as he crossed the room.

Drove her ducklings to the water

Madison turned, looked blindly over the room.

Every morning just at nine

She said something to the cowpoke beside her, and he drew a gun. The goggles chirped a warning on his forehead, chirped again. Someone else was drawing down.

Hit her foot against a splinter

The white-haired woman was staring irritated at the door. The lawmen outside sang like wolves baying at the moon.

Fell into the foaming brine

Madison stood up. Her hands were empty. She looked confused, afraid, trying to hide it from him. She made eye contact.

Ruby lips above the water

?Hello, sexy! Got a minute?? He called cheerfully, and closed the gap as her gaze seared him.

Blowing bubbles soft and fine

?Are there a few men outside?? she asked him, as if the entire bar couldn?t hear them wailing.

But alas, I was no swimmer

?Some dudes out in the street. Why?? he asked her. He was right at her side, cuddling up. She smelled good. ?We can sneak out the back if you need to. I heard you were for hire, and I've got a problem only you can solve.?

So I lost my Clementine

The goggles double-beeped again, reminding him that he had two guns pointed at him. The cowpoke was watching him.

"Cal, it's okay. Can you look out the window? I think this gent just wants to talk."

Oh my darling, oh my darling Madison. The lawmen crooned, bayed, laughed like broken rattling bones.

?Something like that.? His hazel eyes skated over the room and back to her. The other gun was from the threesome over by the fire. ?Someplace a little more private, maybe?? He gave her an aw-shucks little shrug and grin. This would be so much easier away from the crowd.

From the window came a glow like wolves? eyes shining. Oh my darling Oh my darling.

Despite her nervousness, Madison gave him a warm flash of a smile. Sweet of her. It was a shame he was selling her out. "I'm afraid I can't help you. What was the trouble you have, though?? At least Cal the Cowpoke was walking off to look through the window. That was one less pistol pointed his way.

The lawmen saw movement at the window and called Hey sugar, come on outside. We're waiting, toots.

He sighed, shook his head, shook the armor a little more firmly into place. ?You're a stubborn one, aren't you??

"Not so much. Just a?this is a bad time, sir." She was still smiling at him. "We can head to a booth."

A booth was not going to work. Time to take her out. ?Okay. Whatever.? He said, drew back a fist, and punched her: a nice roundhouse to the side of the head that connected with a meaty thud.

She staggered back, falling into the bar stools. At the same time, the gay guy in the m?nage-a-trois in the chair fired his gun. Entropy reared her ugly head and the gun barrel was just dirty enough to throw off the guy?s aim. The bullet went wide. He pushed past his surprise that people really were willing to fire into a crowded room of their supposed friends?rednecks loved a fight no matter the venue, whatever?and grabbed her elbow. The white-haired woman on the other side of her tried to grab the other elbow. Entropy intervened, and a barstool that should have been pushed in neatly wasn?t; White-hair tripped over it, spilled her drink and went down like a cheap hooker.

Madison clutched at her head with her free hand, blinking like a hummingbird's wings. "What the fu?"

Pretty boys screamed and dove behind the bar as more shots went off. The goggles were pinging overtime. Madison screamed like she was Pauline and he was Snidely Whiplash, tying her to the train tracks and twirling his f*cking mustache. She struggled in his grip. Bullets whizzed by, ricocheted off walls and shattered mirrors. Someone got hit.

?No!? she shrieked. The lawmen threw open the front door. They had guns in their hands, too. Someone else got hit. Then he got hit from behind?someone trying to tackle or punch him?so hard that it shoved him to his knees and pushed both him and Madison ten feet toward the door. His knees ripped up with splinters and started to bleed. He turned the air blue.

She clawed at a table leg, trying to stop him. ?Yeah, good luck with that,? he snarled and kicked her legs out from under her. Her head hit a chair and she went limp. A look over his shoulder showed him the gay guy in the middle of a broken table, swearing like a hot night in a Tex-Mex joint.

"Hey, assholes, I'm trying to take a motherf*cking nap!" Someone bellowed behind him. The room was starting to stink with cordite and smokeless powder from all the shots fired.

