DISCLAIMER – I do not own any Sonic the Hedgehog characters, settings, etcetera (anything copyrightedly relating to SEGA's works). Fang the Sniper / Nack the Weasel is property of SEGA, although some aspects of this story are my own work. Alterations to the Sonic universe in this story are not to be considered canon. Do not steal (forge in your or another person's name) or sell this story in any manner. I have a good lawyer. You may, however, place this on your website without permission. Please ask permission before using aspects of this story in yours. If sections of it look similar to another, please inform me. I'm no thief myself. Thank you, and enjoy.

Bounty Hunter
By Rusty Dillingham

--Chapter Fourteen – No Man's Land--

Fang discovered in the time following their escape from New Mettle that Zipp was about the furthest thing from the term competent driver. He'd already almost been killed multiple times in the past few days and his unlikely new ally was damn near finishing the job.

In no way, shape, or form did Zipp comfort Fang's feeling of dread with a pleasant ride through the country. Rather, he failed to keep his rusting truck from hitting every possible bump there was to hit on that little trip through the desert, and Fang felt everything. He'd been forced to ride in the dirty, grimy bed of the coyote's pile of moving scrap, which was already filled with various sorts of crap the coyote had tossed in there for whatever idiotic reason, including a fishing pole, a surfboard, half of a mattress (?), a wagon wheel, and something that Fang was sitting on and couldn't see but it was making his hindquarters itch. Add in that Sand Hill was a mess of nature with small mesquite, palo verde, rocks, and sand dunes covering every inch of their makeshift road, and it wasn't an enjoyable ride in the least possible sense.

Plus they were being chased by a homicidal maniac on a flying motorcycle. That didn't help things either.

"Can't this piece of garbage move any faster?" Fang yelled from the truckbed, trying to get a bead on Sombrero with the borrowed revolver and not having too easy a time with it, partially because Zipp's radio was on with the volume up to ridiculous levels—and it was half-broken, stuck on a station that seemed to play nothing but mariachi music.

"Now, son, you can't rush these things. Gotta take it nice a slow through this here country—"

There was a shot from behind them. A bullet ricocheted off the top of the driver's side mirror, and Zipp saw Sombrero just above the objects in mirror may be closer than they appear line. "Well, I guess we could go a little faster."

"Thank y—"

Zipp floored it, sending Fang reeling flat onto his stomach and pitching him towards the back of the truckbed in a catastrophic jumbling of weasel-wolf and junk one might see at their local Mexican swap meet. Zipp sent the truck straight over a dune, thoroughly unaware of the battlefield that was happening a few feet behind him.

Fang grabbed the side of the truck for support, fighting to ignore the pain that thumped throughout his thigh. He'd found a long slip of cloth in the truckbed a few moments after they'd departed town (he half-expected to find a whole hospital emergency unit in here eventually) and had wrapped it around the wound. It had helped stop the bleeding, at the very least, but it would need better attention, and soon. With luck they'd reach Claudia's, provided this incompetent doofus some three feet away from him didn't get them all killed first.

He saw Sombrero rise higher into the sky, perhaps to get a better bead on him. Fang lined the revolver at the bastard and fired, feeling the deep resonance of the old-style gun's explosive power rumble through his whole arm.

Sombrero's airbike skirted sideways, as if a frightened wolf yielding to a superior beast. That wouldn't keep him away for long. There was no outrunning an airbike. In the hands of a capable operator, they were quicker and nimbler than anything short of a fighter jet—the prime reason Fang used one himself. They required a great deal of training and patience on the part of the rider and they couldn't hold much weight, which was why they weren't nearly as popular as conventional vehicles, but trained and patient were two areas Fang excelled in.

"Hang on," Zipp yelled.

Fang clung to the side again for dear life, hoping it wouldn't be the last thing he ever did. Nothing happened. He looked through the back window at the coyote. "What are you talking ab—"

Ka-bump went the truck over what seemed to amount to nature's fiercest speed bump. Fang felt himself catch air, felt himself land back on the hot metal truckbed, and then wasn't sure if he felt anything at all for a few seconds.

"Told you to hang on."

Sombrero saw the truck put its shocks to the test. He noticed the subsequent lapse in the shooting, and had enough gall to speed straight up to the side of the truck, right at its rear quarter panel. Zipp, with all his worldly abilities of perception and understanding, failed to notice entirely, instead humming along to the noisy and increasingly irritating music he was driving Fang crazy with.

The gila monster wasn't interested in him, though. He wasn't going to waste bullets on that bozo—Fang would catch them all. He stared at the truckbed for a few seconds, anxiously waiting for the bounty hunter to reappear.

There was nothing. When Fang didn't pop back up, Sombrero just sat there. He eased his airbike closer to the other vehicle while they sped along, a disturbed feeling of anxiety in his eyes as he examined all the stupid crap Zipp had put back there. Where in blue blazes did he go--?

Fang was only coming back to his senses right then, and the second he did, he realized Sombrero was peeking over the edge of the truck. "Holy Chri—"

"Ohshit—" sputtered the lizard, drawing his pistol over the edge--

Fang's hand shot out like lightning to catch the gila monster's gun by the barrel, to try and keep it pointed at anything other than himself. His other arm abruptly fired forward, and his knuckles landed flat on the bandito's face, rocking him like an axe cuts wood. Sombrero dropped the weapon and reeled sideways, somehow maintaining his balance while his airbike skittered around behind the truck like a wounded animal. "Ooouucch!!"

