Rumor Has It

The wails of the widow traveled across Bandera like bells on hightailing cattle. The streets were empty of people, all smart enough to hide behind their shutters or go about their indoor business as if their hands didn’t tremble from doing the same mundane activities they did every day. I’d been caught in a pretty precarious situation before I knew the Gunslingers had rode in. As I knew, my mother would have told me, ‘Don’t get your knickers undone before the cow patties come flying.’ Basically, don’t screw around because bad things could happen. And bad things had already shown up in their usual fashion - murdering someone just to show they could. No other traditional gunslinger could take them on, and the law was as much poppycock as a toddler telling a snake not to bite. 

I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves. The coffin-maker was already loading up the body—a corpse himself, cursed to transport the new dead to the netherworld for compensation of some deal the coffin-maker made to the Shadow King when he was alive. The widow heaved in uncontrollable sobs, but I couldn’t find it in me to feel sympathy. I might’ve killed him myself if the Gunslingers hadn’t decided to do it. When the coffin-maker closed the door, it was all I could do not to spit on it. That is, until the end of a barrel was pointed between my eyes. 

I swallowed, sweat beading down my face and dripping off my chin.

“What’s your name, girl?”

“Isadora.”

The widow made another howling wail when the coffin-maker started heading off to his domain, the coffin and the body within slung across his back.

“Can somebody shut her up!” 

The Beast, half man, half buffalo, growled in the widow’s face. Her cries snuffed from the shock and fear. The Beast snorted the ring through his nose lifting, the air blowing the widow’s hair behind her.

“Now then.” The man with the gun pointed at me, lowered his arm (his arm that was the gun itself) and crouched down to my level. “Miss Isadora, what was your relation to that man?” 

Half of his face was covered with a bandana, and the hat on top covered most of his hair. If not for the sun’s direction, I might’ve been unable to see his face at all. But his eyes glowed like golden bullets, and I surprisingly felt my fear shifting. I played my usual overconfidence that I needed more times than I cared for.  

“He owed me money. He stayed at our parlor and gambled but didn’t pay for the night…or the company.”

“Were you the company?”

I could almost see the smirk he hid beneath the bandana, but I scoffed. “My mother and I own the parlor. She runs the business, the customers, the women, and I handle the inconveniences.”

“And why is this woman here?”

I looked at the widow who wept silently and thought about how this morning had started. I tracked down where the man lived out in West Chap and found his wife instead. Confused and disbelieving that her husband would ever go to a parlor in the first place, that he was supposed to be selling wares in the hope of starting his own business. She decided to come with me when I told her I’d be heading to Bandera next, the richest area in all of Santerino. We found him here, drinking booze and shuffling cards in the Shotgun Saloon, a woman with cleavage busting out of her corset and biting his ear. The wife screamed his name, and I jumped into action. He knew my face, and I could tell he was about to run. I snatched him with my rope and dragged him out to the alley to get what I was due. His wife could deal with him however she saw fit when I finished. I didn’t get much of a chance to do anything, though. Before I knew it, all the doors and windows were shut and locked up, and I was holding a dead man with a bullet through his brain. The shockwave sent me to my knees.

“She’s here because I made her. I wanted her to see what kind of scumbag her husband was.” 

The man was quiet for a minute before standing back up. He looked back at his posse. All of them were famous outlaws - the Beast, the Magician, the Native, and the Handler—all with their own specific set of skills, but none more notoriously than the Gunslinger himself. 

“Well, Miss Isadora, you’re a lucky girl. We need a tracker, and it seems you’ve been getting a reputation.”

I knew what he meant. I hadn’t been subtle in my findings, and while none of them had resulted in more of a skirmish, gossip spread quickly in Santerino. Few people who couldn’t afford to stay at the parlor tried to risk it. Only those living under a rock would dare. We always got what we were due, and maybe this was my karma for not keeping the issues under wraps, but it had been worth it not to have to do it as often. Many men tried to take advantage of two women running a business. They all regretted it. 

“What do you need of me?” 

He held out his gloved hand, and I didn’t hesitate to grasp it, lifting me with ease, and I shook off the dirt from my clothes. 

“We’re looking for a woman.”

“What man isn’t?” I joked, and to my amazement, he at least chuckled. 

“The Huntress, more specifically.”

My blood ran cold. 