Bring the Jezebel out. Let her go, folks. Show is over, yowled the lawmen standing in the door like they hadn?t noticed half the f*cking room was shooting at him. Let her go. The woman is a criminal. Back away. Come on, head home. Show?s over for the night. They were either stupid or they really were not human. He was betting on both.

?I will Jezebel you in the face!? someone yelled, and as one the people in the room turned and started shooting at the lawmen.

Step away, the woman is dangerous. Come on, back off. Come on, Judah, come on now, boy. Take her outside now. They didn?t even seem to notice the bullets ripping into them. Someone punched him in the head. Entropy broke down the flooring just enough that it crumbled underfoot, and the hit was a glancing one. But his ears were ringing, his head was hurting, and he was getting really f*cking tired of the circus show.

She was aware again, trying to pull her arm from his. "Let me go!"

?F*ck! don't you ever shut up?? He backhanded her and she went limp. Cal the Cowpoke loaded something that glowed blue into his gun and promptly emptied it into the lawmen.

Someone hit him again, hard enough that it pushed him through the lawmen?s legs and out onto the porch. He lost his grip on the hottie with the too-big mouth. Rasping curses, he turned back and grabbed her collar.

?Grab her and go in-between, Sal,? someone yelled. Tex-Mex?Sal?pounced on her. Just as the lawmen were beginning to fold up from the sheer number of bullets pumped into them, Sal yanked them all into cyberspace.

There was an advantage to being a Virtual Adept: ?in-between? was just another word for home. To his trained eyes, the space around them flickered out, went black. Blue lines sprang out of nothing, stretching off into limitless distances. He couldn?t breathe. It didn?t matter. He sighed happily, and went to work as Madison screamed around his choking grip on her collar and Sal did his damndest to twist her loose. Sal was swearing, all the words coming out backward.

He dug his free hand into his pocket, pulled out a metal potato studded with keys, and typed high-speed on it, one-handed. All it took was the right program.

IF Judah Bishop AND Madison Acony-Belle Rye
THEN Rhydin City, Red Dragon Inn, stagecoach
ELSE Rhydin, Red Dragon Inn, mens' bathroom
RUN

"Oh." Sal?s flaring rusty eyes widened, looked up as something roared above them, drawn by the fighting. "Sh*t!" He sprang loose and out of cyberspace just before the countermeasure program above hit, and just before Judah?s code could stuff him head-first down a urinal.

Guns were still popping and pinging outside as he and Madison were spat out into the coach. He pounded on the roof. ?Drive, you stupid f*ck!? Probably broke the keyboard in his hand doing that, dammit. It was a bitch to replace, too. Madison clawed at his leg, pinched it hard as the coach began to move and the shouts and gunfire began to fade. At least she wasn?t screaming anymore, but it hurt. He?d finally had enough. ?OW! Jesus! Knock it the f*ck off already!? he yelled, and hit her so hard her world turned inside out and spun off into the dark.

The stagecoach tore into the night, toward Lofton County and judgment.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2652/3832383984_87b8f6b5e9_o.jpg



In the sun that bleached bones. In the sun that bleached away everything but its rough caress, she leant back against the stone wall of outside cell. Boot jacked to the wall behind her. Eyes moody and stark with the bruises that still shaded her eyes.


Crows would wheel from time to time. A coyote would dash across the desert in curiosity. She could only watch and listen and wait. Try not to lose her mind out here. Depend on her senses to tell her what was up.


The wind had turned over night and though it was a weighted heat, a wind would tear across unexpectantly, and freeze the skin. It came from the East.


Shoulders slid down the wall, knees bent before her, hands hung from their caps, as she sighed and tilted her head back, staring past the bars at the sun that hurt her eyes.


"When the clocks stop, time comes alive."


And time, it was cruel, and she its casualty.

She walked the badlands, through the wastes, alone. But every rock, every cliff, every kick of dust seemed to watch her, to settle in and whisper bad worries. Like all those her childhood kachinas had never managed to steal. Those dream catchers. Any quest in a peyote haze.