"The hell's goin' on back there?" Zipp glanced into the rear-view mirror and watched a teary-eyed Sombrero struggle to maintain his grip on the bike's handlebars as well as his sanity.

"Just fly-swatting." Fang shook his hand and rubbed his knuckles, grimacing. Can't say that didn't feel good, though.

"YOU'RE GONNA BE COMBING LEAD OUT OF YOUR FUR WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU!" came a high-pitched shriek from their six.

"What'd he say?" Zipp asked.

"I don't know, I can barely hear you. Turn off that damn radio!"

"What's that you said now? Take a shortcut?"

Fang felt his nauseating feeling of dread worsen. "That's, wait—that's not even close to—"

"Alrighty then!" The truck fishtailed erratically through sand, dirt, and mesquite, slashing the desert air with a big blast of smoky dust. Zipp sent the truck around a winding bend, across another bump that made Fang contemplate focusing the rest of his aim on the coyote, through a huge thicket of palo verde, and suddenly Fang saw the shortcut Zipp the Coyote was really talking about.

"Wait—wait, no, no! NO! NO NO, WAIT I CHANGED MY MIND—"

The oblivious driver steered the vehicle straight into what might as well have been the stairway to hell. The truck landed right onto the beginning of the notorious hill for which Sand Hill was named: the miles-long, downhill sand-surfing circuit so popular with thrill-seekers and adolescent blue hedgehogs everywhere.

"Changed what?" Zipp asked above the increasing roar of wind that came with accelerating to speeds so unsafe they'd give astronauts delirium.

I should have just stayed home, Fang thought as the real nightmare got underway. A pair of sand-surfers confusedly watched the truck beat and bang and backfire its way down the course above the noise of hopelessly embarrassing mariachi music.

Sombrero watched it all in subtle horror (which was nothing compared to the horror Fang felt at the moment). "You have got to be kidding me."

He drew to a slow stop at the very top of the hill, staring down into the natural canyon while Zipp's truck blazed on like the world's ugliest sand-surfer through the circuit. Sombrero looked ahead of where it was. A long, winding line of glimmering gold rings hovered just above the ground, peaceful and quiet. He watched as the truck battered through them haphazardly, spraying rings in a million different directions, complete with the obligatory sound effect.

He dwelled on the fact that no one had ever driven a wheeled vehicle onto that course and lived to tell the tale. He contemplated getting higher altitude and waiting for the inevitable crash and the nice, big explosion that would hopefully ensue directly afterwards. That would deal with Fang quite nicely, but that meant Sombrero wouldn't get to kill him. If there was one thing Sombrero hated in addition to the many, many things he hated, it was indirectly killing someone or something that he wanted to very directly kill.

He looked at the bandage on his shoulder, then at the wound he had very recently attained. He deliberated with himself silently.

"... Screw it." He jammed his hand against the throttle and charged headlong into the course after them. He knew how to play hardball.

Fang felt his internal organs swish around every which way with each jolting, high-G turn the truck made. The high red canyon walls screamed past in the sides of his vision, but he was too focused on not trying to get hit by all of Zipp's garbage to pay much attention to the interesting blur that was the scenery. He spared a look ahead of where Zipp had pointed the truck, regretted it when he saw the driver obviously had no real idea where the hell he was going, and turned back just in time to get hit on the head by part of a baseball foul pole Zipp had picked up somewhere.

They flashed through red-and-white posts lining the course for no reason other than to give surfers something to do or perhaps crash into. Zipp somehow steered the truck through all of them (for no reason Fang could see), heedless of the impending danger behind he and his new buddy in the proverbial backseat.

Sombrero's bone-white airbike roared up to them, doubling the sand spray that kicked up in their wake. He had his other gun out by then, and was pointing it at the truck's left-rear tire--

"Right!" Fang yelled.

Zipp, naturally, turned left, very nearly plowing into the front of Sombrero's ride.

"HO-LEE—" A completely flabbergasted Sombrero broke hard left and sliced sideways through one of the posts, which would have been an amazing feat if he had actually meant to do it, and if the back of the machine hadn't slapped one of the next posts and sent the flying bike into a nausea-inducing spin. "Agkhgh--!"

Fang huffed, angry with both of these halfwits, then realized he'd been holding that breath in for the last minute. He focused the barrel of the revolver at Sombrero again, thumbed the hammer back, and pulled the trigger. A sharp click told him she'd run dry. Great.

So much for doing things the easy way. But Zipp had a whole yard sale back here, and there might have been something remotely helpful to their cause somewhere. He searched the truckbed as Sombrero collected himself and hurried to catch back up, eager to turn Fang into the living equivalent of swiss cheese. Something, anything...

He spared a glance at the gila monster. Sombrero was right there, close enough that Fang could almost feel the gila monster's anger; it seemed to radiate off him in entire waves. He's too close--

No time to be choosey. Fang grabbed the first thing his hands could get a hold on, and he wound up and lobbed Zipp's big, yellow-paged phonebook right at the persistent outlaw.

Direct hit. That was about the last thing Sombrero was expecting to have his face run into, and he was left cross-eyed for what must have been almost ten seconds. But he was still on his bike.

"Don't you have anything—" Fang paused to try and keep his lungs in place while Zipp flew around another downhill turn with all the subtlety of a race car driver on drugs, "—useful back here!?"

"What?" replied the lunatic at the wheel while a blaring trumpet solo began.

"I said, don't you have anything USEFUL BACK HERE!?"

