Under the vastness of the night sky, the sisters were sitting around a small fire sharing a can of beans. Even though the temporary sensation of nourishment was a moment of great satisfaction, the mental weight of their nearly empty trunk of rations was simply too much to brush aside. After passing the can of beans around for nearly five minutes, the tension of the moment became over-bearing as the spoon now began to make consistently loud contact against the interior of the can. Being the oldest, Ruth’s almost maternal instinct to protect her sisters kicked in as she coated the spoon with some of the remaining liquid and pretended to take a full mouthful before gesturing to her sisters that she was full. The younger siblings reluctantly accepted the remaining beans and cleared the canbefore tossing the can to the side. Having been without water for two sunsets in a row, Jeremiah’s absence felt glaring and only lengthened the time of what felt like an endless drought. Each of the sisters wanted to speak, but their parched vocal chords made each word feel like a guttural task of forced labor. 

“Where is he,” Mary grunted.

Ruth leaned back against her sack. “I wish I knew.”

Sarah rubbed her hands over the fire. “What are we to do? We are in the middle of an uncivilized wasteland. Jeremiah has been mentally drifting in and out without any spirits to pick him up and there is no sign of civilization or farmable land in sight. We would be lucky to breed for a group of savages at this point.” 

Before Ruth could respond, the edge of Sarah’s dress had caught on fire. Mary quickly pounced and stomped the edge of her dress before her sibling could be possessed by the flames. In that brief moment, all tensions ceased to exist and the sisters rolled around and madly laughed for a few minutes.

Ruth graciously glanced at both of her sisters as tears welled in her eyes. “With or without Jeremiah, we will always be okay as long as we have each other. There is no level of hell that I wouldn’t dive head-first into to protect you both and keep you safe. You two are the only things that matter to me in this physical realm.”

“We love you,” Sary and Mary soothingly chanted into Ruth’s ears.

The sisters shared a passionate embrace before Mary announced, “Before you delve into the pits of hell, I need to relive myself.” 

“Go ahead, but don’t go too far away.”

“I won’t,” Mary exclaimed in an overdramatic manner.

As Mary walked off into the distance, Sarah’s focus began to turn towards Ruth as she grabbed both of her hands and looked her in the eyes. “I am so sorry about my earlier words and how I’ve been acting lately. I know you just want to protect us. But I am just so scared.”

“Don’t ever apologize for being scared. There isn’t a moment in this world where a young woman can abandon her fears. I pray that one day a time will come where we can all be safe from dangerous brutes.”

“Maybe we can start an all-women town one day.”

“That would be amazing.” Ruth embraced her sister once more.

A scream rang out in the distance and Ruth shuddered as her face suddenly turned pale. “Stay here and don’t move. Don’t make a sound. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sarah mouthed as she slowly sat down.

Ruth quickly broke from her sister’s embrace and grabbed the pistol she had stolen from her father from her sack of belongings. She rushed towards the source of noise as Sarah watched the size of her shadow quickly diminish. Sprinting under the well illuminated moonlit sky, Ruth could taste blood in the back of her throat as she ran harder than she had ever ran before. She could hear the screaming coming from behind a large boulder. As she approached the source of the tormenting noise, she saw a group of men standing in a circle and laughing as they repeatedly shoved Mary to the ground. She lifted the gun in her trembling hand and aimed it at the man standing in the center of the circle. Her vision blurred as she struggled to aim the gun at three identical figures.

The men in the circle all paused and took a step back after noticing her drawn firearm. The bleak silence was eerie as the three men in the center of her vision devilishly grinned at her with a mouth of gold.

“WATCH OUT!”

These were the last words Ruth heard before everything suddenly faded to black.

***

Ruth experienced a sudden sensory overload as she violently regained consciousness. The campfire now burned with the voraciousness of an erupted volcano. She gasped in smoke-filled air through her nose and tasted the bitter piece of fabric placed in her mouth. The repugnant taste of the fabric made her gag as she writhed against her bound wrists. Her vision was spinning as her mind wanted to return to darkness, but Ruth willed herself to stay awake in order to protect her sisters. As her vision began to settle she could make out the figures of about six men. Out of all the members of the posse, there was one who particularly stood out. A man of great height who wore a cast-iron brace around his lower left leg. There was an unsettling sense of calmness about him as he slowly paced around, watching the other men eat like animals. Every step he took made a dent on the earth beneath, similar to the one a hammer makes as it repeatedly smashes against an anvil. He was dressed in nearly all black with a clean white linen shirt beneath his jacket. As he opened his jacket to retrieve a small silver box of tobacco, a small golden chain was revealed that led to a pocket watch on his left hip. As he handed the box to one of his henchmen, he opened his watch, and a solemn tune played as he checked the time. His face appeared quite youthful compared to the ominousness of his presence. Beneath his dark blond shoulder-length hair, there was a faint scar that ran down the side of his cheek to his neck. Despite his youthful appearance, weariness had settled deep in his bones as he appeared to have a general disinterest in the actions of his fellow henchmen. He stared into the fire, but there was no light in his eyes. All around him, the men ravaged through the sisters' belongings while circling the campfire like a bunch of vultures.

​“We got everything. Liquor, tobacco, whores you name it,” one of the henchmen said as the others were chuckling. 

