The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head by Cassandra Duffy

unsettling
effect on the gathered hunters with the exception of Fiona.
     
    She strode through the cluster with murderous
intent. When she reached Yahweh, she grasped him by the back of the
shirt, spun him around to face her, and brought the butt of her gun
along his jaw, knocking two teeth from his mouth in a spray of
blood. The cult leader crumpled to the ground like a heap of
laundry.
     
    “You want me so bad?” Fiona snarled, swinging
a boot hard to kick the downed man directly in the ribs. “Here I
am!”
     
    Yahweh laughed an insidious, wheezing
chuckle, dripping dark blood on the dusty street with every shake
of his frail frame. He regained his feet slowly without help.
Before righting his posture entirely, he sought out and retrieved
the parking cone hat he’d lost. “The great eye in the sky has told
us you are not the she-devil who will lead this town into
temptation.” His voice took on a strangely powerful quality despite
coming from such a desiccated old man. His finger, gnarled and
twisted, shot out toward the front of the saloon to where Gieo
stood, Fiona’s hat in one hand and her leash in the other. “She is
the true devil incarnate who will be the downfall of humanity and
the damnation of all lost souls. Give her to us now, let us cleanse
her by fire, and the world will be saved from the devil’s
treachery.”
     
    Fiona let loose with a growl more feral and
jungle cat than Gieo would have thought a person could even manage.
She swung her long, shapely leg in a wicked arc, kicking Yahweh’s
legs out from beneath him. The old man went airborne for what
seemed like an eternity before landing flat on his back in the
street. Two cultist men, armed with knives, lunged from the crowd,
intent on grabbing Gieo. Fiona spun on her heels, leveled two,
well-placed shots, and blew off one man’s right hand while striking
the other in the lower back. She spun back around to point the
barrel of her gun at Yahweh’s chest.
     
    “You so much as look at her funny, and I’ll
send you to meet the god you won’t shut up about,” Fiona
snarled.
     
    “That’s enough, Red,” Zeke shouted. The
street went deadly calm, hunters nervously made eye contact with
one another, clearly outnumbered by the cultist families who had
come to join the men. The milky-eyed men, women, and children, who
had formerly walked the streets singing, stood silent, stock-still,
staring straight ahead as if gazing into another dimension. “Well,
Bill, it looks like you have your answer,” Zeke said. “She doesn’t
want to give up her pet to be barbequed even if it means saving the
world. You may as well head home and see if you can find some
chickens to grill up in her place.”
     
    “He broke hunter law,” Fiona shrieked. “He
threatened my property and tried to have his men take what is
rightfully mine. His head belongs to me.”
     
    “He’s not a hunter, Red. Hunter law doesn’t
apply to him,” Zeke said.
     
    “He’s less than a hunter, meaning I can do
whatever he can’t stop me from doing!”
     
    “You’ll die with your sins on your head.”
Yahweh growled and slowly began to regain his feet, yet again.
“You’re an unnatural abomination, disgusting in the Lord’s eyes,
and only hell awaits you.”
     
    “You didn’t want to kill him before,” Zeke
snorted. “Why start now?”
     
    Fiona, hand still shaking with rage, slipped
her gun back into its holster. She loomed over the fallen cult
leader, casting a long shadow over him. “I could have poisoned your
entire fucked up society and shot anyone the poison didn’t do in,”
Fiona said, her voice even and calm with a spooky edge of
detachment. “You’re only alive right now because I felt sorry for
you pathetic freaks. But my pity and patience is spent. Any of you
cane-tappers cross my path, and I’ll end you all.”
     
    Fiona turned and walked away. She grabbed her
hat and the leash on the way past Gieo, leading the pilot back into
the saloon. The