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Dust and Sand – Chapter 1- By Sean P. Wallace

            “Mind if I ask you something?” Dust asked.

            “You talk too fucking much,” Clarence says.

            Mid-West sighed. “So do you. What do you want to ask, Wanted Man?”

            Dust caught Mid-West’s gaze in the dirty mirror behind the bar. His cold grey eyes held Dust’s as he said “A hundred men have tried to take me. None succeeded. What makes you any different?”

            “We got the drop on you,” Cut Throat said, pushing the barrel of his gun into the flesh of Dust’s arm to punctuate his point.

            “We got more skills than them,” Clarence continued.

            Mid-West had enough sense to look concerned. Still, he said “And we’ve got three guns on your skin.”

            Dust smiled. “Is that all?”

            “What do you-?”

            Dust lashed out with both fists, catching Clarence and Cut Throat square on the arms and sending them flying across the bar. Mid-West pulled his trigger but Dust had already ducked before the bullet roared from its chamber. Then Dust kicked Mid-West on the shin and broke it clean in two. Mid-West went down screaming, holding his leg.

            Moving with his inhuman speed, Dust took Mid-West’s dropped pistol and shot Cut Throat in his gun hand. Cut Throat moaned like a bull and stared as blood poured from the wound. Dust would’ve thought a scarred man would be more used to the sight of his own blood.

            This barely took a second but Clarence had moved with the speed of a coward, made a run for the exit. His back was turned. He was a clear target. An outlaw and a scoundrel. Many people might die if Dust didn’t take the shot. It was so tempting. Dark parts of him whispered how sweet pulling the trigger would be.

            But he just couldn’t shoot a man in the back. “Clarence?” he called.

            Thankfully, the outlaw stopped. He had enough sense to know Dust had a gun on him.

            “Turn around,” Dust said, approaching.

            Clarence turned. His jeans were stained with urine. Dust had to smile.

            “Are you gonna kill me too?”

            “I haven’t killed your friends.”

            Clarence’s eyes darted behind Dust. “No, you haven’t.”

            Dust spun, saw that Mid-West had pulled a second gun and shot it from his hand. That’s when Clarence pulled the knife and charged.

            Thankfully, Clarence was shaking and nervous and yellow as an Englishman’s teeth. His swing cut through the cloth of Dust’s shirt and only grazed his ribs, giving him a bright new scar. Dust elbowed him in the side of the head, knocking him to the ground, and then broke his hand with a well-placed kick. Clarence screeched like a girl.

            Then the doors to the tavern opened. Dust turned Mid-West’s gun on the newcomers but then spotted the light green uniform of The Solution.

            He dropped the weapon to the floor. “Evening Tom, Bill.”

            Tom and Bill looked at Dust. Then at the mayhem around him. Then back at Dust. Their expressions were sweeter than any whiskey.

            Bill, a man who was built as thick as a tree with freckles at odd with the size of him, sighed. “Jesus, Dust, what’ve you started this time?”

            “Nothing. Just ask Elaine.”

            Dust pointed over to the bar but Elaine was nowhere to be seen. He walked over and saw that, during the brief fracas, Elaine had fainted. She had good survival instincts but it didn’t help him much.

            “You’re really in the shit this time, Dust,” Tom said with a friendly smile. Dust liked Tom.

            “They’re going to crucify you. Jesus Christ…” Bill sighed again.

            Dust shrugged. He walked over to the two of them, took his hat from the coat stand and then settled it on his head. “We might as well get going then.”

            He left the Broken Bottle. In company. Again.

By Sean Wallace
26/06/2012 

SeanPWallace
SeanPWallace
Sean is an editor, writer, and podcast host at Geek Pride, as well as a novelist. His self-published works can be found at all good eBook stores.

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