The Stranger by Suzy

Vin held Ronald by the collar as Josiah led the way over to Nathan locked down behind the bushes with Kenneth Steele tied to a tree in the foreground, knocked out.

“What happened here?” Josiah asked.

“Got tired of him just standin’ up there. Chris did anyway.” Nathan mumbled.

Vin shoved Ronald into the tree and decided to do the same Nathan did but his fun vanished when he noticed Chris was nowhere in sight. “Where is Chris?”

Before Nathan had a chance to reply, a spark jumped from the homestead and to all three gunslingers’ surprise, the homestead was on fire, high fires absorbing into the dark skies and Vin released Ronald and he, Josiah, and Nathan sprinted off the open yard toward the ablaze ranch.

“Oh, my God! Mrs. Rose?!” Nathan yelled and tried to find a way into the house, through the front door, the back door…something to just get inside.

“Where’s is she?” Vin yelled at Josiah as he tried to look through a window but all he saw was smoke and flames.

“We gotta get in there, Vin!” Josiah hollered back. “Look about you! Make sure no one’s on your tail!”

“Come on! Get to the front of house! We can get in that way!” Nathan ran as fast as he could. “Mrs. Rose?!”

Natalie screamed and screamed and screamed. She screamed so hard she felt her heart give in and drop down to her belly.

“Alex!!!” the room was rapidly catching on fire and she had no idea what she to do…how to break free. Pry her hands out of the rope or just let her skin melt as the heat washed over her? Her wrists burned and bled already from already trying to break free, and it was no use and she was out of strength from screaming and the heat and smoke was getting to her now. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t do anything but try and scream again to see if anyone cared. That was she about to die, meet her fate…how she didn’t want to die…not like this…not in the hands of her own husband’s faults.

The smoke drained her tears and she laid her head back on the mattress, ready to give up all hope, her eyesight a blur again, until a figure bust frantically through the back window, close to the bed where her weak body laid, and glass sprayed everywhere. And she was damn near death from the smoke she inhaled deep into her lungs.

Chris moved his hat down his forehead to shade his eyes from the flames and smoke and he used his shirt to cover his mouth as he fixed his eyes on the body. He fell to the bed and gathered enough strength in his arms to break loose the ropes with a spare knife in his boot and heave the woman’s limp body off the bed. He carried her in his arms over to the broken window as her body dangled lifelessly.

This couldn’t be happening. Chris was so angry he couldn’t see straight. He had no reason to control his anger with this man he only knew as her husband. How her husband didn’t care if she died how it could—would affect those around her. How he could just give up hope in a life he once knew and kill the only living soul that brought truth to his insane behavior! A woman who did nothing wrong and that’s what Chris was so angry about. She did nothing wrong!

Gently and ever so slightly, Chris set Natalie’s body outside the broken window, making sure her dress didn’t catch on a jagged piece of glass, and he followed hastily just before the drape windows went up in the combustion.

Natalie’s comatose body fell in the sodden meadow and Chris leaped out and inadvertently lost his balance and fell on top of her. He slid his hands under her shoulders then and dragged her away from the house before it wholly drowned in flames.

Not far away enough, Chris couldn’t take any chances and move her too much until he knew she was breathing. He lifted her head in his hands and came right close to her smoke covered face.

“Natalie? Natalie, come on. Wake up.” He rocked her head in his hands, keeping her right in his face until she coughed out and faintly opened her eyes. “Good. Okay, good.” And then she cried. She tried to open her eyes again but the aflame smoke flew into them and she cried out again, and earsplitting. Natalie cried with force and mixed pain of smoke and disturbing thoughts that her husband tried to kill her…literally for pleasurable and on intention.

And she continued to shed tears as Chris heaved her off the grass to her feet, and he wrapped an arm around her backside to keep her on balance with him. He didn’t have a chance to defend himself either when he heard the sound of a pistol’s click.

Chris shot his gaze up to the sound of that click and right into the eyes of Andy Scout. Natalie, too weak to notice her surroundings, didn’t hear the click of Andy’s gun.

“Looky here what I found,” Andy said, not pleased with the fire’s end result when Natalie here was in front of him, alive. “Woman’s suppose to be dead, mister.”

“Murdered, you mean?” Chris shot back, equally unpleased.

