Chapter 1

There he sat.  Right there in front of me, no more than fifteen yards away.  The infamous outlaw Beauford Blue, “the man who spills red.”  Yes he was a nasty outlaw, an outlaw that near every hunted to kill, well those brave enough anyway.  Beauford had acquired himself a bit of a body count throughout this decade here in the 1870s.  And because of that, there was a mighty fine bounty out for Beauford, dead or alive.  But I wasn’t here for the money exactly.  No I was out here hunting for Beauford for nothing other than good old-fashioned revenge. 
The cover of darkness and the forest environment kept me well hidden in the moonless night.  I was given a tip from a local town just down a nearby river that Beauford Blue was camping out in the local area, secluded.  Luckily the tip was true.  I tied my horse to a tree about a hundred yards away and sneaked my way inch by inch to my current spot.  With my revolver in hand and the hammer drawn back, I was prepared to take the life of this malevolent man.  But for now, I stalked, eyeing his every motion and confirming that this was the right man. 
He sat with his back toward me and his eyes fixated on his fire, seeming to be idle in thought, thought for which I’m sure evil schemes took place in.  I eased out of my hiding spot to get a better look, but as soon as I did so, Beauford stood from his seat, and glanced around with a meandering motion.  This caused me to retreat back into concealment.  Having the reputation that he had, I’m sure that he had to check his surroundings quite frequently.  Then, unexpectedly, he pulled his revolver out of his holster, and sat back down, holding the gun in his lap with both hands.  Did he know that he was being watched? Did he know that I was there?  Had I been made, despite all my best efforts?  These questions rattled throughout my head.  I began to doubt the situation that I placed myself in.
But then he did something that caught me off guard.  The hands that cradled his revolver moved with an unexpected intent.  He breathed in with a heavy sigh of closure and tightly gripped the handle of his revolver firmly and then lifted his arm and placed the barrel of the gun onto the side of his head.  My eyebrows pressed together in confusion and caused my forehead to wrinkle tightly in anger.  No.  Not like this you coward!  I leapt from my hiding spot and drew my gun pointing dead at his body’s center mass.
“Don’t you dare do it you coward!” I commanded him with a fierce growl that even caught myself by surprise with its fierceness. 
But I was caught by an even bigger surprise.  Beauford spun around with near instant reaction time to me opening my mouth, aimed his gun at my mind, and shot it right out of my hand.  I guess he’s as infamous as they really say he is.  I stood there in both awe and embarrassment, impressed but also disarmed.  Beauford himself was a bit surprised, not by his own skills, but by the sight of who his attacker was.
“You’re just merely a young woman,” he said to me, puzzled.  Slowly, I raised my arms and nodded begrudgingly. 
He took a couple steps nearer, and then cocked his gun again, signalling his halted movement.  Looking me up and down, he appeared more confused than angry, which is surprising given the fact that I essentially was trying to murder him.  His period of observation made me grow impatient, but at the same time relieved because if he wanted me dead, I’d be dead already.  For some inscrutable reason, this allowed me to tap into some misplaced sense of confidence. 
“Well, are you gonna stare at me all night or are you going to say something?” I questioned, a little too firmly.  Beauford grinned at this, ever so slightly, but then forced his grin to disappear.
“Two questions, who are you, and what is a girl like you doing here?”  He interrogated.
I damn near jumped to answer him.  I had wanted to recite the reason to him ever since the moment he killed my father a year and a half prior.
“My name is Samantha Dawson and I’ve come all this way to kill you for killing my father, Gareth Dawson,” I stated firmly once more. 
Beauford’s eyes near bulged out of his head unexpectedly. 
“He wasn’t a good man,” Beauford countered, almost defensively.
“Maybe so, but you took him away from me and brought grief to my family who I love and that’s reason enough that you deserve to die!” I pressed.
“If you love your family so, then why’d you leave them selfishly,” he retorted.  I opened my mouth ready to argue, but then he ushered my silence with a wave of his revolver.
“Let’s say I were the one staring at the end of this here barrel instead of you, what would you do then?” he questioned
“I’d probably just pull the trigger then,” I answered in an unsure voice, not sure if this was a trick question or not.  Beauford eyed me hard, as if looking at something very familiar. 
