Guns & Dolls - Prelude

Prelude: The Hitchhiker

A long straight road between deserts of sand stretched across to the horizon. Vertical red mountains reached up to the clear late-afternoon sky. On the black highway rolled a cargo truck without a cart carried behind it. Within that truck was a girl with one eye. Her long brown frazzled hair dangled and curled over her pale white shoulders. Small beads of sweat rolled down her skinny frame, lightly soaking into her grey tanktop while her bare arm reached outside her window, embracing the refreshing wind that blew against it. Jazz saxophone from the radio filled her ears, her blue eye tracing along the distance forever ahead of her.
Then the distance presented a man covered in dirt and dust. His auburn hair hung down to his jaw. His beige collared shirt tattered. A grey cloth wrapped over his cheeks, covering his nose and mouth. He looked like an old robber from one of those classic western films. The truck would slow to a stop infront of the man and the door would open for him, revealing the young girl behind it.

"Hi z'ere..." The woman greeted to the man with a cheerfully pitched voice and a strong french accent, the stranger simply gazed to her with narrow yellow eyes. "....Are you going my way?"
She shuffled back into the driving seat, keeping her eye on the stranger with an eager excitement. Her delightful smile was hard to hide as the dusty male climbed into her truck, sitting next to her before closing the door shut. A brief silence filled the truck before the roar of the engines blew through exhaust smoke, and the large wheels began to roll the two down the road.
"My name is Lucille." The blue-eyed girl introduced herself, frantically turning to face the man while keeping her attention to the road ahead. "D'at is two L's after one." Lucille smiled. Again the man was silent, which began to leave the young truck driver in unsettling suspense.
The tension didn't last long however, as she was finally given a response. "Colt." The man greeted while observing his companion, particularly the white bandage over her left eye, held together with a strip of tape. "Anythin' behind the patch?" Colt asked in a rough deep texan accent, his voice was slightly muffled from the mask covering his lips.
Lucille chuckled with a joke. "Is z'ere any'zing behind ze mask, Mr. Colt?" Her hair was caught in the breeze of the gusting wind from outside the open window, blowing it back while her one hand gripped the leather steering wheel. Her other hand relaxing along the edge of the window. Colt shook his head and turned to look across the desert, soaking in sights of nostalgia and familiarity.

After the sun touched down under view and stars revealed themselves within the night sky, a truck would stop at a small gas station. Overhanging lights reflected and gently flickered off the cement below. The smell of propane and gasoline settled into the cool damp atmosphere.
"Looks like we could use a lil fuel." Lucille tapped the gas gauge with her fingernail, which displayed a near empty notice.
"Ya might be right 'bout that..." Colt responded, looking towards the glowing red words BAR across the street. Once keys were turned and the truck fell silent, the two climbed out and walked opposite directions.
"Alright, let us see here....Regular....Diesel....Premium....." Lucille ran her finger along the labels with a slight confusion before lifting the pump handle out of its stand and turned to the truck behind her.
"Truck needs diesel." Said a nearby gas attendant washing a car. Lucille raised her eyebrows at the middle-aged clean shaven man before pointing at the diesel label, to which the employee nodded with certainty. "You're lookin' at terrible luck if you've been usin' regular this whole time." He lectured the female driver with a slight annoyance in his tone, and glanced to her like a professional would frown at an amateur.
Of course, the moment only became more comical after Lucille flipped the gas lid open to find a diesel sticker behind it. Feeling slightly embarassed, Lucille held her hand against her hip and popped the pump into the truck, filling the tank with the appropriate fuel while sporting a sheepish smile. "...I knew d'at." She announced to the man, her eye darting back and forth in a weak attempt to cover up her cluelessness. The chilling stale air sending goosebumps across her skin.
Once the tank was full and the handle returned to the pump, Lucille stepped into the station so the transaction could be made. However, once she entered through the glass door and that customer bell rang, she was surrounded with rows of bags and cans, and felt a compulsion to read every one of them. Her curiosity sparked as she oggled at the designs of the packaging, entranced by all the vibrant colours and catchy names. Each product was more tempting than the last, but it was the bag of red licorice that grabbed her attention the most. Lucille dropped it onto the counter for the attendant she met outside to ring up along with the fuel, casually pulling out a wallet with a small stack of bills inside. A collection of $20's shuffled between her fingers before they found their way to the wooden countertop, but there was something else notable about the contents of the customer's wallet. Displayed behind a plastic transparent cover, the cashier noticed a picture of a stubbled gruff man's drivers licence. However, the stranger in the picture remained unaddressed, and the girl made her way back to her truck once the change was given. Only afterwards did the employee took note of her licence plate and proceeded to make a phone call.
"Police department, please."

