by Casey Lane
The crowd were about to laugh when Blade shushed them all with a wave of a hand, holding his favorite knife.
"What's wrong?" Hate asked.
"I am actually smelling a Quadling."
"Here in the Booty?" Hate drew out his gun.
"No, outside," Blade faced the entrance's double door. "Something Quadling this way comes."
Chapter 7
Door stepped over the hordes of dead corpses leading to the Booty's entrance. Wick’s men loved to leave their dead behind to set an example. A little closer to the bar, she saw a wanted dead or alive sign. A pencil drawn image of an old man with his granddaughter. The price underneath was seventy stars for bringing them in dead.
Irony couldn’t describe the sign. In a world where the real outlaws dictated who the outlaws were, Wick’s men wreaked havoc wherever they went.
Door took a deep breath and tucked her rifle back in. Another breath, and she pulled the coffin along.
She didn't kick the door open to the bar. She smoothly stepped inside. The eminent silence inside should have given her goosebumps, but she only blinked, once.
The place stunk of men's odor and bad breath. She refrained from staring anyone in the eyes and headed straight for the bar. All eyes on her.
Pulling a stool in, she sat in the middle between two cowboys. She could see them eyeing her from the corner of her eyes. She played aloof. Most men hardly recognized a girl in boots the first time they saw her. In the western world of OZ, women were second-class , background music, if not only sex toys and mothers to raise children.
A gunslinger girl was barely a myth.
"A bottle of whiskey, please." she said to the bartender.
An accidental piano note was heard from the back. The piano player, an old man with a lush white mustache, had been so nervous he accidentally pushed the keys. It was a low note at the left end of the keyboard, producing an eerie and ominous sound. A prelude to disaster.
"We serve no bottles." said the bartender.
Door said nothing, her eyes still concealed behind the bent rim of her brown hat, her face mostly covered in soot.
"I'm not used to slow service," she said. Her voice should have exposed her gender but it didn't. Door's voice was firm, borderline threatening, such that in a world ruled by men, it was hard to imagine her being a girl.
"What did you just say?" the bartender groaned.
Door pulled her revolver out and placed it on the bar's edge. "If you don't serve me before the count of one, I'll blow your skull up and make your friends drink your blood in your funeral."
The piano player in the back accidentally hit a few notes again. A few other Cowboys fidgeted in place, most of them reaching for their holsters.
Hate and Blade watched with intent from the back, licking their lips, wishing for mayhem or a massacre.
"The last person who threatened me in my bar was Billy the Kid," said the bartender, both hands resting on the edge, eyes intent with anger. "And he counted to three, not one."
"I have no time to waste counting to three," Door turned around slowly, relaxing her elbows on the bar's edge and facing the crowd. Her sword and other weapons showed from the sides of her poncho. "I'll be counting to one any moment now. Better serve me that bottle. The piano player's drinks are on me."
The piano player, who was short and scrawny with glasses and no gun in his holster, took off his hat and bowed with gratitude and fear at the same time.
Door saw Blade nod at the bartender behind her, implying he should serve her. A moment later, she reached for the bottle and gulped. Now that was real whiskey, she thought and burped aloud.
"That'll cost you three stars." said the bartender.
Since the day stars had fallen from the sky, Cowboys used to find them buried in the sands all over Oz. Most stars were found in wells in California for no particular reason. And though some philosophers and astronomers claimed the stars in the skies had been distant planets, no one questioned why they dropped down like coins from the sky. No one even remembered when the currency of the land had become stars instead of gold – though the poor still paid in coins.
Only a few people in Oz really remembered – or actually knew – what this place was meant to be.
"I won't be paying for the bottle," Door said and gulped some more.
Now a few more guns were drawn out.
"In fact, you’ll be paying me," Door said, still concealing her eyes behind the hat.
"Why the heck do you think we'll do that?" Blade stepped up, licking a knife with his tongue.