"Gesundheit!"

"Damn it, IS THERE ANYTHING BACK HERE THAT CAN HIT HIM INSTEAD OF ME!!?"

"Oh—ohhhh, oh! Okay. Yeah!"

Fang waited.

"WELL?"

"Well what?"

"WELL, WHERE IS IT!?" Fang was one word away from clamoring into the passenger's seat somehow and smashing the coyote's face against the steering wheel until he'd pounded the guy's head into a fine, powdery dust.

"Should be there towards the back, next to you! Been saving it for a rainy day occasion!"

Fang examined the indicated spot near the drop-down, noting something covered by a childish blanket with pictures of cowboys on it. He removed it to discover a big, black, heavy-looking cannon, clearly a relic of a long-past war. "What the hell?" I've been rolling around in this stupid junk heap with this freaking thing next to me? He didn't even want to know how fast they'd be going if the dumb thing weren't there.

"She's a beaut', ain't she? Picked it up a pawn shop in Emerald Town. Nice an' cheap too. I think it's real!"

"Terrific. Do you have any ammo?"

"Some what?"

"Some ammo! A cannonball!"

"Why would I have a cannonball back there?" Zipp wondered.

"WELL YOU'VE GOT EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD BACK HERE, YOU JUST POINTED THIS THING OUT TO ME AND NOW YOU TELL ME I CAN'T EVEN USE IT!?"

"Y'could always just throw it." And he said this as if it were one hundred-percent truth.

Fang grabbed the revolver, wound up as if about to sling it through the window at the coyote's skull, and somehow kept enough control of his senses to keep from doing so and getting them both killed, however worth it that might have been.

They picked up speed. If Fang didn't know better, the truck seemed almost to have a nitrous oxide system installed, but he sincerely doubted it, and instead concluded it was just something else that had decided to happen for no explainable reason in what was quickly becoming the worst day of his life. I think I'm going to be sick.

And then he felt worse, for he saw a turn approaching rapidly, with no mountain or rock to stop them if they missed it. It was a long drop-off towards the bottom of a ravine, its sides spotted with cactus and plantlife. "WATCH THE CLIFF!"

"Yeah, yeah." Zipp swung the wheel hard and roared the truck around the turn like a world-class rally driver. "Settle down."

Fang slammed into the side of the truckbed again and took one look over the edge of it. It was a long way down. I can't take any more of this.

Sombrero's eyes shot as open as they'd go when he saw the truck suddenly veer hard left, and suddenly there was nothing but that intimidating cliff drop-off ahead of him. "SHIIIII—"

The airbike soared off the edge, and continued hovering along in the air.

"—IIIIIoh, right."

Fang looked ahead of the truck. Did this course ever end? He saw a sand surfer just barely avoid getting turned into roadkill. Fang slumped into the truckbed again and prayed he made it out alive, even if no one else within the surrounding mile did.

Sombrero was back on them, and hell-bent for an end to this. He drew right up behind the truck, his speed beyond anything Zipp could hope to achieve in the rolling insult to automotive design, and Fang was lost for a second. If a big book to the face at what felt like a thousand miles per hour didn't take that guy off his ride, what would? Oh no.

Sombrero seemed to realize his opposition had nothing to offer. He sped closer and laughed loudly when Fang was close enough to hear him well, a sickening, vile laugh that could have made hedgehog fur bristle.

"Say your prayers, cur!!" The black maw of the pistol rose to finish this chase, this cruel struggle once and for all.

BUMP went the truck over yet another bump, and it seemed the truck's drop-down hatch had had enough of Zipp's unique driving style by then. It whumped flat open, and that big old cannon went rolling and bumping straight out the back, landing square against the very front of Sombrero's airbike to a noisy wham. The unfortunate and extremely shocked rider was hurtled right off the seat and out into open air. "AAAAAHHHHHH—"

Fang allowed himself to relax slightly and was rewarded by having his body slammed into the truckbed side when Zipp juked the truck hard to the right for some reason. "Hurk—"

He quickly understood why: to avoid the biggest, thickest patch of cacti Fang had ever seen, the same patch Sombrero was headed for in the midst of his spectacular wipeout. Fang winced, partially from the loud and drawn-out expletive the gila monster was espousing, but not enough to not see the impact. He owed the guy that much.

A big, green explosion of saguaro cacti blossomed where Sombrero disappeared, quickly followed by his airbike, spinning and clattering wildly into the patch after its master. Fang let loose another breath, thankful that it was over.

Sort of. "Hey!"

"What?"

"Hit the brakes, we lost him!"

"Can't."

It took Fang three or four seconds to completely understand what had just been said to him.

"What?"

"Can't."

"... Can't—can't—" Fang looked at the oncoming paths, which looked like nothing more than complete blurs still.

"Is this a bad time to mention that this thing don't have any brakes?"

Fang didn't answer, but instead chalked it up to it being another anomaly in this seemingly endless comedy of errors as he gripped the side of the truckbed to keep from rolling out the back himself, though he wondered if that might result in a better fate than what probably lay in store for him.

"Yeah, I figured they'd only slow us down. Gotta keep this baby nice and light." Nevermind that none of that statement made any sense to Fang. "Don't worry, though, I'm a damn good driver. I'll have you know I once finished third in the Capital City 500. I'll find a way to get us slowed dow—"

The truck slammed into a massive, wall-like dune, obliterating both earth and machine and bringing it to what felt to those inside like the single fastest stop anyone in history would ever feel. An immense burst of hard-packed sand and dirt boomed into the air, followed quickly by the loud and extremely jarring sound of impact, which sounded like a truly horrendous mixture of a sandy crunch, an atomic bomb detonation,and the loud expletive Fang screamed.

