𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑲𝒊𝒅 & 𝑰 - A Billy the Kid western romance

Disruption

Gunshots.

The windows shiver, as they echo between the walls. Adrenaline shoots violently throughout my veins, and my throat tenses up. My world flips in a second. I go from stitching a square patch onto Milo's jeans to watching my 18 year long life in reprise, fearing that I may very abruptly meet my demise.

Multiple male voices roar from the entryway, when a tall figure hurriedly stumbles into the kitchen. I freeze in motion, sat by the skinny wooden table. He looks at me in horror at the realisation of my existence. His revolver is raised and directed out to the lively entryway, toward which his head turns, swinging brunette hair under his hat in a quick swift motion.

"Shit. Is there a back door?" He pants. His form of delivery makes it blatantly apparent that the core of his worry stems from the endangerment of a civilian, and not his own life, which at this point has hung from a string a profuse amount of times.

My throat remains cinched up, I can't speak. Then, finally liberated from my momentaneous statue state, I shake my head uneasily as I spring up from my hard wooden seat. Beads of sweat descend down his forehead. He jerks his arm, motioning for me to position myself behind him. While his robust left arm reaches back, semi-wrapping around me, two men carelessly rush around the corner of the doorway, guns raised, one behind the other.

This proved an expensive mistake. With the reflexes of a snake the tall man in front of me pulls the trigger, a single bullet shoots out of the barrel. It spins in the air before it rips through the skin of the first man's ribcage. The dispute takes place very close in range, and it continues on a firm path into the man behind him. One lifeless body falls to the floor almost immediately. The other gurgles, and fires his gun into the hardwood floor a couple of feet behind us in a stumble. He then sacks onto the wall behind him and slides down along it, marking a long streak of blood where his body had once been. Billy spins on his heel and runs his blue eyes across my body, scanning my extremities for any bullet wound, wide-eyed.

"Are you hit?" He breathes sharply. The adrenaline clouds the sensations of my limbs while I examine them. I conclude a lack of any visible scratches and shake my head. Just then, the crimson blood pooling on the floor catches my attention. It's not mine. The stray bullet had hit Billy just outside the shin travelling straight through his right calf before dashing into the planks. His eyes follow mine down to his leg. I search them desperately, wishing they could reveal his thoughts, but what goes on behind his forehead rests concealed behind the opaque, blue windows.

"Sit down, I will stop the bleeding." I command him, to my own surprise. Reaching for one of my late mother's kitchen cloths, I turn to face him again. He has limped over and allocated himself on one of the kitchen chairs and is now applying pressure to the wound. His big hands are truly those of an outlaw, calloused and dirty. I kneel before him, and slide my hands under his, wrapping the cloth tightly around his leg. Since the bullet is lodged in my floor there will be no scavenge for it in the wound. Thankfully, because the only tools we have at our disposal are some rusty pliers or kitchenware. He winces quietly as I cinch the cloth. Blood continues to drench it. 

"Raise your leg, here" I clear space on the table. He contemplates for a second, before swiftly removing his muddy boot and raising his foot as I had told him. "Apologies" he says. "What?". "For having my foot on your table" He clarifies. I am slightly taken aback. In his current state, his worries land on the modest amount of dirt sprinkled onto the already dusty and unstable table surface. "Bleeding out on my floor would be worse. I can't carry three entire bodies out on my own" I answer, in response to which his eyes pan toward the doorway, and I realise the imprudence of my comment. "I am sorry for bursting into your home, too, and involving you in this. I thought it would be empty" he continues, and clenches his jaw. 

He grabs my chin and examines my face as I change the bloody cloth for a new one, and wrap it tightly as he winces again. "Are you alright?" He asks. This time I understand that he means mentally. I thought I was, but in reality I was not. I had just not yet crashed  into the sheer reality of the situation: two dead men in the hallway, and him, an outlaw with a gaping bullet wound under the plaid washcloth sat in my kitchen. Unconsciously I am waiting for reality to sink in and shatter my mind into a thousand little shards of glass.

And yet, "I'm alright, yes" slips out between my tense lips.

His heavy gaze rests on me. Something is clearly troubling his mind, but he seemingly has no intention whatsoever to share any details. His eyes pierce through my face, like he is watching my mind in motion. I feel transparent. The contrast in our capability of reading each other is grave. He reads my every thought, while he himself is as unreadable as a grainy and dense concrete wall. 

He again concedes himself to few words. "I have to leave, assist me out to my horse" he says firmly, as he begins swivelling in his seat and puts the boot back on his foot. "You can't possibly leave already, you're still bleeding" I counter. His sharp eyes rip me apart once more. "I am not going to stay" He says shortly. Robbed of any independence I may have had in that moment, I obey him. His ride waits loyally outside of the wooden cabin, on which he finally disappears into the warm, dense, fog.