Strangest Girl I Ever Saw

STRANGEST GIRL I EVER SAW

SOMEWHERE IN THE OHIUS PLAINS

CRACK flies the bullet, BOOM thunders the horse’s hooves, and SMASH comes the sound of shattering pride. 

He howls and howls and howls, a terrible noise that could suck up all of the world’s despair if given the chance as he topples from his stallion, hands flying to the new crater in his leg. Courtesy of the rider still galloping at full tilt towards him. 

“No!” he screams, raising a bloody hand toward his assailant in a useless plea. “I already gave you everything!”

Without warning, the dove-colored horse halts with such abrupt speed that clouds of dust billow forth and obscure the man’s perspiring, panicked face with dry sand, solidifying pearls of sweat. The horse snorts, pawing at the ground, but is well-seasoned to its rider’s strikes across the plains. This man is just one of a long line of victims who grow as innocent as a newborn with every robbery attempted by the young man who hops down from the horse, spinning gleaming pistols, one for each hand.

He cocks a brow as he slowly walks to the hunched, shivering man, each step of a polished leather boot resonating with firm intent. And when he leans down to gently tip a finger beneath the man’s chin, the man sees that his attacker is the infamous, very first female Mercenary of the American West. 

“You…you…”

“Good afternoon, sir,” says J.R. Bullock with a beautiful, charming smile. “Now hand over the valuables you failed to surrender or your leg won’t be the only thing that is blown to bits, understand?”

Never in history had there been such a period of chaos, violence, blood, danger…and freedom. 

Desert towns, empty plains, horizons stretching out as far as the eye could see, and the 

births of those whose names would still be infamously inscribed in textbooks decades later. The most beautiful part about a society that gave itself over to the Old West ways? Conflicts were settled with simple decisions; surrender or death. Bullet to the shoulder or the brain. Staying away from local gangs and the sheriffs that lorded over them all, or joining up. 

Everyone knew that society in the olden days with towering skyscrapers, running lines of breathing electricity, and smoking factory stacks would be doomed to die out eventually. Tanks and airplanes, destined to crash into belching smoke. It was only after a series of terrible wars that bled wounds into the planet that many began to agree that it was time to reshape civilization. 

And what better than to begin a new period of life in the American West? 

RIVERDALE, PHILLY TERRITORY

In what used to be the state of Pennsylvania, on the watery banks of the Susquehanna River, rested the town of Riverdale. Like many before, it was a town that had quietly made its name trading produce and stories of many legends’ exploits, a town where men had no cause to deal in conflict like so many violent towns across the American West, where women swept courtyards and sighed melodramatically, where children looked up at the star-strewn sky and vowed to venture out in search of thrilling adventures.

It was a town where many outlaws came to rest their wearied horses. 

The children saw her first, playing with a ball on the street surrounded by the sweet, smoky stench of nearby cigars. Women rolled out to their porches, wearied faces alight with the sweet song of curiosity, and even men who had chosen not to ride out in search of gold and glory, which were certainly prizes to seek in a desert country, consented to stick their heads out of their spider-webbed doorways. 

Purposeful steps, long, powerful strides, the casual tilt of a brown leather hat boldly embroidered with golden pins that still gleamed with the shine they’d possessed with their former owners, and eyes that stared back at the townspeople of Riverdale challengingly.

J.R. Bullock walked into town, matching the pace of her loyal but bone-tired horse. 

At the sight of such a young gal who had not yet been beaten down by the weight of the world, disapproving murmurs rose from the hushed watchers, and more than a few cries of outrage at the sight of brown trousers fitting so well to the frame of a woman. 

J.R. ignored this and strode onward, head held high as she approached the small stables Riverdale kept in stock. Almost all of the crowd who tracked the newcomer with their eyes noted the glinting pistols strapped to her belt, wrapped soundly around her hips. A dead silence reigned in the town as work and play halted alike to observe the progress of J.R. Bullock’s march across their dusty street. 

One man, however, leaped out of the assemblage of onlookers and squarely trained the barrel of his black pistol on J.R.’s back. Gasps rose from the crowd like a flock of pigeons as the safety lock clicked once. 

J.R. stopped walking but did not turn. 

“How dare you show your face here!” he screamed, face red with barely contained rage and sweat streaming down his forehead. His grip on the gun shook slightly, but not enough to let it slip onto the ground. “You think we’ve forgotten what you continue to do out there? Robbing, thieving, murdering, as if your Mercenary badge makes you better than the rest of us who struggle to survive? You thought we would welcome you with open arms after your history?”

“I didn’t expect open arms of any sort.” The slightest drawl of time spent in the hottest summers of the south lingered in J.R.’s quiet voice, which carried across the boulevard with radiating authority. 

