Wild west
In a desert town, a lone ball of straw rolls down its main street.
There is no resident in sight in the town, almost as if it were a ghost town, and it wasn't by any means, it was one of the best-known towns in the area, but that day it seemed like a ghost town.
People were inside their houses, the prisoners were in their cells without much desire to go out, but even so a large number of voices, singing and drinking could be heard.
It came from the large 2-story hall of the town, inside the hall there was a large band of outlaws.
On the stairs there were several men hanging, some without eyes, there were also those with their throats wide open, others with their tongues hanging out from a painful death by suffocation.
Finally, above the bar in the lounge there was a hang sherrif, a very fat one, by the way.
The members of the gang were big, seasoned men, each one of them very strong on their own, and the sheriff watched them dancing with prostitutes and drinking liquor hanging and unable to do anything, they looked at them with a face of resentment.
It was the town of Oldwood, the town had been taken by force by a gang of outlaws called the "Scarlet Hand".
This was one of the largest gangs in the state and was managed by Colt Bennett, they had great power and entire towns paid tribute to him so that they would stay away from them.
And there he was, in the center of everyone, without drinking, and silently, looking at the sheriff.
His attire was a white shirt and a black jacket, he had a shaved beard, black as night along with brown eyes, his pants had large black stripes and smaller lead-colored ones.
While Colt Bennett was looking at the Sheriff hanging on top of the canteen as if he were a trophy, a young man approached from the left side of him.
He was a messenger, a messenger from Sindune where recently the gang of the Bennett brothers, his cousins, had robbed a bank and made a lot of money.
The message even approached somewhat fearfully, he was young and did not yet have a beard and whispered something in Colt's ear.
When the messenger left and Colt finished digesting what they told him, he got off the railing of the room and approached Alguacil.
"Do you see well from there, old man?" Colt wonders, he had a deep and intimidating voice.
"Tell me, please tell me, if you can see how your men lie dead with their throats open and an expression of horror on their faces," said Colt, as he opened his palms and arms, turning his body and pointing to the men of the sherrif
"Yes, I do see it," the sheriff said, his voice tired and worn from the position in which he had spent the last 12 hours.
From the moment Colt began speaking to the sheriff, Colt's men fell silent and watched.
They hit the ass of the harlots so that they finally left the place towards the upper floor and the pianist, who was an old man with a funny mustache, had been stopped by a gun pointed at his head so that he would not continue playing.
Everyone looked at Colt and he continued talking.
"This is what happens, when stupid old men who think they're heroes like you mess with the Bennetts," Colt said, pointing his finger at the sheriff.
"Isn't that right guys?!" Colt exclaimed as he took a quick glance at his boys.
"Yes, of course!" said the Colt boys almost in unison.
" I DON'T HEARD THAT, I WANT THE SCREAMS BE MORE MORE LOUD" Colt shouted, not satisfied with his men's celebration.
"OF COURSE COLT" his men shouted this time as they slammed his gloved hand on the tables or his boots on the floor.
"Okay, now, Mr. Sheriff, let me put him down," Colt said and almost a moment later Colt shot the rope from which the sheriff was hanging and he fell to the ground.
The sheriff fell with a sickening sound to the floor and his upper half was left on top of the bar, still supported by his feet and he looked up, everywhere he looked there were Colt's men ready to kill him if he tried anything, although there was not much he could do without a weapon.
"Now please give the man something to eat," Colt said, changing his tone and the direction of the scene.
The men who surrounded the sherrif grabbed peanuts from a jar and threw them on the floor.
Almost a second later the fat sheriff was on the floor picking up the dirty peanuts and stuffing them into his mouth.
"HA HA HA, JUST LIKE A PIG" Colt's men laughed almost all together and Colt himself laughed a little at that.
"Please sheriff, don't humiliate yourself anymore," Colt said between laughs and then pointed to two men who were surrounding the sheriff.
"You two, get the poor man on his feet," Colt said, laughing at the sheriff.
The two men stopped the bailiff and put her on the bar.
"You know, Sheriff, I was just thinking about giving him a drink, but I already lost the urge to see someone so pathetic!" Colt said in a mocking tone and pointed again to all the men with his palms and open arms.
"Guys! Have fun with this hungry sheriff" Colt said before closing his arms behind his back and leaving the room.
The men almost immediately began to hit the sheriff, the first one who hit him threw him into another member of the gang one due to the blow and so they were one by one hitting him.
Meanwhile, outside the saloon, Colt leaned on a railing and looked towards the center of town.
A few minutes passed before a man came out of the room and said to the Colt.
"Colt, the old man is already dying," the man told him and Colt, who had been looking at the center, the town and the houses with his sharp brown eyes, turned around and went back inside.
The bailiff was lying in the middle of the room.
His mouth gurgled with blood, he coughed a little to keep from choking, and Colt approached him.
