Lost and Found

Invaders

I watched giddily as the saloon burned from the edge of the graveyard, watching as my mother's one true pride and joy went up in flames along with the bodies of those that had denied my happiness. The ash was beautiful as it fluttered through the sky, illuminated by the blazing fire and the embers that floated up into the night sky. The sound of the saloon collapsing woke some of the town residents that lived further from the main square. Several had come running with their measly buckets to splash the structure with water but it was too far gone to be saved and the bodies inside along with it.

The residents remained unaware of my presence in the graveyard as they tried to tame the flames. I stood in front of a grave that was marked similarly to mine, a stick pushed into the ground with a dirt stained white rag tied to it. Just like my grave there would be no stone or wooden cross, just a body in the ground that everyone wanted to forget about. This grave was across the graveyard from where I had been buried, the freshness of the grave the only indicator of who was buried here. My Jonah. Even in death they wished to keep us away from each other. To deny us even the smallest show of kindness by keeping us separated for eternity. I kneeled over his grave and spoke to the disturbed soil as I would have the man had I been able.

"I did it, Jonah. I made them pay." I said softly as I stroked the ground lovingly.

"I wanted to join you, I still wish to join you, but I think we are forever meant to be apart. We have been ripped apart at every twist and turn, denied the smallest of pleasures. Why should I be surprised that someone else sought to keep us apart if even in death? Though I think this was a gift, Jonah. Someone gave me the power to do onto them as they had done onto us. I hope I've made you proud." I kissed my fingers and pressed them to the dirt before standing and heading into the trees and away from town.

I left town that night and never looked back, leaving humanity behind. I stuck to the wilderness and preyed upon travelers as they crossed the rough terrain headed farther west. Every caravan was the same, with men whispering of gold and the possible fortune just out there waiting for them to uncover. All desiring better for themselves while wishing ill of others who wanted the same. The same greed that had been whispered by the men while I had been human.

Since childhood humanity has disgusted me. Having been raised in a brothel above a saloon I was exposed to the worst of humankind from the very beginning. Scenes of drunkenness, greed and sexuality weren't uncommon and kept Madame rich. By the time I was old enough to be declared a woman I was expected to earn my keep or risk being thrown to the street to starve. There was no other options than do as Madame demanded and see to the pleasure of the foul men that patroned the bedrooms above the saloon, there was no one that would take mercy on a whore's daughter and certainly no one that would allow their son to marry one.

There had only been one person to ever look at me as anything but another of Madame's soiled doves and that had been my Jonah. He too was an outcast just as I was, another being trapped in that pitiful town by mortal ties, ties that he had attempted to sever and had ultimately ended in his demise. He had been the only good human being that I had ever known and my heart ached with his loss. He hadn't deserved what had become of him and often I wished that he had been given the same second chance I had been given, the chance to watch those that had cursed us destroyed.

I was in the wilderness alone for I'm not sure how long, but I knew it had been years. Despite my distance from humanity I noticed the passage of time with the change in attire, wagons and the motivations of the travelers. The whispers of gold and fortune changed to whispers of work as the types of travelers themselves changed. These men spoke in an accent I had never heard before and whispered of something called a railroad that would cross the United States connecting it coast to coast. Those were the whispers in the final years of my isolation.