Scars (Part II of J.H. White's Puss in Boots)

Chapter Six: Blood on the Wall

"Good luck with that, old man," Scars jeered in his face. "I will slice through you like a piece of meat."

"I was the mentor of your bounty, so not likely." Everybody in the cantina gasped. Even Scars had to stifle his shock.

"I'm on my way to KILL your student, but first I'm going to kill you." Everybody watched in fear and awe.

El Guante Blanco removed his sword from his belt. "En garde," he whispered. They thrust their swords together. Before El Guante Blanco could get a good stab, Scars kicked him in the stomach.

El Guante Blanco responded by chopping off one of Scars' fingers and then kicking him into a wall. Scars groaned, looking at the severed finger on the ground and then at the blood spewing out of his right paw. Then he heard them. The bar's patrons, laughing. Laughing at him; he had been beaten by a fossil!

Nobody laughed at Scars without paying for it.

He got up off the floor, and with the paw that wasn't gushing fluid, he threw his sword at El Guante Blanco, who dodged it just in time. He snarled and ran at the old cat, knocking the weapon out of his adversary's paws. Normally, he would feel some kind of guilt beating up an elderly person, but the codger had humiliated him, not to mention one of his fingers was missing. He would enjoy this.

El Guante Blanco scrambled for his sword, but then Scars took him down like a sack of bricks and beat him until his face was bloody. El Guante Blanco looked up at him. "Please, son. We don't have to settle it this way."

"Unless I kill Puss in Boots, I will be dead myself in a matter of days. I cannot have you interfering with my mission." Then he snapped the old cat's neck, tore his head off, and threw it across the bar like a basketball. There was silence. Then...

CLIK!

Scars felt the cold butt of a pistol touch the side of his head.

"Why?" the cat that was shoving the gun into the side of Scars' head said, his voice shaking. He was young, probably five or ten years younger than Scars. "Why in the name of the Good Lord did you kill an old man like that, you child of Satan?"

Scars didn't want to kill this kid too. "Put down the gun, and we won't have a problem," he replied. The cat put his finger on the trigger. "I will not stand by and watch you go out and kill Spain's only defender."

Scars nodded, and then he disarmed the kid, picked up the gun, and shot him in the face. He was weeping as he did it, but he tried to hide his pain. Nothing could stand in the way of the mission.

He walked out the door, and when he got outside, making sure nobody was around to see him, he cried like he had when his mother had died. He was evil, and he knew it. But what mattered more to him than being a good person was his life. Maybe he could do it, he told himself. Maybe he could outrun the mercenary, go off the grid. Then, he realized that no matter what he did, she would find him. She would corner him. And then she would bring him out in public and splatter his brain on the cobblestones. No, he thought. That can't happen.

He walked through the town and out into the desert. As his boots crunched on the sand, he realized something; he was going to die on this adventure, no matter what. Even if he brought the mercenary the head of Puss in Boots, somebody was going to kill him, make him pay for the death of their hero. Maybe he would be hanged in public with all the other common criminals. His death wouldn't count for anything; nobody would remember him.

"NO!" he shouted into the humid abyss, falling to his knees from dehydration. "No...no...no, no, no!" He coughed up blood into the sand.

Then, he saw what he thought was a mirage. But it was all too real. A black and white female cat, walking towards him. He knew who she was; he had heard her name and saw her on the wanted posters. Kitty Softpaws. And she was carrying something; no, it couldn't be.

Puss' head.