“Yeah, yeah, something like that.” He cocked his pistol up and right at Natalie. “So the fire didn’t get ya, Nat, but my pistol never misses a shot.” Andy, oblivious to how quick Chris Larabee really was, held the pistol at eye level directly in front of him right at Natalie.

“Say hello to Robbie for me, won’t you, Natalie?” Andy asked and as he was about to aim and shoot for the kill, when Chris would hear a gunshot fired and he’d be ready to place himself in front Natalie, he did but it didn’t come out of Andy’s pistols but from behind him.

Andy Scout screamed a low, throaty cry of pain and he looked over at his right shoulder and pressed down as blood gushed out over his fingers. In rage, he turned around and faced Buck with his favorite rifle in his hands.

“Why don’t you say hello to Satan for me, you bastard.” Buck groaned a hearty growl and shot off another round of bullets right into Andy’s not so tough now chest.

And as his corpse fell to the ground, Buck looked up into Chris’s graved eyes.

“You thought you were just gonna leave me behind, did ya?” Buck said.

“Good thing you didn’t listen to me,” Chris said.

Buck stuck out his hand and Chris accepted it but only for a second before the woman he held close to him almost fell to her knees again. He held her up and tightened his arm around her waist.

“Come on, we gotta go find Alexander.” Buck said and helped Chris lead Natalie to the bushes. When she finally realized what was going on, she found some strength and lifted her body off Chris and pushed away from Buck.

“What’s the matter, Mrs. Rose?” Buck asked her to this sudden defense guard.

“You can’t kill him!” she yelled.

“What the hell is she sayin’, Chris?”

“Buck, you can’t kill Alexander. Not here. Let him stand trial and face a judge. You just can’t kill him,” Natalie pleaded. “Please don’t fight with him. He’s a good man.”

“Natalie, he tried to burn you alive!” Chris entered the conversation with hell spit fire. He couldn’t believe his ears about what this woman was speaking. She wanted them to keep her husband alive and stand for trial? No, he’d done killed too many men to just stand in front of a jury and have a judge make a decision for the rest of his life. Chris had to bring down Alexander, and he planned on it one way or another, and if that included a vocal fight with his wife, bullets flying, then so be it. Alexander was going to die.

Then a couple of gunshots were fired off near the façade of the burning homestead and Natalie did a quick turn around and looked at Chris right in the eyes with a thousand questions. Chris didn’t return that glare and instead look beyond her towards Buck and they gave each other the let’s go approach.

Natalie, too weak to hardly stand on her own, Chris grabbed the inside of her right arm and held her behind him as Buck took the lead toward the gunshots.

A horse shot out of the barn doors and Maxton took aim right at Buck as they were walking toward Vin, Nathan, and Josiah in the front. Vin saw this gunslinger with his gun held high and screamed out for Buck and Chris to look out before he shot off his gun and killed the torturer Maxton and he toppled to the ground.

Then another man on a stallion rode out right after Maxton’s diminish and Vin tried to shoot that man down too but he had no such luck this time around. He turned his horse around, and landed eyes on Natalie as she stood protectively behind Chris, away from the burning homestead. The horse neighed and Chris, Buck, Josiah, and Vin and Nathan began to waste bullets into this man.

“Stop!!!” Natalie screamed, pushing away Chris and Buck as she stood out in the heart of the front lawn before Alexander. “Stop it!”

“Natalie?” Alexander huffed out an angry breath. “Damn it’s hard to kill you.” He guided his horse towards Natalie, his rifle still out and erect before all the five gunslingers.

“Was that the intention, sir?” Buck asked, angry boiling his veins.

Chris stepped away from Buck and moved his duster away from the gun on his belt to show Alexander he was not playing. In the roar of the wind blowing, Chris’s duster blew behind him and Natalie turned around to face him. “This doesn’t need to go any further!” and he had to yell just so Alexander and the others could hear him over the hustling wind.

“It can never stop, Mr. Larabee! You have my wife now, that slut you have!”

“That’s enough, mister!” Vin growled, edging his way toward him, anger filled eyes, the glow from the moonlight, his rifle arched up and forward.

“This doesn’t concern any of you!” Alexander spouted out, his horse shuffling around in the mildew.

“It concerned us as soon as you stepped foot in our town.” Buck snarled, gripping his pistol harder in his hand.