"I'm a bounty hunter and I have someone you've been looking for. That’s why you will pay me."
"We don't need no bounty hunters." Blade said, towering over a couple of cowboys standing before him. "We catch slaves on our own terms."
Door said nothing. Blade had just implied that all outlaws were slaves, which was Oz’s most unforgiven lie. The poor slaves were blamed for everything, their color, holding back the progress of the great American Oz, and wrongfully pronounced outlaws.
"Yeah, we can handle our stuff," said Hate. "I've just carved my name on a Quadling today. You must have seen her on your way here."
"I did," Door put the bottle back and took a step forward, away from her gun. "But I'm not talking about that Quadling. I'm talking about a little girl whose grandpa helped her escape and now hides somewhere in the Shifting Sands. Her picture is hung on the pole outside the bar."
The bartender shook his head. "Wait a minute. The cowboy is right." he then pulled out an announcement on a paper with the young girl's face on it. "Wanted dead or Alive. The little girl and her grandpa, for seventy stars – dead, of course."
"Seventy stars?" the people in the bar murmured. A man with seventy stars could afford a ten days travel on the best of horses to Las Vegas, a city where an Oz festival took place all year, even in these harsh times. But Vegas was controlled by the Wick, and she only let in the rich. None of the people in this bar had seen the city – if it really existed. Point was, seventy stars was a fortune.
"That's a heck of a lotta money." Hate said, spitting on the floor. "We won't pay a stranger seventy stars for no Quadling."
"Then I'm done here," Door tipped her hat and turned sideways, pulling her coffin along on her way out. Her heavy red boots shook the wooden floor, and the two stars on them clinked. "Keep the revolver as payment for the bottle."
"Wait!" Blade said. Door stopped without turning to face him. "You keepin’ the girl and her granpa in them coffin?”
"Them are." Door said, not having the slightest interest in educating Blade. Wick’s men had hardly learned proper English. Them or that didn’t mean squat in this forsaken land.
"We'll pay you fifty." Blade said.
"Sixty." Door said.
"Fifty two."
"Fifty seven.”
“Fifty five, and that’s the best me can do."
"I'll make you an offer." Door said.
"Make me a good one, cowboy." Blade said. “Or I’ll slice off your tongue for misbehaving.”
"I’ll take forty stars if you answer a couple of questions."
"What kind of questions?"
"I'm looking for a few people, among other things."
"Cowboys?"
"Not really. One of them is called Scarecrow."
Another odd note from the piano player. It sounded more like an ‘oh, oh, here comes trouble.’
"What makes you think we know where Scarecrow is?" the bartender said.
"It never hurts to ask." Door said.
"We don't know," the bartender said. "Neither do we know nothin' bout them Lion or Tin," he seemed irritable. "Now take your forty stars and hand over the girl and her grandpa, and the hit the road."
"One last question," Door ignored the bartender and addressed the crowd. "How about the Emerald City. How do I get there?"
Hate sniffed with laughter. Others followed, and suddenly the Booty shook to their sound of mockery.
&nb
sp; "There is no such place as the Emerald City," Blade said. "Now like the bartender said. Show us the bodies, get your money and hit the road, kid."
Door fidgeted slightly. She liked no one calling her ‘kid.’ But she swallowed her anger and said to the bartender, "K. Gimme my money."
The bartender pulled out a small bag and emptied forty stars on the table. None of them were shiny, which meant they’d been collected off the surface of sand after the sun had already burned them out. Precious stars were usually collected from the bottoms of wells, or the deepest digs. Those on the table weren’t worth forty. Twenty tops. But Door wasn't going to make a fuss about it.
"A fistful of stars for the kid," the Bartender smirked, trying to provoke her. "Though they're much more than a fistful, really."
Door gathered the money into the bag, slung it shut, then tucked it under her poncho.
"Show us the coffin." Hate said. "I can't wait to carve my name on their corpses."