The Gray Man seemed the culmination of every idea one might have of what a wizard is. Your last chance. Your getaway. Your wildcard.


Go to the cave alone, Mz. Rye. He stands waiting.

And Eli?

You will see your husband if you walk far enough.

But will he be there, with the Gray Man?


And the Rangers took her and dragged her and threw her into the dirt. Told her to go find out for herself.



His name, was Traith.

"Are you guilty of what it says on those pieces of paper?"

"Yes and No." She turned away from Karras, moved over the night daisies of his cousin's yard, avoiding further questions.

Flash

"You make me feel like an open book, sometimes. I've never had that before."

"It's a book worth reading."

And he stood there behind her in that darkened hallway, offering her a world, and again she could not look at him.

Flash

"You've been away for a few years, Madi. Your Father and I had hoped your post card from Rhy'Din meant. Well. That you had settled down. That you had found love. Have you?" Ada sat so still. So careful.

It wasn't a time to be speaking about love. About what things were not.

Especially when she realised, with a pang in her chest, that all she could find was that she could not answer her Mother. She knew she loved, but not that it was returned.


The Hanging Man card had been drawn, not The Lovers, afterall.

From despair and back again. To Not Give Up.

Another lock up. Ten pm. Three Rangers locked the cell. Two left to return to the front office. One, Jeff, took a seat nearby. Would sit back every night and fall asleep. Tonight, her plan was to take advantage of this situation.

Her first thought as she paced her cell the night before, after Margrahm had copped his feels and had done taunting her with mental aggravations, was to perhaps wield all those feminine wiles, and seduce Jeff. But they would expect that. That she might try and get on one of their good sides with a few suggestions. Provocative leans against the bars. Stripping down piece of clothing at a time until she was just a nude goddess seated on her block, with a coquette smile; something to soften their minds to goo. Not only would such a method leave her too open, but Madison had a rule, and she refused to back down on it, even here, where she knew these men desired her and she could possibly manipulate the fact, what might be her only way out. Madison did not trade in sex. Her body was no one?s currency. But she still intended to turn his mind to goo. Madison had not been spending time with a hypnotist for nothing, and she had picked up a few tricks and tips along the way.

Jeff.

He was the most violent with her. Liked to slap. Asked her to call him Sir. To get down on her knees and beg. He liked having the Jezebel at his beck and call.


She waited five more minutes.

Slender fingers began to curl around the bars one at a time. Began to flex against the steel she held. All the tension and the agony of a few days had come to this. This was her single chance. No one was coming for her, she knew that. No one was going to get her out of this. Hope is inside a person. Not anywhere else. She could only transmute it into action. Only she could now. Standing there holding onto the steel bars and watching Jeff as he reclined in that rickety chair. Watching the small television set. Just two more minutes. Lighting blue eyes hovered over the clock. Blinking. Waiting. Hoping.

Then the hand of time swept past, like a flag before revving race car. Jeff?s head hit the back of the chair, a snore escaping him. Her soft voice turning into ripping silk.

?You will follow the sound of my voice. You will rise and come to me. My voice is a river.?With bated breath she watched, her face a testament of worry. Except for the television on low, the sound of the clock, and the Ranger?s nasal sleeping sounds, it was dead still and silent.

He jolted in his sleep, eyelashes battered, and he leant back, smacking his lips.

Madison let out a quiet, shuddering breath.

?You will follow the sound of my voice. You will rise and come to me. My voice is a river.?

More certain this time, her voice a flowing thing, a river through the hills.

Jeff jolted again, a smile crossed his mouth. Madison expected some cracking bad joke from the man. ?It?s not working, sugar?, but he only smiled some more and nodded.

No way! The rain dancer gripped tightly to the bars. Chewing on her lip. Rising onto the balls of her feet.

?You will follow the sound of my voice. You will rise and come to me. My voice is a river. Come down the channel. Come closer to the sea.?

The chair creaked as Jeff sat forward, rubbing the back of his head as though he were awake and his eyes were only closed, like he were formulating something to say to her. ?Cut it out, let me sleep?, but he said nothing and got to his feet.

