Through the lids of her eyes, she saw a darkness fall over her. Chelsea cracked an eye open to be faced with Vaughn's hulking form standing over her. She watched him lazily for some time while he stared back with an intent scowl. "What are you doing?" he finally asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Invading my privacy and property."

"There's that," Chelsea answered, "But mainly I'm trying to rest."

"Well, can you stop?" he said through gritted teeth.

"Not really."

Infuriated beyond belief by this woman's attitude, Vaughn took the reins into his hand and pulled back. The wagon ground to a halt and Chelsea sat bolt upright. She eyed him warily, noting the way his hands fisted around the reins and his hat shadowed his face. She couldn't see his expression.

"Why are you stopping?" she asked slowly, panic edging back into her tone.

"Get off."

The reply was simple and the meaning clear, yet Chelsea still had a hard time processing it. "W-What?"

"Get. Off. My. Wagon." He snarled and threw the reins down.

"No! I can't," she cried, her fingers curling around the bench she sat on as if that alone could keep her there. "I mean, you wouldn't just leave me here."

"I would and I will. Get off." He bit out.

Chelsea could hardly believe it. This was beyond cruel. "I will die," she told him plainly, voice pained and eyes searching.

His gaze flitted away from contact and rested to scrutinise the nearby cacti. "That's none of my concern." His answer was cold, yet there was some hesitance. It gave her hope.

She stood up from her seat, trying to match his height. She might not have been quite as tall as him but her fortitude could make up for what she lacked in stature. "Then why did you save me back there? It seemed to be your concern then."

Vaughn rolled his eyes as he told her, "I would have died too if I hadn't."

"You could have surrendered me them," she reasoned, arms folding across her chest and head nodding her claim into truth.

He gave her a dismissive shrug. "They would have shot me anyway."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do."

"How?" Chelsea demanded, even though she knew Vaughn was likely right. She was just being petty, spiteful – her inner-Angela as she sometimes liked to call it.

"I know how these mercenaries are."

"How the hell would you know how— wait... Mercenaries? How'd you know they were mercenaries?"

"The clothes. Isn't it obvious?" He said it like the answer was staring her in the face. The arrogant son of a gun.

Chelsea's eyebrows furrowed together as she thought about it. Was it obvious? She shook her head.

"You never heard of the harlequin riders?"

Chelsea didn't know them by name or notoriety. She knew them by actions. "No. Should I?"

"Well, they're famous round these parts."

She pursued her lips and cast her gaze downwards. It seemed she still had a lot to learn. "I don't come from these parts."

"No... Neither do I." Vaughn also looked away, out at the barren landscape, yet his look was wistful. He stood like that, seemingly transfixed on something immaterial, something elusive, but then one of the horses whinnied and his attention snapped back to Chelsea. "Stop trying to distract me! You need to get off my wagon right now."

"Or what?" Chelsea scoffed, prodding at Vaughn's chest. He growled and made to grab her hand but she moved back before he could. With her lips curled into a simper, she offered the cowboy a verbal challenge. "You'll shoot me? Go ahead. That's exactly what will happen if you leave me here now, that is assuming I don't get mauled by some wild beast first."

"You think I care about that?" he said with a scathing glare.

"As a matter a fact, I do. As difficult as I'm finding it to believe, I am sure, nearly positively sure, that deep down you care. You had the morality to help me before and I would be most obliged if you could spare me a seat on your wagon for just a bit longer. At least until we get to the next town."

There was a moment of terse silence in which Vaughn stared at Chelsea with a locked jaw, eyeing her with an air of disbelief. She met his look with determination, confronting his cynicism, daring him to reject her, to leave her for dead.

But the moment didn't last long.

Vaughn heaved a sigh and the tension was gone. "Just to the next town?"

Chelsea nodded, a slight smile edging its way onto her lips. With renewed vigour, Chelsea sat herself down in her seat and thrust a commanding hand outwards, another hand adjusting the satchel over her shoulder. "To the next town, my good sir!"

[A lone tumbleweed rolls past the doors to 'The Slang Saloon']