Rusty started regaining consciousness, his vision was blurry and his head throbbing with a pain so immense he thought it would explode any second. The sun had set and the dazzling moonlight lit up the desert ground around him. He could hear people talking nearby, shouting and laughing, but couldn't catch a word they were saying. When his vision started clearing up he could see a roaring, bright fire not too far away, and the people who he'd heard were all gathered around it with their cups overflowing with foam. Rusty wiggled side to side, but the ropes held tight. He was bound outside a small tent, twenty feet from the fire. Even further back from the fire stood a big tent with a faint glow leaking out from the opening.
"That's gotta be where Pat and that Scarred bastard are"
He wanted to start thinking about how to get out of there, but the incredible pain from his head made it almost impossible. None of the people by the fire had noticed him yet, they were all too focused on each other, and too drunk to see what's in front of them. They started singing an unfamiliar tune along to the banjo:
Oh, there was a man, out in the sand,
Chasin' rabbits, drinkin' habits.
Oh, the man, the lonely man,
Chasin' blood he came to regret.
Oh, the man, the angry man,
Oh, the man, the broken man,
Now he's fallen to despair,
Left to fade, with no one there.
Suddenly, Rusty heard a voice behind him.
"Follow me if you want to live," the voice said.
It was muffled by his scarf, so Rusty couldn't recognize the voice at all. It seemed sketchy, but what other choice did he really have? He was probably left here to be killed or questioned anyway. The man cut up his ropes and let him loose.
"On my count, you roll over to the side and hide behind this tent, I have my horse ready further down, tonight we escape this shithole," the man said.
On a count of three, Rusty rolled back just as the man had told him to.
"Listen to me Rusty, before long, they're gonna notice that you're gone, we have to do this quickly, and distract the ones on guard to create an opportunity for us."
"How does he know my name?"
Rusty was completely overwhelmed by all this, and so many questions were running through his head, but he could only wait for answers.
"Just who are you, exactly," Rusty asked as he clenched his fists.
He ripped off his scarf. The man before him turned out to be Pat. Rusty didn't know what to do or think, he was completely startled and stood like a statue before him. Was this just a funny trick The Riders had planned?
"You fucker, you betrayed me, why are you trying to help me?" Rusty's breath came in sharp bursts, his chest heaving.
"Listen, I can explain," Pat said with an almost soothing calmness that just made Rusty even angrier.
Pat put his hand on Rusty's shoulder and looked into his eyes.
"Don't you fucking touch me," Rusty slapped Pat's hand away. His voice cracked; the hurt louder than the anger.
"You know, I really thought we had something, for once in my miserable fucking life I thought I'd found someone I can trust, you just had to screw it up."
"You think I had a choice? You want me to draw my gun with a dozen rifles pointed at us? They still thought I was on their side. I played along. That's the only reason you're still breathing." His voice finally rose, a crack of frustration breaking through."I saved you, Rusty. I saved us! Show some god damn gratitude."
Pat was right. If he was telling the truth, Pat was his sole reason for being alive right now.
"You're right, Pat, that's my fault, I should've seen that coming," Rusty replied wistfully.
Rusty clenched his teeth together and squinted his eyes while taking a look down, as to stop the tears from pouring out from behind his eyelids.
"Why am I like this, get yourself together."
The tension hanging in the air was unbearable for Rusty, he looked up at Pat again with a determined look on his face, drew together his eyebrows and said:
"Let's do this, partner,"
Pat dropped down a little ledge behind them, and Rusty quickly followed. There were a few guards around the area, but they didn't seem too hard to bypass. There were closed tents spread all over the campsite. It looked like a temporary set up, somewhere to spend a few nights before moving on. They snuck their way around the tents as quietly as they possibly could.
"There's my horse, we just gotta get around the rock, you see it?" Pat asked.
Pat's new horse was standing barely a hundred yards away from them, and they had almost passed all the tents and snuck around the guards carefully, without alerting anyone. They kept walking toward the horse, they were so close to being in the clear when suddenly they heard a voice behind them. Out from one of the tents came a little sleepy girl, maybe around five years old, skinny with long brown hair.
"Papa, mira," the little girl said as she pointed toward them, before looking back into her tent.
A man muttered something from inside the tent and then stumbled out of the tent irritated.
"Que, mi hija?" the Mexican-looking man said, he had not yet seen Rusty and Pat and had his tired eyes set on his daughter.
The man was tall with a muscular build, and a big brown mustache. The next second his eyes wandered to where the little girl was pointing. His eyes met Rusty's, and for a moment it seemed as the world had stopped spinning. The silence was deafening. Suddenly, the man's hand rushed down to his holster as his face turned grim and his eyes filled up with fear. No words needed to be exchanged, the man understood precisely what was going on and drew his revolver sluggishly.
Rusty's ears were ringing, time was moving slower than ever, and the man's eyes went empty as his gun landed on the ground with a thud. He fell backward from the incredible force of the bullet that had just pierced his forehead. In that same instant Pat grabbed his arm and started running backward toward the horse as his revolver spewed out smoke.
"Move god damn it!" Pat shouted.
But all Rusty could do was stand there, frozen, flabbergasted and had not yet fully processed what had just happened. The little girl fell to her knees over her dad's lifeless body and started and crying hysterically.
"Papa! Papa! Wake up!" the little girl yelled in desperation.
"Rusty, we have to go!" Pat yelled at him, this time more angrily and pulling Rusty with him.
His eyes met the little girl's dripping eyes, full of agony, one last time before tripping backward while being pulled away by Pat, that girl's life had just been ruined in the same way as his own. Rusty could not even begin to imagine how Pat could do such a heartless thing. But still... he could have stopped Pat, he just stood there and watched, he did nothing. He couldn't even move or speak.
"Useless Coward."
Rusty Anderson had never felt so useless.