“Let’s make a deal,” he bargained. “I’ll give you the guns, and I’ll let you take me prisoner to the nearest town down the river.  You can collect your bounty and you won’t even have to get your hands dirty.”  At the end of this, he flipped his revolver around and offered me the handle side.  I was in utter bewilderment.  This had to have been a trick.  This crooked criminal was offering himself to me!? But why?  I gingerly reached to grab the revolver from his hand but the moment I was about to lay a finger upon it, he pulled it back and stared into my eyes, in a soft, yet commanding way.
“If you shoot and kill me now girl.  Your life will spiral into a madness and warp you into something beyond recovery.”
I stared back into his eyes, squinting hard yet not budging him with any sort of distress.  I grabbed the revolver from his hand while his eyes remained fixated on me.  I did not have a good feeling about this. 

Chapter 2

I wasn’t taking any chances with this conniving criminal.  After the whole, odd, ordeal back at the outlaws camp, I gathered his belongings and took his horse and him back to where my horse and belongs were located, tied his arms and legs up and placed him on top of his horse and made sure he was in my sight at all times as his horse traughted alongside mine.  The trip wouldn’t be long, but it definitely felt long with Beauford’s constant questioning and remarks.  I ignored him, but some of his words seeped there way into my ears.  Phrases like, “if you got to know me, you’d see how you and I are very alike,” and “did you ever wonder how I came to be?” and  “You’d better be careful,” and “Your father is the reason that all of this happened,” and finally, “If you play your cards wrong, you’ll end up just like me, firmly gripped by your urge for revenge.”  Of course, as I said, I ignored most of it and even sneered away a good portion of it all.  But Beauford became increasingly tedious and taxing with his constant badgering and attempts to reach me on some “philosophical” and “warning” level of words. 
Finally I reached my boiling point and shouted “That’s enough!”  I glared at him while he looked back at me, looking all dumb and defenseless while being tied up on his horse. 
“I’m going to go take a break and head on down to the river to relax my feet.  Meanwhile, I’m leaving you here because frankly, I’ve had enough of your ‘heeding words’ Beauford.”  I mounted off of my horse and began walking away.  “Oh, and be careful Beauford, I’d hate for your defenseless body to be attacked out here in bear country.”  This sent a chill down his face that made me quite  proud as I trotted away.
“Don’t leave me here! You’re making a mistake Sam! You mustened wander off yonder by yourself like so! Untie, untie me before you make a fool of yourself girl.  Sam! Sam! Girl!...”  his words were as colorless as the wind as they faded away from any concern of mine.

*

The river was more soothing than I had anticipated.  It was a well-needed break.  I closed my eyes and absorbed the noises around me: the running water, the moisture given off by the river that fell on exposed skin, the warm and welcoming sunlight, and the cool breeze that blended together warmth and coolness, causing the hairs on the back of my neck stand.
I breathed in through my nose; filling my lungs with crisp air and my mind with reminiscing thoughts as I dropped off my shoes at the shore and walked into the river.  I thought about the past few days, the past few weeks, few months, and even few years.  The memories they held, replayed over and over.  And then I thought about now.  Warm water gathered behind my eyelids.  I began taking note of the moments that lead me to this one.  The lessons I learned, the lessons I taught myself, and the new attitude I molded into myself all for the completion of my endeavor for revenge.  I really was doing this.  And more importantly, I really had become this.  Tears nudged their way out from beneath my eyelids and ran down my face.  I didn’t bother stopping them. 
A new memory smuggled its way onto my train of thought: Blue’s taunting words,“Your father is the reason that all of this happened.” The sentenced repeated and repeated in my head, burning into the fabric of my brain.  It was a question that seemed to have so much content behind it, yet I hadn’t the bit of interest in finding its answer.  Instead, it was a question that  fueled my fire with even more hate for Beauford Blue.  But, nonetheless, it was a question that lead to another.  When Blue took away my father, it added the fire within me that solely burned for revenge.  But would his death vanquish these flames, or simply stoke them into something new?  I did not know.  But for now, it did not matter.  The thought and lack of answer disturbed me.