“Screw you,” the man said, voice shaking badly now. “Screw you!” He hoisted the gun up higher in a position known to all at the other end of a barrel, and at that moment, J.R. made her move. 

It was over in seconds, the man flat on his back with six bullet holes torn through him from his gut to his neck to his limbs, and not a scratch on the young Mercenary who calmly spun her smoking guns and placed them in their holsters. Without a word, she walked over to the man and closed his wide, glassy eyes, not acknowledging any of the townspeople, who had begun to scream at the sight of the dead man. 

She led her horse onward, to retrieve a coil of rope, and from there, leave her hometown behind forever. 

OLD CAPITOL

The old world had once kept power under check through a government system where everyone worked together. But in the American West of the new world, city-states, towns, and traveling native tribes were on their own, save for sheriffs who could be unpredictable and as multifaceted as a glistening diamond. 

Here, in Old Capitol, where Washington DC had once stood, legendary vigilantes, outlaws, and criminals came together in an unspoken conclave when the river rapids streamed faster and the muggy punch of hot desert air steamed in the middle of bullet-torn streets. Many came to this place, whose grounds had once been the grand center of the United States, hoping that its luck and venerated name would fill their bags of coins and send them on their way to better lives. 

J.R. Bullock was one of them. 

It was as if the journey from the Ohius Plains to here, where she now rode her horse at a steady canter, had taken no toll on her. A long brown plait streamed from beneath her leather hat, gleaming with sparks of gold underneath a midday sun beginning to bake with heat and energy. She surveyed the changing landscape before her with a hard, sure certainty that only a traveler and a fighter would know at heart. 

“We’ll be at a place where the sun meets the sky, and our name will be known across the American West,” J.R. whispered, repeating words woven from memory and borne from her mother’s hopes. To comfort the horse - and her own frayed heart. 

But Old Capitol was not just one of the biggest and most well-known towns of the 

American West. It was a symbol of power and renewal for J.R. A dream. 

It was so different from the wide porches and empty-eyed stares of Riverdale. Old Capitol gleamed with the shine of aged, venerated buildings built with sweeping roofs and wisteria-clinging vines that curled around the eaves. Tumbleweeds rolled down the street, which seemed to billow sand-caked air as people hurried from one place to another. Only the foolish ones walked unarmed; while Old Capitol’s name was known far and wide from the coldest reaches of the north to the warmest airs of the south, it remained with its ugly violence. 

J.R. 's presence was barely noticed, as many of the crowd dressed similar to her; broad, fringed hats, leather coats, trousers, knee-high boots, some with scarves and bandannas. She almost felt like a fish fighting to stay upstream.

The Capitol Saloon was easily one of the more well-established structures in the whole township, the double doors built in the old Western-style so that it was easier to throw out drunk and rowdy patrons. The smell of sharp liquor and human bodies mixing in one place reached the nose of the saloon’s newest customer as she tied her horse to the back of the building, wary about thieves, and walked straight into a place where she would have to prove her mettle to the outlaws who would surely be there. 

The dim light of the saloon filtered outside of the doors as J.R. Bullock entered with a confidence that would make any man or woman drop dead. Scattered bits and strips of straw littered the tops of her boots from the coating spread on the floor to soak up alcohol and vomit, while the crystal bottles of brandy, rum, beer, wine, vodka, ale, and whiskey caught those feeble rays of sunlight and lit up the room with their enticing sparkle.

But J.R. Bullock’s eyes rested on the people ringed around grubby wooden tables, nursing their drinks and holding raucous conversations. Many were insignificant, just normal men who needed a drink before returning to work in town, but those who traded arm wrestling contests and loud, brash words at the bar, considered a high seat of authority in any American West saloon, were the true outlaws that J.R. had come to see for herself. 

Her golden-brown irises flicked from one face to another. There-! Bad Billy, a scrawny, scarecrow figure wearing a frayed and tattered straw hat in no better condition than his clothes. His appearance was deceiving, but everyone knew the stories of how he conquered his deadliest adversaries by crushing them with his bare hands. 

And there - sipping constantly from a flask of whiskey, that was Cyborg Colin, one of his eyes missing from when he’d tangled with a wild, 200-pound bear fifteen years ago. On the far left, Danger Dom rested his arm upon the bar, muscles bulging against tanned and wind-burned skin as he silently engaged in a contest of strength and will against Jolly Joe, who was anything but with the murderous gleam in his eyes. 

All men, but all the biggest outlaws in the American West who had risen from society’s old days of technology to carve out names for themselves. They were easily the most dangerous, the most cunning, and the most ruthless. And almost all of them were here, gathered around this bar in this saloon in Old Capitol, where many of the old world’s treasures lay. 

