Jen In Four Words

Lock

Cold. The cell floor is cold. Jen felt down and touched her leg. The blood soaked through the bandage and the burning sensation remained even now. She was alone in this cell. There was barely enough room to lay down flat. Curled up in the fetal position, Jen sat motionless. No noise, no drama, no more playing outlaw. It was a lot quieter than she had imagined. A lot more peaceful too— besides the gunshot in her leg. The floor was stone. She was separated from the rest of the building by a set of tall, metallic bars. A bucket by her side for her sanitary needs. A ceramic plate with whatever slop her captors provided.  Jen was stripped down to a simple pair of pants and a shirt. No boots, no hat, no way to conceal her identity any longer.

This sucked.

Jen was staring into the ground when her dissociation was disrupted by a group of men talking. The door leading to her cell was opened, and Caesar walked in. The gold star on his hat glistened beautifully in the damp and eery jail. Behind him, the rest of the horsemen.

Caesar held a paper up to the cell and called out to Jen, "Missy, c'mere and look at us."

Jen turned her head and stared at the four horsemen. Caesar nodded, and looked to the others for their approval. All three of them muttered and nodded alongside him. "Right, so you are the Killer Cowboy." He chuckled, standing up straight and passing the paper off. "Never would've thought you'd be a lady. Times is changing 'round here."

Jen did not respond to the comment. There was no ego left to maintain. It was back to being a nobody. At least now, the public can be happy knowing she has been arrested. She placed her head between her knees and tried to be alone with her thoughts.

"Mister Held." Caesar called out. "Gonna need your final testimony that this is who we're lookin' for."

Jen's ears perked up and she shot a glance towards the entrance to the room. Her heart shattered into a million pieces as he entered.

David.

David paced towards the bars and got within inches of them. Jen got to her feet and limped over, getting face to face with him. David looked Jen dead in her eyes and without hesitation, said, "I testify that is her."

Despair fell over Jen. It was her turn to feel the evil emotion. The world around her had collapsed and burned into ashes within a few short seconds. Being arrested did not bother her. Neither did being shot. But betrayal stung the worst out of all the pain Jen had endured through her life.

Caesar held out a piece of paper and cited, "David Held, do you solemnly swear that what you're sayin' here today is true and correct, so help you God?"

David turned towards Caesar, then shot a venomous glance at Jen. Without breaking eye-contact, he responded, "So help me God."

Caesar held out a chunk of charcoal to David and requested his signature. David proceeded to complete the document, pushing hard on the paper to the point that pieces of the charcoal were falling off. Caesar reviewed the document and nodded in approval as he exited the room. The horsemen followed suit.

David bent over and picked up a piece of the charcoal. He flicked it into the cell, hitting Jen in the forehead with it. Jen's eyes welled up and she fell to her knees, looking up at David. He sighed and gave Jen a final look, "I come against you in the name of the Lord. On this day, the whole world will know that God is in the west." David left the room with Jen in shambles, leaving the isolation to feed on her despair.

—

Jen became frail and skinny. The food, or what Caesar calls food, could only be described as a gray mound of... something trying to be oatmeal. The taste of dunking a loaf of bread into water and ripping it apart with a set of rusty tongs, topped with a full shaker's worth of salt. For the meat, a single strip of ham if she was lucky. Jen did not eat well on the run, but at least there was variety to the cuisine. Raising cupboards for slightly expired corn and peas was miles above the jail's slop. The only drink was water, but the taste was always very off, like it came from the bottom of a dry well.

Jen's highlight of the day was actually the hour after the food arriving. Not because she was excited to start eating, but because she knew nobody was coming to bother her. She would consume everything in less than five minutes and spend the remaining hours of the day recounting her past and posing hypothetical questions to herself. She became curious with quantifying her charges and how much trouble she was really in. How many of her victims had they really identified as being hers? Were they going to ignore the food and other things she stole? Did they connect that she was the drunk lady at La Maldición? What was the ne—

And the door swung open.

For as long as she has been here, other prisoners would be brought in for an hour or a day and released back into the world. Jen was not so fortunate. Nobody she saw was nearly as screwed as her. Drunk people, petty thieves, and fighting folk all came and went, sitting in the same room as the Killer Cowboy.

This time, all four of the horsemen followed behind a rough looking outlaw, whose hands were securely fastened behind his back. An opaque sack rest on his head as they pushed him forward into the room. Jen looked up to see what the commotion was. The man was thrown into a cell beside hers and the bars slammed shut. Caesar wrapped up the rope tightly back into its coil, and tossed the sack to one of the horsemen.

The man sighed in his cell. As the horsemen left, he cried out, "God-damnit!" Jen rolled her eyes. She did not want to deal with another person ruining her peace. It annoyed her that most of the prisoners never battled with the thought that they would be arrested. He continued to scream obscenities and complain. Caesar returned, walking to the man's cell.

"Shut your darn mouth, boy." He ordered, "Name."

The man stammered, then said, "Teddy."

"Yeah right. I know that ain't your name." Caesar bluffed, "Try that shit again, you ain't eating today. Real name please."

The man groaned loudly and could be heard taking a seat on the ground. He then spat on the floor and said his name.

"Theo."

Jen remembered.