​“Leadfoot, what do you want us to do with the girls,” another one of the henchmen asked. “I’m getting excited.”

Leadfoot slowly approached the sisters. “Henry, I’ll be the judge of that.”

​As he neared the sisters, his loud steps slowly became silent as he pulled out a gold-plated revolver and stared at the sisters. Ruth thrashed around and screamed as loud as she could. Leadfoot first turned his attention to Sarah. Placing the barrel of his revolver within an inch of her face, Sarah blankly stared into the chamber of death with a look of defeat. 

He then turned towards Mary and grinned as her tears poured onto the barrel of his gun pressed upon her cheek. He quickly knocked her unconscious with the butt of his gun and Ruth violently spasmed against the restraints holding her hands behind her back. 

He then wiped the barrel of the gun against the smooth fabric of his coat before turning his attention towards Ruth. As the barrel of the deadly machine pressed into her chin, Leadfoot slowly pulled back the hammer. The cylinder delicately rotated, before producing a loud and empty clicking noise. She stared into his eyes with a look of fiery contempt and defiance that is rarely seen in the souls of the damned. She didn’t flinch as he once again pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. The gang cruelly laughed as he turned away from her. 

​“Luck favors the bold. This one is mine,” he said while pointing towards Sarah. “Do as you will with the other two. I am heading into town to organize a big score and get some proper manpower. Clean everything up before sunrise and meet me there. We don’t want any problems with the marshals on our ass.” 

​“Yeah, I don’t want problems with Wyatt Earp or an injun for that matter,” Henry joked. 

​“A man with fear is one who dances with death,” Leadfoot said as he quietly walked behind Henry and once more pulled the trigger. However, the reaction was different this time as everyone besides Ruth turned pale with a deep look of horror in their eyes. “Don’t be a bummer like ole Henry over here, celebrate whilst you can, because you simply never know when it might be your last day under the sun.” He pulled his black handkerchief over his nose, dragged Sarah off the ground, and placed her on the back of his horse. Sarah stared into Ruth’s eyes as they rode off into the now dark, starless night. Ruth showed no emotion as Sarah was taken away but silently vowed to find her as Ole Henry’s slumped, burning corpse began to saturate the air with the smell of death.  

​As soon as the gallops of his horse could no longer be heard, the men immediately pulled the sizzling corpse out of the campfire before emptying Ole Henry’s pockets of fifty cents and a negligible amount of tobacco. They drunkenly buried him in a shallow grave behind Ruth and Mary, using an empty glass bottle of whiskey to commemorate his existence. As the deliriously violent men turned their attention towards the sisters, Ole Henry was forgotten and never spoken of again.

​Four of the men dragged Mary’s unconscious body into the tent out back. Ruth thrashed around as she heard Mary begin to scream. She slowly wiggled towards the fire and rotated her wrists towards the fire as soon as she was within reach. Ruth’s anger and determination heavily outweighed the heat of the flames as the rope between her wrists caught fire. As the tension in the ropes gradually weakened, Ruth mustered all of her strength to pull her wrists apart. As soon as the rope bounding her wrists snapped, Ruth crawled towards the fresh gravesite and grabbed the empty whiskey bottle commemorating the unremarkable existence of Ole Henry. She quietly smashed the bottle and looked towards the tent. While the man standing guard peeked into the tent, she quietly stood up and walked towards him with the stealthiness of a cat. Once she was within an arm’s distance she took the sharp fragment of the glass bottle and stabbed him in the side of the neck with all of the force she could muster. 

As she pushed the glass deeper into his neck, blood started to spurt out from the artery in his neck. While he began gasping for air and grabbing his neck in hopes of preventing the force of life from leaving his body, Ruth grabbed his revolver from the side of his waist. This time around her vision was clear and her hands were steady. Standing behind her new human shield, she quickly aimed at one of the savages surrounding her sister with his pants down. She quickly fired at his groin and he folded over in pain as he grabbed what was left of his manhood and screamed into the dirt.

 The other two men returned fire and their bullets penetrated Ruth’s human shield as it let out a submerged scream. Blood and bits of flesh splattered everywhere as Ruth used all her might to keep the body upright and quickly fired at the second assailant. The bullet went straight through his intestines, lodging itself in his spine. As he fell backwards into the canvas, the tent violently trembled. This sudden movement disrupted the third assailant and threw him off balance as he fired two shots toward her head. One of the bullets whizzed by her ear as the other one landed in the shoulder of her human shield. Ruth fired two shots as she fell backward. One of these bullets grazed the assailant’s neck. The next one delivered the kiss of death as it accelerated through his left eye socket.

Now laying on the ground, Ruth quickly pushed the dead corpse off the top of her body and immediately rushed inside the tent. The inside of the tent had the appearance of a demented painting. Splattered with streaks of blood and riddled with bullet holes, the inside of the tent was the grim reaper’s magnum opus. Filled with sorrow, Ruth crawled towards her sister’s now lifeless body and grabbed her pale face. Tears ran down her eyes and washed away small streaks of blood as she finally began to feel the bleak sobering reality of the American frontier.  

About the Author

An enthusiastic supporter of the creative arts, Cornelius Lyderson can usually be found at Filmscene or Prairie Lights bookstore wearing his favorite Atlanta Falcons sweatshirt.

Instagram: @highway_existentialist

Cover design made using Canva design tools.