There was an empty seat smack in the middle of the bar’s ring of chairs. J.R. walked right up to the bar, where the older man standing behind it was polishing off a dirty glass with an even dirtier towel, and slammed her hand flat on the counter. There was something sticky coating her palm now, but she didn’t flinch. 

“Spiced rum, leave the lime and cherry.”

The barman looked at her from head to toe, a slight raise of his eyebrows indicating his condescension. Clearly, he wasn’t used to seeing women in his bar. His first mistake. 

J.R. felt the menacing stares radiating in her direction from all sides, and without a beat of hesitation, grabbed the barman’s shoulder and twisted. Something popped with a wet squelch and he howled as she pinned him to the counter. 

“I said,” J.R. said sweetly, “spiced rum, leave the lime and cherry.”

The man nodded frantically, hands clawing at the air, and J.R. released him after a few minutes with a scornful toss of her head. The man rolled off of the counter, little cries of pain caught in his teeth as he scrambled to grab her drink, feebly clutching at his wounded shoulder.

J.R. tossed herself into the open chair, pulling off her hat and setting it on the counter in front of her. “Nothing like a good day of work, right boys?” she asked casually as if sitting down to Sunday supper. 

Mad Melman was leaning out of her seat to get a good look at her; when he saw her long plait and feminine features, he blanched, while on her right, Cyborg Colin angled his body to face her slightly, his good eye flashing with rage. “What makes you think you can sit here and talk to us as if you’re on our level, eh, woman?” he barked. 

“Try it,” J.R. dared him, waiting for his mask to slip. “You can’t touch me, or the Conclave will take away your license to travel.” She wiggled her fingers at the silver star badge pinned to her vest and smirked when recognition dawned on the outlaw’s face. “That’s what I thought.”

“So what’s a little lady like you doing in the big, bad Old Capitol?” taunted Bad Billy. They still thought she was a joke, a girl who had walked into a bar full of the American West’s most dangerous individuals trying to play dress-up, but they had no idea who she was or where she’d come from. 

This was not something she could win with guns, not without getting shot sixty times by everyone in this bar. So instead J.R. leaned over the counter, snatched one of the full bottles of brandy, and with a flick of her finger, tossed the cork away before chugging down a gulp of the alcohol. The burn of the liquid traveled down her throat, mixing with the acid of her gut, and she slammed the bottle on the table, wiping her mouth as she did so while the outlaws stared at her with surprise and maybe a little bit of grudging respect. A little vulgar for a lady, but she would take any victory she got. 

Soon, her name would be known, and her status confirmed throughout the towns and rolling prairies of the American West. But for now, she needed what these legends could give her. 

Power. 

She smiled at them, a girl among men, a hyena among wolves. “So, I hear there are four very pretty gems in Old Capitol. Do you sweethearts mind showing me where they are?”

Cyborg Colin’s jaw worked, and she could practically hear his brain searching for a lie.  Behind him, Alibi Adrian scratched the pale scruff on his cheeks and said calmly, “Why don’t you leave and find out, honey?”

J.R. blew a kiss at him but kept her attention focused on Danger Dom, who, despite his obvious physical strength, seemed to be the weak link here. “What about you, Dom? Should I leave?”

Danger Dom opened his mouth, then closed it, looking flabbergasted. J.R. let a menacing note drop into her smile and brushed the tips of her fingers against her pistol. “Let me remind you,” she said quietly, “that I’m no ordinary girl.”

“The ruins will have clues,” said Jolly Joe. All of the outlaws’ heads whipped towards him; he was leaning against the counter, arms crossed as he watched them. “Search there.”

J.R. tossed a gold coin at him, something that set the outlaws on alert. “Thanks, sweetheart.” With that, she promptly stood, snatching up her hat and stuffing it on her head. When she was two feet away from the door, a man in the corner stumbled toward her, reaching for her hip, but J.R. whirled and kicked him in the teeth so that the whole saloon heard the dull crunch of them being shoved into his gums. Whistling a merry tune, J.R. Bullock exited the saloon, and the doors banged closed behind her. 

“Well,” Bad Billy finally said, reaching for his glass of ale, “that little princess is different.”

“It ain’t a trap?” asked Danger Dom, glancing at Jolly Joe. 

“Send that lynx into a trap? I’ve heard the stories about her up west,” Jolly Joe scoffed, tossing his beer back in a gulp. “There’ll be bullet holes in all of us if I cross her.”

“Yeah,” agreed Cyborg Colin as he warily looked at the doors of the saloon again, where J.R. Bullock was confidently striding to retrieve her horse in pursuit of a fortune. “She sure is the strangest girl I ever saw.”