“You’re kidding.” I looked at his group behind him, all seeming to stare at me without a lick of fear. The Handler’s snake around his neck hissed and slid down to his arm, wrapping itself protectively around its owner’s forearm. As if even it knew the danger of the Huntress.

“She was last seen in the mountains near Edens Gulch. My bet is she headed somewhere south, toward the end of the ravine. Supposedly, she’s pregnant, so she’s got to be looking for a secluded area next to some water and away from people.”

The Huntress was revered as a god. Or a demon. Rumor had it she was immortal and somehow clawed her way out of the netherworld from some magical gift she possessed before she died. The other rumor was that she was the Shadow King’s lover, and he gave her passage to and from both the living world and the dead. Regardless, one thing that was always consistent was her killing sprees. She’d ravage entire towns, all having the chance to run once she arrived, but no one ever got out alive. Hence her name, the Huntress. 

Not that I had ever seen or heard of a town where this actually happened. It was mostly a ghost story to get kids to be home before the sun went down. A lesson didn’t have to exist; the fear was enough. But hearing the Gunslinger speak of finding the Huntress as if this was just some girl he wanted at the parlor, something wasn’t right.

“Why do you need to find the Huntress?

“The business is not yours to ask, girl.” The Magician, a classy-looking tycoon with a briefcase holding all of the potions and poisons he uses on his victims, spoke up.

“If I am to find that demon of a woman, then I should at least know why!”

“How about you focus more on what will happen should you refuse,” The Native pointed her arrow, flame alighting at the head. 

The Gunslinger held up his shotgun arm to steady his comrades, who backed down immediately. He took a step toward me, but I didn’t back down; the glow from his eyes shone against the shadow of the evening sun. We stared at each other for a good moment before he took something out of his back pocket and handed it to me.

I kept eye contact as I unzipped the leather pouch. The heavyweight of the coin finally took away my attention. I couldn’t help but gasp at the amount of silver— large ones too. More than Mama would make in a year at the inn.

“All you gotta do is find her. You do that, and I’ll triple the offer.”

Blood money for blood money. I knew this coin didn’t come by honorably, but then again, what was honorable in this world? Definitely not what my mother, the customers, or I did. What was worse is I knew I could do it. I had full confidence that I’d be able to find the Huntress as much as I believed the sun would set and rise again tomorrow. 

I sighed and dropped the pouch in the satchel around my waist. 

“Let’s be off then.”

It took ten days.

We found her living in an abandoned cottage deep in the woods of Gossamers Bend. She’d been at the mountains and then had gone down to the end of the ravine just as the Gunslinger had suspected. From there, I’d barely found the tracks to lead us in the right direction, except for a small rabbit trap made by a human - If you could even call her that.

The closer we got, the more the Gunslinger grew impatient. We traveled all night, never stopping to rest for two days straight; before the end of the third day, I was near ready to collapse. That night, beneath the starry sky and sweet, smokey smell of the campfire, I had the tranquility to ask the group about their stories. No matter who someone was, the comfort of warmth, decent food, and a picture of the universe just above their head made them want to open up. 

I was never one for sentiment, but I did enjoy a good story. 

The Beast couldn’t talk, so the Magician spoke for him. He was definitely the talker of the group and a bit of a narcissist. Still, he was able to manipulate stories that sounded interesting and just questionable enough to believe, which the Handler called him out on—telling the real parts, which were still usually just as insane. The Native was quieter. She was the fierce one, though. Whenever we encountered trouble, she was the first to deal with it. Whether it be animals in nature or Mother Nature herself, while she didn’t share her story, she didn’t shut down the Magician when he began to tell it. 

All of them had tragic backstories. The one they wouldn’t share, though, was the Gunslinger. His was a mystery even to them. He didn’t join the campfire. Instead, he stood at the end of a bluff, looking out over the forest below. 

A man of great hope, one might say.

I’d considered going to ask him myself. The Native and the Handler were getting into a spat over who deserved the last piece of meat since they’d both used their skills to get it. I fell asleep staring at the Gunslinger’s broad shoulders. The last thing I remember was a sliver of gold looking at me. 

We were awakened before the sun crossed the horizon. The blue tint of the sky still mixed with the inky black of night. 

“Get up.” The Gunslinger stomped out the remnants of the fire, and his crew was already up and walking with him before I’d gotten a chance to rub my eyes.

