Evelyn cried out in pain. Her broken voice reached Bonnie, who gripped the revolver not knowing what to do. She had come out to watch the duel up close — and now she was watching Thieving Cat on the verge of dying.
Without thinking, she remembered those couple of tears the outlaw had shed the night before. Evelyn put on such a tough and composed front — that easy smile, that strange confidence — but who was this woman really? Bonnie didn't know her. What she did know was that so far, she had been nothing but decent.
And on top of everything else, she was the one who was going to teach her about the supernatural powers! Was she really going to let her die and throw the opportunity away? Said out loud by someone else, that would have sounded incredibly selfish — but that was the nature of being an outlaw.
Do whatever you want, because freedom belongs to those brave enough to take a step forward!
Bonnie trembled. She would never be able to erase that feeling of fear — much less the memory of the blood she had spilled. Even if she had done it to save herself, in the end her own hands had taken someone's life.
She took a step forward and raised the gun.
'I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I don't know if I'm still just naive, or flat-out stupid. My feelings always betray me. They have since the day Mom died…'
Were those Bonnie's words, or Samuel's? The answer didn't really matter — because in that moment, they both felt like one single person.
'Father… I'm tired of following other people's orders like I'm nothing but an object.'
She aimed at Wild Dog, who had already cocked the hammer before firing.
'I'll do what I want — even if it's just a stupid idea. To reach my goal. To give Bonnie back her body and see everything through to the end. From here on out, that's all I want.'
Far from home. Alone in a world this dangerous. She squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet split the wind and nearly found Wild Dog — but the man dodged just in time. He immediately turned toward whoever had been stupid enough to fire at him, and the fury burning in his eyes locked onto Bonnie.
'Oh no…'
Bonnie had made a mistake. There was barely any time to react, because Wild Dog had already raised his weapon against her — but just then, another shot rang out.
Wild Dog lurched sideways, nearly losing his footing from the force of the movement, and stumbled away from the alley. He spun toward the alleyway, now at a distance, aiming into the darkness — but from somewhere inside it came the meow of a cat. A second later, a small black cat with scarlet eyes walked calmly out into the street with the grace of a falling feather.
The cat sat down a few feet in front of Wild Dog and began to lick its paws.
'A cat…' thought Bonnie.
"A cat?" Wild Dog muttered.
The shadow that the cat cast trembled like a shadow caught in the flicker of a campfire — and that told Wild Dog something was very wrong. He pulled the trigger.
In that exact instant, the image of the cat distorted — and there stood Evelyn, on her feet, both revolvers raised and aimed.
Thieving Cat fired at the same moment Wild Dog did, and Bonnie held her breath for a few seconds.
The wind moved softly across the sand of the street, and a dead silence fell over the scene. Then, a moment later, Wild Dog dropped backwards. His eyes went dark — the unmistakable look of someone who had just died — with a bleeding bullet hole in the center of his forehead where the round had passed straight through his skull.
He had another wound in his chest, right at the heart. Evelyn had ensured her victory one way or another by hitting two vital points at once.
'I don't understand… What in the world just happened?'
As if in answer to all her questions, Evelyn dropped to the ground as well.
Bonnie ran toward her. Around them, windows and doors began to open as the town's other residents — who had stayed hidden until this moment — cautiously peered out.
"Hey… are you okay?" said Bonnie, dropping to her knees beside her.
Evelyn's eyes were closed and she had two more bullet wounds in the same arm. Her limp posture made her look dead — but then she let out a pained laugh.
"Does it look like I'm okay, sweetheart?" she said, opening her eyes and looking at Bonnie.
Bonnie exhaled with relief. She felt like her heart was about to burst from the nerves. She holstered the revolver and sat down on the ground as though an enormous weight had just been lifted off her shoulders.
"No, it doesn't," she answered.
Letting her revolvers fall to the ground, Evelyn looked up at the sky and smiled with a quiet calm.
"You didn't need to step in. I had everything under control."
Bonnie tightened her fists. She had risked doing something reckless for someone she had just met — and that was the response she got? No. That made no sense and it wasn't fair. Evelyn had absolutely not had anything under control.
That was enough to make Bonnie feel completely overwhelmed and frustrated — so much so that she looked Thieving Cat right in the eyes and said:
"Under control…? You were about to get killed, and then… and then… you turned into a cat! And then you came back and shot that man!"
Evelyn sighed.
"Come on, Bonnie — don't be so dramatic. That was my plan the whole time."
Bonnie pressed a hand to her forehead.
'And here I thought I was actually doing something useful.'
"What I didn't expect was for you to show up. I figured you'd stay hidden until it was all over. Because of that, my plan worked out even better than I thought. In a roundabout way — thank you."
"Oh… Well… You don't have to thank me for anything," said Bonnie, looking away in embarrassment. She felt like an idiot for everything she had been thinking earlier.
Evelyn looked at her with a faint smile — but then immediately coughed and spat blood.
"Damn. That doesn't look good. Help me up?"
"Oh — right, yeah," said Bonnie, snapping back to reality and taking Evelyn's hand.
She helped her to her feet, though the truth was that Thieving Cat was surprisingly heavy. Being slightly taller and more solidly built than Bonnie, it was obvious that someone with the frame of a young county girl was going to struggle to hold her up.
Bonnie strained not to buckle under the weight as she took Evelyn's arm over her shoulders.
Together, they walked slowly toward Wild Dog's body. Evelyn looked down at him without a trace of emotion.
"In the end, they're all just talk and nothing to back it up. Every last one in his gang was the same way…"
She glanced at Bonnie — who was staring at the body with a quietly bleak expression.
'This is going to become more normal than I'd like… Killing… surviving…' she thought, hardening her face to try to look composed.
Evelyn caught that look on Bonnie's face — the look of a kid trying to act tough about something she clearly couldn't stomach. She sighed, as though she understood perfectly well, then turned her gaze back toward her grandmother's house.
"Let's go. While the wounds on my arm are still fresh, we should get them sutured at my grandmother's."
"Yeah… sure…" answered Bonnie, trying to push those thoughts aside.
The two of them walked away from the scene as the townspeople began to gather outside.
There, watched by the eyes of the timid crowd, Wild Dog's body stared up at the sky with an expression of hardened disbelief — the only face he could manage once he realized he had been brought down by a trick so absurd he never saw it coming.
That was how that desert criminal had died. No lamenting, no tears, no goodbyes — only silence and solitude. That was what waited for those who pretended to be free along the long desert road. That was the life of an outlaw.