I lifted my head and looked upon the river, letting my mind wander elsewhere.  Geology was always my favorite class in school, back when I actually attended school, before all this.  Just the whole idea of how things were and how they came to be always fascinated me.  I guess the “why” behind nature was never dull.  There was always a reason behind nature’s actions and formations.  Like this river I stood in for example.  It wasn’t always here.  Just rainfall, and the way that soil and stuff was deposited helped lead to its creation.  Big events lead to the way it flows, a fixed path that wouldn’t change.  The water flow would always lead to the waterfall,  a path and direction predetermined by prior events.  It would always lead to that fall, unless some major event changed that predestination.  I looked at my reflection in the running water and wondered if any of this related to me. 
I swirled my feet in the water, blurring my reflection and stirring away my thoughts.  I splashed water in my face; partly to wake myself up, partly to wipe away the now dried streams of tears.  I turned around and began walking back to the dry shore where my shoes were at.  Meanwhile as I trudged through the water, I balled my hands up and rubbed my eyes, attempting to refocus and coordinate myself back to the matters at hand.  It was a good break from the action, one that offered some solace yet also reminded me of the service I was doing for the world by killing Beauford Blue. 
I reached my shoes at the shore and sat to the left of them.  I sighed, grabbing one boot and slipping it on, procedurally tying my laces, ready to go.  I glanced up one last time, scanning over the river to check it out one last-- and then I froze.  And by froze, I mean froze.  My every movement solidified with the stillness that challenged the idleness of statues.  My face tightened with redness as my blood began to heat up.  Despite being near a body of water, my hands turned leathery and my eyes cracked with dryness.  Across from me, on the other side of the river...was a grizzly bear.  It stomped through the river, slapping the water with its paws as it headed towards the waterfall.  I assumed to hunt for fish, and hopefully not me.  My numb hands slowly, slowly, continued to tie my shoes with a nervously hidden eagerness while my eyes remained fixated on the bear, calculating its every movement.  Feelings of  stupidity and anxiety pillaged my insides as my heart drummed away.  How could I have been so blind?! And how did the bear not see me?!  Either way, I didn’t care.  After finishing with my shoe, I reached over and blindly grabbed at my other shoe while my eyes remained fixated on the furry beast.  I grabbed the boot and tugged, but it was heavier than I remembered, in fact, I felt a moisture sniff over my hand as I grabbed the boot.  My eyes darted towards my hand to quickly investigate.  My eyes met another pair of eyes, a black buttoned pair of eyes, eyes that didn’t belong to a person, but instead, a curious bear cub that wrestled with my boot. 
I shrieked, propelling myself onto my feet while simultaneously swatting the bear cub across the snout with my boot.  Big mistake.  The cub didn’t quite growl, or roar, but kind of, quacked at me and launched itself into a retreat towards its mother.  Whatever the noise was that it made, its mother heard.  She heard. And she was coming right at me.  Instinctively I slide my remaining boot on, disregarding the laces that danced around like warm spaghetti, and flung myself in the opposite direction of the oncoming bear.  My boots turned into skates while the ground beneath me turned into ice as the pebbles beneath my clumsy movements were shot out in every angle imaginable.  My neck snapped around to allow my bulging eyes to see how fastly the mother bear was approaching.  Her body rocked front to back as her paws smashed into the river water, splashing the water in a manner that resembled cannon ball impacts.  Her teeth grotesquely stuck out, searching for blood while saliva drooled and spit out, hungry for the kill. 
