BLOOD AND SAND

If it is indeed true that one's life flashes before their eyes right before the moment of death, Then William Malhoon’s whole life had taken place in a nameless tavern when he was barely past the age of 21. He had killed twice in his life, with no strong feelings about what he had done. They had deserved it, both em, two little stains he had scrubbed out. These men, brothers in both name and cause, had tried to ambush him the morning after a shooting contest. in which he had won a fair sum of cash and a fair amount of scorn from its losers. He had spent his night a champion, and now would spend his day a pilgrim sent west. Following the ghost outline of wagon wheels scorched into the sand, riding until his bones ached and his horse wheezed long hot breath through her dry empty mouth. After 3 days of complete isolation, he could see the dim outline of civilization within a few hour's ride. 

Entering Tightview for the first and last time, he saw nothing remarkable. A small church, bank, some nondescript building his gut told him was a jailhouse. Small groups of time-battered men and women talked about nothing, 4 different coloured horses waiting for their owners to return, and finally a small boy in a faded yellow undershirt, poking a dead snake with a gnarled branch. Will stopped outside the saloon and tied up his horse, still watching the strange boy as he went about his work. The boy, at first moving in quick excited bursts, began to slow down and lose interest. With a final poke that split the snake into 2 messy sections, he tossed the branch and looked around aimlessly. The kid was different. When their eyes met, the boy flashed him a devil’s grin he would never again see in someone so young. It spoke of a taste for violence, pointless cruelty, poking things best left unspoken. 

Will turned away from it, still feeling its heat on his back as he swung open the shotgun doors of the noisy saloon. He entered almost completely unnoticed and remained so until he heard a voice far too small to be in any saloon.  “You're Will, right? The feller who won the shooting contest and killed Winston?” Will raised one eyebrow at the kids' dirt-smeared grin. “Hell of a shot you were! I saw! I saw the contest, and I even saw when…” Will grimaced, tired and annoyed, and spoke in his most serious tone, interrupting him. “What's it to you?” he growled dismissively. He was trying to scare the kid with his strong silent routine, plain and simple. He looked the type to believe whatever threats he wanted to make. The kid was small, dirty blonde, impossibly skinny. Under his thin shirt, his skin clung tightly to his skeletal frame. For all he knew the kid was some halfwit orphan, the village idiot born to no mother at all. He didn't seem thrown off by Will in the slightest. 

“The contest, now that was something, but with Winston, Man! Your good mister! You're really good! say, mister? How many…” Will suddenly slammed his fist on the table without saying a word, drawing the whole room into a single moment of silence, before interest was quickly lost and conversation picked up where it had left off. “I never met a Winston, Leave me alone” In his own ears, his voice sounded firm and in control. The kid shrunk back as if He had just been slapped. Will turned back to the bar, ignoring this look of mock horror the best he could. 

“Gosh, I'm sorry mister! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I'm a big fan mister oh god I'm so sorry!” At the sound of this long whiny apology, he suddenly found they were the center of attention again. “Get the kids out of here” Someone groaned, creating a small pit of laughter across the room. “You’re my hero!” screeched the high mocking voice of a faux damsel in distress. The small reservoir of laughter burst into a flood as the whole room started to bubble with it. Overlapping voices jeered, mocked, swore, and sang. 

He could feel anger and embarrassment flood his system like steam in a tea kettle. The voices went on, threatening to keep rising and rising in volume and intensity until his head simply exploded in a great red plume. All within the span of a single second, as automatically as he blinked and breathed, he unholstered his gun and fired a single shot. If the kid were a little taller, it would have been a perfect headshot, but the kid's short stature had robbed him of a painless death.

The shot hit him just above his hairline, leaving his skull a partially cracked egg, already he saw thin red streaks running down his dust-smeared face. The kid fell to his knees, and a round circle of moisture appeared in his pants. A low choked cough sent a red mist of blood toward him, and he stepped back as the kid finally collapsed to the floor. In the total silence of the bar, he spoke his final words in the pops and cracks of a low fire burning. Hoo… how maan.. Y. How Many… How many… The little fire left in him died. Nobody moved.   He would carry this moment with him forever, into as close to old age as he could get. Now, he lay on his back, miles away from home but exactly where he had started. He had been ambushed, of course, shot twice by a man whose face he would never see. 

As he lay there, being reabsorbed by the earth, that moment played out forever.