In the West

He leaned backwards, neatly dodging a fist swung his way, and then returned the favor, compensating for his opponent's movement and knocking him down cleanly. He was quite fit; but then, few men of the West were not, in those days. Another man attempted to hit him - Jack, that is, our Western brawler - with a chair. Jack's dodge this time only partially succeeded, and he was knocked back on the floor with a painful bruise developing on his chest. Jack, thinking quickly, kicked the table onto the chair-wielder, knocking both him and Jack's other opponent back onto their backs. Jack rose to his feet and, before either of his opponents could rise again, kicked them in the family jewels with his boots until they showed no further signs of movement. As Jack turned towards the door, having dealt with the goons quite thoroughly, the bartender coughed delicately. Jack turned back to the bar, flipped his two remaining dollar coins to the bartender (who appeared satisfied with their value), and left the saloon slightly more bruised and significantly poorer than he'd entered.

It didn't matter to Jack, of course. As he mounted his horse, giving the stableboy his last nickel for watching the horse for him, Jack paid no particular heed to where his money was going. He wouldn't have anything or anyone to use the money on after today, after all. No one knew Jack, cantering off on his grey mare. No one even knew Jack Flannery's last name, after his mother died in prison of the whooping cough.

Before the brawl, Jack had managed to learn something quite useful from the goons; the location of their former employer, a banking executive out in the West to consider expanding operations to cover the lucrative cattle drive. The goons had been retained for guard duty temporarily, until the guards that the bank itself retained arrived from the East; these guards, and the method of their circumvention, being the current subject of Jack's thoughts.

Jack arrived at his destination after an hour or so of easy riding, Jack being careful not to tire his horse. Ahead of him was the growing town of Abiline, the meeting point of one of the great cattle drive trails of the West and the railroad lines of the East. More specifically, directly ahead of him was the building the banking executive had rented for his residence in the city; presently guarded by eight well-trained mercenaries, four out front with the horses, two just beyond the doors (visible in the windows), and two lounging on the balcony. They were joking and drinking together, but Jack saw them watch him carefully as he approached.

Jack took a deep breath, and then urged his horse into a gallop as he passed the mercenaries, and snatched the hat of the most flamboyant-looking mercenary's head. With cries of indignation, the four mercenaries out front quickly mounted their horses and pursued Jack, leaving only half their number to guard the banker.

Jack was a decent rider; being out in the West for five years tends to teach certain skills, among them also strength, endurance, skill with cards (both legitimate and not), and marksmanship. In that time, Jack had been honing all of those extensively, and while he possessed little of any of those when he came out from the East, now he had some fair portion of all; enough to lead the mercenaries for two long minutes, praying that they would not open fire; enough to make his horse appear to tire as Jack slowed and the mercenaries slowed; enough to conceal Jack's drawing his revolver as he urged his horse to turn, and enough to shoot every one of his pursuers dead as they were caught by surprise with his turn, before any one of them got their gun out of their holster.

Jack knew he had to move quickly now; the die was cast, and he was committed to win or die. He led the horses into a dark alley, and stripped one of the mercenaries of vest, pants, and less-distinctive hat, and then put them on himself, if not without some measure of disgust. The rest of the mercenaries he tied on their horses with rope that he'd kept on his person for the occasion, and then, tying the horses together in a line, urged them to a canter back towards the banker.

When Jack came to the corner behind the banker's house, he took another breath (immediately coughing as quietly as he could from the odor of the mercenary's vest), and then urged all the horses into a gallop. The mercenaries in the building were fooled only for a moment by the grisly ruse, but again, it was enough. Before any of them fired a shot, Jack had already downed both of the mercenaries in the house (one killed, one merely wounded), and the two mercenaries on the balcony, exposed as they were, followed swiftly into death. The last mercenary, walked out with his hands up, bleeding from the shoulder. Jack let him go; his quarrel lay elsewhere.

What was Jack's quarrel? Jack didn't think on it as he entered the house; he'd already put down his thoughts on the lending practices that had put his family in debtor's prison, killed his mother by disease incurred through the filthy living conditions in the prison, and led his father to kill Jack's sister, and then himself. He'd already written all of that down on the piece of paper pinned just under his shirt. No; Jack was here to kill the man he held responsible for his family's death; currently cowering behind a chair.

Well, no, not cowering; drawing a shotgun from beneath a table and opening fire as Jack ducked back onto the staircase he'd just climbed. A most prepared banking executive.

Jack thought frantically as he heard footsteps draw closer; not only would a blast from that shotgun end his mission (and his life) rather abruptly, it would also shred his carefully prepared note. Then another blast roared out, blowing a hole through the wall just a half-inch above short Jack's head. Jack ran down the staircase, nearly spraining his right ankle and just barely managing to get out of the way before the banker finished reloading and blew a hole in the floor where Jack had just been.

A lightbulb lit, metaphorically. Jack leaned out into the stairwell, gun first, and then jerked back without firing a shot as another blast roared past. He leaned back and fired three times smoothly as the banker struggled to reload. A shotgun, after all, has only two barrels.

Jack walked up the stairs once more and looked at the banker's corpse. He felt satisfied. He knew that, in some ways, the banker's actions were just a symptom of the environment in which he lived; that a hundred other bankers had done the same things or worse; that his actions were unlikely to make a great difference, in the long term; that a new banker would replace the one he'd killed faster than blinking. Jack didn't really care. He'd killed the man who'd killed his family. He might not have destroyed the socioeconomic mechanisms that could be seen as causing his family's downfall; but sometimes that's not really the right thing to do.

Now: a choice of two endings! It's like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, but less so.

ENDING ONE:
Jack took the note out of his shirt, checked it over once carefully, and then pinned it back on his shirt, laying it down onto the banker's gory chest. He didn't want it to get stained, after all the work he'd put into getting it here. Jack hefted the revolver in his hand, then dropped it, picked up the shotgun, loaded it and walked several steps away from the banker (to avoid stains), and, as the sheriff pounded up to the door (too little, too late!), Jack blew out his brains.

ENDING TWO:
Jack took the note out of his shirt, checked it over once carefully, and then pinned it back on his shirt, laying it down onto the banker's gory chest. He didn't want it to get stained, after all the work he'd put into getting it here. Jack hefted the revolver in his hand, as the sheriff pounded up to the door (too little, too late!); then dropped it on the floor, and walked down the stairs with his arms held high. He knew that he'd be arrested; that he'd likely hang for what he'd done; but he didn't care. Sometimes, life's not about likelihood, or about socioeconomic causes, or 'the long run.' Sometimes, life's just about living.