I rushed to catch up and bumped into the cold metal of the Gunslinger’s arm. I resisted the urge to rub where it hit and started on my tracking. 

We headed down into the woods. The deep green canopy of the trees was a stark contrast to the dead beige of the desert. The shade was welcome, though. I found the well first. A dried path of trickled blood on the earth next. And lastly, a cottage, practically falling apart but standing enough to be a decent shelter. 

There we heard the cries of a babe. 

My heart quickened at what this meant. The Huntress lived and had birthed her spawn. 

“She’s in there. I’ve done what you asked,” I said, my gut still telling me something wasn’t right.

No one did or said anything for a minute. I was about to run, regardless of the extra money.

“Sorry, girl.” A rag met my face before I had a moment to protest. I heard the shushing of the Magician and his arms easing my weight to lay in the dirt.

I could barely breathe out a ‘why.’ But I saw the solemn expression of all their eyes looking down at me with such sureness that I knew this had always been part of their plan. 

My mind was fogged, my vision blurry. I could smell the smoke of a fire and the savory scent of pig meat. Under my fingers was something fuzzy, warm. I blinked hard, trying to refocus all of my senses. Awaken the drought of whatever that bastard had done to me. 

“Take your time. The Magician’s tricks are usually heavy-handed.”

A woman’s voice. Soft, gentle.

“This should help.”

I felt her open my hand and place a cold cup in my palm. She helped me lean forward enough to take a sip but stepped away when I started coughing uncontrollably. 

“Sorry, I can’t really warn you about the taste.”

Whatever she gave me, it worked. I felt the kick of sudden energy like a cactus thorn in the buttocks. 

I looked her way. She had light blonde hair and a pale, pointy face. Her eyes were as blue as the sky, and her smile was the simple, tight lip of someone trying hard to hold it all together but too kind to burden others. 

The baby cooed in the corner of the room, a wooden crib tucked away behind a half-hung curtain. She went to it immediately and took it into her arms as naturally as a mother would. 

“You’re the Huntress.”

She looked up at me for a moment, a quirk of a smile, before returning to look at the bundle in her arms and bouncing it lightly. 

“A name that has come to haunt me.”

“I suppose that would happen to one who haunts the world.”

She didn’t say anything, but her face settled into stone as she worked to get a bottle for the babe. Once she was in the rocking chair, the baby nestled in the crook of her arm, content with the drink, did she begin to explain what had happened.

“You were a bargaining chip. The Gunslinger knows I have a soft spot for humans and used you to get something out of me that he’s wanted for a long time. He’d only found me before once, but everything he offered was meaningless. Money, power. That meant nothing to me. Fragility, mortality. That means something.”

I waited for her to continue.

“He knows my history. I was once a human girl who had very little in this world. I found favor with the king of death himself, who granted a great gift. However, people of this world are still evil, and I had to find a way to make myself seem far harsher than I’ve ever been to do all the good I had intended.”

“Gossip does spread quickly in Santerino.”

She nodded as if knowing that fact had helped her in more ways than one. 

“He threatened your life in exchange for something I could offer. A portal to the prize he’s really after.” 

“Which is what?”

“What does any lonely man ever truly desire?”

I swallowed.  

“Even one as hopeless and sleazy as the Gunslinger,” she said, going to get the baby when it started crying. 

“He doesn’t deserve it. He’s killed so many people, and he would’ve killed me had you not agreed!” The rage within me boiled over to the tipping point, but she didn’t condemn me. Instead, she looked at me like she was deciding something.

“I can do more than just create portals. One of the more pertinent things I was gifted with was being able to give to others.” 

She laid the baby in the cradle and walked over to me. Her hands caressed each side of my face, and my anger slowly tucked itself away. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, and I closed mine as well. A deep rumbling shook my core, like something other and more powerful than I’d ever felt. It traversed through my veins to the tips of my fingers. Radiating through my entire body like the chill of cold running from flame. When she released me, I felt more alive than ever. I looked at my arms, the tingling aftermath still present. 

“You are now the only one who can take them down,” she said with all certainty. 

She stepped to the other side of the room and moved her arms in a ritual motion. Before her, a portal of violet and turquoise opened.

“This is where they’ve gone.”

I smiled and shook my head. 

“I’m the best tracker in all of Santerino. Let them find out I’m coming, and let them fear when I do.”