When Fang found enough energy to haul himself from the broken mess of twisted metal some minutes later, he quickly lost his sense of balance and slumped into the sand. Zipp followed suit shortly after.

"Hoo," said the coyote.

Fang glowered half at Zipp and half at the ringing in his ears, unable to get the sound of fanciful trumpets out of them.

"Like somethin' out of a video game, there."

Fang clamored to his feet with notable effort, ignoring the cowboy wannabe as best he could.

"Wonder if anyone's ever driven a real car on this course. Nah, nobody'd be stupid enough to do that."

Fang grumbled something under his breath and began walking away from the scene of the disaster.

"Oh, hey, we're leavin'. Okay."

And sure enough, Zipp hopped right to his feet and shuffled after him. Fang sighed.

The hot desert sun burned down at them as they marched through the bleak, barren wild. The sun would not set for another hour, leaving Fang with a strong distaste in his mouth for his situation. He wasn't sure what was worse, though—the tiresome walk through this death valley, or the unending jingle of those stupid cowboy boots clomping along in the sand next to him.

"Sure is hot," commented the coyote. "Boy, it ain't been this hot for as long as I can remember. Out in the west they've got hot, but damned if it ain't a hot that this hot can get so hot I tell ya what it's hot."

Fang ground his teeth together, incensed at the very notion of having to trek through the steaming desert with this talkative dimwit and how he suddenly felt twice as hot as before.

He scanned the distance and was disappointed at what he saw, as usual. The heat left a quivering shimmer on the horizon, blocking his view of anything out there that might have been helpful or otherwise. Water, of course, had been the one thing Zipp hadn't had in the truck, too, a fact Fang remembered as he tried to swallow above his swelling tongue.

The sheer monotony of their plodding walk would have driven most men crazy, but to do so with this idiot beside him was another story altogether. That much made itself clear when Zipp said, "So, buddy, what were you doin' out there in that crazy town?"

"I'm not your buddy," Fang grumbled.

"Well, hey, seems to me that a fella needs himself nothin' more than a friend in this kinda situation. I mean blah blah blah..."

Zipp's incessant rambling gave Fang a chance to think about other things, which was about the only thing he could do in this unending nightmare, where the sky burned white like a hot sheet of tin foil. He removed his hat and wiped at the sweat that darkened the fur on his forehead.

He had neglected the words of the townsfolk in New Mettle, as he'd been under too much pressure to give it much thought, but their words rang in his mind now that he had nothing better to do than walk and try to drown out the sounds of the weirdo next to him. Something about a bounty on his head—five thousand, if he recalled correctly. That complicated things immensely. He could lay low for a while after dealing with Claw and anyone else in the way, but bounties did not just go away. He knew that better than anyone.

He tried to put the pieces together. What had brought that to happen? Nobody would sure as hell miss Dry Horn enough to go after the guy who'd done him in, and the bounty on Fang had popped up too fast for it to be linked to Hondo the Scorpion's death. Had Baker talked? Fang dwelled on what he'd done to the sergeant, but told himself it had been necessary to get the money he was owed. It was a very awkward, very dangerous situation.

"Why is there a bounty on me?" he asked, interrupting Zipp's current spiel about the west.

"Say what?" replied Zipp.

Fang remembered he was dealing with a total moron.

"Why is there a bounty," he was careful to enunciate his words sufficiently, "on Fang the Sniper?"

"Oh, well, hm. Y'know what, I don't remember. Think it had somethin' to do with a tinhorn, and, uh, some kinda... thing? Something. I think he did something... bad, and other people probably, y'know... didn't like it. So... they put out a bounty on him. Complicated stuff."

Fang glared at him.

"Never did know nothin' 'bout that sorta thing." Zipp plucked the goofy town marshal badge from his red vest, regarded it for a second, then tossed it into the sand. Fang didn't bother bringing it up. "Me, all I know is, if a man done somethin' wrong, he gotta pay the price. And the fella he wronged needs to be the one to collect that price. Makes enough sense to me, that. Doesn't need to be no more complicated than that, if'n' you ask me."

"Maybe." Fang took care to step over a small cactus, considering what he'd been told. "Collect enough prices and you're inviting trouble. A lot of people can't handle that."

"Man's gotta be ready for trouble. Like when he's lost out in the desert. Any man who doesn't take a good supply of water with him into the burnin' hot wasteland is a blame fool."

Fang's irate expression stiffened. I hate you so much.

"Yep, I like the simple ways, myself. Gotta know when to hit leather with your ass and paint somebody red with your shootin' hand, blah blah blah..."

Fang stopped listening again and tried to concentrate on anything but how hot it was. He would have given anything to be back in the miserable little hole that was his home, away from this no man's land where the only indication of life was an occasional sun-dried skeleton. He was beginning to wonder if this was worth the potential three hundred grand reward, however badly he wanted it. Most men would have likely given up or been killed by now, and although Fang was by no means on the same pedestal as most men, he had his limits too.

How hard should it have been to catch an idiot like Claw? It should have been no more complicated a hunt than any other, but he'd failed spectacularly to finish the job quickly and efficiently. This had been one horrible experience after another, and he knew it was going nowhere fast.

