Missed Your Shot (Railroad To Nowhere Extra)

Missed Your Shot

A/N

This is just a little something I wrote for an English essay. It's based on a couple chapters from my western book, Railroad to Nowhere. Hope you enjoy!

*

Jake raised a dusty hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His ears were filled with the pounding of hooves, his eyes blinded by the sun. His hat had long since blown backwards and the string holding it in place was cutting into his neck, but he did nothing to correct it. His gaze, keen as an eagle's, was trained on the fleeing figure ahead of him, the black rump of the man's horse forever dancing out of reach. Bags of gold bounced on its withers.

Colt Johnson looked round and met Jake's flinty eyes with his own grey ones. Rock against steel. He knew the old lawman would catch him eventually; it was inevitable. His black horse was tiring, while Jake's chestnut continued on relentlessly. But Colt had one last trick up his sleeve, his ace that would keep his neck from the noose. Ahead, the path forked - one led to a distant town, the other to his victory.

Jake watched in surprise as the outlaw took the left-hand trail, towards the old mining town of Gold Creek. His confusion quickly turned to fear. He knew that place. The worst mining accident in history had happened in that very town. He remembered it well - he had been working the elevator pulley, lowering the cable that had killed so many. He would never forget the sound of the frayed steel wire finally giving way, the scream of metal against the walls. He hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from the sight of the men crouching low, waiting for the bottom. It had been forever seared into his memory.

Unable to stand the memories, Jake had left and swore never to return to that town of ghosts. And yet here he was, looking upon the mountain where he had played as a child, upon the murmuring stream, where he had once found a nugget of gold as big as an apple, and upon the old, greying timber houses.

Colt could feel the other man's burning gaze boring into his back and grinned. His horse flew past the huge sign at the entrance of the town, now rusty and hanging off its hinges. The faded words proclaiming the town's name served as a shadow of what the dilapidated houses had once been, marking the place like a gravestone. Colt pulled up his horse and dismounted, tying her to a post. Then he calmly turned and faced his pursuer.

Jake vaulted off, tethering his own horse. His hand rested on one of the polished guns at his hip. Colt noticed this.

"Why so hostile, friend?" he queried. "If anything, I should hate you for what you've done to me!" He held up an arm to show a graze from one of Jake's earlier bullets.

The lawman said nothing. His eyes flickered to the bags of gold on Colt's horse, then back to his face. It was answer enough.

Colt laughed. "I steal to live," he said with a cheery grin. "I was turned against the world, I have little conscience." Suddenly his eyes grew stony and he leaned in close. "But you know who did that to me? You know who made me like this?" He gripped the front of Jake's shirt and pushed him back against his chestnut horse. "It was you, Jake. You did it."

"How do you know my name?" The older man's voice rasped in his throat.

"Because you were there, Jake. You were at the top, and you let me fall."

Jake's brown eyes widened. He remembered now. A very young man with pale skin and black hair, his terrified face upturned as he plummeted towards the bottom. His mother, afterwards, refusing to leave the edge of the shaft. "My Colt! Oh, my little boy! My child!"

Jake was terrified as the memory ended. "But... you should be dead..." he stuttered. "I-I saw you die!"

Suddenly the hunter was the hunted.

Colt smiled menacingly, and the sky seemed to darken. "So you do remember. That was a painful experience, and I blamed you for it. I had to live with what you'd done. Because it was all your fault. You killed me..."

Jake lunged. He grabbed the man's throat, but Colt only smiled slightly with the lazy air of someone who knew they had the upper hand. Jake was puzzled for a moment, until he heard a series of clicks. He turned to face a bristling circle of guns.

"Lock him up," Colt said dismissively. Jake had his shoulders slumped in defeat. He knew he couldn't fight a bullet. He allowed himself to be marched into a small, dark cell while his guns and double belts of ammunition were laid on the sheriff's desk. Colt sat behind it.

"Nice shooters you got there," he remarked as Jake glared.

"Let go of my guns!" the lawman snarled, fizzing with hatred.

"Shut up," Colt hissed, but Jake wouldn't listen.

"Don't you know anything, you ignorant fool? A man's guns are his life! His soul! And your tainting mine!" The last word was shouted like a war cry as he battered against the metal bars. They groaned and a flash of alarm crossed Colt's face as he scrambled up from behind the desk. "I said, shut up!" he yelled shrilly.

Jake wasn't going to. He wasn't going to be penned like a bull or demanded to obey some cocky thief. He charged again.

Colt felt real fear this time. Though this man was nearly twenty years his senior, he was a monster. Who knows what he would do if he broke free? It was unlikely, but Colt couldn't take that chance.

Grabbing one of Jake's guns off the desk, he loaded the chambers before pointing the gun at his captive's head. "For the last time," he growled. "Shut. Up."

Jake merely laughed, taunting him. "I think I'd rather be shot by my own guns than some filth of yours, so I suppose you're doing me a favour. So come on, step up to the bars. I dare you to shoot me. Prove to me that you're a man."

Colt stepped up to the bars. Jake raised an eyebrow. If Colt shot now, Jake would be just another lawman killed on the job. But he did not fear death.

He waited. Colt lowered the gun to Jake's chest, his hand shaking slightly.

And shot.

Jake's body jerked as the bullet tore into his chest, feeling all-encompassing, white-hot pain. Colt watched him. He felt no remorse, but fear still lingered. He doubted this man. He doubted that he would give himself up like this.

But there was only still silence. After a moment he unlocked the door in preparation for his men removing the body and sat down heavily, his back bowed as if under some unseen weight.

A cough. Colt whipped round faster than lightning.

Jake's body jerked as if it had been shot again. It straightened. It opened its eyes.

Colt's own eyes widened and he lurched out of his seat. This wasn't possible. It wasn't real.

Jake smiled, looking down at the hole in his chest inches away from his heart. "Looks like you missed your shot."

Colt fumbled for his own, reliable guns. "I'll shoot again! I-I'm warning you!" Suddenly he wasn't the confident leader any more. He was that scared young man in the elevator shaft.

Jake lurched to his feet, took a moment to find his balance before staggering towards the cell door like a string puppet. "It's as if you knew I would get up!" he grinned as it swung open.

Colt was still as Jake lurched to the desk and grabbed his six-shooters.

"You going to miss your shot too, old man?" the outlaw leered in a false pretense of confidence.

But Jake simply raised one gun. He never missed his shot.