Marked for Death: A Feminist Western

Chapter Two - A Forbidden Rendezvous

If you were walking down the main street of Sagebrush Creek at midnight, you would think nothing of the lit candle in the church window. But there were exactly two people in the town who flocked to it like moths.

Sheriff Beau Thompson flicked his finished cigarette into the dust, squishing it extinguished with the heel of his spurred boots. If anyone asked him what he was doing going into the church at this late hour, he had his response: routine inspection. But no one questioned what he did. He was the town's sheriff, after all.

Stepping inside the dimly lit church, his eyes scanned the pews until they landed on my silhouette, standing near the altar.

He walked up to me, his gun belt and spurs gangling with each step. "Evening, miss."

"Good evening, sheriff." I greet him. The night, so silent around us, bears witness to this forbidden encounter. "Let's drop the politeness, shall we?"

Beau hesitated for a moment before nodding, a smile creeping to his lips, a mixture of longing and resignation in his eyes. We both knew it was risky - oh, so risky - but that made it all the more exciting.

I grab the sheriff and kiss him, feeling his bristling moustache on my face. He kisses me back, wrapping his hands around my waist.

He effortlessly lifts me into the air as I wrap my legs around his torso. Putting me down on the church altar, I lean back, feeling my body against the wood. I feel his fingers tracing the lengths of my thighs, gripping at my breeches and sliding them off. I could feel him growing hard against me, as I began hungrily grinding at his lower torso.

Then - the unspeakable.

With a bang that would alter the course of my life forever, the church doors swung open to reveal the imposing figure of my father.

I thought I had seen him enraged before, but nothing compared to this moment. The desolation and anger that burned in his eyes have stuck with me since as the single most terrifying thing that I have ever witnessed. He must have heard us, for he tore towards us with the ferociousness of a spurned man desperately trying to protect his reputation, his property.

"You dare defile ..." he roared, not bothering to finish his sentence. Beau yelped and pulled away.

Grabbing a massive candlestick, he lunged at me with such severe aggression that I reached for the only thing next to me: the gun that Beau had just removed from his belt. As the deranged priest hurtled towards me, I whipped the gun around to face him, only wanting to intimidate my father from beating me senseless, but my fingers had a mind of their own and squeezed the trigger in panic, then -

The moment that changed my life forever.

How can a human head hold that much blood? It took everything within me to hold myself back from vomiting. Gurgling parts of what had once been my father - the man who so piously watched over the town - mingled with the dusty church floorboards, turning to a sickly mud.

Tears clouding my vision and adrenaline clouding my judgement, I point the gun at Beau. He's the only one who knows, is all that I can think. He stares back at me with all the fear of a man disarmed and naked.

"Amelia -" he pleaded.

Battling against my survival instincts, I shakily lower the gun. "Go," I choke, tears in my eyes.

He doesn't need to be told twice. The man that I always thought that I would marry grabbed his jeans, tugged them on and backed away from me with his hands up. "I'll ... I will have to alert the town, Amelia" he stammered. He paused, tension lingering in the air before he continued: "In the morning."

Tears swim in my eyes as I realise what he's saying, but both of my shaking hands continue to keep the gun pointed at the floor so I can't reach up to wipe them from my vision. Thank you, I mouth, completely unable to speak. With that - he's gone. Out the door and into the dead of the night.

I knew in this moment that I would never again return to this town. I exited the church into the harsh cold of the desert for the last time, knowing that my life had changed forever - but whether that was for better or for worse was yet to be seen.