"One last question," Door dismissed him, weighing the bag of stars on her palm. They sounded like a rattlesnake inside. "Who here can lead me to Wick?"
In an instant, all guns were drawn out now, pointed with intent at Door. Two outlaws ran to the door to block her way out. This was war.
"Who are you?" Roared Blade. "And how dare you ask about Wick?"
"I'd say we take the cowboy's money and leave him to die out there in the Shifting Sands,” Hate spat on the floor. “Wick would like that."
Door didn't flinch. She'd had guns pointed at her for most of her life. She’d thought of them as annoying flies buzzing around. "You still haven't answered me. How do I find Wick?"
"How dare you?" Blade said, approaching her.
But then he stopped a short distance away. Never had he seen someone so collected and unafraid of him like the cowboy in front of him. It unsettled him for a moment and messed with his perception of reality.
“I have a better idea,” Hate snickered. "I'd say we kill the kid right here and split the stars among us."
"I'd say stop calling me kid." Door said and raised her head, showing her green eyes.
"You're a goddamn Quadling?" Blade twitched with anger.
Then Door's braids fell onto her shoulders from under the hat.
"And a goddman whore!" Hate twitched, appalled at the sight of a slave girl defying all of the outlaws inside the bar. The twitch escalated to a slow evil smirk. "I'd say we do to her what we did to the girl we hanged and have twice the fun in one day."
Chapter 8
All the outlaws in the Booty smiled, pulled at their dirty mustaches, and gripped the front of their belts with pride. Their smiles showed their yellow teeth and hungry eyes.
"I'd say this is the last day of your lives," Door said with that unflinching tone. She pulled out her bag of stars and whistled at the piano player. "Hey you, catch," she hurled the bag toward him over the keyboard. "Forty stars. All yours. If you play a song I love while I beat these scumbags.”
Puzzled, the piano player asked which song.
“Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down.”
The piano player’s eyes widened. It was this moment when he realized there was something special about this girl. That song, performed by a Johnny Cash, had been a rare one. One: because no such singer existed in Oz. Two: it was said to have crossed over from another world in one of those tornadoes – like those Machines.
The piano player loved this song and could play it flawlessly, though this time he’d play it a little faster to match the tension in the Booty. He knuckled his fingers and blew out a ‘yeahah!’ then began playing.
In a flash, two men were down on the floor, shot with Door's rifle. Her speed was stunning. They never saw her coming.
She pulled out her poncho with one hand and flipped it like a humongous pie in Blade's face while she shot another two men with the other hand. As if dancing, she rotated in place and to the side so that Blade had been totally wrapped and buried inside the poncho. And just like that, she had him as her shield against bullets.
Blade was a huge man, and her trick shouldn’t have worked, as he should have been able to free himself from her grip. But Door’s trick worked when one of Blade’s stupid men shot him accidentally in the leg, trying to shoot at her. Door ducked a little as Blade sunk to one knee, but still managed to use him as shield.
"Don't shoot you bastards," the tall giant muffled from under the poncho, trying to free himself. But Door had already cuffed his wounded leg to the good one and put away the key. She loved to travel with a pair of handcuffs, or two.
With a stretch of her free arm, she shot the bartender behind her, right in the skull as she'd promised him earlier. Then a couple of drunk losers at the bar tumbled down to her two consecutive shots. Now she had the entire bar as her shelter at her back and Blade's tall frame in front of her.
Every other cowboy in the bar was exposed all of a sudden.
The outlaws’ reluctance permitted her a few other kills as the notes of the piano’s tune escalated nearby. The piano player as nervous as ever.
"Fuck it." Hate shot at her. "I don't care if we kill Blade. This bitch has to die.”
Door shot at his hand. Hate dropped the gun with a scream. But now more of his men, hiding behind flipped tables, shot back.
Blade screamed a couple of times, blood splattering out on the floor. The stupid men shot him in the chest.
