Alexis Salazar was a wanted felon. She was as notorious as Jesse James and Billy the Kid all along the border between Mexico and Texas, sightings of her in the area common and usual. When people saw her, they would not acknowledge her as an outlaw; they would bow their heads and look the other way. No one ever challenged her. It was an unwritten caution. Anyone who dared cross the path of Alexis Salazar met a dirt nap six feet under.
With the payout as high as it was for her capture, dead or alive, it was remarkable that no one ever attempted to do her harm or turn her in. People along the border were poor and in desperate need of food and money and had she been any other outlaw, perhaps they would have done differently.
It just so happened that she wasn't a different outlaw. Alexis Salazar was the outlaw, falling second only to the infamous John Wesley Hardin who was constantly on the move to steal her fame and reputation.
Stories said Alexis was apache and had a knack for tracking and hiding. It would make sense for she always got away in the end. Other stories told of stranger incidents such as the attempts to kill her. Records showed she'd been hung three times but nevertheless, she was still roaming the plains with her deadly rifle and hawk's vision.
Then there was the reason she was wanted. She was a killer, having killed various men in assorted locations who had attempted to harm or offend her. She was a train robber, and a gifted one at that. As far thieving went, she was also a bank robber. She was not like Jesse James and his gang, robbing for their land and their people, their families and friends; she did it all for the money and reputation. Others argued she even did it for fun.
Therefore, as she trudged up to the cantina in the City of Mexico, anyone who thought they might have sighted Alexis Salazar kept their heads down and carried on with their business because no one messed someone as dangerous as her. It was as simple as that, a settlement.
As soon as she walked through the swinging doors of the cantina, the loud music and laughter hit her like a wave of lightning, alerting her senses, sharpening her vision. She had not been among so many people in such a tight premises in many months and in fact, she had not seen another person in months. Being a wanted outlaw, she had grown used to being alone in the quiet and hot of an endless desert with nothing but the company of her horse and the whistle of the wind in her ears.
"Woo! Deal me in, Carl!"
"Yeah! Yee-haw! Keep 'em comin'!"
"Don't you be laughing at me, now! I know what I'm doing!"
"Get your hands off me, cowboy. I'm a proper lady!"
"Dirty Mexican. He don't know nothing 'bout this here gun. Just pigs and sheep and goats."
Alexis clenched her jaw at the assault to her ears and walked stiffly to the counter, settling down on a hard bar stool and taking her black hat off her head, resting it on the table. She was not dressed in the typical attire of a woman with the skirts and the blouse, the bonnet. She was wearing trousers and a plain shirt with a dark coat over the top, her silver pistols hidden beneath the coat in their black holsters. Her black boots concealed a hidden knife or two and a strip of leather with interweaving strands of thinner, tighter leather held an alarming array of bullets, hidden under her dusty coat. A wave of black hair hung down her back just past her shoulder blades with an occasional braid woven in place.
"What can I get you?" a man with an enormous stomach droned.
"Señor?"
"I said what can I get you," the man snapped.
"Whiskey. Double shot. In fact, just leave me the bottle."
"I don't sell to-" the man said before his eyes widened. He realized the individual was a woman, and an unmistakably beautiful one at that with her black hair and dark blue eyes, slanted black brows above those eyes, sharp yet full lips, and a look about her he didn't quite like.
"Señor?"
"Let me grab that from you, lady," the man said, bustling behind the counter in a hurried frenzy to retrieve the pretty woman her liquor.
Alexis drank the severe liquid slowly, relishing the feel of it slipping down her throat, burning and scorching, leaving behind a generous tingle with each sip.
"Woo!" a man's shout sounded above all the others. "I'm through. Sweet heart, you comin' with me? Hold this."
Alexis turned to see a small man with a large smile on his face as he looked over a young woman in a frilly, pale blue dress. "Let's go, sugar."
The whore giggled and tossed her hair.
Alexis wrinkled her nose, disgusted. She despised whores, women who sold themselves for the pleasure of men, earning little money and a title that would never fade.
She would not have paid the two any attention had the glint of a gold coin not flashed across her vision. The man, a card player, had made a load of money and was about to spend some of it on a cheap whore with lots of make-up on her round face. The girl looked delighted because she thought she was going to get paid a lot and the small man was grinning because he's just won a bag of gold coins and was about to bed a young whore.
And Alexis was smiling because that's what she always did before she killed.
She followed the man and his whore out of the cantina and retrieved her rifle off her horse, the animal tied off in an alley. She then went down the road for a bit before she climbed a wall, raising her rifle and bringing the scope to her eyes, her slim fingers caressing the smooth, pleasing trigger. From the view of her distinct scope, she saw the man continuously flick his hand under the whore's skirt.
She closed one eye and flicked her tongue across her lips before they pulled back in a smile and just as she was about to pull the trigger, a man ran across her vision, attacking the small man and taking the money from the screaming whore.
Alexis' smile changed into a snarl as she watched the man sprinting off towards a black horse. She decided shooting him would be a disaster and an error since people were already swarming around the motionless man and comforting the distressed whore.
Alexis sighed and got off the wall, walking casually back to her own horse. "Enough for tonight," she whispered to the it. She had grown accustomed to speaking to the mare in the forlorn desert, seeking sanity under the hot rays of the bright sun and finding it only in the saddle of her horse.
She mounted her horse, after slipping her rifle into its soft holder, and flicked the reins, urging her mare to the hotel where she was staying. On the ride to the hotel, there were nervous whispers of the murder that had taken place. The gossip stated that Alexis Salazar was in the city and she had killed the man and stolen his money but the witnesses, few there were, said it had been a young blonde male that had made the killing, apparently with a brick.