He considered it and felt weaker at the thought. Lethal as he was, he did not have as great foresight as he'd had when he was younger, if the little trap in the mine was any indication of that. Claw wasn't very smart—at least Fang didn't think so—and he'd tried something like that against the so-called greatest bounty hunter in the world and almost succeeded in pulling off what that trap had been meant to do. Fang knew he was lucky to be alive.

How many times had the mole gotten away? Fang didn't care to count them up. All he knew was that it was becoming a very tiresome pursuit.

Zipp led him around a corner of high rock, then stopped and sighed a loud breath of relief. "There it is."

Fang joined him, overlooking the desolate plateau that was their destination. It was the small ranch home he had visited earlier, and he felt something inside him tighten. This place?

Sombrero's words had not been forgotten. Fang hurried forward, ahead of the coyote as he clamored down the rise towards the plateau, and Zipp was left in his dust. "The hell? Hey, whoa, Nacky, wait up!"

A horrible fear at what he might find inside bunched all of Fang's nerves together. Across the wide yard he sped, hopping right over the old wooden fence and up to the front door, a noisy clomping of his heavy boots sounding his arrival on her wood porch. He tried the handle, and found it was locked. Should he have been relieved? He stood there, wondering if he should knock, and couldn't bring himself to yet.

Zipp caught up about then. "The hell is wrong? Y'actin' like you ain't even got a hole in your leg. Never seen a boy been shot who acts like he's runnin' a damn marathon."

Fang banged his hand against the door a few times.

Total silence from inside.

"We gotta get in there," he said, studying the exterior of the home. It looked lonely in the late day sun.

"What, she ain't home?" Zipp blubbered.

"She might be in trouble." Or worse, he didn't mention.

Zipp stared on, lost. "How d'you figure that?"

Fang didn't answer. He stepped off the porch and hurried to a window. No movement inside, as far as he could tell. "Help me open this window."

Zipp bashed the butt of his revolver into the glass, splattering the inside floor with glimmering fragments.

"That's not really what I meant."

"I opened it, didn't I?"

Fang reached it and unlocked it, before pushing up its remains and climbing through. He landed to a soft crunch of glass beneath his boots and examined the interior of the ranch home while Zipp made an embarrassingly clumsy effort to clamor through it after him. Fang held his hand out to Zipp's remaining pistol and told him, "I need that."

He half-expected some backtalk, but Zipp just shrugged his shoulders and tossed it over. "Careful with that. It's loaded." He failed to notice the bounty hunter's roll of the eyes.

The hallway was unlit, as were the other rooms Fang saw. He made his way through each of them carefully, ever fearful of what he might come across. That bastard gila monster. Fang gnarled his teeth together. Should've killed him when I had the chance.

Zipp was still confused over what was going on, but didn't ask questions for a change. Fang was thankful for that.

"Nothin' looks outta the ordinary," said the coyote, peeking around a corner into the home's kitchen.

"That doesn't necessarily mean everything is fine." Fang glanced into the room that apparently belonged to the kid who'd greeted him at the door when he'd first come across this place. "Keep an eye out."

His frustration curled his aggression into a terrible thing that consumed his focus. Fang huffed loudly, angry at Sombrero, angry at himself for letting her get involved in this increasingly-hopeless series of mishaps, angry at everything he could possibly be angry at. The first person who'd ever willingly and happily helped him out with something, and he might have gotten her killed, or worse. I swear, if he did anything to her, I'll go back there and shove a cactus so far up his ass, he'll be able to taste it.

He heard footsteps from behind a door. It was situated away from the other rooms, and Fang hurried to one side of it while Zipp took the other. Fang cringed at the incredible amount of noise the coyote made in doing so. What was the point of those spurs anyway? This guy couldn't sneak up on a sloth.

They waited until the footsteps had gotten closer. Fang pulled the hammer on the revolver back; he had no idea what he would find. With a long breath, he grabbed the doorknob and fired the door open, like it had just been struck by a fierce gust of wind.

Claudia shrieked and took a clumsy step back onto a basement stair step, grabbing at the railing on the wall as he did so. Fang and Zipp both ended up doing the same, relief flooding through the former.

"What are you doing here!?" she yelled, shocked beyond belief at the sight of not only Fang the Sniper, but at the bozo who was supposed to be back in New Mettle doing a bad job of keeping law and order. "How did you get in?"

"The main way in was locked, so we made a new one." Fang glanced back at their little entry-way. Zipp looked far too proud of himself.

The goat followed his line of sight, then rolled her eyes, utterly flabbergasted at what was happening. She didn't look any worse for the wear—nothing about her indicated rough treatment by Sombrero. No bandages, no cuts, no look in the eye that made her fate obvious. But her anxiety unsettled Fang. After having a visit from Sombrero, he'd have thought she'd at least relax a little with them around. He was about to ask about it when she said something.

"I don't think you should be here." She was looking straight at the Sniper. "You should go."

Fang just stared blankly.

"Hey, hold on there," interrupted Zipp. "You know what kinda route we had to take to get here? We just got chased outta town by a buncha crazy gunmen. Damn near got our heads blown off our shoulders. And old Nack the Weasel here got himself shot in the leg. Thought we could come here to get some help."

"Well, you—" she looked clueless as to what to say. "I don't know. But you can't—you—"

"Why? You got a frickin' pest controller sprayin' the house for termites?" Zipp's hands met his hips while Fang stood there staring back at her silently. "We both just came about an inch from havin' our lives blown out of our bodies. You can't even get us some medical assistancin'?"

