A New Beginning

You Want to Die for This?

Your auditory sense reverts to a mishmash of stomping feet, ireful hollers, panic-struck whinnies, and the most dreadful of all, gunfire. It sounds like someone's gone absolutely feral outside. You are clinging to a broken shelf when a sudden, irrepressible convulsion interrupts your feeble attempt at rising to your feet. The pain in your arm comes creeping, gradually and pulsating, intensifying with each violent retch as your stomach rids itself of its content.

A pair of strong hands gently enwraps your shoulders, followed by scorching, numbingly intense pain flaring from your arm. You arch your back and you shriek louder than you've ever done before. You heave for air, you can't stop trembling, and all you see are flashes of white against a shroud of pitch black. An assuaging voice, raspy yet calming, saves you from fading into that terrifying void of nothingness, thought you are still much too agitated to make out any words other than your name and that he is sorry, so very sorry, but he has to stop the bleeding.

The only thought of comfort in this wretched, excoriating hell is that of a hogtied Nevans pathetically writhing and squirming on the rear of Arthur's horse.

Through wheezes, gasps, and sobs you ask, longing to hear the words confirming his capture and by effect, inescapable fate of retribution where he will be penalized for his evils, though the shrill sounds erupting from your throat are incomprehensible even to you.

You calm. Slowly but surely, you calm. Within the succour of Arthur's embrace or, half embrace as he makes sure to keep a certain distance as he is rinsing your wound, your sobbing stills, your trembling slows. You swipe tears, spit, and snot off your pain-contorted face, which blends with blood, stomach fluid and half-digested bits of your sorry excuse for a breakfast. You are nauseous still and the repugnant smear of miscellaneous body fluids glazed over your hand, combined with the ghastly taste of bile still lingering on your tongue, prompts from your diaphragm contractions anew.

"Hey, hey. Yer gonna be all right," he lulls. "Eeeasy. Is just a scratch."

That scratch feels like someone seared your arm with a red-hot branding iron and then struck the burn mark with a sledgehammer. Your throat is burning and your vision is oscillating between seeing and not seeing, sometimes clear, sometimes a hazy blur.

"Is he-? Is he caught? You catch him?"

The dabbing of cloth against wounded flesh stills. A look of repentance tells you all you need to know yet you refuse to believe it. You stare at him in open-mouthed disbelief. He is captured, he has to be. Arthur shakes his head. You all but manage a distraught yelp.

"He had my guns, <y/n>. Sonofabitch scared my horse'n ran off with yours. I'm sorry, okay."

"What, he- no-no-no-no!" Your eyes become flooded with fresh tears. Your horse. Stolen. Your travel bag! Your clothes. Your father's – the handkerchief. The angel and the broken wing piece. Gone. Gone! "Then why are you still here?! Go after him!"

"And leave you here?"

"I'll be fine," you swear through clenched teeth, which does the exact opposite of convincing him.

"I ain't leaving you to chase this maniac. I ain't leaving you period. I'm taking you to Valentine."

"The hell you are!"

"Y'need a doctor."

"I NEED-"

"Y'wanna die for this, huh? Is that it?"

"What if I do?" you shriek. "I have no one left!"

Now it is Arthur who stares at you in open-mouthed disbelief. You let out a dejected, forlorn yap.