My arms flailed as if trying to detach from my body and fend for themselves.  My vocal cords initially failed me before being able to screech noises of panic and fear.  Amidst all my incomparable fear and distress, I finally realized that I was armed and had a chance to defend myself.  My hands dove onto my holster, wrestling and racing each other to get to the revolver first until finally my right hand prevailed.  The wooden handle seemed to melt into my burning palm as I pulled the gun out and c***ed the hammer back.  My feet continued their panicked pace forward while my torso twisted around and my arm extended outward to line up the shot.  I could only imagine the broken mess that my body must have looked liked from an outside perspective as I drowned in my desperation.  Fortunately I wouldn’t have to imagine this broken image much longer.  While glancing back at the furry beast, my befuddled foot stepped on a rock, twisting my ankle to an outward angle.  I choked on my gasp of pain.  I shot my knee forward to break my fall, but instead my knee landed upon a sharp rock that embedded itself  into my leg, pushing aside my knee cap and jamming itself into the gap between my bones.  Next my hands flung outward to break my fall, but only succeeded in dragging across the sharp, dry rocks along the ground, scraping my hands.  The pistol dislodged from my once tight grip and skipped ahead of me a few feet.  My eyes watered in fiery defeat as my body slid along the ground. 
I crawled forward, dragging my disabled legs as I reached for the gun.  While on the ground I could feel the deathly vibrations of the mother bear’s movements as her paws collided into the ground, grinding the rocks beneath her into dust.  My mind felt the emotion of impending doom while my body thoughtlessly continued its adrenaline filled instincts.  My now slashed hands grabbed the revolver and spun around with it in time to see the embodiment of nature’s grim reaper.  The mother bear towered over me, standing on her hind legs and blocking out the sun above, leaving me in the darkness of her shadow.  Her claws popped out of her paws as her head faced the sky and erupted a gigantic roar that liquified my intestines and hindered the blood-flow throughout my body.  The saliva dripped off of her teeth and fell onto my body, marking me with her signature of death.  Without even thinking I pointed the pistol and shot it into the massive wall of flesh.  I cocked again and shot. And again, and again, and again...and again. 
The bear moaned and groaned in surprised agony.  It stumbled back and teetered back and forth slightly.  Instinctively once more, I began to crawl away as fast as I could, but yet, I still felt as slow as a snail.  After a few lurches away, the bear dropped its monstrous weight onto my leg snapping bone like a thin, dried twig, utterly pinning me. 
Tears bled down my face as my body resorted to its final effort, its final attempt of staying alive, despite my mind accepting this fate.
“HEELP!!” my soul shouted.
The bear lurched over me, and sank its teeth into my leg like burning knives easing into a stick of butter.
“SOMEBODY PLEASE,” my body begged.
Darkness gathered and unfolded along the boundaries of my vision.
“ANYBODY, SOMEONE PLEASE HELP,” my muscles moaned.
The very energy inside my body that you never quite appreciate until you feel it spill out began to drip away.
“BEAUFORD PLEASE…,” my consciousness conceited.
My senses dulled away as the bear had its way.  Everything faded as I slipped away.  But before I totally disappeared, numerous popping noises and inaudible sounds whispered into my ears as I was overcome by darkness.

Chapter 3

My soul floated in the darkness, transcending everything tangible and only obliging the intangible.  Memories and thoughts wrapped around me like numerous layers of blankets as my soul wandered the halls of my past life, visiting, and remembering, and missing the events of my life, of my family, of the father that I mourned, and of the mother that I left.  Tears didn’t accompany the fleeting scenes and images due to how sensation was absent in this realm of death.  All that was left was perception and construction of the nonexistent.  All the overwhelming color and memory lead me to one final question before I evaporated into the afterlife.  Was my journey of revenge worth it?  I came so far and left so much behind to ultimately fail.  Warmth and coldness gathered in my floating nonexistence as I thought about the mother that I left in her grief,... the siblings that I abandoned,... and the life I traded in...all for the greedy intention of unfulfilling revenge.  I finally realized the monster that my endeavor had turned me into.  And I hated what I had become.  I wish I could take it back.  I wish I knew about this feeling before I started.  I wanted to say I’m sorry to my mother, my younger brother, and my younger sister, Hell! To the whole town that I left! And I Just...and i just...and I just…
“NO!” I bellowed out into the darkness of the night, causing my body to throb in absurd pain.  “Ouch goddamnit!” I muttered to myself, among great confusion as to my current location.
“Lay down and conserve your energy Sam,” a ruffled voice behind tattered and ripped clothes directed.  The man (I could tell by his build and clothes) sat slouched on the other side of a lazily built fire with his face hidden behind a large cowboy hat. 