Natalie turned around and faced these five gunslingers who wanted nothing but to help her and tear down the bad element on this land. She looked at each and everyone of them before turning her gaze on her husband. She tried to find some sympathy in Alexander’s eyes, but she saw nothing. He was crazy just as she remembered. But she eased Chris back anyway, then Buck, and finally across the land at Vin, Josiah, and Nathan. She told them to step back, away from her husband’s crazed mind for she feared the absolute worst.

“Alex, please! You’re no match for these men! You’re all alone!”

Alexander didn’t believe her. “Andy?! Ronald?!”

“Like the lady said, mister, you’re all alone.” Buck teased.

“Don’t Buck! Just don’t.” Natalie screeched, backing Buck off with a hand gesture. “Alex, put the gun down. Please! They will kill you if you don’t!”

“Ain’t nobody gonna kill me, Natalie!”

“You better listen to her, Alexander,” Vin said. “This isn’t a game here. You’re out numbered.”

“Then call it murder if you kill me!”

“Call it self-defense!” Buck yelled as he moved closer to him. “You tried to kill your wife! Your wife! The woman you were meant to spend the rest of your life with! The woman who bared your child! The child you killed!”

And there it was. Natalie jerked around and glared hard at Chris. He told Buck about her son? About the accident? About the only thing that could really destroy her husband to the hilt? She trusted Chris when she told him about her son’s death. She confided in him and this is how he treated it? By telling people…? Spreading the word that this stranger in town was married to an insane gunslinger?

“No Buck! That was an accident!” she cried out. “Put your guns down, men! Now!”

“Don’t you ever bring up my son’s death! Don’t you—“ Alexander clicked the rifle back again.

“Stop it, Alex!” Natalie yelled, and she ran up to him but he kicked her down and she fell backwards on her bottom, her dress mixing in with wet mud and grassland. Unnecessarily as it was, Natalie didn’t expect such a kick and she felt a strong embrace on her body tugging at her arms.

“Back the hell up,” Chris barked, aiming his pistol right at Alexander high on his horse. He then motioned for Vin and Josiah to step away as he meant business now and business just between the two of them. Call it a fair fight if you will. “Get back, Vin! Buck, Nathan just get back.” Chris reached down and gripped beneath one of Natalie’s arms and tried to get her to stand and as soon as he made that touch down, he heard the almost too famous, too close to the ear click of a gun right at his head, and then the ghastly breathing of a man.

“You move on inch, gunslinger, and my wife will be the last woman you’ll ever see.” Alexander gritted his teeth.

Chris cleared his throat, “Forget already I’m not the only one here?”

Natalie pulled out of Chris’s grasp when she heard fresh pistol clicks and she pushed Chris out of her husband’s aim. “No!” she stands before him, protecting Chris in a way only she could do. “I will not let another human being suffer for me and my husband’s mistakes.”

“Back him up then, Natalie. Back him up now.” Buck said.

Alexander turned in his saddle and watched as the others started to slowly walk back up to him. He reached around for another gun on his hip but Vin jerked closer.

“Don’t do it.”

Chris tugged Natalie behind him but she had a fit about it and stayed as close to her husband as possible. “Stop it! Don’t do this, please! Please don’t fight them! Please! You don’t have to die, Alexander!”

“Who says it will be me dead?” he asked.

Natalie widened her eyes, “Alexander…”

“Get away, woman!” he shouted and aimed to kick her again but Chris shot off his gun, right into Alexander’s open chest and then Buck let off, then Vin and Nathan and Josiah at the same time and he fell over the horse’s saddle to flat on his back.

“No!!!” Natalie ran to Chris with tooth and nail and slammed her tight fists into his rock solid chest and hit him over and over until tears rolled down her cheeks, leaked on her neck, soaking into the satin fabric of her dress. “No! No! No!” she kept hitting him until she was red in the face and had no strength left. And Chris let her. He let her fight him with fists until she gave up, leaned her face into him and cried out.

When she felt Chris’s hand begin to stroke her hair, she pushed away from him with sobbing filled eyes and turned and ran over to her husband’s corpse.

“Justice has prevailed,” Josiah whispered.

Natalie fell to her knees. She reached for her husband’s lifeless hand and cried.