The muscles in her upper arms began to ache she was holding onto the steel so hard. Her chest and cheek pressing against all that kept her from freedom. Jeff began to sway.

?You feel strong and sure, your feet are tingling. You are very hot. You like the sound of my voice. You will come to me. My voice is a river to cool you.?


The Ranger spun, polished holster catching the light, winking at her, almost as if to say "well done, keep going Madison".

?The sound of my voice is comforting. Come walk into my voice. Let it wash around you. Let it cool you down. Follow the sound of my voice that you like. My voice is a river. Come closer.?

Jeff ambled nearer, his posture well, his eyelids flinching , his empty hands straying into the air before him.

Her voice began to rise. Nerves flooding her body.

?That?s it. That?s it. Follow my voice. It is cool. It is refreshing you. You feel oh so hot. Just a little closer, into the sea. Closer. The sea will hold you. I will hold you. Just come closer to the sound of my voice.?

And there he was. Vulnerable as a naked man. Her voice had consumed him. She saw the lines of his face, the ones from laughter along the corners of his mouth, the crows feet, his nostrils gently flare as he breathed soundly, the freckles along his temples, along his chin. For a moment she was transfixed herself, realizing just how vulnerable she had been herself, in the same position. Just a babe. Just a woman. Like a walking dreamer.

?The water is closer, it is rising around you, it splashes your cheeks and your arms and your back, and it feels so cold. So refreshing. The river goes to the sea. I am the sea. I will hold you. Reach out??


Jeff stuck an arm through the bar. Her voice imbued with a little more husk; that couldn't hurt. ?Let the sea loose. Let her flood. Run with the sea. Feel it wash inside you. Around you. Doesn?t it feel good?? Careful not to speak his name, for that would be as a click of the fingers to awaken the hypnotized.

?Free the sea. Let her hold you. Let her wash over you. Walk towards the sea..?

Footsteps were coming up the hall. He began to feel for the lock, bringing his other hand up with the key. He undid the lock. He stepped away, smiling ecstatically.

Then a punch to the dreamer?s head, she shoved him backwards and reached down over him, straddling him should he awake, tearing the key from his sloppy grip. He was jelly. His .45 slid from holster, her chest tightening as she lifted it up. Starlight, did it feel good to be holding a gun again. She took off in a fast walk for the hall.


Only to come face to face with the Deputy.

When the cadaverous mob
Saves its doors for the dead men
You cannot leave


Mr. Rye had always fancied a cigarette before bed. On evenings when Madison would come to visit, the two would venture out onto the warm, wildly shadowed porch and sit. Sit with one another and soak up the starlight. The drone of the cicadas. The far off night excitement of coyotes. The sounds of things that could not be seen, that moved off in foreign fields. And they would smoke peyote, Ada having no idea, when they came inside laughing hilariously at some joke, their eyes filled with extra twinkles. Ada would just smile and shake her head, kissing them both goodnight, before heading upstairs to prepare both beds.


Mr. Rye happened to be sitting on the porch alone, Ada long ago in bed, his gun rested on the small three legged table at his side, smoking and watching the fields, when the glimpse of a rider became his fixation. He watched for some time, his heart heavy with the predicament in town, with the nightmare unfolding for their own child, their Acony. For a moment he smiled, thinking it like the song, riders in the sky, the horse moving so fast. And then he got to his feet and began moving down the stairs, leaving the chair to rock in the absence of him and his ailing, spice blue shadow.


Madison came galloping, the horse leaping over a low fence and into the country of their ranch.


He was quiet. Only the earth shook with beating hooves. He did not want to be waking Ada. It was the first time his beloved had gotten some sleep in several days.


His rain dancer brought the horse up close and dismounted, throwing her arms around her Father. He patted her back and squeezed her tight, whispering down to her, "I'm not gonna ask, Acony", and she smiled quick with a "Good" and took off inside the house.


He followed her in.


Madison was making her way through the house and out for the now delapidated haunting that was overgrown and glass smashed out back, near the bonfire twigs still smoking from a few nights ago. Shaman had been here. She could still feel the man's imprint. Mr. Rye followed his daughter into the strange green of the shattered overgrown indoor garden, watching her curiously. He was silent.