She was quiet, then, thinking to herself. Then she said, "Alright. Follow me."

She led them into her kitchen. "Wait here."

When she was gone, Fang eyed Zipp. It took the coyote an annoyingly lengthy amount of time to notice he was being stared at, and when he did, he just stood there looking back.

"What is it?" he eventually asked.

Fang didn't respond immediately. His eyes shifted away to study the kitchen, and the adjacent rooms. The house didn't look like it had seen any trouble—nothing seemed out of place. But that feeling wouldn't go away. She'd made him uneasy, and he couldn't explain why yet.

"Nothing," he said.

Zipp helped himself to an apple on a table. "You sure were anxious to get your butt down here. How do you know this girl anywho?" He bit into it to discover it was a fake plastic one, and kept eating anyway.

"I don't," Fang said in a tone that indicated he wasn't quite in the mood for small talk at the moment.

"Really? Man, ever'body over in New Mettle knows Claudia. She's great."

Fang said nothing.

"She helped 'em build the school over in town. Not much of a place, but all the girls in town say it's got a woman's touch. Not a damn clue what in the hell that means. But she's a good lady."

"Yeah," breathed the bounty hunter. He wanted to only half-listen, but couldn't bring himself to.

"Don't know too much else about her. But she's a catch. Tell you what, I'd shoot for her myself if she wasn't married."

Fang didn't answer that, but instead contemplated what had just been said.

He examined the home further, searching every inch of wall he came across, then stepped out of the kitchen and into a den. It looked hardly different from any other he'd seen in his time, but Fang the Sniper noticed things most people wouldn't catch. It was just a feeling of situational awareness he'd acquired, a necessity in order to survive in his difficult profession. He moved closer to a cabinet, where a trio of framed pictures sat, but one of them had somehow been knocked over—or so it looked.

Fang picked it up, examined the image, and was not particularly surprised at what he saw.

Claudia stepped into the room then, holding bandages and black bottles in her hands. "I don't have much, but—"

She stopped talking when she saw what Fang was holding. The look on her face hardened.

"You certainly have interesting acquaintances." Fang's features sat without expression, but hidden in his stone-cold eyes lay a crude mixture of disappointment and anger. He tapped his finger against the picture of Claw. "Do you dally often with wanted criminals?"

Claudia stared back at him, her eyes alive with fear, and perhaps something else that Fang couldn't put his finger on yet. She did not reply.

The obnoxious jingling of spurs signaled Zipp's entrance into the room. He gulped down the rest of the fake fruit and took a look at the picture Fang was holding. "That's a damn nice picture of your husband, Claud'. How's that short old fool doing?"

"He'd be fine if these bounty hunters who don't have anything better to do but harass him would leave him alone for a change."

An awful look flashed to life on Fang's face, and he fired the frame straight into the floor, shattering the glass with a loud crash. The violence startled both goat and coyote, who took awkward steps away from the Sniper.

"Your husband is a walking check for three hundred grand," he snarled hideously. "You were a fool to marry a thief and a would-be murderer, because when he shows up here, I'm going to rip every inch of fur off his body and hang him out to dry until he's seen a slow death for all the horrible things it is, and only then will I consider taking what's left of him to the authorities. He gets the special treatment, because he tried to bury me under a goddamn mountain. I didn't appreciate that."

Zipp looked back and forth between them, still lost.

"Is that so?" She failed to look impressed. "Why do you think he did that?"

"It doesn't matter. If he'd have come quietly, I might have been easier on him, but not anymore. You'll never see him again if I have anything to do with it. That's what you get for choosing a suitor who thinks it's a good idea to rob banks and piss people like me off."

"Uh-huh." The goat nodded slowly, the way someone does when they're dealing with a fool. It succeeded in irritating Fang even more. Then she said, "And just what makes you think he'll show up here?"

The bounty hunter's head lowered, squinting his black eyes at her. She reached into her pocket and produced, of all things, a cell phone—one of the only pieces of decent technology Fang had encountered since entering Sand Hill.

"Maybe I just called him and told him not to come home."

Fang's muscles tensed and his pupils constricted into little dots. He looked like he'd just been slapped in the cheek with a glove. He shut his eyes and gnarled his teeth together, a terrible feeling spreading throughout his whole body. He could have killed her had he a shorter leash on his state of mind, and he fought hard to keep his nerves in check. It wasn't working very feel.

Zipp noticed Fang's mental blue screen of death. "Uh, hey, buddy, you okay?"

Fang ignored him as a downright repugnant expression curled onto his face.

"Claw and Claudia," he said, realizing it was the first time he uttered her name out loud. "That's real cute."

"Just a matter of happenstance, I suppose."

"Where do you expect he'll go? Back to town?"

"He's got enough money to sit around there for as long as he wants. But judging by that hole in your leg, and from what your friend here told me, sounds like you're not welcome back there any time soon." Then she tacked on in an effortlessly simple tone, "I'm sorry to hear that."

He didn't know what was pissing him off more—Claw's elusiveness or her insulting simplicity. Never had he endured such a torturous situation, and to have this sort of twist slap him in the face was humiliating. Fang breathed through his nostrils loudly, fighting to find something to say that would cut her down, something that would prove he would still get that darting little bastard whom he'd never met yet hated so dearly. He could find nothing.

Claudia folded her arms and waited. Fang said nothing, staring out a window. He couldn't remember ever being so exasperated.

"You seem disappointed."

"Your observational skills are exceptional," he snapped with such frustration that a visibly annoyed Zipp winced.

