Gold Dust Widow: The Story of an Outlaw's Revenge

Chapter 33: Jasper

My rage trickled to sadness and then surged again as I rode out towards Baxton.

My mind spun back as it had over the last month to the saloon and the gunfight. The sight of Clara with Rhett Mealy straddling her, holding her down, she was struggling, her breathing in gasps of pain. My blood had run cold at that moment, my actions purely instinctual.

I was going to shoot him. I would never let him hurt her any more.

Everything had moved slowly, him turning to see me, her eyes widening, meeting mine in a split second. And then lashing out to grab his pistol.

The bullet had echoed through the room, the wet sounds of his head exploding as his blood splattered against the walls, on the floor, and over her.

My body had moved towards her, my mind on a single focus, to hold her in my arms again. To pull her away from the blood and the pain. To take her away, to take her all the way to the end of the world.

I had barely felt the pain of the bullet. I had barely heard him speak; my actions were too focused on her.

My vision had gone black, my body halted, my breathing sputtered, and her face was all I could see. The horror in her expression, the terror, and her tears streaking down her face, cutting through the blood, the sound of her voice begging, saying my name.

Reaching for her, everything had gone dark.

I hadn't wanted to face the truth that my own brother had shot me in the back, that he'd almost killed me. And I didn't want to face the fact that she had killed him. And yet, the truth was obvious.

Sheriff Freddy had had the bodies of the outlaws buried outside Baxton, while the bodies of the locals had been cared for and buried in the church graveyard.

As I rode up to town it was late afternoon, I found myself continuing through the empty streets and straight out behind the burnt hotel.

The graves of the outlaws were barely marked, but I found my brother's. The initials I.A. were roughly scrapped into the wooden cross.

I sunk slowly to my knees in front of it. There was nothing of his life on his grave, nothing to show who he'd been. Nothing to show how much he'd been loved and hated.

I ran my fingers through the cold dirt covering his grave, as boys he had once told me that he'd protect me. He had told me that it was his job, as a big brother, to protect. I remembered I had believed him. I had believed him until the day he'd ridden off with the Mealy Gang and had left Ma and me to starve in the streets.

Despite the years of being estranged, I had never really hated him. I had always wanted to understand why. To help, if I could. It wasn't until I saw him grabbing Clara that I understood how far gone he really was. Far past redemption.

But I could never wish for his death.

"Did you mean to shoot me?" I found myself asking the dirt in my fingers. "Were you aiming for me?"

The swooping wind whistled through the plains.

Did Clara know? Did she see his intent? Did she kill him for it?

No matter if he had succeeded in killing me, I still didn't wish for his death.

I leaned back against his grave, staring at the eagles that flew above, soaring on the cold wind.

No matter how much I wished I could go back to that day when Ian and I stepped into the saloon and first met Rhett Mealy; no matter how much I wished that he'd never left us, and he'd never ridden south to Texas; the past could never change. And he could never be brought back.