She bent down and began rifling through some shrubs, pulling apart some dead roses, and then looked around to him. "Shovel?", in a whisper. He nodded and walked over heaving it up, and then moseyed back, handing it to her. "I do admit to wanting to know what in the hell you did to get here and what you plan to do next. Go to the hills, Acony."


Madison was already shoveling. Nose of her boot to the top of the spade as she grunted, began heaving out the weeds and roots. After a few desperate minutes she could see what she was after. Bending down, she peeled back some winding leaves and presented a very dirty old cigar box. She tore it open as she got to her feet, the shovel hitting the ground mutedly. Bullets and casings sat there. A few petrified arrow heads. Her eyes glistened as she tucked the bullets away on her person.

"Rainy day huh?", Mr. Rye chuckled. She smiled at him. "Very."

A colt was taken from a black cabinet near the dining room, and an extra revolver. Satisfied, she headed back to the feont.


After the bullets were placed together, these old lucky things, Shaman blessed and true, they embraced on the porch for a long while. He could not stand letting her go from his arms, though the most profound feeling rose in his chest, one he almost felt sick with.

"Madison."


The brunette turned, face half hidden by the veil of those loose curls, as she readied the saddle, smoothed out the blanket, tucked a few more bullets inside its sewn on pocket. "I love you."


"Acony... I knew you would end up here. But I know you are going to get out of it. Believe it."


Madison mounted the horse and bowed her head to her Father, giving a tug to the reigns and turning the horse around, heel to the horse's side gently.

"Believe it", he whispered, to her, for her. For them all. He watched her ride away.


Later he would go to her room, sit on her bed and gaze out the window. Trying to imagine all the dreams his daughter had had in that room. How one day she had suddenly gone from a child to a teenager, and then, before he knew it, the Madison they all knew. And loved so damn much. A woman who he hardly knew anymore. Off in some town called Rhy'Din. His daughter like a ghost. Blowing in, blowing out of their lives. They were all the sweeter for her. But there was the always agony of not really knowing your child. That made her visits so very hard sometimes. This time, had been the hardest to endure.

Purgatory


Sam Reed had spent the better part of two days on the road, the Doll caged up in the coach and his eyes on nothing but the end of the line; Lofton. Time dictated his actions, and it was only when he'd ran across the only place in God knows how many miles that he stopped, to find a gun or two and something to drink. The Smokin' Ho had three things about it -- a cheesy name and a sh*tty selection that did nothing to back up its incredible revenue, and then there was the fact that it was the only bar for forty miles in either direction. As Sam pushed through the doors his eyes swept across degenerates and scumbags, men that would sell their mothers and fathers up the river for another drink. Then there were the distinguished bunch; mercenaries. They weren't too hard to spot. He got the barkeep to scare up a rare bottle of water, and he took stock.

Degenerates, scumbags, and a shining example of humanity wrapped up in a body women fall all over. In Madison's case, literally so. He's slouched lionlike in a booth dressed in the raw red dust of Lofton County, sipping from a warm tankard of the local goat piss that masquerades as homebrew. The dust is in his hair, in his coat; it clouds the lenses of the goggles pushed up on his forehead. Maybe it's the scowl. Maybe it's the weirdness of the tech--the goggles, that weird metal potato of a keyboard, the glittering shunt behind one ear. Maybe they don't care for dredlocks in these parts. Whatever the reason, the locals and other travelers are giving Judah Bishop a wide berth. All the tables in his vicinity are empty. He lights a foul black cigarillo--he's had to dole them out, they don't exactly carry his favorite brand out there in Lofton--and slouches a little deeper.

Men people avoid are men that draw the most attention. Especially when they're as recognizable as Judah Bishop is to anyone bothering to ask a question or two back where he'd come from to the right people. Still, there are some curiosities Sam can just never avoid. He took his water, walked over, and in a suit that made Judah look even dirtier by comparison slid into his booth.

