The bloodied needle dropped onto the plate beside the bullets. The grandmother was now covering Evelyn's wounds with the bandages Bonnie had provided. Before long, the outlaw's torso was wrapped in gauze like a mummy.
"There. Sleep tonight, brat. First thing tomorrow morning, you're leaving this town. I don't want you bringing trouble here. We already have enough to deal with from that faceless bastard," said the old woman, gathering the tools she'd used to put them away.
While she did that, Evelyn let out a weak little laugh.
"I know. I'll leave the money on the bed. By the time you open your eyes, I'll already be gone."
The old woman stopped dead. She looked at the floor. Bonnie watched her in silence, understanding that brief, frozen gesture well enough.
'A complicated relationship… I'd like to say that's new to me, but it wouldn't be true.'
Different people had different problems. Bonnie had no interest in getting tangled up in those—so she decided to leave.
"Well… I've done everything I can. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading to bed."
The old woman left first and held the door open for Bonnie to follow—but…
"Wait," said Evelyn. "I want to talk with you for a little while. I won't take long, I promise."
Of course Bonnie didn't have a problem with that—but she had slept so little over the past several nights that staying focused was becoming genuinely hard. Even so, she found the space in her imaginary schedule to stay a little longer.
She moved back to the bed and crouched down the way she had before.
"About what I said earlier," the outlaw continued. "I wanted to close that conversation where we left off. You know—if you killed a man and ran, that means you've become an outlaw."
"That's what I did…" Bonnie answered.
She tightened her grip on her skirt, still stained with dried blood, as the anguish of that moment came back to her.
Evelyn looked up at the ceiling. She seemed almost nostalgic.
"I see. How old are you? Which county are you from?"
"I'm from Warlock County. I'm seventeen…"
The outlaw looked surprised.
"I knew you looked young, but you really are. It must have been hard—making the decision to leave everything behind over one single mistake."
'I didn't even have time to think about it. I just ran because I was terrified. By the time I realized I'd ruined my life, there was no going back,' Bonnie thought quietly. Her expression was heavy with bleak resignation.
Even Samuel Calloway couldn't hold up against the weight of Bonnie's emotions anymore. Her feelings were like a vast lake of blood and water, swirling together and dissolving into the dark—and that was already happening to both their souls.
Something of that resignation—and the quiet depression settling behind it—was caught quickly by Evelyn, who reached out and placed her hand on top of that lost girl's head.
Bonnie looked up at her, not quite understanding.
"I know what you're feeling. I felt it too, at some point. It's suffocating—the way the darkest thoughts take over your mind and drag you toward despair. And it's hard not to hear them echoing inside your head all the time."
The outlaw ran her fingers gently through her hair.
"I don't know much about you, but you don't seem like a bad person. You almost seem like someone who has no idea about anything going on around them."
She wasn't wrong. Bonnie had spent her whole life under her father's shadow—like an ornament that spent most of its time locked inside a house. The only thing Bonnie had ever really been able to do in that situation was study, which led her to learn a great deal about geography, because ironically, she had always wanted to see all the places she found in the many maps her tutor used to bring.
Samuel Calloway, on the other hand, wasn't someone particularly remarkable either—just a young college student in a modern era where comfort and convenience were a thousand times more abundant than in a world of cowboys and steam machinery.
"And that's not a bad thing," Evelyn continued. "But you're going to have to learn how to live if you don't want the world to swallow you whole. Out there, people aren't like they are in the towns. There's too much danger and too many selfish people. I'm one of those people—and maybe one day, you will be too."
"I… already know that," Bonnie answered quietly.
At this point, that much was obvious. Evelyn let out a small laugh.
"I believe you. And you don't seem stupid either, so I'm sure you'll figure it out," she said. She sighed and lifted her hand from Bonnie's head. "Well—that's all I had to say. You can go get some sleep. Tomorrow I'll leave you money for the bandages and the alcohol my grandmother used."
"I see. Then… goodnight."
Bonnie got up and headed for the door. Before she stepped out, Evelyn said one last thing.
"That power of yours… Learn to use it as soon as you can."
Bonnie stopped cold. She turned to look at Evelyn, who gave her a small wink. Then the outlaw closed her eyes and settled in to sleep.
'Power… She said…'
She was about to go back into the room and ask—but the old woman grabbed her by the dress with a strength that seemed entirely out of proportion. Once again she had appeared from nowhere without making a single sound.
"Go to sleep, girl. If you want, tomorrow you can go off with that foolish brat and talk as much as you like. For now—go to sleep. In silence. The other guests are trying to do the same."
'Damn it… Right when I found something important.'
There was no getting around it.
"Alright. Sorry for the trouble," said Bonnie.
With that, she went back to her room. She closed the door and dropped face-first onto the bed, then kicked her legs in the air like a frustrated child while she screamed inside her mind.
'She knows something! I need to find out what it is, right now!'
She rolled over until she was staring at the ceiling.
'But I don't think I can do anything about it until tomorrow. Besides, I'm way too tired. I'll wait for her to leave the money for the things I gave her and then I'll ask. I could even go with her to learn! She's hurt—she's going to need help. This is the opportunity I've been waiting for. With that woman's outlaw knowledge, my investigation will move so much faster.'
All of that information had practically fallen out of the sky for her. She was going to make the most of every bit of it. She couldn't afford to miss it—falling behind now would set everything back enormously.
She closed her eyes, ready to sleep.
'Tomorrow everything changes. I hope so, anyway.'
And finally she sank into the darkness.
━━━━━✧❃✧━━━━━
The coyotes of the night hunted their prey in silence, the way predators do. But in the middle of that vast desert, the steady sound of horse hooves spooked them, and the rider of that animal laughed at them.
"Cowards," he said in a raspy voice. "And you're supposed to be wild beasts."
All it took was one shot to make them stop acting like it.
The man laughed at that thought. He adjusted his hat and leaned forward. The horse picked up speed, and a small town appeared on the horizon.
The man smiled—this was exactly what he had been looking for.
"You've got to be there, woman."
The night would end hours later, giving way to a new dawn.