The Green Ladies: Part 2-Settling Differences

Hello, everyone! Here is the 2 part to my novella.

Hawthorn. That was his name. And it was not unknown in the land of dangers and beauties, mysteries and riches, killers and outlaws named The Wilds. He was a bounty hunter, a gun for hire. And he rode across these savage and mystical reaches with not a fear nor worry upon his mind, for his blood ran hot with the sun as did the sands, his eyes gleamed sharp like the hawk’s, and his aim sped quick and true as the wind.

The Wilds held many things. Wide plains of dry, yellow grass checkered with sparse dogwood and brush, and scorched, merciless deserts dotted with mesas and plateaus and mountains. It was across the plains that Hawthorn now rode, his black rifle slung over his shoulder and a rope fastened to his wrist by which he hauled Dance along by the saddle of the thief’s horse.

“I suppose I should thank you, Mister Hawthorn,” Dance said.

“For what?” Hawthorn said.

“For saving me, that is, from those wily degenerates. I’m quite sure if that Thomas animal had had his way, I would be missing my fingers as well as my manhood.”

“Well, you’re mighty welcome. Now, shut your jab and enjoy the scenery. It’s the last sights you’ll get of such.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Hawthorn looked over the wide plains as the low sun turned the yellow grasses to masses of waving wands of gold. “Think on it,” he said.

“They mean to hang me in Redemption?”

“It’s what I’d do,” Hawthorn said, “especially for what you pulled. Killing

those men in cold blood. You took six men from their families.”

Dance couldn’t restrain his boiling tones. “Oh, don’t go and take the high-ground on me, bounty hunter. Me killing those men, in self-defense I might add, while they were serving an establishment that has for years provided for its own interests rather than those of its workers and their families, is nothing compared to a man who’ll hogtie another man and take him to certain death for what amounts to blood-money.”

Now Hawthorn laughed. It wasn’t a sound that Dance found particularly pleasant.

“You’d better find another way of justifying murder instead of equating it with me.”

That got Dance angry. “If what I did was murder, then how is it any different from killing a man just because he has a price put on his head? You’ve no conscience, Hawthorn, any more than you believe that I lack—“

Hawthorn yanked the horse’s rope forward, causing the animal to lurch up to him. And suddenly Dance was looking right into the hunter’s mismatched eyes.

“Every man I ever killed was a for a reason. You didn’t have to be there, Dance. But you were, and you killed men who didn’t have it coming. Now, I’m a lot of things, thief. But you and I ain’t nothing alike,” he growled. The light from that cigarette looked hellish when coupled with the green eye and red eye.

Dance said nothing else.