Advanced Composition
Will Tunis
Short Story
12 November 2007
A Road Better off Not Walked
At the crest of the mountain the sun lounged giving off its last rays of intense heat. After too many miles of winding desert valleys, a middle aged man looked for a place to lie his exhausted body down for the night. The man thought to himself, I better get a fire going. One more night out here in the cold and I’ll be done for. Maybe I’ll catch one of those pack rats that seem to be the only thing living in this. He set about finding some dry brush to get his fire started when he noticed something moving off in the distance. My rat. But it wasn’t a rat, it was a rabbit. He eagerly pulled his gun from its holster and took to aim. Suddenly the words of his father strangled the thought of food as his mouth watered. If you follow a rabbit to its home there will almost always be water. They like the soft earth on the bank of rivers it makes for easy digging. It was almost too late but he managed to put his gun away. The rabbit scampered off towards the far away, hills and the man followed. Well it isn’t a river, but it sure looks better than not.

After three attempts at a fire and a hand up a rabbit’s ass, the man started a stew. Usually he would have roasted his food but with a steady stream of water he decided to spice up his meal with some roots he found growing near the rabbit’s hole. In the distance, over the sound of the babbling brook, a rock tumbled down a hill. Well, its not the soldier out there. They wouldn’t get that careless if they were this close to catching me. With a better-safe-than-sorry mind set, the man took out his pistol and pulled the hammer into place. After ten minutes or so his mind began to wander and he discarded any notion of threat. He then began playing his old ragged guitar which in truth sounded better now than when it was new. He wondered to himself if it was the guitar or the man who had improved over all these years.

Suddenly, as if she had always been there a woman dressed in a black velvet dress with her hair all done up in style said “That’s a nice tune where might one play in such a fashion in a world such as ours.” Not anything special but I suppose it gets the job done to kill the lonely silence; he replied. Mind if I share your fire asked the woman. If you don’t mind telling me what your doing in this dessert all dressed up and alone with that pretty face all contorted and sad; he replied. So the woman sat and began her long narrative of what she had been about.

Great story! But it still don’t tell me a damn about how you got here now.

I told you she said, “I was out on the town and had one too many to drink When I came to I was out here alone, and that’s that.

Well I suppose it matters not past the fact I have an audience and someone to share this food with. So they shared some words and retired to their little private concert in the dust and sand.
When morning came the young woman was gone. Gone with his gun. Gone with his guitar and gone with the worst thing of all his name. His name was Jim Ash, and Jim Ash was a wanted man not for the people he had killed but for the people he had not killed. Jim was a deserter. He had run when the Common Wealth Military, his old master the ones who no longer held his chain, had told him to do something to terrible even for him a hardened product of killing and violence over the last decade could do. He new he had to kill her if anyone heard his name. If anyone saw that gun, he was a dead man. With that he packed up what little she had left and began tracking.

It was midday when he first noticed the dust rising from the trail behind him and he new it was his inevitable doom coming for him like a rolled up newspaper executing a fly. With out his gun they would shoot him down from 50 paces away. He had to get it back or it was all over, and home he would never be.

With the dust behind him and the storming hills ahead that the girl was most definitely headed towards he started running like a raging river to its end. Well this will buy me some time, but I’ll be even more helpless if this use of my energy doesn’t hold anything promising. Within a half an hour, he came upon the foot hills of the mountain, which rolled on and on like an ocean set in stone. And there she was, not a quarter mile ahead cresting the next peak of a slightly larger hill.

Bang; the sound of a gun shot echoed through the hill as a bullet sank itself into his shoulder only to break free on the other side leaving an oozing hole and a tingling feeling like dancing fairies. It isn’t over yet he yelled back over his good shoulder before diving head long down the hill to avoid the next shot that was most surly going to be his death. I’ve got to find that stupid whore he yelled as he brushed some dirt from his throbbing shoulder and headed for the next rise. Yes, this is it just over this ledge, he thought as he came to where he had last seen her.

He moved a little too fast for his own good to worry about what was behind him or to care what lay ahead. His footing gave way and down he went. As he tumbled, he noticed a mecca of some sort at the bottom of the hill and what seemed to be people hurrying about. After the dizziness from falling passed, he began his descent and as he hit level ground he noticed all the faces starring in his direction. As if noticing it for the first time he looked at his wound which seemed to be the article of everyone’s attention along with the cake of rust colored mud that was apparently from blood as it ran down his body and into his boot.

The sound of thunder of guns shots began to rain. It’s me or them he thought and darted into the star-struck crowd. People began to scream as the hard lead tore their flesh like wet paper, and then he saw her in a doorway about 30 yards ahead.

With anger in his eyes and sorrow in his mind, he sprinted for the door as it slammed shut. While people fell like leaves of a dying tree, he blew down the door with one swift kick.
She was standing at the other end of a dull room with wilted roses on a single table with no chairs surrounding it. He though she is like those roses her happiness has drained away like the water in those petals. He noticed the gun; his gun pointed at him. Her hands were shaking and looked so unnatural holding that cold piece of steel meant for ending not beginnings. He took a step forward, she fired but it was a miss. Again he went forth, and again she shot, but the tears in her eyes must have obscured her vision. So now he was there right in front of her where she would not miss, could not miss. Give me the gun, he said.

She shook her head and took aim. She shot, but this time it wasn’t at him. A soldier fell dead in the doorway and she dropped the gun falling to her knees sobbing up a storm. “,It’s going to be OK” he said as he picked up the gun and turned for the door, for you.

He went out the door with his gun in hand, shooting three men before one could draw. They fell where they stood and moved no more. Another sprang up from some cover and shot, but Jim was too good at this game they called death-dealing. Rolling once, and firing he put one in his eye watching the cool red blood flow. Two more on the street went for the kill but he jumped for cover and reloaded his pistol with finger so nimble like those of pianist. Bang went the guns, as he sprang around the corner but only he was still standing when the dust fell.

The last of the soldiers, a single man, still a boy, turned and ran leaving his rifle next to the puddle of piss that had ran down his leg. The man took aim more by instinct than anything else. There was one thought in his mind as he gentle squeezed the trigger. Home.

The boy fell never to move again and the gunslinger walked down a street littered with faces contorted in fear of people he would never know and he wondered like so many times before if freedom was truly worth the cost.