Darndest rifle ever aimed, a pink Whitworth. My great grandfather would balk. The man’s future generations were rewarded freedom from slavery because of his way with a musket during the Revolutionary War. He impressed the general so much that my father and I had our educations paid for before birth. Here, his descendent hung a girl gun over the rails of a balcony, next to a girl wielding the same effeminacy.

  The nearer up the road the tribe’s chanting and rattling got, the higher nerves escalated up my gullet.

  I gawked at a view becoming clearer. They bore manes of wolf fur but moved upright like humans, wore feather boas and loin cloths, too. I was a long way from my upbringing in Washington DC and clutched the cool metal, no matter the color of it.

  “Sakes alive. They aint human; they’re unworldly monsters,” Diamond said.

  “Just freaks of nature, new to our perception.” Orange and black fur like Dunbar claimed; sure enough, they matched the candlelight horizon.

  A frown came over Diamond’s face. She gasped. “Dylan.”

  Remembering him to be her courter, I followed the direction her eyes went. Down on the road, a lone US soldier in a cowboy hat sat on a mustang, ready to fight these monsters.

  “Don’t worry, miss. That cowboy tamed one wild breed of horse. If he isn’t fit to settle them savages down, none of us are.”

  Sheriff Chip came a-hustling to Dylan’s side; drew his six-gun shooter.

  As the night seized the horizon, some Ana Tribesmen on the front lines hoisted up a rocking chair with Calamity Dyer sitting upon it. A black see-through veil, attached to a full-blown witch hat, draped over her face. Behind it, she smirked in her wicked glory.

  Appearing to break out of what seemed to be a forever still image, the Anas holding her busted between Chip and Dylan. All the sheriff and soldier could do was smoke up Promised Road with missed gunshots. Under the powder of war, the beasts transported Calamity to the backstreet behind the General Store.

  The scent of smolder rose to where we stood.

  “They got away quicker than I could think to shoot,” I said.

  “One thoing about a sniper shot, it’s gotta be dead on, Doctor,” Diamond admonished. “Our advantage is the element of surprise.”

  When the creature at the forefront of the tribe turned to his heard, my opportunity came. I had to focus. Against their gnarling and howling, I had their bad hoss in the crosshair. It was then or never.

  My hands trembled. The past flooded my mind and nervous system, as it always did when I needed to perform. My long-lost love’s voice lingered in my fight or flight instincts.

  ***

  “Stop shaking.” My dear Bet, all brown eyes and belly bump, said in a reverie. The guns crackling turned to a hearth rumbling in a congressman’s house. Bet threw another log in, not making eye contact. “Yo free to run awf, Apollo,” Bet whispered. “Don’t shackle yo dreams to no slave girl. Stop shaking. My mistress over there nosy. Gonna suspect yo the father.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  ***

  “Stop shaking,” Diamond said. “If you thoink it’s the right shot, take it.”

  I fired, and…

  A trigger pulled. A bullet in the air.

  A gulp of whiskey from a gutless young Doctor fleeing his responsibility in the back of some Mormons’ stagecoach. Leafless trees scattered out on the frontier, bumpy roads, view of cattle rears, stink of manure.

  The gunshot missed the beast.

  Diamond buried her own face in shame for me. “Oh, that was sorry.”

  Embarrassment took away speech and all apologies. As I cried without words coming through, a blow from behind bent my back in half. I screamed against the hard marble, unable to muster a single crawl forward.

  Diamond had gone gosslin’ somewhere, and the beast leader I tried to take down lorded triumphantly over me. When I made a slither toward my rifle, he stepped on the gun. After he seized the Whitworth, he glared down and barked out English words with fierceness appropriate to his animal appearance. “Who are you to challenge me, Chief Ana Ahote.”

  “Sorry, Diamond,” I hollered at his feet.

  He examined the gun for what felt like forever, then broke the pink metal in half before making an impossible leap all the way over the Restaurant towards where Calamity had gone.

  Diamond with her gun still intact rushed over. She gave me a rough hand for such a high-faluting gal. Action on the ground brought her to kneel and squeeze my head to her breast, a soft mountain above a harsh, smoky battle.

  With every blast that hazed up the sky, Dylan and Chip dropped another of the Ana Tribesmen.

  “Yes, boys. Yes. Get them. Shoot them dead.” Diamond’s heart pumped a gleeful song into my ear. Then, she paused. Cheer in her voice turned to angst, she said, “What’s happening?” I sunk down to the base of the balcony as she let me go in a rush for the rails.

  When I rose up in her backdrop, outskirts of two large twisters on the battleground hit us with a mighty, chilling gust. The strength drove us rearward until the cyclones settled.

  Down on the ground, the remaining tribesmen had morphed into two four legged creatures as large as nearby buildings. Their growth amplified black human lips under wolf snouts. The sound of the growling must have reached the countryside.

  One dodged a shot from the sheriff and rolled into the Inn…

  ***

  There’s no easy way to write this. Well, goddamn what I have to document next still hurts. What they did brings a bitter taste back to this day.

  That beast demolished the Inn. If not for duty, I’d put the pen down before recalling this fact. The building came down on the keeper, my dear friend Sandy, and all her residents.

  For a moment, I coveted Ana Ahote’s leaping ability. Because of the tragedy’s distance, I couldn’t be there for them.

  ***

  Inside the battle, both beasts breathed out a flame. One spread out to surround Chip; the other Dylan.

  Diamond uttered only above a whisper. “Oh no.”

  By then, any fight I’d muster up from inside was as broken as the rifle at my feet and as crushed as the poor souls in the Inn.

  Diamond stayed brave and situated herself at the rails of the balcony; pink sniper gun drawn. In one direction her suitor, the other her sheriff. Both men’s monster assailants under her aim, both men with feelings for her, both in need of her rescue. Without time to waste, she fired.

  The bullet landed between the eyes of the one hovering over Chip. The Ana Beast wailed a dozen voices, and its flames subsided, freeing the sheriff.

  Her bravery seemed to be contagious, because I dashed downstairs.

  As my feet slapped against the Pharmacy’s marble floors, Dick and Patsy peeked out their bedroom with mouths open. By the time they would speak, I was already on the first floor and out the door.

  As one remaining beast still battled Dylan and dodged every bullet from Diamond, I scurried to my mission. When I reached the fallen inn, I picked pieces of wood up and discarded them into piles.

  Sandy, the innkeeper, lay pale and expressionless. She had no pulse.

  “Thank you,” I said, lips quivering, tears in my eyes. “There’s so much prejudice in this world. A person like Dunbar can cuss you while you heal them and not think twice about it. But I always knew where I could rest, right here where you’d smile and give me a cup of coffee. Most of all you gave your loving spirit.” I brushed Sandy’s lifeless, freckled face.