Soon when he died, he'd be a heavy burden and she'd have to jump back and take shelter behind the bar’s counter. She didn't waste time and kicked Blade to the floor and ducked behind him, using him as turned-over table.
A bullet roared right next to her ear, leaving her deaf for a few seconds. She used the time and adjusted her hat. Throwing away her empty rifle, she pulled out the two revolvers and stood up shooting with both hands, risking her exposed body but just for a brief moment.
With her boots, she rolled Blade's corpse on the floor to pull back her poncho and ran toward the wine barrel at the side. She hid behind it, as wine oozed out of it through the holes bullets had already pierced. She took a deep breath, scanned the men’s locations with her eyes and stood up again. In her time, she’d acquired this weird memory where she could locate the exact position of everyone in a room and shoot at them – unless they moved between the time she’d memorized the location and when she eventually shot them.
And so she did.
Eleven men down in seconds. Only one escaped out the window.
She threw her empty guns high in the air for distraction, and then pulled out her sword. It was time for the hardest part. From a distance she threw her sword like a spear, right into one of the men’s heart. Then she fist-punched and butt-kicked her way toward it to get it back. She pulled it out of the man’s chest, and from where she stood threw it at another one of her enemies. But this time she had an extra weapon: the man’s gun.
She shot again and butt-kicked her way to collect her sword once more, collecting another gun to help her shoot. A bullet scratched her arm, but she didn’t want to think about it. As long she wasn’t hit in the chest. Earlier, she’d carved a piece of metal from the Machine in the desert and bent it to fit around her chest, then worn it underneath her clothes. She should be immune against a couple of chest bullets, but had no idea how long her invention would last.
With the bullets raining down from all directions, she pulled a lighter man on her back and used him as shield for her back, while she counted on the metal in her chest for the front.
Sword and gun and every which way to kill.
Then again and again.
Finally, taking a quick opportunity to catch her breath, she realized there were only two men left alive.
She’d killed all the outlaws, except Hate and one other.
She threw her sword at the other man but this time he ducked and she lost her sword. The outlaw aimed his gun at her while she had her back to the bar's edge.
Hate smirked from behind the cowboy, talking to Door. "Got
cha!”
"You're not going to shoot me, are ya?" Door said.
"Tell me one reason why I wouldn't?" Hate said.
"You haven't had your fun with me yet," Door offered. "Like the girl you hanged."
Hate's eyes lit up. He patted the other cowboy and said, "She's right. Don't shoot her yet."
"So who's first?" Door teased.
"She's got some attitude," Hate said. "You go first. I'll back you up with my gun." He told his friend.
The outlaw approached Door, flashing his yellow teeth and a wicked grin at her.
"Are you sure you want to go first?" Door bit her lower lip.
The man drooled.
"As you wish," she reached for the revolver she'd left earlier on the table and pulled the trigger, shooting the man dead in the crotch. She’d love to shoot him several times, but she wasn’t one to waste more than a bullet.
The other bullet was for someone else.
Before Hate could even comprehend what was going on, she shot his other hand and he dropped the gun.
Then she shot one knee and got him on the floor.
"It's funny," Door puffed the smoke out of her gun. "You leave a gun on the bar. Come back after a bloodbath, and it's still there."
"You planned this," Hate ached on his knees. "You knew you'd use it later."
Door reached for the coffin and pulled it closer to him. "You want to know what else I’ve planned?"
Hate flinched, tried to crawl away from her but failed due to the pain in his knees.
Door pulled him by his hair at an angle that hurt his Adam’s apple. "I’ve planned something for you, Hate. It’s about the girl in the coffin."
"What about her?" Hate said, suddenly hearing someone moaning inside the coffin. “Who’s that inside?”
"Guess.” Door said.
“What’s in the goddamn coffin!” Hate panicked.
“If you don’t guess before I count to one, I’ll send you straight to hell,” Door said. “Booked a nice stove where you can hang upside-down like an inverted cross in there.”
