Rawhide Chronicles: Mistaken Identity

Mistaken Identity

          Dust flew around her as she rode. The town of Nowhere was in a heat wave, so the reports had said, and it had rendered the town's unpaved streets into dry dust. Saraid didn’t feel any unusual heat. Of course, the desert sun did burn, and hotly, but it was no worse than the usual summertime temperatures she had grown used to.
         But the silence; that she felt. The town was as still as a dead bison. The only thing stirring in the streets were their dusts riding a slight breeze. It was this, more than any heat, that made her sweat. She took her Kel Varan hat off her head and began fanning herself with it as she looked around.
         Nowhere was a small town by any standard. In total, there couldn’t have been many more than 15 buildings in the whole place. Nevertheless, it had been a growing town once, in the fullest sense of the word. Silver had been discovered in the foothills of the Teardrop Mountains; specifically in Mustang Hill, just outside of Nowhere. It would take a lot to clear out a town with that going for it. Very few things could have caused that. The mine could have run dry (unlikely; by all reports it was the richest lode in years), the heat wave could have driven them away (maybe, though she didn’t feel anything), or something (or someone) had scared them away. Saraid leaned towards the latter.
         She dismounted and tethered her horse in front of the inn. She took a minute or so to refill the dry trough, then made her way to the saloon. It was a two-story building, painted red on the lower floor and left an unpainted brown on top. A hanging wooden sign with peeling white and red paint proclaimed it as “Grant’s Gulch.”
         There, beside the batwing doors, hung a wanted poster. Saraid guessed who it was, even before she read it; when she did read it, her guess was confirmed. Pictured on the poster was Cáit Cadera, the most dangerous free criminal in the west. That wasn’t the name used on the poster, though. In these parts, she was known as ‘Rawhide Cáit.’ But Saraid knew her real name, the one she had been born with; Cáit was her sister.

         As she stood outside the saloon studying the poster, a shot rang out from within. She jerked her head up at the sound and put her back flat against the wall by the doors. A large mass hit the floor with a thud. Saraid slowly poked her head over the doors, but saw nothing. She opened the door just as slowly, and walked in, glancing around the room. She still didn’t see anything. As she made her way to the back of the first room, she heard a quiet but steady rattling from behind the bar. When she stopped, the rattling sound grew. She went over to investigate. Atop the bar, a small glass was shaking. Saraid grabbed it and smashed it onto the bar upside down. The shaking stopped. Being cautious, she poked her hat over the counter. Straight away, another shot rang out, with the high pitch of a small caliber handgun. The bullet missed, and went into the wall to her right. Giving the shooter no time to ready for another shot, she swung around to the side of the bar and drew down. She didn’t expect to see what she did.
         The first thing that met her gaze was small man, lying behind the counter on a red and yellow cushion. He was covered with sweat, and his eyes were twitching. He wore a black duster and a short black hat, both gilded with silver threads. His right hand held a small caliber pistol, but it was not aimed in any direction, hanging limp with the barrel downwards. Then she noticed that his clothes were stained with the same red that the cushion was. She looked at it, and gasped as she saw what it actually was; a large woman in a yellow dress, with a bullet wound below her chin. Saraid took an alarmed step back.
         The man began rasping, and Saraid recovered her stern face as she looked at him.
         “You…You’re not…Rawhide Cáit.”
         She continued watching him, and shook her head.
         “No. I’m not. She’s my sister.”
         She had the same slight southern accent most every Secopasian had, and maybe this was what the man picked up.
         “No!” he gasped, eyes glazed and going wild again. “That’s…not possible!”
         “Why?” Saraid demanded, “Why not?”
         The man ignored her, continually looking between his gun and the woman’s body on the floor beneath him. She gradually became aware of him muttering under his breath. She listened closely.
         “No!” he was saying, and repeated it over and over again.
         “What happened?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
         The man ignored her question and continued muttering.
         Saraid shook her head. She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew why. She had been mistaken for her sister, probably in Cearn, and everyone in Nowhere had panicked when they heard ‘Rawhide’ was headed for their town.
         Sighing, she left the man lying on the floor and walked out of the saloon.
         She paused as she walked past the doors, turning to look at Cáit’s painting. She gazed at Saraid with her green eyes, and her red hair blazed on the bleached paper. “1000 Dollar Reward!” the poster read, the amount hovering over her sister’s head. A list of her crimes stood below her, each worse than the next. Cáit seem to mock her disgust.
          Damn you, Cáit! Saraid thought. Damn you! Will I ever be able to go anywhere without Death coming along for the ride?
         As she thought this, a scream came from inside the building, cut short by a pistol shot. Saraid looked up, and silence ensued.
         Saraid brought her gaze back to the poster, glaring at her sister. Growling, she ripped it off the wall and tore it to tatters. She roared into the wind as the pieces flew away, then sank to her knees.
         In that position, she prayed for a few seconds, then stood and walked back over to her horse.
She would find Cáit, and when she did, Cáit would pay.
         She rode south.