With her new bag of licorice in the glove box, Lucille pocketed her keys and walked to the bar, where she was welcomed with loud guitar rock and shouts all around her, though not towards her. There wasn't a lot of people inside, but everyone appeared either mad or sad. The sad people kept to themselves, and stayed as close to the booze as they could, while the angrier patrons sat in groups further to the back.
Colt was found in the back, surrounding a table with a few other drunk guys. "Look here, boys. three girls n' two eights." One of them proudly proclaimed, followed by frustrated groans and the sound of cards slapping against wood.
Being a very patient lady, Lucille sat at the bar and flagged over a rather busty blonde bartender by raising her hand up high and frantically waving it left and right. "What's y'er flavour, darlin'?" The tanned woman behind the counter questioned.
However, before she could respond, a staggering bald guy sitting next to her slouched close to her, his breath reeking with something awful. "I bet she tastes like a peach."
His hand fell hard onto Lucille's thigh, immediately striking her nerves and leaving a tight knot of panic in her stomach. "W-Water, please?" The unsettled girl spoke with an aggitated whisper, making sure to shuffle herself further away from the careless man beside her. Upon hearing her accent, the invasive bum was only more advancing towards the retreating damsel.
"Oooh, that's one sexy accent you have, darling." Lucille simply tried to ignore the stressful man, and once the glass of water was available, she grabbed it with both hands and tipped the refreshing drink into her lips.
Meanwhile, another ball of tension was building. One out of four was showing an awful streak of luck, and Colt was beginning to smell a cheat in the air. His attention locked onto the eyes of the stranger, barely focused on the hand dealt to him. Without looking at his cards, Colt called every raise presented to him, only looking at the guy across from his seat. Money flowed from his side of the table towards the middle without any hesitation or second thought. Seconds stretched into minutes, and the money-collecting player started to sweat. Heavy breaths exhaled out of his lungs, and frantic fingers reached for a cigarette. His body language spoke loudly to Colt, and before anyone saw it coming, his fist would swing through the smoke and collide with jawbone, followed shortly with a thud hitting the floor as the man dropped out of his chair. Being new to the bar, Colt couldn't have known the man he hit would have friends. Friends who had guns. Shouts immediately flew across the table, only these were a different kind of shouts. Shouts of anger and authority.

Colt wasn't too keen on authority figures, but he was very fond of bottles. Their solid glass shape was easy to grab. Easy to swing. Easy to throw. Careless to the warnings yelled towards him, the masked stranger flung a bottle at one of two gun-weilding poker players. As one flinched and unexpectedly embraced a crashing sensation over his face, the other briefly turned to face his friend with caution and concern. The distraction gave Colt enough time to approach the biker close, and pull his gun away to the side before throwing a punch straight into his stomach. Out of reflex, a finger twitched against a trigger, and a loud blast shook the room, sending most of the customers out in a hurry.
Lucille was about to join them until she glimpsed towards her passenger. While making his approach to the gun-swinging grunt, Colt seemed to have walked right into a knife held in the other hand of his opponent. The cold sharp steel lodged itself between his ribcage, and pierced deeply through flesh. Yellow eyes squinted and filled with tears in response to the shot of pain that captured his focus, but his grip on the gun-carrying hand tightened. As did the grip on the bastard's neck. The knife was flexed deeper, but that barely gave a response. Gasping pleas were squeezed silent, and Lucille would watch as the man was choked to death right infront of her. Colt dropped the man to the floor, leaving him next to the unconcious cheater and panicked drunk with glass in his face, then turned to face his new ladyfriend.
"I don't like cheats." He explained, tugging the blood-covered knife out of his side before collecting the two guns that dropped to his feet, tucking one underneath the waistline of his pants.
Lucille's heart banged against her chest, insisting her to leave as fast as she could. But she couldn't. She felt lost in the moment, unsure of what she should do. The urgency of the situation she found herself in only intensified her panicked confusion as Colt stepped closer towards her. Hasted breaths fled her lips while scrambling for words until the aggressive hitchhiker grabbed her arm, and dragged her out of the bar.
"I need ya t'get us outta here, pronto." Colt demanded, pushing her back to the truck.
She turned to face him so she can speak her mind on the matter, but was greeted with a silver barrel pointing right to her eye, silencing her argument before it was even expressed. Lucille found herself back behind the wheel with Colt sitting right next to her. Keys jingled loudly with sobs behind them until ignition flared from the truck and the two drove off fast enough to escape the rising sirens that grew louder from the distance.

The bar and gas station disappearing in the distance, flashes of red and blue dancing behind the horizon. Colt turned towards the quivering girl with fear running down her cheek. Her vibrant blue iris darted between the road and the gun.
"Take us somewhere safe." He demanded. His voice was stern and louder than before. His eyes carrying that familiar squint from earlier. Lucille knew that he had every opportunity to kill her, but he chose to kidnap her instead. She couldn't wrap her head around the logic of keeping a witness.
"Why aren't you killing me?" She turned to look at him for a longer few seconds, her question choking up in her throat.
Colt shrugged while relaxing his grip on the gun. "I can't drive."
Wiping tears from her face, the brunette sniffled loudly. Her nostrils and cheeks flushed red. Lucille realized her position in the scenario carried enough value to keep herself alive for the moment, but that wasn't her greatest concern. "I saw him stab you."
A red dash darkened over the beige shirt, surrounding the hole that matched his wound. Lucille was expecting the stranger to fall unconscious in the truck at any moment, but Colt barely seemed to notice. In fact, it looked like he forgot as the recollection and attention to his cut seemed to pause his focus. The masked man looked at the damp red on his shirt. That was when Lucille took the initiative and grabbed at his gun. The two wrestled in the free-running truck going at an accelerated speed. Outside lights became a blur as the wheels mindlessly propelled the vehicle slowly towards the edge of the road. Colt built a pressure against Lucille's arm, weakening her strength and bending it down. Adrenaline fueled the young girl into a fight for survival. Her hand reached at his face and shoved it away, hoping to distract his focus while the gun aimed closer and closer towards her. A sudden bump on the road caused her fingers to slip and pull at his mask. Underneath was a grizzly sight. A sight that seemed to have stopped time upon its reveal. A pair of teeth and the gum line, but no lips to cover them. That was the last brief thing she saw before a loud crash and sudden stop dazed her senses into a numbing darkness.