He pulled out a small double barrel pistol and crouched over the sheriff's body.
"You are a short, fat, stupid, brainless man who didn't think about what was going to happen if he tried to imprison us, this is what you get for your service" Colt finished by putting his small shotgun in the sheriff's mouth and pressed the button. trigger.
The sheriff's head exploded from his mouth upwards, there was nothing left but a large space and his brains scattered meters away.
The sheriff's body spasmed a few more times trying to cling to life but it soon stopped.
The men looked at Colt still not continuing their celebration of him, almost waiting for him to say something.
Colt stopped, the blood had also reached his face, and he opened his arms again.
"Well guys, the sheriff is dead, but the good news doesn't end there, I have just been informed that my cousins carried out a big robbery in a town, it is far from here, but we will have to pay him a visit to claim some of that money " Colt said, as he looked at his men.
"For now, they just keep living high and fuck more prostitutes!" Colt said ending his speech.
The men almost immediately grabbed their mugs of beer and began to sing and drink, the man pointing at the pianist told him to continue and so the music returned.
The whores came down from the second floor somewhat horrified by what they saw, but they had to continue dancing with Colt's men, and the latter one again leaned against a different wall.
---
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Rose began to open her eyes, still confused, how many times she had been through this in the week, the more she was tied up.
Rose looked around her, she was tied to the passage of a small tent, she smelled of smoke and meat, a lot of meat being burned...
Claude entered the tent at that moment opening the folds.
"I have good news, or at least for me, your time as a hostage is finally over" Claude said as he approached her and untied the ropes.
"No..." Rose knew what this meant, most likely her father...
"But what happened here?" Rose wonders confused, one moment she was in a cave and now she was in a tent, with a pain in her head and tied up.
"Do you remember the band that guy was talking about? I finished them off" Claude said, surprising Rose greatly.
"You, take down an entire gang, how?" asks a stunned Rose.
"Well, the horses helped me a little along with the fire, but it's a done deal" Claude replied and finished untying Rose.
Rose gets up and Claude stands behind her.
"I don't believe you," says the incredulous Rose.
"Go and see it with your own eyes then" Claude says, encourages her to leave the store.
When Rose Leaves the store she finds a landscape straight out of a painting in the middle of a war.
The grass was black and burned along with many more tents, there were quite a few of them and apart from what caught Rose's attention the most: a pile of bodies, no, bones, that's where that heavy smell of meat in the air came from.
Rose's face was one of horror and astonishment, and Claude encouraged her to advance towards the horse so they could get on.
Rose gets on the horse and Claude starts to make the horse walking.
When they were clear of the camp where smoke was still rising, Rose began to speak.
"What's going to happen to me?" Rose asks.
"It's not my business, the only thing they asked me is to take you" Claude responded stoically as he handled the horse.
They passed the beautiful landscape of the valley surrounded by mountains and Rose continued asking questions.
"So, my father is dead," Rose said, there was no sadness, no joy in her tone.
"I think, I also think that you don't seem very sad about it," said Claude.
"No, I knew how it was going to end, it was inevitable because of him dirty business" Rose said looking at the landscape, she didn't know what was going to happen to her now, but she knew that she would possibly never see that kind landscape again.
"Well, how did you know that you already had to hand me over?" Rose asked, she had that doubt deep down.
"Early this morning I went to Sindune to get news" replied Claude Cortante
"I guess once we get to Sindune we'll never see each other again" said Rose.
"Hey, hey, aren't you creating some weird syndrome or something or not?" Claude wonders with a raised eyebrow that Rose didn't see.
"Of course not, Claude, you are one of the worst men I have ever met in my life," Rose said without hesitation.
"Should I feel honored or proud?" Claude responded to criticism of his way of life.
Rose did not respond and they both began to see how Sindune began to appear in the landscape ahead.
The sun was beginning to fall, Rose had not realized the sun until that moment and until now she had not realized the distortion of time due to her state of unconsciousness, Claude could have caused her great harm, but he had no idea of it.
Rose, who was holding Claude so as not to fall off the horse, began to feel something wet on her left side. Rose was going to ask, but it was already late, with the sun almost at its lowest, they entered Sindune.
They began to walk through the streets of the town at a slow gallop. People entered their houses and the women finished collecting their clothes while Claude approached the great hall of the town and dismounted together with Rose.
He heard the men laughing and dancing inside the room, probably drinking large jars of beer.
When Claude entered with Rose, she in front and he in the back with a revolver, the old man appeared.
The old man with a big mustache approached them both and Claude kept his revolver while he looked at them.
"Old friend, bring the beautiful lady!" The old man said, he was drunk and it was evident in her pink face from her drink. He took Rose by her arm and brought her closer to him.
"Have some fun with the boys!" the old man shouted and threw Rose towards some men who were looking at her lasciviously.
"Ah!" Rose screamed as she was thrown and the men started some sort of game with her.
