The Shoes Of Cruelty

 "They say blood is thicker than water, but my pa always told me you already have all the blood you need in your body, and that blood will fight over water when the rivers run red from blood your blood took. Then nobody wins."Pull that trigger and you'll find yourself in deep waters. He told me.

 So here I stand on the side of retribution sometimes wondering how im supposed to do right when living is so hard …but this man has nothing that his life is worth. Is taking his life when the only thing I reap is my morbid itch, the right thing? That would truly be evil, wouldn't it.

"This man murdered my pa," I think as tears well up on my face. It's been years since then. Now he's a withered man. Do the last days on Earth hold more value than the first or the ones in between? They don't. I feel the revolver cock in my hand as I fire.

But the lives I took to kill him - did they outweigh the life of my pa? They did to me. I sure as hell felt it.

As I leave the homestead, the devil whispers to me through the wind. My heart hollows with the echoes of the folk I killed.

Days went by. I was crossing the plains on horseback when I passed out from dehydration. 

I woke up in a pile of bones, I eyed my surroundings to find a Wendigo boring holes into me with its eyes, the deepest circles of hell in them. 

 I quickly reach for my repeater on my back, but it pounces on me. One scratch and I will get infected and be bedridden, maybe even die.

I jam the shaft of the repeater in its mouth, holding it there as I pull out my Bowie knife. I stab and stab and stab and stab as the saliva of the Wendigo hits my face. Then there I lie in shock. I lie there for a bit before I wriggle out from under the dead thing.

I look down, and there is a gash in my belly.

I am bleeding, I realize, as I faint once again.

I wake up in a tent, bandages wrapped around my stomach, the stinging pain of herbs hitting me as my eyes focus and the ringing in my ears fades. I begin to hear the giggles of children and their scolding parents. One of the children, a young girl, realizes I'm awake and runs out the door.

…Indians, I say to myself so I sit there in silence before a man walks in "This woman killed the wendigo." The child states 

The man nods he grabs me by the chin and stares into my eyes searching for something 

"Demon" he states callously with a hint of pity. 

 he releases my chin as I look at him confused. he pulled my shirt up. and 

 I reflexively reach for the knife to find, nothing. he shows me my wound and its, almost completely healed?

The man gives the child an order in his native tongue, and the child runs out the tent; the man, promptly, follows.

And so, I… slept; my fever boiling me like the irish boil potatoes.

The lines between my dream and the world before me, begin to blur; And there, the devil greets me

"oh where to start,where to start from when did it start; where you and your heart… part" he remarked 

"I'm me, if that's what you asking"

"How do you know, what… do you have to, show," he says 

"Is this a test"

"A, lesson…" he states softly with a hint of Malice. 

"Between, one's wisdom and their heart there is no, schism"

"Where there is judgment, there is fear for what one, despairs"

"And now you understand what they care for, and how you can see which burden their heart…bares…." he finishes his voice fading from my mind.

The world reappears before me, and for once, I am comforted by its soil; Littered with Graves as it was.

Days pass and I can finally stand again. I walk out of the tent to see the settlement for the first time tents scattered everywhere

My pa was from a long linage of Scholars,he told me; our family was chased out of New York for being involved in black magic.

I never thought much of it…till now.

As I take a step forward, I am greeted with an arrow from a boy seeming to be… in his twenties ." Stchoo, hoo" he spits. 

An older man lowers his bow softly with his hands... "The plains do not let us choose our Origin,makwa, however, our fate is up to the whims of the mountains winds, and lakes as they speak to us through our, struggles with them. "Kill her now and you rob her of her of that chance."

Her eyes are not red yet; she has not feasted on the blood of…man.

I stand there about to pass out. They bring me a raw piece of meat and offer it to me… how could I refuse their custom, when they… saved me?

So I bite into the meat, expecting to be met with visceral disgust, but I find myself biting down…harder. The taste is so sweet that the ache in my bones, my constant headache, and my lightheadedness are gone.

The skies begin to roar, and lighting cuts across the sky, as the torchlight light flickers in raindrops tap dancing against the grass leaves

My teeth begin to hurt my body begins to burn, and everything is, louder my senses overwhelm me and I fall to the ground and before me, I see my face …crimson blood-red eyes stare back at me in a puddle …" Demon" I mutter to myself.

The elder looks at me and asks "What is your name young woman" 

Aubrey… last name, Blackheart