********

         The news had come a week ago. A scout from the Alcade’s office had reported it. After spending a few days in Cearn, he had galloped into town at full speed, almost flying off of his horse as he ran to the Alcade’s building. Rawhide Cáit, the most dangerous villain in the West still remaining free, rode west with nowhere in her sights.
         There had been a council meeting that night, and everybody, vagrants and travelers included, attended. They debated for hours over what they needed to do about Cáit, and it was eventually decided that saloon owner Carl Grant’s was the best idea. And so, everybody had begun packing, preparing to leave town en masse to be safe.
         Carl and his wife Rita had almost made it out with the rest, but the night of the departure, it was discovered that there was not enough room in the wagons to give everybody transport. So there had been a riot. A group of men attacked the saloon. They knocked Carl and Rita unconscious, and, as they attempted to steal their wagon, succeeded only in setting it ablaze. They had better luck with the horses.
         Now Carl watched the sun rise over an empty shell, the worn remnants of what had been a lively mining town. He sat on the end of his bed and watched. How long would it be until Cáit arrived? It couldn’t be that long. She had been in Cearn when the scout had seen her, and it was a two days full gallop from there the Nowhere. Cáit was unlikely to be traveling at full gallop, but it was only a matter of time. Cáit would be here soon, and woe to them!
         His wife had tried to give him some water, and food, but he refused both. What was the point? If they stayed here, Cáit was sure to kill. They couldn’t leave, not on foot – it was suicide. No, this was the end.
         He continued watching outside of the window, the Teardrop Mountains blue even as the noon sun approached. A lizard crawled along the ground in front of the saloon, suddenly dashing after a large black beetle, and then a yellow butterfly with red spots. It was undoubtedly a sign of things to come, Carl believed. As the clock hands moved to an hour past noon, his wife gave an audible gasp downstairs.
         “It’s her!” she shouted, loud enough only to be heard within the building – she hadn’t had any water either. “She’s here!”
         Carl looked towards the doorway, dread written on his face, then got up and prepared to meet his doom. He arrived on the first floor in time to see his wife pull the trigger on a small pistol pointed at her head.
         “No!” he yelled, his voice masked by the shot. He saw a shadow outside of the door move, then, and he dove behind the bar where his wife lay and pried the pistol out of her hands. He cocked the gun as the doors of the saloon open, and their creak covered the sound. He leaned back in fear, forgetting what on. He began shaking as footsteps approached the back of the room. Suddenly they stopped, and the top of a Kel Varan soft-leather hat poked over the top of the bar. He shot at the hat, but missed by a mile. The bullet went past the hat as it was withdrawn, and stuck in the wall.
         He heard a pistol cock that wasn’t his own, and he knew this was the end. A young woman swung around to the side of the bar. She studied him for a second, then gasped and took a step backwards.
         Carl gaped at her in disbelief, his eyes roving over her. It couldn’t be.
         “You…you’re not…Rawhide Cáit.”
         She shook her head, but he didn’t need her denial. Her frosty, almost icy blue eyes and red-tinged but black hair proved she wasn’t. And if he needed any more proof, he had only to look at her vest, which, unlike the vulgar and exposing drape the real Cáit wore, was a proper, brown leather one that covered everything.
She said something, but he didn’t hear it. Didn’t try to.
         “No!” he gasped. “That’s…not possible!”
He glanced around at the room, ignoring the woman as she tried to speak to him.
         “No! No. No…” he muttered, and repeated it over and over. The woman said something again, but he had effectively forgotten she was there. He looked towards the gun in his hand.
         Why? Ηοw? Ηοw had this happened? He had hidden the gun under the bar. How had Rita known where it was?
         Why had this happened? He looked at his wife’s body, her once rusty hair now as crimson as the real Cáit’s. It wasn’t right!
         He began crying, though he didn’t notice it. The woman left, and he didn’t notice that either.
         He looked back at his pistol, and cocked it. He began to scream as he brought it to his forehead, so loud the glasses on the counter began to shake again. He pulled the trigger.