Smacking her butt and touching her body as she was tossed from man to man.
Claude looked at all this, nothing new in his world, "it is what it is" he thought and followed the old man to receive payment from him.
"You've done a good job, and that means good money, boy," the old man said as he waved his hand, "good bills," smiling with his yellow teeth as he placed a sack of money on the round wooden table.
"We both know that the $500 that was promised to me is not there," Claude said as he looked at the old man with resentment.
"Well boy, we were recently lured by a small-time gang, there's nothing we can do" the old man excused himself.
Rose still being groped in the background by those men.
"And I say I want my damn money now!!," Claude said as he slammed the table in front of the man.
"Calm down boy" the old man said while pointing with his eyes at 2 men next to him with weapons about to be drawn.
Claude looked at his boots with resignation, took the money and turned around without looking at Rose even one last time.
Claude left the room angrily, opening the doors with rage and disgust for being rude like that.
When claude got to his horse, he put his money in the horse's saddle and looked towards a window of the premises, that window looked towards the stairs and Claude could see the old man dragging her while he held one of her breasts.
Rose tried to resist and then Claude looked at his horse's load again, there was his rifle.
"It is what it is," Claude thought.
---
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-
Claude opened the living room door with a kick, time seemed to freeze as he pointed his rifle at the 2 men from before.
The first man he killed that night was shot between the eyebrows, his head falling back and his hand on the revolver.
The second one he killed was shot in the throat and ended up choking on his own blood while looking for his revolver.
The faster men tried to draw their weapons in a futile attempt to confront Claude, but it was too late,
The third man he killed was a shot that destroyed his heart as it passed through him and he fell to the floor.
The fourth man he killed shot him in the head again and his last action while he was alive was to shoot the floor beneath him.
They fell like flies, Claude killed at least 14 men at the same moment he opened the door to the living room, Claude's speed in doing so was so great that his hand hurt after activating the repeater mechanism so many times.
"YOU'RE THE STUPIDEST KID I EVER KNOW" a man yelled as he shot Claude.
Claude had hidden behind a table and the bullets were almost reaching his body.
Claude reloaded his Winchester 1866 rifle and basically threw himself into another cover while he shot more men.
Finally, when there was no one left on the lower floor, those upstairs began to come out still in their pajamas and others with only their gun and underwear.
Claude shot them too.
While Claude was covered, the whores began to come down from their rooms, in lace underwear and screaming, when they all came out, the shooting resumed again.
Only he didn't count on his prized rifle start to being jammed in the middle of the action.
Quickly pulled out his revolver. The men above fired at Claude, but none of them really hit because some of them were still confused by what was happening.
When he shot the last man, at least 3 bullets had already hit his body.
And of course, nothing got better, the last man to whom Claude shoot was carried a oil lantern was just an old man with a long, bushy beard who was probably already at his nap time.
The oil lantern fell to the floor below and quickly set fire to an area of the living room.
"It couldn't be any other way," Claude thought.
Claude pulled out his revolver and ran up the stairs.
"YOU'RE NOT A RIVAL, BOY" shouted the old man from before, the damn old man who scammed him and of course wanted to take Rose as his new personal prostitute or something like that.
"SO YOU THINK THAT?!" Claude shouted back as he took cover on the wall of a room.
Claude stuck his head out and the old gunshot, impulsively and very drunk, discharged his revolver at that little peek of his head and Claude came out of his cover.
Down so fast towards the old man that he didn't see it coming, although of course, the alcohol also affected him.
Claude fired his revolver into the man's forehead and blew his brains all over the hallway, the old man's body fell to the floor and Claude looked at him.
"No one breaks their word with me," Claude said to the old man's inert corpse.
After this, the floor where Claude was standing is start to destroyed and forms a hole through which Claude almost falls into the flames that consumed the room.
Claude luckily managed to grab onto a piece of wood, but he couldn't climb up alone, he needed help.
That's when Rose came out, her only hope, but how could she save him after what he did to her? – Claude asked in his mind.
"I know that-" Claude said as he looked towards the flames that almost ate his boots.
When Claude looked back up, he was already being helped up by Rose.
After a few moments, Rose managed to help Claude.
"Why...?" Claude asks.
"This is not the time for stupid questions, Claude, we have to get out of here," Rose said.
Claude looked into Rose's eyes and then towards a window at the end of the hallway.
"Come," Claude said, grabbing Rose's arm and they both went directly to the window at the end of the hallway.
"Do you trust me?" Claude asked.
"No," Rose replied dryly.
"Very good" Claude responded and accelerated towards the window, jumping out of it towards the outside of the place before it was completely consumed.
Claude and Rose watched as the fire began to rise to the ceiling, completely setting the room on fire.
Rose had fallen on top of the punished Claude who coughed when she felt the weight on her abdomen.
Now they were both outside the building before as it began to crumble from the fire.