I want to know what's at the end of the line. I want to know what the point of this journey was and to what end it leads. I want to stand at the clearing at the end of the path and look upon the face of destiny. I want to. I don't know if I can though. The blood that once so happily flowed through my veins, criss-crossing its way through my body in hollow tube highways, now darkens the sand beneath my feet. The smell of copper hangs around me like a cloud. Strange, the smell of my own blood is much like the smell of the pennies I earn spilling someone else's. Irony I suppose. We live and die by the coin so it makes sense for it to seep into our very blood. My pistol has but two shots left. Enough of my own blood soaks the ground to make my fingers tremble and my eyes lose focus. This is the end for me. I can feel it. Fear doesn't hang about like I thought it would, rather a sort of rational calm holds my mind steady. I count my breaths. One, two, three, quick raspy cough, and four. Beneath me, legs that were once pillars holding up the altar of the mind and body, shake and tremble. The ground is getting closer now and the sand waits to greet me. I can't lie down now. There is still work to do.
From behind the lone tree that served as my wall between continued existence and something else, I can hear their footsteps crunching softly in the dirt. They are hesitant. I can't help but smirk, at least I think I'm smirking as I can no longer feel my face. Here, they thought their prey would be an easy one, some old man with one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel as my pa used to say. Boy, did I show them otherwise. I had fired ten shots, leaving one pistol dry and the other with the two rounds, and left eight corpses for the undertaker. Only one miss, not bad. The last round found a nice cozy home in the gut of a man with a relic of a scatter gun. He moaned and thrashed about in the dirt for a bit before slowing to nothing but a wheeze, a wheeze I still hear. Like me, there wasn't much time for him. Luckily, the wind was in my favor and blew the stench of piss and shit let go in the final movements of the bodies before me. Something they never talked about in the grand tales of heroes and villains in that hall so many years ago. They never told of the screaming, the whimpering, the panting, the shitting, and the pissing a man does before letting go his mortal coil. I remember though, I will always remember.
"Come old man. Meet your maker." His voice was a facsimile or arrogance. I knew he was scared, the now nine dead men beside him didn't bode well for his chances at easy money. It wasn't supposed to be ten either. If the three (who still lived and were currently inching around my hiding spot to flank me) had kept their drunk mouths shut in the inn, there wouldn't be so many men (and one manly woman) lying prone in the dirt. The bounty on my head had grown since last I checked and the coppers promised got in men's noses and in their own blood. Hot with greed and loosened with wine, they trailed the three fairly decent bounty hunters and attempted to ambush the both of us. Pity for them. They didn't stand a chance. Now, two of the three and one drunk waited for me or inched forward towards me. I didn't have much time.
"I see that more of you have met yours. So, you come and meet your maker son." It was hard to get it all out but i pushed.
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