Alexis awoke before noon the next day to the sound of voices outside her door.
"She's staying in this room…" hushed hisses "…yes, I'm sure! Saw 'er come in myself. Damn sight too with tha' pretty face! Guns an' all, I swear. Whatcha'll gonna do? Hang 'er? Hell, do ya even have evidence she did it?"
"Don't need no goddamn evidence. The girl is a renowned killer and she needs to be picked off. Shoot, bet'cha she'd kill your yella' face in a heartbeat."
"Hell she would!"
The men continued to argue, giving Alexis a moment to gather her things and toss them out the window, landing soundlessly in a stack of hay. Last thing she heard, the two men were betting on what she slept in.
She leaped out the window landing in the stack of hay, coughing as bits of it flew into her nose as well as the dust she'd stirred up. She yanked her pants up her legs and threw her coat on over her white chemise, slipping into her boots and pulling her rifle on her back, creeping off quickly to where she'd secured left her horse.
She walked quickly to the cathedral avoiding any eye contact and whistled for her mare. Only another person was there, sitting under a tree with his back to her, his fair hair billowing in the wind.
Alexis huffed, wishing she were alone and hoping he did not pay her any attention. Her palomino whinnied as she whistled for her and Alexis marched over to the slabs of wood leaning against the walls of the cathedral and led her horse from beneath them, picking up her saddle blanket and throwing it over the horse's back, topping it with a black saddle with silver notches and designs. She yanked the straps of it together and buckled them, tightening and loosening when necessary. Once she was through with the saddle, she picked up the bridle and positioned it on her mare's golden head, smoothing the bit in her mouth and tossing the reins up around the saddle horn.
"That is a pretty horse," a soft voice with a Mexican accent commented.
Alexis ignored the remark and bent over to pick up her bundle of blankets, setting them on the back of the horse and tying them in place, then placing the saddlebags and lastly, her rifle, on the horse.
She kept her pistols in their holsters, constricting the belt firmly at her waist. She reached into her coat pockets and emerged with her silver spurs, fastening them on her boots, smiling at the familiar clink of them as she took a step.
Her horse whinnied and Alexis turned to see the man with the fair hair stroking her horse.
"Do not touch her," Alexis said evenly. "Solana is not one for strangers."
"Shh," the man said as he ran his long fingers through the horse's glossy mane. "Your animal is tired. She is so dirty I do not think 'Solana' is the proper name for her. Perhaps 'Trueno' is the better title?"
"She is not like the lightning but the sun. Sunlight is her name," Alexis said as she watched the man's hands continue to stroke her horse. He was not very tall but he was breathtakingly beautiful with light skin and blonde hair and as his eyes turned to look at her for a moment, she saw they were blue, glinting with hatred for a cruel world.
"You killed the small man, did you not?" Alexis asked the young stranger. From the way he moved with confidence and poise, ignoring most of what she said, his words suave and deliberate, she knew he was the one. There was also the fact that his hair was blonde. But he wasn't a gringo because he spoke with a Mexican accent and his skin had the tint of brown to it.
"Did he die then?"
"Sí, he is dead," Alexis said coolly, almost in a uninterested tone. "They blame myself."
"So you are Alexis Salazar?" the strange man asked.
"Sometimes," Alexis said with a shrug.
The man looked at her with icy eyes. "Do you mock me?"
She mirrored his look levelly, her eyes glazed, body displaying authority and control. She was a replica of the man in female version. Beautiful, slim, arrogant, and deadly with the hint of death and hatred about her, eyes as blue as his, but darker, deeper, bursting with loathing and revulsion not particularly for the man before her, but for all. "Perhaps," she finally answered after their unblinking standoff.
"I am Joey Garza. You have not yet heard of me but you will."
Alexis had the urge to draw her pistols and make his famous. "There are ways."
Joey smiled but it did not reach his eyes. "Sí."
Alexis watched his hands stop touching her horse and begin to lower back down to his sides. She didn't know if he had any weapons on him but did not want to wait and find out. His hands were already near his waist and if he had a gun…
In a fraction of a second, she had drew her pistols from her holster and was holding them both in front of her, ready to pull the triggers at any moment.
There was the sound of an intake of breath as Joey Garza gasped and gulped at the sight of her two guns. "You're fast!"
"I know," Alexis smirked. "Faster than you, boy, and most others."
A look of rage crossed his face and his eyes narrowed. "My name is Joey Garza."
Alexis cocked her guns and tilted her head to the side. "Do I look like I care?"
Joey's blood began to boil though his face and posture remained calm and cool.
"Manners for the one that holds your life in her hands. You have no manners. You took what was rightfully mine and even now the people are making a legend of you. You disrespect me and that is something I cannot tolerate," Alexis said, her voice rising and she began to shake. "Men would walk all over me if I did nothing about it, if I didn't care. They would make me a whore, take my money, land, and name, make me clean up their messes, and order me about. So let me tell you something, Joey Garza, I am not to be insulted. Perhaps when you are on the same level as myself, I will allow you my pardon. So go now so I can kill you later when it would not be a waste of my time." Having finished her heated dialogue, Alexis mounted her horse and nodded at Joey.
"I will see you again and when I do, I will show you no mercy," Joey said as she began to ride off. "One day I will be even more famous than you, Alexis Salazar!"
"And until then," she called over her shoulder, giving him an hostile glower, "do not seek me out." She turned her attention back to Solana. "Ha-yah!"