"Maybe you should go outside and cry a river for us, then."

"Maybe I should just burn this damned house to the ground!"

"You guys aren't fighting, are you?" interjected a new voice.

Fang's head whipped to one side. One of her kids was in a doorway, watching them with a curious stare. Fang paused, then looked away, trying to bottle his anger up as best he could, knowing he was losing his temper. Many terrible things happened when he lost his temper—some things he didn't like to think about these days in life. He turned his back to the little goat and shook his head silently.

Her vexation with Fang seemingly evaporating in a heartbeat, Claudia turned to her son and stepped forward. "Honey, no—"

"Yes," mumbled Fang.

"No. We're not. We were just talking about Claw."

"Oh," said the kid. "'Cause it sounded like you guys were fighting. That's not cool."

"No, it's not. Fighting is wrong, especially in this house." She turned and gave Fang a disgustingly condescending smile. "Isn't that right?"

Fang could feel her smile gnawing on the back of his head, and he turned and spent no effort in restraining an annoyed sneer. "Fighting is only worth it when there's something to be gained by it."

"See?" she said, despite his overtly sarcastic tone. "And he and I would have nothing to gain by fighting."

Fang looked away. Her son scratched his head, still not convinced.

"Hey, boy," interrupted Zipp, "you go play cowboys and injuns or somethin'. And take this here badge with you. Uh—" He patted himself on his vest, stared on quizzically for a second, then looked down to study himself, as though something were out of place. "Where's my badge?"

"You got rid of it," Fang said. "You threw it in the sand on the way here."

"No I didn't, that'd just be stupid of me. Hell, I musta dropped it around here somewhere's. C'mon, son, help me find it." He gestured to the young one and the two of them disappeared into a nearby room.

Fang watched them go, before turning back to her. She returned the look.

"You didn't refer to him as their father."

Claudia waited a moment before answering. "He's not their father," she eventually told him, her sudden malice having disappeared. "I don't date moles. He's not even my husband."

Fang's brow furrowed, but he felt himself cooling down at that statement. "Why would you say he is?"

"If you were a single woman who lived around a hole like New Mettle, you'd understand." She shifted away from him and looked out the same window he'd been occupied with a moment earlier. "If I didn't claim to have a man here, somebody would have shown up sooner or later and eaten me up."

"You're right."

She looked over her shoulder at him with a surreptitious smirk.

Fang watched back, then looked away, the same feeling flooding through him—that feeling he'd gotten before when he caught himself looking at her and vice-versa. Damn it, what the hell is the matter with me?

Her grin lasting only a few seconds longer, she looked back out the window at the distant sun as its bottom tip just touched the top of a mountain far too the west, sparking the tip of the peak with a brilliant orange outline. The dissipating light illuminated the room in a warm haze. Fang looked at the floor.

"Not that he isn't a friend. I've known him for a while, and the kids look at him as a father. I guess he's the closest thing there is." She cupped her hands behind her back. "I suppose it's no problem if you rest here. He's not coming back any time soon, and I doubt you want to head into town after him. You're welcome to help yourself to anything in the fridge." She glanced at him. "Sorry I didn't tell you."

"You had no reason to. You didn't know he was the one I'm after."

"I know he's had problems with the law, but we like him around here anyway."

"Even after the things he's done? You do know the sort of crimes he's committed. He and his gang of misfits robbed a bank and some innocent people got in the way of the ensuing gunfire."

She was silent for a few seconds. "I know. I know he's responsible for that. But I can't bring myself to hate him for it. He's not a bad person."

"All the acquaintances of a friendly criminal think he's a terrific guy. That doesn't change the fact he orchestrated something terrible. He needs to be brought to justice."

"Maybe. Maybe not. What if he's repentant?"

Fang thought about that. Normally that wouldn't have mattered, but something about the way she said it kept him from replying. It was a strangely sickening feeling, knowing he was being challenged by her, yet he couldn't find it in himself to be angry over it. It was only her opinion, but though he'd have dismissed it had it come from the mouth of any other soul on the planet, he found himself listening. He wouldn't admit it, though.

"Everyone has their own sort of problems." Claudia wiped at a small stain on the window's glass. "There's no reason to go around painting them as villains for it, especially around here. A lot of people just try to get by. We should do what we can to help them."

Fang stared at the wall next to her.

"A lot of people in this world aren't worth helping," he said.

She turned to look at him, a bit of restraint in the gaze, for she did not agree. "How do you know? You only deal with the lowest forms of life on Earth all the time."

"I know how this world really operates. When you've been doing this for as long as I have, you see people for who they really are. Everyone is friendly because they're expected to be so." Fang's gaze centered on the broken remains of the picture on the floor. "Not one ounce of that friendliness is real. Nobody truly cares about strangers. People are uncaring and greedy, self-centered and pompous. They're only interested in themselves."

It took her a moment to consider a response to that. Fang looked up at her.

"And you aren't?" she eventually said. There was a faint sparkle of humor in her eye, as a patronizing tone made its way to her words. "Mr. Three-hundred-grand. The man who hunts down other men and has them locked away in a dark, lonely little place for the rest of their lives regardless of whether or not they're sorry for what they did. Isn't it justice enough that those people are sorry?"

"Your friend's remorse is irrelevant," he said bitterly. "Some men deserve far worse than prison for the things they've managed to pull, and no amount of jail time can serve the penalty that they should pay."

"Are you trying to tell me that death is justice?"