“Who are you are?” I whispered with great pain behind each word.
The man shuffled over and leaned his head to the side as if gathering the strength to talk. 
“The man you’re tryna kill,” Beauford muttered as he lifted his head up, placing his face in the direct light of the fire to reveal his face to me.  It was horrid sight.  His eyes were sunken into his skull, buried beneath swollen lumps and large gashes that darted down the side of his face.  There was a layered of dried on near most parts of his face and down his neck.  Injuries that seemed to have come from a bear.  My face expanded in realization.  The effort he had gone through to entire himself and save me, it left be speechless and shameful,
After his eyes looked me over for a few brief moments, he slumped his face back down to the ground as if too exhausted to keep his head up any longer.  My mouth drooped slightly open and there was a long silence that was filled in explicit thought and loud internal dialogue.  I looked over my body, slowly due to the pain, and soon discovered that all my injuries were wrapped up and bandaged, to the best of one’s abilities.  It seemed that Beauford had dedicated everything that he could service as medical equipment onto me, and spent no time helping himself.  Moisture gathered behind my eyes. 
“But...why?” I asked.  “You could’ve just ran away...I mean I was trying to kill you.  But yet, you still...Why?” I asked again, boggled.
The words fell onto Beauford’s broken body that couldn’t muster the strength to reply.  Instead he offered a heavy breath of air that seemed to say a lot despite saying nothing.  I didn’t bother asking again or anything.  It was the courtesy that I owed him.  Some time passed where we sat in silence.  It felt like an eternity after having to sit there and listen to Beauford’s brutal moans of agony.  Finally, Beauford moved in a way that seemed to signal that he was ready to speak.
“Before I became this...criminal,” Beauford breathed out, “I used to be a school teacher in a little town in Montana.”  The fire crackled and popped as he collected himself for every sentence.  “It sure is a cruel type of funny with how you learn so much outside of the classroom,” he thought to himself.  “I was a single parent too, and my daughter was in the little school I taught for, in my class.”
I sat listening to every word he said, not even thinking of the idea to interrupt.
“One evening after I finished grading papers,...my daughter stayed to help me...we went on and walked home together.  And ran into your father, who was drunk as a sunnavbitch,” *my father did drink a lot from time to time*, “and we argued...and then fought...and out of nowhere, he shot.” 
I began to understand Beauford’s quips from earlier.
“The next morning, I woke up from a gunshot wound,” -although I couldn’t see, I could tell tears were falling down his face.  They must have stung going across his open wounds- “But she didn’t.”
There was another long pause, but this time, both of us seemed to take the time to collect ourselves.
“It took me years to find your father,” he continued, “But when I did, I killed him,” Beauford lifted his head to me for a brief pause and then continued.  “But what I didn’t know, is that when I embarked to kill your dad, I didn’t realize it’d take me to find him.  And I didn’t know that in that moment of leaving my town for the sake of revenge, I killed my old life...my old friends...old opportunities...and my old self.”
I couldn’t help but draw the connections to myself and all that I had done as well in my revenge plot to kill Beauford.  I finally realized that in this moment, across the fire, there sat a mirror image reflection of me.
Beauford took a shaky breath in, and trudged on with his words, “But just know, that every action that I took...the crimes I committed and new life I adopted… every one of those actions made my daughter feel farther away than her actual death.  And there’s no action you can take to heal that feeling.”
Beauford lifted his face to look at me.  His words were no longer necessary, all that he needed to say were written in his eyes.  So I looked right into his eyes and read his message.  I still had time to go home, still had time to return to my old life.  I still had time to abandon the greedy grip of revenge and free myself from it’s life altering damnation.  That’s why Beauford saved me from that bear.  He knew what was best for me because he knew too well himself.  In saving me, I guess he was able to reconcile and redeem himself in some way.  And in a weird way, I forgave and thanked Beauford in that moment of eye contact.  I understood him, and he understood me.  And as soon as our eye contact finished, Beauford’s body slumped over, never to sit back up.  It wouldn’t be easy to return home in my current state, but Beauford left me his horse and gave me a chance to make it back.