The gallows were brand new. Ned Stark could taste the fresh sawdust in the air as he ascended the steps to the scaffold. Sheriff Joffrey Baratheon was grinning wickedly, seemingly drunk with his newfound power. Ned could hear his daughter Sansa screaming somewhere behind him. His eyes scanned the crowd and found his other daughter Arya standing on a watering trough, her face above all the bonnets and stetson hats of the onlookers. When Robert Baratheon had asked him to be chief deputy, Ned had suspected his old friend wasn't the same man he had once known. But he'd left Winterfell Ranch and done his duty all the same. Now his daughters would watch him die. The noose went over his neck and Deputy Payne stepped forward, his hand on the lever that would drop the scaffold from beneath his feet. For Ned Stark, it was the end.
The Baratheon Ranch was one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas. Sansa had been so excited when her father had approved of her engagement to Joffrey. She would be marrying the sheriff and she would be wealthy and have a beautiful home. Now she would do anything to leave the horrid room he kept her locked in. Her room was on the second floor of the estate and Joffrey always kept one or two of his deputies outside of her door. They all scared her, sometimes they hit her if Joffrey asked them too. Except for deputy Clegane, he was almost kind sometimes.
Arya wasn't angry with the old gold miner Yoren for cutting her hair. She had never much cared for things like hair or pretty dresses the way Sansa did anyway. She didn't care about anything anymore except getting home. Yoren promised he would take her there on his way back to The Mine. She knew better than to fully trust a stranger like that but Yoren had let her keep her six shooter so maybe he wasn't so bad.
All the neighboring farmers had gathered at Winterfell Ranch. They were angry with sheriff Joffrey. The townspeople ought to have the right to pick their own lawman and by golly they wanted Robb Stark over that no good Joffrey Baratheon. Catlyn Stark watched with apprehension as they pinned a badge on her son's chest. Robb had been carrying a gun for some months now. She worried for him more each day.
It was always so dark in The Mine that it took some minutes for Jon Snow's eyes to adjust when he came out of the tunnels and into the daylight. No one had told him it would be like this. The Mine belonged to the town and all manner of prisoners were sent there to work. The best of the old miners were given jobs smelting gold and making jewels and a few were allowed to defend the town from raiding native tribes. He knew now that he could never expect any honorable work among them. They all hated him. He knew how to shoot and how to work better than any of them and they hated him for it.
Jaime Lannister fired the pistol again and again with his left hand, failing to hit the can each and every time. He had once been the fastest gunman alive and look at him now, a cripple unable to shoot a tin can off the fence. He had to keep trying. Mrs Stark trusted him to bring her daughter home and even Brienne had come to believe in him. Just a few more shots and maybe he could hit the target. He raised the six shooter and fired again.