Fang's blank expression was all the acknowledgement she needed.

"And you're telling me you'll give it to them."

"If I have to."

"How many men have you killed?"

Fang paused to consider it.

"Enough to know how to do it well," he said.

The look on her face seemed to regress into something subtly appalled yet unsurprised.

"What the hell makes you think you have the right to do that?"

"If I hadn't done away with them, either someone else probably would have, or they'd have continued being little blemishes on society. No one will miss them."

"And yet you say you'll kill Claw." She folded her arms. "Do you still think nobody would miss him now that you've met my kids?"

"This is different from the others. He—"

"How? I don't remember hearing about anyone putting you in a position of justice. Who are you to say who can live and who should die? Just because somebody pisses you off, you kill them?"

"You don't know—" Fang started to seeth.

"You're not a lawman. You're a bounty hunter. You're a middle man, the guy who makes the deal happen. Nothing more. Acting like you are something more than that is a horrible thing. You step beyond your boundaries."

Fang started to answer, then stopped. He took four long steps toward her and closed every fraction of distance there was between them in doing so. She stood her ground, stalwart.

"When I'm hunting someone," he said in a tone that chilled her to her core, "I don't have time to philosophize like a goddamn college student pothead over the right and wrong of what I'm doing. All I can let myself know is, I'm after someone who's made the worst mistake of their life, and they might have the romantic notion that they can get away with it. Any acquaintances he might have no longer matter. Ethics no longer matter. Things like that are rudimentary compared to the gravity of what he's done. Your buddy screwed up when he thought the same and when he tried to put me in the deepest grave on this planet. That doesn't sound like remorse to me."

"Did you consider that maybe he did that because the people you go after have a tendency to end up dead?"

Fang glowered down at her. "They die because they're too dumb to know when to give up. They'd always rather try their luck with me, and that's what gets them killed. I can't help it if they want to risk their lives. I'm only doing my job. Now he's going to pay for it with the biggest price he can afford, just like every other twisted bastard who gives me one good reason to end them."

"You don't have the right," Claudia hissed poisonously, right back into his face. "You're nobody to make that decision."

"I am somebody," he growled. "Do you know who I am? I am Fang the Sniper. There's no law in my job. Out there, I'm the judge, I'm the jury, and if it's necessary, then I won't hesitate to be the executioner, and that's the way it will always be whether you like it or not."

She stared at him, eyes biting at the bounty hunter with scorn. Fang just stared back.

Past him she stormed, towards the door Zipp and her son had disappeared into, then she stopped and whirled around.

"Did you ever stop to think," she said, suppressing incredible rancor while she spoke, "that maybe you're a blemish on society?"

She turned back around, and then she was gone.

Fang did not move for some time once she'd left. He watched the sun nestle itself further behind the mountain in the distance.

He turned and stared down at the wooden floor, at its old, rotting, termite-infested boards lined with brown and ash. They looked very much like how he felt.

For all his notoriety, his personification of cruel justice, for all the fear he instilled in the hearts of men who lurked in the shadows of society around the entire world, some were not afraid. He could not explain why, but he was well-aware that not all saw him as the great hand of violent authority he was said to be. Some were too stupid to realize the danger he posed, others knew but were simply unintimidated. Those same individuals believed him to be arrogant to the point of clumsiness.

Included in that clumsiness was gross negligence for the well-being of people.

Fang collapsed onto a worn chair situated by the window Claudia had been staring out, and dwelled upon those rumors.

He wouldn't deny their validity outright, but he was both humiliated and annoyed by the very recognition of them, the rumors he'd heard from time to time about how he was not, in fact, a man to be overestimated. He was easy to frustrate into carelessness. He was becoming less of a threat—every battle scar took its toll. His aim and speed with a gun, while still the stuff of legend, wasn't what it had been years ago. And the slowly-growing, yet hardest-hitting rumor was how heedless he was of the terrible things he did.

Fang thought about Dry Horn the Bison and the scorpion in the Black Jack. Had their deaths been necessary?

He thought of the gunmen he'd left laying in the streets of New Mettle. That town had become a veritable graveyard in the short time he'd been present, and countless men had died at his hand. What about them?

He thought of Sergeant Baker. Had he really needed that money to the point where he'd threaten a man in uniform over it?

A blemish on society.

The vehemently-given words had cut deeply. As much as he hated to, he remembered what she'd said the first time he'd met her—that some people valued his presence. That he did good work. That it was nice to know people like him were around. And he had just changed her mind of all that in the span of a few terrible moments. Fang felt something inside his chest weaken.

He studied his boots, and saw ugly scrapes marked everywhere around the distressed brown leather. He only now noticed they'd begun to lose their color, a result of age, battle, and his negligence to oil and clean them every so often.

He glanced at the holster on his belt. It was just as empty as it had been when Sombrero had done away with his gun, a meatgrinder that had fed on men and lives. He had not answered her earlier question specifically because he could no longer remember how many men it had been. How many men who had conveniently been in a position to be killed, regardless of the circumstances.

He leaned back in the seat, and felt his whole body ache, most especially his legs and not just the bullet wound.

He looked at his rough leather gloves, at his reflection in their metal plates, and realized how tired he looked. Once those plates had been shining, clear, new. Now they were dull, scuffed, old. He looked nothing like the sharp, strong image his reputation carried.

He removed his hat and held it in his lap, looking down at it.

Was this worth three hundred grand?

The hat was tossed around lightly in his hands. For the first time in his life, Fang began to feel a little old.