And it had only taken one showdown to get him that extra space. Still, he'd be happier taking a nap. Having to go back to Rhy?din the slow way, guarding all that silver, has put him in a mood almost as foul as the smoke from the cigarillo. It shows in the dust-streaked harsh cuts on either side of his mouth, where they dive into his beard. It shows in the dismissal of a hazel-eyed glance tossed across the table at Sam. And it shows in his voice, gruff and weary. "The f*ck do you want?"

"I know you. You dragged in the Rye bounty, yeah?" His eyes are sharper than the downcurl of his mouth, contradiction between the two of them. "You a moral man," He held the bottle of water in one hand, the other out of sight. "or what?"

His own eyes narrow, through the twisting lick of smoke. He sits up marginally straighter, deliberately notices that one hand out of sight. "...and you are?" Neither confirming nor denying, for now. Not that it matters; everyone in that sh*thole bar could ID him. At least the ones that weren't shot by their own bubba friends could.

"Going to pick her up." He took a pull from his bottle, big, clunky ring catching light while he did.

"Mm." He scratches his chin, sips the brew, grimaces and pushes it away. Ashes tremble on the tip of the cigarillo, drift down to litter the table like dirty snow.

"You tore that bar apart, left a pretty little mess outside." He took a moment to lean back. His hand remained hidden.

"I never met her before that night, man. And I didn't do ninety percent of that damage. Her f*cking so-called "friends" did. Looked like any excuse to party, they're on it, you know?"

If Sam had anything to say about the crowd that ran through that Inn, he didn't share it. "You have somethin' personal against her, or are you just a savvy son of a b*tch?"

He tips his head to one side, studies the other man. "Why? You don't look like her. You f*cking her?"

Salvation takes many forms in any world. It does not arrive in a church, or by the hand of a holy man. It arrives in unexpected ways more often than not, in the least likely way possible.


But it does happen, it does come. Our heroine does not yet know this. But it's near. It's only a day away.


The gunslinger's last obvious bet had been hit - horse and her in the woodland, ghosts through the trees, avoiding being seen. But the show was not over yet, the Rangers for all their being living breathing cliches, were also exemplary trackers, and after several rounds of threats with the Rye's, lthey took off. Following every track they could. Out there, in the summer rush, tracks can't get covered in snow. A trace is easy, if you have the eyes and the nose for it. Like Madison herself. It was gamble to be as she was, out in the wilderness. There were only so many bullets to fend off the angry mob, the let down Lawmen, let alone the fact her energy levels were depleting. She still needed food. Anything.


It was after midday when she heard the first warning shot, a crack that stunned the silence itself, reverberating through every tree, walking through the hallways of her bones. Stone-still she held her breath and grabbed tight the leather lead, walking the mare quickly into the brush. Another crack. And then the shouts began.


In what usually took her mere seconds, Madison clambered onto the horse, slipping and sliding off the saddle until she managed to get a leg over. A dig of the heels and the horse moved off through the thickening branches, deeper into the dark.



More shots. More shouts. Hand slid down to saddle for the colt, a one handed loading as she glanced back over shoulder. Deeper still into the leafless maze, through the aching stillness. Faster gait, gaze fixed on the distance.


Then it happened.


Bullet to hit the rear leg of the horse. Sent it down. A pained whinny. Madison flying in a sprawl, then up, darting into the shadows. Lawmen took to their feet. Their voices coming closer and closer. At least time the rangers were not singing her dirge. Closer. Closer. She ran faster, faster. A shot aimed over shoulder, to spin through the passage of the woodland to pierce splinters from a trunk. The Rangers pointed, called to the six scrambling through the forest line. Quickening their paces.


The slinger dove behind a set of large Redwood-like sentinels, catching her breath. Then moved off to the next lot, the one after. Rangers yelling at her with an anger she could feel from where she was, the kind to ivy-crawl the entire length of her spine.


"Get back here you damn woman", obsecenities chasing the initial call, then a fist to the back of her neck, shoving her into a tree, he came from nowhere, wily and fresh. Piano wire to her wrists. Cheek shoved into the rough side of the fir. Shove hard. A shout. "We got her!"


Then like it had once upon a time with Judah, all her world went black, again.